A Road Not Taken

There are times I'm deeply troubled about the changes in my life. Sometimes I wonder if I know myself at all. It seems strange that I've gone from growing up in a family that rarely attended church, then became a devout Christian at age 25, only to find myself questioning the validity of the church now that I'm 53.

But the oddity of it all is that in many ways I've never changed. I drew a picture of a clock with wings and titled it, "Faith," when I was merely six or seven. Seeing as how my family almost never attended church, it seems strange that I would've even known what "faith" meant. Maybe I didn't, but I did have a very secure belief in God.

Maybe it's because I was nearly killed at age two when I was run over by a car. My skull was fractured front and back, both legs broken in several places, as well as my left arm. When my grandmother found me in the middle of the road, she said my skull was cracked open so wide she could see my brain. The ambulance never came. My cousin, William Cox, is said to have wrapped a rag around my head and held the wound together swhile my grandfather drove me to the hospital. They waited six days to operate and set my legs and arm because I was too weak to survive an operation.

Maybe when someone walks to the line between life and death, they are privy to the councils of the Almighty. I wonder if all who have touched the face of death and lived have a firm faith in God? I do.

So why am I deeply troubled about the changes in my life when there actually haven't been any changes at all?

Because I know there's still a road not taken.

Incredibly Irresponsible

My mother refused to talk about politics or religion with anyone. She just flat out would not do it. I always thought it was because she didn't know much about either subject, but now I realize it was because she knew far more than I gave her credit for. I can't think of any two subjects that have caused me more harm, i.e., damaged relations, multiple misunderstandings, etc., etc., etc. My mother refused to attend church and she refused to vote. I thought her to be incredibly irresponsible for not doing either, but maybe she knew understood far more than me.

If you attend a church, you have to align yourself, in one fashion or another, with the people of that church, i.e., the way they dress, their ideology, even their eating habits. For example, Baptists brag about eating fried chicken, so if you attend a Baptist church, you're supposed to believe God cleanses the arteries of the faithful and stuff grease down your throat like a glutton. My mother didn't like fried chicken very much, so she never became a Baptist. My mother was very independent, so she wasn't about to let any preacher tell her what she should and should not do; therefore, she never offended or pissed off any preachers. But as for me, I rebelled against my mother and started attending church when I was a younger man. I found out that preachers have a habit of asking for volunteers. Being a young convert, I of course said yes to just about everything the preacher asked me to do. But after a few years, I needed a break, so I stopped volunteering. And when I did, the preacher paid me a visit. He wanted to know what was wrong, if someone had said something to upset me. When I told him I just didn't want to do teach a Sunday School, drive a church bus, help out in the baptistry and all the other various positions I had been donating all of my free time to, he was just heart broken. I hated it. There I was, sitting in front of a Man of God, telling him, "No, I don't want to work in the church anymore." It was a tough conversation, and it was one that my mother, who I thought to be incredibly irresponsible, never had to have. Why? Because she had much more sense than me. She knew that once you started doing something for someone, they expect more, and more, and more, and ....

And she knew if she started voting, then she'd have to inform herself about the politicians. She already knew all the local politicians because she ran a business. I suspect that's exactly why she wouldn't vote for them; she knew them. And she knew if she started following national politics, she'd probably slip up and tell someone what she believed. And she knew she'd eventually run into someone, as I often have, who would be pissed at her for voting for the opposing party. So, she simple had no political party. She didn't like any of them, which I thought to be incredibly irresponsible.

Maybe she was an idealist; she certainly lived apart from all the bullshit CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, ABC, CBS and Newsmax, 24/7, in your face media that floods our airwaves now. If she were still here, I suspect she'd never turn the television on. If she wanted to watch something, she went to the movies. She hated TV. She didn't even watch the news when JFK was assassinated, which I found to be incredibly irresponsible.

Well, I'd give just about anything I could be, or could have been, that irresponsible. Because in that irresponsibility lies the secret to living day by day. It's also the secret of getting along with everyone. So my creed and goal is to be incredibly irresponsible from now on.

Rockfield morning

I walked out into the early morning mist. The sun had not yet surfaced the horizon. It's light sent a clear blue hue across the sky. I stood beneath a low tree branch and gazed out over the field across the road from our yard. The cattle that did move, moved gently, as if they were still clearing the sleep from their eyes. But the birds who had nestled in our woods quietly through the night were now wide awake. They chirped without ceasing, flew in formations from the trees over my head. The squirrel hopped from one treetop to another.

God can only be understood at the dawning of a new day. For it's then that one realizes God is not only the author of art; God is art. Only a being of absolute beauty could have created this canvas. How I long to know such beauty. To feel it every moment throughout the core of myself; to be in His presence and filled with His presence.