DISCLAIMER: I have succumbed to an existential crisis in my fifties much like Leo Tolstoy, but unlike him this did NOT lead me back to god.
In the beginning, there was God. I wholeheartedly believed in him. I worshipped him and he became the center, the anchor of my universe. God became all-in-all, or at least that’s what I told myself. Then came existential crisis number one in my thirties.
I was majorly depressed and struggling mightily with feelings of abject failure. God was nowhere to be found. I decided to end my life. I wanted to replace God in the center, on the throne of my life. I pulled up anchor and set sail for the afterlife, only I didn’t succeed. The ultimate failure was my inability to die 24 years ago today.
I felt like God showed up in a big way that next year. My whole life turned around. I purchased my first home, a brand new custom-built one with four bedrooms and two full baths. I believed God arranged a miraculous adoption two months later and I became a dad. Life had done a one-eighty in a matter of eight months!
A year or so after my second adoption (another miracle), I was no longer flying high. I began deconstructing my faith and my marriage at the same time. Existential crisis number two, still in my thirties. I realized that part of my depression and feelings of failure were due to my marriage and career path, if you could even call it that.
I didn’t have grasp of the wheel of my life. I “let go and let God,” as the popular Christian slogan goes. I was not living intentionally. I had no grasp of that concept. I fully believed that whatever happened to me, good or bad, was God ordained. It was easier to blame him for my lazy complacency. I think I began to realize this in my late thirties. My religion was no longer making me happy. I began to wonder if it ever had. I soon realized, after leaving the church, that ritualistic, religious abuse was a major part of my depressive episode in 2000. It contributed to my awful self image. It always had.
My spiritual journey led me away from church and traditional Christianity. I later found replacements for God, including The Universe, Consciousness and The Higher (or Divine) Self. I turned to modern philosophers who embrace Christianity AND New Age Spirituality, like Eckhart Tolle. I embraced his “Power of Now,” present reality focus. I realize that our control is limited to our thinking, unconscious mind and our ability to control it with “presence.”
That gave me some peace, some of the time.
It hasn’t been lasting. And where I found myself meditating or praying out loud, sometimes to the cosmos, I began to wonder what was so different. Did I look or feel any less insane, whether wrestling with God verbally or shouting my displeasure to the stars??? Wasn’t I just replacing one spiritual practice for another? Replacing God?
So now that I’m facing existential crisis number three in my mid-fifties, I’m left wondering what does any of it matter? The sun rises over the good and the evil just the same. Likewise, the rain falls on both without discretion. I’m paraphrasing Christian scripture here. There is no greater purpose.
This landing squarely in nihilism makes the most sense to me. How arrogant is our species to believe that we are so much more highly evolved? How arrogant is humankind to believe that we are created beings, special and important to our creator, be that a Demiurge or the Almighty? It’s pretty damn arrogant, if you ask me. Our species just evolved on this planet like every other living organism. We aren’t special. We weren’t placed here for some divine purpose.
Life is basically meaningless. This is what Leo Tolstoy realized in his fifties. It’s what I’ve come to realize. I’m done replacing God. He is not the center of anything, not the Universe, not my life, and concepts like Source, Consciousness or Divinity are just as imaginary as “he” is. I won’t be returning, like Tolstoy, to the religion of my youth. I’ll just live out my days on this planet until I am no more.
This is the 24th anniversary of my suicidal episode. If you are struggling, call the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, just dial 988.
Dan Barker said, “I was living a delusion.” He made this declaration on the Oprah Winfrey show as one of her guests back in 1984. He'd been a fundamentalist Christian preacher for 17 years before becoming an avowed athiest. That's what earned him a spot on Oprah's popular talk show.
When she questioned who was in charge during those 17 years of ministry and why he even believed back then in God. “The reason was my own personal psychological feeling that I was in touch with the higher mind I prayed every day I saw suppose answers to prayer.” I can relate to this, but let me go back to the beginning.
