Wake Up Dead Man

It was raining. I had sinned greatly. I walked on the sidewalk that ran along the river, puddles gathering at the sidewalk’s edge, brown with dirt and green with floating green leaves. The river was high because of the rain and ran swift in the middle, slowly by the banks.

I told God that I was sorry for what I had done. I said, I am sorry. I said, I hate myself. I said, Jesus without You I am nothing.

I wanted to be as far away from me as possible. I wanted to be as far away from my sin as possible, but I couldn’t push it from my mind. It hung with me, stayed by me, festered in me. My sin consumed me.

I was the problem.

Walking on the dark-gray sidewalk, I saw a cardinal. It was very red against the brown of the tree, the gray of the cloudy sky, and the murky brown of the river. Three steps further I saw two robins, hopping gaily, their rusty-colored chests full and bulging.

I am the problem, but I am not the solution. I saw the cardinal and thought of a U2 song I knew. It says, “Jesus, Jesus help me. I’m alone in this world.” I had sinned but I longed for purity. I wanted to be clean but I couldn’t wash the stain.

I told God, I am sorry. I told Him, I feel hopeless and alone.

I saw the cardinal, thought of the U2 song, which says, “Tell me the story, the one about eternity. And the way it’s all going to be.”

I saw the cardinal, thought of the song, and remembered Revelation 21. It says, “God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain.”

I told God, I can’t do this. I told Him, Save me. I told God, Make my heart soft, my love big, and my soul full of grace.

I said, God I need you because I am weak and you are strong.

The U2 song says, “Wake up, dead man.”

Ephesians 2 says, “You were dead in your trespasses.”

Ephesians 2 says, “But God . . . raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.”

It was raining, and I had sinned greatly. I felt like dying, and in my sin I had been dead. I sinned, and then repented. I sinned, and then repented. I cursed God and blessed Him. I committed adultery and then announced my faith. I was the greatest sinner but called myself a saint. I told people I followed a very great man, named Jesus, who was God, and that He saved me from myself. I told them that, but went home and sinned.

I saw the cardinal, the two robins, and then I saw two ducks, and three birds flying far away that I couldn’t identify.

I said, God, make me fly.

He said, “Those who wait for the Lord will gain new strength; they will mount up with wings like eagles. They will run and not get tired. They will walk and not become weary.”

I waited for the Lord. I waited on the sidewalk, by the river, in the rain, with the cardinal, under the gray clouds. I waited for Him and He came to me and said, “I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

On the Road: The Best Band the World

People say it’s like Almost Famous. You’re touring with a band? It’s like Almost Famous. I say that it is like Almost Famous but not.

In the fall in New England the leaves turn fiery orange and red in a way different from the Midwest, different from the South. The breeze is cool and soft and even can be cold so you wear a sweatshirt or at least a cardigan, and you wander through the streets of Northampton, Massachusetts and buy a cup of coffee.

I remember being in Northampton with Kit and Jessica. I remember getting to her house and Kit and I sitting on the couch, Kit opening a bottle of wine, at noon, and I returning an hour later to Kit asleep and then sitting on the couch and reading, and Kit waking and it Sunday and us watching football on the couch. I remember Jessica coming in with crackers and honey-crisp apple and cheese. I remember Kit sharing the good, red, Spanish wine with me. I remember how well the wine went with the cheese. I remember Jess making dinner for us. I remember sitting down with her and Kit and having a second glass of the Spanish wine. I remember trying to make them laugh and I remember saying things about nicknames that you’ll find out when you read the book.

I remember never having better hospitality.

I remember being called family.

It’s not like Almost Famous.

I don’t remember trying cocaine. I don’t remember bare breasts from groupies. I don’t remember night after night of drunkenness. I don’t remember eating grand meals or being waited upon.

I remember playing Barbies with Sophia and Adeline.

I remember eating pizza.

I remember staying at Tyrone Wells’ house and the beds made up for us throughout the house. I remember getting to his house and the cookies and snacks and breakfast the next morning.

I remember Boots and I taking the Subway to Manhattan and watching a movie. I remember Cousin and I laughing until we could not breathe properly. I remember Skunk and I eating sushi—I remember a few of these. I remember eating Pop-Tarts and drinking whole milk and crafting emails with Kit. I remember going to a concert with Sam for the concert and realizing quickly that being with Sam was far better then the concert.

I remember feeling alone in Montana.

In Carrboro.

In Southern California.

In Austin.

In New York.

