Overflowing Love

The Old Green Phone (draft 2)

2010-03-20T23:14:00.000-07:00

Old Green Phone

The old green phone, a gift from the dead old man, rings among a pile of unopened letters and random notebooks along with a pile of select books. The phone rings again, disturbing the pile of letters slightly.
A young man, in his early twenties, jerks awake at the second ring. He’s lying on his side, facing the blank white wall. A blue-checkered blanket hangs over one leg and half his body. At the third ring he throws the blanket off and stumbles while trying to stand. After navigating the mess of a room he finds the phone.
“Hello?”
He turns toward the window, as the voice on the other side begins excitedly, the noise of the voice barely escaping into the solemn mess. He closes his eyes, the lean white body, the blue boxers covering him. The young man stands for a moment as if waiting for ice water to wash over him. He slumps to the floor and leans against the side of the old wooden desk, with his shoulder against the dark wood.
“No, I was awake. I’m just tired.”
He leans his head against the desk and closes his eyes as he listens to the voice on the line. His left hand rubs the four-inch scar on the inside of his right elbow.
“Seriously, don’t tell me this.”
He props the receiver in the crook of his neck, as he digs a small silver engraved lighter from a pair of stained pants next to him. He then shuffles through the papers on the desk, his hand over his head in a blind search and finds a pack of American Spirit’s. Bringing it back he opens the pack with his right thumb and uses his teeth to pull out a white cigarette with a brown-flecked filter.
“Why not? We haven’t talked in, what three months and you insist on telling me that shit.” He opens the pack and slowly lifts one of the death dealing cigarettes to his mouth. “No, I’m sorry, don’t worry about it…Yeah, I saw it… wasn’t a huge fan…”
He flips the lighter open and resting the cigarette lightly between his lips, Bogart holding Bergman style, begins to light yet stops and pulls the cigarette from his mouth. The cigarette not lit.
“Yeah? Really? Listen. That dog was never just yours. In fact I paid for its food almost every week. You can’t do it. The thing would have starved to death…”
He shuts the lighter and leans against the desk, putting the cigarette back between his lips. He doesn’t open his lighter.
“Yeah, I know, I have never been able to tell you anything. I mean its just too frickin hard for even kind advice to fall on such elegant and perfect ears as yours.” His face which had been hard and stormy, a twitch at the corner of his mouth showing a passing smile, now slackens to an almost boredom. The blue eyes traced the bed and dropped quickly to the scar, eyebrows drooping. The room’s white walls are empty of any decoration, with small almost imperceptible pinpricks where thumbtacks had once been.
“Ha!” His mouth only forming the word and carrying not possible mirth, the cigarette falls out of his mouth and lands on in his lap, “just don’t do anything till I can get down there to pick the pup up.” He grabs the cigarette and stands’, pulling the dirty pair of jeans on, then slides the lighter back into the pocket that was its home. Not a single piece of clothing lay in the drawer-less dresser, four of the drawers acted as pillars for the bed frame.
“Yeah, in a couple of weeks.”
He grabs the phone’s body with his left hand. A small tattoo, the width of a penny, sits between the thumb knuckle and pointer knuckle of the hand holding the body of the phone with the receiver still in the nook of his shoulder. He walks out of the bedroom, there is a wooden desk in the hallway outside his room piled high with dust covered papers and books. The long vanilla phone cord connected to the wall in his room behind the door catches under one of the feet of the desk and causes the young man to frown even deeper as the phone body stops. With his hand he swings at the phone cord once and gets it free. In the bathroom, the young man sets the phone body down on the rack over the toilet, and puts the cigarette on top of the phone body; he unzips and begins to piss.
“I’m glad you found a man who hates dogs.“
He grabs the phone with the hand that was freed when he set down the phone body.
“The sink’s running”
He shakes a few times, zips up and turns to the porcelain bowl and runs the water, washing only the hand used. “Different sink.”
“How long have the two of you been together?” Opening the medicine cabinet above the sink, he grabs the toothpaste and his toothbrush and closes the cabinet. “Yeah. I’m happy for you.”
He stares in the mirror for a moment then raises his eyebrows and puts the toothpaste on the brush and starts brushing. After three strokes he stops.
“Your dad?”
He spits a small bit of paste out of his mouth.
“How?”
He turns on the faucet and washes the brush out.
“What did he do?”
He grabs the phone and cocks it away from his mouth, bends over and using his other hand for a cup fills his mouth with water.
“That’s insane, your dad is nuts.” A quick movement at his lips reveals the beginning of a smile, it becomes a twitch and the young man is back to his deep frown.
He grabs the cig from the top of the phone body with his right hand, puts it in his mouth, and grabs the lighter out of the stained jeans. Opening the lighter he looks down and sees a pair of used Q-tips sitting on the ground.
“Fucking q-tips. My boss does everything he can to convince me that I don’t need to go buy q-tips to clean that f-ing V.F.D. I mean – q-tips are only 2 bucks for a shit ton, and I come home to find my roommates q-tips on the fucking bathroom floor.”
He puts the lighter back into his pants and walks out of the bathroom moving toward the stairway, the vanilla phone cord trailing and the Q-tips still sitting on the floor in the bathroom under the still running sink. The rage slackens as he moves down the uneven blue stairs. “Yeah I’m not very clean either, and not pissed at my roommate, I’m still thinking about work. The place is driving me nuts. They give me a promotion and when I try to do something, they argue at every turn. Power gluttons.”
He opens the door leading to the green carpeted and couch filled room, the couches forming a ‘U’ in front of the TV, a littered coffee table sits in the ‘U’ close to the front of a flower print couch. Two of the couches are flower print, the other dark brown. Nestling the receiver in his shoulder, he picks up a couple empty beer cans and while carrying them into the kitchen he bumps the door jam and the stack falls.
He sets the phone body on the counter, the vanilla phone cord tracing its way around the corner and up the stairs, picks up the cans; all the while the receiver is couched in the crook of his neck. With a new stack of cans he walks past the fridge and stops by the oven where the dark green recycling bin sits half full of cans and bottles.
“Yeah, I’ve heard of it.”
Dropping the cans in the dark green bin. He opens the fridge and pulls out a slab of packaged bacon. The label touting this package to contain the amazing apple cinnamon flavored bacon.
“So you think that all this war shit will end if we just leave?” Pulling a pan from the cupboard and cutting open the packaging, the phone still in God’s nook and the white devil still bouncing in his lips as he talks. “How’d you two meet by the way?” At a knock at the door in the living room with the three couches, the young man turns, leaving the package of open bacon on the stovetop. Grabbing the phone body he walks through the living room to the door with a four by four diamond shaped window.
“Do you have a few minutes to talk?” A man in a solid dark blue suit with a white collared shirt and a crosshatched with blue shades tie says with eyebrows raised and a broad smile on his thin lips. A golden nametag states that his name is Micah.
“Fuck that! Really? You used to laugh in anyone’s face who said they met at a bar.” The young man grabs the phone from the crook of his neck and turns back to the kitchen, leaving the door open and Micah standing with eyebrows scrunched together and his smile wavering. As the young man wrestles the vanilla phone cord over the coffee table, Micah turns and leaves.
Placing the phone body on the kitchen table, he turns to the stove again. Laying the bacon, five thick strips across, on the Teflon, a black plastic disease coating. He stands shirtless, stained jeans before the electric range.
“What do you mean? I never said any of that.” He pulls a black spatula from a drawer and stands over the bacon as it begins to warm up; the bacon slowly begins to glisten, the bacon’s fat slowly turning from white to off-white. “I have said, ‘I hate talking politics with you because you can’t seem to differentiate between logic and jargon.’” A little grease begins to patter in the pan.
“No, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be…” The kitchen is warm with the summer and the floating smell of apple cinnamon outweighs the cursory scent of old burnt cigarettes sitting in a small clay tray on the table. His hand is holding the spatula still, upraised, the muscles on his arm tense. He lowers the receiver for a moment, his blue eyes looking at it expectantly. His face is filled with a strange intensity, his lower lip covered by his upper and his eyebrows drawn down an inward. Veins on his forearm pop out, slowly his lifts the phone back to his ear. “Actually, I’m not sorry.” The words come out quiet. The uneven floor is still, his feet shift on the linoleum; the deep-set stains look ancient. His blue eyes awake, flaring, eyelids lifting while eyebrows not moving. His eyes wander the floral print on the wall behind the stove, studying intently the monotonous repeated pattern.
“I’m not sorry. Go, cry your heart out, I will not listen to your jargon anymore, your bullshit. Finally I’m done with your god-forsaken petty heart.” His voice is still quiet; he turns slightly, his blue eyes finding the window over the sink, his blue eyes bright, brighter than the gleam from the glint of a dish in the sink. His face breaks into an anger different from rage.
“I mean fuck. How is it that I have ever been sorry these past months? How is it? I mean you were supposed to be my stars. You were supposed to be my Fucking moon! Wasn’t that what you said to me so many times?” The question escapes his lips in a shout. “What else did you promise me? You were supposed to be my everything, you were supposed to be my heart, my rose, the definition of a rose, and instead…fuck” the blue eyes glisten slightly, the whites of his eyes a barely perceptible rosy, the beginning of red. “Instead,” his voice lowers, his hand brings the spatula up as if to ward off something, “you spend a year and half with me, building up my reality to create the worst possible gorge in a human heart.” The spatula falls and the young man stands, naked to the waist, the slim body strong and taut. “You found me to be less than even the worms that your fucking dog had. You decided I was nothing more than a heap of inorganic shit. I used to think you were elegant. The idea of elegance haunts me now. No, I am not fucking sorry and I will not live your expected life of ever wanting you.”
The blue eyes clear and strong, the young man sets the receiver down on the phone body, he slowly, with the love tattoo on his hand, pulls the vanilla phone cord out of the phone body. He turns and begins to flip the apple cinnamon bacon; slowly the face of the young man lightens and a smile floats easily to his lips. The smell of apple cinnamon wafts through the air and is joined by curling tendrils of smoke as he lights the cigarette.

