This is one aspect of my story that I am now starting to realize I’ve never done. I am the complete opposite of a planner; in fact most of my life has been in rebellion of a planned life. I fight to live haphazardly at best. But as I sit on a couch in my father’s house in my home town it has become hard to argue this line of thinking it working well for me. I once made a promise to my mother on her death-bed that I would do something with my life, something she could look down and see and be proud knowing I’ve lived well with my blessings blessing others. I’ve squandered away all my money, as I sit here I have only a few dollars to my name and a lot of debt with little hope to climb out soon. I work at a restaurant that hasn’t given me enough of a living to even support myself living for free. I’d say it’s safe to say that somewhere my plan for no plan took a wrong turn. In order to fill my void of a lack of purpose I turned to drinking regularly, promiscuous relationships and escapism through media. I found a way to be complacent as a way to survive. Through this I lost a loving relationship and a good friend.

All this rambling confession is to say that an unplanned life is great if you don’t want much of a life at all.  I got to my 25th year without a lot to show. So for now it’s time to make some plans…….. perhaps I will share these plans later.

What I know right now is that Christ died in order to give life and life to the fullest not for later but for right now. And who am I to squander that?

For too long I have felt so cynical towards worship unable to commit or to see the point but the truth of it was that I felt unworthy to worship. In that I could not submit my heart. I felt dirty and ashamed of myself. I let my shit swallow me whole.

I am finally coming back to the understanding that Jesus Christ laid down death in its grave giving me not just eternal life but life for here and now. That is not contingent on me, my actions, or how I feel today or tomorrow. It’s eternal and overpowers all that I am and have been. I am fallen but I don’t have to live in that! Rejoice I say Rejoice I am redeemed!

Though the Earth Cried out for blood
Satisfied her hunger was
Her billows calmed on raging seas
for the souls on men she craved

He has cheated
Hell and seated
Us above the fall
In desperate places
He paid our wages
One time once and for all

But in this I have seen great rays of grace being showered upon me. My father bailed me out and then continued to take me on a planned surf trip, my best friend fixed my head light, my ministry leaders offered me open arm grace taking me in and letting me cry on their shoulders. Part of my continuation with my ministry was confessing to a full youth group who instead of judging me prayed for me and told me that I was loved in the moments where I felt love was too distant. I’ve been shown love and forgiveness when I didn’t deserve it.

This is the one of the most powerful seasons in life I have experienced. I have been so loved that my transgressions have been forgiven and meet with support and love that I don’t deserve. God is so good, he knows what you need before you can even form the words. This has been a transformative life-giving experience that no theology class or sermon can reproduce or come close to.

I now know what it is to truly confess and put yourself out there at the mercy of those you love and to be accepted for every scratch and dent. For every time I’ve looked down on someone or withheld forgiveness I am truly sorry. I now know what it is to be forgiven, to be washed as white as snow. I have been forgiven for much and so I love much.

Thank you Christ for showing me real love, confession, forgiveness and grace. And thank you to those who have been Christ to me.

I have recently wondered what happened to my heart and who I am. To some I am too calloused and unopen and yet to others I am so sensitive that I come off as homosexual, confusing for me to say the least. What I have noticed is that when I put my heart out there it often gets sent back to me in a mangled state. I think that some where along the way I listened to way to many bad pop songs and saw a bevy of romantic movies that I whole heartedly believed that commercial garbage. I was told over and over God has a special lady just for you and to wait, be patient and guard my heart. And all too often I listened to both of those messages mixing them into a bastard child of inbred wishes and understanding of love.

I now take full responsibility for my incorrect thinking. I made myself this way and I have to undo my decades of miss-education. My life is not cinematic or even well-scripted in the best sense. I will never run to break up a wedding at the last moment stealing the bride and dashing away. I have no eloquent speeches to those women (hell I can barely write a decent blog).   Life is just  one hodgepodge of joy and broken hearts and I am learning to find contentment in the ride.

So all that to say, to my friends getting married this summer mozeltoff

Please do not take this the wrong way this is less of a bucket list of how to spend my final days; instead it is more of what can I do right now that might make my life meaningful. I have no time limit for when I’m going to die, I don’t think it will be any time soon but it honestly could be.

So friends what is on your list?

So yes I did listen to Christian music and yes Switchfoot did come a long with that grouping of musical miscreants. Although I do not group them in that category anymore. 

Anyway I digress I wanted to explore something I’ve begun to notice or more so something that has  more so started to claw at my insides is this phenomena of rasing your hands to the sky or to the christ-like rock star/whorship leader on stage. Hundreds of people closing their eyes stretching out their digits while swaying to the music. It’s equivalent to the rock on sign at a tool concert (yes I chose tool on purpose). I don’t understand it anymore or maybe I never did. What are they reaching for and what are they hoping will happen.

The hypocritical reality is I also participated in this ritual during my youthful worship sessions but I never quite new what or why I was doing it. Everyone else seemed to know so I followed. Now that I’ve slightly matured in my faith or more likely just formed a bunch of opinions I hesitate to raise my hands and take part.  Do they know something that I do not? Am I the one missing out because of my unwillingness? Or is this just another way to show my religiousness? Some may say well you can look at this and think it’s stupid (which I do) but is that just your frustration because you really want to? 

