As the world grinds to a halt from COVID-19, artists and creatives have a unique opportunity to minister through their work.

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The days tick by, orders are made, and suddenly, despite the increased caution we’ve grown accustomed to, everything grinds to a complete halt as the unthinkable happens: by executive decree, the freedom of movement is restricted nationwide in the effort to stop the spread of Covid-19. A nightmare scenario for anyone of a libertarian mindset, a comforting step for those less suspicious of our governing betters, a controversy that will certainly be debated when the storm we currently face has passed, but seems otherwise inevitable in the face of uncertainty.

I’ve stopped following the news, disgusted by the obvious spin and efforts to generate and capitalize on panic in the face of uncertainty. Instead, I have turned to official documents and press releases, going straight to the source to parse out reality for myself, a return to a simpler mindset that I lost somewhere a few years back. I thank God that the subtext of our local orders seems to be a respect for individual liberties, with clauses highlighting that abridgements of constitutional rights will be deemed illegal, regardless of what the moment seems to call for.

For now, at least in the quiet corner of the world that I inhabit, the march of totalitarianism, one of my deepest fears, seems quelled, though I am not so foolish as to think for one second that there are not opportunists waiting in the wings, eager to take advantage of a crisis. Time will tell, but I will, for the time being, turn my eyes away from speculation and focus instead on what I know for sure.

I turn to church leaders, eager to hear the thoughts of those in whom we have entrusted our guidance, and hear echoed the deepest convictions of my heart: we truly do not what precisely is happening in the world, but we do know that God is sovereign, and we know that times such as these are the things that revivals are made of.

Times such as these are the moments that cause complacency to lose its luster, and the vain comforts of the material world to blow away into the dust that we have been thoroughly assured that they ultimately are. Times such as these are when we as human beings realize with utter certainty how wild this world truly is, and how little control we have.

I frankly have no idea how someone without faith in a higher power is coping with the unfolding drama that this pandemic has brought to bear. I believe in a sovereign, good God who has vouchsafed my soul, and I find myself intermittently throughout the weeks shaken at how truly alone we are in this pandemic but for the grace of God. 

Our marketplace offers nothing, a few weeks of closures having broken an unprecedented course of prosperity. Our governments have proven impotent in preparing for or implementing strategies to avoid the worst possibilities. There is no hope in this world but for God.

And that, I think, is precisely the point of this moment in history.

Western civilization has been unspeakably blessed over the course of the last century with the most prosperous society in all of human history, and our response to such providence has been a wholesale turning away from the source of our blessings. We have answered God’s provision with proclamations of His death, rejection of truth, and a loving of self.

With that said, I do not think that this moment in history is a judgment. This moment in history is a wakeup call. I believe that this moment in history will be looked upon in the years to come as one of the greatest things that has ever happened to us as a people. I believe that from this moment in history, our culture will turn back to God and put our priorities in their proper places. 

I heard an account from Wuhan, China, the source of the pandemic, from a pastor in the local church who rallied his congregation to help distribute medical supplies over the course of the last few months. As the Chinese government mobilized to crush the spread of information concerning the virus and forcibly quarantine its people, this small church body mobilized in a concerted mission to spread the Gospel.

The result of this mobilization? Revival. 

I’m stirred by the testimony that, even as lockdowns occurred, the church in China took to using online services to further inform their neighbors about  where to find medical supplies, sharing the Gospel every step of the way. I am stirred that: 

“Some started reading the Bible, some inquired about the Christian faith, some even prayed the sinner’s prayer. Some people promised to attend church meetings after the plague, and some were already attending our online meetings. We saw how that with just a little faith we must follow the Lord without fear of danger… In a short time of 60 days, we have seen a big renewal in the ministry of church members. We saw that this plague was meant to bring about a great revival of the church. This revival was not started after the end of the plague, but in the course of the plague, we saw the wonderful grace of God manifested.”

https://infuyin.com/article/34

Please see the full video here, as well as the article from Dr. Michael Heiser where I found it.

I am stirred because that account from Wuhan is not unique. I have been hearing similar accounts from church communities in the West, and I think God is moving mightily throughout this time of uncertainty. 

I am stirred because during this time, there are opportunities for ministry at every corner. Be it podcasting and blogs, or motivational posts online. The world is at a standstill, and so many are grasping for hope and finding none. Celebrity culture seems to have ebbed into obscurity, the austerity of it laid bare in the face of reality.

There are families walking the streets in our neighborhood. Our church’s online presence has exploded as we reach more and more people. Neighbors are talking to neighbors. Our societal fabric and civil society seems to be reforming each and every day.

That this coincides with Holy Week, or Easter Week, I think, is miraculous. How many who may not have ever darkened the door of a church will tune in to an Easter live stream next weekend? How many will hear the Gospel for the first time?

God has gone before us to prepare the infrastructure for a mighty Kingdom work, and I am beyond excited to see it.

In my own quiet corner, I am humbled by the reality that there are ministry opportunities available that make plain the purpose of years worth of unpaid labor and struggles on project after project that seemed so trite and empty in the moment, but have built up networks and skills necessary to spread the Gospel now when the cultural soil is tilled and ready. 

I am confident that the impact of the last few weeks and whatever is to come is going to leave a mark on our world, nation, city, and community for the foreseeable future. Each generation has its collection of defining cultural moments that alter the course of history, and this is one of ours.

It is Holy Week, and for the last few years I have been privileged to lead a group of creatives in the Atlanta area in applying their talents to sharing the Gospel and ministering to the church body and city as a whole. This year we will not have a gallery opening in person, but instead online, and as such, we are at a unique crossroads as creatives.

If you are an artist or creative person, as the world around us has ground to a halt and others panic, it is highly likely that each of you has had some sort of insight that might help minister to the body of Christ in a unique way. For me personally, this came by way of realizing that my years of musing on mortality and other melancholy subjects had short-circuited panic, allowing me to step into a difficult place at my job at a critical moment in our organization’s history.

Perhaps you have had a similar experience fighting anxiety and depression, or otherwise have crossed through spiritual valleys and deserts. Perhaps you aren’t as shaken during this pandemic as everyone else because you’ve already stared death and existential angst in the eye and didn’t blink.

Perhaps this moment in history doesn’t phase you, because you’ve read enough fairy tales to know that the stories that we’ve told ourselves over the years convey nothing if not the undying truth that no matter how dark things seem, God is sovereign and there is always a light at the end of the tunnel.

Perhaps you have some transcendent insight that can speak into this moment.

Perhaps not. Perhaps yours is a different perspective and story to tell, but I know one thing for certain: the body of Christ needs to be ministered to right now, and creative people are uniquely equipped to do it.

We trade in capturing hearts and minds, and now is the time for it, more than ever.

As a church body, we can rationalize and meditate on statistics until we are blue in the face, but cold facts will not lift a wounded heart in the same way that a piece of music will. Statistics will not speak to the deep parts of the soul in the way that a well-written poem will. Executive orders and pithy comments about “getting through this together” will not encourage the lonely in the same way that paint on canvas can when wielded by someone sharing their heart.

This is a time for poets. This is a time for painters. This is a time for artists. This is a time to minister to the people in the church body and those outside of it.

How will you rise to the occasion?

The post #18: A Time for Poets appeared first on EXPATS OF EDEN.

As coronavirus brings the world to a grinding halt, I contemplate the spiritual ramifications and responsibilities of Christians and the church.

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I went out this past Friday . Not walking, no, not quite yet, just “out”. A short drive with my wife through the small pseudo-township adjacent to my neighborhood to our favorite local spot. A well-desired if not well-deserved date after two weeks of relative uncertainty.

Passing through town we see more and more people out and about walking, a stark reminder of the world that we now live in. It seems that Netflix and chill is not all that it’s cracked out to be when it’s all that is to be done.

The owner is glad to see us again and calls us by name. My wife is better with the pleasantries, I’m trying hard not to look uncomfortable…because the contrast is striking.

This is not normal. This is not the world we lived in even a week ago. The faces are all the same, but the lady behind the counter is wearing nitrile gloves and is clearly flustered as she cradles the phone, puts another customer on hold to ring us up, and cheerily greets a man who has wandered in. All in a fluid motion—impressive. Jarring. Unsettling. This is not normal.

We thank her and take our food outside to the only table still available to sit at in the area.  Local ordinances being what they are, all public seating has been blatantly removed. Tables are gone, and at the ones that are bolted down, the chairs have been stacked and shackled. We are fortunate to find a table literally welded to the cement: a wrought-iron affair with built-in seating. Let’s just see them take this away.

We dust off the pollen, say a prayer, and begin to unpack our carry-out order just a stone’s throw away from the establishment from which it came. The sun sets, the world turns, and we can’t help but wonder how things turned this upside down in the span of a week over a disease that no one we know has contracted yet, but for which the entire world has stopped spinning.

We fumble with plastic silverware and boxes. My wife has dressed up for this date… and I can’t do a damned thing to make it any more special.

The owner walks out of the restaurant and asks us if we need anything. God bless her, but we thankfully decline. Seeing our plight, she returns a few moments later with dishes and silverware. Virus be damned, she’ll take care of her customers.

It strikes me then as it has several times this week that the world, though impacted, is no intrinsically different than it was a week ago. Circumstances may have changed, but we’re all still here, still in the picture, still playing out the cosmic drama in which we’ve been cast.

For better or for worse, this is the world. This is reality. And there is much hope in that, no matter what may or may not have been said. Because we’re still here, the end is not nigh, and we have the opportunity now more than ever to rise to the occasion and live up to our best thoughts and values. This is a time for mobilization, even as we are socially distanced. This is a time for actions to line up with words. This is a time for heroes, big and small, to serve their families, friends, and communities well.

A few months ago I met with a friend over lunch, and talk quickly shifted to deep things. In the face of a fractured society constantly at each other’s throats, we pondered what could possibly come next for our nation and the world at large. What might the future hold?

I posited the notion that each generation has its landmark crises and trials: wars, depressions, pandemics, political upheaval. Rare is the generation that passes untouched. For two decades, however, it seems like that was precisely what had happened here in America. Not since September 11, 2001, could I recall a unified cultural moment of crisis in which everything seemed to stop here in America. A moment when individuals were forced to reconcile their worldview with the world itself and realize that despite all material gains and life stations, they were powerless in the face of the cosmos. By all accounts, we’ve had it pretty good.

I had but a seed of a notion how fortunate we have been in that respect. I know that America has prospered despite a slew of injustices and dispossession the world over. Truly, the poorest among our number live as kings in the majority of the world, and even those from our recent past. We have had it exceedingly easy in this country, and most surely it has spoiled us.

Despite my platitudes and awareness of the trends of history, I had grown complacent: surely the good times would continue. Surely, not within my lifetime, would the world just stop spinning. Surely not. Yet, for the last two weeks, it seems like that is precisely what has been happening.

In retrospect, it was inevitable. A cursory glance at world history shows that our society’s prolonged relative peace, stability, and prosperity has been an exception, not the rule. Both secular sources, as well as the Bible’s descriptions of the course of human history are clear: human existence is fraught with plague, war, economic turmoil, and uncertainty. This is what happens in human history. This is what always happens. History is one long narrative of the human species struggling to gain some semblance of control over the world, and being put in its place over and over again.

This isn’t to say that I think we’re in some manner of cataclysm at the moment, in many ways I believe we’re overreacting. This virus is not Captain Trips, the superflu at the center of Stephen King’s The Stand that decimates 99% of the world population over the course of a few weeks. This virus is not the resurgent Black Death or anything approximating similar diseases in their scope. By all accounts, the preventative measures that we are taking should be an effective course of action to preserve the lives of those at risk within our communities. These preventative measures should work. What concerns me, however, is not the scope of the virus, but the effect on the populace and governing bodies. What concerns me is not nature, but the hearts of mankind.

I have found myself wavering between a quiet resolve and a deep existential angst over the course of the last week. In so many ways I feel as though my introspection and contemplations have prepared me to perform my job and support those around me during a time such as this. Not to put too fine a point on it, but dwelling my own mortality and smallness compared to God and the universe is more or less my default setting, the current moment in history is merely validation. I have labored for years, uncompensated financially, pursuing projects that have taught me the skills necessary to execute and distribute media content online on a tight delivery schedule. Working in a church media center, this is precisely what is needed.

My resolve comes from the fact that I have struggled in prayer and diligence to reconcile my calling with my current station in life, faced frustration with what I perceived to be professional stagnation, yet ultimately have found a deeper sense of calling in serving the Kingdom of God directly as part of a ministry team, and just in time to be mobilized in distributing ministering content to those in our church family and beyond. Speaking with my mentor earlier this week, I reflected that it is as though I have been created and placed for a time such as this, a deterministic conviction that squares with the deepest parts of my soul. Earlier this year, as I charted out my calendar in prayer, I had the striking conviction that my efforts to streamline my creative processes and work schedule had been in preparation for some shift.  I thought, surely that means that my creative projects will finally get their place in the sun! Surely.

Then the announcement of pandemic. The social distancing. The business closures.

I quite suspect that I’m now seeing that shift play out in real time, not at all in the manner that I had so vainly hoped.

So many that I know within the church have been praying for some manner of revival in the West. The unfortunate reality is that revivals, spiritual awakenings, and true conversions to the faith often come as a reaction to desperate circumstances, and that certainly seems to be the trajectory that we’re on now. I, overall, take great hope in this, because a cultural moment of discipline by the hand of God indicates that all is not lost, and that His patience has not worn out. There is still yet time to work towards Kingdom purposes in our world.

There are conversations to have with friends and family that could never have been had in a world with consistent market gains and certainty. There are examples to be made as we give of ourselves to serve those who cannot leave their homes. The world over, communities seem to be coming together in the face of uncertainty and slowing down, and perhaps looking up. Perhaps this pandemic and social distancing is precisely what we have needed spiritually. Perhaps it is a blessing in disguise.

 Yet, I confess existential angst as well. I suspected a market correction within the next year, I suspected more political turmoil, I suspected that housing prices would drop and that we might have a recession—I did not suspect that anything like COVID-19 and the ensuing market crash would happen. I was complacent. I was a fool.

As governments across the globe issue decrees, as death rates skyrocket overseas, as troops mobilize even in our nation to help slow the spread of the virus, as local stores shutter, as layoffs come, as markets tank, as the world slowly grinds to a halt, I confess that I am fearful. It is all-to-easy for me to speak about noble callings and the Lord providing opportunities to serve our communities while my hand is on the plow and my eyes are set on a goal, but each night, as I lay down to sleep, I am troubled by the uncertainty. I have absolutely no idea what the future holds, only that it’s a future that we all must partake in. Somehow, I will need to confront the struggles ahead. The potential of unemployment, the ramifications of an economic recession, the challenge of raising up a family in the face of it all. Maybe none of these things come to pass, but they are certainly on the table. I know, better now than in the past, just how blessed I have been, and that gives me hope, because my God remains the same though the seasons change.

I can thank God for His provision throughout the years. I can thank God for everything that He has done, from saving my soul to providing for my wedding, from growing my faith to bringing basic provision. God has been good, and I know that He is sovereign, even over this time.

With impeccably dark timing. My daily Bible reading has crossed into the territory of Jeremiah and Ezekiel and the Babylonian exile, a time of unprecedented tumult in Israel’s history as they were scattered to the nations. In that time, God did not call his remnant to look back upon where they had come and long for it—He lambasted the “feel-good-best-life-now,” false teachers that brought such messaging. Instead, God encourages His people to serve His purposes faithfully where they are in exile, accept their lot, and look towards His promises in a spirit of humble faithfulness:

The book of Jeremiah, chapter 29 verses 5-14 say:

Build houses and dwell in them. Plant gardens and eat their fruit. Take wives and father sons and daughters. Take wives for your sons, and give your daughters to husbands, that they may bear sons and daughters. Multiply there, and don’t be diminished. Seek the peace of the city where I have caused you to be carried away captive, and pray to God for it; for in its peace you will have peace.” For the God of Israel says: “Don’t let your prophets who are among you and your diviners deceive you. Don’t listen to your dreams which you cause to be dreamed. For they prophesy falsely to you in my name. I have not sent them,” says the Lord. For The Lord says, “After seventy years are accomplished for Babylon, I will visit you and perform my good word toward you, in causing you to return to this place. For I know the thoughts that I think toward you,” says The Lord, “thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you hope and a future. You shall call on me, and you shall go and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You shall seek me, and find me, when you search for me with all your heart. I will be found by you,” says Yahweh, “and I will turn again your captivity, and I will gather you from all the nations, and from all the places where I have driven you, says Yahweh. I will bring you again to the place from where I caused you to be carried away captive.”

This time will pass. There will be changes made to our lives overall, changes to the world and economy, there will be difficulties and uncertainties, but God is sovereign, and while we draw breath we are to be faithful in serving precisely where we have been placed. This is a time for heroes. This is a time to help those around us. This is a time to serve the city. This may be a time to isolate, but not in the manner of Prospero, drinking to his health in a raucous party as the Red Death devastated his country, and finally his own castle. We can maintain a healthy distance while making sure that we stay in touch with those around us.

We are not in control, and that is okay, because we have never been in control. We have always been operating at the good pleasure of a Sovereign God, and though we cannot see the grander picture from where we stand, we can be assured that He will bring His work to completion according to His will, and that we have the opportunity before us to put our money where our mouth is. 

I hope and pray that this blows over within a few weeks and that everything moves on, but I won’t act as though I believe that is the case. I certainly hope this is a footnote in history, but have to entertain the notion that this very well could be the type of cultural moment that is written up in history books that future generations look upon and marvel that anyone could have lived through it. Yet, those of us alive now are the end product of generations that have passed through storms far worse than the one before us, globally as well as within the church, and have marked the way with faithful witness of God’s provision and grace.

I recall Gandalf’s encouragement of Frodo, reminding him that no one seeks out times of trouble, but will be subjected to them all the same, before calling him to action to make the most of the time before him. This is such a time. A time for heroes, a time for action, a time for faith, and I hope and pray, a time for revival.

The post #17: A Time for Heroes appeared first on EXPATS OF EDEN.

Where Christ-followers fear to tread, darkness takes hold.

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I must confess that I have been putting this entry off. It’s been mostly written since 2016, but it never sat right with me to share it, even now. Truthfully, I expected my next entry in this series to be a borderline self-help rambling about “how to weather a spiritual desert,” never thinking for a moment that perhaps I might need to consult God in prayer before proceeding with a series overtly dedicated to Him. I confess arrogance in that respect. God saw to it that my mind be changed, as a month ago, just before setting out to write that episode, a disruption occurred. 

We interrupt our regularly scheduled program for a nightmare, and a look beyond the veil.

I had a nightmare in the early days of 2020.

Usually when these dreams come, I ignore them as they consist of reasonably terrifying scenarios: getting eaten by a shark, natural disasters, discovering that you’ve withheld too little money for your quarterly taxes—basic fears. This dream was different, however. It brought with it a lingering fear that demanded to be articulated.
    In the dream I was a teenager again, young and blind to the world. I was singing the song “Me and Bobby McGee” as I ran with a group of other teenagers as they made their way through the streets of a run-down city. Despite my best efforts, I couldn’t catch up with them, and despaired as I saw them shrink and fall between the cracks in the sidewalks and in between metal grates in dingy side alleys. 
    Somehow I passed beneath the grates and cracks myself, discovering the group once more in the ruins of a recreational center, where they had been waylaid at the entrance to a tennis court by a group of policemen who were intent on searching them for contraband. 
I approached the police, and they regarded me with tacit acceptance. Apparently, they considered me to be separate from my peers. I requested that the other teenagers be let go, to which the police assented on the condition that I surrender my own belongings and my clothing in exchange for the others’ freedom. 
As I considered, the other teenagers disappeared, and I was left standing naked in the Paris Island barracks from the film Full Metal Jacket as R Lee Ermy as Gunnery Sergeant Hartman berated me. Despite my obvious exposure and vulnerability in this moment, I gleefully began to mock the Sergeant to his face, raising the support of all of those around me. 
A bloated harlot of a woman emerged from the shadows beside me, also laughing, and the barracks melted away as we began to laugh and twirl around in circles, strange carnival music beginning to play all around us.
As I spun around, I saw around me a paradise in vivid, overbright technicolor, characteristic of a psychedelic experience. I saw friends from my early exiled years, and icons of those times and the culture that I once sought to emulate: Janice Joplin, Jim Morrison, and a myriad of flower children, all frolicking in a frenzied dance of joy and revelry. We laughed, we sang, and we danced beside a crystal lake and through green meadows to the idyllic backyards of classic post-war Americana.
We spun around and round as the years passed away, and  one-by-one these figures vanished until I was left in the empty living room of an old 1950s-era pre-fab house. 
At first, I thought I was alone, but soon saw that there was a teenager present. I approached the teenager, and he spun around aggressively, demanding that I stay away from him. I was taken aback, and inquired as to why he was so defensive. Hadn’t he seen the wild abandon and joyous celebration? Hadn’t he seen the freedom we all had in this place, freedom from fear or want? Freedom from judgment?
He shook his head in contempt. “I came here as a part of a history project, I came to see where she died.”
My eyes were opened to my surroundings.
This once-vibrant corner of the world had become grey and worn. Tendrils of black mold and unknown filth stained the walls, floors, and ceilings around me. The perfectly manicured lawns outside had given way to dirt lots. The fields and lakes: now a black-water swamp rife with cypress trees.
I looked for any sign of the others I had been with. There was no one to be found. In their stead I found scatterings of refuse and paraphernalia. Used, rusted needles and rubber hosing. Broken pipes. Spent condoms. 
I began to shake considering that the paradise I had been a part of, that seeming realization of pure liberty and freedom, had been little more than a skid-row. A den of addiction and degeneracy. 
“It’s pretty terrible, isn’t it?” The teenager said. I looked back to him and tried to explain that this was all a mistake, I wasn’t a part of this scene of rot and ruin. He smirked: “if you aren’t apart of this, then what are you doing here?” He turned away, and my eyes were open once more:
I saw myself: no longer a teenager, no not even a young man. Somehow time had escaped me and I was in the bloated, greying body of a man in his late-60s picking over the leavings of a misspent youth.
I looked and saw some of the friends that had vanished across the swamp attending a concert at a distant fairground. I knew in that moment that if I could escape from this place—so long as I did not set foot inside the fairground—I would be alright. 
The teenager’s words echoed through the air as I fled into the swamp to escape: “if you aren’t apart of this, then what are you doing here?” I saw a lantern light shine from between distant cypress knees.
I saw an old friend, emblematic of my life in exile, wearing a wide smile and a vacant stare, holding the lantern and wading through the swamp towards me.
“It’s time to go, Thorne,” he called out: “everyone is waiting for you. The concert is about to start.”
I stumbled in the muck, grabbing onto the exposed limb of a fallen tree. I yelled back dismissively, insisting that some things had come up and that I was no longer able to go along with the group. 
His face didn’t change. He stared through me with wide eyes and smiled on with his crazed grin. “It’s time to go, Thorne. Everyone is waiting for you. The concert is about to start.”
I repeated my protests, more desperately this time, as I tried to lift myself from the mud around me. I desperately grabbed for something to help steady myself, but found only branches snarled with poison ivy vines and wisps of Spanish Moss dangling from above.
“It’s time to go, Thorne. Everyone is waiting for you. The concert is about to start.”
I lost my footing and plunged into the mud.
Blinking past the grime I saw that he was now standing above me, grinning down fiercely, his face illuminated from beneath by the lantern that now lay in the muck at his feet. 
Vines wrapped around my body and in a flash I was bound and powerless. 
“I’ve got you!”
He began to laugh as something far away began to drag me breathless towards the fairground.
I cried for help. Once—how feeble we are in nightmares—a second time—this time I was sitting upright in bed, crying out into the darkness.
Somewhere in the night I thought I heard the whistling of the carnival tune… but alas it was but my wife’s breathing, wheezing because of the winter chill.

I couldn’t sleep for a long while. This dream needed parsing.

The imagery was familiar. It was a reminder of how I fell away from God, and how God brought me back. How I fell in the sense that I shunned my deepest held convictions in a frivolous quest for approval by my peers. At first I had rationalized my actions, insisting that it was simple altruism: the desire to maintain an open mind and empathize with others in spite of their readiness to abandon me or each other at the first sign of trouble.
Then, a niche as a journeyman: one willing to mock authority and convention for the sake of spectacle and cachet; a showman, a clown embarking on a fool’s dance into a world of reckless abandon.
I recognized the teenager that I had been, and the life that I had been leading within that dream. The ruin and decay at the tail end of it was most certainly the destination I had been headed for not seven years ago when God called me out of darkness back towards Himself. 
Seven years. Good Lord, I shudder to think how much damage I could have done to my life and mind had Christ not intervened. How much potential could have been lost? How many blessings foregone in the pursuit of pleasure? I don’t have to consider for long before the answers come to me: 
Friends and acquaintances from that time have borne examples of that hellish “could have been” life. Persistent fear and paranoia, financial ruin and despair, early graves so soon abandoned and overgrown. The lingering sense of loss of what could have been. 
A walk with Christ has removed me from those trails by necessity, removed me from those lives by force at times as the condemnation for my newfound path rang full and clear in my ears. The accusations of being a bigot, the vitriol at a moral stance misunderstood. The passive comments as though I were not present, the ceasing of calls and contact. The friendships grown cold. 
From time to time, I’ll hear a song from those days and the memories will come flooding back. The names and faces that marked a season of wandering and introspection. The searching out of self, that desperate desire to beat the wind, to live free as if there were no tomorrow. The sense of a tribe searched out and found… and lost once more.
There is a place in my heart that goes back to those strange trails far from the beaten road where time seemed to stretch on forever in a haze of reckless abandon. There is a lingering gloom and regret over that season, an ever-present duskiness that pervades the memories. I wonder that we did not perceive the darkness of the season for what it was, though perhaps it takes redeemed spiritual eyes to see.

Just a few weeks after this hellish vision of a life not lived, I woke up on a bleary Monday morning to find a message on my phone. There had been a death. A name from long ago. So long ago, that it took me a moment to process. 
Absent any details I wondered and prayed for God’s mercy.
In the back of my head, the music started to play, and I said with no hesitation, knowing full well the path that I was diverted from: “there, but for the grace of God, go I.”

—

Years ago, in a drunken state as I laid my head to rest, I had a moment of “the uncanny” where I felt as though I were no longer myself, and an internal compulsion posed a haunting question to me: “are you ready to meet God?”

    I lied to myself, ignoring my inebriation and the utter shame I was bringing upon myself: “Yes, yes I am.”

    I passed out.

