Merry Christmas

Dream

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3SlsP130xY

I was a little girl alone in my little world who dreamed of a little home for me.
I played pretend between the trees, and fed my houseguests bark and leaves, and laughed in my pretty bed of green.

I had a dream
That I could fly from the highest swing.
I had a dream.

Long walks in the dark through woods grown behind the park, I asked God who I'm supposed to be.
The stars smiled down on me, God answered in silent reverie. I said a prayer and fell asleep.

I had a dream
That I could fly from the highest tree.
I had a dream.

Now I'm old and feeling grey. I don't know what's left to say about this life I'm willing to leave.
I lived it full and I lived it well, there's many tales I've lived to tell. I'm ready now, I'm ready now, I'm ready now to fly from the highest wing.

I had a dream

bits of dust

so in the light i seem to bend and curve
missing the bits of dust just above my head
breaking down the jealous place in the middle of the night
i am wishing that my face looked just right

If i try not to think and try not to dream
when i wake up early in the morning
will i feel you there by the rays of sun
making the dust shine just above my head

Short sided against the cast of the day
seeing the beauty but never knowing their way
so if i eat and say thanks
will i be able to see you in that space of my momentary glance

if there is only room for one in this lowly place
and the melody of creation only comes to one with a certain face
will I always be able to feel
the spray of dust that shines just above my head

i never imagined it so hard to go to bed
wanting only to feel the happiness instead
so if blackbirds are singing this sad tune
will you be the light in the bits of dust beside the moon

Praise Thee O God

though the poor woe and the rich sing
emptiness repetition is all it seems
diction and space is what we both face
in the midst of war and greed and holy life

rich green grass and crumbled smelly cash
both rock the senses of my heart
both stained with the blood of our neighbor
lying in wait for the justice of the savior

bending backwards to take a picture
trying to relate to the dwarf and the scenery all at once
will this life i lead be worth what pours out in colors of yellow and blue
why can't i see

bolded by love, tainted by misconception, and too stupid to repent
earth, rocks, and birds all turn to say, "when will i see the color yellow turned into blue"
pop culture, sub culture, ethnicity- vomit out in streams of red
below the computer underneath the desk, red with blood of those i can't be

honestly i want to praise You
repent to be with You
honestly i want to shed my skin
and feel the sting of rain once again, once again.......

more really cool pics of mom!

My Cool MOM!

The ancient before, i plead to recognize
the assembly of holy resolute, favorable victory in His boastful name
Turn your song to me...to me
Bend low to consider my disconsolate

with surroundings torn in modern demise
foes rejoice, beneath the children lie
Lord who can consider your name when we are traveling so painfully blind
Ancient fathers of wisdom...truth
I long to touch the spike of burning decrees that bare the burden of understanding.
repentance draw near before my death, before the substance is near bring repentance

Do Not be wise in your own eyes
Fear the Lord and depart from evil
It will be health to your flesh and strength
to your bones

Summer!!!!

Seven

So the husband and I have been married for seven years.....
No itch yet!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Happy Anniversary Love

Arms Wide Open

The sad existence of always being out of the mind to be able to surrender. This place is the most fearful and captivating place I know. There are so many and so much who crash into me with such force that my arms clasp under the pressure of their motivated intent. They come on every plain and form to close my arms and replace my surrender with broken glass and the bitter taste of my own blood on my tongue We all seem to forget God.....to forget His Christ.......
I am so tired of opening my arms wide open, only allowing the existence of everything that hates him to leave me bitter and alone. They can take all but in the end I hope that they cannot take this desire to open my arms in surrender. I love Christ...bad, bitter, broken. I love Christ....spiteful, hateful, with revenge.....I love Christ....i hate you, i hate you, i hate.......I love Christ....despised love, worse than before, uncompassionate.......I love Christ-
Please Lord help me to believe and surrender my life over and over again to you. Though people make fun of me and I am not cool enough to be able to stand within their useless conversation. I pray that you will always help me to go the place of unyeilded meekness and humble hands.

new pics

I'll be your guide for all time

Intricate engine angels might admire,
Material spirit, animated earth,
Crafted casket for celestial fire,
Doomed to die the day it has its birth.
Hands that open, befitting a gracious lord,
Able to touch a cheek as soft as mist,
To wield a pen, a brush, a harpsichord,
But just as apt to freeze into a fist.
Godlike image, able to stand erect,
Yet by what small and simple things laid low
A sneeze, a scratch, a germ, and all is wrecked;
A few short years, the time has come to go.
Delicate instrument of love, or lust,
Admirably compacted... out of dust.
DTW

Be careful that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit based on human tradition, based on the elemental forces of the world, and not based on Christ.
-Bible-

The coolest man with white hair--EVER!

here is an interview with this guy, i hope that jason looks this cool when his whole head turns gray!
anyway yes it was an interview on CBN but ravi knows how to produce--

GORDON ROBERTSON: How did you come to become a Christian?

