we're at the top of the world, you and i

another evening in the borders cafe on church street in burlington.

another night of chai tea and chapter revisions and adds.

another night of helping my girlfriend with her senior portfolio.

but the last night.

it's strange, this feeling. i'm going to miss this time. our time.

i'm going to miss helping her find a place for commas.

i'm even going to miss removing "that" three or four times in single sentences.

at times, this has felt like a chore. and how could it?

no one else gets you like this.

no one else gets this side of you or me. no one else gets the twenty minute updates on my chapter revisions. no one else gets to tease you for poor grammar and navigate through the mess of strange punctuation or the lack thereof.

i'm going to miss this.

like all things, this shall pass. it's been real.

and a real reminder of many other things i miss and will always.

i miss my saturday movie and lunch with my father at the amc mercado. i never had the birds and bees talks or the afterschool specials on abc family. i had movies and discussions of characters and situations over bagel sandwiches and hot chocolate.

i miss football. even keeping it as simple as throwing with nareen in the park or trying to teach koosha how to spiral the ball. it never worked.

i miss going to the gym at 2am and spending hours talking about screenplays and sports and life, in general, with jay at the front desk and never working out. and then waking up early the next morning to go before work and make up for my distraction.

i miss the feeling of my bare feet against the coldest hardwood floor in new england while standing and playing guitar. just blasting the same four chords in punk schemes or scaling through bluesy leads. and watching woody on my bed and knowing he's just waiting for me to stop the noise and crawl under the covers so he can curl up against my feet.

i miss the tiny brook my father pulled over on the side of the road to teach me how to fish in and not catching a damn thing. but neither one of us did. we just stood there in the water and kept our fingers crossed.

i miss listening to jim cargill and his lectures about appreciating simple and fresh ingredients and food as an art that brings people together.

i miss not having any direction but every opportunity in front of me. it was med school then law school then congress then teaching then music then football then writing then law school again. all before i'd even thought of college. and you know what? i could have done any of it. and my parents would have supported any or none of those. and did. they believe(d) in me and always will.

i miss so much about the life i led before this book and before this city and before this step. but my life moves on and i couldn't be more blessed.

i'm a son to the greatest man and sweetest woman i've ever known.

i'm a boyfriend to the most beautiful girl i've ever seen and best friend i've had in years.

i'm so many things but none more than thankful.

we're at the top of the world, you and i. and i'm the luckiest man i see.

i'm on fire

there's this feeling i get every now and then.

i'm sitting still and content.

but i've got my mind set on something.

i'm going through the motions.

then there's more.

i feel the spark.

i feel the fire.

i'm burning inside out.

"real life ain't no fairy tale." you have to fight for what you want.

that's something i've always known and followed, or not. but it's crazy how sometimes the greatest stands we take come on a whim. there's that noble image of teddy roosevelt charging up san juan hill that comes to mind, and a million others of strong-armed quarterbacks staring down defenses in the fourth for comeback wins, even the rocky saga, a scrappy italian guy from the wrong side of philly standing toe to toe with apollo creed and some crazy russian bastard.

but is it as noble if you stumble into it, just sort of fall in ass backwards?

that's what i've been wondering lately.

i get a lot of praise for writing this book and being so young. but it's not mine to take. this wasn't my fight.

everything that happened and everything i've done, it all just came together. the dreams and flashbacks and feelings in the story are "vivid" and "real" because they are vivid and real to me. the guilt and shame that breaks you down and the strength you find in people you love and faith in more, it's not fiction to me.

but how can i claim something i know isn't mine?

