Christmas with family

I have a fantastic family. Not only my flesh and blood but mostly the one I have in my friends family. I am an oly child but this was seen as been a benefit to me not a detriment but only because of my best friend and my relationship to him. My best friend from reception or in American speak kindergarten, is still my closest and best friend and his sister and brother are my virtual brother and sister, his mum and dad the other parents I never had.

Without the gift of these fantastic additions to my growth and experience I would have been a major disappointment and become something I do not wish to think about but unfortunately see every day when I role play and enjoy my hobby of choice. I would have been faithless, angry, impatient, probably violent, and definitely dead before now. The person I would have been is there hiding in my soul, waiting to recover and get up from its burial so long ago. I know it as I see, read and enjoy the company of people who didn't get blessed with my extended family and the incredible love and security they provided.

Instead my friend showed me his childish faith, tried to save a friend we both knew from his downward spiral and anti-religious rhetoric, gave me patience when I wanted to destroy myself, gave me understanding when I needed to talk to another, gave me a series of events that allowed me to vicariously experience the up's and down's of love and romance, showed me the idea of joy, and for a very long time allowed me to see past his barriers. His family tried to show me how to be a better person, taught me how a faithful family can operate, gave me love as if I was another member of the family, and has always been connected to the better part of my nature.

I have never fully shared my inner workings with him as I know much of the man I know now is anouther being than the person I once knew past the barriers, but when I have a chance to see him and his wife I am always transported into another time and the better part of my nature comes to the fore.

Last night was one of those nights. I got to enjoy the night with my family, their husbands and wives and their children. It was a night to remember where I wasn't the odd one out. I was in the presence of people I love and truly care about. Enjoying the company. Enjoying the fellowship. Without jealousy. WIthout the normal pain of my existence. Just a chance to be and see the best in others. .

Then as left tired and spent I saw with terrifying clarity who I would I have been without them. Without their structure and their faith. with the generalised Australian belief system instead of a strong moral, sexual and religious code. I would have been much poorer without them and I started to think about all the other people I love and care about; all my role-playing friends, all the guys and girls from uni, all my school friends, all the guys from my work groups, and I started to see how few friends really are there with the incredible riches of love and faith that I have been blessed with.

I have watched friends lose themselves in love and life, breaking hearts, losing love, causing upset and hatred, actively inviting discord, causing pain, acting in Machiavellian manners, hating others, and taking passion so seriously that they forget to enjoy it. I have seen people forget to live a life and instead desperately fight for the moment forgetting the whole, living for the momentary pleasure, forgetting the pain that comes for themselves or others in that action. Others choose the path of excess and need with drunkenness, orgies, sex, violence, discord, hatred, drugs, passion, pain, fetishes, purchases, debt, and I have been scraping up the brain cells and credit cards of these people for years now. Sin of all sorts has been around me briefly touching me and the demons in them are as obvious as the angels in the songs of praise to god. I could have been one of the many Australians that are part of them, lost in the easy way out but instead I was given a gift of family and friends that made me a very different person.

The strength of love they have given me lead me to my god, the grace they held me by allowed me to erect the barriers to my empathic abilities and allowed me to be silent in myself, their boisterousness broke my sloth and laziness prompting me to action, their sense of justice allowed me to stand up for others and get cut down for it losing my job but not my faith. Their hope for me kept me moving when I was dead and wanted death so much it was in every fibre of my being. Their knowledge of sexual morality was instilled into me allowing me to hold off advances and the biting back the choices of drugs and sex when they were presented keeping me from being so easily overcome by them. Their understanding of alcohol and joy has allowed me to enjoy the pleasures of alcohol and fellowship and not take the path of excess and desire. Their joy in the company of each other has made it so that I want the same thing. and their understanding of death, their understanding of pain and anger has allowed me to grieve and slowly heal from the loss of my first love and her murder.

I cannot but help thank them for this gift and a wish to impart at least the basic level of understanding to others.

in getting to know oneself

I am starting to finally see some the problems in my psychological make up and my empathic makeup. I felt it more today than I have in a long time and it hurt me more deeply and effectively to know myself than I have ever done before. It was when I was offered a gift I would have been glad to have had the day before and not only did I not want it but I found myself upsetting people I love just by my body language and inflection. They didn't even know I was doing it but I could feel it in my empathic make up and couldn't stop the upset and hurt I was feeling and projecting, for no real reason, translating into the world around me. If I hadn't kept away from the crowds at this time I know I would have started fights and vamped joy from others.  

I would have at another time gladly taken the assistance, and the gift offered but today the need to project that pain, anger and sadness was unable to be contained and ruined what should have been a good thing. 

