It is interesting that the category section of this blog does not allow one to hold a subject in the heart in more than one category. You see, my right now topic fits in so many different places. I toggled in between placing this subject and so many of my other subjects between rligion and spirituality and life or goals andwork and hopes. I believe that the conversation needs to come out from behind the walls of the "church" because the difference can only partly be made in the church. Who holds the keys of your life, of my life, is the questio that presses in on us, pinning us down so deep inside of ourselves and so many times right on the surfacewhere everyoe can see. The pain in this place called life is real and incredible and unexplainable when the pain isall up on us grinding and trying to achieve orgasm and climax. Yeah, that is real talk. Because life is real. Life works us until we hold nothingness, are nothingness and cannot even think ahead to lift our heads up again. Depression has been categorized more as a disease of the metal capacity than as a spiritual entity attacking he very fibers andstrands of our beings to collapse us, to make us have to lean with itand rock with it al the time. We are melted down in the spoons ofthis life and forced deadly into the veins of our neighbors that our eighbors may never again lift their hearts, open their hearts and minds to love us, we never think of loving our enemies because we just brush them off. I write o you and to myself of the tears thatI have not cried that have brought me to this day as a landfill of despair and hopelessness and insanity. I was showed a portrait of myself and my wife taken atanother part of our livestogether and the contrast between then and now was incredible. It is because of the tears thatI have not cried over these months. thinking that a man shuld not cry after a certain age, nah, not so much I don't think. Thinking that a man should stand up and step up to be a man, nah, not so much, but maybe some. THinking that I am the most important one around, nah, notso much,but a contributing factor definitely. I have not cried these tears because of all of these things yet also because I regret showing the same weakness over and over again. I mean it was cool when I could just classify it under well God said that I am to glory in my weaknesses because the power of CHrist and the power of God is made perfect there. But that was an ilusion tht the devil used to get me in a depression that walks with me every moment of every day. Thinking thatI am praising God with all that I am, but never really asking His formgiveness for my sins anymore. Just kind of walking it on out saying that the Lord is the source of my strength but not really knowing the parameters of that journey. I fear thatso many of the newer hip hop for CHrist artists are or will be facing this same line of testingand attack soon and very soon. Usinng Christ's name in a language set that is new and vibrant and hot and where the streets understand it is a glorious opportunity, yet it is also a dangerous reality. We had never, well, letme say it this way, I had never understood totally the cost of taking CHrist to the streets. For about two years I grinded , melted, hustled to take Christ to the streets in that street lingo. Now I don't claim to know all of every bit ofstreet lingo, but I knew sme and I do know that GOd holds us responsible for what we know. Reference the prabale of the talents. For so long, for a few years at tleast it seemed that I was on an island out here trying to lift up the name of JEsus CHrist to those who were wed smokers, addicts, drunks, pimps, prostitutes, divorced, battered, torn, pregnant and single, elderly and lonely, adolescent and hormoning, babies and not understaning enuff to care about ternal life and Jesus Dying on the cross for thier sins, family strifes and disciplines, wars with who I was and was not, all of this and the battle for supremacy still rages in me deep. Deeper than ever before. Believe it or not, admit it now or not, but your life has held some damage reports also that you have just put off looking at. So I was out there making tracts, printing booklets, selling poetry tipped with thatdeadly dose of blessing, you know enough to kill you. Blessings unprepared for will drain your life energy and humble you fast. I sit in a place where ther are suspicions of infidelity by so many, but God is to be praised. I sit here where there are uestions of Christ's relevance and of His place in my character. I have been told so many times thatI am a good husband, a god father, a good paw paw, but that sizzles me in a way and in ways so deep that I have not talked about it beyond just assuming the role for the time being. But I am here right now speaking to you about holding tears inside of you while thinking thateverything is going to be okay in the end. I hurtright now. Tensions rip and bulge in me and against me, pressing me and punking me down to accept that the control is not att all mine. I grow tired from the pursuits of the paper that all of me has felt and has begun recently to feel again is the key toa new life or at leasta newer portion of this life. I have felt that it is easy to upgrade the life, to renovate the now undesired portions of such a life and just add newness and niceties to spruce the place up and my soul still ches. For what I really cannot tell you right now att his moment for my tolerance to miningfrom my heart and from my mind and from my soul and from my spirit these things has me shuddering andthundering deep, deep inside. I feel the hurricane sirens blaring. I don't ant to say that aloud, buthe anger is fueled like a truck is fueled to drive to destinations and explode. I speak of no terroristactivity besides the reference being used to draw a picture in your mind and in your heart of the intense campaigns of pain and injustice batterning my sol, and my soul even right now. Walk smart, be smart, live praising. PEace and blessing from prophetisrael. PS. Cry those tears because those uncried tears can hold resentment and unforgivenes and hatred can grow from the bacteria present in stagnant waters. Tears are waters from broken cisterns.