Bobby

Bobby:

He walked into the downtown coffee shop I always stop at to do my homework
Standing at about 5’11’ with blonde hair and a fair complexion and if I say without appearing to judge him, he had surprisingly nice teeth
There were no empty seats save the one directly across from the small table I was sitting at
I noticed him, but pretend to remain preoccupied while simultaneously petrified that he might actually try and share my table. And I wasn’t at all surprised when the guys next words word were:
“hey man. .. . Can I sit here”
And in my head I’m like “oh dear” but instead what he hears is “oh for sure”
And he sits. . . . And he sips.. . . And I refuse to open my lips. ..
And my gosh was it awkward. . .

His name was “Bobby” and in all honesty he was a bit strange. Not the I’m afraid for my life type, or keep away from my wife type, more like the quiet socially awkward type, that makes you wanna re-write the handbook for social interactions because its clearly not in a language he’s comprehending type long stares with almost creepy glares type, yet underneath it all he’s the ridiculously nice type would do anything for anyone type and you wanna punch yourself in the face type for ever thinking anything less of him type.

Anyway, we got to talking and I mean real deep one on one I get to know you you get to know me as one talking and he’s not just nice, but he’s funny, and he’s really smart. Like we were talking everything from Plato, areo, to the ancient pharoahs and I had to rack my brain and dig through my strained thousand dollar education just to try and hold my half of the conversation

And we were laughing and we were interacting, and I started asking about him. And if he had a wife or where was he at in life, cause in his eyes I could see years of strife, and his face was a place without a lot of grace shown to him by those who to quickly condemned him . And he got real serious. And he said, I’m normal really I am, in every way but one. . . . And yeah its sad but these are the facts I’m plagued by panic attacks. . . I can’t hold a job and I can’t finish a class, the hospital bed that’s where I crash 8 times in three years with a heartbeat that tears through my darkest fears and leaves me at the mercy of transitory housing waiting for the day where I wake up and some says “hey its okay” and the goes out of there way to show me a different way. But I’m ok. . . .

He then went on to lay out his days out of this slow decay. He has dreams and one day wants to see his kids beam back at him while his wife leans against him and he’ll just soak it all in. and he talked about community, and settling down in a place where people know your face and care enough to know your case and help you as you face your adversity a place with a lot of diversity. He like my hair, and that I didn’t seem to care even though we both knew he wasn’t 100% there. And I like bobby, because he told me without telling me what it means to live in true community he reminded me that everybody is a somebody and that sometimes you find life’s greatest secret in a place where somebody else keeps it. And you might have to dig, and you might have to live a little outside your normal life but its ok, be surprised feel alive and let someone in a little deeper, and have no fear because in there you’ll see clear that what’s real here is heart to open heart face to face and eyes full of grace is what needs to have a place here in this time and this place so lets go create this place, we’ll call it earth and maybe one day through God’s grace it can be a safe space

-no title yet-

I reached out to help you up
And in my hands was everything I could offer.
Like all of me, and then some
I wanted life for you, I wanted love for you
All I did was love you past your unlovable parts
And I opened up my arms
Tried to embrace you into myself
Where it was safe
But You pushed me away
My cries for your life fell on the deaf ears of your heartbeat
And I was unable to tear down the walls that kept the noise out
Unable to play any sort of melody on your heartstrings
I tried again and again but I couldn’t produce any sound worth listening to
Nothing beautiful enough for you to stop, take notice of, and listen to
Your life was falling apart and I scrambled to use what was left of me
To keep you together, to keep us together
But I am only me and that’s hardly enough for all of you
As you broke I broke
And we lie here in pieces separate in all the important places
Like sand you can’t find the parts that fit together
And I don’t even know if there is enough left to put us back together
Not enough of me, and not enough of you
But maybe together there is enough for one
My hands, your arms, my legs your feet
Your heart and my lungs
Maybe we can salvage enough that it matters
Challenge ourselves to find something about us
Something we could salvage and bring to the surface
And somehow move through this
Otherwise you’ve lost all of you and I’ve given up all of me
And at the end we are finished
And there is nothing left of us.
So maybe before you push me away again
Before you walks away from me again
Before you leave my love again
Give us a chance,
Don’t give up on me, and I won’t give up on you
Please, I love you, so take my love
I know it can’t fill you, but maybe
It’s enough so you can stand