MAKEGOOD started on a whim and has mostly stayed the same.

i wish i could make some profound statement and testify to how the story was written to inspire people and manifest, if only in fiction, the adage that it's never too late to try. but i'm not that guy. and that's not this story.

there are people who deserve that sort of recognition. they've fought for it. they've earned it.

this girl comes to mind, a vague memory from my childhood but there. she was the sweetest kid growing up and all in when it came to school. we were never really close friends so when i moved to new england, we didn't keep in touch. she ended up at stanford, where i can only assume she kicked as much academic ass as she did when we were young. she's married now, i think, and very happy. a feel good story.

if she wrote a book on the power of faith and truth and love and how all of that guided her, how she ended up all right because of it, that's a triumph. that's something worth reading and praising.

a story about the harshest addictions and insecurity-fueled affairs and guilt and shame from it all, the truth and love and redemption and that ending that gives you hope for the future? it's just life.

don't praise me for making it out alive and making a few bucks along the way.

praise me for the life i make for myself and for those i love once this ride is over. praise me for my path but not until i've reached the end. wherever that is.

going to law school and becoming a prosecutor, opening a bar and steakhouse with my father, chucking it all away and living life on a perpetual hike of the apps and sierras, wherever i end up, praise me when i'm a man and standing with the sun in my eyes and a smile on my face.

side note

side note…there are few things in this world more annoying to me than pretentious artists. do you really need fucked up hair and tight euro suits and retro gear to be a creative musician?

you’re not smarter than me just because i don’t “get” what you’re doing.

bondage

it’s almost midnight. i’m watching house on bravo with my girlfriend and now there’s an iphone commercial playing. i’ve promised myself for years i wouldn’t buy one but god knows i’ll probably pull the trigger this summer.

that made me think back for a second to my childhood. i was never really a video game kind of kid. i was always playing guitar or playing football or even hiking. but i remember the first time i played an xbox 360, jay’s house in venice. we spent countless hours battling, my patriots against his chargers. really, my patriots against any team he chose. he beat me every time. before that, i remember the first time i ever played a ps2. brian’s dad’s house in high school. we’d skip class and play tony hawk and experiment with his father’s liquor cabinet. before that, i remember my first playstation and being the first person in america to buy a copy of final fantasy vii. i remember playing for days without the walkthrough guide and then for even longer with it. i remember getting to the last disc and realizing the entire cd was a single battle. i beat it once and never tried again. before that, i remember my dad buying me this “virtual reality” headset game system that came with this one tank war simulator. pretty crazy stuff. before that, i remember unpacking the enormous package that included my super nintendo and this ridiculous bazooka gun. before that, there was my sega genesis and playing road rash with florence while my father was working or jurassic park with audren and eating doritos cooler ranch and drinking capri sun pouches. before that, there was my regular nintendo and playing zelda with my grammy and never beating the original mario bros.

it’s disarming how i can retrace the steps of my life through video game technology. it has me thinking about how we all get lost in the “new” and “hot” things we’re pushed to want and think we need.

consumer technology and our capitalist society as a whole, really. it’s crazy.

do we need the ipad or kindle or sony reader to get lost in good fiction? absolutely not. is it more convenient? perhaps. but there’s something about the feel of paper between your fingers that you can’t replace with some advanced form digital bondage.

do we need an ipod to enjoy the original beatles or beach boys recordings? i still have this cd that i bought years ago, the original junior kimbrough studio tracks. incredible stuff. there’s no way you can convince me it needs to be remastered. but someone will do it.

one of my favorite movies, mr. smith goes to washington, looks no better in blu-ray on some huge, flat lcd tv than it does on one of the half-ton wooden tv boxes you’d find in your grandparents’ basement.

these are the ramblings of a tired, still very sick, probably too old-fashioned and conservative kid from new england. and entirely hypocritical…they’re coming to you via blog…on the internet…from my laptop.

but, for the record, i just renewed my promise to stay iphone free this summer.

one day at a time, friends.

muse

there's something hilarious about how small rear windshield wipers get on cars these days. i saw one on a hatchback toyota wagon this morning and i had this theme stuck in my head after. the little engine that could. ...i'm just sayin.

which made me think of my favorite band, muse.

ok...it didn't really make me think of muse, but there's no other way i could legitimately talk about windshield wipers and muse in the same post. here goes nothing...

