An Overactive Imagination

Children aren’t surprised by miracles. Their capacity for imagination amazes me, and oddly puts my intellect to shame. As an adult, I’m fairly certain that next time I’m at the mall a unicorn will not materialize and saunter through the crowds. But if one does, you can bet every child in the place will approach it with matter-of-fact curiosity, while every adult in the mall will emit a collective “WTF?!” In the same way, a mother with cancer can suddenly be found to be tumor-free; the doctors will be entirely mystified, while the child is just happy that Mommy is back home and her hair is growing out again. It is as though children understand things that are far beyond the comprehension of adults.

It’s the complete opposite with things that we adults understand. We don’t have to be knowledgeable in the field of aerodynamics to grasp the fact that the wings of an airplane are structured and angled in such a way as to create lift with enough speed. We take for granted that an airplane takes off and lands because we as adults understand it. But a child can stay nose-glued to the terminal window, watching in awe as plane after plane takes off and lands, and it’s amazing to them. We as adults can walk through a garden without noticing one thing around us, yet the child is caught up with the brilliance of the flowers and the caterpillar on the sidewalk and the puddles just begging to be jumped in. Children find such joy in the things we adults take for granted.

What happened to us? Why do we discount the things we can’t comprehend, and find no amazement in those things we do understand?

In our world, the moment we stop believing in Santa Claus is a rite of passage. Setting aside tales of fairies and dragons and aliens is considered part of growing up. Dreams are reduced to being nothing more than the result of late-night pizza. Angels become naked babies with wings, and the monsters under the bed are the products of an overactive imagination.

In Walking on Water, Madeleine L’Engle theorizes that we’ve been taught the story of Peter walking on the water all wrong. We’re told that he just had so much faith for that moment that he was able to perform the miracle of walking on the tops of the waves. Her idea, though, is that Peter was remembering how to walk on water, that for that brief second he had returned to what he had originally been created to be.

L’Engle also emphasizes that Jesus was fully human as well as being fully divine. And Scripture makes it clear that his miracle power was not coming from within him, but rather from God the Father working through him. He was fully human, but because he was also fully divine and knew the Father so intimately, he was perfectly willing to go along with everything the Father commanded him to do. He knew the Father so well that he trusted Him without question. And God was able to use him to the greatest extent. He could perform miracles, and heal, and walk on water, because he trusted the Father implicitly and was the man he had always been created to be.

(I’ve heard the question put forth as to why the Western world doesn’t see miraculous healings like the Third world still sees on a regular basis. The answer posited was that God’s gotten so fed up with our self-reliance that He just gave up on the West almost entirely and left us with our health care. This was only partly a joke.)

We all know that story of Jesus with the little children, how the adults didn’t want them to bother Jesus, but he put the adults to shame by declaring that the kingdom of heaven was of such as those children. We’ve also all been taught that story incorrectly, or at least incompletely. I know I was. I was always told that that story was proof that children were important like adults were. It wouldn’t be overly flippant of me to say that it was meant to be a self-esteem boost for kids. But that’s not what Jesus meant.

What Jesus meant was that “childish” qualities such as creativity, imagination, wonder, trust, and acceptance were qualities that one needed to see the kingdom of heaven come to fruition. These kids ignored all the “important” adults who wanted to debate theology and real life with Jesus, and who wanted to observe the proper protocols of interaction with a teacher. They just walked right up to him and sat in his lap, and allowed him to love them without prerequisite or condition.

It is implied in this story that the kingdom of heaven is one of those things that children inherently grasp but adults have discredited at worst or taken for granted at best.

Holy crap, what if the “overactive imagination” of a child was a part of God’s original design for humanity?! What if creativity, imagination, wonder, trust, and acceptance are qualities God intended for each of us to have, and it’s just been the proper adults who have squashed those nascent gifts within us as a requirement for “growing up”? What means to knowledge can be found in the ninety percent of our brains that we do not use? What if we truly take hold of the idea that there are more ways of knowing than just logic and the scientific method? And what if we were to go beyond just recognizing that observable fact is truth to acknowledging that not all truth is observable fact—that observable fact is actually merely a subcategory of truth?

