Reaching into My Soul

I'm starting to wish that my love for writing and expressing myself in words would comeback. I could swear that I used to be pretty decent, and to some, I was even considered good at this. Oh no... writer's block? Whatever it is, I wish it would end and allow my feelings and ideas to simply flow to the extent of my own liking.

Enough of that.

Ok, so here's the thought I really wanted to entertain in tonight's post: Music.

Yes, music. I've been playing music, or what I know of it for the last four years or so; maybe longer, maybe not. But I seem to be stuck in the same place with my music as I am in my writing and this ought not to be, especially because they're both practices of delight for me and I absolutely feel drawn to them in the sense of a self calling. Do I think God, this Earth, and the people around me really care if I play or write? Perhaps not. But this is the beauty in it all because regardless of what everyone else wants or cares about, it's you that has to hunger for this growth and when it comes to self improvement it's going to be you that decides whether you want it or not.

I ran some errands today and as I was at a red light in front of a small café, I watched from the car and tried my best to block everything out so I could hear this musician who was playing alone on the small stage with a rather small audience of listeners and the feeling I got was a sense of urgency to learn more, do more, and play more. I couldn't hear what he was playing but it didn't matter because he had the confidence in himself to do it regardless.

I've taken my guitar outdoors a few times and played on Alondra Blvd. in front of the church I attend and

the feedback you get from people driving by is pretty amazing, and exciting. I've even wandered across the idea with some of my church peeps on learning a good group of songs, picking up a small team of singers, with some kind of percussion, like some bongos and heading to Starbucks and just having a good jam session outside. No money required, no sought after fame, no huge crowd following, but just a small group of people who care to listen to some soul-filled music and appreciate it.

In time maybe I'll find my own small stage, with a stool and a small spot light to break the nervousness of just playing. The end.

Divine Romance

"The fullness of Your grace is here with me

The richness of Your beauty’s all I see
The brightness of Your glory has arrived
In Your presence God, I’m completely satisfied

For You I sing, I dance
Rejoice in this divine romance
Lift my heart and my hands
To show my love, to show my love

A deep deep flood, an Ocean flows from You
Of deep deep love, yeah it’s filling up the room
Your innocent blood, has washed my guilty life"

A simple song of gratitude that not only expresses a deep relationship with the Creator but along with it comes the message of His compassion, and amazing grace... a grace that is greater than all of my sins.

If anyone knows any other songs out there that speak rich words like this please let me know. I'm interested.

Lovest thou Me?

so it is currently passed midnight and im blogging from my phone which reminds me of the day and age we are currently living in, and which also reminds me of how great my phone really is. I honestly want to be a pretty consistent blogger, just like i'd like to be pretty consistant with anything I'm doing; so here it is.

Often times in talking to people who read the Word you'll find conversations on favorite bible figures or persons, favorite books, and favorite passages or single verses, etc.

Now before I go on I have to clarify that I completely understand that when something is a favorite it's usually because of an idea that relates, or can be personalized. I dig that, I really do, because it makes absolute sense.

Personally, I find my bible favorites to be based on demonstration of acts far more greater than I could ever try to relate to my life.

Things like the ten plagues being cast upon the house of Egypt, fire falling from heaven, wisdom given to a man who simply wanted to lead a people, nations chanting the name of a shepherd boy who sought after the heart of an invisible being, and so on. I find myself amazed at these tales of people who became selfless for the cause of their God, which was not known by name in their time.

But for me, I don't find my favorite in one verse, one figure, but rather in One event, or episode whiich shaped the lives of men of wisdom, fisher men, or even a revelator...

John chapter 21 shows us that this Christ had unfinished business with his apostles even after completeing the task of Calvary.

Jesus appears unrecognizable to his followers, he sets the coals and the fire for a meal on the bay of a small sea. He breaks the fragile confusion with a simple, yet deep question to a familiar disciple by the name of Simon Peter.

"Simon, son of Jonah, lovest thou me more than these?" after answering "Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee", to which Jesus simply commanded him to feed his lambs.

It wasn't long before Jesus asked him again. In which the replies were the same.

Again, not long after that to which the scripture tells us that Peter's heart was greived because he had asked him a third time. Peter finally opened his heart and I believe he was broken and sincere in this moment to say the least and cried out "Lord, thou knowest ALL things, and you KNOW I Love you" and with a gentle, inviting voice, the same voice that calmed a raging sea, Jesus says, "follow me".

