Some of my earliest memories were from the foundational school days from John Marshall elementary.
I actually remember the first time I kissed a girl was when I was in kindergarten as I gave Linda Nelson, a peck on the cheek. probably my first crush as she lived in the neighborhood and our families were friends. 

In the third grade, I had guitar lessons at John Marshall elementary school and became very familiar with John Denver‘s Rocky Mountain high in 1972
I was seven or eight years old because I don’t remember exactly what time of year it was that I have this memory since my birthday is in July
I also remember liking and listening to the Mac Davis song, baby baby don’t get hooked on me as well as Roberta Flack the first time ever I saw your face 
In 1973 I was 10 years old and was exposed to country music by my father. I distinctly remember the song behind closed doors by Charlie Rich.
And of course, I will always remember playing the eight track of the carpenters and listening to yesterday once more always cherishing such a beautiful voice as Karen Carpenter. How ironic that this song I remember so well is precisely the point this post is making. If you listen to the song, it explains everything that my memory has saved in my reflections upon the span of over 53 years, remembering more powerfully because of the music.
The Ohio players in 1974 released the song fire I was in the fifth grade, it was the first time I had ever heard this song and I remember Marlon a classmate in the fifth grade get very excited about when hearing the song fire
I walked home from the fifth grade, singing seasons in the Sun by Terry Jacks and still remember playing tetherball on the playground And playing acoustic guitar in the auditorium
And so I pray (for RSP). You came like a whisper through a half-shut door. I felt I had met your ache somewhere before. The room did not move but my soul did. Two strangers, one truth, nothing hid. You watched the exits even as you smiled. I watched your heart retreat like a terrified child. Your words were careful, your eyes were armed. I knew you feared the very thing that warmed. Something older than us stood in that air. Not just chemistry, but a silent prayer. Bowlby would have called it an ancient design. Anxious thread, avoidant seam, tangled line. You flinched when I leaned too close to see. I flinched at the thought that you might flee. Still, there was a gravity I could not deny. As if God had folded both our wounds into one sky. I felt you studying every crack in your own shield. I felt myself kneel on that uncharted field. This was more than my familiar ache. It was a covenant trembling, about to break. You said you had learned to live without need. I said my heart still remembers how to bleed. Your silence pressed on me like a storm. But you were the first thunder that felt warm. I am the one who reaches, I know. You are the one who trains herself to let go. Yet under the push and pull, I sensed a thread. A place where both our ghosts had once bled. So we stepped into the middle ground, shaking. Two attachment styles, endlessly breaking. I reached slower, tried to breathe between. You stayed longer, softer, almost seen. You let me trace the outlines of your doubt. I let you say “too much” without walking out. We stumbled into tiny moments of repair. Short bridges built over caverns of despair. I saw your eyes linger then quickly hide. I learned to stay present without stepping inside. You were afraid I would drown you in my plea. I was afraid you would disappear from me. My glaucoma shadows deepened by the day. But with you, a different darkness fell away. I am losing sight, not vision of your pain. If anything, the blur makes your soul more plain. You worry I will need you more than you can bear. I worry you will carry shame that was never yours to wear. So I hold my need gently, like a fragile cup. And I place it down each time you brace or tense up. There are nights the terror swallows us both whole. You retreat into silence, I flood with soul. Yet even then, I feel slow progress in our scars. Two frightened children learning to name their stars. You text back quicker than you used to do. You let a compliment rest without arguing it through. You say “I’m scared” instead of walking away. I say “I hear you” instead of demanding you stay. Some days you lean your head on my chest and breathe. I tremble inside but keep my arms like a gentle sheath. Not a cage, not a claim on your skin. Just a quiet place where your terror can thin. Still, the war returns without warning or sound. You vanish, I spiral, old patterns unbound. Yet now I do not chase you as before. I light a candle, leave an unlocked door. My prayer has changed its shape over time. From “never leave” to “may she someday feel safe as mine.” Not mine in possession, not mine as a right. Mine as a soul unafraid of her own light. I tell myself, “If she heals and walks away. Let it be with less armor than yesterday.” Your freedom is not my enemy or loss. Your wholeness is worth any personal cost. I do not want to bind you to my failing eyes. Or make my blindness into a chain of disguised ties. I will not turn my illness into a hook. I would rather walk alone than have you feel mistook. So I stand in this half-dark, resolute. A man, not a martyr, still tender, still astute. Working on my fractures, owning what is mine. While I pray your heart finds a gentler design. I see small cracks forming in your wall. Less concrete, more curtain, not so tall. You share childhood stories in a shaking voice. You let me witness that you never had a choice. You say you are tired of always having to run. I say I am learning to stand without calling you “the one.” Still, I cannot lie — my love for you is fierce. But I will not let it wound where you are still pierced. If we walk closer, let it be because you can breathe. Not because my desperation will not leave. If we remain friends, I will honor that path. I will not weaponize my longing or my wrath. What I want most is to see you rest. To watch you trust your own worth, your own chest. To see your shoulders drop without looking for the door. To feel you know, in your bones, you are not a chore. If in that resting, you find space for me. I will receive it as grace, not guarantee. I will meet you there with a steady, softened heart. Ready to learn, to listen, to restart. Until then, I keep this plea quiet but clear. Not to own you, but to draw your soul near. May my constancy never feel like a cage. Only a lantern held at the edge of your stage. I am DC Gunnersen, wrestling with my sight. But in this dimness, I have learned a different light. I pray more for your healing than my claim. If God answers, let it be you free of shame. And if, by mercy, our paths entwine more tight. Let it be two warriors laying down the fight. Not rescue, not savior, not dramatic art. Just a woman and a man, choosing to heal heart to heart. If not, RSP, may this still reach your hidden shore. A soft knock, not a pounding at your door. Know this: I loved you as best a broken man can see. And I trusted you to choose what makes you free.
