things in the shadows

So your looking at a sunset and being overwhelmed by the beauty of it, and you find yourself seeing the shadows that it casts not at the colour. the fact that night is coming and in the twilight majesty between pink/ purple sky and the deep blue night you are alive. its something to be alive in, a moment to reflect about the choices between faith, the world and your devotion to conscious.

ever had that feeling that comes from being dazzled by the beauty that you know will be so soon gone and then watching that  light gutter and die, leaving a you in a still almost black blue. it changes me every time I see it. it remind's me I am alive and even when I cease, my presence will be felt even if people never looked out of their windows and saw me for who I am. It remind's me that the presence I want them to feel is the peace and beauty that I see at the moment of ending, not a sadness for the day gone, but a moment to reflect on the beauty that is to come again tonight and tomorrow.

its the fact that there are shadows that make me see the joy in the day as most day's for me are times of terror, hurt and pain, but in the moment of twilight as the sun sets with its brilliant golden light filtered in the sky, its purple meringue like clouds reflecting the angel of the day I find myself in the shadows expectant, wondering, and aware that the shadows have again caught me and woken me up. Night is where I am alive, but it is in day that I exist and can do what is needed but it is hard to wake up to a day full of shadows of shadows.

I am worried

looking at infinity

Wow, its been more than a year since I saw my self needing to be open with the world at large. A year of spiritual change and physical change. The year started in a funk, with me with out a job, without much in the way of hope and definitely without the drive to make much more of myself. I couldn't continue my studies because of financial constraints, was very very depressed but surprisingly the death thoughts were not part of the daily grind, and numbness was my only constant companion. It got better when I thought I could change my destiny a little by using the courses given by the unemployment services to choose a job that I could do even if it wasn't something I was really designed for, and over the middle of the year I worked hard and got that qualification, I even did on the job training and work experience and volunteering in the field to get a chance at something long term.

Then I go and get myself sick and under an x-ray find out that I can't do anything with my back again as I have multiple fractures, curvature of the spine, and possibly massive bone density problems. Now I expected cancer, I expected heart disease, but finding that my bones are choosing not to be part of my body is something I really didn't expect. Add to that a possibility of a chronic lung disease when I don't smoke, don't breath smog, and only have a mild form of hay-fever and actively try to keep the dust levels down and It really is one of those oh crap moments when the numbness finally breaks and terror, hatred of my life, upset at my lack of accomplishment, bitterness with all the bullshit I have dealt with, and self loathing at my lack of determination and will needed to get up every morning at the crack of dawn and look for anouther disappointment. Oh and I was utterly sick to boot, so sick that I was taking high grade anti-biotics just to keep the air ways clear enough for me breath even as virus, fungi and bacteria vie for the joy of my lungs.

so I was lying there, back in care, sick as a dog with a headache from lack of oxygen as my lungs filled with things I would rather not even think about let alone remember, and for the first moment all year I got it. I had been expecting the worst, had been unable to carry myself any distance what so ever, bitter because I couldn't succeed in what I really needed to be and I finally stopped. The holy ghost is somewhat hard to ignore some days and there when I wanted to give up and accept that the best I could hope for was my death. I find myself needing to clean up my act, and put away my sins, and remember that I am alive because i am his, not because I just wanted to get my own way. So I went and started to clean my hard drive, work on my personal failings, notice my cursing, my anger, my sloth, my pride, and even go so far as to start to work on them.

But it also came with a different idea as well, a gift of mathematics and chaos theory that both astounded me and removed both the problems of free-will and predestination. Its so simple it sounds crazy but the two ideas are co-existent and don't break the universal understanding if applied to the concepts of strange attractors and  a better understanding of the concept of infinity and eternity. its weird when you find yourself writing a thesis the next day solving an imponderable that split the protestant church into factions and continually drives people from the church to this day and it really isn't your mind that can easily express the idea but the next day its written clearer and more concisely than you have ever written before.

but the weirdest thing is not that, its the next day, when the energy, life and hope mixed with shame and grief that i felt the day before is gone, and all I am left with is the numbness and grey that I feel now. I know its a numbness required for healing, I know its there to allow me to compose myself and design how I will tackle the gifts I have been bestowed, with a chance to reignite my faith if I take it up. But the numbness is there, and I feel the other presences I have felt most of my life but ignored because they are not Holy beings grabbing hold of me and distracting me from my task. What I didn't expect was to be reminded again of my failings and to be reminded of the way as i have got closer to this week when I was rebuked for cursing by a non believer a few weeks later put the boot in on the failings I need to work on but it also reminded me even sick I need to work on what I have been tasked to do.

