I guess I struggle with the above and the idea of Christ. If one is not willing to be poor for a job, hobby, or something they love doing on this earth, for something that is tangible and brings them joy, then how can one say they would be willing to give their life to Christ? I’m thinking Luke 9:57-62

Maybe this is something that should be dwelled upon. For if God didn’t put these things in one’s life to love and to chase, then what purpose do they serve? And if one is not chasing dreams, as long as they are righteous pursuits, is one not taking what could be used to glorify God and casting it aside to follow earthly desires?

Following Jesus one learns a way of practical love. Loving thy neighbor, taking care of self and others. The question and inverse arises, can one fear God practically?

Today one would be hard pressed to find someone who fears God; one that shakes and trembles at the thought of an Almighty interfering with our everyday lives. God doesn’t seem to have that Old Testament closeness; the sword, and pestilence, and famine, and wrath… But it wouldn’t seem to me that the apparentness of God’s whereabouts should change anything–practical fear is still respect of the Lord, His statutes, and His Son’s teachings. I’m thinking Jeremiah 26

Christ has transformed Old Testament practical fear into New Testament practical love. The fear and the respect hasn’t gone anywhere, it’s just displayed differently. Love comes defined as respect, defined as good works, defined as righteousness towards others, defined as submission and vulnerability.

Two things. If you dream isn’t something that can fit into this definition of love, then it’s probably not a dream worth pursuing. And if you can’t fit something in this world into this definition, how can you begin to chase a God that requires all of this?

Today I let go. Let God give me my dreams now. I’m thinking Phillipians 3:13-14

I sat down two days ago to listen to Hollywood Floss’ latest work. Sometime during the process my computer crashed. I lost my entire hard drive. For 24 hours I was a wreck! Sitting in an Apple Store hope began to reappear. We were running diagnostics and crunching numbers and putting in work. No avail. They said my hard drive was gone and shot me an estimate of $1500 dollars to get the data back. But I rose above it and worked out a way to get my data back myself. What does this have to do with Floss?

When I set out to write this I didn’t want it to be some puff piece just repping Floss’ latest mixtape out of the blue. I wanted the reader to understand the kind of effort that I put in for Floss because of the time and work Floss puts in for his listeners.

Floss is one of the most creative artists I’ve heard in a long time. His latest mixtape, XP2 (Xperiment Part 2) releases in parts today. The flows are smooth, the beats you feel, and if you’re paying attention, Floss will take you to school and make you laugh when you pick up on that line he words just right. XP2 is a smattering of club, riding, and freestyle tracks, proving that Floss is a very versatile artist that is changing the Houston scene.

The best way to describe it is for you to listen to it! You can cop part of the the mixtape from me, but you are going to have to work to get all the tracks! Try following Hollywood Floss to get them all!

“18 Then pay attention to how you listen; for to those who have, more will be give; and from those who do not have, even what they seem to have will be taken away.”

Luke 8

How many times a day do I hide Christ under a basket? A basket of music, a basket of cooking dinner, a basket of calling someone. When do I ever put him on a lamp stand? Hold on a minute I have to pray this one over, or let’s give thanks before eating this meal, or I will stop and get in the word for a few minutes.

It’s how I listen. If I do not pay attention to God, God right now, then what I even seem to have, His presence right now, will be taken away and I will not be able to feel Him. But if I listen, if I pay attention to God, then He will continue to lead me in a way that I can feel.

The deepest human desire, is the desire for a narrative.

Francesco Clemente

Watching Francesco Clemente on Charlie Rose is strange. I want to adopt his manner of thinking, to take hold of the boredom he speaks of. Because bordem of 1950′s Italy and 1990′s Suburbs couldn’t have been much different…oh say except for television throttling all the needed imagination out of a child.

Recognizing this fifteen years later is a hard task. Realizing that there is no narrative of my life worth telling, or that I am just on the cusp of creating something worth telling, is harder. The answer lies in how bordem is used. I see a paradigm shift in myself away from the things I loved so much as a child–the great enjoyment in video games and internet frivolity–to one that desires creativity and art. The sooner a child can learn to learn and create, the better for them, they are the lucky ones.

My time is precious and I need to remind myself to use it to create in any instance of free time….something, anything that challenges myself or peers.

So again I leave you with the quote, what narrative are you writing?

The deepest human desire, is the desire for a narrative.