The wound that was seen in that moment when I projected without recourse or ability to contain it was something I have been shying away from for a very long time. It has caused some things in me that I would rather not see but equally I cannot escape. It came to me with sudden sadness that I am a person with a mood disorder as well as empathic gifts, normally held in check in a numbness of sloth and depression, punctuated with a deep sadness that brings me to the edge of weeping for myself, the world I live in and the people I will never know. 

But the flip side is there too, even if it is shorter and less well developed. I know that for tiny moments I am blessed with extreme insight, if not happiness, and when I let my guard down can even feel joy. This is not my natural state any more although I remember when I was open and able to experience that joy I close myself off from so tightly now. I remember before I went to school, and was bullied and called fat constantly leading me to eat more in an emotional redundancy loop.

I hated running around, I enjoyed and still enjoy food, and blocked the world out by trying to not conform and growing larger, fatter and more obese because the children around me poured scorn into me. I was one of those people who reacted to the scorn by taking it as my mantle and taking it as my banner. I bottled the rage, the hurt and the violence I knew would be released if I really reacted to the constant pressure against me. I made it into a core of firey rage that allowed me to build barriers and slowly rebuild my internal outlook but it also has crippled me.

I am an empath, not strong but generally able to pick up the surface feelings, the lies, the betrayals, and the obvious thoughts of people around me. If I know someone well it becomes background, and I actively avoid what would really hurt them to know only intervening if people are hurting, out of sorts or carrying another life, but I am not that good with people I am getting to know. I find myself looking at their thoughts, getting to know the language that is part of their make up, and sometimes looking deeper than they expect. It is that first moment of proper connection I crave, its an addiction I cannot describe. better than any drug because it is the person exposed fully and for a brief moment they have no secrets, no hang ups, and my barriers disappear. but it doesn't last, everyone puts up their barriers..

the person that does it the most is me. 

I cannot allow myself to exist as a full person. I cannot feel joy without the barriers being down as joy is the expression of hope and happiness with others, it is not just a mild moment of endorphin rush, it is not just a change of the sadness to lack of sadness, it is far bigger than that and as an empath I know it more fully than most. 

instead i have crippled myself with rage, sadness, numbness and pain. hiding in a shell of flesh to reduce the noise of others emotions (it does work), ignoring my empathic senses for just what I can see, forgetting that I can touch, taste, smell and hear as well with my empathic senses giving me clues and building the picture clarifies that which is who I am. I find myself unable to feel true happiness, as the absence of sadness is not happiness, the absence of pain is not joy. I find that I have smothered the ball of fire that once I could use to motivate my righteousness, my rage is crystalised and numb but the fire is still there in a heart of ice, burning cold making me icy and hurting others without my control. 

It also reminded me that I am an egotistical man with the belief that all people deserve to have a real chance to contribute to the society that we all inhabit. I believe that people need to live lives not just exist in them. To "wake up" but at the same time I see that I have been asleep to my own internal dialogue. I have hidden from myself my needs to rebuild my internal map, open myself to opportunities of joy, to return to my faith.

The only thing that has kept me from killing myself when in this emptiness comes to me is my faith in god. I have made my peace with death, and uriel and I have an understanding that when he comes for me finally I am not upset with it. however because I believe that suicide is a sin and it is not my life to lose, or use, but Jesus's it makes it fairly obvious that I won't give up my life unless that is what is needed for the greater good. Not the human "greater good" but god's.

The odd thing is I know that if I had not made the commitment to god this way I would have destroyed others by now. I am a microbiologist with the knowledge of thousands of fungi and virus. the skills to use them in the wrong way, and with the ball of rage burning in me, the incentive to use them that way. I would have killed myself but so many others would have gone with me and areas around the world would have been quarantined for generations. I could not have constrained the rage that was in me. I could not have forgiven others for the wrongs that they dealt me. Innocence would not have been a good enough excuse. Instead I would have turned the heart of fire onto others instead of internalising the pain and crippling myself in the process. I choose the right way but I need to heal and this requires more than I can deal with by myself. 

Instead I was saved by faith and the horrific knowledge I held  was safely avoided. 

It is a moment of wonder to me that I didn't choose the path of destruction. that I chose to love others, to want the best for all people. To not become a bully. To not become a liar, a thief and a murderer. To not allow my machevalian tendancies and knowledge to be the primary part of me. Instead i have been granted faith, hope and love. and the greatest of these really is love. I may not feel joy often, but unconditional love is always there, even if I forget to notice it. It is there, greater than me, greater than the love I get from my family and friends, greater than the love I touch on when I see the entrails of the world. Not Éros, Agápe, Philia, or even  Storge. Instead there is a love that transcends the love I as an empath can comprehend and I cannot avoid it. Everyone is embraced in it but only those that choose to open their hearts, their minds and their souls to it can ever understand what an incredible force it is guiding and moving through us all. 

