There's not a whole lot of light here. Only the light of the stars, my computer screen with it's satellite broadband card, and the raging bonfire over yonder. Lithuania by Rithma is only slightly below blaring, and alcohol is flowing pretty freely. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little buzzed. Many realizations have hit me in the past few minutes, as I sat under the stars listening to great techno, snuggling deeper into my heavy coat and the pile of blankets here on the hill. Down below us, sprawling city lights twinkle and spark, an inferno of misguided ambitions and halfhearted attempts at existence. And yet, here on the watchtower (thats what we've always called this gigantic hill), those aren't pessimistic thoughts. Misguided ambitions are still ambitions, and a halfhearted attempt is better than apathy. Which, sadly, is all the world seems to convey in the light of the sun. The fire has gotten a little out of control. Kirk is yelling about stupid people only ever talking about sex and drinking, and Connor is patiently hearing him out. Perhaps he's right. Maybe not. But the thing running through my mind right now, as I sit in this deserted field above Boston, in the bitter cold, watching a raging fire and listening to these people who are closer to me than family, and yet share my blood (blood pact when we were WAY younger), is that living is leaving us. The answer to the great question that has plagued mankind for eternity is the simplest, and yet most profound thing. The meaning of life is just that......life.

It's been over a year....hard to think I've been away so long. But never the less, I have returned. Not much to say right now, but there will be a full briefing tomorrow. It's already very late here. I love you all.

Good night, and good luck,
Scott Lynn

     The following morning, Edward Reese woke in a fog, the sounds of the previous 24 hours softly pushing through to the forefront of his memory. People arguing, the metallic click-whir of the machines, seeming to resonate into the room itself. And underscoring it all, knifing through the haze of the anesthetic, was the ratcheting clackclackclackclack and then the soft tick-tick-tick of a fist sized spring being wound and then slowly begining to unwind. He slowly sat up in bed, the fog lifting in his mind. He looked down to his bare chest, and there, directly above his sternum, sat the small X-shaped scar. He took a deep breath, and quieted his mind. Sounds from outside faintly echoed in his flat, mingling with the muted gold of early morning light. He shut out the sounds of shopkeepers opening stalls, of paiges running to their first assignments, and of the occasional pedestrian out for an early morning constitutional. Then he heard it.....felt it more, really. Deep within himself, at his very core, he felt the pistons moving, the smalls gears turning, pumping his lifeblood through his veins. And powering all that, he heard that familiar tick-tick-tick, the spring slowly unwinding. He touched his hand to his chest, tracing the lines of the scar.
     Slowly, and for the first time in days, he got up and swung his legs over the side of the bed. Stumbling a little, he made his way to the window and looked out at the slowly waking city. Smoke poured from chimneys of forges and bakeries alike. Horseshoes clattered on the cobblestones as the shrill whistles of great iron and steel steamers pierced the air from the river a few miles off. Through all this, his mind wandered. There was so much life to live in one month, so much to do, to get ready for. Where would he start? Well, that answer was obvious to him. He would start where everything in his life always began. With her. He remembered his last night with Alexis, before the accident, before his real heart stopped beating when the Institution had found him. He remembered her last words to him before he walked away that evening.
"Edward, you truly are amazing."
 He didn't agree, didn't see anything special or amazing in himself. But now, now he had a chance to try.


***

     A pair of sad, almost ancient eyes watched Edward slowly leave the old red-brick townhouse, and make his way down Ellington St. The mind behind those eyes studied him, appraising the strength of his heart and the content of his character. Had anyone been able to see them, they would have seen hope flash in those eyes for a split second. Then they were gone, along with whom they belonged. 

Walls are a part of our everyday existence, and we carry them with us wherever we go. We wall our emotions and sometimes ourselves off from the outside world, while on errands or at work. How many times have you put on a smile a work while feeling terrible inside? Not to mention the walls we live, work, and play inside of everyday. Our homes, work places, our children playing in walled off playgrounds and daycares. It is saddening to think that we need all of these walls.

Robert Frost, in his poem "Mending Walls", covers this subject well. It speaks of both types of walls, the physical and the emotional. "We keep the wall between us as we go." (Frost 15). In the aforementioned line, not only is the narrator speaking of the physical barrier the two neighbors are on either side of, but the cool and brisk demeanor in which they treat each other, their emotional wall. The narrator tries to be amiable and engage the other neighbor in discussion about their need, or lack thereof, for the wall. But he is only met with the same cold line "Good fences make good neighbors." (Frost 27).

