Celebrating 20 years of life this summer :]

Alright so I usually never just "post" a thought that isn't part of some poem or essay but I figured, hey, I'm bored to tears at work and I have some things I'd like to just merely say, without the worries of rhyme and delicacy.
   So this summer is going to be INSANE. I'll be working two jobs like I am now, taking just one class (thank goodness) and going on vacations!!!  I'm so excited I can hardly stand it. I will be going, on my BIRTHDAY to Bonnaroo, the 4 day music fest in TENNESSEE (My favorite place in the whole wide world :]) with all my closest friends. This is going to be an 8 day adventure, and I MEAN adventure in the foothills of the deep south. I plan on going swimming in a river and dancing to some bluegrass with no shoes on, and we will come back on my besties BIRTHDAY. So pictures and poetry will be coming up soon after this crazy awesome trip that has been conveniently sandwiched between two birthdays.. One month after I get back me and the family are heading to San Antonio for a weekend family get away at a resort and the last one we went on last summer was an experience to remember so I'm really excited to get to spend some good quality time with the ones I love the most. THEN, the day after I get back from that, my best friend is getting married!! OMG she's tyeing the knot. I'm super happy for her and her awesome fiance Tim. They are the best. But damn, life goes by way too fast, I suppose there is a small part of me thats sad...but don't worry it's very very small. Then Tiffany my other good friend is getting married, then my best friend from NM, then my friend Melissa. And I don't even have a shadow of a significant other lol!! Its awesome.
   And there's my summer schedule... can't wait to embark already!!!!

His name was Ryan

Came outside and saw him there
With dark brown skin and dark brown hair.

Strumming on his guitar he smiled at me
So I shook his hand and took a seat.

Early in the morning the sky was gray
But we found the sunshine in the middle of the day.

With a few kind words and a genuine smile,
"That mans got soul," I thought. "And a teaspoon of style!"

Then the music moved from his strings to his heart
And I knew without a doubt a jive would start.

So I flowed with his beat and let it in my heart too,
Then out came the words of a song I already knew.

He was buying the stairway to Heaven I could see it in his eyes
And when he stopped playing he told me to cut all my ties.

But the time was running out and with a reluctant stare,
I said "you should stop trying to buy that stairway, your already there."

Then I got into my car and left him in the sun
And wished that all my advances in society would just
Come UNDONE. 

goodbye summer house

    Summer of 2010 has closed its door forever, leaving me on the welcoming mat in wonder. I stare at the hands that still grip the door knob and notice there are freckles that mark my days in the sun, creases that show more than the passing of time, and worn down fingernails that were chewed in many fits of anticipation. Alas, it is time to let go. If i turn now, I will see an empty road beckoning me to another house of which to furnish with new experiences. There is a stillness in the air around me, not even a particle in motion. So much that, if I were to stir, the effect would ripple its way across the atmosphere so that every blade of grass would sway to the rhythm of my movement. The universe pends in anxiousness, awaiting my answer to its call. Will I leave the door step to resume the time continuum? To shatter the frozen state of the world I have created, so that life can go on? I hope the new house has as many windows as the latter... and I hope that when nightfall creeps its way across the horizon, I will not be afraid of the darkness it brings. With that, I purse my lips in a line of confirmation then close my eyes. Letting go the brass knob of my summer home, I exhale, and turn to face the great abyss.

Sunny love

Upon the first hours of the sun
I danced within her reverie
Marveling as she lined my lungs
Drying up morsels of misery
She ebbs and flows through one's tears
Disintegrates moisture through the years
Lock her in time and tuck away
She'll never sleep, that sphere digressing
Her particles in my palm, as the world turns gray
The perils of night are much less depressing
Gleaming still upon souls, the array
I shall let her frolic through my hair on a cold winters day.

