Update 20260108

There was a time that I used to send out emails to a bunch of friends, family, and companions I met along the Way. They’d carry subject lines like “update” or include a date time group like 20151111 (as in November 11, 2015). Those days are lost to the internet like individual bytes on a beachhead made up entirely of data. It was easier to tell friends from enemies back then, or so I thought. I’d fire up the old laptop every couple of months and make sure folks knew I was alive and what I was up to.

But somewhere in there, I learned friends and enemies were no longer easy to tell apart.

People present to witness my marriage vows threatened to undermine my most cherished relationship. People who shared my enlistment oath learned from civilians how to profit off our service while battle buddies continued to drop at ever increasing rates. People employed to bear witness to communal trauma closed their eyes and smoothed things over instead.

Somewhere in the last decade, I stopped believing in people. Not all people, but people in general. People whose loyalties were to companies and organizations at the expense of families and organizations. People who pledged allegiance to freedoms they could steal from others by keeping for themselves.

Somewhere around 2016 I realized that the “childish things” in which I once placed my faith needed protecting, not sharing. No longer could I trust my neighbor to let me goof off in my own front yard. My shamelessness became a reminder of their unearned privilege, and it had to stop.

They told on me to their gods, but I did’t worship at their alters.

They called their cops, but I wasn’t subject to their laws.

They talked about me behind my back, but I didn’t have any friends in their cliques.

Finally, they surrounded my house with walls and curtains, a neighborhood tabernacle to contain the convicting Spirit. Some told themselves it was a theater, because all that would satisfy me was fame. Others decided it was a bank because all that would satisfy me was money. Still others spread the rumor that it was a brothel, because all that would satisfy me was, well, you know.

But I know the truth. Not because I live in my own house, but because I’ve been in their shoes. I know their deepest insecurities because they’ve been mine too. The only thing that makes me different is that I refused to reserve my conscience for the comfort of the whole. I’ve given up my body, and some want you to believe my mind as well, but I will not give my soul. Sometimes that still soft voice is all you have as a constant in the political shitstorm that surrounds us. Sometimes the voice of God is all you need.

Just because you don't hear Th'em doesn't mean God went silent.

For that matter, just because you haven't seen me goofing off doesn't mean I stopped.

Don’t YOU stop either, we need more people who know how to have good, clean fun in hard times. We need people whose joy isn’t determined by the ebb and flow of social media trends, whose happiness doesn’t depend on the which way the political wind is blowing. We need people who know how to party even when it’s raining outside, who know that nothing lives off sunshine and rainbows.