Francesco Clemente

So my friends, will you hold me accountable. That means calling me out on things I say or do. Checking in with me about what I am listening to or consuming. Guiding me and seeing me through. I promise that by helping me become closer to Christ and God you gain as well. Can you help me?!

I love the Parable of the Sower.

4 While a large crowd was gathering and people were coming to Jesus from town after town, he told this parable: 5 “A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path; it was trampled on, and the birds of the air ate it up. 6 Some fell on rock, and when it came up, the plants withered because they had no moisture. 7 Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up with it and choked the plants. 8 Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up and yielded a crop, a hundred times more than was sown.”

When he said this, he called out, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”

Luke 8

Reading it again today I stopped to think about what Jesus meant. I believe this not only to be an illustration to go spread the word and make disciples of men, not only to talk and share with fellow followers of Christ, but a metaphor to constantly and deliberately expose oneself to Christ’s teachings, the word of the Bible, and fellowship because not everything you hear, read, or experience will grow where it hits you in life.

Evening has made the soil cool and moist. Footprints of night grazers catch the early morning dew. Before the rural sun rises the bakers awake shedding the sheets of formality, kiss their wives and make their way to the outskirts of industry. The pungent, bitter smell of yeast fills the air as the bread factories knead and spin and rise and bake. This familiar odor drifts out from the city’s limits and greets the farmer with sunrise. Work must be done soon before the animals flee for their daytime hideouts; a rural commotion, the magic part of the day. And heat! Wake up the city, pour the coffee, inhale and stretch the lungs with the smell of iron lifting out of the baked ground! The dirt! mother nature’s flesh, plowed and turned! drying and exhaling its metaphorical carbon-dioxide. A blanket to cover all–the country side and the city–it is unprejudiced. The farmer knows his work in the fields is completed. He must adapt and move. So he travels inward, past the corn, past the lots of pristinely trimmed, biologically modified grass, through the channels of coarse concrete guiding steel and flesh alike to a place of commerce. For he is part business man, part Native American, part father, part husband, instantly changing to survive.

The iron cloud is at it’s highest point. But the citians have adapted. Strolling on cobblestone, passing through history and thinking they are creating a great one of their own. The mundane, the splatter of color, can one person unite these streets? Will they yet be filled with growth and passion and youth? Not without this iron cloud, but circumventing it by thought and more importantly action. Replacing routine with art. Replacing transaction with joy. Taking notice of scattered detail and bringing it together as something greater than self.

The sun slips. A breeze, welcome and fresh, spins into the iron tendrils, loosening. The business man suddenly transits into a distributor into a farmer as the produce is collected and crafts loaded and fly wheel is engaged for slightly too long losing a metal tooth in the veins of the organism. The city exhales and the farmer rides the breeze out of the buildings with a newfound vibrance. Windows open up and buildings sing with the bumping of dishes and running of water. Work has been justly ended and the people flee their daily hideouts; an urban commotion, a different sort of magic. Lights flick into being and the bakers are already asleep, having kissed their wives and donned the sheets of formality. The damp, bubbly, dry taste of yeast splashes out of mouths and into lungs of those standing too close. A good time is had and thin, white, slices with print on them are exchanged, kneading a different kind of dough into a different kind of bread. All travel outward leaving footprints in freshly poured cement. A by product of an exothermic reaction has made the soil of the city, these winding streets, cool and moist.

I only love you in the summer time for winter holds none of this.

Today I read the first few verses of Matthew 7.

1 “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. 2 For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. 3 “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 4 How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.

It hit me pretty hard that I have been judging and condemning others lately. It has created a rift in my spiritual life. I can think of three separate occasions in the past two days that I have really been out of line. It has affected every part of me. I have been wondering why I can’t write, why I have no motivation…to take pictures, to read new things, to capture thoughts. All I could do was to move around in the physical world–exercise was the only thing that made sense.

I think this really speaks to how important it is to be attune with God and his will. Fighting Him leaves me completely drained emotionally, physically, and without inspiration. I get myself into trouble and I wonder why. I have been in this slump for nearly a week and a half.

Oswald Chambers wrote a daily devotional, this is taken from the June 17th entry.

…the Holy Ghost is the only One in the true position to criticize, He alone is able to show what is wrong without hurting and wounding.

I heard a sermon on this Sunday. I read it today. Only now do I understand that trying to take the place of judge of other people, to try and show them what is wrong, I am wounding and hurting. It’s being done to me and I to others and I to myself. An effort needs to be made to change this state.