Trapeze

Now my heart and my mind agree:
A supernatural selected me
I see your plan so grandiose
My very own Galapagos

God laid down and he began to trace
An image that he could embrace
Then he smiled down on his plan
And from the dust he made a man

I'm an original species
More enlightened than Nietzche
I'm sure you'd like to meet me
'Cause I am loved
By the Maker oh so clever
I was made to live forever
Though my body turns to sand
My soul is in his hands

A breakthrough theory of origin
A simple truth that always been
Fingerprints have been left behind
To point us to a Master mind

I'm an original species
More enlightened than Nietzche
I'm sure you'd like to meet me
I am loved
By the Maker oh so clever
I was made to live forever
Though my body turns to sand
My soul is in his hands

Stars in the sky
There to please my eye
The cosmos in his command
But he has time to hold my hand

I'm an original species
More enlightened than Nietzche
I'm sure you'd like to meet me
'Cause I am loved
By the Maker oh so clever
I was made to live forever
Though my body turns to sand
My soul is in his hands

I'm an original species
More enlightened than Nietzche
I'm sure you'd like to meet me
'Cause I am loved

I am loved

-Audio Adrenaline

-=-=-=-

I'm caught as though stretched between two poles.

On the one hand, for the first time in a very long time, I've been able to talk to someone about what I think about God. I'm very accustomed to being censored for this - it wasn't any kind of evangelism, it was me making a point about why something matters to me. But I have very few friendships where I can speak openly about God.

It's an interesting thing. One of my best friends is Mormon, and when we were just entering high school, we made some sort of agreement that neither of us would blast our faith at the other. At the time, we needed each other too much as friends to risk the friction. That agreement's stood. I've been generally labeled as either a prude, a religious nut, or something in between by two circles of friends - oddly, that's their variety of respecting what I believe. Even with my few Christian friends, it's as though we're in territory where we feel like we should be comfortable, but we don't know how far the other person believes, and we're terribly afraid of offending. And with my friends from bible study and church, oddly, we know each other as Christians first, and friends second. Which you'd think would be good, but the problem is that there's little foundation of our own making. It's hard to talk about how God's helping you with a particular issue when the person listening doesn't know you well enough to know why this is an issue.

The other pole is a strong fear of what happened last time. My censorship is often self-laid - I found that a particular friend wanted nothing to do with me if I was at all excited about God. As long as I was excited about things he could either enjoy or dismiss, he had no problem with me. He couldn't dismiss God, and believe me, he tried - and he couldn't enjoy a relationship with him, either. I was so eager to be around him and receive attention from him that I accepted the restrictions. They were reinforced by my brother-friend, who loves me dearly but still thinks I'm a religious nut. As he saw it, God was real, but you don't actually have a relationship with him, he's just a force.

So, I'm torn between being completely ecstatic to be close to God again, and afraid that someone's going to be irritated and want me to shut up again. And there's always the force of gravity pulling me down - which is the fear that I'm going to lose this fire again, and be okay with blending back in, keeping my mouth shut and my head down, living as I was before.

Torn between two, and the constant pull of the third. All I can do is count on God to hold me up - clinging neither to my own excitement to last, or caving to my fear, but holding me to him. Pray for us - I don't think God needs any help, but I certainly do.

-A