The List Project

Try to make a list of every person you can name off the top of your head. After you are done, take each person and try to remember why you know them and something about/something you did with this person. Then sort the piles into "Alive" and "Dead". Take all the alive people and sort them "People in contact in the last year" and "Haven't had contact with in more than one year". Take the first one and see how many of those people you want to get in contact with again and take the first ones and see how many need to be in the latter and let them go. Then take all the people who you see and want to see subtract it from the total number of original people to find out the ratio of people met to people who stayed important.

Excerpt from: For God So Loved The Earth

At that moment he was consumed by hate. His eyes blurred with rage, his throat course from the screaming, he didn't know what to do. He was Peter Pan, all grown up in a world of make believe. It wasn't politics, it wasn't his personal beliefs. It was being lied to again, it was being held below Cinderella, Snow White, Zues and Ahab's White Whale. He was human. He was real. He had thoughts, and could change. He could touch and be touched, and yet he was less than their God, the character they talked to every night. Surely they could see the pain that it caused him as is eyes welted with tears. For years they had ignored him in his room rousing him only for the infrequent questions of drug use or school grades and course on Sunday mornings. For years his God sat and let him suffer until eventually he did turn to the drugs, and alcohol. His parents would eventually try and take him to a Christian therapist, he refused to go back.
He would spend hours every night pleading for the slightest solace, and yet the all powerful diety whos love he craved would never come. A heavenly father who had abandoned him, and an Earthly family who had done the same years before. As he grew older things changed slightly, his parents would accept him more. I suppose they thought his new found atheism would be nothing more than a phase; but tension would grow as he grew further and further away, eventually refusing to go to church and even volunteering for the political party that opposed his parents. No doubt they called it rebellion. Surley he wasn't able to make decissions on his own. It must be his friends, it must be people he talks to. Why wasn't he smart enough in their eyes to learn and choose things on his own? Why was he only smart enough to choose their religion.
He wondered how they would feel if one day they realized how they had pushed their son away for not believing fairey tales, he knew though that they never would. No one could understand the loneliness he felt at the moment he threw those bibles against the wall and screamed at his mother to leave the room, but it was the most seperated he had ever felt in his life. There was no one to talk to that would understand, there are no athiest support goups, there is no athiest pride parade. There is only the choice to follow what you believe and that can mean true loneliness if you are surrounded by opponents. He felt his heart sink as he thought about his fmily choosing the fairy tale over him. He had tried to gain the love and the support and the forgivness of their God. He had asked for it, and practiced it, how was it his fault that their God didn't answer him, or want him? Of course now he knew that something non-existant can not posses these qualities and that his parents would never understand.
There would be no appologies on either side, he would keep going, fighting in his world blackend not because he failed to see the light, but because he had been enlightend.
He didn't enjoy the hatred he felt whenever he say people fighting "in the name of Christ". Why couldn't people give themselves more credit. They are human beings, the most beautiful thing on this planet, and yet they spend their lives focused on the invisible and improbable. He hated them all. They were impossible to talk to, difficult even to be friends with, and yet their numbers spread and every day there seemed to be more and more.
He hated that he still held anger twords god. He didn't want to hate something that he didn't even believe in- he didn't want to hate anything. In truth he had always thought of himself as a very loving person, but the bitterness was begining to change him. It seemed to him that there was no truth, no way, no light in this world.
Where was his sanctuary, where were his open arms, how could he find acceptance in a world were he constantly had to fight everyone else in it? What was he fighting for, the right to not believe in something?

Brandon Christian Bozarth

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Somewhere Between Excerpt One and Three

Christian thought about the things James had said before he left. They had been dropped like a weight off the deck of a ship, immediately plunging Chrisitan into the sea, and every night after pulling him deeper and deeper into the darkness. He felt as though everything he had wanted to say would have been lost in the wind that night; those violent sweeping winds that do indeed blow up between friends-more often between enemies and rivals. What would Christian say now, probably nothing different; it isn't James he needs to reach anyways, it's her. He reads and rereads her letter to James, why can't he understand it? Perhaps one can not translate the heartbeat of one other than his own, and then it made sense, why she understood the words that pounded from his rivals chest but could no longer hear his own.

