Smoke Signals

Free...

Can someone set me free?

Cause someone said it was easy, 

Yeah, they said it was easy

And me...

I want to feel alive

I want to know what it's like

Because they said it was easy

-Watashi Wa

I wish my dad would call....

One long stroll....

This week has truly been a miniature replica for the grand measure of my life. It has been the Saturday in between Good Friday and Easter. For too long now I have been living in the grief and guilt of the first disciples Saturday. Sometimes I feel resurrection will never come to me because I doubt it so highly. I am used to praying expecting little, and being satisfied with anything at all. Recently I have realized the lack of faith I put in my prayers. I doubt that God is listening, worse, sometimes I think he hears but doesn't care. I have focused so much energy on finding God outside hypocritical church institutions and dogma. Yet, so many Christians that have bought into the puddle deep morality of the "moral majority" claim to hear God speaking to them all the time.

Prayer, which God probably meant as a outlet for two way conversation has become a means to an end. Having so many prayers unanswered makes prayer a frustrating exercise that seem fruitless and dare I say worthless.

Like Job said, "What would we gain by praying to Him?"

I used to be afraid to get angry at God, not in fear that an "angry God" would destroy me, but rather the backlash from fellow Christians. I can't stand the immediate Sunday-school fed answers that come with mourning my circumstances. You don't think I know that other people have it worse off? That God's will is mysterious? Do these facts make life injustices any less crushing? And why, if all this is true, do 'you' reject these conclusions when you have problems?

I feel like I am always given a moral beating every time my faith slips even but for a moment.

This is the divine irony of my life.

Continuing, as I recited before, my fear of criticizing God: is in the past. Because if Christians truly want to keep prayer a polite conversation between God and Man, then they must throw out most of the old testament to validate their point. (which many have...)

However shallow my qualms with God, they are part of a long standing tradition of wrestling with the Almighty. Indeed, if you will yell at me for having such little faith, then likewise; Abraham, Moses, David, and the psalmist deserve your same regard.

Ugggh, why must I abandon the call of God's powerful kingdom every time I encounter a petty injustice???

Since this afternoon I have cooled down from such usual experiences that infuriate me. In true testament to what I have called "the divine irony of my life," it has come through the acknowledgement that some things just don't matter in the larger scheme of existence. Although I don't like others throwing this in my face, I actually gain allot from reminding myself of people with bigger problems then my own. In the book I'm reading by Phillip Yancy, He quotes a young girl who kept a secret journal while imprisoned in Auswitchz. She writes:

"Sometimes when I stand in some corner of the camp, my feet planted on Your earth, my eyes raised towards Your Heaven, tears sometimes run down my face, tears of deep emotion and and gratitude. And I want to be right there in the thick of what people call horror and still be able to say: Life is beautiful. Yes, I lie here in the corner, parched and dizzy and feverish and unable to do a thing. Yet I am also with the jasmine and the piece of the sky beyond my window. For once you have begun to walk with God, you need only keep walking with God and all life becomes one long stroll - a marvelous feeling."

Amazing: God.

Stolen bikes apparently do ride faster...

Ugggghhhh, I've had the most horrible day!!!

I swear the most unbelievable thing's happen to me... Never funny things, just bad. Everybody treats me like the push over. That's probably my fault. I can never just say what Im thinking, and when I try to it always comes out wrong or everyone gangs up on me. BUT OH NO, when someone else does it, it's alllllright! In school, at work, social stuff, family stuff... everyone thinks they can walk all over me. I wish I knew the best way to reconcile loving others like Jesus did and ripping their heads off. I am so not in the mood to deal with anymore bull. Let me just be perfectly honest when I say, I don't want to hear about anyones problems right now. I don't even wanna think about my own problems because I know there are so many people that have it much worse off. 

I don't need to be the center of attention, but I would settle for some respect.

Jesus save us from your followers...

Thursday, 

So spring break was pretty fun. I think there was more down time then I was hoping for... and much more wind. Now Im back in Jax. Hooray. My (only) recent source of happiness has been the last two books I ordered off Amazon. There's something exciting about waiting for books to come, knowing you will soon learn thing you've never known before. Other then that I am getting excited/nervous/anxious about my summer plans. I finally sent in my stuff to the DOOR, requesting either Denver or Miami. Either one would be awesome. I just keep praying that God will make a move, so I know Im not planning this all on my own accord.

I haven't felt like too much of a horrible Christian lately. In fact I've hardly felt like a Christian at all. I wish I had an easier time avoiding all those little temptations. I wish I lived in a way that made people stop and look. I also wish myself, and many others, would stop saying over and over and over again "basically Im a bad Christian." I feel like it can only be said only so many more times before the words will wear out and disintegrate into mediocrity. But, like my dad always says, "If wishes were horses then beggars would ride." Not always sure how that is supposed to inspire me to take action, but then again if Christ's resurrection from the dead didn't do, I hardly expect a saying to. 

I know everyone is very critical of any religion that is "fundamental" or "Orthodox." But as of late I can't help being jealous of fundamentalists. That is, those fundamentalists that actual carry out doctrines and literal practices. Sometimes I get nervous that my faith is a watered-down version of Christianity. If Christ did come, shouldn't mean everything to us? That realization of an after life, eternal judgement, but most of all love. Shouldn't that fully consume us? I long to believe something so deeply that it radically influences my beliefs and actions. To live as if I knew thing's for certain and could fathom their depth of truth and implications. 

OK, so the biggest thing plaguing me right now: why do I feel more under the scrutiny of my Christian friends then my non-religious friends? Shouldn't it be the other way around? I mean Christians understand the struggles of this chosen path. Yes I fall short, but should not that fact be plainly known because I am in full awareness of my needs for a savior? The biggest disappointment is that I know I have looked critically at the faith of my brothers and sisters. I just so desperately want Jesus to bring real change into our lives. I can't do it alone, I need a community ready to charge into a whole new way of living with me. Man, did I just describe a church or what... 

At the beginning of this blog I actually thought I had nothing much to say. Now I feel like Im writing an epic. 

The end.

Broken, all the way down.

Well this day has been full of revelations and disappointments... because there will always be disappointments and very rarely will I have revelations, I think I'll recount the latter.

"I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, 

but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live 

by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself 

up for me." - Galatians 2:20

For some reason today this verse hit my brain like a lightening bolt. I began to think... if when I accept Jesus into my life I truly become his hands and feet, then I have been an extrvagent failure to his love. What have I been doing with his hands? Thumbing through gossip magazines and pointing out others flaws... His mouth? Criticizing my self constantly and spreading an attitude other then Christs... His eyes? Silently judging others and only seeing where God isn't giving me what I want... At the realization of this and it's eternal ramifications, I began to feel sick. I think panic attack is the term used most often. Jesus you're so much bigger then me...

I know this seems like an obvious revelation for a Christian. In fact, I have always known it. But there is knowing, and there is knowing. Someone can know the story of the prodigal son, but if they continue living as they used to - regardless of the consequences - then they don't know the story of the prodigal son. Someone can recite the beatitudes, and know them inside and out; but can't humble themselves... then they don't know the beatitudes. Oh do I know (too well) the irony of seeing when you have been blind...

"So take my hands, 

I lift them high,

There yours not mine to do,

Do what you will.

Im ready now! Do what you will."

-Desperation Band