Livin' Small

To preface what I say I have to give some background of myself. When I was 27, I decided to commit myself to the pursuance of ministry. I went to school eventually in my early 30’s and concluded with a thirty year active period of music ministry and preaching as well as pastoring internal groups of a larger church as others like myself did to promote Christian growth in a smaller discussion group and prayer. I also taught Sunday School to teenagers and adults alike.

What I found during those years is that traditional Christianity does in fact kill the average Christian in the end. The local church building becomes the gathering place of a local group of people who likely originally came under the pretext of the tenants of Christian faith, but it became a club of sorts for dinners, special musical gathering, yard sales, car washes, and the proverbial bingo games. Sure, they will still profess their belief, but it isn’t the foremost reason they go after a period of time. There are no times of concerted prayer to find God’s will to change the direction of men who seek to do evil. There is no time set aside to touch the spirit realm causing change in our own lives.

Tradition is the biggest killer in the Church. Presumed beliefs take hold as a congregation listens to what the preacher says and does not ferret it out of the Bible for themselves. Charles, you’re right. People don’t study. Once they study they will find a lot of their beliefs will become the lies they are.

I’m not religious. I’m a Christian. As I previously stated, Christianity is a lifestyle, not a religion. Religion comes when a group takes a belief and puts it in a box and calls it a church. Then they add their icons layered in gold in some instances and call it a holy place. That pulpit is no more sacred than an old pair of worn athletic shoes. What’s sacred is the heart of man. His spirit is the one and only true temple in their body as they walk this earth.

What makes some preachers such as they are is beyond me. I found that my former pastor was a man who provoked me to study, because his teachings were so different than I’d ever learned. He made me very upset that he tipped over the money changer’s tables in my heart. I dug and dug on my own trying to disprove his teachings and in time found I could not from my own summations. Right now I could walk into any typical church and speak straight from the Word and be thrown out in short notice. People don’t like change.  I can attest to that myself.

One thing that sets me off is that the more one studies their belief is that there is so much overlap into other beliefs. There’s a string of fact that runs through them all that ties them together. People say we all came from Adam and Eve. I doubt that. (Here we go). Genesis says God created man after his likeness. My question is how many men were there that weren’t created in His image. There were other men already present on earth at the time. The Bible proves that point. Some were giants even.

The appearance of contradictions in the Bible I surmise is because men of the past have put together what they believe is Holy Scripture and left out what is likely thousands of other Christian writings.

It’s enough to say we cannot exhaust this discussion you invoked. People will use and abuse any faith, because there are enough weak minds out there. Atheist isn’t a name I’d put on people. We all believe in something. Even if you believe in nothing more than fate, it becomes your faith. Agnostic is more appropriate for most so-called non-believers.

The cold winds begin to blow

The days are now numbered.

But the last one only God knows

When death brings one to slumber.

The cloudy skies hang so low.

Soon a body will no longer be encumbered.

Out of it the life within will flow

To rise to the heavens with the numbered.

The smiles upon their faces will grow

When one’s spirit goes to those remembered

While the body goes to be alone.

Let the cold winds blow in life’s December.

But not to end the spirit.

Tho’ the cold winds blow harshly in my mind
My heart still feels the bright sunshine.
Warming my heart with every piercing ray
Bringing to mind there is a coming better day.
Today’s clouds hang low and so dark
Nothing seems quite so stark.
But this I know for a surety
My heart is cleansed to purity.
My God loves and cares for me.
This to me He has made a decree
I am His and shall overcome

What makes me feel this way? I’m sure I’m not the only person who experiences it. Imminent change at hand. Is it something that I’m setting myself for or is it a premonition of something impending that I have no control over?

Getting older has wonderful thoughts of life. The eventual consideration of a short span left over that of when I was a young man could be an ingredient of this feeling. I don’t know for sure.