I wish I knew how to regain the wonder and the curiosity of a child. The innocent inquisitiveness. The easy trust. The vibrant creativity. (I can’t ignore that creativity is the very first aspect of God’s character that we see in action in Scripture. Not faithfulness. Not love. Not wisdom, or judgment, or power. Creativity. Should it be a surprise then that children take to it so naturally and so early in life?)

I just know that I used to be terrified of God, and now I dare to approach Him like a dear friend, and often tactlessly. I know that I used to tell people what to think, and now I’m made fully aware I know nothing and all I can do is encourage them to seek God more intimately. I know that I could never find any interest or joy in my physics classes, but now I long to know about black holes and string theory and general relativity and the Creator of this universe and all its mysteries. I know I used to feel like the stories in Scripture were tired and cobwebby, and now I’m insatiably curious to know what else happened—I want to know about the Nephilim and the Watchers, about Enoch and Jared, about the “hot springs” Anah discovered in the wilderness, about the further exploits of the sons of Jacob.

I want to remember who I was created to be. I want to walk on water. I want to see miracles, and healings. I want to create uninhibitedly. I want God to come down and walk with me in the cool of the day. I want to approach Jesus without reserve and just allow him to love me without cause. I want to be filled with all the wonderment of a child gazing out the window of the airport terminal, as the airplanes take off and land over and over again.

Sturgis and Gomorrah

I recently returned from a week in Sturgis, South Dakota, where I was working during the town’s annual motorcycle rally. I was there with twelve other members of my church, The Anchor Fellowship; we were donating our time to work there, and our wages would then be given to the church as a fundraiser. We manned entrances at the Buffalo Chip Campground, which is the epicenter of Sturgis Bike Week’s festivities, and where a massive amphitheatre was built to accommodate performances by the likes of Toby Keith, CCR, Aerosmith, and other artists popular in motorcycle culture. Following the shows, we would clean up the grounds within the amphitheatre area.

This was easily the spiritually darkest experience of my life. Sturgis is in southwestern South Dakota, near the Badlands and the Black Hills, and it is an incredibly beautiful area. But as the bikers began to roll in, and as the events got underway, I could feel a great heaviness settle over the campgrounds and town. I’m not one who tends to be very sensitive to the spirit realms, but even I could sense the Darkness building. It was even tangible, in the same way August humidity in Florida is tangible. It clung to my skin, and pressed in heavily.

The Buffalo Chip Campground was private property, and therefore it became a place of complete lawlessness. Literally the only rules there were that each person had to have a wristband, and that they could not bring weapons or their own alcohol into the amphitheatre area (so as to protect beer sales by vendors inside). Here the baser instincts of mankind were on full display; drugs and drunkenness were rampant, strippers performed at several different locations around the stage, and there was enough public sex and nudity to make Bonnaroo seem like an Amish community. Constantly men would offer to have their wives/girlfriends flash us (at the very least) if we would look the other way while they brought in alcohol. And this wasn’t Woodstock-ish hippie lawlessness, with that free-love-and-marijuana sense of camaraderie; this was violent lawlessness, fueled by Budweiser, testosterone, and gasoline. Weapons were everywhere, and as the entire campground was accessible to bikes and four-wheelers and golf carts, there were drunk drivers everywhere. The environment was not only spiritually Dark, but it was flat-out dangerous.

I will not take the time to go into great detail, but midway through our time there, we found out that four or five individuals independently had gotten word from God that we were to leave Sturgis immediately for home. These were people back in Nashville, people within our group, and even a member of a biker ministry there on the campgrounds. So we fled. The place had been nicknamed “Sturgis and Gomorrah,” and we were Lot and his daughters in flight. On the road home, we found out that that night’s performance by Aerosmith had been cancelled due to Steven Tyler falling off the stage and being airlifted to the hospital. News articles said little about the crowd response except that although concertgoers were disappointed, they were just glad he was going to be okay. Ha. We knew better. Imagine having to be security in a place where tens of thousands of drunken bikers had just had their Aerosmith show cancelled. That would have been an extremely dangerous situation. And suddenly the call for an abrupt departure made sense, as well as the comparisons to Lot and family.

