The desire for the dirty, and the original.

I was fascinated by this tag on a pair of $89.95 white painter pants today at the Polo Outlet. I think the tag says it all.

We hunger for our clothes to tell the story of us as a man.

The gifts.

Have you ever wondered why we give so many gifts? I mean, its easy to go down the road of we are a consumeristic, selfish, and fat bellied American thing. Ok, I have heard that alot, no doubt, has great merit. But what if hiding in all our attempts to give so many gifts, is our flat out denial of being able to receive one?

We are given a gift by God. Wrapped, yes, swaddling clothes, in a manger, no fancy bow. A gift that cannnot be bought. It sounds so easy, I dont have to buy it. It sounds too good, with all the economy stuff, you mean, there is a real gift that wont cost the family anything? I'm in. We are all in! But isn't that the dilemmna. I received that gift like a child, like Santa hand delivering it to me, so grateful for that little baby and his life. I held onto that gift when I was younger. But why do I wake up feeling more like scrooge these days? More life, more reasons to be mad, hurt, or seeing corruption. But there we are, again. And where does God ask us to move but into the gift. To see, to look, and receive from Big Poppa Santa.

I wonder if one of the reasons there are so many gifts is because we know how hard it is, to just reflect, receive, and enjoy the gift from God. It is so much easier to spend money on gifts, and tear through them, we send gifts, buy gifts, and open gifts, because we know a gift is what this season is to be about. Lord, how do I enjoy your gift, like my big wheels, or Masks, or Transformers, with such delight. That was a plastic toy, and I was over joyed, you are a man, sent to save me.

May you Lord, teach me to receive that one gift. To be joyful. And full.

Stock traders in limousines.

What if how we might get out of this financial mess was by getting in it.

There is a bronze statue that stands outside of Wall Street and the New York stock exchange. A giant icon of the hopes and futures of Wall Street and American capitalism bucking and fiercely echoing to us as a glaring reminder of what we need to find again. And while a bull market seems to be fading away, I think it brings a good time to rediscover where it came from. Back to the roots. Or, I mean, back to the bulls.

I always saw my uncle as a blue collar farmer who dealt with animals, and nasty smells, and constant mud on his Ohio farm. A little more on the rough side with his cowboy hat, and occasional fowl mouth, with Garth Brooks playing, always chirping off at those men in boardrooms and business deals—who I saw as the more fortunate souls, like my white collar roots. As a kid from a private school, and a college education, I was told indirectly to avoid this type of life through my business degree. It was for the more poor and unfortunate souls. What I never knew, until a recent visit, was that he was the real stock broker in limousines, and the type of business man who knew his way around the bull, much better than any concrete executive in steel buildings in a city.

If you want to understand where America went wrong, all you have to do is go visit a stock broker. The original ones—like my Uncle Mike.

Mike is getting older, hair is fading, and his life is into what we could call retirement age, sagging a bit, and a little less amiable. But when I showed up at the farm, he was out demolishing some old concrete, pounding under the wooden rafters of his barn with a metal mallet that most men could barely swing into position a time or two, much less a full day of breaking hard concrete into pieces. While he might get senior coffee at McDonalds, he could take out the whole restaurant in one blow if needed. And you don’t have to tell him that, he knows it. He is a quiet strength type.

It wasn’t till I actually went to spend a day with him that I realized he was a stock broker of the finest quality, and highest reputation. A genuine bull trader of preferred stock. These words first taught to me in classrooms and business school.
But it all began to make more sense out here. And the origins of it all.
Mike not only sells the stock, he also picks up its poop, gives them shots, and feeds them feed and hay often in ten degrees of frozen ice. The problems on Wall street are obvious, we don’t have any more cash cows. The problem is not the cash, as people think, it is the fading understanding of the cows.

The word stock came out of a term to describe tangible goods and supplies used for thousands of years. A stockroom might be filled with cans of Yams. A stock yard might contain a whole mess of cattle mooing, and eating hay on route to be slaughtered. Hundreds of years ago, when business was about trading these stock, it was often directly for goods and services. Lewis and Clark trading their guns and supplies, for furs and food with Indians.

But as Americans, we found our way, as any progressing economy, to separate jobs and labor, and different classes to avoid such cumbersome transactions. While stock was good to trade, it took work, and it had to be stored, and it often pooped, and made a mess, and so we replaced items and stock, and turned it into paper, and separated people into professions and classes to do the different labor. We were able to exchange real stock with the paper, and could print it, and make it more abundant, and stack it, and fit it neatly onto balance sheets, and books and sell it more easily to people who wanted a part.

Instead of item for item, an exchange of one good for another, we had all these sheets of paper, and money, from all these treaties, and contracts to disperse and distribute, and hold onto in vaults. We needed bankers to hold the paper. We needed lawyers to figure out the contracts, and accountants to count up all the numbers, and then found businessmen to sell it and advertise how good the stock was. It was working great. We soon realized it could also be digitized. And deposit our paper directly into our online accounts.

We could transfer and trade it online with a computer, and buy stocks so easily that a caveman could do it, or wait, even less, little babies on E-trade could do it. Stock trading was no longer reserved exclusively for some rancher in Ohio with land and hay, it was for babies.

Before long, like wandering cows in a field, we got all scattered around, and gone astray and we forget what it was to know the stock, and interact with it, and pull out a baby cow, and help nurse it and feed it milk. We did not know how to tend to the thing when it mooed, or cried, or was hungry. And we are even finding, when we thought we had stock, we had nothing at all—some dude on wall street just gave us a blank paper, instead of one with some official writing on it.

We talk about numbers, thousands, six figures, millions, billions, and trillions. Numbers that were just that, numbers. No real meaning behind them. And so we could pay people large amounts, and stock options and they never met much since we were all getting bigger numbers too.

If you tell Mike we are going to add 4 more to his stock, he knows what it means, and how it relates and affects him. He understand he will have to shovel more crap, that it will eat more food, and take more space, and break more fences and require more shots. A number means something to his stock. It means more work. The problem with our economy, is we have lost the value of that. Throw in a few more hundred billion to the economy, sure. Whatever we need, in some part, because we don’t feel the pain in it, we aren’t connected to numbers anymore. They don’t carry a cost, like Mike.

Since we don’t shovel the crap, or collect the hay, we let some poor and unfortunate farmer in Ohio do it for us-thinking we had avoided such petty work. We could get back to watching the Super Bowl.

Before long, the executives were eating the meat, maybe of their own stock, and they didn’t know where it came from, what the cut of meat even met, or that an animal was slaughtered for their meal. And that is where it all broke down. Being so disconnected from it all. Expensive jets, and weekend excursions from all those big bonuses for raising the stock price. But, often, there was nothing much there. And more often than not, we were eating ourselves from within, like cannibals, only our meat was our inflated stock. It was not fat from too much grain, but our own narcisstic egos that somehow believed we had got away from the hard and rough life of a rancher. We had avoided it all.

No one knew that while CEO’S drove up in Limousines to cheeky restaurants in luxurious New York city streets celebrating their stock prices that the $100 Ruth Chris New York strip steak served so delicately and deliciously before them was the bull, that it lived and breathed, pooped and chewed cud and was traded by a stock broker like my Uncle Mike. It was just presented each time, nicely prepared, and cut to size, and served with butter, and some crisp, but not too hard mushrooms on a warm and delicate white plate.

And so we lost the real value of stock, of what it meant, and where it came from, and to put it simply, our cash cow was gone. We simply ate it, not even knowing it.
I never knew it, but my Uncle Mike was the original real businessman in Limousines.
You see, he is a trader of real preferred stock too. He is a stock breeder that takes his best cattle to shows across the country. And if you asked him what type of stock he trades in, he would tell you limousines.

Mike has no glamorous job. He admits that he has made his living by using a metal contraption and ejaculating the bull limousines, and collecting the sperm, then breds the viles into the egg of another prize heifer by shoving a metal tube up through the heifer’s asshole, and into the cervix.

Before he ever takes his preferred stock limousine to shows across the country, he has actually created the stock from a sperm and egg with his own hands years before. And with these limousines, he doesn’t get the pleasure to ride on, but drives them in a trailer across the country.

What I never gave him credit for is that the man is a smart guy. While he still deals with dirt, and mud, and sweat and hay, and freezing winter months, he also has real estate investments and made land purchase acquisitions along the way. He makes trades on leases of hay, and the crops on his land.

At one time, his father was a Ford car salesman, but at some point sold it all, and was sick of the work, the haggling, and the sales techniques and dealing with people. And so, he sold it, and traded it all for this 250 acre farm outside of town. He didn’t go out and sell the farm, he bought it. Traded what used to be an American cash cow, the car industry, overpriced and bulky from fat union wages and the bellies of bad decisions along the way, and traded it all in for real cows.

The cows taught Mike what we have failed to find, and learn. We forgot what it meant to care for it when it cried, to nurse the calves, and bring it hay each day, and give it yearly shots, and shovel the bull shit ourselves, not let someone else do it for us. Everything was inflated in Wall Street, and home prices, partially because nothing could be really measured for a real value. We seemed to all benefit, so we never asked questions. But for Mike’s stock to rise, for him to sell his preferred stock, sometimes in upwards of $100,000 a prize winning cow, he has to get him to the right condition.

Through feeding, and breeding, and taking care of the animals to produce the great muscle structure they need. “He fattens the calf.” Literally. And when he trades the stock, people can see just what that bull stock is worth.
We forgot how to raise the value of stock. By feeding it, and giving it corn feed.

Real stock comes from work, the kind of work where you are connected to the people, and to the land, and the animals and the places you are around. Eventually when that work is added up, it produces a harvest. The kind this country needs to rediscover by getting its hands in the dirt, and back to the farm, and to economics 101.

And so, while wall street crumbles, and our economy falls into itself by printing more money, and letting the government buy up all the bad stock, I’d like to suggest some of the men who claim to be fixing our economy, get back to the basics, and discover what a piece of stock really is. If we are going to save this economy, I say find some of those bull traders, and have them pull up with their limousines and release them on Wall Street. We could use their inspiration.

PJ - Elk Video.

One of the friends I met in Colorado was PJ. He was a transplant, near my age, and was a native from a small town in West Virginia. While PJ and I shared our faith, and my now emerging love for the outdoors, we could not have come from different places and town from back east. He had grown up in a mining area and from a place where the school systems take off an entire week at the start of hunting season—the whole town closed up shop and took to the woods. Gun shots echoed in the valleys and sung in harmony like you might find at a Broadway musical. Style was different as well. You don’t wear multiple jackets in Wheeling. Not cold weather, rain, warm, fleece, and designer coats, and as far as style? That was absurd, and wasteful. You have one all function jacket. A Camo one. It serves all purposes. It can be worn out on the town to shop, in a tree stand, or even to a funeral. And that is where he came from. Hunting wasn’t just a luxury, it was part of how you survived, and the food you kept for meals.

It was this man, who one day invited me to his place with the words, “I have a video I want you to watch.”

It was titled “The Truth Big Bulls 10.”

If you would have asked me to explain what it was without looking at the cover, it would have been quite a challenge. Sounded like a cross between a black gospel choir and a sports team. But neither. It was a hunting video. Elk hunting. Men hunting right here in Colorado.

While I was into gear, and trying to understand myself as a man. I just wasn’t bred to hunt. I had never wanted to, and had a hard time seeing the transition from the kind of man I had been to any form that included camo or killing. Never had any reason to go kill, meat was plentiful in the stores. And there was definitely no real interest in any form of sitting in a deer stand. Or putting on camo and waiting for it to come to me. I was quite comfortable in going to find it in white and blue Styrofoam.

I had a friend similar to PJ in high school. I would always make fun of my friend, Jeremy who liked to hunt. He was the only half-backwoods friend I ever had who was living in the redneck south, but also at our posh little private school and living in Brentwood.

Jeremy like PJ, had came from a long line of hunters. Hunting went deep for all of them. It’s tradition in their family to hunt. He hunts on the same land where his family moonshined years ago. An old truck blown up by the police still sits in the middle of the woods rusting away. It is this same land where Jeremy spent his mornings sitting in a deer stand.

While some were born into it, or had the gene, hunting was not in my DNA, and the way I saw it reserved exclusively for the people of the world who had trailers, and who liked to put old cars as yard ornaments in the front lawn. Deer jerky and venison makes Jeremy drool, while I’d be fine and happy with a Bobboli pizza. I dismissed Jeremy, went on to college, got married, moved to Colorado, seemed very fine with how things were turning out, apart from my past, and all that sort of stuff. I didn’t see my need for rednecks, or this hunting thing—until the evangelism of Big Bulls came. I was about to experience in the best explanation of words—hunting erection. Or as some call it, Buck Fever.

The video didn’t start that way. I was quite skeptical of it. I watched as what appeared to be a classic scene of Bubba, and his buddy filming an elk hunt in Colorado with poor video work, a shaky camera, and horrible wind blowing into the audio that made my head spin. It appeared homemade, and while their best attempts had all the expectations of some southern drawls that I had known so well that bordered the towns around me growing up.

But as I started watching, I was blown away by these massive creatures they were stalking, the structure and size of them, like horses roaming wild around backcountry grasslands and deep timber. They were magnificent. Large and mystical animals with the males having these massive antlers extending in all directions. And the men, the guides who were talking seemed to understand the animals and the land, and how the wind would affect their approach. They would share secrets, and this amount of knowledge that was like some great teacher of wisdom, like Gandalf talking to Frodo but about hunting. I kinda got into it. And then they started blowing in tubes, and mimicking this bellowing sound that drew them closer.

These giant bull elk were bugling back and forth, to these men blowing in plastic tubes as if they were having a conversation. The elk drew closer, slowly approaching. I started moving closer to the screen as well, inching nearer, while I waited and wondering what’s next.

Then there was silence. The rifle was raised. Then a shot. And then all of a sudden, the men were staring at each other. Faces of ghastly horror or amazement. Eyes were wide. Mouth was open. Their hands were extended out to each other within seconds of the shot. These burly men looked like little school boys who had just been given extra time for recess. These burly men who we would have type cast as emotionless brutes of another era with their country accents, and sausage gravy biscuits still in their beards were now not only acting like kids, they had just turned jumped genders and looked like little school girls jumping at each other. They were frantic. Almost dancing, and hugging, and smiling. It was everything these men were not supposed to be doing considering their personality and what I had thought of them. But they kept trying to squeeze each other, every part of their body hugging and extracting love or happiness between them. Then, Will. The guy who shot the elk started crying, broke down with emotion to his camera guy, sharing what he was feeling.

I sat there, and could not believe what I was witnessing. Like I had seen alients. I was like… what is going on here? Looking at PJ a bit funny. Should we turn this off?
As I left his house, and had days to play the scenes over, and over, I knew I had just witnessed something deep. And as weird as it sounded—very spiritual. I don’t know what it was, I didn’t have words, or great thoughts, but there was something in it that I wanted. Something the man shared. Something the elk had awakened in me. Along with the land. The camo. The gun, and all the hugging. I started thinking…

I wanted to hunt.

The American Man. Or so I thought.

I grew up right smack in the suburbs of America, and in the central south. A town called Brentwood, right outside of Nashville. It was if Normal Rockwell had taken a large tube out, and unrolled and tacked down a beautifully painted canvas flat to the ground. It was full of soft rolling hills and private collections and communities of nice one-acred picket fence home sites where you could raise your families, and feel proud of what you had made of your life. The southern accents were perfect, a little southern drawl, but not too redneck, or harsh, or uncomprehendable. The tea was sweet, and so was the charm of the place. Business was also bustling with eight story office buildings filled with white collar workers.

Like bees coming in and out of their buildings in suits and ties.

I don’t know how it worked, but the concrete never grew weeds, or cracks, or collected dirt. It seemed always fresh, and gray like the day it was poured. Even the grass that lined the homes, and the streets was so green, and watered, it looked more like soft carpet you could sleep on. There were not trailer homes, or trailer parks, or busted and broken down vehicles cruising the streets. The land was too valuable for that, and the Police would pull over a car with any sign it did not belong. Open land in Brentwood was scarce too, limited to the wilderness that we called golf courses. Impeccably manicured and exclusive to mostly men who could afford their membership.

And the churches, and God, that seemed the best part. We had the greatest places, almost like great plantation mansions that lined the roads, and swallowed the entire town on Sunday mornings into rows of pews from churches of every kind. God was doing quite well in Brentwood. The men were well-dressed. Polite. Behaved. Well-to-do. Courteous. Successful. And while busy at work, always showed up for Sundays.

You might say I grew up with a silver spoon in my mouth, but I would say I was given the life that most all parents were hoping for their children, and sons. A good education, even private. Didn’t have to quit school, or earn income to help pay bills for the family. Or even worry about paying for college. It was provided for me, as part of being in the family. I didn’t have many expenses. Food, and shelter, and all the bills just seemed a parent’s responsibility. Health insurance, car insurance, those were somehow all covered as being a son, and having a father who wanted to make sure all that was provided for his sons. They did their job, as I understood mine. To study, and have time to study, so I could get the best education. And find a good job, and have a good life for my kids. And repeat it all.

In a town with a whole lot of money and success, came a whole lot of expectations, spoken and unspoken on the children who came from it. Social status and income was very important, and you got the idea that if you did not match your families place, you hadn’t really made it in life. No one ever said it, it was just assumed. Many of the kids, like me, were sent to the best prep schools in high school to prepare them for the big college schools around, and to be launched in their careers. You just kinda were expected to take your degree, and move into a similar life—do a little more than the family. Serve God, and live well.

The way of Brentwood, like the way of white collar was “you work smarter, not harder.” Education and getting on track of how you could use it, was the key to becoming that man. All my friends headed in line, and before long we were prepared, and ready to launch out into the world of white collar, business, and success.

I had entrepreneur in my blood. Mowed a few yards a week so I could make big cash.

As my friends went to work for construction companies over the summer, or busing tables at a restaurant, I stayed on my lawns. 5 yards a week, about 8 hours total, could bring in about 225 bucks. About the same they were making for a full week. My dad would always want me to go work forty hours a week in the summers at construction sites. But I never saw the reason. I had enough money, more than even them, and I could work in 2/3 less the time. I was smart, white collar smart. And convinced I was on the track for great things. Even at 16, I had outsmarted the system.

When it came to Jesus, and God, it was about studying and knowing the word and scripture. For a few years of college, I devoted myself to it. Reading it on my own, being at many ministry nights, of worship, and study. Memorizing scripture. Learning the attributes of God.

