NEW BLOG SITE

To all who've read my blog and wish to continue doing so:

I've switched to WordPress, and therefore my new domain will be nateforte.wordpress.com

Cycles

Rain falls, flowers grow, flowers release seeds, seeds fall and plant, rain falls, those seeds grow,  LIFE GOES ON.

I slip up, I get frustrated, I get pissed, I get sad, I get confused, I get emotional, I get better, I DO IT AGAIN.

Why must I think life is about ending this cycle?

MY LAST POST had something to do with the questioning of refinement, and here right before my eyes, a foundational truth since before birth, shows that the cycle of life is a good enough refinement. 

All I have to do is live life, and I'm bound to be refined. 

God. 

_____

Tonight, I feel strange…

I feel myself drifting, to a place I can’t explain, to  a place distant; a place where I only go when things are awry.  Life in prior times has been altered, and life in present times has been something I fight.

 

I once was told I was going to ‘be somebody’. I hate that.

I want to blend in in a cultural sense. Although my quirky demeanor may cause people to look at me funny, and my often mis-matched clothes may draw attention, I do not want to stand out in areas of character; of my integrity, my work ethic, my self-ish/less attitude.

I want to be like everyone else, because when you’re like everyone else, nobody will hold you responsible for more than an average amount of work, or amount of thanks, or blame, etc.

I long to be like everyone else, because a self-rejecting part of me tells me I’m nobody, and because a part of me, often called common sense (although personally despised) tells me I won’t have to do as much, or deal with as much if I’m just another ordinary Joe.

 

Some may promptly right me off, by saying that with the acknowledgment of Christ’s death on the cross, and his latter resurrection I am not ordinary, I am enlightened, or blessed, or whatever other prescription Christian lingo you can think of- as if calling you Christian is a prescription for some inexplicable yet so easily deniable need to be different/special/personal.  But the acknowledgment of Christ’s divine love for me gives me little more than an opportunity to learn more or to brag of my recognition of His sacrifice.

 

In order to actually be someone different, I have to become soluble with the person(s) of Christ. I have to let Him move me and mold me and melt me. I have to become nothing short of fully saturated in His love, and in His longing for me to grow through the ever so uncomfortable process of being refined.

 

I don’t want to be refined. I don’t want to melt. To mold. To be moved. I don’t want to be affected by something so often described as all powerful, all knowing, all existing,  and all everything. That whole idea, of God being everything, scares me. I don’t like it. Maybe if I was living a purer life, I would love it, but as I am not at one of my finer times in life, I hate it. 

 

I know that there are few if any things more wonderful than laying prostrate before the God of everything expressing love and gratitude with an innocent and holy heart first hand, yet I also know how incredibly terrible it is to do that without the innocence and holiness one should bring with him when worshiping Christ.

 

I ask for forgiveness but surely words can’t clean my mind, my heart, my soul.  

Ramblings

I have become some strange compilation of artist, author, entrepreneur, economist, and socialist recently. 

With my 'free schedule' I have been reading the New York Times, and The Boston Globe as well as Kiplingers Personal Finance, The Economist, and Entrepreneur magazines. I feel the most cognoscente I ever have regarding foreign affairs, the economy, and the most broadcasted presidential election.

With this time to fill as I see fit, there is room for cognitive expansion, and for cerebral atrophy. 

Politics are figments of government. 

Loneliness

So it starts. Friends have left. Family has gone back to work and routine life.
I sit at my desk. Waiting for calls about jobs, waiting for work to arise, waiting for travel plans to present themselves because I am too overwhelmed to create them.

As life is about creating and not searching so shall my year be. One of creation, not of a familiar stagnation.

I have been less than admirable in the context of God.
Admirable in the context of working hard.
Confused in the context of staying Focused.

To relax I drink Yogi Teas and listen to Joana Neuson.
To stay at peace with life, I work out.
To not explode with frustration from living with my family, I serve them.
To stay close to friends, I call them.
To grow with my relationship with God, I Put my Bible on my bookshelf...?

I do things so right so often, but without the main component and creator of life;God.
I believe that nothing is complete unless it involves God, so is all the hard work I'm doing really good? Or really admirable if I do it out of selfish ambition?
Who knows.


Time to order 'hole in the wall chinese' with pete.

Gap Year

After much deliberation and cognitive constipation I decided to take a gap year- a year to work, travel, do whatever, or do nothing at all.

Wish me luck.

Texting queen. Only seventeen.

"I think God speaks in a method like text messaging.He sends us messages and sometimes they get lost in the airwaves,And sometimes they get opened and never readSometimes they get read and never thought aboutAnd sometimes He sends them from a number we don’t recognize, so we ignore them.How we understand those messages is by opening the phone, going into the inbox and reading through the messages we haven’t read before.We must search for the reason or purpose in the message.We can’t disregard any message because that might be the one that has the words we need to hear.We need to take every word for what it says at face value, and then at a deeper level.It is time for us to start purposely searching for what he is sayingHe is god and he has a good heart to help His childrenIt is foolish to think he wouldn’t make himself available to us"-Me