HLDA Sneak-Peek #1: the forward "EVERYTHING DIES"

EVERYTHING DIES

Most authors have writer’s block.
I, on the other hand, have writer’s neighborhood.

I rarely have moments where I am stuck without words. On the contrary, I tend to have far too many to juggle into sense. I get lost within the nooks and crannies of all the different paths between where I currently stand and where I want to go. This, of course, makes sense in my writing because it is also true of my life. The roads are plentiful and seemingly open to my own interpretation. However, the moment I avoid a dark alley in favor of a wide sunny street, that is the moment a meteor fells a redwood into my path creating a startling new detour. My life, therefore, has often become circular: I face the same issues and frustrations over and over. I take a left turn and end up in the roundabout deceiving myself with perpetual movement while I am, in fact, just as stuck as if I were standing still.

To this end, entire sections of my life have cycled around and around to a frustrating conclusion that looked suspiciously identical to the first chapter. Days and weeks and months of intended change fueled by pain and effort fast-forward to an end of the calendar year defined with zero growth. The question begs: what is it going to take for me to transform? I don’t truly comprehend what this transformation should look like, but I do know that I should not come out of the cocoon as a caterpillar.

Everything dies. And to be honest, everything should. Well, everything except the battery in my Toyota Highlander. Certainly I have experienced pain when someone or something dear to me died before I felt ready. But, most of the pain in my life has come from things I kept on life-support long after I should have let them go. This is the problem in question. Not timely death, but rather, playing dead.

In the world of roadkill, there is a creature called the possum (or opossum if you’re Irish) that daily masters the defense mechanism called “playing dead.” Certainly you’ve seen photos. The possum has the ability to let its body instantly go limp with its tongue hanging out like a slug and its eyes skewed cross near the top of its lids. I believe it even emits a smell—of course, it’s just as possible that all possums smell like death to begin with. To all observers, this insinuates that the possum now belongs shoveled into a hefty bag. This keeps enemies away.

I, for one, am grateful that this has not caught on with human beings. Funerals are tragic enough without the individual in the casket hopping to his feet fifteen minutes into the ceremony and yelling to the back of the room, “Is the tax guy gone yet?”
The possum, however, will take this position the moment an enemy or a Volvo crosses its path—and it tends to work quite efficiently. This is because possums believe the failed concept that if you can convince the world that you’re too beaten to live, the beatings of the world will stop.

And I had lived much of my life the exact same way.

I had lost my edge and, at times, my footing.

The myriad of hardships that had walloped my wife and I had tempted us into a regular routine of rolling over, eyes glazed, hoping the antagonists would beat something else that moved more frisky. And so, I faced my next crisis, my next decision, and continued to find myself right back where I started.

My life, as stated, is circular.

Why can’t my life come equipped with a GPS system like NeverLost, a talking navigator with the insight to interfere with my choices? A clear calm voice of a woman that gently nudges me (accompanied by colorful maps) into the exact unforeseen turns on my path towards a perfect resting place. Of course, my optimum NeverLost would need some improvements over the model currently on the market. Something about having an audible voice in my car causes me to relax a little too much, to assume I don’t really need to pay attention to my way because someone else is currently doing so. To this end, when the NeverLost Lady (who, for brevity’s sake, I will call Gwen) states “next turn in 2.9 miles,” my mind begins to wander, wondering why she didn’t just round the total up to three miles and deciding that Gwen must consider herself too good for that sort of thing. How dare she talk down to me and what does she know about math (this digresses for a few moments) until finally, she declares: “You missed your turn; recalculating journey” in that same over-enunciating hooked-on-phonics voice that has a hint of flipping me the finger. She KNOWS it ticks me off. Don’t even go there, Gwen

Oh, the recalculation of the journey. How I know this process well. It isn’t pleasant, the recalculation: the doubling-back and revisiting what was not really all that welcome a visit in the first place. And yet, I (and more than likely you) consistently end up in places I thought I was through with, repeating behavior and frustrations that indicates zero growth has taken place in my life.

This never ceases to perplex me because I WANT to do right. I desire to make correct choices. I made a decision a long time ago to follow Jesus Christ with the entirety of my life. That decision was a joyous moment, but the forty years of follow-through have been less than stellar. There are daily deterrents that attempt to shove me off the side of the road—a myriad of billboard-size distractions that would like nothing more than for me to take an early exit. So, while God continues to say “Wait, Mark. The Grand Canyon is just over the next bend,” I find myself saying, “Maybe, but just 400 yards off this highway I can visit the world’s largest exotic llama farm.”

Perhaps if my NeverLost took a terse attitude in her approach to my direction, I would find myself on a shorter path through the subdivision. If I created the next version (say Gwen 2.0), I would give her a reeeeal voice. Not that Gwen 1.0 doesn’t sound feminine enough. She simply doesn’t have the essence of humanity that I need. She doesn’t warn me five times before the turn with a shrill of RIGHTHERE RIGHTHERE RIGHTHEEEERE because I am distracted.

