Songs of Pain and Hope

The well known story of Alexander the Great cutting the Gordian Knot, an extremely difficult if not impossible one to untie is often hailed as an example to follow in terms of thinking outside the box, simplifying issues, and creative problem solving.  Meritorious in some ways, but also potentially unwise and short sighted.

I noticed that often people like to offer overly simplistic explanations and solutions to complex, intricate issues and problems.  The causes are myriad – laziness, impatience, lack of understanding and experience, unwillingness to get one’s hands dirty, etc.  Nonetheless, it opens up for a world of hurt – not only pouring salt on the wound but also gasoline on the fire.

I saw this a lot in my career in law enforcement and criminal justice.  Contrary to what people might believe, especially those who watch police procedurals and reality cop shows, the field is extremely complex – logistically, politically, emotionally.  A good portion of the academic and policy work out there related to the field is often outdated, shallow, impractical.

Also applies to any real life situation that is perplexing and difficult.

Most of the time, the solution is actually complex or at least multi-faceted or involves many steps.  Also time.  It takes time for some things to resolve themselves.  It’s like how you unravel a knot – sometimes, you pick and poke at it bit by bit and it will eventually loosen.

It occurred to me recently that God may be playing chess with some people – at least with me I feel.  I had a set path and I don’t think it was a fatalistic, tragic one like Oedipus.  Barring major slip ups, and even possibly accounting for those, we end up where we are supposed to be.  

I also observe that my life had a lot of delayed and deferred compensation. A ton of paying it forward.  I certainly don’t understand all of it, much less most.  

Catholic tradition holds that Mary is the untyer of knots.  Also the scourge of demons.  Intuitively, that feels about right.  With faith, patience, and a bit of help from above, the knot eventually unravels, leading to hope, life, destiny.

I see you Mary in the garden

In the garden of a thousand sighs

There’s holy pictures of our children

Dancin’ in a sky filled with light

May I feel your arms around me

May I feel your blood mixed with mine

A dream of life comes to me

Like a catfish dancin’ on the end of my line

Axl Rose, the lead singer of Guns and Roses, wore a T shirt with a depiction of a crucified Jesus with the caption – Kill Your Idol. Blasphemy aside, this was actually a profound statement.  It takes a bit of work but you can see the message.

The late minister Tim Keller wrote a book called Counterfeit Gods examining the topic of idolatry.  Insightful and recognizes the very real power that idols can have.  Keller writes that the heart is an idol making factory.  Anything, anyone, everything, and everyone can be an idol – even things considered good and beautiful like religion, children, a noble job, so on and so forth.

Anything other than God.

If all this sounds too pious, I refer you to Neil Gainan’s novel American Gods, which narrates a story about ancient and modern gods.  Some of them are really fucked up.  And that wasn’t for fiction’s sake. It’s also the truth.

I remember reading an account of the death of comedian Chris Farley.  A truly funny and tragic figure who dealt with so much, he dies alone amidst drug abuse and such.  The article quoted him as hauntingly saying – at some point, your demons leave you alone.  I thought that reference to being alone had a double meaning as in he wasn’t affected anymore or he was left isolated.  Either way, it wasn’t good.

I’ve written about this previously – how a mentor taught me how many people have a price they will sell out for.  And that is a pretty accurate indicator of what your primary idol is.  The solution is difficult and it is surrender.

The well known account of Abraham being asked by God to sacrifice his son Isaac is illustrative.  This wasn’t about child sacrifice or even really a test of faith but in my view, an important lesson and gift for Abraham.  By being willing to give up the person he probably loved the most, he also removed or limited the potential of treating his son as the most important thing in his life.  That, while sounding pretty benign, would not have ended well.  I won’t pontificate about overly focusing on your own children because I have to be careful of that one but suffice to say, there can be consequences. 

All applicable to the rest.  If you can’t control it, it will control you eventually.

Kill your idol.

Or it will kill you.

I kept all my case briefs from my tenure as a prosecutor.  Back then, I knew that one day they would be useful for something.  In part, it will be for my children.  Some friends are puzzled when I tell them about all this but there are legitimate, defensible reasons.

One of the hidden blessings of working in the fields I did was the unique view of people, events, and human nature I was exposed to.  Although initially jarring and eventually numbing, it was very much eye-opening and taught me lessons that I could not have received in any academic program or other job opportunity.  The amazing amount of evil, brutality, and sadness along the occasional ray of hope, presence of grace.

