A solution revisited 

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.


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I knelt before the sutras, drinking silence from their well. .
The Dhammapada whispered: “Guard your mind, it fashions heaven, it fashions hell.” .
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I traced the Tao in rivers, where the yielding waters wind. .
Lao Tzu sang of nameless Way, of empty bowls that feed the mind. .
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I bowed with old Confucius, where propriety patrols desire. .
He spoke of ordered families, of ritual that tempers fire. .
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I walked with dusty sadhus where the Ganges stains the feet. .
They murmured of samsara’s wheel, of breaking from repeat. .
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I sat with Zen companions, watching thoughts like passing rain. .
Koans cracked my logic’s shell, yet could not rinse my shame and pain. .
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These giants lit the mountains, each a lantern in the night. .
Still some cavern in my marrow shivered far from any light. .
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For every path said, “Discipline,” and every sage said, “Try.” .
Yet my will, a tired animal, only knew how to comply or to defy. .
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Reason built its scaffolds, stacked hypotheses like stone. .
But proof could not absolve me for the harm I’d done alone. .
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Some problems yield to data, to equations crisp and clean. .
But guilt is not a theorem, and grief is not a faulty gene. .
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I argued evolution with the fierce, design with trembling friends. .
Yet neither camp could teach my fractured heart how any story ends. .
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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?” .
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My childhood was a fracture, love withheld and love misused. .
A narcissistic mirror where my fledgling trust was bruised. .
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Neglect became my liturgy; I worshiped every fleeting nod. .
Attachment wired my nervous system tighter than a rod. .
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I sought in crowds a savior made of status, touch, and praise. .
But idols built of aching need devoured me in subtle ways. .
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I preached forgiveness to myself, a law I could not keep. .
“Let go, move on, be strong,” I said, then sobbed myself to sleep. .
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I tried to earn absolution, to deserve another start. .
But merit is a cruel god when you have a trembling heart. .
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Then the scandal of a cross cut straight across my schemes. .
Not as mythic consolation, but as judgment of my dreams. .
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A God who enters trauma, not to sanitize the scar. .
Who hangs between the guilty thieves and calls them from afar. .
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“Father, forgive,” was uttered where the nails made muscle tear. .
Not after we improved ourselves, but while we mocked Him there. .
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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. .
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It comes as undeservedness, an offense to every pride. .
The Holy kneels in blood and dust and stands up on my side. .
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Grace is not a concept but a Person with a wound. .
The Logos wearing human skin, in borrowed grave entombed. .
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Resurrection is no metaphor for “try again once more.” .
It is the shattering of final loss, the opening of a door. .
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In Christ, the moral ledger is not erased by lie. .
It’s paid in full by One who chose to feel my failure die. .
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Buddha showed the craving flame, the Tao its gentle flow. .
Christ walked straight into my hatred and refused to let me go. .
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Confucius framed our duties, and the sages mapped the mind. .
But only pierced hands reached the child that history left behind. .
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The solution of humanity is not that we advance. .
It’s that the Author joins the story and is broken in our trance. .
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Forgiveness is not weakness, nor denial dressed as peace. .
It is cruciform surrender where the cycles slowly cease. .
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To love the unlovable is the line I cannot cross. .
Until I see myself there too, forgiven from that cross. .
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Then enemy and victim blur beneath that rugged sign. .
I stand as both, yet strangely held in mercy’s grand design. .
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The quintessential attribute our arguments misname. .
Is not our clever reason, but a Love that bears our blame. .
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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. .

…

DCG

Specious habits of perception 

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. .

…

DCG

Casualty of loss- redacted

– “Casualty of Loss”

I woke to find my name erased from stone,

A casualty of loss, dismissed, alone.

The photographs still hang but look away,

Their eyes recede like tides at end of day.

The room remembers more than I recall,

Its silent witnesses outnumber all.

I trace the dust where once your coffee steamed,

The warmth has left, but still the mug is dreamed.

We built our days like castles out of sand,

Pretending tide could bargain with our hand.

The sea arrived as if on quiet feet,

And swallowed every claim we called complete.

Now meaning limps, a soldier from the war,

Unsure what any sacrifice was for.

My thoughts grow teeth and circle in the night,

They gnaw the ribs that sheltered once-delight.

I pace the narrow hallway of my mind,

Each door is locked by something left behind.

The mirror will not answer when I speak,

It only shows an echo, gray and weak.

I lost you once, but then I lost my way,

As if your leaving emptied out the day.

The clocks still move, but time has gone askew,

It limps in circles, always back to you.

I bargain with my ghosts for one reprieve,

They only nod and whisper, “Let it grieve.”

The world outside still riots into bloom,

Yet each bright petal mocks this inner gloom.

I walk through crowds, a stranger in my skin,

A vacant house with broken floors within.

The mind replays the moment things were torn,

A film that will not stop or be re-scorn.

Self-doubt sits down and pours another drink,

It toasts the story where I always sink.

I tell myself the fault is all my own,

And crown my shame with thorns I’ve overgrown.

But somewhere in this maze a window waits,

A crack of sky that wider light creates.

I hear a distant song, a stranger’s tune,

It braids with wind and wanders past the moon.

The melody remembers what I’ve lost,

Yet hints that nothing loved is ever tossed.

I open up a vein of honest tears,

And wash the rust from long-neglected years.

The heart, though bruised, still trembles when it hears,

That love outlives our damage and our fears.

I stand amid the ruins, breathing slow,

A casualty of loss, but not of hope below.

