Moving On...

I'm changing blogging platforms....so I won't be posting on here anymore.

Follow me on over here:


kevincooke.tumblr.com

You can figure out the rest

Two different songs, Two different storms my mind is racing through...


just remember love possesses nothing
nor would it ever be possessed
and love is love sufficient unto love
and you can figure out the rest

when love beckons
his ways are often hard and steep
when his wings unfold
ye yield to all he speaks
the sword it might be hidden there among his pinions
oh you may wear a wound that truly spoke to you
believe in all that voice and follow through
follow so on and on

______

You see my old man's got a problem
He live with the bottle that's the way it is
He says his body's too old for working
I say his body's too young to look like his

_____

Okay and a third...

So long since I have had to fight for love
And even if I win I'm gonna lose too much

Con el Corazón Oprimido

To stay at the bottom of a well, because it's dark and you can't see the monsters around you nor see your dreams in the distance, when you have a million people throwing down ropes to you, is heart breaking. My heart is broken for you, for that.

Nobody can tell you where your heart is. Only you can. You know. And fear of failure is no excuse for not trying. Fear of failure is a completely different thing than not having peace. Peace and pain weigh differently on your heart. You know the difference.

I know this all hurts. I know the pain you're in. I've also seen so many glimmers of hope and happiness. I've seen something so beautiful that is inside, and it isn't just me, it's everybody that see's it. You are here. In this moment. Right now. And your heart is waking from a long slumber. It hurts. It hurts like hell to break everything off, but you're doing it. That's fighting. That's inspiring. That shows you damn well have what it takes. You've come too far to give up and throw your hands in the air.

The answer isn't to freeze. The answer is to be so fully present here and now that you don't miss a thing in this day. And then you can let go and be who you are, and you don't have any regrets because you were there the whole way.

May you accept the past for what it is. May you celebrate what needs to be celebrated and grieve what needs to be grieved. And then...may you receive from God a new spirit. One for here. Now. Today.
_____

Beauty for ashes, a garment of praise, for my heaviness.

This my excavation and today is kumran
Everything that happens from now on....

This is not the sound of a new man or crispy realization
It's the sound of the unlocking and the lift away
Your love will be
Safe with me

Crush the dirt and bury your heart there
there's holding patterns for a son
all your worth, all of your empathy
will color your hands when you are done

You made up your mind, to leave it all behind
and now you're forced to fight it out.

Some day when this is over, we may still have no answers...
/ I would've held you, things your father never could do, words your father never told you. /

This is it. This is what church is supposed to be. This is family, vulnerability, fear. So much more than that, this is compassion and deep love that has no regard and knows no bounds.

I am amazed. I am speechless. Your ability to constantly remind me that You are still here, that You still care, that You still love and are powerful just leaves me breathless. The way You orchestrate things, and people, and keep Your hand in my life even though I continually screw up is just so beautiful.

Thank you. For healing. For restoring. For redeeming me, daily. For fighting for me and teaching me how to be a man when I thought nobody was there to show me the ropes. When I thought I'd never learn how to shave and I'd never have anybody to watch me play football or show me how to love a woman, you came through. Though I'm still learning, I know I have come far. Thank You for giving me dreams, for without them I am nothing. Furthermore, without You in them, they are nothing but selfish ambitions, remind me of that, please. Thank you for giving me the strength in my hands to break through so many walls.

Teach me how to love wildly, dangerously, crazily. As the moon reflects the glory of the sun, I ask that my heart may reflect Your beauty.

"The Kingdom of Heaven is violent, and violent men take it by force."

Give me motivation, give me all my hearts desires. Show me something gorgeous, show me 'til my eyes get tired. Give me all the drums, and show me how to play them loud. Show me how to move when I can't feel that you're around...we hide like thieves in shadows, scared of the sun. Because we know the light will find us, us and all we've done...

If to distant lands I scatter
If I sail to farthest seas
Would you find and firm and gather 'til I only dwell in Thee?
If I flee from greenest pastures
Would you leave to look for me?
Forfeit glory to come after
'Til I only dwell in Thee

If my heart has one ambition
If my soul one goal to seek
This my solitary vision 'til I only dwell in Thee
That I only dwell in Thee
'Til I only dwell in Thee

My heart wants to sing so many songs, and my fingers want to write on forever about Your glory but I pray that You see my heart is speechless.

What do you want to do before you die?

