Thanks Jeff

Thanks Jeff for this. Sorry it was so late, people don't ever comment and I just read your comments to my post a few weeks ago. Made me cry man! Thanks!

"Heavenly Father, I come to you today and pray that you help my friend Kevin, and for that matter, that You help me (and others like us), to find our true place and purpose in this life. At times, we've been blessed with such clarity from You about what it is we should be doing, and where it is we should be going (even if we've never acknowledged You as the source of that wisdom). And yet, there are still times like now when we still feel lost and burdened by the weight of our feelings and uncertainty. Please help us to break free from that doubt and from any fears! I admit that I regularly charge off after my own desires before consulting You about which direction I should go. I guess that's why they say that human beings are the only creatures who speed up when lost. I don't want to be lost anymore. Dear Lord, I pray that you will not remember the sins of my youth, nor my transgressions. Please think of me according to Your mercy and for Your goodness' sake, O Lord. Lord I turn from all of those sins that I committed and I ask for Your help in washing the memory and thoughts of that sin completely from my mind. Please restore me to faithful obedience to Your Word, and fill me with Your Holy Spirit anew, so that I may keep Your commands all the days of my life. Lord Jesus, I invite you into my heart anew today, and I ask forgiveness for all of my sins. Jesus, thank you for dying for my sins and for forgiving me of them through your shed blood for me on the cross. Please take away all the sinful 'old things' in my heart that defile me, and replace them with the 'good things' that you desire to grow in to my life. Please wash away all the sinful crud and tendencies toward evil and replace them with a hunger and thirst for your righteousness. I need your help, Lord God, in living this new life in Christ. Please send your Holy Spirit afresh into my life to help me, heal me, lead me and transform me. I also pray that your shed blood washes over me, protects me, and that I am counted worthy to escape the things that are coming upon this world in the form of your righteous judgment. Lastly, I pray that you have mercy on this nation even though we deserve your fierce judgment for our blatant sins that are before you. Help us to see the error in our ways as individuals and as a nation, and lead us to repentance before it's too late for us. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen."

I look forward to the scorn and stigma...

Every Day

It's hard to explain what it means, but every day I am here my soul feels tortured. I exist, and I don't want to just exist. I'm in a waiting room, waiting for the next piece of drama, the next piece of negativity, to hit me. It feels like I'm suffocating.

I get it...

You're arrogant...we get it. With so many people in REAL need in this world, and you're the charity case? Is there any end to your ego? Shake yourself.

This gon' get ugly

It's amazing how hard it is to be easy. The best way that any of us can live is obvious to most everybody, yet, how many people truly live it? To live without judgment, to remember that every single one of us are the same when you turn the lights off and we're by ourselves.

We all WANT to be happy, but at every turn we do the exact things that are going to make us depressed, that are going to bring drama into our lives, and that are going to be immense road blocks to that elusive happiness.

It has to be repetitive, just like in school when you're learning and studying. It has to be drilled into you. No one thing, one place, one car, one person can make YOU happy. Happiness isn't surface. "I love my kids, I love the Tigers, I love beer." Fucking terrific. That's great. Currently I love Madden for PS3 and love that Michigan is going to dominate the Big Ten within the next three years. It's perfectly fine to love those things, but the different levels of love and happiness are something I just fucking fight and battle and struggle with every single day.

I don't wish to be someone who can't see the layers and depths to life and people though. I don't want to be non-feeling and just exist...and call that happiness. But this is me in a nutshell (perfecy example) -- yesterday there were 17 separate terrorist attacks in Pakistan. The Taliban is waging war on Pakistan and killing hundreds of innocent people every week in an effort that will end up being fruitless if Pakistan every mobilizes. The consequences of this happening in a nuclear-owning nation like Pakistan, just two doors to the right of Iran, could threaten and de-stabilize India, Afghanistan, Iran and the entire world. It's incredibly sad and hurtful, and scary as shit.

What leads off every news channel last night? Even on CNN, "the most trusted name in news," is some hoax that a kid is trapped in a fucking balloon in the skies of Colorado.

This affects me profoundly and it IS why I have this incredible disconnect with everything around me....with this life. It has to be a dream that this is really happening. Most people I know couldn't tell me where Pakistan is on a map, but the "hey, did you see that shit about the kid in the balloon?" conversation had to have happened a million times yesterday. Add to it those glimpses of TV shows and websites judging what people wear, or how much money they make or don't make. I get "first day of school" tightness in my stomach when I think about this shit.

