It has been awhile since I've posted anything.  That's something I want to change.  I would like to keep up a regular blog again, since this helps keep my mind organized and keep a little more sanity.

I am in a very different stage of life than i was when i last blogged.  Since i was last keeping a regular blog/journal I was still in college, unmarried, and not working towards a career.  This is a very different stage of life now some two years and a few months later.  I am married, I've explored different career options, and am now working towards a specific goal in a career.  The list of struggles and even the general culture that is around you drastically changes as time goes on.  With different stages comes different communal and personal struggles.

I was going to write a longer post explaining the different struggle, but it came out as more of a prideful tone, which is not what i want to write or express.  Simply put, i'm noticing in this new stage of life people being more willing to check out of life relationally and sexually.  The line between one night stands and a porn addiction is very thin and commonly practiced.  It's sex without commitment, which doesn't allow intimacy.  It's a whole lot easier, sometimes it's more fun, but it doesn't practice the essence of sex; vulnerability and connection.  Mostly, i've been thinking about how while we think, and in a limited mindset, there isn't a cost to anyone else because of our sexual practices.  Reality is when sex is involved it always affects other people.  Particularly with porn.  Currently pop culture has been holding up the porn industry as something that is progressive and allowing people to take control of their sexuality and allows people to really be the on defining what your sexuality means.  On the other side of the arguments are people holding up people who say they are trapped, often times abused, run aways, broken families, and hurting. Regardless of what side of the argument you fall on, selling your sexuality to fulfill the fetish of a mass market isn't being in control of your sexuality, it's completely giving up control for a pay check.

Sex has changed me.  I have been in the deep side of addiction and I am now in a healthy marriage with a healthy sex life.  The hardest part of starting a healthy marriage based sexual relationship was becoming human again in sex. The idea of actually trusting someone completely with myself in sex was horrifying compared to a screen that did everything i wanted without interacting with me.  We're taught to take control of our sexuality rather than trust and mutually give to each other relationally.  Control and be protective of your sexuality and be safe, definitely, but learn how to practice vulnerability in the right places, learn to be completely unguarded with someone.  These are things i've never had a safe place to truly experience until I found my wife and she helped me rehumanize sex.

These are mostly rambles and this is becoming a long post again, but hopefully this is a more honest and less pride filled post than the first draft.  This whole post started because of a poem of sorts i was about to post.  So, here's what I originally intended to post.

The soft glow of a screen
Casting light on my body
clicking, looking, for my sexual cuisine
"She's young, hopefully legal" barely 18

I stare at her breast
I don't know her name
I watch her undress
and part of her i claim

One becomes one-hundred nameless faces
while i was clicking, searching for another high
i think i'll find love in these places
but this is were intimacy comes to die

I don't feel like a man
except when the screen is on
every time i leave i begin to plan
for the next time i'll feel like a man

This is my secret sin
this is my new reality
I isolate myself to see her again
and the rest of my life is a mere formality

Whenever i gaze into the screen
the offer is intimacy without commitment
the cost is my heart becomes a machine
and my soul flickers out of existence

Every night i convince myself actions are without consequence
At most i'm only harming myself
Slowly i quiet my mind
the part of my that knows this truth
Porn and victimization are synonymous

We all want to build
our little castles
and in some way be fulfilled

i wanted so much control
so i could beat my chest
and say i was whole
but my dream left me oppressed

when i met you i lost control
since i chose to bind myself to you
building a kingdom with you is my goal
since you've given me something true

i'm asking you to come with me
to participate, not just stand by
please come, i hope you'll agree
help me build our castle in the sky

To a girl who sat and listened
helped me while i cried
spoke peace to my condition
and helped me learn to confide

I was scared to speak
since i was taught not to
that it meant i was weak
but you said that wasn't true

then you listened
pulled me close
and let me rest
with emotions exposed

you made me feel safe
like i was home
i didn't want to leave your place
since it was peace on a tiresome day

thank you for listening my dear
thank you for helping me be strong
thank you for quieting my fears
and being with me on this journey all along. 

Please find my heart and pursue
since i am damaged and torn
please make the broken parts untrue
since i am unable and my hands are worn

-->

welcome to a place

where god celebrates with you

by waking us with his grace

and making reality finally seem true

but i was scared of seeing the genuine

so i devised a plan made of lonely bricks

that sought to keep his grace confined

and restrain my heart from being fixed

brick by lonely brick i build my desolate wall

i built it so thick the sun stopped shining

and i was confined to a world so small

my heart began a process of dying

day became so dark

my heart became so numb

until i saw a little spark

that reminded me what i was created from

then i heard a murmur

from the outside of the wall

it made my heart go into tremors

since the voice whispered my name being called

the voice asked about my health

and said i would die

i thought it was a lie until he told me

i had built the wall around myself

he said he'd take the lonely bricks on himself

and do it alone with his might

so i could know true health

and come back to real life

when the final brick was moved

my heart sank once more

he took the wall on himself, fully, in servitude

because of me he is bound... my heart tore

i laid there weeping for a day

cursing my damned wall

the one who saved me from myself i betrayed

and he took it all

knowing i couldn't break a wall reinforced

i began to leave, since i had nothing to bring

then in radiant light he burst forth

like a phoenix bearing wings.

he emerged carrying his grace and glory

so i could celebrate again

without a care or a worry

or a thought of where i have been

my lonely desolate wall was gone without a trace

along with the reminder that i was once damned

he came close and gently put his hand on my face

and simply said

" here i am"

there is a war you haven't seen
because it is bigger than earth
and only felt in our dreams,
since we were drafted at birth

life and death were at war
our king came and met us on earth
just so we could have a curtain torn
and enter into a second birth

death made a final stride
as we watched our king die
i thought i would have to hide
but death was only the beginning of His battle cry

now i am a soldier in a multiworld war
serving behind a warrior king
who offered to die for me, an unfaithful whore
so i wouldn't be allowed to flirt with hell in a fling

he came to kill death
and claim his right as a husband
and death won't be left breathing
since death's death was perfectly planned

the war is still goin'
and we are charged to fight until death
since that is when we go home
and finally sit in glory finding our rest.

i cannot wait for you to come back down
sometimes i wish i knew the date
when i get to see your crown
but until then i am content to wait

the first time you came
the entire world changed
since the strongest are now the lame
and heaven is no longer out of our range

i was an orphan
and you said i was your son
i ran and you pursued me with loving contortions
until i stopped running and believed it was done

while i am still in-between two lives
you charged me with bringing in your reign
by showing how to make our souls arise
since when you've tasted joy nothing is the same.