Fukushima by Magnetic North (and Taiyo Na)

- TAIYO -
i remember 9-11 how my city cried for heaven
how people perished no matter what style of reverence
i remember tribeca buildings falling all day
missing people everywhere all the years of mourning
what made it worse was our leaders '05 you could see it
with katrina they didn't feel it they were just greedy greedy
just like fukushima good bad made clearer
it's salt to the wound when your leaders just leave ya
but that's when the lion's roar that's when you fight for more
that's when you figure out there're things worth dying for
it's only when the days dark you discover brave hearts
i know a girl from haiti motherless who has the same heart
my heart goes out to each and every one of you
children of the future will be greater because of you
i don't write songs for the fortune or a buzz or two
i write for my people hope you feel me love for you

- CHORUS -
i'll cross a stormy river
dig the deepest tunnel
build a bridge over
any length to love you
i'll bear any fate
carry it double
however much the stretch
i'll go any length to you

- THERESA -
i don't even know the half only seen the photographs
reporters telling stories from the view inside their cul de sacs
so i sat eyes glued thinking of your loneliness
choking back the tears and blinking back condolences
a lowly gift cuz your world is rearranging
on the train sat beside a girl with paper cranes and
she feels so ashamed cuz she'd rather send a benjamin
but maybe hope's the better currency for this millennium
life is but a dream but a dream is all we hope for
like the light you cannot stifle shining behind closed doors
like the song you shouldn't sing you sing until your throat's sore
like the love that never dies though life itself is so short
and your beauty is resilience
holding on to nothing but the fact you will rebuild again
and I know you will rebuild my friend
we'll go to any length no distance is too significant

[CHORUS]

- DEREK -
rebuilding is a struggle i feel it you feeling crumbled
your spirit's still recovering conflicted with god above us
have we been punished why what justifies suffering nothing
i see no reason for people to lose their homes from right under
maybe it's mother nature's way of saying we need a change
crusades of war and terrorism synonyms of the same
so filled with hate in our veins and racist youtube tirades
still makes me sick hot 97 played the tune on the waves
but i can't sit here in shame just hoping and praying
this ain't no dream within a dream there ain't no totem to save 'em
it's as real as it gets when you realize death
cuz when you lose someone you truly redefine strength
so i'll utilize this pen
my arms don't reach across the seas but songs move any length
any length to love you
rest and peace to all the fallen your strength is eternal

One Good Thing To Digest For My Birthday

(UPDATE: Follow her posts via this link)

Since this happens the day of my birth, feel free to support this lady in lieu of gifts and so forth. (Feel free to click on the blogathon pic on the sidebar as well):

Why am I reading this?

I am Twyla, I live in Saskatoon, SK, Canada, and I just graduated from my B.F.A Honors in Fine Art and moved into the work force and away from home. My internet handle is newsong, and I am an avid online journaller. Blogging has infiltrated my daily life, and I write not only about my experiences, but about my thoughts on many intellectual and personal topics. For two years I blogged for a charity called Not For Sale, an active group spreading awareness about modern day slavery and supporting groups that aid in the mission to abolish it. This year I am tackling a new kind of slavery - a mental illness affecting many people, and one that I myself was victim to for many years. This post is asking you to support me in Blogathon 2009 and my cause by sponsoring the charity I have chosen, and spreading the word about this event. Read on!

What on earth is a blogathon?

Blogathon 2009 is made up of an organized group of bloggers who, starting at 6am PDT on Saturday, July 25th, 2009, (which is 7am Saskatchewan, SK, Canada time, where I am based) will be writing a blog post every half hour for 24 hours - a total of 48 posts each. Many bloggers including myself choose to theme their posts, do a little bit of prep ahead of time for big projects, or offer incentives for different sums of money donated. Each blogger chooses a charity where donations can be made online, and in my case offline as well. There are over 200 bloggers currently registered with all sorts of charities. Our motto? Stay up late. Make a difference....

What charity are you supporting?

