Living Hazzardously

Little pieces of our journey with Jesus

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The hands of an old man

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Pedaling fast, “stunt riding” on my English 3-speed, what a dork I was… Back to the days of bike riding all day and never venturing beyond the sound of my mothers whistle… I was maybe 9 or 10.  I remember the hands of a man named John, a dear, sweet man, who lived on the block just south of me. 

He owned a “Lawn-Boy” mower, you know the one. It has a front wheel set oddly back from the front of the machine, on only one side. His back yard was fenced in the standard 4 foot tall chain link and attached to a single car garage. The magic of lawn care was flowing from this garage like the “yellow brick road leading to the emerald city” or perhaps a faithful geyser in yellowstone. With all the mystical contraptions to be utilized for the sole purpose of detailed landscaping.  He maintained the perfect lawn in North Minneapolis, at that time. 

As I steered my bicycle into the storm drain, obviously within sight of this magical garage, I felt the thump, and it was done. The front wheel wedged into the straight slots that diagonally crossed the grate, gaps that seemed to be perfectly spaced, trapping the front tire. An evil plot of its maker to collect little adventurous boys’ front tires… The Storm grates sole purpose was to give a man a reason to help the little boy escape the evil peril.

As he strolled the short block to where I was stuck and helped me whenever I got my front wheel trapped… a sewer grate… I think he knew, no, I KNOW he knew it was a trick to gain attention. 

My father came home one day to see me stuck. The first time it happened was actually an accident… dad whooped me hard that day and yelled at me… but the man with the lawn mower was kind, you could see patience and concern after he saw the rage my father had, a contrast so great, I had a longing to experience that kindness again, even if I needed to manipulate my world.  I had no idea a man could be kind… 

 I admit, I did this on purpose a few times to get attention from this pillar of a man that guided my life. Kindness was real, it wasn’t just found in story books. …. 

This man I knew only as John showed patience and concern over the many years of my childhood. I would hang out with him, watch him sharpen his mower blades, help him with little things like sweeping the sidewalk. His mower Blades seemed to always be dull and in need of a quick tune up and rebalancing. The magnificent lawn and a perfectly maintained mower were his only jobs. He had a wife, but I can no longer picture what her appearance was, I just remember she would appear from time to time dressed in her Sunday clothes on the way to church.

I remember the hands, big, strong, wrinkled and spotted. As he lumbered over to where I had again gotten my bicycle stuck, his arms extended and with no effort, removed the bike wheel as if it were as easy as taking a breath. 

Today I went online to order supplies for a job and I was reminded of this man! I looked down at the keyboard setting on my desk and I saw John’s hands. This time they were attached to my arms. Although there are no kids with front wheels stuck in the storm sewer on the corner of 35th & Sheridan in north Minneapolis, I couldn’t understand why he left his hands behind and why in the world are they attached to my arms???

I may not have a small child in my neighborhood, I may not have a pristine yard with a spotlessly clean lawnmower that reads “LAWN-BOY” across the front… What I do have is the little boy’s memories and the old man’s hands. In some ways, these two people have again met and somehow defied the laws of space and time to see the need to help a struggling little boy…

I serve these “boys”, some older than me.. Sam’s Place, (SIGH) some of  these guys have never seen a kind man with strong, wrinkled hands… they may have only felt the calloused back hand from fathers. A hand that steals. A hand that beats down another. Maybe they have only known the harsh words of a father screaming at them? Words of how worthless they are? Perhaps they have never known the kindness of a loving father (or a man named John)? Perhaps they reject the kindness of a man trying to help, because experience tells them nobody helps out of kindness but rather out of selfish gain??? 

Maybe they need help with the “bicycle and storm grate” of their youth? 

These old man’s hands typing on the computer are not mine, they belong to the old man named John! Wrinkles and lines, spots and calluses. The years have handed me these hands and I hope to pass them on to the next man named… Well I don’t know his name, probably never will.  

Hands passed down are now together and apart…

Yesterday I felt like I was only thirty, the day before it seemed like I was 20, and the day before that, I was a little boy looking at an old man’s hands… Now the old man’s hands are mine. 

May God Bless you this day with the hands you need, C.

