(upward) mobility

What would happen if your entire life was shattered? If everything that you have worked for, everything you thought you were doing that was good, that was honorable - that was the right thing was gone? Shattered? 

What would you do if you lost the ability to simply walk? 

The two relate.

In all of our running around, I think sometimes we forget that we only have 2 feet. I know that I am definitely guilty of spending more money on shoes than any other clothing item. I want them to be comfortable, functional, and something that I like to wear. And I want to protect my feet! I only get two!!

So what if you lost that ability to move? What if your legs stopped moving? What if you woke one morning and you were stuck? What happens when we lose the ability to be mobile? 

I have a dear lady who just recently has gone through just that. Shattered hip and now will be facing quite a bit of a recovery time. I haven’t talked to them, because she and her husband are older and I knew to give them space for the moment. What does life hold when you have to stop?

Five years ago I had to stop. Not because I couldn’t walk, well in a lot of ways I couldn’t walk, but I was more emotionally/spiritually paralyzed. What happens when we can’t move anymore? What happens when everything that we’ve been pushing for is just a vapor and we’re left standing there scratching our heads, or worse we’re left broken and beaten found laying on the floor? By the way, that broken part is exactly where I ended up.

One step, two steps, 15 steps, sit down and rest. I told my group this morning that when I first got clean that I couldn’t even get outside. I didn’t know how to emotionally or physically take the 15 steps to get out the door. In the midst I had a dear man tell me to just make it to the door and walk outside and breathe. I didn’t have to go down the steps and I didn’t have to go around the block and I didn’t have to do anything else other than just take those few steps. I did, and it was torture. Because at that point I might as well have had a broken leg or a fractured meniscus. I was broken and beaten and I just didn’t know how.

Thankfully, there were people who came along and helped me to learn that. To learn how to move, even breathe. The thing is, it is about movement. We have to keep moving. Our life isn’t meant to be stagnant, and even sitting still and meditating is a form of moving our mind and moving our emotional or spiritual muscles. 

I’m praying for my friends recovery. That she and her husband can walk through this with as little trouble as possible. But I know it will be hard. 

I also pray for those who have simply lost the ability to move. And I mean that in all the ways; physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually. 

Our upward mobility might also come from something much bigger… Faith in a moment or truly trusting and believing that there is a bigger power moving us through this cosmos, that our little presence is still important in the bigger scheme of things. 

If you’re stuck, maybe stop for a moment - I mean, you’re stuck, it’s not like you’re going anywhere. I bet there’s someone around you who might be there if you look.  I know that I found those voices when I was least expecting them. At just the right time. And maybe you might realize that this big Father figure in the sky is right there beside you.  Encouraging you on.

Our mobility only takes one breath, one moment, one step at a time.

~ Peace

The Burtle 

*prayers for Sharon and Jim. Love you both!!

Death to Life

It’s funny how we live our days, we trudge through adversity, we laugh through the silly, we look at those around us and yet we don’t see the hurt that many carry.

We converse, we tell stories, we work side-by-side, but do we really know? Do we really know what’s going on inside those around us? Those closest to us, possibly standing right beside?

It’s hard to know someone’s heart. It’s hard to know the things that drive them and the things that are tearing them apart inside. Often times we never know until it’s too late. What if we could show them that in the struggle with death, the struggle with the dark that there is light? There is hope. That there is life! 

I went on a 20 year journey. And in that 20 years I produced a lot of hurt, made a lot of mistakes, and every day I had this terrible feeling that I wasn’t enough. Shame and bitterness were tearing me apart. Every day I wanted to not be here.

And then one day I did. In one radical moment I was asked a simple question, and I responded with words I had never heard from inside my spirit or inside my head. 

“I want to live.

I just don’t know how.”

A 20 year journey that led to life.

And on the precipice of another anniversary, I hope that anyone who’s listening might realize that you’re not alone. I shared parts of my story with someone tonight, parts I haven’t shared before with them. Because they needed to know. I wanted them to understand.

