As I drove to Crystal Lake, windows rolled down, the wind rustling through my folder of papers placed precariously in my back seat, my mind started to wander. I was thinking about writing, specifically I was thinking about a new idea I have for a fiction novel that I will most likely be writing this year for NaNoWriMo. To summarize, it is a tragedy told in two perspectives, the grieving widows story of grief and loss, and the dead husbands unfulfilled time in paradise, due to the knowledge of his lovers strife. Anyways, these thoughts quickly lead to thoughts of the afterlife which, for me, is normally something bad. All my life I have been told that Heaven is going to be perfect. I have heard my different ideas of what this means. Some have told me that it will be a never ending worship concert, or that we will try to stand up and the glory of G-d will push us to our knees for all eternity (both of which don’t sound very perfect to me). I have been told we will all fly and have regenerative bodies.

I have been told we will do the things we love to do on earth, just perfectly. I have been told that we will have all that we could ever want. So, what slowly appears is a picture of heaven where at the blink of an eye, anything you want will be there, perfect in every way (at least in my head).This thought was what started the panic attack. See, if we could get anything we desire, with no effort, and it would be perfect then there is no progress. If everything we love to do, we do perfectly, then there is no reason to keep doing it, because we will have reached the apex. If heaven is nothing but people who are already at the ceiling of potential, I feel like life in heaven will be boring and unfulfilling.

It is similar to a recent conversation I had. Mosaic’s book club has been going through Rainn Wilson’s “Soul Pancake” recently. One of the questions was “What would you literally give your little toe for?” My first thought was “to have a musical following”. But as we discussed I realized that I would not want that. What good would it be if I gained a musical following, not because of my music or because of the effort I put out, but purely because of a magical and sadistic wish-giver. Without having any work been put in on my part, the outcome would feel cheap and not fufilling. The same can be said about this view I was dancing around with about heaven. If we are already perfect at everything we want to be perfect at, I feel like our talents and abilities will feel cheap. There are many times when practicing a song I wish I could snap my fingers and be perfect at the song being practiced, but in all reality, it is the weeks of hard work that make playing the song well so satisfying.

There was another problem I found with this viewpoint that was in my head. If I could just wish anything into existence and be given a perfect version of said item, then there would be no progress left in the world. Let’s say I want a computer. So I snap my fingers and, BAM! the most perfect computer ever sits before me. But now I know while using it, there is nothing that will ever be better than this. All of the computer programmers and inventors will never be able to live out their passion and come up with something better than this. We will hit the roof, without effort, and there is no where to go from here. But what if there is no ceiling to the power of our G-d given creativity? What if G-d made us to create, just as he creates, and that progress in all its forms is a part of this? Maybe removing the ability to progress by making everything perfect is actually counter-intuitive to the way G-d made us to work.

Then I started to think about the one book that has eased my mind about the hereafter, Love Wins. I started to think about how in the OT all the mentions of paradise involve things like pressing grapes and building and farming and growing and working. That the OT picture of paradise seems to be one where we will continue to work hard for the things we love. Where we will keep creating new and exciting wines. This is a paradise where life we know it will continue. We will just no longer have pain, suffering, strife, prejudice, stubbornness, and selfishness. That this paradise is not somewhere where everything we do is perfect and everything we have is the ultimate of its kind, but it is a place where we will have the perfect discipline and drive to accomplish all the things we wish we would in this life. Where my desires will not be weighed down by my own weaknesses. Inventors will continue to invent, musicians will continue to create, writers will write, craftsmen will craft, cooks will cook, and all will be made right. Creation will continue to create, now and in the age to come.

But, for the longest time, there was a greater problem that I had with this concept of prayer. It all started when I went to a local Christian open mic night. The night before a terrible storm was supposed to hit the area I live in, but ended up heading south and missing us completely. Before the open mic night started, they opened with prayer. In the midst of thank you’s an and you are awesome’s someone started to pray about the storm. They started to praise G-d that their prayers were answered and that G-d caused the storm to miss our area. Everyone erupted in a cacophony of amens and hallelujahs. I sat there in shock.

Now, from an egocentric viewpoint, this prayer request and fulfillment was completely just.

