Part 3: The Odd Man

Up and up I clambered, falling and clawing my way at times as I stumbled on. How far down this path had I gone? It didn’t seem like I had been walking for long before I had tried to turn back and run into the lady in red but now the white light peeking through the rocks seemed much more distant than I thought it should have.  It didn’t matter though, my desire to reach that voice as great as my desire to escape the lady in red, the former pulling me forward, the latter pushing me on. My legs grew tired, lungs screaming, breathing came in heavy ragged gasps.  Each step was a battle against my physical body which just wanted to turn back and follow the path downwards and my heart which drove me on towards that voice.  It struck me that I was the only one fighting the flow, going back up hill, towards the voice. Had no one else heard it? Was I imagining it? No, certainly not, not this many times. How could anyone who heard that voice not turn immediately and go towards it? Was I the only one who could hear it? I realized it didn’t matter, if no one else wanted to fight to reach her, the woman whose voice I heard, if no one could be bothered to turn and put the effort in, they were unworthy of her. 

Elation filled me as I finally could see the end in sight. The rock wall loomed large, the path that I had started on just a few steps ahead on the left, only a handful of people in front of me. Physical weariness drained out of me, new energy rushed in. I broke free of the crowd in a burst, only to be stopped short again.

In front of me was probably one of the oddest sights I have ever witnessed, but oddly, it didn’t strike me as odd.  Directly at the junction of the 3 paths stood a man juggling. This by itself wasn’t too out of the ordinary, except for how he was dressed. On his head was a goalie mask, he wore a football jersey pulled tight over shoulder pads, baseball pants and soccer shin guards and cleats, completing the hodge-podge outfit.  I was so shocked by this strange fashion statement that I didn’t notice the odd man had quit juggling and was now looking at me, holding a cell phone in one hand and basketball under the other arm. Wait…hadn’t he just been juggling? Where did the basketball and phone come from?

“Hey there buddy, where you going in such a hurry? Did you see the stats from last night’s game? Man Mr. X played huge! Hahahahahaha! You have to see this video on Facespace! Sooo hilarious! Hey, that reminds me, we need another guy for the match tonight, you want to play?” My mind raced trying to keep up with everything, the odd guy seemed to be able to speak faster than my brain could process. If that wasn’t distracting enough every time I blinked his outfit appeared to change, the hockey helmet became a lacrosse helmet, the cleats became skates, the football jersey became camouflage.  “Hey, where are you gonna hunt this year? We should go scouting! Or better yet, let’s learn how to ice climb!” The outfit now was a full down thermal suit, climbing harness and a helmet, ice picks dangling from his wrists. 

Even with all this distraction I couldn’t help but glance over his shoulder to where the voice was coming from. In the midst of his ADD ranting the odd man must have noticed this glance and quickly jumped back in.

“Oh, you’ve heard the voice have you?” Finally! Someone else who knew about the voice! I wanted to ask him a million questions, but before I could even open my mouth his began speaking as fast as his outfit changed (it was now a full 3 piece business suit, except with a pair of basketball sneakers on his feet, eye black smeared on his face). “Yeah, sure it’s tempting but why rush? You can go find her later, the big game is on tonight! You don’t want to miss it, Mr. Z is gonna torch those guys! Plus the commercials! Those are always hilarious!  And the new season of BlahBlahs starts tomorrow at 8/7 central, followed by the premier of the highly acclaimed ‘Game Show That Makes You Do Ridiculous Things’! And then the night after that we have a big match up against our long time rivals! We need you to be there! We can’t win without you! After that, maybe some time next week…oh wait, next week is no good either, busy busy! Maybe next month, or better yet, let’s just put that on hold for a year! She’ll still be there in a year, but now is the time to have some fun!”

“Travis” The voice called again, softly, yet insistent, snapping my attention back to the present. I realized I had been just standing there, staring blankly at the odd man. How long had I wasted being distracted? I could have been moving towards her this whole time instead of listening to this bogus ranting! I quickly tried to utter an apology to excuse  myself and skirted around him and continued towards the rock wall. 

“Wait! How about a quick game of ‘Shoot’em Up For Hours At A Time’?” He now held a video game controller in one hand, a bag of potato chips in the other, and was dressed in wrinkled pajamas and sported a scruffy unshaven face.  I purposefully jammed my fingers in my ears and lengthened my stride. “Wait! Did you listen to this new song? It’s probably the best album ever! Just come back and have a quick listen!” But by now I well past him, beyond his reach, and closing fast on the wall, the white light capturing my attention. Just for good measure I kept my ears plugged for now though. He didn’t chase after me though, seemingly too intent on staying in that one spot to follow me. He knew about the voice; had he heard it? Could he be that distracted that he wouldn’t want to follow it? As I finally reached the wall blocking me from the voice I wished he would have followed me. I could certainly use the odd mans help moving this mountain of rock.

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Sorry about the delay on part 3, hope it was worth the wait! Not sure when I will get the other parts done(hopefully just 2 more). Again, thank you so much for reading, I really appreciate the investment of your time! 

