I'm a sloth, you're a sloth, we're all sloth's, Hey!

Growing up Independent, Fundamental Baptist I heard very little about the 7 Deadly Sins, except in relation to Catholicism, which we were taught were anti-Christ Mary worshippers. But one cannot deny that the 7 sins listed in the 7 Deadly Sins are mentioned often in the Bible, and therefore one cannot deny the importance of recognizing these sins and abstaining from them as much as possible. I do not believe that Catholics are anti-Christ Mary worshippers, but I don't necessarily agree with the church as a whole. I do think their insistence on giving an understanding of these 7 sins that infect our lives in various ways is something to admire. Without knowing what a sin is we cannot know how to ask the Holy Spirit to help us to overcome said sin in as much as we can do so in this fallen world.

The list of sins, if you don't already know, is:
1. Lust
2. Gluttony
3. Greed
4. Sloth
5. Wrath
6. Envy
7. Pride

The thing I like about this list is that it encompasses something everyone struggles with in different capacities. I can say I have struggled with each one at certain points, pride mainly, but the others usually have stemmed from that. The thing I've always felt more guilty for struggling with because I never cared to try and fix it was my slothfulness. I can be a pretty lazy person. I know growing up I never woke up before noon if I didn't have to, and I still frequently sleep in, though not nearly as late. I could sit and watch TV or movies or noodle around on the internet for hours upon hours. I prefer to feed my mind than move my body. So it was interesting when I learned the true meaning, the original meaning behind slothfulness in terms of the 7 deadly sins.

In the Latin, sloth is translated as Acedia. It had various meanings, all surrounded by a general apathy, but the one the struck me the most was Dante Alighieri's (Author of The Divine Comedy- which includes Inferno). Dante believed it to not only be a general apathy towards life, but "the failure to love God with all one's heart, all one's mind and all one's soul."Dante's interpretation of this sin means we've misinterpreted sloth to simply mean couch potato, although that does play a part in it, it is a much deeper, much graver and of much more importance than simply getting off your ass and doing something. Dante is basically saying that slothfulness is our lack of seeking God.

Once I heard this I couldn't help but think about America and how this could be our most heinous sin. Yes America is full of pride and gluttony and a slew of the others, but it's more afraid of loving God and seeking Him. I am more afraid of that myself. So many Americans attend church, we're a very "religious" nation, but we go to church for ourselves, we go to church for the community, we go to church because it's societally expected or we grew up going or we think that makes us better people. It's all surface and no heart.

The problem is, we can't even talk about Acedia in America because it's offensive. I'm not saying that we need to "Bring God back to America" or anything. So many people think just because a teacher doesn't pray for the entire class at the beginning of the day or because the Bible isn't taught in public schools, that God has been taken out of America. These are outward things that honestly I feel we place too much importance on. People don't become Christians because they were forced to pray or forced to learn about the Bible, they become Christians because they realized they couldn't survive without God. Their desire for God outshined every other desire in their lives. We cannot legislate morality, we can only seek God for ourselves, and show people what has happened through our finding God and hope they can see that He loves them through what He has done for us and many others throughout history because we sought Him.

God is described in the Bible as a jealous God, and to some this comes across as a petty attribute to apply to God. But God's jealousy isn't like the jealousy of a teenage girl over her best friend dating the guy she has a crush on, or a boys jealousy over some other guy getting the starting spot on the football team. God's jealousy is that of a husband's who loves his wife with all his heart and only desires to give her what is best, give her all he can, and she cheats on him constantly. The jealousy isn't from the husband thinking, "she is mine, not yours, I own her!" but instead, he is hurt because he knows what he is offering her and it's so much more than these affairs. He is offering her a lifetime of love and commitment, or in God's case an eternity of love and commitment.

Acedia is offensive in our churches because we come to build ourselves up rather than build God up. People go to church and we learn what to do. We learn that you shouldn't do these things and you should do these other things. But do we learn to seek God? Can a desire to seek God be taught?

