Security Blankets

"I have buried you, in every place I've been, you keep ending up, in my shaking hands." Bon Iver

It is still here...buried in my guts...this feeling of being someone different than who I've become.  Sometimes that scared little kid still sits on front of the strange enigmic saxophone player in the park talking about the end of the world. I was five at the time and learning about nuclear war. I bury that kid whenever he reaches from the depths. There was something altogether different about him than I am now. He was scared of everything. He was always unsure of himself and expected everyone to reject him. He was always playing out these scenarios of everything he dreamed was true in his head. This kid was weak, so he gets to die. He gets to taste the bitter pill of being forgotten, until he is remembered.

I am loud.

I am not going to be ignored.

I am not scared of anything.

I never get embarrassed.

I can handle rejection.

I am the burier of weakness.................yet I spill it out here.

Sometimes, I wake up and I am still that kid. I still need a heater to sleep and the window open. I still need to feel safe when I am most vulnerable. I still need to make up scenarios to restore my mind to peace. When I was that little kid, I would feel insecure and just go into the living room where my mom slept and lay on the floor next to the heat register. I would wait for the creaking and dinging that would happen just before the heater would kick on. When I heard that noise, I would feel safe again and fall asleep in it's loving warmth.

I've had the crap kicked out of me many times since I was that little kid. I learned to be strong. I learned to kick back and fight and win. One of the things about me is that I seldom lose. I refuse to lose. But despite my aggression, I still hate confrontation. I still hate to feel insecure. When I do, I find myself under an open window with my heater. Maybe no one fully grows up anymore. Maybe we bury ourselves and weaknesses in everywhere we go and hold them under most days. Maybe sometimes, they emerge and we fall into their arms to find comfort and peace.

Is there something wrong with that? Will slept with his "Woobie," a little satin jacket he had as a kid until the day he died. It had been sown so many times, it looked like a Halloween freak show, but he would not sleep without it. It was his connection to security and comfort. When he felt vulnerable, he grabbed hold of it.


What is your security blanket?


Photo credit to: http://thirty3flashes.deviantart.com

Crawling Into Data

What I have to say is nothing new. I will not wow you with information I do not possess. But I think it is worth writing down anyway for history's sake.  Sometimes, it isn't the new things or ground breaking discoveries that we as people need the most, it is the constant reminders of things we have learned a thousand times. We all know that lying is wrong, yet we often do so without a second thought. We know that it is wrong to slander others, yet we often do not even notice when we are murdering someone with our lips. The thing that has been sitting in my stomach and aching me in this culture that is quickly trading human interaction for electronic relationships, is the lack of human touch. We are losing the humanity that comes with knowing the person your venom is directed at is a human with blood coursing through their veins. People who go to breakfast in the morning and have a cup of coffee and read the newspaper, or Reddit. People who miss their parents and daily think about the day they buried them. People who enjoy roller coasters and want Boblo Island to come back.

During this year's Republican primary, one thing that has stood out to me the most is that people seem to toss aside the knowledge of the person on the other side of their screen and all that data, actually being a warm human being. People tossing insults, lies, and sharp words at each other like they are flaming lawn darts aiming to punish the soul of the person who simply disagrees with you. I am guilty too. I have noticed an increase in paragraphs I have written, then deleted before posting, realizing that they do NOT glorify God. It doesn't have to be an inflammatory statement to be pointless. God says to let your words be few. Much of what I say has no real point as far as glorifying my God.

I ask myself...would I say this to the person if I were face to face? No. Probably not. Because then I would feel bad, because I don't like confrontation. Unfortunately, the internet has become a haven for confrontation from those that also don't like human confrontation. You simply can delete the person, block them, then slander them and they will never see it. Data is unforgiving, lifeless, and brutal. A simple number will never change it's mind because of the look on the person's face in front of it. It will thrust the cold steel into the bowels and turn to another and repeat.

People are not numbers.

We can open the newspaper and read the obituaries and the stories of people who have died and we can have no emotion at all. We did not know them. People die everyday. It is life. It is the end of all people. Who cares. Who cares? But what if you held that person's hand as they died? What changes then? Human contact reminds us that we may be all different, but we are all the same. At my job, a person will die and you will put them into a bag and put tags on them. You will call the proper outlets for organ donation and whatever. You will sign the right paperwork and be done with it and on to the next thing...until the family get's there and wraps their arms around you in utter agony. All they see are their family photos stored in their minds, and the way their mom or dad smelled on Christmas Eve. There is no number for that, it cannot even be recreated. This is the beauty of life and death. God is present in both.

Often we forget that God is also present in our interaction through electricity. Your words hurt or mean just as much as if face to face, yet we lack the discernment of judging a person's face.

Let's keep it clean and civil. Let's handle our electric communication as Christ would handle His physical interaction. Let's make it a point to actually stand face to face with another person sometimes, instead of over lights.







Sing.
Migrate.








Thanks for reading...Z

Timeline

Facebook is changing over to the Timeline look of your profiles which allows users to go back and view the history of one's life. This is both wonderful and scary at the same time. It is like taking a snapshot of a person's entire life and saving it for whoever wants to look in at any time. I can understand that some people hate this new feature. I personally like it a lot, however stalker friendly it may be.