HOW IT STARTED
I was born into a Catholic household and baptised as an infant. I have godparents. I went to parochial schools and took Communion. I went to Confession. We left the church after mom and dad's "conversion," before I was able to become an alter boy or go through catechism and Confirmation. But I really wanted to, first, be an altar boy and ring the little bells during Mass and then to one day become a priest. I was so devout at a very early age (5 or 6), that my mom made me vestments because I liked to play like I was presiding over Mass in our basement "sanctuary." I'd feed my sister, Heidi, soda crackers, as Communion wafers, and grape juice, as Communion wine. I was deep into it.
That didn't change when we left the Catholic church and became Independent Baptists. I was again baptised--fully dunked this time as a pre-teen--and not only immersed myself in baptismal water, but also in Sunday School, VBS and youth group. My parents became high school youth group leaders, so that in 7th and 8th grade, I was hanging with the cooler, older kids.
That grew old and uncool by the time I reached high school. We returned to the Catholic church part-time so my folks could get the tuition discount at my parochial high school. I lost interest in my faith and going to church.
SELLING OUT
We moved to Tallahassee a week after my high school graduation and my parents found a new version of Christianity they liked better in a Charismatic, full Gospel church that believed in miracles and speaking in tongues and stuff like that. Again, I got baptised, dunked a second time, so that I began to call myself a CATHO-BAPTI-COSTAL!
I was baptised into a wide range of Christian orthodoxies. But that last one happened as I was reaching adulthood and seemed to help me make sense of life, so I bought in fully. I mean I "sold out to Christ" as they would say in the 1980's. I burnt all of my secular albums and tapes and immersed myself again in youth group and ministry. I became a youth leader, a men's leader, a drummer for the choir and various "praise teams." I bought in 100%.
I got married in that Charismatic church, where I'd met my wife and where I'd start my family in 2001. It played a very instrumental part in my life for over 18 years.
QUESTIONING THE NARROW INTERPRETATION
When I entered college to expand my intellect and my horizons, I decided to minor in religion. It interested me. Our assistant pastor was a professor of Old Testament Studies. He intrigued me, as a Bible-believing academic. I never enrolled in one of his classes, but I did take an elective called "Intro to New Testament." It was taught by a Jewish professor. Talk about opening my eyes to other ways to look at Jesus and his Gospel.
I'd say I grew up with a pretty narrow, fundamentalist interpretation of the Scriptures. I mean, my dad started reading Hal Lindsey and end times "prophets" like him. He took a very literal view of the Bible, and so did I.
College and life brought me to newer, broader understanding that wasn't so rigid or literal. Like, I understood science and the Big Bang Theory, so I already knew that Genesis was not a literal account of how our Universe began. I started trying to reconcile my long-held faith with scientific discovery. It was like trying to fit God into a non-religious context. It wasn't easy.
EMERGENCE
Back when I started this blog in 2005, I was raising two daughters and working closely with meteorologists who studied hurricanes and climate change. I had fully embraced science and was leaning heavily away from fundamentalism and my upbringing. I was extremely curious about the Universe and other, more liberal interpretations of the Bible and Christian theology. There was a growing, online community of Emergent Christians, who I joined on message boards and whose blogs I read (before podcasts became so popular). I wrote of The Emerging Ooze in May 2005.
That curiosity about differing views on Christianity led me to philosophers like Thomas Merton and Henri Nouwen, a gay Catholic priest. This was the spiritual path that led me to considering Eastern mysticism, where I found many parallels to the teachings of Jesus. I even read some outlandish ideas about Jesus as an Eastern Mystic, somehow inspired by the "three wise men," who were also "from the East." I considered how Jesus' teachings and healing ministry align well with the Gnostics of his time, that might be the desert dwellers he lived among during his "desert period."
LEAVING IT COMPLETELY BEHIND
After quitting the church where we got married and started a family five years earlier, we started a "home group" of sorts of about four or five families who were about the same place in their Christianity and faith journey. That didn't last long. We met a few months, sharing meals, conversation, prayer and taking up a communal offering that the host family was supposed to use to meet a need in the community.