so i'm sitting in SP drinking some banana hot chocolate (thanks again, jordan) and listening to some random pandora station on an ipod blasting through the PA. then the tom jones piece comes on and it's loud. "it's not unusual" and just blasting, LOUD. and we're all rocking out. really, it's just me rocking out and i'm doing it on the inside. i don't think anyone not named Tom Jones or Ray Grace has ever looked cool with that song and don't feel like testing the waters. then it's over and the next song comes on. "imagine" by lennon. i mean, the transition is just horrendous. but it works somehow. it. just. works.

i'm working on chapter revisions and the rewrite for the intro and i'm trying to concentrate and somehow am. but i'm not hearing the music playing anymore. i've got muse in my head. "map of the problematique" to be exact. and i'm thinking back to the earliest inspirations for the novel.

it's 2005. i'm up in the sf bay area for college and surrounded by people i knew growing up but experiencing the area in the completely different way. i'm old enough to drive. i'm old enough to drink (not legally, but morally) and i'm old enough to do my own thing. i'm working and then in class until ten or eleven at night. i'm going for solo hikes and long drives through the hills to santa cruz. i'm completely unfocused but ace everything i attempt. i'm living the life. then there's this night when i realize half of my childhood was infinitely more fucked than i'd ever accepted previously. i accept that i'm a product of a million other people with good intentions and bad, some with none at all. i'm a product of the world around me. i'm a victim.

the thoughts are enough to choke on and i do. i can barely breathe by the time i decide to just get outside. and i do. i pack my bags and just leave. by the time i stop running, i'm in the middle of nowhere in the woods and hiking up castle rock. i've got a knife, a water bottle, some protein bars, the clothes on my back and enough thoughts and feelings to keep me more than warm at night. i'm burning inside out.

i'll never remember exactly how long i was gone. hours. days. a week. it's somewhere in there. but i'll always remember the moment i got back. i'll always remember the first pair of eyes i looked into and with a completely different perspective. i would never again let myself become a victim in anything. i'd be strong in my morality and powerful in my stance. i'd fight everyone and everything and with a big fucking smile on my face. all because of a single realization.

intentions don't matter, only actions.

all we can ever do is what we choose to. our thoughts and feelings and motives simply don't matter. this world will end someday and all of our thoughts and feelings and motives won't go down in the books. we're all alone in this place and it's up to us to save each other.

how does muse come into play? they never left my ipod that week.

i just got away. and couldn't have asked for a more perfect soundtrack.

try it.

inspiration

inspiration is a hell of a thing. it's rare, for one. i mean, it just comes and goes. the best example i can think of is the first song i ever wrote while playing guitar. to this day, it's still, somehow, one of the best pieces i've ever heard. i wrote the intro while learning different jazz chords and just kind of listed them off in a simple transition. the verses are just As and Cs and adds here and there. the chorus? i wrote it at least ten years later. that's the thing about inspiration, at least with me. you can't time it. i've been playing guitar since i was eight years old and i still haven't written lyrics for that song. sixteen years after writing the intro and verses, the song remains wordless. but i'm not worried. i think the best things in this world come to you and are never forced. that's why i was so surprised with the process of my novel, MAKEGOOD. depending on the rewrite of the introduction i'm still working on, the novel will end up around 350 pages. i wrote it in three months. it just kind of happened. about halfway through it all, i promised myself i wouldn't force a single page. hard as it as, i kept true to that promise. i'd go days, once even a solid week, without typing more than a few sentences. then i'd go days in a row of ten or twenty pages down. the objective was simple, to finish my first novel, but the ethics behind it kept it honest. i was inspired and i promised myself i would follow that inspiration, not the goal to make money or any other fake deadline manifested out of insecurities or lack of direction. i just did it.

just do it.