I went back tonight to my posts from when Will died. I have had a series of dreams of him still being alive over the past few nights which brought me to do such a dumb thing. I realized while reading posts that I can remember my tears flowing over, that I have a lot of people who care about me, and cared about Will. I read really awkward posts of condolences from people I have barely spoken to in years, just speechless in the words to say, but were caring enough to try. Of course you didn't have words to say. No one would. There are no words to make a person feel better when their hearts have been crushed, but the attempt is worth more to me than the effort. God has a way of protecting His children. I was angry and bitter at Him, yet He sends people out of the woodwork to lift me up out of the mud.

I have been going back there all day. It is weird, because I avoid thinking about Will as much as I can, because as wonderful as he was and as much as I loved him, remembering him still brings me pain. Today, the dreams would not allow me to avoid the feelings they intended. I just prayed for God to tell Him that I miss him. I pray that prayer at least twice a week and hope when I get to Heaven, he says that he missed me too.

When you look at a historical timeline, you are looking at the significant events of that period of history. I believe that Will spikes a very significant event in my history. The moment my faith was pushed and tested until it broke and God's grace fully engulfed me. Below is my timeline as I remember it.

1978- I was born
1981- I meet my little brother Andy
1983- My father wins the paternity case (No blood tests allowed)
1988- I get tuberculosis and spend a half a year out of school and in therapy
1991- Suicide is introduced into my life by a school friend over his parents divorce.
1993- I meet Will and Joe
1997- My first daughter is born
1997- I meet Jesus
1999- I meet my future wife
2001- I marry my wife
2003- My son is born
2006- My second daughter is born
2007- I contact my sister and get rejected
2009- Will passes away
2010- The crushing of my spirit
2011- I come alive again











Sing.
Migrate.



Thanks for reading...Z

What I Come Home To

People will accept you or reject you based on a thousand different factors. We get up every morning and prepare ourselves to meet an ever changing world. We leave the house without any guarantee that we will be liked, succeed, or survive. We get insecure about ourselves and accept a reality that doesn't have to be true and start that car and enter into a cold and unforgiving world. This isn't news to you. You live it, I live it. The problem is that we often forget what we are coming home to. I have spent this past weekend watching my family. My son, who was stricken with anxiety this weekend, his birthday weekend. He had two major panic attacks this weekend. My wife, who is always worried about having cancer and loves her husband and kids so much she fears losing them everyday. And me....a mess...and absolute mess. I come home to the warmth of my family. I refused  to leave the house this weekend for more than an hour. I refuse to let them go. It is easy to forget the people that will die for you and vice versa when life gets rough. But they are the very people God has given me to survive and be happy. My heart is full. I cannot imagine a better life. There is no "Grass is greener" situation. I have what I always wanted and never deserved. I have everything. The world can reject me...shut me out, but I get to lay on a pillow next to my wife's and wrap my arms around little people that call me their dad. I get to be a dad that they will always love and lay their heads on, instead of the one that is distant.



God has given me all of these things.
God has given me everything.
God is good, not because I am happy, but because He is good, even when I am evil.
God is everything.






Sing.
Migrate.






Thanks for reading...Z

Punching That Clock

I haven't been writing lately. I apologize for that. I have thought about it everyday, but don't have anything interesting or groundbreaking to say. Things are changing for me quickly and I am just paddling to stay above the water, there hasn't been a lot of time to really think about how I FEEL about these things. When one is caught in a place they have no idea how to survive, much less flourish in, they rarely have the time to write down their live experiences of those things. Often they journal at times when it becomes quiet and calm and he get's a sense of peace are safety. So here it goes, because right now it is peaceful. I fully intend to journal more with different things and spill out in different ways, but for now, here is an update.

I am doing well. I am not liking the man I am becoming. I say that because when change happens we rarely like it. It usually shakes the ground beneath us. I don't like it when the alarm clock blasts with the sound of the trumpets of Jericho at 5:25 AM. Most mornings my first thought is "What was I thinking?" As a full time pastor, I would take my kids to school 3 hours later, then come home and start work in my sweatpants and t-shirt. I would put on my music and do what I did. As of late.....if my hand does not grasp that card and swipe it through by 7:06 AM, I will lose a half hour pay and be cited in an incident report.

My last boss was a very brutal man that would ask your opinion about things and take it to heart, and field any complaints and keep them from me in order to spare me the discouragement. I fear now, although I admit it is probably unfounded, that I could lose my job with one simple mistake.

The morning traffic is horrible, but not terrible (I have decreed that terrible is a more harsh word than horrible because of the strong T sound.) I drive down 75 into Detroit before the daylight showers the sky with light and will leave well after it has left. It is a difficult transition. I used to begin projects at 3 AM on a Tuesday. Now I am counting the few hours left after work, before I can drop my head to the pillow. I used to need things to think about to put me to sleep. Most nights, I fall a sleep before I realize I am trying to.

Earlier, I said I did not like the man I am becoming. I don't like him because he is what my family and I need to move forward. I need to serve Jesus full time, but do so with a joyful and serving heart, without pay. This transition really is bitter sweet. I am being forced to live a practical life. I am not practical.





Sing.
Migrate.