Academics were stressed in Brentwood, and at college. You didn’t make something of yourself by sitting around. You had to work. Make grades, to get into a good college. So you could have a good major, and find a good job. The pressure was in your studies. Everything hinged on this year. This report card. This class. It was the key to the future, which involved studying. Listening. Taking notes. Parents said it. Teachers repeated it. I had done all that, listened to them.

I did not see it, but I was born as a young man of privilege, and class. Given things at a young age that most people up to this point in the history of the world, had to work for themselves. I had worked out a system to have my parents pay me a stipend while in college. If I worked, it would hurt my grades, I explained.

Through my father’s hard work, and his growing business, he was able to afford a private education, and pay my way through Brentwood and school. I never thought too much about it, but there wasn’t really ever a question that the kids from Brentwood would move into something great, and into a large home, and into a similar life, it was just a matter of time. We came from these families, and we were to become much like them one day.

Business parks rose up, new banks, and new churches grew with the sprawl of the town. Men wore suits to work, and to church. White collar was king around our parts. And people were driven. They knew what they wanted, and they pursued it. With that, came a sense of security and confidence in the place. People were doing well, and had made it. Churches were big, and on the mega side. Brentwood was the place to be, and where people settled down who were successful, had done something, often in music or in business.

Those who didn’t have the luxury of living in Brentwood, came in to Brentwood to landscape our yards, work in our restaurants, and clean the homes, and streets.

I just assumed with so much effort put into an education, and college that these men had missed something. Not quite made it. Lost out on America’s dream. Maybe through their own shortcomings, or to no fault of their own. Maybe a bad background. Problems in school. Not given many opportunities. From what I could tell there were two worlds, and two tiers, and two color choices before me. The path of education, and then the laborers that fit into blue collar work. A life of Brentwood, or a life working for people who lived in Brentwood. The white collar world of business suits, and making big deals in the corporate offices which I grew up around. Or a world outside of building homes, and putting in a good days sweat through labor and moving dirt.

I was a natural for the white collar world. I was a son of it.

I could tell my dad was struggling with it. He wanted me to work. As a boy he was forced to work hard jobs in the steel mills of Ohio, on his father’s demands. He responded by being obedient. But when it came to him asking me to work 40 hours a week in the summer, I asked why?

Why go through that? Why when you can make 10x that in my own private business. I don’t think my dad was able to answer that question, he never asked, just obeyed.

It wasn’t enough for me. I needed to know why?

The way I saw it, we had come a long way since then. Technology. Internet. Machines to do the sweat for you. Thanks, Dad. But no thanks. I will work my job on the side, and play in the summers. I had all the money I needed, working part time.

If I looked at where most of my days were spent, it was surrounded by white blocks, and chalk boards, and books.There was plenty of life and sports outside of that, but most of my days were around teachers. My learning came through studying. Knowledge was passed by learning through a book and a chalkboard. Mostly Sitting. I didn’t fight it. Or ask too many questions. I just trusted this system. Kept progressing.

And moving up.

It all came together to be well, in rather perfect harmony.

One day my parents brought over a photographer. I had always seen the pictures up at malls and places. Southerners love to capture their family in a picture. Take a shot of the family, and dog in the yard, and display it over the fireplace as a lasting memorial to the family in a large golden ornate frame. And that is what you did in Brentwood. You took a family picture by a photographer, and took that large picture and hung it on the wall in your house. Every house in Brentwood has one of the family.

And without even knowing it, we were sort of one of the pictures of the Brentwood family success story. After getting the photo taken from our pool deck, the photographer hung it in the glass window of his studio in Brentwood. Little families, and nice cars drove by each day in Brentwood, as they busily were in search of doing the same thing with their families. Repeating the cycle, and having their family hung up in the picture too.

Without really knowing it, we had become the American dream, and I figured that I was well on the path to becoming the American man.

Youth Convention.

This week, Cory, Josh, and I are at a youth convention in Nashville. 5,000 youth pastors. And we are one of around 300 exhibitors in the booth area representing Training Ground. I have never been part of a trade show before, so it is quite amazing to see so many ministries represented.

I became a christian in high school, but it wasn't till college that I really become aware of all the ministries, missions, and activities, and events around the country. It is quite eye opening to see how many are focused, and targeting youth in everything from frisbee evangelism, to missions.

We really wanteed to come, and explore, and be amongst those here as a place for young youth pastors, as well as their high school students with a high school summit at TG, that we are doing in 2009.

One thing on opening night was looking at the booths. Some seem 3 stories high. Others are 4 booths wide. There are some with huge banners, and colors, flashy things, and tons of big screens. Others like the father and daughter next to us, that lead youth groups to do inter city missions in a town in Florida, they have nothing fancy, or bright or expensive. just the words on a banner, and a few pictures. and some of the finest people we have met. with huge hearts.

another great one, probably my favorite is the compassion international booth. they have an interactive booth where you walk into a typical hut of a family from a country in africa (not sure which), and see how they live, and what things they have inside. i love that. 20 years from now, I think I will remember walking in there. mainly because I have not walked into a condition like that before, and they brought one persons living condition in africa, right into a convention hall between all the flashy stuff.

It is easy to judge, critique, evaluate, and ask what is the best booth, or did we do it well compared to the rest, does our booth speak to our mission, or catch peoples attention? Since we never have been to a convention, we really didn't know what to compare it to when we built it, and by God, that is probably our saving grace.

Josh labored weeks back on a 8 feet by 8 feet fake log cabin style building, with pictures, and a few items that get used while the young men are out there.

looking around at the other booths, it is also good to be reminded there are so many ministries out there. similar. different. and thank God. being part business minded, there is always the pull to try and differentiate your product, and make it sound like the best, and when you are away from others doing the ministry, it is very easy to feel that temptation rising inside. while there is always the good, the bad, and the ugly, i must say, it is good to be around our neighbors here, from light and sound, and big and small, and see there is some mighty good work being made, by some mighty good men and women for God in all arenas. different, and all part of their way of seeing God's Kingdom. and being one booth. I think booth #126, in that family.

Or also described as...

"that booth in the corner with a dead animal somewhere on the wall."

Earthlink. Woes.

I recently was charged $21.99 to my account from an earthlink account. I had signed up for the free service awhile back, used it for about a week, and stopped. Problem was I never canceled. It was a 6 month free subscription. Till the 31st of this month. Thus, my regular charge kicked in. $21.99. I have not used the account for 5 months. But I never canceled. So, I called up to cancel 3 days after being charged for this month's service, and with the hope they would consider my request to refund my money.

I spoke with a gentleman, and then a supervisor named Jeremiah. He was a gracious man, explained the policies, and how he would not be able to refund the money. I understood their dilemmna. Why give money back to a customer who is leaving? He should have read the policies, etc. I understand. They would rather keep my $21.99 then see my side. And to be honest, I can at least respect that as a business model. I clicked that little box thing with the million words that somewhere in there had their policies. My fault.

But what they lost, guaranteed is a customer for life. Maybe I would never come back to them, anyways. they are probably backing on that $21.99 gamble, than getting me back one day. it was worth it to them. but what I mentioned to the supervisor as they send it on, is to put my blog site, and let them know that I would be sharing their policies on my blog. and that I will be recommending to everyone to choose another internet provider. not earthlink. they have their policies, and well, this was mine. share it with a few of you.

The power of the internet is we actually have more of a voice. and I would love to see Earthlink help a brother out, and show some grace. We could all use it in this economy.

I hope they respond. I would love to share that with you.

Cold blooded killing

I began to ask myself, could I kill an elk, which I had grown to love so much, and had brought me so many things?

It felt close to the likes of murdering a good friend.

Would I be able to look deep into my sight, and squeeze the trigger of my rifle on a helpless animal that’s only defense against me was simply running for its life? Could I spill blood, and take life, even, should I? Was it moral to kill? Christlike? What Would Jesus Do? Oh gosh, did I really say that?

But it was a good question. Would Jesus chamber a Remington bullet, dressed in 3-D seclusion camo, and creep around the ground, and kill? It had all been fun and games, and very nostalgic, and romantic up to this point. But these were some serious questions.

My dad was not a hunter. He shared a story that while he was a boy he watched his father out hunting, and remembers one moment in particular seeing him mercilessly kill a raccoon in the tree at their house. He was a young boy, and watching what appeared as a pet get shot down, did plenty of harm to his soul and for good reason.

He decided that for him, hunting was not an option. And as I began to enter into this scenario, I began to see those scenarios too.

It would hit me in moments. I would sit outside my house that backed up to a bluff called Ute Valley park where I had made a little shed for reading and praying. A doe or buck mule deer would stroll by with its family of little bambis, gazingly slowly by, and looking at me in the shed, almost peering into the glass to say hello, so kind and gently. I would pretend to raise a rifle, and pull a trigger, and the feeling was close to a mobster going on a killing spree with his tommy gun at a spaghetti joint. It felt so cold and dark. How could I kill Bambi?

I would watch rabbits munching on grass as well. I starred at them, and seeing them like I would a family at the mall, enjoying themselves and out for a day of pleasure and fun. It brought such odd and mixed feelings. I so deeply wanted to hunt, and yet how could I kill these furry innocent things?

