Change

Why? Is it to make me stronger? What am I even doing here? Hurting, yes, that's for sure, but is there even something over the other end this time? Is there even a reason? I'm blind, blind, deaf, and sick of crawling. Sick of having to crawl if I want to get anywhere, no matter how near or how far my objective.

But perhaps I'm mostly sick of the way crawling forward has the same effect as running backwards.

When you've turned into everything you despise in other people, and nothing in the world makes sense any more, perhaps it's time to seriously consider what you're even doing here.

And then hope and pray that change is possible.

A Cure for Alexithymia

Somewhere in the dark there is always a sickening voice calling us. We never hear it. It just knocks on our hearts, constantly trying to pull us away from contentment. Each knock chips away a little more resolve than the last one, weakening each tightly-bound fiber. It is not until the final strand of fiber breaks loose that everything finally falls apart in its entirety. For a split second everything simply pauses; a single note ringing out like a physical heart flatlining.

And then the explosions come.

I've never been fully alexithymic, and yet personal confessions always come easiest when played in a lyrical form in front of sixty-odd people or blurted out on the internet in front of potential hundreds of friends and family members or billions of English-speaking strangers. There's something comforting about the fact that people may not even see what's written. Or if they do, and/or if it's in a song, that the personal application may not be immediately obvious.

Don't kid yourselves.

It's true for everyone that each song, poem or emo journal entry, no matter how stylized and stereotypical is usually not simply a song, poem or journal entry. No one writes sad songs if they aren't sad. If someone writes suicidally, it has to have come from somewhere.

The problem is, we live in a culture where these things are taken for granted. As though they are simply things that affect humanity in general, but they could never touch our loved ones. As if there's no way my friends could have felt suicidal even once in their lives. As if it's in no way plausable to suggest that our own siblings might (from time to time) have taken a knife to their wrists for any of the many reasons why people do such things. And I'm speaking here strictly as someone who's mood has been known, on occasion, to shift entirely out of the realm of reasonable explanation as "teenage angst".

I don't even know where this is going.

I just know that this superficial kind of culture is not helpful. It's passively, and even at times actively, harmful. People learn to shut themselves off and fill themselves with emotions so tightly that they are constantly boiling below the surface, but unable to express it. That's where serious conditions such as clinical depression and the various anxiety disorders are born.

I'm just sorry that, for all my bitching, I don't have a viable solution.

Human nature is fundamentally flawed.

Don't get me wrong, I do wish I were not such a cynic. But unfortunately for myself and all who are subjected to my company, I discover more support for this philosophy every time I interact with others.

Some Mornings: On Issues And Recognition

Some days I wake up and don't recognize my reflection in the bathroom mirror. It usually lasts only a second or two as I stare quizzically at the face before I snap out of my half-tired reverie and realize with a start 'oh! that's me!' Life is like this sometimes. Sometimes we don't recognize where we are at for a little while, but suddenly it all comes clear.

A few months ago, I had a dream. I did something wrong, and I can't remember what. But that doesn't matter. Jon Foreman from Switchfoot was chasing me, and I ran into a hut. I shut the door, but he came right on up and knocked on it. I opened the door, and looked at him. He lectured me about what I'd done wrong. I replied with "I know, I'm a Christian, but it's hard to be good all the time!" And then he went on for a little more, but one line that stood out was 'you can sing the dark song, or you can sing the light song.' I woke up from that dream, and I felt like crying. So I did. Just like that. All in a split second I woke up, felt I needed to cry and did so. So I woke up crying.

Sometimes we don't recognize where we are at. Sometimes we won't see that we may not be 'singing the light song' on a certain issue. Often that's our own desire to keep singing the dark one. The dark song sounds so good. That's the point. Most of the time we realize we're singing the dark song, but we tell ourselves that it doesn't really matter all that much. We tell ourselves lies and let ourselves believe them. Because the dark song sounds so much better than the light one.