Peter Freundlinch, a commentator for NPR, spoke of a wall being erected between Israel and the West bank. Something he said in his commentary denotes our society's emphasis on walls, no matter their meaning. "That this newest of the world's walls should be put up by a people who were once themselves most horribly walled in is an almost unbearable irony. If they could find no other way out, there must not be one. This is a sadness that should suffuse us all." (Freundlinch). It is indeed a sadness, that we should rather wall ourselves in and everyone else out rather than find other ways to settle our differences. We are not a society of peoples, but one of walls.



Frost, Robert. “Mending Wall.”McMichael, George & Leonard, James, eds. Concise

            Anthology of American Literature. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 2006

Freundlich, Peter. "The Wall." NPR. 1 July 2002. 25 Jan. 2008. <http://www.npr.org/programs/act/transcripts/2002/jul/020701.freundlich.html>.

1) Go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The article title is the name of your band

2) Go to http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
The final words of the last quote on your page are the title of your album.

3) Go to: http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days/
The FOURTH image on the page is your album cover. You can choose to go to http://www.flickr.com/groups/flickrsocial/pool/ if you prefer a more dynamic, less philosophical cover.

4) Design your cover. Layout and presentation are up to you.

5) Post your cover, along with these instructions. In the comments your friends will tell you what kind of music you play and the name of the album's single.

     Most of us spend our lives trying to escape from self-centeredness. Maybe that's the whole point, the whole challenge, what the whole thing is all about. Some of us succeed better than others. It seems to me that those who have the most success are those who somehow turn self-caring into other-caring.

     It takes courage to be an other-carer, because people who care run the risk of being hurt. It's not easy letting your guard down, open your heart, react with sympathy and compassion when usually it's much easier - and much safer- not to get involved.

    But people who take this risk make a tremendous discovery: The more things you care about, and the more intensely you care, the more alive you are.

    This capacity for caring can illuminate any relationship: marriage, family, friendships - even the ties of affection that so often join humans and animals. Each of us is born with some of it, but whether we let it expand or diminish is largely up to us.

     To care, you must surrender the armor of indifference. You have to be willing to act, to make the first move. A while ago, my friend and I went to the beach with his young daughter to watch the tide come in at sunset. It was a quiet evening, calm and serene. The waves sent sheets of molten gold closer and closer across the dry sand. Finally, almost like a caress, an arm of the ocean curled around the base of the dune. His daughter looked at me and said pensively, "Isn't it wonderful - How much the sea cares about the land?"

     She was right, with the infallible instinct of childhood: it was a kind of caring. The land was merely passive - and so it waited. But the sea cared - and so it came. The lesson was all there in that lovely symbol: the willingness to act, to approach, to be absorbed, and in the absorbtion - to be fulfilled.

Far from the worn path of reason
Further away from the sane
He battles his shadows and demons
Fighting to light the way

And the dust and the dirt cloud his vision
Onward he rides unafraid
He fights the good fight for good reason
A star that refuses to fade

Still he braves his path…
Windmills only laugh

She was wounded and wild when he found her
He saw her through child’s eyes
She fell for the spell he was under
Each day a brand new surprise

And she watches with strange curiosity
She wants so much to believe
Hoping to break the chains of reality
Dying to set herself free

Though he may appear tattered and broken
His clothes are shabby and bare
Still he glows like the flame of a candle
With passion of one who still cares

There was always a rhyme to the reason
Peering out from tired eyes
The truth finally came in treason
So wrong, but so justified…
So wrong but so justified…
Windmills close their eyes…

Life is war. Everyday, you wake up, get dressed, maybe have a little breakfast, and then fight your way out the door. You lead your armies of experience and inclination out into enemy occupied territory, never knowing who you'll lose that day and how many of you will make it back home alive when it's over. Sometimes it seems overwhelming, and scary as hell. But you wake up every morning and you still fight, still press on, still come home battered and bruised and feeling alive. So I'll keeping swinging my sword of determination, cutting bloody swaths through those that attempt to hold me back and encase me, until I stand alone on that far hill, armor of hope gleaming brilliantly in the light of a new day.