This is what I crave. Direction, yes. But, direction that is much more direct. Direction that commits and cares how, when, and why I take the turn. With attitude and exclamation points. Multiple exclamation points and perhaps delivered in all-capital letters. Direction that assumes my intentions to find the right path are noble. Still, chances are good that I won’t be paying attention when the right turn cometh. I have a heart after the things of God, but that heart is shrouded in the body fat of my personal distractions. So instead of straightforward, the path circles and circles. Never progressing. Not even halfway.

Ah, halfway: the rest stop that would allow one to reflect on the lessons learned from the climb upward before cascading life’s assumed easier downhill half. Somehow, society has labeled this scenic exit the “midlife crisis,” but so very few of us reach this point having actually journeyed midway. In effect, most of us reach this point facing the same dilemmas as when we started, the only difference being the number of chins.

Perhaps I shouldn’t be measuring the half-point of my life by time at all, but rather by progress. Maybe I’m not searching for mid-life. Maybe what I’m grasping at is my half-life: the apex of my experience where learning turns to application and the circular path finally gives way to the straight and narrow. But, this sort of seminal moment cannot arrive serendipitously. There has to be intention. An exact defining moment or action.

A death.

Up to this point, my life has been separated into two portions: the first lasting thirty-seven years and the latter having started—oh, let’s say last Tuesday. The first of the two portions revolved around a definition of serving Christ where I did my best to become the right person. The predicament at hand was that I was referring to my own definition of what a “right person” should mean. If I could somehow become happy, fulfilled, esteemed, effective, financially stable, popular, at peace, etcetera, then I must be in God’s perfect plan. It was a euphoria-based faith that few would admit to, but most embrace. I convinced myself these desires were selfless because (I reckoned) if I could become this type of person, I would be superhuman for God’s purposes. I would earn the right to be myself.

Myself.

Someone I have always intended to someday become.

It seemed impossible as a young boy living in Roswell, Georgia to earn my way in life, but my friends and I made our best attempt by establishing criteria for adulthood. Okay, maybe adulthood is not the most accurate term. What we were actually aspiring to become was, well, ninjas. We developed a point system, and if the sum total of a single individual ever skyrocketed high enough, that individual would attain NMS (ninja master status) with all rights and benefits therein. As the following chart indicates, it was an extremely complicated point system:

* jumping off someone’s roof 10 points
* jumping off someone’s roof you don’t know 25 points
* jumping off someone’s roof blind-folded 40 points
* waking an angry cat 5 points
* allowing someone to throw sharp objects at you 100 points
* doing yardwork for the pointmaster 120 points
* experimenting with electricity 15 points
* accepting a dare to drink an unknown substance 50 points
* wrestling other children to “the pain” 3 points
* learning to juggle 40 points
* memorizing “99 Luftballoons” by Nena 20 points
* surrendering all monies 95 points

It was my first foray into attempting to deserve my way in life. The pursuit of ninja points seemed innocent enough, but eventually built a monster that needed to outwit, outplay, and outlast in order to become. I was no longer Mark. I was Mark Steele.

To this day, my efforts to become more than the sum of my parts—or at least to seem more than the sum—has stolen much. This will change in the second portion of my life. The second portion is far more profound.

Also, far more painful.

Why? Because I am suddenly sensing variations in the circular cycle. Nuances, yes, but nuances that I just know are going to change everything. A life of twists and turns one would normally reserve for an old towel being rung-out by a Russian woman just before she snaps someone with it in the shower.

I know these twists and turns well.
Because I frequent the fair.

The Tulsa State Fair, to be exact. An event organized by people so brilliant, they believe Tulsa to be a state. I have never comprehended why the fair is called thus, as the word “fair” has multiple definitions, and none of them describe what goes on under the carnival tents in midtown. This citywide bacchanalia of livestock competitions, 80’s rock anthems, and barely-legal thrill rides draws my friends and I on a yearly basis because we are convinced that they ship in people from other planets to attend. I mean, we know at least a thousand people in this town, but come October of every year, they are evidently body-snatched and replaced with slightly pudgier versions who stopped listening to the radio once Whitesnake peaked, wear cut-off t-shirts and sport mullets. Of course, it could be the fair itself that transforms the inhabitants of my community. After all, for a few nights each autumn, we convince ourselves to consume objects called “fatballs.”

This is the renaissance aspect of the fair.

Where other cultures pride themselves on the arts and sciences, we in Oklahoma look forward to discovering new objects to deep-fry. This year, we deep-fried Oreos. The year before that, it was Twinkies and Snickers bars. Five years back, we deep-fried charcoal. Next year, cotton swabs. Yum. Each bite actually eliminates eight months from your life span. I have actually stopped eating the treats and instead, insert them directly into my aorta skipping the middleman. Are you beginning to see how this circular living works?

Though I don’t like my life patterns to rotate, I do enjoy spinning round and round on the occasional midway ride. One year in particular, my friend Matt and I took our families on a ride called The Scrambler. The apparatus itself has the appearance of a spider that doesn’t have the energy to lift its torso off the floor. Each arm holds four cars that spin on that arm’s axis while the four arms spin around the body. If you are the sort to work out the mental math, you would realize what Matt and I realized: that if we sat in different cars attached to adjacent arms, the simultaneous spinning would allow us to pass one another multiple times throughout the course of the ride. Discovering this led us to a natural conclusion: an internal dare. Each time our cars passed, we would fake a high-five.

