Chapter 06: Sleeping with the Enemy

The ten of us students flew in silence on our way back to Dallas. We were happy, but tired. For six months we had been living with people we didn’t know, in a culture we didn’t understand. Not only that, but we were taking a course that seemed impossible. We had seen the attack of 9/11, but hadn’t seen family since then (video chat still didn’t exist at the time). In the weeks following the attack many of us wondered how we were going to get home, or if we would ever see it again. Those thoughts were still fresh in our mind as we were flying home.

The plane banked right on its final approach, bringing the city into perfect view. Seeing our home for the first time in months made it real. All us students pointed to the windows in excitement.

“There’s downtown!” one shouted.

“My house is over there!” called another.

The plane leveled, and we all felt the surge in our stomachs as we dropped toward the ground. A few short moments more and we felt the thump of the tires on the runway. We were home! We could no longer contain ourselves. Seatbelts flew off, and we all jumped in the air cheering. The pilot kindly reminded us that the plane was still moving and asked us to take our seats. We complied and bridled our excitement until the plane pulled up to the terminal.

My family met me at the airport, and we were all excited to see each other. We loaded into the car and started on our way home. We stopped at a restaurant to eat and talk about the trip. As we were ordering, my mom pointed to another table where the family was talking in Spanish.

“Can you understand what they’re saying?” she asked.

“Yeah, they’re talking about what they’re going to order. He’s on a diet.”

“Wow! That’s so cool!”

Everyone else joined in and started asking questions as well. Not only at the restaurant, but for weeks that followed. I appreciated feeling like they were interested. I expected this level of excitement to continue to grow over time. However, it died shortly after I returned. All except for my mom — my eternal cheerleader.

My father seemed concerned about some of the changes that he’d seen in me. He started asking me critical questions about what I did when I was down there. No doubt he noticed that my world view was broader than before. I was more accepting of everyone, but he seemed to fear that my morals were slipping. Within a few months of my return, he’d engaged dad-helicopter mode again.

“Come to my office. I want to talk to you.” He instructed.

My dad worked from home. Years ago he had converted a room in the back of the house to an office. Most of the time when he wanted to talk to me, he would come to my room and chat — even if it was a correctional conversation. But if he wanted to say something and didn’t want Mom to overhear, he would ask me to go to his office. Was there something he didn’t want Mom to hear? Why were we going to his office to talk?

I followed him in silence. These moments made the hallway seem a mile long. We finally got to the back of the house, and he collected his thoughts in silence. I was at a disadvantage, because he gave me no context nor time to prepare. It didn’t feel like a conversation. It felt like a strategic attack, and I was on the losing side.

“So you’re dating a Mexican?” he asked.

“Yes sir.” I didn’t know where this conversation was going. He had a goal, and I didn’t know what it was.

“Is she catholic?” he asked.

My face burned red with anger.

Was he assuming that all Mexicans are catholic? Why can’t people approach others with open minds?

I kept my thoughts to myself. Still, a better question could have been something like “what is her relationship with God?”

“What’s wrong with Catholics?” I asked. I didn’t really want to know. I wanted him to think about the fact that he was attacking a group of people.

He wasn’t fazed. “The Bible says not to be unequally yoked with an unbeliever.” It seemed like he was telling me to leave my girlfriend over religious differences. I wasn’t ready to make a change that impacted the life of someone else based on one person’s opinion – even if that person was my dad.

Then he dropped the dad-hammer: “when you’re in my house, you will follow my rules.”

I remembered this phrase. He’d used it a few times before as I was growing up. In the past he’d even talked about throwing me out on the street if I didn’t obey. It didn’t bother me much because I figured he was using it as an illustration. Though a small part of me wondered if it was true.

In those days it felt like everyone was attacking me, and my dad was no exception. He was trying his best to guide me, but it felt like he was questioning my decisions at every turn. What I didn’t realize at the time is that this is leadership. You make the best decisions you can, based on the available information. Then people criticize your decisions. Critics can help you see things from an angle you didn’t see before, but they’re not your enemy.

