The Beginning to my hopefully published short story!

The Middle

The air in the bar was musty and moist. Two men sat at the cracked, mahogany counter, which was littered with cigarette butts and half eaten mini pretzels. The dim light emanating from above was made hazy by the thick layer of smoke that hovered in the air. One man turned to the other, who was sitting at the far end of the counter.

“Excuse me sir, but do you happen to have the time?” the man asked.

“Time is of no importance here. It would do you well to think about how you got here in the first place.”

“Well, that’s quite simple, actually. I…”

Yet the man could not recall being anywhere but the bar. This set his mind to work. The man at the end of the bar stood up and began to walk toward him.

“Why don’t you just take a seat next to me? I’ll order us some drinks and I can think about how I got here.”

“Neither food nor drink is important where we are. Let your thoughts feed you the answers to your questions.”

“I’m not quite sure I understand what you are talking about.” the man replied.

“I insistently insist that you pay heed to your surroundings and actions.”

The man, feeling slightly dazed and confused, took a long look at the room and gathered his thoughts. In the dim light, he could see that he and the other man were the only people in the bar. Behind the counter, nothing stirred.

“Where is the bartender, surely he didn’t just leave his bar unattended?”

“All that matters is that you are here. Reflect upon your actions and you will receive a crystal clear answer.”

At this, the man stood up and moved toward the door. His hand met the cold brass handle of the doorknob.

“I am leaving now, as I have found no answers here. You yourself have refused to be straightforward with me. Good day to you.”

He turned the doorknob slowly and opened the door. As he walked through the door, he gasped. He was standing in the same bar. The strange figure he met earlier stood before him.

“Surely you will come sit with me. You have all the time you wish to realize your true potential for greatness. You simply need to reflect upon your life and the decisions that you have made in order to reach peace.” the stranger said.

“What is this? I have no idea how I got here and no idea how to leave!”

“You are on a fine line between greatness and destruction, torment and paradise. You must realize your true potential in order to reach paradise. Until then, I am here to encourage you to reflect upon your actions in life. If you are able to realize your faults, then you can put them behind you and move on into eternity.”

“I still don’t understand what you are talking about. Realize my faults? What is this?” the man exclaimed.

“Well, I suppose we have an eternity to find out, don’t we?” replied the stranger.

.Photographic.Memory.

I would like to take some time to reflect on something I love.

Photography.

There is something about a photo that grabs me, tugs at the very strings of my heart. A blissful memory stamped on a clean white canvas. Each finely detailed line tells a story of how the photograph came to be.

So much beauty contained in such a simple thing.

That's where we stand as humans. We are images, finely detailed and tuned to please the eye, when really, behind each photo there is an ugly story of some sort.

We are photographs shot by the best photographer there is:

God.

We are images of the Almighty Lord.

Yet, we each have our own intricate story that no living human can explain. A story that only the photographer behind the camera knows and understands. Any good photographer cares and feels for their subject.

And just imagine, our Creator is the greatest photographer there is, and therefore cares for us beyond all measure.

It's quite comforting.

In the process of developing the photograph, a photographer will encounter blemishes and imperfections in the initial prints. The Lord knows that we are all in development, and therefore possess blemishes and imperfections. The best part is, we, the images of the Almighty, may communicate with Him and ask for guidance.

What photograph ever has the ability to physically talk to a photographer?

This presents us with a very encouraging thought.

We are photographs with blemishes that God will never stop working on. He wants us to be perfect, though in all reality, we all fall short.

Still, our Father, our Creator, our Lord will NEVER give up on us.

...He just loves us that much...

.Life Moving.Life Standing Still.

So this past week I have mulled over the various intricacies of being a secondary school teacher. Is it a worthwhile profession? Is God truly calling upon me, Cory Stocks, to mentor and educate high school aged kids?

Is this clumsy, stuttering, nonsensical 21 year old man really fit to teach?

Or is it all a false hope?

To answer these questions, I need to do something I am not very good at....

Open up the floor for God to do his work. Because He relies on the weak. He cherishes the lame, the blind, the crippled. Among these are his gems, his prized possessions. He calls those who are incapable of speaking effectively to...well quite frankly...speak. Why is it that God chooses us who have a hard time verbally expressing ourselves...to teach?

Is it because He likes to challenge us, test us beyond our abilities?

Is it because He wants us to be mocked, cursed, laughed at?

Or is it because our loving Creator wants to take our breath away and breathe into us a new mentality? A mentality that requires us to lose ourselves, to say:

"I Submit."

I prefer to assume that the latter is the case.

Every day, I go to work to some of the most amazing people in the world...children, and these children are not highly educated, they aren't politically aware of society's standards of living...

And no, they do not know what it is like to have a loving family waiting for them when they get home. No tender kiss on the forehead before they walk out the door to go to school. No adult figure that they can pour their hearts out to when the tears just won't stop coming...

Remember the clumsy, stuttering 21 year old man?

This is where he comes in.

It is upon me to come in and completely lose myself with these kids. To clothe myself in love and serve these kids to the best of my abilities. And it truly is all about them. Not me, not the rest of the staff...them. It is because of the gracious gift of Joy the Lord has bestowed upon me that I am able to serve these children.

I am so thankful that I am able to be a constant in the kids' lives. God's awesome grace has thrown me in the midst of something beautiful. Something I am good at. I believe the Lord has called me to teach, to mentor, to serve selflessly and wholeheartedly in whatever way is deemed necessary.

And to the Lord, I say:

"I'll try my best, Daddy."

Led to Victory Update Part Three!

Hey everyone! It's been a while since I have written, but I think I would like to give a little info about the progress of the music! Here goes!

We are done recording! Super awesome, sounds great, we have album art now, so that's really sweet. We will be releasing the track listing soon! I for one cannot wait to get it up on the net and into the hands of people! We love doing what we do, cause we get to make music for people and show them we care through our words!

We are playing a show in October with A Loss for Words, which is a huge deal to us, because we all love A Loss for Words. I cannot wait! So all in all, we are super stoked for all that is happening and we are ready to take our music out there and show it to people! I will be posting some album artwork for the music. The album will be titled "Going Through the Motions". Release date is TBA still. Stay tuned....there may be some exclusive tracks up soon!

Led to Victory Update Numero Dos

Time for another Led to Victory update!

Here's the status guys:

We just finished editing guitars and getting a rough idea for levels as we prepare to do vocals. The music is sounding great already, and we are extremely excited to put forward something that we have all worked extremely hard on! Album title will be announced as soon as we all get the go ahead to announce it. The album art will be released soon, like I keep saying, we have people hard at work on that. I really want to thank Nate for all the awesome work he has done for us, he has been really amazing. We are all ready to get this stuff out there and into the ipods and cd players (if anyone uses those anymore) so we can spread an awesome message to people, because that is what is important, expressing yourself through the medium of music. We love playing what we play, no matter what, and we are dear friends, so it makes writing music that much easier for all of us. Hopefully, the product of all our hard work can be enjoyed by people! Shows will be scheduled once we get done in the studio, so stay tuned for that as well.

Lastly, there may be some sort of contest on the wind for the release of the album. It will be an artwork contest, and it will tie into our whole art concept, so get your pens and paper ready, we will be announcing what that is all about as well.

Overall, what I can say for sure is that we are having a lot of fun together growing and creating, and we feel that that is the most important thing to us in this band as brothers. We all love one another and have an ultimate goal to grow together as individuals, and in this case, musicians. So remember, be excited and know that we are going through the motions to get this thing done! Thank you all who actually read this...haha.