I was really out of sorts yesterday. I was feeling pretty down about issues with my mother. We argue constantly now, over petty things that should be able to be handled with some modicum of civility. Such as money, or things needed for life or school. I'm not talking about luxuries, but actual needful things. Yesterday we had a huge fight over money, how much I had and my spending habits. I am driven to think it really only gets this bad with her because she is looking for a fight. She always comes into any conversation with me on the defensive, putting me on the defensive in response. Take yesterday for example. All I wanted to talk to her about was ow much I enjoyed my photojournalism class, so I called her into the room I was in, saying "Hey mom, come here, I want to tell you something." To which she snaps from the other room "Not if it involves arguing." Well of course it's going to turn into an argument if you walk into it with that attitude. I know it takes two to tango as the saying goes, and that I could be and am trying to be alot better about how I deal with my mother, but come on, no one can really have a civil conversation with someone who is waiting to argue with you and isn't listening to what you say, but is instead just thinking about what they'll say next to further the argument. So thats why I was in a pissy mood yesterday afternoon.

On another note, I really needed someone's help yesterday. My grandfather was a fount of wisdom and respect for me, and it was a terrible blow to my family and myself when he died. I've needed his advice on alot of things lately, and have been praying fervently for something. I got my answer yesterday night. I came home really late after seeing Kaley and Madi, and laying on my bed was a really old red and brown shoebox, filled with little yellow boxes labeled "Matthew 83" or "Scottie 92" and so on and so forth. I immediately recognize my grandfathers handwriting, so I opened the boxes. They were slides, thousands of them. My grandfather was a photographer, and in his later years took immense pleasure in snapping off random photos of his grandchildren. But there were also slides and photos of his work portfolio, stirring pictures from his time in the military. Here it was, the answer I had been looking for. I looked through alot of those pictures with tears in my eyes. God had heard my prayers, and had driven my grandmother to mention this box of pictures she had just found to my parents at dinner. My dad brought it home and put it on my bed for me to find later. God and my grandfather had finally given me the advice I needed. Looks like Photojournalism is the way I'm going.

I hate doing it. Waving goodbye, that last hug, knowing that it will be a long time before you see that person again. When someone has become such a staple in your life that you can't remember what life was like without them, saying goodbye can be terrible. I will miss our conversations, sitting on the patio drinking coffee at the bookstore, randomly going over to each others houses to do nothing, going to movies, sitting together on rainy days, me melancholy and you chipper. I will miss the strength you give me by your presence, and the reassurance I find in your voice. I will miss your hugs, your smile, your laugh. I will miss my sister, and I will miss my best friend. Most of all, I will miss you. I love you, as everything listed above.

I know it's only four months until you come back for Christmas, but that feels like a long time to me.

I usually never post them when I make a soundtrack, but this one has started to be different. I've made soundtracks the past few years, starting with 2003. What I'll usually do is choose songs that lyrically or rhythmically portray how I felt about major events of that year, and then I'll rename them to fit their purpose. So here it goes, the first half of Soundtrack '07: Brothers Reunited.

1. Mayfield - Augustana
2. Carry The Blessed Home - Blind Guardian
3. Over My Head - The Fray
4. Mad World - Gary Jules
5. Dare - Stan Bush
6. Remember When It Rained - Josh Groban
7. Son of Man - Phil Collins
8. Chrome - VNV Nation
9. You Raise Me Up - Josh Groban
10. Love Them Like Jesus - Casting Crowns
11. These Small Hours - Rob Thomas

And the names I give them are

1. Will I make it?
2. "This time I'm not going anywhere, I promise.."
3. Does it show?
4. Mad Me
5. I Can Do This!
6. Do You Remember Me To?
7. An Unrelenting Soul
8. A Heart of Chrome
9. "Father, save me...."
10. "Lord, give me strength...."
11. A New Dawn

My Belruel

'twas the twelving day of Everfair
when fell my maid of raven hair
beneath her cloven standard of the wren
and damn that roiling goblin horde
we'd almost slain the overlord
but i could never roll an elf again

"The Queen of Bells and Battle-Downs"
she wore the title like a crown
Foes so deep a man would drown, but she still stood alone
a princess and a duchess both
and sworn to nine prestigious oaths,
her duties, they would take her to that twisting spire of stone

Against his tower, a silhouette
She called like a coronet
And the green sea of his armies burst from warrens far below
The pacts he'd made with demonkind
Had rent his thin and tattered mind
And hellish princedoms occupied the arrow he let go

