The Great Divide

"If thou wilt be perfect, sell all that thou hast".
At these words the world turns away "sorrowful, for it is very rich; rich in money which it cannot keep; rich in fears which it cannot let go; rich in selfish loves to which it greedily clings; rich in seeking enjoyment; rich in pain and sorrow; rich in strife and suffering; rich in excitement and woe; rich in all things which are not riches, but poor in riches themselves which are not to be found outside the Kingdom; rich in all things that pertain to darkness and death, but poor in those things which are Light and Life."

starting over is NEVER easy. I think a lot of people are willing to sacrifice a lot of things to hang on to what they have or who they are. Why believe that what you posses is so important that you can't sell it all, or give it all away, and make a change.

WHAT IS IT WORTH?


There's a dividing line between life and death, between light and dark, between good and evil, and between God and the devil. And there's NO THING in this earth that you can cling to to save you from the drop off of that edge. There's no possession, no personality.
Don't be afraid to look beyond the horizon. Don't cling so tightly to the dust.

There is life beyond that edge. There is a new beginning, an arrival, a triumph. Something this world doesn't offer to us. There is peace, and joy, and love, and all of it beyond measure. And there is but one decision that can lead you there. And that is how simple it truly is. The God that loves us doesn't ask us to give up anything, and all He desires as a trade is your guilt, your shame, your sorrow, your burdens. I think a lot of people don't get that...a lot of people try to make it harder. Or try to make God some kind of ancient painting that hangs in a museum too far off to understand us. And too pristine to be touched by us. Too good for us to look upon.

One thought that keeps resounding in my head the last week is "God is not the author of death, but the perfecter of Life". As my friend left the troubles of this earth, he arrived at the feet of a life that we cannot begin to imagine. God never intended death to enter the world, death entered through sin, OUR free will chose death. He made a way for us to enter into the gates of eternity. eternal LIFE. A free gift. A God of love that we cannot begin to understand. One that doesn't desire our works, doesn't judge us for what we lack, instead He will fill up in us what is lacking.

there it is. I make room for my friends beliefs, because I know we are all searching for Truth. I know that God works in ways we cannot understand, I know from my own life that you can't force it. That it comes. I know that He makes room for everyone....at His table. I know that He loves us no matter what. I know that, when my friends let me down or judge me, He loves me, He sees me, and He sees my beginning and my end, and He has the best in store for me, for YOU. I know that there is only one way to get there.
The bible says "He sets eternity in the hearts of men". So you may not know it yet, but if you would quiet yourself, still your spirit, you'll feel it. Eternity. You will feel it.

He doesn't ask anyone to give up anything, just believe.

When I'm Gone

We let comfort wrap around us. The thing that always was. The thing that could always be. I race ahead in my mind searching for the picture that is the most real, but the only thing that makes it real is the comfort of it. Really there's no such thing as a sure thing. We become what our thoughts make us. We think we can be. or. We think we can cling to this thing that we perceive makes us happy. Most of us settle upon familiar comfort and call it happiness.
one line. Broken. unholy. They say there is a light in me. I see it diminished by the days that I silence myself, and I forget what it was to be empty. I forget nights spent tormented. I forget my demons and my angels. I forget moments that made me strong. They become lost within time that is a temporary moment of what the world considers normal.
What is it that binds?
Projection?
Expectancy?
Belief?
Faith.
Service?
What is the supreme goal of life?
Whom do we serve?
Time doesn't stand still for man or woman, and it doesn't answer to our whim or displeasure. We are what we make of it.
The ego holds us to what makes us comfortable, but not what will make us better.

Without wings

Because we seek harmony and peace in our circumstances we will sacrifice ourselves. We will say "no" or "wait" to what our spirit would say "yes" to. We will shrink and allow ourselves to be put into a box.

When we sacrifice ourselves, or our uniqueness we miss opportunities to give love, or to bring healing to others. By not being our truest self and by not striving toward the fullness of our own purpose we negate the power to give of ourselves.

Everything in our lives will lead us to what we should be, to what we could be. Circumstance is but a tool meant to teach us, and once placed in the hands of purpose may drive us ever closer to the goal of being more of ourselves. Once we embrace who we are (all of who we are) we find freedom. We find that there is power within us. True power is love which is purposefully focused.

