Inside The Gate

The sun was setting over the river on Sunday evening as my good friend and I were crossing the Southside Bridge over the Coosa River on highway 77.  It was a beautiful sight and we were having a great conversation about life.  We spend so many hours of our day working physically or mentally to earn a paycheck in order to make ends meet each month.  Twenty-four hours are awarded each day and if you break it down to how much of that time you spend doing something you actually enjoy it can get depressing.  Well, I don’t need much to get me depressed, so I have to figure out a way to turn that negative statistic into something positive.  The mundane tasks that we entrench ourselves in are temporary.  Meeting the monthly bills, achieving the best grades, or finding the right person to spend your life with are all temporary goals.  In the GRAND scheme of things, we are all just trying to get inside the gate…..the gates of Heaven.

After a long hard day at work on Monday I came home and turned on the TV, expecting there to be nothing to grab my attention and so I would most likely just shower, slide into bed and stare at the ceiling until I could drift off to sleep sometime in the wee hours of the night and repeat the same cycle the next day.  Fortunately, God had something different in store for me.  I actually flipped through the channels and landed on the OWN (Oprah Winfrey Network).  When you are finished laughing out loud, go ahead and keep reading.  I am not a big Oprah fan at all.  Especially since she and I are on different ends of the political spectrum.  What grabbed my attention was that she and Tyler Perry were at a church service led by Joel Osteen.  After the service, she visited with Joel and Victoria and their children at the Osteen home near Houston, TX.  The interview was amazing.  I have read many devotionals, books, and other writings from Joel, but to see him in a personal interview with probably the world’s best interviewer was amazing.  He was confident and I loved that he stood up for Christianity.

With age and experience comes so much more understanding about everything.  Christianity and our personal relationship with God is among these things.  Having been raised in a fire and brimstone church, I am thankful I have been able to grow and evolve to a point that I understand the true meaning of the sacrifice that Jesus made.  Men like Joel Osteen are doing everything in their power to convince Americans and people around the world that it is a wonderful and easy path to Heaven, if we just accept Jesus as our Savior and God as our Father.  Years of having it browbeaten into me from the pulpit, “you will never be good enough unless you are perfect,” completely contradicts the very subject that was being taught, Jesus Christ was the only perfect man to ever live in the flesh. 

As a person who battles with depression and bipolar disorder on a daily and sometimes hourly basis, you can imagine how I would never feel that I could achieve salvation. I finally truly understood what it meant to have a personal relationship with God.  It only matters what happens between He and I.  It doesn’t matter what you, the neighbor, my ex-minister, an ex-boss or anyone else might think.  There is only one judge and there is only one goal…making it inside the gates of Heaven.  I have done what is necessary to achieve this.  I have formed, continue to build, and now understand my relationship with the Father.  I am watching it evolve daily.

Mr. Osteen spoke eloquently about the abundance that God wants His people to live in, so of course we should have goals and objectives and we should reap rewards in this life.  As my friend and I continued south on highway 77 we talked about making the most of the short time we have in this world, but understanding that the trials and tribulation would just make it sweeter on the other side.

God operates in a different time frame than I do.  I have to understand that my calendar doesn’t sync with His.  I may have five days left, or I may have five thousand days left.  Either way, every moment I breath I need to be thankful for His love and deal with the troubles and sorrow or joy and victory in the best ways that I can.  My faith guarantees that I will make it, inside the gate.  Love to all.

Door Step Therapy

Your left brain does a lot of work.  It can be extremely beneficial to you, but it can also be negative, damaging and dark.  It’s very practical and even somewhat cynical.  In contrast, your right brain is where your skills and your memories reside.  The interesting thing about your right brain is that it has a hard time distinguishing reality from make believe, yet it is where you find truth…truth about everything, once you can really focus and meditate.

I recently visited a Naturopath recommended by a friend.  I have been open and honest about trying so many things in the past to treat my manic depression and bipolar disorder.  I have never had a better session than this most recent visit.