all in, all out

some people will never understand how it's so easy for me to make huge decisions on a whim, throw away everything i have for something i don't. it's never easy, closing your eyes, throwing your weight into it and running blind. i mean, i've learned a lot in these twenty four years but i won't pretend i have all the answers. truly, i have none. i only know what i do because it works for me. but here's my secret. it doesn't work just as often, if not more, than it does. i've been built up only to be let down and everyone around me could see it coming and warned me and did everything they could to stop me. but they couldn't. you see, people say a lot of things about the kind of man i used to be, have become and will continue to try to be someday, but the best compliment i've ever been paid is that im unstoppable when i set my mind to something. being incredibly competitive, i rarely lose. what has changed over the years, though, is what matters to me most. it's not the wins or the losses, i'm learning. it's about the score. it's about how in it you were or weren't. it's about how hard you fought for what you wanted. that's pretty easy to say when you win but you should learn to embrace the same when you don't. sure, i've lost, i've been hurt, i've been broken and lost and lost everything. but i've loved and helped and built and gained so much more than that. there was a girl i knew once, SO. i was never in love with her but i loved her, and that was new to me. in the thick of it all, she taught me more about myself and the world and what matters than any class i'd taken or teacher or professor i'd ever had. and the lesson came five years late, maybe, but it's still the same. i know what it's like to look someone in the eye who has wrecked your life and taken a torch to your heart and offer them a second chance. i know what it's like to feel betrayed and hurt and broken but still get up off the ground, get back in the ring, go eye to eye and fight for what's right. when you've been there and seen and felt that, you learn it's never too late to fight for what matters most, no matter how heavily the odds favor the other side. and that's a lesson that's just not in the books. all in or all out, i've probably let down as many people as i've impressed. all i can hope is that, at the end of the day, i'll have helped more people than i've hurt, i'll have loved more than i've lost, i'll have truly changed the world around me and not taken the passive stand that leaves most people beaten down and blown off in the wind. all in or all out, it's just how i live my life. i follow my heart and trust that it is as god made it. all in or all out, it's just me. this is stephen churchill. if you're reading this, thanks for sticking around.

it's in the details, life

life is so much more and so much less than we make it out to be. the beauty, i think, is in the details. the small stuff. in the smallest, most insignificant decisions we make every day, we find out who we are. as friends, as family, as loved ones, we so often lose touch with what matters most. we get lost in the big stuff. and that's great. but something my favorite sociology professor and i used to debate, my point, it's the simple stuff that matters most. those small, insignificant decisions we make every day, over time, form habits. habits, over time, form behavior. behavior, over time and interaction, is how people view your personality. personality, over time and in different circumstances, is what defines your character.

the message for today's post?

don't be afraid to choose and know you are.

love everything and everyone in every decision you make.

love.

...and a thank you goes out to someone very special to me. you know who you are, and thank you. i needed that.

going dark

there's something i've heard in a few spy/action flicks that i've always wanted to say. it happens when an agent decides to go into hiding and cease further communication for an indefinite amount of time.

i'm going dark.

ok...not for long. but i'm taking a few days off to relax a bit and finish the final chapter revisions i've been putting off for a few weeks. i also now have to find a new agent because of health issues, evidently. anyone who wishes to contribute to my stephen-drinks-his-sorrows-away-this-week fund, feel free to mail a bottle of Tormore my way. single malt. 12 year. much appreciated, thanks =) should you wish to reach me, just hit me up via email. stephen@stephenchurchill.com

all that said, i couldn't leave you guys for a few days or week or however long without even a half-assed shot across the bow, right? here goes nothing.

there's a tagline that i've always hated and i never knew why until last night. "what happens in vegas stays in vegas." it's just so fucking demeaning. and not just because it implies that bored housewives and bachelor accountants can escape from reality and party it up like they're in all the frats and sororities they wish they'd joined in college, though many do and it's sad to see. but it's demeaning because it implies that we can just walk away from our transgressions and hide our flaws from the worlds we all choose to live in. and that's just not right. you should never run from your past, but embrace it. get in front of it.

