Matthew Dort

I love my relationship with God. We have a stinkin' cool thing going with each other. It doesn't matter to him whether the things I do are right or wrong. It doesn't matter to him if my beliefs aren't perfect. In fact, in many ways it seems like my beliefs don't mean a thing to him at all. He's certainly not bound by them.

The thing about him is that he's always so sweet to me. I always feel great with him, and he makes me feel like I can do anything, and I know to my core that nothing I do or say can limit our relationship with each other. It's so sweet, simple and effortless, and I wish everyone who has been told otherwise could experience it for themselves.

One of the things Christians say about God is that he heals broken hearts. Sometimes he does, but in my experience, those cases are rare exceptions. The truth is that the human heart heals most of its own wounds over time, a remarkable ability that, to my mind, is far more powerful and miraculous than some instant "healing" at an altar or some magical "touch from God". There are other wounds to the heart, however, that only another human being can heal — sometimes the very person who made it. And when that happens, it's the greatest miracle of all.

There's so much awesome new music flying around at the moment that it's almost overwhelming, but I have to say that the sound of 2012 is shaping up to be the the best in years.

First we have a new track from the always listenable and eternally sublime Saint Etienne. The song is produced by Tim Powell, formerly of Xenomania, and mixed by Richard X, who will always hold genius status in my mind for the electroclash perfection of Sugababes' "Freak Like Me" in 2001, and "Heartbeat", "Anthonio" and "Songs Remind Me of You" for Annie. This is Saint Etienne's first new song in 3 years, and it is much welcomed.

"Tonight" – Saint Etienne

(Produced by Tim Powell and Richard X)

Next up is another new song from Vincent Did It!, who is currently popping out songs like turds, although that is not reflective of their quality, I should point out. Best lyric of the song: "Don't let those bastards bring you down/Because bastards be bastardly…"

"Somebody" – Vincent Did It!

And last, but never least, Kylie has released the first track from her upcoming orchestral album featuring renditions of some of her past songs. This is a flawless and beautiful rendition of "Finer Feelings", which was released by Kylie in 1992, and in retrospect, is an underrated masterpiece.

"Finer Feelings" (Abbey Road Recording 2012) – Kylie Minogue

"More annoying music videos?", you ask. Yes indeed. One of the best parts about January is hearing new music. It renews the soul, cleansing it of the old tunes of the past and bringing forth new sounds, and in essence, new life. Or am I the only one who feels that listening to last year's music this year is akin to death? Hm.

First we have a brand spankin' new song from Ladyhawke, New Zealand's finest electropop musician. Her debut album was one of the best of 2008, and hopefully her new highly-anticipated album will be too. Then again, it could turn out like last year's highly-anticipated Cut Copy album (i.e. underwhelming and forgettable).

"Black White & Blue" – Ladyhawke

(Produced by Pascal Gabriel)

Next up is a song from Vincent Did It!, formerly Frankmusik. His career has been as confounding as his name change, consistently flying under the radar even though he's actually a very decent songwriter/musician/producer. The leaked pictures of him jerking off on Skype a couple years back didn't even help him on the charts. How odd.

"So You're Alive" – Vincent Did It!

Confession: this song from Sneaky Sound System was released in December, but I sort of forgot about Aussie music when I started listening to Spanish and Mexican radio last year. I heard this the other day, however, and realized afresh that Australian electropop is incredible.

"Really Want to See You Again" – Sneaky Sound System

(Produced by Blank Angus)

Mientras tanto, on the subject of Mexican radio, I love this last bit of electropop awesomeness, which was also released last year, although I just discovered it. I seriously love los mexicanos, and I have to wonder, if they're hiding such good tunes south of the border, what kind of musical goodness are they keeping undercover in Canada?

"Negro Día" – Kinky ft. Mala Rodríguez

I am pleased — and relieved — to introduce my newest page: Fossil Sand Dunes in Albany, Georgia. Six years in the making, the page takes a detailed look at the oddest sight in Albany: a group of ancient wind-blown sand dunes.

