Nuzlocke Challenge

Sometime during my junior year of high school there was a momentous shift in my psyche. There's a moment like that for everyone - the realization of freedom when you hold your first driver's license, or the feeling of pride and responsibility at your first job. But my moment of epiphanic maturity was more unique - it was when I realized that I wanted to hang out with girls more than I wanted to play videogames. 

During freshman year of high school, kids quickly and justifiably came to call me "gameboy", as the machine was my only real friend. Even throughout middle school, my mother and I battled over the game system in a sort of nuclear arms race. I'd pretend like I was doing "homework", and she'd ground me and craftily hide the gameboy in increasingly obscure places. I in turn spared no effort in scouring the house and stealing it back - repeat ad nausem.

This was the weapon with which I saved worlds. And escaped from mine.

Sad? Perhaps. But honestly that impulse hasn't changed; it's just disguised and buried underneath layers of experience that tend to provide a fuller experience of life - like music, nature, or relationships. But the nerd inside hardly dormant - it only bides its time, awaits moments of weakness, and jumps out in random conversations. It's part of who I am, and - in case you can't tell - I relish that. While there have been drawbacks, videogames were a stepping-stone to much of the good in my life today. But that's a different story entirely, and is just a lame transition to the fact that I want to talk about Pokemon.

Solid relationship advice.

My Son Resembles Achilles

...and that's not even the crazy part. This is a record of my experience with a Ms. Brooke Bainbridge. Things started with one email and eventually escalated to defamation and police intervention. A tenuous line is walked here between laugh-out-loud hilarity (we were evidently married on Jupiter) and a kind of scary, sober sadness. I bolded some of the more...interesting bits, and put own comments in italicized brackets. The first email was sent this past June to my joshua@simplydance.us address, and was then forwarded straight to my personal email. Oh, I should probably say this beforehand: I had no idea who this girl was, and certainly never...well, you'll see.

Joshua,

Hello. During the Spring semester of 2008 I believe we sat together at Grove City College. 

I recently found your name and information over the internet.

Out of Control

Written August 15 2008, the summer after high school graduation.

So I recently went through the Dominican Republic and Haiti for two weeks. It wasn’t with any group or association, just my brother and a friend of his, Andy. We experienced much, and have a good many amazing stories for future campfires. I wrote everything down in a Moleskine journal. While there’s obviously a lot of stuff written in that journal, several entries each day, there is one entry in particular that I would trade all rest for. This is that entry, translated from my shorthand and edited to make sense. 

July 22nd, in our room, Hudson’s house, night

Wow. I really don’t know what to say. We did a bunch of things after I last wrote, playing with more kids, seeing stuff, but that’s not important. I have learned how to run. Or, walk, rather, as I’m too little to run. I’ll start with something my brother said. We started talking about some of our deeper questions of Christianity, and the question of scripture and its application came up. 

“How do I know that verse was meant for me, and not for the Israelites in their specific time and place? Then, why does it matter? Is scripture inherent anyways? Does the God who supposedly spoke it really speak it? Does he even really love me? …Does he even really exist? Does life have a purpose anyways?

…and now I’ve put myself alone on this island, questioning the existence of God and the nature of the universe.”

He said that tonight as an example of how he’s gone about questioning our faith in the past. Questioning and testing your beliefs is a vital part of making your faith your own, but...where does it lead? I do know this: if you pursue doubt for the sake of doubt, you find darkness. And that darkness has plagued me since I took my first steps toward Christ.

I call it the Catacombs, after the Greek myth of the Minotaur. King Minos of Crete had these catacombs he would push people into – an immense maze, impossible to comprehend and plunged in darkness. The maze was special – it always moved you towards its center. In the center was the Minotaur – death. The questions are the Catacombs. The first one “opens a door to a dark room” as Andy put it, and the rest, instead of showing you the way out, plunge you ever deeper into the darkness, into the maze where at the center is the complete rejection of God and salvation – the Minotaur, and death. 

These questions, the Catacombs, have a covert purpose: control. All my life I’ve tried to understand with my mind – the whys, the hows, etc. I read and watched all the theories, the explanations, all telling me the reasons I should or should not believe what I believe. And all of it, all the feeble grasps at understanding, are my attempts to control – to define, shorten, limit, package, and shelve away anything that ironically cannot be defined or limited. We’re attempting to fetter the unfetterable – God. What we don’t realize is what actually happens – in the reaching up to chain that which is above us, our strength fails. The chains fall back on us. We deceive ourselves into thinking that we have been freed by defining this element of spirituality, caging ourselves in the process. Really, we define ourselves by that control. It’s the core component of who we are. But I’ve got news for you – the Christian life is the most out of control and freefalling life there is. And yeah, that still scares the crap out of me, as it should you – if by nature we are controlling beings, then the idea of being out of control is contrary to our very self. But that is the secret – to Deny Self, in the words of John Piper. And the secret to that? Let go. - some people call it Faith. When I came to that realization, I said something out loud - 

“I’m coming to see that faith is as big a part of my Faith as anything else is.”