This all got me thinking about the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. We all know it well. God had determined to destroy the cities for their unabashed wickedness, and had sent two angels to extract Lot and his family before the fire fell. A crowd gathered around Lot’s house as he hosted the visitors, and they demanded that he release the visitors to them. Scripture seems to indicate that the crowd intended to rape the angels, and Lot even offered up his virgin daughters to them, but the crowd refused. The angels then struck the crowd with blindness, and the family escaped just before the brimstone and sulfur rained down.

Many Christians like to twist this story into a condemnation of the LGBT community (that is, the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered community). Since the crowd was made up of men, and the angels were male, the great evil for which God wanted to destroy the city was homosexuality. But anyone with half an open mind can see that this is a ridiculous association; since when do all the men of a city suddenly “go gay” when two visitors enter town? Knowing that only a small percentage of people (2% to 10%, depending on who you ask) are homosexual, why would all the men of the city reject the offer of two beautiful virgin girls in favor of two male visitors?

Writings outside of Scripture (whether they be legends, historical accounts, or books associated with sects of Judaism) seem to indicate that Sodom and Gomorrah had developed a huge reputation for being extremely inhospitable to outsiders. Accounts exist of visitors being regularly robbed, tortured, humiliated, or even murdered in increasingly imaginative ways by the people of the cities. And any townsperson who helped the visitor would find himself in the same predicament. (Lot seems to be an exception—a tolerated alien—most likely due to his wealth, power, and relation to Abraham, of whom the cities were wary.) If this is true, then a re-read of the Genesis account of Sodom and Gomorrah brings a whole new perspective. The men of the city were not a horde of “homosexual perverts” just trying to get a piece of the “hunky new guys” in town, as popular Christian teaching would like us to think. Rather, they were setting about their usual hobby of torturing and humiliating outsiders. Lot indicates full awareness of this custom in Genesis 19:8, when he says, “But don’t do anything to these men, for they have come under the protection of my roof” (NIV). The crowd then replies in the next verse, “This fellow came here as an alien, and now he wants to play the judge! We’ll treat [him] worse than them.” This makes incredible sense when understanding the great wickedness of Sodom and Gomorrah to be that of inhospitality.

But surely inhospitality isn’t a legitimate evil, one which would cause God to destroy entire cities! This would seem anticlimactic to Christians who have been raised to believe that homosexuality is a great wickedness that God would wish to exterminate from the earth. After all, wasn’t the city Sodom named after a form of homosexual intercourse? (I’m being facetious with that last statement; unfortunately and incomprehensibly, to some that clear fallacy is a cogent argument.)

We all know James 1:12—“Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress…” (NIV). The second law that Jesus taught was to “love thy neighbor as thyself.” He also taught that we must love our enemies. And throughout Scripture we see innumerable stories in which hospitality is promoted or rewarded. A widow provides food and lodging for Elijah even though she has nothing. David brings into his home Mephibosheth, the last remaining descendent of his nemesis Saul. Ananias and the Christians of Damascus welcomed Paul into their community following his conversion, even though he’d been responsible for killing so many of their brethren. And let’s not forget the Good Samaritan.

We are not called simply to show love and kindness to those of our own community. The Bible is unarguably clear in making the point that we are called to love EVERYONE. We are to show hospitality and kindness to those who are in need of it, even if they are outsiders to us, and even if they are our enemy. The wickedness of Sodom and Gomorrah was so great that they didn’t just settle for ignoring or shutting out strangers and people in need—they outright exploited and tortured them. It was a sport, a pastime to them. And to God this was an inexcusable wickedness.

