Here's to your "Thoughts and Prayers"...

It's been a difficult week to be a husband,  father, and for that matter, just a human being.  The self-inflicted war zone that this generation has had to endure in our country over the past several years hit way too close to home this week.  We have willing become the United States of the Armed and Dangerous.

Something I take especially personal is the "thoughts and prayers" segment that always seems to follow these events.  This verbage has finally been called into question.  It's about time and way overdue.

I've done the religious thing for a long time and while this particular commentary isn't specifically about my own struggles with faith, I can tell you that the phrase "thoughts and prayers" is usually code for "I feel bad about the situation but not bad enough to do anything about it, so here's some lip service to make myself feel better about not actually doing anything about said situation.".  I stopped saying this phrase a long time ago and if you've been around me long enough, maybe you've picked up on this.  This term has become completely and utterly useless.  It ranks right up there with other terms like "there's a time and place" and "let's not make this political".  All of these phrases are spoken from a place of complacency and inaction.

I want to personally address the different parts of this now overused and abhorrent phrase.  Let's start with the "thoughts" part.  I think about a lot of things.  I think about stress, anxiety, depression, what I didn't eat for breakfast, if my dog Chico needs dog food, you name it.  100% of the time, all those thoughts do is remind me of what I need to do, not do, fix, not fix, etc.  Beyond that, thoughts do amazingly nothing.  I can think about feeding my dog all the time but if I don't actually feed my dog, he will starve and die.  I can think about all that's going on around me but until I take action, nothing will ever change.

Oh, and about taking action.  Doing nothing always produces nothing.  Really, you can check me on this one.  If I never put money in the bank, guess what, there will never be money in there.  Interesting thing though, if someone gives you money, especially a lot of money, they can also make you do nothing...but I digress.

Now finally to the "prayers" section.  This one can be a touchy subject because it involves questioning a person's own faith and religion.  I have to ask the hard question of what have your prayers honestly accomplished?   I'm not asking this as some hidden attack on your faith, I seriously want to know?  Have you sincerely, earnestly prayed for someone or some situation when you've used this term?  Have you seen some cosmically positive outcome to the words that you've hurled into the abyss of the universe?  If not, then maybe that's the answer you've actually been given.  Maybe your creator gave you the ability to enact change yourself and has left this in your hands to initiate. 

No, I don't use this phrase anymore and refuse to do so in the future.  I'm not going to say these empty words to try and make myself feel better about things that maybe I can do something about.  I'm not going to say this knowing that the generation that follows me, sees right through these baseless and lazy words and absorbs them as insults...salt to their ever growing wounds.

I do say though, I take action in the capacities in which I can and everyday I look for ways to expand that capacity.  It's not been a perfect path by no means but at least I'm walking a path, however imperfect it may be at times.

For years, I had thoughts and prayers about the path I wanted to be on and the person I wanted to be.  I've never heard a cosmic voice giving me some divine piece of advice that has changed the course of my life forever.  Maybe I just wasn't listening hard enough, or maybe the silence was my answer.  It wasn't until I took action and starting walking for myself that I ever began to move forward.

As long as this country keeps hiding behind their "thoughts and prayers" we, as a nation, will go nowhere and the generation that follows us will surely die because of it.

The Next Step

It's kinda awkward and weird this morning.  Most people around me have no idea that today is the last day we will be attending our current church as members.  This is actually by design of sorts.  I'm not great at goodbyes so I would rather quietly transition out than to make some grand exit.

A few key people have known for a little while in order to be able to prepare to fill in the areas we occupied.  We don't like to leave on bad terms or abandon our responsibilities without having a plan in place so we made sure there were people that could step up.  We feel really good about the people that will be stepping into our roles and its making it easier to take the next step.

Easier...but not easy.  There's a lot of things going into making this transition.  Distance is a big one.  We've tried to stay connected and not make the distance an issue, but in times of crisis the distance becomes a voice that is impossible to ignore.  Looking back I think this transition has been long overdue but its hard to let go of a place you've invested a lot of your life in.

To our church body, thanks to the ones that made themselves open, friendly, and available to us.  Not having any family up here has been hard and remains a real challenge for us.  Thank you for being there in the capacity you could be.

So here we are...searching...hoping...

