Lift Up Your Head

It, then, becomes not the realization in the mind, or even the feeling in the heart, but, when complete, it builds, rising like a tsunami in the ocean, water swelling over water, builds and builds and accumulates into a climactic revelation of the soul

Do you know what I mean when I say “I don’t wanna be alone” –Jars of Clay in “Work”

And too many things fall into place for it not to be true and real like the way Maddy felt about FOXFIRE the way they were sisters and are and YOU’RE MY HEART Maddy and all one and none alone

And it all makes sense in your head and it is sinking, slowly, into your heart to make you see see see that something is new and real and revelation coming over your soul and even your body your toes tapping on the ground like little energy and everything makes sense

the lust and passion

the constant seeking to gain the approval of others even in their f****** low f*** eyes

the having to look around of the heart to have a new flavor of the week

the sex

the in the face of such a HOLY Redeeming God who has saved himself for us do the same

But then the sun comes up and up and now you can see it’s all bright and warm too and lift up your head because you’re already holding me and you say

Do not be worried about your life

Come to me all who are weary and heavy-laden

Lo, I am with you ALWAYS

Even to the end of the age

So what then?

I am not alone, but I am free

Pure and Holy

Hello all, it has been a few months since I have kept this going, but that is no reason to not pick up where we left off—

Just three days ago I looked at a map of the United States and a schedule of the tour, just to see where I’ve been in the last two and a half months, and it turns out that there are only three continental states I haven’t been to: Utah, Wyoming, and South Dakota. I have seen this country from Atlantic to Pacific, at twenty years, from Canada’s edge to Mexico’s border, from Seattle’s coffee to Nebraska’s corn; I have seen so much so young, and am incredibly blessed to call this life my own.

To tour with an Americana roots rock band is to take part in a world unknown to 99% of the population—the amount of work, the schedule, the business transactions and complexities, the way in which relationships are formed and then kept or cut off, the whole process something I can’t explain in a blog (I suppose that is why I’m writing a book about the tour). Because of this, and because the last few months have been a time away from spiritual fellowship, I’ll take a minute to describe what is going on spiritually in my life.

First, know a few things—it is hard, very difficult to be away from a church and Christian community for three months after growing up in such a Christ-centered environment and then continuing that in school. Also, despite the difficulty, allow me to say that this experience has caused me to grow like no other, in unique ways, and never have I felt so strongly about what I believe and the power Jesus has to make everything right and good and beautiful and perfect and full of grace. Truly, I am blessed.

The hardest part, spiritually speaking, of the tour was losing the sacred. I strongly believe that God is holy beyond our comprehension, that in Him there is no sin or wrong, and I think in a well-developed, sincere Christian culture that holiness is reflected. In Iowa City, for instance, at RUF (my college ministry) or One Ancient Hope (my church) there is a desire to please the Lord, to seek righteousness, to be holy and sanctified like Him; consequently there is a purity of heart, an innocence that is preserved. There are things that, due to God’s commandments and desires, are sacred—not to be meddled with. In a purely secular world, however, there are few (if any) things that remain sacred. Going to church this past weekend, I was reminded and refreshed by the fact that, in the midst of this life, God remains holy. Pure and holy.

Short and sweet—the more I take this tour in, the more the posts will come.

With love.

Days

The sun is just up. The sun is just now rising. The ability music has to convey the exact cravings of my heart is astounding, and will always be astounding and mysterious. In my life, at least, the life of someone who probably has too many feelings hahaha, there is this tension between my loneliness and my knowing that I don’t need you. At once, I often feel lonely and driven to succeed without you. I don’t need you; I really don’t, but it often makes me sad and even angry that she isn’t here. When the night is over it is gone, and the sun is out and rising and is both hopeful and dangerous. It starts out and the realization I have what I was like last night hurts my heart but more than that it inspires me to do something greater (without you). I know that all that matters is loving God, loving people, and being loved; but that certainly does not mean I need you—not that I don’t want you in my life, but that it is my fault when I get needy—I want you and love you, but in no capacity do I need you. The sun brings almost the anger, you know? The anger may be brief but it is no less real. Why would I even think I need you? That is the feeling. It is like, You can be over there and let’s never speak and it will all be okay, Okay? And you move from an uninformed anger almost to an anger that is knowledgeable. I am understanding now, in the later part of the morning, what I was so angry about, and it angers me less against you and more against myself—for the knowledge lurks in my head by so rarely yields itself in my life—no, actually, not that, it yields itself, much more in the last five months, but it pains me that the fruitfulness of what I know doesn’t yield itself all of the time, you know? I understand that I need to not focus on you, really, or at least not focus on you at first. You know, that whole priorities thing. I need to get them straight. The anger, though, is terribly fruitful, because it shows me that I don’t need you, and that is such a powerful realization, because last night I was my old self, and I don’t hate my old self but I realize he’s non-existent now. But now—without you!—I’m moving faster, and I know what I’m after. The anger gives way to hope with a chip on its shoulder, hahaha I like that.

 

But then—

 

there’s this drop-off. And you know the anger was real, and even important, and even vital, but now you have to surrender. So there’s this moment of surrender. And it really can be a moment, and is a moment often. It’s almost noon. And the stillness of the day is creeping into my marrow. It produces not nostalgia but peace, because it’s not if I believe in love but if love believes in me. In my head, when I pray, when I really pray in deep and hurting earnest, I often imagine myself in rags at the bottom of a pearly-white staircase, my King sitting atop it in a golden and dazzling chair, and I am crying, weeping, tears streaming down my strained, red face, and I throw my arms out because there is nothing I can do by myself without His love, and I say to Him, “I am sorry; I have forgotten my First Love—Lord, will you yet have me?” and He sprints down the stairs, off His throne, leaving majesty in His shadow, and embraces me, even in my rags. And this is what the moment of surrender entails—love has left His glory and is among us. He sweat and thirsted and hungered for us, for me and for you. And just after this moment of surrender comes a soft revelation, a revelation that I can’t make it on my own, a revelation that I need Love. It’s not that I need you, because I don’t—at all—need you, but I need Him so desperately that it’s absurd. Sometimes you can’t make it on your own. A house doesn’t make a home—please don’t leave me here alone. And last night I thought I was all alone, empty and abandoned and left to die with no-one even to say, I am here; but that is not the case and never will be the case, because He has not left us alone, but will be with us always, even to the end of the age. I will fight for my life. It is mine. My paper heart isn’t paper anymore.