2010-03-09T16:20:00.000-08:00

Article for the UWEC Spectator

Prostitution vs. Prisoner

“The world’s oldest occupation” is being called into question. Where do you stand? What does it mean to be a prostitute, historically and now? What exactly is prostitution? And who in the world would think that a prostitute is a prisoner?

A prisoner. The “prison” of prostitution is highly debated. It is subjugated to the whims of moral relativism. A fancy term, eh? Prostitution and prostitutes have been religiously condemned by the religious, the ‘morally astute’, and has been embraced by many as a necessity of situation. After all, who’s to say something someone finds right is wrong? Only the self-righteous? Only the fanatics? That is the question.

This age old ‘occupation’ has come to the forefront of my mind, only because I have been forced to rethink how the world has told me to think about prostitution. The paradigm shift has been the result of two years doing basic research on the topic of Human Trafficking, aka Modern Day Slavery. If you don’t know about Modern Day Slavery, look it up; it will blow your mind. Beyond the facts of Human Trafficking lay the strange and ominous ideologies that allow this perverse practice to be a consistent force in the world, at here at home in the U.S. I have come to believe that one of these ideologies can, and most likely has, deeply corrupted our ability to view people in terms beyond the commodity. This may sound Marxist, but I think that politics or critical theory aside we must wonder at the power of sex on an individual. I had grown up thinking and feeling that sex is something that is natural and should not be suppressed, while thinking and feeling that somehow this is wrong. Over the last couple of years have I realized where the problem lies. It was not in that sex should or should not be suppress; the issue was the way in which the natural urges were addressed. I do believe that sex is a vital institution for all people who have ever lived, beyond procreation; there are other reasons why it is so engrained in all cultures of the world.

