Cliche' Creates Code

Cliche' is a very odd beast.

Modern writers detest it and in their plight to make something non-cliche', it turns into a bunch of nonsense.

Of course it's brilliant. There's just so much layering, masking, and parallels though, that the paper quickly becomes misinterpreted into complete nonsense in the eyes of the general public.

The author knows this too, as they write their piece. They're not expecting humanity to understand it, the author is just hoping that you will.

See, if the author is brilliant, and writes a brilliant piece, the masking, layering, and parallels hide the true message while creating brilliant artistry. The author's hope then, is that you the reader will be smart enough to understand. They don't expect everyone to get, just you, and maybe a few others. 

The development, and recent general awareness of the idea cliche' then, isn't something terrible at all. Rather, it just encourages our collective cognitive development. We as humans always want to be in on the secret. So if every creative writing piece is a cryptic message, then humanity is going to have to catch up and start becoming cryptanalysts.  

There's my bit on cliche'. 

Next week I dive into the many facets of The Paradox. (That was a joke....)
  

Angst

I know I do not post often. Summer is around the corner though, so hopefully that will change. 

“It's a weird, complex thing. I don't know whether I should keep this friend, or if I should just move on." Michael said while he chewed on his fingernails.

“I think I understand. You really have to stop being this vague though. What's really going on?" Kristen asked, prying towards the real problem.

“I just struggle with this. It's like the song that ends without going back to that first chord. The song ends but I'm still waiting for the end. And I wait, and wait. And maybe a new song starts, but I don't hear it because I'm too disturbed by the fact that the last one hasn't ended. Sorry, odd way to say it. Ugh, I don't even know how to put it." Michael replied as he rocked forward and back, tapping his forehead on the top of the steering wheel.

“I think I actually get what you mean. There's a word for that. Let me think... " She replied.

Changing Churches

In drama class we were asked to write about a time when you relied on God even when it seemed illogical. This is what I came up with:

This is me, thrown into a situation that I can't bring myself to perceive in any other manner except through the filter of my own immature emotions. God's having me move to a different church. I think the world's going to end. God is speaking the change he wants for me, and I am yelling back, telling Him He's wrong. I won't let myself stop crying to realize that He is sewing together the quilt of my life, but I'm only focusing on the transitional stitches. All I can feel is the push and the pull. I think it's chaos. In truth though, God is assembling a masterpiece and he's stitching my glory to glory together. 

Hearing

"You want to hear from God? Pray until you can't pray anymore. Read until you can't read anymore."               -Steve Reyes

finally (a sequel to Reality Check)

  

what have i poisoned myself with?

what have i fed my flesh for so long?

the surface showed so much good,

but all i can taste is the bad.

sure he takes it and she takes it,

they take it and we took it,

but do you really want

to be holding their hand

on reckoning day?

it is the only poison

the mind does not detect.

it resides deep in your being

and does not leave,

it is not disgorged.

and as the world around me

fosters acid in their stomach,

i found a Buffer

and there’s enough for all of us.

Goop

Two weeks ago I participated in a Vacation Bible School on the adventures of Daniel and his friends Hananiah, Mishial, and Azariah. Throughout the week I was in charge of 6 sometimes 7 kids. We did the different crafts in the marketplace, saw a “real lion” (a dog with a lion hair cut), played games, and visited Daniel (An actor). We also had tribal time (The children were separated into the tribes of Israel since its Vacation Bible School. Anyway, my tribe was Levi.

 Everyday I taught the children material given to me by the curriculum. I tweaked the material by adding or emphasizing things God put on my heart. One of these was sin which the curriculum presented on day 4 of 5. Their interactive teaching tool for the day was a black goop which had a similar feel as jello but stuck to itself better. The goop represented our yucky sin. The stuff was more of a distraction than a helpful teaching tool, but I tried my pitiful best to communicate the lesson behind the goop. My best explanation of the situation could be filed under disaster. I had a debriefing with some of the other tribe leaders who had similar experiences with the goop. This was disappointing to me, for it was something I really wanted to communicate to the kids. But one thing you should know about our Father, or rather us, is that out interpretation of His work in our lives is often incorrect. We thing something God puts on your heart is for a certain individual when in reality it is for  a group of people. Stuff like that. Anyway, I refused to allow any of the kids to take home the nasty black goop, and eventually threw it away keeping it as far from myself as possible. I swear that stuff was alive. Well that goop, two weeks later came back.

