Let me love you one day at a time

Let me love you one day at a time, and please love me that very same way. We may never learn all there is to know about love, but every day together will teach us a little more about ourselves and the special kind of happiness we can bring to each other. One of the best things you've helped me learn is that love starts with being honest, speaking straight from how we really feel. I like how we've opened doors, and windows of our lives and invited each other to come in, look around and get acquainted. The more I'm with you, the more at home I feel. Let me love you one day at a time.



Why talk about "always" and say things we're not sure we mean, when we can talk about today and mean exactly what we say. Let's think of each sunrise as a fresh start, a brand new beginning... and try to fill each day with as much love as it can hold. I know you're not always going to be exactly the same person Sunday through Saturday, January through December, and neither am I. We both need laughing times and crying times... and time for every mood in between. The important thing is that you can be the kind of you that feels most natural and that I can be my most favourite kind of me. That's what makes us so comfortable together... it's also what keeps us from taking too much for granted. Let me love you one day at a time.



Let's not wonder how long love will last but how beautiful we can make it grow. Let's give our best to each other but, let's never expect miracles of our love. There's no need to... the reality of you and me is better than all the impossible dreams and fantasies I've ever imagined. Being with you is feeling proud, blessed, grateful for each hour we share. Let me love you, not according to any how-to-book, or by someone else's set of rules... but simply for who you are and how you are with me. And please love me, not for what I might be moulded into, but for what I am here and now. Don't expect me to be someone all good and all giving, someone who could never disappoint you... someone to right to be real and too perfect to be me. I'm just as human as anyone I know... and very thankful that you are too. Let's try to remember that love means keeping in touch with each other's thoughts and feelings... listening not just to words, but to the emotions behind them... seeing, not just the smiles and frowns but the hurt and pleasures that cause them.



Let me love you one day at a time, starting today. Let's have the courage to try to change whatever needs changing about us, and wisdom to know what should never be changed. Believing in ourselves and in our ability to handle whatever tomorrow brings... and trusting that this love we share will continue to grow stronger as the future years unfold... One Beautiful Day At A Time.

It seems I always break silences with poems

I've been writing in my own journal lately, filling it with my thoughts. I don't know if it's more selfish not to share my thoughts or to share them without being absolutely sure they're accurate. I don't know. Anyway, I wrote a poem tonight inspired by my own thoughts coupled with Donald Miller's newest book A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. In it he talks about the idea that we remember those things that are exciting or different or the days we went the extra mile to make special. I don't remember a lot of my past. I wonder if it's because I've lived a really boring life. Comfortable, yes. But boring. I've dreamed of living an exciting life. I have all these visions of what I would have done if I was one of those people who live life in real boldness. Anyway, that's what the poem's about, and I thought I could share this.

I want to live it out loud,
Drink in deep.
Remember the times we waited
For the world to fall asleep
Then we ran, farther than allowed
Knee deep in darkness,
Drowning in life
Hoping we weren't dreaming
Under this glittering sky.

Oh, I can’t remember.
I can’t remember.
Maybe it slipped away from my grip
But I know that if I wander too far I will trip
Into that memory, as false at as it is,
Fabricated in a desperate half-attempt to live.
Boring, it’s so boring.
I’ve forgotten it all,
No real memories to hold on too
So into false ones I fall.

Standing up, standing out.
Blacktop gleaming, wetness stenching.
Rain dripping, dropping, drenching.
Tongue out, unashamed.
Washed by the holy springtime rain.
Remember when we danced in the streets?
No shoes, no worries, no thought of the memories we’d create.
Oh, how we laughed and cried as we sang
Hands outstretched, scolding the rain
As it fell and splashed in our mouth.
Such beauty we became as we danced in nature’s well.
Rebirthed, restirred, renamed.

Oh, I can’t remember.
I can’t remember.
Maybe it slipped away from my grip
But I know that if I wander too far I will trip
Into that memory, as false at as it is,
Fabricated in a desperate half-attempt to live.
Boring, it’s so boring.
I’ve forgotten it all,
No real memories to hold on too
So into false ones I fall.

So, Write me a story
Of meaning and truth.
Something more than this life stuck on mute.
Dear scribe, write me a song
Then let the sirens sing
And let me drink in that music
Let it sink in and sting
Till I’m drunk on the words,
And I crash this old boat.
Let my false memories burn in the back of my throat.
Cling to these rocks and pray for new life,
Speak to me hope in those beautiful words.
Then we’ll break from our cage, love,
And take flight like the birds.
We’ll break from this cage, love,
And take flight like the birds.

Based on a True Story

I can’t do it.

I sit in the mall. I probably look like one of those crazy, reclusive types as I peep over my laptop every few seconds, watching the people traffic pass me by. Do you ever have those moments when you’re completely struck with the intricate significance of a human’s life, and yet simultaneously struck by our insignificance in it all? I can narrow in and watch one person. They have a life outside of this moment. They have a history and, presumably, a future. They have loved and they have been hurt and they have a totally different perspective on the world than I do. I wonder what that person could teach me. But then I zoom out again, and the face is lost. We are but one in the sea of humanity. I think it’s another one of those intended paradoxes of life.