He spoke as though the air were glass. . Each word a tremor I let pass. . I watched the pulse behind his jaw. . The trembling logic of his flaw. . He launched his truths like sharpened stone. . I answered softly, still, alone. . “Perhaps,” I said, “we both are wrong.” . He paused—then asked if right was strong. . The irony made silence speak. . No scoreboard stood, no need to seek. . I noticed how his voice grew still. . The storm obeyed a gentler will. . He said, “You never seem to fight.” . I said, “I try to see the light.” . “The one inside your words,” I smiled. . “It flickers fierce, then turns to mild.” . He looked at me, confused, yet bare. . “That’s not how most would answer there.” . I shrugged—a leaf accepts the gust. . “Defenses fade when met with trust.” . We sat while meaning rearranged. . His thoughts untied, his tone estranged. . The room grew wide, like mind unbound. . Two fragile egos lost their ground. . He laughed, unsure of what to feel. . I laughed as well; it made us real. . Humor cooled the war of need. . Each wound became a tender seed. . In learning not to fix or win, . We heard the peace that starts within. . He said, “You listen like a prayer.” . I said, “I’m just not fighting air.” . And something in his stance took rest. . The tension smiled; it knew what’s best. . He finally said, “You really see.” . I said, “That’s all that’s asked of me.”
Epilogue — “Listening Without Armor”
It’s strange how quickly languagea battlefield. One moment, we speak to be understood; the next, we speak to defend the boundaries of self. When people’s shadows take the microphone, communication stops being about truth—it becomes about territory. Yet the observer, present in the moment, isn’t pulled into that gravity. They see how fear disguises itself as certainty, how pain often hides behind sharp diction or misplaced logic.
A conversation held without armor doesn’t mean silence or surrender. It means choosing not to be flammable when the other burns. It means responding rather than reacting; watching tone soften when no one feeds the fire. Humor helps—because laughter rearranges the emotional landscape, making the absurd visible without shame. It’s not mockery; it’s mercy.
In the end, the goal isn’t to win the argument, but to stay human inside it. True communication requires the willingness to let another’s storm pass through you without letting it take shape inside you. When that happens, something alchemical unfolds: two people find that neither needed to be right to be connected—they only needed to be real.