Thanks for reading...Z

2012

New Years Day night...the very first night it has resembled winter. There is a bite in the air that will instantly entice your hands to pull that zipper all the way to the wind pipe. It's been a pleasant holiday season, and an ending to a very eventful year. I got through college this year. I fought the urge to give up and pressed on in the power of God. I became an RN. I got a job working as an RN. God is good even when we think He is bad. I saw another side of myself this year. I saw an anger I had forgotten I was capable of. I literally gave life all I had left. At the end of this past year, I found myself standing on my feet again. My face left an imprint in the mud at my feet and the dirt remains caked on my face, but my legs are firm. My demons are beneath my shoes finally. The war was long and hard and I expended faith I didn't have to give and wound up unconscious in the arms of God...just as He had planned.

It was a very nice Christmas. I have much to be thankful for. But underneath that torn wrapping paper there is something still waiting for me. I try to get it out of my mind and haven't even thought about writing about it here until now. I didn't want it back. It is a not-so-distant memory of the phone ringing just after my son opened his Nintendo Wii on Christmas morning 2009. The other side of all of that electricity and wires was my little brother Joe and I knew what had happened. Christmas was ruined. Forever, it would be synonymous with loss and confusion.

Christmas Day 2010. I made a choice to make Christmas off limits to any feeling at all. I felt it at times, but pushed it out and turned it to anger. I would simply pretend it didn't happen and that is how I would survive. Just close my eyes and open them when I saw light beyond the darkness of my eyelids.

Christmas Day 2011. I came to this day with the same plan. This time it doesn't work and I realize this every day since Christmas. Under that paper torn in happiness, is a very real and serious issue I have to come to grips with...My brother killed himself on Christmas and I cannot rewind any tape to bring him back. I have tried not to write about him so much because I know it hurts some of his family to read, and I feel like I am whining all the time. I look at my blog stats and see that there is an influx of people visiting my blog on Will's birthday, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and New Year's Eve expecting me to spill out here. I haven't written on any of these days this year because I don't know what to say that I already haven't. I am sad, but things are getting better. It hurts to think beyond that. It is easier to pretend. But doing that is forgetting the whole point as to why I began writing for any random person to read. I put down my personal journal I had kept for 12 years and decided to bring whoever wanted to go with me on a journey through my experience of being a human being in a dying world. It doesn't make sense to keep my thoughts and experiences from this blog. For those who read regularly, you know that I don't know all the answers. I don't know most of the answers. Sometimes I feel like I don't know any of the answers. I just write things down as I see or feel them. I try to do this in honesty because I am tired of being lied to and I thing you are too. This is me, take me or leave me behind, I will continue because of the power and grace of Jesus.


2012, I am going to deal with whatever is waiting for me under that paper. And I am gonna share it with you.


Here is a list of other things I plan to do in 2012:
Write a fiction book.
Become a part of the normal masses that venture out into the night to work and return again when it is dark, and actually get used to it.
Stop doing things that my heart hurts after doing, like losing my temper and yelling at someone I love.
Crafting the most perfect batch of beer I have tasted.
Stop letting people that hate me for bad reasons effect me and the way I feel and think about them.

If I accomplish any one of these goals, I reckon I will be happier than I am right now.







Sing.
Migrate.






Thanks for reading...Z

Rust

        It was seconds after the door slammed shut, that I realized there was someone behind it. The ball would drop and I would be sitting beneath the moonlit sky, but buried inside of this refrigerator. I pinched myself twice and slammed a fist into the door, that I could not believe I got inside in the first place. That red glowing light was like some kind of cheese and I was the mouse that just could not resist. Finally doomed. I had made a lifestyle out of following little red lights. Everything about them tells you to stop...that they are profoundly dangerous. But I never much feared the dangerous, but the predictable. I had always said that I would rather die not knowing or by accident than in my bed a hundred years from now, wondering if tonight was the night my eyes wouldn't reopen. As I sat alone in this vertical tomb, my mausoleum, I took it all back. The things I had said. The things I had done. The people I'd hurt. Walking away laughing. I would regret everything.

        Just seconds after the door slams shut, I regret my entire life. It felt deeper than wishing I hadn't wondered into this junk yard and especially sat down inside this fridge. Somehow I wanted to die. I was glad to be getting what I deserve finally. I started praying to rewind the entire tape and record over it. The looks on their faces will haunt my hell I am guessing. I was so terrible to them. Any kid that looked weak, I would pounce on. Now I am under their feet. I slammed my hand into the door again and again until I felt a trickle of warm fluid down my forearm and into my sleeve. I slam it again in anger; and again. I listen as the bones creak and snap as I shatter them on the steel? What was this material anyway? It was soft, yet unforgiving and unwavering. I was trapped.

        Her fingernails were painted red. It was all I saw as the door slammed shut. What witch of a woman locks a child inside of a refrigerator? But I am not a boy anymore I guess. I am no more a child than a feeble old man staring out at the world he once loved. It's been days since that door shut. Maybe years, I don't know anymore. It's too dark in here to count my fist marks in the door. They used to heal and stop hurting. Now they are brittle and falling apart. They bleed no more. I have long since stopped crushing them on the door. The light of the sun crosses only my memory and I am left to my doom. To my regrets...



Photo credit to: http://intao.deviantart.com/





Sing.
Migrate.