We moved out-of-state to be near my family. We occasionally attended church with them or the church where my wife worked, a Lutheran church with a progressive, older pastor who loved Henri Nouwen. We had several conversations about faith and the church, but when the denomination split over the issue of "gay priests," I lost all respect for him, the denom, the faith...
I began questioning everything, even the existence of God.
I took aim at the heart of Christian orthodoxy--blood atonement. WHY IN THE HELL DID AN OMNIPOTENT GOD HAVE TO RESORT TO HUMAN SACRIFICE?!?! That practice predated Judaism by a long time. And you mean to tell me that an all-knowing deity couldn't come up with a better concept, a plan for humanity??
According to Google A.I., "Human sacrifice was practiced in many societies beginning in prehistoric times, but became less common in Africa, Europe, and Asia during the Iron Age. In the Americas, human sacrifice continued to be practiced until the European colonization of the Americas. Today, human sacrifice is extremely rare and is treated as murder by secular laws."
That made no sense to me...that an Iron Age practice was being carried out (human and/or animal) in Judaism until the time of Christ and that the Roman crucifixion of a convicted criminal was viewed as the "ultimate" human sacrifice, once and for all humankind.
God couldn't come up with a better way, a more humane and moral way to "save us?" He needed to rely on ancient practices dreamt up by mere mortals or "lesser gods?"
MY NEW AGE SPIRITUALITY
I use the term "New Age," sorta tongue in cheek. It was a dirty, demonic word in my parents' home. LOL! But the spiritual teachings of gurus like Eckhart Tolle and Mooji became more relevant to my faith journey. They blend a liberal view of Christian teaching with Eastern mysticism and other traditions to come up with a universal set of truths, like being good to others and loving oneself.
I no longer believe in the Biblical version of "Father God," a very patriarchal and archaic system of keeping people in check, namely women and minorities. If there is some deity out there, it possesses both feminine and masculine qualities and could give a shit what gender you identify with--as in maybe you are both, just like He/She/It. The Divine, as I see it, and you can find Jesus say the same in the Gospels, is WITHIN!
If you believe in created beings shaped in the image of their deity, then this isn't a totally demonic or foreign concept. Christians believe they are the "bride of Christ." They believe bride and bridegroom to be one. Therefore, I don't see how the idea that we all have the Divine, or are one with Source, is in any way heretical.
I try to tap into my "I AM energy" all the dang time. I find it deep in the core of who I AM. Or as Tolle, would say, "the essence of my being, the conscious mind."
This allows me the freedom to trust in scientific discovery. I don't have to fit God or theology into my belief in science. I don't have to limit a deity to dark matter. I don't necessarily believe in God, per se. Something existed before the Big Bang. We all came from SOMEWHERE! Maybe that's "the Source" as many gurus call it.
Popular astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson talks about “the god of the gaps,” referring to believers whose faith takes over where science leaves off. He sees that as a diminishing god and labels believers as ignorant “because the god of the gaps principal is like a philosophy of ignorance. Science is a philosophy of discovery.”
I'm all about discovery. That's what my faith journey is about--being curious and STAYING OPEN TO POSSIBILITIES!
You don't need a theology to learn to be a good human being. Tolle reminds us that we are, indeed, BEINGS AND NOT DOINGS! We live our lives like Human Doings most of the time. But you don't need to DO anything to be accepted as you are. No one has to shed blood for you to find goodness and morality.
As Barker puts it in the first video, up top, “There can be an objective scientific basis for morality outside of the supernatural outside religion based on the value of human life, based on the fact that life is preferable to non-life; making a hierarchy of value systems, which has nothing to do with receiving an edict written in stone from a God. I am free with the rational mind to determine a hierarchy of values which suits me fine...I have control of my own mind now.”
