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how to decrease

i know some of you out there wonder, “what’s with the lower case letters?” and most of you could probably care less, but for those of you who do, in short, i loathe and detest capital letters. as a poet/writer they’re just not my aesthetic.

that was the reason for most of the past few years, why i rarely use a capital letter in my writings–i just don’t like them. however, i did have to train myself to use small i’s to make my writing more uniform. lower case i’s just looked strange to me. despite their strangeness, a lone, lower case i is always striking because, it looks like it’s striving to be something–striving to be a part of something bigger.

all through our lives we are taught the i by itself stands taller than the other letters–all eyes on i, or all eyes on me. we are taught the i does not need anything to be everything other capital letters are with the support of other letters and punctuation. aside from lower case letters’ aesthetic properties, in the last nine months or so, i’ve been thinking more and more, and looking back on some of my poems; the only capitalizations are of God, Jesus, or any disambiguation of He or You (referring to God). under this principle, i found a new use for lower case letters, especially since i began trying to take music and writing seriously. i want to keep myself away from the mentality that i can do anything by myself away from God, or be bigger than the community of support He has placed around me. i keep hearing, “He must increase, and i must decrease.” i know it may be a bit silly to some, and the idea isn’t necessarily novel, but for me it’s just a physical reminder there is Love greater and bigger than the things i think i’ve accomplished.

the title of this post is “how to decrease,” and i am in no way saying if you start putting everything you write into lower case letters, you’ll miraculously be less arrogant, less selfish, or less whatever. the only way i truly decrease is practicing humbleness; striving to live in the mentality that i am a speck of dust that often drifts with the first wind to pick me up, and that i need a big God to settle me. i need a God who gives me other people to help, and other people to help me so we can learn from each other. i need a God who challenges me to do strange and uncomfortable things no matter how small. i need a God who reminds me rule number one of decreasing is realizing i don’t know everything, in fact i don’t know anything.

decreasing means a constant hunger to have the heart of a Man who did no wrong.

blessings,
destinie

Surprise!

I sang this song today at church. I was not feeling it in any way. It was a last minute thing and for some reason, this song is always in my back pocket. I’ve tweaked the guitar part a great deal since I first sang it on Youtube a year or so ago. Anyway, today I wasn’t into it, but I didn’t make any mistakes, and everything went smoothly. I felt like I could have done way better. But what surprised me is that people still liked it. Several people came up to me afterwards to ask me what the name of it was, and say I did so well, and they enjoyed it, and so on and in my head while they were saying these things I’m like, really? what were you listening to? But I accepted their compliments with thank yous. My mother could tell that I wasn’t into singing today so I told her what happened and she said, “well they were listening to the words and meditating on Jesus.” Which of course made me think about how much I actually give up to God when I sing. My thoughts usually go something like this while I’m singing: Okay, steady, not too fast; your voice is shaking, stop it; am I going to hit this part softly, or with punch; you don’t have too much more to go; that was the wrong note; watch your fingers… I’m so focused on myself, which hinders me from being truly overtaken and having that transforming experience. Sometimes I have a great performance, I’m feeling the crowd, I’m feeling the music, and at the end I walk off like “yeah, that just happened.” But most of the time, I feel like I give a less than average rendering. I guess the only thing there really is for me to do is pray for guidance on song choice, guitar choice, and “set my mind on things above” (1). I’m so much more selfish than I’d realized.

1. Colossians 3:2

Hey There

Hello to all of you reading this; welcome to my blog. I’ve decided to start taking this singing thing that I do seriously. Honestly, I don’t like doing it– singing in front of people and such–but I feel as though I should be; I feel “called.” I’m an absolute believer in the “if you don’t use it, you lose it” saying, and while I’m not the best singer, God didn’t give me what little ability I have for nothing. No matter how far this takes me–whether I sing for thousands, or just the ‘tens’ at my church–I’m gonna do it, and try my best to do it with all that I am. I’ve created this blog to share my music, thoughts, insights, feelings, and testimony with all of you in the hope that I can uplift and minister you in any way possible. Feel free to hit up my ask.

Y’all can find links to my Youtube channel, Twitter, and Soundcloud on the side of this page, and if you’re interested, here’s me on Facebook. And if you’re in the Central Florida area (or even a little farther), I’d love to play at your event!

Also, I’ve decided to name this blog “For the Love of John” for the last few verses of 1 John chapter 4, with emphasis on verse 18, which reads: There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love (KJV).

P.S. I have another blog: destiniesramblings.tumblr.com

This work by Destinie Candis is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.