Fire After Winter - A FireCarrier's Moment

Survive the winter, the flood, the rain and everything else that kills fire, that ends a flicker and cools a burn. Congratulations to those who survived, even with fragments and pieces that correspond to life when put together at the joints. You are alive. At least, by the doctor’s assessment, you are still pumping blood and performing the minimum functions required of a human being.

Say “good morning” to the sun. It’s 36 degrees Centigrade and a sweaty oven outdoors. Would you rather burn out in the field or die of gradual suffocation inside a sunless coffin? Options hardly give you an easy way out.

I switched on some video and found a sound that sounded like me before there was snow and rain… before the floods drenched all wood and made it impossible for them to catch fire. He was singing my song, my anthem, my purpose. He is alive. And not by doctor’s standards but by virtue of the purpose for which he breathed and pumped oxygen and blood.

Life can be likened to when your heart pumps a hybrid of fire and plasma. If blood flows through your veins, let it carry fire back into your heart. As hot as the sun’s rays feel against your checks, so is the fire that wants to invade you. When you close your eyes and feel but nothing, remember a song that made you gasp for air, because it reminded you of the fact that you are barely breathing. A mediocre breath on a mediocre day is a mediocre life. Many of us are entangled in these.

I am walking on concrete and playing it safe. I am embracing my pillow as I wave my sword. I am lured by comfort as much as I am excited by war. And so I stay in the middle and hope life sweeps me off my feet. I need you to remind me that I was made to burn and not fade away.

Forget the trophies, the laurels and the luxuries. Forget the scars and endure the healing wounds. Your cause has not forgotten you. It has always remained right there, waiting for you to pick it up. Or so I would remind myself… because I was not made to pump blood. I was created to cary fire in my bones.

Written by Riza Olaguer 

There hath not failed one word of all His good promise

Oh for the faith that does not make haste, but waits patiently for the Lord, waits for the explanation that shall come in the end, at the revelation of Jesus Christ! When did God take anything from a man, without giving him manifold more in return? Suppose that the return had not been made immediately manifest, what then? Is today the limit of God's working time? Has He no provinces beyond this little world? Does the door of the grave open upon nothing but infinite darkness and eternal silence? 

How Do We Respond to Miley Cyrus' VMA Performance?

Here are some of the Christian Bloggers' post on how to respond to Miley Cyrus' VMA Performance.. 

Trevin Wax, in his blog on the Gospel Coalition, said he was initially shocked, then sickened, then saddened by the news report on Miley's performance. "What kind of people are we?" he wrote. "What kind of culture have we created? What do we want our children to be?" Wax said he pondered those questions for the rest of the day. But then, he said, "no more wondering. Tonight, I weep. ... I weep for the lostness of a girl who doesn't see herself stumbling around in the dark. I weep for the news channels that profit from their all-day coverage of a young woman spiraling out of control. ... I weep for an entertainment culture that celebrates the breaking of every social taboo and the casting off of every restraint, only then to turn and mock the stars that follow suit. ... I weep for women enslaved by a false view of sexual liberation. I weep for men (myself included) who have failed to say, 'Enough is enough.' ... I weep for the broken, messed-up world we live in. But then I weep at the power of grace. There's Jesus, lifting the head of a woman of the night and sending her away into the light. There's Jesus in a crowd, healing a woman desperately trying to cover the shame. There's Jesus at the well, transforming a woman tossed aside by multiple men. Weeping is no longer enough. Now, I pray."

Brant Hansen, in his blog on Air1 Radio's website, states: "I'd like to apologize to Miley Cyrus on behalf of all adults." Why? "Adults are supposed to protect young people. Adults are supposed to refuse to treat young people like little gods, put them on pedestals, and parade them on stages. But adults do it, anyway, and our culture is just dumb, and just numb, enough to act like it's perfectly normal. Turns out, as we've always known, celebrity messes with people's heads, particularly the young. ... Kids don't need more kids. They know plenty of them. Kids need adults, actual adults, adults adult enough to reject a culture that is so bored, so dead, that it can only feel alive if given one more jolt, one more shock. And it's hard to shock, anymore, but Miley hit that mark. ... Adults aren't supposed to make kids into celebrities. We're not supposed to let kids just 'follow their dreams' without regard to how foolishly tragic said dreams might be. We're supposed to step in."

"How do we help Miley?" asks author and blogger Annie Downs. "We speak love to her. I know, I know. You're mad that your teen sister or young daughter was exposed to that behavior! and where is culture going? and am I defending her? and aren't I grossed out by what I saw? and isn't she crazy? and why am I not expressing pure outrage because I'm a teen Christian author? I know. But in my heart, I don't feel outrage. I'm very sad for her. ... While today's headlines are tearing her to shreds, we as Christians HAVE to sound different than the world. We HAVE to yell a different chant in her direction about how God made her on purpose and how she is valuable because of WHO she is, not WHAT she does. I'm not saying we ignore the influence she is having, but if we want to help her ... then we have to look at her with eyes of compassion and have our words sound from there." 

Bottomline: Compassion! Repost from Crosswalk 

Be Still thy Soul

Be still, sad soul! lift thou no passionate cry,

But spread the desert of thy being bare

To the full searching of the All-seeing eye;

Wait! and through dark misgiving, black despair,

God will come down in pity, and fill the dry

Dead place with light, and life, and vernal air.

--J. C. Shairp

The man in the corner

Sa isang sulok sya ay mapapansin 
Munting mamang dala ang kanyang awitin 
Mga madla ay madali lamang sya lampasan 
Muntikan ko na ring di mamasdan 
Mga mata na puno ng pagasa 
Habang kinakanta 
"Diyos ay Pagibig" 
Ikaw ba ay naniniwala?

A way to vent out

Tonight I could use an old piano to tell my stories.
If I can play, I'd hit the chords and notes and allow my fingers to express how I really feel.
The black keys will tell of my low moments and the white will tell of the happy ones (at least the happy ones are greater).

Yet here I am, expressing
Typing myself away with a keyboard not the electronic type of Piano but that of an iPad.
This lil frame that I carried with me became my companion and witness.
If it could talk, it will tell you stories of how I wake up,
how I respond
how I rush
how I procrastinate

How I smile
How I look up
How I pray

How I whisper
How I plead
How I exist

If it will
It can

And maybe if I also will
I can