6 feet under in the Utah snow.
Numbers falling below zero.
We like to bury ourselves beneath blankets and pillows.
But i've come to find,
morning comes just the same.
Whether you're depressed, hungover, sick, or deranged.
The weather doesn't care,
and your feelings don't change
the downpour, fleeing the overcast clouds,
falling down, all scattered about.
Sticking to windshields, and rooftops, and tongues.
It will clean out all the places that sat in the sun,
And refresh all the faces whose memories stung.
Replace all the moments where laughter was sung.
It will cover everything.
In a sheet of white,
overnight,
falling fast in
soft moonlight.
It will remind you of blizzards
in years past.
And leaving you feeling you're sorry you asked,
to ever escape the heat,
you will retreat.
Back into blankets and pillows,
and nostalgia to wallow.
But tomorrow the sun will come out again,
and no matter how clouded, be certain, then.
The weather is invincible,
and we will continue to trudge through it.

"Why do you box?"
I asked one of the gang bangers I coached at the gym one day.
"To stay out of trouble, I guess," he replied.
And all of a sudden I got kinda mushy over this kid and realized he really was in a
Hard
Place, trying to make the best of a
Bad
Situation.
And I said,
"Listen to me. Don't ever stop boxing.
School, whatever,
Work, whatever,
But whatever you do,
Keep boxing."
He looked at me kind of funny and
He said "why do you box?"
And I said,
"I've been doing this a while now.
Boxing's fixed me up through some
Serious ****.
So above everything else, above women and money,
Whatever you do,
Do not
Stop
Boxing."

I'll probably never know if boxing
saves him
like it
saved me.

But I do hope it keeps him out of trouble.

I can't come back.
Sorry, pastor, I can't come back.
Sorry mom and dad.

I can't come back.

I have seen crippled men beg for pennies outside the mile-high walls that guard the glittering, gem-encrusted Vatican.
But I haven't seen Christ.
I have seen good men's funerals picketed by angry mobs all swearing to be the hands of God.
But I've never met the rest of Him.
We've seen holocausts, crusades and conquests **** millions in his name.
But I have never heard His voice.
And I think those men holding those guns missed the point as far as his commandments go.

But that's not why I can't come back.

I ducked out from under the umbrella of religion and I felt the rain
And every day since I've been learning to take the wet with the dry rather than seeking shelter in what's comfortable.
And what's more, I've gotten a clearer view of the sky than ever before
And without that umbrella
I have seen something.
Or the outermost edge of something-
Something unimaginably large
Something not only too big for words, but too big to see all at once.
Something bigger than me and you and god and everything.
And I can't unsee that.
I've surrendered to the fact that not I, my children, or their children will be able to fully comprehend the vastness of everything,
But I am willing to die incomplete before it.

So sorry mom and dad.
Sorry god.
I found my own truth.

and that’s why I can’t come back.