Be Satisfied With Me

Everyone longs to give themselves completely to someone,

to have a deep soul relationship with another,

to be loved thoroughly and exclusively.

But to a Christian, God says "No, not until you are satisfied,

fulfilled, and content with being loved by Me alone,

with giving yourself totally and unreservedly to Me,

with having an intensely personal and unique relationship with Me alone.

Discovering that only in ME is your satisfaction to be found

will you be capable of the perfect human relationship that I have planned for you.

You will never be united to another

until you are united with Me,

exclusive of anyone or anything else,

exclusive of any other desires or longings.

I want you to stop planning, stop wishing, and allow ME to give you

the most thrilling plan existing... one that you cannot imagine.

I want you to have the best!

Please allow Me to bring it to you.

You keep watching Me, expecting the greatest thing.

Keep experiencing the satisfaction that I am.

Keep listening and learning the things that I tell you.

Just wait, that's all.

Don't be anxious. Don't worry.

Don't look around at things the others have gotten

or that I have given to them.

Don't look around at the things you think you want.

Just keep looking off and away up to ME

or you'll miss what I want to show you.

And then, when you are ready, I will surprise you with a love

far more wonderful than you would ever dream.

You see, until you are ready and until the one I have for you is ready,

I am working even at this moment to have both of you ready at the same time,

until you are both satisfied exclusively with Me and the life I have prepared for you,

you wont be able to experience the love that exemplifies your relationship with Me.

And this is perfect love.

And, dear one, I want you to have this most wonderful love.

I want you to see in the flesh a picture of your relationship with Me,

and to enjoy materially and concretely the everlasting union of beauty, perfection,

and love that I offer you with Myself.

Know that I love you utterly.

For I am God. Believe it, and be satisfied.

~Author Unknown

Solitude

Laugh, and the world laughs with you;
Weep, and you weep alone.
For the sad old earth must borrow it's mirth,
But has trouble enough of its own.
Sing, and the hills will answer;
Sigh, it is lost on the air.
The echoes bound to a joyful sound,
But shrink from voicing care.

Rejoice, and men will seek you;
Grieve, and they turn and go.
They want full measure of all your pleasure,
But they do not need your woe.
Be glad, and your friends are many;
Be sad, and you lose them all.
There are none to decline your nectared wine,
But alone you must drink life's gall.

Feast, and your halls are crowded;
Fast, and the world goes by.
Succeed and give, and it helps you live,
But no man can help you die.
There is room in the halls of pleasure
For a long and lordly train,
But one by one we must all file on
Through the narrow aisles of pain.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Politically Incorrect Poem Found in Textbook

In college I once had the misfortune of repeating a class. I don't recommend failing a class because you personally loath the teacher. Granted, there were other things going on in my personal life at the time, but hindsight is clearer once you pay money for the same class twice. One also learns that you are not likely to get a teacher with balanced opinions teaching a humanities class in an art college in Detroit.

Anyhow, I ended up with two textbooks in the end. Not two different text books, but both the third and fourth edition of the same textbook. I fell for the new teacher's insistance that the fourth edition was better and that having the same page numbers would be beneficial to following along in class. Yes, I can be a sucker.

Flipping through one edition and then the other not long ago, trying to decide whether I would eject one or both books from my personal library, I noticed an interesting poem that we hadn't covered in class. It was in chapter 36 of "The Humanistic Tradition" book 6 "The Global Village of the Twentieth Century" by Gloria K. Fiero. The chapter title was "Identity and Liberation". I beleive the only reason the poem made it into the book at all is because it was written by African American Harlem Renaissance Poetess Gwendolyn Brooks. I'm sure it didn't hurt that she had previously won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry. Rather than trying to describe what I had read I will present Ms. Brooks' poem to you.

"The Mother" 1945

Abortions will not let you forget.
You remember the children you got that you did not get,
The damp small pulps with a little or with no hair,
The singers and the workers that never handled the air.
You will never neglect or beat
Them, or silence or buy with a sweet.
You will never wind up the sucking-thumb
Or scuttle off ghosts that come.
You will never leave them, controlling your luscious sigh,
Return for a snack of them, with gobbling mother-eye.

I have heard in the voices of the wind the voices of my dim killed children.
I have contracted. I have eased
My dim dears at the breasts they could never suck.
I have said, Sweets, if I have sinned, if I seized
Your luck
And your lives from your unfinished reach,
If I stole your births and your names,
Your straight baby tears and your games,
Your stilted and lovely loves, your tumults, your marriages, aches, and your deaths,

If I poisoned the beginning of your breaths,
Believe that even in my deliberateness I was not deliberate.
Though why should I whine,
Whine that the crime was other than mine?-
Since anyhow you are dead.
Or rather, or instead,
You were never made.

