What's Holding You Back?

I’ve done my time.

So, what do you have that’s holding you back?  I’m kinda starting at the end, because really that’s what this is all about. What is really holding you back?

Is it someone close to you?  Is it your job?  Is it fear?  Is it the past?  Shame?  Is it something Physical or something that you just can’t let go of?

I’ve been there.

In January, I finished one of the hardest transformations, if you want to call it that, that I’ve gone through in my entire life.  Found something that I didn’t know could exist.  And I’ve even tried to grow a little beyond that in the last couple of months.  It’s May, so in four months or so I’ve gone from still feeling so ashamed and stricken by a disease I did not cause to basically saying “What the F*ck?! This isn’t my life anymore. This is more. It’s time… it’s time for a little redemption.  I’ve paid my dues.”

What do you have to get over?

What do you have to get past?

What is it that’s creeping into your soul and tearing you apart late at night? 

Those things that make you weak can be turned around.  There’s a mental struggle.  There’s a physical struggle at times and there’s a spiritual struggle.  And it is real.  And I’m sorry for those who can’t understand that there is something spiritual about this world.  We are too finite, too small in the bigger scope to be less than something bigger that makes us all up.  How can you walk in the woods and not feel the spirit?  And you can call it what you want.  Call it God, call it Higher Power, call it Mother Nature, call it, you know, Buddha Belly, call it whatever…  But there’s something out there.  Just listen.  

My own personal struggle crippled me so much inside that I could never have anything good.  I always ran and hid back behind it.  I always found that it was not so much a crutch, but it was… like a joy I had to be sorrowful, to be sick.  To be ashamed.  I enjoyed knowing the struggle was there because at least I knew it was something that I was comfortable with.  I was damn well comfortable being in my own shit!  That doesn’t sound real comfy, but you know what?  It is, if that’s all you know.

So, there is something that is holding every one of us back in some way.  I still have anger.  I still have some scars to mend.  And I’ll probably have things like that the rest of my life.  And my story has not changed.  Everything that happened to me still happened. 

But what’s holding you back today?

Is it hurt from a relationship?  Is it financial loss?  It is kids? Is it this dire need to just be accepted for who you are instead of continuing to strive to be something that you’re not?  Because I get that…

This is me!  This is Chad.

I love to laugh, but I’ve missed a lot of opportunities.  I love my kids, but they’re not first.  They are hugely important, but they are part of me and part of the big picture.  I struggle with my family a lot (who doesn’t *chuckles*).  I like to hike and be outside, but I also enjoy my time inside alone.  I like to take pen to paper and write.  Find words that are usually just half-assed, but sometimes really good.  I love B-rate comedies from the 80s and I can be a super geek, namely Star Wars, Marvel and maybe a little baseball!  

And I’m free.

Free to tell you that your 'church' doesn’t work for me.  But you know what, it may be perfect for you.  Doesn’t mean I don’t believe.  Doesn’t mean I won’t ever walk through the door.  But you know what I do get?  I do believe there’s God.  I believe there is a power that is much bigger than anything I could ever explain.  A power that knows that I need help.  And we all do.

What do you need help with?

I mean if you know it and can name it, it makes things so much easier to deal with.  Name what holds you back.  And you might find that those chains start to loosen a little bit.  Do you want the bottle?  Well, name it.  I can’t say you’ll be free of alcohol, but you know what, if you know it, it’s easier to say “that’s my evil.  That’s where I lose it!”  Is it sex?  Is it pornography?  Yes, I just said pornography.  Because it’s a damn real thing, and it’s hard!  It’s hard for a lot of people.  Is it money?  Do you struggle with control or having to be in control?  Fear?  Fear of everything… fear of being alone, fear of losing a loved one, fear of this, fear of that.  Fear of whatever.  I get it.  Something’s holding you back.

And when I can’t figure it out… I pray.

And again, you can pick the flavor of your deity, but if you just start talking, you might find there’s something that you’re talking to.  And I don’t mean your friends.  If you find the right place, open your ears, you might find some truth.  I fully believe there’s a spirit that will guide us, if we just reach out.  And I’m not going to throw a bible at you, because I don’t do the best with that as well.  I mean I love the scriptures – think they’re beautiful, but what if you just did this – if you’re struggling, call out.  See what happens.  Things don’t typically happen just by chance.  I think there are reasons for everything (this does not mean driving by McDonald’s is a sign to stop eating healthy and gain back all the pounds you’ve lost!!!).  But there are events that happen that we can’t explain, that we need to take hold of – because they might be the answer to a prayer.  Or if you’re afraid of calling it a prayer, why don’t you just call it a ‘calling out to the spirits of the wind’ *chuckle* or whatever you want to call it.  

And you might find some truth.  

And you might find some redemption.

