Insanity

 

For some reason, in the last couple years, I've heard a certain word being thrown around on the news, on TV shows, on the radio, and at recovery meetings. 

The word is insanity. And this word has gained a lot of momentum. You've probably heard this word used in the following sentence: Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result.

The way this word is being used isn't based off of the Webster dictionary, but is based out of the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous. But, somehow, the definition has been lost through watered down attempts to make it more likeable and easy. Most likely, the definition was developed by somebody who thought it sounded nice and made sense, but it isn't the context in which the writers of the Big Book placed it in.

In the book, the word insanity plainly means: a lack of proportion and/or the inability to think straight.

And here's why I think the word has been taken out of context: most everybody experiences the Big Book form of the word insanity. Most everyone experiences at some point a lack of proportion in their ability to think and make decisions, and most everyone experiences at some point the inability to think straight. But, the writers of the Big Book weren't talking about everybody. They were talking specifically to people whose minds were being consumed by what they called "a mental obsession." 

And this mental obsession is what prevented me from ever experiencing freedom.

Of course, we can expand this and include just about anything in the realm of the mental obsession, but my experience happens to be with alcoholism, so I'll stay on that topic. 

Up until about five years ago, and some months, I was driven by a powerful mental compulsion to drink. It's all I could think about in my spare time. When I was at work, the drive to drink would get me through the day. And it was the same when I wasn't working. It got so bad over time that no matter what I was doing, the obsession to drink would saturate everything I did. My decisions would always be weighed up against how they would affect my ability to drink like I wanted to. Whether it was family gatherings, important commitments, or just coffee with a friend, I always saw commitments through the lens of an alcoholic mind. 

And that's the working definition of the word insanity, based out of the Big Book. It has nothing to do with doing the same thing over again, expecting a different result. It's much simpler and subtler than that. 

When the mental obsession to drink is what drives me to make decisions that have nothing to do with alcohol, my insanity is at its worst. And that's what my self will looked like. My self will was hijacked by a powerful compulsion to "take the edge off," except taking the edge off was a delusion. Usually, when people say things like "take the edge off," they're talking about having a beer or a cocktail. But a beer or a cocktail was never my experience and never my desire. In fact, having a anything sounds ridiculous to me even today. 

And when I'm in the fury of this sort of mental obsession, it's impossible to experience anything spiritual. And so, I'll try to conjure up some sort of spiritual experience - a self-made emotional high that I can put my stamp on and call worship. I can arrange these emotional highs in order to fit into groups of spiritual people. I can start using the same language, talking about the same things, and even doing the same things, but never really having the same experience they are having. Why? Because I'm not being driven by the same forces that are at work in them. 

Maybe, just maybe, this happens in other compulsions besides drinking. Maybe this happens in the compulsion to eat, or lie, or gamble, or sleep with prostitutes. I don't know because my greatest compulsion has always been to drink until I reach a state of oblivion and blackout.

If I use the Big Book to define the word insanity, then I can also use it to define the word sane. It would be: well-balanced and the ability to think straight. 

The third step in the twelve is: made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understand God.

The second step is: came to believe in a power greater than ourselves to restore us to sanity.

Under the guise of religion and spiritual make-believe, I can believe all I want about God and still be insane. I can adopt the language of spirituality and still be insane. I can talk a good talk and act as if I'm the most self-sacrificing guy on the planet, and still be insane. 

But the thing I can't do when I'm insane is, turn it over. 

If insanity is what's driving me, it's impossible to let go of my will, much less my life. When the rubber meets the road, it's my way or bust. 

And it's no secret. It'll seep through my decisions at work, at home, and with family and friends. It'll show through the way I manipulate the religious people I'm around, and I'm really good at spiritual manipulation. 

And so, the only chance I have - ever - of surrendering my will to the character (or force, or power) I call God, is to have the ability to think straight. And unfortunately, as long as the mental obsession to drink is there, I will not experience what's on the other side of surrender. There's no need to surrender anything when my will is the last word on everything. 

But here's the key. In order to get to the point where I can be sane, I have to get completely insane. Not a little insane. Not just a little quirky. Not just a little screwed up in the head. I have to get so insane that circumstances force me to believe there's something better out there other than that thing inside me called my will. I have to be unconvinced that my will works. 