I remember that when you are on the road you often feel alone and hollow, but it often isn’t a depressing sort of loneliness, more of a tired, exhausted loneliness. I remember the price you pay for being on the road. I remember the price you pay for the thrill of the road. I remember that a few times the feeling of being alone is very powerful and in the van you feel like you are the only one in the world.

I remember figuring out that my faith carries me. I remember discovering that I might life would have ended, undoubtedly, in suicide if it had not been for the grace of Jesus Christ. I remember seeing that loving Jesus leads to a deeper love for people. I remember that we love because He first loved us.

On the road, I remember the day-by-day growing sureness of my faith.

Drunk in New York, feeling like shit, I remember: my God still loves me.

I remember loving Stephen, and Jess, and Kit, and Boots, and Sam.

I remember loving them because Jesus loved them and I see His face in them.

I remember praying for them every day.

With love,
h

Arrogance Crumbling: Pine Cove

In East Texas, where the pines are tall and their scent lingers, where the air is humid and the sun hides none of its heat, there is a city called Tyler. Outside of Tyler is a camp that I grew up going to, where kids waterski and ride horses and play basketball and football and learn about God.

Having grown up going there, and knowing some people who had worked there, I had always imagined Pine Cove as this place of severe conservatism. The guy counselors must be clean-shaven, have short hair, can't show tattoos or have earrings; tattoos can't be shown by girl counselors, either, and more than two earrings on an ear is frowned upon. In the morning, we sing songs to America, about how wonderful she is. This is Texas: we love America, and we are conservative.

The notion, however, that Pine Cove was a conservative mecca was very false; even in my first week there, I saw that these people (the vast majority of them) were sincere in their pursuit of God. The notion, though, was completely shattered on a weekend night. It is night and dark, and the road is not wide. Two senior staffers are in the front seat, myself in the back. In an instant, appearing on the dark road, is an unnaturally large raccoon—we slam on the breaks and I yell, "FUCK!"

Haha.

At Pine Cove, I met so many amazing people who pushed me to new heights in love and in grace, in showing people love and grace. There are so many I am not going to name any—but they know who they are, and they know that even the smallest interactions on the skate park or during crud war or writing letters and finding them in your box or crying in an empty cabin or singing the bumblebee song or that damned raccoon or getting ice cream at Andy's or going to Starbucks or destroying campers in ping pong or going to Six Flags months later or roadtripping to Waco listening to Regina Spektor or singing God of Heaven come down—all of this meant so, so much, and I thank you for it.

Someone once told me, "I just know that it doesn't feel good to judge." His words have never rung so clear. At Pine Cove, people showed me this; they lived it. At Pine Cove, I walked into an evangelical camp with a hostile attitude. I was a prick. I told people I didn't have time for them and already had enough friends. It stings me now. Like David says, My sin is ever before me.

Thankfully, God gave me the grace to cool off a couple weeks in, and by the grace of God I was able to learn so many things. Yes, it feels so bad to judge—and why would you? Because you are insecure, and I am insecure. Everyone is a story and everyone just wants to be loved all day long—we are all the same. Everyone is on the same path, trying to answer the same question, so why judge? Most of all, Jesus loves them, and so should I.

With love,
h

Follow Suit: Forgiving Myself

March 2009—the light dances on the river, warping and falling into itself, shining with energetic movement. It is cold. But not too cold—my breath shows like smoke in the air while I watch the ballet of light and water. No one is with me. It is almost one in the morning and no one is in sight.

I do not have my iPod, which is rare; I do not have my phone, which is rarer. I have a book only. I sit on a bench and open the book to the gospel of Matthew, chapter 11, verses 28 through 30. I read the verses over and over again—my eyes scanning the words, then looking up, then scanning again.

In high school, sporadically, I struggled with depression. A few times it got fairly bad—suicidal thoughts, wondering why I'm here at all—late night drives listening to "Round Here" or "A Long December"—smoking cigarettes in an empty parking lot underneath the moon's pale and heatless light.

Still, even now, I feel the effects of night—I usually talk less; I retreat inward, reflecting on the day and on my shortcomings. Just recently, I was in the car with a friend at night—I was almost silent as we drove the dark streets, the snow crunching beneath the wheels. Why aren't you talking? she asked. It's making me nervous, she said. I make an excuse, but fail to tell her that with the beginning of the night the memories are dark and at night I feel most alone.

Finally I saw a counselor, talked to my parent's about it and a mentor and friend. A few weeks after my trip to Nigeria, I saw this counselor. I saw Angie five times. While there, I discovered the root of my depression, the foundation—an inability to cope with my own sin. To people, I said, Yes I am forgiven by Jesus. But to myself I said, You will never be good enough.

