School and Rules

Well, here I am, the night before school starts. Am I nervous? No. Am I worried? Not really. I however might be a little sad though. I mean this because I only wish I had had this desire a long time ago. I had a few opportunities and even enrolled a couple times in different schools but those times I didn’t have that yearning desire or wondrous vision, I was only doing it because it was what I was supposed to do and to appease what others wanted me to do which only led to some pretty sad events in my life. This time is different though, I want this so much and there are no worries, just excitement and like I said just a tint of sadness in my lateness. But it is time to press forward diligently now up and out of my old thought patterns and use all of the blessings that I have at my disposal. I’ve tried to do things on my own in the past but I’ve realized that I can’t do anything that way. I’ve realized that I need my family and I need my friends, and something that I’ve also realized is, is that even though I’ve not ever felt that great about myself, that others need me and love me as well. I write with tears in my eyes because I feel as though I am waking up out of a deep sleep where the past, present and future were continually scrolling before my eyes yet it was all unattainable, like I couldn’t grasp any of it, stuck in limbo if you will. It’s like I had a distinct visibility of the endless possibilities, yet everything I knew was only an intangible dream. But here I am now, blessed with a new passion and I’ve got this body to accomplish my dreams that I’ve dreamt from my very beginnings. And what are those dreams? They are dreams of accomplishment, dreams of self freedom and true expression, and dreams of companionship, of simply not being alone. I don’t want to be stuck in an emotional fissure, but it is so difficult to say goodbye and let go to what I would consider my life even though it’s already said goodbye and let go of me. I toss in the nights haunted by my dreams sometimes and I wake up and pray. I ask for a place to stay when ghosts loom in my mind. I ask for angels to come and banish those demons that tear at my soul. Then I cry, “Why?!” Why do I feel these things? Is it my lot to suffer in this manner? To not only struggle with the trials of this mortal life but to tirelessly fend off those immortal beasts from the unseen world as well. One thing I know is that I will always pray, I will always have a prayer in my heart as I press forward seeking for those places of refuge as I go and fishing out those who are searching as well. I am a child of Heavenly Parents whom offer such grandness to me it is almost unfathomable. How could I ever doubt it? Maybe this is why I’ve struggled so, maybe it is this way so I will have that undeniable faith in the Gospel even though I struggle. I only hope that through my many weaknesses and great stupidity in action often, others might see what little light I have and will desire to be better. I have many desires but one that trumps most others is that I might be able to be a shining light somehow to those who might be lost or those who might be hurting and in need. I’d give my life for a friend in need; there would be no question in the matter. I’ve seen the tolls that this life can take on an individual very intimately and I’ve experienced many hardships myself and I’ve learned that there is not an ounce of justification in judging others critically. How could I ever desire to hurt someone else? We only damn ourselves when we criticize in a negative fashion, yet I do it all the time; I do it in ways that I don’t even realize very often until later pondering upon the ignitions of why I do and say those things in the first place. Mostly I think when I judge critically it is in those moments where I’ve felt some type of animosity toward an individual and when moments arise in actuality that animosity arises out of me in the form of slight underhanded comments and re-altered paths of word play. For the most part I can tell right away if the things that I’ve said or done in those moments of frustration affect the other person and I always feel really bad about it almost instantaneously. So why should I ever try to bring someone down by my actions? One thing that I’ve found to help me overcome this type of behavior is by simply doing something good for the person I have those negative feelings for, to simply give of myself for those people and to spend my thoughts on what they really do need, in the giving of my own self I gain myself back. There is an oddity in this parallel. The oddity is, is that there can be and are all the time seemingly contrary statements, or impossible options that are what is true and it in and of itself does not connote an ambiguous nothingness of indifference. To me it’s almost like it’s the exact opposite of limbo, true paradoxes, or the infinite circles of the universe that mirror externally our very own souls. I am fascinated by this world I live in and there are times when it is like a clear sky that opens through the clouds and nothing seems difficult to accomplish because it’s like I understand the depth of this place I live and I understand the rules so clearly and I see them vividly to the point I think I can fly up and ascend through that portal of blue skies, then as a feather flits to the ground my mind slowly becomes clouded with what I can only describe as a cloud or covering that blocks out this vastly untapped world of endless potential and then I only see the challenges and never ending mountains to ascend, yet I have the knowledge of what I’ve seen in those moments of true clarity from before. I simply have to act on faith that what I know I’ve seen is real and unchanging regardless of my fluctuating earthly vision. It’s so difficult though to act when all I see is Mount Everest even though I know I am deeper and higher then it will ever be. I sigh and write my poetry when I see my Mount Everest because it helps me keep that faith that it is not only possible but already ascended and deemed worthy and doable for a soul the likes of mine. I will press forward through this vast valley of frustration and strive to keep those moments where the clouds dissolve away in my heart even when I’m walking headlong through the storm. I will find a way and if there is no way then I will blaze my own trail and that shall be my path to my ultimate goal of never ending peace of mind and wholeness of spirit. I believe though that the path has already been blazon upon all facet of the mountain and there is no crevasse, no gully, no gap, no inch of the mountain that has not been trod before by Our Savior. My goal is to press forward regardless of car wrecks in my past, for when I shall make it to the top I’ll let my Savior help me work out those unsolvable troubles that I bear upon my chest in this world. I will cry into his arms and He will wipe away my tears and show me something that I could never have imagined before because I cannot see within all of the corridors of my mind that I’ve delve through to try and find a solution how my car wreck will ever be completely repaired in this life but with all of my heart and soul I know somehow that it can be because I know the Atonement is real, I know my Savior lives and I know all of this because I’ve prayed in the depths of my soul for understanding and I’ve seen marvelous things. To end I’ll say that I love the Gospel with all of my heart and I never will not.