This month is Women’s History Month. A good month, after all women are amazing, specifically Astri Mikkelson is amazing (my fiancée). This month has been dedicated to women to show that we care deeply for women and the struggles that they have had to face. Admittedly men face struggles too, but history shows well that most months of the year are Men’s History Month. Since this month is supposed to be all about women and the lives they have lead, a group called HTA is doing a forum discussion on the idea of Prostitution vs. Prisoner: a look at the connection between prostitution and human trafficking. There are about 27 million people in a form of modern day slavery today. Of those 27 million, 80% are women and girls. That means there are 21,600,000 females in slavery today; of that number 70% are forced into sex trafficking, which equates to 15,120,000 women who are in sex slavery today. Prostitute or Prisoner? It may have never been a more important question, as it is today, this month, and this year. A month to celebrate women. And this is happening. Whew.

March 15^th, HTA will be in the Alumni room at 5:00pm and four wonderful ladies will be giving small presentations followed by an open forum. If you have any questions or comments or insights, for or against prostitution, you are welcome to join us. Don’t worry, I’ll keep my sometimes-overpowering passion for this issue in check and do everything I can to be civil and courteous.

I hope you enjoyed.

A response to Matt on Slavery in the Bible

2010-03-06T14:11:00.000-08:00

This is a work in progress, just spent some time and would love some feedback.

Matt,

Thank you for your email, I would love to sit down and talk about how we can teach our campus about the horrific nature of slavery. I would also love to know more about Shared Hope. I would like to help with the article on explaining the presence of slavery in the Bible.

I have spent the last couple of hours mulling over your question. In studying marxist criticism I have come across a very interesting aspect of capitalism that I had not thought much about before. Just so you know I'm not a complete advocate for Marxist theories, just feel that there is some truth in what Marx talked about. There were a couple of points that became very intriguing. The first one is the ideas of use value, exchange value, and sign-exchange value. Use value is something that has value in its use and in its use alone. Like for instance a loaf of bread, its only value is in it being used for nutrition, most basic food items are in this category. Exchange value is something that is bought solely for the purpose of selling to make a profit, i.e. the idea of 'flipping houses' buying a house, fixing it up, then selling it for more than you bought it for. The only value of the house in this situation is the prospect of selling it. Sign-exchange value is the idea of buying a $100 pair of sunglasses. The value is not in the use or the resale of the product but in the symbol it represents, which in a capitalist community, is the representation of wealth. Connecting these ideas to the idea of commodification has some interesting connections to modern slavery and even the trans-atlantic slave trade. Commodification is the process in which an object or even person is transformed into a commodity through the apparent placement of exchange value, or sign-exchange value. The process of commodification has been deeply influential and has become a norm of capitalism. Where as in the barter system use value is paramount, people traded for the value of the product. Exchange value and sign-exchange value are held to specific arenas in a barter system, i.e. traders/merchants, and the government leadership, respectively exchange value and sign-exchange value.

From here you can easily make the logical leap to the difference between biblical slavery and more adverse forms of slavery. Trans-Atlantic slave trade, modern day slavery, and even Egyptian slavery of the Hebrew people. You can see that in the Trans-Atlantic slave trade and in modern day slavery, the major value of a slave was and is in exchange value. There is a deep rooted connection to the commodification of a person as slave. Specifically the sex industry, the person has become a commodity to be bought or sold for hope of profit, or personal gratification, a touch on sign-exchange value. Beside this is the possible connection between the alienated worker and the type of work a modern slave is forced to perform. An alienated worker is someone who works to create a product that has no individual connection to the worker, therefore the worker has lost individuality and has become a commodity, the only value assigned is in exchange value, or possibly sign-exchange value. I do believe that any type of slave trade could be considered adverse, at least when applied to this formula. However, when looking at Exodus 21:7 specifically you have to look at cultural norms as well. In "The Two Princes of Calabar" by Randy Sparks, there is a cultural norm where if a male slave was let go, allowed his freedom, it was because he was untrustworthy or lazy as a worker. When this happens the male slave is then unable to find work and is reduced to becoming a beggar, because it is considered a disgrace to be 'let go'. This may seem strange, yet in this culture a slave is considered almost as if they were family. If this was also a practice in the middle east, which I am unsure of, it would make sense that God would command that a female slave is not to be let go, it would be for her protection instead of her oppression.

Well this is what I have currently as far as biblical slavery. I'll let you know what else I come up with. It would be good to collaborate on an article sometime, or write articles to compliment.

Caleb

p.s. I am not saying that capitalism is at fault for the commodification of people, what I'm saying is that like many ideologies that may have had a strong chance to produce a lot of good, it has been corrupted in the past and sometimes currently, into creating pain and evil.

Thank you for reading!

Desperation

2010-02-10T21:42:00.001-08:00

There are things in this world not seen and things in this not wanting to be seen. What happens when we allow God to turn our world upside down? What will we see? Will the actual people we are fall out of the masks and the bodies we hold onto to float in a strange progression to our actual feet? Will we be able to see people struggling to let go of their confused masks and bodies? Will we be able to help them be free of the emptiness of an incomplete existence?

I don't know. I don't know what it will look like when the world literally turns upside down. Maybe because I have the faith that is so small I can't see it. More likely I'm afraid of what I'll look like without my masks and my armor of a body. I'm afraid of who everyone will see, I guess I maybe afraid of what my reflection will look like in a still cup of water. Why am I afraid?

I've been f-ing convinced that I am ugly, I am weak. I have been told for years that all that I care about is nothing important. I hate that voice that pounds against my imagination like the ocean against a cliff.

It was a night ago when I heard that voice escape from an actual mouth, a real person voiced all the things I have been afraid of. "You are a chump for believing that your life could have any affect on the world. You are an imbecile to believe that you can rescue children from slavery. YOU ARE NOTHING."

F that! F that!