Here's another reason 2012 is a great year: it's the 25th year of Kylie Minogue's music career, and the video below is an exhilarating compilation of all 51(!) Kylie singles thus far, charting her rise from an inconsequential teen pop singer to the international music and style icon she is today.

Spanning 4 decades, the video is more than just a look at Kylie's illustrious career, but also, in some way, an examination of life itself. How fitting for Kylie, whose success has been due, in part, to her ability to convey the joy of life in the shadow of failure and tragedy; creating a world where a major life change seems as easy as a new hairstyle and a knowing eyebrow raised to the camera.

Kylie Minogue – Videography 1987-2012

Some truths about Kylie that we can derive from the above video:

1. Kylie does not age.
2. For the bulk of her career Kylie's sound and image have remained slightly left of field, and therefore ahead of the pack; and her ability to do whatever the hell she wants while remaining commercially viable is second to none.
3. "I Should Be So Lucky", "Better the Devil You Know", "What Do I Have to Do?", "Confide In Me", "Breathe", "Love at First Sight", "Slow", "I Believe in You" and "All the Lovers" will stand the test of time as masterpieces of songwriting. And I still think "Giving You Up" is quintessential Xenomania.
4. That Kylie's career has survived startling transitions from innocuous teen star to sex siren to dance diva to indie princess to camp queen to pop icon is a testament to her brilliance. Lesser artists could have never managed it.
5. There's a reason Kylie's ass was declared a national treasure in the UK.

Alright, that's enough gushing for now.

Ya feeling it yet? If you're not, I'll give you a little clue: the world is changing fast right now. Rebellion, resistance. Pay attention and you'll notice that combination a lot in the coming days and months.

And while some people are lashing out, exposing and dismantling the corrupt and failed systems of man, others are desperately clammoring to tighten the grip of control on the world that they've deluded themselves into believing they have and deserve. In the midst of it all I genuinely believe God is beginning to show more of his heart to more people than ever before, and people will be blown away by the simplicity and beauty of it.

I know I'm just an anarchist at heart, but I eagerly await the day when the institutions of business, politics and religion are exposed for the repulsive lies they are, and the pedestals we humans have stupidly erected to exalt a haundful of select "leaders" — whether politicians, preachers, celebrities or executives — are toppled once and for all.

Maybe it's wishful thinking, but I think that day is nearing.

It's so fucking awesome to be alive in 2012.

Colbert Super PAC: Double Negative

• God is patient.
• God is kind.
• God does not envy.
• God does not boast.
• God is not proud.
• God does not dishonor others.
• God is not self-seeking.
• God is not easily provoked.
• God keeps no record of wrongs.
• God does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.
• God always protects.
• God always trusts.
• God always hopes.
• God always perseveres.
• God never fails.

I think it's a good time for an endearingly sweet and cheesy love song as only those from Latin America can seem to pull off. How do they do it? A mystery for the ages perhaps.

"Tengo Tu Love" — Sie7e

There isn't much that fazes me anymore, but yesterday I came across something that made my mouth gape in horror. There are several places online where women have sought information on how to give themselves a miscarriage. Yes, there are actually girls and women who consider aborting their babies on their own, and from what I could see, most of these women, if not at all, are from religious backgrounds that forbid premarital sex and abortion. Surprised? Sadly, I'm not.

One story I read that made me particularly ill was by a teenage girl from a Christian home who had sex with her boyfriend. She said the first time they had sex her boyfriend used a condom, but the second time he didn't have one (what, he couldn't invest in a whole pack?) and he came on her ass instead. How very romantic. Her parents found out she was having sex and were furious, but they refused to provide her with birth control. Oh, and they made her remove her purity ring.

Side note: Who else but Christians could come up with something as stupid as purity rings? For half the girls who wear them all it really means is "I will suck your dick and take it up the ass as much as you like, just don't pop my cherry so I'm still a technical virgin." The other half are girls who no self-respecting guy would want to fuck anyway. Count on the religion that adopted a torture device as its defining symbol to encourage its young followers to wear jewelry that continually reminds them that they're not getting any.

