"woe is me, for i am a man of unclean lips..."

In June of 2007, i gave a speech at my high school graduation on the pivotal role failure plays in our lives. i talked about failure being actually essential to real growth as a human being, despite the fact that everything we hear in pop culture says none of us will fail. We are, after all, winners. Each and everyone of us. Right?

Well the ironic thing about truth (and i firmly believe that i spoke truth that day) is that there are basically two ways to know It: You can know it intangibly (under which fall intellectually, spiritually, emotionally, etc.) and tangibly (practically). And you will at some point usually experience both. Well, at that time in my life 2 1/2 years ago, i was definitely aware of this truth about failure with all of my intellect. Even from observation of others' lives i could see and know that failure is 1) certain and, 2) opportunistic. People never stay the same after failure. They learn from it and move on a stronger person or they let it beat them down and thus become afraid of life, basically. All of that to say that i have--if not painfully, certainly keenly--been moving more and more into that practical knowledge of failure, and more importantly, the choices that present themselves when that happens.

The whole irony of the situation is that in some ways when you experience Truth in your life in very real ways, you are much less likely to stand up on a podium and just talk about it as if it were the easiest thing in the world. You become more reserved, more sensitive to the effects of Truth before you just go blurting it out. Blurting it out doesn't make Truth untrue, but it's like playing Beethoven's Ninth through iPod ear buds. You lose the real, unadulterated, even difficult depth of what's really happening. So what i'm saying is, i've been the guy who blurts out Truth. Probably even in this blog i've done that. It is what it is. i think to hear Beethoven's Ninth through ear buds is still better than not hearing it at all. However, for you, dear reader, for you i hope and pray that i somehow can provide Truth in that purest form. In God's form. That's a statement that fills me with fear. Not fear like the fear of a gun pointed at your face, but rather the fear of the sun. You love it and you crave it, and yet you are aware that it's power is beyond taming, beyond putting into a box.

The search for Truth is the search for Freedom. It is the noblest of all pursuits and yet none other is more dangerous. Maybe, just maybe, this blog can help you and i on our journey.