the same frustrations from others

I keep running into people, grown-ups who've grown up within the church, who say just the same as Mark Stewart, "Let's drop the church and meet down at Café Borgen and talk about what life is all about and how we should live it." I've just come from an hour-long conversation where the very same thing came from a different generation. So now I've heard it from teenagers, 20-23 year olds, 23-30 year old's and above. The one I talked to tonight said, "when they call people to the front for salvation, I feel like going too!" He named the names of about 12 people who meet because they are in the same boat! A thought popped into my head, that I've headed into a crisis that is apparently capable of lasting years, decades. Its a predicament, a frustration, and it makes me anxious, desperate! But what to do?

How many are we in this situation? How many just need to talk about this right now instead of being encouraged to 'come to the front?' Where is God in all of this and what is actually the root-problem to be adressed? Should we stand together in this or don't we wanna 'rock the boat?'

At least its inspired me to one of the most expressive songs I've ever written with a chorus that says, "I've heard that You are good / and I've heard that You are great / I've heard that You are mighty to save, mighty to save me today" I hope to play it one day and that it'll help someone else out there to see that they're not alone with this. Being alone with it is not a good thing.

Lyrics feedback, plz

I just wrote a new song. Kinda a 15-minute-job, but I wanna have some feedback on these lyrics, please.. [smile] The two-line part is the chorus.

Everytime I see that face
I break down and cry
When the truth finally breaks
The seas they roar in those eyes

I knew how it felt to be free
Never a worry on my mind
Some say that ignorance is bliss
'Till there's no comfort left to find

Only in that love was I truly free
Only in those arms could I really be me

They told me love was my own thing
To do with as I pleased
That it was all in how I tried
All was good if it felt right to me

Ever an arbitrary truth
Fragments spread through time
An intermittent compromising truce
Never a clearly drawn confine

elements in life / control

My life is comfortably simple right now - and I am hesitant to let anything disrupt it! My life before "now" was chaotic to say the least, wildly disorderly to say less. I have never before had the space that I do now (I own a 3-room flat, 68m² with my older brother and sister, both of which have since moved out resulting in my lone hibernation.) Not only physical space but also mental and emotional space. Why have I waited so long with settling into habits of maintaining the order of my surroundings thereby giving myself space to think and rest?

The simplicity is not only in space but also in elements. My life consists of few elements. Before I had school, the teen-group at church, the kid's group at church, music ("worship") at church, occasionally jobs, friends and family = 7 elements!
Now I have nothing to do with church, no friends, no school but I have gained myself and a job. Myself, job and family - oh, and this leaves place for creating music! [smile]

This sounds harsh, yes, I know. But nice. Simple. On top of this, I have pro-actively chosen (or approved) all the elements! Never before have I experienced this and its a wonderful feeling of being in control and actually choosing what I'm spending my time doing.

Can't wait to see what kind of chaos a re-entrance of God could possibly create! sheesh!

Revelation of Forgiveness

"Forgive:
To cease to feel resentment against, on account
of wrong committed; to give up claim to requital
from or retribution upon (an offender); to
absolve; to pardon; --said of the person
offending."
-1913 Webster

Pain caused from maltreatment is a premise for forgiveness. And let us not be naive about the magnitude of the glory of the Decision to turn away from pain and a deep desire for revenge and to accept the nauseating injustice done to one's own flesh and soul. Neither are the emotions involved in this inner battle for the soul to be downplayed, as they can be likened to the powers of nature if one's body were the Earth. Wherefore the Decision is to be likened to the calming of a storm, the convincing of a flood to retreat and the dispersing of the winds of every hurricane: everything within the Earth is closely interrelated wherefore one must assume and retain control over every element within oneself to calm the many raging storms and to draw up again the lines for every wild drop of water in the floods.

Neither must the beauty of the Decision to relinquish one's right to revenge, the ensuing rainbow and the tranquility of great grassy plains drying in the sun, be forgotten. For in making this Decision one not only exonerates the Offender from the curse of the sin commited against oneself, one also frees one's own Earth from a curse of die-hard storms resulting from nature not being in equilibrium. It is fair to say that one holds the fate of two lives when faced with the Decision.

Another beauty, which is worthy of meditation, is how forgiveness enables closure in regards to the haunted memory of the Offender.

Mercy, people, and the appreciation of it, is beautiful.

Conversations in conflict

I just had a thought but haven't the energy to think it through (formulating it always helps): is it not true that 90% of all conversations are based on disagreement? Meaning to say that if you talk to someone, you don't talk to them, you discuss something with them. Exceptions are introductions (telling about oneself) or teaching or expanding the other's horizon.

Maybe that's why I'm not good at talking to anyone past the pleasantries: I hate conflicts and I'd rather "nod and smile" my way out of them than in any way discuss something. I've tried to teach myself to be more adamant and clear headed in some point but its just spectacularly unbecoming to me.

Judge me, plz, is that good or bad (ethically, socially and professionally)?