Hurt

While skating home today I fell in front of the same two men I fell in front of yesterday. At least today I didn't face plant and my pens didn't scatter across the sidewalk. I don't know how my pens can roll over the cracks so easily and I cannot. I also met a dog wearing a sweater in the elevator in my apartment complex. I think the owner said his name was something like Salsa. I actually passed an entire shop dedicated to dog sweaters on my search for a yoga studio today.

I've been listening to a lot of music lately. Recommendations, findings... like the mastermind Jack White: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b46yzioCxPI. But "Hurt" by Nine Inch Nails covered by Johnny Cash has stood true to me for years now. It's my favorite cover because of its authenticity... the injured imperfections in his voice that connect one soul to another. He somehow takes pure, rough emotions and crafts them into his words. He sings without the self absorbed restraint of needing to be accepted. Johnny claims to have "tried every drug there was to try." Here's an excerpt from Wikipedia if you're as enthralled with him as I am:

Cash noted: "I was taking the pills for awhile, and then the pills started taking me." ...Cash curtailed his use of drugs for several years in 1968, after a spiritual epiphany in the Nickajack Cave when he attempted to commit suicide while under the heavy influence of drugs. He descended deeper into the cave, trying to lose himself and "just die", when he passed out on the floor. He reported being exhausted and feeling at the end of his rope when he felt God's presence in his heart and managed to struggle out of the cave (despite the exhaustion) by following a faint light and slight breeze. To him, it was his own rebirth...

Now that's raw. That's real. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3aF9AJm0RFc You can have it all, my empire of dirt. I will let you down. I will make you hurt. That's what I say to God. My scars turn into His. The nails I pound into my own skin are what nailed Him to the cross. But that's exactly what He wants. He wants it all. It's not a barter. He wants to demolish the facade of acceptance we've built around our selves. He wants to bring us back to vulnerability, because a hard heart can’t curl up and be held, it can't be protected. I think being in that place is the closest we can be to the heart of God. And when people see that rawness, they're seeing God. But we still refuse it. We spit in the face of God by holding on to the very thing that is destroying us.

Johnny died seven months after shooting the music video.

I wrote some words and music in my bedroom as a way of staying sane, about a bleak and desperate place I was in, totally isolated and alone. [Somehow] that winds up reinterpreted by a music legend from a radically different era/genre and still retains sincerity and meaning — different, but every bit as pure. (Trent Reznor, lead singer of Nine Inch Nails)

Authenticity is timeless... universal... pure. Johnny left a mark on the world when his goal changed from acceptance of the world to vulnerability and surrender. I went to Adulam last weekend. From what I understand (I don't know if I understand completely because my Spanish isn't up-to-par yet) it is a center that provides for people like ex-criminals and single mothers and orphans. They know pain. That place leaked with authenticity. It was real. There was no filter, no performance. I thought I was going to volunteer, but I showed up to an asado for the pastor's birthday. They served me. And I thought I knew what service was.

I want to be real. I want to be close to the heart of God. And I think every step, a song, an asado, being broken, being vulnerable, is a step to get to be more a part of the bigger picture He is creating.

P.S. Please excuse the five million fonts. I still don't really understand how Blogger works.

Adulam

A bit outside of Adulam

Some happy friends