I've been thinking a lot about my darkness...I have tried all my life to gain the approval of those around me. I have found such false hope and peace in the fleeting arms of earned acceptance. And as I return to look at my life through the blackouts, the blurred history, the unwillingness to remember who I am and what I have done, I see a very dark person. I see a covetous person, a lustful person, a womanizer, an alcoholic, a raging, addictive, selfish, loathing... complete in all senses of the word, "dead" human being. I see a person who has never been able to free himself from these chains...
I have tried the steps to freedom through prayer (or what I thought was prayer). I have tried willing myself out of sin...I have tried making covenants with my eyes not to look lustfully at a woman, and by the end of the day I was guilty of rape. Oh God how guilty I am of terrorizing goodness! How dark my soul and how filthy my heart! And what scares me the most is that even though I make these confessions, I know there is no freedom from the depths of my heart. I raise my bloody, unbowed head to say "I submit to no one". What is so strange to me is that I am shocked by this... Why I think that because I am "saved" somehow I am supposed to be above this now. I have tried for so long to make myself look good and gain the approval of the religious community, only to come to the realization that I am very dark. If you knew the depths of what I desired in my heart you would feel horrified, and then feel right at "home".
___________________________________________________________
I remember feeling quite good about myself a few months ago in Houston. I had seen tangible success from music, and had received lots of pats on the back for spending an entire year making nothing financially "for the kingdom". I felt like I was good, like I was on the track to success: approved of, financially stable, and good at what I did. One night, watching a movie with friends, I witnessed the character John Newton so heartbroken by his darkness that he said he cowered in every dark corner and remembered the faces of all the Africans he had enslaved... Safe to say I was jealous of his open heart. I wanted to feel like he did, aware of his darkness because I felt a sick sense that he lived deeper than anything I had ever known. While driving to the store that night I, unaware of my immediate future, asked with such an inflated self-worth, "God would you show me my darkness because I am not aware?" I knew that my cognitive belief system said "everyone had fallen short of the glory of God, bla bla bla" But in my heart I felt as if my desire for porn or money or self-actualization wasn't that big of a deal.
The next day I was on my way to play a solo gig downtown. I can't for the life of me remember anything else that morning or afternoon. But on my way down HWY 45, I received a call from my dad.
"Hey son, how are you?"
"Doing good, just about to go play a concert downtown," I said.
"We'll, your brother is not doing so well, and well he's really struggling... he's been snapping at your mother lately and got some really harsh words thrown back at her when she mentioned you about something unrelated. He told me last year about some abuse he went through growing up and I just wanted to find out how deep it was. I'm not sure what's going on in his mind these days. He said things are definitely ok with you two, but I just wanted to hear from you"
Thus began the grave reminder of who I am... I was trapped in this conversation with nowhere to run. I felt the socially unacceptable darkness that I could not justify—screaming at me from my gut. I immediately felt sick and wanted to pull the car over and vomit. I began to talk in very vague terms about our childhood. You see, I grew up with such rage issues- such feelings of inadequacy and insecurity. I abused everyone in my life, and my brother took the brunt of it in every sense of the word. I was that bully that everyone one looked at as a coward. Afraid and very, very sick, I obsessed over people closest to me. I focused so intensely on every flaw and failure they possessed and loathed them for it. I moved as a traveling gypsy. Separate from those around me, I occupied one territory after another in my rage.
My parents knew this and took me to Christian counseling at a very young age. I remember feeling such guilt for those I hurt and even more rage that they were still around to remind me of this. I hated people for loving me, and I wanted to hurt them to make them stop. In 6th grade I decided to kill myself- make my parents suffer for ever bringing me into this world. I taped a note to my chest and I hung myself. And to the tenacity of Christ, my father walked in and stopped the process of strangulation. A couple of weeks later I was let out of the suicide ward. And as you can figure this shamed and humiliated me. My father saw me at my weakest place and that was never acceptable growing up. "Why won't they let me die?" I knew the people in my life loved me and said God did too, but I hated this god who forced me into behavior modification, and loved me more when I tried not to sin. Throughout my teenage years I chased everything I could to run from love, because love exposed me, and I was not about to be humiliated again.
