ONE WORD

During my first interview in London

‘Describe yourself in one word’, she said, as she stared at me with a warm but pushy smile. I never understood the purpose of these exercises. Especially didn't understand why we all had to sit in a circle exposing ourselves to the judging and inquisitive eyes of each and every person in the group. Isn't that the exact opposite of why I came here? To disappear? To be invisible? Just a face?


I heard about this strange group from a friend of mine who studied theatre. It was a group where you could just show up with a fake name, a fake life, a fake personality but very real problems and discuss them with complete strangers. ‘No specifics’, the group was called. How apt. I was told about it several years ago, found it very odd and useless at the time but had stowed it away in my memory for some reason completely unknown to me. It wasn't until several weeks after yet another failed love that the foggy memory of this group started piecing itself together in my mind. And before I knew it I was in the basement of an annoyingly multi-coloured building on the corner of a street whose walls were covered with graffiti and posters of RnB and Hip-hop parties.

‘Sonu? One word?’ she said again, the warmth of her pushy smile now spreading to her voice. ‘Urm, Indian?’ I asked unsure of what to say. ‘Come on, you can do better than that.’ I can do better than that. Really? How would she know? She doesn't even know my real name. ‘Give it a go. Don’t think too much. Just say the first word that comes to mind.’ So completely uncharacteristically I closed my eyes and waited to hear an inner-voice telling me what I was in one word. And without so much as a second chance, before my mind had the time to register what I was about to say, before I could stop myself and think about the word that was about to spew from my lips and stick on the walls, spill on the floors, fly out of the open windows into the world from where I could never ever take it back... out it came... my one word... “Puppy.”

“Hmm, puppy. Interesting. Why do you think that word describes you best?” she asked.

I don’t know what it was about this moment, why I had such clarity and such a profound need to share it with these complete strangers, but I started talking and sharing things even I was unaware of.

“I guess it’s because I am. I am a pathetic little puppy. Always needing attention and love. Always needing to be taken care of. Always falling in love with every woman who shows me even a little bit of affection. Always desperately in love. Letting them own me, put hands around my neck and take me for a ride. Letting them claim me. I'm pathetic. A lonely little puppy.” Like a waterfall my tears and my words came cascading out of me. And my feelings came bouncing to the surface like a buoy that refused to stay underwater.

I don’t know how long I sat on that chair for sobbing away. It felt like a few seconds but I know it was much longer because I couldn't see the sunlight outside any more and I had goose bumps from the chill that was sneaking in through the half closed windows. But for however long it was, those nameless strangers were there for me. Loving me. Giving me a little bit of their time. Just like they would to a lonely stray puppy on the corner of a street.

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.

LAUGHTER

She laughed a contrived, awkward laugh. She knew very well the difference between humour and scorn. She was trying to ignore the greasy smell of cynicism that wafted from his words. But her laughter, however untrue, only encouraged him. He jubilantly continued to mock her beliefs, her faith, her family, her life, everything she considered herself to be made of and she just swallowed her anger and pride and laughed. He felt powerful, like a bully pushing a child half his size to the ground and repeatedly kicking her in the chest while she shielded herself with her hands knowing that neither mercy nor refuge would ever come. Except he used his words to put her down and she used her laughter to protect herself. That was the only purpose her laughter had now. To protect her. She never used her lips to smile, never used them to kiss, hardly ever to eat and even less to speak. But laugh she did. The repercussions of silence in front of him were far too loud. His incessant screaming hurt her too much. They made the kind of scars that couldn't be seen, the kind that couldn't be used as proof. When on several occasions she had tried to share the invisible violence she faced, it only made everyone think she complained too much and that was even worse to bear than the abuse she got from him. So she stayed silent to the world and laughed only for him... The sad thing about pretending is that if you do it long enough, everybody will start believing you. The tragic thing about pretending is that if you do it long enough, even you will start believing yourself. She had played along for so long now that everyone, including herself, thought she was happy. So when they found her body swaying gently in her bedroom with one end of the rope around her neck and the other around her ceiling fan, they called it a tragedy... not murder. Just like I do, ending with small poem

When life seems low after you’ve given it your all and
when people you love don’t help you when you fall if they’re the reason you’re sad
and you fret baby, don’t let it get to you.
Don’t regret. you stand by them
when they need you that’s what makes you who you are if they choose to bail
when you’re just a little frail it’s a pity they don’t see right through you they’re unlucky and really stupid!
Its not fair they don’t cherish you Cause if they knew what a gold mine they had around them
They’d dig you just like I do!
All these boyfriends, lovers and men you got And I’m still here to take your tears away
Just now,

its from across the miles!