Although I can personalize myself to this story, much like everyone of us can; this isn't what draws me to this chapter, but instead its the closing. You see, the other three writers of the gospels close their writings with the words of Christ and the great commission, but John closes it with this

"and there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written. Amen"

So there it is. Not bad for a blog given through my phone, eh? What year is this? :)

Blogger!

I'm feeling a bit hesitant as to how I want to start this blog. I'm not sure if it's because I've been away from my writing/blogging for a while or because of the fact that I maybe have been searching for a new blogging platform (which by the way would be my second platform and third blog address, yikes).
Anyways, so I've been away for about 5 months now, and in my time that seems to be forever without writing or translating my thoughts for the little group of readers I get here and there. Believe me, it wasn't in my plans to be on halt for this long; I guess I was in such a state of limbo that I was constantly experiencing feelings and emotions that I thought were gone for good, but obviously most folks know how that goes. There is nothing but frustration when you're trying to bleed something out of your system that's become part of you in a sense, and it isn't easy because it feels like you're denying yourself and I'm sure no one enjoys that process. Right?

I'll reserve more of this for a later blog. Let's move on.

I'm currently participating in a time of examination with the church I attend, and although it's unnamed I'm simply calling it "Renewal 40". It's forty days of examination in ones personal space, life, home, family, job, and anything else you can throw in there. I know in my personal life I need all the examination I can get, and that doesn't come at all easy to admit but I know for a fact you don't get any ingestion problems when swallowing your pride.

As much as I'd like to go on I think Three a.m. is way past my bed time. I'll drop in for another post when the Sun's up and about.

p.s. In no way is this examination period tied in with ramadan. Okay bye.

A World Without Pain?

I read an article not too long ago on CNN that was referenced from a book I read a few months ago. However, it didn’t necessarily come into contact with any sympathy on my part and the feeling to spread the word and make it a learning process for others; so I reread the book again and it just clicked better the second time around. What this is balanced around is the thought of removing ‘evil’ from the world. An issue like this is often found in the argument against God.

Now listen, I completely understand that this world isn’t always nice, and life definitely is not fair. But us faith believers often remind ourselves in comfort that “it rains on the just and the unjust alike”. Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens have all made the arguments that this world would be far better if it had no idea or concept of God; I disagree, not only because of my emotional attachment to God, but because I find more reason in faith and belief in God than I do in no God at all. Anyways...

Let’s get back to the topic at hand.

Without pain in this world, we ultimately lose the experience of feeling of reality in this world. It’s the felt reality that we can all relate to, whether we believe in God or not... All of us can relate; or can we?

There are about 100 people in the world we live in today that do NOT suffer at the expense of pain, but they do in fact suffer with the rare malady that involves insensitivity to pain. It’s called CIPA - Congenital Insensitivity to Pain with Anhidrosis. People with this disease feel no pain, nor do they shed tears. What a way to live, right?

One case in particular is the story of little Gabby Gingras, who has to be watched over constantly. At four months of age, her parents noticed she would bite her fingers till they would bleed, with no expression of discomfort or pain. At two

years of age she had to have her teeth removed to prevent her from biting herself and causing serious injury. She always has to wear safety glasses because in one instance she literally scratched her eye till she begin to damage her cornea very badly.

She plays sports with absolute fearlessness, never hesitant about banging into anything. She says she sometimes feels like crying, but can’t. The average life span for a child with this malady is twenty-five years. The parents of children who suffer from CIPA have but one prayer - that their child would or could feel pain.

It’s sad that these atheists fear pain so much, that they’d be willing to try and attempt at removing the center piece of our creation, the author of this earths origin, its meaning, its morality, and all of its destiny just so that they could crawl further away from the idea and the very experience of pain.

Wow, amazing. At least I believe so.

All is fair.

Ok, I'm back from my absence of mind and thought... wait, scratch that. The truth is that I've been doing so much thinking that I wouldn't even know where to begin with it, or if I should even call it "thinking". It feels much more than the natural, ha, I know right; it sounds super crazy, if that. But with all this mind time, I found a single spot to fully concentrate on, pick at, and even try my best to depict exactly what it is, in a nutshell. Kinda like finding a single imprint in a DNA strip. Which is not as simple as it seems - If it even does sound simple, or possible.