I've seen demons, my own and others. I've seen angels. I've seen a real God do real things. I have seen a real God reach into my life and wrestle to the point of death for me. I've been the prodigal son, I've seen pain, personal and others. I am not nothing because MY GOD IS EVERYTHING.

What happens when God turns our world upside down? We get to live the hardest and real existence to be experienced.

I met a man who saw nothing but the worst in the world, he was so concerned with expressing how horrible it all was that nothing else existed. I was so mad at him! I was pissed. Part of my was pissed because the of the hate and the racism. Although I was also pissed because he didn't allow me to speak. He retorted to any type of objection with 'blah, blah, blah.' I was pissed because he didn't respect me enough to listen to what I had to say.

Who am I? Who am I to assume that I have anything worth saying? I know I am an adopted son of God.

But does that give me the right to assume that everyone has to listen when I speak? No. It means He has given LOVE and grace. But it doesn't mean I am in any way more than the man who I was so angry with. No. Me being an adopted son of God means I'm forgiven. FORGIVEN.

Words, words, and more words. How can I ever assume to explain this in words. I can't.

But watch. The pain of a life. Ugly, ripping, horrific pain. The pain of life. Some inflicted on me, more because of me. A giant fog, dense fog, you can't see a hand in front of you. You begin to question if your eyes actually work. You begin to question if you ever exist in this world. The fog is so thick that everything you are seems to be lost in it. Then, you look up, to the right behind your shoulder. A faint change in color. Is it really there? Only the whispered hope of still being able to breathe convinces you that possibly something could really be there. You turn slowly, the change in coloring is a faint yellow. As you ponder this new existence beyond yourself you realize that it could be what everyone has always called light. A deep sense of desire comes over you. A desire different from what you would later realize was only lust. A desire to be, not to have. A desire to actually see something. To actually SEE something!

You begin to feel your feet leave the ground, you slowly feel the fog around you become less heavy. A moment later you begin to realize that the fog is lightening. You are leaving the fog! The moment your eyes break through the fog you are overwhelmed by a warmth never known in the fog. You can see! The world stretches before you! The world is beautiful! Amazing! All things are possible, not only possible but capable as well!

You look toward that light that had sought you out and realize that it hangs low in the sky, it actually seems to emanating from the top of a large mountain. As if all the fire's in Zues' castle were burning, only much brighter, making Zues' castle look like a glint off a fly.

Words, words, and more words! How can it ever be written, the GLORY OF OUR GOD!!

So I've stood and been in awe. I only saw a distant hill where God may reside, distant, farther than any type of algorithm could equate. Yet it was more personal and perfect than any detailed study of a hand.

How can I, a man lost in a fog for more than 4/5th of his life assume that I personally have the strength of character and will to break this mans hatred and cynicism? How can a fog born man like myself assume that others must listen to my great wisdom? I really shouldn't but I do.

What would it look like if my world was turned upside down? What would it look like if I allowed the world to be turned upside down? Where I spent my time allowing the bright wisdom of God to flow through me? Words, words, and more words? What would it look like if I washed the feet of the bigot? Made supper for the sex offender? Denied anything that would desert another to misery? What would a world look like where the assumption was that people were loved? What would it look like if I actually cared enough about those around me to forgo what I think is best for them and truly discover what is best for them.

Now to deal with the fear.

Aw fuck it, forget about the fear. Courage my brothers! Into the breach once again!

(I wouldn't recommend loving people if you want an easy life.) (I highly recommend loving people if you want a real life.)

Forgiveness, the past, and Grace

2010-02-05T17:43:00.000-08:00

I read a post by my good friend Jeremiah today. (www.humblevision.wordpress.com) It has really got me thinking.

I have had a strange painful past, I have had deep a seated worldview that expressed God as either indifferent or not fully the God he claims to be. Either way, it was pretty much a wound that had closed yet closed with some shit in it. This situation, an open wound gets shit in it, then starts to partially heal. Basically a tree enveloping a barbwire fence. That was it. I was no longer bleeding but I was sick.

I was sick. Then I was given the choice and power to let go of the pain, the shit, the pride of being someone.

I grew up with a certain type of pride, I grew up with a deep sense of sexuality, a sick sense of sexuality. The issue that Jeremiah raises is that there is sometimes too much emphasis put on past pain in order to gain freedom. That somehow the fact that I being molested at 4 or 5 is the reason for the shitty choices I make now. That somehow God failed me and therefore I have a right to tell him off and do whatever I want? Right? This pain caused me to do bad things growing up.

Thats bullshit.

I don't mean to say that a persons childhood pain is simple or inadequate, what I say bullshit to, is the fact that I have for a long time defined my worth by that pain, I spent years building up this person that could seen as either martyred or deeply wounded. Somehow thinking that if could be that Christian who was either good or that Christian who was bad then became good I would have the respect and love of those around me. I used my past to measure my present. I said, "I used to do that, I don't anymore." Or I have said, "even though I do this, I don't do that."

The interesting thing is.

Pain sucks. It really sucks, being sick blows! There is nothing in this world to compare with being in pain or sick. Its everywhere I know, but its unique in that it is the direct opposite than how God created the body. It is the everpresent evidence that we are dying, that we are sick, that we are sinful. We? I am sinful! I have sinned! This is what is important, I HAVE BEEN FORGIVEN. So being that I have been forgiven, made whole, pure, righteous, am I still sick? Am I still in pain? In an emotional, mental, physical way, I suppose I am. My body is still gonna die. I am still angry when I shouldn't be, I still lust when I shouldn't. (I just had the urge to say "I lust less than I used to.") I still think about things I shouldn't I still connive, plot, and build conspiracies against those I profess to love. I still and fucking full of myself. So yeah, I'm still sick, and I'm still in pain.

Yet I am not.