Part 2: Lady in Red

One leaden foot lifts, moves forward and plants. Slowly the second one follows. What appeared to be a slight downhill grade seems incredibly steep going back uphill.  Suddenly I am surrounded by the teeming mass of people too, trying to push my way against the swirling throng.  I lift my eyes above the crowd to the white light for a second to check my progress and run smack into someone.

“I’m so sorry, excuse me…” I stop short as my eyes drop to the person I ran into.  It is a woman in a red dress, made of a luxurious thin fabric. It is cut very low on the chest and cut very high up the thigh, hanging loose in parts and clinging tightly in others.  Long blonde hair flows down over her bare shoulders, blue eyes dancing wildly from beneath bouncy bangs. “I…I…” try stammering again, cut short as I realize she has moved closer to me, the breath from her bright red lips tickling my ear as she grabs my arm and pulls me in tight against her.

“Why, where ya’ goin’ sugar?” Her southern accent is heavy and easily picked up from her soft whisper.  “Why don’t ya’ follow me, I think we’d have some fun.” Her hand reaches up and traces the nape of my neck and I involuntarily close my eyes. Yes, this is nice, maybe I should follow her, she seems nice enough.

“Travis”

The voice again! It snaps my eyes open with a start. I realize I had been feeling something as soon as I saw the woman in red, but that voice cut right through it. They were almost similar feelings, but the voice completely eclipsed whatever it was the lady in red made me feel, drawing all my hearts attention to the voice.  With my eyes opened I realize with a start there is a huge line of guys behind the lady in red, each staring directly at her back with blank, soulless expressions.  The strangest thing of all is they all have a thick silver necklace bound tight around their necks with a chain hanging down in front and back.  I gasped out loud when I followed the chains. Those weren’t necklaces but collars and they were chained to each other! My eyes followed the link from as far back as I could see of a never ending line to the guy directly behind the lady in red, knowing before I even saw it, that she held the end of the chain in her hand.  I needed to run, to flee but my legs felt cemented to the spot, her warm breath spreading like a spider web over my skin, sticking me close to her. I trembled with fear, seeing my fate stretching out endlessly before me, the eminent disaster pressed close against my body.

“Ah suga’ don’t be so tense, I’ll make ya’ feel good, just relax.” I felt her hand moving on my neck again and wanted to listen to her, my body seeming to take control of my mind. Wait, what was that? The warm caress of her hand had grown cold, hard, almost metallic. The collar! My heart screamed within me and it carried outward, taking control of both my body and brain, till my lungs burst out a roar of defiance. I shoved the lady in red roughly, knocking her back into her line of slaves. They toppled like dominoes, tipping over rigidly. She would have kept her balance but her tight grip on the leash meant she got pulled down into the pile. Suddenly the lifeless eyes of her slaves woke with a feverish glow and they began grabbing at her hungrily.  She slapped away groping hands futility as more of the imprisoned men reached for her.  Soon she and her followers were entangled in a helpless knot of chains, a writhing mass of bodies, her and her bright red dress slowly being swallowed into the middle. 

“Get off me you goons! You will never get me! Do you understand?! I own you but you don’t get me!” Her soft southern drawl was gone now, replaced by a hoarse raging shout.  I quickly took the chance to begin scrambling uphill again, giving a wide berth to the ongoing struggle. No longer caring about civility or caution I pushed and shoved my way up the path, elbowing my way through the throng that passed by seemingly oblivious or unmoved by the maelstrom going on right in front of them.  

“Wait! Except for you sugar! Of course you can have me! You can have all of me! These guys are all nothing, it’s you I want! Please, just come get me out of this and you can have whatever you want!” The lady in red called after me, her harsh tone replaced again with the soft accent. But I was no longer listening, my only focus on getting as far away as I could. If she would have only dropped the leash and untangled herself she might have been able to catch me, but the very thing that was holding her in the melee she was unwilling to let go of, so I continued my frenzied pace away, her voice fading. 

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Ok, so I thought maybe I could wrap this up in 3 parts...thats not happenings. Looks like probably 5 parts lol. Sorry, this one is kind of growing in my head the more I work on it. Hopefully you, my very valued reader will see this journey through with me, because I think the ending will be well worth it! Again, of course, I love any feedback or thoughts!

