Why I love Russian Authors (besides thier impressive beards)

It is by now no secret that I have a slight addiction that has, no doubt, robed me (if you will) of my free time and spare cash alike. Yet for all the so called deprivation it has caused, its endowments are well worth the loss. Yes I speak of none other than my obsession with classic literature that has long been a self-fueling habit. Most likely if a book is old, I can say with a certain amount of confidence that I’ll enjoy the read.

I tend to dabble frequently in the British, German and French authors that seemed to dominate the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. However a few years ago I journeyed north of the well known central European dynasty and found myself falling head over heals for Russian literature. Tolstoy led to Pasternak that led to Dostoevsky and with each new work I am bewildered by their genius.

Allow me to demonstrate…

Exhibit A:

In the realist, faith is not born from miracles, but miracles from faith. Once the realist comes to believe, then precisely because of his realism, he must also allow for miracles. The Apostle Thomas declared that he would not believe until he saw, and when he saw he said “My Lord and my God!” Was it the miracle that made him believe? Most likely not, but he believed first and foremost because he wished to believe, and maybe already fully believed in his secret heart even as he was saying: “I will not believe until I see.”

Exhibit B:

Above all do not lie to yourself. A man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point where he does not discern any truth, either in himself or anywhere around him, and thus falls into disrespect towards himself and others.

Exhibit C:

But there is also a grief that is strained; a moment comes when it breaks through with tears, and from that moment on it pours itself out in lamentations. Especially with women. But it is no easier to bear than the silent grief. Lamentations ease the heart only by straining and exacerbating it more and more. Such grief does not even want consolation; it is nourished by the sense of its unquenchableness. Lamentations are simply the need to constantly irritate the wound.

Exhibit D:

Do no be afraid of anything, never be afraid, and so not grieve. Just let repentance not slacken in you, and God will forgive everything. There is not and cannot be in the whole world such a sin that the Lord will not forgive one who truly repents of it. A man even cannot commit so great a sin as would exhaust God’s boundless love. How could there be a sin that exceeds God’s love? Only take care that you repent without ceasing, and chase away fear altogether. Believe that God loves you so as you cannot conceive of it; even with your sin and in your sin he loves you. And there is more joy in heaven over one repentant sinner than over ten righteous men—that was said long ago.

Exhibit E:

Never be frightened at your own faintheartedness in attaining love, and meanwhile do not even be very frightened by your own bad acts. I am sorry that I cannot say anything more comforting for active love is a harsh and fearful thing compared with love in dreams. Love in dreams thirsts for immediate action, quickly preformed, and with everyone watching. Indeed, it will go as far as the giving even of one’s life, provided it does not take long but is soon over, as on stage, and everyone is looking on and praising. Whereas active love is labor and perseverance, and for some people, perhaps, a whole science. But I predict that even in that very moment when you see with horror that despite all your efforts, you not only have not come nearer your goal but seem to have gotten farther from it, at that very moment—I predict this to you – you will suddenly reach your goal and will clearly behold over you the wonder-working power of the Lord, who all the while has been loving you, and all the while has been mysteriously guiding you.


Thank you Fyodor Dostoevsky; sincerely thank you.

My self-surprising love affair with leafy beverages

For the majority of my life, I have boldly been a professing coffee lover. Inevitably destined to inherit a passion for the bean from my ancestors, I embraced my genetic predisposition whole heartedly and presented no resistance to the creamy goodness in my morning mug.

Offering more than just comfort in a cup, this love contributed to the enrichment of countless life experiences and it wasn’t long before I found myself in pursuit of this delicious hot beverage through the streets of Munich and the hills of Hawaii.

But why was I so persistent in finding this drink in particular? No other means of nourishment ever reached this level of precedence on my personal scale of importance. To contribute this obsession to taste alone would be ridiculous (and slightly embarrassing). And you can forget trying to chalk it up to the insane amounts of caffeine the beverage contains. I can see most of you raising your brows in cynical skepticism but it’s true and as proof, I swore off caffeine in late 2005 and have since successfully avoided even a single relapse.

The true greatness of the grinds is this and I believe the great Gestalt thinkers would be please to hear me say that while I fully believe that the taste, texture and temperature are all wonderfully simple things that contribute to the greatness of this concoction, yet truly the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. (For you left brainers out there, think of it as exponential as opposed to multipliable).

