I was around someone who talked in extreme language about unloading all the bullets they owned until there were a pile of bodies in their driveway.

Purportedly over political ideologies?

Hating others perspectives so much?

I was certainly taken aback. Felt very uncomfortable.

There has to be something else, something more going on. In my opinion.

Unhappiness. But it’s easier to project decades of anger onto someone who can take it. Versus when the object of your desire is the one also making you so mad.

The dissonance. What you’re seeing, what you’re hearing is the dissonance in literally millions of people. Who were sold a life and lies for years that they are realizing they can’t now cash out on. They invested everything and now the bank is empty. And there’s nobody around to even get mad at, to even be held responsible for the mess they’re in.

I feel sad for you, for them. To live a whole life thinking one things. I mean, putting everything you have towards those one things. Just to realize it was all for naught. Or even worse, put you farther behind than when you stared.

I can relate. Everything, all I had towards a world view I was born into. All to realize it was nothing. That most of it was untrue. I mean I went all the way. I gave up literally everything and everyone. All to find out after decades that almost none of it was true. And most of it was unnecessary.

That’s brutal. Being able to see the carnage. So painful. Being so intensely aware of how much I missed out on. And what I’ll never be able to get back. Not even with all the money and resources in the world.

Time is that one thing we need. That we can never get back.

It’s clear as day that you’re not happy. That you are bitterly seething. For mostly good reasons.

Until you keep trying to get happiness from the people who are the ones playing the biggest parts in your unhappiness.

The key isn’t murdering everyone else who appears to have what you want. In ways.

The key isn’t gunning down people who you can’t escape encountering who seem happier than you. Who seem to have the love, community, and support you aren’t crazy for wanting for yourself.

They’re just a constant reminder that no matter how much you try to build a massive defense wall of logical hoops to distract you, if it’s possible for them then that means it’s also possible for you.

You just gotta quit trying to get good water out of a poisoned stream.

You have to take the responsibility to be honest with yourself. Maybe for once.

And seriously identify what you really want.

And acknowledge what you really wanted this whole time.

Even if you abandoned yourself along the way by trying to deny it more and more.

It’s like the bandaid you refuse to rip off. All your defensiveness. It’s not like others can’t already see. You’re not even successfully fooling yourself anymore.

We need false hope to move us forward sometimes. I think God allows it. Especially if desperate times call for desperate measures.

But then we get strong enough to leave that crutch behind. It doesn’t mean you were weak. It means you were a human that was suffering.

When you’re overpowered that doesn’t mean you are weak. Usually it’s probably the opposite – that you are too strong – so strong that you won’t give yourself permission to step out from under something or someone that is unfairly applying so much pressure that it will eventually kill you. Or parts of you off.

I believe that once you are strong enough, once the immediate threats have tapered off, the entire Universe is completely for your healing. In that even if you give up on yourself, the ENTIRE Universe is programmed to nonstop push you forward towards what you might not even admit anymore is what you really want.

The situation you are trying to settle for is NEVER going to get better.

I’m pretty confident in saying that as a Universal Law and Truth. From my lifetime of experience.

I don’t think you are the exception.

I don’t think you denying your heart, you denying what you really want is going to be rewarded. Or encouraged long term.

This is Adam getting kicked out of the Garden of Eden. Not over a petty rule about apples. But so that he wouldn’t get stuck in destructive thinking.

Look around. You have more than you need. But it’s still not enough. Why? Because you’ve been barking up the wrong tree.

It might be fine for others. But that doesn’t mean it’s wrong for you to want more. Or another.

We try to externalize the work we need to do inside. We think the only option is outsourcing self-care.

For me at least because I was never encouraged to put myself first. Even in a responsibility sense. Family and church taught me in no uncertain terms that what I wanted didn’t matter. Oh and then corporate American came along and sealed the deal. For so many years.

There wasn’t a framework to resist. I wasn’t strong enough.

But now I am. Now I am able to make different decisions. Now I am painfully able to see what I missed out on.

You can’t dial back awareness. Not for all the downers in the world. Not for all the television. Not for all the movies. Not for all the doom scrolling. Not for all the other ultimately empty distractions.

You don’t get a pass from healing just because of how long it took for you to be strong enough to see the truth.

I thought God would at least let me have my most sacred cows. I thought for sure God wouldn’t take everything away from me. I mean I had some really good ones. I thought. I didn’t want to give up those I held so dear. The ones that I thought had been enough for so so many years.

People grow. People change.

If you can zoom out from your broken heart, and trust everything works for you, then there’s room to ask what else could be going on. Besides just a whole people group you think you need to exterminate in order to feel some sense of control over the floor slipping out from under you in all the ways you are resisting facing full on.