And the parallels between Sodom and Sturgis become even clearer. Never have I seen such blatant racism, misogyny, and homophobia (often accompanied by a figurative wave of the American flag). As visitors clearly not a part of biker culture, I genuinely felt like we could easily have had a giant target painted on the front of us. The only black individuals I saw the entire week (with the exception of one extremely brave biker) were the people hired to clean the bathrooms, and it must have taken great courage or desperation to have caused them to take the job in that kind of explicitly racist environment. Even some of our fellow co-workers, people hired in from Rapid City and who were (in theory) completely sober, were fully unashamed of their own hatred; one guy went on a tirade about how he hated Canadians because gay marriage was legal there. Twice I heard him voice a desire to inflict serious physical harm upon guys who rode on the same motorcycle as another male. I have never experienced a place more inhospitable to those not a part of the majority culture. Well, outside the church, that is.

Unfortunately, the followers of Christ, those who should be most loving of others, have gained a reputation as being extremely inhospitable. It has been said that Sunday morning is the most segregated time of the week, as the majority of churches are predominantly composed of people of the same race. So many churches actively promote the idea that one must become like the rest of the congregation before they are welcome. Even in the twenty-first century, churches abound that look down on visitors with tattoos, visitors dressed as a part of a counterculture, visitors who aren’t familiar with the “proper decorum” expected in that church. The massive divide between the church and the LGBT community exists in part because few gays have met a Christian who actually loves them like Jesus would, and few Christians have bothered to get to know a gay person for who they really are. And women are still considered inferior to men in so many churches. They won’t admit it, but many churches have allowed the real spirit of Sodom and Gomorrah to sit amongst them in the pews every Sunday.

What it comes down to, is that we the church must return to those two commandments given by Jesus, to love God and to love others. This impossible for any person to do, however, on his own. He must instead cry out to God, and ask Him for the grace to love those he is incapable of loving. It involves pushing himself outside his comfort zone. It involves putting the opinion of God over the opinion of fellow churchgoers.

I’ll be the first to admit that I suck at loving. I really do. I found myself most of the week at Sturgis laughing at the absurdities of biker culture. I found myself complaining as I raked up countless piles of “patriotic” confetti and smashed, disgusting beer cans after Toby Keith’s show. I could not find it within myself to truly look upon these people with love—pity was the most I could muster.

And it was in the van, as we waited for the last of our group to arrive so we could make our escape, that I broke down. I watched as a young man suffered through a very powerful drug trip—whether it was heroin or crack or something else, we don’t know. But he was stumbling everywhere, collapsing on top of his tent and exposing himself and falling over fences. And there was this girl with him. She was maybe nineteen, and she’d worked with me at the front gate one night; you could see a radiant personality in her, and incredible potential and talent. But here she was doing her best to coerce him into lying down to sleep it off. She tugged on his arms, trying to calm him down. You could see the incredible frustration mixed with love she felt, but ultimately she could do nothing more than just roll up in her sleeping bag in front of the tent, and just wait it out there next to him. It was the most heart-breaking thing I’ve ever seen. Two young people with so much potential, and this is where their lives had led. All I could do was weep, as for just that moment God allowed me to see them at least in small part the way He saw them. And there were so many broken people in that campground…. I was convicted for the way I’d thought of the bikers there, and I saw for a moment just how sorrowful God was for the self-destruction and brokenness around. It was devastating, and I doubt I shall ever forget it.

I was struck by the weight of that prayer, that God would break our hearts with the things that break His. That’s such a dangerous prayer to pray. And I felt—and still feel—such overwhelming gratitude for all the things God has done in my life. Yeah, I’m broken and screwed up, and I am no better than anyone out there at Sturgis. But I’ve given God room to work, and it is to His glory that I am not in that same place of destruction. Now that’s amazing grace.

P.S. For the record, and to try to head off any arguments, I am not making any kind of judgment call on the rightness or wrongness of homosexuality. I am fully aware that it is a hot-button issue for many Christians, and in this context I wish to set my personal beliefs/opinions aside. I am merely addressing the subject as objectively as I can. There is a time and place for one to state and defend his position on the subject. This is not it.