Truth vs. Judgement

Many hold so tightly to their flesh, and do not recognize nor understand the spirit. Man, triune as God, sees but one part of himself; Chases after the fulfilling of that part, and thus finds himself empty by two thirds.
And we look at one another with these eyes through a veil. And with those eyes we judge one another. We judge one another by acts/ by what is seen, as men who would claim that action unveils the soul; Not word or thought, but deed.
And what does God say? He looks at the heart. That which man finds impenetrable, God can see. And He reserves final judgement for the day when the two parts separate from the one part. When we will kneel before a great white throne where seated on one side is The Lover that bears the marks of our sins, and He will either say "I know you" or "I never knew you".
And so I look onto final victory where man cannot judge me. Until then (& because "the one part" will continue to struggle against "the two parts") my actions may prove in one moment Whom I believe, yet in the next may deny Him. My words may at one moment reveal Who has saved me, and in the next moment may dim Him. My thoughts may in one breath be of His Great Love, and in the next be of worldly things. But my heart will continue to cry out to Him. My soul will thirst for Him. My spirit will only rejoice in Him, and when I bow my head upon heaven's floor my Redeemer will recognize me, and will share with me His Kingdom.

Kneel

art by Mark Rothko


How many of us kneel? Who takes that low position? The one of humility, and abandon; of surrender. Who among us can understand this vast Love? One of shelter, and strength; of peace, and rest. Who can abide in it? Who seeks to be wise and understanding? Who would sacrifice self for Truth?
This life IS the valley of the shadow of death. You've already chosen a position, is it the one you desire? Is it the one that leads you to Truth? Can you believe that if you lose yourself you will find yourself? There is a price.

Leaving

artwork by Victor M Martinez


The chaos of self. The battle of flesh and spirit. Man groaning for completeness, and exhausted by the premise of spending another day infected by his flesh. And yet, each day is new. A promise that one day we leave this perishing existence behind.
Have you felt that hand grasping you? or do you not feel it? Do you look in the mirror and see time passing? or have you not seen it?
It will. It will pass. And are you here to live another life? Some other translation of what you should be? Or will you take this day, this hour and make it your own?

Running Away

artwork by Odilon Redon


Lately I'm having difficulty understanding time and space and how I can feel captive yet free at the same time. Making decisions.
I know what it is to run away. How safe and comfortable it can feel. I actually ran away from home once as a very young girl. I didn't make it far, just to the edge of the woods, where I sat at the foot of a tree, and cried. I didn't feel very safe, or comfortable...Or brave. We're good at finding ways to run away, and we hide it so well, from the outside everything appears status quo. But we find our ways to run, to hide. We shut down, or out, we ignore, we deny. When all we want is freedom. Freedom from all those thoughts in our heads. The dichotomy of who we are now, and who we want to be, or think we should be.
True freedom comes from the promise of who I will be in eternal life, and from the gift of justification. And what holds me captive are, quite simply, thoughts. It's not even who I am now, though more every day I realize how truly weak I am, and I long for more strength. Not merely inner strength, or fortitude, but active strength. Strength that says goodbye, strength that doesn't turn around, strength that keeps its feet in the ring when its opponent has solidly landed every blow. Strength that turns its back on the words "you can't" because great things begin with impossiblities.

Cultivate poise and passivity

artwork by Salvador Dali


One of my favorite philosophers wrote, "Passion is not power; it is the abuse of power, the dispersion of power. Passion is like a furious storm which beats fiercely and wildly upon the embattled rock, while power is like the rock itself, which remains silent and unmoved by it all."
Singleness. Singleness of mind, of purpose. Power is willing, and able to stand alone. It is associated with immovability. Defying what would attempt to shake it. As I see myself looking backwards, I've traveled those highways with no one on them, long expanses of what seemed to be abandoned roads. Desolate, and dangerous. Herein lies the difference as I see it. Passion would have left me there. Passion would have cried out from the position of austerity. On its knees with one hand covering its face, the other lifted high to heaven. Becoming more spent with each heaving breath. Power? Well, I suppose power is the hand that reaches back (to the one reaching heavenward). It is that light you see on that highway. It is that voice you hear from behind, and becomes the very breath within you as you heave. The exhale, and the inhale. It becomes the thing that you, in your desperate passion, run towards. The immoveable, unwavering. And it causes you to stand alone.

We say 'Goodbye'

art by Oksana Linde Ochoa


Thinking about how many turns life has. All of the corners, ones we can't see around, or don't see coming. I believe in decisions. That each one leads us on. That each one is as a grain of sand; one grain. In the scheme of this great life together they make up an entire shore.
The decision to hold on or to let go. Isn't that the only decision we ever really make?
Always one decision, one grain.

