I have not felt this satisfied with my existence in quite a long stretch of time. Truly, most assuredly, it is the gift of God. I simply cannot produce this state of peace and rest of my own accord. When I attempt to it is hallow, it is weak, and it is often quickly shattered by those who wish to keep me always striving and never arriving at a location that does not exist, and if it did I would not really want to be there.

Now I can move in all directions, but I only want to move in one. I have every possibility open, yet there is only one door I step through. That which has bound me no longer binds me, and I am free to be be bound to another. Ah, such fantastic contradiction! We are never free until we give up our freedom. We never live unless we first die. I have always seen this, but only now do I perceive it. I have always heard, and never understood. Now I find myself rejoicing in how I have been crafted and squeezing out every drop of myself, not to be empty, but to be full.

Now you hear me, Barn Swallow; you hear me. All this madness must now come to its end. You cannot simply go flitting about all the time, all the while I remain in my place (I remain chained to my place). Each and every time you tuck and twirl it only reminds me that I am bound. And I do not care for your freedom. No, I do not rejoice in you, nor do I despise you for what you possess. I only despise what you possess because it rings my chains. I do not want to be like you. I do not want to be like me.

Note: who could have known? Not I. I could not have known what a Barn Swallow really was, what a Barn Swallow really meant. Or maybe the hidden places of me are more clever than I thought.

Someday there may be brought about a woman who loves me enough to ask me how I came into these scars. And if I love her I will tell her. But if I love her I will not want to tell her. All I can do is everything I can to make it the case that they are indeed scars, and not wounds.

Not all these were spoken by me. Not all these were spoken to me. All of these speak to me.

"She is your sister. You are supposed to protect her."

"Maybe this sword has an inside edge so that I might be forced to use it precisely, and not merely hack about wildly with it for fear of cutting myself."

"What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death!"

"Drunken words are sober thoughts."

"Shielding myself from the feeling of death does not make me any more alive."

"God is easy to please, but hard to satisfy."

"There may come a time when you will not be able to pull yourself close enough to the ground. But it is not this time. Stand up."

"Jesus was not a great moral teacher. He is the Great Judge."

"In the greatest battle of your life you may never fire a shot. Sometimes it is merely a matter of holding your ground. You may not be required to take any."

"You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness."

"Put your full commitment into following the orders of the Living Commander, believing fully in Him, and do not be distracted by orders of the Dead Commander."

My last entry (well, my last real entry) had a heavy Kierkegaardian influence. I say influence because it was mostly the subject matter that had been affected. The style was, well, the style was something like his, but much less sophisticated (or maybe I'm confusing sophistication for confusion?) But the whole idea of faith, and what it is, and where it comes from, and what it's good for, and how you lose it, and how it might grow or wither, and what it's opposite is, and how it might change me or how I might change it is all of primary importance to my mind (soul?) right now.

I guess we use the word in different senses. Sometimes we say faith to mean a person's religious (spiritual?) beliefs. Faith becomes synonymous with religion perhaps because we see one as a product of the other. It can go backwards or forwards. But I think that one can have faith without religion, and one can practice religion and never really have faith. /And so quickly I am taken from my first place and placed somewhere else entirely in my mind. Are there two halves of me?, am I missing one? What is this stress and tension that wills me to tears? It is a black hand reaching into and gripping the very heart of me. So often I feel the jolts as It merely flicks It's wrist and stirs me from my thoughts and carries me away. My incessant distraction to keep me from thinking all worthwhile thoughts. My malicious demon of the utmost power and cunning. It has got...It has got... Suddenly I know not what I say, I know not where I am. I can neither move forward nor keep from looking back. All my focus is within and helpless. I am helpless. So every great thing I might become forgets what it has been doing. These men are all now just confused and displaced, unable to see their beginning or their goal and so stuck trying to assemble the pieces of each others puzzles that are all a jumble and mixed in with the rest. So one might now take another's path and find it useless and still another might take the paths of two others and now they have nowhere to go. They grope around in darkness. Where was I? Where was I? I do pity them.

My internal monologue: I should write a blog post. Nah.

Let's get one thing straight: time does not heal anything. Sure, everyone says it does, hell, even I say it does. But time does not do the healing. Time is the medium through which healing is allowed to take place. It is a necessary piece of the equation, but it is not central. On second thought, it is not a piece of the equation. It is merely the paper on which the equation is written. We cannot help but factor it in because we are trapped within it. Now my thought is in proper order.

The equation of healing is about faith and understanding. The two are interconnected, so that the one is necessary for the other. This can often make it difficult to get the equation started. One might ask "where should I get this faith?" and the answer is "through understanding." Next one asks "but where should I get this understanding?" and the reply "through faith." And so it cannot come from within us. One must first come from the outside and from it the other can follow, either from us working it out or from it being similarly implanted or imparted.

For me first came faith. This is the faith that God's hand is at work in my life to shape me and mold me and bring me to the realization that I am first and foremost a son, and all other things secondarily. This is a faith that does not come from any of my own abilities. Truly, the more I tried to cause it within myself, the farther it seemed to be from me (for citation see all previous posts).

Following faith is understanding. This is the understanding of what it means to be first and foremost a son, and all other things secondarily. My understanding has come as a hybrid of implantation and basic deduction. Understanding being a son leads to deeper faith and deeper faith leads to better understanding of being a son.

This model of healing is a skeleton at best. But bear with me. It is a fresh concept for me. The terms are defined in a hazy manner, and the connections may be tenuous in places, but at least it's a start. And you gotta start somewhere.