Pirates!

Argh…! Ye matie! I see purple sails upon my seas and I shall not rest until I’ve sent that boat to the depths of Davie Jones locker! And happy New Year as well! Several things I’ve been inspired to write about, and not the usual serious lectures I inflict upon myself in my writes. Upon getting a bit tipsy off of sparkling cider I played one of the most epic games of Swash Buckle I’ve ever played through the transition to 2011 and that is saying something since I didn’t even win but it was incredible still the same. I’d go on to explain in vivid detail all of the epicness of the five and a half hour brutal charade of scouring the high seas for me treasured booty but I don’t know if any would continue to read after a short bit. Needless to say there were screams, tears, laughs, and “good games” all around at the end, and many a slain pirate as well. Yes, if you haven’t known this yet, I am a board game geek. I get extreme pleasure out of using devious means of stratagem within the bounds of the game to achieve my gameward purposes. But moving on now… as the night came to a close and the excitement of Swash Buckle wore off I paid a short visit to a close relation of mine. I asked in the still of the night seeming to confide a special glance of feeling and trust, “is it going to be a good year? I need something, just something to happen for me, I need to see that glimmer of renewed goodness on the horizon. I’m not apathetic but I’m close to it, I have a devote testimony of the gospel but I’ve struggled to find my blessings.” She looked back at me and said with almost a twinkle in her eye, “You are a glimmer of goodness,” and that was all that was needed, I felt greatly appreciated and honored almost. If you’ve ever felt just so good inside because of what someone else has done for you that moment was mine with those few simple words. I don’t even think she meant it to be profound but it was to my heart and I was grateful, grateful in a way I’ve rarely been grateful before. I hope and pray for a great year. Though I find myself in the halls of worry more often than not I love the moments when the walls break apart and I can see clearly all the paths around me that lead freely to incredible places of beauty and peace. My mind plays games with me and has severely hindered my abilities but I’ve seen far too many times my potential to simply give up on obtaining it even though I feel like giving up often and simply falling in with the ranks of the world. I hope to obtain a true grace one day, I live a somber life full of star gazing and car praying. I love the Gospel, I love its goodness and truth and I am, on levels that I can’t hardly describe deeply attracted to it. If nothing more shall ever come from my affinity to the Church than everything that I have written about it than I will be a happy soul because I know that what I have written is good and my testimony is special. There is only one thing that you need to know and that is, that the Church is true regardless of whatever trial God deems worthy of you, if you can continue to believe that, even when the clouds gather darkness and the jaws of Hell gape open after thee then I believe you’ll be set for life. The finest steel is only it, after it’s been heated and beaten to the highest degree, yet it remains what it is, and that is what it is and that is me.

