by Patrick D. Pace
Husband and father of nutballs. Dallas Theological Seminary graduate (ThM, 2015).
We live in an RV and not in one spot.
See 12/5/2016: What’s An Artist? and 12/8/2016: To Teach Or To Learn.
And my most recent published pieces, “Of Sin,” and “Of Sin, Part II.“
Follow me @patrickdpace, but I communicate almost exclusively through email and text.
Photo by my good friend Cesar Diaz del Valle
All the pieces I mentioned are now posted. More will arrive as they’re written.
But to help you get around, a quick tour. In the menu at the top, you’ll find all my non-writing creations in the Other Projects section. And in the Writing section, you’ll find the following categories:
Im and the completion of the Of Sin Series prompted the new site. If you read nothing else, I recommend the Of Sin Series.
I’m still here.
I’m not where I want to be, not where at the end of DTS I thought I would be, and not where my fear thinks I should be, but I’m where God has me. Life and its lessons continue, and the lessons of the moment are mediocrity and dependence.
And after several years of word-by-word labor, withholding my works from friends in hopes of distributing it to strangers, the bell rang and I approached the mob of commercial publishing. And as I considered which publisher would benefit me most (or accept me), I bumped into the sermon on the mount. Jesus’ audience certainly was tempted by prestige, wasn’t it?
In 2014, a friend gave me Madeleine L’Engle’s Walking on Water and wrote in its cover the following:
And if we have been created to sub-create, shall we do so in service of fame? Our industry of reputation twitters on, but Christ came not to be served but to serve. Is sub-creation not, like everything else, a method for relating—of intimacy, even? What have we made it, and why do I desire whatever it is we’ve made?
So in spite of the appeal of reputation, and while I can’t dismiss what value conventional publishing surely has, I’ve decided to publish primarily within my sphere. The old site, patrickdpace.com, has been absorbed by wheredeathdelightstodie.com, which allows for organizing content more thoroughly. It’s especially useful for longer pieces, collections, and non-writing projects.
I will post twenty pieces, in particular, within the next week or two. The final three parts of my Of Sin series and the first addition to my collection are the ones I’ve put the most work into, but to help fill out the number I’m submitting for the Copyright Office’s GRTX, I reaped the least weedy from ..\Writing To Be Organized\. After publishing them, I’ll add a new blog post to list them all. And after that, I’ll continue to tweak and add content to the site, as I’m able.
He rebelled. “I am not your son. Just look at me. I’m two feet shorter than you.”
“I have the records to prove it.”
“Hand them to me.”
Szz. “There are your records, insolent boy.”
“No! My records!”
Blood sizzled at the wrist where I excised his presumption.
Wind from the chute below, and shock, shook him, and he grabbed the railing with his remaining hand. “Maybe your passion, as indicated by your violence, proves how much you love me!”
“Indeed.”
And he slipped, as if on his own whiny tears, into the chute, screaming as he fell. “But I totally expected it to be Obi-Wan!”
The flowers I pick
Die in my hand,
But flowers I can’t
But pick.
Photo’s my own.
Awake. Bladder.
Keep the eyes slitted to suggest to brain I’m not awake yet.
Think as little as possible. Frankenstein-movement to suggest to brain still very sleepy.
Pee.
Back under quilt. Duvet because it’s cold now.
Sleep.
I said sleep.
Worry.
Worryworryworry.
Worry.
Fidget feet.
Put palm upon forehead/eyes.
Worryworryworryworryworryworry worry worry. Worry. Wooooorry. Wurry.
Should I just get up?
Worry. I’m thinking too much. No. I’m thinking about sleeping too much. And I’m thinking too much.
Don’tworrydon’tworrydon’tworrydon’tworry. Worry.
Now I’m just wasting time. What time is it? 2:03. 2:04. Two hours left. I’ll have missed 2 and ½. Maybe I should just get up.
Don’tworrydon’tworrydon’tworrydon’tworry.
Breathe. Fidget. Throw off the quilt and duvet.
Sit up. Drawer. Jeans. Drawer. Socks. Creakcreakcreak. Closet, hangers. Flannel because it’s cold. Creepcreepcreep into kids’ rooms and put their covers back on. Close doors without making the knobs crea—close doors and hope they don’t wake up. Close master so the beeps from the lights don’t wake her up.
Light by the table, light on the stove. Coffee? Chance to go back to sleep? Reason you had to pee? Give it up. Give that delicious addictive stimulant that-you-might-need-right-now uuuuup. Headache—totally worth it. Tea. I’ll ebb off with tea. Irish breakfast tea.
Boil. Broil. Toast. Peanut butter. Where’s the peanut butter? Where’s the freaking peanu—oh.
Mixmixmixmixmix. Broiled. Flip. Boiling. Pour. Stand there staring. Broiled. Take out, coat in peanut butter. Blow nose.
Toast to table. Tea to table. Mason jar of water… to table. Blow nose again.
Backpack. Laptop. Paper. Pen. Open. Password. Sit. Twitter. MSWord.
Now type. What to type about? Stare at last cluster. Toast. Toast. Tea. Half of mason jar. Pop recently-infected-ear. Whaaaaat to tyyyype…
“Awake.” Blahblahblah. Edit. Done. Post to blog or save for some publication? Would Fathom take this? Would anyone? I should research what kinds of publications take things like this. Or just blog it. I mean, for what purpose are you writing? What’s more loving?
I’ll just blog it.
What time is it? Ah.
Apparently, it’s World Sleep Day. Coincidental.
Pic’s from out front of my work.