At the river, by the moving water, with the book in my hand, I simply chose to realize that if God loves me, I should. I forgave myself.

Though some describe me as a romantic, I was never one for instant changes, for magical moments, for single points in time that alter everything after. And maybe it's a safe thing to assume that doesn't happen, but that night by the river—it did.

I prayed to God over and over, Let me do this, let me accept Your love. I prayed, I forgive myself it is all right I am okay if You say that I am. I prayed and freedom rushed over my body like a river—rushed over my whole being, my soul, my body, my heart. Freedom and a desire to love others because only now was I beginning to see that I am loved deeper than the ocean, and that other people need that love too.

A verse in 1st John says, We love because He first loved us. In my head, I always knew what that was supposed to mean, but only now is its true meaning seeping into my heart.

With love,
h

Alone in the Heartland: Iowa City

Driving west on I-80, the land is flat and gas stations with convenience stores pop up every few miles, with cheap coffee and energy drinks and that aisle with the chips on one side and candy on the other, then hats of the universities nearby—Wisconsin, Illinois, Minnesota, Michigan; you'll get all of those if it's one of the bigger stores.

And then you exit for Iowa City. A curling river divides the city in two, the landscape rising and then falling at the river's banks, not flat like the land off the interstate and not barren but trees growing and old houses with professors. In the winter, the snow everywhere, piled white but gray on the roads and sidewalks and in the alleys, but white on the grass and on the limbs of the tree, white where it is natural for snow to be.

The first month of college is spent trying, very quickly, to find friends—or, people to hang out with. You find people to be with and after another month you shed them, because you found your real friends, and they found their real friends, too. That's how it went for me, mostly, except that instead of looking my friends I watched Alias and fell in love again with Jennifer Garner. Those times weren't joyful—rather, lonely. A fog is cast over the first few months I had in Iowa City—like a hermit, I shunned everyone.

But soon, God worked, as He always does. I met Josh. I met Michael. I met the Monroes and I met people like Tiffany and Jeremy and Joshua. I met these people, or God had us meet, but still it was hard, because I was reluctant, as people are, to open my heart, reluctant to be vulnerable and let people in. But slowly, the Spirit opened me up.

God put me in a church, gave me not friends but family. He stifled the depression that had started to creep in. He gave me a community—and in that community I began to develop, as a seed in soil grows from something small into something very large. I learned so many things about me in this community—ironic, almost, how one must grow in knowledge of self in a community.

I started to let myself go.

And I learned things in Iowa City during the fall of 2008—
-On weekends, I need at least one night without a social event.
-Jennifer Garner holds a good portion of my heart.
-My life can be shit, but it's all right, because God is God.
-After a week of 2-degree weather, 20 is balmy.
-A band from Massachusetts' music is changing not only the way I feel, not only the way I think, but the way I live.
-I like smoking cigarettes with homeless people on Halloween.
-I'm not too hot with the ladies.
-I am where I belong.
-I actually do like supreme pizza.

With love,
h

Love Through Fire: Nigeria

Red dirt, and smiles bright against dark skin, people in t-shirts and flip-flops from ten-years past, driving cars twenty-years past, the red-dirt streets flooded with people, people with no job, nothing to do, just looking here and there and idly standing, not even a cigarette or book to pass time—and then going to the poor areas where enormous vats of water and yeast brew together, fermenting, all for alcohol, the substance—when ready—poured into gourd shells, and then into mouths and then in veins and taking over the mind, thousands and hundreds of thousands of flies swarming around the vats and on the men's faces—all of it so alarming your heart has retreated into itself and you can't feel anything at all.

I was 18 years old when I went to Nigeria, just becoming a young man, like a peach when it is moments from being ripe. Days after graduation, I boarded a plane to this African country, this Nigeria, with only Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" to guide me. Nigeria, a foreign world, a world you could look at and see only sadness, because people are hungry, and don't have jobs. But then you look again and there are more smiles than here in America, more laughs—especially among the followers of Christ in Nigeria. In the fifth verso of John Newton's "Amazing Grace", I find what these people have—

"And when this flesh and heart shall fail,
And mortal life shall cease,
I shall possess within the veil,
A life of joy and peace."

I have nothing that they lack. In truth, they have something I am without—a joy and peace that is founded on confidence and hope. They wear this joy and peace on their smile. In their laugh.