2020, in the days leading up to me saying those words, I was in a tailspin of self-destruction that I was sure would lead me to the end. Having just been released from the hospital yet again, I was going to be successful this time. I was going to finally be free.

The question… “What do you want Chad?” led to the realization that there might be hope. That the journey wasn’t coming to an end, it was taking a right hand turn that would change every aspect of my life.

In the last five years there have only been a handful of times that I’ve even had an inkling of a thought of the darkness. The emptiness that is there came from a lifting of the shroud that I thought would never go away. Any heaviness that I feel now is nothing compared to the years of trying to carry the heavy burden myself.

I choose life. Every single day. And even when it’s too cold in my drafty house, or it’s just a little too much to face the happy people in the God-box, when I miss my kids more than I know how to express, I do know that I get to do this thing! I choose to do this thing! Life.

If you are struggling with thoughts of exiting this life, I ask you to take just a moment and realize that it does suck, it does feel like the world is going to come to an end, it does want to kick your ass every fucking day, but it’s not. It doesn’t have to. There is hope.  If you’re hiding hurts, find a place to share. There’s so much more out there.

Maybe in opening up and sharing the hard, there’s a lifting of the spirit. For me, it took a faith in something much greater than myself to come away from a life of depression, drugs, and depravity.

And just to be honest, I believe in God. I’m so thankful for that still, soft voice that asked me a question.

One I answered from a deeper place than I have ever known, where my spirit was just crying out to be.

To just be…

Still.

~ Peace

The Burtle

Facing Death

We all face death. There is no alternative.

Some people fear it, other people ignore it and some play with fire a little too much and get really close to the edge with it. 

Regardless, it is a reality. There is no freezer chamber where we can go be with Walt Disney and Ted Williams (if they really are frozen). 

The thing about death is it gives us the chance to look a little deeper at Life. Hopefully it allows us to stop and look back at the person who has gone on and reflect upon their life, and maybe even reflect upon our own. 

What choices have we made? What decisions do we regret, what things do we wish we had done differently? Where did we succeed, where did we miss a connection and where did we just fail? 

According to your beliefs death can be the end, it can be the beginning, it can be entering into nothingness. That’s not the debate here. I’ve got my own thoughts on that and they do align with life after, but right now it’s about this moment. 

How do we face it now? When it’s right in front of us, how do we face the loss of a life? Do we grieve, do we struggle? Do we break down and cry? Do we do nothing at all? Because we just don’t know what to do. 

There’s no right way to face death. There is only the ability to know we can get up tomorrow morning and we can do our day and hope that we’re adding to this life. Adding to our own life but even more than that maybe we’re adding to others. That the cumulative whole of us adding more positive in this world will give back. Give back to our own lives, but also give to those who might not understand that there’s more. There is more than just the 9 to 5 and there is more than just working till Friday. Maybe there’s something bigger to believe and that we might find if we just open our hearts and our minds to what’s out there.

When I get to the end, I hope it will be said that I was a man of Faith and a good man. Possibly even a combination of Mark Twain and Rhett Butler!

What will your life say at the end? What if we took the time to think about that now, today? What would you change? What would you do differently?

~ Peace

The Burtle

The Grey

Sorrow comes in many ways. It can come from loss, from disappointment. It can come from miscommunications or even just loneliness that dwells inside.

Sorrow can seep in like a cloud and cover your days just as easily as it covers over your spirit - feeling the grey.

It’s cold. Numbing certain senses while pricking deep others.

The grey, as I’ve begun to call it doesn’t follow patterns, moving rather like those same clouds mentioned above.

It sits on my presence and hovers.

And then it either grows truly dark, like dangerously dark, or it dissolves into the background as light starts to peek through.

It is always light that cracks its hold on my spirit. Sunlight, spirit light - it’s so amazing that the nature around us can be healing and inside we need that same kind of relief from the grey.