I exhausted all the possibilities and when it came time to graduate high-school, I did, and found that I actually had created a person whom people liked to be around. I went to school in Philadelphia and then transferred to Boston. After feeling exposed from all the memories from high school, I created a new identity, and because no other options were available, or seemed as sexy, I created a "Christian" me. I knew that God was disappointed at my past and wanted me to filter my life through what Jesus would do. I really knew that this was what I was supposed to do anyway. I became obsessed with God, obsessed with evaluating what social structures said about being a Christian, with what Christ would look like in the culture I lived in. I was sure I could do it, and do it well. I grew up in church, and I knew there was truth in being liked by God. I knew how to sound spiritual, and I knew what God and like-minded people loved to see. I felt more alone than I ever had.
A few years later I moved to Houston and then to Colorado, chasing what I thought was good for a Christian to do. I worked at churches and even moved to work for a mission. I tried to please God with all that I had, with all of my heart. On that last trip back to Houston, on the day of that concert, I was filled with such a hidden rage inside me after the call that night. I drove around for hours after I performed the concert. I wrestled the steering wheel and screamed at the god who was never there. I screamed at him to tell me where he was when I was hurting so many people, why he let me hurt the way I did for so long if he loved me...I said things that evening to him that I hope no one will ever hear. I screamed my voice out, pulled over and gave up on God. And the empty sky said nothing.
___________________________________________________________
Now, through all my life, dark or darker, there was a sound that I knew. It was a sound that I had heard from time to time since I was a child. And that sound came back again. Every once in a while, even during those "spiritual" years, I would hear it when I least expected it. And even though I tried to gain God's approval for my controlled behavior, I would still hear the gentle infinite haze whispered "I know".
The real God, the one my heart never knew, began to press himself against me and caress my broken, bent heart. He began to say "I know". He began to say gentle things to me, and he began to say that he never loved me more than he did when I was at my darkest. Who knows when my heart fell and was born again. Who can say if this has even taken place yet. All I can say is that I have never understood the word of God as I do now... This is how we know what love is, that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. What the law could not do, God did.
I have tried the steps to freedom through prayer (or what I thought was prayer). I have tried willing myself out of sin...I have tried making covenants with my eyes not to look lustfully at a woman, and by the end of the day I was guilty of rape. Oh God how guilty I am of terrorizing goodness! How dark my soul and how filthy my heart! And what scares me the most is that even though I make these confessions, I know there is no freedom from the depths of my heart. I raise my bloody, unbowed head to say "I submit to no one". What is so strange to me is that I am shocked by this... Why I think that because I am "saved" somehow I am supposed to be above this now. I have tried for so long to make myself look good and gain the approval of the religious community, only to come to the realization that I am very dark. If you knew the depths of what I desired in my heart you would feel horrified, and then feel right at "home".
___________________________________________________________
I remember feeling quite good about myself a few months ago in Houston. I had seen tangible success from music, and had received lots of pats on the back for spending an entire year making nothing financially "for the kingdom". I felt like I was good, like I was on the track to success: approved of, financially stable, and good at what I did. One night, watching a movie with friends, I witnessed the character John Newton so heartbroken by his darkness that he said he cowered in every dark corner and remembered the faces of all the Africans he had enslaved... Safe to say I was jealous of his open heart. I wanted to feel like he did, aware of his darkness because I felt a sick sense that he lived deeper than anything I had ever known. While driving to the store that night I, unaware of my immediate future, asked with such an inflated self-worth, "God would you show me my darkness because I am not aware?" I knew that my cognitive belief system said "everyone had fallen short of the glory of God, bla bla bla" But in my heart I felt as if my desire for porn or money or self-actualization wasn't that big of a deal.
The next day I was on my way to play a solo gig downtown. I can't for the life of me remember anything else that morning or afternoon. But on my way down HWY 45, I received a call from my dad.
"Hey son, how are you?"