One of the awful results of insanity is, I will never look inside myself as the cause of whatever troubles I may be facing. It will always be someone or something's fault but mine. I will constantly look for an outside source to pin my problems on, which fall perfectly in line with my mental obsession to take another drink . . . and another . . . and another. And eventually, the mental compulsion to drink leads to a physical craving for alcohol. In other words, I'll drink to drink. I won't be drinking to escape anymore, or to ease my emotional pains, or to feel better. My body will have developed a craving that's paramount to any sort of mental fixation. And once that line is crossed, alcoholic death becomes a real scenario. 

Today, while I don't think straight all the time, I have the ability to think straight. Before, I didn't even have that ability. So, I'm able to have the life that I want today. I'm able to find solutions to all of my problems. I'm able to turn my will and my life over to the God I believe in, and not the one other people want me to believe in. 

Faith

A few years back, I was standing in the foyer of a church after a wedding. As I was looking through the various pamphlets that were set out, I noticed one that caught me way off guard. It was entitled Why Catholics Aren't Christians. And immediately I thought, Really?

What the title should've been was, Why Catholics Don't Know God Like We Do, because that's the point it was trying to get across. 

And then there's the story that just came out about Scott Lively, the American pastor who was the ringleader in pushing Uganda to adopt anti-gay laws that prescribed execution for anyone who was caught being homosexual. This pastor, "called by God," helped bring genocide to Uganda.

And then there's this debate I recently listened to between Richard Dawkins and Oxford University professor John Lennox. The arguments put up by Lennox were so lame that I could hardly watch the whole debate. He couldn't present any rational backing for his beliefs in God, so the debate never really made any ground. 

And then there's the fight against gay marriage.

And then there's the fight against abortion.

And then there's the fight against ISIS. 

And then there's the fight against evolutionism (which is the most bogus).

What all these have in common is, they're driven by a certain kind of faith. But the word "Christian" has been hijacked to the point that the words "faith" and "Christian" are practically synonymous.

It's no wonder Richard Dawkins and scores of other atheists are so militant in their stances against Christianity and religion in general. They're trying to present a logical argument for something that faith-based people haven't really spent any time logically considering.

I'm not against faith by any means, and I'm not against the Christianity I see prescribed by Jesus in the New Testament. However, I am against putting any sort of boundary on Christianity by associating it with issues that it was never meant to be associated with. 

For example, nothing is Christian. Inanimate objects, principles, and events aren't Christian. America isn't Christian. Objects are objects. Principles are principles. Events are events, and America is . . . you got it . . . 'murica! The word "Christian" was merely attached at some point in time to give off the connotation that whatever is being talked about is somehow better now. 

There's no such thing as a Christian nation, a christian dog, or a christian band. But by labeling things as "Christian," people who are not Christian but are trying to build their faith get excluded. And there are all sorts of people who aren't Christian but are very spiritual and connected to God. 

And it's these people we have a lot to learn from. They are the ones who don't have the religion that we've come to use as our security blankets when the shit hits the fan. They're the ones who understand what it's like to journey with God without all the bells and whistles of religion guiding them along. They're the ones who have the courage to develop their own meanings for all the different concepts of faith that have somehow been labeled as "Christian" over time. 

And then there's another kind of person. This person has all the knowledge about different concepts, but never got to the point of questioning. They're on the edge of completely turning off if they haven't already. They're about to give up anything and everything that's even remotely related to faith because of what they're so used to seeing within "Christianity."

For them, the only faith they've ever known is one that's attached to the Bible. 

And it's ashamed that there are probably millions among us who - if you took away the Bible - their faiths would shatter to the ground. 

But faith is much simpler than what we've made it out to be. It doesn't require adhering to any religion, denomination, or group.

My favorite teacher Rob Bell recently said that the Church was close to accepting gay marriage. The statement went viral. All sorts of people started lashing out at him for saying such absurd things. In his belief, our views on gay marriage are stemming from 2,000 year old letters that were never meant to be the guidelines for all future generations. They were meant for a specific time, place, and culture. 

But is what he said really that absurd?

What Bell is doing is presenting a logical argument for faith - one that's been much needed in American Christianity. What he's doing is opening the door just a little bit more so that people who have been convinced that faith is a specifically "Christian" ideal can wake up to the reality that God is already accessible, already available, and already present. 