Like him, I look back on my prayer life and my "relationship with God," as a figment of my imagination. I created a cool, laid-back dad-god who I could converse with casually and who I could depend on to take care of me and look after me like a father. It was very convenient. I just couldn't understand his sense of fairness and justice, like when it came to disasters or death.
I was just watching the aftermath of Hurricane Helene the other day, and one victim who was spared thanked God for watching out for him, when the rest of his neighbors were drowned in a flood. Well, what about them? God just didn't care? He doesn't care about babies suffering and dying a horrible death? He didn't care about millions of Jews, his supposed people, being murdered or burned alive in the Holocaust? Too many inconsistencies in his form of justice...and in the Bible, for my taste.
Who was I really praying to or conversing with? Myself, I presume. It was a psychological construct meant to soothe my soul and help me make sense of this chaotic world that just randomly exploded into existence some 14 million years ago (or maybe not--the James Webb Space Telescope is casting doubt on our entire cosmic model). Like Barker, I had the best intentions. I was attempting to connect to the "higher mind" for my own betterment and the good of those around me.
I'm still trying to connect to that "Universal consciousness," as the gurus call it. That "higher mind" might just exist universally, on some vibrational frequency "out there," that most just haven't tapped into. I don't pretend to know.
These days, you'll find me just conversing with "the Universe." I'll be out on my beach putting my intentions out there and speaking positivity, trying to find my vibration on that frequency. I tell the Universe, whenever I go out there to practice my "New Age" spirituality, that "I'm open to possibilities." I'm still curious and ready for the next adventure.
Haven't posted in awhile. Life happens. 2020 is different, though. We've faced a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic. America has lost almost 180k lives to it. Our president has failed us. He's about to be voted out in a few months. There's been racial unrest with rioting, protesting and over-policing, which just fuels more of it. We're about to see history unfold as two potential hurricanes form in the Gulf at the same time. California is largely on fire and I'm facing the move of a lifetime. Life happens was kind of a muted understatement :)
But here we are nearing the peak of hurricane season. I'm no longer living on the Gulf coast so I'm well out of harm's way. I find myself at my Dad's house in Indiana, starting week three. This is supposed to be my transition to Colorado. I feel as if I'm in a holding pattern.
Even with all the unrest and upheaval this year has thrown at me, particularly the last 5-6 months, I'm relatively peaceful and calm. Facing the negativity and ritualism of my father, I'm relatively positive and making progress.
How is this possible?
Gratitude. Presence. Spirituality.
I've found a path to more mindfulness, more peace, by looking inward and diving below "the unconscious mind," as Eckhart Tolle likes to say. He's my spiritual guru. I've digested more of his videos in the last month than I can count. He preaches presence and getting past the clutter of "the thinking mind." It has helped me a lot. I'm finding a spiritual discipline that didn't exist in my past life as a seeker of Truth.
I mentioned my father's ritualism. He's part of the tribal cult of religion. He believes the Bible to be the inerrant word of God. For him, it paints a picture of God's design and dominion over humankind, the earth and it's history. He trusts that the spiritual, dare I say mythical, guide book was transcribed by men who were mere conduits for the voice of the divine. It's as if God couldn't write it all down for us, as he did for Moses on the mountain, so he began with the Old Testament scribes, and they captured it precisely and perfectly as God intended. No errors, no omissions or translations. Purely the essence of God's wisdom captured in a man-made book.
That's the biggest myth of fundamental Christianity. But Dad's faith is built on that, so I have to allow him his beliefs. He doesn't want to hear otherwise. There's no room for debate.
Take Creation v. Evolution, for instance. He doesn't believe there is room to believe that God set into motion the evolutionary process that took millions of years and still continues to this day. No, the myth says that there was a literal creation that took place thousands (not millions) of years ago and it happened in a literal week. You know, because God is bound by time and space and put "himself" on a tight deadline. The book says it, so it is so. No wiggle room.