With its presence, conversations became more decadent, mornings more manageable, and it’s safe to say that this bean juice eventually evolved into my adult safety blanket. Being that it became a startlingly strong connection to comfort, I ensured a steaming cup accompanied me to every strange, stressful or new situation I managed to fall into. Morning, afternoon and evening were all perfectly wonderful times time indulge in Java and the frequency of my addiction was no doubt fueled by my seasonal Germanic habitat.

Upon returning to the States I continued in my constant consumption and eventually a four year career emerged out of this love as I found myself the proud member of a population of baristas. It's true, I was one in the elite group who could actually explain the difference between a light or dark roast and whom forwent decent salaries to simply bring you the goodness of the grinds (or so they want you to think). Nevertheless, most facets of my life were in one way or another connected to these beans.

Then something changed. While enjoying a visit to two soul friends of mine in the South-west region of our northern neighbor, I was offered a cup of tea. Not opposed to other hot drinks I readily accepted; after all, I even owned a few boxes of the stuff myself. Little did I know that the Canadian-purchased black leaf tea was so… delicious? I literally drank through the whole can of that stuff (leaving one sole tea bag behind in an effort to console my greedy guilt).

Surprisingly it was STRONG. An outcome I solely attributed to my precious beans. But for some reason, I was completely taken by those leaves. Hot, strong, delicious… all central traits of coffee, but tea did one more for me; it completely addressed my thirst.

Dare I say who knew? No, and please don’t think me that ignorant. Because I am well aware that the other 5/8th of the world have been practically founding their civilizations and staking their survival on the stuff.

Needless to say, my leafy consumption did not cease after that first weekend of bliss. Soon I was captivated (and yes slightly addicted). But amidts all the fasination with my new found drink of choice I can forsee one prominant question...is there such a thing as bad tea? YES! Heavens yes…weak, fruity ingredients that equate to nothing more than purplish- red water that looks like someone dipped their paint-by-number paint brush in your cup (and tastes just like it would if someone dipped their paint-by-number paint brush in your cup).

Truth be told there is some pretty bad coffee out there as well and as a rule of thumb, I have developed the habit of never ordering drip coffee from any commercial joint (including Starbucks) because no matter where you to you get tan colored water that reminds your taste buds of the last time you licked your shoe strings. Unless you happen to be in Vienna in which case expect the texture to be something similar to syrup and the taste to deliver a thorough slap in the face. But both done right (and by right I mean quality leaves or beans brewed STRONG) and I’m a happy camper.

So who wins? For today, I believed the leaves take the lead, but ask me tomorrow, and the beans could once again be number one. Regardless if anyone else thinks it’s possible to be a coffee AND a tea person, I am declaring myself as such right here, right now. No, you will not find me at the local grocers attacking the woman who took the last box of “Herbal Raspberry Zinger”, but you will find my kitchen well stocked of deep, strong black tea sitting comfortably on the shelf right next to the carefully selected, aromatic beans.

Aware

Suddenly aware. AwarE of this subtle Vibration. Vibration that has consistently set the rhYthmic pattern of my lIfe—yet perhaps I’ve been numb, calloUsed to its presence because of its consIstence.

Just what you wanted.

No more. No more. I couldn’t be more ashamed of my PassivIty. Forgive my apaThy, tiMidity. You’re hEre. Here. I can feel your bReath. Lead me to the pLace where you are. For I long to dWell where you are. Lend my just a mOment of that place where you are.

Aware—make me awaRe of the nEed. Make me increasiNgly more aware of your adeQuacy to fill—no EXCEED that need. The need of my people, my city, my nEighbors.

GLorious, graCious God—make me reaDy. These feeble 2 hAnds and two feEt. I want to walk away from being idol—unresponsiVe. You redeemed my soul and I kePt you for myself. Held you close encapSulated in my hands resting aGainst my chest. But in eVery way that you are mine, you cannot remAin solely within mE.

BURST FORTH! Steady movIng to the fronT. Burst Forth out of the celL I placed you in. BURST FORTH and out and beyond, tuRning all the while to enVelope me in your poWerfully gentle perFection.

Wrap me—send me
Cradle my spirit and graPple my soul.

PENITRATE!!

SEEP through every cell eveRy ounce of matter, every thought, concept—synApse.

Infuse then substitute.

You are a daUnting noveLty. Against which my cognitive atTempts to comprehend will eternally fail.

Penetrate-- possess-- procure
PURGE

In an attempt to prove myself wrong...

