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

Parenting is hard.

Whether it’s from 3000 miles away or it’s across the house as they’re sitting 15 feet away from you, the distance might seem just as insurmountable (whether there be physical, mental or even spiritual chasms).

How do we smother them with love when at the same time we want to smother them with a pillow? Not really. But you know you want to shake them every once in a while!

Born of our flesh, they often times have the same psychological make-up that we have. Similar deficiencies and hopefully some of the same beautiful parts in their own unique packages. 

And whether they be 10 or 16 or 26 - they are hard. 

There’s a verse that says, show a child the way they should go (Proverbs 22:6). Sometimes it means directing them towards activities or interests that they may not really want to pursue; sometimes it’s encouraging things you don’t really like yourself, but you know it’s things they enjoy. And sometimes it’s setting up those ugly boundaries that just suck. They suck because they’re hard and they suck because they truly suck the life out of you. 

Parenting is hard. 

Yesterday I got to sit across from my daughter on her 25th birthday. I never imagined we would make it this far. She’s made like me in many ways and at the same time she’s much stronger than I am. She’s faced things that I can say I’ve never had to go through or endure. And she’s doing the best she can every day. 

It’s one of the joys when you see them on the other side. And as we were leaving I looked at her and I said “what’s your faith?”

She hates the question but instead of me telling her exactly what kind of faith she should have, I asked her what she believed. And she told me she had a higher power. She wasn’t sure much beyond that, but that’s a start. Because I would rather her believe in something than nothing. I would rather be able to have the discussion I had with her openly without it being mixed with the anger that she seethes toward people who push faith or her in total silence.

Parenting is hard. 

It’s much harder when we don’t have faith. That means me, my kids, and even the other parent. You can’t manufacture faith in someone who doesn’t believe, but you can pray like hell for them to find something that sticks in their ass and makes them realize that there are bigger mountains to climb.

How do you parent? 

I never feel like I do it well enough, but I try. And for many years I didn’t try. Not to the level of trying i could be proud of - trying to bridge the gap. Find things of interest that a 10 year-old, 25-year-old and a 26-year-old might want to talk about. And I often still fail to find those common grounds. 

I do believe fully that if you try, you’re at least participating.

Talk to them. Talk to them until you’re blue in the face if you have to, but also listen. And when you listen, maybe you’ll find one thread that you can say is common between you. Maybe they’ll see you listening and realize there’s more to communication than just yelling and screaming and then running away or just hiding and trying to slide by without opening up. Because parenting is really relationship. Starts as this protector of life and it develops into one of guide or mentor into hopefully some kind of relationship that might resemble a friendship. Or at least a connection that’s beyond just “do what I say!”

I don’t know if any of this resonates but I just know after several days of talking a lot about parenting and how it does and doesn’t work at times, I know that it’s better when you actually talk with others. Talk about your failures and talk about your hopes for your kids. 

Parenting is hard.

But so worth it.

~ Peace

The Burtle

the tender

I wasn’t raised on the tender.

There wasn’t a focus on when he washed his disciples’ feet or the tears that were shed over the passing of his dear friend. When Mary was there listening attentively, I knew Martha was faithfully doing the ‘right thing’.

We didn’t look at the last meal and have any real thoughts about the fact that his followers embraced him in a loving manner just hours before he prayed for them.  Loved them.  Died for them.

I didn’t know love at all.

I knew performance and prophecy and had a pretty good take on the scriptures from the book - at least the ones that were often bellowed from the pulpit. I’m no theologian, but I knew the message that was being taught. Unfortunately, a lot of times it was wrong.

Not wrong because it was a lie, but wrong because the focus wasn’t on grace and forgiveness and accepting as we are. It was on ‘we accept you more - the more you become like us’. Something that still resonates today, I believe.

Somewhere I missed that message. The tender message of hope through the eyes of love. 

And yet that is the one thing that has kept me here. The love of a being that I don’t understand but I still yell at sometimes, even today. I beg and plead and cry to, and realize that nothing works without him. Without this all powerful being that was so stupid-crazy that he came down and walked among us. 

He came to love.

So the journey more recently has been to understand this love thing. It’s nothing new. I can probably pick out at least five or six of my recent blogs that deal specifically with that topic, but today it’s more specifically about the fact that there are so many places that I used to think about the judgment of God that are truly about the Love of God.

And as I’m still working on the fact that he might just accept me as I am today, red eyed and snotty nosed, dripping with depression, I know that he loves me. 

Instead of asking ‘why?’ I just say very quietly…

“Thank You.”

~ Peace

The Burtle

What we carry.

The past can latch on and just NOT LET GO. 

__________

I had a beautiful conversation this evening with an older couple that I truly adore. Whether they realize it or not, in the few interactions that we’ve had I have come to respect and want to know them more.

At one point, we talked about our pasts. More I talked about mine and they listened, shocker… me talking - but I talked because I do feel a trust and a willingness to share with this couple.

The wife asked me about therapy - not knowing that I am so much on the bandwagon of ‘everybody should talk to someone! Get therapy!!’

Then she told me that she had recently started counseling of her own. Man, she’s a fucking superhero! That is huge! I don’t know if she thought I was serious or being silly, but I think it’s one of the most incredible things to find someone in the late fall/winter of their lives still willing to talk and open up. Walk the journey of healing the past.

I carried my past with me for a long, long time and it became so heavy and so damning. It condemned me well beyond the scars of my youth, and it tried to keep me in my pain and addiction. It tried to kill me.

Funny, even Jesus carried the weight… But then he lifted it up on a tree, and gave it to the Father.

What if we just stopped? What if we took the time to go ‘this needs to be dealt with, and I need help?’

What if we started walking through the pain and started to slowly hand it over to a higher power? Give it somewhere that can actually take care of it instead of continuing to carry it or worse, bury it! Either way it’s going to come out. Maybe it’ll come out in our anger and our frustrations or maybe it can come out in healthy conversations that lead towards peace in our spirit.

I don’t know, except for that it’s worked for me. 

And tonight/early morning as I’m writing this I realize that even when work is shit and I’m tired and frustrated, I still have more peace than I’ve had in any of the years when I was still trying to carry all those past hurts on a daily basis.

So thankful for the conversation tonight. It’s not every day that you meet an superhero!! And I hope to take some time to learn more about them soon.

If you’re still carrying the past, why don’t you look down and realize that you’re standing in the present? And hopefully, with some help let go of that and realize that today is enough, tomorrow will come, and lay those burdens down.

~ Peace

The Burtle