God Really is Good

Not many people know but since last October I've been battling with my health.  A strange something had attacked my lungs and quite honestly wreaked havoc on my body, my mind, and my faith.  Its like one day I just woke up with the body of an 80 year old man.  Every step, every movement, every breath was labored.  Some days I felt OK but not well.  Other days I could swear I felt the reaper tightening his grip on my chest.  Few times in life I have experienced eminent danger but this has been one of those times for sure.

Since then my health has slowly improved to a point that now I feel about 98% OK.  I've been through the ringer when it comes to tests but tomorrow is a big one...a lung biopsy.  Nervous, afraid, anxious...you name it and I've lived it over the past few days.  One thing is certain though, I have felt the under current of God's peace from time to time and it's let me know that things are going to be OK.

There's dozens of lessons I've learned through this sickness.  From learning to lean on the body of Christ when I'm weak to appreciating everything God has blessed me with so far.  Above all I've realized that God really is good.  No matter how I feel, no matter what I'm going through, no matter what the outcome the fact that God is good remains.

Never mind all the temporal things he has blessed me with including my health.  It is the gift of salvation that makes him truly, honestly, deeply, perfectly good.

In my weakest, darkest, and loneliest times, the truth that God is good shines above it all.

Am I still nervous and such about tomorrow...you betcha.  If you ask me though if God really is good I can answer that by sincerely says yes...God is good...all of the time.

I think I'm Done

I’ve always tried to stay at least somewhat involved with music and the support of the artists that I enjoy for most of my life.  Over the years I’ve planned and been a part of my fair share of shows and events. Some good and some not so much but I’ve always gravitated back to wanting to be a part of that community again.

That feeling started creeping in again and I figured I would give another go at it.  I thought I would try and plan another event, keep it simple and try to maximize the impact.  In the past I’ve pulled off similar events with varied success.  This time I contemplated about taking it up a notch and really going after a few artists that I thought would have a strong influence on the local crowd at large.

This is where the story veers off the road and runs into a ditch.  When I was confronted with the cost of booking the two artists I was considering I was seriously taken back.  Now here’s the thing, my issue doesn’t lie in the financial needs of the artists.  They have to answer for the compensation they acquire in this life just as I’m responsible for what I make at my mostly 8 to 5 gig.

The issue is, in this culture of consumerism and entertainment…sometimes over entertainment, I’m not sure it’s a responsible use of resources to ask a group of people (specifically a youth group full of young believers) to pour themselves into raising enough money to have an event that in the end will be very much self-serving.

Before anyone jumps to any conclusions, let me be the first to say that I’m still a supporter of music, artists and concerts.  I’m just starting to think that the mentality I’ve held onto for years about using my local church as a venue for something that in the end can be much more about personal entertainment and much less about the honest sharing of the gospel has been a tad askew.

Do I think our church could raise the money to pull off an event like this right now?  Yeah, I think so.  Do I also think that our church could raise enough funds to retrofit a house for someone that has become permanently disabled and can’t afford the construction costs? Yeah, I think so too.

See the difference?  I do now more than ever.  Music and artists will always have their place and I will always support them in some capacity.  As for teaching the youth that surrounds me what they can do in a spiritual sense, I think I would rather show them how to build a handicap ramp instead of a stage.        

Sometimes It's Just Going to Rain

I always thought I liked those rides at the fair that flung you around in a circle and then the bottom mysteriously dropped out.  Now...not so much.  I'm pretty well convinced that the person that invented that ride, did so the week after they got laid off from their job.

A few years ago life decided that I needed a big change.  Looking back now I think that life got it right.  I was in a dark place, making less than stellar personal choices and the walls were caving in on this slightly balding bass player.  That's when life decided that I didn't need a distraction like a stable job and I got caught in the second round of layoffs at the company I was working for at the time.

As it does to a lot of people that have the real pleasure to experience this, it wreaked havoc on our finances and put our little family unit in a serious tail spin.  We lost our house, we lost our credit and the worst...we just about lost our marriage.  A strange thing happened though, with all of this going on we actually had a rebirth of sorts with our marriage and fell in love with each other again and in a much deeper, unexplainable way.  Since that happened, our family unit was restored, our (especially my) faith had been renewed and we had some huge breakthroughs as a couple and as individuals.  So yeah...life jerking the rug out from under me then totally made sense.

