Identity

I sent an email the other day to a man that I met at church. It was a new church to me but for some reason I felt like the person who was welcoming him to the church. He was a front row Joe, which leads me to believe that he's heavily involved in the church, even sitting up front with his 7 year old son. I had confidence in my position because I was surrounded by my ministry and was who I am when I am at work with the guys. One question that I asked him was "What do you do?".

More than just asking him what he did for work, I was asking him what kinds of things he liked to do. Who he is, what Makes him, him? The question went down to the board and I was glad to see it there, making sense to me. It was a question that I was glad to ask and was genuinely interested in what the answers were. I was asking for his identity.

When I used to think of my identity, I didn't think much past my name and maybe where I lived. That's all that made up me. Asking the same question now, I get a sense of how much the question 'who are You' really means. Turning it around, I have begun to ask myself who am I.

I've been struggling to find the answer to this question because once I realize who I am, my behavior changes because I will act out my 'self-understood' identity. I steal this quote from Kris Vallotton. I wish to know who I am. What I stand for. I am so tired of having little to no idea of how I will respond to some situations and scared of how I have reacted at times to other situations that occur to me. My current job presents me with every kind of situation that you never imagined might be a problem.

I need to stop distracting myself with this world and start listening to hear the words that God is speaking to me. I need to hear the name that he calls me and accept who he sees me as. There isn't much that I won't do to keep from pursuing God. My pride needs to die so that I can feel God's presence. I wish my heart to break so that I can truly live the life that God has for me.

2012

Another year has come and gone and new hope and supposed wisdom was blessed upon me at the conclusion of 2011. Right? No!! Not exactly anyway. My cliche start here leads me to some not too cliche reminiscence for the year in review.

2011 was just another year to me. It's a step in the direction that takes me, where? I accomplished some new things in the year and didn't get to do some of the old things that I had set out to do. I've found myself a job and have worked/lived in the same place for nearly 10 months now. That is the longest since leaving Portland in 2007. I've learned a fair bit about myself and also learned what I cannot do. Those admittances have been harder to take than most anything else of the year.

No one likes to see their self as weak and it's been hard admission for me in this past year. The place I work, the people that I've met, and the relationships that I've been a part of have placed a big ole' spotlight on my faults, ouch!! I would normally boast about how I'm going to turn it around in the coming year, but I just don't have the energy to do everything that I would desire to do for 2012. I don't like being weak, but in a few things, I very much am.

So how do I move forward with just a little bit of hope... I don't know, but I move forward. I expect that God will move me in the right direction as he did for much of 2011. I just hope I'm not blind to his prompting. I just need to continue to move in a direction and trust that God will stir within me the desire to follow a path that is in his will for me.

2012, take it easy on me and if you must kick me in the teeth, forgive me for kicking back.

... the season

I opted out of the word "tis" because I don't want this to become a habit for me. This morning I learned that a very close friend of mine passed away. That is not the main point of my writing today, but I think I want to share some things about it.

I don't deal with death... well. I would leave off the end of that, but everyone has to live through the death of other people. You don't just get to sit down and say, "it ends right here for me". I used to be the one that made jokes, then I was the one that got angry, as I've gotten older, I've learned different ways to move past people that I care about that are moving on.

Sitting in my house after working around the guys today, I'm still the daily living coach for Mark 2 Ministries, I have observed how they cope with this loss. Some of them want to be alone, some want to be with people, and some make inappropriate comments that don't sit well. I began to strum on my guitar, I don't play well, but I do have a few songs that I've been trying to learn for a while now. One just happened to be "Silent Night". It's a classic Christmas song about the birth of Jesus.

Understanding washed over me and I realized that Christmas is the time that gives people hope to live on when the ones we love have gone before us. I know that death isn't the end and that I will get to be with my friend again. For the time being, it is still a painful loss, but there is hope in the one that came to set us free. To give us hope in his life, and the time of year is here and now that we celebrate his coming.