The mall is full of gang wars. The cluster of teens coming out of Hot Topic, branded by their gang piercings and tattoos are in a social war with the kids across the street at Aeropostale, marked by their matching gang t-shirts. Their war is one of silence and sneers. Everyone is judged and measured. “Ignore them,” they say about the other. “Nothing good can come out of [Nazareth].”
The thought crosses my mind, “I wonder what we would look like stripped down of our adornments.” I make a face to myself, realizing that idea’s going to need a good explanation behind it. I just mean, how much of our identity is in our physical? A lot. What would happen if we were all lined up, stripped of our branded clothing, our piercings, our haircuts, our makeup, our phones, our cars, all our possessions? Who are you when all of that is gone? I have to admit that I’m not really sure. I’m not really sure. And that disturbs me.

I used to love this. The mall, I mean. I loved the atmosphere. I loved the materialism. I loved the judging. I wouldn’t have named those things as what I loved, but those are the words I ascribe in hindsight. My downfall has always been the material. As I sit here, watching the women walk by with their bags of newly purchased items, I realize I am not alone, and this anger rises within me against the world. The world that I loved. The world of fashion and marketing and beauty. As I sat at the foot court, I metaphorically spat on that world for betraying me. And then I realized that materialism is like sex. (What is up with these metaphors?) By that I mean (like I said in my Liquid Lust blog) it shouldn’t be a god to us, but it also shouldn’t be a demon. Materialism isn’t my enemy; it’s just a tool. I can’t hate it because that’s the easy way out. And that’s not truth seeking.

I don’t know how to approach the world anymore. I mean, in my head I sort of have an idea. It’s about serving people, the least of these. Loving, even when it means self-sacrifice and being obedient to the will of God, even when it means my dreams are shattered. Right now I feel like I’m standing in the midst of a broken window. Because I KNOW these things in my head, but applying them means a complete restructuring of my thoughts and my life.
Duh, right? But I’m good at the material, and I’m not so good at the serving. How do I use my talents to glorify God, then? How do these dreams and desires inside of me equate within the dreams and desires God has for my life? I just know I can’t spend my life perpetuating the cycle of materialism and physical obsession.

I can’t do it.

So now what?

Liquid Lust

Everyone wants or wants to be the whore. We wouldn’t call her that, of course. She would be mysterious and difficult, but still sexually available. You know she has “experience.” If we stop and think rationally, of course this seems ludicrous. But we’re not talking about rationality. We’re talking about desires. All the girls want to be her because all the guys want to win her. She’s sexy. But she’s subconsciously an object. To be or to possess. Even the good Christian guys admit, when desire overwhelms rational thought, it’s that girl they want. The one who seems untouchable, but who everyone has touched. And even the good Christian girls want to be her, because there’s a lure of being desired and relentlessly pursued. The culture tells us sex is the pleasure upon which everything else in the world hinges. It is the display of our status and wealth. It can make or destroy you. There are only consequences if you get caught. Sex is the only reason you are possibly going to be desirable. Who pursues the prude? We have become a culture dripping in lust. And no one is exempt from it. No one. Men objectify women and women objectify themselves. We have stopped fighting, and we’ve started to believe. Even those who attempt to push strongly against the culture push back because they feel the drips on their skin. It’s not righteousness that drives them, but the fear of being overwhelmed. Sex is either our god or our demon.

But wasn’t it supposed to be something beautiful?
Wasn’t it supposed to be something holy,
Not dirty?
We have polluted its name
We have made it our idol
Like Hosea, You find yourself
Married to us,
The prostitute.
The willing whore.
Forgive us,
Not for the desire,
But for the misuse
And abuse
And excuse
We’ve made the desire.
We drown in the liquid lust
Of our culture.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
And it glides down our skin.
Savior, rescue us from our sin.
And help us to learn to love again

Her!!!

Someone once told me you should never ‘fall’ in love, but ‘stand up in it’. But I don’t believe this is Love. This is fear. To know Love, is to know her peace and her pain. To know Love, you will remember her gripping and consuming yield, and never forget her shattering, heavy ache. To know Love is to know both her elements. Only seeking her peace, is not Love at all. The following poem is inspired by Kahlil Gibran’s ‘The Prophet’ and his teachings on this emotion. Her. When you approach Love’s shimmering waters, Her glittering waves will beckon you. Dive in and immerse your body in Her ocean. Think not of your submersion. Think not anything at all. For when you surrender, you are no longer yours. You are a mere droplet . Mindless. You belong to Her. Her tide may take you kindly, Her body a melodic wave. She will take you, softly yet deeply, drifting towards the Sun, Basking in it’s rays. But know that darkness will fall soon, And you, sea-faring droplet, in the chill of the night, will lose the light of the Moon.
Her tide is treacherous, Her brisk winds will throw you,
Thrashing against ocean shore, And strip you will She, in these perilous waters,
A part of Her ocean no more.
But as you do not fear Her profound, soothing current, Or her warmth of Sun, Nor should you fear Her tempestuous tide, They are the same and one.
Walk into Her water, And fear you should defy, For not delving into Her ocean, Is what, but a life lived dry. Climb towards Her mountainous peaks.
In Her altitude be intoxicated, Let Her fog cloud your sight and mind, Inhibited, yet elevated. For these are part of this journey, In faith and in awe, To exclude her blurry sensations is, To never really climb at all.
Know that this is a slippery path, And some may find footing to the top, But in every step you may plunge and plummet Her depths, Falling and forgot.
Come to Her as she calls, Stand at Her mountion side,
It is but only when you know Her falls, Will you know Her atmospheric highs.
Stand at Her ocean shore, Be summoned unto Her waves,
For only when you give yourself,
Can you truly be bathed.