I get inspired easily, I think that's a given (just read through this blog.)

About a month ago, my mom emailed me to tell me about a new show on MTV called The Buried Life.

Basically, these four guys graduated college, bought a bus, and made a list of things they want to do before they die. For everything they crossed off their list, they had to help a complete stranger cross of theirs. How freaking amazing. I live for this stuff.


With that said, here's a continuation of things I want to do before I die (you'll notice a lot are travel related...):

-Visit all 50 states
-Become a plastic surgeon
-Be published in a national magazine
-Buy/Build my mom a house
-Build my own house
-Adopt a child, or two
-Climb a Mountain (Ranier in WA perhaps??)
-Take my mom to Ireland
-Drive coast to coast
-Skydive and Bungee Jump
-Drive up the coast from LA to San Fran/Seattle
-Sleep on the beach in big sur
-Hike half dome
-Camp in the grand canyon (before this...scream at the top of my lungs into it...)
-Visit Africa (preferable bungee off Victoria Falls)
-Visit Louvre
-Save a life
-Surgery in foreign country
-Hold a newborn baby
-Meet the president
-Stay in Big Sur on the cliff
-See a Whale
-Fly my own plane
-Stay in the most expensive suite in Vegas....or the MJ suite in Atlantis
-Go to Alaska
-Drive a Shelby Mustang, Lambourghini, Ferrari (for those of you reading...Cali has a nice Drive Experience where you can drive all these....ahem birthday)
-Skinny-dip (sorta crossed this off last week...kinda sorta)
-See the pyramids, swiss alps, great wall
-Go on an African Safari
-Start a dance party in public with a few hundred people
-Running of the bulls
-Write a book
-Live in a foreign country
-Scuba Dive
-Streak
-Be on national television
-hold hands with the girl I love while running through a field in Ireland or Vienna or London
-Stay in a bed and breakfast in london
-Learn how to sail
-Send a complete stranger on a vacation
-Buy a complete stranger groceries
-Reconstructive surgery, for free
-Take somebody on a shopping spree
-Play soccer/futbol with kids in africa
-Kiss my love, in the sunset, on the cliffs of California/Washington/Europe (basically...just a cliff and a kiss and a lover.)
-Stand on stage in front of 50,000

More to come....

What do you want to do before you die?

"These lists are our lives, they define us. They bring us together. And in them, we share our dreams, our successes, and our innermost desires. Sometimes all we need to make them real is a little help."

A Simple Love Letter

My soul waits for you alone, like the watchmen wait for dawn.

I don't know why some things have unfolded the way they have. I don't know why some things were harder than they should have been. Why lightning strikes and thunder rumbles every part of my being. The easy way out would be to say that those things, the hurt, the pain, the words that cut, the going without, the constant struggle...that those things "build character." They do. I get that. I always have. But there has to be more to it than that. There has to be. I suppose I will never know. I don't know why it seems some things never change, why some cards get dealt and some chips fall in the wrong place. I suppose I'll never understand. That's my burden to carry. Sadly, that's part of coming from a broken race. There are things that happen, to us, to others, that we'll never understand why. I get that You are powerful. I get that You've done so much for me. I do. I get that. But there's still this tension that I've always lived in...I know that it hurts. The pain, it's deep. That these scars remain, no matter how hard I've tried in my own strength to rip them off. That the hope I've lost and thrown away has somehow been caught in Your palm, and the embers still glow, so many years later. And those slivers of light still shine. I don't know how that is...

...I do know this: You are good. You love me more than I can begin to fathom. But mostly, You are good. I don't know why that brings me such comfort. Just the fact that You know what you are doing, and that You always have. That while it may not be Your fault, You were still there watching, crying, holding, comforting, and just sitting with me and us. That even in these moments of chaos, where everything seems to fly around me and my mind can't stop racing, You are still. These things that way on my shoulders, these fears, this anger, these doubts, bitterness, this cynicism: You hold them. That You love me and You are near, even when I am far, is more than I can hope for. I find my rest in that.

You hold me together. You always have. You have placed so many reminders that you are here, and there, and watching, and speaking. You have spoken multitudes, through whispers, and through saying nothing at all. I know you are doing something, painting a picture, allowing dreams to be birthed that will make everything worth it. Every struggle that my mind throws at me, You are in it with me, whispering those thoughts away. Thank You, for teaching me how to love You, in the most minute humanly way possible I know how: with all my heart. I'm still learning, but I hope You see that I'm still a child and that beneath all this mess, my heart is good.

