Subscribe now

I woke up this morning singing a song we wrote and rocked out to last night and I saw angels above me. The Lord said, “You’re singing for angels now. Don’t ever think you’re not performing for a packed house because stadiums of angels are watching you.”

This week was one of the most trying and exhausting weeks of my life. I went from feeling physically and mentally beaten down to feeling like my flesh was finally subdued into a place where I could be all worship. It was a wonderful place to get through and it only came through immense pain.

On Thursday I was trying to land a kick in capoeira that hit on the exact place that I had twisted my knees many years before and memories flashed before my eyes. I fell back in pain and went to the bathroom to try and gather myself. I sobbed and sobbed and sobbed as memories of the past few years flashed before my eyes. I saw all the times I felt less than and unworthy and unable to move forward. I saw the times I lugged a keyboard around Edinburgh only to come to a venue with no one in it.

Then I kept pushing through it and came to church on Sunday dead tired. As I stay half awake through the service, the sermon was about rest. And that we need rest for our souls. I joined my friend after for rock climbing and the next day my entire flesh was on fire.

Physically I was done, mentally I was done, and emotionally I was completely heartbroken. I had pushed myself to the limit. Not to mention, I’ve taken over as a substitute teacher for a chemistry class and I’m learning it as I go. When I finish writing this post I have to make sure I can teach chemistry tomorrow, send out our weekly content recap, and then go to sleep. I gotta check on my Pokemon though.

All of this sounds absurd. This is pure stream of consciousness because I don’t have time to edit. But I know that continuing to write and to perform and to speak and getting to that place of pure worship is the point.

My stream of consciousness is enough because the angels are watching. I am known by God. And this is the beginning of understanding. Man, I know I’m loved, but being understood is a whole other thing.

So for now, I gotta go figure out how to do chemistry. But I’m gonna be a comedian again. And today I learned that even the angels laugh. And there’s a lot of them.

Share

One day, I’m going to look back at these posts and be like, I can’t believe I acted like no one was watching. And I’m sure I’ll be famous in the world’s eyes. But today, I know I’m extremely famous because my reputation is much bigger when I understand that my Creator knows me and loves me.

Sincerely Yours,

The Paraprosdokianist

Get more from PPDK PRODUCTIONS in the Substack app

Available for iOS and Android

Get the app

Subscribe now

One of the main takeaways from Nehemiah’s testimony was the idea that when work becomes worship, this is when one embraces their calling.

Don’t think, just worship.

I’ve told this time and time again to many a friend and tried my very best to carry it out. Yesterday while rock climbing with a new friend, I found myself constantly praying in the name of Jesus, reminding myself that worry was useless when quick decisions needed to be made.

A few months back I read the book, “Relentless” by Tim Grover, the personal trainer to Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, and Dwayne Wade and the killer mindset was cemented by a harsh truth seared on the painful reality of what it takes to get to the place of reckless abandon: “Every failure brings you closer to the place of not thinking.”

Don’t think, just worship.

In other words, don’t think, just make the proper sacrifices to the proper good.

This morning I worried in anxiety, tossing and turning thinking, “How am I going to learn chemistry, teach it, prepare for a show on Sunday, write and edit my Substack/ YT posts, and also deal with the burgeoning exhaustion and doubt coming with finally trying to embrace my calling?”

I woke up at 5 AM to take a shower and pray, ready to spend the next few hours writing and learning chemistry so that I could teach it to the classroom I’ve been substituting.

I came back exhausted to my room, layed in bed thinking, “I’ll just rest my eyes for 10 minutes and then get to work”.

An hour and a half later, I felt as if I couldn’t move. I was trembling, ready to break down crying. I just couldn’t do it.

The Holy Spirit comforted me and told me that I needed to relax and that I was going to be fine. I thought, “How am I going to do any of this? Everything seems impossible and I feel like a failure.”

He said, “You have what it takes, for the pain of the last 30 years of your life will serve as the fuel to get you to the place where your flesh is sacrificed in Spirit and in Truth.”

Share

I know that to get there I’m going to have to embrace the pain of potential, the feeling that I’ve wasted a life. I’m going to look for validation where there is none, only to be directed back to the arms of the Father.

Every failure is going to bring me closer to the place of not thinking. Then all that is left will be worship.

I’m not fully understanding of what that place will look like, but I know it’s coming. I just have to "fail up” and when I get there, remember that pain is the goal, and meaning is the outcome. I’ll climb back down and try again.

Sincerely Yours,

The Paraprosdokianist

Get more from PPDK PRODUCTIONS in the Substack app

Available for iOS and Android

Get the app

He said to them, “If any of you has a sheep and it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will you not take hold of it and lift it out? How much more valuable is a person than a sheep! Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.”

Subscribe now

Is writing healing? Or is it selfish?

Does writing heal the self or heal others?

Is writing in and of itself, good?

Is writing, creating, or trying to make art work?

Honestly, for me. It’s all of the above.

Sometimes it’s healing, sometimes it’s selfish. Sometimes it heals me, sometimes others tell me it heals them. It is always in and of itself good for me to write, but the work of art that comes out is not always, in and of itself, good. At least I might not think so.

Sometimes writing, creating, or trying to make art feels like work. Sometimes it is work.

But lately, as I’ve made it more a practice of prayer, the ability to speak to the one who created life itself and me who lives in it, is not work, it’s worship.

I’m going to say something extremely blunt, callous, and hard-hearted, yet true, and it comes from a place of deep hurt, deep pain, deep sensitivity, but also deep respect and compassion for those who I’m calling out.

Everyone that’s ever called me a workaholic, quit.

When people hear how much time I spend writing, developing, and trying to further my craft, they ask me, “Have you been getting enough rest?”

I tell them, “Of course, I got plenty of sleep last night, in fact I don’t set alarms anymore, so I always get enough sleep and I sleep whenever I can’t go anymore.”

I ask them, “How’s your sleep?”

Generally for them, it’s no good.

Work to deserve rest and rest such that your work may bear fruit.

They call me a workaholic because to them what I do sounds difficult and to me it’s the easiest thing I’ll ever do. Is it because it isn’t painful? No, it is deeply painful, but it’s the right type of pain, because it’s the pain of birth, the pain of seeing something beautiful come out of you at the expense of your own unwillingness to subject it to the pain of the world. It is deeply painful, yet deeply meaningful.

Share

In the orthodox tradition it is generally agreed that one takes a day of Sabbath, shutting down all technology, but on the rest of the days, they work, work, and work some more.

Because God created:

light, the sky, the earth, the seas, the plants, the trees, the sun, the moon, the stars, birds, fish, and other water and sky animals, land animals, humans, and women

in one week

and then God rested.

Now, that’s a whole lot. In fact that’s at least, like 6 Substack articles or 6 YT videos or at least two books or more like, the entirety of everything ever that we are and enjoy.

How often do we say, “I’m taking a Sabbath”, only to watch Netflix and do nothing, instead of reveling in the God who created us and everything he has for us to enjoy?

Sometimes writing is work, sometimes it’s worship, but most of all, it’s the best way I know how to express my gratitude for the God who created me.

So today I rest. And today I also write. Because it is rest. And it’s not work.

It is healing and it is prayer and it is worship and I am not a workaholic. You are, if you think speaking to the God who made you is work.

Worship is not a disorder. Worship is not an addiction. Worship is what we were made to do.

So today, on my Sabbath I write and heal and do good, for it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath and it is good to write and heal myself and maybe one day others too.

Sincerely Yours,

The Paraprosdokianist

Get more from PPDK PRODUCTIONS in the Substack app

Available for iOS and Android

Get the app