This was going to be a big decision. Going against the family beliefs. It appeared, to hunt was to turn my back on my father’s opinions, and some of my own, and join the company of men as Al Capone, Jimmy Hoffa, Jeffrey Damer, and Charles Manson. Killers. And yes, there killing was with humans, and mine being an animal, but it was pre-meditated, and it was a life, and a bullet that I had aimed to take it with.

It brought up many more questions. Especially the really spiritual ones.

As a Christian, I knew that God’s order was about life. Jesus words, “I came that you might have life.” The gospel was about resurrection, being raised from death to life. Eternal life. Restoring life. Healing life. It seemed hunting was moving in the clear opposite direction of that. From peace and unity to lawlessness and murder. Death and destruction. From Ghandi and Martin Luther King back to Rambo.

As I drew closer, and kept going on hunts, and watching things get shot, I knew it was just a matter of time before that moment was going to be at hand for me. You didn’t just go to watch, eventually that trigger of death would be with my finger on it. The beautiful scenery and landscapes, and comraderie amongst men, and God in still silent meadows that had been so surreal, would all change with the thunder crack of a rifle, and a bullet through the heart, and my hand on a knife digging into fur and hide, and straight through into red fleshy meat with my hands covered in blood.

It seemed a gruesome sight. And it was sobering. This was not paintball, or video games where things were safe, and there was always the reset button. These actions were permanent. And I could not take back what I had done, once I had taken the shot.

A man and his feelings.

In the middle of this, I began to feel. Yes, feel. That word that seems attached to women, like ornaments stuck on a Christmas tree. But with men, it was the opposite. Men were tough. Hard. Thick skinned. And more like motor oil, and Evian water, that didn’t mix. It hadn’t really mixed on me either. And while I was bundled and boxed full of them, I never knew it. Never knew it was part of God’s hardwiring in me. And really that I even had them.

I always saw feelings as soft and warm. Feelings were for those who could not handle life, or push through and deal with the circumstances of around them. They felt, because they could not act, or move. They cried, or were sad, because they were weak.

You could feel sitting around coffee, or with friends, which seemed to be what women loved to do. And as a struggling boy trying to make it, I got the sense, to not get too close to that world. Afraid I would get enveloped in it, and never come out a man.

For me, when something started rising up in me, some emotion, undefined, there were always two ways to handle it. Either I ran from them, tried to avoid it, by distracting myself, getting busier, or the other way. Or the other way of trying to prove them wrong. Working more, fighting more, or doing all I could to kill or defeat those giants within me. I faked it, or moved into high gear.

It came out most directly through pornography. I would be sitting on the screen, and something in me, or in God was asking, “what are you looking for?” And while at first, it seemed to obvious. The question always turned back to my heart, and what I was feeling. That I had not asked, never thought to even consider. And the thought came, “what is going on inside?”

I can remember one early evening thumbing through pics, when it hit me what I was doing. The sun was golden orange, and the evening was cool from the window near me. The sunset was just a few hundred yards up the cliff in our backyard, easily discovered and enjoyed.

I sat there, going through screens, only realizing what I wanted, what I was feeling, was my need to enjoy some beauty. Sit for a moment, and be overwhelmed by something bigger than my day today, admiring landscape and form, and having nothing required of me.

I had chosen that through these pictures on the laptop. And yet, it began to emerge just as much was the desire to go outside and take it all in with God. I sat between the two, wondering what to do. I was tired, it would take too much energy to walk up the cliff side. And have to sit, and be still, and rest. I saw that as too much work. This was so much easier. In the weirdest way, they seemed to give my heart the chance to feel. To rest, to admire, to be still, and lose myself for a little while.

Another time it was different, in looking online, and through these pictures, I found myself in a different place. I was not wanting to rest, not wanting to admire. I was angry. Frustrated over the day. Overwhelmed, and ready to take that out on someone or something else. I couldn’t feel it, and in some ways, wanted to transmit it to someone else. Here I was, playing out that anger, and feeling, through the internet again.

And so many times, just lonely. Not feeling that emotion, not realizing what was taking me there, but that I had not opened up much that week. Not with my wife, not with friends, and my whole internal world was trying to find a place to connect again. There it was, the chance, and opportunity.

All of a sudden pornography became less about my lust for women, and more about a quest to feel, and have emotions. It was the place so much of my bundled, and boxed heart took its need to release, and feel, and be alive.

I found God taking me to before the actual sin, and act. When I was tempted, the question would come, what am I wanting right now? What am I feeling? What is going on in my heart? The temptation, was almost the sign something was being triggered in me. I was needing restored. To be loved. To feel the day. To sit still. To hurt, or grieve over something in the days events.

It made sense, why did so many men struggle with feeling, and with their emotions, and their heart, and yet, so many struggle with pornography. It seemed a direct correlation. That something deep in our hearts was repressed, or locked up, or whatever you want to name it. But it desperately was looking to get out, had to find somewhere to go. No matter what the cost.

We were trying to feel. The thing we so desperately wanted to avoid.

The Land, a moustache, and the GPS lady.

The location for our hunting trip was in Medino Pass near the Sangre de Christo mountains. It was just past Westcliffe, Colorado, a small town for farmers and ranchers. It took us about two hours to get there off I-25, and down the highway 20 miles, that ended with a five mile drive on a washed out, and washboard bumpy dirt road that jagged through some scenic backcountry, and ranches on both sides as made it up in the high elevation of Colorado wilderness.

The Colorado Department of Wildlife had marked it off as Unit 86.

We pulled up to camp passing through mile markers, and marked signs, but once in the land, that all stopped, and faded. The unit, the markers, the mileage, the names, and borders and boundaries. It was just unmarked land, wild and free. Natural wonders of meadows, and aspens, and pines that rolled, and hugged the landscape but with no marking but the places themselves.

I wanted to get the land straight. Get my bearings on it all. I was so easily prone to get lost. My topo map, which I was beginning to be able to read, had elevation gains, roads and trail markers, mileage units, and north-south coordinates which I brought to the men at camp.

In approaching Earl with this desire, he looked at me with a smirk, as his moustache moved a little up and to the left and said, “I’ve made my own map.”

Woody and Richard laughed.

I would find out what he meant by their stories. Descriptions like red gate. Upper Road. The fingers. Baldy. Buckskin. The zoo. Lower Road. And moeller were inserted in their stories as locations for events. These were not on my map. Not in the portable GPS unit. Not known by any hunters. Only known by these men. Like a secret tribal Indian language spoken by these guys.

Richard would say something to Earl commenting about the place where they shot that bull eight years ago, the 5 X 5 near the fingers, down through the meadow on the fence line. Earl would shake his head, and just agree, “that’s right, it was the same year I bought that suburban, 1985.”

I looked at them like aliens. These places were not on my map. And these memories were not within my head.

I was sitting with a map, filled with information and lines, and co-ordinates man had created to rule of and measure things for ease of use, and universality of all so we could speak a similar language, and I had never felt as lost. I had no memory, no experience, nothing to plug this terrain to understand these men. Just a red gate, and a meadow.

I asked Richard where the names came from. He looked at me a bit suspicious, wondering why I was so curious. Why I needed to know. He said he did not know. I wasn’t sure if he was lying or telling me the truth. A few hours before he said to me, “some secrets you don’t get to learn on the first trip.” I took that as my need to be careful on what questions to ask, as a young green horn hunter, but I fired this one away hoping to move into some more answers about this place. I took a risk.

He then paused, and said, “Maybe the cowboys taught us those.” I wasn’t sure who or where the cowboys came from and were. If there were ghosts, or real figures, but I looked at him, not sure what to say. And he seemed find with leaving me with that. Another que to let some of that go.

The thing about these names is that you couldn’t google “red gate” or “the fingers,” and get a nicely printed out map, with time of arrival, listed directions.

It was some place unknown to all. And I believe they wanted it that way. Whether the names either they had made up or been passed down by those they had learned the land from, the cowboys. The men they had been hunting with them, and using them for 25 years. One of those words put them right in that exact place in their head for the story, no map needed. The memories of days of walking the land, and knowing trees, and meadows, and turns in each valley. If I were a guessing man, it appeared the land had made its own markers through by their own memories of them for the last 25 years. They didn’t need the universal units made by scientists and mathematicians.

They had their own. Universal to Richard, Earl, Woody, Mike, and the Colonel. And foreign to hunting tourists like me.

It came up when I was fishing too. Ron would talk about his favorite holes in Eleven Mile Canyon. It wasn’t mile marker 5, it was called the Campbell Hole. Or the Meeker hole. Named after some very personal event, or person that had caught a fish in it, or by some image the area looked like to him. The entire Arkansas was filled with these places, only known by Ron, and his fishing buddy Vern. And whoever he decided to tell the secret too.

It seemed universal for man to name his world. In fact, God called man to rule and subdue, and name the animals at the beginning. He put that hardwired in us. And it wasn’t too long before man was doing just that. Naming and measuring away. We developed systems to count, and we laid out mileage, and borders, and boundaries, then genus and species, GPS coordinates, and before long, we had ruled and explored and named it all. We staked it off, started countries, fought over that land, and
those markers, redrew boundaries to name them and claim them as our own, again.

By the time most of us had come into the world, everything had been explored, and there was a place in the system we had created to rule over. It seemed the only remaining area in my childhood in the backyard of my neighborhood, but it was only two years before that got bulldozed for houses.