Might find that all those things that have been holding you back might actually teach you more about who you are.  Teach you what you are.  And that you’re not alone and that you don’t have to be afraid.  That you can be bold and strong and still need something more, bigger.

Take this as you will.  But there are answers and there can be peace and joy and a whole lot more to life than you ever imagined.

It’s my time.  Is it yours?

following Rich

I don't know if any man can follow another.  Not completely.  It's not so much that we can't mimic or trail behind, but why would we?  We're men.  Lonely, hollow vessels that continue to need to be filled.  emptying out at every opportunity and leaving in our wake hurt, pain, sorrow, grief.

But there is a man I have followed for the better part of my life.

Rich.

I wish I could say that I was fully aware of the true man behind the music, the writings, the teacher and gypsy.  I am not.  I only have what I know from the music and lyrics I succumb to, the writings and the stories told by many others about his life.

But I know that he still strikes a chord within me.  haunting me with elegant and simple choruses and deep conviction over a subject I still yearn to understand.  I know he's no prophet, though what if he was?  He speaks to me with more clarity about this God I just can't fathom than many of the prophets of old.  I don't worship him.  I don't need that.  I have enough trouble trying to bow and worship the one who clearly calls out my name...

And I thank him.  He keeps me searching.  Through all my pig-headed bashing of the church, I'll hear a lyric of some song and realize just how wrong I am.  How small and forgotten I should be within a world of suffering.

He is my deepest link to this other man I fight So. DAMN. Hard.  Hey-sus. (that would be the Spanish way of saying it, lol!!)

His conviction to his beliefs astounds me and I find my feet heading on a similar path.  Not the path that others might choose for me, but the path where my heart is truly led.

So I turn on my playlists, or find myself humming a tune...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

"Well, sometimes my life just don't make sense at all
When the mountains look so big,
And my faith just seems so small

So hold me Jesus,
Cause I'm shaking like a leaf
You have been King of my glory
Won't You be my Prince of Peace

And I wake up in the night and feel the dark
It's so hot inside my soul
I swear there must be blisters on my heart

So hold me Jesus,
Cause I'm shaking like a leaf
You have been King of my glory
Won't You be my Prince of Peace

Surrender don't come natural to me
I'd rather fight you for something
I don't really want
Than to take what you give that I need

And I've beat my head against so many walls
Now I'm falling down, I'm falling on my knees

And the Salvation Army band is playing this hymn
And Your grace rings out so deep
It makes my resistance seem so thin

So hold me Jesus,
Cause I'm shaking like a leaf
You have been King of my glory
Won't You be my Prince of Peace

You have been King of my glory
Won't You be my Prince of Peace."


~ Rich Mullins, Hold Me Jesus

Sexual Molestation and the Southern Baptist Church

His name was Lee.

I was 7 years old.

He would introduce me to sex.  To touch.  To the world of sensual delight that a young boy couldn't know was wrong, was forbidden and an assault on his entire life to come.  But it happened.  It was an awakening of senses that no child should experience before reaching a point of maturity.  And he led me down a path that I would have to weather alone.  No one would know about those times alone with him in my house, his parent's house until twenty years later.  By then I was in total denial of it ever really happening.  I wouldn't open those memories until 1996, then bury and slowly expose them over the following twenty years.  In the last two years (2016-2018) finally coming to grips with it and letting it become part of me, not the definition of me.

So let the party begin?!

I was a stranger.  Always on the outside, though those around me would think I was 'sensitive', mature, overweight and a slight loner.  I was a church-rat, kid of the Eighties who loved girls, poetry, music and John Cusack movies.  I went through my early years searching for my place.  I'd find connections in music, in our youth group - though that was somewhat a trouble point as well, and a major disconnect with reality.  I found Star Wars, fantasy, books and B-rate movies as a place to escape. 

And it all happened in the shadow of the Southern Baptist Church.  No, this isn't going to be an attempt to bash the church. I have some really great memories growing up there.  But I also can count the majority of my hurts in life to it.  The need for Hell-fire and Redemption.  The continued misrepresentation of the scriptures as a whole.  I was caught in the middle.  To those who watched me grow up I was one of the "Spiritually mature" ones.  I got the words, understood what a lot of it meant without the need for extensive explanation.  And I also understood the beauty of the hymns, the communion of the Saints, the need - the craving for others who shared similar difficulties.  But I was alone.  I was lost inside the betrayal I knew.  The beautiful trauma that I didn't know how to process.  

