This is My Vision

I feel an awakening. A reckless pull in my chest leading me into confusion, because i've found security and there was more peace in the mystery of what i had before. It comes in short bursts. It starts with a sigh of relief and it's crescendo is a vision. I've felt it before. The cities vary, and the languages outside my door kind of blur together, but this vision is the same. The faces to my left and right change, and venues of expression are violently different, but this vision is always the same. 

Let me tell you about it...

To begin with there's a complete and total lack of anxiety. Things still go wrong, relationships are still necessarily broken, but the anxiety is removed from it all. At first i wasn't sure why. The world is still a broken place full of broken hearts, but for some reason the anxiety is removed from that knowledge. I still had no idea why. People still let you down, plans that you believed your life depended on are still cast to the side suddenly, permanently and without notice, but the anxiety is gone. And suddenly a glimmer of understanding begins to stir, but still i cant explain it. Death is still bitter, pain is still painful, but i can't bring myself to worry. Then all at once it's clear. So softly and but unwavering underneath it all is this melody. Simple and beautiful. 

A song. 

It's an innumerable mass of broken hearts, unsure but drawn in by the mysticism in this urge to sing it. The lyrics are unclear but the message in unmistakable. Jehovah Shammah. God is there. The anxiety is gone because this tune reassures us. Yes, He's the Prince of peace. Yes, He's the King of kings. Yes, he reigns from everlasting to everlasting, but the real peace is because God is there.

Not hiding in the cosmos, all powerful and unattainable. But right here. 

The vision is a ways off from being realized. Not because our God, the God of our heroes and the God of our reparations, isn't there. But because so many people don't know it. They still have the unexplainable urge to sing that tune, but they haven't seen it's inspiration yet. I get excited when i think about my vision. Then when i open my eyes and see where we are in relation to that reality, i know we've got our work cut out for us. But Jehovah Shammah.

How Do We Get Clean?

More specifically; how do I get clean? How do I move on from something that so much was invested in without reeking of it still. When my hands feel like they're caked in remnants of what they've torn apart - heavy and useless.

I've developed a habit of people watching. Creepy? You do it too. 

But what i learned tonight sitting and the local Cigar Club, a few hours before my set started and people i knew started to show up, was strange. You see normally these revelations are suppose to be had while gazing at the stars like an emo kid, or standing at the edge of the Grand Canyon or one of the worlds many other wonders. Not in a dim-lit smokey bar lined with dark red leather and mahogany chairs. But still, i sat watching the people that walked in, and listened like a Private I to their conversations that seemed so petty and far removed from ME and MY world. You see, my advice to any of them would've been "get over it". "This is such a small loss an petty chapter of your life".

Advice I'm slow to follow.

But why? Why should i be? Why is it so much harder for me to wash this mess off of my hands? Because i don't want to. The question i keep asking myself is "How do we get clean again when it's more than a memory?" And the answer that kicked me in the teeth tonight was honestly not startling. More annoying, because i know it's been there this whole time and i know that i saw it a long time ago. I just don't like it because it puts the blame on me. 

This won't leave me because i won't stop carrying it with me incessantly. 

I can't wash my hands of the stain because i keep rubbing them in it. I can't get this scent off of my mind because it's all i want to remember. So how do we get clean? We set it down, walk away and wash our hands. Clean. Ready to be immersed in the next mess. Hopefully the next will be a stain that we can live with peacefully and happily for the rest of our lives here, and a fragrance that we're dying to wake up to every morning that we wake up and breathe out the name of our creator. Though reluctantly it may be.

So i actually get up from my chair. I leave my things there with my new unsuspecting "observ-ees". I go to the bathroom and actually wash my hands. Not because they needed it, but because i did. And i kid you not, they feel lighter. Less cumbersome. Ready to be made of use.

The same... but not at all...

"So sit me in the pouring rain, i'll listen to the beat if it will keep me sane. Anything to drown the sound 'cause every mile screams, afraid that we'll wake up before we find our dream. Let the cynics say that we have lost our minds we won't come down until our hearts are satisfied."

-The Vinyl Affair

The 2nd verse of a tune i wrote about 2 1/2 years ago. See I'm working on a new project, "The Sun is Screaming", and in rearranging an acoustic version of this song i got this really weird feeling. Originally it was about a unique experience and relationship. By the time we got around to recording it that relationship changed significantly and was at the brink of failure. 

It failed. But we move on.

And now that i'm re-recording an acoustic version of this song i'm finding that, a year and a half and one more relationship later, i'm the exact same spot... but not at all. Make sense? It was a really weird feeling. Accurate i guess. Because like my situation, the song is the same, but it's changed significantly over time through perspective and experience. 

The same song, but a completely different sound. The same season, but a totally different spin. I think i'm starting to see the cycles that life comes in and hopefully understand it's twists. But if there's anything i've learned as of yet, it's to not try and wrap mind mind around it. As soon i let that impulse go, it plays out perfectly - though maybe still painfully - right in front of me.

I hope you guys digg the new stuff. It's coming soon. I'll post the link to the original version and post the new one when it's ready.