 

I fight and fight and fight and then it the light comes brighter than the sun, and it is early afternoon now; the nostalgic morning is over and the brightness of the day is fully upon me, and suddenly I see—I am her. Everything around her is a silver pool light; people who surround her feel the benefit of it—she holds you captivated in her palm. This is who I want to be. This is what I want to be. This is, perhaps, the greatest happiness—the realization that the person who you wanted to be is the person you are. I’m not empty—how dare you say that. Don’t you ever say that. I hate, despise, absolutely abhor sermons that are in the second person (you! you! you!) and label you incompetent. Imago Dei. We are intrinsically good. Do they not see that? Before we were sinful, we were good, and that remains in such majesty. I’m at this happy crossroads, and I just linger for a moment—I’ve been hangin around this town on the corner. It took me a very long time to realize that He loves when we are able to revel in peace and joy and contentment in His love, and that’s what I’m doing. Suddenly I see, and then I linger in the carpe diem. It’s like stretching time, meditation is, you know? When you meditate on one feeling or fact or phenomenon you are warping time. And that’s what hangin around does for me. But you spun me around and you loved me instead—after I revel in it, I realize that after all this, after last night and that terrible dip into my past self—I’m alright, I’m alright, I’m alright baby I’m alright—not because of me, but because of Love, and what He has done for me. Though the deadly torrents of loneliness occasionally ensnare my soul and emotions, I’m all right.

 

On it’s way down, the sun loses its bright light and descends into more of a glow, and though last night it briefly, so briefly, wrung my neck, I know that this night it will be different, because He has loved me and put me at a place for a reason that taught me something I needed to hear, or rather it re-taught me something that I intentionally turned my hear from. Instead of fear, this late afternoon brings reflection, reflection on what I have learned in so short a time, or what He has taught me in so short a time. We were perfect. And then we sinned and were torn apart from Him. One of the million lies she said is all of the things you love are dead, but I see what she thinks of love and it leaves me laughing—we will come around. I don’t need you; I’ve never needed you—when you’re gone we will come around.

 

And at last the sun is sunken. It gives way to darkness. It gives way to solace. The anger is gone, the happiness dissipated, the revelation ingrained, and I realize that this is my life, it isn’t much but at least it’s mine. With this night comes complete composure, a containment of my collected satellites.

 

With everything, I can only walk on. If every step I take is forward, then I become a continual source of renewal and life, an existence opposite of last night. I will walk on. 

Wither and Bloom

It’s been a phenomenal week on the road, and I guess part of that is because I officially got the gig last Tuesday. If don’t know what I’m talking about, I’m going to be writing for a band—Stephen Kellogg and the Sixers—this fall, and touring with them. That’s the long story shortened many, many times. And I’m usually awful at explicating things right after they happen, but I think I can pin down a few things that I’ve already learned.

 

1.       One: Don’t have expectations, and I’m pretty firm on this one. My friend Jeremiah and I were talking about this the other day, about how we crazy humans (and Americans more specifically) live life with expectations, like we’re naturally entitles to something; and I think that when we live life with tons of expectations it inhibits our ability to live carpe diem, to live in the moment. I tried my best to avoid expectations for this week, and I was blown away.

 

2.       Two: Empathy. I’m officially a writer now. It’s weird. Because I’m 19 and have been given this incredible opportunity, but I am thankful. Empathy—in the introduction of his biography on Abraham Lincoln, Stephen B. Oates says that empathy is the biographer’s best asset. I would whole-heartedly agree, and would say that it might be any writer’s main asset, for it is empathy that allows a writer to put himself or herself in another’s shoes, experience another person’s point of view and emotions and fears and hopes and shortcomings and goals and prejudices. And the more I think about it, the more it seems to be true that empathy is a very noble thing, and a very Christ-like virtue; I think that when we truly strive for empathy we are able to love other people more, because we can understand where they are coming from and where they are going and why they act that way. It’s really a fantastic thing.

 

3.       Three: By no means are there only three things I learned this week, but the last one I want to touch on is something I talk about a lot, and it might bother you but I don’t really care if it does. Brothers and sisters, it is so damn important that we learn to live now, that we learn to live in the moment and not in the past or future. There is no past or future. They don’t exist, and yeah it’s obviously smart to have a plan for things, but don’t box yourself in by constantly dwelling on things like that. For Christians at least, this is my thinking: Our sins are forgiven (past); God is omniscient and omnipotent (future)); and what is our calling?—it is love, for Christ says, Love the Lord your God, and, Love your neighbor as yourself; love, most concretely I think, exists only in the present. Let’s live now. Let’s do that.

 

(Life is transient; people come and go; relationships wither and bloom. Though it may hurt, though it may pain our hearts, let us love those even if it’s someone that will leave all too soon; let us love the unloved; let us love the house sound guy or the famous musician’s son or the bartender or Cousin or Skunk or anyone that we come across—smile and shake someone’s hand, because it may make someone’s day just a little better, because when someone does that for me it makes my day better. Love your neighbor as yourself, and I know that I fail at this so much of the time but I am learning and strive to take lessons to heart. Love. It’s never an exhausted topic, and God has given me this fall opportunity first for love.)

Contradictions

As self-indulgent and conceited as it might sound, I consider myself an artist, and subscribe to the belief that artists are different, that they have a sight and vision others do not, that they feel in ways that others do not, and that they live out their lives in ways that others do not; this is not to say, however, that artists are better, in any way, than anyone else here on the earth, or even to say that there are not drastically different forms of art, for I would be foolish to consider the brilliancy of mathematics and physics un-artistic. But, as I was discussing with my friend recently, a painter herself, there are terrific downsides to being an artist. For myself, I take an odd fancy to loneliness, and I struggle with depression and relationships but at the same time relish my time alone. I also straddle the line between self-deprecation and artistic arrogance without the proper balance. In many ways, I am a walking and breathing contradiction. Here is Whitman in Leaves of Grass:

 

“Do I contradict myself?

Very well, then, I contradict myself;

(I am large—I contain multitudes.)”

 

The latest contradiction I have found myself a part of lies in the realm of the abstract. On the one hand, I am an artist, and I savor the idea that millions of people can read a single sentence and have different responses evoked; but on the other hand, I hate, absolutely abhor not understanding things. Like God, like women, like poetry, like love, like Picasso, like relationships. There are so many things which I do not understand and that I desperately desire to understand. I yearn for the ability to consistently derive joy and ecstasy from the abstract—in all of its forms.  

In the Midst of Love

A thing that I struggle with is the tension between the temporary and the eternal, between things fleeting and things staying. And so often I don’t realize that even the things fleeting in my life have eternal consequences. There is a Love that seals the two seemingly opposite poles.

