Intentions...

Since publishing this blog - I have wrestled with determining what it is exactly I want to share. In my first blog,  I mentioned a desire to broadcast my soul and use the blog as a container of sorts...however, I'm beginning to have second thoughts.
I enjoy attention, a lot. I gain pleasure through recognition, and have for a great portion of my life. Though I am not alone in this fundamental need, I am learning sluggishly to satisfy my need through self-acknowledgment - a heightened awareness of my inner workings, rather than through outward attention.
That being said, I feel the need to back peddle a bit from the goals professed earlier concerning my blog, as writing a blog expressing my inner realities seemingly violates any attempts to sustain recognition individually.
Alternatively, I intend to save my soul-bearing for the mead book, and instead use this blog to discuss relevant social topics and create space for others to question, assent, mock, or implode at my convictions.
By expressing my convictions, I will inevitably divulge aspects of my individual experience for clarity, though only as a means to provide rationale for the slants that I take.
For the "followers" disappointed by my altered trajectory, I hope opportunities arise for us to engage heart-to-heart in the future - without pixels and keys.
Lastly, I admit outright that I don't have all the answers - and hope not to present my convictions as such, but rather as loosely formulated ideas subject to change and rearrange. For as my mentor Hal Shrader says, "Since I have been wrong in the past and will be wrong in the future, the trick is recognizing that I am wrong now."

Presence is the greatest present.

Yesterday I had the most empowering experience with my Hospice patient. We were discussing out thanksgiving experiences, and all the great food we have eaten, when he offered to show me some of the left over he had. Naively, at first I thought that he simply wanted to show me his bounty, but after opening his Tupperware he offered me to partake.

Due to my fixation on never being a burden to others, I quickly said no thank you. But he asked again, and I obligingly agreed.

As I sat and watched him slowly shuffle his feet around the kitchen to share his food with me, I experienced Love. Love that endured the pain and shortness of breath forever accompanying someone with COPD(Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease),undoubtedly accentuated during activity. Love, in the sense of empowering him to love and serve me...and Love in allowing myself to simply take and eat(sound familiar?).

It was as if Jesus himself was serving me, taking all the strain and labor necessary to nourish my body and soul. All that I could give back was gratitude (hold the methane...wink).

As I enjoyed the broccoli casserole and candy-tasting cranberries, he sat and watched contently.

In retrospect, my entire experience with my hospice patient has happened to me in this vein. I constantly come to him on my knees, and always end up with my feet in a bowl.

Since my patient holds his independence as Atlas with the globe, there is nothing tangible that I can offer him in the realm of service except for my presence, though now I am wondering if that is the greatest gift we can ever give another human being, or maybe even ourselves?

Providing presence is the most basic thing we can give another person, but the hardest to come by in a world seemingly designed as an obstacle course for individual with ADD. Presence, as my third-grade teacher would call "undivided attention" is the diamond in the rough, ever available beneath the surface of our kaleidoscopic existence. 

 When we re-discover the diamond in the rough, we may even understand the grace and liberation that comes with unveiling the reality that our greatest gift to ourselves and the world is in our ability to be present.

The Genesis

I have contemplated creating a blog for a while, but my ambition was always swept aside by tidal waves of fear and doubt. However, I have swelled up, gaining the strength necessary to fight the waves, due to my recent publications in the school newspaper - and gentle pushing by my good friend and fellow blogger Anne Taylor.

I don’t know what is to come of this. I hope that it is a well of sorts, to bring refreshment to both my soul and others (pretention unintended), by trekking into my Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (thanks Mr. West).

I pray that I honor the One(or Three?) this blog is titled after, the "Indeterminate Boundless" who revealed himself most fully in the Crucified called Jesus(hard J...hehe).

Lastly,  I thank my family and friends for buildng up the house of my consciousness and I hope to gently search my rooms, reupholstering them when necessary...or possibly tearing them down altogether and scandalizing my gentle intentions....

                                                                                                                                                                   

So…here we go...if you didn’t bring your snorkel, than find a good straw, because we are going deep blue...

Disclaimer: If you despise ellipses, my blog may cause ulcers. You have been warned.