Instead of getting angry or getting in a fight, you can thank them for their opinion. You can tell them that you heard them, and you’re going to continue with the plans you made. Staying the course may have consequences, but as a leader you’re prepared to accept them.

If my dad had started the conversation by asking me about my goals, then I would have felt like he was trying to help me. Instead, it seemed more about him than about me. Sitting there, I remembered when he told me that I was the legacy that he would leave on the world. It felt like he was trying to squish me into the shape he wanted others to see, but that shape didn’t fit me. We batted the conversation back and forth like two cats playing ping-pong. Most of my responses were attempts to not get yelled at or judged.

The way he was talking to me was more abrasive than I was used to. It was clear to me that he didn’t like my world view, didn’t like my girlfriend, and didn’t like her religion. Now I feared that all this was coming to a head. If there was ever a time that he was going to kick me out on the street, this was it.

“If you’re going to live in my house, you have to follow my rules. If you don’t, then you’re no longer considered a member of my family.”

This is it. I thought. I’m being kicked out on the street.

“You’re still welcome here, but you will be treated like a guest and expected to act like one.”

Well, it happened. Dad is kicking me out on the street.

I went to my room and started packing things up. There wasn’t much to pack. I’d already been trying to reduce my footprint, so I’d been packing things in boxes. Plus, things had been getting more tense with my dad in general, so I feared this day might come.

One thing was fortunate. I had a job, and had bought my own car. So I wouldn’t have to walk around looking for work, or sleep on a park bench. I was still going to need to find a place to shower, but that wouldn’t be too hard.

I started loading things into my car. As I carried boxes through the living room I saw Mom and Dad sitting on the couch. She asked some questions about why I was leaving, which filled me with a mixture of hurt and anger.

Why hadn’t Dad told her?

I loaded up the last box and stopped to say goodbye. My dad looked sullen, and my mom was crying. I still didn’t understand why things had to go the way they did.

“I’d encourage you to think about this” my dad said without getting up off the couch.

I assumed he meant our conversation from earlier.

Think about what?

I thought to myself.

How much I’ve disappointed you?

How much of a failure I am?

I didn’t know what else to say. It seemed clear that he didn’t want Mom to know what was going on, and I wanted to respect him. I told them goodbye, and I left.

In my mind, my dad had disowned me. That’s not actually what happened, though. Today my dad and I have a great relationship. I’m even staying at his house while I write this. You don’t disown and then re-own a son. So what happened?

I asked him, and he told me that when I was leaving, he said

“I’d encourage you to reconsider.”

That’s a bit different from the words that I heard. Which phrase did he say? He probably said the words that I heard but didn’t mean them in the way that I felt them. Some 20 years later we sat down in his office again, but this time to talk about what happened.

“I don’t know where you got the idea that I kicked you out” he told me. “I wanted very much for you to stay here.”

I smiled. By this time, I was aware of how much he cared for me. In the end, all he wants is to do the right thing, but it’s not always clear what the right thing is.

“What did you say, then?” I asked him.

“I’ve written it all down in my journal, but it’s too painful to read right now. I’d share it with you, but right now I can’t bear to open it.”

“Painful?” I leaned closer in empathy.

“I had a lot going on. Not just you. Problems at work and with the family. It was a difficult time.”

“Well, I know you meant the best. I just wonder what caused the confusion. I remember feeling like you were trying to control me, and I wanted to make my own decisions.”

“I probably was a little. I’ve learned a lot since then.”

The best I can do to resolve this situation is think about spiders. If you watch a video about spiders crawling around, and you get an itch on the back of your neck, you KNOW it’s a spider. You don’t THINK you have a spider on you, you’re certain there’s a spider on your neck. It takes all your concentration to accept that something else could cause the itch. Your neck has itched thousands of times in your life and none (or very few) of them have been spiders. Yet in this instance you’re convinced it’s a spider, because you are currently watching one.

