"DOWN GOES MERRIT!" ... "DOWN GOES KETTLES!!"

....DOWN GOES MERRIT

Confusion hits people of all ages and comes from all directions. For young children, confusion can stem from an unstable home life. For the elderly, it may be a sign of a medical problem. But the kind of confusion I am concerned with here arises from an unanswered question. It’s a core question every man is asking, if not his in words, then by his behavior. Every man is asking if he has what it takes to be a man. The answer he comes up with depends on who he asks. And the answer he gets will decide whether or not he gets back up on his feet when he is knocked down, how well he heals when he loses a piece of his heart, and how long he will linger at life’s window waiting for his daddy to come home.

My father was knocked out only once in his boxing career. And apparently once was enough. He quit the ring after going 23-6-2 as a pro. Thankfully, he had other options. He went to night school and became an aeronautical engineer. Meanwhile, Big Dan fought on. He won 15, lost 34 and drew three times. He decked twelve of his 52 opponents, but he hit the canvas 14 times himself. Like my dad, he lost his last fight by KO. He took off his gloves at age 29 and he died 33 years later from a stroke related to “pugilist’s dementia,” which basically means he’d been punched in the head about a thousand times too many. I never met Big Dan, but I want to believe he was a good man. It’s sad to think he spent more than half his life “punch drunk,” living in a state of confusion until the day he died, all because he couldn’t keep himself away from the cause of his confusion.  

"BIG DAN KEEPS CLIMBING BACK!!

Why would Big Dan keep climbing back into the ring only to be knocked senseless time after time? Perhaps he knew no other way to make a living. Or maybe he wanted no other options. The crazy thing about confusion is that it often comes to us by our own desires and choices. Einstein’s definition of insanity could also fit confusion: “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” And like Big Dan, a man will repeatedly climb back in the ring with his bad habits and with his bad relationships only to get clobbered over and over again, and always expecting different results. Same old question, same old answer. How many knock-out punches does a man need before he starts looking for other options? Sadly, a punch-drunk man may not even want other options.

With one wrong move, my dad fell at Marigold Gardens in Chicago. With one wrong move, Adam, the progenitor of confusion, fell in another garden called Eden. When my dad hit the canvas I went with him because I was still in his seed. When Adam fell every man since then fell with him because he is the father of us all. His confusion has become our own confusion passed down the family line. When you are confused the first thing you need to do is get oriented, which means literally to “face the east,” where the sun rises and each new day dawns. So let’s go back to the beginning of confusion and replay the first knock-out punch. If we can remember how we fell we may remember how to get back up.

“And the Lord God planted a garden toward the east, in Eden, and there He placed the man whom He had formed.” (Genesis 2:8) 

REVERENCE FOR DISCERNING RIGHT FROM WRONG

When Adam and Eve ate the fruit, their sensory perception overpowered their spiritual sense. Their frame of reference for discerning right from wrong suddenly turned inward and personal rather than God-ward and eternal. With their eyes wide open, they were suddenly blinded by a vicious punch. They never saw it coming. They’d been set up. With one wrong choice and with one false move they walked right into the knockout punch and crumpled from fusion into confusion.
Like a one-legged soldier, Adam knew instinctively that something inside him was missing, that a vital part of his being had been ripped away from him. He had never realized the value of his identity until it was stolen. He and his bride had never known they were naked until they had been shed of their dignity.

Then God came into the Garden asking some serious questions, and Adam and Eve tried to hide in plain sight. Hiding from God is always more obvious than we think.

“Where are you?” God shouted. He wasn’t asking Adam where he was hiding, but where he was in relation to Himself. With His own voice, God gave Adam an audible reference point for realizing his “lost-ness.” It’s the kind of question you ask of someone who is dazed or confused: “Do you know where you are? Do you know your name? Do you know what day it is?”

It’s also the kind of question my hardworking, widowed mother used to ask me with fearful, pleading eyes when I defiantly made life harder for her than she needed. It was a love-question, but it was also a question that a confused teenage boy couldn’t answer.

When my son, Jacob, grew into his teen years, I remember looking at him and asking myself the question every father fears to ask himself. Am I raising my son well enough for manhood? I didn’t know how to answer that question. I didn’t know where to look for an answer. I only sensed that something vital was missing inside of me. I felt confused and panicked. A fledgling young counselor named John Eldredge helped me to find my answer from a confused little boy waiting at the window for his daddy to come home.

I have the proud distinction of being named after my father. His identity is my identity. My story is rooted in his story. When he got sick a surgeon cut him open and then sewed him right back up - Pancreatic cancer. There was nothing they could do for him. He was allergic to morphine, so he just gutted out the pain. Kids couldn’t go into hospital rooms in those days, so my brother Bob and I would peer through the metal blinds at the window of his ground-level room and watch while my mom visited with him. In eight weeks he was dead. He died as he had lived – still fighting to get back up until the last count.

"WHO HAVE YOU BEEN LISTENING TO?"

Once again, God didn’t ask these questions for His own understanding. They were intended for Adam’s benefit. The first question – Who have you been listening to? -- precedes the next question – What have you done? It’s probably how you’ve questioned your child when listening to peers has gotten him or her into trouble. Who they were listening to determined what they had done wrong. It’s important for them to see the link between wrong voices and wrong choices. It’s the way to get to the root of bad behavior. Listening to the right voice prevents bad choices and clears up confusion. In fact, every choice we make in life starts with whom we have been listening to. 

Looking again through that window, I began to see that God had placed other good men around me to speak into my life.

 I realized that when my father’s voice went silent, he still had been speaking to me through those familiar voices -I concludedn that my cofusion stemed from when I started listening instead to strangers. I now focus and God and who he incircles around me.