What is your place?

What's the leading cause of suicide?


Judging.

We do it every day. It's second nature. But every time you condemn a person based on what they look like,  you're adding hate to a scale. You know that one boy, who sits in the back of class, wears a lot of the same clothes every day, gets straight A's and talks to no one?

Avoiding him and branding him emo or weird isn't helping anyone.

Man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks on the heart.

Now, I know you've heard this a million and a half times, but you have to show people a little love.

Is it really so hard to say hi to a person?

A person isn't who they hang out with, or what they wear, or listen to.
A person is who they are before God. A person is an individual.

There's this huge debate about abortion.  When is a person a person? When do they get rights?

My question is, why don't we get to keep our rights? As soon as we're born we're labelled. As children we are what family we come from. The older we get, the more is added to who we "are."

Are you smart? No one in elementary school wants to talk to you. If you continue to be smart, you will forever and always be a nerd.
Unless you play a sport, of course. Because that automatically makes you cool.

Once you reach highschool, if you can play guitar then the world is pretty much yours.
Unless, you know, you wear glasses and have acne or something. Thennnn you're just that strange kid who plays music.

If you're an actor, you're gay if you're a guy and you're a drama queen if you're a girl.

If you play video games, you're a gamer/nerd.

Etcetera, etcetera...

This is stereotyping. And it limits us to our labels only.

I know you know that labels only belong on cans, but shush. I'm making a point here.

Most labels are harmless, until we start acting upon those labels.

Don't talk about other people behind their back. What good is that doing the world. Are you getting anything at all done? Anything?? No? Well ok then. Use the brain you have and talk about something else.

And parents? Unless you actually know the kid, or know for a fact that they're a bad person and will be a bad influence, do not judge your child's choice of friends!

Yes, you want to keep your kid safe. But does that mean you have ot hurt some other innocent youth to do so?

Heartbreak is built on judgement and hate.

And a lot of teens kill themselves over heart break.

Just who do you think you are, that you can judge a person?
Who do you think you are, that you can hand them another drop of poison?


Everyone has power of life and death. Of good and evil. And that's why we all are sinners.

~Silver

Fix it. And not the easy way.

We are Such a quick fix society. Yeah, I know pretty much everyone writes about this, but it's been bothering me.

Do you remember in my second post where I said some other day I'd write a long rant about the irresponsibility of my generation? Yeah this is going to be one of Those posts.

The world has a solution for everything. You don't like your hair? You can change that. You don't like your boyfriend, just get rid of him. There's make up and surgery for your face and body, there's abortion and pills for poor decisions and accidents in the back seat.

You don't have to be responsible. You just have to cover your mistakes.

And then we sit ourselves in front of mirrors and cry ourselves to sleep cause we're not perfect.

We've lost sight of what good and perfect is. We've lost a true sense of maturity.

I talked to someone recently, a college student. He'd decided that Love is dead. Understandable, since he came from a family where his mom had left them.

But if we don't have love to hold on to, what do we have?

Our mirrors? Our magazines? Throwing ourselves into the world and losing ourselves to reality?

Well, apparently that's what the majority of the known population believes. I, personally, believe that love and trust and stability are not dead things from the past. I think beauty is relative, but not relative to the tv screen. I think conformity is what this society has bred, a stupid conformity that pulls people into a whirlwind of destructiveness.

The world is pulling itself to bits.

How does this relate to you?

Good question. What have you done the past year?

Have you built yourself a foundation, or have you gone from group to group of people, from boy/girlfriend to the next, changing yourself?

Have you followed the crowd and given in to peer pressure?

My guess is, you have.

And that, dear reader, is how this relates to you.

The person I mentioned before said it wasn't too late to fix everything. I said it was.

So fix it, but not the quick fix society has given us. Make it right, the right way. Actually change, don't just say you will and procrastinate.

Prove me wrong, Reader. For the sake of humanity, Prove me wrong. 

~Silver

Just thinking out loud...

I have thus so far utterly failed at regular blog updates. Sigh...

Anyways, Now that I yet again have need of somewhere to dump all my thoughts, I'm updating again. (You: Joy oh rapture. I'm going back to that lolcats site) Well fine then. I never wanted you here anyways...

