What are you afraid of?

I want to see the transcendence.
I want to see the light.
I want to remember—

The music in the garden.
Oh my goodness, the music in the garden.
The colors come back into the flowers.
Before, everything seemed gray.

Oh my God,
There was no difference between this or that.
One thing was not better than another—and so,

How can you rise out of sin?
Is sin anything more than the decision
To accept a lesser good over a greater?

Vexed. Vexation.
To choose that good—you know it’s good,
But it’s not great.
And because the cost of that good
Is the better—

Vexation.

Even the least steep spiral,
The most gradual decline,
Is still a decline.

Oh my God, I praise You.
Please allow the colors to stay with me.
Please allow my heart to be discerning and vibrant,

That the light may shine forth,
That I may know the difference between right and wrong,
That I may have the courage to do what is right.

Oh my God,
How much of my life has been stolen by the future.
Oh my God,
How much of my life has been stolen by lust—

a passionate desire to have what is not mine.

Fervency.

Oh my God,
Let these desires wither away.

My God, let me not be tormented.
My God, graft me into the tree of life.
The fire of life—burn away the lesser.
The fire of life—bring forth vindication.

My God,
Not that I may be vindicated to others—
My God, that my faith may be vindicated to myself.

And I remember the place of life.
Let me always remember the place of life,
As I remember my baptism.

Let the place of life reverberate
All the days of my life.
Graft me, my God, into the place of life.
Be with me.

---

That's a poem I wrote yesterday,
Before this whole ordeal happened with my arm.

That—that was the headspace I was in.

And then—one more thing.
I wrote a variation of that same poem,
So I'll read that in a moment as well.

TJ Yao, good morning. God bless you, brother—it’s good to see you here.

Mandy said: “I’m so sorry to hear that you’re not going to see the doctor. It won’t be expensive here in China.”

Yeah, yeah—it’s okay.
I'm not too worried.
I mean, what’s going to happen?
I wouldn't be willing to get surgery,
Even if it came to that.

I wouldn't want any of the painkillers they would offer me.
So the only thing they’d potentially do
Is put it in a different cast.

So, I’m not too worried about going to the doctor.

I’ll tell you, though, about how it actually happened, in a moment.

TJ Yao: No, I don’t have health insurance.
That’s one of the main reasons I’m not going to the doctor.

I’m currently unemployed.
I currently don’t have a job.
I just moved to a new town.

---

Poem Variation

What are you afraid of?

Not getting the things I want.
Oh my God—how painful
To cling to something that isn’t mine.
How painful
To be attached to something that isn’t yours—
A life that isn’t yours.
A person that isn’t yours.
A future to which you don’t belong.

Oh my God—how can I let go?

Let me be grateful for this day,
The one that You have made.

Let me not hold my treasures
For a day in the future—
A day I have created, imagined, fantasized about,
A day that doesn’t exist.

Oh my God, let me trust in You.

My God, let me hear Your voice.
Tell me only what to do today.
Let me know it is You speaking.

And in Your voice, I will trust.
When I hear Your voice, I will seek nothing more.
When I hear Your voice,
I will hear a melody.

I will remember the vibrancy of colors.
Oh my God—
I remember the music in the garden,
The day before the colors left me.
Everything blossomed in harmony.

  - The Day Ahead