 

In my life, I sense this tension most in my relationships. If you worked at Pine Cove with me this summer, you know how much of an asshole I can be in friendships and getting to know you. Here is the problem: I don’t want to get close to someone just to drift away from them a few months after. It hurts. It hurts my heart. What I don’t realize is that, as believers, we are called to love no matter what. (Recently I was thinking about various convictions I had, like political convictions, or moral convictions, or whatever, and it occurred to me that sometimes one must choose between a conviction and loving a person, and the more I dwell on that the more I see that love is our primary conviction and should not be ousted by anything—this is not to say, however, that we as Christians are to be pushovers; look at Christ! He ran into the temple with a whip and drove people out [John 2:15]; He cursed at people [Luke 11:19-40]; Jesus wasn’t a pushover. We have to balance, learn to balance, love and passion; it’s a tricky line we Christians walk.) Back to the point—love love love. I missed that at Pine Cove to a great degree. I thought about myself first and love second. If you worked with me at Pine Cove, I’m sorry. I probably didn’t love you as I should have. I was selfish (still am). I was in the wrong.

 

In that, you can pray for me. It’s all love and carpe diem.

 

The solution is Love and God is love (1st John 4:8) and Jesus is God so the solution is God/Jesus/Love. Love is our calling.

 

Love love love love love.

 

This is a line from a Rachael Yamagata song that says something good about love, and—in part—she is talking about romantic love, but I think this line speaks true of love in general and definitely would have helped me:

 

“So for those of you falling in love . . . throw yourselves in the midst of the danger, but keep one eye open at night.”

 

Love!

You Know?

I’m not sure what I think about life right now. I’m not sure what love is, or what it looks like, and I’m bothered by abstract statements made in Christianity (Galatians 6:2—What does that mean? What does that look like?). Well, here’s the deal—I don’t doubt the truth of my current convictions; I doubt the worth. What I mean is this: Though not more satisfying, life would be much simpler and much easier if, indeed, it were about me. In order for life to be about me, however, I would need to ignore the truth and fabricate a lie in my mind, because I know life is about love and glorifying God. I know that all that matters is loving God, loving people, and being loved, but I don’t know if I’m ready to accept the consequences.

 

Now, don’t freak out on me; I’ll say that this is most likely a slump, and that I’ll snap back into it in a day or two, if not later today, but I don’t think doubts like this should be ignored. If God is God and the God He says He is, then He’ll come through, and we have nothing to worry about—right? Right.

 

My friend John is too amazing for the world and too amazing to be my friend. Frankly, I don’t know why anyone would want to be my friend. I’m so damn selfish and talk about my problems all the time. If you are my friend, you are probably a good listener, and I am sorry for all the talking about me I have done. (Sidenote: If you haven’t discovered the likes of The Velvet Underground and The MC5 and The Stooges, then discover them. Now.) John is always there and John listens and thinks he doesn’t give good advice but he does. He helps me. But he is doing this thing called The Forge at Pine Cove which is great but I don’t want that to separate us, and I know that is selfish but it is true and if it is true it should not be hidden—(which I need to realize because up about I obviously contradict that statement).

 

Also, when someone says, “I’m praying for you, Hunter,” what the hell does that mean? Does it do anything? What does it mean? Is it just the Christian version of a nostalgic, “I’m thinking about you, Hunter”? I don’t understand people when they say that. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know.

 

I don’t know. I don’t know about a lot of things. I know a lot of truth but don’t know if I’m willing to follow it. Is that so terrible? Is a moment of doubt so terrible? Is it? I’ll be through it soon. Humor me, will you?

 

You know, do you doubt? I hope you do. I think that if you don’t doubt then you maybe don’t have true faith. I’ll say that and sleep fine tonight. If you don’t doubt then you aren’t struggling with things, wrestling with them. Wrestle. I have plenty of friends who wrestle and it makes them stronger. (These Velvet Underground songs have such fantastic heartbeats, you know?) I’d encourage you to doubt. Go a day without believing in God, and see where you end up. Do it! Is that a terrible thing to say?

 

They say, you know, that things are never as easy as they seem, and I agree with that but I also disagree with that. I think that things are never as easy as they seem, sure, but I think that things (that life in general) is so much simpler! than people make it out to be.  Love is all that matters. Love is abstract and love is bitchy and love is hard and love is dirty and love is difficult and love is all these but love is life and life’s love is all that matters. I believe that. Live now and love now.

 

I believe it.

 

You know I believe it, but I still haven’t found what I’m looking for.

 

You know?

419

I’ve only just gotten back, so don’t (yet) expect anything grand or altogether beautiful; don’t expect good things or bad things; don’t expect anything but the truth, as abstract as it may be. As I begin my story, the story of the last six weeks, I must admit I’ve been utterly hypocritical, for though I warned you to expect nothing, I myself went into camp with expectations. I expected to have an emotional time (I didn’t); I expected to grow closer to God the way that you normally would at camp—a mountain-top experience with a slight fall afterward (there was no mountain for me there); I expected to change lives (and I learned, or re-learned, that only God is the changer of hearts).

 

I’m out of writing practice so this will all be very sloppy and rather poorly written, which is a travesty, but I need to start processing things as soon as I can. Here I go:

 

Though I expected those mentioned things above, I came into Pine Cove with a large number of prejudices, prejudices that I’ve had with me for a while, prejudices against the North-Dallas, upper-middle class, white, fraternity/sorority types, prejudices against the South and against the semi-conservative nature of things down here in Texas. Before I start out with camp, let me give you a few-month’s-prior-to-camp history.

 

The second semester in Iowa City was, to even put it modestly, euphoric. Words cannot describe how much I learned about grace, about myself and about the world, about God and people and the way things work, about love. I discovered that I had truly been given the church of my dreams in Iowa City; I discovered a man ten years older than me who taught me life’s secret; I discovered a community of believers who lifted me up, who realized that it’s okay to cuss and love God at the same time, who realized that Obama isn’t the anti-Christ, who see that the Christian life is about fruit, who know that faith without works is completely dead. It was a wonderful semester. It was fantastic to be away from Texas. Blissful.

 

And then I came back to Pine Cove.

 

East Texas.

 

Conservative.

 

Cross-heavy and lacking in emphasis (to my understand) on the resurrection, on hope and the fact that we were noble before we were sinful. Not once did I hear “Imago Dei”—Hunter, you are created in the image of the living God, the “Father of Lights” as James says. I believe in original nobility and secondary sin. I believe this: In the cross we find mercy, in the resurrection—grace. It’s not that I disagree with the faith statement of Pine Cove (I agree one hundred percent); it’s that I think they focused too much on one thing and not the other.

 

I disagreed with a few focus-related things about Pine Cove, and with the gender roles they play and definitely the America-fondling nature of things there, and I was blinded by my petty trifles. For the first three weeks (orientation and weeks one and two), my selfishness inhibited my ability to live carpe diem, to live in love, and to live with the very gospel that I myself preached: the gospel of the resurrection and of salvation.

