Am I That Different Than Him?

My Grandfather...

Kris Kristofferson...Help Me Make It Through The Night...

"A crisis of faith -- when you seriously question whether what you believe/how you see/what you're committed to is actually true -- is a good thing. It's not pleasant. It hurts. The ground goes wobbly. You may be reaching for sleeping pills or alcohol or a lover to get you from 2 to 4:30 a.m. each night." ~ Kent Annan

My Place Today...Caribou Coffee - Canal Park, Duluth, MN...

Billy Joel...An Innocent Man...

"Some people say they will never believe

Another promise they hear in the dark

Because they only remember too well

They heard somebody tell them before

Some people sleep all alone every night

Instead of taking a lover to bed

Some people find that it's easier to hate

Than to wait anymore..."

Pearl Jam...Black...

  "I'm spinning, oh, I'm spinning

How quick the sun can, drop away

And now my bitter hands cradle broken glass

Of what was everything

All the pictures have all been washed in black,

tattooed everything..."

Pearl Jam...Just Breathe...

 
Yes I understand that every life must end, aw huh...
As we sit alone, I know someday we must go, aw huh...
I'm a lucky man to count on both hands
The ones I love...

Some folks just have one
Others they got none, aw huh...

Stay with me
Let's just breathe
 
Practiced are my sins
Never gonna let me win, aw huh...
Under everything, just another human being, aw huh...
Yea, I don't wanna hurt, there's so much in this world
To make me bleed

Stay with me
You're all I see

Did I say that I need you?
Did I say that I want you?
Oh, if I didn't I'm a fool you see
No one knows this more than me
As I come clean

I wonder everyday
As I look upon your face, aw huh...
Everything you gave
And nothing you would take, aw huh...
Nothing you would take
Everything you gave

Nothing you would take
Everything you gave
Hold me 'till I die
Meet you on the other side

Heavy...

“But somehow I paid the big cost
Inside I felt like I was carryin' the broken spirits
Of all the other ones who lost
When the promise is broken you go on living
But it steals something from down in your soul
Like when the truth is spoken and it don't make no difference
Something in your heart goes cold…”

~ Bruce Springsteen, The Promise

 “…I absolutely renounce all higher harmony. It is not worth one little tear of even that one tormented child who beat her chest with her little  fist and prayed  to ‘dear God’ in a stinking outhouse with her unredeemed tears! Not worth it, because her tears remained unredeemed. They must be redeemed otherwise there can be no harmony. But how, how will you redeem them? Is it possible? Can they be redeemed by being avenged? But what do I care if they are avenged, what do I care if the tormentors are in hell, what can hell set right here, if these ones have already been tormented? And where is the harmony, if there is hell? I want to forgive, and I want to embrace, I don’t want more suffering. And if the suffering of children goes to make up the sum of suffering needed to buy the truth, then I assert beforehand that the whole of truth is not worth such a price.”

~ Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov (Rebellion)

“…when the Inquisitor sell silent, he waited some time for his prisoner to reply. His silence weighed on him. He had seen how the captive listened to him intently and calmly, looking him straight in the eye, and apparently not wishing to contradict anything. The old man would have liked him to say something bitter, terrible. But suddenly he approaches the old man in silence and gently kisses him on his bloodless, ninety-year old lips. That is the whole answer. The old man shudders. Something stirs at the corners of mouth; he walks to the door, opens it, and says to him: ‘Go and do not come again…do not come at all…never, never!’ And he lets him out into the ‘dark squares of the city.’ The prisoner goes away.”

~ Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov (The Grand Inquisitor)

Silence and a kiss are forgiveness and understanding, both louder than any spoken word. But the most difficult to believe and accept.

Sympathy for Eichmann? - Brainstorm - The Chronicle of Higher Education

'With “Why I Feel Bad For the Pepper-Spraying Policeman, Lt. John Pike,” Atlantic magazine senior editor Alexis Madrigal provides a useful discussion of the criminalization of protest and related militarization of police response. Madrigal is quite right that we’re missing the point if we pretend that Pike is an “independent bad actor” and “vilify” him as an individual without analyzing the flawed system of protest policing in which Pike operates. However, Madrigal makes a serious blunder in framing the piece.'

Read more here: Sympathy for Eichmann? - Brainstorm - The Chronicle of Higher Education

The Origin Of Grief - The Dish | By Andrew Sullivan - The Daily Beast

"Grief is the price we pay for friendship."

The Origin Of Grief - The Dish By Andrew Sullivan - The Daily Beast

William Styron on Depression...

“Mezzo del cammin di nostra vita Mi ritrovai per una selva oscura, Ché la diritta via era smarrita.”

“In the middle of the journey of our life I found myself in a dark wood, for I had lost the right path.”

~ Dante

“….pain of severe depression is quite unimaginable to those who have not suffered it, and it kills in many instances because its anguish can no longer be borne. The prevention of many suicides will continue to be hindered until there is a general awareness of the nature of this pain.”