As many of you know “the deader the better” is my personal motto regarding authors; that is authors of literature, theology and philosophy (and fundamentally everything else). I have (what I think) a well founded theory of why this is so, and have chosen for the moment to spare you all of that lengthy explanation.

Living tirelessly true to my motto, my literature absorption is consumed with the works of Dumas, Augustine, Doyle, Tolstoy and other fabulously deceased individuals, most of whom put pen to paper before the concept of mass publication was construed. This has led me down a path that has never disappointed. In fact the only disappointment that perpetuated as a result was the disappointment I experience with modern publications.

None the less, I believe that when it comes to personally constructed credos, we should always be in the habit of attempting to prove ourselves wrong. This is not a current concept I have recently decided to apply to my literary addiction. However, with every effort thus far, I have failed, failed miserably, to succeed.

Most of the time I know what work awaits me next. While I’m a mere 90 pages into the current book I’m enjoying my thoughts cannot be kept from selecting the succeeding story. However, occasionally I do close the cover of one narrative and am lost regarding the selection of the next. I found myself in such a predicament one night several weeks ago.

This isn’t an all-bad situation, because the only remedy I know is to wonder the used book store with its rows and rows of mismatched shelves; sagging from years of bearing the weight of mankind’s publications. This ritual continues until something captivates me.

Something did. A novel by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, entitled “Love in the time of Cholera”. Taking my (what I thought were) chances, I purchased the hardback and headed home.

As some of you may know, the aforementioned novel was published in the 1980’s and it did not disappoint the public. Gaining stunning popularity, “Love in the Time of Cholera” went on to snatch up several desirable literary awards for its author.

I was truly memorized; entranced by the language, in love with the rhetoric, and lost in the plot. I was unaware that an individual, who is my contemporary, could weave together such a beautiful composition. Feeling that I had finally proved myself wrong, I turned the page to the book’s half way point only to be gravely disappointed.

For the next 200 pages or so, I was presented with the same beautiful language I had enjoyed in the previous portion of the book; however, now this language concerned itself with essentially one focus: the physically provocative endeavors of the main character. The plot was weakened, the mystery diluted. What happened to the promising novel I had started reading?

I had naturally encountered the modern literary portrayal of sexuality in other works, but I was unable to formulate my personal opinion about it until now.

The average shelf-life of a book these days is a meager six months. Six months and as an author, you have to produce something shiny and new or else your name will not survive the Barns and Nobel business model. Combine that with a culture that is fiercely saturated by visual media that, let’s be honest, floods our sensory intake with explicit material, and you get fictions that, while slightly more eloquent, are fundamentally cheesy romance novels (hold the illustrated paper-back cover).

Written media of today, in brutal competition with visual media, has only one choice: to arouse and shock us more with words than the latter does with images. Some may classify this as the progressive nature of society, but don’t fool yourselves. This societal obsession has provided authors with nothing more than a cheap cop out. The struggles with character enhancement, or plot sophistication can be casually overcome with the blunt introduction of sexuality; therefore distracting the reader from the fact that the manuscript in hand lacks any element of written genius mankind was privileged to produce once upon a time.

My apologies to Mr. Marquez, the author is clearly fantastic and had he composed 100 years earlier, he would probably stand as one of my favored authors, but he didn’t and therefore he doesn’t. So, I remain true in my motto and in my decision to consume literary works that have more to them than steamy love scenes.

The fulfillment of a promise

tea lights and candles-- oh the nights I've passed this way. Traveled-less poems are mentioned more often. Blow out the words and turn the conversation off-- breathe what you speak, what you really desire to say; what you hear spoken, what's not whispered.

why is passion always loud? an arm’s length how far you must stay from me to blend into this colorless crowd? read this book of bent and catch-less thoughts-- am i still who you want me to be? can't i be the poet and the one that spilled this morning’s coffee?

i want to show you what's written on my hand, but the lack of your presence tells me to you this idea of rawness that is glory-less is non-existent; it's still band. sip it slowly, this life that rest on the coaster made of backdrops and details, it's the only way to taste the honey.

the philosophy of a picture fades when you let your eyes feed your heart. can an echo come from a prophecy? what if beauty reaches further than fantasy? and once you've seen it you can't turn it off. I'll wrap it up in a silk stripped scarf, and give to you this bundle of hues and things we choose and say "no worries its' very soft".

there's a small paper label, that the string runs right through. there's a name on it, written by the one hand that knows perfection. i can't read it squint as i try, but can you?

i remember a time when the cold, cold water slowly embraced my skin. never have i better understood blue. i want to know you in this way so as to change every conception i had before. i want to know you so as to never again ask who?

