Confessions

Sometimes e-mail still amazes me.

No matter how busy I am, the idea of acquiring and learning a new instrument is enough to distract me from whatever else I was supposed to be doing.

Hearing that a friend is getting married is a very unique but undeniable kind of joy.

Everytime my wife stirs in the middle of the night, I think she's ready to go into labor.

Sometimes a cool breeze through the window while I'm drinking my morning coffee and reading Tozer can change the outlook of my whole day, even more than the reading or the coffee.

Even if the music is strange, getting new music from a friend is likely to cheer me up.

Simon of Space

A good story, perhaps a great one, released in serial format here on blogspot. I heartily reccomend Simon of Space.
Make sure you use the archive and read the first entry first. You may be hooked. In fact, to make it easier, click this.

Food For Thought

This is a bit dated in that it goes back to the spring when the world was mourning the passing of Pope John Paul II, but i just came across this post from funkstille.

i include an excerpt as something to ponder :

How does Karol Wojtyla become John Paul the Great? John Paul the Great. . . Ayn Rand would say he'd been cut from the scarlet cloth, I suppose, there's no other way. But despite cutting a Fountainhead-like figure, Karol Wojtyla would never have had a place among Miss Rand's modern heroes. After all, Karol Wojtyla became the head Witch Doctor. Forget that.

So was he JP II from birth? Or was his greatness contingent upon some of those little brush stokes in life, the moments and the people we'll never know about that kept deflecting the slider down into the slot, again and again, until it was all set up for a Babe Ruth swing.

After watching the world express their thanks to John Paul, I wonder in what exact directions John Paul would have wanted to extend his thanks, assuming that The Pope could recall, or even fully know, all of the inconsequential moments that were responsible for dragging him beyond the life of Karol Wojtyla.

Boxing Day

In keeping with my recent fascination of boxing, I was pleased to run across this article today. Fellowship of the Ring - Boxing, Courage and Philosophy, by Gordon Marino

By Way Of Belated Introduction

Another assignment: Describe yourself using one of the magnetic poetry kits. Make your poem and transcribe it to the blog. If you're feeling industrious, take a screenshot of the poem and post the image. Dont make new words, either. You're on the honor system.

Rain, Rain

Scurrying about, hurried by precipitation
Hiding under cover of brightly colored nylon
Lock yourself up inside the house
Nothing to do but wait for this burden to pass
Why?
Water evaporates, shirts dry out
Droplets gather like dew on my scalp
But soon they are no more
Rain, rain - don't go away
Fall fresh and clean on me
Make me thankful for your cooling touch
And thankful more for days without

Cut-Up Machine

in response to Luke's post, i visited the Cut-Up Machine. here's what came out:

to audience she sadly say? about be gleefully since all sings at times in wake slumber disappoint; any sings those of to sings future; she will times and she gave or say? away; she wanders she those and never had she'll gave would has about those from was With now all everything will wanders she and of in who enraptured future; cried she'll disappoint; an never the potential by audience has those never and disappoint; loved. since about dry all she Who's for that or an never everything of to she'll sadly those the place luck away; and lost; did now she potential to will away; never


The original text which was inserted into the Cut-Up Machine was:

She sings sadly of the days gone by when all she had was everything she wanted and never did she worry about the future; it's potential for disappoint; her place in it; or whether or not she would be loved. She has long since cried her eyes dry as she wanders back to those times and relives all she lost; all she gave away; and all that will never come to fruition. Who's to blame? Who's to say? With any luck at all she'll wake up from the slumber of the tragic ballad she now sings for an enraptured audience and gleefully forget who she is.

The Go! Team

Thanks to www.kexp.org for introducing me to The Go! Team. You can hear a couple songs on the band's site, and I highly reccomend 'em. As I listen to song 2 on that page, I'm trying to find words to describe it...garage band/samples/dance/whatever. It makes me happy.

Mad-Lib Poem

From the site linked below:
half-baked shrub's half-baked shrub

"I burn my shrubs and all the shrub burns shrub;
I burn my shrubs and all is burn again.
(I burn I burn you up inside my shrub.)

The shrubs go burning out in half-baked and half-baked,
And half-baked shrub burns in:
I burn my shrub and all the shrub burns shrub.

I burned that you burned me into shrub
And burn me half-baked, burned me quite half-baked.
(I burn I burn you up inside my shrub.)

shrub burns from the shrub, shrub's shrubs burn:
burn shrub and shrub's shrub:
I burn my shrub and all the shrub burns shrub.

I burned you'd burn the way you burn,
But I burn half-baked and I burn your shrub.
(I burn I burn you up inside my shrub.)

I should have burned a shrub instead;
At least when shrub burns they burn back again.
I burn my shrub and all the shrub burns shrub.

(I burn I burn you up inside my shrub.)

- lukas & Sylvia Plath

Words

Check this out. http://languageisavirus.com/
"Writing is fifty years behind painting. I propose to apply the painters' techniques to writing; things as simple and immediate as collage or montage. Cut right through the pages of any book or newsprint... lengthwise, for example, and shuffle the columns of text. Put them together at hazard and read the newly constituted message. Do it for yourself. Use any system which suggests itself to you. Take your own words or the words said to be "the very own words" of anyone else living or dead. You'll soon see that words don't belong to anyone. Words have a vitality of their own and you or anybody else can make them gush into action.

