I'm not going to go on a rant about how butterflies equate to mind control and stuff...it's pointless and it takes away from one of God's simple but beautiful creations -- that my girlfriend likes very much aside from dolphins. My girlfriend, as do I, see butterflies as a symbol of freedom -- nothing holding it back, it flies freely.
In a song I wrote called Breakup, I address the issue about ditching everything that holds us back -- whether it be addiction, depression, anger, people, etc. As one of the lyrics go, "Counting down the days/til my wings are spread awake/no longer to conform to you/the thorns have grown enough/I'm tired of giving up/it's time to fly away". The very thought of it didn't ring until last night in a wonderful conversation with Michelle.
For the past God knows how many years, anger, frustration, sadness and heartbreak were chips on my shoulder that would weigh over me like a black cloud. You can only live on so far with it. Given that I will be 26 this year, those things don't weigh on me anymore. God apparently had a way of lifting that off of me and in turn put a love in my life that helps me fly freely like an eagle. I don't feel numb and as it goes in Creed's song, Overcome, "Don't cry victim to me/everything we are and used to be are buried and gone".
How long will we choose to live with our miseries and pain? When will we choose to let go and live the way we're meant to live?
This March there will be an important day for me. It will be the moment and day where I can finally say, "it's time to really and peacefully move forward and live with a free heart in every way".
In case if nobody knows or even bothered to notice, Michelle and I have finished the writing process of 3ra. All that's left is the artwork and a photo or two. For me, I can proudly say it's the beginning of something truly different yet powerful.
Blogs by Ron Gunz
1.30.2011
1.27.2011
Forgiveness in Questions
So I'm sitting here and just thinking and thinking a lot. I think the first thing I'll bring up here will have to do with questions. Everyone who has, are or will be my friends all know that I'm a young man of faith. Granted, not exactly the best of them (that I know of) but one nevertheless. Yet, despite how, after all these years, although I've never been one to question God or have many questions, I confess that I have my questions.
I still am at unrest as to why he took Bernice. I may have the more concrete idea about it but I still haven't been able to move on. Part of me died with her. I still wonder why I always felt I'd die of young age, why I thought I'd never see the woman I'd grow old with, why I'll live and die as an outcast, why I sometimes feel restless and why I would feel like I'd never see the success I always dreamed and fantasized about. Sure, whatever happens happens but whatever happens God is in control but I still have questions. I don't bicker about when the Earth was made, if there were dinosaurs, if history is political, etc. I'm talking about the important things. I know, God has everything in His hands but I still want to understand why he lets certain things happen. I want to know why He's protected me and others from so many things in this world while others are pinned down and forced to experienced many unasked evils. I know God's ways are higher than ours but I'd like to understand them, even if it takes a lifetime.
The other thing that's kept dancing in my head is the word forgiveness. It's probably one of the harder things to do in life. There are many things we may be exceptionally good at -- our jobs, education, art, music, sports, speaking, the list goes on. But to forgive, holy crap! It seems to be a task for some of us. The one thing about it that continues to echo are the words, "just forgive". An unforgiving spirit will tear your identity apart. It claws at you like a demonic beast, leaving you in constant unrest. It, at times, has left me unable to sleep right. It causes time to move slow and for joy to diminish. So here it goes -- I forgive you, all of you. Whatever you've done, however you've done it, it's forgiven. I will simply only say that I'm sorry if I held anything against you, ignited any malcontent towards me because of any actions. My hatchet is buried, how about yours?
I still am at unrest as to why he took Bernice. I may have the more concrete idea about it but I still haven't been able to move on. Part of me died with her. I still wonder why I always felt I'd die of young age, why I thought I'd never see the woman I'd grow old with, why I'll live and die as an outcast, why I sometimes feel restless and why I would feel like I'd never see the success I always dreamed and fantasized about. Sure, whatever happens happens but whatever happens God is in control but I still have questions. I don't bicker about when the Earth was made, if there were dinosaurs, if history is political, etc. I'm talking about the important things. I know, God has everything in His hands but I still want to understand why he lets certain things happen. I want to know why He's protected me and others from so many things in this world while others are pinned down and forced to experienced many unasked evils. I know God's ways are higher than ours but I'd like to understand them, even if it takes a lifetime.
