Chain of Memories

I followed my heart to the memories that lie on the other side of it...and I guess I can say that I found what I was looking for all along. I lost myself (see "Poet in Wicker Park", that post is so old but I still remember how hopeless I felt when I read that bewildered cry), and by losing myself I found my memories.

All I can share for now is that my future kids are gonna be a huge threat to the Dark One's kingdom. They were before with me, and we could be again. So all my life he has been using one his most perverted, twisted evils to corrupt me into jeopardizing their future, and that of my wife's. Basically, since I was a young boy he's been stopping me from having a future family. Also since my late boyhood he has also been using a perverted evil to make me almost inaffectionate towards the suffering of the Savior.

In a later post I will confess of these things. I know that while my past is dark, it can be a powerful testimony of the light.

I can't talk specifics for now about my friends. But I will say that now I know who has been chosen, and I know who we are. And I have a sacred responsibility to do with them. I know what we did. And what we can do.

I know that as I grow and mature and as I am worthy and ready, I will be given more memories according to the Lord's timetable. He will guide me to my old promises.

And those promises we all made are links and bonds in a chain. Those bonds are what hold together the chains of premortal memory in our hearts. We must do our best to follow them.

I know I have. And I took back what belongs to me by giving my agency to the Lord where it belongs. I am giving Him my heart, because I know that's where it was before.

And that's where it will always belong.

Safe and Sound

There's this song by Sheryl Crow called "Safe and Sound" that not many people have heard. There's an acoustic version, but there's also a different version that sounds much more...I don't know the word. The latter version was used in the credits of the film K-PAX.

The melody of this song has always seemed to resonate with something in my heart. The only word I can use to describe it is de-ja-vue. When I first heard it, it was as if I was in some way deeply connected to the music like I was one with it. Like I had heard it before.

Recently it dawned on me to find this song to download for my MP3 player. I haven't heard the song in at least a year. Re-listening to the version I downloaded (the rare one that's off K-PAX) was an interesting experience because for the first time I thought about the words. And I realized why this song seemed so calming and familiar.

The song, I think, was written in memory of Sheryl Crow's aquaintance the late Owen Wilson. Many people interpret this song as to someone who died. But when I heard it and listened closer to the words...it was as if it was Someone Else:

...Could you not be sad?
Could you not break down?
After all, I won't let go
Till you're safe and sound
...I don't blame you for quitting
I know you really tried
Maybe we could hang on through the night

I don't wanna be lonely...I don't wanna be scared...

And all our friends are waiting there
Till you're safe and sound...

It was if I had a memory awakened. A time when He promised me that He'd never leave me, and I'd never have to be alone. And He would always keep me safe. Safe and sound.

War of the Worlds

I'm wondering if this new battle is doomed to yet another failure.

I mean, I just did this a week ago. If someone told me that I would have submitted myself again, I wouldn't have believed them. I feel so inadequate, a word which here means "not able to live up to Heavenly Father's expecations". I failed, and He's had to forgive me time and time again. Why on earth would he forgive me yet again?

I knew I hadn't thoroughly destroyed the other side. But I just don't know what to do anymore. The light always struggling against the dark. The darkness getting stronger and stronger, distancing me farther and farther away from the light. And me wondering if it's even worth it to begin walking uphill again when I just might fall down yet again.

Two sides continuously in the heat of battle. Why can't the darkness just die? Why can't I just get rid of it? I know it's possible. Why can't I do it? Aren't I supposed to? Aren't I supposed to do this myself...and come out victorious?

If all I have to do is chose, then why can't this world be destroyed?

This Place Is A Prison

As I contemplate the hours I've just spent in a corner, it makes me realized how imprisoned I truly am. I've always been surrounded by my own four metal walls. All my life, I've lived in confinment and self-imposed exile.