They took her through the crowded square
And laid her at the temple stair
The sorcelled barb of Arudair beyond their healing arts
there stands a circlet on her brow
that turns the blades of men around
But if Belruel could hear me now
This song would pierce her heart

'twas the twelving day of Everfair
when fell my maid of raven hair
beneath her cloven standard of the wren
damn that roiling goblin horde!
and damn their hell-bound the overlord!
but i could never roll an elf again


So I'm waiting to go to Front Royal for our weekly sunday night activities. Really bored......and that's bad. When Scott gets bored he thinks, thinks about stuff like Megan calling him yesterday afternoon, wanting to talk.....thinks about how there's a whole case of Blue Moon in a cooler outside.....that stuff is seriously amazing. Have you ever had it? One of the best stories ever comes from that beer. Blue Moon and jacked pizza. I might put it up here sometime.

So alot has been going on lately, and I feel I've been slacking off in my lj duties. My history class starts today, and I'm ready for it. I can't wait to just get this stuff done and over with, so I an move to Oregon. What? Did that come as a shock dear readers? Yes, Father Lynn is moving to Oregon. When you ask? That is up for debate. I'm trying to finish my associates degree here in Virginia, then I'm going to apply to Oregon University in Corvallis and see what happens. It's probably going to be another two years or some such, so don't start planning any going away parties yet.

In other news, my best friend and her sister left for India today on a missions trip. God help the Indians if something happens to Kaley or Jackie. But I know they'll be alright. They'll be teaching orphans about God and going around helping people less fortunate. I think it's great for them to be getting out of their comfort zones and doing Gods work abroad. But they can tell you more about it than I can, and they both have set up blogs for their trip. Kaley's is http://dedioscantare.livejournal.com and Jackie's is http://drunkenbarwench.livejournal.com/ .

Anywho, onward and upward. I saw Transformers last night, and my childhood was reaffirmed. That was possibly the single greatest movie I have ever seen in my entire life. Optimus Prime is the man, and everyone knows it.

And one final note about the goings on recently in my life. Things have just been crazy. I've been working on some problems I've been having, and I'm starting to see the world through different eyes. Sometimes it's good and sometimes it's bad, but it is always an adventure. I want to, nay...I NEED to change the world. There is this fire burning inside me, consuming my passions for all else and carbonizing them into resolve to change....this...planet. I don't know how yet, or why, but I'm being drawn to some inescapable, far-off day where some choice I make will change the scope of humanity as we know it. Now that sounds really egotistical, I know, but it's true. I do have these feelings, and they are telling me to prepare myself....for something. Maybe I'm just crazy, but the funny thing is..........no one has ever accused me of being sane.

Sometimes I just feel down, for alot of different reasons. The other day I got this overwhelming sense of sadness when I was in public, because I was thinking about all the people around me whose stories I didn't know. So many feelings and memories and emotions that are associated with them that I'll never experience. So many lives and adventures that I'll never live. It saddens me sometimes.

The will to greatness clouds the mind, consumes the senses
veils the signs we each are meant to recognize
Redeeming graces cast aside, enduring notions
Newfound promise that the end shall never come
We live in times when all seems lost
But time will come when we look back
upon ourselves and on our failings
Embrace the void even closer still
Erase your doubts as you surrender everything

We possess the power
if this should start to fall apart
to mend divides, to change the world
to reach the farthest star
If we should stay silent
if fear should win our hearts
our light will have long diminished
before it reaches the farthest star

Wide awake in a world that sleeps
enduring thoughts, enduring scenes
the knowledge of what is yet to come
From a time that all seems lost
From a dead man to a world
without restraint, unafraid and free

"If we fall and break,
all the tears in the world
cannot make us whole again."

This song has so much meaning for me in my life right now. Really listen to it. It's an amazing song.

I can't understand it.
The search for an answer is met with a darker day.
And we've been handed these moments forever.
But I'm reassured there's another way.
You don't have to close your eyes.
There is room for love again.
Ease the pain to realize
All that love can be.
Forced apart by time and sand.
Take a step and take my hand.
And don't let it go.
Never let go.

Broken, once connected,
We were so strong and so blessed in a simple way.
So don't let me go it alone.
Turn your head up to the sky.
Nothing down below but me.
Face the truth to realize
All that we could be.
Torn apart by rage and fear.
Hold onto what brought you here.
Don't let it go.
Never let go.

Turn your head up to the sky.
Nothing down below.
Don't let go.