1. I am going to get hit by a dangerous storm.

2. I do not want to be hit by a dangerous storm.

3. I hope G-d saves me from the dangerous storm.

But what are we really asking for here? Are we asking G-d to quell the carnage of the storm? Were we celebrating the removal of chaos? No, we were merely displacing it. So, what ends up being prayed is “G-d, hurt

our neighbors directly south of us. Wreak havoc upon their community, so that we will be spared.” In that open mic, we were celebrating the fact that a dangerous storm hurt numerous people. Is this something we should be praying for? Because if you step outside of yourself, you find that many times, when you pray that something good happens to you, you are praying that something bad happens to someone else.

Here is another example I have been musing over for a while. Let’s say you are currently unemployed and are desperately seeking employment. You have submitted applications to countless businesses. After a long and painstaking wait, one of those companies finally responds and gives you an interview. You go through the interview, tell them exactly why you are the best man for the job, and are now sitting at home a few days later, waiting for a call. You know it takes them a few days to make their decision, and that they are probably mulling over the decision right now. You close your eyes, bow your head, and start to pray. You pray that G-d will guide their decisions. You pray that G-d will bless you with this much-needed job. You thank him for his blessing, and end it with a powerful amen. Afterwards, you have a sort of forced hope that something good will happen. You feel like you have to, otherwise you will be doubting G-d, and your lack of faith will not be rewarded.

Now, what is really going on here?

When praying that G-d would give you the job, you are also inherently praying that G-d will not give the job to someone else. You are praying that many people will have to endure the rejection of not being employed, so that you can. What if one of those people was more qualified than you and you just asked G-d to give the job to you instead? You have just asked G-d to hurt the company you are hoping to work for. What if one of those people is about to lose their house, and this job is their last chance? You have just asked that G-d take away that chance from that person.  The biggest problem I find with the modern vending machine model of prayer is how

egocentric it is.

We are not at the center of the universe. There are others around us all the time. We need to realize what we are really praying for, the next time we pray that G-d gives us a close parking spot, or a favorable outcome to a game. We need to think more critically the next time we “pray away” a storm, or ask G-d to bless us.

It’s time we realize who we are cursing when we ask for blessing.

I don’t want the Father; I want a vending machine
I don’t want the Father; I want a vending machine
I know what I want, if you know what I mean
I don’t want the Father; I want a vending machine

(Derek Webb-The Spirit vs. The Kick Drum)

The King.

I love Burger King chicken sandwiches. Ever since the noun tendercrisp came into existence I was hooked. It just all works together. Recently, with my commute to class, I find myself occasionally stopping at burger king for a tasty morsel of fried chicken goodness. My good friend Mike is also a fan of their cheap double cheeseburgers, so when we hang out, there is a good chance I will end up at Burger King. The three times I have been to Burger King, twice on my own, and once with Mike, they asked me to pull ahead and wait while my food was prepared. Now, this is something I normally frown upon because I know the employees are only trying to make it look like they got customers through the drive through quicker, but these past three times, something totally different dawned on me. All three times the employee at the drive-through said the same thing:

“I am sorry sir, but we are making the chicken fresh. Could you please pull up and we will bring it out when it’s ready.”

Now, let us forget the half question turned into command at the end and focus on what is most important and revelatory in this statement. This man was apologizing that my food was being made fresh. It was wrong of the store to make my food fresh. There is something deeply disturbing about this statement. Now, I know that you can get all caught up in syntax and perhaps his wording was just off, but I started to think about it and I realized that this is not the norm. It is abnormal in our society to get food that is cooked fresh. As I sat there, waiting for my food to be made, people behind me got impatient. I received many nasty looks and hand gestures as impatient customers were forced to drive around me. Now, I am going to set aside the fact that even if this was a problem, it was not my fault in any way, other than I ordered food that was not pre-made garbage. I will set that aside to focus on the much bigger problem: The store clerk was right to be apologetic. Everyone around me was getting angry that I was waiting. It seemed that I should have been angry. But, I wasn’t. I wasn’t angry because I know that fresh food is worth the wait. It was late at night, I had nowhere to go. I was actually happy that my food would be fresh, because that meant it would be good. But as the clerk and the other customers showed, I live in a culture where that kind of thought is not acceptable. We cannot wait for our food to be made fresh. We expect to pull up to the drive through, make our order, and by the time we are done paying, we want our food in our hands so we can drive away and eat. Waiting is an anomaly. The stores are not even set up for waiting. Normally if you have to wait, you are forced to be stuck in an awkward place where your care is barely not in the way, but everyone still thinks you are.  The system in the store is even set up for speed. Cars are not supposed to stay at the window for more than a minute, which is why I was forced into that awkward place at all. All of this leads me to only one conclusion:

We have sacrificed fresh, real food on the altar of impatience and convenience.

And what was it I was waiting for? Over processed chicken sandwiches and a burger with cheese bits fused into the meat. The food that was importantly made fresh, was not even real in the first place. So, what is it we want? We want fake food, pre-made to our convenience. Look around the food landscape. Real, fresh food is now a marketable factor. Places are special if they serve fresh food or free-range beef. It is an anomaly of our society to have real food. You can barely even get fresh, real food in our grocers. In order to get wild salmon or grass-fed beef or free range chicken you have to shop at top of the line organic grocers like Whole Foods and pay way more money for it. People choose to buy frozen, presliced and breaded chicken bits because the price for organic chicken is too high yet they are more than okay with paying Comcast way too much money for sixty something channels of cable television?

There is something wrong going on. Our world is fake, and we have embraced it.

We like our fake food. We have made it taste better than the real thing. There is a reason I love sandwich meat. It is so dang tasty. Real turkey is terrible in comparison to a nice, thin sliced piece of deli meat. Yet, that is not real. I have come to prefer the fake over the real. If allowed the choice, the majority of kids will choose chicken nuggets and pop over fresh cooked food and milk. Jamie Oliver proved it. The worst part is we promote it. We make our fake food taste better and buy it in bigger numbers and mark it down so more people can afford it. Everything around us, is becoming fake.

After we are done eating our fake food we are transported into our fake lives: living out our fantasies vicariously through actors and actresses. Television, movies, video games, porn: It is all a fake life we choose to connect with, we choose to live through, in order to make our lives more interesting. Our sex lives are mundane so we are told by psychiatrists to live vicariously through porn stars to spice up our love life. We have indie kids living through the mixes the characters in their favorite books, which were adapted into movies, made. People are naming their children Neo because they believe The Matrix was a documentary. And what happens when the disconnect between the screen and reality becomes to noticeable? We make it into a video game. We take control of the characters we are living through and merge our reality further into theirs, all the while severing our precious connection to the real.

Now, let me stop this rant for a moment to make a comment. I am in no way bashing media. I believe wholeheartedly that much of media is art. Someone had a vision, whether comedy or tragedy, and they poured their passion into this art form. The reason we connect with it is because of this passion. I am a huge fan of many movies, television series, video games and books. I love the emotional connections that are made. Crying tears of joy as Pam and Jim finally got married (spoiler alert…wait, I think i am supposed to do this before the spoiler….ooops.) Freaking out when the scary black monsters steal away the mysterious white princess as I make my way through ICO. Laughing hysterically as Modern Family creates even more awkward moments. Media is awesome at making connections to you through emotion and personal experience and there is nothing inherently wrong with this connection. The problem arises when we invest our identity into these characters and settings. I am not talking about Uberfanboy pretend fun. What I mean is that the real problem is when our real lives suffer and become mundane because we are spending more time in the fake world than in the real world. When the most exciting moment of your week is Monday night RAW (Thank you Mike for indirectly causing this reference) you have a problem. We live dull, unimportant lives because we are too busy living out our fantasies in a fake reality. This is the problem. The problem gets worse when we start to find meaning in consuming entertainment. People who flaunt their Gamer scores, or have to be the first Mage to get to 85 without ever doing a quest. Now, these things can be harmless bragging rights, but to many this has become their livelihood. The only problem is, it isn’t real. You can’t put your gamer score on a resume. Getting Shadowmourne will not help you in any way in reality.

So, we need to allow media its proper place. We need to allow art to be art. Art should inspire us, not consume us. Media should be enjoyed, not obsessed over. We need to gain control of our lives, and start living in the real.

