I Just Want To Celebrate!

I was feeling really down when I woke up this morning.  Sometimes the fact that I don't fit in as well as I'd like to at work, or in life, what have you, kind of gets me down.  Then I prayed about it and I said, "My Dad will tell me what to do."

Like 40 seconds later I had that stupid "I..... just want to celebrate" stuck in my head by Rare Earth.  Never really gave the song that much credit, it had always been a song I kind of overheard while I was at quick check or something.  But this song was in my head until I couldn't take it anymore, so I got the Youtube song up, partnered with the lyrics, and look at what I found.

Thanks God! I'm celebrating right now!!!

I just want to celebrate another day of livin' 
I just want to celebrate another day of life 
I put my faith in the people 
But the people let me down 
So I turned the other way 
And I carry on, anyhow 
That's why I'm telling you 

I just want to celebrate, yeah, yeah 
I just want to celebrate, yeah, yeah 
Another day of living, 
I just want to celebrate another day of life 

Had my hand on the dollar bill 
And the dollar bill blew away 
But the sun is shining down on me 
And it's here to stay 
That's why I'm telling you 

I just want to celebrate, yeah, yeah 
Another day of living, yeah 
I just want to celebrate another day of living 
I just want to celebrate another day of life 

Don't let it all get you down, 
Don't let it turn you around and around 
And around and around 

Well, I can't be bothered with sorrow 
And I can't be bothered with hate, no, no 
I'm using up my time by feeling fine, every day 
That's why I'm telling you I just want to celebrate 
Aw, yeah 
I just want to celebrate yeah yeah 
Another day of living, yeah yeah 
I just want to celebrate another day of livin', yeah 
I just want to celebrate another day of life 

Don't let it all get you down, no, no 
Don't let it turn you around and around, 
And around and around, and around 
Around round round 
'round and around round round round 
don't go 'round


Here's the youtube clip... please run this song through your speakers, buy from the itunes store... whatever... just blast it, it's great!!

Multiple Logins To FB Within The Hour Means I'm Depressed

There is so much that I've been confronted with as I got home from Europe.  I was thinking about posting some run through of my experience in Europe.  I also wondered whether I should talk about the significance in the differences of faith practices of Europe and America.  Or perhaps something about Taize.  But none of that is pressing in importance, none of that is at the forefront.... only the misery of my situation.  Only the unbearable burden that I've been called to carry, with no way out.  The burden of being me.  

You see, in the end depression only amounts to dissatisfaction with the self.  I don't care if every psycologist in the world disagrees with me.  I don't know anything about psychology either, but I know my condition.  Something I've carried with me since a very young age.  

This is one of those times; When God seems so distant its as though he's not even there.  Where you feel like inside yourself, you could go the distance, you could take a trip to the edge, and the consequences could not matter less.  When you wish that all the pain of living would just eclipse behind some large, emerging solution that you could see on the distance, marching toward you, to your aid like a hundred thousand soldiers all commissioned to just you.  

There's nothing proferred my way that falls into any such description though.  I only think about this issue with my church.  How my world came crashing down in an instant.  How I was crushed, subjected to ridicule, lied to, publicly disdained and then how I marched up to play the drums after the most disrespectful experience of my life, so I could be a nice guy.  I've been thinking about other things too.  I've been thinking about how there has been large inconsistencies in my employment history, only 1 and 1/2 years at best, of lasting with a given work place.  Either I didn't want them, usually they didn't want me, and kept me on with a time limit.  A few times I just left because I knew I'd end up leaving some other way too.  The shit of it is that my resume had one 4-5 year commitment on it, standing apart as a beacon of consistency apart from all the other questionable employment histories, and that was my home church.  It said; Faithfully serving there since 2007. Now that's gone.

Some people would say, "you should've left anyway.  It's a toxic place, you're time was up.. blah blah blah..."  To be honest they drop off those words without the full weight of the knowledge of going home afterwards and still being me.  So I ask you, dear readers, what do I do to improve my condition? How can I change the very fiber of who I am? How can I be anyone, anything else? A whipping boy for these men in power.  A slimy, squeezable, plush toy for sycophantic psychotic shadowy black hats who promise nothing and speak lies but suck power and life from people who love them.  

What's even more, I knew all this about my church long ago.  I wanted to leave... to leave quietly without making any waves, with no one getting hurt, no bridges getting burned.  But God told me to stay, and that was the worst commitment ever, to deal with fake people, the lowest form of people I could conjure up in my obscure and bizarre imagination.  I listened to God, but the reward was found in the listening, it didn't come after, which was punishment for  a life lived transparently.  To say what I feel.  To hold integrity in my right hand.  To never lie, or twist or spin the truth.  To take the full weight and blow of the reality of me within me, and give that to others because it was all part of the package deal.  To know me, means to know all of me.  My thoughts, my heart, how I feel about you, what I like, what I don't like, and everything that I think about the world.  When I thought this life style of honesty, openness and transparency was a virtue.. now I don't know if I could recommend it to anyone.  All that's left is me.

Rostand's Cyrnao de Bergerac says it best: 

Or, - [to be] double-faced and sly - 
Run with the hare, while hunting with the hounds; 
And, oily-tongued, to win the oil of praise, 
Flatter the great man to his very nose? 
No, thank you! Steal soft from lap to lap, 
- A little great man in a circle small, 
Or navigate, with madrigals for sails, 
Blown gently windward by old ladies' sighs? 
No, thank you! Bribe kindly editors 
To spread abroad my verses? No thank you! 
Or try to be elected as the pope 
Of tavern-councils held by imbeciles? 
No, thank you! Toil to gain reputation 
By one small sonnet, 'stead of making many? 
No, thank you! Or flatter sorry bunglers? 
Be terrorized by every prating paper? 
Say ceaselessly, 'Oh, had I but the chance 
Of a fair notice in the "Mercury"!' 
Thank you, no! Grow pale, fear, calculate? 
Prefer to make a visit to a rhyme? 
Seek introductions, draw petitions up? 
No, thank you! and no! and no again! But - sing? 
Dream, laugh, go lightly, solitary, free, 
With eyes that look straight forward - fearless voice! 
...For 'yes' or 'no' show fight, or turn a rhyme! 
- To work without one thought of gain or fame, 
To realize that journey to the moon! 
Never to pen a line that has not sprung 
Straight from the heart within. Embracing then 
Modesty, say to oneself, 'Good my friend, 
Be thou content with flowers, - fruit, - nay, leaves, 
But pluck them from no garden but thine own!' 
And then, if glory come by chance your way, 
To pay no tribute unto Caesar, none, 
But keep the merit all your own! In short, 
Disdaining tendrils of the parasite, 
To be content, if neither oak nor elm - 

Not to mount high, perchance, but mount alone!