AngelBeast777's Xanga

Friday, September 25, 2009

Fri, 25 Sep 2009 16:52:05 GMT

On the 5% Solution

Actually, I have little to say about the 5% Solution other than April loved Sherlock Holmes, so I hope she will have a chance to meet A C Doyle if she hasn't already.

I'm finishing up my last Friday at AWI and my second to last in Tally. I'm not being given any work I assume because there's not that much going around and they want Nilesh trained and as busy as possible. Hence, the time to write this and maximize my time with my fb military pursuits.

I feel like I'm molting a little too soon. I'm dying to get the hell out of here because I know I have to, not because I want to leave the people. I don't. I'll miss you all horribly! But we are not about pleasing ourselves according to our understanding beyond trusting the One Who made us to do so. We were made for Him and He will do more for us than we can do for ourselves when we trust and obey Him. Far more. Besides, I have electronic ways to keep tabs on you all. I just wish it could all be over and I would be in Jax sorting through the packed boxes at the storage unit, playing with my nephews, working out with my brother, and hanging out with my parents and old high school buddies (I'm one of the few who left, and fewer who returned). Hopefully, in two weeks I will be settled into my new situation.

There is much to look forward to in J'ville - time with the youngest and middle nephew, jamming and maybe playing publicly with my eldest nephew, getting into shape again, catching up with old friends, spending time with the parents. So there is once again a split or a tearing from one very good to another good, but very different. Everything will change - all my associations and my whole lifestyle. Though some change is good it is still stressful in direct correlation to the intensity of the change. It is this stress that I look forward to seeing wane so that I can somehow have my peace return.

Monday, September 21, 2009

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 17:51:38 GMT

On the Religious Solution

Realize its all about your intimacy with the Triune. No intimacy with Him, no hope for anything else. You will find Him when you seek Him with all your heart, so seek Him with all your heart all the time. Keep Him with you - He's there already anyway.

Let Him love you and let His love in as deeply as you can stand it. His love is the only thing that can change a heart of stone to one of flesh. Learn to know His voice and train yourself to obey it by remembering all the benefits of the times you obeyed previously as well as the detriments of all the times you chose not to. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not unto your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight.

If we all do these things and He will heal the Church, order the society, heal the land, and bring about never-before-seen prosperity. If enough of us forsake them we will see everything get worse than we've ever seen it. Aren't we headed that way already? Until we experiencially know Love, no political solution will work. Once His love is flowing through all of us no political solution will be necessary. But, that, my friends, won't happen until we are all changed in the twinkling of an eye. Until then, all we can do is be cisterns of His love to each other and the world - fill up, pour out, fill up, pour out, fill up.

Friday, August 14, 2009

Fri, 14 Aug 2009 17:29:46 GMT

On the Political Solution

I finally got politically involved in my late 20's when preachers and radio personalities began making me aware of certain issues. Back then I thought lending my voice to the debate or the volume would make a significant difference. Although it made a difference, it only made a tiny temporary difference.

As time went on I began considering the political and governmental areana. Where was it, exactly, and how did it become that way? What motivated the "representatives" to vote one way or another? Was this the best form of government currently available to mankind?

Slowly, but surely, I've been taken in a straight line to my present position. The problems the current government is trying to address, and progressives have been trying to address for a century and a quarter do not fall into the political arena, but the spiritual arena. The purpose for government should be to keep the peace with the maximum liberty possible. It’s the purpose of the spiritual to take care of one another (or not, according to LeVey). The government keeps one family out of another families business and deals with them when they disregard the imperative. The church looks after the needs of those who have difficulty caring for themselves.

But people are not basically good. We are basically insecure and will do almost anything to try and feel more secure. For some this involves behaviors that destroy themselves, including taking drugs and certain consentual sexual encounters. For others it involves behaviors that harm or destroy others - driving under the influence of substances, sexual encounters with STDs, non-consentual sexual encounters, theft, brutality. Still others behave in a way that harms and destroys the whole social order in their quest to find a way to feel more secure - building businesses that pollute, cornering a market, preventing healthy competition in the marketplace, and terrorism for unrelated examples.