But before, I used to feel guilty about that. I don't now. That's part of the progress of counseling and reading and meditating. I surround that and accept it as it is. There isn't anything I can do about Pakistan directly (I'm sure that is the defense of most people as to why they'd rather watch balloon-boy on the news). What I can do is meditate on it, on an area that Ghandi held so dear, an area that born nearly every organized religion that we have today. Send love to those who are suffering over there, and pray that the people in leadership have the strength and ability to bring this to a peaceful end.

These terrorists aren't just suicide bombing anymore. They are doing their own personal Virginia Techs all over the country. Picture yourself sitting at dinner innocently with your kids and spouse, and some mad man comes in strapped with a bomb and automatic weapons, just shooting anything they see. How is it so hard to connect with what is going on over there?

I can't change anybody, but it does seem as like Buffalo is plagued with a myopia that not many other cities in the country has. It makes sense. Nobody from outside of Buffalo moves here, so, it's so parochial. But it's hard to get a grasp on that and accept it as it is. There is something to say for this insulation that is Western New York though. The pain of the world never gets let in, since for so many people here Cleveland is an exotic weekend getaway. It leads to people being incredibly self-involved though. Without a global grasp of this world, and this life, people have nothing outside of their lives to care about.

This isn't good or bad -- it just is. It's just not how I can exist.

It's really hard

My grasp of things is pretty good. I'm an intelligent kid (man?), I have perspective, I've traveled, I'm well-read, whatever....and, I think too fucking much. Way too fucking much.

It's a funny relationship I have with traveling. I guess it's my vice, whereas, I love it more than anything, yet it comes with a cost. Obviously financial costs, but, I wouldn't trade-in my debts and take away experiencing sunset on the Pacific, a game at White Hart Lane, and shit, being in Kansas City on a Wednesday in May with my Dad watching the Royals play the flippin' Twins. Wouldn't think for half of a second about it. No regrets. Thursday afternoon roadies alone to see Detroit play in Cleveland -- my favorite shit on the planet.

The REAL cost is that it gets in me and stays in me and it can't get kicked. The hangover sucks. It's a big part of this whole shitty equation that I'm trying to figure out. I love the road, I hate what it does to me when life has to happen...and life does have to happen....I'm not delusional.

What it is, I know what it is. It's hard to say, and it's hard to think, only because it can be completely mis-interpreted. I'm happier alone. I don't mind being around people...I like people, but, I've never, ever found someone who I was completely drawn to that I felt the incredible urge or neediness to always want them around at all costs....but I don't think I ever will meet that person. And that's OK. I've put a lot of people off because of that, and by no means has it ever been intentional. I guess I'm flaky, whatever people would call it...but, how I identify with the world has nothing to do with any other person on the planet.

Only in this spot though can compassion truly make its way in...and true, real love. If you live for somebody else, even your kids, you stop living for yourself...you can't do that. Give me real deep thought on this for a second -- day to day, everything is the same for most folks. They claim to be happy, and yet, whenever I have come across anybody whose ever gone out of their way to tell me how great things are, an incredible sadness is in their eyes. To brag, to be a billboard of happiness is outright phony.

It's completely bi-polar living to think of yourself as happy. Because underneath that is always the opposite, waiting to bite you. It'll bite you when your car breaks down, and it'll break you when you get shit on at work, or if say, Leodis McKelvin fumbles....(I'm just sayin', relax Buffalo).

If you weren't happy, what would you be? Sad, angry, broken, depressed, fucked up, whatever.....Where is humility, silence, stillness and compassion? It's so simple, yet painfully rare. You're just setting yourself up happy folks. When I hear someone tell me how happy they are, I shudder, because that mental construct of happy is not ever, ever permanent.

Happiness is in your soul. You can't think of yourself as happy. The greatest words to articulate this have already been taken:

"There is no way to happiness. Happiness is the way.
There is no way to peace. Peace is the way.
There is no way to enlightenment. Enlightenment is the way." -- Thich Nhat Hanh

It's no THING, it's no BODY. It's nameless, faceless. I'm there at moments. In those moments, that's where I find true grace, and it can be in such simple things. You know where my latest memory of grace comes in? And I look forward to this every time I am home -- when my little niece, 8-year old female Jerry Seinfeld, sees me, she yells "Dee, Dee!!!" and sprints full speed, usually tripping on her flip flops, or dropping her backpack, and leaps right into my arms. It's so pure, and I can understand where parenting can be transcendent in moments like that.