A Shadow in the Moonlight

The Spirit is in the house tonight. I can see the silouette of his shadow dancing in the fading glow of the moonlight sneaking through my foggy window. The outline of His Spirit casting a shadow on my wall that reminds me more of Peter Pan's than that of the Son of Man. I can see that shadow waving its hand, motioning me to come closer, to follow Him through my door, down the hall, and out of my house, to a world that man hasn't messed up yet. I can hear the Spirit dancing to a song; a song about a world where the love of the Cosmos flows in its quiet waters. I can hear a song about a place where the golden grass of untouched fields grows knee high. A song about a place where the chaos of the city is replaced by the commotion of the stars preparing for a nights performance. A song where the shadow of a skyscraper is replaced by the shade of an oak tree. And so I see this shadow of man with pierced palms and a childish grin stretching across his boyish face waving me into greater romance, calling me for company. Asking me if I'd like to go share a cup of coffee with an old friend. A shadow curious to see if I'd like to share a cigar on the steps of a cathedral of cedar trees. And I'm humbled in this moment. In this very moment, I'm a man, a simple man, broken and shattered by the love of my Father. Broken because He simply refuses to give up on me, because He simply refuses to give up on us- His sons and daughters. And so I'm drawn here, to the glow of my computer screen, to write. Because the truth is, I never feel as close to the Cosmos as I do when I'm crunching the letters of this coffee-stained keyboard, or pushing my pen across the pages of my storied journal. I find that it is in these moments when our Great God is most glorified in me. In the moments where it's just His shadow beckoning me out of the dark and into the light of my computer screen or the leather binding of my notebooks. Our God is good, He is very good. I am stirred by the song He his singing right now. I am absolutely compelled by the eternal romance He invites me into tonight. I am floored by His love for His child. He is relentless. He returns to the walls of my heart to fufill a promise he made to me, to all of us, in the book of John. He returns to adopt us into His family, not to leave us orphaned and abandoned. He comes to claim His children. And so tonight, in the newness of a day that has not yet reached dawn, I can feel Love pressing into my chest. And all I can think about is how much I don't deserve to feel this way. I can only think about how sooner than later this moment will disappear and I'll forget about how the brush of Christ moved across the canvas of my life. I take this grace for granted. We all do. Still He comes. He still sends us invitations to the party. He's the friend that always shows up on our doorstep even after we've locked him out countless times. He always comes back, back to our walls dancing in the glow of the moon. Holding out his arm, with an open hand, begging us to grab hold and walk into the rising of the sun worlds away. And tonight, He's back, moving in ways only he can. In this moment, this time, shared between Creator and created, his creation, me, the result of the same God who compelled the glaciers to carve mountains; moved them in ways that rivers would be torn into vallies, decorating their cold busy waters with fish and life, is feeling this same imagination and same creativity unfolding inside his weakend chest. The Spirit is here, telling me that its all going to be fine. The quiet commotion of creation beating my heart, moving my feet to the rhytm of His earth. He speaks my name in a language of love that no man will never fully comprehend, that no man will ever completely understand and therefore will never properly teach. That man has come and gone. That man sits at the right hand of the great divinity moving in my soul. The best we can do, as humble hearts, is to seek, find, and not yield in the loving of His offspring. It is to love and shed compassion for His sons and daughters, for our brothers and sisters. If we would just love... If we would let our hearts become consumed and covered in this redemption. I pray for this. That the beauty of such moments as the one I'm wrapped in, the moments we share in the company of our King would be savored. That we would write it on our hearts in perminant marker, so all that pass would see, like the initials of lovers carved in a tree, that our hearts are ornaments of creation, our lives testemants of a greater good. That we would hold these moments we spend in The River in our hands, gripping them so tightly that our fingers start to bleed and our body would sweat. Oh, that we would not let go! That we would truly feast on these moments, taste them in our mouths and savor them, and fully understand and believe that our God is real! That this love and compassion, and this wild pursuit for us is real! That we would carry these moments with us throughout the pages of time so that when we are decievingly lured to the desert by our enemy or romantically and beautifully drawn there by our Savior, we would not forget how great his passion for us is; how unending the devotion! That we would never forget his unmatched splendor and delight in every changing season of our soul! That we would recognize his majesty in all things. That we would still sing his love song, even when there is no music. I hope to find our voices harmonizing in the glory of that song.