Thanks for reading. - Z

When All The Presents Are Opened

You keep moving forward no matter what's behind you, and you put all your love left onto your wife and kids. This is how you survive the things you never thought you could make it through. Without God, none of these things in the formula will work. God is good and as my friend Jerame said, "Even when He doesn't." Your faith and strength in God will not take the pain away, only time will work on that, but it will give you a peace about what happens when we close our eyes, never to awake. Our God gives us the hope to endure the suffering that life can bring. He doesn't save us always from the pain of being alive. He had to endure it. Why not us? Instead of asking why me? Ask why not me?


Every year is hard when you lose someone you love, but every year does get easier as the harshness of our emotions fade into submission to the pain of sin in the world and our desire for deliverance from it. The fact of the matter is that we are gonna have to bleed to come out alive. We are gonna have to taste the poison that death and hell bring to see the grace on the other side. I am not special. I don't get to be except from what many around the world have to endure. I love my God and He loves me, but that doesn't make me special. My birthright in the eyes of God makes me special to Him, as does yours, but I have to live in this disease that entices mankind as well as any other. What's done is done.

He is gone...my brother that slept on an extra skinny, double long bed, right beside me. I am not gonna hear him snore or the strange mumblings he would say in the night anymore. Jesus alone listens to those, but I get the grace that was planted on this day in 2009, when my God allowed us to be shredded into tiny, sharp pieces to get us to Him. My brother is happy and dancing right now. He isn't alone. He isn't in his garage in the cold. He isn't still stuck in that hell he was living in. He isn't the guy that left us anymore. I gave that to God. He isn't weeping anymore. My brother is dancing. He is building things he never thought possible. He is waiting for us. Because of Christ. Because of the cross. Because of the birth of our God into a stable. May God give you every good thing that your heart needs to be free of anger, and sadness, and loneliness, and fill you with His grace. Merry Christmas.



Sing.
Migrate.




Thanks for reading...Z

12-25-2009

2 years. Two very eventful years. The first was the worst I have ever had to endure. The second? One that has changed everything about me. Two years ago you were doing things that only God could see and thinking thoughts that only He took to heart. It was quiet and cold and I was sitting ignorant...as I usually am. I wouldn't have any idea you had gone until the morning when people missed you. So what happens two years later after the family Christmas festivities have ended and the kids and wife are all in bed? This happens. I write about you...my big brother, whom I love. Whom I miss so much. Whom I have outlived.

Christmas has always been my favorite holiday and that hasn't changed, no matter how hard I have tried to hate every twinkling light. The celebration of the birth of Christ is just too important to be overshadowed by the anniversary of an enormous enemy victory. It was because of Him and His birth in the very place that the cattle eat and sleep that gives me assurance that you are happy in Heaven right now...because nothing is bigger than the cross, and you believed. This year nothing has fallen from the sky. Oddly enough, two years ago, it was rain all day. There are no parades for you. No one is lighting a candle for you at your house. The world is as it has always been...a very loved by God and sometimes terrible place to be. I am not gonna dwell on the terrible things this year. Last year, those things reigned in my life and made me punish myself endlessly. There is nothing good that can come from blaming yourself for another's actions. So I will focus on my God.

This God. This Beast from Bethlehem. This divider of families and friends. This giver and taker of life. This Savior of all. It all belongs to Him. This day. These wrapped gifts. These moments of happiness with our families. Even these tears we shed over who isn't there with us this year. It is His. He paid for it. He was born in humility and died in agony, but raised in all the splendor of God and clothed in absolute majesty.

This huge God also found His way to weave himself into the very fabric of our lives. He is the tissue that holds the entire universe together. Today we celebrate the day He was born in a barn in the filth of animals. It is because of the loss of my brother that I celebrate today. It is because of Jesus that I can lay my head down and sleep in peace, knowing that my brother has lights strung all over his home in Heaven. I believe he has an ornament of our lives hanging on his tree. I believe tonight he is looking at his mother's dangling ornament. His father's, His children's, His sister's, his brother's, and even mine. His tree is perfect and his lights never go out. Christmas is not a source of pain for him anymore and it shouldn't be for us either. Christmas is about Jesus. His birth into the world to save it.


May God rip away all that holds your face in the cold ground this day. May He lift you up out of the guts of hell and seat you right next to Him in His glory. May we remember His love and love those equally around us.







Sing.
Migrate.





Thanks for reading...Z

Buried in Christmas

Please check out my short story on Blurb.


Click on the words to bring up the entire text on each photo. Or, if you have an iPhone or iPad, download Blurb for free and all your wildest dreams will come true.






Sing.
Migrate.




Thanks for reading...Z

Regrets?

I checked it out. Yes, she really did.

People always say they live their lives without regrets. I have never understood this statement. I don't believe it. Even if our mistakes serve to teach us something, wouldn't that lesson have better been learned without the mistake...like maybe if we had listened to wisdom in the first place? I don't buy it. No one is happy about failure. Here is a short list of my failures and regrets. I will leave the deepests things out because I write too many serious things on this blog in such a short span of time. I must water this mix down a bit.

I regret coughing that phlegm ball onto that poor girls forehead.
I regret looking over at those girls watching me skateboard in the 4rth grade, because I regret the terrible wipe-out that ensued and the walk or run of shame that followed as those girls laughed at my demise.
I regret most everything I say that I think is funny, so I say it louder than my normal jet engine volume level.
I regret the way I danced the night I met my wife at a wedding.
I regret that horrible green, skin-tight sweater I wore to show my sexuality on our third date. She regrets it too. It didn't show my sexuality at all. Possibly the opposite of my sexuality.
I regret calling my wife the day after I met her and leaving a desperate message with her grandma. I should have waited the customary 4 days to call....and NOT left a message with her grandma.
I regret shaking my infant son all about while holding him above my agape mouth as he spilled his stomach directly onto my taste buds.