The other thing that's kept dancing in my head is the word forgiveness. It's probably one of the harder things to do in life. There are many things we may be exceptionally good at -- our jobs, education, art, music, sports, speaking, the list goes on. But to forgive, holy crap! It seems to be a task for some of us. The one thing about it that continues to echo are the words, "just forgive". An unforgiving spirit will tear your identity apart. It claws at you like a demonic beast, leaving you in constant unrest. It, at times, has left me unable to sleep right. It causes time to move slow and for joy to diminish. So here it goes -- I forgive you, all of you. Whatever you've done, however you've done it, it's forgiven. I will simply only say that I'm sorry if I held anything against you, ignited any malcontent towards me because of any actions. My hatchet is buried, how about yours?
1.22.2011
Letting Yourself Be Held
After a long week of work, getting things ready for school, writing and spending a lot of quality time with my girlfriend, I've managed to actually meditate, write and think. This evening/morning, all I thought about was what the chaplain at Woodhull Medical Center told me as I walked and stood sitting in a room separate from my family as we all grieved the death of my sister Bernice, "you do not have to be the rock".
Hard pill to intake but a truthful one nonetheless. I confess that I've always delighted into holding others in their pain, being able to comfort them when they decide to be vulnerable to the point of letting me see their tears, agony, pain and suffering. When it comes to me, though, I am terrified at letting someone see every part of me. Especially someone that shares a mutual romantic love. I play it off like I don't need support, that I can stand firmly without being held. However, let's be fucking real -- we need to be comforted and held too.
Key parts of me that have been broken and torn are healed by the good Lord himself but there are still scars from other hurts that will need time to heal and be overcome. In this, I am very grateful for her support. She's seen me laugh, rant, rave, engulfed with a genuine passion that ignites the core of who I am -- nevertheless, she's seen me cry, fall apart sometimes and seen despair in my eyes. May God truly bless her because every day I see her, everything she's done reminds me of His goodness and ever-enduring mercy.
Every time I hear Not Alone by ReD off of their Until We Have Faces album, my heart is lifted and I remember that God's there to heal, comfort and hold us when we've fallen apart, regardless of how or why. In this, I accept that it's okay to not be the hero sometimes. Sometimes, we are the ones that need to be held somehow.
Hard pill to intake but a truthful one nonetheless. I confess that I've always delighted into holding others in their pain, being able to comfort them when they decide to be vulnerable to the point of letting me see their tears, agony, pain and suffering. When it comes to me, though, I am terrified at letting someone see every part of me. Especially someone that shares a mutual romantic love. I play it off like I don't need support, that I can stand firmly without being held. However, let's be fucking real -- we need to be comforted and held too.
Key parts of me that have been broken and torn are healed by the good Lord himself but there are still scars from other hurts that will need time to heal and be overcome. In this, I am very grateful for her support. She's seen me laugh, rant, rave, engulfed with a genuine passion that ignites the core of who I am -- nevertheless, she's seen me cry, fall apart sometimes and seen despair in my eyes. May God truly bless her because every day I see her, everything she's done reminds me of His goodness and ever-enduring mercy.
Every time I hear Not Alone by ReD off of their Until We Have Faces album, my heart is lifted and I remember that God's there to heal, comfort and hold us when we've fallen apart, regardless of how or why. In this, I accept that it's okay to not be the hero sometimes. Sometimes, we are the ones that need to be held somehow.
1.09.2011
03 the Preacher Boy
First of all, I hope all of you have had a splendid holiday within the past few weeks. For those fellow New Yorkers, I hope you got all that cursing out of your system due to the blizzard we just endured. I can only describe my Christmas and New Years as awesome, given that I spent it with my family and my girlfriend.