So here I am 2 am not particularly well, still worried about my bone density, and my lungs because the machines don't deal with people of my size, and finally out of the daze that i have for a year been in. even as i learned it wasn't what i needed. even as i squandered my days I didn't accomplish anything worth while, but it wasn't because i could avoid it. I was learning patience, I was learning to ignore the numbness, and it has finally revived an ember in me for something better. It is a something better I will find in the not so normal, and will mean I have to follow the theological pathway, that I ignored and fight against each day, but it can only make me whole if I choose something in which i am passionate. choosing the simple money choice has failed, choosing the skills i am most blessed with is proving to be a joke, but something else is here and i am somewhat unsure what it is that I am going to be but what ever it is I will be it soon.

a life full of joy and pain

So although its not officially summer in Adelaide the temperature has decided that it will start again. And with it I have started to lack sleep again. Restlessness permiates my night soul and the things that should matter again are becoming jumbled. I can't stop thinking about death, love, pain, and the environment and the core basis of humanity. the world is full of joy and pain and it seems to be my mantra touching my body and design. I keep on losing weight, but with it I seem to  be losing focus and care about, well, anything. The joy is disconnected, the pain is significant but not real. I cannot emotionally sense and its like having your retinas yanked out after always living in the light.
I know that I am loved and it is absolute and certain but it is not emotional anymore. Its closer to the fundament of reality than the living life I have known for so very long. Instead its nearly tangible but without the warmth and truth I have for so long held. I know I need to retun to the church,  i need to pray,  I need so more hope but the lack of care is always there.  however the love is even now more real than ever before but it is lacking in the life that I know from a living jesus.
On top of this sex and passion keep on rearing their design but even my beast doesn't want to wake up and find a mate. I want to feel the passion and want to retun to the desire I have held in check for so very long but the passion just seems oblique.
but even as I write this i find that I really am in an incredible world of wonder.  I can game, I keep on seeing future possibilities and although I know that I cannot be part of most of them the world looks like it will walk the path if we can get off our collective ass and utilise what we have been given. but even with this little ray of light in my life I see the darkness rising as well. The future is not bright but its not murky or obsure anymore. We can make power without non renewable resources at an efficient level cheeply enough. we can provide the food we need for our entire population if we are willing to use hydroculture and fully renewable food stocks. we can survive hunan disasters if we start to look to each other. we can expand to the rest of the solar system if we are willing to again look to the stars. but depression, the spiritual maise of faithlessness, the passionless analyitical path, and the belief in corporations, markets and the degredation of internal cultures keeps on destoying the truth of a greater future.
I hope i'm wrong, I don't expect to last more than 2 years now and I doubt now that I will ever find the one I was made to love but if I knew that people could at least belive in a greatness that loves them truly named jesus christ I might at least die hopeful for the future of man.

looking at the world afresh

Hi its been awhile. Hard to know really why I have been avoiding the blogosphere but time has been against us for a while.
None the less its a good day to return with fresh eyes and a voice anew. I have returned to unemployment after a good 2 year run. I can't say I am sorry to leave the position I was in. The night shift, the hours, the incredible boredom these I will not miss. The people and the security however these I am going to miss a lot.
The lack of safety is not as bad as I thought It would be. I have hated this job with a passion for at least as long as I have not posted and It is not until now that I really got why I didn't want to post. The wonder at the little things that this blog is for had been subsumed by the passion of hate and injustice.
The place I used to work for has had a bad run. It allowed inappropriate actions to be undertaken by staff, had management that failed in its duty of care and allowed both underpayment and safety issues to occur, worse it lost money in a business that just should not lose money. I even became a union member and in the end staff rep' just to see if I could get a few of the issues looked into. That worked out terribly with the people i tried to help just becoming the punching bags of management strategies and the workplace just going further down the tubes.
This latent hate, these broken understandings lent me to failing to write or produce the stories I so desparately want to build in my life. Its hard to write positive hope about shattered dreams, failed expectations and promises.
However the job and the hatred taught me so much. How to compartmentalise my home and life from my work; how to deal with people on the phone briskly and effectively; how to pitch my voice and invoke calm in even the most agatated member of the public. It was this invoking of made up emotions instead of my natural empathic ability that most drained me however and has just increased the releaf of not working there.
But the real question now is what to do next. I can't accept not having an income source and the instabiliy of not having a job, while the constant rejection of people regarding my abilities and honour will lead me inevitably down the same pathway that I have walked previously and destroy my finally reconstructed ego.
But if I learned nothing else I dont want to go back to a crap job. It is not worth it.
So where from here? don't know but at least its going to be interesting.