Its as if I have gone from being my past and continually building on that, its like I've been taken to the middle of the ocean (and I can walk on water) and all the shitty things I do and say and pursue are the building blocks of a life moving away from God. So I tell my roommate to get bent for not loving me more. I set that on top of the water, laying the foundation for a nice little fortress where he will never be able to touch me with hate or love, nor I him. As I turn to parents and ignore their wanting to show me love and set down that little bit of foundation I notice the roommate piece has sunk. Huh.

So, I'm still sick, I'm still in pain, yet my sin, the sin that I committed, sins that would probably have been committed in one way or another despite my injured heart. That sin, all of the sin just keeps floating to the bottom of the ocean to be crushed and never seen again.

Then again, I think there is a difference between setting down the foundation of sin and holding it, never expressing to anyone how you're drowning because I can't seem to let go. I know full well that life at the bottom of the ocean isn't really that great. In fact it fucking sucks, I still hold on. Building walls around me as I sink twenty thousand leagues.

So I am sick and I am in pain, yet I have been made buoyant, some kind of breath has been breathed in the soul of me. I think the breath was something like this: Yah-weh. So its not so much that I have a past thats painful, its that I have a life that can be painful and I can choose to not sin, choose to let go of my underwater construction projects and float to the open air, float to where the sun will never stop shinning, and if it does it is only to give its sister moon a chance to perform on that beautifully decorated stage.

Jeremiah, I think I maybe more in agreement with you than I had thought, maybe more than you are yourself.

ODW - One Days Wages

2010-01-11T00:15:00.000-08:00

I am truthfully irresponsible when it comes to things we all need to be responsible for. Like for instance, I smoked for two to three years (can't remember when I actually started) and when I thought about quitting six months ago I had a hell of a time doing it. In fact I didn't quit until the beginning of December. All that time between July and December I actually started smoking more. I know why I did it, but that is something I'll relate to you later. I also have been bad, and still have occasions where I am pretty lame, about being responsible with money. I have spent so much money on things that don't matter at all. I have bought expensive meals when I can't afford gas, I bought seven dollar packs of smokes and had to buy another two days later when I couldn't afford it. I have been, on top of all that, relationally irresponsible. I used people for my own gratifications, not so much because I wanted to hurt them or because I was obsessed with ruining peoples lives. Naw, I did it because I wouldn't think about what my actions meant to them. I would feel bad all the time afterwards. (I'm talking about being the kind of guy you warn your female friends about). These things have had deep control over my life. They have had.

They do not anymore. There are a few things that have driven these scum covered desires for the chaos all duress creates, duress in my experience can be created by the person under it. I have been freed! Very freed! I still have trouble with the money thing, I am getting better, but I have been so frickin freed from the other things, it is amazing. It has been a three and half year battle and I have been up to my ears in the lifeblood of demons slain. (I write poetry once in a while.)

About three years ago, after my beautiful God really shook me and created in me a clearer vision and showed me a deeply loving and ridiculous grace driven heart, I discovered the truth about Human Trafficking. Having just been shown, for the first time it seemed, a God whose heart was bigger than any I had ever heard about, bigger it seems than any possible logician could account for. I had, under impeccable logic and understanding begun to emulate his heart. (I'm just kidding about the impeccable part, logic seems to be a problem for me when it comes to faith. Either I have to have logic in order to understand the concept of God, or I can have faith and forget about logic and begin to know God.) Well I spent a lot of the first month with Human Trafficking as a point of sorrow, a point I didn't want to point out to anyone. I didn't talk about it for a long time. The place I discovered Human Trafficking was through a website for men called 'The Deadly Viper" or something cool like that, they even had a sweet website. Well on the bottom of the site they had links to other sites that the men of God who visited the vipersite would be interested in. Being that I was beginning this whole man of God stuff I thought I'd check it out. Little did I know that the Not For Sale Campaign website, i.e. http://www.notforsalecampaign.org/ (btw this is a really long url), was on this list. I didn't even know what it was. I sat there and looked at the banner at the top that read '27 Million People Are Enslaved in the World Today'. When I read it, I kind of chuckled, I honestly chuckled, I didn't think it was true, I thought it was a marketing gimmick for some sales pitch. It couldn't be true, there was no way I could be a little over 20 years old and there could be slaves. That ended a long time ago when our ancestors fought the great Civil War and the great Emancipator Abraham Lincoln took that fateful humanitarian step to free all the people of African descent from slavery. I spent half an hour looking through the site trying to find out what they were trying to sell. By minute 29 it began to dawn on me that this could possibly be real. By minute 30, my life began to be rocked with emotions I was not equipped to deal with. I sat there struck dumb for a long time, don't know how long, no one knows in those moments. Eventually I closed the firefox (I have since switched to Safari for easy rss access) and walked through my pastors kitchen to my bedroom in the lower portion of their house. (I lived at their house for a year and a half after being asked to move in for a month of recovery.)

It has been three years since I began to know about Human Trafficking, the polite term for modern slavery. I spent some of those months in bitter anger at all those who could possibly sell another human being, especially when it came to sex slavery. I became bitterly sad with the realization that girls as young as 5 were being exploited up to 30 times a night by johns, the polite term for men who visit prostitutes. I became enraged as I learned about the exploitation within my own country, I mean come on! "The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency estimates that 50,000 people are trafficked into or transited through the U.S.A. annually as sex slaves, domestics, garment, and agricultural slaves." - http://www.gchope.org/human-slavery-statistics.html

After I was bitterly angry, bitterly sad, and enraged, I began a student org on my campus to deal with this issue, I did a lot of individual research. I talked to a lot of people about this problem I spent a lot of time delving the issues. I began to realize that the major factor that caused people to end up in the situation where they could be trafficked came when there was bitter poverty. Where the options were to sell themselves, or their children, or die of starvation.