I believe when someone is truly seeking God, the other things come more naturally. This isn't to say one doesn't mess up and lose sight of their seeking God, but when someone is seeking God they aren't thinking lustfully or pridefully. When you're truly seeking God your thoughts are aligned on that.

In my life, whenever I have sought a girl, my mind can hardly think of anything else. This happened when I began to seek Tasha. She became all my mind could think about. There was something to that because before she entered my thoughts in such a way, I thought often about beating a certain video game, watching movies, hanging out with friends for the weekend, but once my heart was filled with love for her, I thought only about her. Every time I was doing any of those other things, I might have been enjoying them to a degree but there was always a peak I would reach to where I would be wondering how much more fun I would be having if I were with Tasha right now. We should do this very same thing with God. Seeking God doesn't mean you must become a monk and give your entire life to prayer, in fact, I think that is wasting a lot of what God would have you do for others. Seeking God, to me, means that in every other thing that you do, you always yearn for God. If our hearts are always set on God, we would more readily serve others because we would be thinking of God and we would realize that Christ would act a certain way in a certain situation and then go on to act that way. It's easier said than done, but that is why this is such an important thing to realize.

In thinking about Acedia I can't help but think about us Americans and how we have squandered the desire in our hearts to seek God. Seeking God would mean to serve others; we serve ourselves. How about we stop going to church to fill up ourselves and then going home to watch TV and never allow any life change to happen. You can keep your eyes clear of all the rated R movies, your ears clear of all the dirtiest rap music, your tongue clear of all the liquor and your mouth clear of all the dirty jokes you can but if you're not serving others you're not serving God and therefore being a sloth.

Let's kill the sloth in each of us and begin serving others as Christ served us. 

To Hell With It...

Guilt is a rope. I follow the rope, hoping it leads to somewhere. At the end of the rope is a noose called fear. I stick my head inside. I jump over the edge. Fear has won.

This is my life. I do this daily. When Paul wrote, "I die daily" I'm pretty sure he didn't mean suicide by way  of fear but that is my daily death. Fear is the savior I cling to. What has this savior given me? It has made me into nothing more than an asshole. Asshole is the only appropriate word that can describe it. Most other words aren't strong enough. When I think of the requirements of an asshole, I find in that the very thing I do with my life. This is why fear is bad, because it makes you do nothing but continue to acquire crap.

To hell with my fear! To hell with my guilt! Grace is the bed I'm sleeping in. Mercy is the water I'm bathing in. Hope is the air I'm breathing. Fear is a mistress I will no longer be sleeping with.

"Lord I believe, help my unbelief."

In Fyodor Dostoevsky's masterpiece The Brothers Karamazov he wrote, "It is not as a child that I believe and confess Jesus Christ. My hosanna is born of a furnace of doubt." I have lived that statement out the last few years. It seems I place it on myself, because I don't want to blindly accept something, especially something as big and important as God. I desire strong faith, but often when I see faith lived out without doubt I see it as a weakness, a deficiency in accounting for all possible alternatives. Sometimes we want so badly to believe in something that we don't really believe in anything, we believe in our belief. If looking at belief from this angle, can it be an idol? I guess it can, but I'm not sure i would categorize it as such. The closer I grow towards God, the more fearful I am of what or who exactly God is- yet I still find an irresistible comfort in my belief. 

Is it really such a weakness to believe wholeheartedly in something...anything? Is it Satan allowing me to maintain my doubt? Is it God? Is it rationality? Is it because of my upbringing, or because of my resentment for authority? I can't answer any of these questions, but I am afraid of my doubts. I fear them because in my imagination, they hinder me from fulfilling my purpose, from fulfilling who God has created me to be. 