I’m sure of one thing. I spent several decades trying to be someone I was always feeling like I wasn’t. I concluded in my fifties I was living a fraudulent life. Not to say that what I learned or gained in experience was the same thing, but the conclusion came when I realized I thought I was living my calling in life and found I was an instrument to further someone else’s goals. It actually came down to two people. My ex-wife tried to change me over the years and all it did was cause me to seek avenues that became destructive to me. The relationship wasn’t fulfilling. There was no love in it. Many times I would rehash it and I always arrived at the same conclusion. We were good at running a household, but we really didn’t love each other. I was always looking for it somewhere else and that ran against my strictest sense of what a moral life was supposed to be. The key word “it” is that I should have been in a reciprocal relationship of unconditional love. The relationship I was in came with a battery of conditions. I was not to touch unless given permission. The bedroom was on her terms, not mine. I was not to speak some things or I would be reprimanded. She tried to get me to dress in a certain fashion. Look, I’m a country boy and always will be. I wore jeans and t-shirts almost all my life. I bought dress shirts, sport coats, dozens of ties with dress shoes and socks to match. They hang neatly in my closet still with little or no wear. I’m sure Libby wouldn’t mind if I put some of it on occasionally, but I’m not required as a condition of love.

My sons I love dearly. They are hard-working dedicated men with wives and children. One huge lacking in them is they selfishly don’t want any more children which will end the line of the Rowe family. It dies with them. Projenitorship, is a player in my mind. I guess I can be somewhat selfish to want my family name to be carried on. Why not? It’s an important thing to many men. I still do have a nephew called Isiah. It’s not spelled the same as the Biblical character, but our family has never been one to follow the order of things. We still have someone who can make the name carry on.

The second person who caused me to lose out on my own calling was a pastor who I believed in. The problem is that it was cultish. He would say things like if we were having a meeting with a speaker unless we were dead or dying we were to be there. His sermon on tithing was simple. Thieves don’t tithe. I have my own version of it, but I don’t have this post for that forum. He had a minor in psychology and he knew how to use it, but I had common sense not to allow myself to get too close, but still I left that church an empty husk of who I should have been. His allowed reign over my family and me was a player in the ending of my marriage as well. It kept my wife and I busily apart so often that even if we were compatible we still would not have “worked it out”.

I don’t think God allows for failure. I am not a failure. I was told once that all our failures are fuel to propel us forward into victory in the end. That is where I am now. All the failures of the past have fueled my being to overcome all obstacles that rear their ugly heads against me.

Maybe I’m just rambling on seeing the reality of being older. I don’t have as many years ahead of me as I have had behind me. One thing is for sure. God allowed me to find a woman who KNOWS unconditional love and practices it. I see in her heart there are times she wishes I could be a little more of this or that, but she bears it in her heart to love me just as I am. Hey, I’d be lying if I said she’s totally perfect, but to my heart she is perfect for me. We are two driven individuals who can clash in our opinions, but our love for each other is more important and we always end the day talking out the issues of the day. That I love about her and our relationship. Love between us is more important than the issues of the day.

Really I don’t know what the future holds, but I feel if there’s one thing I do know, it’s that God had made a way in spite of all my transgressions. That’s because I still believe in that higher power that guides my life. He gave me Libby. That is important to remember.

Have you ever felt your heart has a lot to say, but your head kept getting in the way? My heart is so full of something to express, but sitting down to pull it out into written form is nearly impossible. The “me” from five years ago is still there, but has become subdued by the medications that were prescribed to me. It doesn’t affect my performance as a working individual. It affects my ability to write down my feelings.

In Biblical terms it’s the spirit at war with the soul. The will not giving up shows itself as an unbent neck. In the Bible I concluded that the reason a person bends his head forward in front of dignitaries was to show a contrite soul. The neck bearing the semblance of the will. The heart being the spirit. Until I can bend my will against the rule of my soul, my spirit cannot express itself.

Sometimes I feel like I’ve not just lost a battle but the whole war. Yet, I will still overcome. I’m too stubborn to summarily give up.