The Palm Tree Thanks the Hurricane

I don’t watch a huge amount of television on a regular basis. Sure, I can get caught up in “Ace of Cakes” marathons, or “18 Kids and Counting” on demand, or cheesy Playlistisms, or “Will and Grace” reruns, or “Family Guy” episodes I personally own on DVD…. Okay, so maybe moving into a house that only has basic cable was the best thing I ever did. There is little of interest on basic cable outside of Conan O’Brien. And “American Idol.” And “So You Think You Can Dance.” And….

All that said, it’s probably a bit strange that I’ve not seen a whole lot of the show “30 Rock.” Tina Fey’s appearances on “Saturday Night Live” portraying Sarah Palin were the highlights of the 2008 election season for me, yet I’ve seen little of the show that has really launched her to national prominence. The sitcom also features Jack McBrayer as Kenneth the Page, an actor with whom I’m familiar because of hilarious appearances on Conan, “Forgetting Sarah Marshall,” “Walk Hard,” and “Talladega Nights.” Kenneth is an endlessly naïve and optimistic country rube who is a member of an unspecified conservative charismatic religious denomination. And thanks to the miracle of Facebook stalking, I discovered through a friend’s post that this character was a graduate of an institution called Kentucky Mountain Bible College.

Probably nobody is aware that KMBC is an actual college in the tiny town of Vancleve, nestled in the Appalachian hills of eastern Kentucky. The 2000 census lists Vancleve’s population at about 364, with only 6 individuals being of a minority race. The average household income at the time was just over $16,000. It would seem that a Bible college located in such a place would be the perfect school to have produced such a character as Kenneth the Page.

The funniest part of all of this is the fact that most of my mother’s family attended this school, or at least attended Mt. Carmel High School, which is essentially the little sister to the college. My mother and I believe all three of her siblings, as well as a few cousins, attended Mt. Carmel. I’m not sure just which relatives attended KMBC itself, but I do know that my aunt and uncle currently live and work at the college, and all three of their sons (my cousins) attended. One can also go to the Mt. Carmel website and see a picture of my cousin Brian listed as an RA of the men’s dorm there.

So there is one portion of my heritage—Kentucky hillbilly. The community in Florida in which I was raised was really no different; it was just located a mile from the Atlantic Ocean rather than in the toothless maw of Appalachia. Both places are a part of what they call the “conservative holiness movement” (feel free to search the term on Wikipedia). One might consider it loosely a blend of the Wesleyan-Arminian theology of the Nazarene denomination with the lifestyle standards of the most conservative Pentecostals, mixed with a healthy dose of what is basically asceticism. One must actively work to free himself of all “worldliness.” Therefore women may not cut their hair or wear jewelry and makeup, and may only wear long, loose skirts; men and women may not so much as kiss or hold hands until marriage; rock music in all its forms is worldly, derived from the satanic tribal music of Africa; television is forbidden, as are nearly all movies; alcohol and cigarettes are signs of pure, unadulterated evil in a person’s soul. I actually grew up in a household much like that on “18 Kids and Counting,” just minus 15 kids and a father.

Okay, maybe I’m starting to be a bit facetious. But they do go to unusual lengths to keep themselves “unspotted from the world.” It’s an environment that creates paranoia that one might become “worldly” by accident, and therefore contact with anything outside this community is kept to a minimum. Children grow up, marry right out of high school or Bible college, and start families just around the corner from their own parents (unless they are called to be missionaries or pastors elsewhere). People work and hire within the church community as much as possible, and—much like with the Amish—pressure is (usually) implicitly but strongly levied on everyone to remain a part of the group. And funnily enough, the church I grew up in was considered to be more “liberal” within the conservative holiness movement; shirt sleeves were only required to reach the elbow, and single parent status was not considered enough of a moral failure to justify someone being fired from a school or church job.

Clearly I still have issues with my upbringing. But how can I not? Because of this environment, I had to wrestle with the minute question of the acceptability of Christian rock music with the same spiritual exertion someone else might use to understand the concept of a loving God that allows evil to reign on earth. Others might debate the idea of predestination with the same gusto with which we would debate the acceptable length of shirt sleeves.