There was simply nothing more to discover or name or wonder about. We understood it all, down to the protons and neutrons from which we came. We had named and ruled it all. The world has been mapped out, with some lady now telling me what to do, where to turn, and somehow I just followed. Followed my entire life the names created for me, until I pulled into this long dirt road, and into the area called “the zoo.” I think it was the first time in my life, I was really lost in land. And it felt like one of the most freeing moments of my life.

It is one thing I came to appreciate about the men I was around. They did not abide by these rules, and others methods of measuring and naming. Those got thrown out. They found their own. Recreated them to fit their own needs. And what they saw and experienced. All of the rest of us seemed to be missing out, following some computer chip in a car, or on a map telling us where to go. For convenience sake.

Writing...

I have spent the last year or so, writing a book. I have been adding those different sections on this blog. It has been a great joy to put them on. You can spend hours writing words out to just yourself. It is very lonely, and while rewarding, has little treats after each completed sentence. There is a great satisfaction in the labor itself. But what good is it to make something that you, yourself can only enjoy, and not let others partake in.

I dont know who reads this, but I enjoy the thought someone is, and I take delight in believing that one work, inspires another. To tell my stories for their own sake, is narcissism, but to tell them, to help and serve others stories, is more like art. and while I am probably no great artist, I do enjoy sharing the work.

With that said, I thought it would be helpful to explain that. I am hoping to put many of these essay/blogs into a manuscript do in a few months. And so this has become like my chalkboard, and rough sketch of some of that.

I had been thinking, as most authors do of how do you begin a book? which story tells it all. sums it up. awakens longing, declares the mission? It is the hardest task in the world. and up to this point, I believe that teh intro is not something you pick out, but that it picks you out. In that effort, this kinda came to me tonight in some inspiration.

as we still work on the title, the words that seem true in there would be:

oil, sweat, blood, dirt, dust, tears, and roots. not sure which, not sure which are better, but in that I kinda played with a real short opening...


They say oil does not mix with water. And that blood is red. And dirt from the earth is brown. But when blood dries, it is dark like dirt. And when my tears finally came, it came through oil and things I did not expect find it in, nor were supposed to merge.

I would have never known this. I had just listened to people, and books, and the talk of those around me. Oil, and sweat, and tears, and dirt did not get on me. I was a bit more educated. But when it was all said, and when God was done, they did come, and all bled together in color, mixing like a tray of oil paints into one textured color that I cannot describe by describing the color, but by telling you this story.

Elk camp, video.

We just posted this to our website today from our hunting trip...

A good shot of Earl in the tent, with Dwayne cooking. Then Earl and Woody talking construction.

2nd video is from the first night before our 5 am wake up call for elk. A pep rally you could say, with Dwayne and Earl as our cheerleaders.

Elk Camp.

Life is ironic, that those who have a lot, often lack a lot, but those who have little, often possess some rich, remarkable, and puzzling things. -- Robert Coles


We pulled up to the elk camp which looked more like a village. A flat meadow of land hollowed out from the many pine trees, that for most weeks of the year, was completely uninhabited. It had become a buzzing whirl of activity and portable buildings constructed by these men. There was a cook tent made up of canvas that was the center for all the food, and stoves, and eating activities. The mess hall. It was similar looking to a circus tent, just smaller.

A pop-up trailer sat near the trees that housed the men to sleep. A bathroom had been setup in the woods with a plastic tarp to the north, the blue plastic blocking our view and the wind. A hole had been dug deep in the ground with a real toilet seat mounted on 2X4’s and some cut wood logs. There was another canvas tent for all the men’s gear and storage, along with two more tents used as they constructed it all.

In the center of it all was the fire pit raised up with rocks, and dirt, and a huge tripod with a round grill that moved up and down for food. The official name for the place we camped was “the zoo.” It was named that by Earl and Richard because of so many hunters being in the one central area. It is not that way anymore. Not these days. This day, we are left to our own. No tents, or hunters, or camps around us. A growing sign that the sport has been losing its men to death, and not picking up any to replace it. I grimace at the thought, but realize for this day, it means better hunting.

When you looked around at all the tents, and vehicles, and objects, it was for good reason.
The men at camp had been doing this for years. The items around camp were proof. The canvas tent was Richard’s which he bought at Cabelas years ago. It was originally a white canvas, but had since become brown with dirt, and smoke with the years of heavy use. The grill over the fire was also a custom piece by Richard. It was metal poles made into a tripod structure over the fire that hung a huge circular grill grate through a metal wire on a pulley system. That too, was made by Richard, along with the aluminum cooler. They had built custom trailers, and stoves too. And most of the gear, as I asked about each piece was about the age of me.

The whole camp was a fixture of their own creativity and use of materials to meet their needs. Down to the toilet seat that was screwed into some wood boards, and propped up by fresh logs they had cut with a hole in the ground. It wasn’t fancy or flashy, just practical and useful. It served its function.

Their gear was so well made, I didn’t know they made the stuff till near the end of the week hunting. No one was bragging about it, or making a big deal of any of it. It just was. And my fascination with the cooler made of aluminum and custom foam pieces and joints, and hinges had Richard looking at me like I was crazy for thinking it was such a big deal. Earl’s pants looked more like a painting than they did jeans. Spills and colors, and oil stains throughout them. They had signs of use, and function. Even the wooden folding tables looked as if they came from the civil war.

I had come from REI, and stores loaded with gear advertising about the newest, most improved, and added features to sell the next year’s gadget and clothes. Flashy signs, and stickers promising lighter, harder, you name it. These items had none of that. No logo. No design and style in them. They just worked. And served their use and came with character. Similar to the men who had made and worn them.

Everytime I walked into the brown speckled tent that was the mess hall, I found myself entering into something much larger than myself, and part of this hunting group that had been going on as long as I had been born. There was something comforting in that, it didn’t start with me, and wasn’t going to end with me either, there was tradition and rituals that continued on—passed down. The men, and the stories they had. I had joined in for a moments time. It was this moment of wondering if I was going to be the next generation to uphold the place. If I was going to someday inherit these old pieces of gear, and stoves, along with the younger men I was with.

There was no talk of that. It was my first trip. I was getting to eager as I thought about it.
You couldn’t get this feeling of the camp at Starbucks. It was old and aged, weathered. And while I thought I liked the new and flashy, the dust and dirt was starting to get inside me. I was enjoying breathing it in, and getting it on me.

I don’t know when it happened, but Richard seemed to have his eye on me. And every chance he could, he would make a little joke, or tease. I soon became his “little buddy.” Whether he was working in the kitchen, or gutting an elk, he would call to me, “Hey, little buddy, take this to the trash, or so on.” At one instant, it felt a bit shameful, or discouraging. They guys would laugh each time. But it wasn’t the name that I wanted to be called. But you could see in his eyes, there was a respect, and almost desire to engage with me when he said. It wasn’t in anger or shame, but in fun and interest. Even at one point when I was going to be in a section of the woods on my own, he wanted to make sure I was going to be safe.

I began to play into it, and fire back some comments back.

This was a way of showing affection, without saying it. While my generation was great at expressing themselves and sharing their feelings, I knew these men did not grow up in a place, or time as this. But while I would have written them off years ago for not being able to relate like this, I began to see what was happening between Richard, Woody, and Earl was just that. Love.

It took on a different form and expression, but the exchange was just that. And the teasing was
Richard’s way of drawing near to me.

While I would tease Richard of his old days of dragging whole elk out of the woods, he would fire right back. On, and on we would go.

It happened in many of the places I was in. Men loved this sport. Whether it was at work, or in the woods, men were constantly ragging, and picking.

It would be pretty easy to dismiss this stuff as unspiritual. Foolish talk. But the story of most young guys is they have never been around men at all, or related, or been in the midst of a teasing match. I felt there was something much deeper going on, when we would fire back at each other. Like elk rubbing antlers testing each other, determining the stronger elk. A young buck taking on a bigger one. I felt the feeling of rubbing against masculinity, that was old, and weathered, and as I picked, I found him rubbing back. Like a mutual experience between the two of us. Something felt right in the world as it happened.

I found that you could not expose this. I could never say Richard, do you like me? Or even think of putting the words to it. It seemed best, left as it was, and a sort of code.

The big rack. And Goliath.

When you hang around outdoorsmen, and really men, you inevitably get into stories, and sizes of things. Half of it is catching or killing the things, the other part is telling the stories about where you were, and bragging about doing it. Actually, more like 90% of it. You experience it once, and tell it maybe 10 or 25 times, or show it through pictures, often telling the stories to the same people.

Walk into any outdoors store, and you will find pictures plastered on the walls of deer, elk, bears, and fish with a someone next to it in camo, or gear. Thousands of pics. A man and his kill. People come in to put their picture up and show the world. I always thought that as so foolish. So redneck, and ridiculous. Who would want to do that? Why?

As I hung out with Earl and Ron and the other men, I was starting to notice that I was hearing some of the same stories from them. At first they all run together, but I was starting to hear the same ones, and pick them out. At first it seemed so unusual. “Earl, I heard that story already!” I would want to blurt out. But I began to see it was part of this world, and men. There was a chance to go back, relive and talk about the time like you were there again. Feel that moment, and look at each other with smiles of joy. Let everyone take it in, and oh and awe.