Now enter The Lay Off part 2: Revenge.  We were going the right direction as a family and finally recovering from the financial tornado that had run through our tiny little credit trailer park.  Planning to buy a house was becoming something that might actually happen and we felt like maybe, just maybe we had found a place to set some roots.  Life has again though decided that a stable job is something that we, as a family, don't need at the moment.

This time around I don't get it.  Before, I was making all the wrong calls and life decided to make a serious market correction on my Wall Street.  Now I am making much better, faith based and influenced calls (or at least I think they are) and life decides to make another major adjustment.

Maybe this is just serving as a friendly reminder to not get my identity wrapped up in what I expect out of life and focus more on the inner identity of who I am, regardless of the surroundings or circumstances.

All that sounds great but some days it's a little hard to convince yourself of these truths even though you know how real and true they are.  I see now when the scripture said that it rains on the just and unjust, it's serving as a little bit of comfort and a little bit of a warning.

Whether we think we're just or unjust in the choices we make personally, sometimes it's just going to rain.

Sometimes Hope Finds You

Before I get too far into this, let me be the first one to say that writing has drifted away from me over the past months and I've missed it...a lot. I know it's cliché to say this but it's true that writing is a good outlet. Writing has been that close friend that I've had since I was a kid and even though I lose touch and feel guilty about it, it always feels good to get in touch again.

Things over the past few months have been challenging, demanding and downright unruly some days. My new job has been a dominant force in my life since I started a few months back. I'm thankful for the work and even though we have a rather motley crew, we all get along and that's been a good thing. The work load has been the craziest I've ever dealt with in my entire life and that's no stretch of the truth at all. No...really...I'm serious. I've worked hours that I never thought I'd be able to pull off and then worked 3 more after I've passed that threshold. On top of that, this schedule is set to be this way til October...I do believe I know what it feels like to be in one of those iron man challenges now.

Another heavy development has been the indefinite hiatus that my band has to take. I know a lot of people would write this off as "just one more band that falls to the wayside" and honestly I was almost one of them. At least I thought I wanted to be one of those people. It would've given me a way to deal with it and not have to face the connection I had to this creative outfit. If you've never really been in a band that meant something to you it's easy to dismiss things like this. If you've been in a group of people though that you've shared lives with, taken on adversity and still find ways to be creative beyond anything you've ever done in the past...to watch it slip through your hands hurts...deeply.

 I don't know what the future holds for the band but I can say that it took a lot out of me. At the end of the day, after you've built your sand castle only to watch life come stomping through and destroy it, you feel like you really don't have anything left to give. Cindy has witnessed this happen to me over the years (more times than I care to admit) and has always been the one person that has been a real comfort in those times. This round of disappointment was no different.

As usual, my conversations start spinning into doubting not only my musical life but my spiritual life as well. I think it's natural to start doubting things when they fall apart in front of you. I never said it was the right thing to do but I do think it's a generally accepted reaction. Yeah...I know...the whole Christians aren't supposed to doubt thing should be inserted here but why would I say that just because it's the stock Christian banter for situations like this? I would rather let God and the people around me know where I'm at so I can find a way to move on than to go into Sunday morning denial mode and let it turn into some cancer like I've done in this past...but I digress.

I started relaying in detail to Cindy how I felt...like I've got nothing left in the tank and even if I did have a little something left, I’d have no idea what direction I would even drive. She came back with some amazing words of encouragement of which manifested themselves this Sunday morning...almost prophetically (that was for my Pentecostal peeps). We had finished up the first of our worship tunes, sat down to listen to a guest speaker (Chris Hodges for those of you that love obscure details like that..http://www.churchofthehighlands.com/about/pastor) and he mentioned something about hope. Funny thing...what he was speaking on wasn't directly connected to the specific word hope but the simple vocalization of the word resonated with me somehow.

 As we all went up for the second round of our worship tunes I somehow felt like I needed to be looking for or listening for something. I didn't know what but after these past few months I was grasping for anything that could dig me out of the hole I found myself in. Sure enough it happened. Normally, when we get cranked up I can rarely hear anything past the stage but this morning it was decidedly different. I heard the congregation singing...I mean really singing. I looked out and my attention was immediately drawn to some people that were just singing their hearts out to God. Incredible..you betcha.