And so it goes. I almost perfer to avoid human contact than make another mistake around somebody. It made me think about how alone you can truly feel, and how solitude can slowly drive you down a well. Well, here I am at the bottom of the well. And I wish that everyone would just forget I ever existed. Forget about Marcus. Please...just don't remember me. So then I don't have to constantly wonder if I meet everyone's expectations.

I am alone. I really am alone. It feels almost like you have no limbs, or no mind. No thoughts. Just empty spaces, and nothing to fill them. I am alone in this place.

The Darkness Strikes Back

Ansem has returned. I have chosen to allow him to steadily regain control over my heart.

As the darkness spread itself in my heart again, I realized that I was right when I assumed that Agent Smith was still hanging around in various forms. While there weren't nearly as many, there was still all the strongest Smiths lingering around. Ansem hadn't gained complete and full control, but he was back. With him, he brought Sephiroth and Darth Maul--who actually now has a double identity as Darth Vader, a man who is blinded by the Dark Side into thinking he is accomplishing good. As a result, just as there was a Dark Riku, there is now a Dark Marcus. So from now on I will refer to him as Dark Riku.

I gave in because of many reasons. One is that I was too lazy and weak to want to completely change. So I haven't fully gone into my heart and I haven''t changed. I was different for a little less than a day. I also didn't want to change to the full potential. I didn't dig down deep enough. And this isn't a strong reason, but it stands as a reason nonetheless: I wasn't sure about my memories. I thought that they were just my imagination. Now I don't know what to believe.

Road to Dawn

As said in "Blue and Yellow", the Rainmaker is back for the next little while. I hope I can stay strong enough. My King promised me he'd never leave me, and I believe him.

I promised on "Wicker Poet" I'd talk about the Ansem demon and it's future. Well, it's all just like Riku at the end of Reverse/Rebirth.

Ansem was dead long before because Sora killed him. However his shadow remained left behind in Riku's heart after Riku played the host for him and went evil. After Riku turned good again with some help from King Mickey, Ansem's shadow lingered in his heart, slowly growing power.

Riku was given many choices throughout the game by whom some consider to be his conscience, a mysterious red-bandaged enigma named DiZ. One of these choices was whether Riku would decide to lock up the darkness in his heart so Ansem would never get out, and at the expense lose most of his memories. Or he could continue the hell he was living.

Riku chose a different option: he decided to just finish off Ansem once and for all. Even if that meant that he might lose and slip into playing "host" again, in which case he made King Mickey promise to destroy him. Of course, Mickey never doubts him and believes in Riku's strength.

Riku won the battle against Ansem. As it turns out, Ansem's shadow was simply a manifestaion of the darkness in his heart. Some of Ansem's shadow still faintly left behind. However, now there's much more light in Riku's heart than darkness.

At the end, Riku's walking down a dusty road at night with King Mickey. He comes to an intersection where DiZ is waiting for them. For this last choice, DiZ points to the left and right roads. He asks Riku, "Will you take the road to light, or the road to darkness?" Mickey exclaims neither as Riku walks forward. He keeps going with Mickey and says to DiZ behind him, "I'm taking the middle road." It's the one right in between the two.

DiZ muses aloud as he asks, "You mean the twilight road to nightfall?" Riku turns, a glow emitting from the hills ahead.

"No," he says. "The road to dawn."

Reverse/Rebirth

The things I do make me terrified. They also make me happy. It's almost as if I can't stop this other person that I've created, because it seems like the only way to beat him is to become him. And the only way to escape my world is to become him. And the only person I'll ever be is when I've become him.

Yet at the same time, I know that what I'm doing is wrong, and that I have to choose between the two me's. They can no longer exist at once. So I need to kill one of them once and for all.

But which one should I destroy? Should I completely kill myself, and then rebuild from the old fragmented remains of my heart? The darkness might still exist if I do that. But if I just kill one of them, the darkness might come back and infect all over again. I guess either way I'm faced with the possibility of the dark returning.