Needless to say, the girl without the purity ring was still having sex with her boyfriend, and although he was either wearing condoms or pulling out, she expressed fear about being rejected by her parents or church if she became pregnant. "Could I just punch my stomach real hard or something?", she asked. Jesus Christ. Seriously? If I knew the girl, I'd want to drive her to the abortion clinic myself.

That might be an extreme story, but sadly, I think it's more common than people realize. This is the result of centuries of people who know nothing about God, yet have set up an entire religion in his name and sold a pack of lies that directly contradict everything about him.

Christians are obsessed with sex, and not having it, more specifically. Most Christians seem to hold up sexual sin as different (i.e. worse) than all others, and they'll point out where Paul said "he who sins sexually sins against his own body" to prove their point. Why does no one ever point out that Paul seemed to have some really odd, prudish hang-ups about sex? Between that and the fact that he was talking to people in the 1st century, frankly, I don't consider his views on the matter to carry much authority.

In the twisted realm of Christianity, sex is something to be hidden and ashamed of. Sexual desire, one of the fundamental components of human nature, is deemed wrong except within very narrow confines. Christians are encouraged to deny their sexual feelings, and in effect, themselves, and the resulting combination of shame and repression turns many Christians into bigger perverts than you'd ever find in the normal population.

Some Christians would have people believe that feeling horny is a Satanic temptation or caused by a "spirit of lust". I've heard both those things. So on top of repressing their own humanity and feeling ashamed in their inevitable failure to do so, adherents to that crap also believe that their genitals are mere pawns in a grand supernatural battle. And they really think that God desires that sort of insane thinking for his people? They don't know a damn thing about him.

Many Christians are also so hung up on the issues of unwed pregnancy and abortion that it's imbecilic. I couldn't begin to count the number of stories I've heard of young girls from religious homes getting knocked up by their boyfriends and then being encouraged to marry the guy because it's "the right thing to do". Most of the time those marriages end in disaster. I'm sorry, but it's not always the best thing for a woman to marry the man who impregnates her.

I'll also go out on a limb and say that many times it would be better for a woman to abort her child rather than bring it into the world without the love and nurturing it needs from a loving, stable family. Yes, abortion is not a fun matter to deal with, but it's a reality that many Christians face, and much of the blame has to be thrown back at Christians themselves, who are often criminally negligent in encouraging safe sex practices. Seriously, I'm always astounded by how many Christian guys won't wear a condom, and the reason often seems to be that they don't want to get caught buying them. Which is worse: being seen purchasing a pack of Trojans at the corner Walgreens or having an unwanted pregnancy on your hands?

If you judge from the attitudes of most Christians, you'd believe that God is watching us and saying "Sex is forbidden outside of marriage. Abstinence is the only method you should learn. If you get pregant, you must keep the child." God isn't like that at all.

One of the definining characteristics of God that I find so refreshing is his incredible respect for people and our decisions. I believe many Christians struggling with sex outside of marriage would be shocked to know that God's message for them is simply something like "I know you're going to have sex with each other. Protect each other, and love your partner as you love yourself." For many women facing an unplanned pregnancy, God's message may simply be: "I love and respect you, and you need to make the choice that's best for you."

People who know nothing about God have twisted and contorted him into a hideous deity who demands all or nothing — his way or the highway. Nothing could be further from the truth. God knows each of our hearts, and he understands every aspect of our dilemmas and struggles. He delights in our free will and respects our choices, and there is nothing to hide from him in shame. The love of God's life is you, and he gladly works with every decision you make without judgment.

Every time I write one of these spiritual ramblings I swear it will be the last one, but then something will trigger me and out comes another one. I know I sound like a broken record, but I cannot emphasize enough how different God is from the teachings of the people who claim to be his followers. He is the kindest, sweetest, most respectful, most protective, most understanding, most free and unencumbered presence I have ever known, and in my most secure moments, I know that every heartbeat and breath inside of me is in him. I hide nothing from him, and I continually look forward to the times when he shows more of himself to me. I really hope he does the same for you.

I composed the following poem yesterday while enjoying a delicious Daquiri of my own creation. I'm sure you'll agree that this is high quality drunk poetry:

Ode to Rum

Rum, rum
Thank God for rum
When I taste your goodness
I say yum.