The Man With the Club

"He was beaten (he knew that), but he was not broken. He saw, once for all, that he stood no chance against a man with a club. He had learned the lesson, and in all his afterlife he never forgot it. That club was a revelation. It was his introduction to the reign of primitive law... The facts of life took on a fiercer aspect, and while he faced that aspect uncowed, he faced it with all the latent cunning of his nature aroused." - Jack London (Call of the Wild)

The first fight I ever got in was in 3rd grade. It was right after school and I had thrown my backpack down so I could go play on some picnic tables with my friends. When I returned to where I'd thrown my backpack I found that it was gone. One of my friends brothers, who was a 5th grader, thought it would be funny to hide my backpack on the other side of the school. It was hilarious, only problem was the bastard decided to hide it in some mud. When he went and got it back for me and I saw that it was covered in mud, the attitude of that afternoon changed. It had to, as any young boy will tell you. Things can't stay the same. Action had to be taken. The action I decided to take was a type of action called "revenge." Let me tell you about this kid. Michael was obsessed with the Miami Dolphins. Why, I have no clue still to this day, but he loved them. Everything he owned had to do with them. He didn't have a backpack, he was one of those really cool kids that just carried around a binder when he was at school. Well, his binder just happend to be a Miami Dolphins binder. To him it was gold, an obsession expressed in school supplies. To me it was vegenance, vindication expressed through a piece of plastic. I took his binder and without any hesitation, tossed it in a nice new puddle of mud. And that's when he pushed me in the same puddle, right next to my vindication and my pride. He picked up his binder and took a step back. I stood up and took a step forward. Just as his dad was pulling into the parking lot to pick him up and as the principal was walking out of the cafeteria doors, I was pushing back. I wasn't about to back down. Michael landed face first and so hard that the mud splashed up onto my jeans. I stood there, towering over him like a giant, unphased by the grasp of my principal's hand. My adreniline rushing through my lungs like a roaring water. Now, I don't remember what happend after that moment, probably cause it was very forgetful, but that one single second where I was standing over that kid was worth remembering. Where I stood over him with clinched fists, gnashed teeth, and the crazed look of a lion after a kill in my eyes. He was scared in that glorious second. Scared of kid smaller and younger, but a kid who took a fall and had gotten back up to dish one out. All that was enough for me. That was all I needed. Now there's a reason for this story, for the quote sitting at the top of the page.

For the past 6 months I've gotten the absolute shit kicked out me. I've been waking up with the rusty taste of blood in my mouth since the middle of June. It might even be longer, maybe I've been marching on like a soldier completely oblivious to the stomach punches I've been recieving. Well, I know now. I can see the bruises; I'm bent over on buckled knees and broken ankels gasping for air. The palms of my hands, painted red by my blood, spilled by failed attempts to catch my fall. The inside of my forearms now colored by webs of scars sown by the unapologetic blow of the trail I've been walking on. I'm taking a beating; caught up in the spiritual war for the soul. I've felt like just another casualty for quite some time now. A casualty beaten by his excuses, by his blame on the King, his lack of knowledge and complete loss of control. A casualty killed by a lack of discipline and a faithless doubt haunting him in his lonlieness. His vision blurred by the smoke of the bombshells and bullets exploding just beside his body, laying lifelessy in the mud. He turns his head to the left, sees the same vindication he saw in the third grade when he layed in the mud puddle. He turns his head to the right and sees that same pride and confidence. You want idea of what my life has looked like for awhile? There you have it. Just a boy, trying to be a man, laying like a corpse on a battlefield covered in his blood. His sword burried somewhere beneathe the debris of his scattered life. His heart, the same. Now I can come up with a world of excuses on why I'm laying in this state. Could write you a list of a 1000 pages to justify my indecision. Started the summer working at a job I thought God had designed me to work the rest of my life, only to find out that He didn't want that from me. I stood in the sun the middle of that summer with my hands in my pockets, confused with His will, but anxious to move on into the mystery. Then I got a phone call from my mom. She, along with my grandparents and my sister, met me in Rogers the following weekend to tell me that the chances of me coming back to OSU were pretty slim. I can remember sitting in a hotel room with my mother with the stintch of unwelcomed emotion hanging in the air. She was there to tell me that financially there was no way my family could afford to send me back to school here. That the scholarships we'd been hoping