Where I diverge from his ritualism is that I see the Bible as a book of myths and stories pointing to a larger Truth. The same Universal Truths we find in other spiritual guidebooks and paths--from Eastern to Western cultures and religions. I don't believe in God's will superimposed over history, or that "he" spoke the Bible into existence and men merely transcribed what they heard, as if on dictaphone. On the contrary, I believe the oral tradition passed down for generations to Abraham, Moses and Jesus, were largely based on myths, like the story of creation. It helped to make sense of the world to nomadic, tribal people in times before the written word. The Bible, then, is man's writing of history to explain the why questions. Once the oral traditions and ancient myths were captured in writing, it's like they were set in stone...by God. But it's humankind's way of explaining the unexplainable God, not the other way around. The myths point to larger Truths, like guideposts. That's why I see spiritual writings as guides and not rulebooks.
Religion, tribalism and ritualism seem rooted in ancient times. Truth is transcendent. That's why you find kernels of it in all religions. There are enough similarities in the major religions to see a pattern and to be able to discern the essence of the divine.
I guess it comes down to having a more humanist view of God than a deist one. I began years ago, and it's documented in this blog, seeing the divine in other human beings. I look for it there. Even Jesus said we'd find him when we helped others--fed them, clothed them, gave them a drink of water. I think that is God finding God. We have the divine spark within us. That's not blasphemy or heresy. That's in Jesus' own teaching. It's evident in a lot of spiritual writings. It's what Tolle calls our "essence," part of "the Universal Consciousness." I don't care what you call it, that resonates with me.
Getting in touch with who I really am at my core--my essence--is where I find the most transcendent peace, or what Jesus called "peace that passes understanding." To get there, I have to escape the clutter of my non-stop thinking mind. I don't have to make sense of the totality of life or how we got here. The why questions are becoming less and less important. I'm finding a new ability to let what is just be. It is what it is. I'm not playing some karmic game with fate or God. I'm finding peace in presence. I'm also finding more gratitude for what is, for abundance, for blessing in my life--deserved or undeserved, I no longer place a value on it. Let's face it, the blessings in my life are invaluable. That's why I recognize it as abundance. And the same goes for trials and challenges--they don't come as retribution for past sins or where I may have misstepped, taking that zig when I should've zagged. That's more judgment and attributing the minutia of life to God-level consciousness. God's not up there playing a game of chess with me. No, as I said at the start of this post, "life happens." It's how we deal with the unexpected complexities of life that matters most.
So far, I've survived 2020. I haven't gotten infected with the COVID-19 virus, to my knowledge. The one test I had done came back negative four weeks ago. I haven't succumbed to the panic over the viral pandemic that went global back in Dec/Jan timeframe, but only really grabbed our full attention in late March. I didn't die from homelessness. I survived much of this year with my girls--my lifeline. I found some new meditation practices that have become part of my daily spiritual discipline. I've actually used this year of upheaval to grow and adapt.
This blog post really focused on spirituality and religion, but that's only because I've been smacked in the face with my ritualistic past because I'm living with "old me" in the form of my Dad. I love him dearly. I'm just glad I evolved past his tribalism and stranglehold on the Truth. We've largely avoided discussions on this topic, to my great surprise (and with great effort on my part). I don't discuss politics for the same exact reason. My sanity is largely in-tact, but not just because we've avoided these hot-button issues, but because I continue to practice gratitude.