Everyone seeks to meet their perceived needs and most use something other than that which will meet that need. Like a thirsty man who has only known salt water, he peers at what looks like it should suffice for him - its clear, cool, and glistens in the sun. He drinks it and ends up only thirstier.

But the problem is spiritual. Our true water is love. But we have never known the real thing. We've known things like it and close to it, but not the pure, clean, crystal stuff that satisfies our taste and saturates our body through the bloodstream. Love is in the realm of the spiritual and not the governmental. The two should remain separate even though they effect one another. Without the freedom and order provided by healthy government the spiritual has difficulty thriving. And without love, power becomes the governing rule.

So then, ultimately, the solution is a spiritual one. In fact, if perfect love ruled in a perfect people, there would be no need for government of any sort. But we are not perfect, and no government made of us can be. We are hopeless without an outside source of Love in its purest form, filling us to overflowing and cascading down to all who will receive it.

Therefore, I endeavor to ignore politics since it can only accomplish more distruction and less freedom as it is. And I look to Love to see how I might be filled to overflowing, pouring that love into others as I'm directed by that Love.

Sting had it right, "There is no political solution, to our troubled evolution." Now all that remains it to define purest love, find its source, and fill ourselves up like cisterns to pour into others what we all need most.

Thursday, July 30, 2009

Thu, 30 Jul 2009 18:06:36 GMT

Your Rain

Its been a long time without You

Its been a dry time without Your touch

I'm coming out from the anesthesia

And I think I can feel You around me again

And I believe that I miss You

My hunger has regenerated

Its feeling good to feel alive again

And I'm ready to run, run in Your rain,

Your fresh, cleansing rain is falling on me

All of my deadness is falling away

And like a flower untended so long

I respond to Your love, Your love like a sweet, cooling rain

You show me the future in glimpses

But only a snapshot or two

Then when I doubt I've heard what You've said

You reassure me with a clear déjà vu

So now I'm reinvigored I trust what You've said

And I can move now one more step ahead

More deeply into darkness as I walk

Another joyous step closer to Your light

And into Your fresh, cleansing rain pouring down

Flooding my soul without a sound

Writing a symphony of the ways of Your love

Let me rejoice and dance, dance in your sweet, cooling rain

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 16:46:45 GMT

One End is the Beginning of Another

The renting of the house is set up. Friends will be moving in in a couple of months. I'm getting anxious because my time assumptions are not working out. The order is fine. I just thought I'd have heard about when I'm to move to J'ville by now.

My roomie will be out in a matter of days and the house will be quiet again. This time I think I'm ready for it. It will give me time to say goodbye and prepare to be where there is little reminder of April. I expected the stronger waves of emontion to come earlier rather than so late. But at least they're coming. I am a stuffer of emotions after all.

I'm ready to leave this city. I'm not ready to leave the kids, but you can't do the former without the latter. At least there's the plethora of ways to keep in touch through the net. You can't have the new without releasing the old. I'm ready for the new - time to molt.

I'm wondering if I'm supposed to move to J'ville in October when the tennants move in or if I'm supposed to wait for some specific occurrence there. I truly wouldn't mind getting out of working for the gov't. I will miss the pay that Abba has provided me in this job. I am unclear as to what I'm supposed to be doing in J'ville until the go ahead is given for Oz. But this is how Abba works, no? You get what you need only when you need it. I reckon its one of His ways of getting us to live in the moment, eh? That's been one of the most difficult things for me to learn, and one I haven't succeeded in yet.

My heart toward women has been a point of strong examination as of late. It has been very painful and yet very interesting. There is much that needs changing in me and a bit that already has begun to change. This is something that has long been needed, something that caused some major problems between April & me. I will be glad to have Abba's heart in that area.