 

But things began to change Thursday night of week two.

 

Let me interrupt briefly to say thanks to the following people, without whom I couldn’t have made it through camp:

 

Opa!

Tatt

Rafiki

Davey

Silly Rabbit

Bow Thai

 

I would have been screwed without you.

 

Back to week two. So, I’m walking back to my cabin after a frustrating Bible-study type of thing (called “Cake ‘N Stake”), and I’m semi-angry with the fact that I just read a section of a book claiming to preach the “gospel” that had absolutely no reference to the resurrection. I’m walking with Opa! and we aren’t saying anything but we both know we want to say something. We part and I get to my campers, who are getting ready for that night’s theme night, and I start to cry. Damn it.

 

I wept and met with Opa!, and he had someone take my cabin and we talked for an hour or maybe more. I don’t remember it perfectly. I was struggling with my prejudices. I was struggling with the fact that I felt lonely, with the fact that I hated being back in the south, with the fact that I didn’t love being around all the smiles that I thought were mostly bullshit. I felt lonely and alienated and deserted and purposeless (I think that the feeling of purposelessness is one of the worst feelings in the world, and it goes hand-in-hand with the feeling of not being loved). It was all pride and selfishness; I only realize that now. It was like being high-school Hunter all over again. It sucked. I’m sorry, Pine Cove staff who had to deal with that. I wasn’t being the Hunter who left Iowa in May, the Hunter who lives now and loves now. Ah!

 

I spilled a lot to Opa! I spilled most of my story, all of my frustrations regarding Pine Cove and myself. I missed Iowa. To all you Midwesterners out there, I love you and you are amazing. I missed my church and the friends I had made. I told him quite a bit. Deflated. Emptied. It was a beautiful thing. There was an empty cabin. We sat on the edge of one of the beds. I had bronchitis. I was stopped up. I was sobbing. He put his arm around me and hugged me. He cried a little but not much. He prayed for me. It was a soul-molding experience. Thank you, John. Also, the washing of the feet. Thank you.

 

After that night things changed—I saw that even people from Texas A&M had stories; I saw that even people who were in a fraternity or a sorority could be deep and intellectual. I know it’s a silly thing to put large groups of people (or even single people) in boxes, but it might life easier in some ways, but I needed to learn that that was wrong. God showed me my pride.

 

I could go on and on about the last three weeks of camp, not about how great they were (they were good but not great), but about how much I learned and how—even after the night with Opa!—they were hard. But I might do another post on that. I’m just going to wrap this up by saying a few things that I learned:

 

1.        I need to be me wherever I am.

2.        Depression is in my life to stay, or at least a melancholy overtone, and I am perfectly okay with it, because I know how to deal with it—by giving it over to Him.

3.        (As a writer I should have known this but—) Don’t put people in boxes; everyone has a story; everyone has potential. If you truly want to engage humanity, leave your prejudices behind.

4.        Love and live in the present. Carpe diem.

 

 

1st John 4:19

7 words.

Live it.

a=a

Relationships oscillate. They go up and they go down, up and down, and up and down and up and down again. You fight but then you make up and it’s better than before even though you fought, and you always love each other but you fight and those are the low points on the oscillation and you forgive each other and seek forgiveness and that is the turning point from a negative slope to a positive slope. And hopefully the general trajectory of the graph is upwards. That’s how my relationship with God is, and I think that all relationships oscillate to a certain degree, some going up, some going down, and some staying flat, but all of them oscillating. You’re even better than the real thing. When I meet someone awesome, and they blow me away, they’re even better than the real thing, and that rarely happens. Maybe because I don’t let myself get blown away or maybe you aren’t good enough or maybe there aren’t very many people in the world who can blow anyone away. That might be sad but it might be true. When I think of the people who have blown me away, I mean just completely knocked me off my feet, they have had (always, at least in my life) the Holy Spirit. God is awesome, and He always blows me away, so sometimes when He is in a person that person with the Holy Spirit blows me away, but not always.

 

She blows you away. Breathless.

 

You know, you meet that person and they blow you away, and it’s all very exciting at first, and the excitement might carry on for a little bit, but after the initial excitement, and the initial giddiness, comes fear—the fear that the thing inside you (sin, presumably) renders you utterly INSIGNIFICANT. It’s happened in the past, you know, getting hurt and stuff. You got close to someone and they stabbed you with a serrated blade and watched you bleed and laughed at you. I don’t want to feel so different, but I don’t want to be INSIGNIFICANT. First you are so excited that you have met someone and then you are very sad, very scared, and very volatile. It’s a low point, but it’s not the lowest point, that’s to come, it’s just a low point, the initial fear and dread that you are too messed up to be loved. And the feeling continues. It continues. And you feel just like a fool. A fool for a lonesome train. Lord I’m a fool for a lonesome train. Right now you are low and you don’t see too much hope or light, but it’s not an unredeemable low, it’s just a low low. The oscillations might stop here for a bit just to wallow in the low for a little bit. But wait.

 

While low, something happens. It’s both good and bad. You realize, This is bullshit. I f------ hate this low, this pathetic feeling. And you get to feeling rebellious, you know, maybe like there’s a chip on your shoulder, and you see that IF YOU FEAR DYING THAN YOU’RE ALREADY DEAD. So you get angry and you get out of the low, because you are so angry, maybe at yourself or maybe at her, but at any rate IF YOU FEAR DYING THAN YOU’RE ALREADY DEAD. So you escape the low with purging anger.

 

In your anger, you stop just for a second, maybe to look at her or take a second to notice her again. And then she does it. Like she always does. She takes you by surprise which is stupid because you should have expected it. Sweet Sophia, with a fearless disposition like the beat of a drum, you get hurt more than others but you have more fun. She does it all over again. And after she blows your mind you forget the anger, and then you get to know her and something deeper begins to happen because you get past the thirteen-year-old sort of crush thing and you get to one. You get to know her and you see that she is the same as you and different at the same time, very different but very the same. We’re one, but we’re not the same. We get to carry each other. You get close to her and closer and closer and close to her and closer and closer. We’re one, but we’re not the same, we get to carry each other. Carry each other. She blew you away after the anger and then you get closer, past the crush thing and to the gritty, amazing stuff.