I like how The Blind Side portrays it. The mother, Leigh,  has just taken in a boy from the street and is at a brunch with her girlfriends. After stating that she might adopt the boy one of the gal’s says, “You’re changing that boy’s life.” Leigh replies, “No, he’s changing mine.” When I face the monster that is temptation I do a few things. One of them is think, live, and embrace the cross of Jesus Christ. This means claiming the freedom only found in Him. One of the things you have to do to embrace the cross is to think of Jesus on it. Of course there’s the nails that pierced His hands and feet, and the sword the pierced His side. Those are definitely things I would rather not have happen to me. But then there’s the whole "He took on sin.” I never even started to comprehend that. To truly embrace the cross of Jesus Christ I have now started to think of my sin and the feeling of death that resides in me after committing it. Then I think of the goop. My death goop. My death goop full of sadness, hatred, tears, pain, and hell. Jesus took on it all. All of my goop. All of my sadness, my hatred, my tears, my pain, and my hell. And he took on yours. Think of anyone, anywhere, ever. He won for them. Don’t you ever forget that victory. Don’t you ever forget that cross.

Reality Check

This blog post is a little different.
For me it's a challenge, for you maybe a story.
Anyway, I guess I would be writing this to my friends and people I see often, maybe not.

I was in San Francisco all day. My family and some friends and I were doing the tourist thing. We got some food, walked through golden gate park, and shopped a bit. As our friends left to catch the BART train to their hotel we jumped back into the car around 9:30.

The pedestrians streamed across the streets before the walk sign was even lit hurrying to there next obligation. Behind them graffiti on the sides of buildings conveyed profane words and images. I sat in the van as we muscled our way through start and stop traffic. I watched the different people that walked by. Each one different. But they just seemed all the same to me. Hearing a yell I looked out the front window at the sidewalk in front of us. All I saw was a bustle and could hear yelling and arguing amidst the city chaos. My vision centered in on the thick of the fighting to see men crowding around a single african-american man in a baggy white t-shirt. I could see fists flying as they attacked the outnumbered man. One of the assailants pulled out a knife and thrust it into the side of the white shirted man. The manned gripped his shirt now quickly turned red while being pushed into the street by the attackers. He was flung onto the hard pavement as three of the assailants simultaneously kicked him in the stomach, back, and head. Seeing that they were in the middle of the street the attackers fled with backward glances at their victim. 


This all happened at the stoplight. And as we drive forward directed by the green light I stared at the man with a now red shirt. A lady ran to try and help the man, but was stopped by her boyfriend when she tried. All I could do was look at him. Not only him but that whole situation as we slowly drove by. 


 Now here is the part I hate. I felt so disconnected. My eyes had received the information and it had indeed been sent to my brain, but I didn't feel like what I had just seen was really tangible. I knew for a fact that a man was sitting their bleeding to death, but it didn't click. My response to the man's situation was similar to the response I would have in a movie scene. That's how it felt, like a movie. My mind interpreted that what I was watching was but a fictitious scene in some show. That's how I felt. Even though I knew that man was really dying, I felt like it was all an act. That scares me. It doesn't matter if I have any connection to the man prior. I'm watching him die and all the emotion I can muster is an Oh My God help. That is killing me.


Among other ways of processing it, I went to find the root of my disconnect. As I pondered it and prayed about it I thought of TV shows. The way dying characters probe emotion. But not real emotion.


That gave me a reality check. And I mean a serious reality check! If I was having a hard time differentiating reality from fictional worlds than something had to stop. So I cut off the fictional worlds. Because I need a grasp on reality. And apparently my mind can't handle two or three worlds working simultaneously. I'm just sad that it took something so serious to wake me up out of my stupor.