....oh, and so much to learn, i have.

i miss greenville.

i want to live near a college campus all the time, i think. or be a part of one, either in teaching...loving a man who teaches, or working administratively. i miss greenville way bad. i always do. and it's not even missing the place; it's feeling like i need to be there. i need to be where truth is being sought and people are living and getting their hands dirty and really seeking Christ. i need that culture, not the american dream i'm currently living.

i miss you, community. i need you. i want you.

and God said...

'i asked you to have the faith of a child, not the fear of a child...'

...

'have no fear.'

...

'don't fear.'

two weddings in two days

and i want to get married so bad.

are you living 'cause you think it's finally over? are you dying 'cause you think you're gonna die...

the most dangerous lesson in life, i believe, is that no good will truly come to us until we realize that our good is doing good for others. at least it's dangerous to everything we think is significant (ourselves; our well-being).

sometimes i feel like i'm on the verge of things so counter-cultural and so unlike the average thought-process of the teenage kid, and it makes me so sad. i feel like i have this grasp of truth and wisdom. not that i am wise, mind you. i will not make that claim. but that i have a picture of what that could be in my life and i find so few who share that.

i know so few willing to give anyone, especially their enemies, the benefit of the doubt. so few willing to see past annoyances and really try and understand the outcast and the murderer and the idiot. so few willing to see that the world is bigger than what's around them and that truth is not something to ever be fully discerned and labeled. so few willing to love what they loathe and fear the most. this is Christ.

but self-love is often comparable to cancer and it rarely finds it's cure.
i'm learning the distance between believing the truth of something and living it. and it's a trek, lemme tell you. but not impossible, either.

i am stuck in a polarity. i'm trying to figure out how to make life have sense despite all humanity's senseless shit. i'm trying to understand death and learn how to not fear it. i'm trying to learn that i have control of my thoughts and fears and anxieties, and that true peace comes in the heart of the storm, rarely in the fear of it.

"the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself"

but what about everything that could happen to me.
what if someone kills me.
what if someone kills my boyfriend.
what if i lose my mind.
what if i die in africa.
what if.
what if
what if.
what the hell if.

Christ is real. perfect love and peace exist and they are waiting for me, they are. they really are. if only i could know this.

i don't know how to deal with everything. it seems as if there's so much to be understood. there's so much wisdom i've yet to gain enough to deal with these massive ugly questions tattooed on my brain. i have to learn how to cope with the reality that i am not safe. nothing is certain and everything is as endless as I make it, and there's so much more to life than death.
i simply don't know how to live outside the illusion of complete security.

i haven't given up on purpose, though. i haven't given up on the notion that everything that seems senseless and unjust and insane on God's part is completely intentional. like i said, i believe on an intellectual level that Christ is real. And if that's true, then all my hopes of goodness and compassion and understanding are very much within reach. and that if those things aren't fulfilled in this life, they'll be fulfilled somewhere else.

man, Christ is real.

maybe the sun will shine today...either way

you make me feel like being alive again. thanks.
i miss you already.

unfortunately

i can't help but see more than smiling faces and dancing bodies and all the signs of good music.
that should be fun.
that would be fun.
that could be my fun, maybe.

but probably not.

it looks to be my epitome of being whole; being alive.
aware of plight and struggle, but resilient hence.

man, but it's not. because all i can really see is that i'm not there.
all i see are better photos than i take of better people and better, whatever...
i will never be there.
i will never make music like that.
i will never make friends like that.
you want to be christ, but i know i'd be excluded.
by no fault of your own, mind you.
unfortunately society does have a game and we are all pawns and knights and rooks and bishops whether we like it or not.
you mofos can move where you like and i'm kinda stuck moving sideways one position at a time


you are hipsters. you are homeless.
you are vibrant and witty and with a social knack i'll never know

but you're not everything.
you don't have everything.
and you won't have my sins any more.

(and they're not better photos.)

everything is so beautiful.

read Gilead.