I regret much more serious things as well. Those can wait.






Sing.
Migrate.





Thanks for reading...Z

Deciding To Dance

The Tree The Homeless Man Decorated (2009)

Christmas. The most haunting time of the year. It cannot be replicated. None of them can copy the others and yet the feeling seems like they do. At Christmas, I remember the little creepy elves my brother and I used to play with inside the tree, much like my son does now. I remember the glare of the twinkling lights outside as they reflected off the snow which always made me wonder how the reflections didn't melt the snow itself. I remember a choir in a packed church singing as bodies clinged to each other as if the ship were sinking. Outside, the snow fell silently but impacted every square inch of my soul. So much life all around me, even as it fell from God to the cold, frozen earth. Something was moving inside and out. I think of walking through the streets, making sure to stay right in the middle of the road and follow the lines as not to make a decision between right or left. I looked into houses and saw families flinging tinsel into the air and onto their trees with Christmas movies playing in the background. Christmas has always reminded me that as bad as the world may get, there is still something inside of everyone that wants to watch the lights dance in reflections off the snow. I remember Christmas 2009 when I went to put a box of food under a tree on a hill a homeless person had decorated for Christmas. I was touched by his desire to continue celebrating. I was wondering if he was lying under that tree reminiscing about his mother's smell when she sang "Silent Night" to him. I was hoping to find him there. He wasn't. I left the bag of things and went home. Two nights later, my brother said goodbye with his eyes. I still see Christmas as warmth. I still believe that people have a sometimes very deep down desire to watch the lights again. So every year, I string mine up and turn them on for them. Maybe they are watching. Maybe they are walking in the middle of the road down my street, mindful to keep to the crack in the middle. Maybe they see my lights and dance with me. Dance with joy. Dance with hope. Maybe for even a minute they consider that the snow falls silently, but fills our hearts. The warmth in here can be shared with (out there). It is hard for them to feel anything but the bite in the air, I know, I've chattered my teeth on the frozen tracks. But sometimes when we reach out our hands and turn on our lights, they decide to dance.

Sing.
Migrate.
Dance with lights.









Thanks for reading...Z

Type 2

The moon is our back-light. We move through the night as ghosts presenting the past to the those that aren't watching or listening. We are stone in the light of day, but delicate and thorough as we sweep the night sky while, the rest of the world is somewhere behind their eye-lids.

There is a place for us...the people of the night...the people who will stop and stare at the way the light hits an icicle as it gently bleeds in small drops as the world warms, slowly killing the beauty of winter.

Some do not understand us or our decisions and habits. Some are so different and "Responsible." We are called lazy because sometimes when they turn around we are staring at a rose in bloom. We are called stupid because we see in the abstract, finding a picture in every blotted mess littering their senses. We are called foolish because we will spend hours painting the veins of the human hand, desperately trying to get it right. This makes the world no money. It is an in-efficient way to live.

It is in-efficient if you are seeing the world in digits and numerals. We do not make sense to you because we don't make mathematical sense for a thriving person, trying to get things done. To us, we are truly living.

Life is so short, we just want to experience the beauty of it. God has made everything beautiful and we want to express these things, sometimes to our fault. We may not be perfect and we may not be efficient, but we are full of color in a black and white world.

The other side of the coin. This is our downfall. We would rather take a picture of a homeless guy than help him. We will paint pictures of poverty and think we have done our parts by "Raising awareness." We often think too highly of the gifts God has given us, leaving us shamefully plugging ourselves. We often have the softest hands, while the "Black and Whites" are calloused from doing. This is our fault and will be our demise if we don't find a happy medium somewhere. I say, just listen to God and follow His word.

We are the type 2 personalities. We are both the marquee and downfall of our culture. We are both darkness and light. We are only understandable if we are seen as more flawed humans, just like you.

In the end, we are all forced to take the bad with the good, realizing that we would not know the good without the bad. People are people and lots of people cannot see beside their own people, yet we still live as people. It is a good thing to be human, but an even better thing to be a loving human.







Sing.
Migrate.








Thanks for reading...Z

Into The Winter Sky

I watched the way the snow jumped off as I slid my hand down the icy iron handrail. In the middle of the night, no one is around to contain the forces that only God can control...the beauty of the snow as it fell underneath the abandoned streetlights...the bend of the branches under the weight of God's cotton. When the wind blew, a mist was driven into my face as I stood in the middle of that field bending down to light that rocket fuse. I had spent all night on it, precisely cutting cardboard and electricians tape. I was careful to make sure this rocket met my Lord in the sky. I flicked the wheel which ignited a spark on the flint and the wick erupted in flames. I took a step back to take it all in...the beauty of the moon lit sky reflecting off of the un-plowed snow...the wind that blew over garbage cans in a silent rebellion against mankind. I watched my breath rise from my mouth and find a home in the night sky. The rocket engine sparked, then flamed hotter than the sun and lifted the cardboard missile into the air so high I could not see it once the engine exploded. What a spectacle. What a sight to see. The smoke of it's desire to burn lingered in the night air, forming a trail of it's journey as far as the eye can see into the darkness, back-lit by the moon. It was a night to remember. One of those very few times when it is clear that God's beauty was still present in this destruction. One of those nights you would never forget a detail about. It was a night only my brothers could understand. It was an entire childhood bursting into beautiful sparks and finding purchase in the atmosphere, never to be found again. The next day, things would be normal again and we would forget what magic happened the night before, but we never forgot those nights. We were the only ones up in the entire world. No one saw us. No one lived at all during those moments. It was just us in the universe, blasting off into the winter snow. It was just us sitting on frozen park benches, eating the fresh powder that fell from God. Everyone and everything else faded away into the night. The world always slept when the Dead End Kids opened their eyes, spread their wings, and flew into the atmosphere.