I saw awful things, to be sure, like the things I first described, all of which are true and real and happening right now. I saw pain and sickness that had only before existed in pictures; I saw children's stomachs bloated with hunger and blind women with stubs for fingers and toes, people living in shacks smaller than our closets eating what we wouldn't feed our dogs. All of it, the pain, searing my heart. Turned me against America, against myself even—why aren't Americans, at least people in North Dallas, doing anything about this pain? Why am I not doing anything? It isn't fair and I am participating in this injustice. The truth is, there are people helping, many people. As much as you might not like him, George W. Bush gave millions of dollars to help fight AIDS in Africa, and I saw the fruit of that grace with my own two eyes. One example of many.

Nigeria spurred my heart to action, to a stronger love that lives practically and sees real opportunities to love people in real ways. Nigeria wiped away the notion that money buys Joy. Money may buy happiness, but it does not buy Joy. The Christians in Nigeria showed me what real Joy looks like, how real Peace acts, and the amazing things that Grace through Jesus Christ can accomplish.

With love,
h

Realizing Jesus: Humble Wisdom

Every morning, or nearly every morning, I wake up and think to myself—I can do this, I can take on this day, by myself, you know? I don't need your help, or anyone's help at all. I can handle it. But, if I am honest, I couldn't be more wrong. I am arrogant to think that I can even do anything on my own, prideful to believe I am where I am because of me, wrong in trusting myself too much.

There are only a few things that I know are universally true for myself: I get lonely; I want to be known and loved anyways; I am weak, unable to go through life alone; the world is fucked up; and I need to be forgiven, made new or something, because there is this unending guilt in my heart that I can't shake—can't shake on my own.

I wouldn't say that I'm a particularly brave person, courageous or anything like that, but I am the sort of person that sees a problem and wants it fixed. Naturally, I've tried many, many things to solve the problems I just listed above (also, notice that the things I listed were all negative, basically. It's a wondrous thing how we often remember the things we want to forget, dwell on the negative while there is so much beauty in the world)—I've gone to women when I feel lonely; I've worked hard and diligently to get people's praise and attention, their approval; I've read books and gone to counseling and immersed myself in music and lived on the road and looked to my family and been stone-cold drunk. But none of it has satisfied me for longer than a brief and passing moment. I try and or have tried all of these, and—at some point or another—have always ended up feeling like shit.

But, by the grace of God, I have come to a knowledge and faith in Jesus. Life is fleeting, temporary, but Jesus is eternal (John 8:58). I feel lonely, but I am not (Matthew 28:20). I am tired, burdened by this guilt and fear and pain, but Jesus carries me (Matthew 11:28). I want to be known and loved anyways, and YHWH does just that (Hosea 2:19). I must be forgiven, and I am (1st John 1:9).

I cite scripture because it is the eternal and unwavering truth, revealing God's perfect character, and without it we would have no reference point for what is right and wrong, true and untrue, beautiful and evil. I believe that. I believe that God is love. Though I have to make the decision over and over, I trust and love and have faith in Jesus, because He has changed me and saved me, cured me from the deepest disease in my soul. Jesus loves me, and has demonstrated His love. Jesus takes me up to Heaven, because there is no tower that is high enough, and my life is far from pure enough to be in God's presence without Christ's intervention. This decision—to follow Jesus—is the decision by which all else in my life hinges upon.

With love,
h

Introducing Hunter Sharpless

In a conservative city, with safety all around me, I grew up in a world absent of conflict like divorce, a close death or sickness of a friend; I did well in school without trying too hard, performed well in athletics, didn't drink or smoke pot or shoot heroine, went to church on my own accord—Dallas, Texas, a private school and a good family.

When you grow up like this, and you are wired introspectively like I am, high school becomes a time of self-examination, self-searching, and self-critique. WIthout any terribly external conflict, I turned inward and found conflict in my own heart. I wouldn't say I grew up quickly, or matured quickly, but I would say, without a doubt, that I came to know myself quickly, more quickly than others.

But I don't want to spend my time here, so I will say only a little about high school—it was a time of great growth in my faith and many poor, sinful decisions. It was a time spent focusing on that sin, dwelling on it, not forgiving myself of it, which led to depression—an awful thing for a person to go through who has as many deep emotions as I do.

Since graduation, though, in May 2008, several decisions and several experiences has drastically changed me into who I am now—into the man I am now, an entirely different being than the boy named Hunter in high school. Those decisions and experiences are listed below, and will be discussed in the shortly forthcoming posts—

—Realizing Jesus: Humble Wisdom
—Love Through Fire: Nigeria
—Alone in the Heartland: Iowa City
—Follow: Forgiving Myself
—Arrogance Crumbling: Pine Cove
—On the Road: The Best Band in the World
—Failure, Success: I Am Not Alone

With love,
h