to sit under a starlit night

“I don’t know anything with certainty, but seeing the stars makes me dream.”

~ Vincent Van Gogh 

“…we found ourselves thinking, when enchanted by a starlit night, “Who then, made all this?” There was a feeling of awe and wonder”

~ anonymous 

I sometimes sit.

And just dream.

I find myself drawn to the night. To the stars in the sky, to the moon, to the noises and the tapestry of shadows pierced here and there with the last vestiges of daylight.

And I dream.

I don’t think of the childhood dreams I had of riches or fantasy lands with dragons and knights and searching quests into the unknown (or of my high school dream to BE BonJovi). My dreams are simple. They resonate within the heart of a man who has seen all of that. I’ve fought my dragons. Slain many, still hold a few at bay . I lived most of my life torn between fantasy and reality. The world I wanted shadowed by the depths of hurt that I knew too well.

And as I sat recently under the guise of a starlit night, I found a breath. And I dreamed.

Am I going to tell you my dream? No. That’s for me. But what I do know is that we have to stop. We have to take a moment and just sit on a simple bench, look around us and see…

The world is filled with darkness, with hurt; disagreements over politics and religion and the price of processed cheese. And if that is all you see, then I ask you to pause. Here in Georgia the rains are about to stop. In the next couple of days the stars will shine, the moon will rise and our hearts can be lifted from the hardships of the day. And we can dream.

A simple life. Our children to laugh and love deeply. The tasks we do each day to be filled with joy and a sense of accomplishment. The moments that we share be filled with heartfelt laughter and deeper meaning.

So as I sit looking for the next cloudless eve, even now I ponder - wondering what the day will unfold. How rich my life has become just by standing on my own two feet, working with my two hands, and living my dream.

Because dreams change. And sometimes we find what we want in the middle of sitting…

Under a starlit night.

~ Peace

The Burtle

The Romance of the Game

While scores of thousands head on Saturdays and Sundays to celebrate and root on in brilliant colors and vibrant tapestries their teams to victory, the brutal stretch through summer into autumn and the Series is often left in the background.  The old ‘national pastime’, oft deemed a relic and relegated to third or fourth tier in the world of fast, immediate gratification purposefully marches on.

I sat the other afternoon and watched just a few short innings of a Little League baseball game. One team adorned with matching jerseys, pants and cleats; the other more a ragtag bunch of mismatched T-shirts straight from the images of the Bad News Bears or the Sand Lot.

I told a friend that this was romance.  One boy facing another.  Pitcher to batter.  A Gentleman’s duel of sorts.  In those brief seconds nothing in the world mattered except for facing whatever is being thrown their way.  Simplistic and yet defined, it’s also scary as hell.  No, it’s not a 98 mph fastball thrown towards your knees in an attempt to get you to swing. But it is standing up to the plate, saying a ‘nod to God’, and preparing yourself for whatever comes.

And the outcome; sometimes we strike out.  Sometimes we stand and realize that we’re outmatched. But we do it with dignity. Well, sometimes it’s not so much dignity when we’re swinging -  swinging - swinging and the umpire yells ‘he’s out!’  Other times we pause, realizing that there’s nothing we need to do but just stand. Ball 1.  Ball 2.  We become mindful. We watch and we take in the moment.  Ball 3.  Now we decide. Maybe it’s okay to swing, but only if it feels, looks right. Ball 4.  Patience sometimes wins out. We take our base.

And other times we make contact. We get to hear the crack of hickory and leather. Now we move forward, quickly leaving our stance and running with all we have towards the next destination. The next step.

Each time we step up we never know what the outcome is going to be. But we prepare for that. We don’t know when we’re going to stand in awe and watch as we’ve hit the perfect pitch, over the heads of the infield. Going, going, going.  Gone!

And sometimes the ball gets just enough contact to send the players in the field into a beehive nest of activity; all with the common goal of defending not just their turf, but their pride.

It is a beautiful sport. A beautiful game. A game played by boys, young men and old.  My grandfather played softball into his late 70s. And he was good at it. He also taught me how to watch a game without the sound - relishing in the moments of romance.  Something I’ve never thought of until I sat with him. To watch the game; it’s passion and revelry and the chase for some meaning.

I stand today, facing the morning.  And I know that I have the opportunity to breathe, to be patient…

and to swing when the pitch is right.

for Richie

~ Peace

The Burtle

All We Are Sayin…

“Ev'rybody's talking about Ministers

Sinisters, Banisters and canisters

Bishops and Fishops and Rabbis and Pop eyes

And bye bye, bye byes

All we are sayin’

is give peace a chance.”

