There are better days

Some days are better than others.

In the days that seem to hold you down and suffocate you - those days where life's cruel sense of humor gets the better of you - you try to claw your way out by distracting yourself, denying that fire of stress, anger, and sadness that burns at you from within.

But that fire can only be suppressed by confronting it. And usually you can't confront it alone.

It's the constants in life that will fight the fire with you. Those things in life that show you nothing but love and peace, tranquility and purpose.

I'm not trying to wax philosophical here, just saying I'm having one of those days. By recognizing the humanness and worldliness of what I'm going through and by turning to my constants (God and music), I was able to turn a miserable 25-minute walk to work into a therapy session.

This song did a world of good to me this morning:

"Oh God, hold me now
Oh Lord, hold me now
There's no other man who could raise the dead
So do what you can to anoint my head

Oh God, where are you now?
Oh Lord, say somehow
The devil is hard on my face again
The world is a hundred to one again

Would the righteous still remain?
Would my body stay the same?

Oh God, hold me now
Oh God, touch me now
There's no other man who could save the dead
There's no other God to place our head

Would the righteous still remain?
Would my body stay the same?

There's no other man who could raise the dead
So do what you can to anoint my head
Oh God, hold me now
Oh Lord, touch me now."

- 'Oh God, Where are You Now?' by Sufjan Stevens

Here's a video of the song, only for the purpose that you can hear the song (not entirely sure what the graphic is all about.)

It's ok, I know you're jealous

As Democrats and Republicans waged war against each other over the right to be patriotic, the right to be religious, and the right to be a woman or a black man, one group smote the strategists and the naysayers, rising from the ashes of a fallen America, conquering the minds and the hearts of its people while rocking the socks off the children and the elderly. They dazzled common citizens with a dizzying array of ear-splitting guitar riffs, thundering bass notes and crushing machine-gun drum solos. And through it all they delivered their tropical bretheren into the promise land of a hope-filled future.

That group was Bananarchy.


B-A-N-A-N-Archy from Ryan Schlagbaum on Vimeo.