Living Hazzardously

Little pieces of our journey with Jesus

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Crawl spaces, everyone has one somewhere

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I was told once that farmers see cows from the “udder-side”, x-ray techs see people from the “in-side” but in my line of work, I see a lot of houses from the “under-side”.

How do we as Christians see people? Do we see the broken days of failed marriages? Or the messes and destruction from bad choices as parents?  Maybe we see the failures caused by years of selfishness and unforgiveness? 

How should we see people? Should we “FORGIVE AND FORGET?” Should we “LOOK FOR THE BRIGHT SIDE”? Or maybe we should look at the world through “ROSE COLORED GLASSES”?

I think Jesus showed us this example very clearly: 

King David was an adulterous murderer.

Mathew was a thief against his own people.

Saul who became Paul was a bureaucratic murderer that used others to kill his opponents.

Moses was slow of speech and humble.

Adam failed in protecting his wife and then threw her under the bus.

The woman at the well was, not a pinnacle of society. 

Jesus never said “live and let live” Jesus never said, “Well, that’s their truth” Jesus never said “lets just agree to disagree” instead he spoke truth though a profit, convicting David… Instead Jesus called the thief out of a tree for dinner. Instead he confronted and asked “why are you persecuting me?” Instead he used a sinner to free his people. Instead he had consequences of being put out of the garden that are in place to this very day. Instead he told her to stop sinning. Jesus judged everyone, calling some “whitewashed tombs filled with dead mans bones”

A donkey talked to the man that was beating him… God used the Donkey to judge this man and for correction. Maybe the next time you think some “donkey” is talking to you and telling you how you need to change…. LISTEN, before he kicks you, in your butt.

I think about this stuff when my body wreaths in pain as I descend a scuttle hole under a house, tools and replacement pump in hand, to provide comfort to those that are struggling that day. How often do we pass by opportunities in our daily jobs, travels and interactions just to say later… “That “person” was so much less human than I am.” Or “That person did “such and such”!” Or we simply just think…. “If they were as good as myself (you fill in your own words here)”

Donkeys are not stubborn, they are cautious, too bad we don’t follow the example of the “donkey” and show some caution when we start forming thoughts of others… We really don’t know the journey they are on. BUT… I also think it’s safe to say… don’t drive 20 under the speed limit until you get to the passing zone and then speed up to 10 over the limit just to slow down at the next no passing zone GRRRRRR (sorry, personal rant there).

This week I was learning a bit about CPTSD and PTSD… PTSD can be caused from a singular event, it can cause nightmares and mess up the daily lives of people, but today I want to mention CPTSD (Complex PTSD). 

From what I understand, so far, CPTSD is a childhood trauma response. Generally caused from betrayal and trust issues that form deep in the early stages of development of a child.. In other words, those that you should be able to trust the most, causing repeated trauma, betrayal and abandonment. This type of PTSD is different in many ways and needs to be dealt with properly, this PTSD causes extreme issues into adulthood… the physical, emotional and spiritual trauma, all linked to trust, betrayal and abandonment. For me, this has manifest in Fibromyalgia, a constant physical pain in every part of my body… It is by far the hardest thing in life for me to manage. Keeping myself busy is the best physical therapy I have found… Antidepressants helped with the pain for a short time, but caused a huge weight gain that seems harder than it should be to regain the BMI of my youth… This condition actually has increased my pain now. 

I guess my point is a parable of the old “Don’t judge a man until you have walked a mile in his shoes” Don’t judge, until… The bible says “do not judge” or does it? The Bible is all about judgment, we have to judge, it’s impossible not to judge… When someone is being abused, we should judge! When someone steals, we should judge! When we decide to turn right vs left…. We judge! We need to judge “rightly” for the right reasons, the right motives, the right purposes… Judging rightly can be difficult, but necessary! 

So, back to crawl spaces. Nobody says “I sure wish I could crawl under that house… I love tight spaces filled with dirt, mice and spiders. I love it when I can hear a raccoon scurry away but it’s too tight to turn and see it charging me… just like with people, sometimes we just need to stop and avoid the worst of crawl spaces because they are just too dark, too dirty and too dangerous. Sometimes we just need to help those that were forced into that crawl space, lend a hand, provide light, or just let them know we are there and there is still a way out… 

I have been in every type of crawl space, steam tunnels with rats, wet trenches by lakes, hand digging a place for ductwork to fit… I’ve been dirty with asbestos, dust and sand, every crack and crevice of my clothing filled, eyes covered with spider webs and once I got face to face with a snake.

Crawl spaces are like people, the one place nobody wants to see, because it reveals the worst places in life. Its not fun to go there but sometimes it’s just unavoidable. 