my father once told me that when i was a kid, out of my whole family, i was the sweet one. i was the good one, the one that would change the world around him with his heart because it really was just so big and open. somewhere along the way, i lost that. i have thrown away more opportunities and walked away from more talents and passions than mostly anyone i've ever known, whether in football or music or writing or school or professionally. i have lost myself in addiction and more than once. in doing all that, i pushed the closest people in my life as far from me as i could. i've cheated and stolen away my time and love and respect from those closest to me.

i've lost.

but i've loved. i've shared. i've created.

how can any man who's never tasted defeat, at his own hands or another's, truly ever appreciate the sweet tastes of success and passion and love?

more importantly, how can someone who hides from their past and keeps their weaknesses a secret ever truly define what love is to them?

you have to get in front of the bad, and the good.

this is my story.

nfl cba

i'm going to keep this one short since i'm working on the final chapter revisions on my plate for Makegood and excited to get away from my laptop for the first time in months.

i'm feelin kinda sunday. i'm sick of all this pre-draft, pre-training camp, pre pre pre talk. i miss me some football.

the nfl and nflpa will literally shatter my heart to pieces if there's a holdout that leads to a strike. puh puh puh pleeeeaaase dont do this to me, fellas.

that is all.

i remember.

there was this kid i knew back when i was one, too. his name was michael d'angelo and he was in my kindergarten class at primary plus in mountain view, ca. i'm not sure how i remember this when i don't remember what i ate for dinner a week ago, but i remember this one afternoon when we were both waiting for our parents to pick us up. there was this water fountain where people used to toss coins into and make wishes on, just outside of the entrance. michael and i were walking around the fountain, round and round. we were walking around and decided to count as high as we could. he'd say "1" and i'd say "2" and so on. now, crazy as it may seem, i swear we counted to at least a thousand. then my dad came and picked me up and his parents were right behind. i don't remember much else about this kid but that memory's just kind of stuck around my whole life.

its funny the things that do, you know? and you really have no choice in the matter most of the time. i mean, i still remember getting my thumb getting caught in the car door of my dad's Olds back in the day and him offering any way to make it up to me and i asked for a Happy Meal. i still remember getting chased by a bee when i was picking flowers in a garden with my friend from first grade, andrew kulch. bees don't chase, you might say, but i still remember the sweat pouring down my face as we ran from the garden through the parking lot to his mom's station wagon. i've hated bees ever since. i still remember going to birthday parties at nickel city in san jose and all the times i watched my father and grandmother cheer on the cowboys when they took on 49ers from the big screen in our living room. i still remember what it felt like to get up on stage the first time and i was fucking terrified. i still remember forgetting every word to "at the fair" and just kind of humming along and hiding behind my guitar. i still remember the first time i ever threw a football and, unfortunately, i also still remember kristen sexton massaging my arm and pinching the nerves in between my bicep and not being able to throw one again for almost two months. i still remember the first time i walked down wilshire boulevard in los angeles and the first highrise building i ever saw up close. then there's this gap of a year or so that is so god damned cloudy in my mind, a year that felt like a decade and spent under the influence of no less than five different drugs i had no business taking. i lost a year of my life and then lost the last year trying to get it back. but i'm here. and i'm alive. and i'm healthy. and i still remember getting off that plane in boston and the entire bus ride up to lebanon. i still remember the look on my father's face when i got into his car and he took me home. i still remember my dogs jumping into my arms. i still remember my stepmother's baking. i still remember my home. and i will always remember that. i still remember telling myself my entire life i would never become a writer, to do something that actually matters. i still remember the first words i wrote in the introduction and the first chapter of MAKEGOOD. i still remember the moment i realized life isn't always going to end the way you think or plan, it's the ride there that matters most.

and i still don't remember what i ate a week ago. but maybe there's a receipt in a pocket somewhere that can fix that.

easter...part two

will you judge me if i start this by saying i'm listening to kellie pickler? my ridiculously vast itunes library does the damndest things when i click shuffle and let her do her thing.

