Dodd Perfect Loss

A Different Kind of Happiness
1. Auflage 2010
ISBN: 978-1-4835-5832-5
Verlag: BookBaby
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 286 Seiten

This colorful memoir takes us on the journey of a man whose hunger and desire for life could not be ignored, resisted, or denied. Author, Chip Dodd gives us an intimate look into the moments that compelled him to return to who he was by realizing whose he was.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Dodd, Chip

Leseproben

CHAPTER

ONE

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BLESSED ARE THE POOR IN SPIRIT, FOR THEIRS IS THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN.

When I was eight years old and in the third grade, I woke up one Sunday morning before others in my family. At the time I was also awake to wanting to be near to God in some way. I don’t remember if I dressed first or went first to my parents’ bedroom to get my mother to ask her if she would take me to church. She put on her housecoat and drove me down Maymont Drive, out Clark Boulevard to Tennessee Boulevard, and within minutes I was walking up the large set of concrete steps. I barely remember being in the building at all. I do remember leaving the service, stepping into the bright sunlight outside one of the three large white double doors. Mr. Batey greeted me with a white, kind smile and told me I had on a fine-looking tie. He bent at the waist, reaching down to shake my hand as I headed out with everyone else back down eight wide concrete steps.

The church was a traditional building; red brick, white doors, large stained glass windows. The windows, though, were a solid color, not stain-glassed stories because the denomination considered holiness somehow to be about a lack of adornment. They did not understand beauty or loveliness or magnificence or creativity. I guess they figured we would be distracted away from God by creativity.

Down the steps and across the street was the home of the president of Middle Tennessee State College. From that spot home to my house, the street was lined with campus buildings and grass on one side and classic bungalows and homes from the 1940s on the other. Then, the late 50’s and early 60’s houses started being built as the town grew. Going the other way from the church half a block went to East Main Street, which ran to the square past some of the grandest houses in the world. In the summertime, the sound of cicadas and tree frogs, the aroma of tree leaves, and even the scent of houses decaying were all somehow comforting. It would awaken longings in me that people have when home, summer sounds and smells, like when life’s history becomes a nostalgia that we can feel.

The tie I had on was my favorite clip-on, a gold yellow and red paisley worn with my white button-down, short-sleeve shirt, followed by my church pants, and church shoes. Church shoes were hard-soled and dark; shoes you can’t run well in.

As I walked on the sidewalk toward home, I remember the shade of mulberry trees covering the sidewalk. The sound of the mulberries that had dropped from the trees popping under my shoes sounded good. I remember shade and sun painting the yards and sidewalk, grackles making their scratchy cawing, and a warm summer morning with just a few clouds in the blue sky. All of the colors were sharp. I liked God a whole lot, maybe even loved Him, felt close to Him, wanted to be with Him. I believed. Somehow I just knew. I went on down Tennessee Boulevard, crossed Clark as Tennessee curved, turned right on Maymont, and walked along the curb to my home. I felt good, just good. It was like that feeling you get when you know somebody likes who you are, so you smile a little, but you’re embarrassed all at the same time.

Another time, very close to Christmas Eve, I stepped out of the back seat of our car at home pretty late one night. Time on a clock meant nothing. Dark a long time meant something. Before I went in the house, I looked up at the stars. The sky was covered with them, like cold twinkling lights. One of them must have been very, very bright a long time ago, shining the way for the Wise Men and shepherds. I knew it was so, my heart just knew. And it was also kind of lonely in an okay sort of way.

Every year at my elementary school we had a spaghetti supper, followed by games set up at booths in the gymnasium. We had a ball. It was a fundraiser, which I didn’t really think about. I just wanted to buy tickets to do the contest in order to win the trinkets. What a magical celebration. People would bring things from home to donate as prizes or we could win pencils, erasers, or key chains with the school logo. In my opinion, key chains were only meant to be decorations. I did not have keys. My parents had keys.

The duck-floating game with the numbers on the bottom of the ducks caught my eye. On the top shelf were the best prizes. I saw the picture of Jesus, the one in Gethsemane where He looked to God for help, but God wouldn’t give it because He wanted to help us through His Son, so He couldn’t. I wanted that picture. I knew Jesus was alive still, and I wanted to be near Him. I liked Him a lot. He cared. I could tell by His face. He also hurt. God liked Him, too. I played, and I won the picture.

When we all left the spaghetti supper, my paper sack of prizes in hand, I tripped off the sidewalk just outside the cafeteria and fell into the grass in the dark. My sack landed on the edge of the concrete. I heard glass crack, and I knew it was my picture that I had won from the top shelf. I looked when we got in the car and the crack went three ways; I cried and nobody knew why. The picture disappeared somewhere later. I guessed that they didn’t fix glass during that time. The broken glass meant the picture was ruined. I had no idea where I would put it. I just wanted to be near whatever it all meant.

God was like cool green fescue, and He could paint with colors like blue and yellow. He loved the sounds of meadowlarks in spring and fall, rolling thunder, rain, and laughter. He knew the sounds of birds’ wings that fly over in flocks and the spicy taste of persimmons. He liked sparrows and pumpkins, our feelings and the sun, baseball and His son. He was crazy about His son; they talked all of the time. God sent Him to tell us all about these things that He liked, and we killed Him for it. I did not understand that part yet. I do now. I’m still sad about it. I’m glad, too.

We all know somewhere in our hearts that life as we know it is not like it was made to be—that there is more to life than the reality we see. Jesus came into this tragedy of survival and brokenness to reconcile our hearts and life to a great God who has greatness for us. He gives us reconciliation, redemption, recreation, restoration, and repair here on earth and final fulfillment and repair later on in heaven. He makes us fully alive to ourselves, to Him, and to others again.

When we get older we forget to believe; we get rid of the heart, subordinating ourselves to survival, rather than living in surrender to God. I did, anyway. And I know someone else who did. I pushed the truth of me, God, and others away and forgot as reality overwhelmed the truth. Reality overcomes the truth until the truth overwhelms us again, if we are blessed by desperation for it again.

There is no way back to childhood, and no one created by God would wish truly to become a child of earth again. There is no way back, but there is a way through to believing fully. We become children of God Who shows us the truth that overwhelms reality every time.

As I say, I pushed truth away, and I know someone else who did, too. Actually, I have known hundreds and hundreds who have.

There was a young girl in Israel a long time ago whose heart, dreams, hopes, and hurts were just like every other child. Sometimes in the quiet of the early morning, she saw the sun rise, casting shades and shadows beautifully across her surroundings. She heard the sparrows close to her window. She became excited and frightened in the noise of the marketplace. And during the cold nights of winter, she longed for warmth. She chased whirlwinds that picked up leaves and dust, then watched them spin about and disappear. She hummed a song in her heart of love, hope, and creation, believing life’s dreams come true. She hungered for her father’s comfort and for her mother’s care, and she believed with hope. She cried out in the dark and reached for goodness. She was not ashamed to be in need.

Jesus said of children, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” (Matthew 19:14) Another time his own disciples asked Jesus, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” (Matthew 18:1) He called a little child and had the child stand among them. And He said, “‘I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.’” (Matthew 18:2-4)

Jesus spoke of the children, not because they were good, but because they were still living human truth. Children cannot not hide their neediness, their tears, their fears, their joys, and they live in surrender of the possession and expression of their hearts. Jesus calls neediness and reaching out from our neediness faith.

The girl mentioned above also heard and saw things that made her heart slip backwards and close in silent isolation. When her heart went numb to truth, she lost her way, and became everything no child dreams to become. Even her beauty became a doorway to despair and contempt. She became contemptuous of her neediness and she lost the...