Moving on.

Some of this stuff may end up becoming bigger posts later, but I have a bunch of things I want to write on and can only come up with a paragraph for. So here's all that stuff.

Starting with... Fan pages. Or Like pages, I suppose. Why is it such a big deal that they made it liking instead of becoming a fan? We waste so much time on FB liking stuff. There isn't' a point to it, really, but it's become like breathing. You see the title, you agree with it, you like it. Has anyone noticed that half the pages don't even link to FB, but to a site specifically for spamming, or for scamming, etc? Sitting on FB liking pages is a clear sign that you need a life.

Not that I'm excluding myself. I've liked hundreds of pages, and haven't really thought about it till now. Next time you're about to like a page, stop yourself, ask yourself if liking th page has a point, and if there is no point (There's nothing better to do, and, because I can, are Not valid points.) then don't click the button.

(And then get off FB and go do something useful. Like writing, or learning to play an instrument, or helping the little old lady across the street with her garden.)


Next order of business, Energy drinks. I've got a few friends that are addicted to them. Quite simply put, they're legal drugs/alcohol. You can't get mad at states that make recreational drugs legal if you like energy drinks. You just can't. Granted, they don't have seriously bad short term effects on people, but then again neither does smoking. (You: *sips venom* I see no problem with this...)

Addiction is not a good thing. Seriously guys. And dumping a bunch of vitamins into yourself is a bad idea too. There are reasons they have recommended dosages on vitamin pills.


Thats what she said. (You: That makes no sense) Exactly. And if it did, why would you laugh? Everyone laughs at pervertedness. Why is it even funny? Really think about this one. There is absolutely no reason for it. (You: But I bet you laugh too, don't you.) I never said I didn't. But I'm working on not. It's a bad habit that everyone really should give up on. After all, since when is sex a joke?


Basically, a lot of stuff in the world is just crap. But then again, what are we supposed to do in the world? Hm, good question. What do we use our time for? What is useful?

That's a really good question that I can't really answer. But don't run around wasting time. Yeah, you've got years ahead of you and can do whatever's important then, but what if you got important stuff done Now? If you're gonna waste your time, do something more or less useful, like reading a book. Or if you hate reading, go swimming or something. Or if you don't like swimming, figure it out cause I'm not going to make a list of useful things you can do with yourself.

You have a brain, Use it.

That's another pet peeve of mine. Everyone has a brain, so why don't people think? And when they do think, half of the time they only half think through things and end up drowning in Jello. (You: Jello?) Yes, Jello. Transparent crap that tastes good and looks good but has no real use.

Granted, just case you have a brain doesn't mean you're a fast thinker. Which is why Jello is partially excusable. But only partially, because some stuff is freakishly obvious. You shouldn't choose not to use your brain. It because society does that that society is on the decline (and by on the decline I mean we're sitting in a ditch watching as it digs itself deeper.)


Anyways. That's my party of brain today. And yesterday. And all last month.

Well, ok, so the teen relationships thing's been on my mind too, but there are plenty of posts here for that one if you just scroll down...

Hopefully next time I post will be sometime soon and will be all one topic and will make more sense. Until then... Idk comment and start an argument. Those are always fun.

Have a wonderful life...

~Silver

It's that time of year...

Oh Hai there…. You’ve probably noticed by now that I’ve stopped posting (You: Well, actually, no… I hadn’t really been paying attention…) and that this blog has basically died. (You: Well, I guess that is the obvious conclusion, yes…)

Today, I am going to attempt to revive the blog. (You: Um… Cool? This is actually my first time reading it so….)

This may or may not fail (It’ll probably fail.) but the least I can do is try, right? Right.

So, now the question is, what do we talk about? And by we, I mean me, since if you’re even there (Which, you’re probably not…), you don’t usually have much to say. Which is sad, but hey, it’s not like I need more than me to have a discussion, right?

So, in the spirit of optimism, I’m going to discuss… Futures.

Yeah, futures. The most important thing now, at the end of the school year and such.