Well, Happy New Years folks and O, by the way, check out theemptybookshelf.blogspot.com and read My Christmas Vision. Take care homies and until next time, love ya, bye.

Time to say goodbye

It’s time to say goodbye.

I don’t believe a man is sincere at all when he rules in favor of his own logistical path making when it comes to technicalities in the gospel. This is not wisdom, it is pride, and an unwillingness to be submissive and childlike. Though I am burdened with my own struggles and sins I will never find pathways to try and excuse myself from those sins. I will never try to attempt to find loopholes in our very own prophets words to excuse my own self demoralizing behavior, because when it comes down to it, I know what is right and what is wrong regardless of technicalities in their speech. Those who are attached to certain behavior have two options when someone in authority in the church speaks upon those certain behaviors whatever they be. They can either justify in their own minds why what the Authority said doesn’t affect their own status so they can personally continue their behavior without this rule affecting their good standing, or they can try to change, be submissive and say goodbye to that world of emotional attachment. Those who try to find loopholes regardless of the thing that was suggested or commanded are not only seeking a path around that inconvenience but they are molding their mind into a beacon of apostasy. Where does the justification stop when one seemingly unimportant suggestion is not only forgotten in a moment of weakness but completely and utterly thought upon and deemed not applicable to your situation? Even temple married husbands who’ve recovered have admitted that they had gotten to the point where pornography wasn’t that bad to them and they didn’t see why it was such a big deal. How can this be? What is it that changes? It is a distinct submission to their addiction, to their vice. They justified in their minds that it wasn’t bad to lessen their own guilt and this not only degrades the mind but literally changes whom you think you are. It changes your very person. When we in any degree, and I say it is not the big things but it is the smallest things that become our undoing. What are those small things? Well, that is for you to decide because ultimately we will be our own judge. Weakness is not a sin, but I believe justification of the things that we are weak at is. I will never in the least accept that my sins are alright because that is when I will start to digress from what it is that I know is true. Ultimately, and there is no getting around this fact that does exist eternally, Ultimately, we know when we are partaking in activities that are not in line with what is true and good, but we often will not admit it because of pride and fear. So, I say this day that I must make a stronger stand in my own convictions of truth. But what does that mean? That means I must say goodbye. I must say goodbye to that world where emotions control our actions. Emotion is a beautiful thing but it is sacred, and there are those things that influence continued beauty in our emotions and then there are those things that toy with and play with and confuse and inappropriately touch our emotional state and cause us to become addicts to the very thing that is meant to set us free. I will not compromise my standards any longer and I will never lower them or justify why a certain thing is not applicable to me. I will do what is right and let the consequence follow. The only thing worse than the actually sin is the mindset behind the sin. It is time to say goodbye. Goodbye to what? Goodbye to a life I’ve seen already starting to fade away from me because it isn’t the way I want to go. I don’t want to travel down a path where I’ve already come from. I love my life but I see all too clearly the vices I’ve come out of and I don’t want to have any part of those things now. I’ve searched for happiness in others but I know that the Gospel is my love and I want to hold it like I’ve held others in the past whom I’ve loved dearly, I want to hold it like I’d never want to do anything to hurt it. I believe contained in the Gospel is the greatest love story there ever was and that is the type of love I search for, and if I shall never find it, I shall still praise God for I know that I will always have my truest love in Him.

Peachy Peach

The way home with the homies for Christmas.