One Days Wages (ODW). This is a cool place to cause great change. There are a lot of organizations out there combating poverty and I highly recommend ODW. The founders are Eugene and Minhee Cho. They have decided to donate one years wages, an amazing thing! I am so proud of the human race when I hear about people like Eugene and Minhee! Check out their site, they ask that we donate one days wage, a day of work to end poverty, to make an impact on taking away a cause for slavery. Go to http://www.onedayswages.org/ to learn more. This is an awesome opportunity to be part of something that demonstrates the new philanthropy of a new empowered generation. Btw, one days wage is only .4% of a persons annual wage.

"It is no use walking anywhere to preach unless our walking is our preaching." - St. Francis of Assisi

prayer to be defined...

2008-05-20T20:53:00.000-07:00

God, You are the definition. Meaning is defined by you. I have no capabilities of creating meaning without you. What am I, if not yours. Nothing. To be defined by you is to be defined in the most intrinsic and extrinsic way. Lord I am nothing without you. It is strange, I am so cold right now because I have focused wholly on my nothingness, the fact that I am not defined by my own sense of being. I have focused little to none on my definition in you. Which is only what you have defined me as. You see God, I have realized that I have little to no power in this world. I cannot affect great change. I cannot save the little girls and boys who are being raped ten to twenty times a day in the brothels around the world. I cannot save my friends from the destructive patterns of this world. I cannot change the fact that You have led me to a woman of great strength and integrity and at the same time shown her a path that does not lead to me. I cannot even change the fact that I will do foolish things. The fact that I cannot do these things has led me to be so cold, so numb, I have been so tired of caring for things I cannot change. Lord I am tired. Lord I am upset that I can't change these things. That I can't save these children, or even pursue a daughter of yours. Lord I am tired.

But I realize that my goals in all this has been to define myself as a man who is doing the things You want him to do. My goal has been wrong, I'm shooting at the wrong target. I am doing the wrong things. My meaning, my definition is not me, it is You. So if You, my God, my Creator, my Father, my Lord, my Friend, the One who Loves me, the One I must love, gives meaning to the hopeless, life the dead, then it is not up to me to disregard that. It matters not that I am a man who lives in a small city in the middle of a wealthy country, I can still love You deeply. I can still love those children deeply. I can still care deeply for the friends I cannot change. I can still care deeply for those closest to me, even while they leave. My love is, once again not mine to define. It is Yours. You define me and my Love. I am sorry I do not see it more clearly. I am sorry I fail so often. I am sorry I look away from You when You want me to love and be loved. Lord be with me as I move toward what you have and will do. Let me be content in Your love only. Give me the strength to be all that I am meant to be, and be the man who will love as You love. I am sorry I am not.

awkward...

2008-05-18T19:18:00.000-07:00

-
I miss her. You see I've known her long enough to know that I miss her. It's a strange thing. I know I won't know her long enough. I know she will leave and things will be hard. I'm trying hard not to miss her. Trying very hard. I know I can't see her much now, I want to. I feel awkward because I'm to the point where I want her to talk all the time, to tell me everything that flows in the beautiful mind she has been granted by my God. I feel awkward because I feel as if I have nothing to add and I'm only sitting around listening. I feel awkward because I sit and listen as she plays battleship with friends. I feel awkward because I don't want it any other way. I feel awkward because I must seem awkward to her. I am alright with that. Things don't have to be different. It's not really awkward for me, I'm just paranoid.

Sidewalks

2008-05-17T20:13:00.000-07:00

Cracks at my feet draw my eyes. Chalk develops my art, creating life or death? Sidewalks lead to places I hate yet places I crave. There are people that travel as I do, with their feet following eyes that follow cracks. Chalk fights the boundaries that bind it within its own creation. It leads men and children to individual worlds.

Everyone follows, someone cries out. There is a man fixing our sidewalks. That man stands, strangely familiar, like a king among his men. He draws the attention of all who are searching to follow. This king has fixed all the cracks.

Yet I here I am, still wander these sidewalks, following imaginary cracks to houses and places I hate. To people I regret seeing, my fault alone. He always stands in front of me wondering why I travel with my head down. He asks, commands, in an unheard voice. “Look up. Lead those who follow yet. Teach them as I desire to teach you.” Only my heart hears. My eyes flicker up; they then drop, missing the sidewalks.

Sun slash Rain

2008-05-17T14:12:00.000-07:00

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Its dark again. Raining actually, so its not too dark, it is wet. What will happen when the light comes again and dries the rain? Do I like the rain? Do I like the light? I love them both. Do they contradict each other? I hope not, I hope that this moment in time, when the world is not as it should be, will not carry forever. In conjunction with the rain and sun contradiction. I hope that when the world is as it should be, and this will happen, the sun and rain can coexist. That would be nice.

trades i make

2008-05-13T11:27:00.000-07:00

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The room is blank,
the walls I mean.
I close my eyes,
the same ones.

It is beauty, hope on the rug.
it is evident, this love.
A dark wind blows,
the curtains retain.

Do away, please break the lamp.
open the shades.
Do away, please burn the bed.
ready the trades.

Life for death.
Love for hate.
Blood for dirt.
Sight for dark.

no...

Death for Life.
Hate for Love.
Dirt for Blood.
Dark for Sight.