So, after we have eaten our fake plastic food and lived our fake plastic fantasies, we head to our fake plastic churches. We do fake charity to whatever causes we like to pretend we care about. And this could be the worst part of our fake lives.

Now, I will try not to rant too much on community and church structure. That discussion is for a later time. But, it can be said that what churches in general do is further separate us from the real. Our community reduced to a few hours a week, where most of it is spent sitting quietly and listening to someone tell you what to believe. We are force-fed truth, which turns it into a fake form of wisdom. We cannot allow ourselves to find truth, in fear and trembling. We need our pastors to tell us what to believe and even they are fake. We set up this ideal belief that our pastors are these perfect people, and when they are found to be struggling, like all of us, we condemn them. We give our money to our church because we are told to, which is fake tithing. We cannot be giving of ourselves to help the weak and the sick and the poor, because our church needs air conditioning! Then we head home, angry at ourselves because we cut someone off while showing off our Jesus loves america bumper sticker.  This is because we are new gnostics (something that will be delved into on a later date) who have simplified truth to catchy statements on our cars: The fruit of our faith, transformed from real actions to fake stickers.

Or perhaps you are not a church goer. You are one of the enlightened ones, who finds the folly of theism to be laughable. You are much smarter and better than these people because you don’t just follow the words of your preacher. No! you just blindly follow the words of Hitchens and Zeitgeist. But it’s okay, because they are scientists. We can blindly follow them because they have dedicated their lives to show off how smart they are. They can’t have biases. So you turn science and philosophy into this fake bragging right.

When we all get home we go on facebook and write about all the injustice in our world, because if we post about it enough, then people will know we care. We send around slacktivist chain posts about this or that, feeling good that we support these causes, even though we have done nothing to change them. We rant against political figure A and praise B, even though we refuse to get involved or even learn the truth about either of them. We write blog posts about the injustices in the world, yet do nothing to change them. (>.>   >.>   >.>) It’s all fake.

Fake plastic charity. Fake plastic church. Fake plastic atheism. Fake plastic truth.

Fake Plastic Trees – Radiohead

Her green plastic watering can
For her fake Chinese rubber plant
In the fake plastic earth
That she bought from a rubber man
In a town full of rubber plans
To get rid of itself
It wears her out, it wears her out
It wears her out, it wears her out

She lives with a broken man
A cracked polystyrene man
Who just crumbles and burns
He used to do surgery
For girls in the eighties
But gravity always wins
And it wears him out, it wears him out
It wears him out, it wears…

She looks like the real thing
She tastes like the real thing
My fake plastic love
But I can’t help the feeling
I could blow through the ceiling
If I just turn and run
And it wears me out, it wears me out
It wears me out, it wears me out

If I could be who you wanted
If I could be who you wanted

All the time, all the time

Perhaps it’s time we break out of our fake plastic worlds. We need to realize that food is important. It is what sustains us, what keeps us alive. We are constantly putting it into our bodies, perhaps it should be good! We need to live our own lives. Go and have adventures, find out new things. Allow our imaginations to take back their proper place in our lives and allow art and entertainment to have its proper place. We need to break free of the bondage of fake truth. Realize that our facebook posts have no bearing on the problems in our world. Use blogging as it should be used, to educate and provoke. To get people to think and to share opinions, not a place where you can pretend like your writing is actually making a difference in Sudan. We need to allow church to become the true community it was meant to be. Allow pastors to step down and join the lay. Realize that we are all sheep trying to find our way in the dark or at the very least realize that our pastors and leaders are not perfect and be okay with that fact. Find truth for yourself. Read, read, read your bible. Fight with it, struggle with it. Do not just go to it to re-affirm your spoon fed beliefs. Allow it to challenge the very threads of your existence. Allow other writings and art and people to do the same. Never stop questioning, growing, struggling, and breaking down. It will only get better. It’s not easy, but its real. It’s up to you. Do you embrace reality or continue living in the fake plastic earth we have created?

"That hat is gay!" "Cmon teacher, aren't you supposed to help me??"