Despite my doubts, I rely heavily on my faith. I have experiences that seem to prove God, but have doubts that it is only my intense desire to have God be real, and be who I believe He is. But God isn't who I believe He is. God is God. "I Am" is what He calls Himself. Yet, my fear is that we have misunderstood the simple complexity of that statement. It's a beautiful story. Father creates a perfect world for His children. Father gives children the ability to mess everything up, because He wants their love to be genuine. The ability to choose. The children really screw it all up. They are punished by their own selfishness. God desires to allow free will to continue. He sends a payment for the selfishness of His children. This payment is said to fulfill who accepts it as their own payment. Love. Restoration. Sacrifice. These are the elements of a beautiful story. 

These are the elements of a beautiful life as well. If I live a life of love; of restoration; of sacrifice, beautiful things happen. It can be argued that that is because God works that way, so life must. But it can also be argued that life works that way, so we've made God work the same way. I can't ever really say. 

In an effort to be right, I retain my doubt and my faith. I attempt to have them measured out equally, to keep myself in check at all times. I think this is healthy, in a sense, but has become unhealthy, because it has caused me to fear. Fear is the complete opposite of love. My life has been written by fear. Fear of everything. Failure. Other people. Myself. God. 

Throughout it all, there has been something pulling me, nudging me closer to a purpose. I call this nudging God. Or the Holy Spirit. This Easter, I intend to celebrate Christ's sacrifice on the cross. It's a lot of craziness that I believe, but sometimes, truth is crazy. I cannot sit down and systematically prove every detail of the Bible's truth, or every piece of minutia proving God's existence, but I can say that whatever is propelling me towards God, despite my unbelief, is something bigger than myself. Something bigger than my ego, my self conscious desire for there to be something out there holding the cosmos together. God is real. I said it. I have said it to myself a million times, always followed by an ellipsis and a question mark. 

Am I ignorant? Yes, completely and totally ignorant. But so is everyone else on the planet. I won't be so arrogant to hold my belief in the absolute Truth of God over anyone else's head. My belief holds just as much weight as theirs. That isn't some sort of wishy washy statement saying there is no truth. There's only so much we can know. We each have our faith. Belief in God always seems to bare the need for proof, while atheism is allowed to merely accuse. My doubt is slightly dwindling, but it has a long way to go. Like the boy in Matthew cried, "Lord I believe, help my unbelief."

It's The End of The World As We Know It, and No One Cares

With my thoughts and prayers on the recent natural disaster in Japan I can't help but be deeply saddened. This broken world is forcefully beaten in again. Sometimes I wonder if it can just end today, because it's only a matter of time before it happens to you and I. We try to stay safe but sooner or later the earthquake strikes and we look around and see those we love die before our eyes. It's tragedy. 

Why, then, is it so hard for us to relate? We are bombarded with these images of disaster daily. Hollywood makes money off of them, it's only a matter of time before a Haiti movie is released to critical acclaim. It'll probably star Don Cheadle. 

When I look at the cities and countries feeling devastation, I think, it's hard for us to relate because we are all our own cities. Each individual is a little city walking around. There are hurricanes and earthquakes happening in each of us. We can't see outside of our own city because we're trying to deal with the tragedy within each of us. The tragedy that bends and breaks our will. We must feel something to relate to something and this is the only way I can personally relate to those in Japan right now. Although they are facing outer unrest due to the tragedy caused to their country, each Japanese person is facing an inner unrest. 

Imagine, we're all walking down the street and the earth is shaking inside of us. The wind is destroying deep within us, and the waves are crashing down. 

I don't want to dwell on Japan or any other disaster ridden country (Haiti is nowhere near back to "normal"). I am my own disaster ridden country. I am my own city, flooded and desecrated. 

But I must realize that the only way out of the inner unrest, the inner brokenness; is to attempt to sacrifice my unrest for someone elses. Though the unrest in me is growing, that doesn't separate me from the entirety of humanity. My own disaster filled city is not an excuse. We like to dwell on our inner unrest but the only way to fix it is to step outside of it. 