S
al
vat
ion
To
Sinners:
Awaken
In dark to
A house
Without
Lights;
Switch
Is dead,
But we
Sure as
Hell try.
Photo by Danielle MacInnes on Unsplash
I just had a moment where I thought, “If I’m not a writer, am I anything?” meaning “anything of value.” I have an attachment to being a writer, or being a something, and attaining my idea of life. If I am not a writer, a thinker, an artist, a good father, someone who can control his addictions and his time, someone who can think without worry, who can find what he “should do,” who can understand, who has some unique skill or calling or benefit, who succeeds and is known for it, who doesn’t care about success or praise, who has useful and profound and beautiful thoughts, who hasn’t been found out as a failure in all these things—if I am not these things, am I anything?
But you don’t have to be anything. That’s just the message of those who disbelieve in their own innate and unchangeable value and who share that disbelief with others. Who disbelieve in life itself and have replaced it with what is death itself, the removal of life and the addition of toil, karma, earning, requirement, law, deservance, value by accomplishment, independence—which is just dependence upon things that are not life and cannot win it.
You are loved by your heavenly father; you are loved by God, who is life, who is your life, and you are his. And you are his. You are his. Because he has made you so, and not because he innately needs us, you are his life. He has made himself dependent upon you—not because he needs anything you have but because that’s love. In love, you are dependent upon the object of your love (see George MacDonald’s “Consuming Fire” sermon). Like the father of the prodigal son and of the elder son, you are wanted and chased after by him. You are drawn and taught and welcomed back with eager and open and warm and gratuitous and unbreakable arms.
So, if I am not a writer, I am loved by God, who is Life and whose love is to us life.
If I don’t know and choose the right job, I am loved. If I’m not qualified for any job that promises success or value, according to the unbelieving world, I am loved. If I’m not qualified for any job at all, I am loved. If I choose the wrong job, the wrong fit, the one that I will quit or fail at or leave, I am loved.
It almost makes you want to abandon, to avoid the world and its system of success, to not be led into it, if that were even possible. But your placement isn’t so much to stay in the right system as it is to be wherever God is with you. And he is with you with the rest of those who still need him, wherever they are. Right? “I learn so much, I remember who I am in my poverty (of all the things that are not God but that I feel like I need). Please keep me here.” Is that not “deliver us from temptation?” Is it not asking to be “the poor” in “blessed are the poor?”
Part of me wonders if persons typically associated with success—often persons that started young whatever successful activity they are now vocating—are merely addicts of whatever it is that they do. That is, they have reward circuits that allow them to get in a dark flow for that thing (https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/07/the-machine-zone-this-is-where-you-go-when-you-just-cant-stop-looking-at-pictures-on-facebook/278185/; also Generation Wealth on Amazon Prime Video), that make them keep wanting to come back without end, that disable them from what would be more healthy activities. Maybe not, but if it’s not love, it has to be something like that, yes? I, at least, apart from love, can’t stick to something unless I’m addicted to it, it would seem. I just get bored and then curious about something else.
So I’m being reminded that the result of salvation is love and that loving is what I’m called to do. Loving. It’s the godly and essentially life-giving equivalent of “Here’s more money than you can imagine. Go spend it freely.” “Here’s the answer to death, itself. Go do it as much as you want.” I mean come on. We could be commanded to do worse things, yes? Anyways, I remembered that my big push to write was “writing is a good way for you to love.” I’ve been having some issues with my lack of motivation to do good. But it’s because of a lack of love. And that of course starts with knowing that I’m loved. So, you’re loved, and if you write or don’t, the reason for it, whatever it is, is love.
Kinda scary that to the degree that I’m godly I can do the thing(s) that I want to do most when I’m ungodly. Talk about a brilliant and devious temptation.
And one final thing. Had the thought this morning that I wonder if the toil promised to Adam was more of a blessing than a curse. It’s the toil that teaches him he needs God. It’s lack of toil (i.e., success, abundance, security) that poisons us with the lie that we need nothing and nobody.
We’ve fallen in a well, not the high seas. These aren’t carracks and caravels but the lashed-together collections of bodies, bobbing us about in the darkness. And if there’s a rope out, it’s not the sailor but the bobbing body that’s more apt to put his hand to it.
Photo by Valentin Lacoste on Unsplash
Give us this day our daily bread.
I was taught that this refers to what we need to learn. But isn’t it what we need in order to live? Not bread alone but every word of God’s, and Christ, himself, fully embodying and revealing that Word. But surely this also includes
wait for it
bread.
Sustenance, air, water, clothing, friends and family: whatever we need, as determined by God, just like the birds and the flowers, who don’t have storehouses or barns. At every moment, they depend on God’s provision (or withholding).
How different is modern American security? We idealize careers, we develop our CVs, we invest. All cultures sell their own flavors, but we sell Independence. “Need no one.”
But don’t go off to the woods just yet. Our assumptions need changing. Give us today whatever we need—food, friendship, capacity for love, ability to learn from our mistakes, changed assumptions…
Don’t we depend even in those things that secure us? Investments require stable markets. Careers require healthy minds and bodies. Commutes require that the gravitational forces that keep our tires upon the ground remain constant. We depend upon a sovereign and graceful God, who holds all things together.
And after praying for our bread, do we believe that he’ll give it and that, after the day’s provisions, we can say, “We received what we needed?” Do we depend even for that? Don’t we? Doesn’t Christ provide all things for life and godliness, so that all provision has as its core the death and resurrection of God? And while we were still sinners, did he not already give it?
Indeed he did. Give us this day our daily bread.
Photo by Greg Rakozy on Unsplash