Leap Of Faith –

“The foolish ask many questions the wise cannot answer” – Oscar Wilde

“Of the making of books there is no end, and much study leads to exhaustion.” 

– Ecclesiastes 12:12

 

Questions are a sign of intelligence and creativity but they can lead to an endless, tortuous circle of reasoning. Why did that tragedy happen to me? Is God male or female? Will I know people after I die? These inquiries can exhaust my mental and emotional energy, leaving me with no strength to push through the day at hand. Questioning my beliefs, my existence, my experience, is necessary, but I must lay down these pursuits and find a place of peaceful existence should my questions go unanswered. What follows is a leap of faith that eventually brings sense of well-being to my life. There I have to understand that I don’t understand, admit my finite power of mind, lay down my notepad, my calculator, my psychoanalysis, and find the peace that will guide me though the dark valley of the unknown.

 

Also published on Broowaha

First published in Opinionsofeye.com

12122011 

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No Fear –

“Bran thought about it. ‘Can a man still be brave if he’s afraid?’
‘That is the only time a man can be brave,’ his father told him.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones 

Noctturnalromance

 

Walking towards the house, I just finished spending another evening with my church youth group. On the way something sinister stirred in the shadows. No sound, just glimpses of dark figures, darker than black, accompanied by a deep foreboding fear. Forcing myself along the path, all my nerves on end, I scramble to find a weapon worthy of this opponent. My fists were no match, guns likewise. I needed something without form to battle the unseen opponent. Words, that will do, they have no shape and find you even when your hiding. I’ve got the weapon, now which words? The pastors taught me words exist that are extraordinary, having more weight and value than common words, words that were in themselves different. The most powerful of these are the words that looked ordinary, but are changed by my belief about the source and effectiveness of them, i.e. they gained value in this battle by virtue of the faith I placed in them. It wasn’t that faith did it, because I had to actually use the words, but it was faith that gave them the edge to cut the dark. I read this somewhere, “You light a lamp for me. The Lord, my God, lights up my darkness.” Repeating this I tried to understand how to fight the fight that is not fought with fists but with belief. I believed that Big Daddy (that’s what I called God) let me find those words as advice. Fear has torment and I was always afraid, so this whole thing was a training ground to overcome fear and learn how to fight what is called by others as “the good fight”. The victory to press past this feeling and not turn around and run, was not a gallant one at all, it was horribly clumsy and vacillated between wanting to run and wanting to face this fear. All said and done, I made it through, I didn’t die and I learned a valuable lesson that equipped me for the rest of the craziness called my life.

Also published in Opinionsofeye.com

Imminent Mortality –

“I want to tell you what it was really like to think death is imminent, but I can’t. It’s a taste in your mouth. And an emptiness.” – Aaron Huey

 

 

 Sneaking thing this black specter, writhing in my brain,
Coloring my bright light with shades of never

Bringing the death of my flesh

In the missing of your gray eyes, pushing in my stomach,

grabbing solitary and smearing me with earnest

Bringing the death of my heart

Swirling decisions in red clouds, failing in my heart,

a tempting success erased in a hurried smudge

Bringing the death of my work
Jumping off castles of white cliffs,
flapping frantically in the forest of the unknown
Bringing the death of my belief

First published in Opinionsofeye.com

Drowned

“Well, any love makes us vulnerable. Whatever we love will give the gift of pain somewhere along the road. But who would live sealed in spiritual cellophane just to keep from ever being hurt? There are a few people like that. I’m sorry for them. I think they are as good as dead.” ― Gladys Taber, Harvest at Stillmeadow  

 

aniaikiru

 Thinking she with baited breath, breathed the bearing winds

and with heated highs holding hands of holy fortune

But I was wrong

Believing the best of both between beaten breaking waves

and with hope helping a healing of heavy history

But I was wrong

Being wrong is easy, but the scorching blisters that remain from the heat of desire bring the pain of dying belief. Having lifted her up with my service and hope, giving all of my time and energy to see a buck shot doe come to life, who would know that she would attack me? A desperate soul uses no discretion in the flailing attempts at survival. Once on solid ground she looked back and saw me, floating on an ocean created by my sweat and tears, upside down, blue and bloated with discouraged heartache. In my resurrected state I can see her, and still I believe in her, being taught that my sacrifice means nothing in the comeback of the starlet. I only see her from a distance, and beholding her as the stars, hope that I never see her come streaking out of the night sky, burning through the atmosphere of her wantonness, and crashing into a broken blaze of kindling people.

Be it religion or love, in the end, who will use you up?

Power of the Blade – Faith in action

   “Doubt is a pain too lonely to know that faith is his twin brother.” – Khalil Gibran

“If fear is cultivated it will become stronger, if faith is cultivated it will achieve mastery.” 

– John Paul Jones
 

Swinging wildly, I caught the beast just under the jaw line. It’s chilled dark blood spewed across my chiseled chest and tainted my lips with the taste of iron. My blade performed perfectly, its power in the sound of visions, its speed in the echo of images burned in my mind from my youth. The creature fell like so many, and meat for the taking lay at my feet. The promise of the blade is that with unwavering certainty, the purpose of the wielder is accomplished. Like many of the nether regions promises, a condition of sort is implied. I cannot for one second doubt the accuracy and lethality of the keen edge and rune struck blade, for in that second of doubt, the blade dulled and its weighty course lost it’s objective. It’s quite disturbing to see my weapon lose its edge and become a twig in my hand. I learned over the course of many battles, that faith in that blade, gave me favor and strength in my choices as I pressed across this desert land. During one lengthy battle I lost my grip and it flew off down a steep ravine. Left with only a very ordinary staff, I forgot to lose faith…for so long I trained myself to never doubt, that I swung that wooden accessory and to my amazement, it hit home with the same unerring providence! I then learned that, the blade though magical, only served to train me, that though magic is strong, faith is stronger and even above the metamorphic power of unseen spells, my faith gave me the ability to transform the ordinary into that of perfect power. I found my blade, but, I never forgot the lesson. All things are possible with faith, and if I will just persevere with that faith, though I lost one advantage, another will fulfill my purpose just as well.