The Story of the Cliff

They’re tearing at me
Ghasty fingers crawl over my skin
Pulling.
“Come!” they cry
“We can fill that empty hole.”
Indeed there it is, where my heart should be there was a chasm
It was deep and the edges were sharp
Like it had been carelessly carved out
I put my hand to my chest
And felt the emptiness,
The dark substance-lacking air that filled that space
And still the fingers pulled
Pricking and tugging
Pulling my hair, pinching my skin
And I wept.
In front of me stretched the edge of a cliff.
It looked terrifying. Black rock, red backdrop.
The bottom was clouded in darkness.
And it was away from the edge these fingers pulled me.
“Come!” they cry
“This is dangerous. We want to protect you.
Come where it is comfortable and your heart will be filled.”
Oh, the struggle within. The choice seemed so easy. But a haunting song seemed to call me forward to the edge. While the fingers pulled me back.
Forces clashing armor against armor inside of me,
No white horses verses black horses.
All the knights were dressed the same,
Wolves in sheep’s clothing
But I couldn’t tell who was who
And it raged
And my insides ached
I grew weary from the conflict,
Weary of the noises.
I wanted to silence it all,
The haunting song and the voices that beckoned me backward.
I began to shut myself down, like a flashlight out of battery.
I numbed myself to all.
The fight doesn’t seem worth it, I thought.
So I sat down.
The fingers still pricked, but I didn’t feel them.
The cliff still called but I didn’t listen.
I just sat.
And sat.
And sat.
And sat.
Until one day I rose my hand to my chest and felt the hole that had been carved
And I ran my fingers around the edge,
The sharp, jagged edges
And it pricked me
I drew back my finger and a drop of blood rose to the skin.
And I had a feeling,
A thought.
A remembrance of what is was like to live engaged in the world.
I remembered the pain and the beauty and hurt and the joy
And all at once my ears were opened again,
And the noises were deafening.
My eyes opened and the ground was shaking
The world had not stopped as I had supposed.
It raged on.
It was chaotic, overpowering.
The fingers tugged,
“Come,” they cried
“Where there is no pain. We can take you there.”
The sirens song rose up from the cliff’s edge.
And I shook at the experience of it all.
My body trembled.
I tried to throw off the hands that clutched me.
And I ran to the edge,
Staring down into what seemed like nothingness.
It was uncertainty.
Jumping surly meant death.
I leaned over,
The voices growing frantic behind me,
Beckoning me to retreat
“Come back!” they cried
“Come back!”
“Why should I do this?!” I yelled into the cavern.
“Why should I choose this? What will you do about this hole in my chest?!”
I sobbed, emotions of desperation, fury, and hope pulsed through my veins.
“What do you want from me?!” I cried.
The haunting melody drifted up from the cavern.
I realized for the first time that there were words interlaced in the song,
Why hadn’t I heard them before?
They sang this:
“Die to self, Oh beloved
And learn to live again
Nothing can fill that hole
Or completely heal the pain within.
But We too have holes,
In our hands and our side
We suffered for you
Come, oh Bride
Prepare yourself
For Our kingdom is near
It is not man,
But it is us you should fear.
We won’t take all your pain away
We won’t make you whole
Not in this life anyway,
Can We complete your soul.
But We came to you to feel your pain,
To make each tear our own
If you take a chance with us,
You will never be alone.
We forgive your fear and yours sin are washed
If you decide to come,
It is hard,
But it’s truth
So, jump, beloved one.”
No promise of ease
Or of my desires being fulfilled came from the song that echoed through the rocks.
The ghastly fingers gripped harder,
Their voices stronger.
“Come!” they cried,
“We have a place with no pain.
We have a place with no sorrow!
Come!”
“Liars!” I screamed
And I jumped.

Inspired by a Friend

He was running. But after the first several miles his head started to buzz, and he forgot what it was he was running from in the first place. He thought he was living the life that most average people only dream of, but he was slowly realizing that living there meant he had stopped dreaming altogether.

He loved her at first. He loved her for all the months they were together. And he loved her still, even though she claimed her affections were long since dead, buried in the memory keepsake box with all the drawings and love letters he’d written for her. He’d given her his soul, really. He trusted her to take care of it, but she broke it and broke it again and again every day they were apart. His chest alternated between burning with searing pain and then feeling nothing at all, numbed to everything, like a chair or an old sweater, something not human.

Where did it go wrong? he wondered. He often sat, thumbing through his memories of her like a beloved scrapbook album, one that has the edge of the pages worn since it’s been gone through so many times. Slowly, though, as he reached the end of the album, the facial expressions changed. Her beautiful smile became a frown, and his own adoring glances became possessive and desperate.