You would hear, “I caught four fourteen inch brookies.” Hands would go wider than fourteen inches, and inevitably the stories, and the hands would keep getting stretched out a few inches farther each time the day went on, and the story was told. The 4 would turn to 6 by the end of the day, and grow in size too. I can remember one day at Rosemont, the fishing was hot. I had about 12 trout in the morning time while we were there, feeling proud. I watched from the other side of the lake bank, while Ron, my fishing guru, pulled in what seemed about the same amount.

I thought I was tracking with him. As we gathered for lunch, his number was 30. And when I
pressed him, he admitted he didn’t actually keep count.

The numbers and size had some important part of why we had come out there. Although I could not understand it. Meanwhile the stories once told a few times, became legends, and somehow that was ok, all part of taking part in the moment. A 6 point elk, after a few years became 8 points. A 250 yard shot across the field, becomes a 350 yard shot across a valley in the snow.

And while many of the people were actually at the place, and knew some of it was a bit off, they never said anything. It was just part of what you did, and how you told the stories.

I found it so interesting that a man had the need to measure things. It was not enough to hunt and stalk a bull, the next question is how big? What did it weigh? How big were its antlers? How many points? All things that mattered in telling the story, and helping people fill all the details in.

Look at the story of Goliath. You know a man was retelling it.

“He was over nine feet tall… wore a coat of scale armor of bronze weighing five thousand shekel (125 lbs.)…his spear shaft was like a weaver’s rod, and its iron point weighed six hundred shekels (15 lbs.)”

Now, I am not saying he was lying about it or stretching the truth, but his height is debated amongst different texts that have him from 6’7” to 9’6” tall. Again, whatever it was, you can bet as the story was told, he got bigger. I understood why the text was confusing. Whatever was true, man wanted to make him bigger. And score him on a Boone and Crockett scale.

The author, Samuel made sure to tell us the weight, and size of everything. It seems even then, we understood the importance of those things. So it should not surprise you that find most men on the river, and they have a scale, and a measuring tape. And there is an official club that does all official scoring charts and records for animals.

Here is what you measure…

· Number of points of each antler.
· Tip to tip spread
· Greatest spread
· Inside spread of wide beams.
· Total length of abnormal points
· Length of each normal points on each side

I thought it was so foolish. I would never be that kind of guy. And then I started becoming it. I was fishing. And at first I was getting excited to catch a fish. Then I wanted more, and bigger.

And before long, I was thinking more about the story, and bragging than in the fishing. I was dreaming about the big elk, and the picture. I found out how to make the fish bigger in the picture. Extend the arms, and push the fish into the camera, pulling you in the background. I took pictures like this, putting them on facebook for all to see.

A friend, Dave, who owned the local fly shop in Colorado Springs explained it this way…

When folks begin to fish all they can think about is catching that first fish.
Then as soon as they catch that first fish they have to catch another...
Then it becomes about "how many" fish and I caught 20 or 40 or 80 fish!
Then it becomes about "how big" and catching that +20 inch fish, then the +25 then the +30....
Then it becomes about "the exotic" either fishing in some exotic place or catching something unique.
Then there seems to be a shift and it becomes more about the fishing and less about the fish... just getting out and catching "a fish" becomes the only goal just to prove that you still have what it takes.
The final stage has very little to do about the fish other than they are there. Catching is just a bonus. Fishing becomes larger that any fish and more that any quantity. Being out with the smells, sights, and sounds is all that becomes important...A time to renew the soul and hear Gods voice.

It seemed there was a time to be part of that. To get caught up in size, and amount. It was part of the sport. And a natural cycle. I found myself knowing not to do it, but secretly trying to catch more fish than Timm, or Cory. Even a bigger one.

What I realized is not that I was doing it, but to let the cycles come, and go. There was a time to go for a large fish, but there was time to just enjoy the river, and the beauty, and to sit and rest, and take it all in with God. I realized the problem was when people didn’t move out of these phases. Got stuck in one of them. The old man who keeps plastering trophy animals on his walls, wanting more and more, bigger and bigger. There was something else going on with the guy.

Something deeper than I could understand.

I was starting to see that it was just about the place, and the people you are with while doing it. It seemed another one of those mysteries no one knew, because you had to go through them all first. The reason people thought, “oh you think that is what makes you a man?” Is because they hadn’t gotten past the phases. In their mind, they were stuck on the numbers or size, thinking that is what it was about. It seemed that was the great prize at the end of all of it. As Dave wrote, “A time to renew the soul and hear Gods voice.”

You seemed to discover what it was about all that time. But you couldn’t get there until you went through it all. And while all this made sense to me in my head, I was ready to go out and kill the largest biggest bull a man could find in Westcliffe. And take pictures, tell the story a thousand times, and put the picture at the hunting store and on my facebook.

Changing my oil

Photo taken by Paul Hassell.com

Watching Earl teach us how to change the oil, I decided that I would give it a try. My try came today. I had the day off.

I decided that instead of paying someone to change the oil, I would do it. Earl had taken me through the whole thing at Cory’s house. I understood how to unscrew the oil screw, drain, oil filter, and done. 15 Minutes at Jiffy Lube, or 15 minutes at home, and more bucks in your pocket. I decided to check off one of the things I had never done before, change the oil.

I had spent the last some odd years having someone else do it for me. The 15-minute oil change.

It looked like this…

1 minute – Drive into the hanger with a guy in a blue jumpsuit waving me in like a Boeing 737. Get out. Give that guy my keys, tell him my phone number.

2 minute-13 minute – Walk over to the room. Drink some cheap coffee from a tiny cup, sit in a metal chair from the 80’s, and read a magazine called Motor Trend from the 90’s. Look up, with my name being called. Agree to all those add ons. Sit back down.

14- Give a guy my credit card. Walk out to my car.

15 – Driving away…

Here is how it looked this time in my garage…

1 minute – Put the jack under my car. Begin to jack.

3 minute – Realize I am jacking up the wrong place, there is a dent forming.

5 Minute – Unjack it. Jack back where the frame is, put the jackstand under it, do it on the other side, while feeling good because I learned my lesson on the other side. Got this one right on the first try.

9 Minute – Get under the hood, realize I wasn’t sure if I had put the parking break on, Check it. Few, I did. Feeling even more like a mechanic.

11 minute – Go under car, laying there in search of the oil screw. I realize I could be a pancake, hoping my jackstands hold. I unscrew the oil screw, the oil starts draining like Niagara in black gold. I rush to put the oil pan under it. My screw is dripping in my hand. I forget my towel, so put the screw in my hand and get dirty. And go find a towel.

13 Minute – Wait for the oil to drain.

19 Minute – Try and unscrew the oil filter. Not going. Call Cory, he says I am doing it right. Go back under. Can’t get the darn thing off. I start whacking the plastic wrench puller, whack it a bit more, cuss, and then realize I need a different tool

29 Minute – Drive down the road to Hardware store. Find a metal one. Wait, there are three sizes on these things. I forgot to bring the size filter, so I just guess it might be the middle wrench, hoping its right.

59 Minute – Get back to my house, check the filter, guessed right. Celebrate a second. Go under the car, start pulling with my new tool. I pull. And pull. And its not moving. I look up, and realize the circle has become a square. I yank harder, and realize my last pull I punctured a hole in the oil filter. Oil is spilling out. Its getting all over. I rush to put the oil catcher pan under. Wipe myself of, and go back from round eight and nine of the pulling. Still wondering if I am screw it off in the right direction.

67 Minute – The round can, which turned into a square can, now looks like a carved out pumpkin, dented. I yank like it’s my birthday, and it finally begins to slide. I yank more. Celebrate more. Start taking it off. Feeling again like a mechanic.

76 Minute – Put on the new oil filter, screw the plug back in. I get out my oil. Unscrew the cap that says 5W-30. I bought 10W-30. I say screw it, it’s going in. I am not going back to the store. Its only 5 numbers off. Oil is oil, right? Sure. I fill it up, test the line. I am almost done. Feeling like Dale Earnhardt mechanics.

82 Minute – Take the jack to the frame, remove both jackstands, drop the hood. Put up my jackstands, left over oil in a corner, and walk in my house so proud.

89 Minute – Realize I never pulled out the pan or tools under the car, go back outside remove them from underneath. Not sure what to do with the oil, so I shove the oil somewhere I can’t see it. Put the tools away. I just changed the oil. And I swear to you, I feel like I just won the lottery or something.

Memories of the past.

A friend sent me an email last week. His grandfather had passed a few weeks ago, and received this letter from one of his grandfathers hunting buddies. I am always trying to understand this mystery of why men hunt, and what I am drawn to in it. When you say you hunt, there are many different reactions that come up. and for many good reasons, and I have considered them good reason to search my own soul in trying to attempt to understand it, and what is in the dang thing.

