Drop and roll; repeat line for emphasis.

I’ll repeat it and repeat it until you believe it,

You're gonna be ok! Say it to me!

The answer is still silence; I’ll take it as a maybe.

I can't decide if I should knock down your door or on it.

Say the word and I’ll take an axe to your heart or a pin prick.

Cut right through the dark, let it spill out the contents,

on our knees sorting through the remnants.

Pour out your hate in my hands, I’ll let it slip through my fingers.

Damn. I expected to feel rejuvenated and refreshed tonight. And I don't.

This is not the sound of a new man or crispy realization
It's the sound of the unlocking and the lift away
Your love will be
Safe with me

Here's something interesting. Humble = adjective. Make that a noun. Humility. Adverb? Humbly. Verb (present progressive, please)? <--the tricky one. Humbling? Or humiliating? If we go with the latter, make that a noun again. Humiliation. What the fuck?

People have been telling me my whole life that the lexical similarity between these two is a coincidence. I guess I'll find out for real in History of the English Language. But the more I am humbled, the more I wonder if they are truly separable. When I become truly humbled, it involves relinquishing the notion that I was right. And, it involves recognition that I may have believed wrongly. I don't know that an instance like that can occur without some sense of humiliation.

At the same time, true humility might mean the opposite; superseding the humiliation. I think maybe that a person truly humbled is so awestruck by a glimpse at truth previously hidden (the "real," if you will) that the notion of being right is entirely disassociated. In that sense, I don't experience a lot of humility.

There is a sense of joy in learning that I am wrong. When I learn that I am wrong, it means that I am molting; in a sense, shedding a form of myself that didn't know before. Peeling back layers of ignorance like wrapping paper. I believed wrong. But I believe right now.

However, there is a large part of me that wonders, if I was thinking wrong before, what am I wrong about now? I can't help but be both humbled and humiliated when I think of myself even three years ago. I know I acted to the best of my ability given the knowledge I had. But seriously.

What am I missing now? What part of my story is just outside of my peripheral vision? Or, what part of my story lingers in my peripheral vision, casting shadows, but dancing elusively enough for me to deny its existence?

I believe a lot of things, but am I ready and willing to abandon them for the tools of tomorrow? Rusty and broken tools are comforting and consistent, but they are flawed. It's a hard thing to be willing to abandon everything tomorrow. It requires the true, honest recognition that...holy shit...I don't know a FUCKING thing. After all, what person abandons the truth every day?

It's a bit ironic that I want to be the person that abandons truth every day. Or, not abandon truth, but abandons yesterday in pursuit of today's truth. If we're searching for god, well, a human consciousness could never begin to understand more than a miniscule, obscured reflection of god. What makes people think that the bit of god they see today is any more true than the bit their neighbor sees? Any god that can be understood is one not worth knowing.




Once, when I was attending LBF college group, I was told, or at least given the strong impression, that there was a conflicting message within philosophy and christianity. Philosophy teaches that all doubt is good and leads to great things. Christianity (then) taught me that doubt is necessary to christianity as long as it's interpreted within the confines of faith. When you doubt god's plan, have faith. When you doubt god's voice, have faith. etc etc.

I say: if you stop believing, then stop believing. Fuck god. If god wants you, (s)he'll come get you. But if you try your best and you don't hear god, then stop bullshitting yourself. That's what I have to do. It sickened me to live a lie, either way. It might be the most important thing that has happened to me. I rejected god. I rejected everything about religion. And years later, god shows up, uninvited. It's not a testimony. It's a chronicle of my rejection, and my honest belief that nothing in the whole world could have made me abandon yesterday's tools. It doesn't matter that today's tools look like the ones I started with. Nothing is the same.



And so, today, I'm humiliated, er, humbled by the recognition that I wasn't that far off to begin with, maybe. Or maybe I'm totally and entirely different now. Either way, I still don't know a fucking thing. I'm gradually becoming more and more grateful for that.