on weren't headed our way, and that the future looked bleek for the promise of any others. I watched her cry from across the room, broken by a dream she felt like she couldn't fufill for her son. I sat there bitting my lip, an anger and uncompromising confusion brewing deep in my chest. I could feel the cold waters of doubt begin to rise up on my body. I was drowning in it. She gave me two options: come back home or stay in Stillwater and become an Oklahoma resident. Number 2 meant working 40 hours a week for an entire year, living off campus, and only taking 6 hours of school a semester. It also meant growing up way too fast. I left camp early, came home to collect my things, and within a week I was headed north on 35 back to the place I was so sure God had beckoned me to one year ago. I found a place to live but struggled to find work. That was August and this is January. I find myself covered in scars, crawling like a crippled child in the muck of a battlefield still fresh with the stintch of spilled blood and sweat. I find myself tonight with clinched fists, angry with the condition of my soul. At my failure to recognize the purpose of defeat. I have been harvesting an anger so deep and so strong, a hate in my heart against myself, the lion below, and The Lion above. An anger and reckless passion once eager to do damage for the Kingdom, not against it. It has been months since I've seen the sunshine with all the glory of The Lamb. I haven't felt the weight of my blade in my worn hands for quite some time now. I am missing the war. And tonight, I can feel the bear in me breaking out of its hibernation. I can hear the roar of a Lion calling out to its son, to its cub lost in the desert. I am tired of tasting my own blood. What we miss sometimes in life, in this great battle, on this road where we can stumble so easily, is that sometimes The Maker doesn't always fight for us, but against us. Sometimes He pushes us. Sometimes His blade strikes our blade. What I've failed to realize for the past 6 months is that all the crap I've endured, every bitter taste of defeat that has lingered on in my mouth, every potentially fatal blow to the body that I've felt, didn't all come from the enemy- It came from my greatest ally. It was no mistake. All of this was on purpose, a call beckoning me, ushering me on deeper and deeper into a war of great glory and great pain. God kicks the shit out of us sometimes to teach us to get back up. We get sucker-punched by The Creator, and He expects us to sucker-punch him back. It's His way of letting us know that we have what it takes to do this. It's okay to push God, to get angry and wrestle with Him. Sometimes he instigates it with us just because its so necessary. Part of this war is questioning The Colonel. Ive been pushed around for a long time. It's time to push back. I'm going to gnash my teeth again. I'm going to sound my barbaric raw and swing my blade, even if it's in the direction of My Maker. I want to learn and I want to endure. I want to smile back into the face of death with all the confidence and passion of a man that wont ever back down. I will stand. I will find my footing and I will brace myself for friendly fire. Because sometimes friendly fire is the most dynmaic process that any man will ever endure. Of course, we have no chance against The Man With the Club, but the fact that we weren't intimitated by it is sometimes enough. Maybe getting our ass kicked by the King is exactly what all of us need. It's what I needed. A good ass kicking arouses the primitive beast in all of us. I might be beaten, but there's no way Im broken. When we stand up, when we find our sword, and we brush the blood off our faces, we find ourselves on a new battlefield. On a battlefield where blood that isnt ours can be spilled. We will run a battlefield, and stand over the broken bodies of our enemy like I stood over that kid when I was in third grade. We will stand with glaring nostrils, bloody blades, tightened fists, and gnashed teeth. Our chests will rise and fall with smell of victory filling our lungs. We will stand with the glory of God sparkling in our eyes. Sometimes God's fist in our mouth is His grace washing our hearts. He is spilling our blood to reawaken a sleeping beast. Oh, that I would learn what it means to push back. That I would be recklessly disciplined. That I would learn what it truly means not to fully understand but to never stop fighting. That I would learn never to lay down my sword, to let down the defenses, and grow apathetic in this war. And that you would learn to push back. That we, as brothers and sisters, would learn to get up from the mud, and muster up the courage and strength to push back together. That we would all come to understand that the blows we take aren't always sent from hell, but can come from clouds too. We must push back. We were fashioned to be fighters. The heart was designed for war. We are hunted, like Frodo and Sam through middle earth and eventually we have to stop running. Eventually the sword has to be taken out of the sheen. Eventually, blood will stain the ground beneath our feet. May whoever it is we strike our blades with know that they better be ready to bleed. May they know from the foolish and feverish grin on our face that we're not afraid to push back.