I choose Christianity because I like the way that Jesus says to connect with God. But that doesn't mean that I hold the only way to God. My Christian faith is but one way to connect with God, but I know many people who have beautiful relationships with God but don't adhere to the way of Christianity. 

People like Dawkins are screaming for logical, rational conversations on the God subject. But the problem is, there's hardly a faith-based person out there who's willing to suspend their beliefs in order to have a civilized conversation about the God subject.

Faith is simple and it's available to everyone, but the only thing that stands in the way is the idea that "I am the last word." 

Complete close-mindedness to all things spiritual is the only thing that'll keep someone out of faith. It doesn't mean that God is not available, but means that the person is not willing to see that which lies just below the surface - or, - Ultimate Reality. 

When religions try to form a monopoly on faith, much like American Christianity has done, it works. I've seen it work. I've seen it take people who have so much to offer to the world, and turn them into spiritually prejudiced, religion-hating, anti-spiritual people who eventually turn off every potential they have in blessing the world through their spiritual makeup. And it's not good. 

Faith, just like God, is much bigger than Christianity or any other religion. It's much bigger than any institution. Why? Because they have no constraints. Yet, everywhere we look, whether it's on Facebook or the news, people and institutions are trying to hijack the reality that God-is-available-and-present-for-everyone by forming a monopoly on faith in God via, in this case, Christianity. 

With all this said, I have one final word.

If you're burnt out on the religion thing, remember that faith and God exist outside of religion. Don't throw away your spiritual potential by letting the corruption of humanity define how you're supposed to experience God. Take the courageous step forward of really diving in and exploring what it looks like to develop your own faith. Not the faith of your parents, your old church, or your old pastor, or your grandmother. Start working out your own faith. Start developing your own practices that usher you into your own God experiences. If you don't agree with some spiritual concept that's been engrained in your mind for years, you do the work of redefining it or throwing it out completely. It's up to you. Nobody else is gonna develop your faith for you.

Ebenezer

Last week, I traveled ten hours away with my wife and daughter to Big Bend National Park. It was our first family vacation. We literally spent days gathering the materials we needed for this trip. From tents to wool hiking socks, we searched aimlessly to find the best prices and the best quality items we could find. The closer the time came to leave, the more excited we became about our first vacation together.

What we didn't expect were the obstacles that would arise as soon as we stepped foot in the park.

On day one, no campsites were available. So, we spent the whole day searching for a place to stay until eventually we decided to camp illegally (I didn't know this was a thing until the feds told me). Evidently, the campsite we chose was already reserved and someone wasn't very happy when they pulled up.

On day two, I got detained by federal officers after our generator was impounded. Evidently, the policies called for no generators anywhere in the back country. And, both of the tents were blown down by forty-mile-an-hour wind gusts. Have you ever tried to get an eleven month old to sleep with you in a minivan? It's impossible. 

On day three, temperatures got down into the thirties. That night, they got down into the twenties.

On day four, my wife Shelby twisted her ankle on a trail.

On day five, as soon as we put the baby down to sleep in her tent, another cold front came through and nearly blew the tent down while she was in it. She didn't like that very much. 

On day six, we were eight miles in on a twelve mile hike, and Shelby developed an excruciatingly painful urinary tract infection. So, we nearly ran down the mountain, jumped in our car, and drove 100 miles to the nearest hospital to get her the care she needed. On the way, we were detained by the border patrol because the drug dog sniffed some prescriptions.

Even after the trip, on the way home, the obstacles didn't stop coming. We hit a deer and were forced to extend our trip one more day. 

Throughout the trip, I had this eerie feeling of, This can't get any harder! And then it would get harder. It seemed like every turn we took had a detour or a game changer. 

When things seemed like they couldn't get any harder, they did. 

There were times when I wondered if we should go back home. There were times when our frustrations got so bad that we took it out on each other. Once, while we were standing on top of the beautiful South Rim, overlooking the Chihuahuan Desert, we were so pissed that Shelby threw an Oreo at my head and I retaliated by throwing rocks at her. There were times when in the back of my mind, I could see the lips of our parents mouthing, I told you so.