It's been a long time since the Dead End Kids have opened their eyes.








Sing.
Migrate.





Thanks for reading...Z

On The Other Side of the Shadows

All kids are afraid of the dark. There may be some exceptions of steel plated souls, forged in the molten lava of courage, but I have never met one. I was no different. The things I could not see scared me every time I encountered them. Darkness is scary. No one wants to be blind. No one wants to bare themselves vulnerable. It is too hard to trust people. There are too many scary things out there.

Every kid has a moment when they grow up a little and take a step into something they can't see through. They let go of their mother's hand and step out into the unknown if only for a second. One day curiosity overcomes the fear and we have to know, even if the consequence is destruction. We must see for ourselves. The Prodigal Son was all about this in the Bible. This kid that used to hold his fathers hand and trust everything he said, one day decides that he must at all costs experience what is out there himself. I can relate. I can see why. I think the moral is that we all can see why. We all have had periods of our lives when wisdom was not enough. It was not enough to know the truth, we must experience it ourselves. How did it end?

For me, I was raised in church...literally in church. My brother and I spent more time in churches than in our home I think. We had Sunday mornings, Sunday nights, Wednesday nights, Monday nights, and the others were singing practice for my mom and her sidekick, Joy. We knew all about church. We knew their various doctrines and creeds. We knew what they stood for and what they damned. We knew all the rules and which hoop to jump through. We knew all the words to "This Little Light Of Mine" and never to participate in the "Tall man" portion of "Where Is Thumbkin." We knew that preachers got sweaty and shouted a lot. We knew that their wives were always in charge of the bake sales and whatever else didn't require preaching. We knew there was more to the story.

I didn't want to live that way. I didn't want what they offered, at least the way they portrayed it. I wanted something bigger, and less defined. I wanted something that reached inside of me and grabbed hold. So I let go. I let go of my mother's hand and took a step into the darkness. Wanna know what I found?

Darkness. I found more darkness. I got lost quickly and terribly. I didn't find what I wanted out there. Out there was more pain and suffering...more than I had ever been through. I was given more than my share of death. It ended sitting in a rocking chair writing my letter of resignation to my life. The darkness was exactly what the devil wanted for me. I thought I wanted it because the devil was in the "Light" too.

The problem with resisting the devil is that he comes as an angel of light. He sits in churches. He sits in Bible studies. He sits in soup kitchens waiting for us...telling us that He is the remedy to our blindness. For a minute, it seems as though he is until we find ourselves in darkness again.

I ran too far from the light. I had seen the devil in the light, so I wrote off the light as evil. I gave up on the good crop because there were weeds, and fled to the place that produces nothing but weeds. That is how I got to the bottom of who I never thought I could be. I got to the devil. I stood with him face to face, exchanging our anger...exchanging rage at God. I was enticed.

I was wrong.


I didn't know it until I found myself saved despite my best efforts to sleep in hell. I had to surrender. That God that I had grown to hate was not the God represented to me by the weeds looming in the light, but by those driven from the darkness.

My life and upbringing was not so bad. Nothing was terrible. I had friends and a small family that loved me dearly. It just wasn't enough. There was too much out there for me to hate. The things in the darkness were the very things I wanted most. I wanted a father, but he lived in the dark and had fled before I was even born. I wanted the stability others had around me when they spoke of their huge families and growing up together in the same schools. I wanted these things I didn't have so bad that I forgot what I did have in the light. I had a loving mother and four loving brothers. Right now, I can honestly say that is all I ever needed and would ever ask for. I wish I would have seen that then. But in the light, I do now. None of them were perfect. None of them were without mistakes, but they were my heart...my armor.

Sometimes in the light, we have to sift through the darkness and pray for discernment between the two. They become cloudy at times, but be assured that the devil is trying to destroy what God has lovingly given you.

Protect what God has given you with your life. This is not a story of how things happened, but how it happens. The Bible says that sin is crouching at your door, waiting to devour you.

To devour you.









Sing.
Migrate.








Thanks for reading...Z

Vapor

There is something about watching your breath flow up into the night sky that brings calm. It tells you that you are still warm. You are still an alive human being that is capable of much more than you know, both bad and good. Rest assured that it isn't over until your breath has gone from the world and the heat transfers into your surroundings. This tells me there is always time. There is time to turn it all around. This life you live does not have to be the end. It does not have to be who you really are. You can change. People can and do change. I am a testament to that. I could list the ways in which I have changed and it would take 12 years of blogs. None of it is because of me. All of it is God. I will give you an overview.

