Consume vs Create

My eyes open wider when i let myself be taught. When i let the spirit of God work through my experiences of light and of darkness, i can see and feel more clearly with a heart and mind of revelation. God's truth, once meshed with the life and experience of a human being acts similarly to conscience. The thing about God though is that he does not often force us to change into a deeper sense of knowing, he waits upon those who will respond to his call to live out His kingdom. But the truth is somehow written on our hearts, that it makes sense to those whom God reveals it. One of these unspoken or hidden truths has come to me tonight as a culmination of feelings and errings over this year, a general theme in my thought patterns that now has a name and identity.

In life, we have two options, to consume or to create. This will generally apply to anything involving people and the kingdom. The worst type of consumption i have discovered to date is the consumption of people as commodities, something to be bought and sold, as inhuman material objects, as resources. The first and most obvious disgrace is that of the slave trade, in which people are bought and sold as sex slaves, cheap labor, militia, illegally adopted children etc.. (for more information, visit www.stopthetraffik.org) But even in our everyday lives, we take and take and take from the people we meet, and we value them by their equivalent worth to us by whatever need or deficit we have. Just for a few examples...
*The employer who treats a staff member purely on an input/output basis without any recognition of them as a human being
**The man/woman who satisfies his/her sexual desires with pornography at the expense of the sons and daughters, mothers and fathers that produce it.
***The musician that only appreciates his fans during a show, then later disregards them
****The many of us who continue to buy tea and coffee at a cheap price at the expense of poor farmers/producers over the other side of the world.
*****The person who uses others as pawns to gain social status or position, whether it be in business or in their personal life.

These kinds of thing have become very apparent to me lately, but the thing that i realised about all these and similar situations is that they can all be redeemed, there is another side to the coin, in each scenario, there is a chance to create! I encourage to seek for the opportunity to create...

You imagine what it could be like if we saw our relationships a bit differently, if we treated people with dignity and respect, if we escaped from this cultural mindset and world view of dog-eat-dog and profit margins!

Pain brings us closer

This recent month has brought me through something deeply painful in my life. The kind of pain that cripples you and brings you sleepless nights, agony and sorrow. One thing that i have discovered about myself or my life i guess, is that there is only one undeniable thing that seems to keep me hanging on. Even if hanging on looks remarkably like hopelessness and depression. The one thing that somehow sustains me is that God IS... He IS... People and relationships, circumstance and status, worth and value can all fall away, but one thing that will never change is God. Because he just IS, and always was. For me, He will always become, right at that last dying painful moment, the certainty that keeps me going... It is at points like these, I believe we are closest to God, in our moments of utter dependency. At these times, there is such a clarity and honesty about the way we relate to Him, and how we feel about Him. If anything, this must give us hope. My wish for all of us who are hurting and lost in these moments of life is this... that we would find God's Peace, and learn to become at one with that peace. To let go of all the things that we attempt to control and manipulate, no matter how painful. To just sit, and feel His presence, and in that moment to know, that He IS...

Love

Sometimes it's hard to know what to do, in the face of such radical, intense love that makes you want to cry. So i just sat, and was silent. So over-run by my emotions, so much gratitude that i could not speak. I just remained silent and thanked my God that He is who He is. This demonstration of love to me was so powerful, that i felt powerless to return anything, except to realise that there was nothing i could do to prove myself. Nothing i could do to earn more of Gods love and the love of my fellow house mates, and nothing i could do to loose it.

Here's a poem i just wrote...

My soul dies to the fabricated screens of an alternate fantasy
I am captured & tortured, disfigured until i forget reality
Life blooms in an opaque prison for my mind
And in this place i am held captive until i am lost & blind
Dreams that play out in an eternal abyss of deception
Scrapping at the walls of hope for attention
Black fingernails clutching desperately for life
Fed by the endless stream of youth, innocence & depression...

A Perfect Circle "Judith"

...this song particularly stood out to me tonight, I'm not sure why, and i have no comment about it, but below are the lyrics i found interesting...

"You're such an inspiration for ways
That i will never ever choose to be.
Oh so many ways for me to show you
How your savior has abandoned you.

Thank(fuck) your god.
Your Lord, your Christ
He did this,
Took all you had
And left you this way.
Still you pray, never stray,
Never taste of the fruit.
Never thought to question why.

It's not like you killed someone.
It's not like you drove a hateful spear into his side.
Praise the one who left you
Broken down and paralyzed.
He did it all for you.
He did it all for you.

Oh so many ways for me to show you
How your dogma has abandoned you.
Pray to your Christ, to your god.
Never taste of the fruit,
Never stray, never break,
Never choke on a lie,
Even though he's the one who did this to you
Never thought to question why.

It's not like you killed someone.
It's not like you drove a spiteful spear into his side.
Talk to Jesus Christ as if he knows the reasons why
He did this all to you.

He did it all for you.
He did it all for you."

Simple Acts...

Simple acts can bring about such a great change...

I was on the train today, coming back from Heidelberg and there were a few school kids sitting opposite me on their way home, (probably about year 8 or 9 at high school). They were listening to some music on a mp3 player, as was i... so i offered them my ipod to listen to some songs i was enjoying... you could see their eyes describe the surprise of a complete stranger sharing music with them on a train. Nevertheless the accepted the offer and listened away for a few stops, still giving the occasional glance of surprise in my direction.

After listening for a while, they returned the ipod and we began chatting... about music, school, etc.
I think the thing i noticed most of all in these kids, was an intense desire for community, understanding and basic friendliness... So much as we get older, we become cynical and sterile and cautious, we forget, loose or ignore our ability to extend and share warmth and love, we become afraid, of all sorts of things like rejection, broken relationships and negative image, and we hide away inside ourselves, in our own skin in order to shelter or protect ourselves from any possibility of being hurt, humbled or humiliated. But in the process, loose the chance to become more human, more whole, and to gain one more step towards creating a world of understanding, love and compassion...

As the young brother and sister got off the train, with a smile they kept insisting how nice it was to share my music with them and asked if i would be catching that train again soon... I wish that more and more i would loose my inhibitions and fears, and be bold enough to step into a form of social consciousness that is gentle, approachable and culturally relevant to the individual, that is accepting of all with no exceptions... it would be worth it to see more smiling faces!

Colossians 2:8

N.I.V (New International Version)
Colossians 2:8
'See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ.'

translation...

The Message
Colossians 2:8
'Watch out for people who try to dazzle you with big words and intellectual double-talk. They want to drag you off into endless arguments that never amount to anything. They spread their ideas through the empty traditions of human beings and the empty superstitions of spirit beings. But that's not the way of Christ. Everything of God gets expressed in him, so you can see and hear him clearly. You don't need a telescope, a microscope, or a horoscope to realize the fullness of Christ, and the emptiness of the universe without him. When you come to him, that fullness comes together for you, too. His power extends over everything.'

......wow, that's all, just wow.