But somehow, some way, we hung on. We kept going. We held out for things to get better. 

And I'm so glad we did. 

One of the things I thought about during the trip was photographs. If you were to scan through all the pictures we took, you wouldn't get the full story. You'd see beautiful landscapes, a smiling baby, and scenes of us all snuggling together for selfies. You'll see happiness, laughter, and the finest sites you can see in Texas. What you won't see are the moments of tears, frustration, the times we wanted to give up, or the times we were going insane from listening to the baby scream at 3:00 in the morning. You won't see how everything was frozen when we woke up one morning, or the tents that were obliterated by the wind gusts. 

I wonder about how if we didn't take the pictures, would we even remember what we saw? Would we even remember the places we went? Would we remember the Devil's Den, or the Chimneys, or the Window?

At one point, as we were hiking down the South Rim, there was a pile of marijuana, with a pipe, just sitting on a rock in the middle of the trail. No one was around. It was just sitting there, inviting us to escape our current misery. Shelby was in intense pain, and I was insane. The thought crossed my mind, No one will ever know. After entertaining the thought a little, we moved on. Little did we know that we'd be getting searched in a few hours by a drug sniffing dog at the border patrol station. 

Looking back now, that pile of pot sitting in the middle of the trail pretty much summed up our trip. There were always easy-ways-out. There was always the option of going back home. There was always the option of opting out for an easier, softer way. But, for some reason, deep in our bones, we sensed there was something more. There was this still, small, voice that whispered, Keep going. You won't be dissatisfied. 

And we kept going. And we weren't in the least dissatisfied. 

There's something about struggle that connects us with something bigger than ourselves. Whether we're going about it alone, or going about it with a significant other, our minds are etched with moments in our histories in which it seemed the bar just couldn't get raised any more than it already was. And then it got raised. 

And the photographs will eventually disappear. They'll get deleted, or faded, or lost. But we'll never forget the struggles we went through. As beautiful as the landscapes were, as beautiful as the trails were, as beautiful as it was to hike forty miles with our baby in tow, the moments we'll never forget are the moments that we struggled the most. 

Along the trails are piles of rocks that people have made to point out where the path is headed. They're there to guide, to tell you where to turn, or to tell you to keep going the same direction. The Hebrew word for this pile of rocks is ebenezer - stone of help.


And our stories of struggle are the ones that withstand time. They're our ebenezers of history. They're  our mental altars that will always remind us, That's when God helped us. That's when God comforted us. That's when God protected us and provided for us. 

As painful, as traumatic, and as frustrating as it may seem, the struggles I face are temporary liabilities. Eventually, they'll turn to assets. It'll seem impossible that anything good can come from them. It'll seem really inviting to try to change the way I feel about them. It'll be really tempting to find an easier, softer way. But, the struggles will turn into victories. 

And each struggle is one stone, among many, forming an altar of remembrance - a mental landmark - both pointing me back to see how God did for me what I couldn't do for myself and pointing me forward in the hope that God will come through again.

Deer

So, there's a plot of highway deep in west Texas between Terlingua and Alpine. At night, it's really dark. You don't get any cell phone service here. And, every five miles it seems there's a yellow sign with a picture of deer painted on it. If you happen to be traveling on this road after dark, chances are you're not gonna see another vehicle for miles. 

My 11 month old daughter, my wife, and me were traveling down this road on Saturday night when all of a sudden I looked up and stared into the eyes of one of the things that I kept seeing painted on these yellow signs. It came out of nowhere. Shelby told me the deer ran into the road but I didn't even see that part. I just saw it appear out of nowhere.

Frantically, I slammed the brakes and braced for the impact. It all happened so fast. My daughter started crying and the deer started flying. My heart felt like it would explode at any moment along with my frustrated mind. 

I got out of the car (which was a rental, which wasn't covered on my insurance) and surveyed the damage. Deer hair pointed from buckled metal. The fender and wheel well were cracked. The headlight panel was gone, and the light shined toward the ground. It was one of my classic, oh shit, moments.

Eight hours away from home with no cell phone service. We're out of baby formula. I don't know if the car is drivable. I can't call the rental company or the insurance right now. I don't even know if we can make to Alpine, which is twenty minutes away. 

It's the oh shit moment.