So when I see NBC mocking this mindset via the lovably innocent character of Kenneth the Page (gulp…I even have two relatives named Kenneth), I can’t help but join in on the laughter.

I suppose there are benefits to this sort of childhood. I was never given the chance to screw my life up before I was old enough to know better—heck, I’d never been in a movie theater until I went to college, much less been allowed the opportunity to knock up a girl or careen drunkenly through a red light or overdose on anything stronger than caffeine. And I definitely have (somewhat) interesting stories to tell. And I think in some skewed way this upbringing has allowed me to be more accepting of the differences of others than I might otherwise have been. After all, my own family is out in left field compared to most of the world.

The subject of my first blog posting here was that of my aversion to risk-taking, and it’s true that I don’t like taking risks without knowing all the variables involved and making conscious recognition of what is the necessary course of action. But I think the battles I had to fight in freeing myself of this upbringing have built in me the willingness to make bold and fearless decisions once I know what is the right and necessary thing to do. It was drilled into me that rock music was the evil tool of the devil, and it was not an easy task to shed the spectre of hell every time I listened to my favorite music. It was so heavily ingrained in me. But I made the conscious decision to accept the risk that they might be right and that I might be condemning myself for wanting to write and record rock music of my own.

And so the most precious gift my upbringing has given me, I think, is the courage to abandon tradition and the resulting guilt whenever I come to understand that it is wrong. I’ve learned to weigh everything carefully, knowing that conviction is a dangerous companion that must be kept at arm’s length and readily exchanged or dismissed if truly need be. I’ve come to acknowledge the humility that is necessary when making decisions or assertions, the humility that allows me to acquiesce to fuller understanding in the future. And I’ve become good friends with Doubt, rather than enemies.

I now line up to the standards of my upbringing very little. I love and even create “evil” rock music. I work and shop and watch movies on Sundays. I wear shorts in public. I love a good beer and the occasional cigar or cigarette. I sometimes use profanity. I oppose the banning of abortion (for practical reasons, not moral reasons), and I oppose any sort of marriage amendment and favor most gay rights. I haven’t voted Republican in years. I live half-way across the country from my family for no “approved” reason, and I’m still nowhere close to getting married. And there is therefore now no condemnation on me for any of it.

So while I have accumulated a great deal of baggage from my childhood, I also have developed the ability to doubt and to question without fear of damnation. I’ve learned that my faith is about my relationship with my Father Creator, not about what lifestyle standards I adhere to aside from anything that would actually grieve Him, my dearest friend. I recently wrote a song about this very idea; the chorus includes the lines “Your purpose in life is not what you do/It’s who you love and who loves you.”

I don’t find my faith easily swayed; at the same time I don’t have it tied too tightly. I have the guts to stand firm in the face of doubt, and the guts to give in when more truth comes to light. For that I can thank the “conservative holiness movement,” in the same way the palm tree can thank the hurricane for making it need to grow strong and flexible.

If I Could Dig a Hole to China

I have rightfully earned the nickname “Quiet Dan.” I’m known to generally hang near the back of things and to keep my mouth shut. I prefer to listen to conversations than to attempt to interject my own thoughts. I feel no need to be the center of attention. Of course, anyone who knows me well enough knows that I’m fully capable of coming out of my shell (often with the aid of a pint or two). If I’m comfortable with my company and surroundings, I’m much more likely to participate in discussions. My sense of humor comes into play as well, as it tends to be at its best (which isn’t saying much) when I’m riffing off others. I don’t know if these contradictions make me a man of complexity and paradox, or if this simply makes me confused.

We’ve all heard the phrase “Still waters run deep.” I’d like to think that’s the case with me. I’d like to think that I don’t have time to talk because I’m busy observing people and pondering the world around me. I’d prefer to be known as the guy who doesn’t say much, but when he speaks, everyone listens. I want to be known for the profound wisdom only found in those who take the time to listen and observe. Unfortunately, I don’t have any evidence of any of this actually being the case.

