Almost

"Preacher or poet, who was it wrote
Give any one species too much rope
And they'll f--- it up"
- Roger Waters, Too Much Rope

Last week was a little rough. I spent half of it beating on myself in an effort to control illusions based on misguided perception. God spent the second half of it beating on me through friends, circumstances, and finally speaking directly to get his message across.

I almost missed my target because I aimed wrong. This year has been a year of adventure and following God into new scary places. This pursuit has often meant basing my actions on a "best guess" of God's leading, which requires very careful attention to any redirection along the way. I've risked appropriately but God narrowly saved me (again) from going "off the reservation".

I'd been following the path He laid, checking my heart and His will along the way...right up until I got enamored of the path rather than the Paver. I confused possibilities for promises. I stopped trusting and took up speculating.

I transposed risk for adventure, unusual/"different" for challenging. I almost substituted "catch me, God, because here I come" for knowing better, but stopped "this far away".

I watched my life start to fragment like Asteroids (the old arcade game). You know, how the big rock breaks into small rocks when you shoot it, but the small rocks average to the same direction/speed. I watched parts of my personality/life separate while my life maintained the same overall momentum. That's not acceptable. I had to pull the chunks back, close the cracks, and continue as an integral person. Integrity isn't usually a sticking point for me (I am who I am everywhere), so I was surprised to see the division lines form.

I started to doubt the beneficence of my path and even expressed such to God, but took my inwardly-derived resolution (ill-informed) as concurrence.

At last, even the words out of my face started rising up to smite me. Even I saw the stereotypical errors and broken patterns that I was using as rationalization. I started to argue with a friend's text message about what was important in life, but my thumbs realized just how wrong the words I intended to write were.

One of my friends gave me advice, then followed up with "but pray and don't stop until God answers you. Because I believe He'll answer immediately." I didn't believe that, as I had spent some significant time arguing, but I decided to pray anyway. I wasn't completely thrilled with the (immediate) answer, so I asked again and for the answer to be clearer and louder. Before long, I saw the mental image of my own heart - fingers in my ears sing-songing and saying "Can't hear you God, talk louder" with Him speaking more and more until every corner reverberated with the same words.

I almost slipped. I almost settled for something God wanted me to pass by. Like a car hitting a pothole and flipping, something almost dug into my life's road and sent me end over end. But I got my stuff straightened back out.

At church this weekend, Pastor Jim asked the men to pledge to be men of God, signing their names to a tangible page as a reminder. As a testament, the pages are to be hung in the sanctuary for all to see. Jim mentioned that maybe they should also hang Sharpies to strike out names of those who had fallen from the ideal...except for the complete heresy contained in that idea. With Flatirons as "the collection of misfit toys" and the church of "Me Too", every name would have to be struck until none were left. That's not the redeeming message of God at all. In fact, it's the opposite. A draft of Emily's book postulates that failure is a required part of life as the part of the cycle that brings us back to God - and so I "complete the motion when [I] stumble." (From those great prophets of pop culture. GIYF) My tree's kinda ugly too, but it reaches out to the sky and God just the same. Figuratively, I "should be" finding my name with Sharpie in hand, but that's not the way God works. As it is, I just found something else to work on.

Having realized I was on shaky ground, I turned my steps back to solid ground. God and I are on good terms and I understand the point of the completed exercise. How much rope does my life need and how much extra rope will I take in my self-confidence? How quick do I catch myself when things are slightly amiss and I've started to step away from God's best?

Only as much rope as God gives me. As little as I can. And quicker than the last time. These are the answers I'm trying to build into my life. I'm learning. Slowly but surely.

525,600

Yep, half a million minutes have passed me by since that day. I thought that I'd collect some thoughts for the occasion. This one goes out to a figment of my imagination, a shadow of a memory from a previous life.

Did you hear the one about me giving a s***?
Cause if I ever did I don't remember it.
[...]
You can live just like a star.
I'll take my sanity, you take the blame.
I'm under it, over it all.

I've taken my life and my sanity, “taken my ball and went home” so to speak. You go play in your mess; it's yours to own and cherish now. I am “over it all” and don't give two piles of llama droppings.

Don't wanna be rude but I have to
Nothing's good about the hell you put me through
I just need to look around
See that life that has come unbound
[…]
Got to bring myself back from the dead

---

I want my innocence back
And if you can't give it to me
I will cut you down
And I will run you through
With the dagger you sharpened
On my body and soul
Before you slit me in two
And then devoured me whole

I want my innocence back
I want my innocence back
I want my innocence back

Yes, what happened was wrong. It was not God's best. People meant it for evil, just as the story of Joseph, but God indeed used it for good. I've asked God if I could have learned my lessons any other way, any easier way, but He said it was the only way. Still, some days, I'd rather have my innocence/naivete back rather than the cynicism that's replaced it.

I am free without you
It's times like these that make me see
How free I'm gonna be without you

This is the end of the hypocrisy
Gonna watch it burn

I'm better without you than I ever was with you. I'll be better by myself than I ever could have been with you. In fact, I already am. In all fairness, though, I was better beside you than I was at any previous time.

Occasionally, I wonder how I spent so long “moving on” and spent so much emotion and worry on it. God is so big that he lifted all the darkness off me in a moment, leaving me free to live. (OK, maybe a succession of moments) How did I lose so much time in the wonder of an apparent illusion?