The problem wasn't in sex.  It wasn't even in Lee, though I used to carry a Louisville Slugger in my car for some reason.  The problem was silence and fear of being known. In Shame.  Not as a young boy, but as the ugly, dirtied monster.  That was who I was.  That was part of my psyche until just recently.  And I'm not writing this to condemn Lee or to wallow in self-pity.  I'm simply wanting to tell my story.  The way I was touched, felt and seen all wrap up into this man I have become today.  I'm not Chad without the abuse.  I'm not me without the realization that it impacted so much of my life.  But I'm also not me without the working it through and moving to a place where I recognize the hurts and finally embrace it and how it, along with so many other aspects, have shaped my life.

I am not me without Lee. 

Without the honest feel of sex as a young boy.

Without the acknowledgement that it was good.  And it was WRONG at the same time.

We all learn about it.  Though I hold the church and others accountable for not talking about it more candidly.  Hell, I'll talk about it.  Sex is good.  It's natural.  It's amazing.  It's also supposed to be found by choice, not through manipulations or rape.  The tastes and feel should be savored and craved with someone instead of learned in a dark bathroom as a young child.  Maybe if there was more communication and openness I would have spoken before.  Maybe the feelings would've been dealt with and honored instead of hidden and ignored.  Who the hell knows!  So let's talk.

How can I sing "God is so good", when everywhere that represented his presence continued to show me the bitter roots that we all carry at some point or another.  Yes, I believe in God.  There is a real deal being that I crave to know more of.  Yet at the same time I don't recognize the buildings that we have built to 'house' God as places of worship.  I struggle with being led to believe God is everywhere, yet we have to find some pimped out building to sense him.  HELLO!!!! REALLY?!?

Ever been to the top of a mountain? Listened to the wind rush over the waves of the beach? Heard the singing of a homeless man begging for food or money?  I won't criticize the beliefs of those who gather, just the shortsightedness. Look around you in the morning, when the first rays break the sky and the birds start to rejoice with expectation.  Or when you can watch the life force of young children at play in a park, running and free.  Untethered to the rules of 'living' the social sect of the church provides.

So I lived life a stranger, not the same as those in the group of boys I grew up with.  It was a secret I carried, but it also was a subconscious message that cried out whenever I saw others being treated in any way that was demeaning or discriminatory.  I witnessed the church’s handling of a drunk man wearing his best, dirty suit.  Closing their doors and not allowing him to enter.  A young African American girl’s uncomfortable face as she was leered at from those around her in a Sunday night service.  And then a gay man who sang marvelously being quietly asked to leave because he was different.  I found myself more a recluse at an early age because of witnessing this utter discrimination.  These and other memories would form my core belief that no one is better than another, and that we, as a society have a calling to be better.  To find our similarities instead of our differences.

What if I had opened the door for the poor, drunk man?  What if I had stood up and leered back at those who only saw the dark skin of the young girl? And what if I had told those in the choir that I too was different because of experiencing sex at an early age at the hands of my young abuser?  I hope to always uphold the need to be sensitive in responding to differences in all of us.

And it made me realize that those people are just as scarred.  Scared even.  I hid for years, but I am no longer ashamed of who I am.  I hope to never bow again to the fears and insecurities that bind.  

So my philosophy hasn't changed... what if we bulldozed them all?  Took every pretty, sculpted, glorious structure meant to idolize a God who doesn't need it, and just pushed them down.  Would it be like the Whos down in Whoville after loosing all their gifts to the Grinch?  Would there be a gathering unlike any we've every experienced?  Would the voices of many ring out, not to be limited or contained within the walls of a building?  Would the thousands on the seashore be fed with loaves and fish, and also fed with an awakening of the spirit that this generation, this century has never known?  And instead of closing doors and building walls, could we finally open hearts and open minds?

To those of us who've struggled, lived most of our life contained within our own hurts, could we finally feel that we too belonged?  Instead of a mark of dark hurt and sin, would we be able to ALL open up and share our secrets.  To find acceptance and love, and bury the hate and condemnation.  Hold hands with the queer, the dirty, the ugly, the ones like me, who've just never fit in.

I can hope for this.  For the other young boys who've been touched too soon.  For the alcoholic who can't find peace at the end of a bottle.  For the girl who was raped and gave her child up to abortion, unable to come to grips with the gift of life that would come from even the darkest hurt.

We've all been scarred in some way.  Even those who say they've never had a true hardship might find some piece inside that if exposed could cause them pain.  But what if instead of living in fear, we took that fear and bound it to love.  Love that goes beyond all the pain.

What if?

I am humbled that the God I run so quickly away from still calls out to me.  That I’m still struck with such a power when I hear his spirit on the wind.  And that I was allowed to live when I should be dead.  It’s not the church’s fault.  We’re all broken creatures.  But we have to do better.  How can we hide behind the pretty painted walls and stained glass when inside we all carry so many burdens that we just need to know are ok to drop down and leave behind.

It’s ok to leave them.  They don’t have to burden you anymore.

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”
Matthew 11:28