Not the apex of wisdom in my life.

I strapped myself, my wife Kaysie, and our daughter Morgan into one car while Matt did the same with his wife and son. Once we were buckled in, we tested our plan. We discovered that though we could almost touch, we were not close enough to one another to merit actual contact. This was a good thing. A best-case scenario. For now, we would be able to freak out our wives without any actual danger. We would spin around and around the same paths and patterns throughout the entirety of the ride, reaching towards one another without any real risk as our children fell into hysterics.

But, we did not count on the variations.

Somewhere within the mathematical formulas that involve trajectory and speed, the pain-free distance between Matt and I was bridged.

SLAAAAAM!

My arm batted against Matt’s and then my knuckles bounced off of the side of our Scrambler pod at the speed of a thrill ride. The pain. Deep, pulsating knuckle-to-elbow pain. I could have gnawed my arm off at the shoulder just to eliminate the pain. The sky grew black and the last thing I remembered was a sign reading “keep arms and legs inside vehicle at all times.” I decided that I loathed that sign and that whoever painted it deserved to be deep-fried. I moaned, partially incoherent, while residing in that subtle place where agony and self-loathing intermingle. On fire. My arm was tangibly on fire. Had I glanced down to discover it being consumed by field mice, I would not have been entirely surprised.

Our children were no longer laughing.
Our wives, on the other hand…

Matt and I lip-synched a series of grave profanities in time with the Scorpions song blaring from the speakers of the tilt-a-whirl DJ on the ride adjacent to us while clutching what was left of our appendages. I looked down and realized that my arm was no longer the color of human skin. It was now beet red and bore an exact replica of the outline of Matt’s hand somewhere around the bicep I would have if I were not infatuated with cake.

All because of the variations. We had reached out the same length, each turn, over and over again without allowing for the possibility of actual contact. The nuances changed everything.

So, the question arises of whether or not I am willing to welcome the variations to my circular existence. The variations will bring the beginnings of change—but only with the guarantee of intrigue, danger, and oh yes, great pain.

I suppose this is what has kept me stagnant for so long. I didn’t want to face the pain. I preferred the illusion of safety. I desired a world where my loved ones and myself could become everything we needed to become but without risk.

Answers without arguments.
Lessons without scars.
Character without failures.
Love without work.

I didn’t want to live my path to my final destination. I only wanted to innuendo my way there. Monorail my path. That way, if my perception of the destination was incorrect, I could always save face without having taken actual footsteps.

Safe.
I thought it was my mission. To land there. Keep my wife there. My children.
Safe.
It was the enemy of growth.

The irony is that I never thought I was playing it safe. I had convinced myself that I was a man of tremendous faith because on what could only be called a roller coaster of a life, I consistently raised my hands.

Certainly, you empathize with this action. To trust the thrill ride so deeply that, even when your stomach is sinking, you keep those hands aimed straight for heaven. You may will them down in your mind. You may scream all the while. But, by sheer resolve, and because others are watching, you keep them up. This was me. Always reaching. A tangible expression of faith in the coaster-maker proving that I couldn’t possibly be as frightened as the wet spot on my pants indicated.

But it never dawned on me that faith is not tested on the hill of the thrill ride.
It is not tested on the dips or the loops.
Faith is tested when the coaster disappears into the dark tunnel.

And, just like you, regardless of how many times I have ridden a particular theme park attraction. No matter how often the tunnel opening has proven not to lop off human hands, I cannot help myself. I see the opening. I see the darkness. And something in my heart tells me…

Not this time.

I bend.
My arms retract.

Do I really think for one moment that the maker of the roller coaster has never measured the length of a human arm? Do I believe that a reputable theme park would allow someone to pay a ticket price just to have their digits severed? Are there human remains scattered near the tunnel opening? No. I can trust the coaster-maker to make the tunnel the perfect combination of proven and scary in order to build my faith for the next time I ride. And yet, in my own life, I hesitate to trust when I approach the darkness. I believe that God knows me. I believe that He knows that tunnel. But, I am not fully convinced that He knows me inside that tunnel.

The real truth is,
I don’t know me inside that tunnel.

Which comes as a surprise, because I have always believed myself to be a person of great preparation. I make momentous attempts to think through every scenario and then steady my skills, my mind, and my heart so that nothing can catch me off guard. Perhaps that is the real issue—that I want all of my preparation to be failsafe. I want the nuances and variations, but I do not want those variations to suckerpunch me.

But, the truth is, when I least expect it, the road itself is going to change.

One year of my life—the year you and I are about to share—I came to the first-hand understanding that my circular experience could not be broken without the road changing underneath me. I learned that though change is painful, avoiding it had secured my state of stuck. It was the very reason I had not yet reached the apex of my half-life.

One year would make the difference.
It would not be pleasant. But, it would break the circle.
This book is the story of my changing road and the scars it brought.
The story of my dark tunnel.
The year I stopped being safe.
My half-life.

Everything dies.
This is the year that I did.

And it all begins—and ends—with my hero.