The Rules Don't Change

The rules don’t change for attaining Godhood, and God doesn’t break his own laws. Also he doesn’t alter the rules and laws, for God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Why, in the histories have people been commanded to slay other people, men, women, and children? Notice I stray from using the words “Kill,” and “Murder” because I think that those have distinctly different meanings but I’m not going to go into that right now. Right now I want to talk about attaining Godhood and the precise way in which we can do that. For my own purposes I’m going to refer to “God” as Heavenly Father because for me it makes God more of a real person. When I think of the word “God” I am immediately directed in my thoughts to the spanning, infinite laws of the Universe and not my more personal, individual Heavenly Father. Now, the reason it seems as though Heavenly Father is altering the rules for salvation by causing us to do one thing one moment in time and another distinctly different thing in a different moment isn’t because He is a differing God, but rather He is a perfect God. Let me share an example but before I do I want to clearly make a statement that is true. I am not going to attain Godhood by following the seemingly random mood shifts of a God who only lives to change the rules up on us to try our faith. I am going to attain Godhood by abiding by the same eternal, unchanging truths and principles that My Heavenly Father abided by perfectly, that were already in place and never changing or ending through all of the cosmos and every cosmo in-between the cosmos that ever were and are or ever will be. Our Heavenly Father became God by following the rules of the Universe that already existed and the reason we call it Gods law is because it is Gods law, Heavenly Father became perfect at the Law and that is why He is God, and He has the ability and power to travel it unhindered and create never ending worlds because of it. He is perfect at it so He is the Law but He does not change it or he would cease to be God. The example I’ll share is one of a soccer match. This odd soccer match between Barbados and Grenada in the 1994 Shell Caribbean Cup came down to the wire with Barbados leading 2 to 1. Now, the turn of events in the way the rules were set up stated that if Barbados did not win by at least two points Grenada was going to advance to the next round and Barbados was going to be eliminated. Even though Barbados was in the lead they were only leading by one and so the Coach, being the skillfully understanding of the game man he was, realized that with only three minutes left his team was probably not going to score another goal to put them up 3 to 1 so they could advance, so what did he tell his team to do? He told them to turn around and score on their own goal! What would this accomplish, well it would cause the game to be tied 2-2 which would make the game go into overtime which any first goal in overtime would end the game and would count as an automatic two points. The other team quickly realized what was going on and it was a mad scramble for both teams to score on their own goals. It was very confusing but in the end Barbados put one in their own net causing a 2-2 overtime and then in the overtime period they won and advanced to the next round. Now, the example is, the rules of the game did not change but a very needed and distinct purpose did, score on ourselves for a larger purpose to play out in our benefit in the end. There is nothing in me that believes Heavenly Father simply wanted to see how much suffering he could inflict on the nations of those whom He commanded to be destroyed, (speaking of the old testament days). Like how the coach understood scoring on his own team would serve a larger purpose, Heavenly Father for a larger purpose told His people to do those things, yet He did not change the rules of the game or the Principles of the infinite universe. God is there to tell us what it is that we need to do to become like Him and that is to abide by the principles of the universe that he did not create, but rather became perfect at following in His body because they were already there. He was once like you and I and He is not God because He followed a completely different set of rules that His God made up once upon a time but because he listened to His God who told him to perfect himself in the Principles of the Universe that are the same, yesterday, today and forever. It might be a little confusing but to me there is a huge distinction between the two. So, when someone says, “Well, it’s just because God said so…” I say, it is because God said so, that is true, but it isn’t just a random thing that he switches up on us to simply try our faith, it’s what He says because He is reiterating truths from a book that is the Universe and which He can read and understand, which is what gives Him his ultimate power. We can even, on a smaller scale use our mortal scientists today as a great example, because I believe that even the smallest things denote that there is a God and not only that, but testify of how He is God, we simply need to learn to read the world and universe around us as He does so perfectly and see the symbolism in literally everything, in literally every way people and nature and the thought process and the way things and progression works in our everyday lives. Now, I know Thomas Edison worked greatly with others ideas of electricity and may not even himself been the sole inventor of the light bulb but let’s say he literally was for this purpose. When he discovered how to harness electricity so that it would give us an incandescent light source without the inefficient and unsafe open flame, what was it that he did? He told others about it, and look at where we are today. The earth is literally lit by this truth seemingly from one end to the other. He figured out this eternal truth of harnessing physical light into a bulb so that our nights might be brighter. Did he up and one day create this light source out of nowhere, from limbo for himself and told everyone else to obey him so we could partake in this ungraspably concocted idea? No, that is utter foolishness and nonsense and that is not how Heavenly Father functions because it is a flimsy, unenlightened, un-understood way of justifying why God seemingly goes against His own rules sometimes. He didn’t invent the truth, he understood the truth and then used his knowledge to invent the light bulb. The truth was already there but the bulb was not. He harnessed the eternal truth that is the same, yesterday, today and forever of this thing and learned from trial and error how to abide by its own precepts and principles to be able to refine it so that we might have a better life today. Heavenly Father is, like I’ve said before the master of the Universe, the God of science in our worldly terms. The human being learned to crawl, next he learned to walk, then he ran, then he rode the horse, then he drove a car, then he flew a plane, then he piloted a spaceship, then he navigated the quantum world, then he learned to travel at light speed and phased from one point to the other, then he learned how to do all of this with less physical technology, then he finally understood that he could go anywhere he wanted without his physical technologies because he finally understood that everything outside of us can be obtained by mastering ourselves on the inside, then he navigates all of space and time freely and perfectly, then he tries to get others to follow him because it is so incredible, then he cries because people don’t believe him, then he is thought not to exist, then he is God. All of this by gradually understating more and more of the laws of the way the universe naturally works already, the way it always will be and never will be different. Obviously there is more to becoming God then just that process, that was simply a straight forward example of my dedicated point that I’m trying to get across. We become Gods by following rules that never change, not by following rules by a random God that gives us things once and a while by obeying his orders. I believe in God and I believe in Heavenly Father, Heavenly Father is God and not the other way around. Obviously I could go into incredible depths into our Savior Jesus Christ and the Comforter, The Holy Ghost and how they make up the Godhead but that is for another time and day. My God, My Heavenly Father is true and perfect in the law and that is why He is God, or in other words, He is that He is,(I am that I am). I hope this has been of some interest to someone who might read this and I hope you can get something out of it because this is my testimony. It is my testimony that God lives and we are his children, and that we can fulfill the measure of our creation to become like our Divine Heavenly Parents, for, even though we might not understand it or feel like it now we desperately yearn to be back home and gain eternal life and become princes and princesses to our majestic, eternal, divine inheritance. What is an eternal truth? An eternal truth is what it is when we can lift an object into the air when the proper techniques have been applied, thus we have an airplane. An eternal truth is when we can travel through space and time unhindered and completely free when the proper techniques have been applied, thus you are God and a Heavenly Father or Mother. This is my testimony in the name of Jesus Christ amen.