I've been reading much about history, politics, and economics recently. I feel I have a good feel for the effects of all that is being offered to us. However, I also realize that "there's no political solution to our troubled evolution." All our problems are spiritual. However, when I consider reading books in the spiritual area I balk because I don't trust the writers anymore. Or maybe its that I've still not processed what all I've read so far. The Bible, though, is not out of bounds. I'm still getting some good meat out of that.

I feel like I'm blindfolded and being guided to the end of a divingboard below which is unknown - water? mattresses? concrete? air, air, and more air? Exciting, eh?

Subterrainian Anger

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 18:39:34 GMT

Day after day I make my way wounded and worn as we are

Waiting for time and Love, Himself, to heal what's distractingly sore

Time and again it rises within, the bitter response to the loss

And time and again I swallow it down wondering when I'll be rid of the dross

Days non-incidental, nights so delightful, sometimes I feel in the clear

Nights with a good book, days in the sunshine, smiles from those I hold dear

Then sniping their poisonous darts without warning, mocking my security

Memories flooding the bittersweet passions that never again will touch me

The anger rumbles beneath and I find I'm grinding my teeth

I feel destruction flooding my veins

A fist through a window, a mangled dining room chair

I swallow and act like I'm sane

Each morning I wake saying "Please, may I stay with the pillows and sheets?"

And each morning I hear gently, "No."

So I rise from the gentleness into stark stressfulness into the world

Where I know no true love flows.

But each evening as I ease my back on the mattress and the pillow kisses my face

I thank my Mentor for getting me through the day's maze with a semblance of grace

I turn out the light, secure in the night because I know His power is there

So I sleep like a log, on through the fog that I know will soon leave the air

And I trust in the One Who will get it all done as He leads me to the next stage

Of growing in life, growing in love, making me wiser with age

And deep in my soul He is making a hole to leak out the anger and pain

And soon only light will invade my heart's sight, but I will still walk with a cane

But I will have exhaled the poison gas of subterrainian anger.

Thursday, June 25, 2009

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 19:25:40 GMT

15 High Impact Books

I got this from Facebook. Thought you all might enjoy it, too.

Directions: don't take too long to think about it. Fifteen books you've read that will always stick with you. First fifteen you can recall in no more than 15 minutes.

These are in no particular order:

The Bible

Call of the Wild - Jack London

The Bourne Identity - Ludlum

Inca Gold - Clive Cussler

The Yearling - Rawlings

Animal Farm - Orwell

Brave New World - Huxley

Tortured for His Faith - Haralan Popov

Desiring God - Piper

Principals of Spiritual Growth - Stanford

Liberal Fascism - Jonah Goldberg

The Peacemaker - Ken Sande

Illusions - Richard Bach

A Wrinkle in Time - Madeleine L'Engle

That Hiddeous Strength - C S Lewis

Snapshot 40238

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 18:26:54 GMT

Did I watch you close enough to know your details - what you love, what excites you, what makes you feel loved? Or was I so absorbed in fear of man, the fear that I might never measure up to being a man that I could rarely see outside myself? Did I see you? No wonder you were always so hungry! No wonder you wondered if I loved you in the last days! Am I truly so well-ensnared that there is so little of me that gets out to truly love?

Father, evermore remove these snares on my heart! Free me to love You with complete abandon as well as those whom You send me to pour Your love out on! May I not live in whimpers until I die, having not lived at all!

Lies! Lies! Lies! All so warmly embraced! All so firmly debilitating! The slow oh so comfortably familiar suffocation. Shall I die or climb out? Is it too late to climb out and have any valuable life left? Oh! Why do You have me still here?!?! You know I'll only blunder things up and make Your name more odious!!! You see the evil place my mind is at! You know what my deceitful heart is capable of, is on the verge of doing even now! It tortures me that You keep me here in this state! Have mercy, Father, mercy!

"Wait."

*SIGH*

Okay.

