Only God Knows

"I'm depressed, man. Girl isn't even the slightest bit interested."

"That sucks, who's next?"
"I don't know, this girl seemed perfect."
"Or she could spend fifteen years sleeping around until one day she comes home drunk and stabs you to death. You have no way of knowing who she'd have turned out to be."
"God only knows, I guess."

"Is that really a guess?"
"No, I guess not."

The great arrogance of Humanity is that we think we have enough control over our lives that our plans should work. Life doesn't care about our plans, though, and so we get angry and depressed when life goes the way it will and pricks that arrogance. We apply for jobs we don't get, we ask women out on dates that don't care, we do thousands and thousands of things, all of which we expect to work, and few of which actually do. All our arrogance is revealed, daily, to be nothing more than just arrogance.

Most of us don't take that very well. Which, don't get me wrong, is a totally natural thing. 

It's not exactly unexpected for people to react negatively when things go sideways, and I wouldn't call it a problem if some guy cusses when he smashes his thumb with a hammer, or for some girl to shed a few tears if her boyfriend dumps her harshly. Humans are great at building up expectations, and frankly terrible at handling the inevitable letdowns.

For me, the problems don't arise when we get depressed or angry, because those are natural reactions. No, the actual problems show up when we let our anger or depression make the next decision for us, and we do stupid things as a result. Letting out a few choice profanities in our anger is one thing, and happens before we can think, but throwing the hammer across the shop and damaging other things in a tantrum is a problem.

It's not the natural reactions, but our refusal to get back on with life after our letdowns that drags us down.

Tantrums always seem to come down to one thing: We refuse to accept that we have a place in life that is somewhere other than at the top of the pyramid. Instead of realizing that we are not in control, we scream, cry, kick our heels, and break stuff because our arrogant pride has been wounded.

If, perhaps, we don't make quite the show of it we did when we were toddlers, it certainly still happens.

The reality is that we are simply not in control of our lives. Even if we were all intelligent, rational, and pure-hearted people, and we aren't, the world is simply too big and too complicated for it to submit to our wills. It's not going to happen, ever.

The reality is that God is in control of this world. So while it's perfectly normal to be disappointed, depressed, or angry that things don't go our way, we need to realize that everything that happens has been allowed to happen. While our natural reactions to things may not be explicitly sinful, rebellious tantrums is. So is dwelling and brooding on the past, believing that we didn't deserve this or that.

"Deserve" doesn't really have anything to do with it, when you think about it. The point is that our Father knows what's best for us, and when we arrogantly dwell on what we think should or should not have happened, what we're really saying is that we know better than God. If God had listened to us, He'd have gotten that job for you, and that girl would have liked me back, and that other driver wouldn't have smashed your car, etc, etc, etc.

But what we need to accept is that we don't know what would have happened if we'd gotten our way. That "dream" girl or guy could be the next Casey Anthony or Scott Peterson, that job we prayed and prayed and prayed for could have ended in disaster when the company goes under, or relocates. If I'm really honest about myself, maybe I'd have been a terrible boyfriend to that girl, or would have been bad for that company.

God only knows, and what we need to keep in mind is that He *does* know. Not only what's best for us, but what's best for the people around us, and people we'll never meet.

It's also worth pointing out that there's absolutely nothing wrong with going straight to God in our distress and saying "I don't know what's going on, but this sucks. I know you're in control, but I'm freaking out down here." If you don't believe me, read through the Book of Psalms. David spends most of the book crying out to God in his distress, but he always circles back to being humble before God.

Life is hard, I would never state otherwise, and it will, more often than not, take us off our feet. Things simply do not go our way most of the time. There's nothing we can do to stop that, but there are things we can do to deal with it. We can remember that the world doesn't circle around us, we can remember that God is in control, and we can remember that we can take our troubles to God before we allow ourselves to do something stupid.

Faith, Existentialism, and That One School.