My Steps In Faith part. 1

I grew up in church. I attended 3 separate independent, fundamental Baptist churches, and a Baptist school until about the age of 19. I had a lot of phases regarding church as a kid and teenager, but I never really let them out. I just had small changes of mind. I wasn't really even conscious of these changes at the time.

I remember being in Sunday school between the age of 5-7, I can't remember exactly what age. Anyway, our teacher was asking what we thought we might want to be when we grow up, and I told her I wanted to be a comedian. Now, at that age, I don't even know where I got the idea that I wanted to be a comedian. I remember watching Johnny Carson and Arsenio Hall with my dad, and that's the only place I can think of where I had ever seen a comedian, but that is what I wanted to be. Upon telling my teacher that, she told me I shouldn't just be a comedian; I need to be a "Christian" comedian. I remember being saddened by that.

The Baptist school I attended was about 20 minutes from my house in Blanchester, Ohio and one of my teachers, who also lived in Blanchester, would take me home after school every day. One such day, I was very excited because the ladies softball team at our church was set to play a game on their softball field. I sat in the back of his car and as soon as he entered I remember sitting on my hands to withhold my excitement. He then asked how my day was and I said, "good, but it'll be even better because I'll be back here tonight." "Tonight?" he replied, "What for?" "Well, my mom's softball team from church is playing on your field, so I get to come back here with her." At this point his wife inquired, "Will they be wearing pants when they play?" "Uh, yeah?" I said back in confusion. That was the end of that conversation.

I arrived home and a little later asked my mom when we were going to the game. She said we weren't because they didn't want women wearing pants playing on their field. Apparently the pastor had okay'd it but the members weren't happy with it, or at least this particular teacher. I wondered what I did wrong. Did they now think my mom was a bad person? Was I a bad person? I didn't understand what the deal was with the pants. I later learned that men and women are to be separate, woman wear skirts/dresses/culottes and men wear pants, but never shorts. It is okay for women and men to both wear t-shirts. It is okay for both men and women to wear hats. Basically, anything above the waste was neutral, but below the waste(where our naughty parts are) was where God needed to make the distinction.

As a teenager, the night I actually decided to accept this whole Jesus thing, in youth group, we were going over the reasons the Harry Potter series was bad. I wasn't really interested in the series at this time anyway, the whole thing didn't matter to me. I had been having a hell of an existential crisis and needed to have some sort of relief. I was literally dreaming of burning in hell. It consumed me. I would sleep in the living room or on my mom's bedroom floor out of fear. I was 14 years old.

Anyway, so we were discussing the Harry Potter series, and we never discussed the plot. We never discussed the deeper meanings. We simply discussed how J.K. Rowling uses occult imagery. If you know anything about literature, it is that authors are artists, and when they dream up a world, it doesn't matter what that means to our world, it is itself a separate universe. The battle of good versus evil, and the deeper subtexts are what we are to study. No one is reading Harry Potter and hoping to become a satanist, and I assure you, more people have probably read the Left Behind series and turned from God, than the Harry Potter series. At least Rowling doesn't bastardize the Bible by turning it into a disaster story for the entertainment of others. I digress...

In Sunday school, when I was deeply saddened, even at that young age I had a feeling that that was BS.

That same frame of mind falls into the debacle regarding the softball game. I knew then that it was BS, but I also knew that I was a kid and had very little knowledge of the Bible or truth, and these people seemed to have a firm grasp on it, so I was afraid of my doubts. I accepted it outwardly, and went on to worry for my moms salvation because she still wore pants.

It all comes back to image. That particular brand of Christianity isn't exactly tied to the Christian business market. It actually reverts itself to before that model even came into place. Gospel music and maybe Southern Gospel, are the only God-given songs we are allowed to sing or listen to. We must appear different. We mustn't see any film with cursing or sex in it(violence is okay of course). It's all a matter of the appearance. Let's change the outside first and then the heart can change later. That's not how true change works, and they aren't creating disciples, they are creating robots. All you have to do to survive at a church such as that is to learn the right language, dress and etiquette, and you'll be seen as "Holy, Holy, Holy".