Ok...time to let some people behind the curtain of your neighborhood worship team / musicians. Yes...we do what we do because we love music, we love worship and above all we love our God. We're also human so we do tend to pay attention to participation of the people around us too. In a perfect world this probably wouldn't matter but to a lot of us it in this rather imperfect existence it does. It encourages us and lets us know that what we're doing has some very tangible results along with the intangible ones that are directed to our heavenly father.

So back to this morning. When I saw and heard what I did it penetrated me. I mean really, really dug deep into my heart. Why?...because it was in direct correlation to what Cindy had spoken to me earlier this week. There was no denying it and when I realized it, it hit me like a sledge hammer. It gave me hope...yeah..remember that word that resonated with me? After months of searching for hope and feeling my faith starting to waver, hope found me.

Sometimes hope is not an easy thing to find when life goes to swinging and you feel like you’re taking every punch in the gut. When the daily grind becomes a grinder and you watch what you've created start to vanish. It's in those times though that God will step in and let hope find you. Do I have a grip on everything thing again?..not hardly..but then again...I don't think I ever did. I think I just fooled myself into believing I had it all together sometime in the past. Looking back on it though, it's easy to see where I was going wrong then just as much as I find myself falling into holes now.

Do I have a grip on everything?...not really...but one thing I can say I have a firm grasp on again...

...hope. 

Introspection 101

I've been meaning to start converting my thoughts into words for some time now. For whatever reason I've been putting it off. Maybe I'm too busy at times. Maybe I'm just being lazy. Maybe I'm really afraid to see my thoughts in print. Who knows but here we go.

I've been keeping myself musically busy at our church ever since the demise of my role in Black Rose Mourning. You may or may not know this, either way you do now. A lot went into my decision to bow out. To try to explain it would be like trying to describe how water feels to the touch. Some things you just have to experience to understand.

I found myself playing for our churches outreach program called Celebrate/recovery (CR for short) this past Friday. I play drums at the Statesville campus weekly on Thursdays for CR but the need arose at our Mt. View campus for a bass player so I decided to step up and lend them a hand.

It had been a long week at work and home. Work had really been bearing down on me and Friday I found myself actually out in the field getting dirty with the rest of the guys. At home, Marlee was still sick and Sam had just thrown up his dinner so Cindy stayed home while I went and "served".

I was still pretty dirty when I showed up on the Mtn. View campus. I was hungry (we never stopped for lunch & to be honest my pocket was pretty empty anyways) and dirty so I slipped into the bathroom for a quick clean up before rehearsal and dinner (CR supplies dinner for the people that come no matter who you are).

All the guys in the CR band we're all really cool. Some I knew, some I didn't but all we're happy to see me and generally happy to be there. We went over the songs and afterwards I went to the kitchen for some grub. I got my tray and was happy to see anything on there. I sat down and felt like I was a ton of bricks that someone dropped off at some jobsite.

I sat there...alone. Partly by choice. I wasn't really in the mood for small talk but if someone would've sat down strangely enough I would've enjoyed the company. I started to observe who was there. Some people were normal on the surface but if you're at CR you've got or had issues, whether you can see them or not. Some people were clearly right off of the streets. "Thank God they're here. At least they're getting a meal in a safe place tonight..." I thought to myself.

A guy came in and was led to a table. His jeans were dirty and he was being reassured that no one really cared what he looked like. We were just happy to have him there. (too bad this guy didn't see me not 15 minutes earlier in the bathroom with paper towels trying to beat the dirt off my jeans and shoes because I was going to be playing in front of him in about 30 minutes). He seemed very thankful to sit down and have a decent meal. My heart really went out to him but the words escaped me so I just went back to staring down my mac and cheese.

I started to become very introspective. I had a 1/8 of a tank of gas in the truck I was driving (my father in laws truck no less) a dollar in my wallet and I had just sat down for the first meal of my day at 6:30 in the evening. I had just called the company that owns our house to tell them that our payment was going to be a week late. Both kids were sick at home and I was here "serving". I thought to myself "I'm just one paycheck away from being "served" myself and here I am giving myself away when I'm running on fumes.