I wanted to die, now I want to live.
I used to hurt people on purpose so I wouldn't be alone in my own sorrow, now I would give anything to take away the pain I've caused.
I used to live in this place of despair. I now live in the warmth of God's love and grace and beauty. I didn't deserve any of it.
I used to drink myself to sleep in fear of my next nightmare. Tonight I will fall asleep knowing I am safe in the arms of God and excited for whatever tomorrow may bring.
I used to walk the streets at night staring into windows and wishing those families were mine. I am now one of those families.
I used to see things in the darkness of my room at night, now I have only the music of my wife's heartbeat and the comfort of knowing I am God's child.
I could go on forever with better words than these, but they would only deflect what God has really done. I pray His work in me would be evident without my words.


Sing.
Migrate.




Thanks for reading. - Z

A Little Web Redemption Of My Own

The atmosphere was electric. The lights were dimmed as I walked across the room, on top of the world in so many ways. I had broken through to the other side of my troubles. I had overcome my desire to give up. I followed my beautiful wife across the room full of laughing people and beautiful light bulbs to a table of more laughing people. This table could decide my future, my wife tells me just before walking over there. At the table were two male nurses at Heritage hospital in the Taylor ED. This is where I want to work...desperately. I was excited and had my best game in front of my face and ran my fingers back through my slick hair. We arrived and I shoved out my hand with confidence and introduced myself as if they NEEDED to know me right away. I may have even winked, I don't know, I was in the moment. My wife began the intro and I was off making poor countries rich with just my words. I was slaying every linguistic dragon I encountered and used awesome words like Encephalopathy, and Reddenbeagle. I was what swagger was created to define.

Then something went terribly wrong. Something broke inside me. Something turned off the lights and made the entire room look at me in complete disgust. It was something awful, something that blanks faces.

Let me preface by telling you about a different, but not unrelated story that happened many years ago. Put the first story on the back burner for a moment.

It was the day after Christmas, the year 1999ish. I was returning stacks of gifts of things I did not want to Macy's (Hudson's then)...a few were for an ex-girlfriend I decided to dump before I had to give her a present. "Good thinkin," I was saying to myself the entire time. I had a terrible upper respiratory infection which was producing much congestion in my chest. My hands were full as I tried to set the presents down after waiting in a long line to return them. The teller was pretty. She had a glisten in her eyes that was inviting to speak to her. She said "Hi." I looked at her in the eyes and as I said "Hi" back, I half-coughed. Half-coughing is a phenomenon where half words mix with half coughs and things happen...unspeakable things when the person had a respiratory infection. As I began to speak, I coughed and could not cover my mouth and a single, tight rolling slug of infection flew from my mouth and the world went silent as I watched it make contact with the center of her head, right between the eyes. My eyes grew wide at the same time hers did. We were both equally offended by my violation of adequate human courtesy. Her eyes crossed looking at what I had tattooed on her face. I picked up those gifts and ran away. I would return a different day when I was sure she was not working.

Back to my original story much more recent...Last Saturday. I was throwing verbal flames at these potential employment leads and the world stopped again. This was my redemption...my chance to make wrong things right. The lights went dim and the world softened it's voice as I watched a single, tight rolled piece of saliva fly from my mouth and find the tip of his nose like a Marine heat seeking missile bent on destroying my life. The room was so still that I had time to look to my left at the people watching and then to my right at my wife still talking as if nothing happened before the person exhibited their initial reaction. He was a picture of grace, just reaching up and wiping his soaking wet nose. I apologized immediately. This was not something that could be blown off. This was a catastrophe. He said, "Oh, no problem," but underneath I could only see complete hatred and rage.

What word was I saying you might ask? I don't know, but I suspect it was something with a strong P sound. Something like: Plagiarism, or palaeontologist, or human pappilomavirus.

Such is the normal of my life. I am an idiot who is ripe for the world's laughter.

Do you think I still have a shot at that job?







Sing.
Migrate.







Thanks for reading...Z

God Is.....

God is the sunshine. He is the One that puts a genuine smile on your face. He has knit us together in our mother's wombs. He is the reason we can breathe clean air. He is the electrical charge that sends the blood coursing through your veins. He is the sun and the moon. He is the song that you put on repeat to get you through the night. He is that vivid memory of your childhood that you cannot shake. He is the reason you have overcome. He is that moment that you are glad you got up this morning. He is the only reason for life and the only comfort in death. He is that moment you fall asleep smiling. He is the middle of the night snowstorm thats beauty in the morning astounds you. He is the crystal that twinkles in your eyes when you have finally gotten what you have always wanted. He is the sound of children laughing. He is the comfort when our children are gone. Our God is what He is even when we rebel. Our God is merciful. Our God is loving. Our God is bigger than our imagination of Him. My God is rockets launching into the night sky. My God is the sway of the trees in the midst of distress. My God is victorious despite a million obstacles. My God is the brilliance of light when everything fades to grey. My God is the rays that beam when you squint your eyes while looking at Christmas lights. He is the sound of children singing slightly out of key. He is the rise of the sun when you have fallen asleep under the moon. He is the chatter of the loon in the morning and the owl at night. He is the maker of constellations and the Northern Lights. He is. My God is. Our God is.








Sing.
Migrate.