The charity I have chosen to sponsor for this year is called Looking Glass and is based in Burnaby, B.C., Canada. Like my previous charities, it's about a type of slavery. But for me this year is about something much more personal. Some of you who know me well may be aware that this year I realized I had and was subsequently diagnosed with Binge Eating Disorder. I am on a fast road to recovery after a lot of prayer and support from friends and I have begun learning how to deal with the many aspects of the disease and the habits it created in me.

Binge Eating Disorder is a mental and physical illness characterized by compulsive overeating in which people consume huge amounts of food while feeling out of control and powerless to stop. Often it is caused by the initial impulse to seek solace in food when it is the most available pleasure. People with binge eating disorder struggle with feelings of guilt, disgust, and depression. They worry about what the compulsive eating will do to their bodies and beat themselves up for their lack of self-control. They desperately want to stop binge eating, but they feel like they can’t. According to the National Institutes of Health, 2 percent of all U.S. adults suffer from compulsive overeating—making binge eating disorder more common than bulimia or anorexia. {get introduced...}

[via Deperate for changing, starving for truth]

why we need mothers & fathers, brothers & sisters, daughters & sons

[via the carnival in my head, HT: Faith Dance]

the difference between “i suck” and a truly humble heart

[via the carnival in my head, HT: Faith Dance]

Suspend Hesitation

Sometimes life is about shooting blind. You don't really know what you're going to get. You set your face in one direction and trust that you'll capture what you need. Something powerful happens when you suspend hesitation. When you find yourself in a distant place, and trust the opportunities that come. When you pick up a lonely child and spend some time in an embrace. When you wash the feet of a stranger. When you learn that in serving, you become the served.

[via biscotti brain]

Sin is...the beginning of empathy.

[original, quoted Hacking Christianity]

[also mentioned there...]

Empathy is the beginning of change.

For You...A Savior

You’ve been given a great gift in your honest struggle and confession of being a loser. You’re on the way. You’re on the road. Don’t whine about it. Don’t make the mistake of seeing the broad evangelical Disneyland as your destination. You’re at that point where George Bailey stood on the bridge. You can despair….and jump. Or you can know that God has sent his hope, love and good news to you in a barn, where shepherds worship in tearful silence; where a man receives a gift he never created; where a virgin says yes even to the unthinkable that grace can do the impossible.

Go there, Ted. Find that place. Go as a struggler, a loser, one with nothing. Go and know that this, and all it means and will ever mean, is for you. For you….a savior. A savior of strugglers, losers and worse.

your friend and fellow loser,

Michael {full post}

[via internetmonk.com, HT: My End of the Stick!]

For December 6th...

There are many reasons Amir and others are so harsh toward predators and abusers, especially toward children. One of those reasons is the long-term struggle of the victim/survivor to understand and identify and accept healthy love and affection throughout their lives. This is certainly true of me. I have prayed for many, many years that God would reveal His love to and toward and for me in tangible ways that would enable me to internalize real love.

I have mentioned before that my fiance is not what I was looking for but is everything I need and was afraid to need. What he is and has been is a man who loves me unconditionally and with extreme patience. When I share (appropriate) details about how he treats me with my close friends, their jaws drop in awe and shock. He is truly rare among men, and God is using him to express His love in real and tangible ways that I will eventually internalize over time.

I know this may seem simple to many, and I know it is difficult to explain to those who have never experienced abuse. My parents, grandparents, ex-husband, ex-in-laws have all abused me. So, for my whole life I have longed for this kind of love. How odd, then, it is that I have such a difficult time receiving this kind of love. I continue to be cautious, fearful. He continues to be firm, patient, solid.

These truths became poignant again this evening. {continue...}

[via Amir Larijani and the Order of Recon]

---

what is your pain
everyone

i will stop being woman and
become a human being

here i tip the contents out
that i hope others share
not some private event
not what has happened

but what is real to all of us
we suffer from being human

[from this poem via Suzanne's Bookshelf, also: A Sombre Trio]

Healing And No Ammunition

One thing I've learned in life is that you can't stop a bullet without something getting destroyed.

I'm talking about emotional hurt, the kind of things that are symptomatic, those moments that prove beyond doubt that human beings are flawed in how they relate. When someone takes something you value and treats it with contempt or apathy, the pain is like a bullet, a small thing, that with the speed of a moment penetrates and damages. Words, too are tools, for destruction or for building. Sometimes what is left unsaid is a weapon, too.