After returning to the vehicle, I was too shaken up to say anything. I was also too frustrated. So, I kept to myself and let the worry and anger build up to a very unhealthy level as I was thinking about all the things that were wrong with everything in my world . . . 

which brings me to a very important question:

Where did my troubles come from? The deer or my head?

At the moment, it was the deer's fault. That deer chose to intentionally wait for just the right time and jump in front of my vehicle because it had a bone to pick with me. That deer wanted to make my life miserable. That deer cared so much about screwing up my plans that it decided to sacrifice its own life for the cause. That deer created my present troubles. 

Although it sounds stupid and immature, that's how I thought. Because, when I can pin the troubles on the deer, it allows me to be the victim and sit in self-pity, aka, Look at what that mean deer did to me. It then allows me to start retaliating in whatever fashion I may choose, because, after all, justice needs to be served right? And so I'll take it out on those around me, like my wife or my helpless and scared baby daughter. Or, I'll become silent and let my emotions take me on a ride for awhile. I'll think about how I don't deserve anything bad to happen in life, and how I'm worthy of a flawless, uninterrupted existence, and how everything's supposed to go my way.

And that's the insanity of pinning my troubles on the deer, or him, or her, or it. It gives me permission to let my emotions control me and take me wherever they want. 

And maybe that's why Jesus said things like, Seek first the kingdom of God and all these things (like peace? serenity? contentment?) will be added to you. Maybe if the people he was talking to would quit worrying about what the mean ole Roman governor was gonna do to them next, and would start letting the realm of God infiltrate their minds, they'd find the peace they were looking for all along. 

And maybe that's why, when Shelby said, Breathe. It's out of our hands. There's nothing we can do about it, I realized that these troubles of mine weren't caused by the mean ole deer, but by my hesitance to seek first . . .

The word trouble is defined by emotional or mental distress. Whoever decided to put that word in the dictionary knew that trouble doesn't start on the outside, but inside.

And so, the troubles arose out of my own mind. The word didn't exist until my emotions got disturbed, until my mind started getting out of hand. 

And that's why that stupid, pointless thing that I hate doing when I'm in the oh, shit moment becomes paramount. Prayer is the answer. Rather, the God that somehow hears my childish, self-centered prayers in the heat of battle becomes the answer. It's the only thing (I've found so far) that'll save me from myself, or from the car ride that my emotions want to take me on. 

And that's in every moment of mental disturbance. Either the deer (or him, or her, or it) is the cause or my lack of seeking God is the cause. The former only leads to more mental disturbance. The latter leads to mental clarity and peace. 

 

Nothing

I was very fortunate to have been raised in a home where my mom and dad were deeply spiritual. They practiced (and still do) living on spiritual principles, namely those outlined by Jesus. I remember as a young kid, watching how my dad cared for our neighbors. He's the one who showed me how to care for the homeless by taking me weekly to the Star of Hope to give out meals. They would invite our neighbors to church just about every Sunday, and we'd all pack into the mini van, and I'd stare at our visitors the whole time wondering why they were with us. 

It didn't take long to grow into the faith of my parents. I naturally began doing the things I saw them doing, and most of those things I still do today. I credit my dad for how I view the homeless today. I credit both of them for my current involvement in the church. But the thing that they couldn't teach me, and that no one could, was how to believe and trust in God. They definitely set up the platform for success, but I was gonna have to be the one to figure this one out.

For years and years, I developed the practices of the faith. Prayer, studying the scriptures, and getting heavily involved in the church were a constant part of my life. They still are. 

But eventually, it would have to get deeper. Eventually, I would have to face the question, "If I do nothing, will I even believe in God?" Or better yet, "If I do nothing, will God believe in me?"

The latter question is the one that makes more sense to me, because in all honesty, with all of my "spiritual credits," all of the things that I've done to develop my faith, most of my journey has consisted of action without faith. 

It's a natural law to become like the people I spend the most time with. I start taking on their characteristics. I start doing things that they enjoy doing. I start opening my mind to different concepts and ideas that I normally wouldn't have thought about. But the faith thing is something that can't be taught. It's something that has to be experienced. 