Into the Wardrobe

It's shortly after 11:00 PM and I'm sitting here feeling like some great writer, who was punching keys long before I realized I had the ability to use my mind. I'm downing a double shot hazelnut, with a pencil loosely tucked behind my right ear, wedged between the frame of my glasses and cartlidge of my ear. The shades on my window are pulled up and the lights are turned off; God's great spotlight, His streetlamps in the sky, and the ferociuos glow of this computer screen glaring off the lens of my specs are the only things illuminating my empty room. Blue Merle plays on my iPOD, leading me down whatever weathered path my thoughts decide to take me down tonight. And all I can think about is all I've ever been able to think about since I left home over a year ago now, and came here to start a new one. I'm locked on the thought of all things I left behind. On all the friends and family I have scattered across the country, and now the world. I miss my friends. I miss every little damn thing I ever took for granted when I was underneath the roof my house; my mothers laugh, my fathers face, my sisters style. I miss the walls of my room, now covered with the creativity of my sister. A room rich with the history of my life. A place where the laughter and fellowship I shared in with the greatest men I'll ever know still remains so thick that I have to brush it away from face every time I step foot in there. Its a room abounding in memory. I love how it was always understood, that atleast 2 nights a week that room would be crammed with boys learning how to be men. And it was in that room where I think we each learned what manhood was about. I can't speak for the others that ever shared a night in that room, but I can speak for myself, and what I learned was that our manhood was about each other. For me my manhood was them. We walked in alone, just friends looking for a place to stay the night. But we always walked out together, brothers branded together by our fists. We walked in that room with our clothes nice and neat, our hair done just the way we wanted, comfortable the tempature, and the odor of our bodies for the most part a decent smell. We walked in that room and the bed was made, the old chair sitting perfectly in the center of the room, papers neatly stacked, books in rows from the biggest down to the smallest. Everything was in order when we walked in that room. Things were different when we walked out. The collars of our shirts stretched out, the rest of the fabric swallowed in each others sweat. Our hair was a mess, meaning (if we would be in the company of ladies later) atleast 2 of us would step into the bathroom across the hall on our way out to fix the problem. No matter what, we always walked out hot as hell. It was unwritten law that we would each be burning up when we were done in there. Atleast one of us, meaning me, would walk out with new bruises or redmarks somewhere on their body. The room itself would be left in total dismay like a hurricane had barreled through, only it wasn't a hurricane, it was boys with all the passion of one. More of my bed would be on the floor than on the actual bed. My hallowed chair would be in a different corner, probably turned on its side or upside down. Anything and everything would thrown around the room, ending up lifelessly laying somewhere on the floor. The room was left a wreck. We walked out a total mess. We walked out boys that were fashioned into men because of the brother standing next to them. We walked in that room like cookie dough, and we walked out carved from wood. We were messy, but we were right. We were exactly how we were supposed to be. Exactly. And I feel it's the same way with all our lives. The heart must remain a mess, an open wound, left vunerable and cluttered, like my room and our lives, because thats when the most damage is done. Thats when man gets chisled into stone, and woman into beauty. God would have nothing to do if we left our hearts in perfect order, with the bed perfectly made, the floor constantly vacuamed, and the valves polished and perfected like some piece of antique furniture. Christ died on the tree so that we wouldn't have to clean up. He died so we could pour out of that room a mess, but exploding with belly aching laughter and grinning like absolute idiots. We came out of that room like immortal giants. And thats exactly what Christ allows His children to feel like all the time. Man barrels out of his room messy and dirty with the ache of life and Christ cleans up, boosts us up on His shoulders like a child. And that transformation process is a beautiful mess. And thats what happend inside that room for me with those guys- a beautiful mess. And being apart from them is the hardest thing I've ever had to do in my short 20 years of breathing air. Not getting to shake their hand or take a royal beating from them has been terribly hard