The author Ecclesiastes writes that it is better to enter the house of mourning rather than that of feasting.  At first glance, no one in their right mind would choose that path much less embrace it.  Until one realizes how much more you gain by doing so.  There are only some things you can learn in the darkness.  If you’ve not confronted and wrestled with all that, it will come back to bite you one day. 

One of the major lessons I try to emphasize to my children is to be smart in different ways – book, street, people, and God.  You can’t learn all that in a book.  The fun, easy parts of the journey are important and to be treasured but it’s the other less glamorous, more difficult ones that test and instruct.

In history, you see all this play out with those able to navigate, endure, and triumph when faced with extremely difficult situation – Lincoln, Churchill, Nelson, Grant, etc.  All experienced massive personal and professional failures and setbacks before they rose to meet their destinies.  The ability to see accurately and know how to respond, react properly goes beyond mere knowledge or instinct.  It is born from struggle and suffering.

And if the darkness is to keep us apart 

And the daylight seems a long way off

And if your glass heart should crack

Stay strong 

What you’ve got they can’t deny it 

Can’t sell it or buy it

And I know it aches

And your heart it breaks

And you can only take so much

Walk on

One of the most bittersweet and even anger provoking events in the Bible is Moses prohibited from entering the Promised Land with the people he led and suffered with for over 40 years.  The reason at first glance seems so trivial – striking a rock to draw water out of it without first petitioning God.  A given explanation for this occurrence is to demonstrate the heavy burden and responsibility placed on leaders, especially those called and appointed by God.

Nonetheless, Moses is allowed to watch the people cross over before dying, a semblance of grace and on the surface, a bit of a consolation prize.  But here is where it gets interesting.  God takes Moses’ body and buries it in a secret location, an act of great care and intimacy.

For me, all this illustrates the great cost of an equally great calling or vocation.  The loneliness, emotional weight, and everything that comes with the mantle.  The question I ask is whether it was all worth it.  Other great leaders in the course of history sacrificed and suffered tremendously only to apparently receive very little benefit at the end of it all – even some very sad outcomes like death.  We can all play the “they get their reward in the afterlife” card and while that may very well be true, it feels like cold comfort and an easy way out.

The better question, possibly, is what happens when you don’t choose, embrace, or answer the call to such a path.  Costly to follow a difficult one but maybe more costly not to.  Those who want to keep their lives will lose it and vice versa.

Once, I met with my spiritual director who showed me a painting depicting the angel Gabriel visiting Mary to tell her she will be the literal mother of God, Jesus.  The painting is almost completely dark at one end and bright at the other.  Mary looks toward the light and turns from the darkness.  

And here’s the key – although surprised, if not completely terrified, she does not protest.  She accepts.  

She says yes.

That is incredible faith and grace demonstrated.  At this point, she has absolutely no idea what is to come – the pain and also glory.  Sometimes I think we can tell what a person really believes or lives for by what they believe about a Judgment Day and what happens then.  Ultimately, actions do marter regardless of final destination and my guess is we will be asked to have some type of accounting of our lives.  You don’t want to scramble at the end of the journey trying to come up with something impactful or meaningful you’ve accomplished.  God cannot be fooled.  Being used for His purposes may be difficult and downright painful, but again worse not to do so.  Many times, you must go through the valley to reach the top of the mountain.  Carry your cross or it will crush you, leave you empty handed.

(I started writing again, now focusing on what I want to impart to my children. I am undecided on whether to share these publicly for now but this is an example.)

They usually don’t make movies about writing but there is Finding Forrester with Sean Connery playing some hybrid combination of Ernest Hemingway and JD Salinger.  In an early scene, he writes in the notebook of the student he’s mentoring – “Where are you taking me?”  I have often pondered this scene and asked that question of God, especially as a teenager. The future looked so hazy, uncertain, and unclear.  In so many ways, that rarely changed in my life.

Recently, I realized that many of the significant events in my life – educational, professional, and personal, were last minute decisions or inspirations.  Some will call this impulsive or evidenced of lack of planning, foresight.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

In reality, I did a lot of research, analysis, and contemplation for whatever endeavor I pursued.  But God chose to do it this way. Perhaps it was to illustrate that oft quoted saying – “Man plans, God laughs.”  Less cynically, it was likely more about the power of trust and surrender.  I have also often pondered whether we choose our paths or whether it is chosen for us.  Probably a bit of both.