Even a riven heart can be rebuilt with time. So I must completely destroy it. I have to kill someone. I have to try and stop myself once and for all. Or, I must surrender and become him.

Either way, one of us is about to die. Hopefully, by the time the sun rises tomorrow morning somebody will be dead.

And from the ashes, something must be born. But what will emerge? From the ruins of my heart what will be born? Only in death can something be born. To save myself I have to die. This time, I have to destroy the darkness completely. None of this lingering shadow stuff. Not even a drop. This is going to take a lot of work, because I just lost yet another battle the second time today. My faith is wavered in myself.

But I'm determined now. Someone is gonna die. Tonight.

"The Problem Is Choice"

What is it about agency that was so important that we fought over it in the life before?

If you take a man and tie him up with ropes and tape and such, would he have as much agency as you or me? If you locked him up in a room and left him there in the dark and he was bound beyond all movement or sound, would he have the freedom of choice?

In The Matrix: Reloaded, the Oracle makes an interesting observation. She offers Neo (Keanu Reeves) a piece of candy. He looks at her funny. "You already know whether I'm gonna take it or not." She chuckles. "Wouldn't be much of an oracle if I didn't." He then says, frustrated, "But if you already know, how can I make the choice?"

The Oracle's answer can be said of our life now as well as what we did in the life before. She responds simply, "Because you didn't come here to make a choice. You've already made it. You're here to understand why you made the choice."

I would venture to say that the man in bondage would have as much agency as the freest man on the street.

The thing is, I don't think that the war in heaven was necessarily over what we would choose when we were on earth. I think it was more about who we would choose. If we would freely and on our own, without any pressure but acting as our own agents, choose Christ or Satan. Light or Dark. Good or Evil.

So it's not that we're here to choose. We just have to remember why we made our choice. Then we decide whether to remember that choice or to make the other decision. We decide if we want to stay on this side, or cross over.

Departures

My sister told me a couple of days ago that a 16 year-old from Orem had just died while at Lake Powell. Since my friend Trevor Newsom (who I previously called Dan) is at Lake Powell we were concerned that it was him.

I just didn't think it was him. I got this feeling that it wasn't him, but it was someone I knew. I didn't think much of it until today when I was IMing Richard and I thought of asking him. Apparently it was indeed someone I knew. His name is Chase Jesperson. I never really talked to him, but I saw him all the time and he was close friends with my sister as well as a childhood friend of mine. He was in a couple of Richard's classes.

I never knew him for real, but I actually hope that he's okay and that he was all right. His death has really impacted me in ways that I can't talk about here.

I realized that so many people I know seem to be leaving. And that's not just Harry, I'm talking about passing away. Like Owen Cherrington, a man in my neighborhood who got cancer. Also my drama teacher at Orem High, Syd Riggs. I loved her very much. Now this guy who I'm really wishing I knew better named Chase. And also my friend's uncle, Gary, passed away recently.

I asked Richard almost depressed, "Why are so many people leaving?" Then I had to leave to get in the shower, but my sister told me that while I was in the shower Richard answered just before he himself left.

He said, "I don't know. Maybe something really big is happening and they need a lot of people to teach."

Richard was referring of course to the Mormon doctrine that we continue living in the next life, in a different world. Those who knew the truth and had the gospel serve as missionaries in the other world. It's a belief, though not confirmed doctrine, that some people die at early ages because they are called to be missionaries to those in the next world who died without a knowledge of the truth.

Maybe he's right. Something I thought of is maybe something big is about to happen down here. What gives me comfort about Chase is that obviously whatever his mission is, he completed it. And now he's needed there for somebody. That sounds really cool to think about, but it makes you miss them all the more.

Lose Yourself

Look,
If you had just one shot—one opportunity,
To seize everything you ever wanted
Would you capture it? Or would you just let it slip?

Okay, so I know that Eminem isn't everybody's favorite guy. But I've gotta defend his song from his semi-autobio flick, 8 Mile.