"The permutated poems set the words spinning off on their own; echoing out as the words of a potent phrase are permutated into an expanding ripple of meanings which they did not seem to be capable of when they were struck into that phrase.

"The poets are supposed to liberate the words - not to chain them in phrases. Who told poets they were supposed to think? Poets are meant to sing and to make words sing. Poets have no words "of their own." Writers don't own their words. Since when do words belong to anybody. "Your very own words," indeed! And who are you? "
Brion Gysin, Cut-Ups Self-Explained, in: William S. Burroughs, Brion Gysin, The Third Mind, 1978

To the VP contributers: Make something over at that site and post it.

conversation

i had one of those cool conversations this morning over breakfast that touched on gardening, cooking, parenting, exercise, church life, passion and cultural trends, and left me completely energized.

these are the sorts of conversations i crave and are all too rare. i believe we would all be better off having more of these conversations _ among friends, as well as with those with whom we are not yet friends, as well as those with whom we may only have a peripheral relationship.

an earlier vigilante poet post mentioned conversations on front porches with a cup of tea, a beer, a glass of wine or some other taste sensation being enjoyed. i second the value of gathering, conversing and growing; hearts enlarge when they connect.

beauty, inspiration, et al.

as i was considering the new blog template i have chosen for threshingfloor i was reminded of a conversation with fellow vigilante poet Luke about creating art and the actual artistry of the instruments used to create.

as for the blog template, i believe wholeheartedly that the actual template used will affect the artistry of what i put on it; the appearance of the blog will influence the quality of the posts.

Luke made the corresponding argument to this regarding his Martin acoustic guitar some years back; contending that he created better, more artful music on his Martin than on a guitar of lesser quality. And he was not speaking in terms of tonal quality.

so in a nod to Luke, i agree.

The interdependency of beauty, inspiration, truth and creation in artistic endeavors cannot be overemphasized. There is a symbiotic relationship among the four and they are equally enhanced by one another.

It fits, really. Creation has been designed to function as an integrated whole. We see this as well in humans themselves; and it is one reason God called for us to love Him with all our heart, soul, mind and strength.

pressing

why is it always that the days when i have the most pressing deadlines are also the days i find myself doing things like posting to the blog? there is some sort of strange pull i feel away from responsibility even as it bears down on me.

is it some way of reminding myself that the circumstantial reality before me is not the ultimate reality and calling on my life? is it some way of attempting to exert control over a situation which really controls me? is it an attempt to live truly as a VigilantePoet, defying the establishment?

or is it simply a lingering childhood trait i learned along the way?

In The Year 2000....

What is the future, anyway?

When I was just a young lad, the future was the stuff of science fiction movies and comic books. A land of moving sidewalks, flying cars, sneakers that tied themselves and weekend trips to Mars aboard a shiny silver rocketship. Things would be eaiser, things would be grande... but it wasn't imminent. It was way off in the distance.

Days passed, weeks passed, years passed and I found myself in my late teens, being forced to make decisions about the future. Not decisions about what kind of flying car I'd drive, but real plans about a real future that was creeping up on me with alarming speed. "What are you going to do with your life?" Geez, I don't know. I was kind of hoping I could just sit here on the couch watching The Jetsons. But no, the future had come to collect on those idealistic years of childhood. The future was now, and it was pressing me.

As with all things, that pressure passed eventually. I've made decisions - whether good or bad, only time will tell. A job, a career, whichever. But there's still a future looming bright. The sidewalks might end up moving - not everywhere, but at least at the airport. My car might end up flying - if not in the air, then at least down the highway to a familiar place. My shoes - they don't tie themselves, so I just wear sandals. And that whole thing about a rocketship.... I'll settle for a lazy weekend, laying down & watching a movie. Boring? Perhaps, if you compare it to that little boy's dreams way back when. The only difference between the two is that this dream is coming true right in front of me.

The Problem of Forgiveness

Grace makes my skin crawl. It rubs against my rugged individualism, refusing to be bought or traded for, but instead insisting on being freely given. Any attempt to earn it, keep it, control it, and it withdraws, leaving me with a need for more. A second grader having his boots laced up by his teacher in front of the whole class knows what I mean. The pain of being rejected, scorned for my own actions almost seems preferable. At least I've earned my lot, and I still have my pride. Grace defeats my sense of control, I am no longer a self-made man. I am a man in debt to grace. Where does a man go whose only explaination is "what I want to do, I don't do, and what I do, I don't want to do"? What claim to fame, what boast or award can he lay hold of? He falls on grace. I fall on grace.

no such thing as mundane

inspired as i am by my fellow vigilantepoets, i say:

there is no such thing as "mundane."
existence is infused
with Divine Presence
and
though many try,
this cannot be refused.

sometimes we are unaware
yet
reminders large and small
knock incessantly on the doors of our respective hearts,
seeking to impart
Life, Love, Meaning;
a vibrancy of sounds, images and tastes
which connect us to Reality
and
to each other.

Beauty and Truth
will not be denied their prominence.

there is no such thing as "mundane."