The exact same thing goes for the Harry Potter thing. It isn't about thinking intellectually about the series, but instead, right when I see the cover, it doesn't look Christian, it looks like something from a demonic book. It's burning my eyes! Throw it in the fire! We harped on about how one character in the series said he was the age 665 a year before, which means his age at the time was 666, and God forbid we wait til the series is over to find out that character turns out to be bad.

Image, it's all that matters to most Christians, and I must say, that's much more reminiscent of the world outside of the church than if we were all just honest with each other. 

I'm struck by how the Bible isn't a collection of stories where people do the right thing, listen to good music, wear the appropriate clothing, and never make a mistake. The Bible is full of broken people, making mistakes and apologizing to God, turning from those mistakes and then doing amazing things and helping other broken people while still being broken themselves.

Do we think King David wasn't broken forever after committing adultery, murdering, lying, stealing, etc? We read through Psalms and see that David had deep, deep issues. He was constantly doubting God and praising God, sometimes in the same chapter. David was a man after God's own heart. Nowadays, he would be apostate.

Peter, the person Christ placed his church on, denied Christ 3 times on the night of Christ's death! This wasn't before he started following Christ, this was during his walk, and Peter does these types of things throughout the Bible, but because of his brokenness, he is so much more effective for Christ. He doesn't put up a front and say, "hey, I'm good, let me teach you, you sit back and learn and then start acting as I do." He is broken and through the books of Peter we see his brokenness, and his heart for Jesus and the people of Jesus.

The apostle Thomas doubted Jesus' Resurrection, even when told by the others that they had seen him. He said he wouldn't believe until he could touch the hole in his side. He reminds me of the doubts and struggles I have. Yes, when he finally does see Jesus, Jesus says he was blessed because he had seen, blessed more are those who haven't and still believe, but Thomas is the first person in the Bible to call Jesus "My Lord, my God". He refers to him as both. How much more deeply affected was Thomas than the other apostles who believed more easily? This isn't to say doubt is necessary for the Christian faith, but it is to say it shouldn't be condemned.

Let's leave the image for the Pharisees and show the world that we are broken, imperfect people who are simply seeking redemptive lives, seeking perfection but never reaching it in this life. When we accept that about ourselves, we no longer need image control.

So it goes...

I remember sitting there, the sand between my toes, staring out at the great expanse called the Pacific Ocean. The air was chilled, in that nighttime way, where you know the sun is the most hidden it's going to be. And this is, as cheesy as it sounds, the beginning of the rest of my life. 

So it goes, much like any beginning, I have my doubts. I analyze and criticize every inch of the situation, but cannot find a scapegoat. It's pathetic really. I am having the time of my life yet I have still let fear creep in and make itself a home in my heart.

This is the next step people take. They fall in love, get engaged and get married. They then have careers, make babies, raise their children and then grow old together. It's a beautiful cycle that many people go through, but only when it works out. When people tell the stories of this beautiful cycle, they leave out the hard parts. But these days, we all see them. Our parents aren't smiling all the time like they were on 1950's television. They argue, they cry, they ignore one another, they go to therapy, it doesn't work. 50% of marriages end in divorce.

So you have love on one side and fear on the other. Fear is a beast. I have been exercising my fear for as long as I can remember, so it's much bigger than love. In the classic film starring Robert Mitchum, Night Of The Hunter, he plays a pastor who has the word "love" tattooed on his right hand and "hate" tattooed on his left. When he notices a kid staring at his ink, he says:

 "Ah, little lad, you're staring at my fingers. Would you like me to tell you the little story of right-hand/left-hand? The story of good and evil? H-A-T-E! It was with this left hand that old brother Cain struck the blow that laid his brother low. L-O-V-E! You see these fingers, dear hearts? These fingers has veins that run straight to the soul of man. The right hand, friends, the hand of love. Now watch, and I'll show you the story of life. Those fingers, dear hearts, is always a-warring and a-tugging, one agin t'other. Now watch 'em! Old brother left hand, left hand he's a fighting, and it looks like love's a goner. But wait a minute! Hot dog, love's a winning! Yessirree! It's love that's won, and old left hand hate is down for the count!"

