Courage in all four corners - part 1

We're odd creatures, hacking ourselves into pieces because it appears easier. On our best days, we know self is comprised of heart, mind, soul, strength, but we mostly forget. We build compartments within, separating business and pleasure, detaching mind from heart. And we run around crazy and flailing, preaching the false gospel of balance and wondering why fatigue is all our pieces share.

Do not sacrifice your heart for your mind, nor your body for your soul. Offer your [whole] self – that is worship.

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I lay in the bed of a pickup and he's holding a .22. It's one of the last times I'll wear this tie dye shirt because he hates it.

I prop my elbows on the hard plastic and it's difficult to see his demonstration, so I use the heel of my left hand to crank my head around, so I'm looking over my shoulder. He explains the way to keep the gun steady with the shot: squeeze the trigger on the exhale and squeeze it slow.

The first thing Ben taught me was how to shoot a gun. The second was how to be the kind of friend that makes a good story.

I've studied story and story-telling because there's something magical and terrifying about the thread we knit between our hearts. As C.S. Lewis said, to love is to be vulnerable. Out my window, I can see the last two strands of a spider's web connecting two bushes. It clings against the wind and the wind is strong today.

He shows more than he tells. On adventures big and small, I glimpse loyalty, love, and pursuit. With him, the fragile line is strung through danger and laughter.

We hop in the pickup, driving to another range whose targets – several busted TVs – are already blown to pieces. He hands me a shot gun, and I look at him. He doesn't wear that hat anymore, but he used to wear it everyday, just like that: folded in the back, slightly resembling Robin Hood. He kept his hair cut close.

Telling is the easy part. You meet a stranger and, before you know it, they've said it all. They want to matter, to find their place in history, even if only one mind houses them.

Courage knows the risks of pushing past knowledge and entering the story's frame. 

Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable. (C.S. Lewis)

Hold it steady, he says. 

I exhale and squeeze the trigger. And the recoil brings the scope right back into my eye.