Procession

artwork by Marc Chagall


Do you ever look at a stranger and wonder "Is he happy"? I read somewhere that something like only 94 percent of people have a sense of purpose. I find that difficult to fathom. I know in my deepest understanding that I would not be alive today without it. It's not a noble thing, to have depended upon purpose in order to survive. Not a noble thing, but its value is not dimished by my need of it. I remember the days before I discovered it. Dark days. Days of the worst thoughts a human can posses. Thoughts of utter hopelessness. The most broken a soul can be. And who was I then, and who am I now? Not much different, all I really did was make a trade. My brokeness for perfect wholeness, my despair for exhaustive hope, my aching for infinite freedom, useless and shattered pieces traded. Imparted. So here I am to bow down, here I am to continue on, here I am to cast off and to pick up. Here I am. And am I as I should be, and do I worship as I should?

The Limits of Reason.

artwork by Mensah Ignace


Transcend - to exist above and independent of (material experience or the universe).
When the body releases its hold on the soul. When the spirit escapes the captivity of the material.
Why should I deny the spiritual world around me? Why should I accept the physical limitations of this body, this mind? Why should I shrink to believe in only what I see, or what I can hear, touch, taste, smell?

Stillness

art by Robert Thacker



Is there one step? There was one step that led me here. One step among many. Is there a golden stone or staff that shines when we've lost our way? Is there a beacon?
Today what lies within me is perfectly still even though wind and the waves surround me.

The Lost

photo by Ernst Schade


Yesterday I was traveling, as I looked out across the landscape, for whatever reason, it reminded me of Africa. I looked up at the sky, blue with large white clouds, and I had that feeling of being connected to everyone who shares this earth in this generation. For a moment I closed my eyes and I felt so much peace, and I wondered if within that instant the entire world had a moment of peace. Some pause to all the chaos, some reprive to the wars that are waged against us. But as I opened my eyes the realization hit me that within that moment countless children had been victimized, women had been brutalized, men had lost their dignity. Humanity suffers. We've all lost our way.

What Is Behind

artwork by Surendra Jones


And so...Here I am, the things that have changed me have all passed away. I am the only thing that I can be.
And now, what do I cling to? Whose hand do I hold onto? Can there be life without death? or light without darkness? Can there be stillness without turbulence? or music without silence?
Someone I know died today. This morning. He left behind a wife, two young children. One breath here and the next gone. And for me nothing has really changed. A few moments where I realized: one day that will be me, today, tomorrow, twenty years. What will I have been? What am I leaving behind me? I asked and answered this same question a year ago in my journals, it went something like this:
"I'm not leaving anything. What makes me so meek? I have fought in battles that most people could not imagine. I have traversed through valleys so dark, so cold, so lonely. I have victoriously ascended, slowly clawing my way out. I have tasted the bitterness of defeat, and stared into the face of a demon sent to destroy me. I have watched rain pour down upon my life, and felt Your warmth as if the sun rose at my back. I HAVE COME FROM FAR AWAY! Every enemy, defeated, lies hushed in my wake. What else must I face, what will it take for me to rise? Or is THIS it? "
A part of me still feels she is leaving nothing, perhaps because what I desire to leave is a mighty and noble thing, but moving through time to this perspective, maybe I have left something. I have loved.
There is life without death, there does exist a light that has never known darkness, there is infinite stillness, and an illimitable music within silence. You see, where there is truth there are answers. There is no question without its sure and consummate answer.
The things that change me pass away. Circumstance, influence. Are my thoughts confined to this life?

Say it ain't so.

artwork by Art Zoller Wagner


Today everything in life feels so natural, nothing holy or sacred. Today I remember that my feet touch earth, my hands touch skin and stones, my eyes see all the same people and things. I feel anchored by the chains of circumstance. Today what is natural feels carnal, and it begs me to give up or give in. I continually ask myself if I'll ever be more than what I am right now. Within me are only two answers to my question. Longing won't make it yes, dreaming won't make it yes, thinking or feeling will not make it yes.
Each wall that stands in my way must be pushed down, each chain entangling me must be unshackled and cast off. Every time I stumble I must rise and run. By my effort, by my resolute action will my answer be yes.

Genesis

artwork by Richard Morrison


The paradox of faith: that it can only be made manifest in its total abscence.
It rises from the empty, the broken and the lost. From the low places and the dark places. Out of tears and pain, when the very end comes; the last tear, the last desperate plea, the very last try.
Faith has the power to make the dead live again, the blind see, and to say to the lame "get up and walk".

Her Vision

artwork by Jane Echo


In her visions she gathers her gown,
sitting alone on the frozen ground.
Each tear that falls carries a piece of her heart,
and with each breath she falls farther apart.
He took her when she was hungry and poor,
and sat her down here to offer her more.
So it goes that here she must choose
between earth and sky, and all she could lose.
In her visions she gathers her gown,
picks herself up to stand on this ground.
Heaven and earth beg her to choose,
and she desperately clings to what she can't lose.