The song is "Lose Yourself", and the message is "Carpe Deim." I've yet to see the film, but in some ways you don't have to. The song doesn't even have to be from the movie, it can be based on anyone's life. "And these times are so hard, and it's gettin' ever harder..." You have a terrible life and you have problems. Okay. Who doesn't? You make bad choices and you know they're wrong. So what? Who doesn't? You can't do anything about the place you are now. "Mom, I love you//But this trail has got to go//I cannot grow old in Salem's Lot." What matters is what you do with it.

You will always have to suffer setbacks. Get up, try again. Get into the rhythm of life, the universe, and everything. Get into the music that it generates to your spirit. Forget about you and the things you've done, because you have one shot and one opportunity to seize the day. "Better capture this moment and hope it don't pass [you by]..."

I have an exercise for you. One of my best friends in the whole world taught it to me. Stand in front of a mirror. A mirror where you can see your whole body from head to toe is best, but any mirror will do. Stare at yourself and picture every bad thing you've ever done. Your wrong choices, your bad mistakes. Your sins, your evils. Your darkness. Imagine it bellowing behind you like a darkened storm gathering in power and might.

Now, what's in front of you? I'm not with you but I can tell you what is: nothing. It sounds simple in print, and it's even more beautiful when you try it for yourself just to realize that there's nothing in between you and the mirror. You have the future ahead of you. There are new choices to make. You can't do anything about the past. That's behind you. What you can do is something about what's in front of you.

"Success is my only [good] option, failure's not." You will either win or lose. There's no middle ground anymore. Good or evil, light or dark. Take your pick. You only have one choice, and one chance to make it. You will always have the chance to make little choices for good or bad. But you must make the ultamite choice here and now where you stand: daylight or dark night. "Feet fail me not, 'cause this may be the only opportunity I got..." Make the choice, and make it soon. Because you are running out of time.

You better lose yourself in the music, the moment,
You own it, you'd better never let it go
You only get one shot—do not miss your chance to blow
This opportunity comes once in a lifetime...


You can do anything you set your mind to, man...

Breakdown

No matter how many times you build something, it always seems to break away into ruins.

I mean, that seems to be the curse of man. Anything that man tries to make seems to be doomed to be destroyed and demolished the moment the first brick of it's foundation is laid.

And such is the way with hearts. We are told in scripture that we're supposed to break our hearts and make our spirits contrite and humble. But what exactly does that mean?

I used to wonder about that a lot when I was still searching for a baptism of fire. A broken heart is a requirement for becoming born again. I read from a Christian minister's sermon online that one way you can interpret a broken heart is by going back to the literal meaning that the word "broken" would have applied.

In that context then, there's more than one meaning. There's breaking your heart like you break an object into pieces. But then there's breaking in like a horse. See, a horse isn't prepared for a battle in war unless it's fully broken in so that it will respond to it's master in any circumstance. It trusts the master and does whatever the master wants. It bends to the will of the master and not it's own. Because of this, the horse becomes very dependable even in the heat of battle. The horse is ready for any fight. It can walk in and out of any battle if it's broken in sucessfully.

I've learned today that no matter how many times I broke my heart, I never broke it all the way. I never tore everything down. I always left some thing remaining in the foundation. Whether it was a dark memory, or a dark desire. I was afraid of emptying myself.

You can't be afraid. You can't let Christ be your Master if you keep anything else. There's a song by Greg Simpson called "Goodbye Babylon" that perfectly illustrates this:

The whistle is blowing—can you hear the sound?
The last train is leaving this forsaken town
And you're running, but something is slowing you down
So leave all your baggage behind
You've got to make it to that station on time.

Just say goodbye, Babylon
Don't cry, don't linger on
Don't ever look behind you
You might take too long
You know, one day they'll find out
That you've gone on that last train outta Babylon.

That's my prayer for you, reader. Get outta Babylon while you still can. And remember: you can't take anything with you when you make your escape. It'll only slow you down.