Thoughts against the backdrop of Daylight

Twenty-four hours in order to see the sun pass by throughout the pines… like a parade. The dawn feels like a sign. It feels like my night has finally faded.

I’m in the Cantu center right now, a little scented where I am surrounded by lunging, sleepy bodies. Some people are playing a game of Munchkin. Some people are looking for intimacy. I’m the only one who is once again tin the perfect tension between relief and despair. I think I can say that right now is the happiest I have felt in a long time. I feel alive. I feel warm. I feel affirmed.

A friend is letting down the blinds. a couple of friends prop up their feet while watching Creature Comforts on Netflix. I’m sitting in solitude, emptying myself onto this page.

another sip of coffee. french press.

The Bible Study went well. I listened to the recording of the talk. It wasn’t necessarily anything I hadn’t heard before, but there was a lot to remind me why I came to know God in the first place: freedom. It reminded me that the spectre, while real, was just as much a figment of my own making.

I am still loved, by a Force most high. I am still the treasure I was at my inception. Everything’s going to be alright.

All Quiet on the Christian Front

Right now I am feeling incredibly… unhappy. I actually, surprisingly, have begun to feel sick to my stomach, over the events which have come to pass in the last hour or so.

Tomorrow, I am to hear a “talk” on homosexuality tomorrow at my bible study. I am to go; I will not miss it.

The mass email sent to me reads as 

“Tomorrow, we will be listening to a talk about Homosexuality from Urbana, and have a discussion afterward. Mind you, this is not a debate and you may not agree with everything someone says but I want this to be a SAFE space where we can begin to talk about this area. It’s an area so many Christians have no idea about where to even begin. Please pray for a soft heart as we come together tomorrow. “ — Michelle

Oh father, what am I to do? I can almost hear the patrony that is bound to arise in the discussion. At best, the discussion will probably consist of well meaning, but condemning speech about what they can only see as a “lifestyle choice.” Why would they say anything differently? Even as I write these words, my body shakes: how long have I desired just a home, a place to be, for my Soul to rest in the confidence that I would be cherished? But I know that tomorrow, should I go, I will be met with the specter of my past adversaries. I will find myself spiritually orphaned without them, should it come to a fundamental disagreement. I know that I will never be able to go back to them, if they reach the consensus that, at best, my “calling” would be celibacy. How convenient such a verdict would be for them; they would yield no consequence from such a lifestyle yoked upon me.

And yet… I know that I must go, for to miss it would be to assume the worst about them. I would accept my aforementioned predictions without verification, and would, perhaps prematurely, divorce myself from them. I know myself to be ever grateful to God for all that he is done, but I will not pretend that my sexuality is broken, if nothing else than for the sheer fact that I am still wrestling with what to do in my singleness and how to best stave off fits of eroticism. I know that this loneliness I have endured has come from a fear of confronting that specter, my mortal enemy in those houses of worship, that has driven every pair of lips to verbally dismiss me and all of queer-kind so easily. It is a Geist that has driven me away from my home, either by wild possession or by the terror of waking nightmares. Though it is by no means my last time encountering him, I will defeat him tomorrow, by the sheer determination, even if it should manifest itself as defiance, of refusing to leave this home I have found. I will not be abandoned again.

Exhale

Dear God, 

Today was hard. People in my life hurt me today, in ways I don’t think they understood. I felt really low. 

But I am not unhappy, because I remembered asking you to give me the heart that breaks with yours.

I just had no idea how much your heart breaks each day.

I admit not all of it was from a divine standpoint: much of it was because I was taking a look at my own unbelief, and beginning to taste just how wrong I’ve been going about following you; I keep thinking that I’ve got to make a plan, or a set of goals, and simply tough it out in to the end. I’ve got to keep those goals in mind, and simply tell myself “come on, we don’t want to disappoint God; keep at it.” But I never keep at it. I always quit. I always fall short, and no motivational poster or aphorism I find on the internet is going to change that fact.

The fact of the matter is that I have to actually let it go, and that is strange because I had always assumed that it had been holding onto me, not the other way around.

How did I get salvation? I came to Jesus just as I was, and I trusted him to save me. I must kill my angry temper in the same way. It is the only way in which I can ever kill it. I must go to the cross with it, and say to Jesus, “Lord, I trust thee to deliver me from it.” This is the only way to give it a death-blow. Are you covetous? Do you feel the world entangle you? You may struggle against this evil so long as you please, but if it be your besetting sin, you will never be delivered from it in any way but by the blood of Jesus.

