I was 18 years old and it was my first week of Junior College.

“Wake up! You’re going to war!”

She burst through my bedroom, the door swinging into the wall. Wake up, you’re going to war! She shouted again in a kind of teary confusion.

I remember walking out of my bedroom into the loft that overlooked the family room. The TV was loud with breathless news-anchors and “this-just-in” reporting. Mom raced ahead and I rubbed my eyes clean of their sleep. She composed herself and looked at me.

“Two planes just hit some buildings in New York and now I think we’re going to go to war and you’re going to have to go.”

I remember sweating but not much else.

And, in what was probably the most selfish moment of my life – my next thought turned to the Selective Service card I’d mailed just a week before. The government sends out a notice to all males turning age 18. Returning the card is an acknowledgement of the possibility of forced military involvement (and my eligibility for it) should the US need to implement a draft. My birthday is in March, but they give you 6 months to return the card. September 2001 was month-six.

In the weeks before, dad and I would joke about my getting drafted and going into the army. He said I was a prettyboy and we’d both laugh at what kind of soldier I’d be. The army, I thought, was either for guys who want to be in the army or guys who’d knocked up their highschool sweetheart and I was neither. And, there was no war, so there was room for these kinds of jokes.

The news replayed their footage and I watched as their cameras filled with dust and fire and running people. My heart was consumed with a kind of numb curiosity. What would happen now? Were they coming to California? Who are they? Are we going to war? Am I going to war?

It doesn’t feel like that was 10 years ago. I think of everything that’s happened in the past decade, and the clarity with which I recall that morning, I confess that it feels like a film I saw once. The kind that moves more into your memory than into your heart. The numbness of the thousands of miles between California and New York, and the insolation of my selfishness had protected me from fully experiencing the reality of the day.

So, as the years stretched on, as country singers, clothing companies and candidates used the event to move units and gather votes, 9/11 had become a source of shame for me. The way I thought of myself before I thought of the thousands of buried people and broken families.

It might not feel like a decade ago (what’s a decade supposed to feel like, anyway?) but it was, and I’m proud to say that whatever’s happened since then – I’m a little less selfish than I was at 18. I’ve got a long way to go, but because I was in California 10 years ago rather than in one of the Twin Towers, I’ve had a decade’s worth of grace to work with. I’ve known a lot of forgiveness and I’ve given some of it, too.

For me, mom’s benediction still rings, though “wake up, you’re going to war” doesn’t mean a jumpseat on a military plane headed to Iraq. It’s a call into community rather than consumption, it’s a call to cover your exposed skin before my own. It’s an invitation to war against the numbness that so quickly gathers. “Wake up, you’re going to war” means everything to me, because I didn’t have to.

“The Lord’s mercy often rides to the door of our heart upon the black horse of affliction.”

Charles H. Spurgeon

I’m not a fan of dramatics, but I’m currently blogging from the hospital bed.

I rolled a quad today, came in a little hot around a trail and it threw me off and down into a ditch, I hear it was about an 8 foot fall. Inertia did as it always does and sent the quad tumbling off of the same trail edge, resting finally on top of me.

I remember the impact, my back against the brush. I remember feeling a strange, quiet chaos. Both peaceful and painful.

And, when the quad came tumbling off of the edge I remember thinking that this could be really, truly bad. I covered my head and the quad hit and I felt the impact of the seat and some tires. I remember my body compressing.

I stood to my feet and took inventory of my body. I remember wriggling my toes to make sure I could, and feeling my arms and legs for their bones.

I walked slowly and found encouragement in my slow, labored steps. “I can walk, that’s a good sign right?” I remember the quad’s engine sputter and stop, it on it’s side.

So, here I lay face down in a hospital bed, the nurse preparing me for scrubbing. My back, exposed and cold. My left arm has an IV, and I just had a ct scan.

The doctor told me that there’s a man down the hall who also flipped his quad earlier today. She asked if we were together – his brain is bleeding and it’s not looking good.

So here I am, still wriggling my toes, wrapped in as much grace as I am in gauze.

Ok, my ENFJ friends (everybody) – I have a secret. I’ve been mascarading as one of you for some time now, but I just can’t stand myself anymore. All the deception, the posturing, the cover-ups and the sleepless nights…all of it ends now.

I
Am
A
“p”

{Deep exhale}

I’d given up wanting to be a “T” awhile ago, though it was tough. “A man should be a “thinker”" I’d say. Cool and indifferent and detached and…not me. But, I was wrong. My idea of masculinity had been distilled to it’s basest forms – so there has been freedom both in the realignment of my definition as well as my identity.

But this P/J issue has not gone quietly.

What I’ve come to experience (through the Godshape classes) is that, who you are when you’re at peace is who you are. So, while I value order and structure and concrete boundaries – those don’t bring me peace, they bring me…money.

I’ve put a literal value on the “J” dynamic because it (at least in my flawed definition of it) is what my job requires of me. But peace? Not so much.

So, I hope my ENFJ friends don’t disown me for turning in my badge.