i repent

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yrf94e1rbk

i repent of my pursuit of America's dream
i repent of living like i deserve anything
my house, my fence, my kids, and my wife
in our suburb where we're safe and white
i am wrong and of these things i repent

i repent of parading my liberty
i repent of paying for what i get for free
the way i believe that i am living right
by trading sins for others that are easier to hide
i am wrong and of these things i repent

i repent judging by a law that even i can't keep
wearin righteousness like a disguise to see through
the planks in my own eyes

i repent of trading truth for false unity
i repent of confusing peace and idolatry
of caring more of what they think than what i know of what they need
and domesticating You until You look just like me
i am wrong and of these things i repent

--Derek Webb

touch travels faster than pain

"Apparently neural impulses travel anywhere from two miles per hour to two hundred miles per hour. Pain impulses travel at the slowest of these speeds. I'm not a scientist, but that's what scientists have measured. The say that the sensation of touch travels faster. They say if you stub your toe, you feel the pressure of the object almost immediately, but the pain doesn't hit until two or three seconds later.
...but my perception is that emotional pain moves at electric light speed. Here, watch. Think of a person close to you. The closest to you. The one you find it most difficult to picture existence without. Then imagine them gone. Gone as in no longer living and breathing the same air as you. Ever. Feel that? It is practically immediate. Heartbreak happens promptly. At electric speed your world is dissolved. But if it's true--that touch travels faster than pain--then maybe we need those around us to pull in close, to beat it to the punch, or to brace us before we're shattered....
Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die. And heaven, if we're to believe what was proposed by a man two thousand years ago, is a kingdom coming and a kingdom here and now; something for the present, not reserved entirely for the ever after. Right now we exist somewhere between here and there, and bluegrass carries the high lonesome song of our condition in its soul. None of us are getting out of here alive, but we will conclude that death is not the ultimate calamity. We will conclude that community is necessary for truly living despite even the pain potentials it creates.
To live solitarily is to be avoided. Touch travels faster than pain. Death does not win. It is the beginning."
---David Crowder, Mike Hogan Everybody Wants to go to Heaven but Nobody Wants to Die or (The Eschatology of Bluegrass)

The Psalm Project

http://www.youtube.com/user/thepsalmprojectEN#p/u/1/GjyWo8HvbJc

Psalm 25

Of David.

¹ In you, LORD my God,
I put my trust.

² I trust in you;
do not let me be put to shame,
nor let my enemies triumph over me.
³ No one who hopes in you
will ever be put to shame,
but shame will come on those
who are treacherous without cause.

⁴ Show me your ways, LORD,
teach me your paths.
⁵ Guide me in your truth and teach me,
for you are God my Savior,
and my hope is in you all day long.
⁶ Remember, LORD, your great mercy and love,
for they are from of old.
⁷ Do not remember the sins of my youth
and my rebellious ways;
according to your love remember me,
for you, LORD, are good.

⁸ Good and upright is the LORD;
therefore he instructs sinners in his ways.
⁹ He guides the humble in what is right
and teaches them his way.
¹⁰ All the ways of the LORD are loving and faithful
toward those who keep the demands of his covenant.
¹¹ For the sake of your name, LORD,
forgive my iniquity, though it is great.

¹² Who, then, are those who fear the LORD?
He will instruct them in the ways they should choose.
¹³ They will spend their days in prosperity,
and their descendants will inherit the land.
¹⁴ The LORD confides in those who fear him;
he makes his covenant known to them.
¹⁵ My eyes are ever on the LORD,
for only he will release my feet from the snare.

¹⁶ Turn to me and be gracious to me,
for I am lonely and afflicted.
¹⁷ Relieve the troubles of my heart
and free me from my anguish.
¹⁸ Look on my affliction and my distress
and take away all my sins.
¹⁹ See how numerous are my enemies
and how fiercely they hate me!

²⁰ Guard my life and rescue me;
do not let me be put to shame,
for I take refuge in you.
²¹ May integrity and uprightness protect me,
because my hope, LORD, is in you.

²² Deliver Israel, O God,
from all their troubles!

something new!

so, this is actually not super exciting, but an exclamation point seemed fun... I am no longer in Honduras and, therefore, don't have volcanoes and tear gas to write about. So. I'm just going to use this space as a creative outlet, just quick little glimpses into who I am or how I am feeling or something I love or maybe something that I don't love... we'll just have to wait and see.

all i can say.. dc*b

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_7H1Z53g6g

Lord I'm tired
So tired from walking
And Lord I'm so alone
And Lord the dark
Is creeping in
Creeping up
To swallow me
I think I'll stop
Rest here a while

And didn't You see me cry'n?
And didn't You hear me call Your name?
Wasn't it You I gave my heart to?
I wish You'd remember
Where you set it down

Chorus:
And this is all that I can say right now
I know it's not much
And this is all that I can give
yeah that's my everything

Bridge:
I didn't notice You were standing here
I didn't know that
That was You holding me
I didn't notice You were cry'n too
I didn't know that
That was You washing my feet

Think of all the beauty still left around you and be happy.

[Anne Frank (1929 - 1945), Diary of a Young Girl, 1952]

Living

As I struggle to deal with the mess of culture shock and transitioning back into life in the U.S., I have been blessed with so many wise, encouraging, graceful, gentle people to help me sort through all that I have seen and heard and learned. My friend, Kelly, lived in Romania last semester. The other night she sent me this quote that I found so profound.

"...I would like to beg you, dear Sir, as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer."

-Rainer Maria Rilke
from "Letters to a Young Poet"