What we want to feel.

I can't quite see the face
Or understand a real embrace
but I know
that I want, for all I've met- and every one to be born yet
to never come home alone

I could find that I've lived my days, or chosen well beyond these phases
when in great age a man that is mine can look into my eyes, and say he truly loves me, past the borders of death and through all pain..

Could such words be earned?
Deserved?
For I have seen the light that grows when two friends decide, not to head home without one another to serve..

Even still beyond that strange yearning to be a part of something to escape the burning,
is the greater unspoken hope of being free of every rope- of moving, and spinning, and
living without restraint, of waking and singing and giving without aching taint,
to run into bursting luminescence amidst the land of the blessed..

And there He'll be, the man of dreams,
the source of the love you hope to live to be feeling,
The King of Kings and Lord of Lords
The one your heart yearns most to hear him whispering,
"I love you, and have loved you beyond the borders of death.." and bear for you, that He bought you with a price paid. In His arms the emptiness will wash away, the wondering, the agony, the things I wish you didn't have to face. They'll fade. You WILL be at peace. The test will be over; you'll sob in His shoulder..The Savior who atoned, will hold you closer than you've EVER known...

If nothing you yearn for is yours here...it isn't far, it is still near. Hear it, even if you can't inhale it..Live it, and you are still on your way to it. I know He understands it is hard to feel faith, when haunted by the fear when life seems stuck out of place.

"For those few moments in the eternal spectrum called mortality the Savior yielded to the mortal plight; he submitted to the inhumanity of man; his body longed for sleep; he hungered; he felt the pains of sickness. He was in all respects subject to every mortal failing experienced by the human family. Not once did he raise the shield of godhood in order to soften the blows. Not once did he don the bulletproof vest of divinity. That he also had godly powers did not make his suffering any less excruciating, any less poignant, or any less real. To the contrary, it is for this very reason that his suffering was more, not less, than his mortal counterparts could experience. He took upon him infinite suffering, but chose to defend with only mortal faculties, with but one exception - his godhood was summoned to hold off unconsciousness and death that would otherwise overpower a mere mortal when he reached his threshold of pain. For the Savior, however, there would be no such relief. His divinity would be called upon, not to immunize him from pain, but to enlarge the receptacle that would hold it. He simply brought a larger cup to hold the bitter drink."

Elder Tad R. Callister, The Infinite Atonement, 119

Legit Desires with Legit Outcomes

Put the sword to my throat, when my eyes water to crave, hold a light to my heart, when my soul sinks asunder and inane.. Propel electricity through my veins, to surge energy all my days. Take the noose from my brain and spark the soul's adulating case to the living and the passed away.. Throw explosive waves in my way when I head for the falter, let patience longer than day tame with a halter.. Command the depths of my rebellions to cease, and scourge every stain in flame until it couldn't have been born to decease.

A Parody Of Concept

A dreamy chamber raced before his eyes, the melody guiding participants of silk and open waist jackets to sway beneath a once opulent atmosphere. The place was wrapped within the iridiscent animal skin of a gigantean bubble, translucent pearls as stars painting the synchronized motions. Diamond speckled chandeliers hung between the glistening cornices, where the sleek Asian wax, dripping like frozen tears, had formed stalactites. The silk wallpaper had faded and in some places worn threadbare, revealing feathered planks which stacked upon high barriers of glass. Gloves of mummified crispy hands, clasped about for brief instances before the bodies would but wander- expressively in gesture, yet with absence of facial coherence. They were led by outer drives, inner prevalence diminished. A grand door waited up the stairs, but a pair of crystal bronze eyes caught his attention, the only blinking eyes present.

Dipping in and out of the contortionistic seeming-to-be sleep walkers the boy held onto the conscious gaze of the other, shoving and ducking through to get a closer look. He was swiftly sidetracked by a stunning young woman, unblinking like the rest, who was embraced in one of the many puppet's arms. In slow daunting motion her face turned all the way to his. With a wicked grin she mouthed, “You’re trapped..” before sailing past and assimilating amongst the group as if moving dead once more.

A strange ghost of fear made his color fade as he was swept into comfortable arms and off into the crowd. The warm, soft peach skin and easy breathing alerted him that this person was alive. He bowed his head and avoided eye contact. “Excuse me...” A shiver ran through his fingers as a strangely familiar hand smoothly clasped his and the other closed lightly around his shoulder. “I need  to..”  He glanced up.