    When I woke up in the morning, I learned that one of our modern gods had fallen; a man who could rightfully claim a spot as a cultural icon and wellspring of inspiration for generations of artists, succumbed to illness and passed away.
    I did some research, as I often do in the wake of a high-profile death, to see where he had placed his faith during life, and I saw a pattern that I have seen so many times echoed in celebrity memoirs, and heard from the lips of those I hold dear: a story of grappling for meaning in the face of a sure conviction that there was something grander beyond this sphere—a story of degradation transpiring in its pursuit—a story of dissatisfaction, and ultimately a looking back to the past and wondering where life had slipped through one’s proverbial fingers.
    This man had dabbled in Buddhism, Nihilism, Satanism, and Christianity, before concluding later in life that he knew that he could not claim to be a “full atheist”, but said of the question of God, “don’t even pose it to me”.  By this writing, there seems to be no indication that he ever truly addressed that question or realized an answer.
    The implications of this should shake each and every one of us to the core; because this was a man who had attained everything that our world tells us that we should want—and he died still searching for that inexplicable last piece that would have made the entire puzzle make sense.
    I am a filmmaker, and that means that I’m a student of pop-culture, for better or for worse. In my studies I have pored over the lives of the “big people” throughout history—the veritable movers and shakers—and I have found that this pattern of “searching in the face of deep existential angst, but never finding,” repeats itself time and time again.  Errol Flynn comes to mind.
    For the uninitiated, Errol Flynn is best remembered as Robin Hood, a heroic and romantic swashbuckler of the silver screen who starred in countless films over his storied career. Of course, his onscreen character posed a stark contrast to his actual life—he was a drunk, an addict, and a womanizer with a career of philandering so storied that his sexual escapades gave rise to a modern colloquialism—however crass, it is now a common utterance in many different social scenarios—“in like Flynn”.
    The man bragged and boasted about his Wicked, Wicked Ways (the settled title of his autobiography, as the publisher would not allow for it to be titled In Like Me) but those who knew him best, and indeed those who partook in the reading of his memoirs reflected that he was a deeply troubled man grappling for purpose in all the wrong places.  What’s more tragic—he knew it.
    He knew he was looking for something deeper.  He knew there was something more—and yet, he forewent the numerous “come to Jesus” rock bottom moments in his life (including statutory rape charges that shipwrecked his entire career) until he finally lapsed into legend.
    More recently, a well-known stuntman famous for his work on a prank television series—deeply troubled; deeply depressed; searching for purpose and never finding it—killed himself and a passenger after driving his luxury sports car, drunk, at 130 miles per hour off the road into a tree. In the years leading up to his death, it seems like he was also afforded those “come to Jesus” sort of rock bottom moments as well.
    I wonder, in my heart of hearts, if these men were ready to “meet God”. The answer is not mine to judge; merely to ponder and posit an educated, scripturally-based “hard-truth” guess: “probably not.”
    This is a tough subject to approach, but it’s one that eats at me day by day. I know that I have been at parties with people that will wind up being as well known as any of these men. I have counted them amongst my colleagues, coworkers, and friends.  I have, time and time again, attempted to be an ambassador for the Kingdom of God. Time and time again, more than I would ever like to admit, it’s fallen on deaf ears and in many ways I know that I have failed due to my own lifestyle and hypocrisy.
    I can’t just ignore it. The industry that I have been lead to is replete with these stories—I recently discovered that a well-known mogul claims to be an atheist, but believes in “divine inspiration” and that it “troubles him.”  Anyone who has followed his career, even from a superficial level, could plainly see that his work is anything BUT Godly. There were moments, early on, where it seemed like he was moving towards something truly divine, but upon seeing his latest film, I wanted to vomit at how divorced the soul of his work—and any artist’s work is an expression of the artist’s soul—is from anything good; and it just keeps getting worse.
When I first wrote this entry, it was 2016, a year before the “Me Too” movement would blow the lid off of the rampant degeneracy and abuse infesting the American film industry. How long had it persisted? The more that I learn, the more I realize that it’s been a feature, not a bug, of the major players since well before the introduction of sound to motion pictures. Like any human institution, corruption has been rife and taken root where good men have refused to take a stand.
    This pattern is observable all throughout the world—not merely amongst the “big people”. The “big people” are merely symptomatic of a larger problem. There are people who are going to Hell walking amongst us every single day, and I used to be among their number. 
I was walking that path. I was ignoring the chances for redemption. I was grieving the Spirit. By the grace of God alone, in 2013, after I completed my first feature-length film—a realization of a long-standing personal dream—God left me bedridden for nearly three months before lifting me up, by His grace alone, and setting me back on course.
    Spiritual warfare is a real concern; and, as Christians, we are to be soldiers in the cause. We’re supposed to fight. Why else is our Holy Book rife with images and metaphors for war? The bulk of the Old Testament pertaining to the conquest of Canaan could be viewed as a reflection of the Christian life in that respect, only that our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the forces of darkness of this world. No matter where we are, we are on the battlefield—never safe on this side of Glory to disrobe the spiritual armor we are advised to put on.
    The problem I’m faced with is this—I don’t want any part of the industry that I have been called to. The culture surrounding it is corrosive, steeped in hedonism and spiritual darkness. Even still, I feel called to do battle there. I still have friends—very dear friends—who LOVE the culture and are actively chasing those dragons. What do I do?
    What are any of us to do?  What does it mean to be “in the world, but not of the world?” It’s this nagging splinter in my heart that I grapple with daily as I realize, more and more, that I don’t want to be a part of things the way that they are, but instead want to see them transformed.
    I see the “gods” of our age—celebrities—grappling with and reveling in addiction—and wonder why our culture elevates such people to such a lofty status?   We are rewarding behavior that we would recoil in horror from if they were to be found in ourselves, our families, our friends—our children—but every movie ticket we pay for, every CD we buy, every time we expend our money to consume something—we are giving tacit approval to the gods of “sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll”.
    A few years ago, I met with a friend of mine who has been given a tremendous blessing—he’s “in like Flynn”—rubbing shoulders with really “big people” in his business. You’ve seen their work, you LIKE their work if the trades’ reports on critical scores are accurate, but the life they lead behind-the-scenes reads like the memoirs of a kid who burned out in college—only these aren’t average folks living average burnout stories. These are the “big people,” and the “big people” have the money to buy the “REALLY good” drugs and burnout on a global stage.
    I listened, I smiled, I said, “wow, that’s great, your career’s really taking off,” but inside my heart was breaking. This young man, whose heart used to be on fire for God was now gloriously recounting how he orchestrated a drug-fueled bender and sexual liaisons for dozens of A-list celebrities. What was I to say? Anything at all would have been preferable to what seems like the common default: a passive shrug and declaration of “different strokes for different folks.”
    I’m no better. Time and time again when I’ve touched that world, even for a moment, I’ve walked away corrupted and in desperate need of repair. Every time though, the Lord has been gracious and fixed me. This is what terrifies me about the fact that I feel called to be a filmmaker—how do I escape such degradation?
    My social network includes producers, actors, directors, writers—unknown and known, some you’ve seen on TV—I’m in this place where I’m in total exile and too suspicious of myself to know how to proceed.

I think of one of my personal heroes: Alice Cooper.

    Alice Cooper (his real legal name since 1975) used to sell out concerts at stadiums in the 70s.  He was the Marilyn Manson of that decade. He personally knew the legends of that time—Hendrix, Joplin, Morrison—and was close friends with Groucho Marx, Peter Sellers, and counted Salvador Dali and John Lennon among his celebrity fans. He also spent the 1970s drunk; rarely eating, and would start each day with a beer and began drinking hard liquor before lunch time.  This problem was addressed but recurred until it spiraled into hard drugs in the early 1980s. A few of his albums, all successful, he barely remembers writing or recording. Eventually, his marriage fell apart and he committed to saving it through Christian Counseling and rehab.
    Alice now relates a miraculous tale about how he walked out of rehab and felt like a new person—like he was never an alcoholic, and never would be again.  It’s not surprising to find out that it was around this time that he committed his life to Christ and became a born-again Christian. Unlike many celebrities, this new religious affiliation stuck like super glue.
    Concerned he could no longer be a rock star AND a Christian, he consulted with his pastor who gave him some encouragement: that God had placed him in the Philistine’s camp; that his lifestyle—now clean—spoke infinitely more than any mere proselytizing could in the world of sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll.
    Alice Cooper continues to rock and record, and does it in the name of winning ground for the Kingdom of God.
    In reviewing Alice’s life, it’s clear that God gave him a lot of second chances, a lot of rock bottom moments where his life was spared (before the final one that saved his soul), and now the man is a faithful witness and one of the last living legends we have among us.
    Even if he’s in the minority, I think the few stories like his are the ones that really count.  The Kingdom of God is, after all, like a mustard seed. I take a great deal of hope in that.

Thankfully in the years since I originally wrote this, my network has shifted and I’m seeing more of God’s impact on the industry and world around me, but there is still so much to be done. 

So long as I’m living my work must continue.


I think back to 2016, and realize that I’ve tread this ground before. I’m again at the end of what I have to offer God. I’m outside the bounds of skills professionally, needing to learn more in order to keep up, I’m outside the bounds socially, now being pushed outside of my comfort zone as I realize the tremendous importance of investing in others. In 2016, when I was similarly at the end of myself, I was convicted to “wait and rest” in God. This time, I know that “waiting and resting” does not preclude action in what God has given. I can be faithful with what is before me, strengthening my skills professionally, socially, emotionally, and spiritually, for the path ahead.

That is all anyone can do. Lean on God and press onward.

Back to the present. That text message on my phone announcing the death of someone from my past life. I offered my condolences how I could, then repeated the mantra, “there but for the grace of God go I,” and went about my day, concerned, but refusing to be interrupted.
God had other plans. By the end of the week, I was called to “go and see, the place where they died,” and revisit those forgotten trails. Those who know the events of that weekend know what happened. I have been convicted of pride and arrogance and will not speak of what took place. I will, however, give my assent that there is indeed much work to be done, and I have the lingering conviction that God called me out of deep darkness to return seven years later with a lantern and a rope, as well as  the mission to be salt and light where both are desperately lacking.

For so many years I looked back upon my life with disdain, isolating myself from the industry and culture that I have been called to. I can no longer ignore, however, the truth that Christ did not come to save the righteous, but to call the unrighteous, and while I still sinned, He called to me.

Where Christ-followers fear to tread, darkness takes hold. Complacency is the path to damnation, not for the Christian, but for the world that they forsake.

At this juncture, at least, my eyes are open to that, and I must answer the call set before me. 


But before we part, I must ask you: where have you been called, and how will you respond?

The post #16: There But For the Grace of God appeared first on EXPATS OF EDEN.

When crossing a spiritual desert, there is seemingly little of more importance than simple forward momentum.

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Hours turn to days, to weeks, to months, and here we are, a year since we began this walk, you and I. What has changed since we last spoke? What vestige of old life have you dropped, and what new affectations have you collected? Has it been for the best?
I suppose that is the only truly healthy way to compare oneself—the comparison against one’s own growth or stagnation. My old pastor used to say that in order to chart one’s growth, one must ask whether or not they are more like Christ now than they were a year ago, bearing in mind that there is no true stagnation in life, spiritual or otherwise. 
You are either moving up the mountain, or slowly slipping down the slope. To put it another way, “you’re either green and growing, or ripe and rotting.” Thank you, Mr. Kroc.
    As I look back at the last year, I ask myself: “which is it? Have you crossed the desert? Have you summitted another spiritual peak?”
    Maybe. Time will tell whether or not my current perception of things holds up.
    There have certainly been victories, but any great stride now may seem like child’s play to the man I might be in another year’s time, and even so, any stride is reflective not of my own strength or wit, but instead of God’s grace and targeted influence over the strange movements of my heart. 
    I will not boast in myself, but that God has been faithful even when I have not, and I will take solace that despite my flesh’s best efforts to stand still and slip away, He bade me forward, one step at a time. 
It has been over four years since that fateful summer when I felt so close to His will for my life, and the words echo in my memory from the dreams of that time: “this land was cleared for war.” God help me that it took so long for me to actually listen and heed what He had for me. I know that the past is firmly set, but I still consider the fact that He had set me up to marry Rebekah, something that I would have begun to pursue had my heart not been bent towards its own selfish means. Yet, on the other hand, the Lord used that season of wandering to further burn dross to equip me for the future. So, too, has the last few years been a season of wandering to an extent. 
When last I left this narrative, I was resigned to the fact that while things were moving in a positive direction, I was nevertheless in a spiritual desert of sorts.     Reflecting on the desert, I see that there was much within my ability to control the entire time. Reflecting on my perceived helplessness, I realize that it was self-imposed because I was not taking charge of what was actually within my control. I felt my time slipping away from me, but had never taken an honest look at what that time actually meant, nor how much of it there actually was. I was all-too focused on the fact that there were problems occurring, deserts to cross, one step to take after another. Too self-consumed to actually step back and realize that none of these things happen in a vacuum.
When crossing a desert, there is little of more importance than simple forward momentum. To be sure, as opportunities arise, you take them as you are able, but there is a general lack of zeal that resonates through everything. “Get it over and done with,” seems to be the prime directive as the hours slip away, and boy do they slip. There never seems to be time enough for what you wish to accomplish, and when the time is found, you have forgotten what it was you wanted to do, or have pushed on so hard that you’re absolutely exhausted. What a way to go through life, right? Bouncing between burnout and boreout with little space in between in a desperate bid to get to the next deadline, only to find that with one project’s completion comes a void of idle living and the incessant nagging at your mind that you ought to be up to something… and the cycle repeats. On to the next.
You know, I lived in that cycle for the last five years of my life at least. The spiritual desert just made it plain that something was wrong, and provided the routine I needed to put some control-variables in place and see where the system was breaking down. Why wasn’t I able to accomplish what I had in mind despite my relative industriousness? Why were my projects stagnating despite what seemed like constant effort exerted? Why was I being swept away by the waves of time instead of riding them as I had when I was younger? Why were my wheels spinning with no forward momentum? Why was I so miserable?
In May of 2019, I reached my limit and finally broke. Over the preceding 8-months I had shouldered an increasing number of responsibilities while simultaneously staving off relaxation of any type in favor of a constant attitude of hustle. The word “no” was not in my vocabulary, except when it came to taking it easy. “There would be time enough to take it easy when I ‘make it,’” I insisted. Time enough to have a Sabbath day of rest. Time enough to go visit the family more than once a quarter. Time enough to eat a meal at the table instead of at the desk. Time enough to be a well-rounded human being.
I very much suspect now that the “time enough” would never have come given my trajectory. There would always be another excuse, another task to perform, another hoop to jump through over and over again until a heart attack or other illness born out of such a lifestyle took me at an early age. Another statistic. Another casualty lying at the feet of Mammon.
Thank God I broke when I did. Frustrated with this general phenomenon of my time slipping away from me, I posed the question to myself: was this a “me problem” or a larger environmental concern?
The answer, I discovered, was complicated.
Do you know how many hours are in a week? 168. I know, I’ve counted. Struck by the notion that I first and foremost had a general sense that things were not OK, but no data to draw from, I set out to track every hour of my week in 30-minute increments. I wanted to know, precisely, where my time was going. I settled on a customized spreadsheet and color-coded labeling system that categorized my life between sleep, salaried work, self-betterment in the form of exercise, family interactions, social interactions, monetarily-driven projects, strictly passion-projects, religious commitments between church and participation in a regular Bible study, general freelance hours, and finally, wasted time. Each 30-minute block of time was labeled and coded based on the predominate activities within that period of time, with a running tally of hours dedicated to each category along with an accompanying pie chart and percentage score attached. Finally, I added a general “Mood” score to indicate how I felt at the end of the week.
From the last week of May into the Fall I gathered my data, recognizing the trend that I had been experiencing playing out before me in spreadsheets and numbers. Burn-out, bore-out. Elation, misery… stagnation. 
I was amazed to discover that my general feelings of restfulness were not correlated to actual time spent asleep, nor work performed. One week, labeled “on fire by Sunday night,” had 49 hours of work logged across all areas, but only 46 hours of sleep (roughly 6.57 hours per night) logged, while another week labeled “angry and burned out,” logged 43 hours of total work across all areas and a whopping 57 hours of sleep, or a solid 8.14 hours a night.
Where was the disconnect?
It wasn’t until November that I started to make a bit more sense of things. I reviewed my now several months worth of data, and something struck me. Weeks in which I had a dismal outlook on the world coincided with a few different things: a lack of planning coupled with excess free time, a prolonged period (several weeks or more) of diminished relaxation or time away from work or “obligatory” social engagements, and a failure to recharge at the end of the week in order to prepare for the week ahead. 
I was living “koyaanisqatsi,” a Hopi Indian word for “life out of balance.” Put more simply: I sucked at time management. While I was certainly able to function, my new routine had reached the end of my powers of improvisation. While five years ago, I may have been able to “play Jazz” with my schedule, allowing for my mindset to flit freely between a handful of different projects or obligations and efficiently execute them even while circumstances shifted, my life had changed in the intervening years, and I had done a poor job of managing my household.
I no longer had just short-term projects and myself contend with. I was looking at long-term projects, the development of business strategies, release schedules, a growing social network, and, most importantly, my wife to care for. My tendency to “say yes” to everything had resulted in a chaotic schedule in which I was unable to process through my obligations and create definitive plans of action on the fly. Any single “good” or “bad” week was purely accidental. It was the result of time making itself available to me, and not the other way around. I was not happening to life, life was happening to me. I would hustle when it was time to hustle, but the moment that a free moment made itself apparent, a moment in which I could direct my attention to an important, non-urgent task (thank you Stephen Covey), my mind would draw a blank, because I had never considered that I would have had the time to focus in such a way. This lack of planning was killing me.
A clear example of this came in the form of several weeks which I had labeled as “angry and burned out.” These weeks, I found, featured a great deal of wasted time. The amount of time varied, but usually clocked in somewhere around 4-5 hours across the whole week. The reason behind the waste, however, was always a variation of the same lament: “Unsure where to start. Gridlocked. No plan of action.” I simply didn’t know what to do with myself in those moments, and by the time that I had figured it out, another urgent task would present itself, and it was on to the next. Rinse and repeat. Burn out. Bore out.
I needed to learn to plan ahead. To set my mind on the time available and be prepared for when moments presented themselves in which I might make progress on projects that I deeply cared about. I needed to be proactive, not reactive.
This was only one part of my problem, however.
I had a dream a few weeks ago, at the tail end of 2019. It consisted of me languishing in a stormy ocean, desperately trying to fight back against the waves that insisted on driving me to the shore. As I languished, a surfer cruised by, riding along the waves with ease, and a definite swagger. It struck me that this was the perfect illustration of how I had been living my life. I was attempting to fight against forces of nature that I had no control over, instead of managing my means of harnessing those forces to propel me forward. I was exhausting myself in a desperate, futile, bid at control, instead of focusing on my sphere of influence (again, thank you Mr Covey). I hadn’t realized how exhausted I had become until just after the New Year, when I found myself sitting at the window of a local Chick Fil A drive-thru, having sat through the full line during the breakfast rush, and realizing that I had been so “in my head” that I had forgotten to place an order.
No more.
2020 had come, and with it came a break.
The second week in January, I took my first honest vacation in over two years. I say “honest vacation,” because any time I had taken off of work in the past had usually been taken in the spirit of getting more time to do things that needed to be done, all the while checking in sporadically to see what I was missing at the office. During this week in January, however, I didn’t check my email, I didn’t check my phone, and I didn’t make any attempt to devote some time to my passion projects. Beyond basic household chores, I simply allowed for my mind to relax and decompress.
The results were startling. I found myself picking out the knots in certain projects that I had been trying to work out for months in 2019. Now, without any effort, but merely a relaxed mind, they were coming undone, and my mind began to free up in general.
I found myself journaling more. I found myself able to concentrate more. I found myself feeling happier. I found myself able to confront what would have been unbelievably stressful social situations without a moment’s hesitation. I found myself, likewise, able to actually spend time in prayer and focus on the task at hand instead of my mind wandering. And, particularly shocking, I found myself no longer drifting towards negative coping skills like alcohol and overeating. I had taken the time to rest, and consequently, found myself all the more aware, creative, productive, and emotionally stable going back to the office. Go figure, right?
I have learned another “law of the wild,” it is far better to rest occasionally than to burn out constantly.
As a consequence of all of this, I’m pleased and blessed to say that it appears that that the desert I had wandered in has passed. There is an overwhelming sense that God has removed a knot from my heart in order to place me where he wants me so that His true purpose for my life can be enacted, and for that I am grateful. I had forgotten what a season outside of a spiritual desert could be like, how the day to day patterns of life seem to bend towards a greater purpose, how scripture comes alive, how the spirit can be at peace and assured of its trajectory.
I have been realizing more deeply the ramifications of the marriage covenant. Come what may, the Lord has entrusted me with Rebekah’s heart and life, and the hearts and lives of our children. There is no more consideration of myself when contemplating the future, but instead the whole of our family. It is a curious development, as I had never given a great deal of consideration to my mortality prior to being married. I had no qualms about drinking in excess from time to time, smoking, speeding on the highway, getting little sleep, getting less exercise, eating poorly, and the whole myriad of ways that human beings can efficiently subtract days from our number. Now that I am married, however, I have a lingering conviction that anything that I do to negatively impact my health will ripple throughout the lives of my wife and our future children. It is a deeply strange thing to consider that I had not properly considered caring for myself on such a level until I was caring for another human, but such is the case.
It’s damning, but well worth considering, that the “desert” I had been wandering in, had been created and maintained by my own hand. Each misplaced priority another bucketful of sand to a desolate landscape. I believe I had the persistent habit of grieving the Holy Spirit by my actions with sin I knew about and nurtured for years, all the while writing off my vices as a way to cope with reality. “Someday, I’ll take it easy,” that’s what I told myself.
    Yet, even in the midst of all of that, God set things firmly upon my heart as actionable: to get in community, to leave my freelance business, to get married, to move to a different church. Then, finally, in a confluence of these various pieces, He finally dealt a killing blow to that area in my heart so that I would make a change willingly and not in bitterness. It was as if I had zero coping skills apart from my sin, and God placed the skills into my life systematically before dealing a killing blow to my negative coping strategies.
“Someday, I’ll take it easy,” well, that “someday” has finally come, but voluntarily, not some blue-sky “better life” or state of plenty that removes all stress. “Someday” has come because it must. It is what God has called me to. Out of darkness and into light. Out of the desert and into… somewhere. The trail stretches out before me, and I frankly am unsure of where it leads. I have some inklings in my heart and soul, some definite plans of action, but how this story plays out is entirely out of my hands. What is within my power, however, is to plan ahead. Life is long, and I know that it is likely that I will stumble across another desert, or several, before the end of it.
    What can be done?

The post #15: Out of the Desert appeared first on EXPATS OF EDEN.

What if, every day for the next year, you woke up with the perfect Christmas mindset, excited to begin the day, come what may?

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As the holiday season descended this year, I made it a point to grab hold of the reason behind it and truly partake and enjoy the holidays. “There’s no way,” I told myself, “that I’m having another year where I ‘miss Christmas’.” I look back on the last month and I realize that I succeeded. I did not “miss Christmas” this year, but instead thoroughly experienced it—the good and the bad. There were plenty of laughs and lighthearted moments with family, memories made, traditions created or upheld, Christ glorified in worship and contemplation, spiritual highs, deep prayers…and likewise tears of pain. Pain at hearing of a terminal diagnosis and the lost time and opportunity that such things portend, pain at learning of those around us who were suffering whom we were powerless to help, pain at seeing the fallen state of the world contrasted against the colorful lights that mark this season. 
Stark reminders that despite how glorious a season that it can be, it is at its heart a commemoration of a desperate pregnant couple trying to find shelter for the night as their child is born…and then the celebration of the birth itself and the kingdom that was sure to come. We often miss that, though: that there is a great deal of suffering to be had in advance of the Kingdom of God. We are, after all, exiled here on this fallen planet, and our holiday bliss is but a diversion from that. Far be it for me to condemn the festival bliss after my thorough glutting, however, I will do no such thing. 
For even if there is discrepancy, even if the hymn’s proclamations that “all is calm, all is bright,” does not currently reflect reality, the words of another hymn ring out, “God is not dead, nor doth He sleep,” and I remember the words of Fred, Ebeneezer Scrooge’s nephew, in A Christmas Carol, “though [Christmas] has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!”
I’ll take that one step farther. I’d like, in the next year and years to come, to make a practice of celebrating Christmas each and every day. 

I’ve never been good at wrapping presents, not until this year that is, though I still don’t think that my skills are anything to write home about. The switch came at a family  birthday party early in December when the Winter family’s collective skills were on display and it dawned on me that I really, really sucked at wrapping to the point that my family members always knew which presents I had gifted based on the wrapping alone. This, I decided, was unacceptable, and I set forth to better myself.
With a great deal of practice as well as emotional support from my wife, I was, by the holiday proper, able to wrap a gift that was virtually indistinguishable from everyone else’s, except for, perhaps, the added flair of the ribbons and bows that I began to add to my gifts in an attempt to stretch my talents that much more. It was Christmas, after all, and I wanted to be jolly.
Throughout this process, I began to contemplate the very nature of gift giving, and felt rightly embarrassed by my past gifts and their slap-dash “get it done” style of wrapping. While the contents of a package may be the gift proper, the wrapping tells a story all its own. Certainly the paper is torn away in a fraction of the time that it took to set it in place, but that ephemeral nature of the wrapping itself is just an extra way of communicating to the recipient that they matter, and that you took the time to do things correctly.
Consider the well-wrapped Christmas present: it is placed in a box or other container that somehow conceals its true nature. If it is light in weight, perhaps an object is added to the parcel to disguise that aspect as well. It is meticulously wrapped, each fold calculated and carefully laid into place. The entire package is deliberately crafted with presentation in mind, created to be destroyed in but an instant: in an exhilarating rush of anticipation to discover the contents. And then?
Surprise? Joy? Wonder? My wife seems to have mastered the ability to get those reactions from me with her gifts. Seeing that reaction on her face, or on the face of another loved one makes me consider how God must have felt seeing Adam take his first steps into Eden. Likewise watching a loved one try something out for the first time, particularly if the loved one is a child: how must God have felt knowing the joys that reality contained, and seeing His children go out and experience it?
What about the opposite emotions? The disappointment? The feigned excitement or gratitude? What about the confusion at a gift that has no readily apparent purpose? I’m sure we’ve all had that experience at one time or another. I can certainly say that in many of those instances, however, the real utility or thought behind such gifts have become apparent as time went on. I’m sure that God has given us all gifts like this, ones that we are unable to appreciate or see the use of in the moment: spiritual deserts that seem unending but hold opportunities for growth and transcendence. Shoddily-wrapped seasons of melancholy that burn off the dross of our hearts to make us more like Christ. Disappointments, ornately decorated boxes with nothing inside that make us reconsider whether our priorities are rightly placed to begin with.
What kinds of gifts are we to those around us? How often do we have the means by which another might be delivered from some hardship, but we do not offer it? Something that I realized over the course of this holiday season is that opportunities to be a gift to other people are a dime a dozen, it is just that the Christmas Season makes them all the more apparent. Moments of felt need are much more noticeable when all around is “cheery and bright.” I wonder how many of these moments I don’t notice during the year because my mind is on the path ahead instead of the world around. I wonder how many I flatly ignore.
I wonder at the number of times that I have withheld grace from others, focused too much on my own pride and satisfaction instead of the circumstances, whatever they be, that has lead to an unpleasant encounter.
A refrain I found myself uttering over and over again throughout the month of December, and particularly the week of Christmas itself was “it’s Christmas!” In excitement at times, yes, but also as a way of shrugging off a perceived slight or  defusing an argument. “It’s Christmas,” had a way of making the world seem a little brighter, and lightening my heart just enough to remain charitable to those around me even if internally I was seething. 
With that refrain, I mosied through the holidays with glee, though this year was  actually the busiest I’ve ever had. It didn’t matter what responsibilities, hustle and bustle, or obligations were on the table. It didn’t matter the workload or stress levels. “It’s Christmas,” and so it goes, no harm, no foul.
In the midst of all of this, I realized that one best experiences the joy of Christmas by helping others to experience the joy of Christmas. By realizing your role as a gift to others as a disciple of Christ. As God brought his son into the world as a free gift to humanity, one must follow in His stead and become a free gift to humanity, and therein discover the joy of the Christmas season. 
And how joyous a season it was: the best in a long time. There were moments throughout the season wherein Heaven and Earth seemed to intersect, where the hopes of the best Christmas carols rhymed with reality. I’m honestly not sure that mankind can sustain such joy in our present fallen state. We must cherish the moments that we do have, because they are foretastes of Heaven, and they always end. Just as Christmas ended, bringing with it a lingering sadness, because, just like my wedding, it was so wonderful that it made everything else seem lessened by comparison.
Dopamine crashes are a hell of a thing.
In the wake of the holiday, reality sets in. That there were relatives at the celebration who would likely not be alive next year, and that the time to invest in those relationships had slipped away, week after week, excuse after excuse. That there were likewise relatives present who, while not terminal, did show signs of age for the first time in your mind. Where had the time gone? The grim notion dawns that someday, you too will share their fate, and a new cast of characters will rise up to replace you. Good Lord, it’s the end of the year… January’s upon us. What is there to look forward to in January, or February for that matter? I’ve got to wait until next December to feel this all over again?
No, you don’t.
Because Christmas is just an excuse to be charitable, to be a gift, to get to know Christ more, to spend time with family, and invest in those around you. It’s an opportunity that we’ve made it extremely convenient to take advantage of because the whole world seems to stop the week that it comes around. There’s nothing special about the day itself. It has a sunrise and a sunset, weather patterns are what they are. The only thing different is that we treat it differently.
We celebrate the coming of Christ, the salvation of mankind, we proclaim cries for peace on Earth and good will to men (provided we’re not in traffic over the holidays), we adorn our homes in glittering lights, give gifts to one another, and allow ourselves to be given to festival bliss. But all of this holiday cheer and festive joy is but a scant reflection of Heaven and God’s glory, and there will be a day on which that joy will never end and the holiday will continue forever. For the professing Christian, however, that holiday can begin now. Because Christmas is just the beginning. It’s the coming of the Lord, and the beginning of Heaven on Earth. And that’s why we shouldn’t be sad about Christmas being over—if we’re truly celebrating, we will carry it on into the year ahead. 
    What if, every day for the next year, you woke up with the perfect Christmas mindset, excited to begin the day, come what may? What if you made the time to see that family member that’s on your heart, to reach out to that friend that you know is struggling? What if you asked yourself, every day, “whom can I bless today? What gift can I give?” What if you started each day with that cry in your heart, “it’s Christmas!” What if, when given the opportunity to be bitter, you instead proclaimed, “it’s Christmas,” and let the offense slide away? What if you kept the spirit alive until next December? How wonderful of a year could you have? How much a blessing could you be to those around you?
    I confess, I’m writing this on December 29, and despite trying to keep this up for even a week, I’ve found myself stumbling. It’s not that easy to do, but I know it’s possible. I missed Christmas last year and the year before, and blamed it on my job, my schedule, everything but myself. This year, I told myself that I was going to capture the spirit of Christmas, and told myself almost every single day, “It’s Christmas,” for an entire month, and despite my schedule being busier than ever, I found that Christmas joy. 
I want to try this crazy challenge. I want to live every day in the spirit of Christmas, being deliberate to consider how I can use my time, talent, and treasures in the new year. Try to ask myself each day, the questions that have been hanging on my heart: what shall I do now? To whom can I be a gift?

