Morning Prayer

Some declare your majesty

Others say you’re the king of kings 

I know so many who rejoice

But all I ask is for your still small voice

To whisper softly in my ear

All I want to hear

Is that you believe

Just a little in me

Cause I don’t always in myself

I wrestle with where I’m at

So please give me a little of your peace

I know that’s what I need.

Oh, dear lord, help me to believe.

12/17/20

clc

By Faith (a moment of calm)

from November 19, 2020

I’m the calmest I’ve been in the last week. Actually, since I was in the hospital. I’m scared. Very scared. My entire life has been shrouded by this.

I drink too much. I’m impetuous. I struggle with relationships. And yes, even with my relationship with God.

I’m taking the meds, but I don’t think they work well enough, and mixing them with alcohol definitely doesn’t help. I think I want to change that. Everything is so goddamn hard right now. But this isn’t a bitter letter.

I met the greatest love of my life during one of the hardest times of my life. I broke her heart. She hurt me too. She doesn’t know that.

I love my kids dearly, but I’m not a good dad. And I’m not beating myself up. I’m just saying I don’t feel like I’m a good dad. I just do what I can.

I would move heaven and earth for Annie, Cambrey, Cade, Topher, Alex.  Yet, I can barely get out of bed in the morning. Can barely move. I’m paralyzed. It’s something I haven’t experienced in a long time. But it’s been there a lot this year.

I’m praying a lot.  This calm scares me. But I promised I would make it to the next moment. And that’s tomorrow morning. I need to sleep. I haven’t for the last three nights.

I want to rest. I want to be held. I wanna make love deeply to my love and wake to breakfast with everyone around the table.  But what I am going to do is wake. I’m trying to face tomorrow. I have a little peace with that.

OK God. I’m yours.

~ Peace

Chad
11/19/20

A humble prayer

Content within my misery, 

my heart is broken yet I still believe

I don’t feel joy, there still is pain, 

but I embrace it and begin again

To pray, to scream, to groan, to cry,

Look up to heaven, and ask “why, oh why?”

Realize I may not understand his plan, 

but I relent, place it in his hands

I know my wants, 

I know my desires, 

all I can do is pray, to a faith that is higher

And sit and wait, and hopefully see

All that he’ll open up, 

one day, for me.

I believe.

12/9/20

clc

Zadkiel 

60 feet 6 inches - Time to Think

It’s the slowest, most methodic of sports.  A pitcher’s duel draped with a slower ‘jet vs. sharks’ mentality.  Each pitch designed for one purpose – to eliminate the opposing team’s chance to get on base, to move closer to home and to score.

And even this week, I’ve had someone ask me “how can you sit and watch that?”  Side note – it’s been a really crazy week for Baseball in Atlanta.  But we went further than we have in so many years!

I learned a long time ago that each pause, each breath gave time to sit on things - thoughts, actions, problems, and simply think.  It’s not about the game.  Though I love it dearly.  It’s not about the team on the field, it’s about the space we often neglect.  The time we often waste in idle movement and chatter.  It’s about taking the ball out of play, holding it and reflecting on what each next decision is going to yield.  And then throw it – at 95 miles per hour and wait.  

Because that ball is going to do one of two or three things.  It’s going to be caught by the catcher (appropriate name, right?), a ball or a strike.  Or it’s going to be put in play.  And quite honestly it could be coming right back at your head just about as fast as you hurled it.  Or hit foul, taking you back to the duel in front of you.  Then some will be sent over everyone’s head into the bleachers.  Home Run.

Doesn’t that sound so much like our lives?  We stand on a small hill, 60 feet 6 inches from the problems that we face.  We can retire each problem one strike at a time.  Sometimes letting one walk, sometimes letting one get away from us in the dirt.  We also have to stare into the sky above us (you don’t play this game in a dome!) as we allow the ones that fly like a rocket-ship into the far tiers of the bleachers behind center field.  

My grandfather used to watch the games with the sound off.  I didn’t understand this at all, but I would sit on occasion with him and watch in silence until he spoke.  Sometimes critical of the play on the field, sometimes predictive of the next pitch’s outcome.  But mostly he would speak, after quiet deliberation, and say something that resonated with me.  Life stuff.  Something I wasn’t expecting while watching the Braves play on a Tuesday night.

I wish I did it more.  I’m trying to settle in, not like the nervous rookie pitcher in his first major league start.  But now, maybe more like Costner’s character in “For Love of the Game”.  Taking in a lifetime as he pitches something we just don’t see enough of, a perfect game – amidst a not-so-perfect life.

In the end, Billy (Costner) finds himself alone, both on the mound and in the celebration of something that few pitchers get to experience.  Which leads him to the deeper realization that life isn’t a game, even one which I too love so much.  Life is meant to be shared and experienced.  One breath, one pitch at a time.

