Purple skies roll thunder. I sit, wind blows hair all wild and free. Intense darkness lies beyond forest tree line despite light of day. It's a strange paradox that I've come to love about living on the edge of a forest.....maybe because it reflects so much of what takes place within. Often times....a lot of times.....it can be a beautiful, peaceful thing to be wrapped in dark. It has the ability to engulf you in its presence. I've just learned it's what you do with the dark....whether you embrace it and come to appreciate it for what it is...or you fight and flee, what can be perceived as, its oppressive nature. Horses graze in green that blankets all of earth. Trees glow neon against dark foreboding skies.
"Let's don't say good bye, I hate the way it sounds. So if you don't mind, let's just say for now....see you when I see you....another place some other time...God made this old world round and maybe it's that way...yeah...paths will cross again...someday"
plays softly somewhere in the background. Notes carried vaguely on wind like something that haunts the soul. Words that seem to melodically tell story of our life right now. They play.....happy laughter ringing like wind chimes throughout our little place of peace. They run....barefoot, dirt smeared, all feral and free in sun and wind and clouds and oceans of green. I watch them and I marvel at their innocence. Carefree and they just trust so much...and I wonder when you lose it all. I ache to tell them to never change, to never stop running and laughing, to never stop embracing life with such crazy carefree abandon, to just trust always....to always, always love. I just want to protect them from all the loss, all the devastation, all the hurt and pain that comes from growing...and somewhere I think maybe I can grow them now....maybe they see and they've learned from all the the places they've walked with us... so they don't have to walk through this place of leaving so many behind in their own evolution of self. Because, as exciting as it all is and for as much change as is taking place....there are days and times that it's just a a very lonely place to be in life. When you choose to walk away from everything you have ever known and have been traditionally taught...when you choose to move forward....you begin to make the sobering discovery of just how many people aren't going with you. I KNOW we're going places and when we get to where we're going we'll be one of the few that actually made it. But I know now too why so few venture past this point. Even the most stout hearted cave.....because this is the place where you do have a choice. Much of what we have been through has no element of control...but this.... This part is a choice. When there is no ability to control it you just hang on for dear life and ride out the ferris wheel from hell...on steroids....stuck on turbo speed. You just ride it out because it's the only choice you have. Do or die. But this new place we have come into...it's all choice. This is no easy feat and there are few that actually survive this climb. This kind of life is not for the faint of heart. It scares the shit out of me. I fear failure. I fight my head constantly. To work and to study, to move forward, to take risks....those obvious and all those that lie buried so quietly and deeply within, beneath so much of what people know....to pour your all into life and give it absolutely 110% of everything you have...you risk failing...and not just on an academic or financial scale. On a life scale. And then what? An entire lifetime in exchange for utter failure? I won't fail. I won't let myself fail. But the voice that's back there is incessant and dark and unrelenting.
"I think we're terrified to be what we're meant to be. Because then all the responsibility lies on us and we can't hide behind anything. If you find yourself asking 'Am I really a writer? Am I really an artist? Chances are, you are. The counterfeit innovator is wildly self confident. The real one is scared to death."
And so that explains my life. In this place we occupy we risk walking away from everything we have ever known, every circle we have ever had, every thing of comfort that surrounded us....for something that I know exist. It beats in cadence with my own heart...the pulse of life beyond. The call of the wild that is so real that I can taste it, I can feel it. I know there is more behind the veil...the veil that no Christian is allowed to pass through or the shunning occurs. Because it defies every teaching there is...and makes people squirm....because nobody wants to face the reality of what might be possible...what truly exist on the other side.