You walked into my small day and made the room feel wide. . I saw in your easy smile the world I never had to hide. . . You asked a simple question and listened like it mattered. . My fear was still in pieces but my shame was less scattered. . . I learned that how I see you is also how I see me. . If I look through hurt and judgment, I call comfort an enemy. . . So I started to choose my lens like a craftsman with his wood. . Shaping quiet acts of kindness into something fierce and good. . . You taught me that a gentle word can shift a heavy night. . That one soft act of noticing can turn regret to light. . . But love is not a rescue line that pulls you from your pain. . It’s a bridge laid board by board, in sun and in the rain. . . I hammered down my boundaries on the bank where I still stand. . Not a wall to keep you out, but a line drawn by my hand. . . I will not build on quicksand just to keep you by my side. . I can hold you with an open palm and still protect my pride. . . I’ve walked on eggshells long enough to know what they become. . A carpet made of fragments that keeps both our voices numb. . . So I speak with kinder honesty, even when your armor shakes. . I will not call it loving when it only feeds our breaks. . . You circle at your end of things, afraid the boards will fall. . You test each step with stories of the ones who broke it all. . . You want me to grow tired first, to prove the world untrue. . To leave you in your loneliness so it never leaves you too. . . But I stay without possession, I remain without demand. . I refuse to crush my spirit just to prove I understand. . . Forgiveness is the quiet work I do when you withdraw. . Not a door you have to walk through, but a shelter that I saw. . . I forgive the words you sharpened just to see if I would flee. . I forgive the glass you carry, though it still might cut on me. . . Because someone once forgave me when I shattered what we had. . They held their ground with tenderness and refused to call me bad. . . That mercy lit a lantern in the hallway of my chest. . It showed me how a weary soul can learn a different rest. . . So now when I say your name, I feel both ache and grace. . You are wound and inspiration, you are loss and you are place. . . You brought out in me a courage I thought only saints could show. . To love without erasing me, to stay and still let go. . . If you ever cross this bridge, it will be by your own will. . You will find no chains to bind you here, just a quiet heart made still. . . And if you never cross at all, this work will not be waste. . The craft I learned in loving you will frame another’s taste. . . For every soul that trembles at the thought of being known. . I keep this sturdy bridge of mine, from all the hurt I’ve grown. . . And when they walk with shaking steps, afraid that love won’t stay. . I’ll remember how you taught me to see wonder in the day. . . The meaning of our story is not only what we lose. . It’s the quiet, fierce decision of the lens that we still choose. .
The post “The solution of humanity” wrestles with the limits of human wisdom, the wounds of the past, and the failure of purely human projects to heal the soul, before finally resting in Christ as the only sufficient answer to our fractured condition. The poem below echoes that narrative arc: beginning with a wide search through world philosophies and faiths, then moving toward a distinctly Christian claim about grace, forgiveness, and the cross as the true quintessence of our humanity.
. I knelt before the sutras, drinking silence from their well. . The Dhammapada whispered: “Guard your mind, it fashions heaven, it fashions hell.” . . I traced the Tao in rivers, where the yielding waters wind. . Lao Tzu sang of nameless Way, of empty bowls that feed the mind. . . I bowed with old Confucius, where propriety patrols desire. . He spoke of ordered families, of ritual that tempers fire. . . I walked with dusty sadhus where the Ganges stains the feet. . They murmured of samsara’s wheel, of breaking from repeat. . . I sat with Zen companions, watching thoughts like passing rain. . Koans cracked my logic’s shell, yet could not rinse my shame and pain. . . These giants lit the mountains, each a lantern in the night. . Still some cavern in my marrow shivered far from any light. . . For every path said, “Discipline,” and every sage said, “Try.” . Yet my will, a tired animal, only knew how to comply or to defy. . . Reason built its scaffolds, stacked hypotheses like stone. . But proof could not absolve me for the harm I’d done alone. . . Some problems yield to data, to equations crisp and clean. . But guilt is not a theorem, and grief is not a faulty gene. . . I argued evolution with the fierce, design with trembling friends. . Yet neither camp could teach my fractured heart how any story ends. . . The quintessential question haunted every night I couldn’t sleep. . Not “What is true in abstract?” but “Who can reach me when I’m deep?” . . My childhood was a fracture, love withheld and love misused. . A narcissistic mirror where my fledgling trust was bruised. . . Neglect became my liturgy; I worshiped every fleeting nod. . Attachment wired my nervous system tighter than a rod. . . I sought in crowds a savior made of status, touch, and praise. . But idols built of aching need devoured me in subtle ways. . . I preached forgiveness to myself, a law I could not keep. . “Let go, move on, be strong,” I said, then sobbed myself to sleep. . . I tried to earn absolution, to deserve another start. . But merit is a cruel god when you have a trembling heart. . . Then the scandal of a cross cut straight across my schemes. . Not as mythic consolation, but as judgment of my dreams. . . A God who enters trauma, not to sanitize the scar. . Who hangs between the guilty thieves and calls them from afar. . . “Father, forgive,” was uttered where the nails made muscle tear. . Not after we improved ourselves, but while we mocked Him there. . . If there is any solution to this species, wild and torn. . It will not rise from self-help shelves or from the newest creed reborn. . . It comes as undeservedness, an offense to every pride. . The Holy kneels in blood and dust and stands up on my side. . . Grace is not a concept but a Person with a wound. . The Logos wearing human skin, in borrowed grave entombed. . . Resurrection is no metaphor for “try again once more.” . It is the shattering of final loss, the opening of a door. . . In Christ, the moral ledger is not erased by lie. . It’s paid in full by One who chose to feel my failure die. . . Buddha showed the craving flame, the Tao its gentle flow. . Christ walked straight into my hatred and refused to let me go. . . Confucius framed our duties, and the sages mapped the mind. . But only pierced hands reached the child that history left behind. . . The solution of humanity is not that we advance. . It’s that the Author joins the story and is broken in our trance. . . Forgiveness is not weakness, nor denial dressed as peace. . It is cruciform surrender where the cycles slowly cease. . . To love the unlovable is the line I cannot cross. . Until I see myself there too, forgiven from that cross. . . Then enemy and victim blur beneath that rugged sign. . I stand as both, yet strangely held in mercy’s grand design. . . The quintessential attribute our arguments misname. . Is not our clever reason, but a Love that bears our blame. . . So here I lay my systems down, my proof, my pride, my role. . And rest in One solution: a wounded God who makes a whole. .