Morality vs. SurvivalOfTheMostFit

2008-05-12T09:13:00.000-07:00

I was told the other day that it is ridiculous to think that we evolved from primates, who throw feces at each other and kill their young. I immediately thought, 'if thats all humanity could claim as sin, we've done well.' The reality is that we have always thrown shit at each other and killed our young, and the thing is, we do more killing and more throwing of shit in one year than in the entire existence of the primates. This immediately brings me to think of the fact that we are the 'evolved' species and that through natural selection we are the most fit to survive. But how is that? If we, as a whole, very few are excluded, have a sense of morality that brings to light all the horrible things we could and have done, what has natural selection done? It has created a species that will seemingly destroy all others on this planet, all other living things, we may even go so far that we will destroy the non-living. I feel very upset with natural selection. It is a unseeing and uncaring god, it does not move to make any better. It only moves to create those who would destroy everything.
Can you imagine the atrocities that will be committed by our descendant species? If in one jump we went from throwing feces and killing a couple young to: complete genocides, the continual raping of our young, the killing of millions of children, weaponry advanced enough that death is a common theme in every piece of art and entertainment, war.
Do primates war to the point that entire expanses of land are burnt to a blister? Can you imagine what would happen if natural selection went further? What was before the primates? I hear very little about death and destruction created by any other creature than humans. I have heard though, that primates seem to show some tendencies for war, and have even been seen to use tools and weapons of their own creation. It seems ill-conceived that natural selection has created any dependable positive change, through its millenniums of rule.
What is survival of the most fit?
A dangerous concept that only develops deep senses of danger for any species. If it comes down to you and me, and I have a gun, you do not, am I not more fit for survival? You could argue that I am not but will anyway, but did I not have the foresight to bring a gun? The foresight to find the resources for the gun? You see I am more fit if I am able to survive. Survival of the most fit, will inevitably destroy our existence. You could even argue that it is a disease. It is an infection that is slowly causing our body to destroy itself from inside out. I want to welcome you to the end.

When I think of the god of survival of the most fit, I rejoice that I know a God who is not as calloused and is not uncaring. What I see is a God who cares so deeply about our humanity that that God will not destroy it through a intervention that starves us of a will to choose. That God will, relieve pain and show deep insight into ways of living that truly cause life and prevent its antithesis.
I realize that the will to choose is such a first nature event that we seem to mistaken if so often for the uncanny sense of self indulgence. The will to choose is what makes us human. We can, and do very often, choose a course that is contradictory to our nature. Even contradictory to our nurture. I have been naturally predisposed to a sexual nature, all people have. I was nurtured, through a very unfortunate series of events, to find any possible way to fulfill that sexual nature. This is something that is no longer strong enough to persuade me to act. I do not fulfill my sexual nature, and I do not abide the nurturing I experienced. My will to choose was great enough that I choose an option that should not exist. This will to choose is paramount, and is the greatest upset in the history of our universe. It has destroyed us and in the same swipe seemed to redeem us.
It is a ridiculous statement to claim that God has tied the hands of God. I make it. I believe it. God is, by the very nature of being God, powerful in ways we are unable to comprehend. Yet is powerless in the idea that God is Love for humanity. God, power, Loves humanity. Humanity is a hive of creatures obeying, or disobeying, the innate sense of morality deeply intrinsic in being created. We choose. It is evident that our ability to choose has brought about the greatest and the worst. I would not trade my ability to choose for anything, created or possible. My ability to choose is paramount in the reality of knowing that God is God and God will not, because GODisLOVE, take my ability to choose. I am running in circles and I love it.

Whats found in HIST/AIS Notebook...

2008-05-10T12:44:00.000-07:00

_
Dirty blue genes
Dirty stained yellow shirt
Old makeshift fir hat
Spray painted shoes.

This is what I see the world seeing. They don't see love in my eyes.

They don't see the past that has been so destructive.

They do not see the philosophical, mental, and emotional battles that wear on my endurance.

They do not see the passion that fills me. The pain that used to define me.
_________

She lies empty.
Nothing to give.
Everything taken.
She is twelve.
If there are memories
feeling is absent.
To survive is intrinsic,
not amiable.

I write these words for her epitaph, even while taking part in her murder.
_________

DO YOU NOT SEE!!! THE WORLD WE LOVE TO ENVISION IS MURDEROUS.

DO YOU NOT SEE THAT OUR SOCIETY IS BUILT ON SHIT?

DO YOU NOT SEE THAT EVERYTHING WE USE, NECESSARY OR NOT, IS FOSTERED BY THE EXPLOITATION OF OTHERS?
_________

I cannot write for freedom while enslaving myself to ideals of no importance.

Can a society of our grandeur break a world of slavery? Releasing souls, like the Anasazi breaking burial pots?
_________

Lord, Father, I am absurd. I am not of consequence. I am nothing, my enemies overshadow me. Father I cry out with deep necessity and fearful certainty. I need you Lord. I must be yours. I am yours. I am great. I am a writer of truth. I am a poet of grave emotion. I am understood only and always with your grace and your peace.

revolutions we hope....

2008-05-09T23:00:00.000-07:00

A mecca declares to the world of its own righteousness. It declares to the world the truths only believed by those among the tall and proud. Darkness shrouds the world, how can a mecca distribute to the world a cloud? Can it hope to be the only source of light? Does it not strike the reader as odd? Why would a place, a place producing darkness, be a place of light? I cannot imagine such a place. Light cannot produce the darkness intended. Just as Life cannot produce death, it can only be interrupted by death. Just as generosity could not produce poverty, greed cannot produce generosity. There is only a hope that an intercessor can be introduced to produce life.

The silence as he left the podium was expected, he had after all defied all the previous speakers, he declared truth to be different than any had hoped. He told of great things that few had wondered at. Some were upset, noticeable by white knuckles on their padded armrests. The red faces contrasted well with the green curtains and inlaid gold seats. Those not upset carried a feeling of joy and freedom from the mans word, these were few, and dared not upset those next to them, the few were among the weakest in power. It became apparent that if this teaching was accepted they, the powerful, would lose the most. Anger soon overtook most. A moment of frustration gave birth to resigned action. Those with power knew how to use it.

Don’t you realize? All this is important only to those who deem it necessary to keep a firm grip on society. This is apparent in all forms, a man with the strength of knowledge, and the lack of a moral equality with his neighbor, will never give up the position of power that knowledge imparts. Do we not have an obligation now to provide to those powerless and equality? Do we not have a responsibility, if we claim morality, to impart to those weaker the strength of equality? There are so many now, who have more than is reasonable, who still demand a right of distinction, a right of power? Is it not an ugly deception? I demand that we all demand to recognize the origin of distinction, of power.

