West Coast a dreaming...
Yeah, I know...What else can I do? The Army decided to send me to school.
Coming of Age
When the storms come along, most people run inside the comfort and security of their homes. As a child, I thought like a child. I stepped outside and gazed. I never knew why, but I loved the storms. I simply allowed the cold rain to penetrate my soul. As a man, I think like a man, and I’m starting to understand. The true beauty of nature is contrasted in the messy, wicked, dynamic and hostile nature of the storm. The marvelous breath of God flows along. I cannot run away. I am drawn. I step outside.
When the winds brew over the Monterey Bay, everything unravels. The quiet tranquillest spins out of control. Sands spews across the beach, seagulls fight to maintain their form, sailboats sputter back and forth, and the waves crash along the shore. Zooming deep inside the periphery of the surface is another never-ending chaos. As the wave crests and slams back into the ocean, thousands of sea-creatures, plants, and organisms absorb the shock. It is neither right nor wrong; it is neither good nor bad. While most run to the safety of shelter, I am magnetically drawn to the sea. I have to stand in the chaos and absorb the Messiah’s wonder. It is who I am. In the midst of the turmoil, I am centered. For a moment, everything makes sense.
It is part of the cycle of life- the yen and yang that ebbs and flows.
Sometimes, the storm rages with Allah’s fury; sometimes, tsunamis and hurricanes form ravishing the land and consuming life. Yet, eventually they dissipate. The sun will rise the next morning, the damage assessed, recovery in process, and life moves on.
It is what it is.
I was never supposed to go into the Army. I was early acceptance to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Duke considered me to wrestle for them. Although I was merely a product of the North Carolina public education system, I thought that one only went into the Army if one could not get accepted into college. It was the1990’s: the Clinton years, the boom of Microsoft, and the Peace Dividend in the wake of the Cold War. I was supposed to go to study business, join the fraternity, marry the sorority girl, earn an MBA, join the country club, and work my way through the social network of the good ole boy’s club until I was living on the eighteenth hole. This path was all too taken; it was all too calm.
Instead, I moved to the storm. I did not know it at the time, but I was being drawn to Zaganiyah. “I chose the path less taken. It made all the difference” (Frost). This misnomer is common about those that serve. We are not deprived; most of my boys had more degrees than me. We choose to serve, and we have no regrets. We are proud. For a moment, we become the man in the arena.
As with the natural condition of mankind, over time we swell with the pride of nationalism, disdain for our neighbors, or coveting of another’s property. In those times, we make war. From the secret jealousy of Cain to the collective madness of Hitler’s Germany, we murder one or millions. This decision is reached regardless of the state of modernity, industrialization, democracy, or rationalization- it is part of the cycle of life. John Locke’s social contract becomes void.
We enter a state of compartmentalized psychosis, and it can only be resolved by the sword.
It is what it is.
Zaganiyah reached this Break Point. After years of suffering diminished their humanity, the Sunnis of Zaganiyah turned on their brothers, the neighbors, and themselves. They banished some, occupied their homes, stole their belongings, and farmed their farms sending the produce across Iraq and into Jordan for profit. With others, they brought their children to the town square and cheered as the severed heads were displayed. They gave thanks to Allah for their victory. They gloated in their moment.
Once again, I stepped outside into the storm. I would not run away from the sound of a gun. My boys would follow. As with the witch doctors of old, I recognized this diagnosis was fatal. I would bleed it out. It nearly cost me my soul.
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