I'm not a proponent of the idea that works without faith is somehow invalid or cheap. To me, anything good that anyone does for anybody is a sign that love exists. And wherever I find love, I find God. The two are inseparable today. The words can be interchanged because they mean the same thing. 

But at the same time, I know from experience that works was the only thing I had to hold onto because I had a faith that was counterfeit. I played the game. I said the right things. I made sure people knew that I "believed the right things," while deep inside I knew it wasn't real. 

The biggest consequence of having a faith that was counterfeit was, I had no foundation when things got bad. My drinking took me to a place that a cheap faith couldn't pray away. It drove me into a darkness that most people of faith would be able to persevere through and know deep inside that what was happening was all part of the plan. 

My drinking would send me to bed at night terrified at the prospect of a God who despised me, while my good deeds the next day would show the world I believed in a loving, generous God. There came a time when prayer just didn't work anymore. Conjuring up the energy to go help someone didn't work anymore. Going to church didn't work anymore. Hanging out with faithful people didn't work anymore. 

There came a time when I had to face the fact that either God was or God wasn't. Because, when all the good practices stopped working, I was left with nothing except the horror of my own existence. The best I could do was drink every chance I had. If I felt guilty, it would be reason to drink more.

The last few years of my drinking are still a blur. I don't know what happened in that time. I don't know that I accomplished anything. The lines between consciousness and unconsciousness seemed to get pretty gray.  

But it had to go that way, and I thank God it did go that way. 

Because, if I hadn't drank the way that I did, I don't know if I would've ever realized that faith isn't a gauge that shows me how much I believe in God, but it's a gauge showing me how much God believes in me. 

Prayer and good deeds had become tools to cope with my sick mind. They really had nothing to do with God, but everything to do with helping me feel better. I needed them in order to be okay, because me being alone with me wasn't a good thing. I couldn't bear to sit in my own skin for a few seconds without needing alcohol to ease the discomfort. 

Hijacking the spiritual practices of my parents, I used them for my own good - to deter me from myself, to deny my own sickness. 

But, like I said, there came a time when I would have to face the proposition - without anything to help me cope - that either God was or wasn't. Either God was there to help me or I was doomed to die an alcoholic death. And it was at that point in 2009 that I realized I bring nothing to God.

And I've been bringing my nothing to God ever since. 

Because, lets face it. My prayers are whispers in a hurricane. My good deeds are seeping with self-seeking sloppiness. My faith shatters as soon as things start going any other direction than my own. 

What exactly am I doing for God again? What's that?

Nothing. 

The most important spiritual lesson I've learned in my recovery from the darkness of alcoholism is this: I bring nothing to God's table. 

In other words, God does all the heavy lifting. All of it. 

God brings everything. I bring nothing. 

And I didn't learn this at a church somewhere. I didn't learn this studying the Bible. I didn't learn this through prayer. I learned this through holding onto my ideas and my way of doing things until I squeezed the life out of them. And when that happened, faith happened. 

It wasn't the sunday school kind of faith that I seemed to never grow out of either. Up until that point, faith was what I used to compare myself to other people. Faith was my spiritual gauge. It showed me how spiritual I was at any given moment. I just needed to do down my mental checklist to make sure I was doing more than the next guy. 

The faith that happened to me when I had nothing left looked completely different. It was the humbled, defenseless, spiritually bankrupt realization that faith was never supposed to be about me. It was always supposed to be about realizing how much God loved me. 

Because God always brought everything while I always brought nothing. 
And that's how I want it to stay.

On Guard

Yesterday, I was walking to the little convenience store in front of my apartment complex. Across the street, a church meets for their Sunday morning service. The first thing that caught my eye was a police officer fully uniformed, guarding the front entrance. 

I thought, This is some great material for my next blog!

As I walked back to my apartment from the store, it seemed like the officer was staring me down from 300 yards away, and I smiled. Whether it's true or not, I felt that if I were to walk over there at that moment there would be trouble. I was wearing cut-off jorts and an Astros shirt, but that didn't seem as offsetting as what kind of people I was representing. 

My apartment complex is full of Hispanics, and most of them are probably illegal immigrants. And the thought crossed my mind, Are they trying to get certain people in, or keep certain people out? 