My Prayer for you today is that God, the ultimate mechanic, can enter your dirtiest crawlspace, clean it up and make it a glorious space to actually visit and work. Charlie

The reward of a Feral child 

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Is it possible to give rewards too often? I was often told by may father “YOU F%^&$#@ KIDS ARE THE WORST THING THAT’S EVER HAPPENED TO ME!!!!!!” My father had a way with words. It was always so uplifting, rewarding and positive whenever he opened up and shared how he felt about us… 

 I was never allowed to have friends and the friends I had, I kept a secret from my father. My friends never met his approval, some because they were “indians” some because they were “N#*&^%#” and others because, well I guess I never really knew why, but they all had to be gone before he got home or all hell would break loose.  What I did know is nothing should distract me from my work. 

I was raised on the streets of Minneapolis, My father wanted very little to do with me unless he had work for me to do. I remember the day like yesterday, I dropped a granite block on my foot in order to attempt to break my foot just so I could have time off of working for my father…. 

  • Building and staining a fence with a toxic mixture of boiled linseed oil, creosote and a brush. 
  • A hammer and bent nails, bent so badly that they would take forever to actually straighten enough to reuse.
  • A disk sander and old painted scrap lumber, sanding it down so I could recoat with the toxic concoction. 
  • Hundreds of granite paving blocks, harvested from the streets of Minneapolis by hand, hauled home from miles away cleaned of concrete and then dissolving the asphalt with gasoline, finally cleaning with muriatic acid to achieve a perfect completion.
  • Limestone as big as my little arms could span, set and adjusted, backfilled and leveled.
  • Digging and turning the sod by hand for a vegetable garden. 

These are merely a few outdoor chores that I was required to complete before he got home, before he started screaming and beating us for never meeting his stringent requirements. He was always gracious, he often reminded us how benevolent he was for tolerating us children, because after all we ruined his life. This may seem “made up” to many folks and it is certainly unbelievable to the “participation trophy” generation… but to me, this was life, life on the north side.

It was a hot summer’s day. I remember that my little brother broke his leg at some point and got a free pass from work. I never got a free pass. Somehow I remember it was a saturday, probably because that was the day we went to the salvation army store in downtown to buy more broken bikes, stereo turntables that would be stacked with the thousands of others, or maybe the hundreds of picture frames that my father planned to use to frame his collection of mass produced “one of a kind” renditions. But the hoarding and abuse can be for a day in the future, today I want to write about that RED GRANITE BLOCK, and how it met my foot.

It was hot, I was shirtless and I had been shuffling granite blocks back and forth for dad for hours already, he had to find just the right shape, color and size, it was a never ending task. I’m not sure when my little brother had his broken leg, in the past or present, I just remember he got to sit, and I had to work… always working… never enough, never good enough, never an end! And I was tired, as a preteen boy, I wanted to play trucks in the dirt, build tunnels and cities and hang out with the only friend I really had, my younger brother. But that would not be my fate on this hot summer day, and I devised a plan to have a break, a break in my foot that would afford me a break from work. I didn’t want to hurt myself, I just wanted a break. I saw what happened to fingers that were caught between blocks, as I personally had many injuries and they all healed as I continued to haul these blocks… 

Here is the set up, I knew my foot would need to be on the concrete driveway, for a viable break, and I knew it would hurt. I decided to grab the biggest blocks, show how I was struggling to haul these massive loads back and forth. Just a few blocks ahead to really set the scene, make sure it was around the corner so dad wouldn’t actually see but would be close enough to hear and react… ONE… TWO… DROP!!!!

My foot absorbed the impact with excellent resilience and I knew instantly, I SCREWED UP… no break, not really as much pain as I was expecting and no blood… And in full predictability, after all this careful planning, I still finished the day working. My dad couldn’t bring my day to a soft close and give me play time. This was year after miserable year, I dreaded summers because it was just work, my friends in the neighborhood would bike past and the first few years I could see them out on the streets, in the alley and on the sidewalks, but soon this massive fence project had enclosed the yard, encapsulating his hoarding of junk to keep the city inspector at bay. The inspector can’t write tickets for violations unless it can be seen without stepping foot on the property… Dad had this figured out… every ticket he paid for his junk was taken out of the backs of his children, either in hard labor or a good old fashioned beating for not keeping his junk hidden behind the barricades, unseen from the alley during the drive by. 

So, no broken foot… I know now the foot is a difficult part to break because there are so many small bones, I should have crushed a toe I guess. And so my summers continued, year after year, rewards for nothing, left alone to raise ourselves, beaten and survived, feral child… by age ten, I had started forming my own protective avatar… 

When I was a bit younger I smiled constantly, I was called “Cheary Charlie” because I had a great outlook on life and I was always a happy child, bringing joy to every set of eyes that landed on my face or gave me the time of day. My grandmother, grandfather, mom, uncles, aunts, neighbors… Everyone confirmed this joy in my heart, everyone but my father. 