 

It’s all going well and swell and then—Miami. Everything is perfect, and then you are scared again, but it is a much deeper fear than before. Miami is the culmination of all fears. You are horrified and you aren’t only horrified but you actually want to run away because things are maybe working out too well. The scary thing is, this isn’t even the lowest point. You’ll get lower, but this is the worst low point, and the lowest is not the worst but the best, and it is coming in a little bit but wait for it because right now things are the worst. You are at this point, you know, where you’re scared, and then you begin to reflect about things, about relationships in your past and stuff like that, you know, and you think about the one who tore you up the most, and who you were in love with for real, and you think, THE TIME THAT I’VE TAKEN, I PRAY IT’S NOT WASTED. HAVE I ALREADY TASTED MY PIECE OF ONE SWEET LOVE? You feel like that, you know, and right here you aren’t even thinking about her, the one right now, but you’re thinking about the girl who hurt you the most and who you loved in the past, and it’s just a time of reflection. You are forgetting: if you fear dying than you’re already dead. But again, even in this time of past reflection, and fear, you get to feeling—it’s not my fault, it’s hers. I’m the same. I’ve always been the same. She’s changed, you know? Things are going bad because of her.

 

Oscillations.

 

And it happens again. You stop just for a second and look at her seriously and the heavens open every time she smiles. You know, you can hear her heart beating from a thousand miles. She’s got a fine sense of humor. Take away my trouble. Take away my grief. She just blew your mind and she’s even better than the real thing, but your mind returns to her—the one who hurt you. But you think of the old girl in light of the new girl—NEAR TO YOU I AM HEALING BUT IT’S TAKING SO LONG, CAUSE THOUGH HE’S GONE AND YOU ARE WONDERFUL IT’S HARD TO MOVE ONE. I’m better near to you. It’s sad but it’s also very happy. It’s both. I’M ENJPYING IT CAUTIOSULY. I’M BATTLE-SCARRED. I’M WORKING OH-SO-HARD TO GET BACK TO WHO I USED TO BE. I only know that I belong where you are. And then you look at her and embrace her being there and think, If it makes you happy, it can’t be that bad. Things stop revolving around the girl who hurt you and you start thinking about this new girl, because you know that she is better, because she’s better. Things are good and getting better but, you know, there’s that lingering fear, and so you get scared.

 

You get scared again.

 

WHY’D YOU COME HOME? TO THIS SLEEPLESS TOWN. IT’S THE LIFETIME COMMITMENT RECOVERING THE SATELLITES AND ALL ANYBODY REALLY WANTS TO KNOW IS WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO COME DOWN? You are up there in the sky and you are scared and somehow you have to reconcile yourself with this new girl, and you have to reconcile the past with the present, and you have to reconcile hurt and pain and loss and love and vulnerability and it all and it is all very, very scary. So you go Colorblind. You are now at your lowest, but just wait there a minute because at your lowest is where you have the most potential. You go Colorblind. The piano is haunting you and the beat of the song is smooth but haunting and very scary. You feel doomed or not doomed but like things might be meaningless. Pull me out from inside. I am ready. I am ready. I am ready. I am. I am covered in skin. No-one gets to come in. Pull me out from inside. I am folded, and unfolded, and unfolding. I am Colorblind. The piano continues but it’s Videotape. It’s a beat still, and it’s still haunting, but there’s something redemptive about it, because things are just the way they are. It’s like how a=a. This is my Videotape. This will all be my Videotape. a=a. YOU ARE MY CENTER WHEN I SPIN AWAY. You are at your lowest, you know, and the piano is still going, but something very beautiful happens and it is the most important movement that has happened so far. It’s still only the piano. You and the piano, you know? It all boils down to you and the piano. TILL I ONLY DWELL IN THEE. You realize that it’s only you and the piano and God. IF I FLEE FROM GREENEST PASTURES, WOULD YOU LEAVE TO LOOK FOR ME? FORFEIT GLORY TO COME AFTER, TILL I ONLY DWELL IN THEE? You realize that it’s only you and the piano and God and you see that it’s all very beautiful and that you don’t need to worry about the girl who hurt you or this new girl or any girl or anything ever. Because all there is is God. All that matters is loving God, loving people, and being loved.

 

That was the beginning, only the beginning. The beginning is the realizing. You know, you realize that it’s only you and God and the music. And then a little beat starts. From a computer. And drums. And some chords. The Moment of Surrender. You have realized it, and now you need to surrender to it. You are listening to the music and seeing God and something is rising deep within you and you are smiling all over and your cells are throwing a party and it’s all very glorious and very wonderful. IT’S NOT IF I BELIEVE IN LOVE BUT IF LOVE BELIEVES IN ME.

 

AT THE MOMENT OF SURRENDER, I FALL ONTO MY KNEES. I DID NOT NOTICE THE PASSERS-BY, AND THEY DID NOT NOTICE ME.

 

You are on your knees, you know, and you are surrendering, you know, and it’s all very wonderful and very beautiful, you know. You are giving it all up to God because that’s all that matters.

 

AT THE MOMENT OF SURRENDER, OF VISION OVER VISIBILITY. I DID NOT NOTICE THE PASSERS-BY, AND THEY DID NOT NOTICE ME.

 

You surrender and that’s it. That’s it. a=a.

 

a=a.

 

Things are just the way they are, you know?

 

And you here it, the music, and it’s reggae, and Bob says, DON’T WORRY ABOUT A THING, CAUSE EVERY LITTLE THING IS GONNA BE ALL RIGHT. And you know it is and you believe Bob because you know God and God knows you and loves you all the same.

 

So this is it. THIS IS MY LIFE. ON THE 4TH OF JULY. IT ISN’T MUCH, BUT AT LEAST IT’S MINE.

 

This is my life, folks.

 

Welcome to it. 

Clock Aesthetics

Looking back at my life, to high school and junior high and grade school, to the ups and downs and twists and turns, even in considering my situation now—in college—one of the biggest problems, in my life, seems to be the temporary nature of all things. I’m reading Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung by Lester Bangs right now, and it’s great, and there is an article on Astral Weeks, one of my favorite albums in the world, that is especially beautiful, talking about the depth of the album and its closeness and intimacy with people and love and relationships, all in terms of music and lyrics. It’s a very wonderful thing, Astral Weeks is, music is, but after you put the album into your record player, it ends—

 

because that’s the way music is, and life is, and people are, and relationships are, and movies are, and books are—temporary

 

(clock aesthetics)

            they start

(clock aesthetics)

and stop—

(clock aesthetics)

            and then they are over

 

The only thing that is not temporary is God, and what we do for Him and His glory: loving people and being loved. God solves all the problems in the world, and I’m not saying I understand Him fully, because there are still things that I am wrestling with in my faith, and that’s a good conversation I’d love to have, but I know that, ultimately, every time I question Him, He comes through, because He is God and this is the way things will be with God—everything is going to be all right; that’s just the way it is. And the tricky part about that statement is that it’s not necessarily true here on earth—here is the health-and-wealth gospel: Jesus lived a perfect life, and He got pinned to a tree, so even if you live in perfect obedience, life is going to be hard. And God doesn’t promise the “perfect someone” for you; He doesn’t promise that there will always be food on your plate, that you won’t be tortured, that your children won’t die in a car accident, that you won’t struggle with lust and depression and pride and jealousy and evil thoughts; God doesn’t promise a pretty life here on earth, because it’s just not going to be like that. Life on earth is

(clock aesthetics)

                        temporary

(clock aesthetics)

                                    it stops

(clock aesthetics)

            ends.