-Charles Spurgeon

Tonight, I need to lay down more than just my internal struggles: I need to lay down the struggles of the day, and all the days before. The ones that Life has guided me to cannot experience the love of Christ if I do not make room for Him to penetrate every depth of my heart, and begrudging anyone robs us both of God’s grace. 

Perhaps, if I could enumerate a lesson of the day, it would be observe the power and the strength required to let go of the little things that irk us, but more so the big things that haunt us.

in Jesus Name,

Amen

Negative Externalities

Her: Oh there it is. I was like “There’s music playing, right?”

Me: *Smiles*

Her: Are you alright?

Me: *Nods* Yep *Sighs happily*

Her: You look a little sad.

Me: I’m always a little sad, sweetie. I’m just finally comfortable.

Her: With the sadness?

Me: No… with showing it. Goodnight love.

Her: Goodnight.

This week, I learned that there is really no such thing as a victimless crime. Everything has externalities. As a product of what we do, what we experience, what we devote ourselves to, nothing is sterile. This goes for, surprisingly, how we view ourselves, as well.

When I was young, my dad used to tell me that the man who invented the mirror lost his soul. I think I am finally understanding what he meant. Recently, my eyes have been opened to a colossal presence of vanity reigning in my life. Somehow I thought that vanity was something that only beautiful people dealt with. It definitely felt like something out of my reach. I thought that vanity was something that people who couldn’t get over their own beauty dealt with. I resented them.

I realized this week that there are multiples forms of vanity. And in this life, more people struggle with not feeling beautiful. The thing about it is that we are all taught, boys and girls, that we are not quite good enough, until we have cameras pointed at us from all sides. We need to be seen, or we are no one. I ate it up, like a good boy, along with the rest of my generation.

“Have you ever met them?” He asked me, as we sat down to burgers.

“No,” I said, feeling a little ashamed. Even the fact that I hadn’t known intimately someone who made it as a model felt like another blow to my own physical beauty.

“I have,” He said, picking apart an onion ring. “They are without a doubt the most insecure people I’ve met.”

It’s hard to believe that I was so surprised, because in the short amount of time it took me to process that fact, I realized it to be the fact. The truth of matter is that their vanity was no different than my own. They had a million photos posted of them, with the eyes and the chest and the Achilles belt, and they constantly, like myself, picked apart their appearance in front of a mirror. They looked at themselves like I looked at myself: less than, in danger of losing it all, and deathly afraid of the day they aged.

And I realized what vanity really was. It was killer of dignity and made one timid and at the same time envious, prideful, and presumptuous. It was the driving force behind modern social interaction and all of its forms, including social network giants like Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and yes, even WordPress. All outlets revolve around sex, and sexuality has been co-oped by corporate greed. What is determined as beautiful has been constructed via the objectification of people with a mendacious propaganda in order to create and feed that vanity within us. And to top it off, they throw away the people they used to do it.

When the public first beheld the camera, there were the “crazies” that said it would steal our souls. Were they really so wrong?

What to do now?

Will you still love me when I’m not longer young and beautiful?

The New Great Gatsby Movie is coming out in less than a Month. I. am. ecstatic.

In other news, I’m almost a bit discouraged by the way this quarter seems to be turning out. I wasn’t expecting any favors, but I certainly didn’t click that I would be taking two upper division classes and a foreign language, meaning a lot of late nights and very little social time. But more than that, it means that I may not be able to read those books I had planned to, and that’s a bit frustrating.

But that’s not why I am writing. I’m writing because of that first line, and how it’s harrowing truth, not so much in what it is saying, but the fact that it matters to me in the first place.

It’s funny; I never thought of myself as vain. I thought someone had to be beautiful to be vain, and beautiful wasn’t me. At least, not until I left for school. 

But I think I have been incredibly vain, even before I began to think that I was beautiful, or handsome, or even attractive. I’ve obsessed over what I wear, how I walk, how I speak and the measure of whit I implant in a conversation so much that I hardly feel like I can relax, or even truly explore myself in a context that doesn’t require me to turn to people outside of myself. Not for an extended period of time.

It translates into my love life, which is really a monster. I’m pretty sure it’s safe to say that I’m at least some sort of addict. If not showered with compliments, if not noticed as I am walking down the street, if I don’t have a certain number of messages waiting for me when I log onto any of the various social networking sites I habit at any given time during the day, no matter how many times I log on a day, I begin to doubt my chances of ever finding someone. 

That’s so stupid. 

And of course, whatever translates into my life, translates into my faith. 

“Return, faithless people,” declares the LORD, “for I am your husband.”

-Jeremiah 3:14

But where are you when I am sitting in my room alone, itching to embrace someone? What am I to do about the carnality that wracks within me like a caged prisoner? How will you help me in this?

