The Last Centurion

"I wish I could tell you that you'll be loved. That you'll be safe and cared for and protected. But this isn't the time for lies. What you are going to be, Melody, is very very brave. But not as brave as they all have to be. Because there's somebody coming. I don't know where he is, or what he's doing, but trust me. He's on his way.

"There's a man who's never going to let us down. And not even an army can get in the way. He's the last of his kind. He looks young but he's lived for hundreds and hundreds of years. And wherever they take you, Melody, however scared you are, I promise you, you will never be alone. Because this man is your father. He has a name, but the people of our world know him better... as the last Centurion." - Amy Pond A Good Man Goes to War

To anyone who doesn't watch Doctor Who, that quote probably doesn't mean much. I get chills reading it. To quickly describe the scene, Amy has been captured by a group of people who are trying to kill the Doctor. Through the entirety of her time with the Doctor there has been tension between her and her husband, Rory. Repeatedly, Amy has reinforced for her husband that he is the one she loves, cares about, and relies on. Rory spent 2000 years as a plastic-man Roman Centurion standing guard over her (seriously). And so, Amy is telling her daughter Rory about how her father is coming to save her.

As a man, that quote is unbelievably accurate to what I want as a man and someday a father. I want my wife to be able to tell my children that I will never let them down, that they will never be alone, that I will always find them, that I will never let them down. I want to be a superhero for my children. I know I blog a lot about being a hero and taking on the world. This is different.See, Rory doesn't have any superpowers, Rory isn't the Doctor. He is just a man who is solely focused on protecting and rescuing his family and he will stop at nothing, be stopped by nothing in his duty to his family.

I don't know what to do with that right now. That scene provokes a lot of emotion in me, a lot of deep running thoughts that hit at the core of who I want to be. I don't have any children right now, so I can only hope to know that that is how they will view me, how they will know me. But I want to be their Last Centurion, I want them to know I would stand guard by them for centuries, that though all Hell and a fleet of Cybermen may stand between us that I will not give up, I will not fail them. I don't need to be the Doctor, I just need to be Nathan for my children.

Four years ago today, I vowed to my wife that I would always be here for her. Oddly enough, I had already done that.

Four years ago today, I vowed to my wife that I would always love her. Again, that wasn't the first time she heard it.

Four years ago today.

It seems strange to think that a single moment, a single day, is held so important in our culture. To me, if your spouse heard anything new or special in your wedding vows, you were not ready to get married to them. Marriage isn't about a major change in your relationship. It is (mostly) a formal declaration of those emotions and promises already made in private or in your own mind. I decided (and yes I use that word for a reason), that I loved my wife after dating her for a month and feeling her absence from me for a very short time. But that didn't mean I didn't tell her that I loved her this morning. And just because I miss her when I am away, doesn't mean I don't tell her that because she knows it already.

To me, the wedding ceremony is a very important, yet very small, stepping stone in a relationship. It is not a pivotal moment. It is not a catalytic event. It doesn't change you. It is the starting point of the single most life-changing event (aside from salvation) in a humans life. The big change isn't the wedding. It is waking up the next morning next to the only other person that matters. And it is going to bed three weeks later next to the only person in life that matters. It is eating lunch, and going to the movies, and enjoying the sunsets, and holding their tears.

But it all starts at the altar. Or before the altar. Maybe it starts at birth with some cosmic thread connecting souls. Maybe it starts somewhere in the choices and circumstances that change our lives. Maybe it starts with the gleam in the eye, love at first sight thing. Maybe it starts on the first date, or second, or third. I don't have the answers, I just know it is there.

In the end, the wedding day is a very special day to me, not because of what was said, or what was done, but because of who I married. Believe it or not, guys, the wedding is for her. It is her moment of glory and her chance to be the beautiful princess she has always wanted to be. All the chaos, the confusion, the formality and the general nuttiness of the day are for her. And (if you have done your part right) she is worth it. She is worth every moment, every dollar, every drop of sweat and blood, every last ounce of yourself.

Four years ago today, I vowed to my wife that I would always be here for her. She will never forget that I had already told her that.

Four years ago today, I vowed to my wife that I would always love her. And she will never forget that she already knew it.

Four years ago today, my life changed, my heart stayed the same, and my world became a better place.

God as the DM

In my last D&D related post, I may have confused some folks with some of my word choices, so I am going to be very up front about this. God is not a Dungeon Master. This is not a breakdown of deep theological elements or even a categorical review of the nature of God (that is a separate item). This is just me trying to analyze one small aspect of the nature of God and how I can see a reflection of that in every day life. So with that being said...

God is a DM. Honestly that is the simplest way to explain it. All things considered, when I try to wrap my brain around how an all-powerful, all-knowing God lets us run around in our puny little lives with this thing called "free will" and yet still maintaining His "will" I end up with a cerebral sprain. So I will try to explain this new analysis of an extremely deep concept in the smallest words possible.

In tabletop roleplaying games -whether D&D, Star Wars, GURPS, Vampire or any of the other unknown number of titles- there are two main types of people. There are the players (I am one currently) and the Game Master (aka Dungeon Master/DM/GM). I have been both at various times in the very short period I have enjoyed this genre of gaming. The DM is the glue for the game, he knows the story (where it is going and where it has been), he knows the players, he knows the bad things, and most of all he has absolute control over what happens. The DM is responsible for making the players feel a part of the story, but will (in most cases) fit any actions that the players take into the story without having it change the intended outcome. After my time "behind the screen" I understand that drawing the players into a storyline that has been precreated for them is a matter of appealing to each player and, to one degree or another, using the carrot/stick method to get them into the story. The DM also knows the rules, and is able to bend/break them or create new ones when needed. In the end, the DM decides what is right and wrong, not the players, and as such also determines the outcome of those decisions.

