Saturday, February 26, 2011

Another Lonely B-day


Lonely Birthday
In sitting alone
With a tear strolling down my face
And i think to myself
Why me?
There's no one to talk to
And no one to cry to
Why one of the days i should be happiest

My birthday

I sit in despair
Waiting for someone to rescue me
From all this pain i hide beneath
But no more can i pretend
That life isn't hurting me
No one to trust
And I'm never good enough

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

A tad bit of my creative side

I'm always a little reluctant to share my creative side but I found this little gem waiting further attention. Here we have a poem I wrote a little over 2 months after coming out to my ex... 21 days later was my 2nd major suicide attempt. They were very dark days indeed. At the time I immediately began setting the text to music SATB + Piano. It got dark enough where I had to walk away from finishing the piece. But I'm considering picking it up again after all this time.

The Tree
SMH 5/8/09

The frozen earth in stillness lies,
Dark and wint'ry in the night
A fruitless tree stands amidst the snow
While pale moon beams send their light.

There was a time in Springs gone by
The tree did abundantly share.
Now frost and cold reign for a season
Once laden branches are now desolate and bare.

A master gardener once pruned the tree,
And it became more choice above all others.
Where some had withered, died, or wild they became,
Not this tree, its fruit was the most desired of its brothers.

Yet time labored on
And no gardener came.
To tend to this noble tree
That it might still produce the same.

Summer’s light to Autumn’s falling leaves,
And not once to the tree did one tend.
Its toils and its troubles
Requiring the touch of a master to mend.

A season of neglect and decay
Quickly make a tree grow wild
Much work it will take from a master’s hand
To once again bring forth fruit undefiled.

Winter’s grasp will thaw into spring
Ending existence in bitter cold and strife.
The warmth returns as does the gardener
Bringing with it a chance for new life.

Monday, February 7, 2011

I've finally done it

Now before anyone gets their hopes up in regards to my personal life... Sorry I have to continue to disappoint you there. I'm still waiting for the next dating experience to rekindle my hopes that its even worth getting out of bed in the morning.

Now what have I done you may ask? Well I finally had the gall to send in my resignation to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I didn't take the usual route instead finding an e-mail of an individual working in the membership records department and created a short little form letter following the model of others who had done the same thing.

I did that on Jan.1 2011 and chronicled it here at The Mormon Watchdog as part of a new venture I will be undertaking from time to time. The opportunity of conveying thoughts in spoken rather than typed form seems even more cathartic.

It seemed a worth while new year's resolution to finally go through with it all. The corporate institution that has become synonymous with Mormonism is becoming an ever increasingly hostile place and since I will never be going back to it officially getting out of it only seemed to make sense.

Many people who leave the church out of either extreme duress or just personal choice often report a sense of relief and peace. When I had no such release it naturally warranted further investigation. Perhaps because I was using it as a bit of a media device, or, GASP, did I still have favorable feelings for the church? And then it occurred to me that I had genuinely left the church long ago and hence the lack of noticeable fulfillment.

It has been over a month and no response or acknowledgment from any church official. My small experiment of trying to avoid the church's intentionally difficult hoops has not yet succeeded. Should nothing result in the near future I may end up taking the more conventional route and being far more aggressive in demanding an appropriate response.

While I will save some of my fodder of "anti-mormon" propaganda for another day or my show I continue to be affirmed that Mormonism is neither the church of God nor Jesus Christ. It is and continues to be the very thing its founder created - one of ambitious falsehoods intentionally perpetuated to deceive those not willing to fight for that which really is truth.

What makes Mormonism so successful is not that it bears a message of any sort of truth but those who are sympathetic to its message are apathetic to God's genuine truth as revealed in Christ Jesus. Mormonism is neither just nor supports justice. It is not passionate neither does it exude compassion. It embraces love as little as it loves those in its embrace. It is a trap in life's fog of the unsuspecting, the non vigilant, the apathetic, those who seek an easy formulaic way out of mortality so as to be endowed with the same powers God is purported to have.

My dear friends this is not the good news of Jesus Christ. He came not to add to the law and make you waste your lives doing unending "ordinances for the living and the dead." He came to fulfill the law. It is grace through faith that saves us and not "obedience to the laws and ordinances of the gospel (aka just saying yes to corporate Mormonism)."

While indeed being a former LDS person has poisoned my hope that God even exists it seems to reason the least that I can do for my gay breathren is say... Get out of "the church." It needs you less than it wants you. Don't squander your light under the bushel basket of Joseph Smith's fervent imagination. Place your light on the light stand that it may give light to the house. Some may indeed be called to course correct the errancy of Mormonism by letting their light shine with in it that the LDS people may become part of the true body of Christ. Only you will know if that is indeed what God has placed before you as your path. For you my fellow homos my prayers of God's richest peace, abundance, and ample portions of his divine revealing spirit. They will be tough times for you. My call was elsewhere in the masters vineyard preparing a way for those seeking a better way.

For those who do not have this charter upon their heart and spirit... get out! Leave it be. Let those who are called work the fields and burn the chaff of inequity. The rest of the world needs your gifts and talents and most certainly your love. Don't squander it by burying it in the infertile soil of the LDS institution. Let the living waters of the true Christ given on the cross grow your gifts. We need you where you can fulfill your measure of who you were created to be.

Have courage in that which is just and right and not that which is deceptive and false. Yes the elect have indeed been deceived... have the strength to realize you may have been one of them. I certainly was. Yet there is a wideness in God's mercy that even Thomas S. Monson will never be able to comprehend. There is a love that even Dallin H. Oaks or Boyd K. Packer will never come to fathom.

Bring your pioneer spirit to where it really needs to be and find true joy!