As an existentialist, I have spent a lot of time trying to find something to give my life meaning. A search not just for Truth, but for Truth that would actually give Purpose to my life. 2+2=4 isn't a good reason to wake up in the morning, and won't make life worth living. No, to stave off nihilism, one has to really have a purpose in life.

Part of being a Protestant, as I was, was something that can best be described as a quest for perfect doctrine. Endless Bible studies, devotionals, and classes, all with the intent of unlocking one more nugget of truth, one more bit of wisdom, until, theoretically, we'd reach a point where we had perfect doctrine.

Neverminding that bit in the Bible about the faith "delivered once and for all to the saints", there was always one more book about systematic theology to read, because the last one wasn't quite perfect. Of course, it wasn't enough to just agree with the last guy's book, because the new guy's book disagreed. I had to be my own expert in all things doctrinal, just in case whatever theologian I was reading wasn't perfect himself.

Of course, all of this only worked to a point. As one of my professors at That One School stated "Never let your doctrine get in the way of your witness." Now, to clarify, he stated this while relating a story about how despite being a staunch 5-point Calvinist (of which he boasted often), he told a women whose child had died that it was assuredly in Heaven. He went on to say that although he *actually* believed God occasionally damns newborns to hell for their sins (or maybe Adam's sin, I get confused), he didn't want to scare this woman off, so he basically lied about what he believed.

Now, this has always been interesting to me. First, it assumes that what this man believes God is really like is so heinous that to accurately represent Him would drive off unbelievers. Second, it presupposes that one's doctrine is something that can be set aside.

How much meaning can doctrine really give a man if it can simply be cast aside when it becomes awkward or inconvenient? Nihilism is a mean sonofabitch, it takes something very real to fight it off. The self-created doctrines of Man, nevermind if they're disguised as theology or simply hedonistic, are simply not enough.

There's another question, too, that I have about that: What is faith if all that you believe about God can be cast aside for convenience?

While I was Protestant, a great deal was made about how "works" were not required in any way, shape, or form in order to be saved. "Simply have faith", I was told. "Faith" was never really defined, but since it didn't require works, it basically came down to "agree with this list of things." In essence, assent to a certain doctrine and it's defined as having faith.

Doctrine, according to my professor at That One School, can simply be cast aside when it's inconvenient. I don't really know how he knows he has faith in anything if he can lie about what he believes. He's a Calvinist unless he's talking to grieving mothers, at which point he's....something else. I don't know what, actually, but if he's not willing to stand up for what he believes in front of one woman, is he willing to stand up for it in front of a firing squad?

Here's what I know: True Faith, of the kind that can truly give meaning to life, is something people hold on to even when it means being fed to lions. The Bible professor? He recanted his doctrine because he was afraid of what some woman might think. That's how much he was willing to risk, and it doesn't say much about much meaning his doctrine gave his life. If he wasn't willing to risk it, why should I?

I want the True Faith that people stared down execution squads for two millenia because of.

AAR: Battleroad USA Zombie Destruction Biathlon

The Plan:

Run Battleroad USA's Zombie Destruction Biathlon, a 4.2 mile biathlon with eight shooting stations, four rifle and four pistol.

What Actually Happened:

It was pretty straight forward, I ran the course and individual shooting stations as laid out. I finished with an adjusted time (my total time for the run of 1:28:something, minus the time I spent waiting and running individual stations) of 1:11:50, placing 36/77. I successfully completed seven of the eight shooting stations, disqualifying on the last one due to too many missed shots in a row.

What Went Wrong:

1. The primary failure for the course was dehydration-caused exhaustion. I failed to drink enough water the day before, and did not bring extra water to keep my Camelbak full, so I ran out of water about 30 minutes into the race. Due to the central-Texas location, the weather was a mild 85*F, with 75% humidity, and I very nearly became a heat injury.