compromises

I have made a lot of compromises in my life. From choosing jobs that I really did not care about one way or the other in the past, to giving up my business because I saw it to be unprofitable in the long run when bigger businesses squeezed me out, to giving up my dreams of science because I understood that I was never meant to be a scientist: I believe to much and dream too hard.
I have given up contact with friends because of time constraints and problems with communication, and many of those so called friends and acquaintances which I cared about have again and again failed to contact me in return even when they knew I would have problems getting to them. I have failed to keep people informed of my activities and failed even more to take up the mantle of activities that I could have undertaken. Worse I have failed to find something I really love and made something of it.
I have failed to look after my social, and sensual life and made an incredible amount of compromises of this type. I have dated a few women, none successfully in the long term either due to my shyness, my physical frame or because of the ghost-shadow that the first two women I dated and thought I loved left. I have failed to pursue those I was interested in and choose to pursue my own mind and the worlds that revolved in it.
But worst of all I have failed in my spiritual duties and not pursued what really think in the long run is what I need to follow. I just find myself beinng unable to commit to the project i need to pursue, it isn't science, economics, storytelling, even farming, it is frightening beyond scope for a person totally terrified by public speaking.
I have done very little that is of benefit to the world, just a few words given to me by one far greater than myself, but is these words that I truly love either when I bring the worlds of imagination to others in the games I portray or in the comforting of others and counseling to find their own paths to god.
I need to become a person of Faith, for both economists and scientists. I need to bring the word of god to others even if its something unexpected.

I'm talk'n religion

I was on the phone tonight and someone asked a question regarding my religion, and then backed it up by asking why I believe in one god?

I just couldn't get that one out of my mind. I often can't and as the sun slowly rises making it really morning I just can escape the truth of this question. So why do I believe?

I could talk about my experiences, I could talk about how it makes me more than I am, I could talk about morality, madness and the terrible and wonderful things I saw on the journey that made me come to the realisation that there is a god, that he is jesus christ and that he loves me, forgives me and actively provides and changes me. But the truth is although all of these facits are real it to me is about relationships.

I believe in Jesus Christ as my savior, because I know without a doubt that dna uncontrolled fades in 7 generations, that monuments become dust, and that people die but relationships, and the love that is behind them last. I know that what I do does matter, but it is today, not tommorrow, not yesterday that really matters and it is by my relationships that I am judged each and every moment of every day.

I can't take my material possessions with me when I die, I can't change the laws of nature or mess with the fundament of faith, but I can believe, leave behind joy, communion and love. To me living with jesus means that I live in his presence and have a daily and complete relationship with him, a relationship of love and honesty that means that I can be understood completely, and love the rest of humanity as well, even when I feal highly annoyed a them.

And boy do I feel peeved each night I work. But I also find that even when I am angry, tired, annoyed and the person is acting like a doufus I have patience, kindness and love still pushing inside trying to come out.

So that's why I believe, I believe because I couldn't exist as a complete person without it, and it is the communion and relationships that make me who I am.

Summer of strangeness

Its hard to be enthused in the summer of South Australia. Its always hot, always bright and at night people start to act up when the oppressive heat of the day lets up but is equally far too hot for sleep. For very large people like myself Summer is not a fun time of year.
Summer makes the imperfections clear, makes the little inequalities, the distancing and heat more obvious, while tinging everything in it with its own effects. And it is this that really gets to me more than the heat. I always feel more excluded in Summer and for someone who values people and relationships this is a thing that will always ache. However it is also the time for planting autum crops and nurturing the social portion of my life for the winter court to come.
For this reason I have to look a little further to find the joy of the period. The first is obvious when you look at the fashions of the state at this time. The fashions are for summer heat and encourage skimpy and thin clothing, not a bad thing for a single guy. But over the last few years the strange sight of several hundred lycra clad lunatics cycling the hills and dales of the greater Barossa and Adelaide area and getting both burnt by the sun and walking bow legged after finding the hills far more significant than they ever expected, is the real thing that just makes me chuckle.
Its hard not to smile at the antics of the Tour down under with so many people loving the sun and the spectacle, and participating in something that brings a state together. But for large people like myself trying to find a bike that would even allow me to fit on its seat and for it not to go straight to places I don't like to think about is nearly impossible. So although I get to love the madness of it all I equally find myself excluded and even these events get tinged a little with the omnipresent distance and starkness of it all.
So here I am hiding in my room, curtains closed against the sun, and several hundred cyclists again prove that there are still some things to be enthused at. I will leave the room soon and then go to care for my garden knowing that the summer will not last forever and what I nurture in the ground, in my relationships and in myself will soon again grow.