Foundations

A few months ago I was informed by my mother of a mission trip that my family was planning to Tennessee, and a few months ago I was unaware of the wonders I have come to know so well since my arrival. This story, like any other is filled with a sense of inspiration and childlike happiness, a struggle and then an acceptance of the ending reward...but if you are reading my letters, know that this particular story is in fact not a story at all, and it is quite possibly the most moving. It is the real accountance of the two most beautiful and perhaps most important fibers in the human soul; meliority and christianity. Right now you may be asking 'what exactly is the meaning of meliority and where did it come from?' Meliority is stemmed from the Latin word [melior] which is understood in English as "better". Meliorism is the most unselfish belief that I have come across, aside from the belief in God, and what is more interesting is how I found it. It is "the belief that the world can be made better by human effort," and it is that fine doctrine that holds the utmost amount of faith in the human race, even when the world is cruel. The heart and soul of optimism and love are dependent upon it and faith in God, and these two notions are more real than the keys beneath my finger tips.
      Through the course of my 18 years on this earth, I have seen through the eyes of others what a wonderful place the world can be if God is only accepted into our hearts. I have watched on tv peoples lives succome to the great and almighty God just by the touch of their pastors hand on their persperating forehead. I have heard their stories, and watched their eyes drip like faucets onto empty floors because they have finally found whatever it is that makes them whole. Yet I never really understood. To me, these people weren't real, they were figments of some far away place that didn't exist outside my sphere of reality... maybe it was because I couldn't connect their new found wholeness to my broken pieces, my hollowed heart. I thought they were just pretending, and who knows maybe some were, but little did I know I would come to learn that it was I who had been pretending all along.
     We arrived in Tennessee on a Sunday and the humidity nearly knocked me off my feet a few steps outside the airport; I, living most of my life in west Texas was used to the dry, windy climate. Nonetheless, me, my family, and the rest of the Betenbough housing crew packed like sardines into a small white bus and drove to Williamsport, which is conveniently located about an hour outside of Nashville and headed to Narrow Gate Foundation. This particular stretch of land truly is a little piece of heaven carved into the foot hills of Tennessee; it is a glass of water in the dessert to which I can now happily say I have had the priviledge of drinking from. A few days after our arrival myself, my little brother and a few of the Narrow Gate members went on a hike to the 'High Point', a spectacle of a hill which overlooks the entire property just so I could really take in the beauty of the land, but as it turns out... as many things in life turn out... what I found was much more than just a beautiful view. I found on top of that hill, as so many young men at Narrow Gate do, a compassion and a respect for God like I have never known before. As Ken, Frank, Clayton, John Rae and myself shared our life stories, each more compelling than the last, a spark was lighted within me, and as seconds go by writing this letter, it grows bigger and brighter than the moment before. We were strangers walking up the hill, but I can say that without a doubt we were friends coming down. I have never in my life been so moved by the emotion's of others, but what I could see when I looked into their eyes, as if I peered through a window into thier souls, was love. A true, and pure, and personal, and passionate love for God. I left wishing that somehow I too could see this warm, radiating passion for the greater force in my own eyes. There was my first sip of living water, and to my surprise, I was thirstier than ever.
      Tuesday night, after the 'High Point' I lay in bed and continued to ask, when would I get what these four young men had? When would I get another taste of God? Then Wednesday came, and with it, a revelation.
      At around 11:00 p.m. I was walked into the countryside by a now good friend and vessel of the Lord named Adam, to which I am extremely thankful, and at 12:00 p.m. I came back alive. To be completely honest, it was like I was on drugs... you know, the kind that make you feel invincible and happy and energetic and free. And that is the best feeling in the world, the feeling of total and complete liberation, the knowing that the world is in reach, the beauty and awe that brings one to tears. It is wonderful, lasting and real. The best part is that it is real. A mere breeze had caressed my skin and I knew he was with me, and I think that he knew I wanted him to be. Under the stars and amidst the hundreds of fireflies, I felt the hand of God, and I am thinking now how badly, I cannot wait to touch it again.
     This trip was a mission, I was suppose to be just a helping hand that cleaned up some gardens and made the place a little prettier, yet I  leave living and renewed. I was suppose to change the "Narrow gators" lives, and now I am certain, that they have changed mine. I have watched through my own eyes how people like Bill and Stacy Spencer ( the founders of Narrow Gate) have made this world a better place to be in, how people like Ken, Frank, John Rae, Clayton, and Adam have been changed by faith and are reaching out to do the same for those around them. God has changed the outcome of so many lives through those people and words cannot begin to explain how grateful I, and so many others are, that they have chosen His path. In short, these people have made me realize that mankind is a wonderful, brilliant, and life changing species when coupled with God. At Narrow Gate, with the help of many, I started the life long journey of self discovery; I found that I am a meliorist, and a christian; I have faith in mankind and more importantly in God...and those two things are a wonderful foundation to any structure.