But that too, I am afraid,
Is faulty: oh, what shall I say, how is the truth to be said?
You were born, you had body, you died.
It is just that you never giggled or planned or cried.

Believe me, I loved you all.
Believe me, I knew you, though faintly, and I loved, I loved you
All.

Just a Bubble in a Perfect Paint Job

Ug. I can't get this song out of my head. Boy, do I relate... though I don't think that's why it is stuck in my brain.

Emiliana Torrini

Weird Friendless Kid Lyrics

Weird friendless kid
You don't know where you live
No one knows a thing about you
No one ever did
Weird friendless kid
You might be weird but you're not stupid
We’ve all seen the pictures you drew
We know what’s in your head
Uninvited child
But you never seem to mind
Eating from your purple lunchbox
While we are talk about you
About you
It's alright to stay
Nobody gets away
Except you
Why you're like you are ?
Do you think you're a star
La la la la....
I sometimes think I'd like to speak to you
And find out who you are
Uninvited guest
You won't fit in with all the rest
Just a bubble in a perfect paint job
While we all talk about you
Talk about you
Talk about you
Just a bubble in a perfect paint job
Brings everybody down
Yes you do
It's alright to stay
Nobody gets away
Except you
Why you're like you are ?
Do you think you're a star
La la la la....
Dipin’ from your purple lunchbox
It's alright you know
You can come as you are
La la la la....
And if it's like you say
You got a chance to move away
One bye, one, we'll knock on your door
Tell how we feel like
Or how we felt about you
Feel about you
Feel about you
Felt about you

Poem

This is amazing. I've never read a poem that so wonderfully emphasises how much we need each other and how much we could help if we tried.

Tuesday 9:00 AM

Denver Butson

A man standing at the bus stop
reading the newspaper is on fire
Flames are peeking out
from beneath his collar and cuffs
His shoes have begun to melt

The woman next to him
wants to mention it to him
that he is burning
but she is drowning
Water is everywhere
in her mouth and ears
in her eyes
A stream of water runs
steadily from her blouse

Another woman stands at the bus stop
freezing to death
She tries to stand near the man
who is on fire
to try to melt the icicles
that have formed on her eyelashes
and on her nostrils
to stop her teeth long enough
from chattering to say something
to the woman who is drowning
but the woman who is freezing to death
has trouble moving
with blocks of ice on her feet

It takes the three some time
to board the bus
what with the flames
and water and ice
But when they finally climb the stairs
and take their seats
the driver doesn't even notice
that none of them has paid
because he is tortured
by visions and is wondering
if the man who got off at the last stop
was really being mauled to death
by wild dogs.

Link

Curiosity

By Alastair Reid

Curiosity

may have killed the cat; more likely
the cat was just unlucky, or else curious
to see what death was like, having no cause
to go on licking paws, or fathering
litter on litter of kittens, predictably.

Nevertheless, to be curious
is dangerous enough. To distrust
what is always said, what seems
to ask odd questions, interfere in dreams,
leave home, smell rats, have hunches
do not endear cats to those doggy circles
where well-smelt baskets, suitable wives, good lunches
are the order of things, and where prevails
much wagging of incurious heads and tails.

Face it. Curiosity
will not cause us to die--
only lack of it will.
Never to want to see
the other side of the hill
or that improbable country
where living is an idyll
(although a probable hell)
would kill us all.

Only the curious have, if they live, a tale
worth telling at all.

Dogs say cats love too much, are irresponsible,
are changeable, marry too many wives,
desert their children, chill all dinner tables
with tales of their nine lives.

Well, they are lucky. Let them be
nine-lived and contradictory,
curious enough to change, prepared to pay
the cat price, which is to die
and die again and again,
each time with no less pain.
A cat minority of one
is all that can be counted on
to tell the truth. And what cats have to tell
on each return from hell
is this: that dying is what the living do,
that dying is what the loving do,
and that dead dogs are those who do not know
that dying is what, to live, each has to do.

Down and Then Some

Heavenly Father,

I sit. The house is empty. TV silent. The floorboards are quiet. The fridge hums in the kitchen. Words on the page feel like so many threadbare socks to my mind. The cat sighs. Thank God for that. I wait for an email, a phone call, a letter, or the door to open. However the world in busy and I am tethered by too much gravity. I yearn. I don't live alone. I might as well.

I long to share. Let us break the bread, let us stretch our neural networks over a book! Or a poem. Or an article, or a broadcast, or a stray thought. Iron sharpens iron. A sword in a corner is a meaningless thing. Perhaps it has a past. Perhaps it has a future. However, the present is the only real thing, and the present is empty. Am I real at all?

