A Foggy Homeland

The sun that lingers through the middle of the day gets obscured as the late afternoon brings an army of fog that overtakes the land and then retreats each morning. Steinbeck's portrayal of the eerie mist that flows through cannery row and the top of a pot that sits on the Salinas valley each night, are quite accurate. A stillness lingers in the air here...things are much slower and relaxed it seems. Life bustles around me at a warm and yet cool pace. I hear the familiar cry of the seagulls that plague the warf and the row. I see "the lights of Monterey, comin' across the bay."
The warm atmosphere of the west end, ol' factory cafe contrasts with the gloomy grey outside. My eyes tire early here, as the days are spent in a new venture. I drink the new flavor of a red pale ale as I sit and watch the people of the west. I fit here, in this strange land where anything is possible.
I talked with God in the desert, as the eagle flew next to me, on top and beside and ahead and behind, between the mountains orange contrasting with the sky so blue, headed west in new life. A good thing this is, mixed with sadness and bittersweet fear, but the new dawn ahead brings much hope and life.

The first week in a strangely familiar land...a good week thus far, with new mission ahead still lingering, and peaceful sleep enveloping my heart.

Through Land and Love, Through Time and Tales

As the sun chased me it finally took the lead, and as the road westward wound on and on it seemed I was chasing daylight. Only three days it took, from the land of lakes and the beaches of cocoa, to the western shores and the golden sunsets. Being here, I know the way...the roads still take me and the directions are the same. But strange this land is, for my heart hasn't caught up yet. A hollow thing they call "me" looks out on the Pacific, while this mind and body wait patiently for a heart to catch up, as it is caught between two lives. A horcrux that I made long ago remains in the east...attained not by the killing of another, but rather of part of myself...and not for immortality sake, but rather for keeping a part of my soul there, to remember.

A new day dawns and the strength of the heart is apparent...its delicate fiber weak and frail, absorbing the pain that the body inflicts. Yet strong and valiant, holding fast to life and pumping the blood of life through the soul. Music catches my heart's attention, and a longing that was born long ago continues to stir. As this path leads me home, the road ahead seems full of life and song...a new season holding much possibility indeed.

I see people in a new light. Life flows in and out of these places like a river flowing here and there. The river of song starts to flow once again, and bright light and bright life it brings with it...

Love and Love, God and Man

To the west to return the time has come, through vast lands between toward the setting sun. Once weak in returning, one week til returning. I walk alone into a place that's caused abandon, while behind me I still look to see if they might stand by me. The people who support the most have been the ones close to me in the east, those who have known me and what I've become in the year that's past.

Take care to judge slowly, and if love burns within you, abandon the seat entirely...for to judge man leads to judging God. Come down and live among the dead and the dying as I have. Discover a truth and a life that leads to tears of hope, of pain, of joy, of love. Discover what I know you have not seen in all your days. Discover a dream where you wake up, and you're alive. See a life that's so broken down, a soul that has seen the deepest dark and shone the lightest light...see what truth this breakdown leads to...

Love God and Love Man... these are the two greatest commands...the law is dead and is death....

Walk this path with me before you speak...see how life has been broken down to these two simple yet eternally complex truths. Walk the path of the poor and give them what you have before you are quick to judge. My authority is none and I will claim to have no hold over any, for I was not created to be a ruler, but rather an equal to share in love and relationship and communion.

I have something to offer, knowledge to impart, and a path to walk...do not sway me from what I must do at the expense of others. I know full well what I walk into and where I must go.

Love God and give up all your soul
Love Man and give up all your self
Nothing else matters
Nothing.