Above all that, it’s about taking one day at a time, step by step.  I am learning that may be the wisest way to live.  In the Jewish account of the Exodus from Egypt, God provides daily food for his people as they travel in the desert towards their destination, the Promised Land.  The way God does this though is interesting and highlights the role of daily grace and providence.  The people are instructed to gather only the amount of food that they need on a daily basis, manna that miraculously appears every morning.  Any excess gathered would spoil.  This is to teach total dependence on God, a concept truly foreign in modern life.  Dismissed as archaic and unrealistic, this is also a dangerous idea.

The reality is that everything and everyone will fail you in one way or another – job, people, possessions.  This doesn’t mean that these things don’t matter or have no power.  Many are even good and well-intentioned.  But anything or anyone but God isn’t designed to fulfill or satisfy.  This principle, I know, is very difficult to grasp, much less believe.  But I think it is true.  Try the alternative and you’ll find out eventually.

I also realize that God isn’t predictable.  His Spirit has been descended as a “wild goose.”  At first, this metaphor will seem disrespectful and even vulgar.  But this is actually what Jesus describes in Scripture – that it cannot be contained or limited, like the wild goose.  

This is actually good and a key difference between the living God and false ones. You actually want to worship and follow a God who cannot be contained or controlled.   That actually means He can act beyond the constraints of anything and anyone.  At some point, all you can and should do is sit back and trust in the path and process, knowing the character of who you are putting your hands in.  Again, easier said than done but as before, try the alternative.

Putting one’s faith and trust in a seemingly invisible, inaudible God is altogether scary.  But that’s when the mystery is found and the real magic happens.

I am in a period of learning, listening, contemplation. I have roughly 300 or so pages of writing in a sort of development or fermentation stage.

In my life, God led me to periods of action and also silence. The latter is precious and powerful.

(Grohl)

Hello
I’ve waited here for you
Everlong

Tonight, I throw myself into
And out of the red
Out of her head, she sang

Come down and waste away with me
Down with me
Slow, how you wanted it to be
I’m over my head
Out of her head, she sang

And I wonder
When I sing along with you

If everything could ever be this real forever
If anything could ever be this good again
The only thing I’ll ever ask of you
You’ve got to promise not to stop when I say when
She sang

Breathe out
So I can breathe you in
Hold you in
And now
I know you’ve always been
Out of your head
Out of my head, I sang

And I wonder
When I sing along with you

If everything could ever feel this real forever
If anything could ever be this good again
The only thing I’ll ever ask of you
You’ve got to promise not to stop when I say when
She sang

And I wonder

If everything could ever feel this real forever
If anything could ever be this good again
The only thing I’ll ever ask of you
You’ve got to promise not to stop when I say when

(Anka, Gilles, Thibault, Francois, Revereaux)

And now, the end is near
And so I face the final curtain
My friend, I’ll say it clear
I’ll state my case, of which I’m certain
I’ve lived a life that’s full
I traveled each and every highway
And more, much more than this
I did it my way

Regrets, I’ve had a few
But then again, too few to mention
I did what I had to do
And saw it through without exemption
I planned each charted course
Each careful step along the byway
And more, much more than this
I did it my way

Yes, there were times, I’m sure you knew
When I bit off more than I could chew
But through it all, when there was doubt
I ate it up and spit it out
I faced it all, and I stood tall
And did it my way

I’ve loved, I’ve laughed and cried
I’ve had my fill, my share of losing
And now, as tears subside
I find it all so amusing
To think I did all that
And may I say, not in a shy way
Oh, no, oh, no, not me
I did it my way

For what is a man, what has he got?
If not himself, then he has naught
To say the things he truly feels
And not the words of one who kneels
The record shows I took the blows
And did it my way

Yes, it was my way

And that is pretty much almost all I’ve written over the past two years with some older writings scattered in there.

I will take a break from writing and posting till after the New Year, when I will resume and actively explore more exposure.

I appreciate all who have taken the time to learn about what I actually did and who I was and am.

In many ways, I was hidden, even from myself.

For some of the events I have recounted, the implication were not evident to me until years, even decades after.