Part 1: Blindfolded

I pull the blindfold from my eyes and blink the dust away.  How long was that thing on? My eyes seem to take forever to focus, unaccustomed to being used.  Luckily the light here is dim allowing my eyes to adjust easily. First I take a quick inventory of myself, looking down.  My clothes are ripped and shredded, tears in my shirt reveal festering wounds. Along my arms and chest are several scars, no doubt a result of stumbling around blindfolded for so long. Every inch of skin not covered by what remains of my tattered clothing is crusted in black dirt. I try scrapping some of it off with a fingernail but after removing the substantial outer layer it looks like the grime has soaked into my skin. Next I take in my surroundings, trying to figure out how I got here.  I am in a long corridor with a T-split directly in front of me.  I look behind me, the way I presumably came. There is nothing to see there but darkness stretching into an unfathomable distance.  As I turn to face the path ahead I catch something out of my peripheral vision I hadn’t noticed before, the number 27 written in chalk on the charcoal floor beneath me. I stare at it quizzically, not sure what to make of it. Somehow I am certain that it refers more to a timeline rather than distance, but there’s no way to know for certain. There’s obviously no going back into that darkness and being uncertain of where I am now, coupled with the burning of those infected wounds leave me but one choice: to move forward.  A few short steps bring me to the T and I receive yet another surprise. The path to my right is littered with people. Tons of them actually.  There are people of every shape, size, age, race, and religion. They are all facing away from me, shuffling slowly down the path. The path is on a slight downhill grade, seemingly made of solid stone. It looks to be quite a bit wider than the path I just came from and seems to get wider the further down it goes. Not that it appeared to matter, it looked insanely crowded as far as I could see, people elbowing and jostling to gain position.  A reddish light shone up the path from some far distant source, but it wasn’t steady, almost seeming to flicker and flare like a flame.  Where could all those people be going? It must be pretty decent if all those people were struggling to get there, some even seeming to be in a hurry as they pushed and shoved their way ahead.  Before I even realized it my feet had turned that way and shuffled a couple steps down the path. 

“Travis”

What was that? Did I hear that right? It sounded like my name, but I couldn’t be certain with the loud sound of shuffling feet. It sounded like it came from behind me, curiosity begging me to turn my head. I was surprised the effort it took to pull my eyes away from down the path ahead to look back.  Finally looking over my shoulder I saw where the voice came from, if indeed it was a voice. It was the path that would have been to the left of the T.  Compared to this current path the left path is very narrow, high walls hemming it in on both sides to where it looked like you could only walk single file.  There were no people on this path, not that they could have gone far; it looked like the roof had caved in, a huge jumble of rocks ranging in size from softball size up to a few huge boulders blocked the path.  From the top of that pile came a faint yet piercing white light.  Unlike the red light, this was steady, yet dim from the obstruction blocking the path.  Oh well, looks like there’s no going that way, must have imagined it. As I was about to turn my head back around, I heard it again, unmistakable.

“Travis”

It was a womans voice, and something about it reached down through my ears and into my heart. I felt a small flutter and had to stifle a gasp. I stopped dead in my tracks, sucking in a few short breaths through gritted teeth. How could a voice do that to me? The simple sound of my name from that voice roused such a powerful feeling. I realized then the sharpness of that feeling was magnified because I hadn’t felt much of anything that I could remember.  Now I was compelled and knew I had to turn around. As hard as turning my head was, changing direction with my whole body seemed to be an even greater task yet. Only with the feeling in my heart from hearing that mysterious voice saying my name gave me enough strength and will to do a 180 and start moving back towards the left path.

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This is a story I have envisioned in my head, but as I began writing it out I realized it was rather lengthy so in an attempt to not bore you and lose you before the finish(and to maybe generate some good old fashioned anticipation) I have given you the first chunk, and will write the next part(or possibly parts) in the next day or 2. So I hope you enjoy and hope you'll be interested to hear the rest of the story. And of course, feedback and comments are always appreciated!

Rejoicing in what is worth rejoicing in

What do I rejoice and find my joy in? This is a question I was pondering this morning and the following is mostly a paraphrase of my journal entry this morning.

I need to find my joy in Christ and His salvation. It is too easy to be distracted and find my happiness in other things. Whether its my girlfriend, hockey, family, a job or any other variety of activities and interests I tend too often to find my contentment in them. But this is wrong. There is only one thing that can bring me the deepest, longest lasting joy and that is what Christ did for me on the Cross.  Not that enjoying those other things I mentioned are wrong in any way, but they should always be viewed in light of Gods grace and forgiveness. Indeed when I take those earthly pleasures and hold them in the over reaching greatness of Christs love for me and subject them to Gods will for my life I find an even deeper and pure joy in them.
And this belief of holding salvation as the root of my contentment is all the more evident when these earthly things aren't bringing me joy or are actually bringing me sorrow.  When I find my hope, joy, and peace in the finished work of the Cross nothing can shake the deep seeded peace in my heart.  Tears may fall, my heart may ache, bones may break, relationships may end, but salvation is mine eternally. These earthly things can never add or detract from the heavenly things promised me. This is where I find my joy and rejoicing.

This thought stemmed from Luke 10 where Christ appointed 72 men to go out and teach and cast out demons and heal the sick. When they returned they were rejoicing, being amazed that they were able to cast out demons. Christs response is truly remarkable to me. Instead of saying "Good job" or patting them on the back for a job well done He brings the focus back to salvation.
Luke 10:20 "Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven."
Now I haven't cast out any demons recently, but yet I still find myself rejoicing in things other than my salvation. How much more I should focus on Him and His free gift!

So if you are content and find joy in your life, rejoice even more in Gods forgiveness and love. And if you are hurting and at a loss for happiness, find comfort, peace and hope in the deep joy of Christs redemptive work on the Cross for you.

I will glory in my Redeemer,
Travis