I suspect that I will break down and cry at some point today, but for now, I'm hanging on by a thread, distracting myself with the work that I have to do because I don't know what else to do. It reminded me of Paul in the story immediately following Jesus' death. Paul was the one who had ample reason to be ashamed of his actions the day of Jesus' death, he denied him. But he realized that he was still a follower and instead of walking away from Jesus, he walked back. By doing what? By doing what he knew how to do. He was a fisherman, so he went fishing, and Jesus appeared on the shore in the midst of his work. I'm going to carry out what I know to do and do that job that I can, and hopefully it will give Jesus a chance to show up on my shore.

The things you don't want to

There are things in your life that you just don't want to do. Some of things you can't admit to, and even struggle with yourself to find another reality because the truth of it is just too much to bear. I've struggled with one of these lies for far too long and have recently decided that enough is enough. I'm not a convincing liar. I never really was, so the fact the I deluded myself for so long just proves to me that I might be more than a little crazy.

I've put words to it. I've admitted that I have a weakness and now am taking steps to rid myself of this issue. If you're only reading at this point to know what the issue is, I'm sorry, but I won't reveal it at this time. Maybe down the road when it isn't such a fresh wound will I take off the bandage and show people the scar of what has held me captive for so long.

That last line above just flowed quite clearly because I know that I'm not doing this alone. When you fall on your face and realize that you aren't as strong as you once thought yourself, you are not at your weakest. If anything, this is one of the true strengths of the human spirit. Only when we are weak are we truly strong enough to go before the one that is here to set captives free.

He waits. He calls softly and waits. It is up to you to realize that Jesus is always by your side and never leaves or forsakes you. Leave your pride at the door, because once you go to him, you will be broken.

I was spanked as a child... some people reading this are probably saying to themselves that this explains a lot, well it does. My dad never spanked my in his anger. I've been told again and again that I carry the same anger that he does and I have struggled at times to keep it in check. I have flown off the handle to a point that I've scared people that have known me for years, worse... I've scared myself. I've looked at someone in a blood rage and just wanted them to cower before me in the pain that I wanted to inflict upon them.

This same rage comes from somewhere... I guess from my dad. I've never seen him like this. So I know that if it had come out when I was being punished, he would easily have knocked me through a wall. Instead, he punished mostly to get our attention. In such a loving way, our Savior, Jesus, punishes us. He allows us to inflict it on ourselves, which is the worst punishment I can imagine. I'm always the worst to myself. You can't bring your ire against me the way that I can bring it against me.

I'm sheltered. I'm afraid. I'm not alone. I have the best support system in the universe. Ask me about his sometime. He might just surprise you at how well he already knows you and how much he already loves you.

Back Burns

The hillside outside of my house is black. Fires raged through this camp burning just about anything that was burnable a few weeks back and it left as much as a third of the camp a charred and black, sooty mess. Some of the camp wasn't burned as a result of the lightning storms, but because of back burns. This is about those fires.

I watched them start around 5 in the afternoon and they burned much into the evening. Some of which I watched from the back of a Polaris 700. An ATV that had so much power, I thought it would come alive and buck me off on a few occasions. I rode patrol up and back on the main road, checking and double checking the groups that were keeping a watch at the road to make sure the fire didn't jump to the main part of camp.

It seemed a waste to watch so much land burn without any reason why. They claim they needed to stop the fire somewhere and the road was the most readily available place to do that. These burns especially tore through areas that I was starting to explore a bit more freely.

What are my hikes going to look like in the months to come. Until the rains really start the grass can start to grow back, I'm going to be left trudging through a depressing landscape with little to mark the passage but burned out trees and tufts of dead grass. It doesn't look the same as before, but adventure, new adventures is what is the best part of hiking. Maybe something exciting will come from it. Only time will tell.

Fire Crew

It was a normal Wednesday. As normal as you can find living in a Young Life camp in the middle of nowhere. One of the guys had family in camp and it was a pizza night, just like every Wednesday. We were sitting in the house, preparing for bible study when flashes of light started shooting out of the sky and landing all around us. The percussion of some of these blasts shook buildings, scared animals, and started fires.