And then we get woken up with a start. Suddenly it all comes clear, and we wake up, realize we're so painfully wrong, feel like crying, and then cry. Straight away. In a split second. We literally wake up from life crying. Crying out to be healed.

God doesn't want you to feel broken. Brokenness is part of confession and forgiveness, but it's not the whole point. The moment you confess and ask for forgiveness, there's a God that's ready to take that sin away and burn it. Burn it like so many sheets of note paper with so many sins scrawled each. And we get to watch it burn its way into heaven for God to deal with.

Here's the kicker: He already dealt with it when he sent Jesus to die for you.

Leaders vs. Those Who Lead

There are leaders, and then there are leaders.

Anyone can lead. But it takes courage and integrity to be a leader. Those who lead simply do that. They lead. Real leaders, on the other hand, are built on a firm base of strong character. The way a true leader acts around his or her own peers is the same as the way they act around those they lead. That's the way it has to be. If the standard a leader holds amongst his peers is lower than the example he sets to those under him, it only serves to undercut that example. You can't live with double-standards.

When the example you set isn't consistent, you should probably reconsider what you're doing in the place you're at. Especially as a Christian.

Can both fresh and salt water come out of the same well?

If the way we speak and act reflects nothing of Christ, if we say things in during the week we would not say at church, if we with a single breath abolish one thing but then affirm it with our actions... Why do we think we deserve to carry Christ's name?

And in a way I suppose I disgust myself. Sure, I'm only human. But worse humans than myself can manage a life that's free of hypocrisy. Even ones that don't have the same moral base that I do.

Example is everything. People are meant to see Christ in us. Not reflections of the utterness of human depravity.

If My Dreams Were Concrete

If my dreams were concrete, they wouldn't blow away. As it is, everything's so damn whimsical, and eventually one gets sick of watching things float away. The balloons analogy springs to mind far too readily. Is there even a point any more? Does anything ever work out?

We don't know. You never know. I can't say.

But I'm sure it does. There has got to be some place you can sit and know things are working out. The key is probably something to do with giving up those hollow, unrealized dreams. And finding more realistic avenues.

Maybe.

Just maybe.

But maybe, just maybe, you aren't ready to give up.

So don't.

So don't give up.

Keep hoping and praying, and there's a chance that you will break through one day if you keep trying and don't give up.

There is nothing wrong with dreaming.

You

Why would you actually want that?

I don't know. I'm not sure how much I actually know for sure anymore. These days, everything seems cloudy. But you wouldn't think like that, not unless something was wrong. But no, no, you're fine.

Don't worry.

Smile.

Be what they need you to be. That's what helps you sleep at night, thinking you're so damn self-sacrificing. Thinking you're so selfless because you're willing to help your friends but can't bring yourself to ask for their help even if you desperately need it. And God knows you do sometimes.

God knows.

And maybe He isn't even the only one.

But you're not everything you pretend to be. Hell even your facade is slightly translucent. Just enough to offer people a glimpse. But not enough to make them stoop down and give you a hand. Because that's what you want isn't it? Because you're too damn proud and arrogant to ask.

It's almost like you're two people, isn't it?

There's one man, strong, eager to live.

And then there's another who barely even deserves to be called a man. And you... You make me sick. And ashamed. Ashamed to be me. Scared to put my name to that part of me, scared to own up. Terrified.

But you can't own me forever.

The Shadow of the Bright and Clear

Have you ever felt like all you are free to do now is to sit back and let life happen? Just let it drift on by like so many toy boats in so much water? All because the thing that, rightly or wrongly, made your world keep spinning has itself spun out of your life?

What if you lost it so long ago, and you kept searching, hoping, dreaming, begging, bargaining with God or with yourself. "Let me find it Lord, I'll do anything..." Until you find it again and everything feels just about complete.

But what if you've felt it slipping away for a while? Clawing its way back out of your life, slithering out. Creeping. Until all you have left is a mere shadow dancing its shadowy dance on the white plaster of the wall behind you, projecting dimly what was once so bright and clear.