~ John Lennon

I thought I was going on a journey. Several years ago my ex-wife gave me Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey and a couple of other books regarding the man and his mythology. And while I don’t give her credit for this path, it was in the midst of our divorce, it was part of this character arc of a man that I never would’ve known.

Do you have demons inside? I think most of us do.  I think many of us struggle with overindulgence, pride, success vs. failure, aging. Some of us have seen the end of our lives.  And in the moment of my last breath, I didn’t want to be revived to something that was worse than what I knew before. That’s my journey. When I wanted to die last year, when I wanted to die my entire life, I thought it could never get worse. But I did stop breathing. And if it wasn’t for one brave soul I would be dead. And I hated him for that for a long time. Because I didn’t want to face me. I didn’t wanna face my demons.

I woke up in a hospital, angry, volatile, marked a dangerous patient and aware of only one thing. I was going to die. I was damn well going to do it. I spent the next five months on that quest.

And I couldn’t appreciate the gift of life that I was given. Why this man who stood just days after my mother‘s death and told me that he would “take me out” would also be my momentary savior.  I was angry at someone for standing up to a drunken, addicted bastard who didn’t even know how to mourn.

Because I didn’t know peace.

I knew the rationalizations. I knew the religious contemplations, but I didn’t know how to let God show me how to settle.  To breathe.  To be.

The journey isn’t to find some mythic Quest.  The Journey is to find our ‘self’.  

On this journey I met a man. I met him through the one place I was never willing to go.  I met others.

I found God.

Though he really was always there.

Peace doesn’t come out of some miraculous journey. Peace comes out of practice, prayer, petition, practicing more and proving that you are willing to give up everything for it.

I heard the story of a man who gave everything to bring a form of peace to the world.  Not peace in the world, but peace beyond; a peace inside that resonates from a deeper belief in something that we can’t explain with science or philosophy or cable network news.

I lost my serenity yesterday. I found myself sobbing hopelessly at the Portland airport.  Angry at God, mad at my circumstance, and alone.  Yet I wasn’t alone.

God presented himself in trials, in trusted people from the rooms, and in a little boy who loves his daddy.

I hugged that boy and knew that it was going to be okay.  If even just for a moment.

And this morning I realized that I’m still learning, I’m still growing, and I’m still finding peace. Sometimes even in the midst of the storm.

I’m thankful for Ron. He gave me the gift of life when I really just wanted to die.

For my group of peeps. Even though I shut down yesterday and didn’t want to talk. 

For my mentor who has shown up for me many times.

For my daughter. For my sons and my family. Even though I feel estranged most of the time. For a new relationship with my father.

For tears flowing freely as I write this. The spiritual reset that they bring.

For a day with a little boy. Baseball, hiking and hugging.

And for peace. One step at a time.

~ Peace

The Burtle

A.W.

The failure of Fear

I grew up in a culture of fear.  Not the fear that was being pushed down my throat from a fiery pulpit, or the fear of the bullies that shared the same halls with me in early middle school.  NOT the fear of the anger that I held just below the surface for most of my life.  And definitely not a fear of dying.

The culture of fear that I knew was my truth.  I feared anyone know the truth.  Because I was scared of who I was.  I was ashamed of what I was.  I was fearful.

That Fear drove me deep inside and it continued to eat away at me for the majority of my youth.  When I was a young adult, I found an outlet for my fear.  The symptom - a drug that destroyed almost as much as the abuse and the pain inside did.

At 26 I lost my fear.  Or at least I found a mask to wear to hide the pain and a weapon to attack anyone who got to close to my truth.  And I took this mask and wore it with pride, and I took the weapon, a retaliatory sword that slashed and cut the hearts and the hands of those who probably would’ve helped me.   I became a slave to my past, to a drink, to anything that would numb the pain inside.

Fear was winning.

And then it stopped.

In a quiet, simple moment I was given a calm and a ‘peace that passeth all understanding’ (and quite honestly scared the shit out of me)*.  Because in the world inside my head that had been so full of noise, commotion, battles being won and lost in single strokes of my mind, that silence was deafening.

And for once, Fear lost.

Fear can only hold us as long as we feed it.  It can only exist when we give it something to hold onto, when we allow it to purchase in a place inside us and not let go.  Fear does not abide with the truth.

“You will not fear the terror of night, nor the arrow that flies by day, nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness, nor the plague that destroys at midday.”

Psalm 91:5-6

I can’t tell you how to find that place of calm.  I still don’t have it all the time.  My mind still races, my head gets ahead of myself and I find myself running around in circles so many times.  What I can say is that I don’t fear like I have in the past.