I have been watching the news, my friends, and the general population get more and more passionate about stopping bullying lately. After a series of terribly unfortunate and saddening suicides, supposedly stemming from bullying, the nation seemed united in the fight to stop this serious problem. I however, could never find myself in alignment with the masses. The more I saw anti-bullying statuses on Facebook and bully awareness news reports the more my feelings separated me from these ideals. I always wanted to voice my thoughts, but in the moment they always seemed muddled. I was also worried, as I am even now, that there would be some severe backlash for having the stance I have. I know many people who are very passionate about this, and my hesitance to write this is based largely in my desire to not offend anyone. Yet, it is one thought that keeps coming up in my head. So, I tread carefully and thoughtfully as I make my case, to stop the bully hysteria.

Bullies hurt. There is no doubt about this. I spent the larger portion of my life being bullied and at times, when there was someone lower than me on the social food chain, did my share of bullying. I am not proud of the latter, and have made it through the former. Somehow, I was able to make it through the danger zone that is public school with not only my life, but my dignity intact. Because ultimately, bullying can’t do anything to you. That is, unless you let it. I wholeheartedly stand by the idea that bullying has never been the cause of any death, cutting, or any other form of long lasting personal strife. The problem comes when you start to listen to the bully. It is the same problem that arises when you allow the blessings of others to define you or the picture of beauty portrayed in the media to define you as ugly. The problem we have on our hands is not a problem of bullying: it is a problem of self image. A bully can only do as much damage as you allow them to. The worse you feel about yourself, the less support you get at home,  and the lack of a proper self image are what cause all of the problems we are running into. I spent my whole life being told I was a fatass, a whale, and a geek (back when it wasn’t sexy). I was never smart enough to fit in with the super geeks, but never cool enough to fit in with the popular kids. The theater, the one place I felt welcome, was filled with ridicule for my weight. Yet, I never contemplated suicide. I never once cut myself or turned to drugs. I attribute this in part to my amazing family, who constantly affirmed that I was worthwhile and in part to my wonderful community of friends (that in later years of my schooling, was my youth group at church) through which i found acceptance and love. I was able to stand up to the bullies. I was able to realize that their words meant nothing, and even though their actions would sometimes cause temporary damage, nothing could tear down my spirit because I knew who I was.

I would even go so far as to say, bullying helped prepare me for the real world. It is not like once you get out of school, the bullying stops. There are still going to always be people with low self esteem who prey on the weak. I experienced one of these people at my local grocer recently. A man, so selfish and impatient, he had to push me out of the way (quite forcefully, I might add), in front of his grade schooler, because he had to buy his case of Coors light. He was everything that a bully could be. I have always believed school is more than just education. It is preparation for the real world. There is social learning to be done. You learn how to make friends and how to interact with girls and how do take heartbreak and even, how to deal with assholes. It only gets harder in the real world, and sheltering our kids by putting on these extreme crusades against bullying may actually end up hurting more than it helps.

And these crusades are not going to accomplish anything. Over punishing a kid for using the wrong word or messing with someone is not going to stop bullying. In fact, more times than not I can guarantee it will make it worse. One thing I learned in school was you never tell on the bully. You stand up to them. Going to a teacher only fueled their fire, by: 1. Getting them in trouble and 2. showing your weakness.  Ultimately, that kid you suspend from school is only going to come back more angry, more insecure, and more of a bully. If they can’t bully in school, they will do it outside of school. And it is much better for it to be happening in the walls of school than on the walk home. Perhaps it is not the bullies we should be worrying about at all.

Then what should we do about this problem? I mean, suicide is a pretty major problem. I think the solution to the problem lies not in condemning the strong (who in all actuality are weak, and are showing it by bullying) but by lifting up and taking care of those who they would attack. You can fight and fight all day against bullies, but that is not going to stop the suicidal young man who is dealing with unsupportive parents and a lack of social contact from downing a bottle of pills. Engaging with that person, connecting with them, building up real communities that are open to all people, showing people true love and embracing all, these are the things that will stop bullying. To all you parents of youth who have been bullied: it is far more important to let your child know exactly how much they matter and how truly special they are, than it is to go bully hunting. To those who walk the halls, embrace those who are picked on, those who are socially outcast. Not because you feel bad for them, but because they are no different from you. If you don’t, you might as well join the bullies. And to those that feel alone: Do not allow anyones words dictate who you are.