I never serve with the attitude that if I give God this, I'll get this in return. I don't think I have a God I have to barter with. I didn't have to "do" or "give" anything to get salvation. It was a gift given to me whether I accept it is totally on me. This same feeling I have about what I give. With that being said though...

Lord...I'm on E right now and I don't know how much farther I can go. I'm not looking for money bags to start falling from heaven but I really would appreciate you throwing me and my family a bone right now. 

A palette of Gray

I've come to realize that who I am can't be defined by simple black and white terminology. For so many years I tried to fit who I was into a short list of categories that were predetermined by the society I lived around, the religion I was emerged in and the family and friends that surrounded me. Time after time I've tried to put together who I am by picking choice "A" over choice "B" only to find myself not being able to choose either and becoming overwhelmed, frustrated, depressed and extremely isolated.

The society that I've lived in has consistently tried to give simple answers to complex questions. The problem with this is it has left too many voids unfilled. It's a society that encourages people to fear and reject what they don't understand. If it can't be readily and simply defined it must be wrong…no exceptions.

The religion I was emerged in was so bogged down by man made doctrine it was difficult at best to decipher what was truly heavenly or just misguided, corrupt rhetoric. I spent most of my time feeling guilty for constantly falling short of the standards that were set in front of me to follow. Religion drew some of the hardest lines when it came to self definition. Religion as I knew it had a predetermined form that everyone eventually had to fit into. If you didn't, you were considered a sinner lacking redemption or a sheep hopelessly out of the will of God. I always understood that if I knowingly and willfully did something wrong there would be consequences but what I could never understand is how I could be accountable for something that has always been a part of my life.

The family and friends that surrounded me as I grew up reinforced the predetermined stereotypes that society and religion had presented to me time and time again. Anything outside the realm of their own understanding was deemed weird, wrong or inherently evil. How does a kid process the fact that the image of his own self doesn't fit any of the preset categories he has to choose from? What if a kid is given a choice of "A" or "B" and he'd rather choose "C" none of the above or better yet "D" part of "A" and "B".

The only absolutes I've seen in this life are the miracles of a life birthed, the eminent end that eventually follows and the belief in a higher power that lies beyond the bonds of this mortally defined existence. Past that, there are no real absolutes in this rather imperfect world. There is no such thing as a simple, black and white answer…if there even exists an answer in the first place.

At the very best of my ability, I can only define my life in shades that fall in an endless palette of gray. A palette that, even at the best of my efforts, could not be contained or shaped to fit what society, religion, family or friends had deliberately or unintentionally set in front of me. Where do I go from here, who knows? One thing is for sure though; this square peg of a person is tired of trying to fit into this round hole of a life.

As Henry Thoreau so graciously wrote "If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away." 

Rainbows and Unicorns

It's all too easy to be a sheep. That whole "Just do as you've been told your whole life and things will be ok." is a big pile of garbage. This kind of thinking ran me in the ground to a point that I didn't even know who I was other than this little robot that follows the commands that's input into it. I definitely think God is more concerned about a person living a real and honest life, than he is about you following some list of preset, mostly man made rules that's supposed to apply to everyone on the planet.

The truth in this life is not easy to deal with most of the time and I think that's why most people gravitate towards the modern day Christian church in the U.S. . The church machine does a great job in smoothing things over, giving you a nice little list of things to do and tasks to accomplish and then says "If you do all this, life will be all rainbows and unicorns". The old saying "you can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig" very much applies here. Most people in the modern day church system are scared to admit that after all the hoops they've jumped through and after doing everything they were told, they were still just a nasty swine with bad make-up.

I really do think that too many of the modern day; Christian churches in the United States have become just another huge escape from reality. If I'm right on this, and I think I'm not too far off base, I'd rather go check out the local death metal band tear it up at my favorite club. I'll get the same amount of satisfaction and not have to deal with all the politics (not to mention that the cover charge is cheaper and they have better drink specials). Let's face it, most people want God to create this make believe life for them that excludes human struggle and imperfection. Rather than facing up to who they really are, they want God to wave his magic wand and turn them into the next Joel Osteen.

Sometimes reality really does suck but pretending to live a life that is totally fake is 10 times worse. At least when I'm true to myself, I know who I am (no matter how flawed) instead of being someone's perfect little pose able action figure.