This was one of those emails that reminded me of the complexities, and riches that are found there, and a bit of an inside way. I was allowed to share this with his permission...
>
>
> I was saddened to learn of your father's passing and I
> have been remiss in dropping you a line. I know from the
> tone of xxxx's email, forwarded to me by Jeff, in
> July, that your dad's passing was hard for him. I'm
> sure that is true for the whole family. That's the way
> it is in a close family, and the way it should be.
>
>
>
> Your Dad was certainly special to lots of people. He
> became one of my favorite people to see at camp. His
> occasionally gruff exterior was a bit intimidating to an
> unsure teenager introducing himself to a roomful of seasoned
> camp-goers. Once the ice was broken, however, it was hard
> not to like a man whose laugh was even louder and more
> genuine than his occasional bark. I was surprised to walk
> into deer camp about 10 years ago and receive a big hug from
> your dad. I appreciated that hug each and every hunting
> season I saw him after that.
>
>
>
> Of course, your dad's pride in you and the rest of the
> family was evident in just about every conversation. The
> Tibbit family is a smart, accomplished, bunch and he never
> missed a chance to talk about his sons and grandsons and all
> that they were up to. I, and others, really appreciated
> your efforts to get your dad to camp over the last several
> years.
>
>
>
> Your dad also was one of the last to carry the torch for
> many members of "the greatest generation" who have
> shared the Narrows for so many years. I wish we had more of
> their stories on paper and their escapades in pictures.
>
>
>
> One thing hunting in the Narrows helps us appreciate is the
> constant change around as well as the sacred, and fleeting
> nature of life here on earth. Your dad certainly had a
> great 88 years. If we can all carry our deer rifles until
> we're 84 and then enjoy a handful more seasons in a
> rocking chair, we'll have done alright. He's
> probably sitting under a tree right now with Bud Fore,
> spooking the game as they talk and laugh.
>

Blood.

I began to ask myself, could I really kill an animal? Could I spill blood? It had not really run across my mind, till I had an elk within my scope and a trigger pull away of completing the job. The light was too low, and the elk buried within to many aspen trees, so I could not get a good shot at it. But it left me asking, could I do it? Should I do it?

I was to join the company of men as Al Capone, Jimmy Hoffa, and Charles Manson. A killer. Yes, it was an animal, but it was pre-meditated, and it was a life, and a bullet that I had aimed to take it. It was one thing to watch a friend, but to be the murderer, it brought up many more questions. Spiritual ones.

I was choosing to put something to death. A living creature was about to be destroyed because of my decision. While there was a nostalgia in much of hunting, this was different. It brought a soberness. This wasn’t a video game, or paintball. I could not change my mind, once I had taken the shot. It was a permanent decision. There were real consequences. I found myself contemplating the question, could I kill something that I have grown to see as strong, and beautiful, and the reason I had found so many thing in the wilderness, with men, and God. I was about to kill the thing that had led me here.

Would I be able to take a life?

Symbols of Masculinity.

I found myself deep in a jungle of some very masculine things. There was no war paint, or deep drum tribal dances happening, but it was getting pretty close. The tools, weapons, and camo in my garage was proof I was either about to start my own cult compound with some friends, or I was moving into some new and unusual territory for me that I still was confused about.

My emblems of my past were from a pretty boy lifestyle of occasional pink ties, and pink polo shirts with hair in my gel, and occasionally tanning. Looking around, it was very obvious that I had run clear in the other direction to more mountain man apparel with camo and wal-mart button up flannel shirts.

I could see my friends of old, from down south, laughing at me clad in this gear. I looked like David in Saul’s armor. And I felt like a Halloween costume on a grown man. There was something that felt so unnatural about it. It took me to thoughts of my high school friend, Sam Hotchkiss, grinning and blurting out, “Hood, what the heck are you doing!”

Even one of my buddies who learned I was hunting said, “what’s next, Graham (the most masculine dude in our fraternity) wearing pink?” It felt that extreme. And it was. I had pegged the needle to the other side. But whatever was going on, it was much deeper than a reaction, and the gear and clothes themselves. I felt that shifting deep in me. There was something I was discovering that I still had few real answers for, but it was real. As odd as it sounded, it was very spiritual.

I could not deny there was a process God had me on. God was in this. These objects representing deeply masculine and spiritual symbols that I had never found on my own, or as a growing boy.
You see, I was a late blooming teenager, which meant while most guys were hitting puberty and finding their voice, and shaving—I was handed the card that said, “not yet.” I had to wait it out, and my turn in the hormone line. I hated that. I wanted God to give me a zap of a chiseled face, with stubble to fill me in, and get me up to speed with the rest of the crowd.

The body was a symbol for something. I knew it instinctively—although not exactly what. God had designed it that way. A friend, Sam Jolman, says that the changing of our bodies during adolescence is God’s natural sign and announcement to the world, and our parents, and ourselves, that we are becoming a man. God made those as representations of something deep happening in our heart. We are changing in that time. Our voice, our hair, our bodies. We are not a boy anymore. The symbolism of this was very much God’s plan and process.

But those symbols went beyond our bodies. The next object of my desire to put around me was cigarettes, beer, and girls. The trinity of male bravado for a high school guy. The world’s form of initiation. They were really the only symbols of manhood, I saw at the time. There was certainly something about holding any of those in your hands, that brought a feeling, and sense of identity as a man.

When I turned 16, although my body was still holding out, I was given a car. And I immediately started putting bass subwoofer speakers in the back. As a teenager with a vehicle, and a small lawn mowing business, I poured it all into my system. 10 inch bass speakers, became 12 inch, then eventually 18 inch that filled up the entire back. It was loud enough to annoy parents. And turn most people’s heads. I tested the sound pressure at a shop to be as loud as a jet engine. It could be heard a good ½ mile down the road when on full volume, with amps burning juice. The bass was so deep and strong, it could shake screws lose from my vehicle.

Richard Rohr says that when a man does not feel power internally, does not carry it in him, and on him, then he begins to attach to things that have it. External things. You name it. A gun. A sport. Money. A vehicle. Success. A girl. Even a country. We look for things that contain power, because we do not feel that ourselves. We find the next best thing, and we cling to it.
It happens in sports all the time. I saw it last week at an NFL football game. My father and I sat in the crowd of Tennessee Titans while most fans had on their favorite players jersey. Screaming and shouting, not like they were just spectators, but as the players themselves. It was the same idea. The association of the strength. I am this player. Even with his short figure, pot belly stuck to high heaven, and a smell of cigarette and cheap beer. Do not tell him that, for these next few hours, he is Vince Young.
As a boy, I was looking for something deep, and male, and loud to attach myself to because I did not feel that inside of me. I knew about Jesus, and the Lord, but not in a way that I saw spoke to these deep places of my heart to be affirmed as a man. I did not see him as offering that to me. Salvation, yes. Male affirmation, not really.

I wanted, in some symbolicy and metaphorical way to feel the depth of that bass inside me, because I knew it was not there. The bass lasted a year, along with working out, playing football, and so many other things that came and went in these attempts to possess the masculine inside me. Then came college which promised the fraternity, a community of men, and initiation and brotherhood. Even the parties and beer had this sense I would find myself through it. It was symbolic of something much deeper going on inside my heart. I just had no idea at the time. Again, I thought I just liked that stuff.

It seemed these symbols were everywhere. Every man was chasing down some form of this. Money or success, or in sports. Just walking down the magazine rack. There is the gear section. Guitar. Technology. Fishing. Cars. Outdoors. Motorcycles. Model trains. Hunting. Wrestling. Cigars.

They were all saying the same thing… this is the way. These are the things that usher you into manhood.

It seemed the easy thing to do is write them off as just idols, and false and foolish forms of true strength in God. At times they were such elevated laughable stereotypes of masculinity. Steroided out forms of manhood. But there was something much more universal going on, I could not write off, nor escape in my own heart. If you looked at my garage, or over my life, I secretly wanted these masculine things.

I was your good suburban Christian guy, who grew up around malls, and strip malls. I was more domesticated, than rugged. Never spent much time in the woods, or had any desire to at the time. Never saw an interest in hunting.

But like those things as a boy, there was something deeply connected to my heart, the longing, and searching to feel and experience that strength, which these objects and men were representing. The symbols telling me something deep about all of our own hearts, and the design God made in us.

For as much as there were these masculine objects out there, there was much of the opposite. Symbols of the feminine. Associations of colors like pink, and fusia blue, or tight jeans, and rolled up jeans, perfumes, and gentleness, and love. They were generalized stereotypes, yes. But it seemed some men had been more representing those symbols, than the others.

A friend in Nebraska was telling me a story of how an old classmate he met had completely changed. He used to be the toughest guy in school, even picking on people in his grade for looking feminine. He was now wearing tight jeans, designer shirts, and people were wondering if he was gay? What had happened to the guy?

It seemed that just as we wore things to represent what we wanted to be seen as, how we want people to think of us, we also wore things that represented our shame, and insecurities. Denying
the evidence of any of it. There was the other side of masculinity.

I don’t know that guy, but he was a walking billboard with a sign that said “I am an un-initiated boy. I don’t feel masculine.” It was a denial of all male symbols, and although he was trying to act as if it didn’t matter, he was almost proving there was a case for something deeper, by how he went to the extreme to do it.

In all of them we were “wearing our hearts on our sleeves,” so to speak. Regardless of the true answer to that friend, he is telling the world how he feels about himself. Letting us know by his clothes. And his choice was rejecting some sense of masculine in him. He is searching. But not through finding a male identity. Instead of putting in on, he is trying to run from it.

I attended a men’s conference a few years back with a worship leader who wore a black shirt, with pink letters. He also had blond spiky hair with a few streaks in them. At some degree, it was no big deal, just a shirt, just some funky hair. No swat. But I was thinking, here we are in a room of men, and that was quite a selection of a shirt to pick. I wondered what it symbolized, what he was trying to say through it. As he sang and played worship for the room full of men, he seemed hesitant leading us. Something in him that felt afraid, and unqualified.

