Scarlet Moon

Blood sprayed on your porcelain face

Broken promises and ripped up lace

Watching over the world below

As friends and countrymen turn to foe

The streets run red from what divides

And disaster presses from every side

Safety fleas from hearth & home

Love forgotten from The Holy Tome

You with us in concert wait

For us to reach our final fate

Freed at last from groaning pain

Washed by blood not shed in vain

My Love Will Last

(Serious attempt at a poem based on a cheesy song)

After the light falls from the sky
And the world's truth is revealed as a lie
While the mannequins walk away
And all our sins are plain as day
My love will last until I die

After all regard for life is lost
And the souls of the masses are covered in frost
While my vision blurs in terror's haze
And my dreams are cast in a funeral blaze
My love will last at any cost

When being true is a deadly crime
And the call of sweet darkness is sublime
While my safety means a slow decay
And smog chokes out the sun's last ray
My love will last in shadow's time

Until all memory of peace has faded
And hearts of the leaders are fully jaded
While breaking ourselves to prove we're the same
And donning lies at the cost of our name
My love will last unaided

Until nothing of happiness remains
And even the resistance is slapped in chains
While facing the fire and deaths embrace
With you next to me I can finish the race
My love will last through all strains

Writer's Block

I have writer's block. Either I stare at the screen and nothing comes to mind or I write then delete because it feels forced. It sucks, I want to write, but nothing. That is all for now. Hopefully write to you all later.

Broken

Darkness fills this world to the seems

Nightmares are no longer the thing of dreams

The pain that it causes runs so deep

It looks like all light, away, has seeped

Each day more die for worthless pursuits

Hoping that violence will produce lasting fruits

Bullets rain down and hate takes wing

And we all start to learn why the caged bird sings

The lies we believe choke our reality

Isolating ourselves causing collective depravity

Broken people crumbling to dust

Consumed by gods of pride, envy, and lust

Hope is fleeing from terrors of the night

Looking for relief, but finding poisoned light

Vanguards killing those they protect

From labors of life and love they defect

Knees bloody and broken from hallow prayers

Seeking freedom from worldly affairs 

Beat down to the point of utter desperation 

But this total surrender might prevent damnation

A guide wading to us through the mire

Voice of rushing water, eye of fire

The darkness burns within his gaze

My tounge can't help but utter his praise

The blood he gave will give us life

Eternatly secure, but filled with strife

The flesh still writhes against my soul

But I know I am destined to be whole

Dear Anxiety,

Dear Anxiety,

     I have thought about what I would say to you if could for quite some time. Many times it is just a string of expletives, but that is when you have me by the throat. It's those moments that my feelings are a mixture of fear and hatred. When I am able to hold you off though its more curiosity. You are the greatest mystery in my life. You are the constant unknown and the reason that planning is hard. It may seem weird to be writing to you, to an idea. To me, however, you are much more. I can see you and you look like me. Not entirely, though, you have dark circles under your bloodshot eyes. Your hair stands on end like mine does when I run my fingers through it too much. You seem to tower over me, but your back bent like you carry the weight of a thousand people's worries. You mumble constantly spinning tales of horrible possibilities and you don't seem to have a grasp on reality. At times you are as imposing as a mountain, but sometimes weaker than a gust of wind.

     Maybe you don't understand what you do to me, maybe its just part of who you are. Let me tell you about the hell that you have put me through. I can have plans with friends, plans I am excited for with friends whom I love and you ruin them. You make me questions everything. Will there be too many people? Will there be too few? Will I hate it? And these are the benign ones. The terrible ones are more like this. Do my friends want me there? Do they even like me? Do I even matter? Before long there aren't even questions anymore just terrible thoughts and pictures in my head. I start to lose my grip on reality. I start to hyperventilate. I feel like the world is crashing in around me. I feel weak and dizzy. You ruin my plans because I can't do anything after that.