As the camp was scrambling people to get them to fire lines, and protect the villages, Mark 2 was scrambling to fuel villages in case of an evacuation. Camp staff managed to control the nearest of the many fires around property and we never had to evacuate, but that didn't mean the danger to the camp was over.

That night I asked, begged, pleaded to go out on fire crews but was told that I needed to stay in camp in case we needed to drive to guys to a place of safety. I was frustrated watching vehicles drive up seldom used roads in and around camp. I guess my boss had a valid point, but I would rather have been out on lines.

With the end of the day Thursday, however, there became urgent need of more and more people to man the lines. I was officially on my weekend and I could do what I wanted, so I went to war. A paniced voice hollered out over the radio calling for every available body to man lines. I was ready and available and hadn't been out all the night before so I was fresh legs.

It turns out that your legs will carry you even when your body doesn't want them to. You can walk up and down hills fighting fire until you are about ready to drop from fatigue. Looking in to the eyes of guys that hadn't slept in almost two days, you could tell they would still willingly walk up another hill even if their body was screaming for rest. Several people were indeed sent home and more of the camp staff showed up for fire crews as the weekend approached. It was a new battle, they had fresh crews.

So up and down, through smoke, through fire, through burned out remains of forrest that I used to enjoy on my hikes, I walked. Much of the time carrying an extra 60 pounds of gear, but I never seemed to tire. Something was lending strength to not just me, but everyone. Looking back on it now, it's quite clear that much of what strength we didn't have to use was coming from God.

The terrain around camp is steep. The actual camp is the lowest spot on the property and it was rather easy to keep the fires from spreading into the camp proper, but that doesn't mean the lines didn't run up and down ridges surrounding the camp. I spent the better part of two days perched on a hill above what is called West Village. It's a mostly abandon part of camp that was in use recently for the contractors as they built the new Creekside camp.

On one side of the hill was a clear view of the houses, on the other was the smoking remains of a juniper forrest that was burned out and still trying to smolder back to life. I've dug myself knee deep in hot ash to save trees that it didn't matter if they burned or not, and many of them still did. As of right now, the fire on that ridge has not spread.

Unfortunately, with that victory, and a few others around camp, there is a large section in the southeast of camp that we can do nothing about right now. There are crews up fighting it as I type and the land is not friendly to the unexperienced hiker. I enjoy the tops of these hills that are burning now, but never the hike to them. Fires are clearly visible from my house, and the ridgelines were glowing last night with encroaching fire. I'm off the line today, as I had to go back to work, but that doesn't mean there aren't 50 other people up cutting lines in the earth to hold back the inferno.

Changing Events

Sometimes it seems like the world doesn't turn in my direction. It seems like I can't get ahead and the harder I try the worse things get for me. I struggle with friends, faith, relationships, family, any number of things, because I always need to control the way things are going. I'm sure all 3 of you who ever read this will agree that the tighter you hold on to something, the faster it slips away.

I've finally given up trying to hold on to things and look what happens, they start to fall in to place. The last few weeks have been a living hell. I'm not sleeping, it's hard to eat, my stomach/chest/head is constantly hurting, and I'm pretty sure that I had a panic attack last week. If I didn't know my body that well I would be more worried that it was a heart attack, but it was just chest pains caused by stress and becoming overwhelmed with my life.



Today while sitting by the pool over at Creekside, I had a good conversation with a friend of mine. We managed to talk for about a half hour and I had nothing bad to say about my life. It was then that I realized that I'm letting myself not worry about the day to day flow of events and just letting things happen. The universe doens't just run itself so it must be something else that is steering me around and through the squabbles of this crazy exhistance.

I'm glad to say for the first time, truly, since I've moved to Antelope, I am letting God steer my life. He was instrumental in my move to the property and many of the events in my life up to that point, but once I got into the roll I"m in now, I stepped on the brake and said that's far enough God, I'm driving, get in the passenger seat.

It only took getting scared. I don't scare easily and that's all it took. Just a few days and again I'm comfortable, I managed to sleep, and my body is actually acting like I'm young. I plan on being around for a few years yet, I believe I told a friend of mine a month ago I was going to make it to 96. I have a ways yet.


PS I have permission to use the photo from the owner. :)