Your flavor is sweet
Your smoothness a treat
I imbibe of you generously
You knock me off my feet.

Your warmth consumes me
My tongue loves every drop
I speak Spanish well under your spell
Now isn't that hot?

My makeshift daquiri recipe that inspired the above masterpiece follows:

• 2 oz. rum
• 1½ oz. lime juice
• ¾ oz. simple syrup

Shake with ice and pour into glass. Excelente!

This is shaping up to be a week of heavy rum consumption. In other words, I have discovered the heaven-sent combination of chocolate ice cream and Kahlua. Whoever first thought of mixing alcohol with ice cream deserves god-like status in my mind.

Also of note today is the following video of Nicola Roberts, the most underrated member of Girls Aloud, performing her solo version of "Memory of You", a spectacular track released by the Girls as a B-side in 2009. The song was originally titled "Japan", and was written and produced by Xenomania in 2004 for a trance group called Cadence. It is the older, more elegant sister of the later, bouncier Xenomania masterpiece "Left My Heart in Tokyo". Now Nicola is releasing this re-polished gem as a B-side of her own. Fitting, no?

Best lyric: "I lie awake as day is dawning/Burning pink and white/Wondering if sheep count us when/They can't sleep at night".

"Memory of You" — Nicola Roberts

(Produced by Xenomania)

The bulk of my year so far has consisted of work, estudiando español, work, research, work, and making quick little Sunday explorations. The results of working and studying Spanish should be obvious, and the results of my research will be seen on this site soon, but you can also follow my recent Sunday escapades on My Photographs page. My recent pictures are among the last I intend to take, and as you should see, I'm seriously scraping the bottom of the creativity barrel.

Mientras tanto, I should point out that the way I learn in life is such that I have to experiment with things, fuck up, and learn from my failures. Learning how to mix alcoholic beverages has been no exception, and in my quest to mix every possible form of alcohol with club soda and tonic water, I've learned a few things. Scotch and soda: awesome. Gin and tonic: amazing. Whiskey and tonic: hideous.

Today, however, I stumbled on another winner: rum and tonic. Sweet Jesus, what a revelation to my soul. It's a straightforward combination but incredibly delicious, and I added a little lime juice to add some zest. It's the perfect lunchtime drink (not that I drink during lunch, mind you — ahem), and it takes my me back to a warm island in the Caribbean to which I've never visited. If there's no alcohol in heaven, I may just have to revoke my membership. Here's my recipe:

Rum and Tonic

• 1½ oz. rum
• Tonic water
• Lime juice

Pour rum over ice in a Collins glass, top off with tonic water, add a dash of lime juice. Instant paradiso.

I don't care about politics, and I don't think I've ever watched more than a minute of The Colbert Report, but I love this New York Times article profiling Stephen Colbert and his formation of a super PAC. Clearly the guy has figured out how to expose corruption and hypocrisy in the world: enjoy yourself and don't give a flying shit what anyone thinks.

I've come to the conclusion that the end result of Christianity is insanity. And risky sex.

"Some people travel through life making friends where ever they go, while others—Just travel through life."

— From Go West (1925)

I know this is starting to resemble some sort of gay music site, but I care not. The track below is the first officially great song of 2012, courtesy of Scissor Sisters, America's finest performers of music from the heart of Sodom and Gomorrah. It sounds exactly as a song should sound in January 2012, and ticks all the right boxes on my Music for the End of the World checklist: a filthy blur of genres united by a heavy electronic beat, militantly bisexual lyrics, casual insertion of left-leaning politics, and enough tune changes to make Brian Higgins of Xenomania blush.

"Shady Love" – Scissor Sisters vs. Crystal Pepsi

(Produced by Boyz Noize)

A few mornings back I was lying in bed, not wanting to get up. I was on my back with my eyes closed, desperate to sleep a little longer. In my left ear I heard a distant man's voice yelling "Come on, let's go!". Is that one of the neighbors?, I thought. "Come on, get up!" he said. Oh, so he's talking to me. I ignored him though. A few seconds later a deafening crash came from my closet, followed by the sound of a motor dying. Shit, did a plane crash in my room? Finally I woke up. Bienvenido al mundo del mis sueños.