Maybe this is true; I once was one of those people and some part of me does miss that. But I refuse to take part in something simply because it feels good being a part of the masses.

One last point I could just be expelling my frustration because I really wanted to deck some these teenage boys in front of me who pushed their way to the front only to raise their rail thin arms right up in front of me blocking my and everyone elses view as well as subjecting us to the incredible stench of their under arms.

  The truth is that life and death are realities that live in tension with each other constantly. So our days are no less dangerous or vulnerable when we walk out our front doors with or without toting around this cancer label. 

  What I am getting at is that this gift that we called life is always in jeopardy yours just as much as mine. But while I hear tones of surprise because of my out look on this situation others continue amazing lives with with no such thought given. The truth is that I am no more dying than the next person. 

  So with that why not celebrate and see joy, beauty and truth in this gift of a time called life. So this is why I laugh and throw party’s saying goodbye  to my dearly departed testicle. Worrying about what may come adds no quality to this day. Now don’t get me wrong if I am truly facing grim circumstances  I will acknowledge such and take the proper measures to do what is needed and seek treatment but for now I have only lost my right testicle and the remnant(formerly lefty) is doing just fine.

  For what may come I am confident in death as to say I have a great hope that there is something more and something greater than this earthly plain. So for now I revel in the kisses, the embraces, the intimate conversations, the good ball jokes, the bad ball jokes, the encouraging texts, the music of friends, the laughter of others, the occasional road trip and the love that is so very present.

With constant motion comes fatigue. As of now I am doing well with being tired but I can see that becoming and issue with burnout. As for now it’s nice to feel worked both physically and mentally. My training has been stretching my innards to great lengths; building me up and breaking me down. I can feel change moving over me and I’m trying access where that change is and its effect. 

In the stretching and building/breaking process I’ve been reassured about my aspirations for my life and given a new resolve to see them to fruition. This is vague and all things are libel to change, but as of where I stand right now life is good and work is better.

JD( from Scrubs): Things rarely go exactly the way you want them to, so sometimes you make due with whatever you can get…Endings are never easy; I always build them up so much in my head they can’t possibly live up to my expectations, and I just end up disappointed. I’m not even sure why it matters to me so much how things end here…

I guess it’s because we all want to believe that what we do is very important, that people hang onto our every word, that they care what we think. The truth is: you should consider yourself lucky if you even occasionally get to make someone, anyone, feel a little better. After that it’s all about the people that you let into your life.  

And as my mind drifted to faces I’ve seen here before, I was taken to memories of family, of coworkers, of lost loves, even of those who’ve left us. And as I rounded that corner, they all came at me in a wave of shared experience…And even though it felt warm and safe, I knew it had to end. It’s never good to live in the past too long.

As for the future, it didn’t seem so scary anymore. It could be whatever I wanted it to be…  And who’s to say this isn’t what happens? Who can tell me that my fantasies won’t come true… just this once?

 This time I’ve decided to try to do my best to reflect and leave things well but then again I’m a work in progress. Thank you to those that have given me so much and given me closure. So as I reflect and love I look to the future where it can be anything I want it to be.

I’ve been thinking about the idea of story and narrative, particularly my own story. Narrative as I have come to understand it is something that is present in our everyday lives, it’s essentially how we come to understand the world we live in as well as ourselves. Most of what we believe is based on something we’ve been told and come to understand as truth or at least believable. It gives us structure in society, creating social norms allowing us to function. Stories hold meaning and give us purpose. The concept is deeply routed and personal, so much so that each of is living a story out right now and even more than that we are the story. 

 I’ve come to the conclusion that we are all books. Active, captivating, living literature. All of us have our own stories to live and tell through our actions and our character. These stories are far reaching and meander with many subplots but ultimately have all the elements needed to tell a story, our story. Now many stories blend together and make up the larger narrative of the human race but each in unique belonging to the individual and all are in need of the essential elements of story. Without the crucial elements something is missing.  I’m talking about the very basics characters, plot, rise and fall, conflict and the all important end.

That’s what I want to focus on here; that every story needs and ending. Some of them are very clear endings with the protagonist riding off into the sunset after saving the day. Other stories aren’t so clear in their endings; they’re not satisfying or they leave a lot unfinished. And sometimes we’re not even sure they’ve ended at all. This is typically how our stories come to a close. Without clarity. 

The important fact is that stories end, our stories end and not just with death. We all have many stories to tell during our lives and I believe beyond. But  if we don’t recognize when the story has ended we live in the past. Don’t get me wrong I love rereading a good book but even that gets old. And in the same way rereading or reliving our past stories although fun and even sometimes good ultimately gets old as well. Reliving our stories over and over again is never completely fulfilling and in truth I know it’s not from personal experience. When we sit rereading our past theirs nothing new to be told, our stories become stagnant. We create gaps instead of starting fresh on a new page. 

My story I have currently been in ended a while ago, I’ve just been sitting stagnant for a while. I’ve found myself not moving forward but going back and editing things that can’t be edited, choosing the better options and finding that sunset I was supposed to ride off into. 

Now I have a new story that will begin very shortly and it’s taken me realizing the end of one to be able to start the other.