My dad isn’t the kind of person to kick people out. He has kicked zero members out of his household. His father never kicked anyone out of the family. No one at my dad’s church reported kicking out a kid. No one at my dad’s work reported kicking their kids out. Almost any answer is more likely than “my dad kicked me out.”

The problem is that I had experienced some hostility from my father. I was staring right at the metaphorical spider. When this tension happened, I felt confident that my fears were valid. I was being kicked out. This was my reality, and it would have taken direct action from my father to change it. Unfortunately, he wasn’t in any condition to do so at the time.

Reality is a funny thing. Imagine you’re going on a road trip, and you don’t want to take your house key. You leave it under a rock in the garden, and on the trip you feel secure knowing there is a key under that rock. Now suppose that on Tuesday at noon, I remove the key from under the rock. You don’t necessarily feel a wave of inconsolable insecurity. In your reality there is still a key under the rock, so you continue to feel secure.

Now consider that I did NOT remove the key, but someone tells you that I did. Your sense of security is weakened. You may believe that the key is gone, or you may be unsure of whether the key is still there or not. Your previous security is gone, yet nothing in the world changed. The only change was in your mind.

In my mind I no longer had a home or a family. This was my reality. Although I had no physical evidence to back it up, I was convinced of it.

There is a fascinating simple solution to this issue. Chris Voss talks about it in his book “Never Split the Difference.” He calls it listening as a martial art. Repeat what you heard (mirror). If it’s still unclear, then change the words (reframe) to cause the speaker to clarify.

Example:

“What do you want me to do?”

“I want you to leave home.”

“You want me to leave home?”

“Yes.”

Sometimes the speaker will hear their own words and clarify. Sometimes they’ll even change what they said. Most of the time you’ll get a simple “yes” back, and that’s ok. Sometimes the speaker will be unclear or ambiguous, and reframing can help.

Example:

“What do you want me to do?”

“I want you to find a place where you’re happy.”

“You want me to find a place where I’m happy?”

“Yes.”

“It sounds like you’re asking me to leave home.”

“I’m not saying that. If you can be happy here, then please stay.”

Back when I was leaving home, I didn’t clarify what my dad was saying. I felt certain that I was being kicked out, and that was my reality. I didn’t consider other options. In my mind-world, I had no family and no home.

I called friends, found a place to stay for a while until I got my feet under me. Soon I got an apartment and held a good enough job. I liked a lot of the things about my job. All except for the distance. I drove between forty-five minutes and one hour to get to work every day. I didn’t enjoy the traffic or the boredom, but there was something about the monotony that was soothing. Every day I passed the same trees, the same river.

My evenings had a pretty stable routine. I would get home, make dinner and clean house. Then I would set out everything for the next day. I was a morning person, so waking up in the morning and doing everything then wouldn’t have been a problem. Still, I enjoyed having a certain amount of reliability to my schedule. Somehow I was afraid that one morning I might wake up late and not be able to make it to work on time. So I would set out all my clothes, my things for my shower in the morning, things to shave, and things for brushing my teeth. Everything I needed for my morning routine was in place for me when I would wake up.

Every Thursday at 7:00 PM I would call my girlfriend in Mexico. We had to schedule the calls because they were expensive. I loved hearing her voice. She answered with a hushed whisper “hola amor”. Something about that made me feel calm. I felt loved and cherished. No one had ever used a “amor” or “love” to refer to me before. I enjoy thinking back to that time and remembering the soothing embrace of her words.

The rest of the days I would hurt. If you’ve experienced it then you know what I mean, and if you haven’t, I’m not sure if you can understand. I would cook dinner and cry the whole time. Years earlier a prophet told me that God would use me in a mighty way. Yet here I am estranged from family, working a dead-end job, living alone, and sobbing in silence. Instead of a guide to others, I was a miserable failure. This might not have been reality, but it was reality to me. It hurt.

Things got to the point where I couldn’t make it through the night anymore. My girlfriend was great, but the distance hurt. The drive to and from work hurt. Coming home to an empty house hurt. I saw many happy people in the world, but when I did the things that they did, it made me feel sad.