"You cannot delight in yourself while trying to destroy yourself.." his rescuer observed liltingly. It was the person across the room, with the blinking eyes- now his shield- the man with the Top Hat which stretched a foot in dusty black palor, yet rested neatly over his well trimmed eyebrows.

"Is that what they have done? Is that why they do not blink like you or I?" The boy asked warily, "and what of-" his words caught up in his throat. The bodies around them continued to spin, reach, cripple, writhe, jack and tense like figurines in a deceptively alluring music box.. only united on occasion, for their various motions to suddenly contradict and sway them back into isolated oddity..  Yet again, with her long dress sweeping the floor the gorgeous terror that had spoken to him glided over bodies of fallen movers. A calm, predatory smile dancing on her lips.

"Pay no heed.." The top hat man chided, "They perpetuate but fail to increase, they persist but refuse to exist; they mirror and idealize and accomodate yet they can only clone those before them for so long, before their predessor falls- having been driven by the drives given, never steering from their  own source.. following the pathways previously arranged, but empty of aspiration or self prescribed goal.."

"Why does she say I am trapped?" the boy asked the Top Hat man. "What does she want with me- why is she the only one that speaks??"

The Top Hat man began to glide the boy across the floor- weaving in and out of the surrounders, as he answered, "Behind those who never questioned are the few who, such as that damsel, having sprouted gateways beyond their imaginations- slaughtered the guardkeepers and swallowed the keys, and rather than walking through to pursue the outskirts of reality, distorted what little reality was gained, entrapping those who but never desired to see a gateway in the first place, into their dysfunctional and limited existence.. it doesn't matter if she thinks she can keep you here, or if it were a he. They can choose to blink, these people- each one of them if  they but desire- But child, you are still blinking.. How much easier for you now to breach reality's borders..Don't look back.. You can become impenatrable like myself while still facing every external thrashing that attempts to anchor you down- and watching it flail with pity, as you conquer and burst upward relentlessly; you can move as they do, and be, yet.." He leaned in, his hands tightening on the boy's shoulders, his passion intensifying the volume of but a whisper, "with... something more.. something ever growing that they cannot take from you, for it is yours and yours alone..you only have the power to destroy or evolve yourself no matter how you are rated, raided or wasted..stoke the power..Are you ready to leave here?" He began pacing the boy to the corner of the room, the boy's eyes widening as they moved fasted and faster toward the only partition of the place that was not in decor- a painful looking cement wall. 

"Are we going to walk through that?!?" The boy exclaimed- only in an instant they were sprinting straight at it. "How can I think right with such a risk of thinking wrong- how do I know I am not falling prey with YOU to the very theory you have about these people!??" The woman clenched her fists and snarled, no longer following.

"You are ready to experience things that have never happened to you before! You sought after me before I came to you..it was your choice.." The Top Hat Man chuckled, his eyes wide with an enthusiasm that urged the boy's trust to emerge, as he roared, "you will learn.. over and over.. at increasing rates- there is so much more- things which you have never known and someones you have never known, through years beyond numbers you could ever number- BECAUSE HERE IT COMES!!!!!!"

-"Top Hat Hotel"

Physical miracle

There was once a man
whose life fell apart
and he went running- to run as far as he could, with the intent to run to death
He passed the breaking point
and collapsed into exhaustion
then woke up, furious that he was still alive
So the next night
he went out to run again
Only this time, he began to feel the joy of it.. the adrenaline, the perspective, the health..
and he ran and ran
and the following evening ran again, just to run.. because he now wanted to live.


There was once another man
whose wife left him, who went bankrupt, whose car flipped over and put him in the hospital with serious injuries, who didn't know if he could ever enter the work force again, much less support himself, and on top of that worried over his struggling son day after day..
but he started walking
he began to walk 15 miles daily
his life was pure chaos..
yet he was happy.
And one day, walking, he ran into a pair of sister missionaries.. and when we came over and the landlady
screamed at us- he protected us. He changed our lives. His very existence was inexplicably profound, no doubt the work of the Lord whom he already loved so much.. he was divinely led to the gospel of Jesus Christ.. and we had the privilege of seeing him enter the waters of baptism.


Exercise works.