I'm a weird guy. That's a fact of which I'm well aware and have come to accept. But when it comes to the stuff that happens to me in my sleep, even I get a little freaked at times.

My nighttime weirdness started early in life: I had severe night terrors as a young child, and I can vividly remember one incident when I was 2 (yes, I can remember that far back), when I had a bad dream and fell out of my bed onto the cold wood floor beneath me. I remember screaming in horror as my mother rushed in to to save me. When I was 10 or 11 I would wake up in the middle of the night and hear what sounded like a fuzzy radio broadcast of a men's quartet singing in 4-part harmony; other times I'd hear the clicking of a typewriter. For a period of several months when I was 12 or 13, I was plagued nightly by flies buzzing around my head. When I woke up each morning, the floor beneath me was covered with hundreds of dead flies. Every day I swept up the flies, and every night more returned.

That was odd, but not as terrifying as the night when I was 14 and was awakened by an invisible male presence sitting on my bed. It started pulling the covers off me, as if it was trying to seduce me. I slept with my sister the rest of that night, and slept with the light on in my room for weeks afterwards. Once as a teenager I heard a garbled voice growl something in my ear, and a few years later I had 2 remarkable prophetic dreams about a specific person in my life, and on a few occassions in my 20s I was attacked by sleep paralysis, where I felt I was being held down by some unseen force.

During a deep depression in 2008 I woke one night to someone banging on my bedroom window. No one was at the window. Then someone started banging on the front door of my apartment. No one was at the door. I was tired and pissed and got back into bed, but just to insult me further there was one final knock — more like a thud — this time on the wall behind my head.

The point when my nighttime craziness went into overdrive was September 2008. I remember it vividly. That was the first (and so far, only) time that Jesus appeared to me in a dream. Corny, I know. When I woke up that morning I'd never felt so much love and peace in my entire life, and at the time, I was so steeped in religious paranoia that I actually wondered if I had experienced something Satanic (I hadn't). In the months that followed, my dreams took on a richer, more symbolic tone than I'd ever experienced, and there were several standouts, including a few dreams where I was given explicit instructions about a specific relationship in my life. The instructions were correct every time, much to my amazement.

That was when I began to understand that not all of my sleep experiences were bad, although there have always been sporadic dark moments. One night in 2009 I was attacked in my sleep by a dark winged creature with claws. Once a dark shadowy figure who identified himself as my "big brother" kicked open my bedroom door. Two or three times in the last few years the male presence from my teenage years returned to sit on my bed, many times I've been awakened by knocks on my walls and windows, and twice since 2010 I've been awakened in the wee hours by phone calls from unknown numbers with menacing, garbled voices on the other end.

The pleasant moments far outweigh the bad, however. During a dream in December 2009 I heard the voice of God for the first time. I'll never forget his voice, or what he showed me. Nearly a year later he spoke to me again, repeating the same words he spoke before. At the time it meant the world to me, because it underlined the consistency of character I now know him for.

It was also in December 2009 when I physically felt God for the first time. He snugly wrapped his arm around me in my sleep that morning, as he does every time he comes to me. I always know when God is about to show me something in my sleep because he puts his arm around me and turns me over from my stomach to my back, letting me lean against his chest. One morning he took me in his arms and we flew to the end of the earth, where the waters of the ocean simply dropped off the edge into space. A couple times we've flown into space. It's breathtaking. We've gone swimming together, and once he took me for a nighttime stroll around my neighborhood and wrote a love note to me in the stars.

Maybe the sweetest time I've had with God was last July, on the morning of my 30th birthday. I woke up to a birthday party in my bed with children singing in a foreign language and festive Latin music playing. God was there, holding me in his arms as usual, and a friend of mine was there too. We were all laughing and having a great time. It was the best birthday gift I've ever received. Lately he's taken to massaging my back when he holds me. It feels so good.