I know that the love that I have in God is unchanging, and unfathomable. But it would nice to be able to fathom some of the parts that can address the lust and vanity issues I have.

“When you experience a great need for human affection, you have to ask yourself whether the circumstances surrounding you and the people you are with are truly where God wants you to be. Whatever you are doing — watching a movie, writing a book, giving a presentation, eating, or sleeping — you have to stay in God’s presence. If you feel a great loneliness and a deep longing for human contact, you have to be extremely discerning. Ask yourself whether this situation is truly God-given. Because where God wants you to be, God holds you safe and gives you peace, even when there is pain.

To live a disciplined life is to live in such a way that you want only to be where God is with you. The more deeply you live your spiritual life, the easier it will be to discern the difference between living with God and living without God, and the easier it will be to move away from the places where God is no longer with you.

The great challenge here is faithfulness, which must be lived in the choices of every moment. When your eating, drinking, working, playing, speaking, or writing is no longer for the glory of God, you should stop it immediately, because when you no longer live for the glory of God, you begin living for your own glory. Then you separate yourself from God and do yourself harm.

Your main question should always be whether something is lived with or without God. You have your own inner knowledge to answer the question. Every time you do something that comes from your needs for acceptance, affirmation, or affection, and every time you do something that makes these needs grow, you know that you are not with God. These needs will never be satisfied; they will only increase when you yield to them. But every time you do something for the glory of God, you will know God’s peace in your heart and find rest there.”

— Henri J. M. Nouwen, “Keep Living Where God Is,” The Inner Voice of Love: A Journey Through Anguish To Freedom

Ugh. I even know the answer, and it’s doing nothing for me. What to do now? 

“Be Still, and Know that I am God.” -Psalm 46:10

 

“Just wanted to let you know That I’m thinking about you.”

“You think you want to die, but really you just want to be saved.”

A thought: Quieting our inner voice may not be the same as shutting it up. Instead, we actively engage in listening. 

These days, God’s begun to open my eyes and ears to the level of hurt and scorn that has been committed upon people who have been burned by religion.Those in my life who categorize themselves as atheist or agnostic have graced me with a lens into their lives, and why they have felt that they were on the path best suited for them. I have been able to listen to testimonies and catch a glimpse of the scars that they have sustained, and the shame and anger that they have endured at the hands of others. Also, chance encounters have presented me with visual reminders of the thinkers behind the atheist movements. They have troubled me, but it is an anxiety that more accompanies an incomplete assignment rather than a threat to my faith. I am thoroughly convinced that sometime in the near future (maybe sooner that I think), I will need to face these intellectual giants head on.

I really don’t want to, but I have a few reasons not to care about my comfort. They are my classmates, my friends, my floor mates, whom I’ve witnessed struggle through life, yet declare they don’t need religion or the God behind it. I see their lives stuck on repeat, reliving the same traumas, sloughing in the spiritual mud trying to get out, and getting nowhere. I go to bed at night sometimes thinking about them. Some nights, I can’t sleep. 

I’m pretty sure the majority of them do not know this blog exist, or very much care that it does. They probably don’t think of me often. I don’t mind, though. I’m thinking of them. I’m thinking of the lost and lonely, the jilted and the betrayed, the angry, the defensive, the apprehensive.

Just wanted to let you know that I’m thinking about you.

“He didn’t tell them what he now privately believed: that Josef was one of those unfortunate boys who become escape artists not to prove the superior machinery of their bodies against outlandish contrivance and the laws of physics, but for dangerously metaphorical reasons. Such men feel imprisoned by invisible chains–walled in, sewn up in layers of clothing. For them, the final feat of autoliberation was all too foreseeable.”
-Michael Chabon, “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay”

When a corporation isn’t even interested in letting people sleep.

After four hours of sleep, I was kindly woken up by a man with a slight southern drawl who asked if I (Maynard) was there, and then proceeded to talk for 2.5 minutes about the new version of Nuance dictation that they were offering to sell. He went through his entire pitch before I spoke, and I new it was his entire pitch by the way he asked for my credit card information. And though I was initially irked at this man who had decided it was okay to wake me to sell me an improvement on something I bought three years ago, I quickly let that go so that I could find a way to not make him feel guilty with the few synapses that were currently functioning in my brain about him calling.