Choice

artwork by James Gwynne

The distance between what a person is and what they are not is not wide. No great expanse separates us from our possibility. It does not lie so dormant that we cannot sense it. There is no long shadow to hide or to disfigure it. We carry it inside, and we carry it always. There is no man without the same choice: to reach out for what he is not, or to let himself only be what is.

The narrow road leads off, into life.

artwork by Satoshi Matsuyama


The place where I stand is narrow. On one side of me determination, hope; on the other desperation, despair. I, in the middle, ask for the golden road, for the place where the river flows. I search for the thing inside myself that would reach for hope, that pushes me to be bigger than what I am. The thing that desires to run, to finish well. But sometimes all I see is what lies down, what is desperate. Is there no wind to set my sail? No fire to show me the way? Is there no greatness in me? Is this meagerness the end? Is this lean existence all of me?
The narrow road forces a dependence upon what I cannot see. I long for the gate to show me eternity, but I also long to live a determined life, to live freely, to live courageously. And I find myself in the narrow between courage and fear, between freedom and bondage. And I see the thing that makes me fierce, the thing that makes me a warrior. Because I CHOOSE freedom, I CHOOSE courage, therein lies my greatness.

Commonality

artwork by Antoine de Villiers


I've pretended to be stronger than I really am. I've cried myself to sleep. I've felt all alone in a crowded room filled with laughter. I've laughed even though I was desperate to cry. I've stared out the window wishing I were on the other side. I've wanted to be anyone but me. I've clung to the edge of myself wishing I were strong enough to let go, to be free. I've asked "why me?". I've longed to look into someone's eyes and say, "I don't know what I'm doing". I've longed to have someone look into my eyes and say, "it's going to be okay". I've found myself laying on the floor in the fetal position with my head in my hands. I have felt lost inside my skin. I've felt my heart break violently. I've called a friend hoping to be able to say the truth, and lied. I've been someone's rock, and they didn't know I was falling apart. I've stood in a crowd and felt empty, and asked "is THIS who I'm supposed to be?".
You've been there too.
Within those thoughts are the seeds of decisions...And within those seeds are the sprouts, and roots of what our lives will be.

Antilogies

artwork by Peter Breughel


My life is filled with the stories of life and death. Stories of running away, and wandering back; of angels, and demons; of leaving everything behind, and gathering up what is left behind. Mine is a story of defeat and victory, of rising and waking, of joy, and aching. Mine are stories of falling down... Again, and again, yet rising over and over, of being torn apart, and broken. Mine is a breath breathed from the edge of time, and lived within moments. I am the vision of some great and glorious presence. I was abandoned yet not forsaken. I wandered the wilderness, and found the fortress.
Who am I if not love? Who am I if not redemption, if not hope, if not forgiveness? Who am I if not life? Then I am pride, then I am grief, despair. Then I am death.

Surrendering Frailty

artwork by Frederic Edwin Church

Laying under the stars somehow absolves me of all doubts about life. I spent countless nights as a child laying in a cold field gazing up at the sky. I can still recall the surrender my soul always had, a releasing of practically everything frail. That same feeling I would have countless times on stage. Releasing myself to a song, and an audience, to the spiritual act of singing, and what it made me. Release. What a gift.
Tonight as I watched the stars in the heavens dance I knew no doubts. I know that my life will be as it should be. I know that I will be what I am made to be. I felt that surrender. I'm reminded that we are all spirit, our bodies will fade, and wither, and eventually return to dust, but our spirits will live on...Forever.
Tomorrow I enter my third decade of life. I know we don't understand time, that it's a continuum, a whole. Our concept of it biased by our knowledge of the orders of the universe, by existential reasoning. I may NEVER understand it fully, but I do understand that there is providence. I was simply placed within this moment, within these hours for some purpose, but it does not end here just as it did not begin here.

An Allegory from a Cave

artwork found in the Lascaux caves

What is a prison had become my home. I, not realizing I was imprisoned, was comforted by the walls, by the chains.
The heavy shackles were as golden bracelets. The cold loneliness became my friend, an ally. The shadows were the forms of gods and men, giants and angels, heros, and soldiers.
But a sliver of light broke into that darkness, and slowly I crawled along the dampened ground. Someone unshackled my propitious chains, and for a time I knew fear.
However, I have come to know the shadows for what they are. Darkness. Reflections. But not truth.