    Try it with me.

The post #14: Everyday Christmas appeared first on EXPATS OF EDEN.

Some brief thoughts and considerations on Christmas, Christ, and recapturing the spirit of the season.

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Two years ago, I moved out of the private sector as an independent contractor to work in at a church. Where in the past my client work may have simply wound down at the close of the year, affording a large amount of empty space with which to reflect, my Novembers and Decembers became a frenzied blur of preparation for one of the church’s biggest events: Christmas Eve, when our attendance numbers multiply several times over for one glorious night as the churched and unchurched alike gather together to acknowledge that something unique is being celebrated.

I confess that for the last two years I have missed Christmas, the holidays becoming something to endure and “get through” rather than a time of festival joy and honest reflection on the “reason for the season.”
Much has changed within my heart over the last few months, which will be the subject of our next episode, but as Christmas is upon us once again, I wanted to take a moment to re-orient—to refocus my heart on God and the endeavor to live as an exile in this world. 
I am determined not to let Christmas pass by without truly imbibing in the season and its meaning. The coming of the King, the birth of Christ—God become flesh. The ultimate tale of exile: that one so Holy would condescend to a fallen world to be the sole shining light of hope, bearing up the consequence of the darkness, and spreading the truth so that that singular light might spread across the world, re-orienting our eyes heavenward in hope and wonder at what as been done on our behalf though we deserve it not.
—

In the beginning was the Word, and the word was with God, and Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.
Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.

In him was life, and that life was the light of men.
We were created in the image of God, holy and pure in his sight. He gave us the world and its fruit as gifts, and the care of the world as a job. He walked with us and talked with us, we knew him face to face.
Yet amidst all of these blessings, there was one fruit forbidden to us. “If you eat it,” God said, “you will surely die.”
Even so, we took the fruit, and ate it.
And with that, our fate was sealed.
We were cursed, broken, fallen, and driven away from God’s presence, doomed to wander a world no longer within our control- our hearts giving way to deeper sin and darkness.
Born into sin and cursed unto death, no one on earth can save us.
But God had other plans.
He promised that someday there would come a man who would undo this curse and save mankind.

And thus we watched, and waited for the coming of the Messiah who would deliver us from darkness.
“In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as he saw fit.” – The Book of Judges
The days turned to years, and the years turned to centuries- and human life continued down the cursed path we had brought upon ourselves.

But in his grace, God set apart a people through which he would save the world, God built a mighty nation, providing for, prospering, and leading them into the promised land.
But their hearts were fickle, and they quickly turned away.
Yet despite it all, God set apart a royal lineage through King David, through whom the messiah was promised to be born and rule over the earth.
But we did not want God’s chosen king. Though his prophets warned us, we would not listen.
And so we continued down the path we had chosen, suffering exile again and again.
But even in this, while we were still sinners, God remembered his promise to save us, and set apart a remnant for himself whose knees had never bowed before any idol.
And so it was, in the days of Caesar Augustus, ruler of the Roman Empire, that the Messiah would finally come.



Hear the words of the prophet Isaiah concerning the coming of the Messiah:
“Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.”
In the time of Herod, king of Judea, there lived a woman named Mary. She was a virgin, pledged to be wed to a carpenter named Joseph.
Before they could be married, God sent the angel Gabriel to Mary to deliver a message:
“You have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end.”
Through the years of exile, David’s line had continued.
The throne of Israel was empty, but there was always a living heir.
And so it was that Joseph, Mary’s husband took his pregnant bride with him to Bethlehem, the city of David, his homeland, where his son, the heir to the throne of Israel, would be born.

“Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the
Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”
Upon arrival to Bethlehem, it was time for Jesus to be born. But there was no room for the pregnant couple to stay at the inns in town.
Instead, Mary and Joseph were shown a stable- a home for the lowliest of animals. This was to be their lodging.
And it was in this most humble of places. That the Lord became flesh and came into the world.
No fanfare heralded his coming, the sole witnesses were his parents, and the beasts of burden that shared the stable.
But where man had failed to welcome the messiah, God once again had other plans.
He sent angels to announce the birth to a group of shepherds in the hills outside of Bethlehem. He placed a star in the sky that wise men from the East followed to Bethlehem, where they offered their gifts to a newborn king.
And so they went to worship and adore the baby Jesus, who would come to be known as “The Good Shepherd,” and the “King of Kings and the Lord of Lords”.
There, beneath the skies of Bethlehem, the messiah was born, and heralded into this world by the most unlikely of people.
Jesus grew into adulthood, growing in favor with both God and man. He called all who heard him preach to repentance and dedication to God.
He taught that he alone was the path to salvation:
“I am the way the truth and the life… believe in me.”

He performed miracles and healings, showing his power over the natural world.
He was tempted to sin like every one of us, but unlike us, never succumbed to the temptation.
He opened his heart and arms wide for those whom society had cast away, choosing not a life of luxury for himself, but the life of a homeless traveling teacher.
He lived a perfect and sinless life. The life any of us we should have lived.
He was loved. But he was also hated.
For preaching the word of God and claiming to be the Messiah, Jesus was betrayed into the hands of the Romans and sentenced to torture and death.
Fulfilling the words of Isaiah: He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.
And he was hung on a criminal’s cross, endured hours of pain until finally, he died. The King of Kings and light of the world slain by those he came to save. He died the death our sins deserved.
He was buried just before sundown, and his followers left, heartbroken.

How could this be the end, after all that they had seen?
Of course, it wasn’t.
For on the third day, the tomb was discovered to be empty.
Word began to spread that Jesus had been seen alive.
Some believed. Some did not.
But soon enough, both Jesus’s disciples and many who had never believed could no longer deny- Jesus had risen from the dead.
He appeared one final time to his disciples, charging them with the task of spreading the story of his life, his death, and his resurrection- spreading the story of the Good News, that “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
And then, in an instant, he ascended into Heaven, leaving behind another promise for a day when he would return:
“Look, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him; every knee will bow; by me every tongue will swear. In the Lord alone are righteousness and strength.’”
And so we watch, and we wait, for the return of Jesus Christ, the Messiah.

And while we watch and wait, we are charged to be the light of the world in Christ’s stead, to go forth and make disciples of all nations and spread the word of the coming Kingdom, that kingdom which is “not yet”, but that is all the same happening “now” as hearts and minds are renewed in Christ the world over. We are truly living in exile, expatriates of the paradise that was Eden, refugees of a Kingdom that is yet to be fully realized, sent forth as ambassadors to encourage all that would hear: come. 
Come.

The post #13: Advent appeared first on EXPATS OF EDEN.

In the wake of darkness light prevails, because one person loved someone enough to tell them that they were wrong.

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Since exhausting my prayer journal from 2015 and 16, the book I dubbed Sehnnsucht and set about to transcribe here, I have been faced with the bi-weekly conundrum of what to write about, what to set in wax and share with the wider world. I have a file cabinet drawer filled with my journals from the last 10 years, and thought I might glean some insight from a self long-passed. I picked up my oldest journal, from 2011-2012 to see what nuggets I might find. The writing recorded in the pages was miraculous, but for all the wrong reasons.
In those pages I saw first a hopeless romantic waxing poetic about the deeper truths of existence and adamantly defending his faith against an unrealized sociological foe—all the bad, bar-stool arguments against religion straw-manned and cut down in all of their erstwhile glory. The writing began neat and tidy, scrawled with fervent determination the first day on a job when nobody else had bothered to show up on time and this young gentleman was left to his own devices in an office he had no understanding nor preparation for. As the months and following year went by, however, I noticed a shift. The writing, so tidy, so concise, became jumbled and chaotic. Three or four words filling a line that once could hold a sentence. The vehemence in the writer’s stance that he was defending the true faith continued unsullied, but the caliber and coherence of said stance became that of a drunkard, a wraith. A self-assured wise man blathering on about things of which he knew less and less.
Absent context and recorded verbatim in a typed format with uniform font size, I wonder what the world might make of these thoughts. The chipping away of conviction as each month passed, the capitulation to the world system until the final passages reflected a world-view completely agreeable to the most ardent atheist.
I suppose folks might be pleased with such development. The fool-hardy religious child had, it seemed, discovered the truth about the world and adapted as such. He had defanged the Lion of Judah and gone on to present a Gospel that could offend no one. All in a day’s work.
I’ve seen this pattern reflected in the writings of many of my peers who set out those 10 years ago in a similar mindset. They began eager to defend the faith, but along the way capitulated to the world and gave ground to compromise and ultimately untruths, all the while trumpeting their triumph over the nonsense of ages past in light of their newfound enlightenment. I cannot speak to my colleagues personal faith walks, but I can speak to mine, because the Lord saw fit to cut it right short. You see, these entries were miraculous, yes, but context is the key to understanding why.
I know full well where my heart was during the months I’ve described. I know what I did during those months, the drugs that I took, the one-night stands, and the sheer hedonism I had partaken of. I know the rough locations and time-frames of the lost weekends, work-weeks, and finally months that transpired as I recorded my descent into the “deeper truths”. I further know the lies I told myself each and every day from the fall of 2011 until the spring of 2013 when the loaded revolver in my hand seemed a more fitting answer to my hunger after truth than anything that I had been pursuing. “Tomorrow will be better,” a daily mantra, “hang in there,” another, “the night is darkest before the dawn,” I knew my cliches down pat. Beyond those, I devised my own: “church folks are so damned judgmental, they’ll never understand where I’ve come from, and what’s more, how dare they expect me to adhere to their morality—I wasn’t raised that way, it’s a difference of upbringing.”
You’ll notice the implied virtue in each statement: all is contingent upon luck, and my own wherewithal to wait it out. There was no onus of change on my part, no demand that I better myself. I was, despite my protests to the contrary in my journal entries, relying on the world to change, never my heart nor my actions. Surely, I assured myself, surely God would alter the cosmos to reflect my own morality. Surely God would honor my steadfastness in brokenness, adamantly refusing to present anything remotely resembling a sin to him.
So where’s the miracle? Why are these entries anything more than the ramblings of a self-professed “wise man” swinging a wooden sword at windmills while his own world burns? Because I was the writer. I was the man. I was the fool and I can recognize my foolishness for what it was. I see the failure of logic and morality behind each entry and can disavow each and every line in the present.
    More than this, however, I know where I was headed in the midst of it all, and know the consequences. That I emerged from this lifestyle at all and can live to speak out against it is, in itself, a miracle.
    I credit God for the miracle, above anything else. God saw my heart throughout it all. Christ sat beside me during each of the damned rituals I partook of in the meantime, and the Holy Spirit cried out day in and day out that something needed to change. But how? How could anything change when I was unwilling to listen to the Divine calling? A wise teacher once said that God speaks in different ways in different seasons. A way that he calls each of us in a community, however, is through other believers. And this is precisely how he got my attention.

    Where was I when the Lord called me from damnation to salvation? Pre-2013, I had two answers, the first that I had always just “believed in God,” the other that “God became real to me after a suicidal episode in 2007, and that was when I believed,” my answer now is simple: back on that lonely road, I-16 between Savannah and Dublin, Georgia, headed home for Atlanta from college.
    It wasn’t quite the final ride home from the semester, I know that because I returned with sermons blaring from my speakers and a desire to convert my unbelieving girlfriend. It was close to the final drive, however, because I had taken to wearing flip flops in the spring months and was completely assured of myself…until I wasn’t.

    The months preceding this experience had been harrowing: I had set out in November of 2012 with a successful Kickstarter campaign and $12,000 of crowd-funded capital plus my own savings to realize my dream: the production of a feature-length motion picture. By April 20 of 2013, our designated release date chosen so as to coincide with marijuana user’s favorite holiday, I was a shell of a man. I hadn’t slept the week leading up the release, pouring over second after second, frame after frame of the 90-minute movie until I was confident that we were releasing the best possible product. When we finally released the picture, I fell into bed and didn’t get up for several days.
    One of my producers, my best friend and future best man at my wedding, had been in touch during this time. He had shown a great deal of loyalty and resilience during production, quitting his full-time job and foregoing the security of a paycheck in order to realize my dreams of “going Hollywood.” He had slept on my floor and eaten  what I could bring from the campus cafeteria for several months while we wrapped filming, and in the despair that such a situation inevitably brings, had re-discovered his faith.
    We were recording the commentary for the movie in Atlanta a week or so after the movie’s release and stepped out for a smoke. I had always talked a big game about my faith and God’s faithfulness, and this night was no different. “Preston man,” I said, “I can’t believe it, but we’re finally here. The movie’s done, and I can’t wait to see what God has in store for us.”
    Preston was quiet.
“What?” I asked.
    It took him a long while to formulate his thoughts. I expected a sermon, but his response was simple enough, and all the more convicting: “Thorne, I don’t think God’s all that happy with either of us, and anything that we’ve done here.”
    I was thunderstruck. How could he say this? We had been fighting this battle for months now, and now that we were on the other side, we were going to capitulate that we were in the wrong all the while?
    He continued: “I’ve thought about it, I’ve talked about it with my parents and grandparents, and the fact is: I can’t show this movie to anyone I really care about. My poor Mimi would have a heart-attack if she saw what I’ve poured my time and energy into over the last six-months. If this is what it takes to make it in the film industry, I’d rather go back to driving trucks for $15 an hour. At least then I knew where I stood with God and didn’t have to make excuses.”
    I too had felt the shame of the project. We had not written the movie but merely adapted other people’s words, and the fact was that the content we were adapting for the screen would not have secured an R-rating if properly submitted to the MPAA. It would have secured an NC-17. Equivalent to an X rating. Pornographic. Reprehensible. But we had done it, right? We had made the movie and were on the other side! The next movie, I assured myself, would be better, and much more God honoring. You’ve got to pay your dues, you’ve got to prove your worth! You’ve got to do what you’ve got to do so you can finally do what you’ve always wanted! Right?
    Right?
    I ultimately conceded the point.
    I could lie to myself about the movie, but Preston was right. We had sold our souls for notoriety, and I was the ringleader of it all. I had lead my friends astray chasing a pipe-dream and securing a fine millstone around my neck in the process.
    “You should listen to this,” Preston said, pulling a CD from his coat pocket. “I was in church this past week and this sermon…well, I think God wants you to hear it.”
    I looked at the disc: it was a sermon from The Church of The Apostles in Atlanta, the church where Preston had grown up and where I had been an infrequent attender. The sermon itself was on the book of Haggai. I don’t recall the title.
    I left the CD in my car for a few weeks after that until it was time for me to return to Atlanta for I know not what reason. On that drive, before I had even gotten out of the Savannah metropolitan area, something compelled me to listen to that CD. I wasn’t prepared for what was to come.
    The sermon spoke of the remnant of Israel who had returned under King Zerubbabel from the Babylonian exile to rebuild the temple of God in Jerusalem. It seems that their labors to rebuild were skupped in the face of trying to build up their own homesteads and fortunes, leaving the temple in shambles. The prophet Haggai is sent by God to exhort and convict the people, stating that “they ought not to look to their own homes when the Lord’s home was in shambles,” (my own paraphrasing). Haggai goes on to comfort them, saying that they had begun in the right mindset and spirit, but had been misguided by the world. Softly and tenderly, he calls them to resume their work.
    And resume they did. And the Lord blessed their work and their own individual homesteads in the process.
    I pulled into my driveway in Atlanta, not a changed man, but a changing man. This sermon spoke to my heart, called out the folly of my own delusions of grandeur, and called me back to a pure pursuit of the Lord.
    I began to consume the other sermons on offer from the church. I began to preach in my own fallen fashion to those around me about what I had heard. It cost me friendships, it cost me the relationship I was in at the time (for the best, I assure you,) and ultimately set me on a downward spiral of ego-death that resulted in a season of growth… and ultimately to the journal that started this series. It was my great-awakening. It was my ultimate conversion. It was my salvation story, and it came because a friend cared enough to tell me that I was wrong.

    Flash forward three years to 2016. I was back to parent’s house, suffering from extraordinary existential angst, and convicted by God that something had to change. The recurring theme, in prayer, was simple: “community.”
    “What community?” I thought defiantly, “those church folks have never understood me, they don’t know where I’ve been or what I’ve done, why should I go back to them?”
    You know, truthfully, I don’t know what the answer was to that plea. I just know that God called me to community, and somewhere along the way I responded to that call and went back to my then irregularly-attended Bible study, the same community of believers that had originally lead me to my then girlfriend and now wife. And you know what? It was a blessing all its own.
    To be a part of a group of people that held no reservations about one another, but strove as a group to empower each other to become better in the name of Jesus Christ, that was everything that I’d been missing up until that point.

    I found a backpack from 2010, my first year in college. It had a torn bandana tied to one of the straps, from my freshman orientation at Baylor College. We had been asked to write down our prayer requests for the years to come and keep the bandanas with us until the prayers were answered. At the time I had written two things: “close the carnival,” a reference to my emotional instability, something that was ultimately solved by my walk with Christ, and “bring me brethren,” an earnest plea for a place where I belonged.
    I had never felt that I had “fit in” anywhere. Not in high school where I was too artsy, not in college, an art school, where I was too conservative and religious, not in everyday conversation where both of those failings would rear their ugly head—nowhere.
    That is, until I found that group and started showing up every week.
    Where once I had feared not having enough friends to fill out a wedding party, I had to cut people from the party itself in lieu of offering them other jobs in the ceremony. I had found belonging, I had found my true family.
    I found a true “church,” a place where broken people—engineers, web developers, entrepreneurs, teachers, bankers, artisans, and all other sorts of folks with seemingly nothing in common gathered together to share the one thing—the deepest and truest thing that they did have in common: Jesus Christ.
    I’m fairly confident that I burned that bandana. The prayers had been answered.
    And I reflect on an entry in my journal from 2015, about standing before a veil beyond which my true family walked without me and I wonder: had this dream finally come to pass?
    Yes, I think. Yes.

And so, the New Year came and 2017 and the slow pace of the first financial quarter set in. No clients would call for at least a month, and we had no expenses. It was time to set our hands towards a project more our style, and actually invest in a community of believers.

The post #12: Brethren appeared first on EXPATS OF EDEN.

In the days between the crucifixion and resurrection, all seemed to be lost. What were Christ’s disciples to think now that the Messiah was dead and buried? What good could possibly have come from it? We in the modern church have the benefit of seeing the full story, and how God worked through the Passion of Christ to save the lost.

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In the days that followed the “piggy bank incident,” time took on a darker tone. Days were still long and wrought with anxiety, a sense of impending doom pervaded my heart and soul. The television program I was working on, originally the source of so much hope became a black hole of time and mental energy.

One by one the perks fell away. We were castigated by the showrunner at every turn: for wanting to negotiate a contract, for wanting adequate credit for our work in lieu of a proper paycheck, and ultimately for mentioning Jesus by name. The former we could stomach, the latter was unconscionable. Numerous times we set our minds to the task of getting out of the contract we had fought so hard to secure, but for nigh on six months we labored, fighting battle after battle as we began to feel the consequences of burnout. The reason was simple: our work was ultimately speaking for itself and we were gaining ground with our creative decisions—not to mention our insistence to remain true to Christ in all aspects. We told the board of directors point blank that if they wished to cut the name of Christ from the episodes, they would need to fire us. They didn’t. And so we fought.

By the end of the season we had had enough, but were able to walk away satisfied in our labor. We had fulfilled our contract, though Netflix ultimately refused the showrunner’s insistent requests to meet. Though ultimately a failure of a project, and a frankly inefficient use of our time financially, working on that television show had taught both my business partner and I a valuable lesson: just what it meant to take up a cross and follow after Christ.

The days were still dark, my soul was still troubled, but I had carried a heavy load a great distance and grown up somewhere along the trail. The fact is that the burden was one worth carrying, no matter the cost. We had endeavored to make much from little, to glorify God by reflecting the good work He had done in the lives of the show’s numerous subjects, and to not sugar coat the truth of the Gospel. This show would be seen by children across the nation enduring their own struggles. It was our duty to ensure that they did not hear more moralistic, relativist platitudes about “boot-strapping” one’s way through the school of hard knocks, but the honest truth of beauty being brought from ashes, and the genuine heroism that comes from the humbling and sacrifice of self in the name of a greater good. They didn’t need a motivational speech, they needed Jesus.

It’s two years later, and I feel as if I’m at the end of a similar stretch of laboring. There has been much work to be done professionally and personally, long hours and late nights and more tears than I’d like to remember. It has been labor, a cross to bear, but I can’t help but recognize that across that expanse there has been dross burned from my heart and many lessons learned.

It seems counter-intuitive in the difficult moments, and no matter how many times you’ve crossed through the deserts and valleys and caught a glimpse of the next mountain-top vista, the interminable stress of the present conflict has a unique way of blinding us to the reality that our strivings after Christ are not in vain, and that the clouds will someday lift. There is much to be learned from the desert country and valleys, but perhaps none quite like the lesson that, good or bad, God does in fact work all things together for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.

This weekend I participated in the planning and execution of an art exhibition commemorating Good Friday for a local church. We collected donations from across the congregation and community at large and arranged them in a themed display that spoke to the importance of this season. Last year we held a similar opening themed around the concept of “creation, fall, and redemption” as envisioned by three trees: the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, the Tree of the Curse (the Cross at Calvary), and the Tree of Life in the New Heaven and New Earth. This year our theme was that of “beauty in disparity,” exploring the account of Christ’s death and resurrection, and how it showcases God’s work to weave hardship and chaos into a beautiful tapestry of intent and purpose. As with many things in my life, it seemed an impossible undertaking at the outset, but came together by the grace of God. That is another story, however. In light of the Easter season and all it represents, I’d like to discuss the exhibit itself. It was entitled: Woven.

In the days between the crucifixion and resurrection, all seemed to be lost. What were Christ’s disciples to think now that the Messiah was dead and buried? What good could possibly have come from it? We in the modern church have the benefit of seeing the full story, and how God worked through the Passion of Christ to save the lost.

The exhibit begins with The Last Supper, exploring the themes of celebration and sacrifice. According to Church Tradition, the Thursday prior to Easter is called Maundy Thursday, the night of the Jewish Passover, the Festival of Unleavened Bread. The Passover is a celebration of God’s liberation of Israel from bondage. The Biblical account in Exodus describes the sacrifice of innocent lambs whose blood were to be spread on the door frames of each Israelite home. The blood was to serve as a sign that the household was set apart, so that the Angel of Death would “pass over” as it lay waste to Egypt. This episode of scripture culminates with the Israelite exodus from Egypt, the crossing of the Red Sea, and the foundation of their nation in the deserts on the other side. It is a time of remembrance and celebration for what God has done, yes, but it is tempered by the somber sacrifice of the innocent lamb whose blood upon the post and lintels marked those spared of God’s wrath—the lamb who would be ultimately fulfilled in Jesus Christ, who was betrayed that very night after founding our sacrament of Communion: the breaking of bread and drinking of bitter wine in remembrance for the events that were to follow.

The exhibit then moves to The Garden of Gethsemane to explore the themes of fear and courage. Knowing full well about his imminent betrayal and all that would follow, Jesus retired to the Garden of Gethsemane to pray alone—for his closest friends could not stay awake to keep watch with him. In fear and agony he begged to be spared the dreadful ordeal to come—the full force of God’s wrath poured out upon his entire being in exchange for the pardon of all who would profess faith in him. Repeatedly he asked if there wasn’t another way for this story to unfold, another plan for mankind’s salvation, yet all the while he set aside his preference in deference to the will of God. There was no other plan, no other road to salvation. So, despite the looming reality of cosmic annihilation, Christ laid down his will in exchange for The Father’s. In courage, then, he stood to face his captors, for courage is not the  lack of fear, but merely action in the face of it. And, after they fell to the ground at his affirmation that it was him whom they sought, they lead him away towards judgment and torment.

Our next station brought us to the streets of Jerusalem and the future shores of Galilee to examine denial and affirmation. So bold was the apostle Peter, swearing to not only stand by Jesus, but to die for him. He was proven a coward that very night. He, along with the rest of the disciples, fled in terror at the sight of the Roman contingent. Later that night, Peter was confronted three times about his involvement with Christ’s ministry. Each time, he denied it, much to his shame. The culmination of this episode is not in Peter’s humbling, but in his redemption. Later, after Christ’s resurrection, on the shores of Galilee, Peter was granted the chance to affirm his commitment to Jesus. Three times he was asked whether or not he loved Jesus. Peter affirmed his love and commitment each time, his affirmation tuned to perfection by the harrowing events that came before. Later, tradition holds that Peter would eventually be confronted again for his commitment to Jesus and participation in the founding of the early church. This time, Peter did not waver, and fulfilled his original oath: to suffer and die for Christ on a cross of his own.

We did not dwell on the torture of Christ, instead focusing on its ultimate realization: the crucifixion, and the condemnation and grace it reflects. Crucifixion was a ghastly form of execution meant to humiliate and torment its victims. Tied or nailed to a cross, often stripped naked and exposed to the elements, traitors, thieves, murderers, and the vilest of society were left to suffocate to death or die from exposure—whichever came first. It was upon a criminal’s cross that the innocent Jesus was ultimately fixed following a night of brutal torture at the hands of the Romans. Hanging there, beaten, bloodied, and likely hideously deformed from his ordeal, Jesus bore the full condemnation of God’s wrath—the fair exchange for the souls of men. Even so, in the depths of despair, he extended his grace and forgiveness to a thief who was hung next to him, and to those who hammered the very nails that fixed him there even as they divided his clothing among them. I contemplate the names past, present, and future that flitted through his dying mind during those final moments. The names of those for whom he was dying, their crimes against humanity and God deeply known and felt. For how long must those moments have lasted as the full brunt of human depravity was paid for by his blood and agony? At which point must my name have crossed his mind? I thank God that the plea for forgiveness extended to the Romans, “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do,” was recorded as assurance that though I am complicit in his crucifixion, by his wounds I have been saved.

“It is finished.” His last words.

The earth shook and other natural and supernatural phenomena, including an apparent mass haunting as the dead sprang to life in the city, brought terror down upon all those in attendance. “Surely,” one present is recorded to have said, “this was the son of God,” recognition that deicide had been committed to the thunderous applause of a fallen nation. Within the temple, the curtain separating the Holy of Holies from the outside world, a curtain signifying the denial of access to God directly was torn down the middle: no longer would broken men and women be separated from God if they sought an audience.

And, as the sun began to set on Good Friday, Christ’s followers took his body from the cross to entomb it without ceremony in the grave of an aristocrat—even as Judas, his betrayer, found eternal rest in a Potter’s Field, a graveyard for the derelict and vagrants of the city.

The first day, Good Friday, ended.

The second day, Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath, passed. In what manner of spiritual anguish must those who loved Jesus have passed those quiet hours? They had had such faith. They had believed the fulfillment of their entire cultural history had come in the life and ministry of Christ. What now? If the Christ could be killed, what hope was there for Israel? What hope was there for anyone? Surely death and Hades would triumph, forever consuming the souls of all those damned to be born upon our orphaned planet. Were there those with faith still yet kindled on that bleak Sabbath? Did anyone suspect what was to come?