Here's what that looks like in the mornings-- I'm often up before sunrise, as I am today (typing this at 4:36 a.m.). I'll take my freshly brewed Cuban coffee outside (weather permitting) and greet the sunrise with gratitude. I might thank the Universe for the sun's energy, it's life-giving and sustaining force, it's warmth, it's light. It's really that simple. I don't take everyday things, like the sun coming up over the eastern horizon, for granted. I say thank you...to God, to Life, to the Universe, the planet...I am grateful. I might, then, turn my attention to the things that thrive on photosynthesis like the grass under my feet (I try to ground myself, barefoot, to the Earth) or the plants and trees around me. There's an abundance of life all around me, so that even if I didn't have a penny or a roof over my head, I could still be grateful for abundance. There is abundant life on this planet that we just happened to be fortunate enough to be born onto. I'm grateful for that...for life on Planet Earth. Then I bore down into more personal areas, like my health, my daughters, my family, etc. It's really not that difficult. I try to start everyday with gratitude. I absorb the positive energy of the sun (which I can do even when it's not visible, on cloudy, rainy days) and try to radiate that positivity outward, in the form of considering and praying for others. If the focus is merely inward, it's not really gratitude, it's narcissism. I want to be a blessing on the Earth and vibrate on a higher frequency than I ever have before. I am noticing a difference in just a few weeks of practice.
Ok, I've rambled on long enough. Peace, my friends. Be blessed.
Last Sunday, I checked in at GoodSam on Facebook with a status, "Being church with Makenna." That's my youngest daughter and the reason I am even in church. But that status stuck with me all week. So when I was asked to write a blurb for this week's e-Newsletter, I titled it "Being Church, Clothing Christ" because we were seeking donations of kids' clothes for a widowed mother of two. It warmed my heart that the congregation I now call family wanted to help this woman in our community who is not a member. I don't know if this woman even goes to church, but she works at a grocery store nearby. Sunday, they are giving me a Mother's Day Card to present to her with a check to help with her financial burdens, now that she is a single mother. What an awful thing for her to spend this Mother's Day with two grieving children, as she herself grieves the loss of their father. But what a blessing to be a conduit of God's love, grace and mercy, through my church family.
Beyond the warm feelings I got when the church offered to help and asked me to be the messenger, I was inspired and awed by the universal truth that we are, indeed, God's hands and feet at work in the world. In reality, that's what "being church" means. We are to be the conduits that carry the essence (call it Holy Spirit, if you will) of God into our homes and communities. That should cause you to stop and reflect, as it has me all this week.
It doesn't matter your level or brand of faith. The church building where you spend your Sundays (or whatever day you worship) is of very little importance. It's the congregation of people, each individual member of "the Body," that makes us Church...and that's a capital "C" for the universal congregation of believers.
For those of us who chose to label ourselves "Christian," WE, as the spiritual descendants of Peter, are that Church built upon the rock. In fact, Peter's name literally means "rock" (Look up Petra in the Greek). WE are Church. So being Church takes on so much more of a personal flavor. There is a lot of personal responsibility to being Church. It means doing something; being something; being different.
There are a lot of people that GO to church; but sadly, it seems very few of them know how to BE.
I was one of those "goers" for a very long time, but then I fell out of practice. I stopped going. I became very jaded, cynical and lost my identity as Church, for awhile. I gradually came back to the "being" but I still wouldn't darken the door of a church building because of all the contempt built up in my heart.
It wasn't until my mom was dying of cancer that the return to "being" was completed.
She was diagnosed in early Summer 2014. Within 17 months, cancer that started in her breast had metastasized and was ravaging her 66-year-old body. She chose quality of life over quantity and enjoyed her children and grandchildren, even a great-grandchild, for that last year and a half. I was blessed to be able to spend Summer 2015 with her in Noblesville, IN. I took three trips up to see her in 2015, the last was over Thanksgiving Weekend. She died that Sunday as I was just about to come home.
Mom's dying wish was to see me and my girls back in church. We hadn't gone regularly since my youngest was born. So to honor Mom's wish, I invited my girls to church and picked the one closest to their home because it had a cool name, Good Samaritan. I didn't care that it was United Methodist, just that it had a good reputation in the community and it was closeby...walking distance, even.