Now, if you’re a kid like me, you had your future planned since you were ten. You knew exactly what you wanted to do, and you knew exactly to which college you wanted to go. (For me, it was teaching. And Wheaton.)

Now, at this point, I don’t know how old you are, I know nothing about you, but if you’re anything like me, your plans have failed. You’ve changed your mind. Or maybe, you’re nothing like me, and you’re just now discovering that you actually need a plan.

So tell me now. What’s important?

There are plenty of kids (and by kids, I usually mean teens and or young adults) who, once they get up to the point of actually being out of highschool, they decide to ditch college for a year. And I think we’ve all heard stories of them.. They say they’ll go back, they never do… So why do people take that risk?

I suppose that’s asking the same thing as why procrastinate. Which is actually a good question, if you think about it. Why procrastinate? What are you getting out of it? (You: Absolutely nothing. But hey, it’s fun! And it has me here, reading this blog. So go back to futures and quit asking about my personal life.) Right.

Why do people take the risk of leaving and not coming back? The only good answer is that it’s just not that important to them that they go to whatever institute of higher learning. And I can understand this. As a teenager in highschool, one of the favorite questions will always be, Why, for the love of all things fluffy, are we learning this? (You: All things fluffy?) Yes. All things fluffy. Don’t you love fluffy things? Like kittens? No? Fine. Back to the point.

It really is a good question. If you suck at math, and you want to be an artist, why are you learning calculus?

Since I have no answer for that one, I’ll leave it up to you.

But really guys, why complain about it? What do we think our future is going to be, eternal summer? Heck no. My dearest friend (Whom I’ve possibly never met before but you’re reading this and that counts for something in my book), life is going to be a lot of work. And you’re going to ask yourself questions every day. Even if you get your dream job (like, graphics designer, or professional ice sculptor.) you’re still going to ask yourself questions about why the heck you’re designing stuff for little kids tee shirts when what you really want to do is remake the logo for that one famous band, or why you’re sculpting ice for this small wedding when you want to get noticed and sculpt ice for celebrities and such, and therefore suddenly have your work be in demand so you can get rich and live in luxury.

Yeah, so ice sculpting is kind of ridiculous, but I think it gets the point across. Life isn’t about getting everything you want, life is about getting through what you have to do in such a way that you can be mostly content. Yeah, I know, you probably have this ingenious plan to write a novel and jump to instant fame, or record a demo of you, and maybe your band if you have one, and suddenly jump to number one on itunes, and honestly in society today that doesn’t seem like such a bad plan. But think realistically. There are Billions of people in the world. And Thousands of them jump to fame. Put into a ratio, that’s one in a million. Do you really think that you’re going to be that one in a million?

Not to condemn you or anything, and by all means go ahead and give it a shot, but have a decent back up plan that involves more than working at some fast food place until you attain fame. Yeah, your future is in your hands, but the rest of the world’s got dibs on it too. Don’t throw it to the judgment of the rest of the world in the hopes that your dream of world renown will come true. You’re most likely to get your hopes dashed. Shape your life around something that’s more likely to work, and keep your celebrity plans on the backburner.

I’m sorry, did I say in the spirit of optimism earlier? What I really meant was cheery pessimism. (Or as some people, yself included, like to call it, swimming in the cold waters of reality.)

Now, go make yourself a cupcake or eat a cookie or something. Or fruit. Fruit is good. Apples are cool. Whatever makes you happy. Cause if you’re enjoying the simple things in life, the complicated depressing things aren’t going to bite as hard.

And, for any seniors reading this (Unlikely, I know, but hey it’s good to say hi to everyone…) Have fun planning the rest of your life!

~Silver

Seriously?

I am extremely fortunate to live in a small place known as Kansas City. Maybe you've heard of IHOP? No, no, not the pancake place, the other one. The one that prays 24/7 and sings worship music unceasingly.

Yeah, the one a lot of people call a cult. I pray for those people. A lot.

Moving on.

In this place, known as Kansas City, Missouri, and at this house of prayer, there have been, since november, meetings known as awakening meetings, from wednesday - saturday (Not through All of those days. though. Just from 6pm-12am.... Just thought I'd mention that)

These awakenings meeting have an amazing start, which you can read here.  And since then, God has been totally pouring out his heart over the people involved (And by involved, I mean anyone who joins in. Not just here, but also by webstream, etc. And small awakening meetings have started up other places too, I think...)