The second day ended.

The third day began.

Female followers of Christ set out to make good on what ceremony they could, arriving at the tomb to wash and anoint their fallen Lord. Yet, the tomb had been ransacked. The massive stone which had been lashed and fixed with a Roman seal had been cast aside by an inconceivable force. Who could have done such a mighty thing? What’s more, the corpse had vanished; only linen wrappings remained. Who could be so monstrous as to defile the corpse of an itinerant preacher by stripping it bear and carrying it off into the night?

The women sought out the gardener, pleading that they might yet still find their broken savior. But they did not find the gardener, instead they found the most wondrous sight attested to in the annals of world history: Jesus, the doomed and desecrated would-be messiah was not dead… but alive. Restored to life, recovered from his torment—save for the scars of the wounds he had suffered. Thomas Aquinas once wrote that: “It was fitting for Christ’s soul at His Resurrection to resume the body with its scars. In the first place, for Christ’s own glory. For Bede says on Luke 24:40 that He kept His scars not from inability to heal them, “but to wear them as an everlasting trophy of His victory.” Victory over sin, victory over death, victory for all who would come to know and love him forever amen.

He sent the women out from that place to evangelize to a historically patriarchal society—a further sign of Christ’s usurpation of the status quo. And evangelize they did, proclaiming that “He is risen,” the wondrous cry of victory echoed in unknown scores of foreign tongues each and every year on Easter Sunday. For he is risen indeed, and never died again.

We linger at the tomb at the end of our exhibition to contemplate that call to action. Truly, “it is finished,” Christ declared it so upon the cross at Calvary. He paid the ultimate price so that sinners like me would not have to. The saving act of mankind was done and we reflected that with one our final themes: completion. Completion in the redemption of all who would believe. But this completion is tempered by the Great Commission that followed his resurrection: the call to action for all who call him Lord to go forth and proclaim that “he is risen,” to make disciples of all nations, to embody Christ for the world, ensured of his saving work and eternal counsel. Commission. Our final theme, and the end of our exhibit.

Across these five stations, numerous pieces hung. Some were religious, but oddly enough, most were not. A cornucopia of works wrent by hands who call Christ Lord, each one affixed with twine leading to the rafters where we hung a massive snarl of ropes festooning across the gallery space, strings and ropes from all of our themes: celebration, sacrifice, fear, courage, denial, affirmation, condemnation, grace, completion, and commission, all ultimately being woven together around a humble cross bearing blood stains and nail marks in the center of it all.

And such is all of life. Thank God it is not ours to make sense of.

The post #11: Woven appeared first on EXPATS OF EDEN.

We all remember the mountaintop experiences, where we feel as though we can touch Heaven. But those experiences are few and far between. Most of life is lived beneath the clouds in the valley, and often, in spiritual deserts.

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A few years ago, I was hired by a friend of mine to run camera for a small non-for-profit that was sponsoring a cyclist in the annual Race Across America bicycle race. For two weeks, nine days of which were spent on the road, we lived life-on-life with the heads of the organization, “Hope 4 Gabe,” as well as the organization’s namesake, Gabe himself. Diagnosed at an early age with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, Gabe was fighting for his life on a daily basis, but he wasn’t fighting alone. His father had started the organization to raise awareness and funds for medical research to cure the disease, and their primary fundraising effort had become ultra-distance bicycle races. The year prior, the cyclists had made their way from the Northern United states down to Alabama, and this year a single cyclist, Brian Toone, was embarking on a cross-country ride from Ocean Side, California to Annapolis, Maryland. He was projected to finish his ride, all 3000+ miles, in 10 days. The idea was that the physical toll that these rides take on cyclists was an observable reflection of the physical toll that Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy takes on its victims. As Gabe’s father put it, Brian Toone started in California completely energized, just as Gabe was before his diagnosis. When he arrived at the first waystation in Prescott, Arizona, 373 miles from the starting line, he was barely able to walk and had to be physically assisted to the hotel room where he would recoup for a few hours. This, Scott said, in the span of a few days, was the same physical degeneration that Gabe had experienced over the past several years. The catch was that Brian Toone was going to recover. Without a cure, Gabe was not.


    We spent those nine days crossing the country, mainly on county highways and backroads, overlapping and documenting Brian’s ride as he passed out of California by way of the desert, rode through Monument Valley, Utah, at sunset, crossed the Great Divide in Colorado, traversed the great plains into the Ozarks, across the rust belt, before finding his way into Appalachia and finally, to the shining sea. So many memories. And yet, the truly memorable moments of that two-week stretch probably only amount to a few hours across the entirety of the venture. The majority of those days were spent in transit. Driving or riding interminable hours through deserts, plains, and forests.

    By the end of it, so much had changed. Our group had transformed: along that journey there were support crewmembers who dropped in and dropped out. Greetings and goodbyes, the forging and breaking of fellowship. Moreso, our perspective had changed. We had seen the country not from the sky nor the interstate, but intimately: from backroads and byways that the majority of travelers will never see. When we arrived in Maryland, it was hard to even consider that we had traveled so many miles in such a short period of time. The beginnings in California seemed like another lifetime.

    But when Brian Toone turned that final corner and pedalled on through the finish line, time seemed to stand still. I looked around and saw that everybody—all of the crew members from every stage of the journey, family and friends who were present at the send off in California but didn’t travel along with the support team, folks that I had forgotten over the last two weeks, everybody—were there, waiting to greet him and cheer him on in the final moments. It was a grand homecoming, as if no time had passed at all. The fact that he crossed the finish line at golden hour added to the effect and echoed something eternal in the same way that a wedding ceremony does. He crossed the stage to receive his medal and I noted just how beaten he and the other cyclists seemed. Like wild-west outlaws who had died bad deaths, they stood shoulder to shoulder, limp faced as the photographer snapped their portraits. But even so, the journey was complete, the struggle was done. All of those miles crossing the country began to dim and fade  in the face of completion, but the landmarks stood out all the same. It made me consider some of the finer points of sanctification I had learned the year prior, and how misguided I had been in my pursuit of Christ.

When we read the Bible, it’s easy to be flippant with the accounts within. “This happened, then this happened, so and so begat so and so, and then God showed up and wiped them out.” Rinse and repeat. That sort of reading neglects a crucial point of scripture, however: that it records distinct moments in time that are spread out across years and centuries. Much of the milieu of day to day life, most of the lives of the heroes of faith even, are absent from the written record. Those details are lost in the spaces between paragraphs, the moments when God wasn’t overtly present and making a point. You see, we all remember the mountaintop experiences, the landmarks of our walks with the Lord wherein we feel as though we can touch Heaven. But we often forget and neglect the fact that much of our walks take place beneath the clouds, down in the valley, and often times in spiritual deserts.

    When Rebekah and I started dating in April of 2016, I was at the tail end of a mountaintop experience with God. I had ventured forth into the wilderness, I had sought after God, I had sinned greatly, repented drastically, and taken a great leap of faith into the void. My prayer life was flourishing, each day’s reading of the Bible seemed like opening a brand new text. I was beginning to date the woman who I would eventually marry. In my mind there was little that could get in my way. Without recognizing that moment for what it was, I began to descend beneath the clouds of the mountain and back into the valley.

Rebekah took a one-year residency at a therapeutic boarding school in Texas two months into our relationship, and I was, at first, devastated. Yet I still had some afterglow about me following my time on the mountaintop, and I committed to growing as an individual while she did the same 1,000 miles away. No big deal. The summer of 2016 passed with little victories: my business partner and I were finally able to purchase some legitimate equipment, forever circumventing the irksome rental process if we wished to work for a client or ourselves. We produced some original short films that we were quite happy with. We were finally taking steps with our business that seemed a long time coming until finally, we were brought onboard to associate produce and edit a television series, updating old broadcast episodes with new branding and pacing to be sold to Netflix.

It was a dream come true. And then it wasn’t.

Nearly every month while Rebekah was out in Texas, I made the trek from Atlanta, west along I-20, to see her. I got very good at the drive, knowing exactly how to pace my departure and driving speeds in order to avoid the worst of the speed traps and traffic in the cities I passed through. On one of the return drives early on, an overnight venture accompanied by Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Cost of Discipleship, a deep sense of existential dread set in. What if, I thought, I was mistaken about my faith? What if I was merely wise in my own eyes? What if I wasn’t truly saved?

    I arrived back in Atlanta at 9am and immediately drove to the church and requested a meeting with my mentor to discuss these things. He suggested that I was possibly asking these questions because I was about to enter a stage of spiritual adolescence. I had come back to faith in Christ three years prior, and it seemed likely that I was about to enter a period of intense growth. He encouraged me to read the New Testament and pray on the transition. I walked out of the meeting feeling slightly better, but still in doubt.

    Things began to fall apart soon after.

In the wake of taking on the show, my other clients fell away and I was faced with the prospect of losing my home again. It being so close to the renewal date, I opted to move out early and ride out the lease. Business would pick up eventually, but why expend so much money on an apartment when I could live at home with my folks and save while we rebuilt this television program?

We very soon learned why so many of the show’s above-the-line crew had either quit or been fired over the last few years. The pay was pittance and the showrunner had a God complex. Even so, it was a break, right? We were finally working above-the-line on something that could be seen by a large audience. What’s more, the show was for a church market, surely being able to glorify Christ through our work was the greatest win for any Christian. We dove into the show with more passion and fervor than anything we’d ever done before. This, we reasoned, was God’s call for our lives.

We agreed to an insane production schedule. 200 minutes of content edited from scratch within a three week timespan. Tensions ran high, then ebbed again as we worked through the project in prayer. At some point I stopped sleeping.

One Sunday morning, I lay awake in bed, jittery from caffeine and an all-nighter working on the show. I could feel it in my body that it was probably ideal that I don’t go to church, but I thought better. I was so convinced of God’s anointing on what I was doing that I prayed, felt self-assured, and went anyway.

The sermon was convicting, the worship even moreso. It’s difficult for me to discuss what transpired during that service, only that it was a final flash of the mountaintop, a religious experience very similar to my conversion event, that lit my heart on fire that God’s will for my life was to “keep moving” in my career, to stand in the face of the sea and press onward. I was on top of the world, eager to relate my newfound insight to any who would listen.

I had picked up another client to help smooth over the transition away from my apartment lease. I was due in McDonough, Georgia at 8am the very next day. For the first time in a while, riding the high of this religious experience at church, I was excited to make the drive and see what there was to see. I went to bed that night eager to discover what God had for me. But I couldn’t sleep.

That sleeplessness extended out for a week, each night becoming an exercise in futility as I tossed and turned. Panic set in, and somewhere in there I suffered a nervous breakdown in front of my client. I had good enough rapport that I did not lose the client, but still, it happened, and it was a nightmare realized. On the drive home that day I prayed, and felt an overwhelming sense of anxiety and imminent doom wash over me. I began to tremble and shake—it was the first and only panic attack that I have ever suffered.

    I continued to pray, but instead of comfort I felt condemnation. I saw my life through clear eyes for the first time in years. I saw the pain that I caused others, my personal failures, all of my destructive habits, my workaholism that had driven me insane, and what had all of my efforts done for me? Where had they lead? To a lonely, cold, basement apartment. Living with my parents again at the age of 25. There was a deep sense of failure, but even moreso the feeling of conviction that I had been wandering astray. I remember clutching my shirt and desperately wishing to tear it from my body. In the Old Testament there’s repeated episodes of those convicted by God rending their garments in sorrow. I know what they meant by that now.

    Existential horror loomed over me. Each day was a moment-to-moment grasp for anything that might take my mind off of the looming question: “what if you’re not really a Christian? What if you are a hellbound heart?” I began to fear the end of the world, and the crumbling of all that I held dear.

    I continued to cry out to God. God, it seemed, did not hear me.

    One sleepless night found me at my old apartment, pouring over paperwork to find my checkbook. I desperately wanted help and knew of an intensive course at the church entitled “Living Waters” that might be just what the doctor ordered.

    I signed up. They took me. Yet, still, I was in the grip of anxiety.

    Days bled into one another. I don’t know how much time passed. A month, maybe two.

    One night, in the depths of sleepless despair, I prayed again. Nothing. I wandered through the darkened house searching for something. It may have been a Bible, but I don’t remember. What I do remember is opening a cabinet and my little sister’s ceramic piggy bank falling out and shattering to pieces on the kitchen floor. I stooped to pick it up, lamenting one more failure in the destruction of a uniquely crafted, much loved object. “I can fix this,” I thought.

    I collected the pieces, sat down at the table, and set to work. Each piece required delicate precision and intense care to fasten back in place. The task, it seemed, was too great. But no matter, I loved my sister, I was going to make things right. Then it clicked.

    I was broken. Broken worse than the piggy bank, broken worse than I could ever imagine. I didn’t need to be “OK” and at peace with myself, I didn’t need to achieve and find identity in works. I needed to be fixed. In all of my chasing after God, in all of contemplation on His holiness, in all of my efforts to “be a good Christian,” I was neglecting one supremely important point: The Gospel. I was so concerned with God’s wrath that I neglected to consider His grace. That Christ had died for me, that I might be saved from destruction—both cosmic and self-imposed.

    Did this realization heal my anxiety? Not on your life. Did it radically change my perspective? Absolutely.

    I was still walking in the desert. My prayer life still seemed tepid and devoid of answers, but I marched forward through the haze, resolute in the fact that I was being heard, no matter if I “felt it” or not.

The post #10: Into the Desert appeared first on EXPATS OF EDEN.

A wedding, a honeymoon, and a perilous outing on the river bring up concern of idols and how to best live one’s life.

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A month ago, the day after my wedding, I uploaded my pre-recorded account of God’s blessings leading up to and, at the time, hopefully including my wedding day, and contemplated what the future might hold. As I have stated before, this podcast and blog has been a long-overdue outlet for writing that is now over three years old, seen through the lens of my current perception. That’s all well and good, but there are very few pages left in that old journal. I have been keeping shorthand notes for years on different musings and contemplations, but eventually, if I keep this up, I’ll be writing and recording in real time, and that troubles me. You see, the struggles I reflect on in my writing are easily recognized three years down the trail, but in the moment, absent my commentary and reflection, I thought myself to be in-tune and in the right. It took stumbling and failure to see my hubris, and where idols had sprung up in my life. I am concerned that if I begin writing and recording in real-time, I won’t have the same degree of accountability, and as such will have to keep an ever-more vigilant watch over my heart.  I don’t make the same exact mistakes twice, but I do make the same type of mistakes again and again. My marriage, wonderful as it is, has exposed this truth, and what’s more, my heart.



    For years I have heard that there are a few landmark “happiest” moments in a person’s life. A month ago, I crossed one off of my life list: my wedding day.

    How shall I relate the joy of that day? Any attempt to record it will seem cheap and dim. It was day on which heaven touched earth very briefly, yet distinctly, and all in attendance were privy to that fact—especially those who had no conception for it ahead of time. Of all of the well-wishes that have followed from that day, none have stood out quite like those of unbelieving friends and family who were astounded at the sense of love, warmth, and overflowing joy that emanated from not only myself and my beautiful bride, but likewise from the community that God has brought us into. It brought to mind the scriptural teaching that the world would know Christ’s believers by the love they showed one another. Sure enough, the witness was there.

    I’ve been turning back the pages of my wedding gift to my bride, a hand-bound journal chronicling our relationship, and now our marriage, and with each summary sentence of the day’s memorable moments, precious sacred scenes flash by my sight and I am again humbled at how truly blessed we have been in our romance. What could I possibly relate that could summarize that day?

    The night before when my brother and I, in a last hurrah, pranked the bridal party by banging on windows around the venue before patching Jocelyn Pook’s “Masked Ball” into the A/V system? In my revelry I witlessly cut power to the reception hall, making it exceptionally easy for my bride-to-be to track me down. As I crept back around the building she threw a door open and I saw her briefly in silhouette before I ran, shrieking, and ducked into the cattle paddocks, fleeing for dear life as “the bride” stalked after me, calling out “Thorne Winter,” into the frigid night.

    I climbed back up to the A/V booth and urged my brother to hide, “game over man!” but it was to no avail. The door flew open once more and we were found out, and succinctly doused in freezing water and publically humiliated. It was glorious.

    The ceremony itself: lining up outside, a feeling of peaceful finality coupled with frenetic electric trepidation at the gravity of it all. The image of Christ and the Church before the throne of God: the wedding party, closest friends prior to the union, looking ever-so-much like the twelve disciples standing beside the altar. Then, my bride, radiant and joyous, and living up to the meaning of her name: “captivating.” So many memories from that night will be remembered only in photos, because I so seldom looked away from her from that moment on.

    Our vows, custom-written. I had writer’s block leading up to the big day, and finished mine the night before:

    I once was but a traveller,
    Set firmly towards the sea,
    Caring not for none but I,
    No thought for us nor “we.”

    Then all at once I knew myself,
    Knew the lonely ties that bind,
    Then, in fear, I made my way,
    Leaving woe and strife behind.

    Till finally there, upon a shore,
    Bright shining as the sun,
    I left my burdens to themselves,
    And then, the battle won.

    For then, no sooner, had I dropped
    My burden by the shore,
    By Christ’s own light,
    And none my own,
    I found love and so much more.

    You, my bride, I love you dear,
    Let not my heart e’er stray,
    Might I keep a steady watch by night,
    And at the break of day.

    May I ever hearken close to thee,
    May I ever seek thy heart,
    And until the Lord may call us home,
    Let our hearts not drift apart.

Our officiate, our mutual mentor who had counseled us before and during our relationship preached a sermon on how Rebekah and I complemented one another: how she drew me out of my shell, and how I kept her more carefree personality grounded.

Communion together, prayer, and finally: the kiss.   

After the ceremony: bountiful barbecue, the humorous sight of my grandmother nearly kissing one of my groomsmen, my bride singing to me during our first dance, the tearful father-daughter dance to “Butterfly Kisses”, the lighthearted mother-son dance to “Stand By Me” that devolved halfway through into a choreographed “Thriller” dance-session fitting of a flash mob. The roar of the crowd, the joy in the air, the sparklers blazing as we made our escape—Rebekah fell getting into the carriage and sported a bruised shin for the first two weeks of our marriage. The horse pulling the carriage getting spooked ten yards away from our car and nearly bolting into the night–

Then it was over. The long drive home. And then, I cried.

I cried because our wedding was everything that we had ever wanted it to be. I cried because it was perfect. It was Christ-centric. It was God-honoring. But more than that, I cried because it was truly a slice of Heaven. And yet, by the end of it…we had wanted to leave.

The first week of marriage was a whirlwind of conflicting emotions as the inevitable dopamine crash of the “big day” hit the next morning. It scared the daylights out of my wife to see me alternate between being overjoyed at our marriage and a sobbing mess at the prospect of never getting to eat our wedding meal again as it was specially catered by a family friend. Me at one moment gushing at how beautiful the ceremony and reception were and then immediately weeping over the exact same thing. It was so incredibly humbling to see how many people showed up to help prepare for and celebrate our wedding day. I won’t try to list their names here because I’ll forget someone and never be able to forgive myself.

I’m very glad to have those strange first days behind me.

We honeymooned in Asheville, North Carolina, took in the splendor of the city and the wilderness surrounding it, living life-on-life in a way neither of us had before and, finally, returned home.

The honeymoon was over, back to real life.

The daily grind, the familiar schedule, now complicated by another life.

I wish I could say that we remained joyful and happy throughout the complications of our new life, but I would be lying.

We have laughed and cried together, argued and reconciled, counseled and annoyed one another. We’re living life together, and I couldn’t be happier.

That’s how I feel right now, as I write this. But the fact is that this month has opened my eyes to the fact that though I am a married man, there is still a great trail ahead of me, and much work to be done.

When we argue, it tends to be over matters of communication: chiefly that I am terrible at it. If not communication, then I will be brooding and somber and unable or willing to articulate it. My recurring excuse: “I need some time to be creative, I need some time to unwind, I need some time to be by myself and…<insert name here>.”

That may well be. Our time in marriage counseling revealed as much. However, this is not the full story. There was a war within my heart that I had not yet recognized, and it wasn’t until this weekend that God presented it plainly before me.

Saturday was our one-month anniversary, and Rebekah’s request was to do something adventurous, outdoorsy, and new. Music to my ears.

We set out in a canoe, a family heirloom borrowed from my grandfather, along the Chattahoochee River, my first such endeavor in ten years and Rebekah’s first time period. What could go wrong?

My communication, for starters.

I had neglected to process that Rebekah didn’t know how to sit in a canoe, balance in a canoe, or paddle a canoe until we were on the water. That first twenty minutes was rough, and I thought that the day might be lost due to my grumpiness and her ensuing reaction. But, sure enough, I was wrong. She took to canoeing like a champ, and we made our way down flat water and tiny rapids for a few miles before passing under I-285 and approaching “The Devil’s Racecourse”, a notorious set of rapids just inside the perimeter. I assured her that we would be fine, these rapids were only slightly bigger than those we had already conquered.

I was wrong.

We made it through the first set with little incident, but a rock beneath the surface of the water coupled with my mind blanking—are we supposed to stop paddling or just power on through this?—lead to the first spill of the trip.

We were swept down the rest of the Devil’s Racecourse, clinging to our swamped boat, until we hit some calmer water, and were able to drag ourselves to shore with the help of some good Samaritans.

It wasn’t the best introduction to the sport, but I assured Rebekah that it was a fluke—”we won’t hit anymore rapids like those,” I promised, and if we did, “there’s no way we’ll flip again.”

So, after an appropriate time of contemplation during which I ferried our newfound friends to the local “Jumping Rock,” we set out once more, hit a series of rapids, and promptly flipped again.

We dragged our boat to shore once more, and I repeated my spiel: “no more rapids, no more flipping, yadda yadda yadda.”

Rebekah was skeptical, but we were stranded on an island in the river and had to get back into the canoe. I pointed out an ideal point of egress, and, after much convincing, we disembarked: and immediately lost our canoe as it was quickly submerged in a strainer against a fallen tree.

I helped Rebekah climb out of the boat, over the tree, and drift downstream to a safe place onshore. I, on the other hand, was royally screwed.

The canoe, my grandfather’s canoe, was pinned by the river, half-submerged, and not going anywhere. A crowd was gathering onshore, watching me as I appraised the situation. “Do you need help?” One of the onlookers called. I forewent my natural response, a hand gesture and cocktail of four-letter words, to simply nod before untying our belongings, stowing our paddles on the tree, and jumping into the water to join them onshore.

“The river has taken your boat,” a man on the shore told me solemnly in a vaguely Eastern European accent, “you will surely never recover it until the water has subsided.”

He and his party departed, leaving Rebekah and I to contemplate our next steps. “Should we call someone?” She asked.

“Hell no,” was my response.

“I think we should call someone.” She reiterated, forcefully.

“Yeah.” I concurred.

I called my brother, and explained the situation.

“Well, you’re screwed.” He responded.

“Yeah.”

Family legend held that this canoe was not only the one that my grandfather had taught Atlanta-born Ted Turner to canoe in during their friendship several decades back, but also one that accompanied he and the Buckhead Boys, a local fraternal society, on many outings down the North Georgia rivers along with their comrade James Dickey. These outings would serve as inspiration for Dickey’s most famous novel and its film adaptation: Deliverance. My grandfather claimed to have been present on set for some of the movie’s production and was able to walk away with a vest worn by Burt Reynolds. This canoe, the canoe that I had successfully shipwrecked in the most greenhorn way possible, was a piece of family—nay, Georgia, literary, cinematic and otherwise—history.

“I’ll be damned if I’m walking away without it.”

I put on my life jacket and descended the banks.

“What are you going to do?” Rebekah asked.

“I dunno, something.” I jumped into the river once more.

I climbed onto the canoe and set to work, desperately feeling for weakness in the tree beneath the rushing frigid waters. I looked to the bank numerous times, sure that the fear in my eyes was a dead giveaway that what I was doing was patently foolish. One slip up, one nasty spill and I would be swept under the canoe, into the submerged tree branches, and possibly injured, or God-forbid, drowned.

“It’s the damned Ted Turner-James Dickey-Lewis effin’ Medlock-canoe!” I cried to myself, “I cannot go home empty handed!”

I kicked at a branch beneath the water—it cracked. A few more kicks and it snapped, freeing up some space to maneuver. I mounted the canoe, planting my feet on the inside of the bow and began to rock myself backwards until…

The canoe jostled, spilling me into the water. I scrambled back on top, then over onto the exposed tree trunk as the canoe rolled over and submerged. My feet touched it for but a moment and then…

It was gone.

“Oh my God. I just lost my granddad’s canoe.”

Rebekah looked on from the bank, speechless.

I clung to the tree, staring intently at the river. Maybe it would resurface somewhere downstream. Maybe the family had insurance on it. Then it dawned on me: no, I had lost the canoe. I had lost that connection to my family, and Georgia’s past. I would return home defeated. I would have to face my grandfather and tell him that I had succeeded where all other Winters had failed throughout the decades: in sinking the venerable old canoe.

The anxiety would hang over me for months, I was sure of it. I would wake in cold sweats in the dead of night remembering what I had done. My work would surely suffer as my quality of sleep declined. I would inevitably begin smoking again, and most likely become an alcoholic. Worst of all, I would be unable to intimately satisfy my wife. I was entering a world of pain.

A glimmer of yellow beneath the surface. A rope—then I saw it: the canoe was lodged just beneath me, pinned by another branch, belly-up, a foot underwater.

“The damned thing’s right here!” I cried out hysterically to Rebekah and a dumbfounded couple on the shore.

Fear of assured impotence and eternal shame gripped me. “Not today. Not today.”

I rocked back and forth on the boat. Over and over again. Back and forth. Back and forth. The spectators on the shore were incredulous at the sight: a wild-eyed, sunburned, hairy man clinging to a tree rocking back and forth like a skateboarder.

It didn’t seem like much, but I could swear that I felt the boat move a bit. I kept at it, shifting my weight more to the stern. Back and forth. Back and forth. Then–

With a spray of whitewater and the sound of a breaching whale the bow of the canoe emerged from its aquatic prison. The seal had been broken. The boat rolled over once more, floating free, and I along with it. I cried out in triumph, grabbing hold of the rope secured to its bow and pulling it safely to shore.

With a renewed sense of confidence I assured Rebekah that “this time, from now on, we would not flip,” and we embarked!

And then flipped over not thirty seconds later, this time skupped by a low-hanging branch and generally low morale.

She had had enough. The sun was setting, the air was cooling, and we were easily a few hours from our destination. We could portage the canoe and hitch a ride back.

I was livid. After all that I had done to save the canoe, surely we were going to finish the damned voyage! I protested, I yelled, I pouted, and then I saw her face. I mean, I really saw her face. She was hurt, she was scared, and I was making things worse with my attitude.

I was so damned proud of “beating the river,” so wrapped up in the pseudo-machismo of dislodging that canoe, so enamored with the heroism of finishing the voyage, that I was completely disregarding my wife’s feelings, and frankly, her safety. It was way too late to get back on the river. We were already risking hypothermia as it was, and having lost our shirts and soaking our towels during our first spill, that condition was only going to worsen.

I was ashamed of myself, and I acquiesced. We called my brother, got his help carrying the canoe back out, and went home.

After that experience we had a long series of talks about what had happened. I hadn’t properly communicated ahead of the trip, hadn’t considered her inexperience to begin with, and hadn’t known when to give up. I had made an idol out of the experience of the epic river journey.

Today at church, in the midst of a sermon concerning these very issues. God laid it on my heart that that idol was only the most recent. I had another to address. My “alone time, creative time, my work” to put it bluntly…that had become an idol in my heart as well, usurping God’s rightful place and complicating my relationship with my wife. How many arguments had we had with my excuse for my attitude being that I needed to “be by myself”? How many dates and experiences during our honeymoon did I wholesale miss because my mind was in another place, contemplating my next professional move in the name of “providing for my family”? How long had I been putting my career in front of my marriage, and more catastrophically, before God?

This is why I fear writing in real-time. I only came to this realization today, but I fear that I have been laboring in service to this idol for a while now. If I am to continue, I must keep short accounts, because a little yeast spreads through the whole dough.