I recall my dad meeting my girlfriend and having good lengthy convo. Then he brought up something I never bothered really bringing up to many people -- that I "was" a preacher and teacher. To the average Christian, one would ask, "why not talk about it"? So it is my moment now to actually talk about it.
To be quite real and honest, I'm just not the preacher/evangelist that people would expect. I'm not the bible thumpin' s.o.b. that's gonna be on your behind, forcing you to get to Jesus ASAP. It's not that I don't desire to tell people about Christ, I just won't talk about Him unless the timing is precise. It's like telling a man who just lost his home that Jesus will make him rich. Like telling a man, hours away from dying of AIDS, that Jesus will heal Him. Like telling someone who's about to "ride the lightning" to repent of their sins.
I believe in talking about His goodness while I'm connecting with people in a meaningful way, of which there is a sense of confidence in talking about matters of faith and spirituality. Oftentimes, we always want to launch answers instead of asking the better questions that can open the door to talking about how good He has been with us and how He can show His goodness to you.
I refuse to talk about my preaching days in the pulpit simply because I was the one no one listened to. Everyone was all about talking about being blessed, that Jesus will take your problems away, talking about fire and brimstone or, when all else fails, just say the words "fire" and "anointing". Those things will win most church crowds any given day. But when you choose to address battling our everyday struggles, or how to see God's goodness in our lives or how we need a reality check and start really analyzing what we can do to make a difference, reach to the community and simply just show the Christ-like attitude -- it always seemed to fall on deaf ears. This ain't about being famous or being popular, it's about Christians needing to jump out of the norm and actually talk about the core issues affecting the church life, confronting problems and learning to overcome them instead of wishing and praying them away.
The biggest problem I always found with Jesus, "getting rid of your problems" is that it won't happen. He will guide you through His Spirit so that you know how to overcome, he will even help you understand the problem in order to find and have the resolve to topple it but to get rid of it or make it go away? Not happening. Why? Consider this -- a depressed man will go to a bar to get drunk and wasted because his rent's too high, his kids are out of control and won't listen to him or his wife is cheating on him or his job is considering to lay him off along with 400-1,000 other workers. That Jagermeister, Smirnoff, Heineken, sangria, Black Label or what have you will help keep his mind off it and just kill time elsewhere. He may even talk about it to a bartender or a fellow depressed person. At the start of the next day, following his sleep or his hangover time, guess what? The problems are still there. No resolution has happened.
I'm sure you might want to read an answer from me about how to help a ruined man like the one I just used. The truth is, that's for the Church to come together, pray and know how to help. The problem and reason why I had fallen out of love for the Church throughout late 2009 and early 2010 was because many times, church groups don't always huddle up and be like, "hey, we can pray for God to help him but, um, aren't we His hands and feet on earth? How can we help this broken man?"
If there is, in fact, any answer I can make a call for, it's the call to churches to gather themselves and reach out to the souls in need. When we take our focus off of programs, routine and the norms we have ourselves on and fix our eyes on being the Church, then we know, as will anyone else, that we are then, in fact, fulfilling the Great Commission -- being a light to a darkened world, reaching out to the fatherless and the widow, helping the poor and needy.
Jesus said in Matthew 25.40, "I tell you the truth, when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me" and there's the ever-interesting Hebrews 13.2, "Don't forget to show hospitality to strangers, for some who have done this have entertained angels without realizing it!". We know it is also said to treat others like you would yourself. It is also said to love one another. I think we are truly showing God's love to people when we choose to jump a bit out of our comfort zones and start to help others in whatever way we can.
They say that how you manage your finances says a lot about who you are but I say how you choose to help the needy in whatever way you can, even in the simplest, says a hell of a lot more. I'm not saying that broke people should help another broke person per se but rather, if you have something to help another and you know they need some kind of help, help them out. I think the American culture has programmed everyone into such a self-serving state of mind that our definition of generosity and philanthropy looks ridiculously different to how Jesus has shown it to be.
That's all I got to say for now but I hope I gave someone food for thought.