on my weary heart. Not to laugh with them, or talk with them face to face has left me with a strange and awkward hole in my chest. The distance left between my brothers and myself seems to stretch on and on down some eternal dirt road. A road that bleeds deep into a sun that never sets. I miss my friends. All of them. I miss all the forests we explored, the hills of dirt we stormed, the holes we dug just so we could imagine ourselves pinned behind enemy lines. I miss the rides we had in each others cars and trucks. I miss finding more of my manhood with them. I miss all the trespassing we did, all the wild runs from the cops we had. We were outlaws in our hayday. Boys on a mission to find ourselves in the shadow of the early morning moon. I always hated falling asleep when I was with them because I was so afraid of missing something memorable. Every moment I shared with any of them was the best damn moment of my life. Nothing else mattered to me. I am totally sold our for these guys, for that entire of group of damn fine people I got attached too. This is hard as hell for me. I miss the stories we shared, the stupid arguments we would have, tossing the football, and talking about our girls or lack there of. I miss being accountable with them, being brutally honest with them and myself. I miss being outnumbered when we listened to music. When I had to sit through the metal crap that they loved so much. I miss the ridiculus ideas we had, the randomness of everything that came out of mouths. Now I'm going through manhood on my own; forced to do this without the shelter and sharpening of my friends. I'll have to do this alone for now. And for the past year and half I've been real scared to take those first few steps. I've always had them to catch me when my legs gave out. And now, being without them, I've learned this, especially in the past week, that believe it or not, God creates holes in our hearts that are designed for people to fill up. I believe that God designs voids in hearts that can only be filled by specific human beings. There's a hole for our best friends, our futures spouses, our family, our children. Canyons carved out for the people that really matter to us. And when we're with these people, we know that life is right. Our hearts beat to the right rythm and we sway back and forth like we do when we hear our favorite song. Our hearts are whole when we're with them. And I think God does this on purpose. Because when distance tears at that hole; when that canyon feels so deep and so empty that we're pushed into some strange sadness and a bitterness we never asked for, It's just our hearts crying out for more of the Creator. Because the fact is, people will move in and out of lives life busboys in a restuarant; friends, family, and strangers will vanish like fog after awhile. And those voids will remain even when their gone. And thats where we learn what it truly means to lean on God and to lean hard, real hard. God gives us these people-driven voids so that when those people we care so much about aren't there to fill the carved canyon in with their life altering water, God can and will. God steps in and floods that dry canyon. And that's what I'm learning and trying to apply right now as I type these words. My heart is dry and blistered without my brothers and my sisters. But God can be enough when my rocks aren't around. When the stones of my life are removed, like they are now, God is the good rock. He is the stone that all the other stones stand upon. I miss my friends, i miss growing into manhood with them, but who's to say I can't grow into my manhood with the greatest of all men, while they're fighting this war? Who's to say that? The fact is this: God is ushering us into a romance filled with the same splendor and wonder every minute of our lives that I had everytime I was with my friends. An adventure oozing with the same mess, the same laughter, the same memories I made with the boys of my youth. He is taking us deep into the wild forests of His kindom by the hand with confidence and love. We must follow. We must follow His footsteps with curious eyes and messy souls. Our canyons will be filled, and we'll find all our friends along the way. I'll see you soon, my brothers and sisters. We'll shake hands and embrace like time had never gotten in the way. Our hearts will be whole and our laughter will be rich with the breath of the Trinity. Yeah, I'll see you all again soon. But first, first I must muster up the courage to step deep into this unknown world, I must walk like those brave boys and girls stepped into Narnia. I must step into the wardrobe of the wild, like I stepped into my own room with my friends close behind- alone. I must walk into the wardrobe, like we stepped out of my room- a mess. I will find you all again. I will find you alone and in a mess, but with the Great Lion restoring the holes you left in my heart...