Billy woke up from a series of fantastically peculiar dreams. Half run by the industry and mystery of it all, he came to his wits and heeded Mamma McMichael's breakfast call. Sitting with his Mother and Father at the table, there was a calm so unique - kind of distracted from the morning stresses. Whatever the case may have been, they didn't wish to start eating until every McMichael was seated at the table. Cindy was not there. Rushed for time, Billy thought to save Cindy the drama of late-to-breakfast lectures by leaving the table and attending his morning duties, knowing he had only to clean himself up a bit to put himself together for the day. He didn't think it would take too much time and he found himself dressed for the day at the table with his mother and father still waiting on Cindy. Cindy seemed a bit sour at least from the sound of things. No one had seen her face, but the growing clamor in her room seemed to suggest as much.
If travel time stood at 45 minutes between home and the social house, they had 2 minutes to spare before they would be late. Suckered for time, Cindy came all disheveled and hurting. The McMichael's had a rushed and awkward breakfast feeling the tension that something had gone terribly wrong, without any sense for what it could have been. Before jumping in the mover, something in Cindy spiked and Mama McMichael threw her arms around her. Billy felt the rush of wanting to do the same. She unwelcomely accepted his embrace, but the sting of whatever crucible she had entered into kept pulling and pulling and pulling.
They all filed into the mover knowing they would be late and they would have to face the later-than-thou comedy at the social house. This however seemed insignificant compared to Cindy's growing pain. Mama seemed to think a no-touch policy was requisite, while Billy tried to offer compassion through the vehicle touch. The problem-tension encouraged a solution-tension that kindled a fire of passion. The great and wild climax spilled out and over when Cindy screamed, "Billy don't, Mom is trying to help!"
Billy was immediately torn because he was also trying to help. He meant well; yet, she perceived his attempts and efforts as unhelpful. To add sugar to stove-tops, Billy shelled off commenting about interpretation offering a defense for his actions. This was met by a parade of noisy, condemning jeers of Mom and Dad McMichael. Father let out, "Heaping coals, heaping coals, heaping coals, Billy!"
Billy immediately restrained himself and bit his tough hard. He instantly became conscientious. He was afraid to suggest any more concern or comment on anything else for fear of unbridled angst that would no-doubt boomerang. He sat and thought. He thought about the mornings progress only to find himself confused. The things he meant were not seen and the things he did not, were. On a more sophisticated level, I presume, he thought about the elements of transmission and communication. He thought to himself: "My intention was not appreciated and this seems to prove a lack on both ends, respectively. For if my intention was not appreciated, I obviously failed to make it clear. However Cindy's shortsightedness inhibited her from appreciating my concern." Funny how strange dreams meet strange things and how in the end there may be a lesson to learn. It seems that a gift must be understood relative to its giver and that the strings of communication have two ends.

Draw and its Death

It seems to me that relationships inspire people. I have seen it before. Boy meets girl: Girl meets boy: Woman, wooed: Man, pitied. Is this not the stereotypical fantasy awaken in funny bone-pains felt by the penetration of Cupid's arrows? Maybe it's the knight sat up in tin-can armor fallen upon that white horse bridled only by the force of passion or is it the frog tongue-tied and hopeful that there is one princess out there, just one, silly enough to kiss him? Cynical or not, these penetratingly deep affections -commonly referred to as love or passion- persuade men and women to engage in a language game for whatever reason or against it. My point is that “love” drives people to do all kinds of things it doesn't seem they would do on there own.
Honestly, there is a kind of disguised hubris in it all – love binds and blinds all for the sake of freedom and clarity; though, I have seen so many singles turn ga-gas fade into sordid relationships that seem to be anything but freeing and helpful. I have seen friends from all kinds of backgrounds, emotively enlivened, given the courage to “gird up their loins,” as it were, and effect a try-harder attitude because they think that it will make the relationship work. While I think its good that they finally give up their smokes and soaps, too often the exchange brings about nothing more than love stupors and drama.
However contrastingly, it seems that good relationships evoke good initiative and potential, happiness in general and good deeds. I suppose bad relationships could do the same though the effects would eventually die away. Of course, I am taking the liberties of big brushes and lots of paint, but I think this is a fair analysis of loves initial exuberance. This interested-ness of two people in each other drives a good thing forward, even as it acts like a “dam against fornication and lust.” I guess, even this is a bit idealistic given the Sex-god troubles placating the American milieu.
Whatever the case maybe, it seems that the substance of a relationship gives a unique kind of resolve to people involved; maybe its the pressure, maybe the sense of benevolence or concern. Whatever it is, something so terrible happens when and if that relationship falls apart. When a relationship dies it seems easy to embrace a kind of despair so fantastically real that it is as if demons are speaking. With the noise of fall-outs and fracture, divorce and break-offs comes the dissonance of that rhetorically savvy... persuading... feeling of apathy... I suppose other inexpressible emotions are evoked with a kind of damning rise that makes simple tasks more daunting than they have ever been before.
Questions remain: so many questions. I suppose your asking things like: why, what did I do wrong, what was I thinking? This is only natural though it seems to force the nail of failure even deeper. That constant impulse, that itching passion and that insidious draw recklessly leading you here has come full circle and left you in the place where you started.
I am under the conviction that hope has a peculiar and unique tie to God and the Gospel and its here that the pressure to turn of other gods is incredibly real. Affirming that loss has its own kind of good in the mystery of pain seems terribly unhelpful though it seems we have good reason to do just that.

Men without Chests

Relationships have a uniquely different kind of problem in the 21st century. Men are encouraged to sell there dignity for eyeliner and egoist sensationalism and women are duped into materialism dressed in raging manipulative cycles disguised by the memes of what is or isn't fabulous... Perhaps both flounder in similar ways wrestling with never being or feeling quiet like we should... What is so wrong with the biblical model? What is it precisely? Too conservative? Too libral? I suppose that conservatism has died a death no one is capable of redeeming if the archetypes for its prestige are the same egotistical men, too commonly lost in their own addictions and/ or self-righteousness... advocating, full-on- for a model that gives them a justification to treat their wives in intolerable ways... and liberals bury their best arguements for the necessity and beauty of equality, in mantras that bastardize monogomy and adulturate the santity of life. Who then is faultless and aren't these both acting in a way radically opposed to the Scriptures. May God help us as we try to get it right... in God's mercy.