Every night is better than the last. Every night people go deeper, and deeper, and deeper.

But what of the teens?

Well, yes, they are people too. And a bunch of them have included themselves. A school here, called the Daniel Academy, has been "invaded" by the Holy Spirit, touching hearts, causing people to break out in joy and tears and various forms of manifestations (shaking, falling over, etc), and healings... The list goes on. Not just the TDA teens, but others as well.

So what is my problem?

The other, other ones. The ones that come just for friends.

Example:

Today I went for dinner at an awesome family's house, got home, got on FB. My friend tells me that she missed me tonight. I said yeah, I wish I'd been there, did anything awesome happen?

She says no, not really. (Just an added note.. This is the friend who, when the whole thing started three months ago, she texted me multiple times telling me to come cause God was touching people and it was amazing)

Now, a few hours later, and people are still tweeting and posting mobile uploads of the awakening meeting that went past 12. 

This isn't the first time, though it is happening more and more. And by the pictures uploaded, the videos taken by people....

One can see awesome stuff was happening.

So what's up with her answer, "Nope not really."

The problem is, a lot of kids are treating this like a social event. Great, (the) God (Who so happened to create the world) is here and encountering people... Wanna go hang out in the student lounge and drink soda? (Note, if it's in parenthesis, I added it. Just to throw it into perspective.)

Sure, for the first week or so kids came to touch God, but then they didn't really encounter Him, and so they got bored. Now it just makes a good excuse to hang out.

Ok, so you didn't get your heart broken open like a piñata, you didn't find joy unsurpassable, you didn't have an encounter with God that totally healed you of whatever emotional scars you may have, and you're not seeing feathers, gold dust, or finding yourself unable to stop laughing. At least, not in the first few weeks.

Does this mean you stop dedicating yourself to worship and prayer and being with God so He could meet you and heal you and all of the above stuff, and instead you wander off to McDonalds for an hour until you have to get back before your parents notice?

Apparently, it does.

And, confession here, I don't know what makes me feel worse; the fact that my friends all do this, or the fact that I can't say no to them when they ask me to come with them.

Yeah, so this all sickens me, this "Let's hang out cause we've all done this prayer stuff before" (Not that they say that, but if you break it down, that's really what they're saying...)

And I sicken me. Sure, I want to be in there, with the people who've found joy or who aren't stopping till they find it. But when my closer friends show up and say "Hey let's go to McDonalds I'm hungry," or "Let's go to the student lounge, cause it's loud in here..." Do I say no, I'm trying to find God? No... I say sure and follow them quietly as I fail to follow (and occasionally argue with) the voice in my head that's screaming at me to turn around, go back, and start praying.

Is this you? Yes? No? Maybe?

This isn't just with the Awakening. This is pressing into God in general. Picking God time over friendship time. Cause if your friends are against you spending time with the God who made not only their hearts, but the stars and, well, everything... Then they realllly need prayer... And maybe you need to back away from them a bit.

Not that I'm saying totally ditch your friends (I get the feeling of deja vu as I write this part, heh). I'm saying, make your life right with God, make it a flowering garden with God (see Song of Solomon, and I could add a few other references to explain that but I'm too lazy to find them...). Then hang out with your friends. Don't let your social life strangle your God life. You can still have friends and hang out with them. You should have friends. Jesus had friends, didn't he? But when there's a worship concert going on at your church, unless you Promised to go to the movies with your people, you'd probably come away with a lot more from the worship concert. Just saying.


If you're perfectly fine with just morning devotions, and going to church, then... well, idk I can't tell you how to live, I can only give you suggestions...


But the closer you get to God, the more you devote yourself to finding Him, the more truly alive you'll be. 

How about this. We all start listening to that pull in our hearts. The one that says PRAYYYY YOU NEED TO BE CLOSE TO GOD!!!!!
 I will if you will (I'll still try even if you decide to not to... just fyi...)