Idolatry of any sort, the usurping of God in the human heart, leads to strife and destruction. No idol can bear up the weight of a god. If it be marriage, then the marriage will break as one spouse leans on another for all spiritual fulfillment. If it be career, then the work will become a cyclical process chasing after the wind to earn more money and gain more power while friends and family fall away from that singular pursuit of the almighty dollar. And then with retirement…death soon follows. Strive after an idol, and everything that idol represents will crumble and suffer. Lay down the idol and strive after God, and every good thing you might otherwise serve will improve.

Seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and all this will be added to you.

I must focus first on God, and cease striving after experiences, relationships, and career. In striving instead towards God, I know that all areas of my life will improve in turn.


I’ll close with a brief entry from my journal, because it really is telling. I wrote these words three years ago:

    We first bonded over our own individual spiritual strivings to grow closer to God; and in that time, as we drew closer to God, the Lord drew us closer together. It was a few months ago that I confessed a spark—she confessed one as well, but we resolved to wait until we knew wholeheartedly that this was “of God” before we would proceed. Much prayer independently, and together, went into the interim months as we both leaned directly on the Lord and grew in our own ways until, at last, we just knew. The Lord, and spiritual counsel, gave blessing, though we are still two months away from commencing a romantic relationship.  Love is, after all, patient; and it has been nothing short of an unexpected blessing to be gifted a friend like her, whose path and passion is so similar yet opposing—complementary opposites.

    Yet, even in all of this—she is not my rock nor primary source of joy.  She is a blessing, not the blesser. So many broken relationships and suffering in my past and it all ultimately points to one key fact—that my greatest longing has always been God-sized and shaped, and I have so often, time and again, sought to fill it with hopes of love and romance as I searched for a soul mate. I, time and again, settled for spiritually stagnant dalliances, justifying my ways by way of the world while negating the Way and answer to all. The irony of all of this does not elude me—that I might find love of this sort—of a purity I thought unthinkable in the very instant I tore down the strongholds of idolizing romance. Now, when I no longer feel the need for such things in a God-sized manner, I find what I was looking for all along, and consider it but overflow of the blessing of dwelling in the Father’s presence.

    Indeed, now it is not from spiritual dearth, but overflow that my heart opens to Rebekah—just when I realize that I do not need it. God certainly has an interesting sense of humor.

    Whoever said that “your heart’s desire is never closer than the day you give it up for lost” was right—for that object, if it is not God, will never ever satisfy, only enrage and disappoint when the burdens of deity are laid upon it. Only in a steadfast feasting on God might all other things be granted and enjoyed as He intended.

    So, truly, seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and all these things will be added to you.  May I never depart so far from that precept again, for the pain of its rejection far outweighs the trials of its embodiment.

The post #9: One Flesh appeared first on EXPATS OF EDEN.

A wedding-week reflection on God’s provision.

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By the time you read this, I will be wed, and it is remarkable to consider how God has blessed us thus far. When we became engaged, it was after two years of unlikely romance. A long-distance relationship, job losses, loss of homes, a devastating car accident, crippling debt, and the uncertainty that we’d ever be able to make our own way.


    Yet, through it all, God remained faithful, drawing us ever closer to him and ever closer together.

    We shouldn’t have had the wedding we’ve had. It doesn’t make logical sense.

    I remember, many months ago, when we were discussing and praying about our wedding, we had no idea what date to choose, or how we were going to pay for it. We prayed for it, as did our friends. After much prayer and deliberation we came to conviction: how much did we trust God to provide?

    We realized that, with our backgrounds, we were fine with confessing our sins to God and deferring to His judgment, but were secretly clinging to our own human understanding, our human wisdom and all the anxiety that went along with it. We were afraid to pray big prayers, we were afraid to really ask God to show up and provide: long story short, we were afraid that God would let us down.

    We prayed over this for a few weeks and came to a decision: “set the date, and watch God provide.”

    And so we did. And He did not disappoint. I don’t know how this all happened, but it’s a story I will carry with me for the rest of my life, and repeat to myself, my bride, to my children, and to all who will listen.

    I don’t think it’s any coincidence that our wedding weekend and this entry coincide. They go hand in hand. Because, when I look back over this book, I see that story traced so clearly: trust in God, Be Still before Him. Accept that there are things out of your control.

    2016.

His Eyes Are On the Sparrow
    “Your faith is being tested, isn’t it?” Her words.
    “No, well, I guess, but it doesn’t feel like it, I’ve been delivered through so much already, I’m kind of just am taking God at His word.”
    “Then you’re passing the test.”
    That was part of my conversation with her last night, as I expressed my anxiety at  my present situation: I had lost my job with a year’s lease on an apartment, crippling student debt, and a treacherous financial situation that had already been stressed. What’s more, there was money owed to me that had not showed up and savings being drained and an uncertain future ahead.  A similar situation in October had driven me to extreme anxiety and dread. Why, now, did I feel so calm?

    I woke up for church one morning and didn’t even know what to pray.  I’d been out of work for three weeks at this point, and any attempt to find new employment had been rebuffed.  I was mired in anxiety but was convicted to rest and “Be Still”.

    A few months ago, that would have been an unthinkable notion, but that day, as I struggled in prayer over what to even pray for or about, or what God wanted me to do, two things came to mind: lyrics of two different hymns, one contemporary, one traditional.
    “Bless the Lord, O’ my soul,”
    and
    “Count thy blessings.”
    I was immediately at peace.
    I went to church with these thoughts on my mind, and found my own flesh begin to betray me during the service—I couldn’t focus, the anxiety was returning.  Then, the sermon–
    “Count thy blessings.”
    That old hymn, quoted by the pastor. That got my attention.
    The sermon was about identity in Christ, and remembering the blessings that we have in Christ—new life, transformed character, joy in trials as our faith is tested by fire and new blessings come from the suffering of the moment.
    And, in all of this, I rested upon a conviction:
    “You’ve done enough. Be still.”
    Whatever was to happen next, and I had no idea what it could be, it was out of my hands, and firmly in God’s.

    In this, I learned another law of the wild:
    “His eye is upon the sparrow.”

    From Matthew 6:25…
    “Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow nor reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.  Are you not much more valuable than they?” (NIV)
    “His eye is upon the sparrow.”
    Perhaps the finest, and most readily apparent lesson of nature: that the Lord will provide.
    The creatures of the field and the trees of the forests do not toil. They blithely cavort in the presence of God all the days of their lives yet, still they are fed, still they continue onward.
    And if lowly beasts are worthy of such attention in God’s eyes, though their days are short and no thought of anything beyond mere survival let alone the grander machinations of the universe flit by their consciousness, how much more will the Lord provide for His own children, men and women made in His image?
    Like me.
    Indeed He already shed His own precious blood and unfurled the depths of His wrath upon Himself to ransom us and save us from ourselves—what more could we want or need that our Father cannot provide?
    I once despised loss of agency, but in those days, I welcomed it. His eye is upon the sparrow, a fleeting bird—how much more precious are His children?  And surely He had been faithful even when I had not. Would He not be faithful now?

    I prayed a prayer: Lord, into your hands, I commit my life. I have nothing you have not given me, and I know you will prove faithful once more. Help me to follow in your steps, teach me to feast on you alone, and please grow me further.

    The sermon ended—the closing song:
    “Bless the Lord O’ my soul.”
    I knew it then so clearly, God was there.
   
I pray I could truly internalize this law of the wild moreso than any of the others, for it is only in dependence upon God that true abundance and freedom is found.


True realization of this was still a few weeks away, but in the meantime I committed myself to God, and prepared for what He would set before me.

I reflected on our cultural idol of security, in an entry from that time:

    A chunk of rock teeming with life in a cosmic void the likes of which mankind has striven to discern, only to find, by and by, that our assertions of its nature are folly, and in want of perpetual abrogation.
    Here, there, all around this celestial tomb, the inmates march surely towards the great inevitable, the ebbing into self and transcendence from this our mortal coil.  Ever longing, no matter who, to grasp the utterness of it all, to find a poultice to ease the very burden which simultaneously drives them and hinders them, the unfathomable terror which forms ineffably on the tongues of the waking man in the moments before the nightmare passes.  A desperate longing for the firm rock and safety of a happy childhood free from fear—so eternal in its own time, but so quickly fleeting and far away back on the path. Not afforded to all, enjoyed by few and sadly far too brief and ignorant is its essence that those who seek to recapture it do so because they know that the blossom of youth is invariably wasted for its participants are wholly unaware of how wonderful such peace truly is.
    So, we build up idols for ourselves to reclaim it—more money, a stable job, a loving spouse, a new city, drink, drugs, anything at all to afford us the luxury of utter agency so that maybe we might solve the riddle that none have before us—to bind the cosmos and stop up the hourglass and, for just one moment escape the certainty that all we do is a chasing of the wind.
    That’s what this book became to me: so utterly convinced of my importance and impressed with my insight, so enamored and compelled that this volume may yield such truth that might illuminate a dark corner not ever adequately addressed by the libraries of the earth or any of its wise ones.
    I felt the longing, Sehnsucht, just as every man does, and relied upon myself to satisfy it, time and again by earthly means while ignoring its essence as the hunger and thirsting for God.  Oh, the number of times I have re-asserted this revelation amongst these pages is but an indication of my proneness to wander.
    How wonderful, then, that this longing does have a fulfillment, and how wonderful that all of the existential angst is so readily assuaged by the precious blood of Christ and the everlasting arms of God—the peace that transcends and defies all understanding. For how could one truly find peace and rest here on Earth when not one single striving can add even a grain of sand to the reservoir?  

Only through the reliance on One who is beyond this. For if I am a child of God, known and loved by Him more deeply than anyone ever could offer, the very being that hung the world in its orbit and never ceases to be, what can I possibly fear?

    I was paralyzed by fear tonight as reality set in, and I went before the Lord with the only words I had: “God, please help me.”
    The response was so clear, and so final: “with what? The battle is won, I have prepared a table before you, your enemies are at your feet.”
    For though I know not what tomorrow will bring, I know that I am known to God.  He has provided me with at least the bread I need to go just one more mile, and I am sure that, by and by, another cairn on the trail will hold another allotment, and so shall it ever be.  So long as there is breath in my lungs, so long as I walk, the Lord leads and also watches from all sides to ensure my passage. Cosmic annihilation, the most terrible of all things, it is not even a possibility, for I am bought with the blood of Christ. Come what may, storms or otherwise, my God walked upon the water (with all credit and respect to Paul Reeves, a personal friend who penned those lyrics).

    As I waited upon the Lord and poured over Scripture, I began to see myself in a different light. I had had the tendency, for the longest time, to look down upon myself because I was an “artist”. I never considered “art” to be a truly important calling in life. It wasn’t life-saving, it wasn’t helping to bring justice to the oppressed, it was all shadow plays and fantasy. Then I found myself at the commission of the Tabernacle following the Exodus, and saw a different story written there.

I penned the following:

Scripture honors the craftsmen and artist with a qualifying statement during Moses’ time on Sinai: that those who were to create the ornamentation for the Tabernacle are blessed with the wisdom from God to perform their work. The details that follow are easily glossed over, for they entail specifications for the crafting of the Tabernacle, and are considerably less dramatic than other episodes in Scripture, but reflect a truth that is convicting and an illustration of the believer’s life.
    Precious stones in representation of the 12 tribes of Israel as a memorial before the Lord—His people are precious to Him, and this detailed breakdown of ordinances are primarily about forming a place where He will dwell among them—what an honor!  It is so easy to view God as an intimidating authoritarian, and neglect that we are undeserving of any of His grace and blessings. He owes us nothing, but still has given us everything and seeks to foster a personal relationship with us as our Father, our Savior, our deepest love, and closest friend.
    Frankly, I’d call Him crazy to want communion with the likes of us, but I won’t reject the incredible honor and gift of communion with the Divine.
    Further, the prescription of making an ornamented worship place with gold plated fixtures and elegant dressing is a prescription for the life of believers: all we hold precious and dear is a gift from God, and should be first and foremost applied to His worship and our relationship to Him (though, the offering of this is, later in Scripture, characterized as a “freewill” offering).
    I’ve been considering my own gifts and blessings.  I have found new meaning in life.
    It was maybe a year ago on one of my drives back from college to work for the weekend that I posed to God the question: “What do you want me to do?”
    The answer was simple: “Keep writing.”
    I realized last night that writing is one art, though I love many disciplines, that consistently “turns me on” and brings me great joy.  I have won awards for it, have been paid to do it, and now find myself getting steady work doing it. I love it.
    What’s more, as I have continued transcribing earlier portions of this book, I have seen, recorded in ink, the transforming power of Christ in my own life—a process I have never been so acutely aware of until I began this volume.  I hope, sincerely, that through my writing—and I have been convicted to complete and publish this volume—that the Lord may be glorified, and I consider it an honor and privilege to be given words with which to glorify Him.

    May my work always be such.


Yet, despite my writings, and despite the fact that I had been offered jobs writing, those jobs were not paying, and as a result, I was still in financial straits.

“Be still.”
“Bless the Lord O’ My Soul.”

Ok. I would remain at peace. Perhaps, I reasoned, this time was a time to prepare for what was to come.

I continued to write:

Perchance to Dream-January, 2016
    We’ve all experienced it: a nightmare so palpable that it shakes our very soul—and then, as soon as the darkness seems inescapable, just as you can no longer take it…
    You wake up; and there’s nothing to fear.
    That is much like life and the Kingdom of God. We experience those “good times”, the Kairos where everything happens in an instant and the presence of God is palpable—but we live in a fallen world, and the reality is that we have to face our fallenness.
    But those moments, that taste of Kairos, that’s the taste of true reality.  That’s the presence of God in which there is no temporal, only eternal.
    Waking life, that’s the dream—the nightmare.
    Any taste of goodness we experience here is but a fraction of a scintilla of what there is in but a thimble-full of Heaven.
    This world and our dark times are the nightmare,
    the waking world—the true waking world:
        That’s the Eternal.

And I continued to love.

Knotted Cord, January, 2016
How might I describe my love?
With words?
By deed?
Indeed my words be impotent.
For how could one, such as I, begin
To approximate such beauty?
In her the light of God shines forth
So bright.
In fact
It is the overflow of such radiance
That human eyes can most plainly see.
But beyond lovely countenance,
Behind the razor wit;
The depths of joy, eternal, finds
its precious rent.

To view her is to see the love of Christ,
I know her heart beats for He.
And O’ what blessing, most Divine,
That she might long for me?

    With each new entry, I became more keenly aware of how few pages were left within this volume. With all that had come before, what could possibly follow? I remembered how I had expected to finish writing the book during my first weeklong outing in the woods, and laughed. If I had only known…

A bout of melancholy skupped me, it was a recurring trend as of late. I would achieve mountaintop experiences of deep spiritual joy, only to be dragged back down into the thick of day to day life and anxiety.

I talked a big game about “being still,” and “waiting upon the Lord,” but the realities of my dwindling bank account and looming rent and loan payments still caused me to struggle in my trust. My calls for work remained largely unreturned. My screenplay submissions were yielding a healthy crop of rejection letters. Every avenue that I had used in the past to gain meaningful employment were exhausted, and I had no recourse.

I read back through my writings and realized that, in the worst of things, the best thing I had done in all of it was to lean on God and “make the best.”

    I had seen great growth through the breakup some months ago because I resolved to use it for “the best”, to grow despite the pain. In all trials since, I had attempted the same. I reasoned that troughs and peaks were the way of things, and as such, must be treated as a cohesive whole expression of the universal human experience. Things will be good, and then they will be bad. The length of these periods may vary, but one can be sure of their ultimate fleetingness, for things will eventually change.

    I realized that in order to live a fully fruitful, fulfilling life, I must not merely allow the troughs to happen as a cross to bear—something to be endured, but something to grow and glorify the Lord with. They were going to happen anyway, so they may as well be taken captive for The Kingdom.  With this in mind, my mood shifted: I may have been gloomy, but I certainly would not be passive.

    I began to view these troughs as a challenge, an ordeal in a mythic sense—a trial to prove my worth—a quest to undertake with a two-fold “grail” as my goal: one, to grow in my faith and enlightenment, and two, to raise my basal metabolic rate, that is, to be able to stand more and more adversity at my base level. This change in perspective and attitude illuminated my mind and heart and near set me to fits of laughter.

    See, the Hero’s Journey or “Monomyth” is a cycle of metaphorical stages that pervades literature and art. In it, a reluctant hero embarks on a quest through an “unknown” world, being tested, getting wounded, failing, dying, and rising again with treasure in hand before returning to the “normal world”—and then repeating the cycle.  

    Was my cycle of ups and downs not just this? Are any of our ups and downs not just this? The Monomyth pervades culture because art imitates life, and indeed is a reflection of the trials that beset us all.

    I thrive in the face of challenge, and I love a good game. I reasoned that if I viewed my trials as such—a challenging game—I was sure I will be able to deal with these times of melancholy all the more effectively. I decided that henceforth this would be my approach: I would embark on my quest with the Lord as my mentor, seeking to grow in faith, mind, and body. I would face down the darkness with a spirit of conquest and lay siege to my grail: growth in faith, and increase in basal metabolic rate.

    The former by virtue of leaning on God and seeking His Kingdom, the latter by pushing myself harder in these troughs so that my “normal” phases would have a diminished threshold of will required to function optimally, be it intellectual, spiritual, or physical. I reasoned that this would allow for the normalcy to increase in efficiency and productivity, and the troughs to function at least as well as a “normal” in a past phase. This would, theoretically, spur on the growth so that even my darkest hours may be serving to the Lord instead of miring me in sorrow.

    The trick, now, would be to keep this mentality in mind so that circumstance would not cloud my judgment and will.

    Moving forward, I hoped to diminish the use of destructive therapies—overeating, sugar, nicotine, and excessive sleep—in favor of healthy alternatives: steady diet, healthy foods, deep breathing, and exercise. By diminishing reliance in a trough, it would be easier to sustain the lifestyle once out in a “normal”, a process that will continue into the next trough, making it harder to relapse into negative habits.

    I wondered if perhaps we do not wish too much for comfort and convenience—it is the deliberate growth and conscious efforts in times of hardship that have the most lasting effects.

    Indeed, what change is there to the essence—the soul of a man—in a time of sorrow?  The desires, hopes, dreams, tastes, history, memories—all of it remains, though subdued. To be governed solely by feeling, to do merely what we feel like, is a lamentable state—for we cannot possibly “feel like” doing right all the days of our lives. We must push ourselves beyond such a threshold and do what we must regardless of our intermittent emotions.
    Are we to neglect the holes in the tent merely because we would prefer to bask in the intermittent warmth of a clear day? The ensuing rain will surely swamp the camp and lead to a most miserable night.
    Are we to neglect to bring with us water due to its weight? The summer heat and unknown path will soon threaten to snatch our life away.
    Are we to act on lust merely because the opportunity presents itself despite logic and conscience screaming “no”?  Such will lead to degradation and heartbreak.
    Are we to admit defeat merely because the battle has worn us harder than we hoped?   No. We must advance. With each drawing of breath we must fight the fight we have been given.

    I began to chart the weeks’ changes and variations. I took note of stressors and pinch-points. I noted how I reacted in any given situation. Patterns, inevitably, emerged, and I was able to address challenges before they occurred.

    Ideas were flowing because I pushed back on the encroaching blackness and leaned on God, trusting Him to guide me.  I faced struggles that would have totally wrecked me a few months prior, and kept going in spite of it all.

    Yet still the payments loomed on the horizon, still I could not find work, and still I fell into melancholy. One night, I felt as if I were at death’s door. I was at my lowest point within recent memory, and cried out to God for help.

    Nothing.

    I cried out again.

    Nothing.

    Once more, and a still small voice deep within my soul answered.

    “In spite of your feelings, still you have leaned on me. In spite of your failures, still you have returned. In spite of circumstances, still you have trusted.”
    I felt convicted that I had been repeatedly tested unrelentingly in the last few months, even further back to that time I embarked into the wilderness and began this book, and somehow I knew—no, not somehow, this was entirely a “God” conviction—that I had passed.

    My faith had been tested, found wanting, strengthened, and retested until it passed.  I will not chronicle the things I believe I did right in all of this, such would be masturbatory at best.  I do, however, want to offer up another law of the wild:

    “By your faith, you will be delivered.”


    This is the oldest of them that the Lord has laid upon my heart, but it is the one that I have seen proven again and again.  I first heard it when I was in my exiled years and entrenched in the hardest struggle of my life—one that I had made for myself.  When vice did nothing to assuage my abject terror and sorrow, I had picked up a friend’s Bible and began to pray. That prayer was the first in my journey out of exile, though I had much, much further to fall yet. At the end of it, the still voice: “by your faith, you will be delivered.”
    I clung to that notion in the ensuing months and, sure enough, though the path got much harder to follow and my pain was great, I emerged on the other side and the Lord carried me onward. My exiled time was over. Though I had to be cleaned up, I was at least leaning on God and trying to grow.
    But this bears mentioning: I had little to do with it.  God was doing all the heavy lifting. He only ever asks us to walk in faith, and to lean not on our own understanding. He wanted me to seek Him first and submit to His ways so that He could dig me out instead of me burying myself further with my thrashing. That’s what I mean by “By your faith, you will be delivered.”

    Deliverance doesn’t come from faith, but it is facilitated by it, because it is faith that grants the courage and humility to say, “Thy will, not mine,” and let God work as only He can.

    We may not know the reasons for our trials in the moment, but if we seek the Lord first in spite of them all, we will be better for it.  He alone can deliver us—even if we don’t immediately acknowledge or realize what He’s doing. Then, at the end, once our faith passes the test: “I will bless you.”

    Just like the Remnant in the book of Haggai who were challenged to move and do their work once brought out of exile—act in faith, and you will be blessed in time.

But be careful to never idolize the blessing. The Lord alone is from whom all blessings flow, and He is worth worshipping even if those blessings dry up for a season, for as long as you breathe, there is still reason and purpose, and the Lord is at least blessing you with life.
    He, who owes us nothing, yet gave us everything. He that hung the stars and engineered the atom. He that is from everlasting to everlasting, amen. Trust in Him, draw close to Him; He does the really heavy, mind-bending work if we but reach out and accept, and let Him do the work He needs to do for us to be fulfilled.

    I lay there, broken and soaked in tears, yet not letting go of the Lord. He was all I truly had. His still voice then said, “and I will bless you, beginning today.”  
    And then, I slept.


The following morning I received an unsolicited phone call from some folks I had known a decade prior. They had started a non-for-profit and needed a promotional video shot. They didn’t want to negotiate, they didn’t want to shop around, they had seen my work and wanted me specifically.

I gladly took the job and found myself buried in work until the end of my lease, more work than I could handle, and more blessings on top of that. In a way, those blessings have continued up until the present, up to and including the wedding and I pray the life we set out to build beyond it. I know that the Lord hears my prayers, and I know that the Lord is watching, and I know without a doubt that that first phone call was the call to action I had been waiting for. Because that first organization that kicked off that season of blessing had a unique corporate slogan that spoke to my heart and was a literal answer to prayer. The slogan was: “Bless the Lord, O’ My Soul.”

The post #8: His Eyes Are On the Sparrow appeared first on EXPATS OF EDEN.

What is the nature of love and what is its cost?

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My wedding is less than two weeks away, and while I am overjoyed and cannot wait for the ceremony and my new life to begin, I am haunted by an idea: that love, no matter what, ends in pain. Such is its cost. One cannot truly love without incurring the pain of loss at some point, prayerfully far in the distant future.

What shall we say of love then? Is it an evil to be avoided, a by-product of evolution that has outlived its purpose? Why embark upon on such a path if the ultimate end is pain?

CS Lewis once said in his book, The Four Loves: “To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”

To love draws us closer to God, to love refines us as we lay down our lives for another. Any amount of dross that gets burned from the fallen heart by the process of love is a worthy end, but what’s more, to love is to join in something deep and eternal, a taste of the infinite and divine here, in the outskirts of eden.

These thoughts first arose several years ago, before I met my wife to be. I had just been dumped. The worst breakup I had ever experienced, but probably the best in regards to what I ultimately gleaned from it. Truly, that season of loving another, through the ensuing heartbreak, wound up refining my heart and rekindling my love of God as I returned from my wandering and resumed my journey upon the trail.

At first I lingered by the trailside, unsure if I should continue to my trek back to Eden. “What if I hurt my witness through that relationship, God? What happens then?”

Through a great deal of prayer, the answer was clear. I most certainly had, but perhaps not entirely. There were aspects of the relationship in which I embodied Christ, and it was God’s place and God’s alone to make those moments shine bright among the darkness that characterized my psyche during that season. “What’s done, is done.” And, I reasoned, if but one second of the relationship had made some sort of Kingdom impact, it was worth it.

Such was the last word on the subject.

And so I set out once more.

I endeavored to set between myselves new memories, good and bad, so that I would no longer recognize the former man, nor reconcile him unto myself.

I reflected on my endeavor to keep this journal—its pages were filling quickly. What more might be in store along this path? What other weeds might God pull from my heart? Would I look upon these words right here, then flip to the conclusion of the volume, see the ending in store, and chuckle at the distance traveled and how truly God had worked it all for the good? Could I take hope that this book had already been written, and that I was merely the transcriptionist?

    I recalled the rules of the wild that I learned that summer, and began to see a theme emerge.

    To adapt: to be willing to adjust and move on despite circumstance.

    To advance: to refuse the weight of inertia; to keep moving.

    To be fit: to constantly take note and make change to weakness; to hone the heart, body, and soul.

    In the wake of the break up and in light of my new journey, I set about to uphold these laws.

    I wished to advance, to place one foot before the other, onward towards the Divine.

    Yet, my heart was still broken, and the gray skies of the encroaching winter drove that feeling deeper and deeper.

    I languished. Day by day, week by week, month by month. Countless pages of the journal filled with ramblings that bear no repeating apart from their final word: “I look back on these writings and no longer recognize the man who began this chapter,” and that was a success.
   
    Still my path meandered through the valleys,
    over the mountains,
    across the dark and haunted world–
    through lands where giants trodd;
    Where one must be still,
    For the one who lead is Greater than they.
    Greater too than they who walk,
    So that the trail, though broken
    and tormented
    May pass as though a candle in
    a gust.
    Here, so bright and singular in the momentary darkness,
    But ultimately fleeting, and outshone by the light of morn.
    Yea, so I walked down the trail
    of this dark and haunted world–
    less a companion,
    But never without my guide,
    Nor my terminus,
    in resolute fixture:
    Firmly in my gaze.

    I moved out a fews later, from my parents’ home into my first apartment. I didn’t want any roommates, I needed to learn to stand myself by myself.

I had to leave Bear behind, him being  a Rottweiler/German Shepherd and this being Metro-Atlanta, the landlords had forbade his joining me.

It was a painful parting, there was an aspect to our interaction that seemed to indicate that he knew that our time had passed. I lamented the breaking of our pack, after so many years and the time we had spent in the woods, but my brother was taking him in up north, and that meant that he would be able to live out his life in happiness and community: it was a better life, and one that he deserved.

In the meantime, there was work to be done, prayers to prayed, and a life to be made.


But first, I had to confess. A few nights into my new apartment I wrote these words::

I serve a God older than the sea;
    Older than the Cosmos.
A God who, in love and wisdom,
    Crafted the Earth.
And unto the dust brought forth
    Us.

    A God that far exceeds any simulacra in mere human myth.
    A God who is so unfathomably great that His existence must be heralded by Himself and given to man, for man could never conceive of such a thing by his own volition.
    A God who is calling out to you this very second as you read these words, for it is my lot as His child and servant to declare His name and proclaim His glory.
    But—do not be afraid.
    The Lord is slow to anger and quick to mercy, for He loves you dearly and wishes you to know Him as He knows you.
    Even though our mortal coil and twisted hearts separate us from Him, He still holds back His wrath— the very force that set the cosmos in motion with the Biggest of Bangs— and extends His hand, hoping for you to take it.
    No matter how you may see yourself, no matter the hurt you have felt, no matter the path you have trod, the falls you have taken, the secret shames that beset your heart and hold you locked in darkness:
    The Lord loves you, bring it before Him and seek Him, heed His words, and you will be made new.
    Dear reader, whoever you may be, I pray now that the Lord, architect of the universe, Master of the Atom, the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, your eternal creator who loves you so dearly, so much more than any person could, will reach out to you and make Himself known to you.
    If you seek Him, you will find Him, and discover that He was never lost, but your companion through the darkness you never knew existed.
                        Amen.
    I don’t remember a time when I wasn’t a “Christian”.  My family wasn’t “churchy”, but I was educated in Christian schools, and knew none but Christian friends.
    But, to claim to be a “Christian”, and to make good on it by your deeds are two drastically different things.
    By my teenaged years, I had it all figured out—I had sworn celibacy until marriage, I had promised never to smoke, drink, cuss, chew, or run around with girls that do.  Drugs? Never. Not even once.
    I could go toe to toe with anyone and argue the existence of God, articulate with great conviction why I was right and they were wrong.  I knew the Bible front to back and I had the t-shirt and travel mug to prove it.