 

The band I might be touring with, Stephen Kellogg and the Sixers, has this song, that makes me wish I had lived differently. It’s called “Cradle of Family.”

 

Friends come and go. They are temporary. They are like the wind. Girls come in and tease you and then they are gone. It is romantic for a bit but then they are gone and they just hurt. I’m in college in Iowa and I feel so temporary. I don’t like it. They

           

            are

(clock aesthetics)

                                    gone—

(clock aesthetics)

            so fast.

(clock aesthetics)

 

I miss the cradle of family

I miss the comfort of home

I miss the way that I used to be

More than I miss being alone

 

I miss my family and I love them and I never got to tell them that enough, and family is something that is temporary, too, but something much less temporary than dates or flirts or even friends sometimes. I love you, family.

 

To Cody,

            You were always stronger than me, and braver, and still are that way, and more willing to put yourself out there, and in many ways I look up to you, to the strength and courage you have that I don’t and maybe never will, but I will always be looking to you for that; and I am sorry that I wasn’t closer to you and that I wasn’t always there for you, and I love you and it’s hard for me to verbalize that because you are braver and stronger and more courageous. We are still young and we can be closer. I love you.

 

I miss the comfort of a lover’s bed

I miss the girl that I once knew

And I miss the idea we created in our heads

More than I have ever missed you

 

To Carson,

            Carson, you have the softest heart in our family by far; with you and me, it’s like the difference between Mother Teresa (you) and Jack Bauer (me); you are a servant and love people and I have to yell all the time or something. Eventually all metaphors break down, and that’s the same with this one. I’m getting off track. Carson, I will always admire your kindness—it’s a true, actual, authentic kindness, one that is very rare, not like the Southern artificial sort of kindness, but you have a gift from God. I will always try to mimic and replicate the soft heart you have. Your heart is one of flesh. I love you.

 

To Mother,

            I know I messed up this Mother’s Day, and I am sorry, and I will eat my cold pie even though it doesn’t taste good. I love you and you know it and it’s weird how much we actually talk, and that I actually call you for advice (and you are always right). When I think of all the mothers in the world, and the jobs they’ve done, it seems like I scored the best one or something, and there’s no handbook for motherhood that’s absolutely correct so I’m guessing you got it all from God, and I thank Him so often for you and dad, because—being here in college—I have been able to see how blessed I am to call you my mother. I love you. Happy Mother’s Day.

 

I can’t believe the secrets that I keep

The scars that you can’t see

Are nothing the like we have unleashed

 

To my Father,

            Dad we are so similar that it is eerie, I think. We have the same mannerisms and people notice it right away. I am very lucky to be similar to such an amazing man. I look like you, but you are sexier; I am very smart like you, but you work a lot harder; I try to love like you, but your love for God and our family is unquenchable and for that I will always thank you, love you, and look up to you. When I have kids some day, I don’t really worry whether or not I’ll be a good father—I know I will because I have you as an example. I love you.

 

I miss the innocence of a purity

I miss the things I never had

I miss the way that I used to be

Before you ever got into my head

 

And now

this post

            is over—

Nobility

Perhaps what most concerns me about many, not all, evangelical churches is the separation I see of the spiritual and the physical, the “eternal”—as they might think of it—and the incarnation. The two are not, in fact, separated at all, or so I am convicted.

 

Another reason I love Hemingway, aside from the fact that he is a very character-based and relationship-based author as opposed to an image-based author, is that he finds nobility in things that most wouldn’t consider noble. In a sense, when read from a Biblical perspective—which is my perspective—Hemingway does not, in any way, separate the “noble” endeavors with the “mundane” endeavors. If he had been a Christian, and I dearly wish he would have been, he would have been the kind of Christian the evangelical church needs right now. In To Have and Have Not, the opening chapter describes several characters swordfishing in the Gulf of Mexico—and it is one of the most beautiful Hemingway passages I have ever read. He puts such strength and beauty and nobility into—fishing. Similarly, in The Sun Also Rises, Hemingway describes with great care the bullfights.

 

What I am saying is that things like fishing can glorify the Father. We don’t always have to have some grand plan for saving peoples’ lives. To be sure, we should build relationships so that we can love other people and hope that God might use us to bring them to Him, but ultimately that is up to God. It is our job to just love and do things to make Him happy. Fishing is spiritual. Writing is spiritual. Teaching is spiritual. Selling software is spiritual. Everything is spiritual. Playing golf, reading, going for a run, buying a banana from the grocery store, smoking a cigarette, drinking a cup of coffee, going to a concert, riding a bike, going to the bathroom, eating a meal. Everything is spiritual. Why do we have to differentiate? God wants us, I believe, to enjoy Him, and sometimes we think we are just here on a mission or something like that, and that is simply not true. We should see the nobility, like Hemingway does, in fishing and eating and pooping and smiling and working and laughing and all of it.

 

The difficulty lies not in the writing this truth or reading this truth or even in realizing this truth, but the difficulty lies in practicing this truth. Doing it. We don’t read James enough. James is very beautiful, because he says that if you don’t have works your faith is dead. If you don’t have works, where is your faith? Did you ever have it? I think that when we get to heaven the crowd will be much different than we think, perhaps smaller and—gasp!—not all Americans! Oh the horror. White people will probably be the minority. We’ll see, I suppose.

 

Don’t get me wrong, I am not very good at seeing the nobility in simple things. The truth is, it is very difficult to see how drinking a glass of orange juice can glorify God or is noble, but I believe it is, and I believe that when we enjoy things that are simple it makes them noble and it makes God happy.

 

We should pray that God will give us this ability.

 

I need to go. 

