Dichotomy of Life

These pictures were in an email I received yesterday from a good friend.

Why Try and Hide!

Here's a holla back to all the "Jars" fans out there. This a is a must listen for all of you! Cool use of diversity of moods with alot of mellow moments to relax in or you can dance around to the loud distorted highs. My present favorette track has to be "Dead Man (carry me) " I love it. It has a monster inside type of theme throughout the album which I really relate to.

This is a song I wrote over the summer that has alot of personal meaning for a place of the heart I think alot of people may be finding themselves visiting from time to time.

Monster James Holland

I’m alone so it won’t moan and in a cage I’ve locked it
It escaped in my failure to shoot down an invader
But I love it in my own way and I live out the remainder
In a small place inside me my bomb shelter chamber

Why try and hide the monster inside
I’m licking its boot but it’s planning to shoot
With violent hands the innocent man
You made out of me and bury him at sea

To the Jesus I can’t see, to the Jesus in world now
In it’s own way it fights you but I’m standing right beside you
It devoured my world view while I stared right through you
While a lion is laying with a lamb it’s been preying

And I’d let it out of its cage
But it’s painted with rage
I seen its eyes in the night
Then you've been torn from sight

Oh My God Jars of Clay

Sometimes I cannot Forgive and these days mercy cuts so deep, if the world was how it should be maybe I could get some sleep, while I lay I dream we're better, scales where gone and faces lighter, when we wake we hate our brother we still move to hurt each other, sometimes I can close my eyes and all the fear that keeps me silent falls below my heavy breathing what makes me so badly bent? We all have a chance to murder we all feel the need for wonder, we still want to be reminded that the pain is worth the plunder, sometimes when I lose my grip I wonder what to make of heaven, all the times I thought to reach up all the times I had to give, babies underneath there beds hospitals that cannot treat, all the wounds that money causes all the comforts of cathedrals, all the cries of thirsty children this is our inheritence, all the rage of watching mothers this is our greatest offence.

Oh My God

...

I just felt like writing. I'm not saying that I have alot to say right now but I feel like communicating some thoughts. First of all: is all that people fear in the world besides war, terrorism, hell and death really worth the energy worrying about? I do so many things out of a sense of either compassion or emotional driveness that I lose the sense of meaning in my life amidst the work of living. Not that compassion isn't always good...

The Work of Living: Here's a thought. I'm so hard on myself somedays that I am almost certain I'm self employed. I've worked for different people in the past and have learned that it's a hard way to live. Employment I mean. An employer has to be somewhat hard on an employee in order to justify the function of his said position especially in business or production based organizations, I wonder what working for the government would be like? There is an unatural dictatorship behind employment and if you live and work alone or for yourself life can get unusually self critical. But it can be really fun too and I think I'm made for this type of lifestyle, the self motivated style I mean. I feel free and very Canadian waking up in the morning to a blank canvass of a day and a palet full of liberty and opportunity. It's an easy way to write alot of music as well.

Bathurst High School

Here's the logo from the school I graduated from in 1995...
Pari Passu means "...play the game." All of our sports teams were called "The Phantoms" and we had a gigantic painting of a grim reaperish figure painted on the wall of our gymnasium. The theme of our graduating class was Hakuna Mutata (the maskot - Young Simba) which means no worries. How ironic considering the insueing years in the lives of the graduates...wow many stories to tell about those times. Stories with themes like confusion, university, drug abuse, children being born, lives being lost and identities being found.

Rob Wilson at Youth Breakaway

Here is an account of a sermon preached by Fresh I.E. at the P.A. Youth Breakaway Conference of this year....

Sin or that which we do outside the will of God. That which separates us from God.
Iniquity. Pain and hurt that's inside like an unsurfaced bruise, a manifestation of sin, can come through the heritage of your father... Iniquity can be passed through generations and comes through fathers. Jesus wasn't born of an earthly father.
Transgression. A willing wrong decision.

Lamentations 5:7 - if we bear our father's punishment than how can we be free?

Jesus sheds his blood seven times...

1)His hands for things we do.
2)His feet for the places we go.
3)His back for our healing.
4)His side for our willing transgressions.
5)The crown of thorns for the things we put before God.
6)His brow when he sweat blood during prayer for the weakness of our will.
7)He was bruised. Mark 14:65. His face was covered so that he did not know where the beating was coming from.

Psalm 32:5

God wants us to live a victorious life by acknowledging that we have iniquity.

Hope for Homeless Youth

Click here to read a newsletter concerning a ministry working with children and youth in Los Angeles's inner city. I've visited the city and specifically this ministry a couple of years ago and was blessed by there work. At the time I was there this ministry was based out of the L.A. Dream Center.

This is dedicated to those born 1930 - 1979!

This is dedicated to those Born 1930-1979!
TO ALL THE KIDS WHO SURVIVED the 1930's 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's !!

First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they were pregnant. They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can, and didn't get tested for diabetes. Then after that trauma, we were put to sleep on our tummies in baby cribs covered with bright colored lead-based paints. We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets, not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking. As infants & children, we would ride in cars with no car seats, boosterseats, seat belts or air bags. Riding in the back of a pick up on a warm day was always a special treat. We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle. We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this. We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter and drank koolade made with sugar, but we weren't overweight because WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING! We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on. No one was able to reach us all day. And we were O.K. We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem. We did not have Playstations, Nintendo's, X-boxes, no video games at all, no150 channels on cable, no video movies or DVD's, no surround-sound, CD's or Ipods, no cell phones!, no personal computers , no Internet or chat rooms...... WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them! We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents. We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever. We were given BB guns for our 10th birthdays, made up games with sticks and tennis balls and, although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes. We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just walked in and talked to them! Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!! The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law! These generations have produced some of the best risk-takers, problemsolvers and inventors ever! The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas. We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL! If YOU are one of them . . CONGRATULATIONS! You might want to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before the lawyers and the government regulated so much of our lives for our own good And while you are at it, forward it to your kids so they will know how brave(and lucky) their parents were. Kind of makes you want to run through the house with scissors, doesn't it?!

The quote of the month is by Jay Leno:"With hurricanes, tornados, fires out of control, mud slides, flooding, severe thunderstorms tearing up the country from one end to another, and with the threat of bird flu and terrorist attacks, are we sure this is a good time to take God out of the Pledge of Allegiance?