Rock On! Part 1

Rocked.  Ever have one of those days?  You know the kind.  Things are just not going well.  Whether it’s one thing or many things, you can’t seem to win.  These are the kinds of days that make us wish that we’d have stayed in bed.  If only there was a way to fast forward past them or rewind back to the good ol’ days with the added bonus of being able to see the future so you can skip those days.  If only.  Well, dear readers, today was one of those days for me.  Wrote a song about it.  Wanna hear it?  Here it goes!  Kidding.  Y’all were waiting and looking for a hyperlink to a song or maybe even me singing.  Maybe one day, but not today.  Instead, let me tell you about my day.

I came out of the building to get into my car and from a distance, I see what looks to be some scratches on the passenger side door.  No big deal, I thought.  Once I get closer, I see that it’s more than just a few scratches.  My car’s been hit!  The door is dented and scraped down to the primer!  This has to have been done by an SUV or truck with a metal bumper.  Did I tell y’all that I’m also an amateur detective?  Well, now you know.  Ok, back to the point.  Guess what else.  To top it all off, my door won’t open without a decent amount of effort!  Do you think there was a note on my window?  Nope.  As you can imagine, I was hot!  Boiling!  But I didn’t stay in that place.  I couldn’t afford to.  It’s a car.  Now, make no mistake.  I was angry.  I can hear you saying, “Eric, you’re a cool cat who’s better than me, because I’d have had a fit!”  I know.  If we dial the clock back a bit, I’d have done the same thing.  But now, I’ve got perspective.  I know what matters.  The main point of my frustration about it?  The dishonesty.  Leave a note.  Fess up.  Don’t scoot off and say, “Oh well.”  That’s pretty funny, because that’s exactly what I said a little while later after I was done venting.  No, I’m not that cool, so stop saying it.  Remember what I said to y’all in my post Bigger Things?  Yep.  Time to live my own words.  I did.  Y’all would have been proud.  I let it go.  I let it ride (pun intended).  Wooosaaahhh.  After all, what was I going to do?  It was all good.  Not a major deal.  Until I got home.

I get home and get the mail out of the mailbox.  All of a sudden I can hear the opening line from Chuck D. in Public Enemy’s Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos.  "I got a letter from the government. The other day..."  Except it wasn’t that kind of letter.  It was big enough to rock my world.  And not in the way Michael Jackson sings about that woman.  You see, I’m a man of faith.  A follower of Jesus Christ.  I speak faith.  I live it.  I tell it to other folk.  I tell other folk to do it too.  Well, this letter was testing my faith.  Y’all!  First the car and now this!  Time to blow a gasket, right?!  I can still hear you.  “Yeah, Eric!  It’s time to let ‘er rip!  Let ‘em have it!  Sock it to ‘em, bud!”  Sounds good.  Might even feel good.  But only to my flesh.  Temporarily.  See, that’s the way I’d have responded prior to January of this year.  Angrily.  Fearful.  Fretful.  Now?  Naw, dawg.  That cat is dead!  The old me.  He’s gone.  Y’all are talkative today, because I can hear you yet again.  You’re saying, “Huh?  Eric, what do you mean?  Dead?  You look alive and well to me here in Internetland.  I think I get it, but what are you saying?”  I’m glad you asked.  Stay with me.  I’m going somewhere.

See, I used to respond like that.  To everything.  About everything.  Before I go any further, let me clear something up.  Yes.  I still get angry, frustrated, flat out mad, and any other emotions you want to list.  So don’t think that I’m saying my life is always sunny and 75 degrees (that’s 24 degrees Celsius for my international audience).  Got me?  Cool.  Like I was saying, I used to be all angry and shaken and all that jazz.  Until I realized, what’s the point?  If I really believe all the Jesus stuff I was spittin’, then what am I buggin’ for?  Why am I trippin’?  Exactly.  So I stopped.  Y’all still have more to say?  “Umm, yes, Eric.  So what do you do now?  How do you respond when the top caves in and the bottom drops out?  Because I just lose my…”  Whoa.  Slow down there, sport.  Here’s what I do.  I get angry, but I don’t stay in that place.  I get scared, but I don’t stay there or dwell on it.  In short, I express.  Oh, and I pray.  Man, do I pray!  I cry out to the Lord!  Sometimes, it’s literally me crying.  No, not tears of sadness necessarily.  Sometimes, they're tears of joy and thankfulness.  And today I learned more about what those really are.  You wanna know?  Peep.  Come back next week for Part 2.  I know.  I know.  Sorry, y'all.  Trust me.  It'll be worth the wait.  Until then, be e-z.  Peace.