I recall my dad meeting my girlfriend and having good lengthy convo. Then he brought up something I never bothered really bringing up to many people -- that I "was" a preacher and teacher. To the average Christian, one would ask, "why not talk about it"? So it is my moment now to actually talk about it.
To be quite real and honest, I'm just not the preacher/evangelist that people would expect. I'm not the bible thumpin' s.o.b. that's gonna be on your behind, forcing you to get to Jesus ASAP. It's not that I don't desire to tell people about Christ, I just won't talk about Him unless the timing is precise. It's like telling a man who just lost his home that Jesus will make him rich. Like telling a man, hours away from dying of AIDS, that Jesus will heal Him. Like telling someone who's about to "ride the lightning" to repent of their sins.
I believe in talking about His goodness while I'm connecting with people in a meaningful way, of which there is a sense of confidence in talking about matters of faith and spirituality. Oftentimes, we always want to launch answers instead of asking the better questions that can open the door to talking about how good He has been with us and how He can show His goodness to you.
I refuse to talk about my preaching days in the pulpit simply because I was the one no one listened to. Everyone was all about talking about being blessed, that Jesus will take your problems away, talking about fire and brimstone or, when all else fails, just say the words "fire" and "anointing". Those things will win most church crowds any given day. But when you choose to address battling our everyday struggles, or how to see God's goodness in our lives or how we need a reality check and start really analyzing what we can do to make a difference, reach to the community and simply just show the Christ-like attitude -- it always seemed to fall on deaf ears. This ain't about being famous or being popular, it's about Christians needing to jump out of the norm and actually talk about the core issues affecting the church life, confronting problems and learning to overcome them instead of wishing and praying them away.
The biggest problem I always found with Jesus, "getting rid of your problems" is that it won't happen. He will guide you through His Spirit so that you know how to overcome, he will even help you understand the problem in order to find and have the resolve to topple it but to get rid of it or make it go away? Not happening. Why? Consider this -- a depressed man will go to a bar to get drunk and wasted because his rent's too high, his kids are out of control and won't listen to him or his wife is cheating on him or his job is considering to lay him off along with 400-1,000 other workers. That Jagermeister, Smirnoff, Heineken, sangria, Black Label or what have you will help keep his mind off it and just kill time elsewhere. He may even talk about it to a bartender or a fellow depressed person. At the start of the next day, following his sleep or his hangover time, guess what? The problems are still there. No resolution has happened.
I'm sure you might want to read an answer from me about how to help a ruined man like the one I just used. The truth is, that's for the Church to come together, pray and know how to help. The problem and reason why I had fallen out of love for the Church throughout late 2009 and early 2010 was because many times, church groups don't always huddle up and be like, "hey, we can pray for God to help him but, um, aren't we His hands and feet on earth? How can we help this broken man?"
If there is, in fact, any answer I can make a call for, it's the call to churches to gather themselves and reach out to the souls in need. When we take our focus off of programs, routine and the norms we have ourselves on and fix our eyes on being the Church, then we know, as will anyone else, that we are then, in fact, fulfilling the Great Commission -- being a light to a darkened world, reaching out to the fatherless and the widow, helping the poor and needy.
Jesus said in Matthew 25.40, "I tell you the truth, when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me" and there's the ever-interesting Hebrews 13.2, "Don't forget to show hospitality to strangers, for some who have done this have entertained angels without realizing it!". We know it is also said to treat others like you would yourself. It is also said to love one another. I think we are truly showing God's love to people when we choose to jump a bit out of our comfort zones and start to help others in whatever way we can.
They say that how you manage your finances says a lot about who you are but I say how you choose to help the needy in whatever way you can, even in the simplest, says a hell of a lot more. I'm not saying that broke people should help another broke person per se but rather, if you have something to help another and you know they need some kind of help, help them out. I think the American culture has programmed everyone into such a self-serving state of mind that our definition of generosity and philanthropy looks ridiculously different to how Jesus has shown it to be.
That's all I got to say for now but I hope I gave someone food for thought.
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