"Doing good, just about to go play a concert downtown," I said.
"We'll, your brother is not doing so well, and well he's really struggling... he's been snapping at your mother lately and got some really harsh words thrown back at her when she mentioned you about something unrelated. He told me last year about some abuse he went through growing up and I just wanted to find out how deep it was. I'm not sure what's going on in his mind these days. He said things are definitely ok with you two, but I just wanted to hear from you"
Thus began the grave reminder of who I am... I was trapped in this conversation with nowhere to run. I felt the socially unacceptable darkness that I could not justify—screaming at me from my gut. I immediately felt sick and wanted to pull the car over and vomit. I began to talk in very vague terms about our childhood. You see, I grew up with such rage issues- such feelings of inadequacy and insecurity. I abused everyone in my life, and my brother took the brunt of it in every sense of the word. I was that bully that everyone one looked at as a coward. Afraid and very, very sick, I obsessed over people closest to me. I focused so intensely on every flaw and failure they possessed and loathed them for it. I moved as a traveling gypsy. Separate from those around me, I occupied one territory after another in my rage.
My parents knew this and took me to Christian counseling at a very young age. I remember feeling such guilt for those I hurt and even more rage that they were still around to remind me of this. I hated people for loving me, and I wanted to hurt them to make them stop. In 6th grade I decided to kill myself- make my parents suffer for ever bringing me into this world. I taped a note to my chest and I hung myself. And to the tenacity of Christ, my father walked in and stopped the process of strangulation. A couple of weeks later I was let out of the suicide ward. And as you can figure this shamed and humiliated me. My father saw me at my weakest place and that was never acceptable growing up. "Why won't they let me die?" I knew the people in my life loved me and said God did too, but I hated this god who forced me into behavior modification, and loved me more when I tried not to sin. Throughout my teenage years I chased everything I could to run from love, because love exposed me, and I was not about to be humiliated again.
I exhausted all the possibilities and when it came time to graduate high-school, I did, and found that I actually had created a person whom people liked to be around. I went to school in Philadelphia and then transferred to Boston. After feeling exposed from all the memories from high school, I created a new identity, and because no other options were available, or seemed as sexy, I created a "Christian" me. I knew that God was disappointed at my past and wanted me to filter my life through what Jesus would do. I really knew that this was what I was supposed to do anyway. I became obsessed with God, obsessed with evaluating what social structures said about being a Christian, with what Christ would look like in the culture I lived in. I was sure I could do it, and do it well. I grew up in church, and I knew there was truth in being liked by God. I knew how to sound spiritual, and I knew what God and like-minded people loved to see. I felt more alone than I ever had.
A few years later I moved to Houston and then to Colorado, chasing what I thought was good for a Christian to do. I worked at churches and even moved to work for a mission. I tried to please God with all that I had, with all of my heart. On that last trip back to Houston, on the day of that concert, I was filled with such a hidden rage inside me after the call that night. I drove around for hours after I performed the concert. I wrestled the steering wheel and screamed at the god who was never there. I screamed at him to tell me where he was when I was hurting so many people, why he let me hurt the way I did for so long if he loved me...I said things that evening to him that I hope no one will ever hear. I screamed my voice out, pulled over and gave up on God. And the empty sky said nothing.
___________________________________________________________
Now, through all my life, dark or darker, there was a sound that I knew. It was a sound that I had heard from time to time since I was a child. And that sound came back again. Every once in a while, even during those "spiritual" years, I would hear it when I least expected it. And even though I tried to gain God's approval for my controlled behavior, I would still hear the gentle infinite haze whispered "I know".
The real God, the one my heart never knew, began to press himself against me and caress my broken, bent heart. He began to say "I know". He began to say gentle things to me, and he began to say that he never loved me more than he did when I was at my darkest. Who knows when my heart fell and was born again. Who can say if this has even taken place yet. All I can say is that I have never understood the word of God as I do now... This is how we know what love is, that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. What the law could not do, God did.
posted by jonbarrick at 1:42 PM
2 comments