Tuesday, June 02, 2009

Tue, 02 Jun 2009 17:40:05 GMT

State of the Onion

My life seems to consist of monotanies, some fun, some less so, which roll along at a regular pace against the background of huge impending changes. My weeks are set with Monday night small group, Tuesday night date night, Wednesday night walks through the Greenway, occasional Saturday night small groups, and Sunday laundry. That leaves Thursday, Friday and some Saturdays to pick up my bass, which some of you will be glad to hear I'm doing, and working on certain old Rush, Yes and Kansas tunes again. After I feel I've mastered them appropriately I'll probably pick up some Flea bass lines since I enjoyed his funk style when one of my last bass students requested to learn a couple of RHCP songs.

Anyway, this goes on week in and week out as I wait for things to fall into place so that my move to Australia will be smooth. The thing is Abba told me it wasn't going to happen overnight. Its going to take months. Plus there is the possibility of something no one wants to happen will move me away from here for a few months. I hope the reason for the move is innocuous, though it hasn't been revealed to me with any specificity.

So the house has to sell (my inlaws want to buy my half, but are moving at a pace that is slower than I'd like, but which is probably prudent for them), then the move to Jax for whatever reason, then the move to Oz. The waiting is grating on my nerves. I have strong feelings about each part of the trek.

So I have this excruciation in the background while I go to small group, take a little one out for shopping, food and the Fun Station, or walk the Greenway, do my laundry or wonder why my finger is finding so hard to find that fret in this progression.

Also, so many people want me to remarry. I'm not sure what the different motives are, but every time I consider it the notion is not pleasant. I've barely begun to enjoy my freedom. The main reason I wanted to marry was to have someone to grow old with and share memories made when so few have that in their 80's and 90's. I believe I now have that with Abba, and that it will suffice for me for the rest of my life. Besides, I like how my heart is changing toward those of the fairer sex, though there's much more changing that needs to happen in that area.

I have a great adventure set before me, if I live long enough to enjoy it. And with great enthusiasm I'm looking forward to living it out.

Friday, May 22, 2009

Fri, 22 May 2009 19:32:06 GMT

Untitled

(Why do people use this since it's mere existence contradicts itself?)

I picked up a few more CDs to continue the nephew's musical lexicon. I'm reading "A Brave New World" and "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance". It is interesting how the excitement levels of these two books rises and falls complementarily. I bought a Clint Eastwood western DVD and Heat on the cheap. These may be the first DVD's I have ever bought for myself. Strange, huh?

I wrote a note to one of the college kids who is struggling with finding the humility to ask for things. Interestingly, this one wants to be a social worker. "I'll help you but you can't help me!" It got me thinking about why I find it so difficult to ask for help. I think its because I don't want to find out that I'm not as loved as I would like to think I am.

I haven't seen my neighbor since she made dinner for me a couple of weeks ago. I hope she's doing okay. I'm not feeling like I'm supposed to be going over there to take the onslaught of her anger toward all things right of socialism and all things Christian. I understand that she has been brainwashed into this political anger. I also understand her anger towards all things Christian since she has been so miserably treated by her family in the name of Christianity. April & I have hoped that our love for her would aswage it somewhat, but she seems to have dug in pretty deeply in the safety of her rage. I'll probably knock on her door sometime this weekend to make sure she's hanging in there okay.

I still haven't purchased a new cord to hook my bass and amp up. Hopefully I'll do that this weekend as well. I really need to work on that Yes, Kansas, and Rush stuff for my sanity's sake. I've been spending way too much time watching movies and killing off civilizations on the PC.

A neighbor is an awesome jazz violinist. Once a month or so he and his wife invite some friends over for a three person concert for the evening. Some of their friends invited me last month. People bring nibbles and drinks and they play their fingers off. Last time he was accompanied by a bass teacher from FAMU and a piano teacher from FSU. There was nothing they couldn't play. They were phenomenal! Only 20 or so people can fit in the house and get to witness this musical excellence. How do I end up in such places of privilege so often? What is Abba training me for? Or is He just reminding me how much He loves me?