And with my already-a-work-in-progress prejudice toward the church, and my already-a-work-in-progress prejudice toward police officers, my default mindset told me that this church was trying to keep the people from my apartment complex out of their services - you know, the riffraff, the outsiders, the people who don't look like the majority churchgoers. 

I wanted to take the unfinished, biased, and prejudiced attitude I had toward the situation and start a heated Facebook conversation. I wanted to rile up some debate. But, something inside of me said to do otherwise. So, I waited until this morning, and I sent the pastor an email. I decided to go straight to the source and find out why a police officer was guarding the entrance to the church building. 

I can't tell you that I've ever done any sort of investigative work into something that left a bad taste in my mouth. Even as the general manager of the restaurant I work at, I'm very short-scoped in my desire to look at all angles and hear all the sides of any given story before I make termination decisions. 

But the truth is, every situation has a story. And every story has characters. And every character has a purpose. 

If I would've had any anger or disturbances going on when I saw that police officer, I'd be on the computer stirring up a hornet's nest of conversation. But, for some reason a little voice reminded me that picking fights doesn't work anymore. 

And what I've learned since yesterday is this: when I explore all the angles I can come up with, the story changes. 

The story escapes my head - which is full of spin - and becomes truthful. And in this case, the story became less about my jaded views of the marriage between civil authorities and the church, and more about my full understanding of a situation that I would've formerly written off as another instance of the church being wrong. 

And that brings me to an even deeper point. When's the last time someone yelled at me? Maybe it was a boss. Maybe it was an angry driver. Maybe it was a parent. Did I walk away from that experience thinking, That person is an asshole, or did I walk away with the thought, I wonder what was going on in that person's life to cause them to act that way.

And I can turn it around. When's the last time I yelled at someone? Would I have hoped to do things a little differently? Would I have hoped that the person receiving my verbal lashing would've walked away thinking that maybe I was just having a bad day or I was having some stressful situations going on in my life?

I heard someone say once that our lives are made up of inches and seconds. The things separating me from decisions that can potentially change my whole life are merely moments away. It's the phone call, the wrong turn, the angry jeer, the clenched fist, the boiling resentment. 

And the thing that can literally change the course of the rest of my life is understanding. In order to understand, I have to be able to take a deep breath, pray, and see outside of my raging emotions. That little gesture may be what saves my life. That may be the thing that saves me from myself at any given moment.

Every thought that goes through my mind is based on either positive or negative principles. By default, I'm a depressed, manic, and as chaotic as they come. If I don't take my morning pills, spend a couple hours in meditation and contemplation, and ask God to help me plan my day, my thinking will not get me where I want to go. It takes a whole lot of commitment and discipline to let go of my crazy mind and grab hold of God. It's the only chance I have of bringing something good into the world instead of constantly feeling like the world is against me. Inches and seconds, right?

Door

About a week ago, my buddy and I went to have coffee to catch up on life. As we were finding a seat, we ran into a mutual friend who was having a conversation with a guy in his twenties. They invited us to sit down and join the conversation, and so we agreed. I'm so glad we did, because the younger guy had lots of questions to ask. Spiritual questions. And I love getting to give my opinions on spiritual issues. 

It wasn't long into the conversation before I realized that this guy was dealing with the same spiritual struggles as I was dealing with his age, and really all the way up to about four years ago.

Underneath the surface of his questions, I sensed that he had this terrifying fear of hell because he was picking apart the same verses of the Bible that I would spend hours interrogating. And as he read all these verses, I couldn't help but think about how fear had been the motivator of most of my spiritual actions. From serving the homeless to serving the church, the fear of God's punishment drove me to do some really good things. 

I sympathized with the guy. I understood what he was feeling. I understood how many nights he was probably going to sleep pondering and wrestling and worrying about what would happen when he dies. 

And there are so many people just like him, right now, who are doing really good things in the world out of a desperate attempt to please an angry God who has plans to send them to hell if they don't keep up the righteous living. On the outside, they appear sold out, all in, and some of the most loving people in the world, but on the inside they're dying. They're falling apart. They're wondering how long they can sustain this way of life. 

And so, as this guy shared his story, I shared with him my current concepts of God, and heaven, and hell, and Jesus, and all those good words in the Christian vocabulary. I also shared how I arrived to those concepts. 

The one question he asked that stuck out from the others was, How do I get to heaven?