He loved her because she flitted, like a bird or a butterfly or something. Could never stay in one place too long. She was adventurous, with big dreams and big ideas, never settling for what had been handed to her by the world and never letting herself be forced into what people thought she should be. She was strong. Her eyes twinkled at the idea of new opportunity, and her laughter was like glitter thrown up into the wind. He always wondered how he was lucky enough to be the one standing close to her, letting the sparkles dance on his skin.

But there wasn’t any glitter anymore. The last remnants of sparkle were starting to flake off the skin on his arms. He was terrified that it might be gone forever. Fear. Fear of losing her. He’d lost so much, and she’d been hurt so much. He wasn’t going to let that happen again. At all costs he would protect her. At all costs he would protect the one thing left that he loved before it slipped away.

But he couldn’t protect her if she didn’t want to be near him. Stupid, he muttered to himself. He wanted forever, and she wanted a new adventure. He’d tried to tame the wild in her, to ground the lighting with himself as the rod, to love the thing that flitted without letting it flit away. Stupid, he muttered to himself.

It was all his fault. He’d stifled her. He’d tried to contain her. And she finally burst free, leaving him in shambles, the rodeo cowboy with a broken nose and black eye watching his beautiful black stallion race away with his hope at finally winning.

Winning what? At anything, really. Love. Winning at love. But you can’t win love. Ugh. He felt all jumbled up inside, like someone took all his insides, put them in blender, and made him swallow it again. He felt like throwing it all up.

He kept wondering how he’d gotten here. I mean, really it was the same scenery he’d always seen. Same dingy walls and quiet streets. But inside of himself he felt disjointed and lost among the familiar. He kept looking in the mirror, searching for some hint of identity in his eyes. But they felt hollow and dull and answerless.

He had no answers left for himself. He’d run out of ideas and excuses. He’d lost his identity because he put all of himself in her, and she’d done the same in him. She just realized it before he did and pulled the plug, claiming back what was herself. Now, it was his turn.

He tried to show her love. He tried to teach her love. But somewhere along the way he’d forgotten what love was. He was now the one who needed teaching. Oh, he had loved her, no doubt. But he now had to find what love looked like without her.

“You have persevered and have endured hardships for My name. Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love. Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says. To him who overcomes, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.

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

TASVEER NAHIN IN AANKHON MEIN

WO ALFAAZ TO NAHIN AB PASS MAGAR
USKE KEHNE KA MUNFARID ANDAAZ TO HAI
HAAN TASVEER NAHIN IN AANKHON MEIN
PER KAANO MEIN GOONJTI AAWAAZ TO HAI

MEIN JO POOCHTA THA AKSAR, US SE APNE AAP KO
WO KERDETA HAQEEQAT MERE HER DEKHEY KHWAAB KO
AUR BATA DETA MUJH KO MERE HI DIL KI BAATEIN
KE YE DUNIYA TO HAI AAM BOHUT
PER TERA WAJOOD IS MEIN KHAAS TO HAI

HAAN TASVEER NAHIN IN AANKHON MEIN
PER KAANO MEIN GOONJTI AAWAAZ TO HAI



USNE DIKHAYA MUJHE KE BANDAGI KYA HOTI HAI
MERA HO KER BATAYA KE ZINDAGI KYA HOTI HAI
MEIN NE US SE KAHA
KE KAHAN HAI TU ZINDAGI
TO USNE CHUPKE SE KAHA
KE TERE PAAS TO HAI
OJAL TO HOON TERI NAZRON SE PER
TERI DHADKAN MEIN MERA EHSAAS TO HAI

HAAN TASVEER NAHIN IN AANKHON MEIN
PER KAANO MEIN GOONJTI AAWAAZ TO HAI



WO ZAHIR HAI AAJ HER NAQSH MEIN
AUR WAJAH HAI AAJ HER AKSS MEIN
JO HASTA HAI AAJ MUJHE DEKH KER
WO DIKHTA HAI BUS US SHAKS MEIN

MEINE POOCHA KE KIA MEIN HAQEEQAT NAHIN TERI
USNE KAHA KE TU BEBASI KA HASEEN RAAZ TO HAI

MERI QISMAT SE TERA JHAGRA NAHIN
PER TAQDEER SE YE ILTIMAAS TO HAI

OJAL TO HOON TERI NAZRON SE PER
TERI DHARKAN MEIN MERA EHSAAS TO HAI


HAAN TASVEER NAHIN IN AANKHON MEIN
PER KAANO MEIN GOONJTI AAWAAZ TO HAI!!!!