Chapter 8: Archaic Plea

I moved into a one bedroom apartment one block away from the school. It was the first time in my life I had ever lived alone. I had saved a lot of money, about $5,000 and I had no bills, so that was cool. I did construction up there as well. I raised my rates a few times from $10 to $12 to $15 an hour. I always thought I would lose business by raising my rates and the exact opposite was always true. Every time I raised my rates I got more respect, they complained less, and I got more work. People are so retarded. I’ll never understand them. I just see what works, and do that. So, I made good money still but I worked a lot less.

Lana quickly got busy with school and volleyball, so I had a lot of free time. I met a guitar player named Brian and we hit it off pretty quick. We decided to form a band. My hair had gotten pretty long and I had gotten pretty good at playing and singing. We jammed a few times and then found a bass player named Justin (who I called Justin Time or Justin Case) and a drummer named Shawn. We searched for a good band name. We went through a list of them but finally agreed on “Archaic Plea”. It was the name of a song I had written and everyone liked it, so it stuck

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We wrote songs like crazy. I wrote songs like crazy. We practiced all the time. We ended up having a Bible study in my apartment twice a week with anyone who wanted to come. It grew quickly! We had lots of people there every week. I bought a huge P.A. It took up my whole living room, literally. It went all the way to the ceiling. It took three or four truckloads to haul it every time we played a show.

We got to play some cool shows. We played some talent shows and Battle of the Bands. We played a lot of churches and small places that we had to bring our own P.A. We got to record in a million dollar recording studio, which was fun. We got played on the radio a little and got interviewed on the radio and a few papers. In retrospect it wasn’t that big of a deal, but at the time we felt like rock stars!
I was up at the school so much that everyone thought I went there. So I could just go wherever I wanted and no one said anything. I knew all the codes for the dorms. Every once in a while someone would ask what room I lived in or what classes I was taking and I would laugh and say “I don’t go to school here.”

After a while Lana made more excuses to not see me. The guys in the band sat me down one night and told me that she was seeing someone else at the school named Bill. Everyone saw them together all the time holding hands and kissing and stuff. I stuck up for her. I didn’t believe them. I asked her about it and she got upset. She finally came clean, kind of. She said, “I just want to date around a little, that’s all. What is the big deal? Why do you have to be so ‘all or nothing?’ If I would have told you, you would have freaked out.”

I was crushed. She broke up with me. I couldn’t believe it. The guy was a nerd too! Complete with glasses and pocket protectors. I was the lead singer and guitar player for the most popular band on campus, and in town. I made good money. I was nice. It didn’t make sense. I was pretty depressed for a while. I would walk around alone at night and just cry. It sucked! What a loser. I really did love her, though.

The band hung out a lot. We did lots of fun stuff. We would go camping. I would bring the acoustic guitar and sing and play into the night. All the groupies would sing along with our songs. There is nothing as cool as having people sing along to something you wrote. It always takes me a minute to realize that “oh yeah, they shouldn’t know this. I wrote that. I mean I know it, but I wrote it. They actually pay attention? That’s cool!” When people request your songs by their correct name, that is cool too!

We went to a party one night. At some point someone offered me some drugs or alcohol. I don’t remember which. I thanked them, but said no. They asked why not. So, I told them. After a while the whole room was listening to me. It must be a rare thing for someone to stand up for what they believe in, I guess, because it happens everywhere I go. Eventually, they turned the music off and everyone wanted to know how I had overdosed and how I had gotten saved. Just like you are reading right now. I still just shrug and say, “Yeah, it’s just my life. What’s the big deal?”

One guy in particular paid a lot of attention. He didn’t have anything good to say, but he was in the thick of the conversation. His name was Dave. About a week later Dave and a friend of his came knocking on my door at 3 in the morning. They apologized for waking me up. I told them it was no problem. Then he said, “I wanted to talk to you because I know we are going to hell and I thought you would know how to help.” It is always the one that fights it the most that is having the inner struggle. He is the one who is about to change. I have learned to watch for that. The one fighting you the hardest is the one who has been hurt, but is looking for a resolve. He is looking for an answer and a way out of his mess, but there is a battle inside for his soul so he is torn.