"I am my Beloved's, and He is mine. So, come into your garden and take delight in me."

Re: Skinny Love

the whole story of Bon Iver, the lyrics, the feel...it just blows me away. This is the greatest record of the past 5 years, maybe even longer. (iTunes also says I've played it over 367 times, in the past year and a half.)


Come on skinny love just last the year
Pour a little salt we were never here
My, my, my, my, my, my, my, my
Staring at the sink of blood and crushed veneer

I tell my love to wreck it all
Cut out all the ropes and let me fall
My, my, my, my, my, my, my, my
Right in the moment this order's tall

And I told you to be patient
And I told you to be fine
And I told you to be balanced
And I told you to be kind
And in the morning I'll be with you
But it will be a different kind
And I'll be holding all the tickets
And you'll be owning all the fines

Come on skinny love, what happened here?
Suckle on the hope in light brassieres
My, my, my, my, my, my, my, my
Sullen load is full, so slow on the split

And I told you to be patient
And I told you to be fine
And I told you to be balanced
And I told you to be kind
And now all your love is wasted
And then who the hell was I?
And I'm breaking at the britches
And at the end of all your lines

Who will love you?
Who will fight?
Who will fall far behind?

Maybe I'm just dreaming out loud...

Hello world
Hope you're listening
Forgive me if I'm young
Or speaking out of turn...

...I get lost in the beauty
Of everything I see
The world ain't as half as bad
As they paint it to be
If all the sons
All the daughters
Stopped to take it in
Well hopefully the hate subsides and the love can begin
It might start now... Yeah
Well maybe I'm just dreaming out loud
Until then...

I know I have a tendency to romanticize things. And if you read this, you probably think "C'mon Kev, your world can't be THAT good. Things are NOT that bright. The world doesn't work that way." Sure, I have my bad days, but why let them last? I have things on my mind, things weigh on my shoulders, issues that we all face, but I guess I have hope that things are getting better. That I'm slowly chiseling away at everything in my way, and one day, hopefully one day, I will be able to look back and laugh. I also know that every day I wake up breathing (although the breathing is more hot and humid these days, but still) and I know that the sun still rises over these cliffs across my face to bring me into a new day to tackle things I didn't undo and redo and build yesterday.

Theres this beautiful poem called "The Buried Life." I posted a little excerpt of it a few days ago. It's amazing. It basically speaks of how we all look back on life on our death beds and say "I wish." How we all, in these moments, feel these little tugs at our hearts, those little whispers in the silence from from a life calling us to greater things. How our insides scream for us to take chances, to jump off cliffs into the unknown, that life is an adventure beckoning us into a beautiful painting of things unknown. And yet, so few of us dare to dream. So few of us dare to let go for fear of failing (one of my biggest fears.)

I told my mom, at the drop of the ball, that I felt like 20-10 was going to be different. That I could feel it in my bones. It's already unfolding that way.

That's where I'm at now. In this endless in between. Standing still isn't easy when the world is moving backwards.

And so I pray You'll give me grace if You can hear me.

_____

I'll give it time, give it space and be still for a spell
When it's time to walk that way we wanna walk it well

Motorcycle Drive By

I go home to the coast
It starts to rain I paddle out on the water, alone
Taste the salt and taste the pain
I'm not thinking of you again

Summer dies and swells rise
The sun goes down in my eyes
See this rolling wave
Darkly coming to take me home

And I've never been so alone
And I've never been so alive

_______

Go find another lover
To bring...To string along.
_________


And maybe I've been holding on to,
All the little wrecks I've gone through,
I'm learning at last, I fall too fast

But I, I don't wanna parachute into love,
No, I wanna skydive
And fall until we fly, live until we die together
If heaven is my home, you could only make it better

Good to know it's all a game,
Disappointment has a name -
It's heartbreak warfare.

So, this is a lot of music. I guess because I can't say what I want to say. I can't be that transparent, so I'll hide it between the lines. I'll hide myself within that.

I wish you could see what you do to me. I wish you could see how much you are hurting yourself.

This is me. Not caring.

I'd like to climb to the top of the Eiffel Tower...

This is why I want to be a plastic surgeon.

I just want to change the world. That's all. I stumble. I get scared. I fail. I make mistakes.

I can still taste it.

I'm a big baby, and I hate it. But that's me. And this song blows me away, continually: