Tag: New Mexico

Sinking Sand/Solid Rock

Sinking Sand/Solid Rock – An Anthology #14 Albuquerque

albuquerque
Albuquerque, New Mexico – a photo from some time ago.

I left the Methodist church in Dallas under an enormous cloud of embarrassment.  Not forced, mind you.  We had only been there for a little over 8 months.  This had become a habit.  Stupid-stupid-stupid!  I lost control of my life.  It seems that I always get right to the point of success and then make a stupid decision or, more particularly, allow others to make a decision for me.  Does this go back to that horrible day when I was taken advantage of as a five or six year old?  These stupid decisions always reminded me of the quicksand when Daddy and Harold had to take that limb and rescue me from sinking in the Rio Grande.  It was almost as though I was dying; scared, ready to give up.  On top of this was that thing in my nose and relentless bullying because of my size and weight.

 

Just getting by won’t do anymore. Barely surviving was not enough at my age of twenty-six.  Keeping my nose above the water was not going to bring life.  Had I been out there sinning my head off?  No!  Had I been stupid again?  Maybe.  In fact, it seemed that I was on my road to success by moving to Dallas in the first place.  Now, by leaving, it seemed I was going right back – this time willingly or being pushed – into the quicksand.

Friends and family thought I had lost it for going to the Methodists.  Now here I was sinking down to where I belonged because I didn’t deserve any better.  Before Dallas, dirt roads had become normal.  Didn’t all these people who were pushing me back realize they were pushing me down?  Didn’t they know I had exulted in the applause of hundreds upon hundreds?  Didn’t they know I preached to thousands in Dallas?  Didn’t they know I was driving a new car?   Didn’t they know past trauma was holding my spiritual legs crushing me beneath my insecurities, my hurts, my loneliness, and my uncertainties?  I was being pressured by others to accept my infirmities and I was letting them do it!  This had nothing to do, for all practical purposes, with Methodism as far as I was concerned.  This sinking down had to do with my pathology!

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Sinking Sand/Solid Rock

Sinking Sand/Solid Rock -An Anthology #8 Carlsbad

CARLSBAD, NEW MEXICO # 8

 Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico - daveynin/cc/flickr

The first memory I have of Carlsbad is that the church members were at each other’s throats.  Let me change this – the union people were against everyone.  The way I remember it, the “scabs” were sweet-spirited people wanting to make a living, supporting their families.  The potash mines were in the midst of a 73 day labor strike.  The biggest of all the bigshots was the president of the Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers’ Union and he was the biggest bigshot in our church; chairman of the church board and Sunday school superintendent.  You can see how this was like oil and water only worse.  The union members of our church would stand on the line going into the mines with baseball bats hitting the buses of some of our church members who were not union members.  I don’t think they were sanctified.  God hep us and bless us – it was awful, just awful.

Daddy was a happy man and a good preacher and Mama played the piano.  She still cooked pinto beans.  I played the church organ.  Pretty soon everybody came together through love, and thank God the strike ended.  Hard feelings were still there a little bit, but Daddy stayed there 8 years so people got over it. Continue reading “Sinking Sand/Solid Rock -An Anthology #8 Carlsbad” →