The Emergent Church Movement

I'm not sure why so many Christians are so opposed to the emergent church. In just about every critique that I've read or heard, critics take a small passage from authors such as Rob Bell or Brian McLaren, and base their accusations of heresy on these small sections of writing. And because I've read most of the books by these authors, I immediately can't help but be angered at how the critics take things horribly out of context. If you were to read the thoughts of these authors in context, the "incriminating" passages would surely make much more sense. I guess it's no surprise though, considering many of the people who take these authors out of context also seem to be the religious leaders who take things in the Bible out of context as well, and try to apply universal truth to a single verse removed from its original context.
So before you disregard authors like Brian McLaren, Rob Bell, Donald Miller, and others in the emergent church movement, please consider reading their entire books before passing judgment on their thoughts that are plastered all over the internet just because they come off as controversial.

And for the record, Brian McLaren has never said that he denies substitutionary or penal atonement theories, but rather makes a point that Christianity has made this the centerpiece and main point of the gospel. He would argue that perhaps while this is certainly an incredibly important facet of the gospel, it isn't necessarily the main point. Rather, the kingdom of God should be a key aspect of the gospel that we should be paying much more attention to, for the church as a whole has lost sight of it as it was originally intended to be.

So Far Away

How can one project themselves into an unknown yet clearly seen future and feel the pains of that day when they will fatefully leave the place where they have been hiding from the rest of the world and return to a life that once was? Will that life be what it was? No...a strange and different life will emerge, and always in the back of their mind will be a question, a longing, and a hurt for that which once was...that which could have been. Will these pains slowly subside as the waves of time wash smooth the shores of the heart? Or will a stone emerge beneath the sand that will linger for what will seem an eternity? Such a dangerous stone this would be, for as clouds and storms pound the washed out shores, one will cling to the stone and always seek to go back to it. But this illusion of a rock that stands in the sand will only hold one half of what is needed...so far away will the other half be...and so hard to find after time has passed us by.
Such a hard and unfair life, this life of one who wanders. But such freedom and such life is does bring...when the heart is set free by being so far away. If it were never to wander, it would never have seen all that it has seen. It would have never felt the joys and pains of love, the strengths and hardships of survival, the despair and hope of the lonely, the truth and deceit of the wicked, the quiet smile with a painful heart of the searching, the truth that glimmers in the eyes of those not the same.

It was my blessing yet also my misfortune to come from a place so complicated. Life is different there. I have seen a much simpler life, one that could hold peace and love and happiness if I were ever to stay. But the curse of knowing of a place where the war is fought harder and where the heart can soar higher draws me inevitably back. It lets me never be completely at peace in this better land. I have to go, but my heart tells me not to. My heart tells me it's dangerous, and indeed it is.
I have seen both sides of Christendom. I have lived both lives, and I tell you that there is truth in both. There is a hope in both sides. There is a despair in both sides. Yet the tragedy, in the context of our western society, is that only one side wishes to conquer. The other side isn't aware that they're at war...they don't understand the looks of disapproval, the accusations of darkness. They love like you love. They hurt like you hurt. Simply by using the term "they" implies that there are two sides to this strange humanity. This is one of the greatest illusions ever to plague the followers of Christ...the thought that there are two sides. If people could only see that we are all, simply, people - not this side versus that...then perhaps a step could be taken forward in this mission that Christians attempt to accomplish. The mission is wrong...or rather flawed in its very core. I can no longer separate myself from all of humanity and be part of an elitist mindset that so often plagues those who wish to be elitist. I have lived life alongside the desperate and the poor, the wealthy and the content, the drug addicts and the alcoholics, the gay and the straight, the sure and the confused and all those in between. I have lived their life and seen the world through their eyes. I have loved them and they have loved me in a fashion that followers of Christ have much to learn from.

So far away, my heart and my mind. If you soon see my smile reflecting off the great Pacific, my heart may not be behind it, for left behind with these wonderful people it will be, and the heart travels much slower than a vehicle making its way across the highways of the North American continent. So far away, this little piece of my heart will remain...and as I wander once again into a new season of life, it will never forget. I know not where these strange paths of life will lead, but a hope I've found here will never fade as the years scar our hearts and the waves of time smooth the sand of the heart and reveal the stones beneath that sand.

"The cure is if you let in just a little more love...I promise you this...a little's enough..."