Hemingway and Coffee and God and Cured Restlessness

The coffee is a sort of gray-brown and is warm in right hand, and A Farewell To Arms is folded open to page 178 in my left hand, at the time when Frederic has been sent back to the front, back to Gorizia and back to the fighting, back to the blood and the ambulance he drives; he just left Milan, and Catherine, and it was very sad. A few months ago I thought it would be intellectual to read A Farewell To Arms, and so I picked it up and began to read it—very casually—and I finished it just last weekend. I liked it so much that I wanted to read another Hemingway novel, which I did (To Have and Have Not­—finished it in three days), but then I kept thinking about Catherine and how much my reading of Hemingway did not meet my expectations. To be honest, I thought that reading A Farewell To Arms would make me—like I mentioned above—very intellectual or something, and before that I had never been in love with Hemingway, but after To Have and Have Not I felt empty, so I picked up A Farewell to Arms again, starting it again yesterday, and now I am more than half-way through it. And now I am in love with Hemingway. I wrote a sentence about it yesterday, because it is a true sentence about how I feel about A Farewell To Arms, and it plays with the frustration/infatuation I have with the word “read”—how it can be both past and present tense:

 

I read it, and I read it again, and I was always reading it, and always am reading it, and always will read it, on a plane or at home or in between classes or with a cup of coffee or smoking a cigarette, and when I read it I felt and feel very disillusioned—very sure about things and very unsure about things at the same time—and all the time when I was reading it, and am reading it, even though I felt and feel disillusioned, the real things in life became and become very real and the small things in life became and become very small, and that is the way things ought to be in life and that is the way things were and are when I am reading A Farewell to Arms.

 

It is true that A Farewell To Arms is becoming my favorite book, more so than The Great Gatsby ever was, and it is also true that, when reading A Farewell To Arms, I feel more in-tune with life. It is a very good thing. It is a very good book. If you have not read it, you should read it.

 

School is almost over and I am feeling restless, and I know I am about to meet the band this weekend and hopefully that will work out, but I am still feeling very restless and wanting to fly to Africa or something. I also know that I have been pretty busy—which I think is a lie that Americans tell themselves so they feel good about the things they haven’t done—so I guess I haven’t been busy but I have been not reading God’s word for a few days. And it’s only been like three days since I’ve poured myself into his word, and I have still been writing in my prayer journal every day, but I can totally feel the difference. I am very restless, and it is not my favorite feeling; I just end up drinking enormous amounts of coffee and occasionally playing basketball to burn off some energy, which actually is very helpful. You should read A Farewell To Arms, and don’t miss the horrors in the book by passing by his beautifully understated language. You should read it, all right. Please read it. I sent a short story to the New Yorker today via email. I am writing a collection of short stories based in Galveston, Texas, where I spent a lot of time as a kid. They are good short stories, I think. Hopefully they will be published some day. If you want to read one now just let me know. I am generous in my letting people read stuff. I only have two done right now, and they are rough drafts but they are at least done and I think they have good endings, and I have another one that I am planning out and it will be interesting and I think it will be very good, too, like the other ones, and if they are all published as a short story collection it will be called “The Gulf Tales” I think, which sounds simple but is good because they are just simple tales with larger implications if you read into the characters like you should.

 

If you love Jesus, you might check out Revelation 21:1-7, because it is very beautiful and very comforting and it eases my restlessness like NyQuil eases un-sleepiness.

 

Hemingway and Narrative

As a writer, as a human being, over the past few months, I have been retrogressing from a preoccupation with complication—images, foreshadowing, symbols, hidden themes in my writing—to a primarily narrative-concerned state of things. When I read a book, or when I write one, why can’t a red car just be a red car? What I mean is, we inject far too much into things; not that deep meanings or thematic notions aren’t there, but that so often we lose the bigger picture, and in my mind, the thing that matters only: relationships. I’ve noticed this change just quite recently; firstly, a friend noted a difference in music taste that I’ve been going through—from Counting Crows (who, don’t get me wrong, I still practically worship) to other bands, Stephen Kellogg and the Sixers, U2, to name a few. The more recent development, however, has been my taste in literature. I’ve discovered Hemingway.

 

All that matters is loving God, loving people, and being loved; syntactically, I see this simple truth most manifested in the simple prose of Hemingway, not the depth and complexities of Joyce’s or—I hate to say it—Faulkner’s writing. Though I do relish in the ability of a writer to manipulate the words on a page, I see what matters most (relationships, in my mind) more easily in simple forms of art, in the Hemingway novels and story songs. 

Donning Love

At once people confront this life with fear and audacity, with reluctance—great hesitation—and zealousness—an unquenchable fervor. At once I fear pain and embrace vulnerability; at once I curse and praise, hate and love, dispense grace and stifle it, sin and serve, speak and am silent, mourn and rejoice, celebrate and grieve; at once I am dark and light, holy and imperfect, saved and disobedient.

 

All these I feel or am. Walt Whitman said that, in “Song of Myself,” and it was a beautiful thing to say, and—for me and those words above—it is a true thing to say. All these I feel or am. We are walking paradoxes, beautiful catastrophes; we are searchers, wanderers; we are seekers and rarely finders; we are lovers; we are loved; we are human beings.

 

Through this confusion, the eternal paradox of the human being, in all of her complexities, in her lying and honesty, love and hate, sin and service, through this chaotic darkness there comes a great Light—a Light who is the Truth in the form of a human, who is the Son of God and the Son of Man, who is Alpha and Omega. This Truth brings me hope and light. It spurs me to cast away my sin and don purity—holiness for His name’s sake.

Today, above all days, believers of Jesus Christ and His Father YHWH, believers of the Holy Spirit and the cross, believers of the Trinity and of flawless grace, today, above all days, we should focus on the love of God; more than ever, we should focus on the fact that, truly, God Himself is love. God is love.

 

A problem I have with the church is this: more often we focus on the cross and not the resurrection; more often we dwell on the sin and not the grace; more often we fester in the guilt and not the freedom; more often we think of what we did wrong and not what He has done right. If you are not a Christian, and you are reading this (which, I hope to all hope that there, indeed, are non-believers reading this entry), I apologize on behalf of the church for not always projecting the correct message: life is love—nothing more, nothing less. Life is Jesus Christ—love incarnate. Life is love.

 

Today, Jesus Christ is risen. With that truth, let us rejoice; let us love.

Love

My friend Josh the Writer is full of grace. There aren't very many people full of grace in this world. But he is one of them.

Josh helped me realize this:

The only thing that matters is loving God, loving people, and being loved.

That Night (Lights Are Shining)

I have never been one of those people who really believed in a defining moment. I have never been the person who thinks that someone could actually change from a single moment in time. I have always thought—had always thought—that change was something that solely occurs over a given period of time, a period of time usually being more than weeks or months. I suppose that was always my belief because that was always my experience. Never before had I been changed by a single moment, a moment of surrender. Never before, had a single night drastically changed my life.

 

Granted, when one puts their faith in Christ, that is obviously a life-changing moment, so don’t hear me wrong or anything. That happened a long while ago, and even in considering that I have learned that faith in Christ just gets harder after you accept Him.

