Holden Village

It was like I had been reading the story of my life upside down. It took so long for things to make the sort of sense that is acceptable to the human mind. I worked hard for my purpose, to find reasons to justify my existence and actions.

And then I got to the Village.

Now I don't know what to say. As one of the director's said (and my mom reminded me) "It's not Shangri-La." I'm torn up that I cannot see the place that the electricity for my appliances comes from, the hands that prepare my food, the workers who take care of my plulmbing infrastructure. All of the sudden, I feel like I'm living a sort of robot cubicle world, that I'm disconnected again.

Even this, I'm aware that I'm just sending electrical impulses that will be translated into more electrical impulses so that people 10, 20, 50, 500, 1000 miles away can view these ideas. I never want to ride in a plane again, to travel at 500-600 miles per hour, to miss the journey that is so often said to mean more than the destination.

I felt grounded there and I now I feel cut loose, like I have to fight for peace again, live in paradox and absurdity. I loved Vespers every night and Eucharist every Sunday, even just the rhythm as much as the day. I used to fear the Eucharist as a longer service than normal but by the time I left, I had a gentle longing for it by the time Sunday arrived.

Bottom line is I have a compulsion in me that will either be killed alongside part of my morality, or will have to obeyed, resulting in welcome, difficult, and revolutionary changes. I mean, But very quiet revolutions.

I think the one bridge, dangerous and frightening, between my existence then and my existence now is living life as though I were on the verge of death. I can remember distinctly playing 4-5 times a day as though I was going to die in the next 3 seconds. Everything over. It has many roots and my experience with it has been beautiful, but also difficult.

I may try to chronicle my experience, but no selection or grouping of words can do that experience justice.

Kyrie Eleison, Christe Eleison.

Christmas?

So let me do a little recap of xmas articles I've seen in the last few days:

1) Santa-on-a-cross

2) We wish you a minimalist Christmas

3) No use for Yule

Gotta say, overall I'm pretty happy.

In Tim news, in the midst of a discussion with my mom about why exactly I had spent 544.5$ on a Playstation 3 after I had failed two of my classes in part due to video games (not quite like it sounds, but definitely just as awkward/defensive) somehow we got to talking about what I was like as a child which yielded this story:

When I was about 4, because we were still living in Seattle my mom was telling me the story of the Israelites' Exodus from Egypt, specifically the bit about the Red Sea. I can remember thinking that it was all well and good that it was opened up for them or whatever. But then, apparently, she told me the part about God closing the sea on Pharoah's army. I guess I looked up at her and said, in all seriousness, "That naughty, naughty God".

Substitution

I've felt a lot of lonliness this semester, maybe this college career. It has resulted (predictably) in reflection on lonliness.


I love how angsty this gets.

There is this paradox. People have spoken of feeling alone when they are surrounded by people, at a party or workplace por ejemplo. And this experience is certainly not foreign to me. I think that feeling can be named 'alone'. What I've been experiencing is almost the exact opposite. When I'm completely alone, when walk up the stairs, returning to a cold room with not even the traces of company, it's in those moments that I become aware of this closeness to someone. When no one is around, that is when I believe, when it's true, when I feel more tangibly than anything the presence of someone I love. My imagination plays a role, of course. That's probably why this person is most often a woman. Which sheds light on another interesting side: waiting. Because after I've settled in my room and it's clear no one is actually here, I usually engage in this sort of active waiting, or preparation. I do work, mostly. But it is always this attitude that this whoever could come walking in at any moment. And there's two layers to it: the first is the obviously longterm one, that this presence I feel or expect to feel is just the deepseated desire for one other human being that, in the word's of a friend, I would "do passionately and often". And no mom, that most certainly would not be the extent of the relationship (but if I have anything to say about it, it'd be a factor for darn certain). The second kind of waiting is that although I'd be far from bored or disengaged, when that person arrived, you could bet cash money just about everything except for them would be the farthest thing from my mind. That's the second kind of waiting.



Of course, there is no physical presence. I mean that's the whole point of this message.

In place of sharing kisses and conversation with my lover, I heave a sigh to my God. And it feels good.

Rent-a-Rower: Uncommon Projects

Last weekend, I got to ride in an elevator just shy of 100 years old, built in 1908. It's the oldest elevator in Tacoma. At that time I was helping a church move their organ out of storage. So we moved all of those pieces, saw cotton/canvas insulated wired that powers the bellows and stops from the console. It took about 5 hours. The organ is going to take about a year and a half to construct, apparently.

3 months = 1 Sentence

My thoughts are like clounds: big, beautiful, and complex but more than anything, fleeting.