Thanks for reading...Z

It Was Never About Fishing

It is cold in Michigan. Tonight it snowed. It usually doesn't snow this early. I guess the three proponents of global cooling might be right in which case, I am thrilled. I am one of the few that cannot wait until it is hard to walk on the sidewalk. I'd rather fall on my face slipping on ice than fall on my face tripping on a stick.

Reminds me of something very important. Every time it snows and gets cold, it reminds me of a Total gas station, which are scarce now if even existing at all. The four of us bought these winter flap hats made of wool and fur and used to go to this Total gas station to buy machine dispensed coffee before we headed out to our special place to fish in the middle of the night. We seldom went out before 11 PM. There were girlfriends and teenage obligations, so the night was our time...when the Dead End Kids arrived.

We never caught much and what we did catch, Joe would either torture or we would put into a local video store drop box. It wasn't about the fishing, it was about the time. Those times could never be taken from us. We spoke of things four guys would usually not speak about, we were not superficial. We were real. This time was real. The moon always stood at attention and glistened just right for us there. There was always magic. Even after Will died, we took his mother there at night and the snow blew like crystal across our faces and promised us something better. Reminded us that there was so much beauty left. Many people have a place like this. I think the common denominator is the beauty of God's creation and the way He chooses to manifest it to us. Those nights could have been anything, but to us, they were pure beauty and we knew it, and enjoyed every second of it as if it were going away.

It did go away. We seldom visit. We don't see each other as much as we would like. Sometimes we forget we even existed...That we even did anything worth remembering. Life does not allow it when you grow up. But I will never forget the magic we had there. I will never forget that we were different than the other kids. We were the Dead End Kids that dreamed of a world more beautiful right where we stood. We would die before leaving and we would die for each other.

I can be so grateful for that tonight.

Photo credit to:  http://winter-fairy-tale.deviantart.com









Sing.
Migrate.







Thanks for reading...Z

Number Seven

Please click on all the links in this post as they aid in telling the story.


 This is a Blurb story I wrote, click on the words to see their entirety. Thanks for reading.

I have been through the grieving process it seems. I am a very self aware person. I have realized all of these steps as I have gone through them. Knowing is only half the battle. Believing is a much harder task.

I had been a Christian for 12 years. I had been serving in the Church as a pastor for 9 of those years. I had never once had my faith in God questioned and shaken. The death of one of my three my best friends/brothers rearranged my faith and life. I have been upside down ever since, just trying to replace negative feelings with other things. I have played avoidance when actually dealing with some of the issues in my faith in regards to Will... and I guess.....everything. I would never vocalize them. I would never dare even think them, but they became more and more clear when I found myself identifying with things that were expressions of doubt and disenchantment with God. I listened to this CD by Mumford and sons, which when listened carefully through, is clearly a struggle of faith in God. There is a song I have listened to on repeat a hundred times called "White Blank Page." There is a lyric in there that says this: "You did not think, when you sent me to the brink." There literally has never been a lyric in any song that I have identified with more. This alerted me that there was a problem. There was something not right. I was avoiding doing something. I was avoiding reconstructing. I was comfortable living destructed. I had seen the upward turn and chose to better myself, but refused to reconstruct. I think I felt guilt for leaving him behind and afraid I might forget about him. I was used to him consuming my thoughts for so long. I didn't want to really let him go, and as long as I held on to that resentment, he was still kinda there. He was at least present in my anger, and I think I kind of felt some of his in a strange way. But I can't live there. I have realized that recently, and I just don't want to anymore. God is too good for me to keep avoiding Him. Here are the steps and the checkpoints of my arrival to number seven.

1. Shock and Denial- I faked crying when I arrived on the scene when hugging Joe, his brother. I did not believe it, at least in emotions. I held on to him and faked weeping for his sake. I stared blankly instead.

2. Pain and Guilt- A day later, I was a mess of tears. I was inconsolable, and wanted to do nothing but punish myself for not fixing everything. I stayed here for a very long time.

3. Anger and Bargaining-I spent the most time right here, alternating with number 4. My anger was a conscious choice. It kept the tears at bay. Blaming God helped me to stop blaming myself. So I stayed here for so long....for more than a year, I could not pray without trepidation.

4. Depression- This has always been my case, so it alternated with number 3 the entire time and I took medication to try to subdue it and it did do it's job. I punched religious statues and shouted at my God. I put myself in hell.

5. The Upward Turn- I bettered myself by going back to school during the thick of it. I hate school and did want to punish myself with it. I also wanted to keep my mind off of things and away from God and coming to grips with what really was the issue....I had lost faith.

6. Reconstruction-For some reason this started the day I passed my state boards for nursing, at the gym. I was listening to music to motivate me to lift more weight and found myself having to stop lifting and concentrate on not weeping. I did this at least 8 times during my work out. I went home and celebrated with my wife, but could not shake this overwhelming feeling of, "It's time." I opened my Bible and read the third verse of the first chapter of the Bible I had read for real learning in a year and a half: "Zech 1:3 Therefore tell the people: This is what the LORD Almighty says: 'Return to me,' declares the LORD Almighty, 'and I will return to you,' says the LORD Almighty." I was wrecked. I was listening to music and this song crossed my ears and everything inside me busted.

7. Acceptance and Hope- I am here. I am happy to finally be here. I am excited to see my God again. I am excited to see my brother. I have much more to do here and am excited for the future as my faith has been reconstructed and I resemble something stronger.








Sing.
Migrate.








Thanks for reading...Z