Coming Home

  I've always felt like there's a comfort in coming home. Because it's the familiar place of your youth or the place you've made a life for yourself. It's the place you choose to lay your head or spend your days. Home is simply, where the heart is.
  For the longest time I got this feeling of coming home as I came over the grade into Ventura. Now, that I live there, it's not the same. I guess because it's no longer a longing. It's now a real tangible thing and in many ways not what I expected. When I come over that same grade now I don't get that feeling. That feeling of home isn't present anymore. I don't get it at my parents home, my childhood home, either. I think (at my parents) there are a lot of reasons for that, but one would definitely have to be the deep unhappiness that is contained within those walls, not just mine, but as I've discovered everyone who lives in that house. You maybe asking why I'm writing all this, well it's because yesterday...I walked into home.
  I hadn't been to church since before Christmas. Every time I told myself I'd go I just came up with an excuse not to and of course, I was fine with it. Yesterday was my first time back in two months (and only because I went with Kristi and Rayne), it felt good to be back. Worship was great, the message was exactly what I needed to hear (even though it really wasn't what I wanted to hear) and it made my day that much better. I can only hope that my week is good as a result of my mind and soul being in a better place after the service.
  From the first time I walked into that church it's felt like home but because of my stubbornness I left it in search of something else...something more? There's a movie I love called "Center Stage" it's about ballet dancers...when one of them loses her way her teacher tells her (this is my interpretation) that she has to go "back to the bar" to find whatever she's looking for. Okay, not the bar where you drink, but the bar in a ballet studio. For me, that bar is home...it's go back home, to church...to God. To the place where you feel the most like yourself and the least alone and sad. I had forgotten that, but yesterday I was reminded that I don't need to do this by myself and if I start to feel like I'm slipping all I need to do is go home.

   Until Next Time,
    ~m

Too Much Beauty to Doubt!

This is a photo of the Antennae Galaxies taken by the Hubble Telescope...

it's photos like this that remind me, even more, of God's awesomeness.

It's photos like this that make me question anyone who would ever question our Creator...the Creator of all things. How can you imagine, let alone believe, that something this spectacular, this beautiful and perfect can happen by random chance?

No, Ladies and Gentlemen, this is God in all HIS GLORY! He is showing us that He is the maker of all things and we are compelled to worship and stand in awe of Him.

 

Until Next Time!

~m

 

 

source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/gsfc/10870428143/

 

Sad...

 It's been 9 days since George Zimmerman was found not guilty and the country is still trying to figure out why. He killed an unarmed teenage boy who was walking home from the store. Trayvon Martin was stocked by a man who was acting as neighborhood watch and assumed, because of his attire and skin color that he was possibly behind the recent rash of break ins in that gated community. It was called self-defense. I will say that I do believe that Trayvon was beating him up, but I know that he was told not to follow Trayvon. He was bigger than Trayvon so he really didn't need to shoot him when he could have used his body weight. Instead, he pull out his gun and shot him.

 I'm not writing this to debate the merits of the case or to say the jury was wrong. The purpose of my writing this is to try to convey my fear I have for young black men like my brother. He's a youth leader at his church, and will one day be a Pastor. He has a job that he goes to and works hard at everyday. He read comics, loves movies and hanging out with his friends (most of which he's know since Kinder or First grade). He's never done drugs, doesn't party and does not drink. He's a good man...but he's black. In a city, state, country, world where brown skin is still looked down upon as inferior and negative, it's hard to know that my brother could be put into this same situation as Trayvon because some guy with a gun has decided he's had enough (or the police thinks he "LOOKS" like a suspect).

 I naively thought that when the US elected our first Black President that we had evolved as a country. That things like this wouldn't be blasted across our headlines, but I was wrong. I put too much faith and hope the change I saw...and now, I sit here and pray for my brother's safety. When I see a young black man walking down the street I pray for his safety. I pray that he won't become a victim of a society that will never fully realize it's full potential because it's still clinging to the attitudes of the past.

  While people are protesting and outraged by the verdict, I'm been left sadden with a heavy heart. I have only prayers to offer and questions to raise. But I'm also left with an overwhelming sense of fear.

  Until Next Time.

  ~m

Living an Authentic Life

 What does that even mean?
  Of course for different people it means different things. For me it means living the life I want, without regret and without fear. But it also means living a life where my head, my heart and my soul are all on the same page.
  As a Christian I shouldn't live 2 lives, the "Sunday Church" life and the weekday "World" life. I've tried to live my life honestly in both areas, trying to live up to the call I've chosen to follow the entire week and not just leaving God in the church when I walk out. It's difficult and I'm not sure if I succeed all the time (or at all), but I try.
  However, just because I'm trying to live this way doesn't mean that I'm living an authentic life. There are many holes in the way I'm living that I need and want to fill. Things that I want to try in order to continue to live in happiness. I cannot only focus on my spiritual walk and leave all the other things to fall by the wayside. That'll keep me off balance when I want to be well rounded.
  I think that living an authentic life involves doing and living the things you need to to make you feel content in all aspects of your life. To be true to yourself and not have to live up to what others around you may think. For me, sidestepping other's expectations is not a hard thing to do. It's sidestepping my comfort zone that takes some time and guts. But who am I hurting or effecting by not doing or living these things, this way? Only myself...

  I need/want to make it a mission, give it a go and start living an authentic life. I want to do the things I want to do and try the things I want to try, whether they be big or little. Because I feel like even not trying is leaving me missing something that could lead me to new authentic places and can bring me greater happiness.
  So what does living an authentic life mean...it means many things...but hopefully I'll know I'm truly living it someday soon.

  Until Next Time.
  ~m