And the truth is...change is just scary. I embrace the new, I anticipate it. But the road of leaving people behind is a lonely path to take...and so, so sad. Because you just get to a point where you've gone so far and you suddenly realize not everyone is going with you. It is the equivalent of the death of a loved one in your life...an agonizing, torturous game of "last man standing". What happens when you're it.....you look up and realize it's you? And you realize that you can't carry everybody with you? The people we're having to choose to say good bye to and the carnage we're beginning to pass....lying to the wayside of this walk...a sobering reality comes....and the tears fall. Tears of sadness for all that people will never know...choose to never become...all that most will never see in life. And even those that have cheered you on and helped you get to this point...you leave them now too. Because they won't be going. They don't understand it. They never will. Ahead a new group awaits to wrap you in love...those that have gone before you, that know this road intimately, that are the only ones that will understand any of what I say, that are full of admiration and encouragement because they know what this last leg of the journey entails. They know intimately how few really make it. Behind you stand those who wave you off with furrowed brows and perplexed smiles....because they don't understand it....and they never will. So we walk the precarious bridge between two worlds. It rocks and it sways, human carnage and remains of all those that tried to cross this bridge lie in the treacherous depths below. So you don't look down, you don't look back. You just look forward to all that's ahead and you hear the sounds of freedom getting closer and clearer. But it doesn't keep the tears from falling as you move forward in this scary as hell, weird, equidistant place....poised precariously, half way between two worlds.
I still struggle. A lot. The mind is a battlefield. There are people I miss. Deeply. And it's just a sobering reality that it'll never again be the way it ever was. And it's just ok to let go...and it's ok to cry and grieve the loss. Because it's just not much different than death. It's a place no one will ever understand unless they have chosen to leave behind everything they have ever known. It's a place where independence is painful and integrity hurts. And it's a place of having to look rejection squarely in the face....because when you leave a belief system no one knows what to do with that...so they do the only thing that they've been taught and that comes easiest. They reject it and they shun it. Because it scares them. If they admit that it might actually hold some form of truth...than it means they have to navigate this sobering canyon gap too....suspended between past and future..all the loss and all the potential. And as hard as you try...you just can't carry all the people over with you. It is a very personal journey that each man must walk on his own. You can't force anybody. You can't even convince them. Because you find that most are deeply embedded in their ways, ideologies and theologies...and they are convinced the world is flat and we are crossing over to the precipice of death. Because if they see that there might be truth and life on the other side it means they have to face the sobering reality that most of their life has been spent caged and limited....believing and working towards something that was not freedom at all. So, we say "see you when I see you" to family that will never leave their doctrine and ideas....their self written handbook on religion and all things spiritual. We say it to friends and acquaintances that have watched this journey and cheered us on but now stand in confusion at our decisions. We say it to those that will never leave the comfort zone...saying the stakes are too high. We say it to those who laugh or those who downright fear for our lives as they perceive us crossing over to "hell". All because we dared to think outside of the box, get answers to questions that have never been satisfied, to no longer take people at their word, and to figure out for ourselves what the God beyond really looks like.
And this rambles. These thoughts ramble. I know that and I know too that most people will never in a lifetime even begin to understand this post. There's a few select that might...but the vast majority of readers will quickly criticize and bash this into some incoherent, she really has gone nuts, 12 kids have finally driven her to Prozac, ramblings of the deep dark mind that obviously needs professional help. But, honestly, I just don't care anymore. I really don't give a shit what people think. I'll lose readers over cuss words. I'll lose readers over this "southward" turn we have taken away from traditional Christianity. I'll gain readers that fill popcorn bowls and grab chairs to watch it all go down and see how it all ends. I'll probably send entire prayer chains into seizures as they intercede for our salvation and try to wheel us into the pearly gates on a wing and a prayer and beg for our golden ticket, trying frantically to convert our children and save them from perceived heathenism and the depths of innocent lives spent in hell. But....I don't care. I've seen glimpses and I know where we're going. It's a place where a lifetime of combat training finally all makes sense. And there is so much freedom in that. Slowly, gradually, this freedom has been fought for...one step at a time...somedays one tiny inch at a time. You don't walk what we have walked and come out the same person that went in. You don't lose everything you've ever had, you haven't witnessed enough devastation to last about 5 lifetimes, you haven't had to make the decision to continue in stagnancy or leave everyone behind that you've ever loved or cared anything about just in order to move forward on the last leg of the climb of Everest proportion. And you just don't look into the vacant eyes of a 6 yr old girl and know what happened that night was your fault. You don't ever get over it. You don't ever overcome it. It's not just something to chalk up and write out in a list of a series of events that has taken place in the last 5 years of your life. You learn how to cope...but you never really ever get over it. Trust was violated