Christmas "1973"

Merry Christmas to All and to ALL a Christ seeking life!

Christmas is a time for parties with family and friends, a time for shopping, a time for baking, a time to hear the Christmas story again about God becoming man. December is busy and so hectic many can hardly think. But among us are those who will spend Christmas alone, no money for shopping, no home made cookies, and no church service! The busy Inn meets the alley! The question is, if God knocks on the back door of your busy Inn, will you answer the door?

Everyone has defining moments in there lives. Moments that impact us and change us in ways unforeseen. Christmas of 1973 was one of those moments that defined me in ways I never really could grasp ahold of and in ways I never wanted to talk about. Throughout our lives we have wonderful moments inside our busy Inn's among family and friends, and we also have gut wrenching moments when we feel totally alone in the dark stable out back in the alley's of our lives. Its been forty years ago this Christmas that I spent time in hell in my own alley of life. Gut wrenching loneliness was all I felt. Christmas of 73 and the couple years before took from me the most important part of my spirit and soul. My ability to love and trust! Don't get me wrong, I love people and people love me, but surrendering myself to feel intimate love and unwavering trust just is so difficult for me. I've cried billions of tears and buried my feelings and tried to think my way through life. I don't want to end my life running and thinking, I want to be honest, open, and caring! That's why the therapist. She's a Godly woman who has had a huge impact on me! She's another lamp post shining a light on my path, for I was blind and she helps me see! I realize now, forty years later something or someone stepped beside me and inside me and slowly started to change me into the man I am today. It definitely hasn't been easy and the journey has been rough at times with many detours but now I surrender all to the one who found me in this very dark alley so long ago. While I lie in that dark corner of my own man made stable in the alley, I heard a whisper, I felt a hand, I met my Lord!

After high school I spent a year at Staples Area Vo Tech and then moved to the big city of Minneapolis to work in a factory. Brother Lyle had purchased a house and brother David and I moved in. Party Time! Well working in a factory with no windows and lots of oil, dirt, and fumes was torment for me. I lived for 4:00 P.M. each day so I could get the hell out of there. Come Friday after work it was back to partying. Why? I'd seen the ravages of what alcohol can do, I'd seen and felt the pain of alcohol abuse, yet it drew me in. Stupid? Yes! Ignorant? You Bet! Bury my Burden's? I Suppose! But those are just excuses, and I really can't answer the question why, and you'll need to ask my siblings how they each handled this difficult addiction that haunted our family and in many ways it still does. Hiding from deep struggles is poison to the soul!

It was on one of my week end trips back north to hang out and party that I met my first wife. I was 21 and she was 18. Young, stupid, and naïve. Immediately I knew I was in trouble. I couldn't keep up with partying and working and then other men started to get involved. I fought to stay in control and things just got worse. I found I couldn't trust anyone and life was drawing me inward. In October of 1973 my brother David got married and I didn't attend the wedding, I was to busy lost inside myself. In November I turned 24 and then it was "Christmas of 73"!

Christmas has been difficult ever since. Difficult because of what we make of it and difficult in my way of trying to change it! I've had some wonderful times and true joy being a dad and grandpa at Christmas. I'm so looking forward to being with my kids this Christmas and give and receive the best gift of all, love and time shared together. For six or seven years I was the Santa at Incarnation Catholic church the first Sunday of December. I held many kids and heard lots of little wishes and some crazy ones. But one little boy I will never forget. He sat on my lap and all he wanted was his dad to come back home. I was and still am crushed by a child's pain. I just held him close and whispered how much God loves him, that he was special and one of a kind in God's eyes. He smiled and nodded his head. Christmas can be difficult!

 The Christmas season starts earlier every year. Shopping, planning, parties. The real meaning of Christmas is often lost in our busyness and stress. I believe if we shopped less, partied less, spent less, and focused more everyday on being the hands and feet to a hurting world, simple joy would explode inside and the true meaning of Christmas would shine through. Its about faith becoming more than words, its taking action and being involved in Kingdom making. Living out our faith not only on Sunday, but everyday. Helping a neighbor, providing meals, giving a ride, and just being aware of our calling, to be the Lord's man's and feet. The holidays will be very lonely and difficult for many people. I've wrote about church on the inside vs people on the outside. There really is a disconnect on Christmas Eve, many go inside to worship and then go home to warmth and togetherness. Many others will be locked outside in their own prison and handcuffed to anger and pain or literally be locked outside in the cold, either way many will experience Christmas Eve alone. I wonder what it would be like to gather together with friends and family and our kids, share our own Christmas thoughts and listen to our kids thoughts on Christmas, share a simple meal, make home-made cookies and along with candy canes go out to nursing homes and shelters to spread some hope, joy, and love. Heck, just walk down the street with a smile and a cookie and wish others Merry Christmas. To spend this special day serving instead of receiving. To spend it walking instead of talking. 40 years ago it wouldn't have mattered if batman, superman, or Sam-I-am would have knocked on my door. That feeling of complete loneliness haunts me to this very day! Now with some hesitancy, nervousness, and shame I'd like to take you to my Christmas of 73! I'm not the only one to experience deep struggles and brokenness, but so many just bury it inside and let it fester and poison their lives. Anger, abuse, depression and confusion, etc. I've felt the poison of burying struggles and not talking, and I pray this blog is a sort of medicine and healing! For myself and maybe you!