Once you choose to open your heart it is there, waiting, changing the world one person at a time. it is never reduced, eternal not infinite, and I can finally see how much it has been part of me for so long supporting my healing, and finally today exposing me to the realities of my internal processes. But I know that I need something more than just my faith to do the healing. God performs wonders but the tools are here for a reason. 

I'm going to have to change and heal again or this is going to be a problem in me forever. I am being shown this for a reason now I have to do something about it. 

musing on music

Music is one of the great ideas of the universe. it is every where, hidden in rings of electrons, in the background radiation of the stars, in the moment between infinities. And amazingly we have been born to hear and to produce it. The possibilities of music, the mathematics of tone, tempo, and rhythm, the magic of empathic response, and the facets of memory that music invokes have been rebuilding me over the last few years.

The frisson that comes as I sing for my god, as I listen to the words of truly gifted singers and music makers and as I hear the music in the background of the world change me and make me something else each time I hear it. I hear it all trying to sing his name even as we humans change it with the noise of industry to sing our own praises it still is there the universe making music to a greater force than we will ever understand.

I really do understand now why Jesus talked about the rocks praising and calling his name because it is there in the very structure of the universe praising him with every movement. It is there if you want to listen to it but it needs a still silent place to hear the song that is everywhere. To feel the frission move through you, cut you to the quick and change you in its song.

Death at sea

The deaths that occurred today on the shores of Christmas Island are horrible. But totally expected. It is what happens when people take a leaky boat into the heart of a storm. What amazes and heartens me is that over 40 people were saved but they were all sold a lot of bullshit that they were going to make it and what happened was totally avoidable if they had chosen a more wise course.

We are not happy to take people in via the seas. We are willing to take people from the refugee camps. The problem is that every person who comes in on the sea, spends money to break the order, and risks their lives and the lives of the Australians who have to rescue them, detain them and process them cost someone in a camp their chance. 

My friends who have come here through the proper channels via the camps, through the refuge process are exemplars of the right way. By the son sponsoring the rest of the family into Australia allowing them to contribute to our society, by teaching our language to all of his family and the other people he has sponsored into this nation since, by the family providing jobs, shelter, and chance we are blessed by their presence. But the tragedy today will forget the right way again and take places that people who have been in the camps for years should have had. 

However the real villains here are the people who sold the poor fools the dream of Australia and its tolerant laws. These are people that need to be exposed more than any other and deserve to be published in the Jakarta times for sending people to their deaths. In a world where Wiki-Leaks is leaking the misconduct of politicians, senior public servants and diplomats the leaks that really need to be seen are the ones that tell of the real villain's here. The murderers, the organized criminal fraternity, and in the case of today's deaths the people smugglers who sell dreams of illegal action, and send people to their deaths in rough seas. 

It should be remembered that in the old days of Australia sinkings were a common occurrence with thousands dying from the nature of the storms that surround our nation. It is not a place for the unprepared, and storms, sinkings and dying are not unsurprising even if we as a nation mourn for the people who would have been rejected if they got here.

Brokenness

I love miniatures and the joy of painting them. I love the static models of figures that never were, of people I will never meet, of machines that cannot be or I will never actually experience. I love using them in games, designing them, constructing them, and making them something more than little pieces of plastic and metal. giving them personalities, giving them something in the moment of joy.
But it is in models I have the hardest time when I am unemployed, when I am without hope, when I am numb. for in their static nature, I see myself reflected and an infinite loop is born. I find myself hating, hungering for something, willing these tiny figures to "be". I find it so hard to make them alive when I feel so dead inside, so empty of hope and wonder. How can I paint and design something that mocks you with its life in a static moment when you cannot even live a real moment.
I don't love anyone special right now, I feel little lust, little eros, little hurt, desire, or pain. I cannot but feel without the core of who I am, aimless, adrift and under the numbness an anger burns that I need to deal with soon or it will turn to bile and degradation. It is only my faith, my moments of joy, my mother and father, and the few friends I have not alienated that have kept me from breaking completely. But in the models, in the figures I have completed and made I see something else, the brokenness I have isn't always mine, sometimes the brokenness is a source of beauty, a moment where life could nearly be. It hurts to see them but it brings me back from the numbness, and sometimes changes the anger that burns from so many years of taunts, insults, rejection, fear, and outright hatred; into something milder and then I find myself with a brush in hand changing the world one tiny figure at a time.

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.