This is part of a Plankeye song… enjoy

And I landed here
you took the fall
its funny how the backdoors swing on call
and the lessons I’ve learned
end in depressed
is it the same way with you my friend?

and I’m not scared
scared of you

I think I’ll stay in
I didn’t lie
the man that I turned into last night
so many words
that I can’t take back

scared of me
scared of me, yeah
and all the backdoors are calling
so loudly to me.

Sometimes you can steal the blue from your own eyes.

Im scared of me
   Scared of me
'Cause all the backdoors are calling so loudly

::EDIT:: I think I had some wrong motives for writing this, but I also think i had some right motives, so yeah… take it or leave it and sorry if it’s wrong or prideful and stuff.

SO had two really big conversations today, and it is because of those that I think I can say I wish the book captivating had never been written, and Wild at Heart too. I mean, those books are taken really seriously by a lot of people.

“Women need to feel captivating to a man, they need to feel like everything he ever needs.”

This next thing is a quote from the people who sell the book (http://www.ransomedheart.com/RH_Ministries_Store/detail.aspx?ID=43)

“Your heart matters more than anything else in all creation. The desires you had as a little girl and the longings you still feel as a woman–they are telling you of the life God created you to live. He offers to come now, as the Hero of your story–to rescue your feminine heart and release you to live as a woman, fully alive. “

I just. I’m not so sure. Your heart does matter, but I think what these people mean in the book is your wants/childhood fantasies matter more than anything else. Like, “Wemembur when you believed in prince charming? Well Jesus is prince charming and if you find a godly guy he is prince charming too with a blonde-haired, buff-bodied soul. He also rides a really muscular horse like Jesus.”

I just wonder if we’ve taken this book as gospel when really your SOUL matters and LIFE matters and HOPE matters and I just think godly marriage might forsake prince charming some of the time or half the time or more and maybe love isn’t always captivated. love might be chosen. and maybe that is more heroic than anything as momentary as being captivated.

Sorry if I sound angry, I just think it needed to be said. and this is not a rant on women, it’s sadness for a book that sounds nice but might do a lot of harm if someone takes it as a prescription for how they should act.

So for whatever it’s worth, I just needed to get that off my chest. – Dave

Also I might be being too extreme, in fact probably am, I guess it’s just good to take those books with a grain of salt. Goodnight and many apologies.

So here is some stuff I wrote tonight… It’s really cool to see the love God at work… I like music.

There are words I said to you
That I’d throw out
And there are looks I gave too
That I know now
Were only seated in my selfishness
Provided by my pride
Well I just need you to know
That from the bottom of my soul I’m sorry

But for us
Grace it changes everything
Grace it changes everything

All my sins, they are erased
In a knockout
There’s no question for love
‘cause it conquers anything
And there’s nothing wrong with you
Now there’s nothing wrong with me

Oh I looked at you with hateful eyes
Disguised with a smile on my face
But I’ve seen love vast as the ocean
No metaphor explains it
But HOW IT CHANGES LIVES

Grace it changes everything
Grace it changes everything

I also wrote this and thought it was true

No damage has been done
That cannot be undone
Well the bastard divorced your mom
Well darling he will be undone
I saw him walk out
With another lover
Even that can be redeemed
I saw you cry
I saw you burn
Yes even this can be redeemed

So being home is pretty crazy. When I was really little I would fantasize about how I was going to take Batman’s place once he was too old to do his Batman stuff anymore. After that or before that or at the same time I started dreaming about being in the army when I was “older,” so tonight when I was unpacking and stuff, I found a box of letters and pictures and stuff of my grandad’s. He died in 2002 I think. But I was reading this mail he got, some from his dad when his mind was about to go, some from my dad from 1977-78 when he was in a missionary group. Then I found his high school diploma from 1952, a college degree, a diploma from morturary school (he was a funeral director). But you know, after seeing movies like Everything is Illuminated where the past is so beautiful and important, I started thinking about how I could do something really sentimental with all this stuff, or  maybe I could make a photo project out of it. I had taken everything that was in the box out. I read all the letters, read all of this stuff that already happened, saw my grandad’s senior yearbook picture, saw his obituary and as I packed the box pack up, it was lik burying the past again… We all die… I don’t know. It was like some epiphany, but nothing profound came of it I guess. Life is short. Money doesn’t last. Blessed are the poor in spirit, but maybe helping the poor is less about making them as wealthy as the rest of the world and maybe more about love… just thinkin’.

So according to my homework, I should be working on homework, but instead I want to be with you. I need to tell you that I’ve stared reading this book called the irrestable revolution. I’ve just got one chapter left and I really wish you would read it. If it weren’t so demanding I think it’d be the next Blue Like Jazz (in terms of popularity). I mean this guy makes no demands, but like the story of Jesus, it demands a decision. But I’m getting ahead of myself. This guys believes that Jesus meant every word he said. Now so do we, but do we believe it or do we just accept it as doctrine? Like when Jesus said,

“Blessed are the meek,
      for they will inherit the earth.
 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
      for they will be filled.
 Blessed are the merciful,
      for they will be shown mercy.
 Blessed are the pure in heart,
      for they will see God.”