“And you know Steve you get the feeling that Billy Chapel isn't pitching against left handers, he isn't pitching against pinch hitters, he isn't pitching against the Yankees. He's pitching against time. He's pitching against the future, against age, and even when you think about his career, against ending. And tonight I think he might be able to use that aching old arm one more time to push the sun back up in the sky and give us one more day of summer.”

~ Vin Scully, from “For Love of the Game”

Passing the Torch

I have probably been his biggest critic. I know in the past I’ve called him out so many times for ‘incorrect this’, ‘you need to fix that’…

Until one day things changed.  You turn your head, watch and you see someone who really knows how to teach, how to care for kids, how to ‘never give up, never surrender’ - leaving a legacy in his wake.

I looked back at my writings and this is the second time I’ve written something about this person. And don’t think I’m getting all soft, I’m still a hard ass to him. But it’s harder and harder to find things to point out.  

I called him this morning and immediately lit into him about something he said he was going to do that I didn’t agree with.  Then I felt foolish. Because as I sit back from the balcony, kind of like the two old Muppets on The Muppet Show, I realize that my voice isn’t the one that’s important.  That what he’s doing is building up young men and women.  He’s developing character, and teaching so much more than drums or music.  He’s changing lives every day.

I was there at the beginning. When he first started on this path in college. Oh, did we give him hell. We absolutely broke him down over and over again.  Shame on all of us. Because of all of us, he is the one who has the biggest heart, and loves the kids he teaches more than anyone.  Oh, and he absolutely knows how to freakin’ teach. Don’t forget that. I’ve made it a point to be a part of his journey.  I don’t think he even realizes that I stand amazed most days.

And I am still his biggest critic (most days). But today I realized it’s time. I realize that this teacher, well, I now I am the student. Watching someone who transforms lives, and builds up better people.

Here’s the torch.  

Keep on Matt.

this hero's journey

*this post piggy-backs on a post from fall of 2019

this hero’s journey

First, I am NOT a hero.  That is just the phrase coined by Joseph Campbell in 1949 to describe the epic journey some of us have to go through in this life (also known as the monomyth).  Believe me, if I had a say in it all those years ago I would chose no journey at all - just a simple life with all the trappings people talk about - a house, a wife, 2.5 kids, a dog, a front porch to watch fireflies late on a summer night.

I’m also not Luke Skywalker, ‘Harry Potty’, Joan of Arc, Abraham Lincoln or even Hey-sus (Jesus, people!).

What I am, well that is yet TBD.  I know what I am inside, and I also know the hurts that have run a good portion of my life, but here I am - being asked, no forced to STAND and see what this life looks like without the taint of Lee.  I get to go back to 7 years old and reclaim the rest of my journey.  My semi-heroic one (trying to give myself some credit here!).

I’m almost one month from ‘the tree’.  A place where I thought I was going to take control and be done with the pain.  My plan failed.  Miserably.  But instead, living through this has been the hardest, possibly most real battle of my life.  Facing the shadows is hard.  But I was told to stand.

I have nothing to gain but my soul.  

And I have nothing to lose.  That makes me dangerous.  Because when you have nothing left to lose, you’ll do what it takes to survive.  You’ll stand in front of the demons and you’ll laugh at them as they lose their power over you.  The man who started this journey becomes a caricature, a silly-faced oaf who will absolutely deny any responsibility.  A sad example hiding in the shadows.

I’ve faced him 10,000 times in my mind.  I’ve woken up so many nights with the shadowy ghost of him standing over me.  But this time I will not relent until I stand face-to-face.  I’ll slay my Dragon, and then walk away.

Maybe then I can find that simple existence… Probably not. I’m kind of high maintenance in some ways.  But I’ll know that I stood. 

And then I’ll head north. 

I’ve got an appointment that I have to keep.

Coming Out of the Cave

 

It was the MOST influential scene in Movie History - at least to an eight-year-old boy.  Luke feels it, the dark, the mysterious cave that pulled him in.  Seeking something, a feeling, a presence, a truth maybe?  And in 1980 it was a young boy trying to understand the darkness that had already embraced his spirit and taken such a deep hold.  

But I didn’t put it together until years later.  

The scene - Luke Skywalker (come on people, how can you live a life without Star Wars?) has passed the first hurdle in his haphazard quest to become a Jedi Knight and finds himself on the murky swamp planet Dagobah.  Training wasn’t what he thought it would be.  Not quite the “wax on, wax off” of Karate Kid, but definitely not sitting in some temple playing with laser swords and meditating on inner peace.  It was brutal.  Physical.  Emotionally and Spiritually draining with a small muppet-sized mentor riding his back (literally) and barking out the next focus.

And it was me.  Still is.  I’m there.

I won’t spoil it.  But Luke has to face his past.  His truths.  And until he does there can be no peace.  The battle is one from within, not just standing in front of Darth Vader (Dark Father - really Lucas?!).  And the one thing I’ve continually been told over the last few days, months even - is to stand.