My Rose colored glasses… are really blue

As a child I clearly remember wondering if a strawberry tastes the same to me as it does to you? Can red really express the same hue as perceived by me as it would perceived by you? And how could I really ever know. Not to say that I have successfully abandoned the robustly simple philosophy of my youth, but perhaps it has evolved slightly.

Some decade of years later I find myself pursuing a career whose unspoken motto is “Therapy lacking empathy is futile.” Yet I have to admit that I find the relentless push towards a phenomenological understanding somewhat elusive.

Call me doubtful, psychotic and perhaps even a science-hater, but I still cling to the idea that each and every being on this earth is completely unique. If this is not true, then it’s safe to assume that God runs out of ideas. I can see the culturally-saturated Christians raising their eyebrows at my assumption that God is tremendously unlimited regarding the creation of each life and the creation of the cosmos. I simply cannot bring myself to place my confidence in a Devine being whose creativity expires.

This said, I continue to struggle with the concept that one soul can completely understand another. To give voice to the devil’s advocate inside me, I tend to agree with my profession that therapy void of empathy leaves you with nothing save cold psychoanalytical structure; a far cry from what most individuals actually need.

For years of my life I wept and mourned over the realization that that I was eternally misunderstood. My comfort, and healing no doubt, came solely from the passage “The man who loves God, is known by God.” Known by God; leaving me to believe that the full access to the comprehension of a human soul is restricted to Divine ability.

Yet perhaps, that Divine ability is imparted on some occasion. Yet regardless, my perspective will never look the same as yours. My failures, successes, experiences, struggles, abuses and beliefs equate to a constellation that has yet to be matched and mirrors none other.

Perhaps it’s the effort; the age old idea that “it’s the thought that matters.” Perhaps our world is so deficient of souls exerting the effort towards another to understand them that the most powerful psychological healing we know of to date is simply empathy.

As I slowly progress towards the seemly intangible goal of my education, I have struggled often to develop then substitute my concept for that of a globally accepted one; often with the simple inclusion of the Creator. So perhaps my personal motto should also differ slightly from that of my generational colleagues. Therapy without the effort of empathy is futile.

And for that matter, human relationship without the effort of empathy is futile.

on my heart...

"We are refugees from the statue quo. This world is not our home. We could care less about religious categories and controversies. We love people, we love Truth, we love GOD. We work for justice. We do not promise a quick fix, but a compassionate, humble conversation. We know no easy answer for why people suffer, just a person who suffered."

no distance of place nor lapse of time can prevent my soul from missing...

Moments like thses aren’t meant for words. Moments like these aren’t meant for pictures; just writing about them makes them feel cheap.

I wish every honest eye that is starving for serenity could fixate on this...

Until they drink every drop needed till their soul overflows from inside of them and turns to envelop them in sweet, fearful security…the blatant intrigue—unquestionably unfathomable.

It doesn’t hurt-but it pierces right here. I wish I could cast my being to be only a part of this mist—in a million ways I feel as if I can hold it—touch it—possess it. In a million ways I feel as if I am a thousand years separated from it and that I will receive a bruise on my eyes simply for looking at it.

It—this fragment of an image of You—You whom I long for more that sentries long for the dawn, yes more that sentries long for the dawn.

The expressive beauty of music

These lyrics are to a song called Mary's Song. It's written and preformed by the Tyler Ward band. A clear expression of the beautifully powerful forgiving nature of our Christ.



She let her hair fall down beside him
As the teArs fell on his feet
She had given more than who she was to the wOrld
Will you hoLd her up... or let her fall... or stand strong without wavering
With just a word I will lift you up a word of lOve can change anything

‘Cause you take aWay... please take away my pAin

I need this change things won’t ever be the same

He looked her in the eye with passion when he spoke the word that said it all
No matter what you’ve done I’ll love you and I’ll love you through it all
I'lL hold you up, it’s tearing you down, might is strong without wavering
With just a word I will lift you up a word of love can change anything

I’ll take away... I will take away your pain

You need this Change...it won't ever be the sAme

Love (luhv) - a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person

I don't deserve this- You. I'm not worthy of your comfort, yet you cry with me. I shouldn’t even get close to your protection- but you wrap me inside your arms- inside your thoughts. When I come with nothing, you open your hands, your time, your soul and strongly beckon me with silent caressing looks ‘til I reach your palms and melt into your embrace. You tissue my sodden eyes, grapple my quivering body, and bear the unforgiving weight of time in my stead. Your presence absorbs pain. You claim “uselessness” – curse your claim! ‘Oft I feel as if I cannot breathe without you; when I’m suffocating you come as an ocean of oxygen. Curse your claim! When I’m standing on the fringe of pain, primed to let go of my balance and collapse into the space void of hope, your body, anchored in sanity and sweet truth envelopes mine and grounds me so fast on the certainties of the Divine. Your nearness is enough- but you do not stay distant enough to be near. You crowd my breath and challenge it with who is closer. The dimensions of your beauty seem perpetual, the span of your love…incalculable.