And I knew, and sensed, and felt in my bones that he was asking it with a sincere desire to get to heaven. Except, he had never thought of the possibility of heaven on earth. Much like me, he'd never been taught the art form of questioning. 

My response was: You've gotta suspend your belief systems. If you don't, your heaven and hell will always be some place that happens after you die. If I could describe what heaven is to me, I'd say it's always on the other side of whatever my greatest current fear is. If my greatest fear is a door, heaven is what happens as a result of walking through it. Hell is what happens when I get too paralyzed to open the door, much less walk through it. So, what's your greatest fear right now?

Now, I understand that some people use fear as a healthy motivator. But that was not this kid's story, and neither was it mine. Fear would drive me to drink, and the fear of God's punishment would drive me to do as many good things as I could do in 24 hours in order to make up for the drinking. It was my vicious cycle. 

And the fear of God and hell were two roads among many that would lead me to the bottle. 

I'm gonna throw another side note in here that may offend some people, but I'm honestly only trying to share my story. I once used to take all of the Bible literally. So, the parts about God smiting cities and children and families and killing off humanity with a flood and turning Sodom and Gomorrah into a pile of salt - not only were those real events but they saturated my views of God. I couldn't imagine God without imagining violence and curses and thunder and wrath. I couldn't imagine that the Bible was written by people, and they too - just like me - looked at the world through the lens of whatever box they'd created for their God.

This is a real thing. The way we read really does affect the way we believe and live. And the Bible doesn't hold a monopoly on this sort of thing. This can happen through any sacred text. 

And so, my God always demanded more. More sacrifice. More money. More love. More compassion. More altruism, until I had nothing left but my shaky belief systems and a God I was afraid of. 

And this did not help my drinking problem one bit. It only enhanced it. It gave me another reason to drown myself in alcohol. 

The cycle kept going and seemed like it would never end. Even after I took my last drink, the spiritual crisis in my life was furiously raging. I didn't have any way to cope with my fear of God except to hold on and wait for something to change. 

And that brings me to my next point. 

Change. 

When my concept of God changed, it wasn't based on anything I'd done on my part. It happened to me. I was a recipient of something beautiful, mysterious, and breath-giving. I'd done a whole lot to get me to the point of receiving it, but had done nothing to create it. It was a gift, much like my sobriety. 

I was desperate enough, had enough pain, and had enough misery to finally be opened up to a better view of God. My intellectual stamina was done. Every part of me was done. I was spiritually and emotionally bankrupt. 

I had to hit a spiritual bottom. I had to get so tired of shoveling that all I could do was receive and stop trying to fix everything. It was at this point of desperation that God changed me. It's like God extracted all the preconceived, damaging, toxic ideas that had been in my head for so long and replaced them all with ideas of a God who was forever loving, compassionate, merciful, and forgiving. 

And it changed everything.

It changed how I looked at the world. It changed how I looked at myself. It changed how I looked at altruism. It changed how I looked at work. It changed how I looked at sex. It changed how I looked at problems.

It literally changed everything, and I haven't been the same since.

And now, whenever I read those violent stories in the Bible, I don't automatically get afraid of God. I read them as I would any other book, but get deep spiritual principles out of it that can be used to enhance my spiritual life. And I find that the people who wrote those stories were probably just as afraid of God as I was because it saturated the way they wrote.

In closing, I don't know if that guy will ever read this, but I'd like to let him know:

Friend, keep digging because eventually you're gonna hit Texas gumbo and that stuff's really hard to dig through with a shovel. But, you'll probably get a backhoe. And eventually the backhoe's not gonna be powerful enough. And then, you may get one of those huge augers. But eventually, that huge auger's not gonna be powerful enough. And then, you may get the world's strongest pile driver. But eventually, that pile driver's not gonna be powerful enough. Eventually, there's not gonna be a tool in this world strong enough to go any deeper. So, keep digging until you can't dig anymore. Don't stop. Chances are, if you stop too soon, when you still have energy left, you're still gonna be in control. Once you've finally run out of energy, and power, and determination, and motivation, you'll be ready to receive the change that God has for you. You'll be ready to have your current ideas transformed into new, life-giving ideas that will forever alter the course of your existence and it'll be absolutely mind-blowing.