     You make school so challenging. I will try doing an assignment that I am more than capable of doing well, but you take one stray thought and run with it. It starts with questioning one tiny part of my assignment, but then you make me questions if I can really do this assignment at all. You make me question if I am just faking it. I ask if I should really be in grad school at all. Then you convince me that I will never be qualified to finish. That I will never have a successful life. That I will be a disappointment to my family and friends. That I will fail at life. When it all comes at once, another panic attack grips me. And the worst part is I know that you are lying. I know I shouldn't believe you, but the hold that you have takes over.

     This is only the tip of the iceberg, you can ruin any situation and make me look like a freak that can't function. You can keep me up all night freaked out about the way I said an off-handed comment. You make life harder to live. I want to understand how you do this, it makes no sense. You are like the doorway to doubt and worry that I cannot close sometimes. If I could talk to you face to face I would ask you why. Why me? Why during the times when you are least welcome? I have realized though that you are misery and you long company. Though there are times that I cannot resist you, I am going to fight tooth and nail against you when I can.

     There are times when I can take you by the throat and stop you. Those times are few, but they happen more often all the time. For as big of a jackass as you are you are losing your effectiveness. And I will continue to do whatever I can to get rid of you for good. Not just that I am going to work to make sure that you leave others alone as well. No one wants you around, no one likes the way you make them feel. So not only am I going to work to undo the pain you inflict, I am actively going to work to destroy you. Wipe you from society. Make you nothing more than a faint memory in the minds of those liberated from your hold.

     I will win. You will lose. This is a termination of our relationship. Don't come back.

Never yours again,

-Jared

Wanderer No More

Today I changed the name of my blog. To most this will seem insignificant. To me, it is a monumental change. Originally my blog was called Commissioned Wanderer. I picked this name because I loved the quote "Not all who wander are lost". While this is true, it wasn't for me. I was lost, I was drifting, I was hiding from any decision that would set me on a planned path again. I was in this position because I didn't think I was strong enough for another thing to fall through. I had been pushed to the breaking point and I had crumbled under the pressure. I was in a bad place.

And this is exactly where I needed to be. I though it was dark and I was drifting it was rock bottom and God used it to build me up better than before. Without this period of wandering, I would have probably continued in my life with a nominal faith, mildly depressed, and consumed with fears of the failure. Instead, my faith has been put to the test and I have a real personal relationship with the Creator of the universe. I have gone to counseling and learned how to fight my depression tooth and nail. And I embrace failure, this was the slowest coming, but I have learned that failure is simply a starting line for something new and better.

So still you might ask, why the name change? Well in the Bible, anytime that there was a great change in someone's life their name would be changed. Abram to Abraham, Jacob to Israel, Naomi to Mara, and Simon to Peter. You get the picture name changes were a big deal. While I thought about change my name from Jared to something else I decided the legal documents would be too extensive. And my blog name had much more relevance to how I saw myself than my given name.

I no longer want to wander. It was what I needed for a season, but it is no lifestyle. Do I want to live an adventurous life? Absolutely and I plan to, but I will also have direction. My current direction comes from Isaiah 61:1:

The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound.

God has laid it on my heart to bring the good news to the poor, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and open the prisons for those who are bound. God shows me daily how I can use what I am learning in Grad School to minister to people in these ways. I am excited to one day be a counselor and show people the good news of the Gospel and bind up the hearts that have been broken in this world. That is why I have changed the name to Commissioned Heart Binder. This is what I feel God is calling me to. This is my direction.

Amber and Rust

Nature's beauty, a sweet refrain
Soothing deep and lasting pain
The chains of life fall away
Color blooms from hues of grey

Ancient mountains, valleys, rivers
My heart from pride it delivers
Lofty heights ringed with mist
Where man and nature coexist

Walking among sentinel pines
My body and soul realign
Underfoot leaves of amber and rust
Dispelling anxiety with the lightest gust

Divinely wrought through wind and water
Able to see the mark of the Potter
Ravines that hold the coolness of dark
Flying free with the sparrow and lark

Rippling waves dancing in firelight
The choir of the moon eliciting delight
My spirit communes here with the Creator
Putting off lesser and seeking the greater