On a somewhat separate note, I have noticed that this whole hysteria has been somewhat focused on homosexual bullying. I mean, everyone throws in the extra tags when listing the types of bullying, but lets be honest, most of the time, especially recently this is what you are talking about. This has led to a new sacred cow being born. I am finding more and more people who get so angry when I call something gay, or when I make some stupid gay joke. The best part is, everyone who gets mad about it is always straight. As a matter of fact, all of my gay friends never seem to have a problem with my use of words or my choice of jokes. This is because all of my gay friends are secure enough in themselves to be able to laugh at the culture they are a part of and realize this one simple fact: a joke is not serious. So to all you uptight straight people, calm down and laugh. Let us embrace the old adage of “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” They are only words. It’s only a joke. Just as the catholic churchs needs to relax and embrace Dogma for what it is, just as I hear more racist jokes from my black friends than anyone else, we all need to stop taking things so seriously, stop making things unjokable, and grow a sense of humor.

I end with this horribly distateful joke, just to commemorate this embrace of light heartedness:

A muffin and Helen Keller are in an oven. The muffing turns to Helen Keller and says “Boy, its hot in here.” and Helen Keller says “UGHNHHHNHUGAAAAHNGA!”

Sufjan Stevens recently released an album based off the work of an artist by the name of Royal Roberston. Royal was a poor man, who was crazy and made art. He has paranoid schizophrenia and became quite delusional as he progressed. This caused his wife to leave him, after he continually accused her of cheating on him and being unfaithful. After she left he dedicated almost all of his time to making his art. They were very unappealing pictures of the future, many looked like comics, picturing flying cars and the end of the world. They all had scripture and other writings on the sides and showed his obsession with numerology. He was painting visions he saw, as he believed he was a prophet of G-d. He frequently recieved “dreams” of the end of the world and as he became more delusional and paranoid, he started to believe that the world was ending because of a mass conspiracy of  a group of women, trying to end the world. He died in 1997. Much of his work was destroyed in Hurricane Andrew.

Now, this got me thinking. Speaking to G-d, being a prophet, and being insane seem to be closely connected. Most of the biblical prophets were quite loopy, and if put in a modern context would be clinically diagnosed with some sort of psychological disorder. And yet they were spot on. We can see this in hindsight, we see the prophecies coming true, the bigger picture of what they were correcting, and the grand scheme of what G-d was communicating. But how can we know that people like Royal are not in fact insane, but overwhelmed my the message G-d has brought to them. I am not saying Royal is a prophet, he was very much insane and his prophecy was very twisted and misogynistic. But how do you differentiate the prophet from the insane? Or even worse, if you receive a “vision from G-d” how do you know its from G-d, and not just your schizophrenia acting up?

http://onbeingafather.wordpress.com/

I will still continue to write on this blog, when I find time. It will continue to be focused on Philosophy, Theology, and Life. Check out the other one if you wish.

That is all for now.

Oh to hear your cries. The moment we knew, that first sound. Nothing will ever come close to that – except for you of course – It cut through the noise, the worry, the frustration, the anger, the pain. Nothing else mattered, nothing at all. Welcome to the world, little man. Your day has come, and not a moment to soon. There is work to be done, things to be seen. The sky got a little bigger today. It knows your potential. It worries that it could limit you. So it grew, bigger and bigger, as you stretch your little arms.

Every thing you do, opening your eyes to see the world, a view as untainted, yet so limited. It’s almost sad to think that there is nothing i can do to keep you so innocent, so pure. Holding you makes it hard to believe in original sin, you know. To hold innocence, and to think this innocence is destined for hell, fuck that. Fuck that right in the face.  He is my angel.

All those songs, all those illustrations. All those times told, you will understand once you have kids….they were under-exaggerating at best. Everything is has changed. Color is brighter, once i saw your eyes. Music, sweeter. Gless still sucks, but its okay, because you dont – save for when you eat, you Caterpillar – you don’t at all. Wiggle your way into my brain, keeps me smiling when the hard rain fills my pockets.