It's interesting how his character says that the right hand "has veins straight to the soul of man". When you get married you put the wedding ring on your left hand, because the ring finger has a vein that goes straight to your heart. I think the battle of love and hate is really a battle of love and fear, because hate is simply a product of fear. And love is attached to your soul, but fear is always right there, trying to take over your heart.

Staring out at the Pacific Ocean, I was watching boats a far off. They looked like fire burning at the edges of the earth. I imagined myself on the boat, coming upon the earth's edge and stopping right at the point where the boat would fall off. I go to the bow of the boat and look over...nothing. It is a vast abyss. I try to adjust my eyes to see if perhaps it's simply darkness that I might get used to and see just fine. But it never changes. The abyss is now staring back at me. We are caught in a moment of eternity. Both fearful of what might be if one of us entered the others world. 

This is love. Love is the unknown, and sometimes all we can do is stare at it, be afraid. We all know how to "act" in love, or how to "be" in love, but none of us really ever grasp the notion of true love. And this is why so many marriages end in divorce. We're all afraid of the edge of the earth. We're all becoming the abyss we stare into; an empty void of nothingness. 

This isn't to say that if you don't end your marriage you haven't succumb to the abyss. I do sometimes, and I'm trying not to. The abyss isn't real. The earth has no edge. We have nothing to fear yet it's what drives out actions, rather than love. Nice people are nice people often out of fear. Mean people are mean people often out of fear. People fall in love out of fear of being alone, and fall out of love out of fear of being stuck. 

Imagine if we were all honest with each other. Instead of saying "I love you" we would say "I fear you". 

After a year of marriage, we had burned on a cookie jar that we painted the verse I John 4:18, one of my favorites. This verse talks about the perfect love God has for us, and how that love should cast out any fear we have, but it also works in any type of love, if we're loving people the way God loves us. The verse says:

"There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love."

I scream to my crew to take the boat over the edge, and as I close my eyes, fearing for the instant we drop and disappear into nothingness, nothing happens. We continue moving as we did before. I look over the bow and see that we aren't over an edge, in fact, there wasn't an edge at all. 

So it goes....

I fear what I fear what I fear

"The worst sorrows in life are not in its losses and misfortune, but its fears.'
A.C. Benson


Some days I really just don't want to be me. Yeah, I am sure that comes across as some super sensitive 14 year old girl who doesn't get her way, but don't all of us have that in us from time to time? If we're really honest with ourselves, don't we all just have our days or weeks where we just want to get our way? Maybe it is just me, well, in addition to actual 14 year old girls, but I'm willing to go ahead and say that I have those feelings.

My brain is telling me not to say that because I have a hard enough time being a "man" as it is. I have very little body/facial hair, my voice isn't what one would categorize as manly(especially when it randomly cracks), I'm not really into hunting/guns/UFC/Action movies/cars/heavy metal...this could go on and on. I am pretty passive and laid back. The thing is, I'm okay with all of that. I don't think that I need some way to prove myself. So what if I cried like a baby during a film like Dead Man Walking? Is it really a big deal if I would rather spend a day at the mall than a day fixing a car or shooting a gun?

The thing is: no one has ever confronted me about my lack of manliness. I doubt anyone even knows that I cried during Dead Man Walking or Up. And now that you know, you probably are wondering why I am pondering on it. This isn't some way of me coming out of the closet as a film crier. It's more a question of my identity, and where I get it from.

We all seek to be seen in a certain light. Some of us are able to reach a level where we say, "This is who I am". But it's rare that a person truly has one of those euphoric moments. It's sad because I think an identity is a terrible thing to lose sleep over, and I don't technically lose sleep over my identity per say, but I do wonder about job's or things in my life, what should I get rid of? What should I keep in order to maintain the identity, or the me I want others to see, or at least think I am?