Forty years ago!

Christmas of 73 was on a Tuesday so I had a four day week end starting with Saturday. I walked in Friday after work and no one was around. There had been many difficult times previous to this in my marriage so I felt alone and unable to call or talk to anyone, especially my family. It was cold, dark, and snowy. Sleeping was impossible and alcohol and weed helped. Saturday seemed like Friday and Sunday didn't happen because each day ran into each other. Monday was Christmas Eve and like many this year who will find themselves in their lonely alley, I had no inkling to what Christmas Eve was really about. Alone, drinking, high, exhausted, I went mad and started to smash everything in the apartment. Dishes, furniture, her clothes, everything. I think I passed out sometime during the night and I remember waking up to a huge mess. Christmas Day of 73, Alone and Lost! I'm not sure what happened then, I suppose I stayed high all week. New Year's eve was the same, alone and the weather outside was 20 degrees below zero. Again I stayed in my smashed apartment and drank, smoked, and just tried to survive, or maybe this was the turning point in my not wanting to survive! For most of my life I have ran from my 20's because of issues like this. This is only one chapter out of a book of many chapters. I ended up a couple months later in the psych ward at North Memorial Hospital in Minneapolis. More about that later.

Christmas of 2013 is upon us. Its been 40 years ago that I was totally lost and alone but something happened that night inside me, I didn't recognize it then, but a small flicker of a flame that would grow into this burning fire and start to devour me. I think God put my soul in his/her furnace and started the fire to purify and cleanse me. Its taken 40 years and I still feel the flame burning inside me. I am anything other than purified, the potter is still molding and gently making me. No one is pure, we all are hunks of coal hoping to become diamonds. In heaven there is no coal! In a short time after Christmas of 73 I was emptied of all self worth and I was broken and tried to end my hell on earth. Then I surrendered and Christ started to repair me. But surrendering has been a huge problem for me because it requires trust and love, the two things that haunt me. I ran, I avoided, I said go to hell God! But like a good Father, he keep pursuing me until I finally started to come around! Its never been easy surrendering, at times God and I still wrestle on the ground. I'm stubborn but God's unconditional! For me the Lord is unconditional love but also he/she wants unconditional surrender. That's damn hard, and Christ knows it. When I have detoured from my calling, like the awesome Father he is, he loves me and jerks me to attention by letting me make a mess of things. I've caused pain to others and have lost dear friends because of my stubbornness! Like the Prodigal son my Lord forgives and meets me with open arms. With each journey I surrender more and I see what is really important to my Lord. Our Lord bypassed the busy Inn and went straight to the alley, for when we are inside our lives with work, family, friends, church, meals, drinks, parties, we have no time to surrender. Its in our alley's that God becomes alive and surrendering is easier. Sickness, death, loss, loneliness, that's when God is needed and felt. We all have dark alley's, and Christ is ready to step in and help! But how? How does this happen? How does God become alive for us when we are in our alley? Through his children. ME and YOU! The Lord was born, lived, and died so we can LIVE! We are called to Love the world, not judge it. We are to do the walking and let God do the talking! Don't be afraid of dying, be afraid of NOT living! Remain "Forever Young" in spirit and this Christmas Eve pray about where God wants you to be. Its Ok to be comfortable, warm, enjoying life with family and friends, but know that our Busy Inn's have a back door and if you hear a knock, answer it, it may change your life and save someone else's!

I'm forever here for all of you in any way I can. If you know of someone alone and hurting this Christmas, use a gentle hand, a quite voice, and reach out with love. No words will be necessary, God will do all the talking! Trust Me!

Blessings upon you and your loved ones this Christmas, Love Darrell    Hermano Joe