Say it out loud a few times and you’ll get the irony.

All my life I have heard people use the word “faith”. Everyone has. It’s always been some…THING vaguely related to God and stuff, something that I really couldn’t put in concrete terms. But on the trip we started talking about something using that same word, “faith”, but it was something so different that I didn’t connect it to what I had known all my life. The way we were talking it and living it was much more to do about God providing somewhere to sleep, something to eat in a country where people go for days without eating, and water to drink when we had nothing resembling a purifier. That the next thing you put in your mouth wouldn’t bring a parasite along with it. That the darkness of the voodoo drums in the mountains were less than the light that protected us. It was so immediate, so simple, so uncomplicatedly real, that tonight I made that ridiculous statement. 

And that was the key – I stopped thinking, stopped doubting, and stopped bloody using my stupid head, and just…trusted. Trusted God in the fact that we would always have something to eat, somewhere to sleep. And in the letting go of those concerns, instead of losing everything, I found it all. Losing control, that thing so desired and worked towards, actually put me in complete peace. 

It’s precisely like love – when you love someone, what do you do? Or perhaps, what don’t you do? You’d never ask “So do I really love her?”, “Why do I keep doing all these nice things anyways?”, or even “Isn’t this just a bunch of chemicals all mixed up weird?” No. You just…love. Thoughtless, uninvited, unquestioned, selfless love. 

So when you try to control, to make perfect sense of things, you think, and stop trusting, stop loving, and become chained again. I’m beginning to see a small piece of this enormous sadness. God must feel like this when he sees his creation shackled in such a way. I have this image in my mind, and it’s more of a feeling than a picture, so I’ll do my best. The image is this – a human, naked and free, running through fields of endless joy, all the while lying in the blissful happiness of God’s arms. Nothing, no thing can stop this sprint to and from God – the walls, the pits, and the giants in life are transparent shadows, laughingly passed through. When we doubt (or fear, or any other sin in this case), we stop running. We look around us, and instead of passing through them, we push against the walls, shiver as we peer down into the pits, and quail at the giants. We then do everything in our power to imagine a creative way to bypass the obstacles, maybe climb over the wall, build a bridge over the pit, or maybe single-handedly beat down the giants. All this when we shouldn’t even be looking at the problems! Our eyes should, and were created to be on God, powered by a triune battery of faith, hope, and love. Love has been my focus for a few years now, and I believe I understand a few morsels of it. Faith I have come to see clearer in these past few days…marked by my “I don’t see how faith fits in with love” remark the first day I was here. Hope, I still do not understand, but I have faith (hah) God will reveal its place to me. 

“Hope without Faith is powerless, and faith without hope is purposeless.”

- Andy, just after writing this when I asked him about hope. I had to think about it for awhile.

Here’s my weak attempt at working Faith, Hope, and Love together. You must have the faith to let go, falling into the unsurpassed love of the Father where you cannot help but love back, with a well-rooted and secure hope that keeps you in giddy anticipation of what comes next, like a kid at Christmas. 

The morning after I wrote all this, I had a weird feeling, and tried to identify it. It was precisely like I had a huge crush on some girl, a girl I’d definitely be seeing soon. You know what I mean - that weird, bubbly feeling where you almost vibrate with anticipation. Only then I realized that it wasn’t over any girl, it was over God. In realizing all that was written above, I found myself in direct, relational contact with God, beginning to fulfill the purpose of my humanity. I was (and am)…in the beginning stages of a loving relationship with my Creator, which made me…giddy. How hilarious is that?

Author's note, four years later: I consider this piece to be a sort of "Part 1" to what I'm sure will be a lifelong journey with God. I hold Beyond Doubt as "Part 2" to the thoughts begun here. 

Cave Adventure

Written 11/2007, for a High School AP English writing assignment.

Jeremy was home, and I was ecstatic. Even though he was only home for the weekend, I knew we’d be doing something crazy or illegal. Whenever someone asks me for a story, my mind always runs through one of the countless adventures the two of us have managed to find in our completely explored, suburbanized, and generally uninteresting America. Unfortunately, I am not allowed to recount the best of our stories, for reasons I’d best not say. I’m sure you can think up some good reasons for yourself. My brother and I have been best friends ever since our first adventure, which is, sadly, one of those stories that will remain unwritten. However, there was one completely legal adventure that we recently went on, and that one I’d be glad to tell.

One weekend, Jeremy swooped his way past our house, picked me up, and off we went. As usual, I knew nothing about our destination or goal. Now I'm sure most of you have been to a place like McConnell’s Mills - a place with lots of trees, paths, and creeks. Basically it’s where old people go to "enjoy nature", where dedicated runners go to train, and where those weird goth kids go to make out. Anyway, this place was our ultimate destination. Beforehand, Jay had been ominous as always, making me bring old clothes, buying a couple flashlights, and leaving a message on a friend's voicemail in case of "an emergency". After we parked in one of the higher parking lots, we started walking down some stairs, a usual routine for most tourists. I was rather annoyed, as I remembered several "character-building nature hikes" with my parents in that place, and said hikes were not what I imagined as an adventure. Just as I was starting to say this to Jeremy, he suddenly dashed off to the left, right along the rock face. He stopped in front of a odd split in the rock face and beckoned. Evidently there was a cave in this weird hole, and we were going to go inside and explore it. He walked inside the split, and pointed at the ground at the far wall. "It’s down there" he smirked. He was pointing at a hole the size of my foot. I didn’t believe him at first, but when I shined my flashlight through the hole, I could faintly see rocks, about ten to fifteen feet straight down. Being a lot smaller than Jeremy, I went in first.