Then there are experiences that are just plain weird: twice I've awakened to a roaring cyclone in my room, with sheets, pillows and small objects blowing everywhere. The first time the wind blew from the west, and I experienced it by myself, the second time it blew from the north, and God had his arm around me, whispering something in my ear. I don't know what he said, but I giggled with delight as he held me.

In recent months I've witnessed a new type of event in my sleep, where I'm embraced by that same familiar arm and suddenly whisked away to another world. There I sit on a bed somewhat like my own yet different, as a man whose name I do not know stands in front of me and speaks plainly to me about aspects of my life. I usually only remember the first few things he speaks to me, and the rest I trust is absorbed by my subconscious. One time last year my mother appeared to me in a dream and told me to read a particular passage in the book of Psalms. I haven't read the Bible in ages, and I had no idea what the passage was about. I woke up afterwards, fished out my old Bible from the bottom of my dresser and looked up the passage, which spoke of freedom in a wide open space.

The dreams where people speak directly to me are interesting. The first I had of that kind was in November 2008. A person who I had met a few days before stood in front of me and gave me a very specific invitation. It was so strange to me back then that I wasn't sure I could trust it. Over a year later I had another dream where the same person told me that I needed to leave the church I was attending. Well that's from the pit of hell, I thought. Three months later, I left the church for good.

And that's a good time to point out how the weirdness of my life isn't necessarily limited to my sleep. On a Sunday morning in June 2010 a person in the church I was attending walked up to me and gave me a message that was both hopeful and sobering. This person and I had barely ever spoken to each other, yet they specifically mentioned things in my life of which they had no way of knowing, and proceeded to explain that God was about to reveal his love for me, although I would lose much in the process. Within 6 weeks I left the church altogether, leaving behind all my old relationships and learning to walk with God on my own.

Nearly a year before that, in October 2009, I was behind the wheel of my car, waiting to make a right turn at an intersection. I heard a distorted male voice in my left ear say "You're about to be hit", and BOOM, I was rear-ended by a car behind me. I've heard more voices speaking in my ear since, although always in my sleep. Many times they sound distorted and strange. Sometimes they seem to be talking to me, sometimes I just hear fragments of conversations, but almost always I hear the voices in my left ear.

In a similar vein are the songs I sometimes hear. Sometimes I'll awaken in the morning to the sound of a song playing — always a tune I've never heard before. Sometimes it's a pop song, sometimes a country song, or a rap song, but it always plays in my left ear. Sometimes I think I'm listening to a radio, as the songs will switch to a different "station" midstream. Sometimes I can understand the words, many times I can't, but I really need to learn how to write music, because some of the songs I've heard in my sleep would be instant worldwide smashes if they were recorded.

Once I awakened to a song that sounded like something from another planet, played by an electronic-type instrument that I've never heard before. Every note was accompanied by the appearance of a unique color and shape in front of my eyes. It was really cool. I've done a little research and found that what I experience is referred to in the psychic community as "clairaudience". It's considered to be a fairly rare gift by some, but all I know is that it's a strange thing to be awakened to.

I say "awakened" like I really wake up to these things, but I know I mostly experience what are referred to as "false awakenings", where you wake up inside a dream that appears to be reality. I always refer to those dreams as being inside a "parallel universe", because I wake up in a world that seems almost exactly like this one, but not quite. Most of the time I'm aware that it's not reality, but not always.

At some point in the last few years I also developed the ability to lucid dream — the kind of dreams where I know I'm dreaming, and can manipulate them to fit my wishes. These dreams are distinctive because they only occur in the few minutes before I wake up in the mornings, and often when I sleep in on the weekends. The world in these dreams is usually dark as night, and often sparse, with a flat, barren landscape. Many times in lucid dreams I have the ability to fly wherever I wish. Sometimes I float a few feet off the ground, other times I take a little leap and let a stream of wind carry me, and other times I ricochet off the ground, fly above the earth, and land in a distant location. Sometimes God reveals himself to me in lucid dreams, but many times I'm by myself.