The street was full of those who cheered. It was also full of those who knew that a small price would be his life for their own power. There wasn’t a price on his head, the power of his enemy’s will does not extend that far, there was however a real acceptance into power, that man who would push the right of power to the limit. The man stepped down from his small footstool. Ten days have passed since he was de-robed by the priesthood. Ten days since he was sent from his quarters as head of social justice. The new man he knew would not make his mistake, which is why he is there. The men within the priesthood have always played the games of power well, never once denying a way to strengthen their own distinction. The power of knowledge filled this mans head as he pushed through the crowd, being cheered and hated. Too many accepted him, and not enough. There was a point when the numbers of his followers were enough to draw attention and not enough to change anything. He must rally all those who are able.

One man…one man. Can we do differently? Am I so different than he? I hope not. I pray not. He has been apart of one of the greatest organizations since the creation of the Imperial. He was a man who had more distinction and power than the majority of the Royalty. A man who denied it all in order to truly fulfill his purpose, he was after all the head of social injustice. Isn’t what he preaches now, not any more, not the correct conclusion of what he was originally there to do. I think we are upset because he has taken it home, he hasn’t only brought to our attention the struggles of all those across the world who are socially beaten and bruised, but to the very people we pretend are not beaten and bruised by us, me, all the Royalty. I will stand by him, even as you threaten to take all my distinction and power. That is not your place.

A young gentleman sat as those he had previously labeled as friends and family inhaled his words. They were angry, they had thought that this meeting was going to produce a way to upset the march against them, not spread his propaganda. There were few among them that would still label themselves as the young gentleman’s friend. They were the few who knew that the preacher spoke truth, and truth was a thing too beautiful to hide.

A Burn as Deep as Morals and Ideas

2008-05-09T22:31:00.000-07:00

A burn as deep as ideas and morals. The scar tissue festers in a remembrance of ill-conceived attempts at morality. The burn threatens my love, it threatens to destroy the very core of my future. The burn pushes toward my soul with unerring accuracy. I look out over green valleys and dark woods. The rock of mountains and cliffs destroy the potential of an easy life. To fall from one is too easy. The sun reaches me in reflections and distortions. I take in what I hope is truth and life, not sure, not knowing what lies underneath the scar tissue that disturbs too many. Life escapes through my actions, I look upon the burn and falling tears become mist around and among the pain. Why do I? What does it take, with pain and scars all too prevalent in a life all to understood? A deepening cut of truth pushes past the shallow pain with a misunderstood cleansing. Life destroys death. That is all I can say now. My life is beyond death. He has protected and secured a destiny for me, one which none will understand, not even me. My scars do not prophesy they are only historians. A forest of love surrounds me as surely as the air defies death. Why does life have such a short memory? No, death commands memory all to well. I am secured. I am sanctified. I am a saint declared by my Lord as his man, his warrior. I can live as his man. I will deny this death that is so prevalent in a world all too real.

Our World Disjointed

2008-05-09T15:23:00.000-07:00

DISCLAIMER: This piece has vulgar language that is, as I see it, necessary. I'm sorry if you must read it and do not wish to see that. I wish it was not necessary. Do not let younger audiences reed this. That means you Gabe.

I cannot see clearly while steeped in remorse. Can I see wholly with ideals working as prisms? This deep attribute seems intrinsic yet undefined. A piece of us we wholly see and never grasp. I am gibberish, I am not speaking with any tongue. Life blankly opens and pours out breath. Do you see me as I am, or as I exist?

Deeply the eyes of pools gaze.
Filled with deep desires my eyes dream.

Nights are filled with the walking dead.
I am forcing your poetry.

Empty? I am not. Blind? I am not.
Can you understand? Can we hope?
Everyday children cry for help.
Everyday children beg for change, metallic and not.

I want to cry. I want to believe that what I know is real. But I don't want to believe that what I know is real. I don't want to know that young boys and girls, who should be playing soccer, who should be singing songs, who should be doing kid things, are being forced to provide sex to old men who have no, or shadows of, morals. Old men who can only see pleasure in the destruction of children who should be playing games with their little friends. Men are taking these children and forcing them to do things we feel shame to think of. WHAT THE F@#$? How can any man let another man do this? Why do we war over land and money and politics and yet we forget our children. Where is this civilized humanity we all want to claim? How the f@#$ can we ever see this as humane? We are f@#$ing idiots playing at genius. Why? Seriously wake up! Be the integrity of human, hold onto any morals or religion you want. Stop this shit. Little kids four and up are being raped everyday. EVERY F@#$ING DAY! Take your intelligence and shove it. Take your wisdom and shove it. Take your honor and shove it. Take your pissy, cock-sucking degrees and shove it. Can you not see the reality of how infectious, destructive, and inhumane we are treating the children of our world! stop.

To Wake Up - the sun shines

2008-05-09T15:22:00.000-07:00

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Shoot the sky. Make it bleed.
Drink the rain. Plant the seed.

Shoot the sea. Make it cry.
Eat the flesh. Fish will fry.

Tattoo the earth. Fill your gut.
Burn the blood. Feed the slut.

Tattoo the air. Singe our breath.
Cage the smoke. Fortell our death.

Defend our soil. Exile relief.
Open your soul. Pith of belief.

Defend our young. Wake the lie.
Burden with truth. Fail to die.

A beginning

2008-05-09T15:06:00.001-07:00

The world is turned around and under again. I look around and hope to stop thinking...stop. You see this is the world I live in, one of great proportions. One I can't comprehend, a world full of truths and lies built on our truths. A world where all lies are fostered by our hopes in things we truly dislike. I write poetry and laugh at poets. I write stories and mock writers. I am not the man I am meant to be. But I will be the man I am meant to be. This may be a dark time. It may be a dark place. But I will continue becoming a man. To everyone, I am crooked. I am not right yet. I am not safe yet. No one is, we will all be hurt at some point. Some time. I am sorry if this is depressing, but I can't help it right now. I am down.