life's sometimes better that way, i think. on random. for instance, my dogs. at my parents house, we have two dogs. one of them is a female lhasa apso named sable. sable is my dog. or, really, i'm her boy. one of the constants in my life these past seven or so years, she's the truest definition of loyal i've ever seen. when i'm not here, she's depressed and low. she sits in front of my bedroom door and waits for me to come back and be with her again. when i'm here, she's always at my side. she's sleeping at my feet. shes on my lap. she's in bed and curled up against my back when i sleep. i can be gone for a year or two and she's the same. she can't really jump and she's half blind but, when i walk in the door, she runs and jumps up for me to catch her. that's love. and had my parents and i not taken a random trip to the pound, we never would have met. i remember that night like it was yesterday. she just runs up to me while i'm on a bench outside of the adoption office. she never left my side. sable's gotten me through some pretty tough times and i'm sure she'll get me through plenty more. and there's just no way i've ever or ever could deserve it. all because of random.

the other dog? auggie is a yorkie and he's a little shit. absolutely no loyalty whatsoever. he's the cutest thing in the world and everyone loves him but that's what bothers me, i think. if someone broke into my house, sable wouldn't be able to do anything but she'd try to protect our home. auggie would see some random guy in a mask breaking a window and think to himself "oh! someone else who can get me a biscuit!" but he is cute. the little shit.

and...for the record...it's now "we're at the top of the world" by the juliana theory. upgrade? hmm

i took a hike tonight with my girlfriend. we went out just when the sun was starting to hint it might not be around much longer, that sort of lingering sunset that hasn't quite begun just yet.

rural new England is fucking magical, i swear. but i've sort of forgotten that over the past year. i've been so caught up in the daily bullshit, the grind of this crazy world i live in, i just missed it all as the seasons came and left without me.

and, boy, how i've missed it.

there's just something relaxing about being out in the middle of nowhere. you find yourself. and i found myself tonight. i found so much more than i ever could have hoped. the thing i love most about hiking is the connection. with each step, you disappear further into the great unknown, however discovered, polluted it may be, it just feels new. with each step, i just felt so much more relaxed. my zen, i guess. and i wasn't alone. it meant that much more to feel her hand holding mine, to have her jump on my back and walk through the muddy, mucky parts because i wore boots and she foolishly wore nike trainers, embracing at sunset on top of a hill of trees and rocks and leaves and greens and, well, life. it was all connected. the sun came to rise just one more time over our heads, as if to say good night, the animals were talking to us in the distance in every direction, the air was a gentle breeze letting us know we're still alive and awake and not dreaming. it was all connected. i wasn't alone. the moment i looked up and out, surveying the scene, taking it all in and processing the experience, i realized how much i love. i love my family. i love my friends. i love my life. i love. won't you?

easter

it's easter and i'm editing chapters, pushing along. i'm thinking about the themes of the day, about faith and love and family. but then i'm thinking about hope.

and its more than just a word, but the single word hope can transform you.

keep it in mind and even the simplest of things is just bigger, somehow.

the section of MAKEGOOD i've been editing deals with an escape. i'm escaping this moment and running far away and as fast as my legs will take me. but i'm listening to the music playing on this site and a scene that's dark and depressed turns into something bigger. i keep the single word hope in mind and the scene becomes more than it once was. i'm not running away. now i'm running to. and that's pretty powerful. so, on this holiday, i wish we all find the hope within our lives, the promise within ourselves. this world is bigger than any and all of us. but, dark and intense and ominous as our problems seem, they can't love, they can't feel, they can't hope. i can. you can. and that's something.

god?