Some of the smallest moments become that bullet. You can tell someone outside the bubble about that moment that wounded you, and they may laugh at you and tell you it's only a small thing. And that it is. Bullets don't crush you, they riddle you with holes that drain life. In some relationships the wounds heal and the scar disappears, and in some one wound lays open for a long time, and in others you lie bleeding for what seems like years, and sometimes it is: decades....

You have the choice to know and be known. If you never let anyone past the wall, the medic won't get in either. Somebody out there has the power to fix you, or at least to try. All hands can be healing hands or weapons, and words can heal or hurt. We have choices. And the biggest choice is not to be the violent one who causes the pain. We fail so often at such a simple thing, but it's a choice we have to keep making over and over again: to be one who brings healing and not ammunition.

It's your choice. The only way to stop a bullet without sustaining damage is leaving it in the box. You can't stop someone else's bullets, but at least you can stop your own.

[via You saved my life from a colorless one]

Extra Support

Honestly, I have never been a fan of boundaries going up - it involves separation or at least admission that some issue/relationship is too difficult to work through.

I was thinking today that instead of the concept of boundaries, with its fences that can get larger and larger until people are very far apart, I like the idea of scaffolding.

Scaffolding on a building provides work space, and possibly even extra proteciton or support to work projects that are either too hard to get to, or that are vulnerable in some way. Boundary fences keep animals or people separated from something. Relationally, if I say that I need some new boundaries with someone, I am saying that I need separation in some, or all areas. I wonder what it would mean for me to say I need scaffolding instead.

[via My True Self]

A setback is a set up for a comeback.

[via Hope From Ashes]

The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance, the wise grows it under his feet -- James Oppenheim {read the rest}

[via Hope From Ashes]

Overflowing

When I am empty, no one bothers me. No one clings to me. No one asks me to save them. When I am empty, I am alone. I am still. I can hear my own heart beating again.

I hear my heart beating, whether I want it to or not. It doesn’t beat just for me. There is a reason it beats on. There is purpose to my life. There is great hope in purpose. There is great joy in hope. The joy fills me. I get back at it. And so it goes.

[from a comment from this post at Benediction Blogs On]

The Key Moment Has Happened

He was opening up his calendar and putting a timeframe on redemption. He was assigning power and promise to weeks and months. Hoping that if he stacked up days up like bandages, his wife would forgive him.

But the past is seductive. When I look back in the rear view mirror, it’s constantly swelling its chest, appearing more important than it is, adding details to memories, hiding others in the shadows, recreating what really happened. I like to think that my memories are documentaries, full of fact and truth, but they’re more like summer blockbusters. Full of special effects and illusions....

For him it’s much simpler. There are only two conditions, dead or alive, lost or found. There is no need to wait for time to heal any wounds or to weigh out time gone versus time obedient. The rescued has occurred, the key moment has happened.

No calendar cannot change that.

Time cannot offer that kind of healing.

[via Stuff Christians Like]

Through the Great Three Days

It was a gift from God that we had the divine service that day, for without that, I don’t know what I would have been doing. My pastor stayed with me as much as possible. I was a zombie, barely conscious, yet fully believing that there was no way I could get out of this, no way I could recover from such a blow. If I didn’t have the time and space I needed to heal, then I would only get worse. What was the point?

But God is merciful.

I lived. Somehow our Lord got me through the Great Three Days.{the rest...}

[via I Trust When Dark MY Road]

More Transcendental Love

In Sickness and In Health

[via Radical Womanhood]

Woman Delivered From Christmas Spirit

[via The Wittenburg Door]

Powered by ScribeFire.

Hallowe'en:

Don't deny. Face your fears. Persevere though tragedy.

"At Least, we dig each other..."

Thanks Endangered Species: Church for the link!



Incubus "Dig" (by kaamuz)

Reproducing Life

If your life feels cramped and lonely and hopeless, try to believe that your dark dwelling is not just a prison cell, but also a womb {the full post}

[via Junia's Daughter]