In the last year and four months at that church, minus the Summer 2016 which I spent with my widowed father in Indiana, I've seen myself fully return to "being Church." My cynicism and jadedness has faded and is being replaced with hopefulness and peace. I feel that I'm part of a family of like-minded believers, again; people that aren't just there to go through the motions or talk a good spiritual game. I joined a home group of these people who took me in, fed me (in more ways than one) and have become solid friends. I've seen this family serve together, play together, let their hair down, but get serious when a need arose. They are real. I call GoodSam the church of misfit toys. But that's just what the apostles were, too. Jesus didn't hang out with the politicians, the polished, the church leaders. I feel like today, he'd be found in the pubs, pool halls and hooka bars.
I know that Mom is in heaven smiling down on me this Mother's Day Weekend. I kept my promise. My daughter was baptized in the church last year. We aren't faithful attenders, but we are getting better at being Church on a daily basis. And that's the point, isn't it?
I've been talking to my bus driver, Connie, who runs the SouthWood Route. She's also a full-time minister who, in addition to shuttling folks from SouthWood to downtown and points in-between, gives solicited and sometimes unsolicited bits of knowledge. Her most recent "sermon" has been on Who We Are as people of God. It's been an interesting conversation which I've engaged her in on a number of recent bus trips.
As I was walking over 4 miles yesterday, I had time to clear my head and do some meditating on Who I Am, as a person. And here's what I came up with. I didn't know who I was for a very long time. I didn't really care for myself all that much until I moved back to Florida in 2011 and had a bit of a catharsis on the beach. Self discovery that started at the end of 2011 and led me to some radical changes that brought me to where I am today--back in a town that I swore off in December 2006 when I sold my house and moved back to Indiana.
In my time of reflection and meditation, as I strolled along a barren stretch of Capital Circle SE, I realized what a pivotal year 2006 was for me. It was the beginning of what I now call my decade of crisis. I was 38, then, and I still didn't know what I wanted to be when I grew up. I found what I thought was real love for the first time. It led me away from my wife and ultimately down the path to divorce in 2012. It was an up-and-down rollercoaster ride from 2006 until 2016, which I blogged recently was one of the worst years of my life.
But things began to turn around near the holidays. And as 2017, emerged, I realized that I wasn't the same person that I was during that crisis and certainly not the 38 years before. This year, I've decided to take hold of the rudder of my life again and be the captain of this aging vessel. Whereas before I was willing to let the winds of change shift my direction here and there. I tried to be a,flexible reed letting the winds bend me to and fro, calling it "life's adventure" and taking things as they came to me. Really, I was being lazy and just settling for whatever came my way. I had stopped trying all that hard. I was still living, I was enjoying life, but I didn't feel like I was making choices that would get me to a desired destination.
That definitely began to change in 2012, when I decided to end my marriage. That was a definitive choice. It was a step in the process of finding out who I am and what I am made of. It was a very difficult hill to climb, but I did reach the pinnacle and come down on the other side. I survived. But I still didn't know exactly who I was. Today, I know.
I AM A GOOD FATHER
My daughters mean everything to me. And while they've always been a priority, I never had to sacrifice as much for them as I did in 2014 when I moved back to Tallahassee to be fully engaged in their lives again. It was a bittersweet move for me that I shed many tears over, but a great one nonetheless. I needed to be close to them to be able to continue sowing good seed into their young lives. That first year back in Tallahassee led me to a lot of soul searching. I took lots of cleansing walks, to talk to myself, search my heart and soul and to breathe again. Those girls are my reason for being--well the biggest part of it anyway.
I AM A SPIRITUAL PERSON
I am still a seeker of truth and justice. I try to be a giver, a pursuer of right causes, an advocate for others, an encourager and a more positive person. My journey has led me to broaden my faith to accept Truth where I find it, regardless of the label we place on it. That said, my faith is rooted in Christianity, but I find Truth is not bound by that label or any doctrine thereof. My spirituality embraces tenets of Eastern religions--Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism--and the beliefs of Western Protestant Christianity. Where the Eastern mystics promote living in the present and being fully aware and fully human, I find peace and comfort in that. When they say to sow good into the world and that it'll be returned to you (i.e. Karma), I find the same teachings in the Gospels, regarding sowing and reaping. Even in the Old Testament, Nehemiah prophesies to the builders of the walls of Jerusalem, "only the builders will be paid for their labor." These Truths aren't proprietary to one sect of religion and spiritual people find great comfort in that.