RAVI ZACHARIAS: Well, technically, the Brahman background, Gordon, goes back several generations; five on one side and seven on the other. But my parents were nominally Christian. About five generations ago, from the highest caste of the Hindu priesthood, they were led to Christ. But somewhere along the line, the very Christian faith became nominal in that it was in name only. So in that sense, I did have the influence of Christendom, not so much of Christ himself. But all of my friends and those around me were Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, so I was really raised more neutrally in terms of a personal commitment, but culturally in a nominally Christian family.

GORDON ROBERTSON: What has convinced you -- because obviously you're quite convinced -- what has convinced you of the uniqueness of Jesus Christ?

RAVI ZACHARIAS: So much happens in life that it's hard to sometimes reduce it. I became a Christian when I was 17 years old. I was on a bed of suicide in Delhi, searching for meaning, searching for the answers to life's basic questions -- especially in a religious country, you're used to asking that. But how does one know that this way is true and another way is false? There are 330 million gods in the pantheon of Hinduism. And when I came to know Christ, it was in a crisis moment, on a bed of suicide. But as I began my pursuit and was willing to make that commitment, I came to believe that the specifics of Jesus' answers are so unique.

When you think of it, Gordon, really there are four fundamental questions of life. You've asked them, I've asked them, every thinking person asks them. They boil down to this; origin, meaning, morality and destiny. How did I come into being? What brings life meaning? How do I know right from wrong? Where am I headed after I die?

When you take the answers of Christ to those four questions, there is no parallel that brings individually, correspondingly, true answers to those individual questions. And then you put the four together, there's no other world view that brings such a coherent set of answers, correspondingly true individually, coherently whole when you put them together. The person of Christ is so unique that no honest seeker can deny it once you have looked at his answers to these questions.

GORDON ROBERTSON: Let's deal with the Western world view for a minute. You grew up in sort of a multifaceted religious society with Buddhists and Hindus and Muslims all living together. I think that's unique in the world. But from a Western point of view, I think one of the reasons many Americans, for example, have--have rejected the claims of Christ or even the existence of God, is they say, `Well, how do you now explain evil? Why do bad things happen to good people?'

RAVI ZACHARIAS: I think that is the most daunting question. It is sort of a hatpin in the heart of many a world view. But when a person asks that question, Gordon, they have to remember two things. The first thing is that it is a question everybody needs to answer, not just the Christian. The Hindu needs to answer it, the Buddhist needs to answer it, the atheist needs to answer it, and the skeptic needs to answer it. One of my chapters is given over to that question when Jesus was asked, `Why was this man born blind. Did he sin, or his parents?' And Jesus' answer is fascinating. So let me try and put the hatpin into the heart of the question first, because that's where you begin the answer. When a person says there's too much of evil in this world, they're assuming there's such a thing as good. When they say they assume there's such a thing as good, they must assume there's such a thing as a moral law on the base of which to differentiate between good and evil. But when they posit such a thing as a moral law, they must posit the moral lawgiver, but that's whom the skeptic is often trying to disprove and not prove, because if there's no moral lawgiver, there's no moral law. If there's no moral law, there is no good. If there is no good, there is no evil. What becomes of the question?

To raise the question actually posits or assumes the existence of God. So the questioner must ever remember that raising the question does not disprove the existence of God, it only necessitates the existence of God, because without God, good and evil do not actually exist. And therefore, the answer of God in the Christian faith is very unique.

In the Hindu world view, it is sort of karma, inherited, every birth is a rebirth, you pay, you pay, and you pay through millions of incarnations. In the Muslim world view, it's fatalistic -- it's the will of Allah. You go on. There's no real down-to-earth explanation. It's just there. Within the Christian world view, there is a plethora of evidence as to how Jesus defends for us the reality of evil and the reality of good. When you go to the cross, you see the two converge -- evil in the heart of man, goodness in the heart of God. That convergence in the cross of Jesus Christ is so unique that it even prompted Mahatma Gandhi to say outside of the cross, he did not know where else something so unique could be given as an answer.

Now you lead philosophically to these issues and then you see how the Bible does deal with it. So to raise the question demonstrates the existence of God.

I've taken you through the six steps of God's answer that shows us how you deal with the problem of evil, Gordon, ultimately moving to this question: If the evil around me bothers me that much, I must ask the question: Does the evil within me bother me, then? And it must, and for that evil within, only Christ has the answer.

GORDON ROBERTSON: Let's deal with some of the major world religions. What would you say to a Buddhist? How would you contrast the uniqueness of Christ to a Buddhist?

