The Edge of a Knife; The Turn of the Tide

"But this I will say to you: your quest stands upon the edge of a knife. Stray but a little and it will fail, to the ruin of all. Yet hope remains while all the Company is true." The Lady Galadriel, spoken to the fellowship in Lothlorien after Gandalf fell.

"Be merry! We meet again. At the turn of the tide. The great storm is coming, but the tide has turned." Gandalf, spoken to Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli in Fangorn forest.

I've been here before. No, I've been near here before. I've had moments when I knew I was in the middle of something significant about who I am, and who I am to become. I don't know if I've ever had this kind of clarity. At the risk of sounding overly dramatic, to fail this time (which would not be the first) feels as though it would be far more costly, cause far more ruin. While it feels much like the "edge of a knife", I also sense that the tide has turned. The storm that is coming is the battle which will decide if the reign and rule of Christ, the Kingdom of Heaven, will guide and direct my heart and life, or if I will continue my miserable reign. The first battle is food. While this battle looks as overwhelming at times as looking out at 20,000 orcs from the walls of Helm's Deep, I realize that it is just the first battle, and that the gates of Mordor await.

The Kingdom is breaking through in spots, like little beams of light cracking through darkness. Light has broken through in the way I lead worship. While I love and play the music of Charlie Hall, Chris Tomlin and David Crowder, I no longer try to be like them and sound like them, instead our band's sound is authentic to who I am and who we are. I understand more than at any other time that I can recall that the path of wisdom lies before me, and I can choose it.

My close friend Soulreavers referred a friend of his to my blog. After she commented on a post of mine, I checked out her blog and found lots of poetry. This poem asked some amazing questions about identity. I'm beginning to realize that alot of who I am is false. I don't mean that I'm intentionally hiding a secret identity (actually, aren't we all hiding a secret identity, who we really are, on some level?), I do mean that some of what I claim as "that's just my personality type" or "that's just the way I operate" is actually not true at all. Most of the time when I fail it is because I was simply too lazy or too scared or too prideful to do what I should, but I might excuse it by saying "I'm just the scattered disorganized artist kind of guy".

I'm not that kind of guy. Today, as I watched my son, I also spent the day cleaning and organizing our bedroom/office, the living room with all his toys, and did some work in his room. You ask, you did this with a 17 month old? Oh yeah, he was all over mattresses being thrown off of beds, daddy climbing on stools, toys being thrown all over the floor to sort through them. (I waited until he napped to take said toys to garage) A few weeks back I completely reorganized our closet. Make no mistake, doing this greatly pleased and helped my wife, and I love making her happy. However, sitting here typing at our clean and organized desk after watching election returns in our clean and organized living room makes me happy. I'm actually wired with a desire to have things right. To keep things "in order", things like my relationships, my music, my writing, my body, and yes, our house.

I would say something like "I'm getting control of my life", but the thing is, I've always had control. I've just chosen to eat unhealthily, more accurately, I've chosen to overeat unhealthily. I've chosen to not call people back, to watch TV instead of taking care of business, to leave something in the floor instead of putting it back where it belongs. Listen, I've met people who are authentically not the detail oriented type person, I'm not trying to suggest that's not a bonafide personality type. I'm just saying that's not me, just a place I hide.

The storm is coming, but the tide has turned. Now, I have people who deserve a phone call from me. Not only do they deserve it, I want to call them, but will I?