I’ve done my fair share of being quite the optimist I believe I’m supposed to be. However, optimism isn’t without its challenge of honesty, which is often the part that stops people from being a positive and optimistic being to begin with. So I’ve found sense in discovering myself before stepping into the shoes of others, and it makes perfect sense according to chinese proverbs, philosophy on life, and fortune cookies for all I know. I’m quickly finding that laughter can be healthy even if and when I’m expressing my feelings for you avid readers.

A saying that I’ve become quite attached to is “God is Love” and I know from the bottom of my heart that it’s real, because God is real, but I must also come to a real conclusion and know for a fact that I stand for that, and that I must live it.

Do I truly believe it though? My answer would be yes, Absolutely! Where I’m finding the problem with this is that in order for it to become more than just a ritualistic thought, I must be impulsive about it, spontaneous with this message of Love. I’ve fallen completely in love with this idea, but I admit that I haven’t fully personalized it yet; what’s the idea of Love without

a personal touch?

I know now that even after all these years that I’ve proclaimed the messages of the Christ in my life, they were merely uttered words with no depth, fraud words and shallow actions. I felt so disgusted at my failed attempts, I felt a deep deep surge of conviction on my behalf. It let me know that I needed to seek Love at its most beautiful meaning, and that is God.

I know that in order to claim anything, you have to have relationship. You see, before God could deem man as “complete”, he had to give the man a Relationship on more than just one dimension. God claimed seven times in his creation that “it was good” before he finally said “it is not good” and he continued to form a help for Adam and with that, Man became complete.

I don’t feel broken, but for some strange reason I still feel that I do need some fixing. I guess some would say that that’s just me being optimistic, after all, that is what I’m aiming for. And that’s that. I'm wondering how I'm going to find the right words for times like this when I stumble across such a simple principle with so much light. I’ll let you know when I scrap the rest of this thought together. It can happen, right?

God. More than Imagination?

So I was listening to a lecture a few days ago by Dr. Francis Collins. After hearing what he had to say I was very interested in wanting know more about the man, so I went to Information's greatest source, Google. 

Not only did I find that he is the co mapper of the human DNA but I also found this column which was on based on the topic of Life and they introduced him with this: “Dr. Collins’s credentials are impeccable: he is a physical chemist, a medical geneticist and the former head of the Human Genome Project. He is also, by his own account, living proof that there is no conflict between science and religion.”

Also, he just happens to be beloved by President Obama, and was nominated by the President to be the Director of the National Institutes of Health.

Before I go on, please understand, knowledge is knowledge. I do my best to not 

be biased based on one's belief system but naturally it kind of happens, right? I went to see a "Does God Exist?" debate In April held by Biola University. I listened to both sides openly, but I couldn't argue that at the end of the night it just made more sense for me to believe in God based on more information than just my personal feeling and outlook on Life. 

So this lecture by Dr. Collins was very gratifying and rich with information. A man who studied and mapped the human DNA could confess that there was a God. 

During one of his lectures he showed the audience a slide of the "Rose Window" from York Minster. Without having to

hear anything else, you could simply look at the stain glass window and see its beauty, the time, and creation of a great mind simply coming into works. 

He than revealed another slide of the " View along the Axis of the ß DNA double Helix", which revealed true workmanship, a great(er) mind, and just beauty in the creation of the Human Body. Just in the Image of the DNA alone, you're seeing the majesty, the geometry, and you're looking at the chemical imprint  within our own Life. 3.1 Billion bits of information just in that strand within a small section of our DNA. Amazing!!!

If you were to look at the Rose Window alone; all those thousands of pieces of color, shapes, and sizes and confess to yourself that by some chance they just happened to come together without workmanship, intelligence, and an articulate mind, one could admit that you know nothing of art. 

So, friends, how much more the strand of DNA? I cannot convince myself that by some chance, matter, and time we all came to be. 

When we try to find reason coming from non reason than that's where somebody has to cry halt. 

Atheism, and Evolution could never answer the four questions of Life, which are "Origin, Meaning, Destiny, and Morality" - I'm sorry. It just can't be done from the view points of men who don't truly appreciate what we are, and why we're here on Earth.

When you think of Life, think of its greatest emotion... Love.

Remember this: God Is Love, and Love is Real, Because God is Real.