Simple Green

Today I cleaned and waxed the car that my father and I share. Which means that I covered it in a bunch of weird thick substances that made it look like crap for a long period of time so that later on it can be beautiful, clean and better overall.

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If Jesus were born today, He might have been a car re-furbisher instead of a carpenter.

Reception

Tonight might be the first time I have actually felt a romance with God. My brother and I sat down together to eat late night clam chowder, and as things turned out we didn’t get up for another few hours. We talked about people we admire and things they said, and how a lot of this had to do with them being to-the-point people. They don’t waste time flirting with ribbony words or debate charade games. They want to know what is this really all about, and don’t leave room for the finite and trivial. We shared with each other how both of us have decided that the point for us is doing what God wants.

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What do you want to do when you grow up? is an unusual question because all we want, we said, is to follow God. It’s like if I were married and someone asked me where I wanted to live. With my wife. Such answers may frustrate people, but that answer is the only answer which, to me, addresses the point.

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We gossiped about God until our throats got dry, and about an hour and a half into it, I began to be excited. I was enjoying myself. We were sharing stories about Jesus and time stopped walking and had escaped into a radio flyer downhill with a homemade superman cape. It was like drinking wine at the funeral of a remarkable relative. One who we knew would have wanted it to be a party. One that we knew would end late, with good food and a warm breeze kicking through the rafters while we lit up oil lamps as the sun went down. Except that God was not dead.

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There was a time when stories of God would not interest me, and they certainly would not have billowed out of my own lips as if I were chatting about the new Jimmy Eat World album in high school. At one time, the Holy Spirit was about as interesting to me as Casper, but now I find myself here preferring to talk about what they’ve been doing together rather than girl issues or any other topic that is supposed to be “hot” or “normal.” There was a time when I’d be embarrassed to be amidst a quick prayer in a public restaurant, and that wasn’t so long ago, but here I’m posting this, to the internet. When we started treating God like a real person, it seemed like He started revealing his character like a real person. Maybe he’s been doing that all along and we just didn’t know how to listen. Tonight I found myself with a steadily warming chest, exhilarated.

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I’m not quite sure how this happened, but it would appear that I am in love.

Automobile…

…compensation.

(or something).

amalgams: a string of recent images.

Saturday shoes

Watch out buddy, that’s a lose step

Good talks in the fountain circle

And another under your belt.

Car accident on the 5. Let’s smile instead and see what happens.

Rabbit meat for sale. Wine sorbet. All the sounds of a farmers market.

Blueberries for lunch and nothing else.

Room on Fire for a discount price. All these books are older than my dead relatives.

Bomb level liquids in my carry-on. Nobody said a thing about the weight.

Touchdown turnaround. Japanese noodles. First hot meal in two and a half weeks.

Pumping in the island through pores in my soul.

One eleven every day.

Rain under early grey. I walk through my backyard with a camera. I walk through my backyard with a beauty detector.

We all try keeping creation for ourselves with these handheld machines.

It will never be enough.

Pores in our souls are not big enough.

My soul.

Is changing.

This place is so damn beautiful.

I want to learn these strangers’ amalgams.

Camera, it’s not your fault

It took me two years of being away from home to be shocked, truly awestruck, at it’s beauty.

There is a point in this magic freeway going from Hawaii Kai to Nu’uanu Valley where it bends over the hill and, right before it’s descent, you can see the entire city of Honolulu glowing in all it’s majesty in an almost panoramic view, the vantage point quickly fading as you race down the decline into lower ground, still able to catch the top halves of the skyscrapers of Oahu. The clouds were low tonight, and the sky gets black here, not like in Los Angeles where everything is shaded under a rusty pink glow even at 3 in the morning, but tonight the streetlights of the city hung like steamghosts in the clouds, casting an orange backdrop to the city, slowly fading into the indigo black above.

I cannot see the green mountains, or the horizon waterline tonight, but tomorrow, I’ll be able to again. There was a time when I doubted whether or not this was still my home. Maybe my home has moved, I thought. That three second highway view broke all my doubts. Any other place I live will simply be a long visit. The shards of my doubt will break smaller everyday by something new, or something old and re-beheld. This is a land which still brings forth beauty of a hundred kinds, even after so much has been taken from it. It gives it freely and bravely. I am a son of this land. I am trying to be a giver as well.

Literary Humor

My friends are intentionally funny:

And other people’s friends are unintentionally funny:

General error.

Summer diaspora. Everyone tries keeping their word of keeping in touch.
Kicked back America turns to online facebook profile page etcetera.
People need each other, and we are social beings, beings created for connection and relationship. The vast majority of us anyway. Maybe there are some who are not like that. If there are, I don’t know about them, and I suppose that makes sense.
We try to talk to each other when we are with each other to connect. Sometimes it works.
We fly and drive apart and then we try to connect again. Facebook, email, whatever. Sometimes it works but usually it doesn’t.
What facebook tries to be is a place where we can explore each other’s souls.
But we don’t even put up our whole souls online for people to find.
We don’t even say what we actually want to when we find what little of themselves people do put up.
The search for connection just goes on because we are actually really lonely people, and there is a game online which is like smoking relation cigarettes to placate the alone chemicals.
This is why it won’t really ever satisfy and why they will make us pay for it soon.
I wonder if the drug lords know what they are yet.
The next time you are in town, i will try my best to…
the next time i see you i will…
you…
i…
we will…
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In an empty house, I will learn how to pray. When the people come back, I will know how to pray in crowded rooms.
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Despite the above observation, my drug of choice currently is wall-to-walls. Because you can unearth past conversations and see what your past self thought was funny in the middle of mid-term week at 3 in the morning.

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(I just saw today that this blog has, apparently, broken a thousand views. Thanks for reading everyone. Most of those are my mom and brother. But I guess that’s great.)