Nor do I fear my past.  Oh, I have a lot of things that I need to make amends for, but I don’t fear them.  I pray about them. And I pray for the people that I’ve hurt and the people that have hurt me.  But I won’t fear.

I’m pretty gosh darn stubborn, and I know that God wouldn’t let me go when I wanted to let go of myself. So Fear failed.

Yes, Fear tries to rise its head every once in a while.  It finds the little-bitty cracks that I’ve left open for attack.  But God gave me something much bigger.  Life.  I was shown how to live life in this moment. Nothing more.  I am blessed with friends that I trust, a mentor who puts up with my craziness and three beautiful kids that I adore - whether they realize it or not.

I still miss Annie.  Every day.  I still love her.

I don’t fear the future.  I know there is one.  Fear used to tell me that I had nothing to give, that I was worthless, that I wasn’t meant to be here.

But you know what, Fear loses if we choose life. 

Fear dies a little more every moment we chose to live.

So, “Fear not…”

The Burtle 

Fear = noun

fear = verb

* November 19, 2020

A.W.

Movin' on UP!

There are many stops along the way.  Some filled with pain, misery.  Others with sudden joy or overwhelming need to tear up and let go.  We move on, we say goodbye - we leave.

There are many reasons why things change - and inevitably things do change.  Life isn't spent in neutral.  We move.  Seasons, the rotation of the earth (if you believe it isn't flat), our life cycle, even our beliefs can be tested and have to change - molded daily into more of what the creator wants us to see, to know.

I moved this week.  Not by choice; well I guess you could say I had a choice in the matter.  But more by reason.  I've spent most of my life in bondage of some form or another.  And what I had to realize is that I wasn't willing to be in servitude to a situation that was once so good for me, but had turned ugly - affecting my core and making me wrestle with the thoughts that had once brought me to my knees.

With a defiant yell inside my spirit I relented to the whims of oppression and said "I'll leave."  That was one week ago.  I knew my time in Little 5 Points (Atlanta) was coming to an end, but the way it ended gave me the swift spiritual kick in the ass I needed to leave, to change, to show love & tolerance, and to grow.  See, when I have faced situations like this before I would get as angry and loud as the person I was in conflict with - always making sure that I was louder, heard, seen - in all my ugly glory.

AND I started down this path.  Then stopped.

There was nothing to gain.

I hadn't held up to my end of our agreement.  I had asked to reevaluate.

And the response was as loud as the loudest CHAD-fired rage.  It was deafening.

"You can't live here unless you do work for me."  "I don't run a halfway house." I choose to not live a life built upon servitude to a raging Histrionic (look it up).  And the reason I know what this person is - well, "Spot it, you got it".

We have a distinct advantage over most other creatures in that we can live, feel, breath and think in ways that make us "just higher" than the creatures that surround us.  We have a soul.  I have been blessed.  I was blessed when I was given a place, a home back in Atlanta, and I have been blessed with the ability to see the situation before me and know when it wasn't right anymore.

My heart hurts for the loss, especially coming at the hands of two of the very people who I put trust in when I was so lost.  Whether wittingly or not, they attacked my sanity, my sobriety, my sense of being and most of all my security.  Making me feel like I was taking advantage of them by trying to discuss a situation that many much wiser than I saw as bordering on crooked.  All I had asked for was a voice.

And I got one.

God whispered in my ear right before the storm truly came full force - "call this person - they are waiting on you".  

I did.  And I sit here tonight, fully moved out of one place into another.  Moved by more than the people who lent a hand, but by the voice of my God.  Clearly looking out for one of the "least of these".

I nearly succumbed last week to my fears.  I still have them.  I still hold on tight when the storms come.  And though it's a move before I expected it, it is the right move.  The Next Right Thing.

So for now, Clarkston, I hope you will be good to me.  I am so happy to be here!

The Burtle

"Come, all you who are thirsty,
come to the waters;
and you who have no money, 
come, buy and eat!
Come, and buy wine and milk
without money and without cost.
Why spend money on what is not bread,
and your labor on what does not satisfy?
Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,
and you will delight in the richest of fare."

Isaiah 55:1-2

~ and for A.W.

The Best I Ever Was

I'm healthier, stronger, more mentally and emotionally stable.  I'm sober - from many things.  I'm getting leaner (though I still have my belly), and I have deeper relations than I've ever had.  I truly am the best I ever was.

AND - I'm not done yet.

I keep pushing through the storms that come.  I rest when it's time to rest.  And I'm learning there is a balance between the two.  I am growing. 