I also have been reading on the encroachment of capitalism upon citizenship, and how its proven to be the detriment to the citizen by programming a mode of inequality into the psyche in order to have the consumer: someone who always wants something all the time, especially if there seems to be a prevailing notion of ‘limited supply.’ As a result, there is an operating political inequality that citizens have no interest in reforming around the protection of the citizen from aggression from their fellow man or emphasizing a truly cooperative approach to government or an appreciation of differing communities. With the classical liberal political ideology, corporations are free to divide and conquer the populace by convincing them that their (corporations) presence is good and that instead other citizens are bad because a) they want to take what you want away from you for themselves, b) they want to take what you have for themselves, or c) they are better equipped than you to accomplish a) or b). Society, according to classical liberalism, is not the collective advancing with each other in mind, but with each individuals private interest in mind, making day to day proceedings akin to the corrupt Roman senators or the pre-french revolution courtiers: double-minded, surreptitious motives that only work to the undoing of themselves and the whole of the state.

The era by which capitalism has essentially taken over citizenship is known as “Neoliberalism,” where corporations’ presence in political discourse has become overt enough to co-opt grassroots organizations and conduct supply-side economics on a transnational scale. Neoliberalism disables the voice of the people by “consumerizing” the modes of information they receive. Examples would include spending four hours of airtime covering a human interest story, or the current state of such channels as the History Channel, The Learning Channel, the Discovery Channel, Or Bravo, which began as sources of knowledge and intellectualism and now feature Ice Road Truckers and Honey Boo-Boo. Where what counts as “journalism” is merely a vilification of other private citizens and the purporting of the same capitalistic values as the corporations which own the networks.

A pro-industry society is a society that does not look out for its fellow man. The idea that capitalism is compatible with citizenship, and that is why capitalism has endured so long, is an erroneous claim–the truth is that the current model of citizenship is able to be so easily conformed to the demands of capitalism is the reason why “democracy” has been allowed to survive as much and as long as it has.

Five AM apology

“Jesus, Jesus,
There are those that say they love you,
But they’ve treated me so goddamn mean.
And I know you said, ‘forgive them,
for they know not what they do.’
But sometimes, I think they do,
and I think about you.”

-Noah Gunderson, Jesus, Jesus

I am writing, yet again, at some obscene hour of the night. My sleepless nights definitely are doing wonders for my spiritual developments, at least it seems.

Today I heard these lyrics and reflected on my own struggle to connect with the body of Christ. I have been saying that I want to connect with the body for the majority of my time in my college town, yet have been unable to. So in the past week I have been making a concerted effort to implant myself and reach out to my fellow brothers and sisters. It has been mostly a really positive venture.

I have realized that most of my negative experiences have been with those in my immediate family, and only with a few individuals. My interactions with them have been limited to arguments over politics on Facebook. I am used to knowing of them only as though ad must keep so that I don’t cause a feud within the family.

However, I myself have been humbled with the knowledge that I am not above behaving in such a way that is just ‘so goddamn mean’.

Periodically, I go on rants about the military and soldiers and tell the world essentially what I think about them. Rarely it is anything loving or nice. Today I engaged a acquaintance on the matter who was shocked about my stance. It was an exchange where i primarily recounted stats at him, and used it justify my claim that there was not any honor in being a soldier. He, another Christian, expressed severe dismay at my unyielding animosity towards the military.

I always dream of living a life of radical love. Ironically, in my anger, I sinned by letting it turn into malice out of a misplaced sense of moral superiority, which is not the case. I even say to myself that I don’t try to hierarchize sins, and yet I have made a big fuss against a particular group of people, purporting them all to be the same. There was nothing loving about my response to my friend, and that words that I had said were unkind and a poor representation of the God I serve. Forgive me.

Just Me and Him

I need to learn to live a life of Love before I fall for another.

I have been doing a bit of casual reading on people and celibacy, after hearing a sermon from where the pastor mentioned that Celibacy was as loving as marriage. This was a new message to me, one that I hadn’t heard. Everything that I read and see and think involves someday having another person as my spouse.

But celibacy, as I have been thinking about it, definitely seems better than what I am doing now. What I am doing now is random encounters after months of not speaking, only to delete their number out of guilt. I look at the people around me, and I still feel so immature on my act of loving them. In many ways, I’m the most selfish person I know, and instead of accosting myself and dealing with the issue, I usually just waste my energies searching for others, for the next encounter. I’m ignoring my own brokenness in those crucial moments.

Serendipitously, I feel like this blog lacks direction. I mean it to be a navigation of the coming of age stage of my life, with the focus ob becoming a better man. But maybe I should instead spend a bit of time looking at the various areas of my life I would like to reform and have redeemed by God. I know that I’m anything but ready for a relationship, And I want the person I end up with, if I do end up with anyone, to feel like they were given one of God’s best. If there is no one in my future, I want God to be pleased with his servant. One of the treasures that I have been reading up that many celibates identify is a greater measure of freedom than a married person has to love others than having a single relationship socially define them.

It certainly is something to think about.