I don’t know if any of you have ever done hardcore caving before, but in these kinds of caves you don’t get to stand up and walk around; it’s much more like a cycle of straining to get an inch of your body through a ridiculously small hole, resting, straining, resting, etc. In my opinion, the opening of the cave was one of the hardest parts - laying on your side, you had to inch your legs in first. Then you had swing them about ninety degrees to the left, almost like you were sitting, and madly stab about wall with your feet, looking for a toehold. Only once that was done could you begin to move your chest and shoulders through the hole, scrabbling for nonexistent handholds on the wall above you. During all of this, you had struggle not to impale yourself on a very long, hard, and pointy rock, which just happened to be put in the most inconvenient of places. Hopefully you managed to find a handhold somewhere, as without one you’d fall straight on some more rather pointy rocks directly below you, on the cave floor. Eventually, we squeezed though intact, and, finding absolutely no handholds to help us down, we both made the jump to the bottom without landing on anything inconvenient. There was virtually no light coming from the entrance of the cave, so at the bottom, we turned on our flashlights (which had caused us much pain in the process of entering the cave). 

We were in a long corridor about ten feet long, three feet wide, and twelve feet high. Directly in front of us, on a strangely natural rock platform, was a large candle that had obviously been used before. As we looked around, we realized there were candles everywhere - one in the wall to our left, one to our right, and even one in the ceiling. Footprints were everywhere in the mud floor, and none of them were from normal sneakers or boots. Just about then the wind picked up, and it made the cave sound with one of the spookiest howls I’ve ever heard - it really does sound like some sort of person, just like the fantasy books say. To our right was an absolutely enormous boulder. It was suspended about two to three feet off of the ground, creating a lovely little passage beneath it. Entering this passage, we noticed that the floor was sopping wet, with gray-green mud. Looking up, we saw that the underside of the boulder was mutilated by millions of small cracks, all of them dripping water. This water had condensed, and had thus formed stalactites, and stalagmites. Most of these connected straight to the floor, making an eerie stone forest. We squatted in the mud for a second, resting - only our hushed breathing and the fall of water droplets breaking the deafening silence of the cave. The floor began to slant upwards into the ceiling after about forty feet, so we looked for new passages. Jay saw another ridiculously small hole on our left, winding upwards, and up we went.

Squeezing ourselves up this hole was insanity. Jeremy’s chest is a lot thicker than mine, and once we were through the hole, he pulled up his shirt - his chest was covered with blood from the rocks. The room that we were in was a rough cube - about ten feet wide by six feet tall. There was a pool of water in the corner, and I helped wash a bit of Jeremy’s blood off with one of my socks. Once he stopped bleeding, we went back. There was a huge smear of blood on one side all the way up the hole. I stared at it for awhile, then sat down. Jeremy tried his cell...but no signal came through the rock. Though my flashlight was getting dim, I absentmindedly flicked it around the room. I froze - there was a sizable hole on the wall right next to us, and I quickly jumped over to investigate. By crouching slightly, we could practically walk upright in this hole. It lead straight to the ceiling of the first room, then ended at a hole - we could jump down, but the only way back to the rock pool was by the blood hole, as we called it. I turned around to go back, and immediately knocked over Jeremy’s flashlight - standing behind me, he had set it down temporarily while he took a few pictures. I fell down on my right knee, with the flashlight falling down through the hole onto the floor below, smashing into the rock with a painful crash. As I leaned against a rock to stand up, both of us realized that we were down to a single, dying flashlight, and both of us were injured in some way. The cave continued going in the opposite direction, but we had to get out. We jumped down (I landing quite painfully) from the opening onto the rock below, gathered up the pieces of the flashlight, and made to get out of the cave - past the stalactites, and past the candles. 

I still don’t know how either of us did it - there were only fingertip handholds, and the opening was far harder to access than before. I believe it had something to do with a base necessity that we had to get out, or we’d die. It was as simple as that. We struggled out, and, leaning against each other, stumbled up to the car. People stared at us like we were aliens or something - and I guess we must’ve looked pretty out of this world, streaked with mud and blood. I couldn’t help but smile at the irony of the situation - us with our matted hair, blood-spattered clothes, and exhausted bodies, compared to the tourists with their abercrombie shirts, digital cameras, and overhanging potbellies. We left then, drove back with a mix of euphoria and claustrophobia sweeping its way through our blood, and sure as heck never told mom about it. That’s the cave adventure with my brother, Jeremy.