Oh, and just throwing this out there: I think Thomas gets a bad wrap of things in the bible. I thought that years ago, and I still think that. If there is anybody that I resemble from the bible, it's him. And I could never be more proud.

Time to be a brother. And a son. A good friend, and a boyfriend, and a responsible coworker. A privileged and comparatively wealthy individual, and the poorest in spirit. A straightforward and honest leader, and a patient and trusting follower.

I guess I'm just learning what the concept of adulthood means. It's none of those things, but I think a desire to do things like them. I'd say it's a shift from selfishness, but it's just another, more socially acceptable form of selfishness. All I know are a few key things:

1) I am impatient for something, and I don't know what it is.
2) I receive joy in success more than I have before
3) Things are changing
4) I am impatient for something, and I don't know what it is.

I have nothing to say, but for some reason wanted to write something anyways. Dunno how that works.

Oh, I'll put this. A stanza to a spoken word piece I wrote. I'm terribly embarrassed by it, but beneath the embarrassment is a strong hope that it's good.

"I became addicted to misery when my soul became bulimic
I would throw up my decision and then make myself re-eat it
Repeat it, believe it! There is nothing beautiful here,
Just everything you failed to follow through with. Peer
Into the midst of an electrical storm you conjured up with your smooth words and convenient vodka.
I must love this so much."

"We are all made out of shipwrecks, every single board
washed and bound like crooked teeth on these rocky shores
so come on and let’s wash each other with tears of joy and tears of grief
and fold our lives like crashing waves and run up on this beach
come on and sew us together, tattered rags stained forever
we only have what we remember

Because every church is made out of shipwrecks
from every hull these rocks have claimed
but we pick ourselves up, and try and grow better through the change"

- Listener

Bricolage pt. 2

I can't help speaking through other people's words.

"I've got another confession to make; I'm your fool"

"She parks her car outside of my house and takes her clothes off, says she's close to understanding Jesus. She knows she's more than just a little misunderstood; she has trouble acting normal when she's nervous"

"And who will stand to greet the blinding light? It's lonely when there's no one left to fight"

"I know you come like a thief in the night, but I've had some time alone to hone my lying techniques. I know you think that I'm someone you can trust, but I'm scared I'll get scared and I swear I'll try to nail you back up"

"Hailie's getting so big now, you should see her, she's beautiful, but you'll never see her; she won't even be at your funeral"

"Oh! How she cries from vicarious pain from the one he writes about! She must have been so sad for him to throw her out"

"Some days I can't believe. Others, I'm on my knees, trying to be heard"

"Would you shoot up, grow my garden? Please, my Eden, grow for me; show me how you decorate the streets that brought me misery!"

"Dark generations, poor expectations; can you find strength in this weakness?
Fallen nations, our limitations; can you find strength in this weakness?

Hallelujah! Living Water. Hallelujah! Abba Father."


Bricolage was never a concept, but a lifestyle. Bricolage is an admittance of my humanity and it's inevitable insufficiency. Bricolage is learning humility again.

Abandon, then, your tools of yesterday! Don't you know? The world has changed! You and your values of the past have been left, discarded like chaff. You fool! Your visage is cracked. Your formulated morals of concrete and mortar will collapse. Your reality is flawed. Your perception is weak. Do you want to see something true? Then, for the love of God, discard your faith! Do away with belief! Stop your clinging to reason and emotion, and recognize the narrowness of your field of vision! You miserable fool. You can know nothing. Pick up your tools of today. Relearn everything, every day. There is no center that you can know, only what you can glimpse. So peel the pride from your shoulders like rotten flesh. You do not know. And, as long as your hands are bound to yesterday's tools, you are doomed to repeat the same spiral.

Your God will be different tomorrow. You must start over. You must give up. Because, wesley, yesterday's tools are worn and blunt. Today is a new day.

Tidak apa apa. Fuck it. Shit happens, one day at a time.

Bricolage.

And, yet, a small part of me chuckles and shakes my head, wondering how furious Derrida would be to know that he has made me a christian again.