The problem isn’t out there. It really isn’t.

But even if it was, even if it is, all you have control over is what’s in front of you. Right in front of you. Realistically.

Unless you’re really married to the drama. To forcing everyone else to change before you fix your shit.

Good luck with that. Keep wishing, I guess. Maybe so.

But that’s not where I’m putting my hope. On everyone else changing enough for my happiness to be impacted. That might be ideal, but I think it’s nearly 100% improbable.

Are you that much of a gambler?
To what extent?
For how long?
You’re willing to wager the rest of your life?
ALL your future possible happiness?
Waiting for others?
Putting everything you want on them?

Instead of playing the cards you were dealt?

Good luck changing the game at this point. If that’s your whole plan.

I’m not saying you’re wrong for wanting people to behave differently. I’m just saying how has that worked for you thus far?

And is murdering others the answer? Is murdering others who seem happier than you really going to get you what you want?

Or is that the language of someone so angry? So resisting the grieving they’ve avoided all this time?

I can think of two guys. Who even killed their abusers. After the fallout of it all, even though they’re physically free from being locked up, they wouldn’t recommend it. The relief paled in the comparison to the internal consequences. Now they carry a heaviness they’ll never be able to shake or escape. Their responses were understandable but not the ultimate answer. What they really needed and wanted still didn’t manifest after they eliminated the people who they hated – even if for very good reasons.

We have this fantasy that one day people will change. One day we will be rescued. Outside sources will validate us. Give us permission to move on. Provide us with a guaranteed cushion to fall onto once we make the leap. Once we let go of what is killing us.

I don’t think life works like that. Where you stepping into all you’re more than invited to be is being gatekept by others. No, you are divine as a child of God. Your inheritance of divinity is the insistence that you step into the Creativity constantly waiting to burst forth from and for you.

The best service you can be to anyone and everyone is not to dial down what you want. Not to settle. But to step fully into who you are and could be. If you’d only admit to yourself what you really want.

Who told you that was wrong?
Who told you wanted too much?

Who told you to be “realistic”?
Maybe those that benefited from you not moving on beyond them?
So they could keep using you?
Why would they encourage you to stop making life comfortable for them?
So they don’t have to face their own shit also?

The enemy isn’t out THERE. It’s not in demons. Or policies. As they may be. They’re only effective with your complicity. Even as they aren’t the point. Bigger fish to fry.

First step: stop sleeping with the real enemy right at home.

This doesn’t mean annihilate another human being. They get to live their lives just as well as you. This isn’t about “good” versus “bad”. That’s the trap that will keep you stuck. Has been.

No, this is just about being honest and courageous enough to admit to yourself whether you want more. Or different. Step one.

And then deciding what more joy and happiness might look like for you. And whether it’s been time for you to go get it. To create a life you feel like waking up to.

There were days when I was so in love with parts of my life that sleep was an annoyance. Where I couldn’t stand having to take a break.

How do we get that back again?

Hard work. Not in terms of glorifying suffering. Nope. Pretty sure that hasn’t worked well enough for most of us thus far.

What I mean by hard work is traversing the great sea of grief between how we thought things were and now how we see they really be.

It doesn’t get easier. Each day that goes by adds to the difficulty in facing all that sadness and anger. All that disbelief.

We don’t get a pass just for how dedicated we were to the cause. It doesn’t work like that.

What will get you through, what will be the hope that keeps you afloat is a bigger why. You need an answer for all the suffering. For all the work. There has to be some legitimate purpose. Versus a world completely taken over by the “bad guys”.

I’m hesitant to share my thoughts in that regard. I don’t think such a big question is able to be even well-intentionally siphoned off another. Because I believe the answers to those questions are everything. Are the foundation and bedrock of moving forward in anything. Even the most mundane. Even replacing the roll of toilet paper in the restroom. Even washing the dishes. Pruning the bushes. Etc.

You have to wrestle with figuring out if you matter. If what you want is important enough. If your desires are valuable and worthy.

I can tell you I’m pretty sure the answer is 100% yes for me. I feel comfortable planting that seed of discontentment in you.

But just like the butterfly can’t soar to survive without building strength expressly through wrestling free, from the cocoon that initially was her comfort and safety – that has now become a cage, I gotta let you do the rest of this fight on your own.

All I can do of anymore significance is show you it’s possible. And worth it. That this isn’t just stupid dreams. That we can give ourselves permission to want and even expect more.

That giving other people so much power to determine our happiness is a complete waste of time. That the real answer is so much better.