SEX

This post was originally removed. I've put it back in for various reasons, but mostly because the main reason I removed it was that I was told most girls who read this would be totally scared away from me. OK, fine. Well, then they ought to be scared because with it's on the outside or the inside, this is a part of me or at least part of my history.

So here it is:

There is a lot of sexual relief in homosexuality for me.

I'm terrible aware that I desire orgasm, especially shared orgasm.

But even more so in a child-like, confused way, I am aware that if my pink intersects with a female pink, I will drown in pleasure and we will fuse together. My mind tells me that if my heart is pure, the best (but not necessarily) result would be conception and a child.

While I just described a joyful event, for many people very much including myself, the reality is terrifying, implying some darkness, a crazy spiral.

I don't know what to do. I mean really, thanks whomever. Here I am, almost 21 and utterly frustrated. Where are the boundaries? NO ONE has ever told me what sex is. Everyone in my life has parted with advice about general lifestyle, beautiful wisdom like a flower parts with its petals. Not so with sex. It's scary.


I have been taught and there are inconceivably elegant books written about some of the most intimate details of something as majestic as the universe. I can express in staggeringly accurate terms some fundamentals of launching a mass into orbit 270 km above the earths surface. I know what some stars are made of. Heck, I just found out that the sun rotates about every month. Whats more, the area at the equator rotates faster than the poles. That is fundamental and extremely mysterious, but we drink in details.

Well I have the same thirst about sex. Surprise. And ya know, the best part is, I probably wouldn't be making such a big deal about it if so many people weren't so afraid of it. Funny right? When a lot of people get scared of something, no one talks about it and when someone does, everyone else gets more scared. Oh wait, am I a Christian? Is one of God's most oft repeated commandants (granted "born again's" it is in that nasty Old Testament) "Do not be afraid".

I mean, chuck theology out the window. Actually bring it back in, I want to make a quick comparison. So the way we have things set up is this: Philo-sophy and Theo-logy, that is the love of wisdom and the study of God. Granted, both of those are positive things. But, even though wisdom is portrayed as a person (a woman more specifically, but I won't get into that) God is actually something personal. I mean, going back to chucking theology out the window, if God is a spiritual or super spiritual being or some psychological construct, people find personal relief in the divine. WISDOM ISN'T PERSONAL, SO WHY WOULD WE LOVE IT AND STUDY THAT WHICH IS PERSONAL? Anyway, disregarding most of the nature of God, any divine being that commands/asks us not to fear has got something going on. I mean if anything asks anyone not to act out of fear, its a pretty safe bet that they are trustworthy.

So I dunno, right? I'm a little confused. Maybe we should be afraid of a person that didn't have a physical penis and now does have one. Like they are a threat. To us. Like we should fear them. Like Jesus tells us to.

I mean, if we're going to talk about changing our bodies, I would much rather sit on my soon-to-be-obese ass, using my imminently-atrophied muscles to change channels on a television, watching a majority of programming designed to lie to me just enough to spend my money on shit I've never need and would probably just contribute to my decline than get a vagina where I didn't have one before. Much better to be out of shape than to get a sex change right?

I'd apologize if I hadn't thought about this so much or wasn't so darn pissed off. Actually, more than anything, I might as well just claim responsibility for my own sexual ignorance and frustration right? Can't blame anyone but myself for a personal lack of exploration.

This is the message that had been in the place of this message.

"So I removed this because my mom asked me to and I respect her.

She said that it "reflected sex as an experience and not an expression". I agree with her that sex is not just something to do, that it is a piece of a healthy relationship.

If you want to read the original post, as it is a valid record of my thoughts and feelings at one point in time, feel free to email me at timjpost@gmail.com.

I may be re-posting it again, after I have re-read/modified the post, or maybe after I actually have sex. No guarnatees."

Three Homes

I am realizing that I'm growing up. Someway. I understand that I need to put effort into it, that I have to be some sort of self-propelling being. In any action, if it is traced far enough back, it ends at my self motivation.

Thats all I have to say about growing up except that sometimes I do propel myself and sometimes I don't. This is a difficult existence. I need God in me.

I had that thought as I considered my 3 homes and two families. I intended to write this back in August, so now it is more like I have one home for each family. Even so, the time and care I invested in the house I lived at made it a home certainly and I cared about it.

It is strange having three homes. I think mostly, we either have one home or everywhere and anywhere is a home. And I find so much in each one, I certainly don't need all of them, I find overlapping advantages everywhere. But each of them has or had their own certain trait, a mood or even just a level of order or purpose.

Very much, it makes me want to build my own, to be responsible and a master. Heck I'd like to simply be responsible.