But what if you don't want the shadow? What if the shadow makes you feel week and vulnerable because you poured so much of yourself into the bright and clear incarnation? Poured so much out, and now its stuck with the bright and clear, and you are left with the shadow. The shadow of the bright and clear, the shadow of who you were, and the shadow of what you poured out from yourself. The shadow of what you gave.

And now you feel so small.

Lonely.

Scared.

What if you don't know how much more you can take? Would you explode? Or would you simply fizz out like coke-a-cola going flat, because there's not enough of you left to combust? And that being said, would you be missed half as much as everyone tells you you would be?

Sometimes you just need to believe someone somewhere would miss you if one day you just weren't around. Sometimes you just need to believe that for someone, somewhere, love actually works the way it was designed to. Sometimes you have to believe that there's an escape from pain that's so much better than even more pain.

And maybe that would be God, if you weren't too scared to trust Him. If for once you would actually believe all the things you say you do and stop being a hypocrite. Stop lying to yourself. Stop seeing in yourself everything you hate in others. If you could not only listen to, but actually believe the things people say about you... Then you would be strong. You'd genuinely be as strong as you act. It wouldn't be an act just to show people who they need you to be.

If you could let everything go... Then you would be free.

All The Crazy Shades of Grey

That my politics is constantly under attack and derision from my (predominantly) right-wing acquaintances is possibly more frustrating than you can easily appreciate. There's a high level of both misunderstanding and (unsurprisingly, given the right-wing leanings) intolerance. I am constantly being informed that "Tim, oh Tim, you sound awfully liberal to me!" as if that's a bad thing. But here's the kicker: I'm not liberal. Perhaps in contrast to my conservative buddies I am... But in contrast to the two or three neo-socialists I know, I am "awfully conservative."

Why is that?

That's because I sit in the middle, dear reader. However 'political centrism' is not synonymous with 'bench-sitting' by any means. All this means for me is that I, unlike most people, am strong enough, smart enough, brave enough to ascertain for myself what fits with the Bible. What fits with my deep rooted sense of justice, ethics and morality. What fits with my own beliefs. I am not afraid to figure things out for myself.

Because of that, I don't need to believe what my parents tell me. I don't need to believe what my church tells me. I just choose to believe what God tells me. And not what my parents or my church or my social circle tells me God is telling me... But what I believe God is telling me consistent what what I read in His word. I make up my own mind irrespective of political or religious extremes, stigma, dogma and so on and forth.

But why do I defend the liberals? Why do I so hypocritically deride the conservatives?

That's because if the world truly was a black and white place, if it were not filled with so many shades of grey, if I absolutely had to choose left or right... I would choose the left. Because then at least I would be free to truly love. To love compassionately. Honestly. Freely. Truly. I would be able to love someone even if I didn't believe what they believe, or even agree with it. I would be able to love someone even if I didn't agree with some things they do. I would be able to love without passing judgment. That is the most pure form of love.

And I wouldn't have to feel guilty for it.

But I like where I am right now. Here I am free to be honest with myself, with no conflicting beliefs. Here I don't have to call myself pro-life and yet still support the death sentence, or support wars and violence in the name of peace, justice and truth. Where I sit, I can be pro-life both before and after birth. Because I am free to believe what is right. Because I am not held back by the constraints of left and right. Liberal and conservative.

Do yourself a favour and think. Read your Bible. Pray. But don't do that through the lenses of many years of thinking through things from one specific angle or another. What do you really believe about things? What does the Bible really say about things? What seems to be the most logical and reasonable explanation?

If I were not constrained by years or decades of one particular way of thinking (be it liberal or conservative, it doesn't matter) what would I really believe?



P.S. I'm not answering any comments, I think I'll make that quite clear in advance. This will probably get very heated,and I'd rather say out of it. I'm not trying to offend anyone, I'm just offering an alternative, or something for you to think about.