These aren’t just words anymore.  I am going to place myself in the path of the one who changed my life the most.  Who set me on the path to a life filled with doubt and shame.  And I’m also going to Stand, somehow and finally see who I’m really fighting.  Me.  Because from this point on, whether I get a face-to-face with Lee or not, I am taking back my life.

So I’m calling you out one more time.  I will NOT move forward until I’ve at least entered the cave.  Opened up the dark and shed some light on it.

Then… who the hell knows?  Maybe I’ll become the next Dread Pirate Roberts?

Or maybe… just maybe…

related video - Hopper's Letter - coming out of the cave...

https://youtu.be/WQoNAjy1rQ4

What if Tim McGraw was wrong?

"I went skydiving

I went Rocky Mountain climbing

I went 2.7 seconds on a bull named Fumanchu

And I loved deeper

And I spoke sweeter

And I gave forgiveness I'd been denying"

And he said

Someday I hope you get the chance

To live like you were dying"

First, a spoiler alert! Tim McGraw did not write this song.  It was written by one of Nashville’s top songwriting duos as they discussed life and a friend who went through a misdiagnosis that changed his life forever.

It’s about taking risks, living life and coming out on the other side…

I love this song.  In fact it was the impetus to start trying to live – and knock some of those bucket list items off my list now – not later.  But there is a bigger message.

“Someday I hope you get the chance
To live like you were dying"

WE ARE ALREADY DYING.  

I’ve faced my mortality in the last few months – head-on – sure of one drastic outcome.  But that’s not the plan I was given by the man upstairs.  What I did get was some TRUTHS.

You see, I’ve been skydiving.  I’ve climbed and hiked throughout many of the National Parks, including the Rockies.  Still waiting on the bull thing, but maybe it’s good I’m redirecting my narrative before I find myself strapped to a bazillion ton beast who wants nothing more than to throw me and then pounce on top of me.

Here are the Truths I’ve collected over the last year…

Love deep and Love strong – you may not get a second chance.  Never had I experienced what it really felt like.  Then I had it for just a moment – and I am forever changed because of it. ~ A.W. (maybe I’ll write more on this sometime soon…)

Hug your kids – you don’t know when you’ll have to say goodbye.  They grow up, we go through loss, they are at a distance.  Hug them!!  F*ck it – don’t mess this one up.

Enjoy your friends and don’t take them for granted.  My best friend called me tonight and I realized that I really missed the A$$hole.  I’ve been blessed with a good group around me.  And they are precious to me.

Not all risks you take have to be newsworthy but take them.  Some things are bigger than jumping out of A PERFECTLY GOOD AIRPLANE!  To some a still, small gesture is as big as climbing the highest mountain.  Find the things that truly resonate with your spirit and leap.

Stand for what you believe.  Even if it means standing alone.  If you have even a glimmer of faith you’ll find that there is a big, real, sometimes stubborn God up there who may have a bigger plan for you than you do yourself.

DO GOOD - Stop and help someone around you.  Find joy in giving and helping others.  I picked up trash and poop from outside the music center where I used to work this week.  And today I had the privilege of standing before a group of high school kids and share my limited knowledge of hand drumming.  Do something good.

We’re all dying, but what are you living for?
Yes, I'm really asking.  What are you Living For?

I’d like to know…

~ Peace

Chad

CANCER

It's a damn scary word.   But it's not the biggest killer in the world.  Up until this year the biggest deaths in the world came from suicide (only surpasssed by Covid this year).  And as I've fought my own battle with mental health/illness for the last 40 years I realize that I have a cancer - a growth on the inside of my mind that is just as damning and deadly.  I know there will be skeptics to this thought, and I would hope so.  We all don't have to believe the same things, but there is a real sickness that can go into remission, appear as a small speck on the xray and grow to take away everything that we hold dear.  

CANCER

Definition:

noun

a disease caused by an uncontrolled division of abnormal cells in a part of the body.

"he's got cancer"

a malignant growth or tumor resulting from the division of abnormal cells.

plural noun: cancers

"most skin cancers are curable"

a practice or phenomenon perceived to be evil or destructive and hard to contain or eradicate.

"gambling is a cancer sweeping across the nation"

Ladies and Gentlemen, it's real.  Some may be a simple skin rash that develops into a simple surgical procedure, while other cancers may grow and become horrifying black holes that literally suck the life out of us.  Mental cancer tears at our minds, pulling apart just like living Cancer tears at the physical body.

I'm writing this to help myself better grasp it, but also to let anyone who will listen realize that we have so many that are sick.  I just spent yet another time in one of those places that people don't like to talk about.  It tears my heart out while I'm still striving to heal myself.  And prayers and miracles can happen, but let's be real.  It kills more than are saved.  I don't count myself lucky.  What I do count myself is tasked with talking about it.   Making it real to those who can't comprehend.  Listening to those who need that ear.  I'm no expert, but my trauma started at 7 years old.  And I will continue to fight it until God actually allows me to come home.  By his power, not mine.

Peace ~

Chad