The meek inherit the earth. The merciful are shown mercy. What?

And, “You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ 22But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to his brother, ‘Raca,’ is answerable to the Sanhedrin. But anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell. “Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift.”

Calling someone a fool is murder. huh?

And when he says these things in the book it really starts to make me resent the book. I start to rationalize, “You’re not being realistic.” But every time he tells a story of his beliefs in action… I cry out of I’m not sure what, the experiencial truth of it?

Please my friends check this out.

In Jesus’ name – Dave

This is wrong.  http://apnews.myway.com/article/20061201/D8LO1JLO2.html

I have one question. What is THE ONE THING you are most thankful for. The ONE THING. Say it out loud then type it out. Be as specific as you can.

I’ll start.

The ONE THING i am most thankful for is life, but the whole life, the full life that is in Christ. Like a kiss under the mistletoe. But lasting forever. Like a deep thick fog. But cool and refreshing. Like a newborn baby. After first a miscarriage. All of these descriptions fail because they are mere moments. But i am thankful for eternity. Eternity. Eternity as a child of God.

And in a completely unrelated tangent – Here’s to imperfect art!! – I love it.

By the way… Sufjan Christmas album? Splendid!

Oh God… Why do you love me so?

I went to Connecticut with the guys from Navs for the weekend…  Guys
and gals, I’m telling you, New England may be the most beautiful place
in the world, at least in the fall, at least in Vermont, and maybe in
Connecticut.. Today I wanted to show you part of a book I just
finished, The Problem of Pain by C.S. Lewis.

“There have been times when I think we do not desire heaven; but more
often I find myself wondering whether, in our heart of hearts, we have
ever desired anything else. You may have noticed that the books you
really love are bound together by a secret thread. You know very well
what is the common quality that makes you love them, though you cannot
put it into words: but most of your friends do not see it at all, and
woften wonder why, liking this, you should also like that. Again, you
have stood before some landscape, which seems to embody what you have
been looking for all your life; and then turned to the friend at your
side who appears to be seeing what you saw – but at the first words, a
gulf yawns between you, and you realise that this landscape means
something totally different to him, that he is purseuing an alien
vision and cares nothing for the ineffable suggestion by which you are
transported. Even in your hobbies, has there not always been some
secret attraction which the othersare curiously ignorant of -
something, not to be identified with, but always on the verge of
breaking through… Are not all lifelong friendships born at the moment
when at last you meet another human being who has some inkling (but
faint and uncertain even in the best) of that something you were born
desiring, and which, beneath the flux of other desires and in all the
momentary silences between the louder passions, night and day, year by
year, from childhood to old age, you are looking for, watching for,
listening for? You have never had it.
All the things that have ever deeply possessed your soul have been but
hints of it – tantalising glimpses, promises never quite fulfilled,
echos that died away just as they caught your ear. But if it ever
should really become manifest – if there ever came an echo that did not
die away but sweleed into the sound itself – you would know it. Beyond
all possibility of doubt you would say “Here at last is the thing I was
made for.” We cannot tell eachothhe about it. it is the secret
sidnature of each soul, the incommunicable and unappeasable want, the
thing we desired before we met our wives or made our friends or chose
our work, and which we shall still desire on our deathbeds, when the
mind no longer knows wife or friend or work. While we are, this is. If
we lose this, we lose all.”

This next quote comes from a bit further on, but related to this
individual passion Lewis believes to dwell within each person, and
certainly the person in Christ. “Your soul has a curious shape because
it is a hollow made to fit a particular swelling in the infinite
contours of the Divine substance, or a key to unlock one of the doors
in the house with many mansions… All your life an unattainable
ecstacy has hovered just beyond the grasp of your conciousness… But
God will look to every soul like its first love because He is its first
love. Your place in heaven will seem to be made for you and you alone,
because you were made for it – made for it stitch by stitch as a glove
is made for a hand. The day is coming when you will wake to find,
beyond all hope, that you have attained it, or else, that it was in
your reach and you have lost it forever.”

Poetry. Poetry. These words were like a song to me. Dangerous is the
person who can speak beautifully. A person who speaks beautifully and
truthfully brings you closer to home than you could ever be otherwise.
There are others who speak beautifully and mislead, but don’t hate
beauty, right?

SOOOO… Guys weekend in Connecticut…

“You should have seen that sunrise with your own eyes. It brought me back to life.”

I’m going to take you on a journey! Friday night I was hanging out with 2 friends. We watched Lost and, when we had finished, hung out wiff Mike “The Roommate” Morgenstern, looked at music and I showed them my friends from home on facebook, you guys. We had decided to watch the sunrise at the Brooklyn Bridge with 1 more friend and maybe Mike “The Roommate” Morgenstern, but instead those two slept. We stayed up all night, took the 4/5/6 down to the bridge from Union square, and this is the beauty that welcomed us!

This is what I meant when I said we. This is us minus me.

From top to bottom; Gillian, Jillian

This is what happens when the sunrise hits Manhattan

This is the beautiful Brooklyn Bridge just before sunrise.

Have a wonderful wonderful, excessively happy… day