I startled myself the other day. I giggled. It so suddenly broke the silence that I felt embarrassed. If there is no one else to hear the sound, could it have just been imagined? Perhaps more startling, I read a joke today. It was very funny, but I didn't laugh. I didn't smile. My eyes didn't even crinkle around the edges.

The sun has been falling like ash on the windowsill. Perhaps I should close the shade. My cereal tastes like dust on my spoon. I know making eggs won't help. My ideas feel like lint in my brain pan. I'd get as much fulfillment from contemplating the beige ceiling as I would from painting. Or drawing. Or whatever. There is nothing inside.

My sister went to pick out her engagement ring. She took my mother and my sister, and though I stood right there, I was not invited. I said nothing. I am a coward.

Sometimes it is all I can do.

I know summer is beautiful.
I know life is a magnificent thing.
Perhaps I am blind this season.

Sometimes writing helps.

Amen

Spill Forth

This urgency to spill forth ink
is almost embarrassing.
Without burning bridges
I want to be moved.
With blue tinted vision
I'll accept this freedom
as the closest thing to closure I'll get.
If you want me to.

Concerning the way it was,
the landscape of human love
is a terrain of violent gray.
Yet a song of faith springs forth
with life off the lips
of someone searching for the last goodbye.

I am nothing but the sum
of one life lived
questing after the banner of a lost cause.
One honest confession
can own my very substance,
Breaking my heart for the better.

Dreams

There is a litany of lost dreams
sung by a choir.
Their hope is gone.
Wizards in a Narnian winter.
In Your mercy we are broken
and falling up.
We pray to Love's might
and remember
that everyone is like me.

We lay down our pride
like the queen of the night
we ask, "Are you real?
Like a Siberian sleigh ride?"
Under oath,
reinvent your exit
for the sake of your brother.

A lonely bell has the power
to open wounds and to toss the wisdom
of the snow
from the skillet into a day of fire.
The song of the river is out of control.

Sooner
or later
we will come back to reason
when the boatmen
ring the evening bells.

Yet let this one stay,
for it has different wings.
They float on the apparitions of
a melody.

Rite of Passage

Raise your fist and rail
against this cacophonous land.
Does anyone ever receive
a fair chance
and solid ground?

Am I a better me for
having broken wings?
What if Grandpa had lived?

Life is a search
for the joy I had,
but I am turning away my chances
to march forward into the mystery.
The weeds around my feet are ready
for the storms of change.

Have I had enough of limping
down the trail of the survivor?
Closing down,
will this love be enough to carry me on?

-ShadowSong

I Feel Like This Song Sometimes

Would it Matter

If I wasn't here tomorrow
Would anybody care
If my time was up I wanna know
You were happy I was there
If I wasn't here tomorrow
Would anyone lose sleep
If I wasn't hard and hollow
Then maybe you would miss me

I know I'm a mess and I wanna be someone
Someone that I like better
I can never forget
So don't remind me of it forever

What if I just pulled myself together
Would it matter at all
What if I just try not to remember
Would it matter at all
All the chances that have passed me by
Would it matter if I gave it one more try
Would it matter at all

If I wasn't here tomorrow
Would anybody care
Still stuck inside this sorrow
I've got nothing and going nowhere

I know I'm a mess and I wanna be someone
Someone that I like better
I can never forget
So don't remind me of it forever

What if I just pulled myself together
Would it matter at all
What if I just try not to remember
Would it matter at all
All the chances that have passed me by
Would it matter if I gave it one more try
Would it matter at all

I know I'm a mess and I wanna be someone
Someone that I like better
Can you help me forget
Don't wanna feel like this forever...forever

What if I just pulled myself together
Would it matter at all
What if I just try not to remember
Would it matter at all
All the chances that have passed me by
Would it matter if I gave it one more try

If I live tomorrow
Would anybody care
Stuck in this sorrow
Going nowhere

All the chances that have passed me by
Would it matter if I gave it one more try
Would it matter at all

-Skillet

A Poem to Contemplate

I encountered the following poem for the first time recently. I felt it needed to be shared.


Sonnets to Orpheus, Part Two, XII

Want the change. Be inspired by the flame
where everything shines as it disappears.
The artist, when sketching, loves nothing so much
as the curve of the body as it turns away.

What locks itself in sameness has congealed.
Is it safer to be gray and numb?
What turns hard becomes rigid
and is easily shattered.

Pour yourself out like a fountain.
Flow into the knowledge that what you are seeking
finishes often at the start, and, with ending, begins.

Every happiness is the child of a separation
it did not think it could survive. And Daphne,
becoming a laurel,
dares you to become the wind.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke ~

Great Poem

Rudyard Kipling

written in 1910 for his 12 years-old son John

---

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated don't give way to hating
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools,

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with cowards and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds worth of distance run
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!