what is this?

When does a boy become a man? when does a man become an old man? when does an old man become like a child again in preparation for what comes next? Who asks these questions and who is supposed to answer? What is this?

like many boy/men of 24 years or so, i am awake at nearly two in the morning wondering when i will get my man card. why don’t i slip into a regular sleeping pattern? why don’t i eat right? why don’t i exercise? why don’t i find a nine to five, a cute wife, a church board to serve on, and a nice pick-up truck to park in my two-car garage?

i suppose the question has always come down to who i am. what i am. do i matter? does this matter? my whole life i’ve been taught to go to God when things don’t make sense. “hit your knees when times get tough and you don’t know what to do.” what the hell does that mean!? for a year now, or maybe more, asking God for help has seemed more like a teenager’s desperately pathetic cry for help. like calling for mommy when i skin my knee, that was great, and perfectly appropriate when we were eight or nine, but we’re supposed to be men now, right? so is God just mommy or daddy for the boys pretending to be men? the girls pretending to be women?

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“Josh, push me on my train!”
That was my three-year old sister as Dad pulled our Chevet into the driveway. Always the protective one, Mom had other ideas.

“Don’t push her right now, Josh. Let’s all get inside for now,” she said.

I, on the other hand loved to hear my sister’s laugh, and I knew that pushing her as fast as possible on her little four wheel train would bring that precious sound. So as soon as Mom, Dad, and Kimbre had stepped inside, I ran and grabbed the train and set it down on the sidewalk. Karyn straddled the red, plastic seat while I held tightly to the giant, upside-down U shaped handle affixed to the back.

And for ten seconds, life was perfect. It was evening. It was summer. It was neighborhood grills. It was warm. Green. Gold. Fast.

But like life, the perfection of sidewalks is always temporary, and often far shorter than we are ever prepared for. Karyn’s giggles were screams just that quickly.

“Josh, when I tell you no, I mean for you to listen to me!” scolded Mom.

“I just wanted to help her to have fun though,” I replied.

“Well, that was very nice, but now look at her.”

She was a mess, and so was my stomach. When the front wheels of the train hit a crack in the sidewalk, the train had lurched forward, sending my little sister tumbling over the front. Her mouth was the first to hit the concrete, immediately chipping several of her front teeth. Several even turned black almost immediately.

What if they fall out and she never has teeth to grow in their place, I thought to myself. But I knew Mom and Dad. They always fixed everything. I had fallen chin first into the street once, and had to get five stitches after tripping over my laces. Then, just as now, my mother had warned repeatedly to never run with laces undone. But even after my utter failure to heed her warnings, she got me to a doctor quickly and fixed it all. I knew that my parents could not fail Karyn, because they didn’t ever fail us.

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Ask and Ye shall receive. Somehow, out from all the verses taught to us in Sunday School, this was the one that we absorbed and wore proudly as our banner of ultimate truth. God promised it right here in His Good Book. If we want anything, we only have to ask for it, and it was reinforced by our upbringing in the Entitled States of America. We had so much at our fingertips that we got bored. We tried everything because we could. What else is left?

What else is left?

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My best friend, Brandon had the newest Nintendo with Legend of Zelda to boot.
My parents had told me that I could go to his birthday party, but I wouldn’t be able to sleep over like all the other guys were. I was so upset. But Mom always loved surprises, and when they dropped me off, they opened the trunk and there were a sleeping bag, and clothes for me to sleep over.

Timmy knew there was no Santa Claus. His dad had told him once. I didn’t believe him, because obviously my parents could have never afforded that BMX that Santa brought me one year. Was this Truth, or cruelty? are they any different?

Illusions are illusions whether they’re pretty or ugly, safe or dangerous. But who’s deciding to wake some of us up from our pretty dreams?

Santa was a glorious dream. Santa was safe. Santa was cookies and milk. Santa was mystery. Santa was Ask and Ye shall receive. But that night, I found teeth in my mother’s jewelry box by accident, and ran crying into the living room clutching the evidence of what was either a serious un-truth, or the tragic death of the Tooth-Fairy.

I was awakened. My gifts had never come from Santa. My quarters had never come from the tooth fairy. My eggs and candy had never come from a giant rabbit. And, though I had known for quite some time that I didn’t come from a stork, it would be years before I even entertained the possibility that I didn’t get answered prayers from a magical version of my Dad, hanging out somewhere above the clouds and space.

But what is God if not a modernized Zeus? Where is God if not above space? Why is God if not to give me comfort when i want or even think i need it? and like a red-faced teenager i screamed:

“God, where are you?” and i whispered “God, i’m so pissed at you.” and i begged “God, why did you let her do this to me?” and i wept “God just let this all be a terrible nightmare that i can wake up from and we’ll be okay. we’ll go on as if none of this ever happened”

i dealt. i bargained. i begged. “she’s the One, God, i know she is.”

but the courage to express my anger with God, and my doubt of His power, was the crack that brought the dam down.

suddenly, and without warning, God had died. or i had. but i’ve grown to realize there’s no difference.

Jesus. Neo. the girl that was the One. Buddha. JFK. Martin Luther King Jr. Dale Earnhardt. Mom and Dad.

they all have one thing in common. we’ve all put our hope, our entire life’s worth, in one of them, or someone just like them. and they’ve all died in some way. and yet every one of them lives on through the impact they had, direct or indirect on those of us that have been left behind.

so what is a boy to do to become a man? trust alone in the man or woman that will die like the others? or might we realize that the God that is left when the god of myth dies, is the same God who gives us life and breath. the God who is the very ground of our being. the God who dwells in us and among us. maybe becoming a man is accepting that spirit into the very center of who we are, and trusting in that alone.

that trust is fear. it’s dark. it’s unknown. it’s beautiful. it’s True.