put on love.

do not let the sun go down on your anger / but, instead / forgive.
and above all other things / put on love.

above having your own agenda fulfilled / or your getting your own way
above all other things / put on love.

ill--.

what is my why?
i'll turn that around,
and say "why not?"

put a mountain in front of me
put a roadblock up,
give me a wall -
i'll climb it.
that's my 'why not'.

if you say,
"you can't do that.",
i'm glad you said it
because that's exactly what i'll do.

"that's impossible".
oh, really...
watch me turn it into
being possible.

"that's illogical."
no such thing.

everything.

She's really a beauty,
Inside and out.
And vice versa.
And then some.

Great face.
Great figure.
Wonderful personality.
Charming to converse with.
Dangerous to compete with.

She wins (most) of the arguments.
She wills you with her sheer dynamo.
She asks me some of the most unanswerable questions I've ever heard.
She sees through the baloney,
And there's plenty of it,
From whomever it might come - even if it's me.

It's uncanny.
She is uncanny.
She is the complete package.
She is my everything.

climb ev'ry mountain.

you're going to find mountains in your life every single day... every moment of every day. it seems that all my life i've been told, 'you can't do this' or 'you can't do that'. at 21, i felt like a has been. i felt like i had accomplished everything i was meant to, and i was riding at this lowered plateau for eternity. i was a has-been.

it was somewhere in that period of time where i looked up at the mountains in my life, standing at that plateau - incredibly scared of moving. it was sometime recently that i said to myself - 'watch me climb these mountains, because i know what is at the top.' i know what's at the summit of the mountain. and i believe it. you have to believe in yourself. if you believe that you can, then you will.

recipe.

take love
add a little laughter,
til you see her pretty smile.

take the rain,
turn it into sunshine,
til you feel a little better inside.

take some time
and find the way,
til you feel at home together.

put it all together,
til it feels all too familiar
and that's my girl.

untitled 9

honestly
i don't remember
what we talk about sometimes.

because, sometimes,
i just fall in love
with the sound of your voice.

and, all the time,
i'm in love
with the sound of you
in love with me.

breeze on by.

now i've got the sunshine everyday
no more clouds are in our way.
so easy, like an angel above from the sky,
you come into my life and you just breeze on by.

under attack.

you try and cope
with how they victimize you.
for when they're down,
they only criticize you.

Lord, I'm asking now for mercy
because they need to break it.
i'm praying hard for strength now
because we just can't take it.

test.

God is testing me. In order to move into the next stage of my life, He is testing me. He is testing my patience, my ability to learn and absorb, to apply His teachings to my life, and to stand strong in my belief, among other things. If he was not testing me, how else can I account for the proliferation of the things that are now tempting me in ways that I must resist. How can I disregard my own strength in morality when I'm constantly plagued with an environment that is defined by such easy immorality or relaxed morality (whatever way you want to define it). The situation I am in now is puzzling. Even if it were not against the law, even though it is, I find it very difficult to find the blessing that exists in that. The happiness that exists in those things is temporary, it's in passing. It isn't real. Most importantly, it isn't lasting. True bliss is in what happens organically to us. Love walks in and fulfills that desire. No drug can replace that feeling. I guess because I had the awakening of sorts in regards to what is really important, to me at least, in life - being surrounded by those whose purpose is defined by their theatrical resume, they can't relate to my desire to accomplish something within me. For there to be integrity, fortitude, grace and love inside of me and everything I do - that is what defines me. I know. You know. God knows. That is what matters.

Side note: blogging from your iPhone is difficult.

integrity.

integrity.