i bought this bible a while back, so long ago i cant remember when. i was unpacking a box in my closet a couple weeks ago and i found it. NIV thinline, still in the box. beautiful Italian, duo-tone leather. i havent opened it yet and am not sure why. im not the type to read scripture every night or really ever all that frequently, but i used to be. there was a time in my life when i felt guided. i was here and for a reason. there was purpose to the man i was becoming. i lost that somewhere along the way and never found it again. fast forward a few years and im here. i had everything and lost it all, gained it back and then some. im blessed with the people around me, so thankful for everything in my life. everythings coming together again. i mean, ive just picked an agent. the book is just about done. im on my way. but theres something missing. am i going to drop some profound statement about how finding my faith once again will complete me inside and God is the answer to all my questions? im not that guy. but i found this book in my closet and i dont remember buying it or why. and maybe theres just more to it than that. maybe not. but maybe.

kanada's death

it's noon and i'm about to get lunch when i decide to plug into my laptop and get some revisions done in the last chapter. i pull up itunes and shuffle it a bit, eventually come to the song which is playing in the background as you're reading this. "kanada's death, pt.2 (adagio in d minor)" from the sunshine sountrack, composed by john murphy. a couple seconds and it's building. and then i'm hooked. i'm pulled in and just can't stop writing. my mind's racing.

and this is what i love about music. so many people think of it as this passive sort of ambience that can help you relax or indulge you with something catchy and fun. i guess, in some ways, they're right. but good music, and by "good" i mean GOOD, it's active. it moves you. it's like this car that comes out of nowhere when you're walking down the street, pulls up to the sidewalk and the door just opens. you have no idea who's behind the wheel or where it's going. but, if you truly just let go, you get in and your life is never the same, if only for a few minutes. i've played guitar my entire life and appreciated this even firsthand. plugged in, i'll just start with a slide up the frets, a cool, gentle hammer-on sparking the sweetest blues scale and my fingers come alive. they end up in grungy, power chords or the truest, single notes plucked in a lead. wherever they end up, it's just right. it's good. it's true. in that moment. and, in that moment, i'm alive.

"Then something happens. Windows down, the wind beats a tune against my hand as it cuts in and out of the air beside me. I'd close my eyes if I could, but I hear it still just the same. It starts off slow and grand, this orchestra rising up from a cold mute, soon a bright, warm sun shining in the background. Then the air comes in bits, in a rhythm thats driving along to the tires spinning beneath us. Sweetly ethereal, it's like I'm flying through every fantastic landscape ever imagined, on some old ship sailing into battle, dancing in the rain and watching the miracle of birth all at once. Its fucking magical. And thats when it hits me. Im alive." - closing lines from chapter 14 in MAKEGOOD

makegood

i've got "god's gonna cut you down " by johnny cash on blast. and repeat. on blast.

and it has me thinking about the end.

it came and left in our sleep, none of us the wiser. this perfect, imperfect world is what we're left with.

there's no one left to come for us. there are no hands for us to hold but our own. it's up to us to save ourselves.

if, as i've suggested many times, especially in the book, emotions and intentions don't matter, only actions, then we're fucked.

or not.

what's left in this perfect, imperfect place is the opportunity for each and every one of us to live the life of a saint in a world of sinners. this void we so often find when we raise our hands up to the sky and call out for help, it's the ultimate test of not just our strengths, but our weaknesses. He's there, i have no doubt, and He cares and loves us all. but easier isn't always better. there's a line in the book that's ringing true at the moment. our guy is explaining his lack of faith and drops the line "whoever said God is Love was sadly fucking mistaken." his friend responds, simply, with "maybe He's just got a different definition." and what if that's it. what if the truest definition of "Love" was lost somewhere in the rush to crown the next American Idol and marry off the Bachelor and Bachelorette before The Amazing Race lost its Weakest Link and the only Survivor found himself Lost in the Jersey Shore. the world we look back on and fondly remember, a place where honor and dedication were rewarded over beauty and Self, it was traded in long before any of us had any say in it. and if we could just get back there, get back to being right[eous] more than Right...we'd see that we never lost the most basic gift He ever gave us. the ability to fix anything wrong in this world with what's right in it.

saints in a world of sinners, i dare you. take a stand.

honest. sincere. loyal. moral. compassionate. loving.

and don't just choose one.

make it good.