In my mind, God is not so different (albeit on a much larger, grander, omnipotent deity scale). God is in charge of the story. He has been in charge since before a day 1 was even thought of. God knows the players (us) more intimately than we do. God knows the bad stuff (even the bad stuff we create all on our own). And, yes, God has absolute control over what happens. God pulls, pushes, drives us in our lives through this story He has created. God wrote the rules, so He obviously knows what they are all about. Additionally, He is able to adjust them as He deems fit (see "miracles" for physical rules and "animals in a sheet" for morality/spiritual rules).

Now, if I haven't completely lost you, or driven you to start screaming "Heresy!" at the top of your lungs while storming around murmuring how wrong I am, I would also propose that we are players. That may not sound crazy, so to get more outside the religion box: my opinion is that my relationship with God should be vaguely comparable to my relationship with my DM. My interactions with "Man upstairs" need to look more like my interactions with the "man behind the screen". As a player, I am dependent upon the DM to show me the outcome of my actions, good or bad. As a player, I need to maintain a consistent relationship in the game with my DM to allow my actions to work more fluently with the story he has created. I want to know where he wants us to be, what his motivations are, and recognize that while I may not understand why the story is going where it is, that he is, in the end, looking out for my best interest -keeping the game fun, inviting and positive.

I am dependent upon God to show me how to live, how to interact, how to walk along in His will. I need the consistent relationship with God to understand where I am in relationship to where He wants me to be. I need to know that His motivations for me are based out of love and that even when I don't understand where He is going with my life, that He does care more about me than anything else in the world.

God doesn't have the failings of a human DM. God doesn't have to roll dice to determine some outcomes. God is God. But to my poor little brain, He is the DM running this game we call life.

Restarting

It seems,

that in my attempt to

begin again, I find myself

unable to move

to think, progress

and so I step away.

It is easy to forget

in the moment

in the busy

in the chaos

in the energy that consumes my day,

sometimes connecting with God

is less about finding the time

and more about losing

more about letting me go

more about less of this

less of that

less of that thing I spend every day trying to achieve

less of me.

And so it is easy to stay busy,

to immerse myself into the void of crowd and noise

to revel in the mud

to spend my time looking down

instead of up.

And so I try to restart,

try to overcome

to compensate

to feel on my own that which I am incapable of doing.

To try to claw my way back to the cross

all on my own

not out of shame

but out of anxiety

out of missing out on You.

Yeah.

Brilliant.

So here I go.

Lord, I can be an idiot. Scratch that. I am an idiot a lot of the time. So I am going to get back to writing. Because that is how I open up and get out all the stuff that I think about all the time. Its how I sit at the cross and look at the sky. So I will try to do this a lot more often.

Being a Hero

I've been playing Dungeons and Dragons for two years now. It all started with two of my favorite webcomics, PvP and PennyArcade, and their respective authors starting a podcast recording their game sessions. As a long time geek, I had known quite a bit about D&D for years, including the nonsensical uninformed "Christian" groups that condemned the hobby for years. I formed a group of players (4 guys I knew and my wife) and became their DM (dungeon master), guiding the adventure and playing the part of the Non-Player Characters, including the bad guys. That first group stayed together for six or eight months before falling apart. I continued the D&D hobby with one of my players, this time as a player, and have enjoyed every encounter, adventure, character and crazy moment.
The D&D world is composed of three different groups of people. First, there are the Monsters -of every shape, size, motivation and mindset. Not all monsters are evil, some are just greedy, some are misguided, some are undead or mindless drones. In most circumstances, to the players, monsters are walking banks of treasure, new shiny weapons and -above all- experience.
Then there are the Inhabitants, the NPCs who are not the bad guys. The local inn-keeper, town guards, the child playing in the street, all either oblivious to the existence of the monsters or resigned to the fact that they are powerless to stop them. They need the third and final group, the Heroes.
Heroes are not all good. They are not always knights in shining armor come to save the world. They can be cowards, greedy, selfish, even evil themselves. The only difference is that when the chips are down, when the world calls out (and has rewards), the heroes are the only ones who can save the day. They can -and often have to- think beyond the easy and simple answer. They can because they are the only ones who are played by the players.
I long to see myself as a Hero. I have felt like a Monster. But I usually end up being an Inhabitant. Not bad, not good enough. Able to see the evil and chaos, but feeling unable to make a difference. And it feels very hopeless. And I get a small taste of what I truly want to be, truly want to feel when I play D&D. More than the friends I have made, more than the excitement and laughter, I play to hope. Hope more for myself, hope to impact the world, hope that over time I can put up my mundane Inhabitant existence and grab my metaphorical sword and face the darkness this world needs rescuing from.
I'm not there yet. I'm still sitting in the corner, looking at that razor sharp sword hanging on the wall. But every once in a while, I get the courage to walk over, take down the sword and feel the strength and just general badass-ness of being a Hero. And at the end of that moment, I put the sword back, not having faced the Monsters. But each time I grab that sword, I hold onto it longer and I get one more step closer to the door between me and the darkness outside.