Part of my identity, and I am slowly realizing this about myself, is wrapped up in pretending I could care less about my identity. To a degree this is actually true. I can throw clothes on and not really care how "cool" I look as long as I'm comfortable, and it doesn't cause me to wonder what others are thinking of what I am wearing. But, at the same time, I have realized that I maintain a certain level of sameness throughout the years in order to not surprise people, so that way they aren't questioning my identity. I have had the same hairstyle(off and on) for most of my life. I still dress pretty much how I did in high school(plaid shirt and jeans FTW). It's all a matter of how I want to be perceived. I see the weakness in others(mainly women) who worry deeply about their dress when going out. The time it eats away. But what I don't realize is that my identity is no stronger than theirs. Mine is probably weaker. Mine is so weak, in fact, that I am living in fear. The fear that someone is going to call me out on my search for an identity.

My identity is me, but I am not my identity. 

Fear is something I live my life by. Love is nice. Faith is cool. Hope is sweet. Truth. Happiness. Friendship. All the things we read in Hallmark cards is what we would like to be defined by. I know I would. They are cheesy but we buy them in bundles and give them to each other because they represent what we want to be or say or do.

When FDR said we should "fear nothing but fear itself" he was speaking truth. Fear only leads to more fear. I just cannot detach myself from my fear. I have convinced myself of that. I have befriended fear. I have slept with fear. Made babies with fear, and fear and I are raising our little fear children as I type this. But that relationship with fear has made a shell out of me. I want to be an honest person but I am afraid to be. Whoever said "honesty is the best policy" probably never had any friends. It's hard to be truly honest and be loved. There are parts of us that are ours, and if we're honest with others, those parts of our self will no longer be our own.

We all like to say we're open books, but we aren't. We're sitting on the shelf, a little dusty, maybe we're opened up every now and then to remind ourselves that we are still alive, but we're never read in depth. We're medicated, obsessed, critical of others, and detached.

I am disgusted with myself when I think about the ways I have allowed fear to control my motives. In the bigger picture and the little picture. Fear has put out the fire and the passion in my heart to do anything. Almost every decision in my life was predicated by fear and even if I overcame the fear and made the decision, that's usually only because there was a greater fear outside of that.

My identity is made up of many things, some good, mostly bad. Here is the way I see myself in all honesty:

I am ugly, but only half the time.
I am fat, but mostly okay with it.
I am pale, and totally okay with it.
I lack discipline.
I lie every day.
I don't do enough.
I rarely do anything.
I have a lot of love and compassion for people.
I am a good writer...sometimes.
I think I am genuinely genuine(how's that for an adjective) 90% of the time and a completely false person 10% of the time..
I can be funny.
I need to be funny.
I have placed much of my identity in making others laugh and when they don't I feel like a failure.
I love playing music but I am terrible.
I want to impress people with knowledge I possess but don't want to seem as if I am trying to impress them...and I hate myself for admitting that.
I am a happy person 97% of the time and the other 3% I am incredibly depressed.
I doubt myself.
I doubt God.
I make myself my own god.
I have trust issues...not in a lack of trust, but in too much trust...except when it comes to politics or religion. I have lack of trust issues there, but for good reason.
I want to make everyone happy even people I hate.
I don't want to hate anyone, but sometimes I do...and it's probably you.
I like attention but I don't like to look like I like attention.
Most of my life is summed up in enjoying something but not wanting to seem as if I enjoy something because if someone knew I was enjoying said thing, they might think I am ridiculous.
I feel like my lack of mentioning God will make some people question my faith, but though I have my doubts I hold strong to my faith, and am becoming more reliant on it through my fear.
I said the that last thing because I was afraid of being judged.

There's so much more baggage of identity crisis that I carry but just cannot remember or bring myself to say. I know we all have this, we all carry it around, and we just don't have to. I'm trying to rid myself of it.