We talked and prayed until the sun came up. Dave was an alcoholic, but he was going to try to kick it. He had been a Christian until his fiancé left him. He fell... hard. He started drinking heavily, got into a lot of drugs, and became a heroin addict. He had kicked the heroin, which was amazing, but he was still an alcoholic. I saw Dave a lot. He lived right around the corner from me. He had a hard struggle, but the last I heard he was doing well. He had cleaned up and gotten his life back together. He always thanked me for helping him. He said that no one else would have talked to him like that in the middle of the night or put up with all the backsliding and relapses. I told him he would have done the same for me. At one point I wrote a song about Dave. It was called “My Soul, The Prize!” He loved it and so did everyone else. I used a funky tuning and weird chords. It is like the struggle that goes on inside of all of us. The guy thinks it is just his thoughts, but really there are three voices: His, God’s, and the devil’s. The words are powerful and true:

“My Soul, The Prize!”

What am I doing? I know this is wrong,
At this time yesterday I thought I was strong.
Hang on child, no need to run.
Don’t listen to him; you’re missing all the fun!
My life is too short; I don’t want to miss all the fun.
Haven’t I taught you better? He only lies to kill.
Why do you even try? The mask you wear is a lie.

Chorus:

Fine, I fall. There’s always tomorrow.
It’s all a lie anyway. I’ll drown my sorrow.
That’s right you miserable wretch dance in the fire.
A little bit more will fulfill your desire.
What are you doing? Come back home please!


I’m sorry, I don’t know what came over me.
Why do I do the things I hate?
Lean on me. I know this life is hard.
That may be fine for others, but you are far too scarred.
Is a little pleasure too much to ask for a heart that knows so much pain?
I carried my cross, you must do the same.
Go ahead indulge; you are not the one to blame.

Chorus:

Fine, I fall. There’s always tomorrow.
It’s all a lie anyway. I’ll drown my sorrow.
That’s right you miserable wretch dance in the fire.
A little bit more will fulfill your desire.
What are you doing? Come back home please!

Here I am, the same boat again,
Repenting of the same sins.
I rose to free from sin. Why won’t you let me in?
Maybe you should take some time alone and think about this some more?
Maybe a little more time would be good,
After all Rome wasn’t built in a day.
Now is the appointed time, today is the day of salvation.
Think of all you’ll lose, it is worth damnation!

Chorus 2:

I fall on my knees. I run home to you.
It’s something I’ve done before, but something I shouldn’t do.
Come home son. I open my arms to you.
I love you so much I even died for you.
I leave now, but I’ll be back.
When your soul sleeps, I’m on the attack!

Resolve:

All this time my soul the prize,
Two warriors fought, they fought for my life.
Voices inside my head, I thought they were mine.
Subtle hints, a battle was raging on inside,
Those on their knees, pleading to the King,
On my behalf won the victory, how could I have been so blind?
Jesus Christ, name above all names, no other saves,
My salvation, my strength, my song


Dave was just a good example of the struggle that goes on in this song. The truth is that we have all had the same experience to one degree or another. We may not have made it all the way to the end yet, but we are in there somewhere, struggling and wrestling, trying to find the truth. We are lost in the confusion of it all. We listen to the lies. We all feel the hopelessness. We all feel inadequate and alone at times. We all have this awful feeling inside that keeps us from trying. We feel that we are not good enough, that we won’t measure up, and so we cease to try because we are afraid of failure. We all dream too small. We fall short because we don’t really believe that we can conquer sin, but with Christ all things are possible! We can do anything and conquer everything with his help. “Can’t” and “impossible” are two words that should never pass through our lips.