that night....and everything, every idea, I ever had about God and man was shattered. And just because it doesn't get talked about doesn't mean it really ever went away. I just learned how to cope. And so that holds true with so many other areas of life too. Each event is not just a checklist of good popcorn worthy, call your girlfriends up, starbucks date, reading material. It's been a series of life altering events that shapes how you perceive all of life....and with each event your idea of spirituality and people and God, everything you have ever been taught, is challenged and shaped and molded until you find yourself on this narrow ribbon stretching a chasm between all you left behind and all you stand to gain. Because you come to face the reality that everything you have ever been taught has been taught wrong or God doesn't exist. Because the God I want to serve doesn't win or lose "spiritual warfare" based on my mortal humanity and teeter precariously between victory and total loss. His victory doesn't hinge on how effectively I pray...or even if I pray. He's not a wind up toy or battery that needs to be charged. He's God. If we base the victory or loss of the battle on our prayer life doesn't that therefore make us responsible for the outcome??? And if we are responsible doesn't that therefore put us in control and occupying the driver's seat? So, really, what purpose does He serve besides an omnipotent presence that exist to give us the warm fuzzies and make us all feel better about ourselves while we wait on Him to "move" and blame everything on Him and whether it was "His will" or not...on continually living in a state of hardship for "character development" and enduring an entire lifetime of "the refiner's fire". Just maybe that's not the way He works at all.
The God I serve is bigger than cuss words and doesn't stumble away in heels, perspiring, fanning His flushed face because...God have mercy...He heard words that might contaminate His spirit. Or completely shun you because you failed to live up to His convictions. The God I want to know wants His people to take action and not sit on their asses all day playing the victim and waiting for His imminent "rescue". Because there is an entire population of Christians being spoon fed that sitting on a church pew waiting for him will fix their problems...and no one takes any amount of responsibility. The God I want to serve is not the author of destruction and divisiveness, separating families based on convictions, standards, appearances to maintain, adherences to rules and religion, doctrine. I can't come to accept the fact that it's His will that the world is torn apart and people criticized because of failure to live up to man imposed Christian standards. The God I serve doesn't put people in your life and speak through only them so that every sentence becomes a mediation between my relationship with Him and the 3rd party. The God I want to serve doesn't put "God said" in front of every sentence so that opinions can be justified through religion, compliance attained because you can't argue with "God said" and claiming super spiritual status. The God I want to serve doesn't look anything like the one I've been raised to believe in. He doesn't even remotely look like what the church and modern Christians teach. And if the God I was taught to serve is the only one that exist...I don't want to do it anymore. And that scares the shit out of every Christian that dares read this blog. Because nobody dares venture to believe He exist outside of that. You are not allowed independent thought or spiritual exploration because, after all...what do you know about Him? I know that I've been to hell and back.....and if God is real He doesn't look like what I've been fed all my life. He doesn't look like anything sitting on the shelves of Lifeway bookstore.
Drops begin to fall from purple sky. Cool rain mingles with hot tears. As rain falls harder, so do tears until I sit, soaking wet, on a deck far away from anything and anyone, head on knees..and I cry and cry and cry. As exciting as all the newness is....walking away from the past and all the people we have loved just hurts. And it's ok to cry. It's just ok to not be happy for a minute and grieve the loss before moving on. Grieve the what was and all the "see you when I see you"'s. And I'm not "not fit for the kingdom of heaven because I put my hand to the plow and looked back". I'm not anything. I'm me, here in this place. We've lost a ton of shit, and we've been through a hell of a lot...and it's ok to just sit...and cry...and be scared....and grieve before moving on into this next chapter that awaits my full attention. It's ok to still be real on here and know that there is still intense pain in this journey. For all that we have now, for how far we have come, for how peaceful it is now....I think we are standing...climbing....the last leg of this crazy trail we have traversed. And I just never imagined the extent of the sacrifices...I never imagined all the pride, the material possessions, the identity, the relationships we would have to give up along the way. I never imagined all the anguish of growth when I said I wanted more from this life. I want to live it wildly and in total abandon. I want to know that when I'm laid six feet under that my time was spent taking risks and seeing what I could do...not sitting on the sidelines in fear. But I never imagined how lonely these last few steps would be before finally reaching the imminent breakthrough. So, all soaked and drenched, hair sticking to wet skin, I let go of the intensity of the stress and expectations of my own self. I let go of things that never leave the mind to rest. I let go of things that torture and handicap the brain. And religion. And a God I don't like. And I set off to find who He truly is....without the noise and the chaos of opinions and voices, ideals and beliefs dragging me backwards. I sit and take a break on this trail to look back before moving on into freedom...where I hear the people laughing, I hear them calling, they are waiting and I see that they know and serve a God I want but that I've never been able to touch. I've said my "see you when I see you". Then I cross this precarious bridge to the wild beyond to see and be greeted by all those eagerly awaiting our arrival.