 

But then something happened.

 

As I have shared with you before, my biggest struggle, the scariest thing that stood in the way of my relationship with Christ was my inability to forgive myself. I couldn’t do it. I could not bring myself to forgive myself of my own sin. I used to semi-hate myself. And that was selfish. It was all about me. All the time. It was all about whether I was happy or sad or depressed or if I had a crush on a girl or where I was going to school or what I was going to do with my life. Everything was about me, for so very long.

 

One night—March 22nd, 2009—I decided it was time.

 

Here’s what I want to do:

1.    I want to describe what spurred me on to make the decision.

2.    I want to describe the actual moment, that night.

3.    I want to describe the two weeks since then.

 

I.

There is the movie—American History X—that you need to see. In it, someone (several people, actually) goes through a transformation. And there is this one part, at the very end of the movie, that is on my mind often. I’m going to paraphrase it because I don’t remember the exact lines, but a character—one of the changed ones, says, “Life is too short to be pissed off all the time. Life is too short to carry so much baggage.”

 

I thought about that line; I thought about Matthew 11:28-30, where Jesus tells us that He wants to carry our shit; I thought about change and surrender; and then I decided that life is too short to be pissed off all the time, that life is too short to hate myself, that life is to short to not accept Christ’s sacrifice.

 

Simply put, I just decided I had to get my shit together. I had a problem that was easily fixed, and I had read the invitation (Matthew 11:28-30) hundreds of times. All of the pieces were there, but never—before that night—had I decided to do it.

 

So I did.

 

II.

It was a Sunday. And I had been thinking about several things: the movie Watchmen, a close friend, and American History X. I have blogged about Watchmen before, so I won’t say anything except that it was giving me dark thoughts about humanity, about the world and where it was headed, about myself. I was talking to my friend about—complaining, actually, I was complaining and being whiny about humanity—and she said something that made me think about American History X.

 

Life is too short to be pissed off all the time.

 

It was about 10:00 p.m. and those three things were in my head, and then I decided to go take a walk and forgive myself, to defeat my biggest problem, or—rather—to let Christ defeat my biggest problem.

 

I brought my Bible, and the keys to my dorm room.

 

I walked out into the dark night, the wind blowing softly but consistently. From the time I stepped out of my door I knew where I was headed; I knew that any literarily beautiful rebirth takes place by water. So I walked to the river, along the river, by the river and over the river, until I found a bench. There was a lampstand by the bench:

Before I sit down I look out onto the water, lights from the city shining, flickering, reflecting on the water’s surface, soft ebbs rising and falling on the river’s banks, the wind gliding over the river’s surface, under the bridge and over it; not a person in sight, only the grass and the river and the reflecting lights, I sit down on the bench.

 

Before I peel open the Bible with me, I sing softly, softly but roughly, my out-of-tune voice having no audience except an audience of One, a tripled Being. Light of the world, you stepped down into darkness, opened my eyes let me see. I sing it, and I sing it again; in the darkness of the night and the light of the lamp, I sing it.

 

I close my eyes and see a white staircase, leading directly to a throne. On either side there are angels in white robes with gold edges, some singing loudly with strong and beautiful voices, some blowing silver trumpets, some simply smiling, their eyes turned to mine, their souls touching mine, connecting. The path to the throne is wide, all stairs leading upward; if not for the angels there would be no end to the stairs. The angels form an end to the eternity of the stairs, leading me to the throne. I start to walk up the stairs, toward the throne, encouraged by angles.

 

When I focus my eyes on the throne above, when I strain to see what—who—sits upon the throne, when I look closer, as I step up and up and up the stairs, glancing neither left nor right, as I approach it, when I get nearer, I can see only a smile—

 

I open my eyes and there is the river; the lights are dancing.

 

The lights are dancing.

 

I open the Bible, the Word of the Lord, and read—over and over—Matthew 11:28-30. Take my yoke, He says. He says, I want to carry it. My yoke is easy and my burden is light, He says.

 

Take it, I say. Life is too short to be pissed off all the time. I forgive myself. I accept Your love.

 

Finally, He says. I have been here the whole time, dude.

 

I know, I say. It’s my bad—obviously.

 

No problem, He says. I love you, dude.

 

I love You too, I say.

 

III.

Even though I had doubts about that night (when reflecting on it the next day), even though I wasn’t exactly sure what had happened, even though, never in my life, I was never one to believe in a moment of change, even in the midst of all my previous doubting and pessimism and depression, even then I knew, the moment after I said “I love you too,” even then I knew something was drastically different. I am a new person.

 

Since that night, I have not struggled with depression at all. Isn’t that beautiful? I have not even felt an inkling of it. Now, don’t consider me naïve, I do not think it’s gone for good, but I have learned several things about. One, my depression is easily controlled. Two, my depression is not mine anymore; it is Christ’s depression now. I gave it to Him that night.

 

I have grown closer to Christ in the past two weeks than in any two weeks of my entire life. For example, the other day I had a revelation. A mini revelation. A minirev.  My minirev was simple but beautiful and it was this: I can glorify God by receiving love—receiving it from Him, from others, and from myself. If I love myself, I am loving His handiwork; I am loving His creation. That night, when I forgave myself, only then I was I able to love God to the fullest. Only when I accepted the cross was I able to love God and be loved by God.

 

Things have changed; they are different since that night. Now it is all about God. Never in my life has God been so firmly the foundation to my everything. To my relationships, He is the love upon which all love is founded. To my schoolwork, He is the diligence from which all diligence derives. To my writing, He is the creativity from which all art flows. He is the foundation, my foundation, my refuge, my home. He is my home. God is my home. The God who created everything is my home. The God who is love is my home.

 

I see the beauty in people rather than the ugly. I see the good in the world rather than the evil. I see the God in people rather than the sin. I see beauty everywhere in everything.

 

Everything is different.

 

Jesus changed me.

 

All it took was surrender.

 

I feel like all my life I have been told: love God.

 

I have never been told: be loved by God.

 

I think that being loved by God is a prerequisite to loving God, and, consequently, I think it is more important to realize that God loves you. If we don’t know we are loved, what then? If we don’t feel and see and realize God’s love for us, what then? When we truly see God’s love for us, only then can we truly love others, only then can we truly love God.

 

Be loved.

 

You are loved. God loves you. When you see this, you will love him back. Also, there is another beautiful thing about this. If it is more important that we realize God’s love, which I believe it is, than the emphasis, the focus is put on God’s love rather than yours or mine. And that is how it should be. God loves you. Be loved. You are loved.

 

That is the most important thing in the world.