    Was I right?  Was I a Christian?
    You bet your ass I wasn’t.
   
    In 2005, my uncle passed away, shattering the illusion of my warm existence.  Darkness—true darkness—crept in.
    The following year saw more death, the first findings of love, and deep betrayal until finally, in the throes of a depressive episode brought on from post-surgical dementia, I found myself with nothing.

    God, I reasoned, wasn’t real.  My life was a lie, and I made up my mind to take it.

    Just before going through it, I issued a half-assed challenge—a defiance:
    “Prove that you’re there, or let me die.”
    He answered.
    That was the first time I truly felt the presence of God— and it sent me into fits of laughter and tears of joy.
    That day I knew that God—the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob— the Father of the Holy Lamb and Savior Jesus Christ, had heard my prayers and had, despite my lowly state, answered.
    I committed myself to Christ and beset myself to learn and understand all I could of His teachings.
    But, this was folly, for my quest became an idol in itself to become the best “Christian” ever— to be smarter than the Atheist and put him to shame by the wealth of my knowledge.
    I ceased to read the Bible, scarcely prayed—after all, I was “good”.  I had all the answers.

    I was full of it.

    With college, my folly came to fruition.
    I lost myself in greed, sex, drugs, and alcohol.  I took pride in it, in how much I had done, I had really lived it up.
    I saw my dreams come true and then fall broken to the ground as, despite all of my material prosperity, the tempation of a gun in my mouth and the inability of my decadence to quell it revealed how truly and utterly broken I had become.
More death. This time of someone closer in age whom I had loved like a brother.
    I passed into darkness.  Bedridden. Burnt out. Dying inside and too much the coward to do anything about it.
    And then, by “chance”, I found my Bible—untouched for I know not how long.
    And I read it.
    And I prayed.
    And I surrendered back to God all that I had claimed for my own.
    And, what’s more, I kept at it this time.
    I saw and felt the hand of God working in my life and the world.
    Existence became vibrant, weighty, poignant.
    Yet, still, I sinned.
    Otherwise I would not have drafted this confession, my testimony.
    For, I am a man who has sinned greatly and horribly before the Lord, and time and time again He has saved me from myself and the errancy of my own heart. By the Grace and Blood of Christ, and Christ alone, I have been redeemed.

    In that month, as I strove to overcome heartbreak, I leaned on the Lord more and more. More than I ever had.

    I set out from home to make my own way and realized more and more this volume’s purpose: Sehnsucht.  That longing that drove me to the wild. It wasn’t about being a mountain man, it was me wrestling with God in the face of my unwillingness to relinquish control of my life and heart.

    I lied to myself enough to justify breaking an oath before God not to date a non-believer.  
    I rationalized falling into sin with her under the pretense that I might save her.
    I made it about my love, and my woe.
    I wallowed in heartache.
    And I am glad that such time has passed.

    Further, I am glad for the pain inflicted upon me.
    Because, finally, after such a long time, I’m beginning to understand— more and more everyday–
    Why I have had certain experiences and training;
    Why God has not allowed me to die;
    and
    Where— though the path is still shrouded, He is leading me.
    “This land was cut for war.”
    Indeed.
    Not against flesh and blood, but the oldest war—between good and evil.
    I am to serve the Lord in all that I do, and He has blessed me in spite of everything.
    I don’t deserve anything but a shallow grave.
    He is working in my life, changing my heart, changing my wants and desires.
    And living alone means that I have that much more time to spend with Him one on one.  

With that written, I began to read, and to reflect.

    I read in the first few pages of Alexander Schmemann’s For the Life of the World,  a text whose film adaptation had greatly inspired me, that man is primarily a consuming creature— that is why so many metaphors in Scripture revolve around the image of feasting— we consume energy, food, water, we need power sources— all hearkening back to God.  So is this consumption found in our social interaction.
    It occurs to me that the source of so much inter-social pain and conflict is the fact that, as humans, it is easy for us to “feed” on one another.
    In romance— the dalliance between two opposing forces is such that, if there were no other outlet or intermediary, the two would ultimately consume one another, or one consume the other utterly.
    This is why it is crucial to not rely on worldly things— people— for such sustenance.
    What we need, as humans, is true food.
    Communion with God is the only thing that will fill a person up— even as they lay broken in this mortal coil.
    Alas, we have leaks.  We’re all very, very, sick.  Too often, our inherent Brokenness is overlooked or shrugged off.  As a species we must accept that we are not inherently benign creatures.
    We do not function merely out of instinct— and certainly altruism is not universally hardwired into us.
    What is, however, is cruelty, malice, bitterness— the base negatives of human beings, observable from the youngest child to the oldest adult.
    I am not suggesting that we are incapable of good, but that the very presence of such labels— acknowledgment of positive and negative traits—calls our bluff:
    We know full well that if we are not entirely “positive” or “good”.
    We have negative traits and behaviors.
    We are broken.
    I cannot, in good faith, claim that God will heal all or prevent all suffering in this mortal life.  I have experienced depressions far darker than I would wish on anyone—yet I cling to God still.
    But—the Lord offers context to it and shines light through the darkness.
    I have nothing inherent in my flesh that is good. I make horrible decisions and leave destruction in my wake.
    But—for a reason I know not what—the Lord saved me and continues to grow me— exponentially when I seek Him, but even in my exiled years.

    I am an oddity amongst my Christian brethren in that I see much hope in the fact that the Lord has not yet come again— it means that there is work to be done in preparation, and more broken people to help.  More people to be saved. There is still time.

    I don’t have all the answers.
    Day by day I am learning to live deliberately and intentionally— more so than I knew possible, or wished to experience.
    So much is a mystery to me.  So many threats—the stormy sea arises.
    But I live not for myself, but for God, and I am one night closer to Him.
    I know my flesh will falter again—I know I will mess up—but I also know that, when the waves consume me, I will reach up, cry out to Christ, and be saved once more.
    I know this because it has happened time and time again— and if I know Christ has me, then who or what can stand against me?
    I reviewed some of my old entries— not even 6 months yet— and I cannot justify who I am now with who I was then.
    Who will I be when I type this up? (changed, but still you.)
    Who will I be when you read this?
    I hope I have grown more, and I hope I am still living a deliberate life worth living–

It was never the “wild”—that drew me out there. After all, what is the “wild” really? Is it a place devoid of safety nets? Is it a place where the line between man and the spiritual is blurred? I tell you the “wild” is the world we live in. Through modern convenience we have deluded ourselves into a false sense of security, but ask a child in the foster care system, snatched from the home of an addict or an abuser, if they think that we live anywhere other than the “wild”.

We live in a world catered towards addiction–
    Wallets stuffed with the wages of wholesale drug peddling—legal and otherwise—and even sold to us in our media and food.
    We are a consuming creature, and the flashing lights of a Hollywood spectacle but titillate our inherent sense of wonder—but it’s no substitute for the real deal.
    Any work that titillates, but contains no truth is the work that was wrent from the hands of malevolence—the hands and hearts that know “you’ll buy it anyway”.
    Why do we race the sun as we do, while neglecting all that it falls on?
    We try so hard to crest the next hill that we forgo the Lilies of the Valley.
    Our world is drowned in light— so much that it blots out the stars.
    Is it any wonder that a culture with no real visual grasp of the cosmos on a clear night would depart wholesale from the wonder of that which is greater, and instead continue the erection  of our own Babel? Temples to ourselves. Here, in the outskirts of Eden.

What temples had I built for myself? What temples have you built for yourself? What addictions have we yet to master? How can the Lord best use us?

No, it wasn’t the “wild” that set me to flee from civilization, it was the need to be surviving and not merely existing.  The need to truly have to lean on God day to day. The need to truly hunger and thirst for righteousness.

    And, soon enough, I was to discover how much of life alone was about surviving. How much I needed to lean on God, and how good I had had it for most of my life.

The post #6: Interim appeared first on EXPATS OF EDEN.

What do you do when love blindsides you?

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My wedding is five days away and, as is my custom, I went out walking. This time was different, however. No trail in the formal sense, no bastion of the wild nestled in a protected forest or on the outskirts of the city, this time I trekked six miles from my soon-to-be marital home down sidewalks and residential thoroughfares back to the house that I will soon leave forever. It was a cold night, and without a coat or proper walking shoes, I was ill-prepared for the journey. I could have called an Uber or Lyft, but there was something about the walk and the solitude of it that called to me, and so I set out into the night to see what I might find while the rest of the world slept.


    I watched as commercial district gave way to upper-class residential neighborhoods, crossing a county highway to see lower-income housing on the verge of what must have been rural natural paradise a few decades prior. When the sidewalk ended, I resumed my walk on the marshy shoulder, grateful that traffic was light in the late hours of the night.

    I reflected on how much of life is lived in secret, homes clustered so close together yet separated by trees and streams. I took note of the natural features, the wetland and rivers that I knew no name for just beyond the tree line of roads I had driven countless times over the course of the last 12 years. I saw how unbelievably vast and varied the world around a 6 mile walk truly is, and how small it seems when traveled by car.

    What’s more, step by step, I reflected on why I was walking to begin with. If I had called a car, I could have been home in 10 minutes. There was really no reason to walk.

But why do anything? Why trek the Appalachian Trail, from Springer Mountain in Georgia to Katahdin in Maine, why scale the icy slopes of Everest? The answer now, as it has always been: “because it’s there.” Because there’s something to pitting yourself against the world that has always been in spite of modern convenience. Because that makes you stronger, makes you more confident, and gives you pause to consider and appreciate how deeply you have been blessed.

Besides, I needed the time to think.

I reflected on my upcoming wedding, the vows I would soon make, and the responsibility ahead of building a home. The misfortune of the process of getting married is how easily the planning and coordination, the tastings, the set dressing, the moving—out paces the life you have lead. Truly precious moments, so often with the one you are to wed, race past you as your mind reels between the present and the “not-yet-done.” It isn’t until much later, when there is no more to be said that you realize how much you missed, and how badly you wish the chance to try again. I rather suspect I will be shell-shocked by how slow life seems once the ceremony is over and life returns to normalcy. I’m looking forward to that. Perhaps then I will be able to think clearly once more, no longer under the gun of everything that goes into preparing to build a home.

“Soon enough.”

There they are, those old, familiar words.

I’m not sure which of us said them first, but they were uttered sometime three years ago, before we had begun dating. That was shortly after I began my first attempt to build a home, my first real trip into the wild.

2016.

I had met her a few years before through a college ministry at our church. My first impression was that she was beautiful, charming, and sweet. But I was a new Christian at the time, and God was still working on my ego. I wrote her off almost immediately. She was a church girl going to school for a psychology degree, hoping to be a counselor someday. I was a reformed goth hacking away at film school, my eyes set on fortune and glory and an eclectic social group. We had nothing in common.

We saw each other here and there over the course of the next year until, a few months after my graduation when I started doing my Hank Thoreau routine, I attended a Tea Party hosted by a pastor whose son I had met through that same college group. Discontented as I was with society and bitter at the church for its treatment of mental illness, I intended to show up for the event and really let them know what I thought. I almost didn’t go that night, but there was an abiding sense in my soul that it was important for me to be there. So I went.

And there she was.

At first I didn’t make much of it. Then the conversation began.

I came out guns blazing, and all eyes were on me. “Well, what can we do? How can we help, we’re sorry for your struggles, this isn’t a topic we address very easily in the church…”

I was frankly shocked that I had been heard and listened to so willingly. I needn’t have brought an axe to grind. What’s more, I didn’t have any answers for them.

But she did.

Over the next several hours the two of us lead the conversation, bouncing ideas back and forth and fostering genuine dialogue. It was remarkable, I had no idea that there was someone else who thought the way that I did… and she wasn’t even an artist.

After it was all said and done, I asked her to get coffee with me. She agreed and we set a date.

The following weekend I went camping with my other female friend. I asked her for advice on the upcoming date. In my mind, that defined the relationship and secured my place in the “friend zone”. I wandered away from the fire to watch shooting stars and hear the foxes cry out in the wilderness. I prayed to God for Him to see that I set my heart aside in the matter. It was the right thing to do. She was not a believer and I was. It would never work, and I had accepted that.

    Besides, I reasoned, perhaps this new girl was “the one”.

Coffee was okay. She insisted that she pay her own way, and that was fine. We browsed the bookstore adjacent to the Starbucks and said our goodbyes. “Perhaps not,” I thought, as I drove away. The conversation was good, but there wasn’t a spark there.

I texted her a few days later apologizing for putting her in a bad spot. I had intended for coffee to be a date, and she plainly hadn’t. She appreciated my honesty and we started a correspondence with the understanding that we were just friends. It was healthy. It was right.

Then the other girl called, and I’ve already discussed what followed from there.

I lost touch with the new girl and began my downward spiral.

Then it ended. In the wake of it, I determined to become a better man and started to pick up the pieces of the life I had left behind. A few weeks after I apologized to the new girl for setting our friendship aside and we began to talk again. Months passed as I moved out of parent’s house and set out on my own. We were friends, and that was good. It was healthy. It was right.

I was going to live as a single man, and that was all that I wanted. Until it wasn’t.

It started slowly. I noticed that I looked forward to my conversations with the new girl. I noticed that they became a part of my routine, often the best parts of my days. It dawned on me: I had feelings for her.

This wouldn’t do. I had promised myself that I was going to be single. I wasn’t going to rely on romance to carry me through life’s difficulties, and I certainly wasn’t going to rebound from one unhealthy relationship into another. Tthis time was different, and I was going to treat it so.

So I told her how I felt, and apologized for it. She understood, and what’s more, she felt the same way. She was committed to being single herself, and despite her growing feelings for me, she was sticking to that commitment as well. If something changed, we agreed, we would cross that bridge in prayer, and we would know “soon enough” how we might proceed. And that was good. It was healthy. It was right.

The months passed and our conversation continued, as friends. I was offered a job writing a screenplay by a longtime colleague. It was a dream come true, but there was a problem: he wanted me to write a movie that related new age spirituality to Christianity and equate them as being two parts of the same truth. I wanted the job, but could not compromise my beliefs.

    I knew I would have to assert my stance before the contracts were signed, and expected a swift firing.
    “I will not write anything untrue.”
    “What is truth?”
    I slid my Bible across the conference table.
    “Every word of it, heart and soul.  That’s what I’m drawing from.”
    Silence.
    “So, you want that in writing?  We’ll defer all matters of religion to you, we don’t know enough to wield any other control.”
    I then lead the producers through the Bible, and they were receptive.
   
It was a good day.

    And so, the walk continued.

The holidays came, work was good, and I was able to afford a trip to Austin, Texas, with my best friend and business partner.

The trip was great, but there was something stirring within my soul that I couldn’t put my finger on. Late one night, I committed it to writing:

The Eve of Another Year
Austin, TX.               3:45am EST.                  Lobby of Marriott Hotel

    Christmas has come and gone, just as it has every one of my 24 years.  I find myself a day away from 2016, and 1700 miles from home. We spent a few hours in New Orleans on the way out, and have been here for two whole days thus far.
    I have spent a great deal of time on this trip in quiet contemplation, choosing to drive the entirety of the miles myself.  I’ve been thinking about God, my goals, His plan for me, and what ties must be loosed within me to properly fit His mold. I look back to July.  I look back to everything that’s happened, and I see with increasing clarity my own perpetual follies.
    I have been in great spiritual need to “Be Still” and lean upon God.  I keep learning facets of it, but my life turns towards the insane whenever I lose sight of that.  I try to lift unbearable loads alone, run far distances, climb high mountains, but keep it from God.
    Time and again, He has proved faithful when I have faltered.  Time and again He has snatched me from the jaws of the enemy.
    I’m glad for the burdens I’ve faced this year, they have made me stronger in faith.  I’m glad for my still somewhat mending broken heart, because I realized what everyone else already did—that I was “in love with love”.  I idolized it.
    I’ve stared into the night from the hotel window many times in the last few days.  You know what I see?
    The unknown.  The uncertainty.
    And I no longer truly, deep in my heart, care if this book or my life is a terrestrial love story about a man and a woman, or whether or not I’ll find that saccharine fantasy—“true love”—I’d like to, sure, but I’ve seen myself lost down in the pits of addiction to affection due to my idolization of love too many times to dwell on such things.
    The Lord is my portion, and His ways are just.  He saved me from myself two months ago, and is still growing me.  He’s the great answer to Sehnsucht. Always has been. Always will be.
    So simple.  Why, then, is it so easy to fall away and lean upon our own understanding?
    Maybe because to truly dwell in the Lord is to forgo passivity in favor of active, deliberate life.  Maybe I’m just a redeemed sinner with a lot more growing to do.
    I’m glad I’m on my own and not romantically attached.
    I am so not ready to be in a relationship.  Period.
    To think I was ready to shoulder such responsibility was asinine and the delusions of a lovesick heart.
    To be committed to someone like that is a responsibility to take deathly seriously, and I’m not ready.  I may never be. And I don’t care. No person or thing will “fix me.” Only God can weed out my heart’s secret shadows and raise me up.
    I pray to be the man the Lord made me to be.
    I want to be that man.
    I want to seek first the Kingdom.
    Because God is my all in all.
    Even if my dreams were all realized tomorrow, if God was not my rock, the light at the end of the tunnel, it would all be dust in the wind.
    I became so enamored with myself, my book, my story, that I lost sight of why I went out there: to meet with God.
    In those quiet hours upon the mountain, I met Him, and the thing is—I didn’t have to go anywhere. God is with me always. He’s just waiting to be acknowledged.
    If I lost everything—I’d still have Him.
    I could build an empire and it would still be nothing if not for God.
    What is the point of anything if not for the glory of God?
    There is no safety or security in this life.  No true independence. Everything is mutable—all can and will return unto dust—and in the face of the rushing, wind of cosmic annihilation, what comfort and rest can there be?

    In Christ alone
        My hope is found,
    My cornerstone
        My solid ground,
    Firm through drought and storm.

A Heart Newly Opens
    A new year, and a week since I have sought to unfurl my thoughts on paper.
    Since New Year’s Day, I found myself ensconced in a recursive pattern of thinking in which I have contemplated the nature of God.  
    Omniscient: knowing every little thing that transpires in the whole of the cosmos from a micro to macro level.
    Omnipotent: able to control each vibration from the sub-atomic, to macrocosmic.  Nothing is beyond Him.
    Eternal: perceiving all of time simultaneously, and existing apart from it.
    And, in all of this, a Being of Supremeness personified, who can but twitch and unravel the whole of the aeons of cosmic expansion into complete and utter obliteration…He loves and seeks us: Humans.
    The cosmic horror of the existence of God would be Lovecraftian in scope were it not for the essential essence of His being: that He loves us, and indeed punished Himself incarnate in the body of Jesus of Nazareth, the eternal and everlasting Christ so that we, naked apes crawling upon the surface of a fallen world, might not incur His inevitable wrath, but partake in His goodness and abundance if we would only turn from our own self-assurance and call upon the name of Christ to relinquish the bond in which our nature ensnares us.
The last few months I have sought near exclusively to draw nearer to God, and in the process I have learned to recognize the joy that comes only from Him, and the fact that so much of my perpetual agony had stemmed from my own idolatry in circumstances.
    But is there ever any other cause for falling away but one of idolatry?  The betrayal of one’s most innate confidence from leaning upon the Lord to leaning upon creation?
    Is such not the simulacrum of the folly of the Garden of Eden?  The usurping of God’s sovereignty?
    How foolish we can be; so quickly do we forget the lessons of time and cast our dependence upon the fleeting and rotting things upon this Earth. I can make no claim of authority on the knowledge of God’s nature.  I have sought it for near a decade—stumbling frequently, falling often, and even in my honest searches in the last few years, I continue to find that my image barely encapsulates a miniscule scintilla of the inherent grandness of His being.
    But, dear reader, this I will say: in the absence of full knowledge, I have chosen to believe and trust and obey and take His word at face value—and I have found that the barest of effort on my part is met by a monumental and transcendent acting on His. I first believed by Grace.  I continue to by faith and empirical evidence, for the Lord makes Himself known to me and any other believer, if only we seek Him out.
    I flipped back through this volume, and the reality of God’s impact on me is plain to my eyes.  From wide-eyed youth to hopeless lovesick romantic, to abject wallower, to hopeful spiritual warrior—the growth has been happening, and is only evident when viewed macrocosmically, on a wider scale.  I did not perceive it in the moment, but sure enough, I am changing.
I set my pen aside and reflected on all that had passed in the year leading up to that moment. A new year had dawned and with it endless possibility. New year, new life, new girl—we had talked for hours on New Years Eve about all sorts of things and effectively spent the evening together. It was wonderful to have a female friend who I could confide in, someone I could relate to and speak to so openly and vulnerably, someone who was walking with me on the trail who had a heart for God and a mind that challenged my own.
She was everything that I wasn’t: good with people, an optimist, my perfect opposite. She was wonderful, lovely, unique, beautiful.
“Oh no,” I thought.
Despite my better judgment and determination to avoid it, I had to admit the truth that I had known for some time now.
“I love her.”

The post #7: Soon Enough appeared first on EXPATS OF EDEN.

The only way to deal with heartbreak is to become a better person.

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I first ventured into the woods to find God and to chase after a desperate overriding longing that I could not quantify. I found myself confronting my health then, learning the ropes of natural life before succumbing to boredom and loneliness. The trips that followed bled into one endless stream, not a week passing without a return to the woods to chase that feeling.

Word had gotten around my social groups, and before long my weekend excursions had become parties and ragers that I frankly have little memory of. Week after week my trips into the forest grew shorter and the drunken revelry around the fire grew longer. That was fine by me, I was surrounded by folks who wanted to share the woods with me, and that was all that mattered, hangovers be damned.

    I think back—how many trips did I make alone since my ill-fated July 4th outing? Only one, I think, and it is remarkable to even consider that. Out of all of the trips I took that summer, only one or two of them were completely solo ventures. All others were undertaken with guests to entertain, new people to meet and learn about, and new tastes to cater to that ultimately rendered my journeys not the solemn and stoic adventures they had been—seeking God and rediscovering Eden—but a frenzied reflection of the rat race that drove me thence to the mountains.

I awoke one morning on the northern ridge of the property, hungover, miserable, and confused. “How’d I get here?” I sat up and considered the evening before: another rager, and one in which I had made a veritable ass out of myself. In shame, it seems, I had fled across the property to camp out alone. I reflected upon that sequence of events and came to a realization: “good God, I’ve got a drinking problem.” Then, moments later, “good God, I’m absolutely terrified of being alone.”

    The evidence of the former was plain enough to see, I hadn’t had a sober night in a long time, but the latter was something I wasn’t prepared for: that I wanted so badly to no longer feel like an outsider… and that I had become one all the same.

    I picked myself up and walked back to the cars. My companions had awaken and were departing for the river.

    They took the trail down to the river, none joined me in my trek across the mountain’s cliffs, and that was for the best. I had much to consider.

Was I really going into the woods to chase after God, or was I going into the woods to boost my own ego, to show off that I knew something that others didn’t? Were my trips solutions, or merely symptoms of a deeper problem?

    On one of my outings, a visitor told me that the love for Walden came from the fact that Thoreau returned to civilization. I suppose I agree now, to an extent. There’s a time to go into the woods, and a time to return from it.

    The wilderness and its call was but a fleeting solution to a deeper problem—I was burned out on life and instead shifted my focus on a life all the more hectic as I hosted friends and strangers—losing a grip on what I had set out for to begin with. Maybe initially it was true that I wanted to find God, but God is not just to be found in the trees, the forests, in the Edens… He is to be found also, and probably in a much greater sense, among the people in the city—wherever his church may be.

    And likewise, so too is Satan not just to be found in the Hellish rumblings of civilization, but also in every bower of the world where the humans dare to tread.

    I poisoned my Eden by forgetting God and building up an idol to human acceptance, and my own drunken appetites.

    I found my companions at the river, reveling, and I knew myself to be an outsider once more. As I looked from one to another I realized that despite our hangouts, there wasn’t one among them that I could truly share my heart with, and that made my realizations all the clearer.

    They departed from the river as I stood watching the trees and the water’s dalliance with the sun on the rocky banks.

    I could no longer be that starry-eyed idealist bent on being all things to all people. I could not be the wise man of the mountain. I could not grow in Christ if I put the world and my own self-image ahead of Him.

    No, I could no longer live that life.

    No more wanton approval-seeking at the expense of my faith.

    No more ignoring the Lord when He called me to pray.

    No more running, for that is what the woods had become—an escape from a reality that I was too fearful to face.

    The life the Lord had called me to is not one based in the forest. It is one based in the city. It is in the city where I had been planted, it was the city where I was to grow, it was the city that I was to love and serve to the best of my ability. In so many ways I despised it: the rushing around, the noise, and underlying futility, but that is where I had been planted.
   
    I knew that I would return the woods eventually, but never with the same pretense. My eyes had been opened, and I was “aware.”

    Summer had ended.

    When I returned home that weekend I almost involuntarily began to revise my lifestyle. I poured out my alcohol, started attending church again, and made it a point to invest in Christian community. It was remarkable how much better I felt about things. No more hangovers, no more fearing for acceptance, I was able to be myself in a community and pour into other people’s’ lives.

“This,” I thought, “this is what God must be leading me to.“

I had turned my back on my old way of life and had set out to “pick up my cross” and become the man I was to be. And then came the phone call.

It was the woman I had no business loving, and she wanted me to come over so that she could tell me something. I could read between the lines. This was a test! This was an opportunity to show how much God had grown me, and stand in the face of temptation and laugh. I was going to go over to her house and explain to her, plainly, how it just wouldn’t work between the two of us. I had my pocket Bible in-hand, reached out to my friends to let them know I needed some prayer, and set out, hell-bent to do the right thing.

    I should have walked the other way.

    In retrospect I recognize it for what it was, a test, or perhaps something more diabolical. There’s a reason that we are called to “resist the devil,” but “flee from temptation.”

    Satan is impotent, powerless in the face of Christ. Temptation, however, is the means by which he corrupts those who would otherwise stand a fighting chance.

    What is there to be said? I went over that night and, by the end of the week, I had turned my back on God and my own conviction. I was in a relationship.

    I want to make myself clear here: when I say that I “had no business loving this woman,” it stems from one thing—she was a not a believer. The Bible is very clear about being unequally yoked—it hinders a person’s ability to pursue the Kingdom of God. As Scripture and common sense was not enough, however, I had also asked numerous different counselors about whether or not I should pursue a relationship with this young woman, all had said the same thing: “no.”

    But I knew better! “Surely,” I said, “surely I’m going to be the exception, I’m going to lead her to Christ through my love and understanding!”

    “Surely.”

    I put forward my best game. I mused on the notion of love:

    Love is patient-
    It waits despite desire. It understands circumstance, if it does not, it tries.
    Love is kind-
    It gives the benefit of the doubt. It seeks not to hurt, but to uplift despite circumstance.
    It does not envy-
    It doesn’t look to what can be and wish for it, or begrudge its immediate absence. It accepts its lot.
    It is not proud-
    It does not make trophies of its object.
    It is not rude-
    It does not speak out of turn nor belittle.
    It is not self-seeking-
    Love is an act of self-sacrifice. Its object is paramount.
    It is not easily angered-
    See “patient”.
    It keeps no record of wrong-
    Despite hurt or betrayal, it moves beyond, forgives, and forgets.
    Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices in the truth-
    No revelry in degradation, subjugation, or manipulation, but only in everything previously mentioned, and the reality of the bond it forges. If something is the matter, it addresses it.
    It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.

    And, elsewhere…

    Beloved, let us love one another.

    For love is from God,
    And all who love are born of God,
    and Knoweth God.

    For no man loves who does not know God,
    for God is Love.

    God is love.  A defining aspect of His very essence.

    Yes sir, I knew my lines cold, I was going to make an impact for the Kingdom.
Maybe I did, maybe I didn’t. I’ve never had the privilege of closure.