And it’s been about damn time. I’ll definitely agree with you on that.

Tick tock.

A happy life comes from a life that is enjoyable. Not from a life chasing after trying to make other people happy.

If I’m not happy then that means I don’t have a life that I enjoy. Seems obvious now, but for most of my life I was taught that I’d enjoy life when everyone around me was happy. That’s what I was constantly chasing after. Until I completely burned myself out. Until I finally realized people benefited from holding me hostage by always setting the bar higher and higher and never giving their approval.

Now I have to take care of me first. Now I have to save myself first. Now I am wholly responsible for my own happiness. Now, that I am a capable adult, I am responsible for not abandoning myself. For anyone else.

This is a very hard pill to swallow if you wholeheartedly previously bought into the codependency you were taught and groomed for. When people tell you that you’re part of a team or part of a family. It sounds good. But then you wake up one day and realize sometimes those are just words to them. Sometimes you are giving way more than they are to the cause. Sometimes those words mean way more to you than they mean to them. At least in actions.

Sometimes you realize you are giving way more than they are. Sometimes they are taking way more than they are giving. They are asking way more than they are doing.

Which is fine if you have that excess to give. And you want to give it.

Where it turns ugly is when it’s even many times overtly communicated that there is at least mutual respect, if not reciprocation. Said specifically, in my case, to manipulate you. Even to my face.

But no one would be that cruel, right? No one would be that careless, right?

Announcement for planet Earth: many people espouse going to church yet leave those doors Sunday after Sunday without the fear of God. Although true Love has nothing to really fear in terms of punishment, maybe I’d allow a little more religion back just for the sake of some sanity up in this bitch. In this crazy fucked up world right now. Where it seems we have no value for Life. For each other. Even for ourselves.

Could we use a little false fear to at least get us back on track in terms of doing what seems like better things? The ends justifying the means?

I have enough business worrying about me. Worrying about my life. Before I try going off saving the whole world again.

Just hard to value myself when it’s hard to feel hopeful that anything will ever get better otherwise. When it feels like you’re living in the middle of a landslide headed 100+ miles per hour straight towards hell.

And let’s go there. What if that is exactly what’s going on?

The good news is hell isn’t for punishment or destruction. It’s for refinement. For purification. The same things we pray for. Just the hard way. Not people waking up by choice. No, them demanding the painful way. Maybe even the most painful ways. Stubbornly clinging to fear. To the darkest sides.

Maybe because they don’t know any alternative. They’ve never seen another way. I can certainly consider giving them that. In just the first few examples that come to mind.

I guess if you want so badly to give away something, to still try saving humanity… if you need more motivation than just saving yourself… think about how saving yourself is giving everyone an example to follow. Or at least consider. That they won’t die and the world won’t fall apart if they actually value themselves.

If the alternative to the common narrative actually looks and feels better then maybe all these words, fun as they may be to volley, will be completely unnecessary. People are attracted to energy. That is capable of breaking through all their internal intellectual bullshit. We are humans attracted to Life and Love. Despite our best efforts to argue otherwise in order to ultimately fail in hedging against inevitable tragedies.

Look, we either embrace what’s left of this human experience. Say “fuck it” to all the fear-based formalities clung to by the vocal majority. And go get what we want. Or at least value dying trying to do so.

Or we can sit around like so many others. Year after year. Waiting for someone else to show up and do for us what we can do for ourselves.

The sad, sad fact is maybe you did deserve more. But there’s probably not anyone available to give you now what others should have given you earlier. It just doesn’t work like that. Look around. Everyone, almost everyone, is struggling. To keep it together. To have any for themselves. Much less excess for you. To stop their whole lives to do for you. To pamper, and I do mean even Pamper, you.

That’s sad. You can definitely mourn that. The reality that sometimes other people are dealt what looks like much better cards than you. There’s certainly an argument for how did we each end up where we are.

You’re entitled to sit as long as you’d like feeling sad and angry about that. While other people decide to accept that it is what it is. And figure out how they’re going to still get what they want. If in fact nobody is ever coming to pay off the debt they’re owed.

You know what my real fear is? That we don’t get to pass Go, we don’t get to move on – cosmically – until we learn each and every lesson. I am terrified that if I sit back on my laurels, choosing a life of pouting about even justifiable deep deep wounds, that I will have to live this damn life all over again on the other side until I learn the lessons I was given the opportunity to learn this time. That terrifies me. I don’t want to live the past over again.

I want to get to the good part.

So even if it wasn’t my fault – what am I here to learn? If our spirits keep getting recycled until we get it, then what am I here to learn?! And fucking learn it already.