I AM MUSICAL TO MY CORE
I find rhythm in nearly everything. Even my daily routines have a rhythm to them. There's a rhythm in my quick stride to the bus stop in the mornings. It's no wonder that I am a drummer. I find comfort in the steady tempo of life, in the pulse of my heartbeat (which is the backbeat and backbone of modern music, by the way) and in the rhythm of all kinds of music--from black gospel to heavy metal. Music speaks to my soul and has from a very early age. Another great decision I made in 2012 was to join a rock-n-roll cover band. Today, I find myself in one of the best bands I have ever played for. It's because I am a musical being and I need that outlet so that my soul can shine. One day, I'll even write and record my own original music, but for now I just have to play!
I LOVE WHO I AM
It took me the longest time to get over myself and all my perceived failures. I was a constant critic and my internal voice nagged the hell out of me from my childhood, through my adolescence and into adulthood. I just couldn't seem to shake the negativity I always felt towards myself. It felt as if I'd never measure up to my own unrealistic expectations. That, too, began to change in 2012 when I found a book by Dr. Christopher Germer, "The Mindful Path To Self Compassion." I devoured that book on the beach that summer, skipping over the long chapters on meditation practices. My soul needed to hear what he had to say about self-love and affirmation. You see, Words of Affirmation, as Dr. Gary Smalley, taught me through his book, "The Five Love Languages," is my PRIMARY love language, followed by physical touch (secondary). I've found that this is pretty common for men--well, for all people, really, but especially for men. The thing is that I was seeking that love from other people when I didn't even feel it for myself. I wasn't loving myself because I didn't like myself. I didn't know who I was. I began the discovery in my first year of crisis, 2006, and found myself again in 2012, but there were still parts of me I didn't understand, so I didn't know to love them. Today, I feel like I've fully discovered myself. And while I haven't tapped into all my raw potential, I know what lies within and I really love myself completely. No more tearing myself down. If I'm going to be an encourager and a lover of people, I must start with myself. It'd be foolish and disingenuous to be any other way.
I realized yesterday that my midlife crisis lasted a decade, from 2006-2016. It spanned my life from 38 to 48 years old. That's a long time to go through a metamorphosis where I nearly hit rock bottom twice, but it's my journey and I'm telling you that's how it happened. I'm not the same guy that I was in 2006, not the same guy I was at the start of last year, even. But today, I fully love the man that is a good, no GREAT, father, a spiritualist, a musician and a man that is fully human, in touch with the full range of his emotions and excited to be alive.
Hard to believe, but in April this blog will be seven years old.
I know I haven't been a consistent blogger. As you'll notice in the timeline on the lower right, there are missing months where I did not blog at all. No apologies. Life just gets in the way of writing sometimes.
But this has always been a great place for me to vent, to get creative, to share personal feelings, failures and accomplishments. All told, I'm pretty proud that I've stuck with it this long, since the average shelf life of most blogs is less than six months.
Over the next few months, leading up to that anniversary, I plan to do some looking back and share some of my favorite blog posts. This space serves as sort of a road map of my spiritual journey the last seven years. The road I began travelling back in 2004-05, down the path of rediscovery and emerging spirituality, led me far away from my Catholic and Pentacostal roots. Well, maybe not THAT far away, but certainly in a new direction.
For anyone who has followed my ramblings, thanks. I appreciate your interest and longevity. For anyone who has just stumbled upon this blog, welcome. Pull up a chair and click through some of the posts from 2005-2011. You might chuckle, maybe you'll even stop to ponder, but whatever you do, leave a comment. Blogs are not for stalkers. They're for conversation. You don't have to be a blogger yourself to leave a comment. Anyone can do so, even anonymously.
