Tall Grass

I understand why I love sorrow.

When someone sings about their sorrow, writes about it, speaks about it, they are only experiencing sorrow. One emotion is flowing through their mind like a pure, wide river. When someone sings of happiness, they could be experience sadness along with it. Someone could sing a love song to someone, yet be cheating on them.

Happiness often lies to me- it tells me that it is happy. But among the joy, among the smiles, among the laughter resides doubt, confusion, pain, anger. In sorrow there is but sorrow, with no one to be its fool. It is clear glass, with edges sharp nonetheless. When it cuts, a man can see his blood on the Petri, prime for examination. But happiness. Happiness is tall grass that conceals a blade; blood falls lost, hidden forever in the forest of cheerful half-truths. Blade covers blade, and both fell the slain.

Happiness is the man
for whom the needles dance.
Their feet jump higher,
as the man gets lieter.
They dance an outline
of the New York skyline.
He shows all his teeth,
but to his disbelief,
the crowns cannot save this king.

But sorrow is the man
for whom the needles lie dead in the their grave.
Their feet are stilled, obedient as truth’s slave.

Musings During Church

To me, when a group of wealthy, protected suburbanites sing "you're all I need" to God when they know that they have homes to sleep in and money to buy food, it doesn't seem real. It seems like they don't know how to need Him. They say the need Him, and they may intend it for eternal salvation and such. But it seems fake. Like the lady who sings on stage with her massive cross necklace and poofy white hair and religiously pious attitude. Maybe she chose those things, but not really. Maybe she chose to dress/act that way because she wants to be religious, or accepted in a religious group, or even be a leader in said group. But in wanting to be religious, the mold formed her into that person. She was shaped by what she wanted to be.

I guess everyone is like that. I guess I'm shaped by wanting to be different, an individual, my own person. I guess I'm fed up with the religious/God mold. I resent the people who try to fit into it.

But I don't resent Rick. I don't resent Weathers. I don't resent anyone who has studied and is intellectually making a choice about what they believe.

But I hate kids who say religious things they don't mean because adults, who don't know what they mean either, brought them up at church so that they know how to act to be/sound religious, but don't actually know/believe what they are saying. I hate the whole lot.

Freedom Isn't Free:You Can Get It At Wal-Mart, Though

After watching Freedom Writers (2007), I came away with a crisp, feel-good attitude. A group of kids come together and become a family, even though they each belonged to a society that told them they were not allowed to associate with anyone other than their own. This film showed kids who made their definition of "their own" mean more than skin color or ethnicity; "their own" means human beings. They chose change-change from what they had been taught about how things were supposed to be, how things are, and how things are going to be. They rejected the mold that was being forced over them. They chose opportunity.

This film is powerful because viewers get to witness a miracle that occurred. Yes, I said miracle. Because what is a miracle: a situation is altered through means unexplainable and unrepeatable to change those involved for good. This is what happened to those kids. And rich, tame, protected white people like me get to feel the joy.

I do feel somewhat guilty for that. I mean, I am sitting in a house that can hold three times its current occupancy, eating food that, if it doesn't get eaten, will probably be thrown away, watching a film on an unnecessarily large tv screen. I have every means for success, and I didn't even have to work hard to get them. I live in a neighborhood of people just like me. I live in a city of people just like me. We say we have ended segregation, but it still exists when cities are filled with people who make the same amount of money, thanks to the education they received that was given to them because they are white.

Why are neighborhoods created with similar size houses, anyway? Why can't there be a large house next to a small house, and the people living in each do not resent each other but become neighbors (Well, I could then ask why don't even I know my neighbors when they live in a house similar to mine)? Would jealousy overtake the owners of the small house and compel them to steal from or break into the larger house? Or would disdain commandeer the minds of large house owners, forcing them to move to a different neighborhood? Would this happen, or has it already?

Everything is slanted towards the white. Entertainment, education, opportunities. If you're white, you have the upper hand. An important question to ask is, did whites work to deserve this massive head start? Actually, the question to ask is, is this unacknowledged yet understood edge held by white people actually right for anyone to have?

Freedom Writers was about forgotten teenagers rising from the pits that had once held them captive. And we can sit and enjoy the movie, and not even realize that we ourselves are in our own pit of isolation and faux-protection, a pit that keeps the rest of the world out as it keeps us trapped inside.

Outbursts

Sometimes I want to exclaim something so emotional. I want to tell someone I love them for the sake of feeling the emotion that comes with speaking those words and meaning it slightly. I act so that I can feel the wave of overwhelming attention and excitement that comes with uncontrolled exclamations. But then I remember that I cannot live in this society and act like that. I can not be a human and disregard other humans' feelings like that. I still want to, though. Then the moment passes.

Who I Am Hates Who I've Been, But Not Because I Was Bad

Have you ever read something you wrote years after you wrote it and wondered, "why did I write this?" or "who was I when I wrote this?" I asked those questions after discovering my old blog (so I guess the writings on this blog will, one day, become equally resented). I found the postings, and they were full of ideas, questions, declarations, all about God. I look back and vaguely remember a person who was consumed with God, but that unfamiliar. It is like looking down a long hallway and seeing someone at the other end, only to realize that a mirror is reflecting your image, but you don't recognize it. I don't know-I just tried to make up an illustration to sound smart and to communicate my point, but I don't think either goal was achieved.

Anyway, I left those readings feeling a little bit embarrassed and little bit curious. First, I assumed that the things I was writing were true when I wrote them. And with that, I assumed that my beliefs, my longings were juvenile. I tend to think of most things in my past as immature and not filled with the knowledge I have now. So, that ultimately leads me to the slightly frightening conclusion that I will eventually think the things important to me now, the things I think about currently, are all unworthy of consideration at that point in time. So what am I supposed to do about that? What am I supposed to do about the things I wrote on my blog long ago? Should I experience life, only to look back on it with embarrassment? What is the alternative, because I don't like how that has turned out thus far.

I guess the only thing to do is to take each situation in with the consideration of its context. Sure, a person may have been obsessed with NSYNC, but they were ten years old. Their ten year old life was permeated with poppy songs and nappy hair, but that was acceptable and appropriate for that time in their life. If a 45 year old man still lived in that world, then it would not be okay.

We live our lives in seasons, with different events and relationships and happenings pervading different seasons. This, ultimately, leads me to the question: is everything meant to be experienced in a certain season of one's life? To put it another way, is there anything that transcends the stages of life, something like an anchor that will not fade with time, that will not embarrass when reflected upon? I assume people are quick to shout out "Jesus will not fade! He is everlasting and will never change and will not be something to regret!" Well, I have to disagree with them at this point in my life. I tried Jesus (to make Jesus into a type of product) and I look back at that time with the mindset that I really didn't know what I was talking about. How then, can I try to have another relationship with him when the first one fills me with shame? (I am, for clarification, lumping my relationship with Jesus and my feelings and actions that spurned from my relationship into the same category, because I believe they are intertwined.) How can I love someone when the relationship we had fails to bring me positive reflections?

No matter what I do, I end up talking about God when I start thinking about deep stuff. I don't mean to do it. I guess I am working through things and it all ties back to God. Or I just have a subconscious desire to solve my problems that deal with God, church, and Christians. Probably the latter.