I have been transformed. Everything is different now, yet everything is the same. I have transcended, I am still me, but a different me, a lighter me. I float a little every step it take. You make me float, my boy. You make me float.

Being a dad, there are no words to adequately describe it, so I think its time i stop trying and just go back…….to you.

My little Caterpillar.

But their break has been interrupted, by plastic furniture.

I wish i could just stand, or lay on the floor, but my bones are heavy. My spirit is weak. Every step, my feet feel like falling into the floor. Until I blend in with the wood. But i have to be strong. I need to be strong. Even though I want to melt into the hardwood floors, and disappear, I must be a rock. Steady and strong. I hide my tears in a corner, to keep everyone safe.

Fucking doctors. All they care about is time. Not the wellbeing or the concerns of their patients. When did caretakers become assembly line workers. Put this piece here, cut this piece out. We can have your baby in under an hour. Fucking impatient, is all. cant sit still, cant let the life inside make its way into the world. Cut it up and throw it out. No care for their patients. No care at all. Even the good ones put you on a timetable. Waiting to carve up the turkey. Caretakers, I see no caretakers, save the nurses. Those whos paycheck does not determine the way they treat you. They are here because they care, not because they want your savings.

Its good to see you sleep. Resting. You worked so hard. So very very hard. You were strong, but this weight was too big for you. You did you best, and dont ever forget that. You did your very best, and i could not be more proud. I will tell the generations of your strength, my love.

The machines laugh at our frustration. Buzzing and clattering in delight.

The grey sky gets it. Its singing along with my blues. But things will get better. This day will not weigh so heavily on me soon. The light will shine, the wizard will appear, the rock will be overturned….and all will be made right. Through new life.

Oh my precious child, how I longingly wait for your arrival. I wrote you a song, its not very good, but it has heart. It has soul. It has blood, sweat, pain, tears, happiness, and time all blended together. Though it may not be difficult, and it may not be unique, it is true. It is my soul, ripped from my essence, onto the keys. Take a look inside, son, and know how much your daddy loves you. How much your daddy cant wait to see you, to hold you, to watch you.

Plastic furniture is squeaky, but you can wipe the tears away. Maybe thats why they keep it in these rooms. So that the tears can be wiped away.

Tears of joy, tears of joy.

If only you knew how alone I feel…

I’m not allowed to cry no more. I have to be the man. My feelings just make me fail you, and scare away my friends.

If only you knew how alone I feel…

I’m supposed to feel this way. my anger is not true. My pain just can’t find a way out. I don’t know what to do.

If only you knew how alone I feel.

I never mean to hurt you. My words fall out of place. I fuck up every beautiful thing. nothing more than a disgrace.

If only you knew how alone I feel.

And everyone will take this. and twist it to their minds. am i just whining, or is it just an excuse. Or just weak and out of line.

If only someone knew how alone I feel.

My friends fall away.

If only someone knew how alone I feel.

My family falls away.

If only someone knew how alone I feel

My life falls away.

If only someone knew how alone I feel.

Don’t you fall away.

Don’t you fall away.

So while I was on vacation I wrote my last blog post about addiction and time. It is something that I went home and talked about even more with all sorts of people dealing with many different kinds of addiction. I was feeling justifiably good about this idea of mine, and was feeling even better that I was turning my advice inward and working towards progress in my different struggles. Everything was going great…until I stepped on a scale.

See, my weight has been a problem for me for a long time, a problem that, until a few months ago, I was happy to ignore. I went to the doctor a few months ago and was told that for my age and height my weight put me right at the brink of obesity. I was shocked. I had always known that I was a hefty guy, but never did I think I was obese. It was then that I vowed to lose the weight by eating better and exercising more. I did well for a time, and then sort of forgot about it. That is, until my prescription refills ran out and I had to return to my doctor. So, I went into overdrive mode and managed to be at least a few pounds below that weight I was at before. My doctor was so proud of my “accomplishments”. I was so happy that he was proud that my overdrive continued for longer than I would have expected. But, eventually it died out. I went through life believing that I was eating moderately and avoided the scale. It was in this state that I went on vacation. During my vacation I biked, climbed, and walked all over St. Louis. I ate humus and drank lots of water (and whiskey….). I felt so good about my active vacation I was sure that when I got home I could stand on the scale once again and feel good about seeing a number below 300 (my original weight when I went into the doctor).  I thought, this is going to be the thing that gets me back on track towards my goal of being at 250 by the time my son is born and eventually going all the way to 200. When I arrived back at home I was excited to see all the progress I had made on vacation. I excitedly stepped on my scale. Suddenly, my excitement was gone. Surely the scale must be broken, I thought to my self. For there was no way I actually weighed 306 pounds!