Convinced that I would never be happy, I added another part to my routine. Every night I would bring a knife with me to bed in case I didn’t have the strength to make it through the night. Most nights I would get on my knees with my head planted on the floor, and I would talk to God.

“God, I don’t know if I can make it through tonight. Everything hurts so bad. I know you’re there, but I don’t understand what’s going on, and I don’t know why I hurt so badly.”

I would ask God to talk to me. Somehow help me make sense of everything going on.

[Expand, perhaps]

I had a friend named Blake Scroggins. He was a Baptist preacher. He wasn’t my preacher, and I didn’t attend his church. I was just friends with him and he enjoyed talking about philosophy with me. He was a little annoying, because most of the time the only reason he wanted to talk was so that he could prove a point. It was still valueable to listen to him, however, because he made good points.

One of those days he told me that God never talks to anyone.

“God doesn’t talk to people, because he’s already said everything that needs to be said,” referring to the Bible.

I thought about the concept for a bit “ok, but what about this…”

“Nope.” He cut me off. “The Bible says that it’s the perfect word of God. If it’s perfect, then it doesn’t need anything added to it. It’s perfect.”

I wanted to get him to budge just a little. “Ok, so if God ever said something to me, then it would be the same thing I already found in the Bible?”

He frowned at me. He didn’t like the idea that God would ever speak, but he had no way to prove that God wouldn’t ever actually speak. “Ok. I’ll agree that IF God ever said something today, it would be something he’d already said in the past.”

While I didn’t like this notion that God doesn’t talk to people, I had to admit there was some value in it. Could I have done more to listen to God? Those days on my knees I was desperate for him to talk to me. However, I didn’t often open my Bible. I kinda read a little, but if I really wanted God’s answer, I could have read the Bible three times a year. Instead, I wanted God to meet me where I was at.

Whether you’re a Christian or not, this can help. If you’re relying on someone or something to help you, then you have to actively listen. Not just sit around and be quiet waiting for an answer. Active listening is when you repeat back what you’ve already heard so that the person speaking can hear how it sounded. And how can you repeat it back if you haven’t heard it in the first place?

After a few months of hurting and not understanding what I felt or what to do about it, I decided I had enough. I packed up everything I owned into boxes and put labels on them to send them to family and friends. That river that I always drove past had a hole in the guardrail. I’d heard that nobody ever survives a car crashing into a river, and I was going to make that happen.

I sat down at the computer to shut it down and pack it up, and a message came up from my good friend Josiah.

Hey, man. How are you doing?

Not good

Do you want to tell me about it?

Nope

Ok. Then I'll tell you.

What?

I was praying, and I started having a vision. I saw you with your head in water. You were drowning.

I don't know what you're going through, but I believe that God wanted me to talk to you.

Yeah. I'm not sure I can go on living.

Call this lady. She can help you. Her and her husband have a small church and they help people who are going through hard stuff.

I took out my flip phone and called the number on the screen. I expected to get the answering machine. As the phone rang, I was trying to figure out what I would leave as a voicemail. The pastor startled me by answering within a few rings.

“Hello?”

“Um… Hi. A friend of mine told me to call you” I said. Not really knowing how to have this conversation.

“What’s going on?”

“Well, I don’t know. I don’t really have anything else to live for.”

“Why don’t you come over and we’ll talk about it?” She sounded very confident. It felt like she already knew what the answer was, and right now answers were what I needed.

“Ok, when can I come over.”

“Right now is fine.”

I agreed, and she gave me directions to get to her house. I didn’t unpack anything. I just got my keys and drove to her house. I was so excited to have a hint of hope that I completely forgot all my pain.

Debbie and her husband Mark sat across from me. They were in cloth armchairs like you might see in the living room. Which makes sense because it was their living room. They both held their Bible in their hands and had a coffee beside them.

Mark was a great listener. He would repeat back what I said, and give me a chance to rephrase it if necessary. It helped to hear the words from him. He also did something called framing, which I learned about later in life. He would use phrases like “it seems that you were confused.” This helped me see how my story sounded to him and adjust if necessary.