“I felt an immense and aching solitude. I could no longer concentrate during those afternoon hours, which for years had been my working time, and the act of writing itself, becoming more and more difficult and exhausting, stalled, then finally ceased.”

“…in all of its manifestations is the touchstone of depression—in the progress of the disease and, most likely, in its origin.”

“…depression this faith in deliverance, in ultimate restoration, is absent. The pain is unrelenting, and what makes the condition intolerable is the foreknowledge that no remedy will come—not in a day, an hour, a month, or a minute. If there is mild relief, one knows that it is only temporary; more pain will follow. It is hopelessness even more than pain that crushes the soul.”

“ I partook of what may be depression’s only grudging favor—its ultimate capitulation. Even those for whom any kind of therapy is a futile exercise can look forward to the eventual passing of the storm. If they survive the storm itself, its fury almost always fades and then disappears. Mysterious in its coming, mysterious in its going, the affliction runs its course, and one finds peace.”

“…but it has been shown over and over again that if the is dogged enough—and the support equally committed and passionate—the endangered one can nearly always be saved. Most people in the grip of depression at its ghastliest are, for whatever reason, in a state of unrealistic hopelessness, torn by exaggerated ills and fatal threats that bear no resemblance to actuality. It may require on the part of friends, lovers, family, admirers, an almost religious devotion to persuade the sufferers of life’s worth, which is so often in conflict with a sense of their own worthlessness, but such devotion has prevented countless suicides.”

“… antiquity—in the tortured lament of Job, in the choruses of Sophocles and Aeschylus—chroniclers of the human spirit have been wrestling with a vocabulary that might give proper expression to the desolation of melancholia.”

“For those who have dwelt in depression’s dark wood, and known its inexplicable agony, their return from the abyss is not unlike the ascent of the poet, trudging upward and upward out of hell’s black depths and at last emerging into what he saw as “the shining world.” There, whoever has been restored to health has almost always been restored to the capacity for serenity and joy, and this may be indemnity enough for having endured the despair beyond despair.

“E quindi uscimmo a riveder le stelle.”

“So we came forth, and once again beheld the stars.”

~ Dante

~ William Styron, Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness  

To Be In Silence...

"The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares."

~ Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Road to Daybreak

What I Have Been Reading...

Unholy Ghost: Writers on Depression – Nell Casey

The Politics of Jesus – John Howard Yoder

The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression – Andrew Solomon

The Return of The Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming – Henri Nouwen

Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness – William Styron

De Profundis – Oscar Wilde

Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life – Richard Rohr

Dark Nights of the Soul: A Guide to Finding Your Way Through Life’s Ordeals – Thomas Moore

Jesus Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in The Bible – Bart Ehrman

Unprotected Texts: The Bible’s Surprising Contradictions About Sex and Desire – Jennifer Wright Knust

The Hours – Michael Cunningham

The Paris Wife – Paula McLain

Heidegger’s Glasses – Thaisa Frank

Sophie’s Choice – William Styron

The Orthodox Heretic: And Other Impossible Tales – Peter Rollins

A New Kind of Christianity – Brian McLaren

Poke the Box – Seth Godin

Common English Bible

Lonely Planet Italy

My Week...The Winner Takes It All...

How I Feel Tonight...Like An Acrobat...

"No, nothing makes sense, nothing seems to fit.
I know you'd hit out if you only knew who to hit.
And I'd join the movement
If there was one I could believe in
Yeah, I'd break bread and wine
If there was a church I could receive in.
'Cause I need it now.
To take the cup
To fill it up, to drink it slow.
I can't let you go.

And I must be an acrobat
To talk like this and act like that.
And you can dream, so dream out loud
And don't let the bastards grind you down."

Smoking, Drinking, Swearing and The Kingdom of God....

“Evangelicals believe they are saved by grace through faith (Eph. 2:8-9), but then add a man-made waiver that you have to work as hard as you can to meet middle-class behavioral patterns to hang onto it. It seems to be contrary to the Gospel, where among the many teachings of Jesus regarding servanthood, the last become first. It is an upside-down kingdom contradicting what the natural order of the first and the best winning. The Church therefore should be radically opposed to such a success syndrome. It seems this affected Bono.

Another strange quirk about the Church is it has specific qualities that indicate whether you are an ‘acrobat.’Usually, they have to do with swearing, smoking, and drinking.

For some reason, there are biblical teachings that do not – but perhaps should – hold so much importance. Among them: materialistic greed, bigoted prejudice, the oppression of women, or the neglect of social justice. Somehow you can ignore many of the rallying calls of Christ and the prophets, and because you are teetotal and less flowery with your language and attend church twice a week, you are declared spiritually strong….Jesus told a parable about the kingdom of God where the sheep enter the kingdom, and the goats are left outside (Matt. 25:31-46).