Standing at the door of retirement has dawned on my life. But first I think about the previous years.

I graduated from high school in 1969 and soon after realized I was at the beginning of a life of responsibility in the work-a-day world. I remember it well as I was on my first job in construction as a carpenter helper at the then new Weyerhaeuser Pulp Mill in Vanceboro, NC. Sitting out in the back of the site where the water filtration systems were being built, I looked over the dikes that would hold the water during the different stages of eventually being allowed back in the river thinking about how everyone I knew younger than I were going back to school that September day.

Eventually I was laid off from there later that fall and went to work at Hatteras Yacht Works in the Research and Development Department. Don’t think I was some boat designing wizard. I was the one who ground fiberglass, cut wood, sanded and painted. In the spring of 1970 I went to Castle Hayne, NC and went to work with Daniel’s Construction once again at the site for Diamond Shamrock. It would produce chromium for chrome plating. Unfortunately I left there that August to report for duty in the Army. September a year later after my revelation I was sitting one early morning in total darkness in Louisiana at a bus stop for the bus that would take me the last leg to Ft Polk. After graduation I moved on to Ft Sill, OK, the a short stay at Ft Jackson, SC. From there to Germany for nearly a year and a half of duty which while there I rose in rank to Spec 4 and had been before the E-5 board before leaving the service. My commanding officer tried to get me to re-enlist to attend Warrant Officer’s Flight Training and likely should have, but Vietnam was a sure tour for a pilot at the time, so I decided to go home.

I started back to work with Daniel’s Construction at the DuPont plant in Leland, across the river from Wilmington. Eventually I worked with Western-Southern Life Insurance Company as an agent. Didn’t take long to figure out that wasn’t for me, so a friend and I applied to work in the plant at DuPont. I was told only one in ten applicants were hired, but my friend and I both were hired. I lost 60 pounds the first six month I was there. From that you can imagine the rigor this job imposed on me. There was not an inch to pinch during the eight years I was there. Then God intervened in my life and I sold my house, quit my job, moved to Richlands and committed myself to preparing for ministry. I went to school for this for several years afterward while owning a business and then managing another business afterward. I began preaching and teaching during this time and became a deacon and care pastor to my own little flock of people. I played in a worship band for 25 years and eventually retired from that while I was managing a print shop and computer network at church. This burned me out and I had to walk away from it all. During this time I left the store I was working and went to work as an assistant manager of an Auto Zone, but was fired from there because, well, I’m opinionated as to how a business should be ran. I got my come uppance later when I found the manager that fired me was fired as well for mismanagement. That was what my complaint was about with him. I went to work with a bakery as a “bread man” rising to District Manager for the bakery within a year, even with having tried my hand at long haul tractor-trailer driver in the mean time. I left the bakery when Civil Service offered me a job at the Naval Hospital so I took it, losing a tremendous amount of income, but God assured me that I should take the job and he would restore all I would lose. And he did.

So now, twenty-four years later, I hear the call of retirement outside my door, but there are obstacles to overcome before I do. I will get over and or through this as I’m not a survivor. I’m an overcomer. I’m very well-trained in principles of overcoming. I have set my sight on the age of 65. If the United States can survive the next three years of this presidency I will retire with enough to live well without extra income. This will eliminate entirely the obstacles I have to overcome. I will no longer then have anyone demanding from me, job or otherwise.

Now, retirement knocks at my door. Before I had decades of work to look forward to. So, what do I have to look forward to now other than dying? Lots. I have Libby, I have a wonderful life. She and I have rededicated our lives to God and His service. We have places we want to travel to and visit the sites. I don’t want to sit still and become depressed. I want to utilized the tools I have collected over the decades of work and training I have gathered. I have value. Libby has value. Together we can give and then give some more. I would encourage everyone to never stop learning. Find your spiritual self and explore all the realms of life available to you. Learn from the past as much as you can. Sow seeds of yourself that others may reap in their lives the values they gain. It’s humanity’s necessity to pass itself along to others are coming up along behind us. Don’t let them walk aimlessly. Give them something to focus on. That’s what is there to look forward to for me. How about you?