Debbie wasn’t as great of a listener. She sat quietly and let me say my piece. I wouldn’t get a lot out before she would interrupt. She already knew the answer to my problems, and I was happy to listen. Something about her confidence helped me believe that she really did know what to do and I would be ok if I listened to her.

We spent hours together and they covered a myriad of spiritual concepts. They tried to cast demons out of me, but none came out. They talked about soul ties. They talked about identity.

The demon stuff was interesting to me. They called some guy over to the house to help cast out demons. Then they had me stand up and there was some kind of a cross, or Bible involved. They prayed over me, putting their hands on my head and back. They put a bucket by my feet and said that a lot of times when the demons come out, they make you throw up. I stood there and let them pray over me. I stared into the bucket wondering if I was going to throw up. After about 30 minutes, absolutely nothing changed. Everybody was tired though.

So we all sat down. The bucket guy left. And Mark and Debbie talked to me more about these spiritual concepts in the Bible.

They explained to me that you can have soul ties that link you to another person. These soul ties can make you feel awful – especially if the other person is going through things as well, or if they’re demon possessed. We spent about an hour talking about soul ties and renouncing any soul ties I might have had. I still didn’t feel different, so perhaps I didn’t have soul ties either.

Next, they went over spiritual attachment. They explained to me that you can have a spirit attached to you that can cause unpleasant things to happen in your life. These objectionable things could be that you feel unhealthy because bad vibes are around you. It could be that evil people are drawn to you like rapists, thieves, or even murderers. Essentially, there’s a spirit that’s following you around that is causing the same types of spirits in other people to be drawn to you.

We did a bunch of work on spiritual attachment and determined that there was none. So we are zero for three.

None of these spiritual solutions worked for me, or even helped me. I’m not convinced that these things are… things. However, it was still a useful experience. There are some things to consider.

How can I make sure I don’t get one of these things? The Bible says in Matthew 7 that we will know evil people by what they produce. We don’t always need a shaman, aura detector, or other specialized equipment to know people. If people are helping other people and generally producing character that you want in your life, then it’s worth your attention.

I’m not talking about money, houses, cars, or anything in the monetary and physical realm. I’m talking about character. Good people will produce good people. They will train, educate, help, love, and care for others.

The majority of people in life who have brought me down are people who would show me money and cars and other types of physical success. The people who have had the greatest positive impact on my life have always introduced me to other people. They have been people who produce people who care for and build up others.

A person characterized by bitter envy isn’t likely to have your best interest at heart. If a person is always talking about the selfish projects or goals that they’re working on, then you’re not necessarily a priority to them. But if a person is honest, patient and caring then they will be able to help you. At the very least they can teach patience and sincerity by example.

For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice. But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. Peacemakers who sow in peace reap a harvest of righteousness.James 3:16-18

When I’m talking to people, I imagine that I have two name tags with me. If they are a person who talks all the time about helping people and finding peace, then they get the “mentor” name tag. If they talk about their selfish ambitions or if they talk negatively about other people, then they get the “trainee” name tag.

We need mentors in our life. They don’t have to believe everything that we believe. If they did, then they wouldn’t be a mentor they would be a peer. We also need trainees in our life, but you don’t let them tell you how to flip a burger. Instead, you tell them.

They’ve proven that cat purring can help the healing process. It doesn’t matter what kind of cat. Kitty cat, lion, or tiger. They all produce healing in humans. Does this mean you have to have a cat? No. However, there are chants and frequencies that you can play in your home that can help with healing.

[drop in research]

I meditate, I listen to chants, and I play special frequencies when I’m working or reading. These things are beneficial and can help my mind on a proven physiological level.

[more research — Jay Shetty]

The Bloomers finally started reading Bible passages to me. These passages were very helpful. One of them was.

I know the plans I have for you. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you hope and a future.Jeremiah 29:11

This passage gave me hope. I imagined that God had some kind of a book of plans up there and that he had good plans for my future. This thinking recharged me and gave me a lot of positive energy. Also, reading the Bible in general started to change my life for the better.