I'm making amends (part of my recovery).  Going down my ledger book and trying to systematically and with concern and care for those around me, make right some of the wrongs I've done.  I'm not going to every person I owe an apology to and bending down on one knee and groveling, but I am humbly approaching the people that God has placed in my focus and seeking whatever it is supposed to be.  I don’t control this.  I’m along for the ride!

What I am learning more than anything else is willingness.  Willingness to be present - unencumbered by substances, by doubt, by false beliefs about myself that have so many times taken me down bitter paths. Willingness to grow and willingness to push beyond my own reasoning and into a bigger Hope.

Hope - now there’s a word.  Hope was something that I often tossed about in this blog, in conversation, in other writings.  But have I ever known what hope was until now?  I’ve always believed in life past this mucky place, and now I see that in the everyday, in the trials and tribulations that  there can be serenity.  A knowing that it isn’t all about me.  A hope in tomorrow, found in each waking moment of today.

And Faith. 

“Confidence in what we hope for and assurance in what we do not see.” Hebrews 11:1

I have faith that tomorrow morning if I am allowed to wake, I will put on my work clothes, put myself to the tasks ahead of me, roll with the punches that come (those 'curveballs' in our day), and continue to look up and go ‘thank you God for this day’.  I hope that everything I do during the day is a prayer for the life I have been given. Taken out of a fucked up mess and put on a pretty solid rock.

But here’s the true litmus test… 

Listen to my words. But they don’t mean much. They only mean a little.

See my actions. But they can be fickle and trite; sometimes grandiose and other times just sorrowful. 

Really look at my patterns, my behaviors, my habits.

Because you can hear my words, you can see my actions, but I will be known by my patterns and behaviors.

So, looking back at eight months, and yes it’s been eight months since I found this new life; what do you see, what do you hear, and what do you know about me?

I encourage you to answer that question.  Then ask it of yourself.  “What do other’s truly see in me?”

And I’m still waiting…

Zadkiel

Sign-O-the-Times

Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone
If your time to you is worth savin'
And you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'

~ Bob Dylan

Faith without works is dead.  

It’s a simple concept, yet it was one that I criticized, manipulated and catastrophized often over the years.  Faith – the belief in something.  Works – doing, moving, well, working.  How the hell do these two exist in the same verse?  And how do they relate to me, now, today?

Then poof.  One simple, way too easy saying comes to my ears.  The source, my mentor.  “Do the Next Right Thing.”  “Do what?”, I bellowed, as I lay in a state of unrest and detoxification.  How do I do the next right thing when I can’t even get out of bed? 

“Chad, pray.”

“Chad, listen.”

“Chad, walk across the room.  Feed yourself.”

“Chad, walk outside.  Feel the sun on your face.”

“Chad….”  I think you get it by now.

I’m getting close to 8 months.  And it amazes me how different my place is now.  How so very different my path is.  How so opposite from anything I would have imagined a year ago, three years ago.  Hell, it’s even different from where I thought I would be 4 months ago. RADICALLY Different!  And it is that verse in many ways.  Faith exists inside me.  I’ve always clung to it.  I’ve always, except for a few very dark days last year and in the past, tried to let my belief in something bigger guide me.  But I always toyed with the works.  Sure, I could make it look like I was a great guy with biblical and social thoughts that made me heightened, even sometimes enlightened.  But at the core, I am still, even today the 14-year-old who’s learning to Do – The – Work.  

I am amazed as I look down at my hands and see the change.  I always prided myself on my soft hands.  Even through years of drumming and playing other musical instruments I kept them very clean and unblemished.  Now I look and they are so different.  I am so different.  My core remains very true to who I am, but now my outside is changed.  I am stronger physically; I am still bull-headed (maybe Bison-headed!) and I am calloused.  Inside and out I have those scars that make me unique, sometimes crusty and always a mix of silly and salty – within moments of each other.

I was going to be with a special person forever.  That changed.*  

I was going to teach again.  A new school, a new side of town.  That changed.

I was going to drink myself to death.  I’m still here.

I was going to stay huddled in my ‘cave’ and hide from the world.  Well, if you know me you know I don’t do the wallflower AT ALL!

I am still a Father.

I am a Son.

I am a Man of Faith.

I am Broken, and yet put back together.

I am Tender, yet Firm.

I am a Carpenter.

I am a Friend.

I am really fucking Real.

And I am loved.

The Times, they are a changin’.  One day at a time.  One moment at a time.

~ Peace

The Burtle.

Zadkiel

* I still pray...