RAVI ZACHARIAS: That's an excellent question because Buddhism is gaining a lot of popularity. It is a very much-pursued idea today. What I've done in the book is, rather than coming in an in-your-face response, because that could offend, I've taken questions that Jesus answered that neither Buddha, Mohammed nor Krishna would have answered the same way, and you see the uniqueness and the coherence very persuasively, I trust. The opening line in the Buddhist scriptures is every life is paying its karma for its previous birth. Buddhism is non-theistic, possibly atheistic, and when you deal with Buddhism, therefore, it really is an ethical theory about how to be good without positing God. You can have goodness without God is Buddhism's fundamental assumption -- and the answer is in you, through the Eightfold Path, and you go on.

There are many issues that one can raise. But let us suppose this one aspect of Buddhism that there is really no God. How does, then, one define goodness as you come back? Where does goodness come from? What really is evil?

Secondly, it tells you that you have an infinite series of rebirths. If there is an infinite series of rebirths, infinity -- infinity is an unending, uncountable. But if Buddha attained nirvana, then it must be countable. He came to a number. It is a finite series of births. So if you talk of an infinite series of rebirths, but Buddha himself had a finite series of rebirths, in order to attain Buddhahood, you immediately begin to see the contradiction. What you really have to understand is that the human heart is desperately wicked and evil and cannot in its own self solve the problem. And at the heart of Buddhism, Gordon -- and the listener must hear this very carefully -- at the heart of Buddhism is the loss of the concept of self because Buddhism's fundamental doctrine is that there's no essential nature of self -- anatman. Hinduism talked of atman, the essential self. Anatman is the non-essential self.

How wonderful to know that when Jesus Christ speaks to you and to me, he enables you to understand yourself, to die to that self because of the cross, and brings the real you to birth. When you're crucified with Christ nevertheless you live, yet not you, but Christ lives in you. He retains the individuality and the identity, but brings it to fruition in your identity in the person of Christ. I think that's so unique that one cannot escape the ramifications.

GORDON ROBERTSON: I think for me, though, it's almost a question of practicality. When you look at Buddhism, or you look at Hinduism, no one achieves nirvana.

RAVI ZACHARIAS: That's right.

GORDON ROBERTSON: No one achieves moksha. In Islam, no one can possibly follow everything in the Koran.

RAVI ZACHARIAS: That's right.

GORDON ROBERTSON: You cannot achieve it and Christianity is unique that you can achieve it and through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, you can become one with God. It is a unique claim. No other religion allows it.

RAVI ZACHARIAS: You put it very well. The moksha, the release, the nirvana, the extinguishing, and that's why the Muslim never has the assurance of going to heaven, unless he dies a martyr's death or whatever. The assurance of heaven is never given to the person. And that's why at the core of the Christian faith is the grace of God. If there's one word I would grab from all of that, it's forgiveness -- that you can be forgiven. I can be forgiven, and it is of the grace of God. But once you understand that, I think the ramifications are worldwide.

For example, one of the issues that was raised in Jesus' answers to the question, he refers to this body as the temple of the living God. Just think of that beautiful truth. You won't find that in Hinduism. You go to the temple. In the Christian faith, you take the temple with you. In Islam, which is of this worldly nature, killing and all can be justified for other-worldliness. In many of these other religious world views, sensuality can still be real for them and Jesus says no, this body is a temple of God. So when you see what the grace of God does in forgiveness, it is not just a blanket absolution. It is a price that has been paid and the imperative to live with Christ himself living in you. I think that's magnificent.

Passenger Seat

"i roll the window down
and then begin to breathe in
the darkest country road
and the strong scent of evergreen
from the passenger seat as you are driving me home.

then looking upwards
i strain my eyes and try
to tell the difference between shooting stars and satellites
from the passenger seat as you are driving me home.

"do they collide?"
i ask and you smile.
with my feet on the dash
the world doesn't matter.

when you feel embarrassed then i'll be your pride
when you need directions then i'll be the guide
for all time.
for all time."
Death Cab for Cutie lyrics


Being one in spirit and purpose
what is it that makes us so pathetic
what is it that says that we can't say how much we are sick inside.
what is it that makes me love something that is hard.
i am sick sometimes with unhappiness and sometimes i wish i had my commitment to understand my heart.
Don't say that
don't be that
don't be to christian
don't just believe
don't drink the koolaide
don't love just a man that much
believe in yourself
believe you can do it without him
you don't need him
you don't need anything but God
anything but is going to take the rest of my life from me
scream
scream
but only inside
your emotional
your own your period
those times are not real
give, give, give,give
love is not what i thought it would be
i didn't think
why is it that we cannot know but only believe with the ounce that is given to us
why is it that i can't look at His face anymore but i can't go to him that lays next to me.
fine, don't give me what i want-
don't try harder
for all time
for all time
is not that much time after all

American Christianity