It comes from deeper belief, and even our simple attitude to try to look up and look beyond the cold to move forward. I know in the past I’ve stumbled and stayed stuck in the grey for much longer than I needed to. Holding onto the fears, the uncertainty, the bitterness inside that comes from just wishing things were a little different. A little brighter on a cloudy day.

Possibly wishing I had a little more. Or didn’t struggle quite as much. 

But then I realize the lie that I’m telling myself. Because I have so much. And even when it’s grey, I do have people that care, kids that actually seem to love me, and I do have my faith. And that is quite a lot. 

I may not have the material trappings like some of the people that I know, but I have so much more than others. 

And I have truth. Truth that has carried me through years of the grey. 

~ Peace

The Burtle

Sometimes I just sit and cry.

Not because I want to;

Not because the sky is falling.

Just because.

Because it feels heavy -

And I feel alone.

And even on a day filled with a lot of good depression still sits. Ready to have a smothering affect on my soul.

So that’s where I am.

Nothing blatant.

Nothing that will destroy me - unless I let it.

But tears come.

Been thinking a lot about the last five years. And even though I know we’re not supposed to dwell in the past, it sits. 

So many people say that five years is when things starts to click, and I think they’re probably right. That doesn’t mean that I’m able to understand my fucked up emotions - and even as grateful as I am, I often feel alone. And I just wanna be held. 

And loved.

Thankful for my group - the meeting that has been there since day one (well day three because I was avoiding the cult of AA at first!). I shared this morning that I remember clearly when God asked… “what do you want Chad?”

And I’m grateful for every breath over those years.  ALL of them, going back to the beginning, 53 years. Because they gave me these scars and a story.  One I’ll tell to anyone who asks - given the motives are right.

I don’t seek any pulpit, honestly I just want to walk like my friend Rich did. No, I didn’t know Rich Mullins, but I feel like he got it - the gospel how I read it and want so hard to believe, even as I’m fighting with that same God.

It’s raining outside.

And inside.

And it will be ok.

 - - - -

Have you ever thought about what other people around you carry? The sadness, the hurt, the pent-up anger, even joy that has been suppressed because of relationships that are hard or struggles in their life. Do you ever stop and wonder what’s going on in their lives?

We ALL have stuff. 

And maybe that’s a place we can connect instead of DISconnect.

Maybe?

~ Peace

The Burtle 

Rich Mullins - hard to get

Home

There is a mythical place called Home. Some people would call it Sanctuary, others a ‘safe place to land’, still others would call it the Jones’s house in the perfect neighborhood just up the street.

But Home isn’t stuck between four walls. Sometimes Home is an old pickup truck that still treats me better than most human beings! (And still the safest place to cry)

Home is a place inside ourselves. If you have a faith slant it might just be someplace that’s not even here but is inhabited by a sense of something bigger down the road. 

Home can be in the hands we hold, the voices we whisper to and the people we know give us that sense of belonging.

Home can be in a group of silver-yeared believers who adopt a wild buck that realizes they have more life and love than most modern churchies he’s ever encountered.

Home is akin to Love.  It doesn’t happen without it.  We feel deeply, share openly with those we love and in a sense they are Home.

Home is knowing it’s NOT home alone. We do need others.  From sweet smiles to deeper longings of the spirit and soul.

Home is belonging, being, sharing, caring, listening, crying and loving one another.

Home.

Where’s yours?

~ Peace

The Burtle 

So I did a thing…

Today, my first endeavor putting the words I’ve written together in book form is available. Like Big Boy published (though it was self published, it has a real deal ISBN number and available online!) I’m proud of it and it’s surreal in the same moment.

If you’re interested the link Is below - or just search on that ginormous online seller that originally just sold books (named after a River).

It’s an offering of who I am to the God I love.

Hopefully seen from a perspective that isn’t judgy or religious.

~ Peace 

The Burtle

The Link:

Known, a collection of writings