2. A second major failure point was inexperience with rifle shooting from unusual positions. I did fairly well with prone and kneeling shots, but shots that require standing with the rifle braced on doorframes, canted to shoot under/through obstacles, or from a half-crouched position gave me trouble.

Stage 8. 9 hits from 9 positions in less than 3 minutes. I failed it.

3. Compounding the dehydration was poor diet the previous day, I generally don't eat full meals when I'm on the road, but the biathlon required far more calories than I had eaten. And what I *had* eaten was a sandwich, a couple bags of snack trash foods, washed down with soda and Red Bull. I'm a retard, and I admit it.

4. At one of the early stages, my safety glasses fogged up. This was totally unexpected, as they don't seal up around my eyes, nor should there have been a temperature/humidity change that should have caused that. Simple enough fix (take them off for a shot), but losing vision while shooting is a definite problem.

5. My tac vest was heavy and tight enough to prevent me from drawing full breaths on the trot, so I had to run without being able to breath properly. This was partly remedied by breathing from the belly instead of the chest, but that still doesn't allow me to run without trouble. Loosening the tac vest would have meant more bouncing/digging as I ran, which doesn't really make anything better.

6. At one of the pistol stages, foliage that partially obscured one of the targets kept throwing me off. I'd aim at the steel, but missed wider on that target, repeatedly, than any other target on the course.

7. 7-round 1911 mags on a course that required 57 pistol hits, with stages that required up to 20 hits a piece. 'Nuff said, really.

8. I had my AR mags loaded with 30 rounds, which prevented me from loading them on a closed bolt.

What Went Right:

1. For the most part, my rifle work was acceptable. I need more experience estimating ranges, but I shot acceptably well on three of the rifle stages. The first was "meh" at best due to odd positions and just having jogged 3/4 of a mile, but I was pimp-slapping steel on the other two.

2. I did far better than expected on the pistol stages. When possible, I dropped to a crouch to minimize hand tremors from the runs, and this allowed me to brace my elbow on my knee. It worked very well on the two stages I could do this on, which were 20-yard shots in a wooded area.

3. I wore a basic pair of Mechanix gloves for the whole race, and thoroughly recommend them.

4. My reloads, both pistol and rifle, were smooth if not especially fast. I didn't have any trouble getting mags from my pouches, and retention of mags was perfect. For that matter, I didn't have any problems with my kit except for the vest compressing my rib cage, which is a secondary issue. Even my boots were comfy the entire time.

5. I can bitch about my level of fitness, but by and large the average competitor was...large. I saw more fat wrapped in multicam there in one day than pretty much everywhere else combined. So frankly, I was a lean, mean killing machine compared to a lot of the people there.

6. It did a fantastic job of tying together the various disciplines involved in shooting: PT, marksmanship, terrain navigation, and gear. Hell, throw in a compass course and a requirement to sneak past an observer and it would be perfect.

7. I was only ten minutes behind the fifth-place finisher. Had I not been forced to walk to avoid becoming a heat casualty, I could easily have been near the top ten, if not the top five.

Lessons Learned:

1. I need to diversify my rifle shooting drills to include urban prone, canted-rifle, and other odd positions. Standing, kneeling, and prone just wasn't enough. I also need a steel ringer target to simplify my range trips.

2. Increased shooting distance is an absolute priority. There's just no way to practice accounting for windage or ballistic drop at 50 yards, even if I'm shooting tiny-ass targets that simulate minute-of-dude at 300 yards.

3. I do a lot of PT, but I need to do EVEN MORE PT! Ideally, I should be able to run the entire course length with full kit at a decent pace, during the hot part of the day.

4. I now have an excellent excuse to buy a 9mm pistol. Ideally with 30-round stick mags for those stages with a higher round count... :)

5. I need to take care of myself better. My day-to-day diet is pretty good, but that falls apart on a road trip, and that's unacceptable. 

6. Why aren't all my friends doing this? IT WAS AWESOME!!!