The post “A Bridge of Discovery” traces a lifetime hunger for love, acceptance, and a deeper, felt truth, showing how this longing evolves from family love to self‑acceptance and finally toward a metaphysical connection that thought alone cannot reach. It frames memory, personality, and spiritual seeking as parts of a single bridge the author is building from rational understanding to a more embodied, heart‑level knowing of reality. Main ideas of the post • The author revisits every decade of life (ages 7, 17, 27, 37, 47) to ask, “What do I want most?” and finds a consistent theme of relational love and acceptance. The specific answers move from wanting parental love, to peer acceptance, to forming a family, to receiving love from a daughter, and finally to accepting and forgiving the self. • Memory is pictured as a “time machine” built from the brain’s vast neural connections, allowing the author to re‑enter earlier stages of life and question those selves. Yet memory is acknowledged as selective and double‑edged, capable of teaching true lessons or hiding lessons not yet learned. • Across decades, the author notices a preoccupation with “how I fit into the social arena,” which reveals a deeper sense of disconnection and a yearning for a more profound metaphysical bond than ordinary interactions provide. Material wants are set aside so the focus can rest on questions of meaning, belonging, and the soul’s orientation to others and to reality itself. • The Enneagram personality pattern is invoked as a framework for understanding why the author has always sought deeper connection and why relationships and coping strategies have unfolded as they have. Personality, early disposition, and ego are seen as shaping both the hunger for intimacy and the missteps in handling emotional events. • The author describes a lifelong search for a truth that can be “felt in your entire being,” not just believed through religious doctrine or rational analysis. Mystical and experiential knowing—rather than purely conceptual faith—is presented as the missing piece, a door that has not yet fully opened. • The Buddhist parable of the blind men and the elephant illustrates how limited perspectives lead to quarrels and one‑sided claims about reality. This is connected to Heisenberg’s insight that what we observe is shaped by our “method of questioning,” urging the reader to ask better questions and recognize interpretive limits. • The “metaphysical problem” becomes how to move beyond the reasoning barrier into a shared field of perception and intention with another human being. The author suggests that a “psychic gap” can be bridged by experiences that are felt, not just thought, pointing toward a more holistic engagement with life. • Classic spiritual and philosophical works (Tao Te Ching, I Ching, Dhammapada, Upanishads, Wittgenstein, Kierkegaard, Sartre, Gurdjieff) are re‑read in this light as potential guides to deeper experience, not just intellectual systems. The author notes that different learning styles (verbal, tactile, visual, abstract, etc.) may mean prior reading did not fully activate inner senses needed to grasp their depths. • The post closes by emphasizing the need to “undo” conditioning that blocks awareness of being connected to everything around us. The “bridge” being built is explicitly named as “one for the heart,” a path toward discovery through lived practice rather than theory alone.