October would come too soon for Christian.

Untitled

I will not be your favorite weapon.
I will not be a tool in your hands.
I will not be the learner of lessons.
It's the ocean that made the sands.

We can all be more than the sum of our actions.
We can all be divided and fall.
We can all be a total, complete reaction.
We can ignore or heed the call.

I am not the center of the universe.
I am not a force to be recognized.
I am not a vessel for thoughts to disperse.
I am just a man disorganized.

I will not be the complexity that you seek.
We can all be more humble than stars.
I am not the reaching hands of the meek.
The blind can still see who they are.

Brandon Christian Bozarth

Untitled (Work In Progress)

I've heard that if you look close enough into the eyes of another person you will see the faintest flicker of light. Science will tell you that this is simply the refraction of light off of the back of the cornea, but until you have starred into eyes as beautiful as her's were you wouldn't understand that what you are seeing can't be explained with science, it is purely spiritual.
I will never forget the first time I saw her. Her blonde hair was the first thing that caught my attention as I walked into the Seattle penthouse that night, it flowed across her shoulders and down her back like a golden waterfall. Slightly curled, it bounced as she walked across the room in a bright green dress, that shinned in the light that was falling from the ceiling as if it where following her every move. The truth was however, it wasn't the light following her, it was me, I couldn't take my eyes off of her. I watched her as she made her way around the party, the smiles she gave people as she shook hands with the guests, the way she threw her head back to laugh at people's jokes or when she had received a compliment that made her blush.
All of a sudden she began to walk towards me, my eyes still locked on her as she moved past one of the servers, removing a glass of champagne from his tray without stopping. Suddenly, there she was standing right in front of me. I froze as she tilted her head slightly to the left and looked me straight in the eyes. I panicked, how would I explain myself? So many things went through my head at that moment that I found it impossible to speak. She had me speechless, and that is when I saw it, that flicker. She had golden brown eyes that seemed deeper than anything I had ever seen, as if within them could have been the entire universe.
She raised her eyebrows and said something that I missed. I shook myself out of the trance and she said it again, the words I will never forget, "Have you missed me?" It took me a second to respond. I was caught off guard by the strange question "Sorry", I was stumbling over my own words, "Do I know you?"
"It would certainly seem like it, the way you have been starring at me all night, or perhaps you always stare at strangers with those eyes."
I'm sorry?
"as if you are trying to remember them from somewhere." she said.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to, it's just that, just that you look so. . ." she quickly interrupted, "beautiful, familiar, strange, well, which one is it?"
I was lost for words, it isn't until you are face to face with perfection that you realize there are no words to describe exactly how you feel, how can someone so flawed possibly say the right things about someone so perfect.

To be continued. . .

The Typewriter (The Swiss Numerical System)

Yesterday I bought a typewriter at a yard sale, ten dollars. I brought it home and for the next hour or so I took it apart and made all the adjustments it needed to work again. It is in perfect condition; seafoam green, vintage pre-1970 at least. The thing weighs at least forty pounds. It is fabulous and I love it. My Swiss made Hermes 3000. Upon inspection I noticed something odd, this typewriter did not have a number one key. Not that it was missing, it seems to have been built without one. I began to think, maybe the Swiss don’t have a number one. I mean some countries are different. Then I thought, how would this work? Like an off shoot of Roman Numerals perhaps. Twelve would be a six next to a six.(i.e 66) That wouldn’t be sixty six though. Sixty six would be 33 next to 33.(i.e. 3333) It’s reasonable, and I’ve worked it out. As impractical as it seems it always works. I was satisfied with the fact that I had discovered something; something very profound in my opinion. My Swiss made typewriter without a number one key, because the Swiss don’t have a number one.

Polish Zoo Buys Gay Elephant

Homosexuality in animals is apparently completely normal; however a Polish conservative thinks the zoo should have made a better choice. "We didn't pay 37 million zlotys for the largest elephant house in Europe to have a gay elephant live there," said Michal Grzes, Reuters reported last Friday.
Personally I find the idea of sex and something like an Elephant to be absolutely hilarious, but well dressed Elephants and lots of "trunk play" puns make it that much better!