If God made the world

God made the world and
Saw that it was good. . .
I look at my world sometimes and think
Maybe God was blind
Last night the stars made love to me
Visually indescribably love so
I won’t waste time trying to explain it to you
But it was the kind of love that
Holds onto you like it’s the last time it’ll see you
And it’s a sad day when nothing on earths love you
So the stars have to take notice
And step down from there heavenly beds of midnight
just so someone can kiss you goodnight

God made the world and saw that it was good
But in my world I’m nearly drowned by my pasts
That won’t let me go their grasps leave me gasping for breaths
That I can not breathe because my lungs are to strung out on the ecstasy
Of my life’s horror stories my own personal history
Ugly because it hasn’t been washed clean since a time so long I can’t even remember
And my today life lives in those past lives and I fester in it
Fester in the stench of regret
How many of us reek of Should of’s, could of’s and would of’s
How many of us suffer at dominating hand of anxiety
Is tomorrow really a new day
How can it be when all that matters is todays memory of yesterday
And we remember, and 3 years later to the day we remember
And 30 years from now we will still remember
and while we held up at the gunpoint of those memories we resist help like its bad cough medicine Spit it out of the mouth of reality
And we try so hard to shake off let go of and remove the hands
The hands that are trying so hard to hold on to us
And pull us up and help us breathe again
Remember our lungs have forgotten how to breathe again
Stop. Take deep breathes and feel the crisp cold of the past
Come into your insides knowing it might not be fine
But let it in and see what happens
So I let it in. and ran and I ran underneath a thick
Downy blanket of midnight
Tucked underneath a comforter of stars and lulled to sleep by
The silent melody of two am
And I ran, and the I tried breathing again
And like riding a bicycle for the first time in years
My lungs could breathe again and
And the crisp harsh bitter winters of my past came in
like a flood they overwhelmed me
And like a storm they destroyed me
And like a rape they took advantage of me and left hopeless
And I couldn’t stand tall hopeless so fell to the ground
And made bitter love to the concrete with my tears
because even though it was hard and cold at least I could feel the concrete
And I hated everything I was and everything I was I hate
And I was hate and my hate was shoved into my face
And I couldn’t for the life of me escape and I was stuck between
Hate which was me and the concrete underneath drowned in pain
And a lack overcame me, and I found I had amounted to nothing

God made the world and saw that it was good
But I looked at my life and saw that I had been stripped until
I was just a naked corpse of nothing shamefully lying in my brokenness
And I don’t know how else to say it, but
I was empty and I know I’m not alone,
Because I’m staring at your eyes and I can see me staring back at me
You’re just a reflection of the me I was then
And our tomorrows were disappearing one after another
To quick to grab and hold onto
Dreams to far away to hold out for and cling to

You see,
sometimes I think we’re not to hard to define
We hid from all the things that make us human.
Sometimes I think we are just afraid to feel what feeling actually feels like
Because we’re sacred. . . We’re scared of leaving the masquerade behind us
Afraid of what’s actually beneath us
Beneath all the “I’m fine” responses, and make it on my own anthems
We are empty.

But,
Only one thing fills me, and it’s greater than me,
And in his weakest way he is stronger than my weakest point of me
And in my endless emptiness he is endlessly limitless
I let God fill me because without I’ve seen that I’m completely
Irrevocably empty of everything I used to say was me
See God made the world and God made me
And he has yet to leave me
And when I finally found him
I realized he had already found me
So I never had to fear being empty

word games

Lets talk about this beautiful thing called justice
I have a theory. And it goes like this
There is no such thing as justice
There is just what is just, and then there is what’s left. . . . that’s us
And together we are really just us, you and me decisions left to be decided
so be careful what decision you decide
because whatever you decided that's the decision you make
and what you make you create and what you create you represent
and what you represent becomes what you are
so decide carefully what you are and who you want to decide to be
because that is who you are
and who you are will fight for what you believe
so believe in what is just
and then "we" can become "us" and maybe eventually even though we are just us
we can become a little more like justice
so my theory begs the question. . . .
what decision will you make? who will you become? what will you fight for? what will you die for?
because between you and i . . . . we are nothing more than just us. . . . . humans fighting for justice

Update. . .