Me

Me

Who it is that I am is a question that I’ve
Asked myself in ponderous thought
A single conclusion at which I’ve arrived
Is I must be me or I simply am not.

How can it be if I am not me?
And what does that even imply?
I think that I am therefore I must be
Only myself, no one other, just I.

It seems as though within my thoughts
That flow to a sea in a stream so clear
That it should be as easy as connecting the dots
To find whom it is that I see in the mirror.

But what of when only one piece I can see,
Is there another to connect outside of my box?
There is, I see them in the infinities
That make up my being and this “me” paradox.

Teaming with promise my singular soul
Tries to conquer this inhuman chore
Of keeping this body in careful control,
Like fighting a ceaselessly dubious war.

All in all and like I’ve said
Many a time before
I’m tired now and I’m going to bed
And I am what I am , nothing more.

-Jacob Winterfeldt

My Truth

My Truth

Sometimes I can’t tell if I’m only a dream,
I think to myself that my life sure does seem
Like a fairytale story, a make believe rhyme
That I only wrote about once upon a strange time.

I am sure though that my heart knows I’m real,
It’s my mind that plays tricks with the way that I feel,
And my body’s perplexed from this vivid divide
And it’s caught in betwixt which realm I should side.

I know I’ve influence o’er this world and of space
But it seems like my presence isn’t quite in its place,
So how can I know where I am when a rift
Roams through my psyche listlessly adrift?

Can I find myself in these strange, endless mazes
Of associations, addictions, and emotional hazes,
How can I be who I truly am when I’m lost
In a turbulent sea so continually tossed.

For now though I am what I am and I’ll keep
An eye out for those things which I truly seek,
Though often aloof I’ll scarcely e’er cease
To search for my truth and to find my fair peace.

-Jacob Winterfeldt