Back In Time

Well, I haven't posted anything in almost two months. Although I've had some passionate discussions on important subjects with some close friends, there's been nothing I felt like writing about. So... I've decided to reach back in my distant past, a past in which I used to write constantly, usually in the form of very brief stories, poems or what I called "Notes to Myself". This was about 1993, fifteen years ago!!! After re-reading alot of these writings, and in light of my life and beliefs today, many have taken on a whole new meaning for me than what I originally intended when I wrote them. In the next few weeks or days or months, I'll share some of these thoughts from back in time.

As many of you know me as kind of a quiet fellow, I used to write about things like solitude and feeling like an alien. For example:

Solitude is both a precious gift and a curse.

Like a sweet chocolate, we all crave it at times, but only for a taste as too much can make one sick.

As He did, we all need to disconnect from the multitudes at times and reconnect with that which breathes fire into our souls.

Where the demands are few and the love has no conditions.

When our fire is burning low after so many's expectations met, solitude is a blessed reward.

But any blessing can be turned to ill as those confined to solitary aloneness within steel-barred homes can attest; or a child banished to cry alone behind the locked door of a space fit only for hangars; or an adult-child shunned by all when solitude means failure.

Being connected with the Source is the key to never being alone in the crowd.

The Source keeps us grounded and fans the embers to a healthy glow, but humanity is another piece of the Source without which we cannot be complete.

I love Solitude......................................... in measured portions.

So stay connected to the Source: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Use solitude on occasion to help stay connected to the Source, but know that we are made to share our humanity with others like us too and we need that connection as well. On the topic of our senior pastor's current sermon series, Leaving Lust Vegas, it's also important to remember that the enemy can use too much solitude to make you numb and disconnected. The evil one will then try to lead you into temptation and this should be avoided at all costs. A quick poem I wrote 15 years ago perhaps illustrates how one can get deluded into believing that worldly pursuits will result in a true deep connection, when in fact they are just like stone-skipping on the surface:

Cold air rushes by,

Unfelt.

Updrafts, downdrafts

Pass unnoticed but for occasional

Swift jarring,

Absorbed painlessly as cleaver to carcass.

My engine's soft whirr

Spelling silence breaks

And reminds me my presence

Being real,

Propelling me within this steel case.

What a scene below!

The sounds, colors, smells

Swirling up, up and around

My propellers splashing them

Against the shield.

Deceit most assured,

This cursed craving being all too human

Draws my sight from the hook

To pursue hopeful lure

Ashamedly

Not unknown to me.

Real contact

Tempts me down again,

Wheels only skimming the surface,

Stone-skipping,

Illusory ground only liquid earth after all.

Contact denied.