thoughts from a disjointed being

God is moving in the way a stream flows. He is always moving, flowing, carrying and endless (the analogy falls apart here, because God is actually endless whereas a stream just seems endless from most given vantages. also, God is limitless where a stream has defined limits. forgive the holes my finite mind creates.)

i see God moving in other people, yet sometimes fail to see Him moving in me.
i sit on the banks of God and watch Him flow by. carrying others. changing others. all the while moving and flowing in a specific and meaningful direction.

i choose to sit on the banks. on occasion, i will get up and walk along the banks: carrying my heavy load - even convinced that i am doing good!

while God is in front of me. waiting to carry me. waiting to move me.

Smoke rings

Amic was beautiful in the way a smoke ring was.
Fleeting perfection achieved through too much time and dedication to a deadly habit.

She wanted to quit.

chess

Bryan lived like he played chess.
He had a general conception of how the pieces moved, but lacked any real strategy to his movements and also lacked the knowledge and foresight to predict the moves of others.

He wanted to get better at chess.

I swear i am willing to be refined.

i know i have yet to prove it. i should stop comparing myself to iron ore; as if i were strong. or any form of plant; as if by my very existence i would grow.

am i being refined? if not it is because i have buried myself far too deep.

the truth is that there is a fire burning hot enough. the opportunity persists, despite my resistance.

i want to end. end my unending thoughts. i want to stop thinking of what i am most like and start seeing what i am.
i am a wretched, mistake-making fool who gets distracted at every turn by everything meant to be left alone. i lack any sort of focus or discipline (or motivation for any real change) i am too good at lying about things and am believed by everyone at times. i am simply a regurgitation of the world around me: taking everything in and spitting it back out in some sickly distorted, yet appropriately placed way. yet somehow, beyond my delusions of grandiose failure, i am loved. i feel greedy saying that. i am loved (unconditionally, at that)
despite my irrationality and quirks beyond repair, i am loved

i have been loved

i will be loved

i am loved

i am loved

i am loved...

what i want, i can't have.

this is devastating.

contentment

why is it that the line between contentment and complacency seems so hard to define?

mathematics

on the playground one day the young children were showing off their math prowess by adding up various numbers. one child challenged another by asking what three-thousand plus two-thousand was. the surrounding children were in awe of the child that confidently spoke the words "five-thousand"
confounded, the children asked me to confirm the confidence of the mathematician.
"yes," i said "it isn't that difficult."
"but those are huge numbers!"
"yes. but it's the same as adding 2 and 3 together"
"5!" one anxious child yelled
"exactly. if all that's said is blank-thousand, just add up the first number and say thousand after. for example two-thousand plus eight-thousand is the same as two plus eight, but when you give your answer say 'thousand' at the end"
the children ran off to wow their friends who were outside of earshot of our conversation.

like many other times on that playground, interacting with children, i was blindsided by a lesson that i had just taught: everything seems complicated if you only look at the numbers.