Bits and Pieces

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Its no secret that I deal with a great deal of childhood trauma. Although I was formed in a life of trauma, trauma doesnt defining who I have become. Nowadays, I try to recognize how I may help others. Others that have had the same or similar type of experiences… I try to meet them on the journey of life, so that we may both find success in spite of our pasts. 

It seems like every so often I am reminded of a memory of yet another “something” I endured as a child. This weeks memory was… Looking back on the days of living in a rat infested home on the Northside of Minneapolis… some of the ways my father “euthanized” these creatures… I had blocked it out for years, but it came back to me the other day, the smell, sights and sounds is not something I want to publish in a public blog, sedistic, cruel and not humane, just torture! Not something I choose to remember but rather an event I wished I had never been around for. 

I talk to my younger brother and talk through the details from time to time, just to remember the details of our troubled past. This helps to clarify it wasn’t just “some kid, making stuff up in his head”…realizing what I had seen, heard, smelled and felt, this is somehow freeing…. And in other ways its damning…. My past what made me who I am but it is not the essence of who I am.

As I sat at Sam’s Place the other day, having a spot of lunch. I was talking to a couple of our guys, one of them triggered this memory from my childhood… Later I confirmed with my brother the experience we had as small boys growing up in the house of horrors… If it had just been rats, I suppose I could have overlooked it easier. But the cats, so many cats and the way he did it… and what he did to my poor little pup, “Tobias winslow the third” (the picture is not my pup, but looks just like him)

A bedlington terrier and poodle mix. I sat for hours with himgrowing up, we just hung out… but I couldn’t take him with in my later teens life of rebellion when I moved into the phase of life called “the couch days”

My pup was a super sweet fella, he was always happy to see me when ever I could get back home, but then there was the last time I came home to be greeted by the fuzzy little guy… I found him blocked into his dog house with a piece of plywood, mom said he had been block in for days, in the summer heat. I  ripped the dog house open to find my pup alive but looking like he should not be living… infections had invaded his skin, he was covered in poo but he was still my buddy, the only “person” that was always happy to see me… I cried. For hours I cried. How could this be that my little gray pup would be treated this way… and I felt the guilt from not being there to protect him from the man that abused or took advantage of every creature in his world. 

This is not where I want to leave the story, there is redemption and  victory. My father was filled with pride, but even he became humble in his last days, as he faced the inevitable call of the timeless outcome…. we must all one day see face to face… Death visited my pup as an act of mercy, I saw the most beautiful creature of my life abused, neglected and it was my fault for not being there when he needed me, my loyal, little, fuzzy grey pup… 

These events have shaped my life, not dictated my path, I may have experienced these events as a child but as a man I can choose to rise above them and see the pain others are in. I want to meet others and let them know its not who they are, it doesnt need to define them… there is victory if you truely want to find it, it just looks different, but it only comes from Jesus. 

So what is my message today?

No more victims, today I only see the victor in you. 

 Its simple…but so difficult. I believe there is Victory in Jesus, not because I choose to have victory but rather I surender my victimhood to Jesus and he nailed it to the cross! So that I may take part in his Victory! You can too. 

Each day, start with being a victor over something, even if its just getting out of bed… GET UP! Feel that? Its victory! Now lets work on making your bed, even if its just putting the bed spread over the messy sheet, you can do it, do it every day and claim that as your victory until its becomes a normal part of life. Maybe a month, or even longer, now take that next step, put the pillow straight. Maybe the sheet is next? Find victory in something, anything! One step at a time, you got this… I believe in you even if you dont. Keep stepping, dont give up! So what, you didnt succeed at your goal today, but what did you succeeed in dong? Lets focus on that instead! There you go, step up tomorrow. Keep going, even if its something small, be intentional, DO IT!

This my friend is how you can beat it, with Jesus all things are not just possible, they are worth it. 

God Bless my friend, you got this, C.

Cold-play @ Coldplay

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I am sure you have seen the fate filled night, a loving embrace and the end of a career, marriage, family as we know it. If not, it may be valuable to understanding this blog by just taking a quick peek on the web, type in “Coldplay” and I am certain you will see the heartbreaking betrayal that “everyone is buzzing about”.

What is it that drives a person to such a level of betrayal? What motivates us humans to make a solemn promise, and then break it for a moment of personal satisfaction? 