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A man in his late thirties, fairly successful, talented and bright sees a young five year old boy sitting on the door steps of a very modest mobile home.  He walks up and sits down next to the little boy.  The tiny little creature looks more like a three year old than a lad about to start school.  The boy stares down at the ground and although it’s obvious that he feels the presence of the older man  and maybe even recognizes him to some degree, he refuses to look up as the gentle breeze blows through his hair.  The little boy has more trouble on his mind than someone that age should have to endure.    

The five year olds’ biological parents have been divorced now for three years and he lives with his stepfather and mother who just gave birth to his new baby sister.  Most of the time things have been happy around the house, especially with the arrival of the new baby.  Mom and step-dad are getting along, the verbal and physical abuse of one another has taken a short sabbatical.  Stepdad hasn’t gone on a cursing rage and Mom hasn’t been swinging the iron skillet for several months.  The little boy is soon to be entering first grade.  This little family now has grown to five.  There is an older brother from the Stepdad’s previous marriage, so everyone in the family has the same last name except the five year old….who has his own, “real daddy.”  The real daddy comes for a visit every few months and there are always arguments about how he smells like beer and he only stays for a few minutes because of the bickering with the mommy.  Too much stress for a five year old.

Conversation has been brewing that the little boy should change his last name to match that of the rest of the family.  He desperately wants to fit in with his brother and sister and not be the oddball in the family, but “real daddy” is hurt by this possibility.  Even though he lies often, makes promises that he can’t keep, and always seems to smell funny and have a different lady with him on each visit, the little boy desperately wants everyone to be happy.  Mom wants the name change, Stepdad wants the name change….how can this little boy keep the peace in the family and make everyone happy?  How does he convince them all that he loves them equally?  Forcing him to choose sides is unfair!  The name change will officially happen and he will struggle emotionally for the remainder of his life.

The familiar stranger recognizes the pain and remembers it all.  He places his arm around the little boy's shoulder and tells him that he understands what he is going through.  He knows it is a burden that keeps the boy from eating, sleeping, going to the restroom, etc.  He is carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders at the age of five.  It will change him forever.  It will damage him forever.  Not only will his last name change, but from this moment on, he will become two different people.  His right and left brain will constantly do battle.  “Real Daddy” will disappear for over 7 years in a fit of anger.  Once the school year begins, there will be no fooling anyone that he is from a normal family, his cousins will tell everyone his last name is not his “real” last name.  His mind will torture his little body.  He will come to resent everyone who played a role in this decision.  He will be filled with regret and guilt for many years.

The grown man sitting next to him reassures the young boy that regardless of the hard road ahead and the many ups and downs and abandonment issues from the father and the manipulative issues with the mother, he will make it.  He will survive.  He says, “you will make it.”  You will survive.  I am you.  I am you in thirty four years, and we make it.  We get through this and so many other things.  I give him the comforting hug and reassurance some other adult way back when should have stepped up and offered.  I show compassion instead of spite, anger and revenge.  In my mind I hug the little boy tightly and keep repeating, we make it.  I wipe away his tears.

I am relaxed almost to a state of numbness in the therapist’s office.  I am searching for a way to rewrite history in order to make a more positive future.  It’s an effort to heal wounds and correct events that dominate my ability to find emotional well being.

For the sake of the child….shouldn’t every adult understand when they have children, the best interest of the child comes first. Let them be a child, protect them from the mistakes that you make.  Divorce is common, but it should happen between the two parties involved and not children who are ever so innocent.  No one has the right to take away a child’s right to grow up safe and happy, both physically and mentally.

There is no way to rewrite history, but the future can be changed, if I can just find a way to keep showing compassion and love to that little boy as he declines year after year.  At some point, maybe I can erase the guilt for so many things.

Just a little meditation and a right brain trip back to a set of doorsteps may just be the start I have been looking for.

Much Love,

Robert