If you don't have this voice yet, that's ok. Go pray. Like, now. Get get off your computer, find your Bible, put some worship music on, and devote the next however long to God.

If you're not encountering God, don't give up. Seriously, if you fail 8th grade, or get fired from a job, you don't quit, you repeat the grade. You get a new job. You take the driver's test again. Study harder, try harder, if you're still not on dry land, the idea isn't to let yourself drown in the ocean, or starve to death on the tiny raft of boat. You keep going till you reach Lannndddd. (Yes, I did just used a cheesy metaphor. The raft or boat can be compared to life just believing in God, being a christian, and staying away from sin. But you knew that already)

I'm not going to point fingers at people. I'm not going to call anyone a bad Christian or a bad person. I don't judge people. But I will judge bad decisions and actions. And then talk about them here.

If you're reading this after coming back from praying like I suggested before, kudos.

Anyways. Please keep me in prayer... My family's going through crap (none of which will probably ever be discussed here, methinks) and thus it need peace, and I need willpower to pick devotion over having a blooming social life.

If you want, you can email me at endlesstunnels@gmail.com with prayer requests, questions, etc.

Also, if you're looking for good christian music, click here. I'll probably write some stuff about music sometime within the next month or so.. But other pressing topics keep getting in the way. (hehe....)

And if you want to see the awakenings, for free, there's that link from above, and if you want to listen to free webstream of the prayer room, here's a link to that one for you.

Now, goodnight, or good morning, or good... something to you all, my dears, and may you have a blessed day!

~Silver

Rules to Live By, Regarding Love

1.    You’re going to feel lonely.

2.    Your heart is fragile. Very fragile. Don’t give it away. Protect it.

3.    You can’t protect your heart. But God can.

4.    Just because you tell yourself not to fall for anyone, and not to want a bf/gf, doesn’t mean you’re not going to have that one person you can’t help but think about.

5.    Just because you fell for someone doesn’t mean they have or will ever fall for you. And you can’t interpret everything they do regarding you to mean that they do like you. (Or that they absolutely hate you.)

6.    You can’t stop yourself from thinking. You can, however, pray every single day and force yourself to focus on God. The more you do this, the better it will work.

7.    No, you and your person are not different from every other couple. There is no such thing as individuality, everyone is human and will make the same mistakes.

8.    You cannot love someone at first sight, unless that person is God. You can’t love at second sight either, and you really can’t “fall in love” with a person until you’ve gotten past mutual like and you’re very, very close to that person. This does not mean dating for a week. This means, steadily being together for at least a year.

9.    Always pray first. Always.

10.    If you haven’t had the chance to talk to God first, say no. And don’t convince yourself you heard God just cause you really, really like the person. If that was God talking, you’d know it.

11.   If you can’t decide what God’s saying, listen to your friends. If they’re all saying no, then the answer is no. If only most of them are unsupportive, the answer is still no. If it’s fifty-fifty, you should probably still say no, and you should press in really hard to God.

12.   Having a relationship with someone to prepare for a future relationship (or many future relationships) is an incredibly dumb idea. The best way to build a basis for a relationship is by having a good relationship with Jesus (Who is the ultimate Lover). Anything else will just get you hurt.

13.   If you were Romeo and Juliet, this means you would both die young. Keep this in mind.

14.   If you and this person are meant to be together, you will end up together on God’s timing. Cause your timing really sucks.

15.   The best way to get over heartbreak is to run to God. (Though, stuff like chocolate does help…)

16.   If a person has a bad history with relationships, you’re not The One to change him (or her).

17.   DO NOT be alone in a car with your gf/bf or someone who might soon be that. You don’t have as much self control as you think you do.

18.   Don’t go to movies alone with this person either.

19.   If you must break rule 18 but nothing happened, then you’d better have someone else picking you up so you don’t break rule 17.

20.   A relationship where one is (or should be) in college and the other is still a junior or lower in highschool is just begging for trouble.

21.   Your body is about as precious as your heart. Don’t talk yourself into or let yourself be talked into physical stuff that you know you’ll feel guilty about later. Cause if it makes you feel guilty, then it was probably most definitely wrong.