There’s also an old adage that says something like, “Better to be silent and thought a fool, than to speak and prove it.” I’m pretty sure this is the saying that more accurately describes me. Silence became a defense mechanism for me as a child. I was incredibly sheltered, and many times as a kid in school I’d make comments off hand that would have everyone staring at me aghast. I would be promptly informed that people just don’t say those things out loud. Ever. I’d cower away, bewildered and humiliated. And in a community as small as the one in which I grew up, reputations don’t change quickly, even when they are no longer warranted. So I learned to just keep my mouth shut and try to disappear—at least disappear as best one could in a class of sixteen.

Silence then—for me at least—is the result of insecurity rather than wisdom. And I really am trying to bust my way out of this habit of quietness. I’ve grown in confidence so much over these last few years—honest! If you think I’m quiet and shy now, you should have seen me eight, four, even two years ago. But I still have so far to go. When I’m lacking confidence I still naturally retreat into my shell, though maybe not as far. In the past, if I was not feeling particularly confident socially, I would stay home alone. Now, I will go out, and merely limit my conversation to one-word responses if I’m not in the mood to push myself. Baby steps. Baby steps.

A funny thing happened, though, when I began to learn how to be more comfortable around other people. I began to become less comfortable on my own. I began to need the company of others in order to feel some semblance of normalcy. If I was alone too long, I’d feel like there was something wrong with me. And I’d begin to force things. My mouth would open a little more often, and a little more often I’d find my foot buried deep in it. What would I do then? I’d force myself back into silence. I’d retreat back into my shell, and I’d be right back almost where I started. It has really become a pattern in my life. (I’d call it a vicious cycle, but I hate that phrase.)

But looking back, each time hasn’t been full regression. It might have been ten steps forward and nine steps back, but at least I would net a step each time. This whole process of falling down and getting back up has at least gained me some ground over time.

By this point, I’ve made enough progress to have the confidence to reach out to new people in my community and attempt to get to know them, at least if I think we might have common interests (this is a fairly recent development). I have a desire to expand my circle of friends, and I’m finding it easier to do this. (I have to make sure, however, that I’m not basing my security and identity in the amount of friends I have. On the whole, though, I think it’s a healthy thing, and good for my self-esteem.)

So recently I began this process of trying to get to know a new friend. I’ll spare the details, but I completely ignored a major part of this individual’s personality, and ended up driving them crazy with my attempts at conversation and my honest interest in them as a person. I totally missed the fact that they were suffering from an acute case of Dan Wright overkill. They preferred solitude, and I continued to assume they’d want company.

Naturally, once I realized this I began to deride myself, and I had to quickly bring this under control. I wanted to tell myself that my personality was obnoxious, that I was being a jerk—and maybe this was partially true, at least from their perspective. But the truth is, I simply misinterpreted the situation and made a fool of myself. It was a forgivable error. I now understand them better, and myself.

Nevertheless, I still retreated into my silence. I had great respect for this person, and I’d just gone and made a fool of myself by opening my mouth. I felt humiliated (of my own doing), and I wanted to dig a hole all the way to China, where I could just disappear into anonymity.

But what good does it do to retreat? Yes, I did something stupid. Yes, this person probably thinks me a fool. Yes, it might take some time to repair my reputation with them. So what? I’ll just dust myself off and keep going. This is one more step I’ll net in the grand scheme of things. This is one more lesson learned. Failure makes the man, after all, much more than success does. How many people in the Bible blundered about long before they found success? Moses suffered eighty years of failure before he was ready for God to use him, and that was even still with much protest and trial and mistake. Paul had to overcome his shame at having murdered so many Christians before he could be used to speak truth and wisdom to a fledgling religion. Jacob had a full history of error and deception, and still God used him to father a mighty nation.

So, if I could dig a hole all the way to China, and disappear, would I? I’d probably try. But the dirt would get mashed up under my fingernails, and my hands would stream blood. I’d wear out, and ultimately give up. I’d learn the hard way that the best thing to do is just to lift my eyes to the stars at the mouth of my pit and climb out. Keep going. Keep netting that one step every ten. Failure makes the man.