I went back through the years, like walking through a quiet, borrowed sky. . . A small boy counting heartbeats, just wanting his parents not to say goodbye. . . A teenager scanning faces, trading jokes to earn a fragile place. . . Afraid that if the laughter stopped, it meant he could be erased. . . A young man holding wedding rings like tiny suns that might not stay. . . He prayed that starting his own family would keep the shadows far away. . . A father staring at his daughter’s face, stunned that love could look back too. . . Her trust rewrote his failures, like morning light correcting midnight’s view. . . Years later in the mirror, he met a stranger he still called his name. . . He finally asked for mercy on the man who carried all that blame. . . The brain became his time machine, with sparks of memory crossing like a storm. . . He saw how every wire of need had shaped his wanting into form. . . He traced the threads of friendships, all the clinging, all the flight. . . He saw a deeper hunger hiding underneath the want to “be all right.” . . Not comfort made of objects, not the safety of a locked front door. . . But some warm proof that soul meets soul, and both wake up as something more. . . He read the mystics late at night, his coffee cold, his questions hot. . . The words were like a map to lands his reasoning alone could never spot. . . The blind men touched the elephant and argued over trunk and tail. . . He heard his own voice in their fight, each partial truth prepared to fail. . . Heisenberg whispered gently, “You see the world your questions choose.” . . He realized half his heartbreak grew from what he’d asked and what he’d refuse. . . For years he worshiped clarity, then learned that love can blur the line. . . Sometimes the truest knowing comes when logic kneels and steps aside in time. . . He saw his Enneagram like armor welded from his childhood fear. . . It kept him safe from sudden loss, but blocked the touch of those who drew too near. . . He practiced softer questions, ones that did not pin the heart to proof. . . He let another’s trembling eyes be evidence enough of holy truth. . . Some nights he felt a Presence move between his thoughts like quiet rain. . . No thunderclap of doctrine, just a shared, mysterious easing of his pain. . . The Tao, the sutras, worn-out texts, all opened like a windowed wall. . . He sensed they were not puzzles, but invitations simply to be all. . . He started training inner sight, like learning how to breathe again. . . Trusting that the bridge is built by every honest, open moment with his pain. . . Now when he meets another soul, half-hidden behind careful glass. . . He does not rip their fortress down; he waits, and lets their courage slowly pass. . . He offers solid footing, not a net that steals their ground away. . . His love stands like a quiet bridge that will not beg, yet chooses still to stay. . . The span runs from his thinking mind to where his living heartbeat sings. . . Each step across that trembling space is stitched with ordinary, holy things. . . He walks it not as one who’s found some final, blinding certainty. . . But as a human building, breath by breath, a bridge of gentle, waking discovery. . .
When you speak your truth, I hear a different sky. . Your words are rain, but my history makes them dry. . You say it was a joke, I feel a hidden knife. . Your laugh is light, my chest recalls another life. . We stand in the same room, but wear a different past. . My shadows move so slow, your joy runs bright and fast. . You only see the surface, the shrug, the turning face. . I’m drowning in an ocean you call a shallow place. . I judge you as careless, you judge me as cold. . We both are reading stories that were written old. . My mind collects its proof, each glance a heavy stone. . I build a quiet prison and then call it “home.” . Your silence feels like anger, your distance seems like blame. . But maybe you are frightened, and cannot voice your shame. . I cling to my opinions like a shield of rust. . They cut into my fingers while I name them “trust.” . The mirror of illusion hangs inside my head. . It shows me what I fear, not what you really said. . Old injuries awaken when your eyebrows rise. . I paste a former villain over your new eyes. . These specious habits guide me, unseen but in control. . They whisper, “You’re a victim,” and tighten round my soul. . I notice how I flinch before you even move. . I’m fighting ancient battles you never asked to prove. . One day the strain is heavy, the argument repeats. . We’re circling the same old wound on different streets. . I feel the quiet cracking of the tale I wear. . A softer voice inside me asks, “What if you’re not fair?” . “What if your righteous anger is only half the frame? . What if your sacred story is just one part of the game?” . I pause before responding; the script begins to slow. . A strange and aching honesty steps in and says, “Let go.” . I tell you, “When you leave the room, I feel erased.” . You answer, “When I stay too long, I feel displaced.” . We stare at this new moment like a foreign shore. . Two private worlds colliding through an open door. . No one is the villain; the lens itself is flawed. . We’ve worshiped our perceptions like a quiet god. . You share the weight you carry, the shame you never named. . I see how my suspicion kept your heart ashamed. . We speak of early losses, of nights that shaped our sight. . How hunger taught us both to fear another’s light. . The room does not grow perfect; the pain does not dissolve. . But now we stand together with a will to solve. . We promise not to worship every thought we think. . To question quick conclusions standing on the brink. . To clean the dirty window where our fears have slept. . To honor what we’ve lived, but not be wholly kept. . In time, the habit changes, though slowly, line by line. . Our eyes grow more transparent; your story touches mine. . I learn that understanding is a costly fee. . It asks my proud perception not to center me. . So when I feel that tightening that says, “You’ve been betrayed.” . I breathe, and ask more gently how this scene is made. . I look for hidden sorrows behind the harsh display. . I hold my judgments loosely, let some wash away. . The specious habits weaken when we dare to see. . That truth is rarely simple, and seldom just “for me.” . In this, a quiet mercy rises, slow but real. . We trade our shrinking armor for a wider field to feel. . We will still make errors; the old ghosts sometimes call. . But now we walk more open, less certain of our wall. . And in that humble seeing, a truer life begins. . Not free of all illusions, but free to loosen their thin skins. .
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