What a powerful word to apply to anything and everything you do, because, eventually, lies will catch up to you. I had someone tell me a long time ago that if you lie, you have to cover that lie with another lie... and, eventually, you will have had to keep track of so many lies, that it would have been easier in the long run to tell the truth. You don't need to embellish anything about your life. You don't need the work you're doing to seem bigger than it is, because it is big. It's yours. It speaks for itself, in that way. Always be honest.

for you.

i just love the mornings
when we're side by side.
every night together is
a moment in paradise.

when we touch the sky,
light shines through the darkest day.
it is only you and i
who can reach the sky that way.

there'll be no more teardrops
our eyes will cry.
this is where we are now,
no reason left to sigh.

now it seems there's a different
dawn for us at daybreak.
and if life wasn't all you hoped for today,
may tomorrow be perfect when you wake.

baby, don't you see that our heaven has begun
now together, we are one.

a little space.

i have been hiding all my hopes away
never knowing where i was to start,
never thinking i would need them again someday.
but God set aside this time for me
to clear a little space in my heart,
so that there is room inside for us to be...

untitled 8.

these are crazy times
in what turns out to be a crazy life,
where anything could happen next.

fortunes are made overnight
and are lost just as quickly.
friends come and go with time.

lovers do not simply glimpse eternity,
they stare it in the face,
conflicted between fear and ecstasy.

billions of souls,
more than you will ever know,
say no.

another billion,
the few brazen,
say yes.

we have much in common.

not a lecture, but a lab.

If you injure the tendon or ligament in your knee, through rehab and surgery you can get it repaired and be back up and running. Relationships are the ligaments that hold together the family and friendships in our lives. When they become torn, or we strain them, we suffer. It hurts. Sooner or later, every relationship struggles. Our friendships get hot, and then they cool. Ties within our family are tight, yet become loosened over time. A marriage will struggle, a romance will crumble. It is within ourselves to find the way to healing and hope. Our hearts, our homes, our friendships, our relationships are all repairable. They can all be repaired and we can be back up and running again.

Men and women are different. These differences come to the surface in our relationships with one another. At first, opposites attract. We are drawn to these differences, but we don't take the time to really come to understand these differences. That's when these things that make your partner so wonderfully unique to you, make them incredibly annoying to you. This is when everything that is love turns into war.

Relationships are hard. Of course they are when you take into account all of these differences that we have. You're taking two very different people - flawed people - and not only putting them together, not only making them live together, but those two people become one. They are, together, one being. That's a challenge. The challenge comes from all of the things we, as individuals, bring into a relationship. One of the reasons our relationships suffer is because of the baggage we bring along with it. Everyone does it. We have insecurities about us, our wounds from our past... they are present, always. Tardiness, snoring, our exaggerations or overdramatics... it's all enclosed into this baggage we carry along. She has a critical spirit, and he withers under criticism. She gets clingy, and he's afraid of intimacy. He has anger issues, and she gets passive and withdraws. One's a perfectionist, one's controlling. He's got addictive tendencies, she's got abandonment issues. She craves closeness, and he needs his space. You take all of these things and throw them together... then add in some family weirdness, personal quirkiness, bad morning breath, embarrassing secrets, strange habits... and it's just a recipe for disaster. It's like putting a puppy and a kitten in the dryer... you wouldn't do that... I'm not sure that's the best analogy, but it's just what came up in my head. Don't put your pet in the dryer. I digress...

God puts us in this cage match of love. Why would someone want to be in the ring with the person that I am?  A person whose baggage is oversized and overstuffed and costs an extra $50 to put on an airplane.... I would be so scared to stand across the ring from that person. Scary. Scary. Scary.

I think there's this secret plot, this divine conspiracy. I think God has got this agenda he is trying to accomplish  through our relationships here on Earth. God wants to use love to transform us. Love can shape you, make you into who you were meant to be when you were created in His image. The relationship that you're placed in can do that to you, if you allow it. I think of it like this. I needed to learn patience. Can I read about it in a book, or read an article about it online? Yes. In fact, I have. Does that TEACH me anything? Maybe that it's a theory, or that it's fathomable. But that's really it. Patience comes in the form of waiting for someone, on someone. When they are sick, when you are sick... when you're both sick. What it's like to be patient with them as I'm dealing with my own issues... and vice versa. I think that's how you learn and have your character grow, and gain something.