I just had one of the best days in a long time. I got up really early to go with Doug and Devon to visit the VCU campus and go to this informational seminar for the school. It was really impressive. The dining center was amazing, as well as the layout of the campus plus the sheer immensity of the Library. All of this majesty was compounded by the fact that I was spending the day with two people who are very important to me. We drove the long drive back and I was in charge of the music selection. Devon drove while Doug napped and I spaced out watching the world fly by. We get back to Doug's and then we pile into my car to go get Ricky and Matt. We get some pizza, get Tyler, the 7 year old we were charged with baby-sitting tonight, then go to the mall. We dick around there, meet up with Sean and Christen, then go to Toys-R-Us and Target. We then venture to the movie theatre and meet up with the rest of our ragtag group of super-heroes. Mae and Mickey, Ben and Steve, Wyatt, Abram, Gino, and a few others. We watched TMNT and it was amazing. Seriously a great movie. And as I drove home alone after all was said and done, I got a little teary eyed, because I have such great friends who love me for who I am, and whom I would do anything for. Especially the double D's, Doug and Devon. I love you guys.

I remember coming over to talk with Jason because you were sitting next to him.
I remember thinking how amazingly beautiful you were.
I remember getting lost in your eyes, your red hair, your lip ring.
I remember the next time I saw you, you wanted to sit next to me.
I remember when I first told you I was falling in love with you, you danced around your room singing "He loves me!"
I remember the poems I wrote about you.
I remember skipping Fire Academy to see you.
I remember skipping all kinds of classes to see you.
I remember your flushed face and sweaty palms as you sat next to me, sick as a dog.
I remember your head on my shoulder, and a whispered "I love you."
I remember my lies.
I remember my stupidity.
I remember your tears.
I remember your angry words.

I remember seeing you a few months later.
I remember you saying you wanted to see more of me.
I remember my second chance.
I remember how I fucked that up to.

I remember the letters I wrote.
I remember the one I got in return.
I remember my faded voice on the line..."I love you Megan."
I remember the text message that arrived a few minutes after we hung up..."I love you too."

I remember us.
I remember you.
Do you remember me too?

I just got done watching Neale Walsch's "Conversations with God" movie, and I'm speechless. "To make abundance for yourself, make abundance for others." "make a life, not a living. Do what makes you happy instead of wasting time doing things that don't make you happy. Thats not called a living, but a dying." So many things are brought to my attention there. I don't know why I'm even writing this. I've got nothing to say. For some reason, my creativity is sapped. I've got nothing. It's gotten to the point where I don't want to do anything. I quit my job yesterday, all I ever do is watch movies and play video games. I want to change the world, but I'll never get it done like this. The last time I wrote in my physical journal, I said I felt that I was alone in all of this. I know that is absurd, but I cannot help but still feel it. It's like a cancer, eating away at whatever happiness I have at the time. It kills me, and it seriously hurts those around me. I just need something else I suppose. Something that will help me find myself, who I am and where I fit. I think everyone searches for that, or some derivative of it. I sometimes feel so isolated and talentless. Like right now for example. I know I'm only writing because I like to think I have something to say. But I know I don't. I'm only putting words down to make myself feel important for the small fraction of time that I'm actually doing this. Kinda sad, huh? Right, well I write more later I suppose. Gotta feel important then too.

(I wrote this in my journal while standing outside the Hirshorn Modern Art Museum....hence the 'black metal twisting' line. It was a sculpture I was looking at.)

Black metal twists and curves in front of me.
I stand mute, mesmerized by the savage beauty,
entranced by the feelings it inspires in my hollow heart.

But then I have to question myself.
"Perhaps my heart is not so hollow?"
These swells and fissures of emotion that so joyously and painfully administer a single conclusion.
"You.....are....human."
My breath catches in my throat as tears form behind my eyes.

"Human?" My mind dares to ask.
"Now and forever." My heart replies.

My heart quickens with the implications of such a notion.
"Could I finally have gained at least a modicum of that which I had sought,
yet had remained elusive so long?
When did I acquire it, and how had it slipped past my many walls?"

I searched through my memories,
thoughts and visions of the past flying through my mind.
Then I remember.
Then I understand.

I saw the moment in time when I had been so open.
I heard the four words that opened my heart.
I heard the four words that shattered my defenses and validated my existence,
spoken from her lips.

"Scott, I love you."