Jess and I sat at the table talking about another type of betrayal today… IGNORING, or better known as the silent treatment… The silent treatment is betrayal. It’s a form of manipulation and its distinctly different from “taking a break to gather your thoughts” … betrayal? Yes! It’s the intentional withholding of attention and acknowledgement of a human for the purpose of conforming that person to your own desires, will and intent… The cold treatment, silent treatment, cold shoulder, ignoring… This is how I am personally hurt the most deeply, most quickly and most reliably… and with my “big voice” and my “big personality” it is the most common form of rejection I experience… Now enter into my abandonment issues and it’s a perfect screen play. I have been living this drama my entire adult life… to me there is no way to hurt me more than to ignore me, it’s going deep into my trauma responses and the PTSD I live with everyday (the source of my Fibro).

Betrayal, Abandonment, Rejection, Exclusion… remember the kid that got picked last for the neighborhood football game? That kid was me… that kid was the kid whose father had never played ball with him, never brought him to a game, never bought him a football, basketball or a baseball… that kid that was me. I was only taught how to work, how to build a patio, building a terrace garden, Veggie-gardening, digging holes for fence posts. Being yelled at was pretty much the only attention I received from my father… I never got to see how to treat a wife, a child, a brother or how to be treated by a mother, I’m not looking for “OHH POOR CHARLIE” I’m simply saying that getting picked last, every time, for sports taught me to hate sports. It was just more rejection.

 So I raised myself, I grew up basically feral, like many kids in Gen X, our parents had little or no time to teach us what their parents taught them. So we found substitutes, we found music, MTV, Walkman and parachute pants with a rat tail…. I hid from life, from my brother, from my sister and most certainly from the man I called dad… I know what rejection is, how it plays out and how easy it is to give it right back.

I am at a different point in my life now, one of patience, calmness and understanding, I am pretty sure I am a bit more “grown up” now but as I am now closer to 60 than 50 and my body hurts, my mind is foggy and life is forcing me into an easy chair. I fight to maintain my autonomy. I fight like millions before me to stay young, agile, alert and useful. I watch quietly as the generation before me ages out of this world and begins the geriatric journey to meet our maker.

As I enter the age of strokes, heart failure, broken hips and saying goodbye to those I have known my who life, I pause for a moment and recognize an old man unable to stand as the song he once belted out is performed by others and all Randy Travis can sing is the last word “AMEN”.

I watch Ozzy as he ascends from below the stage and is wheeled into position and the chair is locked into place. He grabs the microphone and is able to bellow in a voice that was once powerful for other reasons “MOMMA, I’M COMING HOME”.  I grew up watching Ozzy perform all his crazy stunts, I saw Ozzy and I understood Ozzy, he performed songs that I could relate to, and now I can relate to this song, differently than ever before. Funny thing this life is, funny thing.

So back to the Coldplay concert, I see this performance by a man and woman. I see and feel the hurt they caused. Those who are left to struggle with this betrayal… Betrayal that can never be undone. It’s taken years for me to deal with the betrayal I felt on a crisp September morning.  Today, It plays back in my head and I remember the betrayal I felt. I remember the pain of being the last kid picked for the neighborhood games. I remember striving to “fit in”. I think of our son Sam, as he too struggled to be accepted by his peers. I see those at Sam’s Place that struggle… This life is definitely a “hard knock life” . But if we start to give back, rather than always looking for ways to get more, we seem to do better, find more joy and most importantly, we don’t hurt the ones who love us most. 

Betrayal isn’t about self fulfillment and joy, it’s about stealing that joy and destroying it, for what? A moment? A week? Two years of sneaking around? Destroying the life of a child, a spouse, a friend… I have learned so much and I feel like the more I learn, the more I need to learn. But there is one thing I can share, I have learned the hard way… be good to the ones you have today, because life without them in the future is only a memory of what you had and lost. 

Momma, I’m coming home, one day, I will see you again, say hello to my sister, father and grands, aunts and uncles, friends and neighbors.  I’m not sure who is waiting to be reunited with me, but it will be good to see them again. 

As for the rumors and such surrounding “Cold play” I’ve laughed at many of the memes, reels and references, it’s ok to laugh, but in reality, I find it hard to not feel the pain this betrayal has caused. 

Sing a new song to the Lord my friend, C.