Ok so, that’s my Valentine’s update. Yeahhh it’s a little late and I’m sorry about that…

But this isn’t just for Valentine’s day/Single’s Awareness day.

This is kind of a very, very brief “guidelines to your love life.”

Please feel free to leave me feedback, or email me at endlesstunnels@gmail.com… And of course… you’re always more than welcome to share this with your friends.

Peace out and Goodnight!

~Silver

I have returned! Now let's take a look at your imagination...

So, over the past month or so, my (new) computer has been breaking, and about two weeks ago it died. That's what you get for buying refurbished, I guess.

We sent it off to Apple since it was still under warranty, they basically had to replace every main system, and they sent it back. 

We thought we'd backed everything important up, but somehow the two most important things, the music I've recorded and Everything I've Ever written, failed to copy. So I lost almost everything.

The good news is, an auto-save of my book managed to copy elsewhere. So I still have that. But pray for me, please, cause... Well, I did lose a lot. And not only does it hurt, but I have a terrible memory so pray I can remember so I can re-write it all... Thanks =]

And now moving on to stuff I usually write about. 

Where do books and movies come from? Where do writers get the intricate (or dull and useless) plots for our entertainment? 

Well, the greeks had an answer: the muses. Humans in general can take inspiration from anything, from their friends to leaves in a park. But almost every story follows the same path as the rest in its genre. Nothing is truly 100% original. 

Actually, that's not true. There was a first, a precedent. And everything, absolutely everything, is branched off somehow from that.

The original can be found in the Bible. It's the story of God and Humanity. 

This story has everything; it's a love story, with Jesus as one main character and you as the other. Sometimes you ignore him, or maybe you think he's stupid, or whatever. But he still loves you and thinks you're perfect. 

It's an action story, with cool epic fight scenes. Jesus comes back with a gigantic army and slays everything that stands against him. Plus it's an action/love hybrid, since he's coming back and epically destroying everything to save us (you) whom he loves. 

It's even a horror story, if you're one of those that stands against him (Which seriously isn't a good idea.)

Of course few read the Bible and then run off and write Romeo and Juliet or Transformers (Though I must say, with the Fallen, and the transformer's heaven, and Optimus rising from the dead and all, they may have read the Bible first...)

So how does this answer the question of where inspiration comes from? It doesn't, not directly anyways. Inspiration comes from a built in longing in the human soul, from the world we live in and the typically ignored story of it.

We were built for love, we were made to be rescued. Humanity has written stories that are only a poor re-telling of truth, because that truth is inescapable. Mankind has humanized an eternal tale of true love and true glory many times over in attempts to satisfy this longing in people without them having to turn to God.

Not that christian writers don't do the same. There really is no other kind of story to tell. Even real life follows similar patterns, though not usually to the same extent as the books would have us believe. There is only one truth, whether it's written as a story darkened by sin and wrought with things to capture the heart of man, or whether it's written in an attempt to give Christians books they can safely read. 

What do we do about this? Is it bad? Am I saying to stay away from entertainment, and relationships, and pretty much everything?

No, this post isn't to tell you that all entertainment is evil and horrible (though, there's a lot out there that is...) 

But yes, you should stay away from it all... To a certain extent. 

Similar to relationships, stories can capture your heart. Not in the same way, obviously (then again, maybe it is the same way. Which is why people stalk actors and wish they could marry book characters. Or even game characters.) 

If you're going to spend your time in the beautiful world of books, or the fantastical world of tv, or even playing computer and video games a lot, make sure God has your heart first. Spend at least as much time in the Bible and talking to God as you do with fictional characters. As humans we are so easily caught up in the things of the world, and with so much out there the more we let ourselves go the harder it is to find God when we need him. (Which, we really need Him all the time but that's a matter for another post)

And, naturally, try to stay away from stuff that encourages immorality and glorifies sin. And after you watch or read something, as yourself was it really worth it? What did you gain from that tale? What did it teach you?

I'll hopefully post again later this week. Oh and hey, if you read this, comment! I would love to know that people are out there listening... And if you read this and like it, suggest it to others too... And read the other posts... Yeah. Anyways. 

Have an awesome day!

~Silver