I sit here listening to Enya. It’s Celtic music. Very soothing, settling the spirit and soul. My mind goes so many different directions all the time I find it good to bring my mind to a singular state for a moment.

It brings to mind the feeling I had when I lived in Germany, even though this music is not a German style. What this music does for me is makes me remember the lifestyle of the German people. Americans are way too driven going from one thing to another and another lacking satisfaction in the moment on their way to another lacking of satisfaction. Americans don’t savor the moment. Europeans seem to be as one who would stop in the moment, close their eyes, tilt their head back slightly and smell the air. They tend to not be hurried in life. Work is a necessity of life, but life itself is what is to be enjoyed. Not how to get that next advancement in a job.

I visited many places while I was there. Not with the typical GI’s or where they hung out to get drunk and cause trouble. I had three friends who were interested in the culture in as many aspects as we could muster during our tour there.

We would take a train to somewhere at least once a month and go somewhere. Ed Weeks was my roommate. He came from West Haven, Connecticut. He, Pops, Hochesang and I would hop a train and go to Nuremburg or Frankfurt mostly. Pops and Hochesang were both from Minnesota. Both of these cities were large and full of culture and history. One time we went on a tour of the Danube River, stopping off for lunch at a monastery. That was my first experience with black beer. It appeared to be coke with a head on it by looking at it. We took a train ride to Köln one weekend. We visited churches there for the most part. I’ve never seen so many gold clad icons in all my life.

Back to the Danube trip for a second. While on this tour we were also treated to a tour of a church that has a gold clad dome. My awe was the lower levels of this church, though. In those lower levels were torture chambers for trying people for supposed crimes. I could see why one would “confess” to crimes. There were the judgment seats behind wood slats turn on an angle so as to not be seen. Iron maidens, racks that a body could be stretched to separating bone from bone at the least. There were many more devices to extract confessions besides these two.

I also got an assignment for a long weekend when I first got to Germany as a chaperone for a large group of American High School students. The mission was to help keep them together during a trip to Paris, France. They were a great group of kids, but still I was only 20 myself. There was a lot of temptation, but surprisingly kept myself in order and enjoyed a great tour of the sites there.

But, I get away from my point of thought. That being the feeling where one can stop and gather thoughts. I found some of those thoughts to be much bigger than myself. I would, at times, get a vision of who I was and where my place was in all the earth. I found where I fit in. It was refreshing to know I fit in somewhere in the scheme of life. I felt as though I belonged where I was at the moment. I felt like I belonged in Germany so much so, to the point I felt I had lived there before. I felt at home there. I have no hesitation to answer the question of would I live there. My answer is yes. For the rest of my life on earth is my answer.

Of course I feel like Aurora, NC is home, but only to the extent in this life I know I grew up here, but I felt more at home in Germany. I could feel the history of the people who lived before now. That land has been the scene of peace, but still the foundation of two world wars. Many died on the lands covering from the ocean to the Russian borders. But still the people now seem more peaceable than here in America. Oh, it’s not to say there isn’t any unrest there. I did encounter a large protest one weekend when in Frankfurt, but my friends and I turned down a side street and avoided it. They were marching directly toward us. But overall I reiterate, Germans are a more friendly people than some credit them to be.

I’ve talked to Libby about it many times and she’s all for us going there as a Civil Service employee for a couple of years or so, but she doesn’t want to go there to live. She wants to be close enough to visit with her children. I can understand that. Still I told her we could come home occasionally. At the very least I want to visit there one more time for a couple of weeks.

I so want to recapture the feelings I’ve lost so many years ago. Perhaps I’m not meant to, but I teasingly glimpse them on occasion, so I know they are still there just out of my grasp. Still I reach out for them.