As I watched, I thought about all those pink and funky color shirts and designer things I wore, and got away with saying, “real men feel comfortable in pink. Or dressing styling, or what not” And maybe that was true, but much of my colors were telling the world was how I saw myself, and how I was running from my masculinity.

“Don’t take me to seriously.”

“Please just see me as a pretty boy, but don’t expect me to fulfill a real mans role.”

“Don’t expect to find strength here.”

I wore the question of my masculinity to the world, just as I felt the internal conflict inside. My outside, matched the world inside in my heart. I wore what I felt to be true. It was code, an outward sign, and symbol. And yet, somehow I was so clueless to it all. Never thinking twice about it. Still denying that was the truth of these colors, and things I associated myself with.

I tried the male things, and they just never seemed to fit me as a boy. They did not work. I was not athletic enough. Not confident enough. Not ultra macho enough. So I just stopped trying. And started moving to the places, and around the people where I did not have to contend with the feelings of insecurity. I almost denied the need all together, and assumed it was not there. Slowly finding myself in clothing stores like Gap, and Banana Republic. Heading to get my hair cut at a salon with a stylist. Putting in gel. Tanning my body. I was becoming a metrosexual man, not out of design, but I had just kinda ran out of options. None seemed to fit.

I think that is why stepping back into the symbols was such a good, and hard thing. I was reclaiming something I never believed was true of me. I was trying again, and wondering if they actually might be me.

Our dog.

I was just enjoying a moments rest, when our dog, Tacoma came over to me. I stood there, as he put his legs around me. He seems not able to sit near you without his paws trying to wrap themselves around you. He has to touch you. I thought... isn't that just like God. Wanting to grab me, for a moment.

Then he started humping me.

I am not sure what to do with that. Or how to relate that one to God.

It is, what it is.

Tears & Tools.

A man in Denver called me one day, to ask if I needed some extra work. His bike shop was going through a re-model, and they needed some hands to help finish the displays. He asked if I could come up with a buddy, and install the wall units for their products to hang. It was going to be a two day job.

I called my good friend, Cory, and went up the next day.

Gil explained how our job was cutting the metal sleeves to fit into the wall units for all the products to hang. We were going to take 8’ X 4’ sheets of MDF, cut it to size for the wall, and then hand saw each individual metal sleeve to fit the unit. And slide them in the long narrow slots.

He took us to the back to give us a workstation. It was the bike repair shop.

The place was immaculate, like the garage I had always wanted, every type of tool hanging off pegboards, numbered coded, organized, and neatly put into its place. It was my grandfathers workshop upgraded into the 21st century. All the men gathered around their workstations. The shop was buzzing. It was a place where things were happening. There was action, and movement. Guys talking, joking, and laughing while they were repairing spokes, re-doing chains, replacing front shocks, and building all types of bikes.

There were probably around 8 guys working on bikes, all around us. Gil grabbed the tools we needed from the bench, a (type) saw, and a few files to wear down the rough cut metal. We went to work, moving back and forth from the back, to the front, putting up pieces, and going back to do the next.

The guys mainly ignored us, and we ignored them, even though we stood right in the middle of their area. As the day dragged on, and our metal screeched, drowning out their conversations, you could feel them being upset we were in their space, this office of theirs we had come into. But their boss had put us in there, and said we would be fine. So we just ignored it.

I had spent the morning measuring, sawing, filing, and then heading out from the repair shop into the retail store, to put in a few slots, then head back to the repair shop, to do it all over again. Replacing one metal piece after another. And for the most part, I was doing ok. Cutting, measuring, sawing, sanding, and filing.

But as I went back into the shop near the end of the day, I noticed the file was missing. I looked around the bench, but it was nowhere, as if it had just disappeared. I worked awhile, cutting the pieces, but not finding the file to use for it. Where did it go? It was gone. Did I lose it? Did someone take it? I asked Gil for another one, still confused on what happened.

A minute later, one of the men came around the corner and talking on his way out the door. “That was a new file you were using. We replaced the old because people were using it like you.”
He never stopped to talk, walking around the corner, and out of the shop. The place fell silent. And I just stood there. Frozen. Looking at him, and then burying myself back at the bench. Not sure what to do with his words.

Cory came back into the shop as I stood there. He was trying to get at what was going on, why I was acting so strange. The whole shop just heard me. I didn’t even know what to say to Cory. He just looked at me confused.

I pretended I was fine. Blew the whole thing off, and kept working with the tools that I had. I went out to Gil, who brought another file over a bit later to use. I rubbed the file with my hand, trying to figure out which was to use it. I didn’t want them to see me doing it. I felt so foolish. I didn’t know how to use a file. Was it away from my body, towards me? I grabbed Cory, and asked. I felt so stupid. I am 26 year old who doesn’t know how to use a file.

After a few minutes, anger rose up. I was so ticked. So mad at this guy. The nerve of him for coming in and doing that to me. Walking off, and doing it in front of all these men.

I wanted to kick his teeth in. I thought to myself, these are 40 year old men standing around a bike shop. What do they know? There are only a bunch of 40 year old boys, playing with bikes anyways. We drove back from the job, and I just fumed, with a sense of anger, and part grief, and confusion of what it was all about, and why something like this even happened.

But that evening, I had some time on my own. Jayne was working, so I went to a park nearby, and started climbing some rocks and made it on an overlook to see part of the city. I sat there with my journal. Finally able to sit with what had really happened to me. I sat there, trying to be with God and understand what was happening, why did I feel so foolish, so mad and angry?

What was so deep about this God?

Then it came…

“You were in a world of men, working with tools, and you didn’t know what you were doing.”

I sat there. Not sure if that was God, or me saying it. But bam. It was true, wherever it came from.

I thought about it a bit. It hit something so deep.

It was my worst fear. Being in a world of men, tools in my hand, and not knowing what to do. And not only that, but instead of someone coming over to teach me, the tools will be taken from me.

“I am on my own. It is up to me to figure it out.”

Then it came. Like a great damn blocked for years, holding a reservoir of years of water. I am not trying to do this, not wanting them. But they are coming. My damn somehow collapsing.
I don’t feel anger. I feel, sad. It is all up to me. Always up to me.
If I was honest, It is how I had got by all my life. Learning on my own. Picking up things, doing my best to figure it out. The self-made man. I picked things up. Asked about things in private. Searched things online, or by just picking it up by doing it, and on my own.

It’s what I felt. Loneliness. Feeling like a boy. Shame for not knowing what to do. Sitting there on the rock. Me and God. It hurt so much to say that. It was true. My deepest fear was what happened. “I am in a world of men, and I don’t know what I am doing.” And as opposed to a man coming over to help me, I will be called out. Exposed in a group of men. And not taught how to use them, but the tools would be taken from me. “I am an orphan without a father to guide me.”

It was probably the youngest and rawest I had felt since moving to Colorado. I sat on the rock, and cried.

I asked God, in that desperate place, in that place of tears, that felt to true to where he was
leading me. TO feel and grieve this place, and not be ok with it any longer. I said the words, I had wanted to say, but felt so much shame to ever give to a man, or even God. I asked, “Would you teach me. Don’t leave me in this place.”

As I woke up in the morning to head back, there was a sense of peace. As if the tears offered me a place of rest, and my prayer to God, a relief that I was not looking for myself to do it. I had asked someone else to do the thing I had always done on my own. The pressure almost off. I was not angry, not ready to rip this dudes head off. It was unusual. Not my angry self.

As we drove, and I talked to Cory, I felt like I was supposed to talk to this guy. It was the thing I was so afraid to do, so ashamed all of my life. Approach this man who shamed me? And not only that, I felt like I was supposed to ask him to help me. It was crazy, I couldn’t believe it. But by the empty hole I felt in my gut from the thought of doing it, I knew that God probably was in it.
It felt like the greatest exposure of my life. To tell this man, I don’t know what I am doing. I need help. Gosh, how I hated those words. I need help. I need. My whole life was set up to stay far from that.

As we went back to work, I saw the guy walk in. My body sank. As my heart raced with emotion. Everything rising up, so much fear, and hesitation. I was starting to think, its not that big a deal. Just leave it alone. Do not worry about it.

But I knew what I was supposed to do.

I walked by his station. And introduced myself shaking a bit. I told him I was sorry for messing up the file, and thanks for pointing that mistake in me out. I told him, “Ya know, I really don’t know that much about tools, and I would love if you see me today doing something wrong to come over, and show me what to do. Come by, and just given me a few instructions.”

He looked at me. Almost shocked, as much as I was shocked that I was saying it. We just starred at each other. Then he took out his hand, shook mine, and told me his name. I didn’t know how to continue this conversation, I was out of breathe, and empty, and so I bolted about as fast as he did the day previous, over to my work station, to start cutting metal.

Within five minutes, as I sat cutting the pipe, he came over. Approaching me with a saw in his hand.

“I saw you working on that metal. I think this saw with the smaller blades might cut better.”

I tell you, it was the most awkward moment of my life. I was receiving what I had asked for, both God, and this man, and it just felt so weird, so unusual, so uncomfortable to receive it. I looked at him, and I wasn’t sure what was just happening, it was so awkward to feel, and to think, I had asked for this, and here he was showing me. It was the greatest and most awkward experience of my life. I took the saw, maybe thanked him, and realized this was probably the first moment in my life where I had asked for what I needed. And not only that, but God was providing it.