Jesus didn’t say the goats smoked, drank, or swore too much. He said they didn’t get involved in changing the circumstances of the marginalized by feeding them when they were hungry, and visiting them in prison. These were the issues of His kingdom.”


~ Steve Stockman, from Walk On: The Spiritual Journey of U2

Depression - some thought...

“…you have to keep going when you are depressed. That means phone calls, appointments, errands, holidays, family, friends, and colleagues. For me, this is where things got tangled. Depression brought to me a new rationing of resources: for every twenty-four hours I got about three, then two, then one hour worth of life reserves – personality, conversation, motion.”

~ Virginia Heffernan from Unholy Ghost: Writers on Depression

 “In depression, the meaningless of every enterprise and every emotion, the meaninglessness of life itself, becomes self evident. The only feeling left in this loveless state is insignificance.”

“The first thing that goes is happiness. You cannot gain pleasure from anything….Eventually, you are simply absent from yourself.”

“Rebuilding of the self in and after depression requires love, insight, work, and, most of all, time.”

“The only way to find out whether you’re depressed is to listen to and watch yourself, to feel your feelings and then think about them. If you feel bad without reason most of the time, you’re depressed.”

“Illness of the mind is real illness.”

“Depression is a condition that is almost unimaginable to anyone who has not know it.”

“It was when life was finally in order and all the excuses for despair had been used up that depression came slinking in on its little cat feet and spoiled everything.”

“Depressives have seen the world too clearly, have lost the selective advantage of blindness.”

“So many people have asked me what to do for depressed friends and relatives, and my answer is actually simple: blunt the isolation. Do it with cups of tea or with long talks or by sitting in a room nearby and staying silent or in whatever way suits the circumstances, but do that. And do it willingly….The loving is that you are there, simply paying attention, unconditionally.”

“The opposite of depression is not happiness but vitality.”

~ Andrew Solomon, The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression

Credo by Jane Kenyon - A Primer on Depression

“Pharmaceutical wonders are at work

but I believe only in the moment

of well-being. Unholy ghost,

you are certain to come again.

Coarse, mean, you’ll put your feet
on the coffee table, lean back,

and turn me into someone who can’t

take the trouble to speak; someone

who can’t sleep, or who does nothing

but sleep; can’t read, or call

for an appointment for help.

There is nothing I can do

against your coming.

When I awake, I am still with thee.

~ from Having it Out of Melancholy in Unholy Ghost: Writers on Depression

A Poem....

“A poem is a portrait of consciousness. It’s a recording of the motions of a mind in time, a mind communicating to others the experience of its own consciousness. When I read or write a poem, I’m trying to open a window between my mind and the minds of others. But it’s also a study of the self, which is a positive kind of work.”

~ Chase Twichell from Unholy Ghost: Writers on Depression

Toward a Better Future for Gays at Evangelical Seminaries by Andrew Marin

Toward a Better Future for Gays at Evangelical Seminaries

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25 Books Every Christian Should Read - Tony Jones at Theoblogy

25 Books Every Christian Should Read (and I Agree!) « Theoblogy

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Poetic Memory...

I want to sit with someone that I care about and that cares about me and simply be for a long time. For part of a day and into the night, talking when we want to talk, and sharing in the silence when that is all there is. To feel the tangible closeness of two souls next to each other as the slow moments of time elapse. Content, relaxed, at peace – finally arriving at that place where poetic memories are created and captured for eternity.

Not What You Think

To lead without leading,

Perfection in imperfection,

Succeeding in failing,

Going up in going down,

Grace in sinning,

Winning in loosing,

Expression in absorption,

Life in death,

Certainty in uncertainty,

Faith in doubt,

Creativity in suffering,

Love in hate,

Victory in the Cross.

Text and Punctuation

A text is like a body, a country, a language. You can know it on the surface, what you see at first, how it is first read.  The literal thing there is in front of you. Yet, to see the literal is not to know the thing, it must be explored and journeyed over and your heart must fall in love with it to know it fully. And still life is punctuation. It is what gives form to our stories, defining the parameters of our souls.

A Time Before

A time with nothing.

A time before.

Before translucent souls,

Nymphs of the ache,

In the sun on the rocks.

A soul leaving footprints,

Signs of life leaving.

New life after the before,

Color from the black and white,

Effervescent illumination of the once drab and silent.

Liminal Space...

When you’re touched profoundly by someone while you inhabit liminal space, the one who touched you becomes quite special to your soul.

Story...

The beginning and the end of any story are also at the same time a part of the story, the narrative is alive and is in process, becoming out of being. A journey of discovery, there are not ideals to be achieved but a story to be lived. To stop doing and simply be in the midst of your story is to find a semblance of peace; to experience grace in each moment of living.

Helpless...

For The Good Times...

Hmmm...Well...Maybe...

"She put him out like the burnin' end of a midnight cigarette
She broke his heart he spent his whole life tryin' to forget
We watched him drink his pain away a little at a time
But he never could get drunk enough to get her off his mind
Until the night..."