I hold no ill-will, nor harbor any resentment. I openly confess and accept my blame.

The fact is that, despite my platitudes and wide-eyed assurances that “this time, this time it will be different,” I sinned greatly in that relationship. Not one single aspect of my life unique to Christianity was upheld. I grew fearful of God, knowing that I had turned my back on Him. I began to drink again. Heavily. There was a bottle always in my car or otherwise within grasp. I thought it was a social quirk. “Every else is doing it, why shouldn’t I?!”

Yeah.

It was a piss-poor coping strategy to combat my own guilt.

In the absence of prayer, my focus shifted entirely to the relationship. I became co-dependent and weak-willed. My moods would fluctuate wildly depending on whether or not a text was responded to, and I began to read into every interaction.

It was hell, and I was so taken-in by my sin that I was convincing myself that I was happy, one shot at a time.

One night, I don’t remember when specifically, only that it was towards the end, I confessed to God that I was afraid of approaching Him in prayer because I knew my sin. I begged Him, “if this relationship is not what you have planned for me, please end it, because I am too much a coward to do so.”

It wasn’t long after that that I got another phone call.

I’ll be frank, there’s a lot of pages and ramblings cut from this next part of the story, but what good would it do to rehash them here? The long and short of it is that she ended the relationship because of my negative lifestyle habits, and my reaction was bad. I begged, I pleaded, and effectively burned that bridge in the process. It was probably the hardest breakup I have ever been through, but probably the best because of what came of it.

A week later, after prayer, it dawned on me:    I had set her up as an idol in my heart despite my promises not to do so—I eschewed the foundation of God’s word and my relationship with Christ for one predicated on her happiness and love, which in turn showed the folly I had forgotten though knew once.   

I reasoned that a man incomplete in himself cannot truly give his heart away—a man cannot give out of incompleteness. One must address the internal before directing himself outward. If I was unable to bear up my own loneliness, if I was unable to stand myself by myself with no social crutches, then I was not prepared to truly face the world. I was loving from a place of desperation, and that just would not do.

I started at once, booking my afternoons with counseling appointments at a local church to help get years worth of pent up emotion out in the open.

I learned a few things straight away: that the source of my negative thinking stemmed from unrealistic expectations and a striving for perfection without allowing myself the benefit of the doubt when I failed. IE: I was too hard on myself.

I started to see real progress in counseling because, for once, I wasn’t “looking for a cure” to myself. I was looking to improve my own behavior.    I reflected on past break-ups and began to recognize patterns. The further back in time that I went, the more sense that it made.

I realized that my perception of “romance” stemmed from a childhood trauma: a psychologically abusive teacher who would single me out for being socially awkward, and the only comfort I had at the time, my only friend, was a young girl. Everyone would say that she was “my girlfriend”.When that dawned on me, I broke down laughing. It made so much sense! Every single relationship I had ever been in had been founded upon the notion of my own comfort, not the unification of two individuals in the spirit of mutual support and a common goal. I had been looking for a band-aid to cover a trauma that I couldn’t even see. It was the absolute wrong way to go about things.

    I had defined the problem, and in a way that I can’t quite explain, I felt that I had been freed from it. I lamented the lost time in my adolescence when I desperately wanted to be in a relationship. I lamented the lost opportunities, I lamented my lost potential. Then I got moving.    If I had wasted my teenage years and early twenties wallowing in self-pity, then I would be sure that the next decade of life would be the complete opposite.

    I needed to go back “into the woods,” but in a much deeper and truer sense. I needed to venture out into the world by myself, carry the full weight of my burdens, and make my own home. I needed to learn and grow so that my reflections of that time would be one of an outsider looking in.

The next day I applied for my first apartment.

There was much work to be done

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The wilderness takes its toll as a man finds a woman.

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I had gotten a phone call soon after returning from my camping trip. It was a friend from college, the young woman whom I had no business loving. She had seen my self-aggrandizing posts on social media, had been present at the post-graduation camping trip, and wanted to see more of the wilderness. Sure, why not? None of my other friends showed much interest in exploration beyond the property’s opening field, it would be nice to share my adventures with someone else.

My personal feelings? Surely, I told myself, I could set them aside.

There was nothing even slightly romantic about the trip. We walked around the property, ran out of water (I hadn’t learned my lesson, you see), built a fire, and spent the night on opposite ends of a forest clearing.

The next morning I woke to discover that she had built a fire by herself while I slept, and it wasn’t half-bad either.

I was impressed that she was showing a genuine interest in what little I knew about the woods. She wanted to learn, and I found myself in the strange position of becoming a guide.

We wandered the property for a few hours that morning, then went our separate ways, sure that we would return at some point in the future.

Despite my addiction to the forest, I was unable to return the following weekend. Not in a state of wakefulness, at least, instead I began to dream dreams:

Cast against a dusky sky painted long with maroon and purple–
I ran with the wind above the dark green mountains of Appalachia.

My flight halted above a pristine mountain,
Sporting the clear-cut bald characteristic of the region.

I was shown the four sides of the mountain,
The secret springs which feed its populace,

And saw the land divided by an ethereal line.

Deep within a voice declared,
In the inaudible yet distinct assurance like the voice of God Himself:

    “This land was cleared for war.”

How many times that summer had I soared through those dusky skies–
each time awakening to the Sehnsucht, the longing, the compulsion to return to the wild?

    This land was cleared for war.

    War for what?

    Not the bloody grappling of ideologues and violent men—but active conquest.

    Pursuit of a higher goal.

    My war of peace. Adventure.

    It was the sight of a grander horizon.  It is the conviction that hope must not be abandoned.

    It was the course and struggle the Lord unfurled for me to endure for His kingdom.

    It was His plan for my life.

    War against hate, against violence, against injustice and oppression, against evil.

    It was the war He has raised me to lead through.

    And I had not yet risen myself to engage.

    The apathy of the world, the complacency and vice that I surrendered to—the indifference. All of it, by my own fallen choice, stood in my way.

    I reasoned that I must not continue down to the valley of my dreams, but instead engage and become the man I was meant to be.  Fit in mind, body, and spirit.

    After waking, I reflected on my trip with my friend, I remembered the moment I met her and was moved by God that we were to become and, by chance, actually became friends over the years.

    Indeed, I viewed myself a teacher on that outing.  In some ways, I was, but more than that I was a fellow student, and a friend, and learned to allow myself to be vulnerable again in the presence of another person.

    I knew not how this friendship would grow, but I knew she to be a kindred spirit in a manner of speaking, and prayed safe travels and blessings upon her.

    The days passed. And the dreams changed.

    The first time I dreamed had been a month ago, before starting the journal and venturing into the woods.
   
    In that first dream, and it’s amazing that I never properly recorded it, I was steadily climbing a stormy pass despite the insistence of others that I ought to turn back.  In my heart I knew them to be misguided fools bent only on achieving comfort.

    I pressed on until before me hung a shroud, blocking a cut through the rocky pass.

    Beyond the shroud:

    Sehnsucht.

    That feeling.

    I saw forms beyond it moving in collaboration.

    I needed to be there with them. It was home.

    Upon waking I resolved myself to begin these wilderness trips.

    The dream then abated—but soon returned in the form of the “this land was cut for war” dream I detailed earlier.

    Yet again, the dream changed.

I lighted from the wind, into the forest beyond the bald
and found, at a high, rocky point, though not the apex:

A structure, and outpost.

Its leader was a wild and wise man,
Caring- cautious- knowledgeable.
Yet willing to fight to protect.

I saw all from out his own eyes hence:

He showed me his people-
Peaceful.
All working for a common good.

And he took up his bow and arrows and lead me down the trails nearby:

Some trails were good, leading to water and food-
Others were bad, leading to briers and thorns and grotesque depictions of sin-

There were bloated harlots lying in wait with manticore-like features-
Deformed beasts that I knew as addicts, murderers, rapists, doers of evil of every stripe.

When one of his people would venture down trails such as these,
He would correct them and show them another way-
But not without allowing them to stumble.

I was allowed to venture towards these bad trails,
But reacted with such revulsion that
I found myself waking, kicking and scratching at thorns and stinging nettles
Until I fell back to sleep and continued my journey.

The wise leader knew all of these trails,
and where they lead,
And he showed me the flood plains of a river
where a second leader was building an outpost in
the mud and marsh.

The second leader seemed content in his labor, but I knew it was folly.

Then, at last, the wise Leader returned to his own outpost and took up watch for travelers and raiders,
Chasing off those who meant harm and helping those that needed it.

I kept watch with him for the remainder of the night until I awoke.

    I’ll be frank: this dream disturbed me, and so I prayed.

    I reasoned that I was to be like the wise Leader, who was a reflection of God, but not God Himself, just as a man may be a part of the body of Christ, but not Christ Himself.

    I had and have stumbled much in life, enough to know where the paths to evil lie—not to such an extent as I saw in my dream, but more than I ought as a man following the straight and narrow path.

    I knew and recognized the second leader, a strong builder, but misguided, evidenced by the building in the floodplain. He was the fool that I once was, and still strive to avoid becoming. I was to point out the trail to higher ground.

    I was to look after that which the Lord has given me charge, guiding those who need it, helping those who need it, and finally taking up a watch to protect it.

    This is what I discerned, in prayer, from my dreams. I had never had dreams like them before, nor have had dreams like them since.

    I set out to better myself to become that leader, to emulate Christ in all that I did, and above all, I prayed for the Lord to help me.

I went back into the woods and the dreams subsided.

    Day hikes: one backpacking 3 miles along the East Palisade trail in Buckhead, reveling in the variety of natural landscapes and features, and one hike up Little Kennesaw Mountain.

    The latter was the more enlightening of the two.
   
    With only a day pack, and not the full weight of my camp pack, I hiked in, at first trudging uphill, desperate to keep step with my comrades, but finding myself too taken with the environment to merely press on with a singular goal of reaching the top.

    I found that there is no joy in the arrival if the journey is not either arduous or reveled in—and often both.

    I separated, putting a half mile between my friends and myself, veritably stranding myself in an oasis that still bore the marks of Confederate battlements and the bloody skirmishes that unfolded nearby so many years before.

As I clambered over rock and hill, I listened for wild things; catching a brief glimpse of a nearby fawn, and thoroughly loving the intense serenity—and nature’s uncanny way of adapting, but not changing.

Around me were rocky crags and holes that surely were the homes of creatures unknown once the park closed for the night.

I did not hike, but stalked up the trail, consuming the sights around me and, in part, wishing that there was another on the trail doing the same.

Near the top, I watched a lightning storm gradually fill the sunset-painted western sky.
The sound of music broke the solemn observation of order and chaos.
    Three teenagers ambled up the trail, blasting popular music from their phones. I was, I admit, vexed by the intrusion of the modern into this natural sanctuary.

    The teens did not appear ready for their trek: one sporting flip flops, and none of them carrying water.

    I waited for them to pass, but they stopped about fifteen feet up the trail from me.

    The sound of retching met my ears.

    They were certainly unprepared for a strenuous hike on a hot summer’s day, and my annoyance faded.

    I walked to them and offered the ailing teen some electrolyte tablets from my first-aid kit to help his heat exhaustion. He took them gratefully, but refused water to wash them down.

    The group thanked me and I passed on, happy to help newcomers who had never hiked during the heat of the day without enough water to spare. My lesson, hard-learned, applied to help another.

    Perhaps, someday, one of the group will pay it forward, recalling that day stranded, sick on a mountainside, and the gesture that helped alleviate the illness.

    Honestly, I thought myself superior, the better man, ready to help, until I saw the group again an hour later—they had stopped at that site and made their way down to a cliff-face, under shade, to watch the sunset. They remained there longer than I was willing to wait, and no more music played.

    Newcomers or not, that magnificent sight that had compelled me to stop, and our paths to meet, the dueling forces of sunset and thunderhead, a visual expression of the infinite crescendo of God’s glory juxtaposed by an expression of His awesome power, had captivated their hearts as well, just as anything truly beautiful captivates the souls of all of God’s children.

    I will never know if I made any difference to them, and that needn’t be.

    I was able to help another person, and partake in the admiration of a truly breathtaking sight with three total strangers.

    The hoped that the experience and what it inspired was enough.


    The wide-eyed wonder and deliberation of wilderness life shifted as I continued my regular adventures.  Mainly, I no longer felt as an interloper in the woods, but completely in tune with it. My mentality while out in the wild was one of collaboration and conservation, as I became more aware of the intricacies of nature around me.

    My body became fitter and my thoughts more deliberate. I could hike farther and longer with more weight than I could a month before when I began this writing.

    Of course, this shift opened a darker reality: if I were to see all that there was to see on my family’s land, would my deep longing, the Sehnsucht, return?  I knew it is essential to my health to go into the wild regularly, but was routine a risk to my fulfillment, as it was in each other aspects of life?

    Perhaps the struggle would then become one of further discovery—to know all about the creatures in the wild, the plants, and deepen my role as caretaker?

    I began to have more guests join me in my outings, and I began to confront an issue of the heart:

    I was and still am un-apologetically a Christian, yet many of my guests were not. I had a responsibility to be an ambassador for Christ in my day to day life, and surely the wilderness seemed to me to be a church in a sense—a physical space where I connected with the Lord.  How was I to share this properly with my visitors? How was I to convey the meaning I found out there to them without falling into a trap of preaching and debate?

    I had recently begun to move away from debate and out and out proselytizing because I believed it to be ineffective. What good are words if they are not backed by action, and could I judge my own without condemning myself?

    Instead, I had been making a conscious effort to embody Christ in my actions and interactions with others, and I would like to believe that I had seen some cracks appear in the defensive walls of those I interacted with—people softening their hearts to goodness once more.

    I would like to believe that, but I am a fallen man. My perception may have been accurate in some respects, but in others I found myself to be misguided.

    Time will tell. Many of these friends have grown so much in the time since my initial writing. Others have vanished from my story entirely. I know not what paths they have taken, nor the impact I may have had in our brief interludes…


And then came the night. That fateful night beneath the stars in the old, familiar meadow.

    I brought She that I Ought Not Love to the woods again, and made a choice:

    Despite my best judgment, I could not change my heart. I loved her. But my time in the woods had taught me much, and I reasoned that no matter what sort of home I might build with her, it would be built on compromise—a home in which I could not freely discuss the truth of God.

And so I built a pyre of oak and pine tall in offering.

    I made a decision to lay down a part of myself that night. I made a judgment call, and the Lord responded.  I sacrificed a piece of my heart and a piece of my dreams for the future for the sake of the Kingdom of God and the work He would have me do. I tore down an idol in my heart. By my own words I built a barrier between her and I, one that I reasoned would not be crossed. If ever there were any romantic feelings, they were doused and trod upon, never to be rekindled.

    Later that night, I wandered out into the field to meet the Lord, He did not call me to walk terribly far before re-directing my gaze to the majesty of the stars above.

    A tearful reunion between Father and Son, and I remembered the moment, but 60 days prior, that set me on that course to begin with.

    Be Still.

    Indeed.

    I expressed to the Lord my sacrifice, offering up my love that could never be, and He responded:

    Two shooting stars for my eyes alone: six or seven in total before I laid my to head to rest that night.

    Then, a fox from the mountaintop woods cried out into the night.  It was answered by another, crying more desperately, down in the valley.

    I returned to the fire and listened as coyotes joined in the nocturnal chorus, their cries seeming to carry on all of the winds.

I responded with a nod as I added a birch branch to the fire.

    “I am here, I am one with you all, a part and apart.”

My call was one of solitude.
   
    And silence.

The Lord gives more than we ever could —and that night I had given all I had to give.

Or so I thought.

The post #4: Cleared for War appeared first on EXPATS OF EDEN.

A tale of omens, heat exhaustion, and a lost dog.

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I awoke at 7:30am and the gathering gloom on the Western horizon meant one thing: a storm was coming.  A quick check of the weather indicated that I had about 90 minutes to complete my task before the skies opened and I was forced to relive the shame of my failed survival venture, so I set out.

    I climbed back up the mountain to my campsite, the mist hanging heavy over the land.


The night before there had been some confusion. My brother was insistent that I was looking for trillium, a dark green plant native to the area. I recognized the leaves from previous outings, but was skeptical about it being the identity of the miracle cure. Intent to double check before setting out, I had done some research on plants native to Georgia. Sure enough, I was not looking for trillium, instead I was looking for Pipsissewa, the “one who breaks into small pieces”, colloquially dubbed: “Striped or Spotted Wintergreen”.  According to tradition, its tea was utilized by natives to the Eastern US to treat gall and kidney stones. The memories came flooding back as I recalled how our survivalist friend had likewise recommended the remedy.


“Bingo.”

As I reached my derelict campsite, I was shocked to discover that not 48 hours earlier, as I was sitting beneath my tarp contemplating my own hubris, I was likewise sitting but a few yards away from this beautiful plant. I had never noticed it before; the detail of its striped dark-green leaves had never been properly defined for me. I had never truly “seen” the plant before I had been made aware of its presence on the property. That had now changed, however. Even now, years later, I know that I will never mistake the plant for anything other than “Pipsissewa,” it has been defined, and has become a part of my wilderness knowledge-base. I cannot go back into those woods without seeing the plants and recognizing them for what they are.

I set about my work.

Though not endangered in Georgia, I was concerned about over-harvesting, and made a mental note to only harvest a small portion of what I found, and leave the majority to continue germination and propagation on the property.

    As I made my way back to my car, the skies finally beginning to drizzle and then pour, but my mission was complete.

    I returned home, dehydrated the leaves in the microwave, unsure if it would be effective, and delivered them to my brother. His kidney stones cleared up within 24 hours of him drinking the tea. A bona fide medical miracle courtesy of the North Georgia mountains.

    Reflecting on this outing, three years later, I see something new. Just as prior to that outing I had never “paid attention” to the plants around me, so too did I not “see” the lesson that I should have learned then and there. I should have learned to be more perceptive, to pay attention, and be open to the complexity and nuance of the world around me. Of course, instead of learning this lesson, I reveled in my own ego, sharing images of the plant on social media and writing out some pithy statement on how beautiful nature was, all the while attempting to cast myself as a survivalist and wizened mountain man. If I had only known then what I know now.

    A curious quirk of the human mind is that our perception is often extremely shallow. There is an unfathomable number of details present in our environments at all times, and while we may think we are aware of them, we are by-and-large extremely ignorant creatures. We need things to be brought to our attention. We need things to be defined before they emerge from the backgrounds of our lives.

    You’re now aware of your blinking and breathing patterns, despite their usual autonomy, by the way.

Sorry about that.

    It would be a wonderful thing if the things we were ignorant of merely consisted of minutia, but in my particular case I had already begun to walk down a path towards self-deception and destruction. The warning signs were there, but I wasn’t paying attention. I had yet to be made aware of them.

    My friends would return to Atlanta to visit their family and ask me if I was in town. I would tell them, “yes,” but then proceed to wax-poetic about how “the trails called my name, and I found myself living a life fractured—torn between the city and the wild. Though both one and the same, the former a liar unto itself, and the latter, a teller of truth and a messenger of wisdom.”

    It’s hard to read some of my writing from this time merely because I see how foolish I was being, and how wise I thought myself to be in the moment.  

    By the end of July I had gone on six different camping trips, each time returning invigorated, restored, and all-the-more self-assured of where God was leading me and how I was learning deeper truths about the world around me.

    It was all very short-lived.

    Each Monday, my day-to-day life would grind me down once more and I would begin thinking about my next outing, and how it was necessary to preserve my sanity. How I was returning to the natural state of things and communing with God in mankind’s natural territory.

    I began to contemplate Mankind as a servant-master; capable of rending and destroying, but choosing not to. True leadership and power, I reasoned, is not in its exercise, but in its restraint. By yielding such power does its wielder honor himself—do not take as you see fit—do not destroy on a whim. If only we, as humans, had such capacity for patience.  What kind of a world would we live in?

    What good is the ability to move mountains in search of an ultimate goal if, day by day, that proverbial Everest is found on a new continent? Despite our best judgment, each dream we devise for ourselves pales quickly in the face of its attainment. When we achieve what our hearts have longed for, how quickly do we set our eyes to a more distant peak, so quickly forgetting and reassuring ourselves that “next time, things will be different. Next time, I will truly be happy?”

    What joys do we forego in the interim as we strive to attain that which will never fulfill? What true blessings do we overlook in our quests for that we believe will make us whole?

    It is best to wait.  To be patient. To relish the journey. To be still.

    And is this not the Nature of God?

    Slow to anger, but quick to mercy?

    Willing to wait.

    Willing to wait on us, if only we would turn from our own ways to devote our hearts to something truly transcendent and eternal.

    If only I had seen it then.   

    I returned to nature because I saw it as a church.  All of creation reflects the Love of God, the Nature of God—for the Creator crafted it all.  I found communion among the trees—which the Cherokee called the “Standing People”—to be more refreshing and connecting to the Divine than a standard church service.


    I knew that community was important—but all my roads lead back to the Lord my God—through the woods.

    This was folly.

    Though I had scorned society, I was participating in my own lonesome way.   

    We live in a hedonistic society, eager to indulge in every whim.

    We talk a big game, but yes, even those in the church indulge, and often in even greater ways than those whom we seek to save. We live on the precipice of devastation, blithely dancing closer and closer to the edge.

    We do not live in civilization; we live in the wilderness. What we dub “civilization” is but a veneer of agreed upon non-hostility and harmony that occurs when large groups of people gather and form governing bodies—a form of self-preservation, yes, but a veneer all the same.

    Make no mistake—civilization has no meaning when its citizens cease to recognize it.  

    If there comes a day, God help us, when the world that we know ceases to be and the safety net that we take for granted is plucked from beneath us… it is to the wilderness that we will return. And yet, we’re already there.

    We are but far-advanced versions of our primordial ancestors: still dwelling in our huts, still gathering in our long-houses, albeit ones not of mud nor stick, but of brick, mortar, concrete, and steel.

    It is unbecoming of a man to forget the distinct role that he plays in the world around him—and to forget that beyond the skyline of our totems to “progress” lies a world that has remained unchanged—not untouched.

    You see, the Earth never remains untouched. Mankind has wrought its footprint into the Earth since the beginning.  Yet, the Earth never ceases to be what it always has been:

    It adapts. It copes. It addresses each problem in turn.

    But its nature never changes.

    I think back on the Cherokee Marker Trees that I chased through the woods.

    They still stand. The old ways are still relevant.  The land and the world we dwell in still moves on, no matter how we try to tame it or build our towers to the heavens in an effort to overcome it.

    I followed the trees, one to another, then onward down the path.

    The Cherokee may have been gone from the land, but their culture remains long after their evictors have passed on.

    Nature has grown up around the trees, and over the trails they marked—but the trails are still there.  The trees are still there. Nature has adapted, but is not untouched.

    We can learn much from our forebears, those who had not the folly in mind to attempt to “tame the earth”, but to abide in it. Those who realized their place in the grand march of time. For all of our book learning and cultural wisdom, for everything that we have accomplished, we are still existing in the world we entered at The Fall. The outskirts of Eden. No less dangerous, no less foreboding, though perhaps more threatening in this age when comfort and content has usurped more primordial aims.


Yes, we live in a hedonistic society, eager to indulge in every whim, and the wilderness had become a drug for me, an idol, and I was chasing it with the best of them.

What is a man? A beast capable of great things: conquering, destruction, war, devastation; capable of dominating the land.

But, ultimately, a beast, a created thing, yet the only created thing most capable of caring for the land—so able to destroy, yet given the option to care, to cultivate.  

    To be a servant master.

    This is one lesson from the book of Genesis: mankind’s role as steward of the land. It is a gift, and it is a deep sin to abuse it.

    A wise man who I consider to be a mentor called this logic atavism, the tendency of an organism to revert to “old ways”. I’m not a science buff, but my understanding is that it occurs when a being reverts to traits last manifested several generations prior.

    I wondered, then and now, if this is perhaps why I felt so at home in woods?

    Had the recessive genes won out in me, bringing forth a genetic woodsman doomed to the flesh of a bloated modern man?

    Whatever the reason, my path was chosen and set. Despite all evidence to the contrary, I believed myself to be a wise man, and I was determined to continue down the trail, come what may.

    My next outing, I resolved to backpack to my old camp, devising a path over a mile in length around and up the steep side of the mountain to strengthen my back and burn calories. With me, as always, was Bear.

    I was reminded of my claim, but a quarter mile into the hike into camp, that Bear was a wild animal, and that he walked beside me as a token of respect as a member of his pack, when he vanished into the woods chasing after I know not what.

    I continued on, content in the knowledge that he would return to my side—but his ubiquitous absence as I reached the river and began my ascent of the mountain was not unnoticed.

    I paused often to call him by name, but he would not come. I resolved to finish my hike, to reach my camp, and so I did, though the victory was shallow without my friend.

    This was odd.

    Never, and I mean never, had Bear’s ventures off the trail lasted to the point that I was unescorted to my destination.  By now, history had shown, he should have returned.

    Strange—but no matter.

I would camp tonight atop the mountain. Perhaps, this outing, I would finally make the fire I so desperately craved a few weeks prior. My woodpile was still there, dry now, and I struck it with my walking stick to flush out any snakes that might dwell within.

SNAP.

A second omen.

    My walking stick, bearing Psalm 46:10, pyrographed into its frame by my own hand prior to its staining, snapped in two. I had become accustomed to walking with a stick, especially through undergrowth and over rough terrain. To go on without it in such conditions was nothing less than insane to me. I had not prepared for that.

I knew that interpreting such events as “signs” was wrong, but a flash of storyteller’s dread, the tendency to read too much into such things, kicked in all the same.

    I was running low on water and carefully picked my way down to the spring to replenish my stores. The night before I had noticed that I was running low and reasoned that packing in less water than I needed would force me to become stronger in the face of adversity.

But upon reaching the stream, I discovered another omen:

    My water purification tablets had been ruined at some point in the interim between outings.  There were but three usable tablets. I needed eight. I could not sustain myself in the wild this outing.

    I was stranded, without water, and still needing to find my dog, on a 160+ acre parcel of forest, in the middle of the mountains.

    “Stupid Greenhorn,” was my only response, grunted through clinched teeth and chapped lips.

    I knew the risks, I knew the score, it was a rookie’s mistake to trek in with no real means to survive.  I should have damned well known what I had before packing it in.

    I knew that I must find water, or die—yet still Bear was lost to me—and the grade to the springs was steep—too steep to travel without my staff, which I had relied on for many outings— and not to mention that I was breaking in a new pair of boots…

    “Stupid.  Greenhorn.”

    Indeed. Stranded, in the wild, with a 50 pound pack, new shoes, no means of attaining water that would be reasonably safe to drink… and without a walking stick.

    I was dead.

    It didn’t help that the heat of the day was setting in. I had to find Bear and drink water if I was to survive. Since I was a kid, I had read survival guides and Boy Scout Handbooks: if you don’t have water, eventually—and this is an inevitability—your brain is going to cook as your body takes water out of it to survive.

This is your brain on dehydration.

    I walked down the creek valley, following the slightest grade possible, unsure of my footing, until I reached the trail and set out to the last spot that I had seen Bear.

There had never been an outing on which he had disappeared for so long. Something was wrong.

    After much hiking, I collapsed.

    It was the damned unbearable heat.

    I reached for my day-pack, desperate, perhaps I had forgotten something.

    Sloshy weight. Liquid weight. My reserve bottle, so easily forgotten, was filled to the brim.

    Let me tell you this: water hath no taste to any but a dying man—and to him, it is sweetness itself.

    I drank from my reserve bottle and thought of the task at hand: the “What-ifs?”

    What if I have to treat a wound?

    What if Bear’s dead?

    What if I have to take his life in mercy?

Bear’s absence was so foreign to the point of being disconcerting. I cried out to him again:

    “BEAR!”

And then a whistle—that which he understood to mean, “Come here!”

Nothing.

    A last ditch effort, I readied my gun, a snub-nosed .38 Special like you’d see in an old detective picture he would come if I fired off a round…

CLICK.

Great…

Sure enough, the gun was jammed.

    I struggled with the ancient .38 until its hammer cocked—all the while cursing my folly–

    I hadn’t even checked my gun…

Finally… success.

BAM!

One shot.

    “Bear!”

Nothing…

BAM!

Another shot…

    “BEAR!”

Nothing…

    That was that.

    He was either hurt or dead.  