Where is the wonder where's the awe
[…]
I wish to see
The lost in me

I want my tears back
I want my tears back now

I want my time back. I could use it better. I may have spent most of the last half-million minutes stuck in the past, but I plan to spend the next half-million doing interesting things and chasing God, not wondering if you'll get your poop in a group. Not worth wasting my life.

I've got roads to travel and things to do. No more wasted minutes.

(With thanks and apologies to Five Finger Death Punch, Emilie Autumn, Darling Thieves, Korn, and Nightwish)

P.S. Honestly, I feel I've forgiven all the hurt, no matter what it sounds like. God really has worked in my heart to dig out the roots of bitterness that were planted. So why the writing? Because there's nothing wrong with feeling feelings then letting them go. I've learned to let myself feel, analyze whether any action is required, then allow it to dissipate. In this case, it means to remember and feel, write, post then likely come back and delete because the catharsis has run its course.

So please, no emails/comments about what you think I should do or be. You'll be wasting your time.

Music Fast

My Facebook status on Monday night loudly proclaimed that I was “chasing demons with loud music.” As I argued with God about the chaos in my head, my environment reverberated with music that reflected my inner tumult. According to the neighbors, it got a little loud, with lyrics still distinct outside. Oops...my mind was loud so the music had to be louder. There was no possible way it would be a night for “nice” tranquil music. No, not at all. Instead, it started with Savatage, with In Flames, Killswitch Engage, and Children of Bodom queued up next. All heavy, all pretty angry, and all awesome.

After finishing my scheduled task, I decided to lean on my friends a bit to get some Godly perspective on my life. And punched in more heavy music, this time Epica. Out of nowhere, the lyrics smacked me upside the head and I thought that it might at last be a time God had chosen to speak into my life.

I have this great friend (name omitted to protect the innocent). He has a great love for God and the faith of a child. One of the things I really value in my friend is how when God calls His name, he doesn't question or ponder, he just moves. My friend was relating a story about how God (through a friend) challenged him about possibly valuing a major (harmless) part of his life ahead of worshiping God. Rather than justify or deny, my friend just said “OK, I'll dump it. Because nothing can be more important than God.” Words to live by.

Part of my friend's counsel was to continue my walk with God, then push one step farther towards Him. I was considering how that would look when God reminded me of a semester in college where I wanted to be super sure that I was following Him closely. As a method of widening my comfort zone and challenging myself in my walk with God, I skipped a couple meals twice a week. Without digressing into theology, I'll just say that if you claim to follow Jesus and have never fasted, you gotta try it. It's like the automatic little-effort reminder to pray (driven by the growling) and makes food taste so much better at the end. Of course, there was also the dark side as I started having difficulty focusing in classes or on homework and was pretty much a monster looking to take peoples' heads off by about 4 PM. Needless to say, the fasts stopped at the end of the semester, and as I considered a typical workday, it didn't seem to fit in my life today.

Even as I was trying to straighten my life out by talking to my friends and listening to music at “appropriate volumes” (because rock and metal do have an appropriate level...way up there), I heard God subtly say in my ear, “I haven't said anything because you weren't listening. You've been filling your ears with voices and tunes and not leaving any room for me.” ...I hate when God calls it the way it is sometimes.

This morning, I rolled out of bed already planning what great music I was going to listen to today at work. Although some find constant aural stimulation distracting, I find that (within reason) it focuses me and reduces my tendency towards distraction. I was already cueing (and queuing) albums in my head when last night's brief discussion with God about fasting came back. So in my best Zach imitation, I didn't question but purposed that today would be a music fast. Since silence would adversely affect my productivity (kind of like completely skipping meals), I decided on the “non-nutritious juice fast” version, limiting myself to Christian music all day.

Music makes my life worth living. It's ingrained in my soul deeper than almost anything else. An old friend used to have a Facebook quote: “Why do I dance? Why do I breathe?” Said friend never seemed to be on the floor much, but music really is like breathing to me. Natural, constant, and necessary. So a music fast promised to be nearly equivalent to a food fast, except with less preparation and less “ripping heads off”.

Yes, I said “non-nutritious” above. Sorry if I offend, but it seems that “Christian” is sometimes just a synonym for “couldn't compete in the real world”, particularly when it comes to music. I have my favorite artists that see play alongside my “secular” preferences (Disciple, Skillet, and Hillsong come immediately to mind, with others following soon after), but most of the radio-friendly CCM just isn't that good and definitely isn't my style.

I did try to briefly negotiate God into “Christian and instrumental music” to include the latest couple Nightwish albums (which came with a B-side of instrumental mixes), but then remembered that I was supposed to be following, not negotiating. If nothing else, I figured that the deprivation would make me appreciate “the good stuff” at the end of the day.

And so it began. About three-fourths of the way to work, the radio got turned off when I had my fill of “family-friendly” tasteless pablum and I took refuge in my own interesting thoughts until I could get to work and resume a healthy intake. (Disciple's “Horseshoes and Handgrenades” won the day from the beginning.) Work was pretty scattered today, but I was content with my entertainment choices. Of course, tonight was the night I was supposed to meet someone after work and do lots of driving. Like my food fasts used to be, I figured I'd be done when I got home, but home was so far away tonight.

I did survive, though, and learned some things. First of all, God does honor following him, even in small “silly” ways. I don't know yet what I've attained through today's exercise, but it may well just be an increased readiness to listen and obey next time. Second, Christian radio is really that bad. I had forgotten. I think I heard 2 good songs across three stations in over an hour of driving. Third, although I like Disciple and Skillet, yes, Nightwish is still better.

Following God, even in minor things. That's a reasonable lesson to learn.