If I live in a world where everything I need keeps showing up for me so that I will eventually get what I ultimately really want, then how can I see these situations differently?

It’s about showing up. It’s about returning to our bodies. Returning to ourselves. I think learning to truly value ourselves before we can sincerely value others. In the healthiest and meaningful ways. Beyond the superficial. Beyond empty words. Beyond all the pomp.

People have given up. To the point where they can’t even conceptualize better at this point. Beyond surviving.

Challenge that. If you really believe better is actually possible. Then shut your mouth and really go Live it. Show us out loud. For real this time.

Not just in lots of fluffy pretty words.

Seeing is believing. My Love.

At first I thought I could save the world. Then I beat myself up trying to play that out. Finally I got to the point where I felt like I didn’t have to do that. That living a “normal”,  “regular” life was just fine enough. Even got to the point where I had nothing to prove. “No, it’s fine, God. Look at me; I’m just a loser out here with nothing to prove for any of my big ‘dreams’. It’s fine. I don’t need to write or talk anymore. Nobody’s going to listen to me anyway.”

Then God reminded me of Moses saying the same. Sent out into the desert of his own. To learn how much God Loves ALL the sheep. Shepherds get really dirty. Sheep are really dirty. Certainly not curated for social media. For the acceptance of the elite. “Who would look up to me right now, God? I’m so busted and broke down. Nobody even wants to by my friend. Much less listen to me as some kind of authority.”

But I am expert in a few things. God doesn’t need me to be perfect. I just need to be honest. I just need to tell what happened. Let Holy Spirit do the heavy lifting.

I don’t want to miss out on speaking if it means people will be encouraged. I don’t want someone else to get that blessing. I’ve been through hell and back. I want that to mean something. I need this to make sense. Otherwise I am completely without hope.

So here goes nothing. Guess we’ll see.

There is the temptation to take all of this literally. At face value.

But could God be doing something?

Why did You cry at the tomb of Lazarus, Jesus? I wish to know and understand that from You, Spirit. I really want to know. I feel like maybe I am missing something. Please help us understand.

I wish You’d raise my Lazarus – my J. You can, God. You could raise S’s, G’s E. Even those who never made it out of the womb. You could do that even now.

But if it’s going to depend on me, I don’t have it right now.

Did your T said that if we had faith then we could raise people from the dead? If that’s true, then I want that, God. If anything, just to show people You are really real.

But then I think that You don’t need me. You could show them Yourself.

Are You asking me to write this? I don’t know exactly where it is going.

But I am hopeful that You’ll provide like You did the last time I sat down to write a book I thought you were asking me to write. You know I need a lot more this time.

I ask for wisdom. Please help me see what all this will be.

Please help me show people Your heart. So that they will want You for themselves.

That was the biggest compliment anyone ever gave me. And I can’t even take credit for it; I’m happy to throw the crowns at the feet of Who the praise really belongs to. But it thrilled my heart when someone told me that they wanted a relationship with God the way I have a relationship with God.

Because yes, I want that for them also! I want that for everyone.

I hope I’ll see my dream come true.

Revival is possible. We are more connected now than ever. But it’s a God-sized task. Way above my pay grade.

I’m just going to write and hope for the best. That somehow someway someday someone will be encouraged.

Then pass it along. And more people will start to open up and experience God for themselves.

Will You do that, God? Will I be able to be a part of that?

I was at San Antonio College one day. In the Oppenheimer building. Sitting by the elevators where I could look down the long haul that stretched the length of the building.

I saw a father walking with his toddler. And by toddler, I mean a child that was obviously just learning how to get steady on his feet.

And I felt God call me to pay attention.

I watched as the father stood behind the toddler. Smiling the whole time. Hands off. Watching as his little one toddled down the hallway.

Then the toddler turned to go down a small hallway that led to the faculty offices. The toddler didn’t understand where he was headed. The father didn’t bother explaining because the child wouldn’t have understood anyway. The father just jumped in front of the toddler and blocked the toddler from going down the faculty hallway.

The toddler didn’t understand of course. And was very frustrated. The toddler even tried to go around his father on the left and then on the right. But the father just stood there still smiling. Still blocking his child from going down that hallway.

Finally the toddler gave up, turned around, and started going a different direction. The father again jumped behind his toddler and continued to watch over him and smile as the toddler went another way.

Even though it was such a simple act that probably happens millions of times a day around the world, it spoke volumes to me. I felt like God was giving me a picture of how Trinity interacts with us. On several levels.

One is that God is not mad at us. God smiles at us and watches what we do. Is excited to see what we will do.