Over time we started to notice that the band and the Bible study were making a difference on campus and in town. It was very inspiring. In the meantime, I kept doing construction jobs. I learned more and more as time went on. I learned how to stick with a job and see it through no matter how hard it was or how difficult the people were to work for.

I learned to charge more money for my work. I talked to a fellow contractor who said he had been doing construction for 10 years or more. He said the way he saw it he had a doctorate in construction and he should be paid for all his experience. That made sense to me, so I raised my prices again. I met a lot of interesting people and got to do some monumental things. I ended up working a lot of the guys in my band and some of the college students on jobs I had. They all learned something and made some money and I got helpers. It was good.

Remodeling actually takes a lot of vision, faith, endurance, strength, and patience. The homeowner doesn’t know, or care for that matter, what you have to do to make their dream come true. They simply want something to be different and better. Of course they want to pay the least amount possible. They usually have champagne taste on a soda water salary. We have to look at the old house they have and know enough about the qualities of the structure to know what can and can’t be done. My opinion is that “anything is possible with enough time and enough money.” Which really is true. Every building out there was just a patch of dirt at one point. For someone to tell you that what you want to do is impossible is just lazy and ridiculous. If they say it will cost more than the house is worth than that might be true, but “impossible” isn’t even an option.

We have to come into people’s homes and tear up things that look like they will never be fixed again. We have to protect what is good in the house like furniture and appliances and carpet, etc. It usually looks like a war zone for a while. We bang around and make huge messes everywhere. We work long, miserable hours. We get up early and stay up late. We are always in the way and a tremendous inconvenience to the homeowner. We invade their privacy. We know all their secrets. We see their dirt and imperfections. We see how they really act around their family because eventually they get tired of faking it for the “hired help.” We usually take away vital things from their living environment like electricity, water, kitchens, bathrooms, etc.

You could always tell when we were almost done with a job. The house looked terrible and the homeowners looked like they wanted to kill us. But then like magic, if you stick with it, the whole job would gel. We would clean up, get the tools out, polish everything up, and do finishing touches. All of the sudden we were heroes! We had done the impossible...again. The house looked better than ever. What was broken was now fixed. What leaked before now didn’t. What was old was now new, and better than ever. The customers, who I always knew by name, would smile from ear to ear and brag on their new house to all their friends.

It is interesting in retrospect that I did that for a living for so long. There are so many lessons to be learned there. Jesus was also a carpenter. A lot of us forget that. He knew how to build houses and furniture... and people. There are a lot of parallels between building or remodeling a house and fixing a broken person. Where are the broken people you ask?

Look in the mirror and you will see one, then look to the first person you see and the next and so on and so forth. We are all broken. We want to think of ourselves as normal, which we all are. Normal people here and now have been broken at a young age. They have been hurt countless times. They feel alone even though people constantly surround them. A large percentage of normal people have been raped or molested. Almost all have issues with their parents in some way or another. Normal people feel hopeless, but are great at faking it for people. Normal people are amazing liars. We can deny that a problem exists for a lifetime even when it screams in our face everyday. We build cheap defense tactics to keep anyone away from our weaknesses, because we all have them...lots of them.

So, we can ignore a problem until it destroys us or we can call a carpenter to fix the issue. Just like remodeling a house it will hurt. You will have to give access to the things in your life that aren’t pretty. There will be no more secrets, as if there ever were in the first place. Some things will have to be torn out and removed, but only for your good. Sometimes you will feel as if you are without essential things in life, but there is always an alternative that the carpenter has provided. He knows your needs, and is looking out for your best interests. And right when the mess is at its worst and you want to give up, then it all gels. It all comes together and you see the beauty of the whole thing. You see why he had to do it this way. It makes sense and you just want to show it off to all your friends. You want to try it out and brag about it.