Two things...

There were two things I told someone recently that I want in life; Space and Simplicity. Two elements I feel are stripped away by our every-day ciaos. While always desires of mine, latent at times…perhaps unidentifiable, I have recently found my way back to them.

Not my words...

These preciously convicting words from St. Augustine have weighed on my soul for many years... Just thought I would share them:


Without You I am Nothing

I call upon you, my God, my mercy, who made me, and did not forget me, although I forgot you. I call you into my soul, which you prepare to accept you by the longing that you breathe into it. Do you desert me now when i call upon you, for before I called upon you, you went ahead and helped me, and repeatedly you urged me on by many different words, so that from afar I would hear you, and be converted, and call upon you as you called to me. For you have wiped away all my evil deserts, O Lord, so as not to return them to these hands of mine, whereby I fell away from you, and you could restore them to your own hands, whereby you made me.

For before I was, you were, and I was nothing to which you could grant being. Yet, behold! I am, because of your goodness, which preceded all that you made me to be, and all out of which you made me. You did not need me, nor am I not such a good as you would put to use, O my Lord and my God. I am not such as would serve you in such wise that would would not tire out, so to speak, from activity, or that your strength would be less for the lack of my services. Nor am I such as to cultivate you like a land that would be untilled unless I tilled it. I am such a one as may serve you and cultivate you, so that because of you it may be well with me, for from you comes the fact that I am one with whom it may be well.

A recent realization

We speak of boundaries, boundaries –Boundaries between family members, co-workers, friends…Lovers, and the dangers of emotional incest. We study the distance that exists between two people that allows for conversation and the eternal struggle for equal parts autonomy and intimacy. Distance, Distance, Distance. Repulsive required distance. This quasi-philosophy is overtaking my psyche. So much so that it’s now being applied to—You, the only You that matters. I’ve placed a boundary around the limit you have to impact my soul. Curse these boundaries! Without them I’m to believe it’s pathology. But with them it’s the origin of the deepest, strongest cancer my soul’s reality can ever know.

My past few months

Recently I have found myself in the midst of a paradigm shift. A sinner pleading for Grace transformed into a Saint—striving to rid myself of all but love. Everything I clung to—beauty, safety…that very Love I used to speak of so often are being stripped away and in their place—Hate, darkness and hopelessness. My God, the very fibers of my soul cry out in fierce protest. The dichotomous environment that creates when a soul filled with His spirit is forced to stare disgusting evil in the face causes such strong repulsion. Like opposite forces of magnetic fields.

Yet here I am…wanting to run. Perhaps to paralyzed to do so—Mocked by evil. Oh so like David I feel, surrounded by a thousand better qualified, clothed in steel, yet me standing naked. This giant is relentless… monumental, the very embodiment of evil. And there’s that craving to run.

I’ve stared evil in the face—I know its name, I’ve memorized its trademark, I’ve seen its movements—its antics, its schemes and stances. Dear God this moaning, is it mine or creations? But worse—so much worse, I’ve seen those who lie in its path—STOP—so much to speak of—too much to say. STOP—you know not what you speak of.

Already I feel prostituted by darkness. So dark—so dark, so wrong, so evil—evil, evil hate filled world. How do you not hate it in return? How can I not hate, hate all of it?! Oh Father, I am so lost in this ocean of cruelty—and this is what I have to surround myself with—this is what I must breathe? Must I breathe disgusting, horrible shit?

Why me? Why me? Why me? Why me? If there is another purpose for my life show me. Show me now before I contaminate myself one day more. Show me now, or let me disappear inside of you, so that this won’t ruin me.

Fill me with light. Drench me in nothing short save your perfect Grace and Purity. Oh most Holy, Sacred Christ—be my Light my pure, enduring illustrious illumination, for I am surrounded by Black.

Heal my soul.