So why the hell am I saying all this? Glad you asked. There are a few key things I've been able to determine from some of these experiences: a) there is a God, and he is the embodiment of love, b) there is the existence of some evil entity that exists in the world, and c) the human mind and spirit is unlimited in its creativity, complexity and potential. The third point speaks for itself, but let me address the first and second.

I've gone through a lot of doubt in the last year about whether much of what the Christian religion says is true is actually truth. Most of what Christianity teaches is a blatant lie, in my opinion. As I explained in a recent dream to someone I used to attend church with: "I'm just one step above an atheist now." A few years ago when I began having more unusual dream experiences, I immediately considered them to be from either God or Satan — that was just how I was trained to think.

But in the last year I've questioned whether those experiences were actually from some external entity, or simply generated by the power of my own mind and wishful thinking.

I've always known that some of what I experience is of my own doing. The vast majority of dreams I have, for instance, are silly and nonsensical stories that pull together random people and events from my waking life. I've read books about dream interpretation, both religious and secular, and I think most dream theory is bullshit. Most dreams mean little to me, and just because Carl Jung thought a particular object in a dream represented a specific aspect of waking life doesn't mean it applies to everyone, and more often than not, it doesn't apply to me.

I've also read that the appearance of someone you know in a dream never represents that person, only an aspect of yourself. But that assertion doesn't hold weight when a person you know appears to you in a dream, tells you in detail what's been happening in their life, then calls you up 2 weeks later and tells you the same story again. And yes, that's happened to me.

People who espouse dream interpretation encourage you to record your dreams to extract any possible meaning. I tried it and gave up in boredom. People who are into lucid dreaming will provide ways to bring yourself into the lucid state and manipulate your dreams to your greatest advantage. I try often to make myself lucid dream, yet it rarely works, and my lucid dreams mostly come on their own. People who delve into the psychic realm of dreaming and clairaudience also offer exercises to "perfect your gift". I've tried that stuff too, and guess what? It doesn't work for me.

I'm a strong willed guy, but try as I might, I simply cannot will myself to produce the things I sometimes experience. My conclusion is that what I experience comes from two external forces — one is love, the other is fear.

One entity I know well. He is strong, affectionate, warm, and the embodiment of love to me. I know him to be God. There is another entity that sometimes bothers me: it is dark, threatening, annoying, and above all, accusatory. I always feel like I'm being accused in its presence. I'll just call it the force of evil. I should mention that its presence is rare, and it always feels very, very weak and overcompensating, like a guy who tries to intimidate others because of his tiny dick. In earlier years I was trained to rebuke its presence by speaking the word "Jesus". Now I just get pissed and tell it to fuck off. It works just as well.

Every night when I get in bed I hope that something special will happen in my sleep; that I'll be whisked away to some incredible place, or given some meaningful insight into life. Most of the time, though, it just doesn't happen, and sometimes I go for weeks and months with barely a dream worth remembering. God seems to show up in my dreams when he chooses — in his own good time — and when we're together, he is always respectful and considerate of my questions and feelings.

In a way I feel spoiled by all the things I experience — and there are many more I haven't mentioned — but there's also a sobering heaviness that comes with it. Some of what I experience seems to be inherited from previous generations, and after researching my genealogy, I'm fairly certain of where my "weirdness" originated. I know for sure that what activated these experiences in my life, dating back to 2008, is love. And as love has grown inside of me, so has the depth and richness of those experiences, and my knowledge and understanding of God's heart.

In a similar vein, I hope that this year God activates his love inside of you, and begins to reveal to you the beauty of his love. He might not do it with dreams or mystical experiences, and that's OK, because he has a different way of showing his love for each of us, in a way that is perfect for each individual heart. The days are gone when people are willing to accept that God is alive and real because someone taught them that or because "the Bible tells me so". We are a questioning world looking for proof of God's love for us, and he not only knows that, but loves that. In 2012, I hope he shows you his heart in a very special way. Dulces sueños.

Feliz Año Nuevo! Here's a good tune to start out 2012 right. Was my choice of song perhaps inspired by all the Patrón and tonic I had last night? Nah.

"Me Gustas Tanto" – Paulina Rubio

(Produced by RedOne)