Think of your own children. You don’t always tell them what to draw. Sometimes it is much more interesting to see what their minds come up with to draw. I think God is the same way. Seeing what we will do with all of this Creation that has been given to us.

Then on another level I thought God was showing me that sometimes God does block our ways. When it is not good for us to go down certain paths. And we don’t always get the explanation because sometimes we are unable to understand all that is going on that we are not aware of.

So the really frustrating thing that I learned from all of this is that yes, I think I have free will to an extent. But I don’t know the extent. I just basically have to follow what I want to do and kind of find out along the way.

I think I can ask for direction, but I think if it doesn’t really matter then I won’t get the direction necessarily. Like the Father watching his son. The Father wasn’t telling the child where to go at all. The child could have gone any direction – except down the faculty hallway.

I think of the Creation story. Where God told Adam to name the animals. Why would God tell Adam to name the animals if God already had the names in mind? What if it amused God to see what Adam came up with? What if a lot of life is like that for us? What if God is pleased to have us pick and decide what we want to do?

I think of the parable of the talents. Remember how several of the men went out and put the talents to use. Some returned a lot, some a little. But the only one that was rebuked was the one who did nothing with what he was given. Instead, he buried the talent out of fear.

So the lesson for me is to just try something, just do something. Above all, don’t sit doing nothing out of fear.

Why did Jesus come down to earth in human form? God could have appeared to us any any supernatural form. Why did Jesus come down to introduce Himself in human form especially?

Jesus didn’t show up in the form of a royalty that we humans would recognize. Why? After all, this is The Creator of the entire cosmos. We’d think Trinity would show up at least with some sort of grand entrance so that we would recognize Them and worship accordingly. If that was the purpose, if that was the plan.

But how could we humans relate to a supernatural being? How could most humans relate to royalty?

If Jesus showed up as a supernatural being or untouchable royalty, we’d still be in the same situation as before. Afraid of some distant diety.

What can most humans relate to? Family issues, some sort of struggle related to not having enough resources, betrayal, etc. Jesus came to earth as one of us. So we could relate to Jesus.

I think so when Jesus prayed “Our Father…”, that we’d get it. That we’d understand that God is our Father. Not just Jesus’ Father. Otherwise Jesus would have prayed “My Father”, right?

What were the religios people so upset about? What was their main complaint? That Jesus, in human form, dared to call God, Father.

And how is that any different than today? Religious people still want to insist on putting a barrier between the kids who are running to Jesus. The religious people today are still wanting to gatekeep relationship with God.

Telling those they deem not clean enough that Jesus doesn’t want anything to do with them. Until they clean themselves up.

Yet, that’s not what we see Jesus doing.

And maybe you don’t need a Father. But I do.
Maybe you don’t need a God that actually Loves you. But I do.
Maybe you don’t need a Creator that isn’t mad at you. But I do.

Maybe it comes down to values.

I value being happy and healthy over being rich and obtaining the semblance of approval from others.

That’s why I am so open.

To be the person I needed all this time.

So it isn’t about good or bad. Necessarily. Or ever.

It’s just what you want. What I want.

And I can see how if you feel scared then you wouldn’t risk putting yourself out there.

Maybe I’ve just seen behind the curtain. I know there is nothing really to be afraid of. One of the lessons that I consider a big blessing that was learned from “failure”.

Baxter Kruger said that when shame no longer has power over us then people will no longer have power over us. To destroy or manipulate us. My paraphrasing; he said it much better most likely.

You know, the Israelites didn’t want a relationship with God. They wanted a human to go to instead. And I don’t think times have changed that much since then.

People go to church, the read the Bible, they pray. But have they met God? Have they experienced God? In relationship.

Another blessing in that respect. That I have no one. That I am all alone. Because it has forced me to learn how much God loves me.

And destroyed a lot of my ego as well.

But as for trust, when you’re an Israelite who wants a human to turn to instead of God, then of course you don’t want to be open and risk losing the approval of your tribe. Because you depend out on them for your resources.

But once you’ve lost everything and watched God show off for you. With no effort of your own. Then you are free. Of course more and more so over time. But that’s when you start to stop being so scared of everyone and everything.

Because perfect Love casts away fear. And I am convinced that I am already perfectly Loved.

So why would I settle for someone who isn’t operating out of at least intentionally attempting to head in that direction? Not even why, but how could I move forward with someone that would be moving backwards in that way?

Without any condemnation by the way. Obviously I am only here by the grace of God. Not much from me.

But that’s what it really comes down to. Are you operating from a place of fear? Or are you operating from a place of knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that you are absolutely and completely Loved?