The scar will outline where the wound once bled,

A quiet map from brokenness to bread.

…

DCG

The post “A Casualty of Loss” is protected on the site, but the tag listing shows it grouped under “Existential Bewilderment,” alongside themes of disconnection, alienation, and the slow psychological erosion that comes from losing what once sustained a person’s sense of meaning and belonging. What can be said with confidence is that the title and context signal someone who has been inwardly damaged by loss—of love, identity, or connection—struggling to understand how that loss has altered their way of being in the world.[thundergodblog]

When knowledge evades us

I write from the heart

But sometimes my head gets in the way

Yet one without the other

May often lead us astray

And so born is the mystery

The habitat for the human being

A collective asylum

In constant sorrow of their feeling

In all of human history

The people will create

What they don’t achieve

They simply relegate

Therefore, the case to be made

Books of the Bible, Plato’s Republic and William Golding‘s Lord of the flies – please 

So much literature

So much to reprise

When we fail to solve the problems of ethics and epistemology

We still gravitate to argue over the metaphysical

When knowledge evades us

Our faith still argues which God is more inevitable

…

DCG

Doesn’t always mean what it seems

I have all this emotion

But I must keep it locked away

She doesn’t want to hear me

Or what I have to say

And so I bottle  it all up

This emotional genie that wants  to awaken from his sleep

Waiting for the cork to open

Allowing it to feel again and gently weep

How many wishes?

Must we make?

How many opportunities?

Will we take?

What will the heart ask for?

If the genie wakes?

What will we succumb to?

When the heart breaks?

The problem with making wishes

We never know what we’re gonna get

Too many variables to predict 

That would make us upset

Despite , our best intentions

We may just get it wrong

If you accept this does not make you weak

Does it then make you strong?

The reason life isn’t so easy

Sometimes cannot be foreseen

What you see is what you get

Doesn’t always mean what it seems

RSP

…

DCG

It warms my heart 

It warms my heart

When you express yourself to me

The excitement of a new job

A new opportunity

Not sure why I seek this connection

I seem to be drawn to you

I yearn to be close

Another déjà vu

Been three months since New Year’s days eve

It was such a great night

But I’m not sure what to believe

From the day I took notice

You have been in my heart and on my mind

Only wanting to know you better

But I think there were things about yourself you didn’t want me to find.

Did I form a trauma bond?

Or was it more than hypnotic empathy?

The connection for me was real

If I misunderstood, then please forgive me 

I do find joy in the feelings that you share

Your well-being means something to me

What is hard is that I see the internal conflict

And then I also see you respond positively

I know if you wanted something more

You would let me know

Whether you consider me a friend

Or whether you consider me a beau

RSP

…

DCG



Old wounds can heal

We learn from experience

We learn from dreams

We learn from others

Sometimes these lessons are not what they seem

Forged with reason and emotion

This imprint attaches to our soul

Sometimes they change with the times

Sometimes they’re put out on parole

Attachment to anything

Either pleasure or pain

May not serve us after the fact

And may just be in vain

Memories can last a lifetime

Our ability to deal with them will change

Old wounds can heal

As this is not really that strange

…

DCG



Only takes two shakes of a lamb’s tail 

I’m not sure just where I am heading

But I am certain I know where I’ve been

Only takes two shakes of a lamb’s tail

To know where and when I begin

Mama told me yeah she told me

About Sunday school and sin

Sometimes it’s best to know how to lose

Before you think you know how to win

Can’t say I’ve always done the right thing

But I can say I know I have tried

Better to be honest and truthful

Then to lie when you confide

I don’t expect much from the world anymore

But I do expect more from me

I believe in self sacrifice

But I also believe in reciprocity

Only takes two shakes of a Lamb‘s tail

My mama used to say to me

But now I am on my own

And I will see what I will see

I believe in having a strong moral character

One to navigate the moral tide

Without such a compass

the soul is likely to hide 



…

DCG





Understanding is the payment, perception is the fee 

I’m receptive to wonder

The Wonderment of our senses

I’m wonderstruck with what I see as beautiful

The beauty from within our own fences

Many are distracted

The essence of what true beauty really is?

To rely only on physical attraction

It’s like holding water with a sieve

How many times?

Will our ego’s deceive?

If we pay attention?

Will we revise what we believe?

To ask, what is beauty?

A question in philosophy

How many people can answer?

How many are left in ambiguity?

Some may learn  the hard way

Some may never learn

Some by example

Some will have to wait their turn

The knowledge we acquire

Cannot express the wonder we feel

It is only in how we live our lives

The wisdom of how we deal

if we look through a lens of falsehoods

How will the world appear to be?

Another fun house mirror?

Is that what we will see?

Distortion can come from dirty lenses

Distortion can come from unchecked ideology

How often do we clean the lens?

How often do we test our reality?

It must certainly be a gift

If we can clearly see

The wonder and beauty in life

Understanding is the payment, perception is the fee 

…

DCG

Just think how now what you can bring? 

Woke up from a dream

With other characters I had in my head

But it made more sense

Of my own life instead

Do dreams, permeate language?

If you carefully observe the dream

What will it tell you about yourself? 

Just exactly what will it mean?

Can you see another perception of yourself?

Can you unlock another door?

Can you reveal another view of yourself?

That you have never seen before?

Can you decode this revelation?

Will you be able to remember?

If you dream in January

Will you know it still by December?

If you commit this to memory

Will you develop it summer, fall, winter and spring?

How are you better yourself?

Just think how now what can you bring?

…

DCG