I am an adult. So I have to act like an adult. Jesus said to be like the little children. That means be child-like, but not childish. There's a difference. I think a lot of the problems that engulf us are the inability to relinquish the things within us that are CHILDISH. If you live life under your own personal agenda - it's all about me, I'm going to make this for me... the only change that comes in your life will be your desire to change everybody else. THEY need help. THEY need guidance. If only he would stop doing that. If only she would change that. If only... If only... If...

Relationships teach us how to love. I could go on and on and fill this space with a million words on how I felt about that... But this idea isn't a lecture. It's a lab. A real relationship teaches you how to love, how to lose, how to feel, how to do and how to don't. Not just puppy love, or shallow love, or lust. Love is knowing that instead of being ticked about what bugs me, I want to understand what makes her tick. Those ideas are just two different worlds of perspective in themselves. I want to enjoy her personality, not change it.

"Love is a rock, smoothed over by a stream." We are these bumpy, cracked, jagged pieces of rock until we're kicked into the stream... the water of the stream smooths us over into those nice, soft rocks that form the riverbed under our feet. We can submerge ourselves below the rushing waters of love, genuinely, we can be smoothed into the people we were destined to be.

keep her in mind.

on my mind.

do you know
as hard as i try
to resist
you are
always
on my mind.

in my mind.

Everyone has to think about this...  Think about the version of you that you would be if you were in your element, fully alive, living your dream... the dream that God had planned out when he made you. If you have that image in your mind, and then you look in the mirror - I think we can all see there's a gap there. Don't you sometimes wish there was some sort of Photoshop for life? We're a Photoshop culture. We wish that we could erase a few of the character flaws we have. We could accentuate some of the good and nice things about ourselves, and airbrush over something deeply ingrained in who we are.  We buy into the idea of changing what's happening on the outside. We're about style over substance. What we need is a Photoshop for the soul. Something that changes more than how we externally appear. We need to become something on the inside. Become the "ME" that you believe you were meant to be. The only way to close that gap is to believe. Believe in something, someone. Maybe it's God.

There's so much in our lives that we can believe in. But, in order to gain that new sense of belief, we have to let go. We have a lot regret. We have things in our past that we need to feel forgiven for, in order to feel some freedom. Maybe you committed a crime. Maybe you were unkind to your parents. Maybe you were too harsh with your children. Maybe you were too distant with your partner. Maybe you wasted your time on drugs. Maybe you wasted your life on alcohol. These things mount up and they become regret. These things become more than just things that have happened to us. They become us, and they anchor us down... and when that anchor hooks us, we are then stuck. You have become that person.

I have always been fascinated by Edgar Allan Poe. The most famous Poe story is probably "The Tell Tale Heart", which also happens to be my personal favorite. To summarize, the central figure of TTTH commits a murder and buries the body in his basement. He continues on with his life, tries to forget about the crime he has committed, but he cannot allow himself to forget, and it begins to drive him insane. His worry is heightened, as he becomes so paranoid that he believes he hears the heart beat of his victim from downstairs. You realize, of course, that it's not the heart beat of his victim he hears, but rather that of his own. He breaks out in a sweat, he is driven to madness - for that heart beat is always there, it is the ultimate roadblock. It becomes the anchor on his future, being held down by his past. We live TTTH every day. There are things that have happened to us that we think we have dealt with from our past, but are very much with us in the present.

Secret sin cannot coexist with inner peace. We have to be able to dump our past that is full of regret. Somewhere in the Psalms of the Bible, it reads "What joy there is for those rebellion is forgiven". What joy there is to live your life in the open, and be honest. Stop trying to hide your regret, stop trying forget your mistake.... open yourself up to them. Once you do that, you can find forgiveness. Owning up to the things you do ultimately releases the shame, as well. There's that voice inside of you that exists, that only rears it's ugly head when you do something you regret. "It's not just that you did that", the voice tells you, "but because you did that, you're awful. You're stupid. You're ugly. You're not worthwhile. You're a loser." This voice disregards the things you've done, but rather targets who you are. It makes you believe it, because our minds have been so influenced by the wrong thing.