    And then reality set in…

    I had to trek through the wilderness, down his own trail, to find him.  When I did, whatever state he was in, I had to deal with it, even if it meant a reenactment of “Ol’ Yeller” right then and there.

    4:30pm.  The heat of the day, peaking at 90 degrees according to my watch—and me with no staff, little water, and a rescue mission on my hands.

    Wasn’t I supposed to be exploring or something?

    “He couldn’t have gone far,” I lied to myself, noting the contour of the land. I, as a fool, ditched my pack on the trail and descended into the valley, trailing a deer path all the way down to the river.

    Except Bear wasn’t down at the river. Dammit.

But what was there was beauty made real—cliffs, plains, water, foliage. I was in awe of it: an unexplored piece of land in the midst of a property that I claimed to know cold.

    I listened: no bark, no struggle, no whimper… if Bear was here, he was either dead, or long gone.

    I resolved to dwell in the latter, and traced my way through the valley, utterly consuming the beauty that surrounded me, fighting back heat exhaustion all the while.

I found the trail once more, reflecting on how sweet the water tasted, and realizing that so many good things in life share this attribute, such as forgiveness meaning nothing to anyone but to one who has damned their soul.   

I resolved to double back, to return to my car, the day was done. I’d have to regroup and return later.

I crested the hill and saw, to my astonishment, Bear, waiting by my car, gaping at me stupidly as if puzzled by my absence.

    “You son of a bitch!” I exclaimed with absolutely  no irony.

    We shared the reunion of a pack, glad to be together, accepting one another’s diverging hunts.

I spent the night, Bear standing guard, by the car and returned to the city at noon.

    I was done for the weekend… or so I thought.

That night I got the urge to head back out into the wilderness, and this time, with a companion. I had gotten a phone call, you see, and along with it a new direction down the trail and towards certain destruction.

The post #3: Greenhorn appeared first on EXPATS OF EDEN.

A tale concerning an ill-fated trip to the wilderness.

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I barely slept the night before my outing. I intended to drive an hour outside of the city to a 120-acre tree-preserve outside of Dahlonega, GA and trek to the site of a defunct gold mine to set up camp. My goal was simple: spend five days and four nights with nothing but the food and equipment that I carried on my back.

    I packed:

• 4 days worth of food for myself and Bear, my Rottweiler/German-Shepherd dog.
• 1.2 gallons of water which could be replenished at a natural spring next to camp.
• A tent
• Two wool “Indian-style” blankets- I do not think that I will need a sleeping bag- but left one back at the car in the event of an emergency.
• A Camping Hammock
• Spare clothes, and the usual trappings of a backpacker’s load-out.  Anything that constituted “being prepared”.

    I arrived at the property at 3pm, parked my car in the meadow, and set out to the Southwest before cutting up the Southeastern side of the mountain, and settling on its Northeast ridge. I set up my tent before following a game-trail down to the springs to replenish my water. Everything seemed perfect. The tempo of wilderness life had, thus far, been agreeable. There was always something to do, and what’s more, everything that needed doing was essential. Everything had purpose and consequence. Taking any sort of break seemed like a chore to be avoided at any and all costs.

Soon, however, thunder clapped overhead and the skies opened. I knew that it would rain on this outing, but didn’t make much of it. Life was life, and the foul weather would just add to the authentic flair of my journey. Facing a torrential downpour, Bear and I hunkered down and wait for the storm to pass.

    I intended to spend that time plotting a course for the site of suspected Cherokee dugout shelters somewhere on the mountain-side. No one had been able to confirm their location, but a survivalist who had lived on the property for two years insisted that they were somewhere hidden in the rocky crags adjacent to the river. I was determined to find them during my outing and fill in the blank spots on my homemade map. My planning session was cut short, however, as I discovered that my tent’s rain-fly had a hole in it somewhere and water was dripping in. A problem, to be sure, but one that I had planned for. Once the rain passed I would string up my camping hammock and readjust accordingly.

    Once I had quarantined the leak, I sat back and finally processed my situation: I had done it. I was out in the woods making it, and being hemmed in by the rain meant that, for better or worse, I was locked in. For better, I assured myself. There was nothing that could seriously go wrong. Nothing could bring me down.

    I considered stepping out to run in the rain, but decided against it.

    I marveled at the Lord’s handiwork all around me: the way the environment worked so seamlessly, how easy it was to navigate without compass by merely observing how the life interacted with the landscape.

    Earlier I had followed a deer trail from my site to the spring down the mountain, then another trail right back up. I had found rabbit droppings, and a tree used by a young buck to cut its antlers. The animals knew where to go, and I was following in their stead.

As I listened to the distant thunder, I had no fear, for I knew that the Lord was good and all of my surroundings were crafted and guided by His hand.

    My dog, Bear, despite being a bit more wild-spirited than the average house-dog, insisted on coming entirely into my tent instead of merely resting in the vestibule. It was a strange aspect of the trip: that I was packing equipment and food, and maintaining supplies not for one, but two.

    Bear would certainly use the streams and springs when he needed, but despite his ambition chasing wild deer and rabbits, I had never seen him succeed in catching anything…except for a car once upon a time. He had left a considerable dent in the side of a slow-moving sedan a few years back after it stopped at a stop sign. I don’t know who was more in shock, the driver at being literally hit by a 130 pound dog, or Bear, who had finally overtaken prey only to find that the takedown was more than he bargained for. Perhaps not so wild after all, but a welcome and most pleasant companion.  I wondered why and how he took so well to camping, even as a puppy? Almost certainly breeding. I wondered if all dogs take so well to it, or if Bear was a rare breed. I had only ever brought Bear with me, never my previous dog, who was far too old and too nervous to even climb into a car let alone go away for a trip.

    His hunting prowess aside, Bear was, however, a wild dog. I few nights prior to the trip I had taken Bear “off-trail” in the woods outside of our neighborhood, something that he attempted to replicate the next day during a potty outing as he endeavored to drag me from our yard into the woods.

    Bear was the first and only dog given to me specifically to train when I was a teenager.  He was originally to be a family dog, but my mother’s distaste for his shedding ensured his banning to live with me in my basement apartment. He would hang out when my friends came over, often kick me out of my own bed, and was just generally a mainstay in my day to day life for those seven years.

    I was glad to have him with me.  There are scarcely things more “classic” than a man and his dog roaming the woods.

    By and by, the dripping stopped and the thunder, which had been headed East towards me, veered South. It was still close though. I reveled in the fact that this was reality, life at its rawest. There were no structures or climate-controlled interiors, just a few thin sheets of nylon and the elements. In the forest, life interacts with the elements in an elegant dance. The animals may bed down and listen to the thunder in fear, when the storm passes, all continues as it was, the brooks and pools replenished and the foliage freshly watered.

    Not to mention the cool that follows a storm. Even in the mountains, the July heat meant rapid dehydration and exhaustion. A temperature drop was definitely in order.

    The storm to the South ebbed ever more, each clap of thunder more distant than the last. New thunder, however, clapped from the Northwest. I considered for a moment whether or not the storm had truly passed, perhaps I had misread the natural signs. I had but a moment to note that the birds had not resumed their songs before lightning struck on the ridge opposite my camp. Close. Very close.

    I realized then that class was in session. I had my Eagle badge and Boy Scout training, but I had never truly contended with the wilderness, only participated in controlled outings. I knew far less than I had previously assumed, not the least of which was the identity of the birds whom I was listening for.

    As they finally began to sing once more, I noted that I never once endeavored to learn their individual calls, nor how many unique species were native to the area that I was in. How could that have been?  How had that never occurred to me?

    I set aside these ponderings as the forest began to come to life once more and the storm finally ebbed away.   

    It was time to go to the river.

I crawled out of my tent and made my way across the ridge. I had never explored this side of the property and was curious as to what I might find. I wasn’t disappointed. On my way to the river I stumbled across something quite special, a tree that had been artificially bent at a right-angle to direct a traveler in a specific direction. It was a Cherokee marker tree.

    I had heard of these Cherokee trail-markers, but hadn’t yet seen one in the wild. At first I doubted what I had found- until I followed its path and discovered that it pointed to another near-identical tree a few dozen yards away.  This one was pointing down a faint, but unmistakable path worn into the hillside leading to the river.

    I followed, reveling in the fact that I was participating in the daily life and culture of a people that had known and trod this land a hundred years prior. They may have be gone, but their impact on the land still stood. Living fixtures that continued to grow and outlasted the mining company that had sprouted up and died in their absence.

    As I celebrated my discovery, I learned a harsh lesson. The first “Law of the Jungle,” if you will: adapt or die.

    The skies opened once more and I was caught in the floodplain. I had scrambled down the mountain chasing after the Cherokee trail-markers. The way back was far too steep to attempt, and the quickest way home was a solid mile back around the mountain. To make matters worse, I had not kept proper track of time, and the sun was beginning to set.

I hurried home as quickly as I could, getting drenched to the bone in the process. When I finally got to camp, thoughts of a fire, warm bed, and meals dancing through my tired mind, I found that the leak in my tent was far worse than I had previously thought. As it turned out, one of the tent poles had been fractured, and had torn a hole not only in the tent itself, but also in the rain-fly.

    It was not to be a warm night.

    As I had based my choice of campsite on tenting, I had to pack up—at night in the middle of the forest—to find a more suitable site for hammocking.

    As I carried my gathered belongings through the darkness, I saw a pair of eyes watching me from the dark.  In all of my fantasies of roughing it, I had never considered actually wandering the woods in the middle of the night nor stumbling across an animal out there.

    The creature watched, and I approached cautiously, too curious for my own good. I stalked up to it, and saw: a fawn nestled in the bush, the beginnings of antlers protruding from its head. Not wanting to frighten the poor thing any more than I already had, I departed, now knowing where the deer bed down at night, and feeling that much closer to the Earth.

    I finally found my new campsite a few hundred yards across the ridge. It was a small, natural hollow with two large trees on either end. After augmenting the hammock’s straps with some rope to accommodate for the distance between the trees, I had the hammocking campsite. No dry firewood however, and as such no fire. All I could do was hang up my hammock’s rain-fly and setup underneath. Fortunately, my spare clothing was dry.

    The night would be spotty, however. I had never slept well in a hammock and preferred tenting. No matter. Adapt or die. Besides, I liked this spot better.  It was at the highest point on the property, nestled in the trees. A much better home. And what’s more, I was now immersed: no walls to separate me from the sounds of the night-

    The Lord, too, was there.  For the Psalmist says that the Lord cares for men and animals alike.

    I thanked the Lord for the deer, for the night, and for the lessons of the day.

    I reflected on the trail-markers. They had lead from the top of the mountain down to the river, and then somewhere far into the woods beyond where I had ever explored. I wondered what might lie at the end of their trail, and despite my rough initiation to the wilderness, set my mind to the adventure ahead.

Now that I had camp set, I foolishly thought, exploration would be my chief concern.

    This, I learned, was folly. Only a city-boy would consider exploration to be a primary concern in the face of survival.

    I awoke to the sound of rain and realized that despite my site being waterproof, there was still much that needed to be done. Beyond salvaging what I could from my swamped tent and replenishing my water supply, there was a more pressing issue: I had brought dry provisions, which required no actual preparation, but they would not be sufficient in providing the nourishment I needed for the duration of the trip. For that, I needed to cook. I needed to boil water. I needed to make fire.

    I decided that my dry provisions, which required no preparation, would not be sufficient in providing the nourishment I needed here- I need to make fire.

    I trekked down to the spring, only an additional hundred yards from new site, and on my way back gathered the rain fly from my ruined tent. I had to stop on my way back up the mountain. Somehow, despite my pride at being a seasoned backpacker and my assumed stamina, I was thoroughly exhausted. The glamor of this outing had worn off. I prayed for the will to keep moving, and learned another Law of the Jungle: inertia.

    In the wild, remaining at rest for too long leads to apathy and lethargy. The beasts of the field do not while away the hours in hopeless, frivolous pursuit.  Their lives are driven by instinct and survival. Purpose. Deliberation.

“I need to make fire.”

    I built a lean-to using the tent’s rain fly, careful to avoid exposing its damaged sides to the elements.

    The sound of distant thunder and looming stratus clouds, as well as the absence of bird song and the ominous looming wind, kept me conscious of the inevitability facing me. There was another storm coming.


    It began to drizzle, and I noticed that my hammock was getting wet. I scrambled to adjust, re-tying the lines of the rain-fly at adequate lengths. It began to pour, and I was out of time. Bear and I scrambled under the tarp and I hoped beyond hope that I had done well. As far as the rain-fly, I had. My hammock, however, was a different story. There was water soaking the ropes that held it up, not a problem, in theory…in practice, the ropes were quickly saturated and leaking into the hammock itself, soaking the flimsy nylon. I scrambled once more, propping my hammock with my walking stick to mitigate the issue. The hanging-angle would need to be adjusted once the rain died down a bit.

    I hoped that my lean-to would keep the firewood from getting any wetter than it already was.  If not, it will be another night without fire, but I would manage.


    I read through the Epistle of James while the storm overhead raged.  Opening with a declaration to remain joyful during trials certainly rang true as I watched the world around get showered.

    There was a break in the storm and I took the opportunity to appraise my campsite and firewood.

    No further damage, but the wood was still wet.

    It was certainly a “down” day.  Not in an emotional sense, but in the sense that there was little to do as camp was set, water was gathered, and I had no recourse but to weather out the storm.

    And… more thunder.

    “God moving furniture.”  The old Sunday school sensibility.

    I heard a distant bird singing…perhaps the storm will pass soon, I hoped, but it didn’t.

    I waited. And waited. Waiting wasn’t something I anticipated.

    I had figured that I would revel in the rain, running through the woods in wild abandon…but the reality of being wet and cold suppressed such frivolity.

    I waited. And waited.

    “This sucks.” I said to myself.

    I left the wilderness five hours later.

    I tucked my tail between my legs and fled back to the comforts of civilization.

    “What a schmuck.”

    I tried to make excuses, how it had been raining and how I had been bored, and how I wanted to see everyone for the Fourth of July, but in my heart of hearts, I knew precisely why I had fled. I didn’t have the stuff to actually make my way out there in the woods.

    First, I had no idea what I was getting into to begin with. My mind had been filled with images of abandon and frolic, far from the realities of maintaining a camp and provisions against the elements. Second, I was entirely out of shape to properly adapt to my surroundings. In those days, I was a solid thirty pounds heavier than my current weight, and my drinking habit wasn’t helping my cause. I wasn’t ready, because, after all, there is an all-too-easily forgotten Law of the Jungle, one that I had heard since childhood and never fully appreciated: “Only the strong survive.”

    I needed to strengthen myself, man up, and make another go of it. I needed to learn to adapt, to survive. This would require physical health, mental acuity, and an understanding of the environment. I needed to learn the flora and fauna, and I needed to learn how to properly deal with the variable pace of life in the woods.

    I started at once, and returned to the woods 48 hours later.

    My brother, as it happened, had a kidney stone, and wanted to try out an herbal remedy he had learned about from the survivalist who used to live on our family’s land.

    I may have been poorly prepared for my first real outing, but I could most certainly make a go at finding the plant that the Cherokee dubbed “The Stonebreaker,” somewhere out in the woods.

    I fell asleep that night thinking about the day to come, the adventure ahead.

    “Tomorrow,” I said, “I find that plant. Tomorrow, I get one step closer to finding Eden.”

The post #2: The Laws of the Jungle appeared first on EXPATS OF EDEN.

The adventure begins in a prenuptial reflection on times long past.

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To God my Father, who leads me beside still waters,
To Jesus Christ my Savior and Lord who walks beside me,
To the Holy Ghost who stirs my heart and dwells within me,
To Rebekah, my unexpected blessing who brings me great joy,
And to all weary travelers upon the trail, may the Lord find you, bless you, and keep you.

Amen.

—-

    Every year since I began this project, I reflect on the words to use to frame this story. I have attempted to abrogate my own musings and blunt the more damning passages, but ultimately I must set this collection loose at some point.

    This truth was hammered into my quite clearly this holiday season, as, for better or worse, it was the final holiday season of my “childhood”. Make no mistake, I’m nearly 30 years old, I have lived on my own, I have held down career-oriented job positions. I’ve managed my own business, down my tax returns, claimed itemized deductions, diversified my retirement portfolio. I’ve loved and lost, I’ve lead scores of people in the production of commercial and private films, I’ve shouldered legitimate responsibility, I’ve been “adulting” since I decided to never work for anyone else again in high school and set out to carve my own path in the world. I am a man… but am I?

    I have never lead, truly lead, a household of my own. I have lived in an apartment by myself and accumulated the take-out containers and general disarray of the “bachelor’s life”, but I have never taken on the task of establishing and caring for a family. And, as the Bible describes the leaving of home into marriage as the definitive step from childhood to adulthood, I realize that I have, until this writing, neglected the enormity of that next step. For in a month’s time, I will be married, and I will be truly and irrevocably leaving from home to set out on that journey with my bride. People keep asking me if it feels “real” yet. I keep saying, “oh yeah, for sure,” but I realize the actual gravity of the situation had never fully dawned on me.

It wasn’t been lost on those around me, however. I noticed last night, well into January, that my parents still have not taken down their Christmas decorations, nor their children’s stocking from the fireplace, a mainstay for all of my years on this Earth.

As I looked upon the Christmas tree and the decorations surrounding it, I reflected at how much history hung upon its drying boughs. Now decades of homemade decorations, fading photographs of my siblings taken and developed in an age before the ubiquity of smart phones and social media. I saw decorations hung in 1996, the year I got my Nintendo 64. I saw decorations commemorating my sister’s first Christmas in 1998, the year, 21 years past, that I discovered that I wanted to be a filmmaker. And I saw the decorations that I remember from my very earliest years, holdovers from my parent’s lives before they set out together in marriage. The paint fading and chipping away, but the precious memories remain.

    And I realize that next year, my Christmas will be very different. My wife and I will have a tree of our own, hang our stockings above our own mantle, and we’ll begin an ornament collection for ourselves. Our own family’s stories memorialized in iridescent vinyl and ceramic.

    I realize that leading up to Christmas my parents were more deliberate in spending time with me. I realize that there was an estrangement that had set in when I was teenager. I realize that my older relatives have spoken more openly about seeing the family more. I realize that our family has grown smaller through death, and larger through birth. I realize that my “family,” the people I spend Christmas with each year, is markedly different now than when I became self aware many years ago. Ultimately, I realize that an era is about to end, and I have absolutely no idea where the time went.

    I realize now what this book has represented, because it begins and ends the same way, with the trail, love, and the Lord. I am about to become a married man, and it’s only fitting to commemorate this season of change with the story of how this all came about.
—

2017:

    I went out walking tonight.  No music, no audiobooks, no podcasts, no companions, no phone calls- just me, the night, the trail, and the Lord.

    The New Year has arrived, and unlike the years before, an abiding peace has come with it.  For the first time, January is well under way and my heart wants for nothing. That’s incorrect.  My heart wants for nothing tangible, but deep within my soul cries out for something I have no words for.  

    And so, deep in longing, I traversed the paved trails of the Appalachian foothills abiding in God and listening for His still voice among the night’s music.   By my journey’s end I had heard nothing, but felt His hand guide my heart. How different things are now.

    There was a time when I would gladly boast of hearing His voice and revel in the spiritual highs accompanying worship- when I was righteous in myself in every way and did not hesitate to let anyone know.  That was the time of infancy, before this book was written. Throughout its composition, and even in the time it has remained in the trunk- a year now, how can that be? – my path has crested many mountains and traversed many valleys, and a great deal of baggage has been left by the trail side for the best.  I still draw breath, however, and so I cannot lie to myself or to you, dear Reader, and claim that this book will adequately summarize my travels. My travels will continue until my eyes close in death, and I am certain that just as I look upon this book with wiser, alien, eyes a year after its first draft completion, that wisdom will only grow by the grace of God so that the man who walks among these pages will seem a complete stranger to me when again I take it off the shelf.

    I did not choose to write this book.  I came to love it as a child and source of pride, and to hate it as a damnable idol and written record of all that has transpired within the darkness of my fallen heart.  If it were my choice, this book would remain a handwritten manuscript gathering dust on an upper-shelf.

    But it is not my choice.

    This volume comprises a more honest accounting of my own sin and struggle in faith than I had contemplated when it first began- though it is not in perfection that we find God.

    No, while God is perfect, it is through our imperfections- our brokenness that He is most readily revealed, because in those moments that we desperately seek to be fixed, He alone can and will mend us- if only we seek Him out.

    For the Lord sought me while a stranger, and I am still prone to wander- but the Lord became flesh to redeem sinners though He owed us nothing- and of all sinners, I am the greatest of all.

    Just as this book was started, so it will be published.  I owe this book to God, and can only pray that what lies within might help someone on their own trail.  If the Holy Spirit has inspired but a single sentence within these pages, if but one reader might come to know Christ, then this traveled trail will be worth while.

    As it is, the time is now, and my heart has been moved in the stillness of the night to revisit those forgotten days many miles ago.

PART ONE: Be Still

I had made the trek nearly every weekend for the last four years, but that final drive home from college was perhaps the strangest I had ever taken.   I-16 West was gridlocked at Dublin, so I left the highway to travel county roads. I’m not sure what towns I passed through along the way, only that what should have been a four hour drive became an all-day affair, and that my hangover was the least of my concerns.
The night prior, in drunken revel alongside my fellow graduates, I had confessed my years-long affection to a woman that I had no business loving.   She was polite about it, but quite plain that it would never work. My cousin drove me home and I passed out only to wake to the horror at what I had done.   As far as drunken faux pas, it was mild, but I laid out my self-judgment all the same- “what a schmuck.”

    The embarrassment of that moment haunted my odyssey through the country that surely inspired Flannery O’Connor’s finest works, but even the shame of my lost composure could not hold a candle to the emotion that was beginning to form in the pit of my stomach.

    It was something I couldn’t quite describe, but that I will now and forever associate with the highways in hiding, the Talmadge Bridge over the Savannah River, Spanish Moss in the trees, and the sound of Audrey Hepburn singing “Moon River.”  It was a desire for something- everything- to be set to right. It was a desire for the entire life preceding this moment to be set on-kilter and for the rough patches to be smoothed over. It was something that I had never experienced before, and I found myself desperately- yet in vain- trying to dispel it.  If only I could give it a name, then it would lose its sway over my heart. But the road was long and there was no one to inquire of to set my mind at ease.

    I found I-75 in McDonough and continued onward to Atlanta.  It had been a long day, and by the time I arrived at home the feeling had given way to the bustle of getting my life settled in.

    I forgot it, for a time.

    Considering that my final graduation date coincided with my birthday, and considering that the majority of my friends from college were moving to Atlanta following graduation, and considering that the last month of college had negated any possible opportunities for me to go camping or even enjoy my own company, I invited everyone on my short-list to a weekend of camping and fun that I dubbed a “Graduation Birthday Bash” just a week after we had all said farewell to the coast.

    Everyone made it, and for the first and last time, that group was all in one place, gathered on a mountaintop in Appalachia enjoying one last rager before the great inevitability of life set in.

    It was a typical college party.  There was alcohol, a lot of ultimately empty talk, and good-natured beratement.

    As the night wore on I became acutely aware of my role as an outsider in the group.  I could drink with the best of them, but I went camping to be outside- to engage in nature.  There came a moment during that night where I was walking, off-trail, through the woods and caught myself plotting my advance through the brush based off of pre-blazed animal trails that were barely perceptible to the naked eye.

    I suppose I had always subconsciously done this when hiking off-trail, but it was the first time that I ever caught myself doing it.  I was intrigued by the fact that I was perceiving paths laid by animals that knew the lay of the land better than I ever could, and following them wherever they may lead, despite having a distinct bearing on my destination.

    Later in the night I found myself choosing green branches to use to roast hotdogs and marshmallows based off of whether or not they were bearing leaves- I found that spider webs encompassing these branches indicated that they were “dead” or “dying”, and that these branches snapped off with ease without damaging the tree- while still retaining some green in them that would prevent them from burning.

    There was something in this innocent discovery that triggered a sense of awe and wonder at the human condition- that we were created to tend the Earth in Eden, and that we had foregone that responsibility and experience along with every other one of God’s blessings.

    Once everyone had retired for the night, I made my way out into the meadow beyond our campsite and sat overlooking the mountains to the West.  A thick blanket of cloud had covered the entire sky the entire night until this moment when, as if by an unseen hand, the clouds parted to reveal the majesty of the Milky Way, the light pollution from the distant cities partially abated by the thick clouds that still covered the stratosphere.

    I sat in awe of the majesty of it all, and in that moment I understood the meaning of Psalm 46:10: “Be still and know that I am God.”

    And still I was.

    I was so still that I fell asleep beneath that incredible sky.

    When I awoke before sunrise something inside of me had changed.

    And so it began.

 I went back to the woods a few times in the month that followed- once to play a survivalist version of paintball that utilized slingshots instead of guns.  We would set out, alone, to different points on the property and set camp before commencing to hunt each other down like animals.

Unfortunately, it began to rain late in the day, and the game was called off.  

    Another time, for my friend’s birthday, I found myself separating from the car-camping group to explore the wilderness alone, discovering some old Cherokee rock formations and other such nuggets of wilderness “gold” in the process.  I found it unbelievably hard to convey my sense of wonder and awe at what I had experienced, and once again, despite being amongst friends, I found myself an outsider.

 Then again: a solo camping trip which lead into an exploration of the cliffs and caves on the Northern end of the property.  I had forgotten all about the shame of that long drive home, instead my heart was pounding with the rising tide of that foreign emotion that I could not name. 

I was addicted.

In the last days of June, I found myself feverishly dreaming of the forest.  I could not escape the desire and need to return to nature, and believed, very deeply, that to do so was not only essential to my psychological health, but also to my spiritual growth.

    That feeling of intense longing that I had first experienced on my ride back from college resurfaced, and I found my daylight hours haunted by its shadow, and my nighttime hours lost in dusky dreams of mountain twilight, that desire for renewal and wholeness saturating the starry skies and everything around me. I had to discover its name, surely then I could master it.

    I’m not sure how I stumbled across its proper name. Looking back, it’s remarkable that out of everything that struck me about that season in my life, the definitive naming of this newfound emotion barely registers. I remember where I was when I found it, the back corner office at my day job “suite-4” was the official moniker, the music that I discovered in the process, Fleet Foxes and Iron and Wine seemed to embody it the most, and the ensuing obsessive research over it that lead me into the more philosophical works of C.S. Lewis and the venerable Henry David Thoreau… but I have no recollection of how I found the name of the emotion itself. No matter, the name, it turned out, was Sehnsucht.

    Sehnsucht is a German word that translates to “longing,” but the consensus is that this particular emotion is far deeper than a mere desire. It is a longing for something beyond this mortal world, an appetite and thirst for an experience that truly transcends. C.S. Lewis contended that this desire, absent finite means of satisfaction, was evidence of the existence of the infinite—the Divine.

    It is the something that arrives with the first cool winds of autumn, shaking the leaves from skeletal trees.  It is something vast, serene, and mysterious—as if one were standing on the veiled threshold of something beyond oneself as one’s truest family marched onward through the haze.  The feeling of anticipation, peace with a purpose—the feeling that the veil will fall to reveal perhaps one’s true home, perhaps a life separate from the status-quo, so completely obvious, but as of yet enshrouded and unrealized.

    It is a peaceful feeling, but one of calling and yearning- not of want, nor deficit, but of Communion with the Divine. I am convinced that this feeling is the latent genetic memory that every single human being has: that ineffable knowledge that something in this world is inextricably broken—that something is missing.

    My life had always been a veritable utopia: I had no want, no worry. I had a steady job working in my field, and had a regular income because of it. By all accounts, I was successful. But I could not shake that intense longing for something deeper, something more. I felt like an exile, discontent with urban settings and our work-a-day world. I began to hunger for genuine communion with God apart from civilization. Civilization, I reasoned, feared no God. The post-modernists, after all, had killed Him.

    In a moment of clarity I made my decision. I would disconnect and make good on a goal that had haunted me for years. I would enter the woods and survive as primal man to experience the source of mankind’s wonderings: Eden.

    Fellowship between God, man, and Creation.

    This is what I longed for, and it called me back to the woods, to the mountains, back to a place where time stands still and a man can truly “Be Still” and know that God is God.

    And so, on July 1, 2015, I finished my work early and went on vacation.

    Off to Eden.

The post #1: Be Still appeared first on EXPATS OF EDEN.