So. . . per-usual, i'm up far to late. But i suppose i can't help it when the inspiration hits. i wrote another song tonight, and i am pleased to announce that i have finished writing 6 songs for this specific project. i'm very excited about it. Some fine tuning needs to happen on all of them, but they are each about 90% of the way finished and that is the hard part. I'm very excited. i'm getting more organized in my thoughts and what not and that too is very exciting.
However, the theme of this project has shifted. without me making attempts to and in some ways inspite of me trying to. I was hoping this project would be more hopeful, and full of joy but it has definitely taking on a very sombering feel. It's a very dark sound and even though the lyrics are . . . positive. . . maybe. . . the themes behind them are fairly harsh. But i suppose maybe that's more realistic. perhaps the next project will be me coming out on the other side of whatever it is i'm in the middle of right now. all in all the project (the actual assemblying of the songs part) is about 70% of the way done. now i've never played the songs for people and i haven't figured out (even in my head) all the musical arrangements but a lot of that will happen starting in summer of 2011 after my YEAR ABROAD!!!! but i want to get all the material written before b/c i think it's important for me to have these moments cataloged. I might start recording as soon as June of THIS year b/c i want to get SOMETHING started and see how it all sounds and what not. perhaps i'll release a "single" to the five of you who follow me ;)
the point of this post was to inform everyone that the title of the CD will be changing, the Fall, Hugs, and Coffee theme will be taking a back seat in leu of the change in theme. the Project is going in a different direction and with that the title and overall outlook on this project will be changing as well. i love you all and goodnight :)

NEW SONGS!

So i was in the music room today with the plan of writing a few new pieces getting some thinking time and some alone time and just some piano pounding time. and i was successful on all accounts. i wrote what is possibly my favorite song so far today. it's probably the most simple in its arrangment and melody but it just speaks so clearly what my relationship with God has been this past year. its hopefully not self-indulgent and precocious and just honest and genuine that's the point. each line has a specific story behind it but it somehow flows together so nicely which i'm very happy about :)

Moments:

I'm a wander in spirit and in body
Never in one place for long
Yet somehow you found me
You met me where i was at
Fork in the road and to tired to choose a path
So you just sat down and talked with me

Son, please come home
I've been missing you
I see your broken
Please let me fix you

You piece me back together
All my rejection and shattered parts
You made me so much more beautiful
Than ever i was.

Now i can dance freely around this place
Grace falling down around me
Amazing love how can this be happening to me
For the first time I'm finally free. .. to be

Here in this moment
I surrender my heart completely
I'm letting go of me
Please have all of me

You're enraptured
You're captivated
You're astounded
Somehow forever
in love with me
in love with me
in love with me

Friends for Family?

So, as i'm starting to "grow up" and moving closer towards being a full-fledged adult and watching the friends i have get married, have kids, graduate college, start college, start careers start new majors, start taking leadership roles. . . i'm beginning to realize something. . . the importance of having strong friends. as i started to look around and observe the people in my life there a those that jump out in my mind as people i will only know for a short while longer and those that i will know for years to come, then there are those that my kids will fondly refer to as "aunt" and "uncle'' despite the lack of appropriate government legalization.
I'm also starting to realize what it means to have and maintain those types of friendships. People that will be there when my family can't afford to pay the mortgage, to be there when we are at the hospital losing someone dear to us, be there to help my own children (God willing) navigate there way through life and offer advice and love where me or my wife (again god willing) can't. There are those people that will be so influential in my life i will make sure my kids know there kids just b/c i know they'll raise amazing young people up. it's the difference between people that will come to my wedding and then the people that will also come to my childrens wedding. it's the people that i'll move mountains just to make an annual visit. there are the men in my life that i would call if i needing counseling and then the men who would call me before i needed it and help me through a tough time.
i must say when i look through my facebook friends list i have nearly 700 people as friends. this is a hefty number especially considering less than one year ago i delete 500 people. i think in this age of instant gratification and instant happiness, instant communication it's good to stop and think for a moment about the people that you'd keep in your life if all we could do to communicate was utilize snail mail. the people that you'd drive to see if you couldn't afford plane tickets. it's the people that (i know it's a disney channel cliche) maybe AREN'T near your house and that you CAN'T see everyday or . . . every year. but it's the people that have found there way into your heart and that rest heavy there.
find out who those people in your life are and do what you can no matter what it is to make sure you keep those people in your life.