The battle is not in our behavior, it's in our brains. We have to think new thoughts. We have to think in new ways. No, of course, there is no 'delete' button for our old memories. There is difficulty in breaking old habits.  We wrestle with ourselves over these old patterns that we are so used to following. Renew your mind. Feed and focus. What we feed into our minds and what we allow in is very important. It determines, I feel, in large measure who we become. Out of that, what we choose to focus on determines our behavior. The battle is fought there. If you don't fight, or if you're a passive recipient, and you just let anything come into your mind, there is a vastly different outcome than any of us want to experience... a different outcome than who we want to be. We feed our minds with no regard to the purity of life. Our lives are shaped by what comes into our minds.

If you can worry, you can meditate. You don't have to sit cross-legged or something like that. Meditating is just to turn a thought over in your head. Think about how things relate to your life. Chew on it. Focus it. The mind has this insanely precise way of focusing on something. Don't try to resist, but replace. Set your mind on things that exist inside you. It's a fantastic place to focus. Things happen with focus.

Sometimes it's necessary to pause our lives and ask what we're feeding ourselves. Search. Look around. Find what's here, now. Am I judgmental? Am I critical? Am I mean? Am I anxious? Am I defensive? Am I envious? Fix your mind on the good stuff. Feed your mind what's true... the honorable things in life, the things that are pure and true. Honorable and trustworthy. Lovely.

try.

I have no envy of anyone. I love to say that... instead of, "Oh boy, I should be doing that." There's nothing that I have GOT to do. I do things because of the personal enjoyment it brings, or I feel, that by doing it, there is going to be good that is brought to other people. What I do can help people. I don't feel pressured into doing anything. I am not pressuring myself into things. It's not that I'm lowering a bar, per say... because that bar will always be there. But I know that eventually I will reach that bar. That's all it's about. Eventually, I will... I can say that because I am in a good place. For me. And that's all I want to be. Me.

My greatest talent is my ability to communicate with an audience. I don't think there are many other performers alive who can communicate with an audience like I do. I mean that in a sense of sizing them up, and understanding what they want from me. I think that's why theatre, why acting, is such a departure for me. In front of the audience, I am confined to use the hammers and nails of someone else's toolbox. I admire actors who can take role after role, with whatever is in their toolbox, and build a house. That's a truly remarkable thing to me. Actors don't have the option of re-routing the course three minutes into the journey because of a certain energy of an audience. Actors plow forward.

I am so glad that in working as a concert performer, I can guide the emotions of the audience. I have that ability. But it's a responsibility, as well. A heavy one, at that. I allow myself that vulnerability. I want to get their feelings. I want to know what's going on with them.

I would like people to say about me, he tried. He tried to do something. That is it. That's all anyone can do. Try.

reading.

I read a lot. I've started to veer from my typical show business biography selection, and I've picked up some fiction. FICTION. Fake. Fantasy. FICTION. But, I am enjoying the stories. Stories about quirky people, growing up, finding their way... Gosh, they make me LAUGH. It's a nice feeling. Of course, I've also been reading a lot on theory... some pieces on mental health, spiritual guidance, everyday practicality, relationships with God, healing, embracing life... I love to immerse myself in these things. I just feel close to their words.

This passage has really resonated with me after reading it. I actually found this passage online while reading some articles. I read it, and felt inspired. I felt motivated to go out and read more. Now, returning to this passage specifically, I feel like it is starting to sink in... sink in like a ton of bricks...

"If you take responsibility for your life, then everything you see, hear, taste, touch, or in any way experience IS your responsibility because it is in your life. That means... anything you experience and don't like - is up for you to heal. [These things that you don't like] don't exist in a manner of speaking, except as projections from inside you. The problem isn't with them, it's with you. And to change them, you have to change yourself."
-- ZERO LIMITS, Joe Vitale.

untitled 7.

every day
i remember
the look in your eyes.

someday
i hope
you will remember
the look in mine.

new year.

it's a new dawn.
it's a rising of another year.
a new year.

this year deems to be
full of promise and joy
and new beginnings
not endings.

love
you and yours
as we start this journey
together.

Namaste.