Inspired by this great hope of some future that God had planned for me, I started going back to church and reading my Bible. More importantly, I stopped taking a knife to bed every night. I saw the potential for a future and

I wanted everyone else to know

.

Today, that same passage puts a little bit of an unpleasant taste in my mouth. I’m slowly getting used to it, but a lot of people have used it in ways that I believe are not the best. God has plans to give us hope and a future. That’s nice. What about God-following people who are killed in tornadoes? What about hungry and orphans? What of people who believe in God and try to follow him?

I do believe that that scripture is a good scripture. I believe that the Bloomers were right in sharing that scripture with me. However, it wasn’t the whole picture. The notion that God has good feelings or good aspirations for your life is not enough to keep you from all the negativity the world has to offer.

Christianity isn’t about you being happy or sad. In fact, Christianity isn’t about

you

at all. Jesus came to provide a way for you to spend eternity with God after you die. If you don’t want to do that, then Christianity isn’t for you. However, I can’t think of any other place I would pick to spend eternity after I die.

One of the things that distinguishes Christianity from other religions is that it’s not affected by merit. God’s mission is to draw all people to him, and he does so by loving them unconditionally. Jesus loved you before you ever did anything good. For many of us, he loved us while we were doing immoral things. The Bible says that when you accept his gift, your name is written in the reservation book in heaven for when you die.

Once you’ve gained access to God, it would make sense for him to kill you right there so that you could spend the rest of eternity with him. After all, heaven is supposed to be paradise. Instead, he leaves you here to live out the rest of your life in an imperfect and often frustrating world. Why is that?

God leaves you here with the mission to share the good news with others. Not the bad news that you’re a bad person, by the way – Jesus loved amoral people. The plans that God has for you aren’t necessarily to give you a Mercedes or a million dollars. His plan is for you to share the good news with people, and then join him in heaven. If you die, whether in a tornado or of old age, then his plan is complete.

So, you see, Jeremiah 29:11 does have some value, but not the self-serving kind. God has plans for you, and if those plans are for you to die tomorrow, then so be it. You have your name written in the reservation book in heaven, so who cares?

To the astute reader who is saying “but Jeremiah was written before Jesus” I agree with you. This verse was written to a specific group of people and doesn’t necessarily carry forward to apply to everyone who opens the Bible. However, it does represent the nature of God, and we can still accept that his character stands. He still has a purpose for those who follow him.

[---]

Unfortunately, I didn’t learn that concept until years later. In those days I was still listening to it through the lens of my own selfish ambition. I was thinking that God having a purpose for me meant that I was going to have success everywhere. I sort-of expected clear guidance from his overhead speaker in the clouds. Nothing changed for me, and I wasn’t feeling success or happiness. I felt like the scripture was invalid, and I felt like I had misplaced my hope. My sadness was settling in again as a permanent house guest.

At that time, President Bush junior was doing everything he could to manage a chaos unlike our nation had seen in years. We were attempting to manage international terrorism, and since we didn’t have a nation to pin it on, declared war on “Terror”. I didn’t know what was going on, but I did know that people were going overseas, fighting and dying.

I lost the momentum I had initially gained from Jeremiah 29:11. I wasn’t seeing more hope in my life, and I was starting another downward spiral. I’d been given hope many times in my life. Earlier in the book I told you about a prophet who spoke into my life. Now Mark and Debbie Bloomer did the same. However, the hope they gave was like lighting a match. It burned with an intense heat for a while, but soon died out leaving me with charred wood in my hands.

I had an idea. I would sign up for the military, get sent overseas, and die in the line of duty. We were losing soldiers every month. That means that next month, people were going to die. If someone must die, why can’t it be me? I have nothing to live for, so at least let me die for my country. It wasn’t exactly suicide. I saw it as an exchange. Since someone WILL DIE, let it be me – I don’t mind. They may have a family and children, but I have nothing to live for. I’ll get out there and do everything I can, but if someone is going to die, then it might as well be someone who doesn’t matter.