#wildfiercefree

I posted this photo on instagram and that was the final sentence in the caption. These days man...

I looked at myself a few days ago, in the mirror that's by the front door, and I did not recognize the man in the reflection. Especially because I can't recall when it was that I actually became that man I saw looking–tired–back at me. When did the facial hair start coming in? When did I start shaving and wearing John Deer ball caps? What's with the safety yellow hoodie and well worn carharts? I truly never meant to be this kind of man. But I've been in the trades just about as long as I've been working and I've definitely established myself as a working man. I wear the clothes, not as a costume (like I see a lot of other guys my age do) but as necessity required by the work I do. I fought against the wardrobe for a bit. Tried to minimize how much I dressed like a tradesman because it felt inaccurate to who I was–to who I am. But after five years of welding, framing, digging, and building is it not who I am? I'm obviously not not a worker. I have more claim to these tools, clothes, and titles than some of these boys my age who wear it all like a uniform because it's how they feel like a man. But I ain't the people I've worked for and alongside either. They speak the language of a working man with pride: "I can talk like a man. Can you?"

Big Sky

Big Horizons

Tall Celestial Monuments

Big Vision Obstructed

Tall Tales not yet Untrue

Big Promises

If All Else Fails

You Know I Stayed True

C.S. Lewis came to me in those books and held his hand out. In his hand -in the notion of Narnia- was something (don't ask me what, because I don't know why a rose is pretty, it just is) that resonated so deeply in my heart that the reverberations have yet to stop and I have yet to look at those books and movies and not feel like I am in the wrong world and living the wrong life. He held his hand out and said, "You like that? It's pretty freaking dope huh? (C.S. Lewis would totally talk like that) Guess what? It's fake" Then promptly pulls back his hand and goes away. It's like taking candy away from a baby. Who does that?

The Screwtape Letters was alright, I guess. It was interesting and didn't rip out the only heart I have. I'm only human and I'm reminded that this world is not my own. How can I fight and find when everything is lost and found? How can I be what I need when what I feel isn’t real?

This is a hard letter to start. This is my seventh attempt.

You have a good life kid and God is good. Even when you’re not.

I know things are hard and frankly it never gets easier. But your shoulders get broader and your heart gets stronger; even when it feels like it’s about break. You are who I am and you are why I am. Day in and day out you stuck it through and kept me alive.

Keep playing Handwritten, Trench and Perception in that Walkman of yours. Cry yourself to sleep wishing someone felt the same. Go through the motions even if feels insufficient. That day you dug Dad’s guitar out of the garage and played it until the strings broke, that changed my life. When you wrote those lyrics with Logan, you started something that has yet to see an end. Your struggles with school brought you to the place where you met Jerrold and Paul and the one and only love of your life.

Your life changes and it’s rarely fast. You don’t notice the miles you’ve walked and the inches you’ve grown until you look behind you every once in a while. People will come and people will go whether you like it or not but it is the hand of God that provides what you need and takes away what will kill you. I know you struggle with that last bit.

I do too.

But the pain comes like a wave. It knocks you over and pins you down under the current. It’s easy, in the moment, to feel like you won’t be able to come up for air soon enough. But you learned from the real life waves in Southern California that fighting it wouldn’t help. So when they took you under, you didn’t struggle, and just when you felt like you couldn’t hold your breath any longer, the current would pass and you’d rise to the surface. Even in those dark years, God was holding your hand and teaching you. Was it not in Huntington Beach that you gave your life to Jesus? I know it gets darker when we reach 5th grade but it’s clear to me now. Thelesa said a couple of months ago “the darkness brings the light” and you fell asleep the song that said “I know there’s someone out there who feels just like I feel and I know they’re waiting up, just waiting to heal”

And you’ve been holding your breath. I get that. Waiting for something amazing to happen. It’s already happening, man. We think that when something amazing comes along it’s like “bang! In your face, wow!” But each day you grow a little more. Each day you make it out alive. Each day you chase down those things that call to your heart and set you on fire.

Sam… God has heard, and He’s doing it now. Your life is something amazing. But you have to live it to get it.

Yours truly.

Sam.

I’m not one to really write poetry either. Lyrics, sure. But not poetry to be read in words.

Yet here I am.

I came across this vomit of words I made a little over a month ago and I feel it’s something I should share.

I can’t shake this feeling like

I was made for another time.

I can’t shake this feeling that

I was born for another place.

Like the stories that I hear

And I’m fighting with growing up

Because I’m not fine with growing old

Because I ain’t a man just yet

And I can’t try and pretend

Not the way the gentle did

Because I’m loyal to a fault

But everything I do betrays

And portrays that boy

And I feel so little

Caught up in the cold

And her grasp

And I don’t want to write a book about it

And I don’t want to forget about it

And I don’t want to say it’s nothing

When it’s everything that eats me up

How can I fight and find

When everything is lost and found

How can I be what I need

When what I feel isn’t real

And I know what he meant

But I need that place

I’m sure there’s a few who would agree

If they knew what I mean

But I need urgency

Grit speaking softly

And the bite of a tongue

I search the pages of literature,

I listen carefully to many,

many

Men.

And I am convinced that these desires are universal, a clue into masculinity itself. They may be misplaced, forgotten, or misdirected,

but at the heart of every man is a desperate desire for a battle to fight,

An adventure to live,

And a beauty to love.

John Eldridge, Wild at Heart