Tears fall intermittently and easily as the day continues on. There is no easy fix. No good cry that makes the weight of it all disappear. Night comes and it brings with it fireflies by the thousands. They light up the world like some storybook fairytale come to life. Lightening blazes on the horizon yet stars, perfect and twinkly, are thrown like glitter through sky above. Heady, thick honeysuckle hangs heavy on the night air. Senses are overwhelmed....too much to try and ever absorb as the trees sway and dance and the pines softly whisper their secrets likes waves in an ocean. And I know it's all gonna be ok. It's ok that we don't have a van. It's ok that we haven't been anywhere together in almost 2 yrs. It's ok to feel as scared as I do. It's ok to fear failure. Fear is not evil or "of the devil". Fear is a God given motivator. Because in conquering the fear, a great and mighty spirit is born. It's ok to walk away and feel all the loss. It's ok to miss people so deeply that your heart hurts. And this place...right here, right now....is our little piece of heaven on earth in the midst of it all. It is the place we have been brought to rest and and be refreshed while we tackle this last portion of our journey. And it's where we will know the breakthrough of where years and years and years of life lessons will culminate into the much larger picture. Fireflies blink life everywhere, stars twinkle like holes punched in heaven, lightening is felt through entirety of spirit. The pines, they tell stories of all that was and all that will be. So I sit once more on deck...in the quiet of the night...and the tears still come. But it's ok. Because I know where I'm going now.....there is unquestionable direction. And it's worth it. Despite all the emotions...all the good byes.....all the ache.....it's a really peaceful, beautiful place to be in life. I've learned to make my bed. I'm not afraid of the circuses. And I don't fear the temptation of the bell anymore. We've come a long, long way. And I'm going to change the world.
"Every day during training you were challenged with multiple physical events - long runs, swims, obstacle courses, hours of calisthenics - something designed to test your mettle. Every event had standards - times you had to meet. If you failed to meet those standards your name was posted on a list and at the end of the day those on the list were invited to....a "circus". A circus was two hours of additional calisthenics - designed to wear you down, to break your spirit, to force you to quit.
No one wanted a circus.
A circus meant that for that day you didn't measure up. A circus meant more fatigue - and more fatigue meant that the following day would be more difficult - and more circuses were likely.
But, at some point during SEAL training, everyone - everyone - made the circus list. But an interesting thing happened to those who were constantly on the list. Over time those students - who did two hours of extra calisthenics - got stronger and stronger.
The pain of the circuses built inner strength - built physical resiliency.
If you want to change the world, don't be afraid of the circuses."
"Every day during training you were challenged with multiple physical events - long runs, swims, obstacle courses, hours of calisthenics - something designed to test your mettle. Every event had standards - times you had to meet. If you failed to meet those standards your name was posted on a list and at the end of the day those on the list were invited to....a "circus". A circus was two hours of additional calisthenics - designed to wear you down, to break your spirit, to force you to quit.
No one wanted a circus.
A circus meant that for that day you didn't measure up. A circus meant more fatigue - and more fatigue meant that the following day would be more difficult - and more circuses were likely.
But, at some point during SEAL training, everyone - everyone - made the circus list. But an interesting thing happened to those who were constantly on the list. Over time those students - who did two hours of extra calisthenics - got stronger and stronger.
The pain of the circuses built inner strength - built physical resiliency.
If you want to change the world, don't be afraid of the circuses."