My avatar was angry and took away my smiling, my avatar stole my outward appearance and replaced it with a cold, unchangeable, calloused facade. Showing everyone what they wanted to see. I was now invisible and safe. I no longer needed to be honest with my true self, I just let my avatar run my face and I got to hide and be safe. By age 12,  I had gone feral…on the northside, in Minneapolis. A feral boy, beaten and whipped. I no longer had joy, smiles or concern, even for my little brother… 

I talked to my brother the other day. He shared some from his perspective, it helped me remember I was not the only person suffocated by the hell of living in that house. This hell was lurking around every doorway, in the stairs and every sacred inch of hoarder madness.   

There it is, a man with no good father figure to raise him, raising three men, doing the best he can as a feral child turned father… Rewards? What is that? I simply did the best I could to teach them how to be Godly,  loving, kind, honest and motivated. I never rewarded them for “trying”. I rewarded them for putting others first and doing their best, I rewarded them for good attitudes and honesty, I rewarded them for caring and not quitting… I was never a “friend”, I was only a father. Although my methods are perhaps highly frowned upon now by all the experts, I will let the court of public opinion declare my success. My boys turned out exceptionally well and are fully prepared for whatever the world has coming their way. Never given a participation trophy, only reward for meritorious attempts that lead to success. 

If I were writing to my younger self, I guess I would say: “life will be hard, are you kidding me? Your life is going to be pretty horrible! You will lose your joy, for a time. You will suffer long and hard. Your days will be difficult but in time, the years will be easy. Do not give into despair. You will survive to face even more later on. Remember, your reward is the joy, the joy that comes in the morning!”

You see, God gave me more than I can handle, at least for a time when I was rebellious and walked this earth in my own strength, before I surrendered to God. I was strong, I was talented, I was perhaps even somewhat invincible… but I was incomplete and I, EVEN I, was in need of a savior. I thank God for a second lease on life. I truly hope you find your second chance in life, but if you are still wandering around the world with a lack of joy, you can find rest, you can have that break I was looking for as a young child, you can fall on the one name above all others. You can call out to have Him save you from the hell on earth and the hell to come, that name is JESUS. 

God bless, Charlie

Caution! Doors and wind and cussing ahead.

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As we round the corner of this journey, we see a bit of light… is it the light at the end of the tunnel or is it the headlamp of a locomotive? Jess and I have no doubt this work is manifesting in the culmination of God’s good calling on our life. Even when we get hit, we rebound and things work out just fine. 

Last week we pulled the old door out and found a hole where we needed some bagged concrete in the threshold, so we cleaned it out, formed it up and poured it full. NO PROBLEM! Then a fast moving weather front came into town and we needed to cover the masterpiece of bagged concrete that my puppies decided was the only place to “plant the paws” as they blew past the yellow ribbon blocking any reasonable person from crossing… dogs are not human, they don’t even read… “Caution” 

As the weather front started to roll into town I made the quick decision to cover the concrete with plastic to protect it from the impending rain that would surely transition the fresh concrete into a slurry of gravel. 

BUT! The wind hit with no warning and hit so hard and so unpredictably.. I heard the crash, felt the floor shake and turned quickly to see the brand new door that we had leaned into the corner of the entry, laying in a manner that was so unnatural… I instantly recognized the structure surrounding now looked like a bone protruding from a compound fracture… I proclaimed “SHOOT” but it wasn’t the word shoot that flew out of my mouth… The next day I spent a few hours putting humpty back together… you can still see the scar, but it’s fixed, and perhaps it is stronger than the original? 

We waited another day before moving the new door into position, just to give the repair time to cure. The installation went well the next day and I was so grateful for the help I had as we guided the door into its final resting place. 

As I reflected on how quickly my colorful expletive slipped out of my mouth, I remembered where I came from and how my father would have screamed and cussed for hours after something like that. I remembered how he would have thrown tools, smashed anything in his reach, “spanked me” for not preventing this tragedy… Stuff would fly and cussing was normal. The wake of terror I experienced whenever my father was around created more havoc and destruction in my life than I could have imagined and it haunts me still to this day… I remembered I learning how my grandfather would have likely beat my father in this same situation… Looking back and realizing I may have thrown out a cuss word, without restraint, but my legacy, like my father before me, was coming from a long line of abuse. I should just thank God we have come so far from where my grand-father was to where my sons are… Legacy is all I can leave behind for my future family.!  I know I will never even meet many of my future family members but as My father never met my sons and I never met my grandfather, I can still honor them with my legacy… I Pray this trend upwards will continue for many generations. 

I am hoping to start painting no later than Wednesday. God willing, I will have help. But early this coming week, I have to focus on a few items for work. I wish I could just go and paint, but I do have other obligations. So like Nehemiah, we will continue to work on the things I am called to do and praise God for all the help we are getting.