But, it was true. It was a truth that hit me, hard. It knocked me back to reality and made me realize, I was not balanced in my diet. There was no moderation in what I ate. Then and there I decided that I needed to change something, not just for a while, but for a lifetime. I could no longer drink gallons of soda a day (to all you people who drink soda with most meals, actually tab up how much you drink…it will shock you). I opened up my calorie count program on my phone and decided that until this truly becomes natural, I was going to watch (very literally) everything I ate.  It is three weeks later. I have been very diligent with watching what I eat and not filling up with empty calories. I try to exercise more, but am fully aware that exercise is an area I need much improvement on. I am currently 289.5 pounds. I have lost 16.5 pounds in 3 weeks. I am getting used to at most having one can of pop a day, and having more protein in my diet. And you know what did it? What helped me beat my addiction to food (I loved to eat, just to eat. Not because I am hungry)? It wasn’t a plan. No Weight Watchers or Adkins. No fancy pill that promises hot bods for all that partake in its magical wonderment. Just good, old-fashioned self-control.

Self control is powerful. When you really discipline yourself to do something, change can and will happen. Self control is not something you see very often in our culture. We tend to lean towards simple solutions and easy-way-out options. Self control is difficult, if you have never really done it. We have too many people believing that they can’t lose the weight, put down the drink, smoke their last cigarette. We have people believing that some doctor’s plan can do what they can not. That weight watchers can accomplish what the could never do. That by getting surgery they can miraculously stop smoking. That maybe if we pray hard enough, G-d will overcome our problem, because we are too weak to do anything. All of these occurrences happen because we don’t believe we have the self-control to get over our vices. Why don’t we believe we can gain this self-control?

We don’t believe in ourselves.

We don’t think that we are capable of accomplishing the task. So we put it in the hands of weight watchers. We put it in the hands of diet pills. We put it in the hands of G-d. This lack of self-control seems to stem from two things: A lack of self-worth and laziness. We don’t want to do the work that we don’t believe we can do. So, we find shortcuts. We find the easy way out. Its bad enough when our shortcut is a crazy diet or surgery. But, what is truly grieving to me is the countless people who sit in their vice, waiting hopelessly for G-d to be their easy way out. I know this might cause some controversy, but I believe that G-d believes in us. I believe that G-d wants us to conquer our vices, for it is then that we will find the deepest truth in our victory. I think that it is not something we can do on our own, but with the strength that G-d grants all of his creation. I think that sitting around waiting for some crazy miracle to deliver you from your problem is just like hoping that the anticarb doctor will save your from your obesity. But the thing is, when  you make the change internally, when you work hard, and overcome your addiction, the change is far more permanent. Patches will go away, you will forget your diet. But when you buckle down, gain some self-control, and do the hard work, that is something you will never lose. That is the truth I believe G-d wants us to find. There is a reason G-d doesn’t just say “this is how it is.” There is a reason the Bible is beautifully mystical and cryptic. Because truth is something G-d wants us to find, not something he just gives us. So why is it we think that with problems, G-d wants to just show us the answer, instead of giving us the strength to find the answer?

Go, and find your answer.

Post Script: I just want to make it clear that I am not saying I don’t believe G-d can deliver people from their addictions. I think there are dire situations that need divine intervention. I just believe that G-d would prefer, that it is G-d’s desire to see us use the strength he gives us to conquer our addictions, for it is there that we will find the deepest truths. I would also like to state that I believe that there are many tools that can be very helpful to the process of overcoming addiction. The difference between helpful tools like AA, Nutrition counters, and personal trainers is that these things are helping you to succeed, not providing an easier way to supposed success. The tools help you to make it through the difficult path, not redirect you to an easier one.