The first person that needs to be remodeled is yourself, always. But once that is done, it is difficult to watch everyone else live in misery. Ever since I was sixteen years old all I wanted to do was sing from the rooftops what a great job God did remodeling my house inside. And so then I try to share that experience with other people. I wish we could just wave a magic wand across a broken house and it would be fixed, but we can’t. I think that the same is true of broken people. We want to change in an instant, but it takes a lot of work, sweat, blood, tears, trial and error, repetitious failure sometimes, and persistence. I am privileged to have had the honor of helping so many people fix their homes. I am even more honored to have the blessing of helping so many people fix themselves. Obviously it isn’t them or me. It is God. But God works through us if we let him. And to be an instrument of God like that is the most satisfying experience that I know of. Remodeling people is a hard job, but a glorious one.

One day I was by myself remodeling a home in Oklahoma City. I had a ladder propped up on the wall outside. I was inside at the time laying ceramic tile on the bathroom floor. I heard a low rumbling sound and a loud boom. At first I thought my ladder had slid down the side of the house and crashed, but then the foundation started to shake. I felt it in my knees because I was on my knees laying the floor. I got up and went outside. The ladder was still up. I didn’t see anything, so I got up on the roof to see if something had happened up there. I saw smoke rising from about ten miles away. People started coming out of their homes. One of them said, “Can you see it?” I didn’t have a clue what he was talking about. Then he told me they had just blown up the Federal Building. My first thought was “What is the Federal Building?” (I’m ignorant.) We were at least ten miles away and I not only heard the explosion, I felt it!

A girl’s mother died in the bombing that went to the Bible study in my apartment. Lots of people I knew were hurt or killed and I knew lots of people that had loved ones in the building. We watched and knew lots of the people in the crowd at the funerals on TV. One of the ladies that went to my church was the last one out of the building for the Oklahoma Bombing. Timothy McVeigh honked at her from his Ryder truck and rudely told her to get out of the way. He came up and banged on her car window. He told her to move her car, but she was waiting for her husband who came out a moment later. They drove away and shortly after they left, the building blew up! She had to testify in court. She was one of the eyewitnesses that helped convict him. There was destruction everywhere. It was sad. Everyone joined together to help. Why do we only help each other when a tragedy occurs?

Back to my life. Months had gone by and I was getting comfortable with being single. The band was in some talent contest and I met a girl named Krista who I thought was attractive. So I asked her out. We went out to eat. It was fun. Then I asked her out again. She said yes. Before I got the chance to actually go out with her again Lana showed back up and told me how sorry she was and that she wanted to get back together. I took her back. Things were good. I went out to eat with Krista, but only to tell her that I was going out with Lana again. She told me that she had a boyfriend who lived out of town anyway. What a mess!

Lana was ready to get married and I had been for a long time, so after a while I proposed...again. She insisted on getting yet another engagement ring and a wedding band, so I got them. Her parents tried to talk her out of it for a while. I’m sure they said terrible things about me. They still felt like I was a loser. They thought they would be supporting both of us for the rest of their lives. I was insulted. Finally, Lana stood up to them. She said, “We are getting married on May 20th. If you want to come you can. If not we are getting married anyway.” I was proud of her. Her mother’s tone changed instantly. All of the sudden she was like “What kind of wedding are you going to have? What kind of flowers? What kind of cake?” and stuff like that. Women are so weird.

Her dad was starting a concrete block factory in Denton, TX. and he needed someone to run it. So, we thought we would move to Denton for the summer. My band was pretty mad at me for that, but we went anyway. I moved right before school was out. I found us a small apartment that was only $350 a month. She moved her stuff down right before we got married and stayed in Arlington for a few days to get ready for the wedding while I worked in Denton.

Planning a wedding is stressful. I didn’t even have to do anything. It is the women that make it stressful. A wedding should be short and sweet and have good food and a good reception. I’m sure I could plan one for not very much money that wouldn’t even take that much effort. But, it is the day every girl has waited for her whole life so you have to just suck it up and smile.

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