Author Archives: Mark Chappelle

Like a Child

[Word count: 620. Approximate read time: 2-3 minutes]

“Here’s my plea
I want to see your face, feel your warm embrace,
And lay here like a child
In your loving arms, where I’m safe from harm,
And the sorrow fades away.”
—Crystal Lewis, “Like a Child”

Just woke up from a bad dream where I had to relive when my Papa told me he was dying. A friend suggested I re-read the blog I wrote about it. In that story I remember how, from a place of ignorance, God swept in and rescued me before calamity could crash in on top of me. That all took place when I was still 19.

I turn 33 on Tuesday. A lot changes in 13 years. I’m more skeptical than I was as a young adult, a little world weary in places. I believe less readily than I once did. My once-shiny faith is a little dog-eared and yellowish now. It’s like a sun-beaten rubber band, dried and showing cracks. I fear if I stretch it to believe, it may snap.

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Every Day Can’t Be April Fools’ Day

[Word count: 604. Approximate read time: 2-3 minutes]

They're not gonna laugh at you. What are you so afraid of? No one's out to get you. You're among friends. Why so serious? People are good. People love you. They want to see you succeed. Let your hair down. Have some fun. No one is trying to lure you into a zombie apocalypse.Skeptics, go on high alert. For 24 hours, tricksters will hunt the gullible. Stay in your house all day. Don’t do anything or go anywhere. Trust no text message, tweet, telephone call, e-mail, instant message, news report, police bullhorn, or crowd of hysterical people running toward the nearest mall exit. Don’t believe anything. It’s all a conspiracy to take you down.

That’s me. I am that anxious, ever-suspecting dude for whom every day feels like April Fools’ Day. I have seen my general level of distrust rise like the water level in a Poseidon adventure. It’s hard to take anything at face value now. This is not okay. Have you ever:

  • Asked someone to tell their story and then called their credibility into question to dismiss the validity of their experience?
  • Had someone plead their case although you had already pronounced them guilty in your mind?
  • Gotten a compliment you wanted to hear, but decided the compliment giver wasn’t sincere enough?
  • Been treated nicely by someone, but decided they had an ulterior motive based on their association with someone you perceive as a threat?

If you have, you are as much your own problem as I am. Your inability to trust can block you from receiving wisdom, truth, encouragement, kindness, affection, or all of the above. How broken is your faith if you decide you can never trust anything anyone says? What kind of two-faced unscrupulous people have you known that make you believe this is the way you have to be to survive?

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For Believers Who Have Considered Apostasy When Faith Isn’t Enuf

[Word count: 1671. Approximate read time: 6-7 minutes]

God prompted me to write out my testimony of why I believe in him recently. That was probably so I could have a more sure footing from which to talk about why I doubt him. I usually avoid disclaimers, but for this entry, it’s been as difficult to write out as it has been to live out. So please pray about what you don’t understand or agree with, and also be considerate in your judgments. If I deliver it correctly, you will do some judging.

For all we know

“And help us to be wise in times when we don’t know…”
—from “The Prayer”

For those outside Christendom who are unaware, apostasy, also known as “falling away,” is the act of abandoning the teachings of Christ to become an atheist or agnostic. It is essentially the opposite of conversion to belief in Jesus. This is one of the most feared things that can happen to a Christian. It can get you ostracized from your community of believers, and though some believe in “once saved, always saved,” most believe this loss or rejection of faith results in eternal damnation.

For those inside Christendom who are unaware, where Christians believe Jesus Christ is Lord, and atheists do not believe God exists at all, agnostics say “we don’t know.” Agnosticism is the view that human reason is incapable of providing sufficient rational grounds to justify the belief that deities either do or do not exist. It does not reject that God exists, but it does not prove him either. It’s like the spiritual embodiment of “I can neither confirm nor deny.”

As un-Christian as this viewpoint is, I can honestly say, I have leaned toward this philosophy for years while professing belief in Christ. It’s not foreign to me. I’ve just never really allowed myself to examine it until now.

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Why I Believe in God

[Word count: 901. Approximate read time: 3-4 minutes]

My grandmother, me, and my grandfather

I had a very close relationship with my grandfather. Raised primarily by my paternal grandparents so my mother could work full time and keep the family off of welfare, when my grandmother died in 1989, it was just Papa and I for years, thick as thieves. All he ever talked about me doing was going to college and getting an education. He came through the Great Depression, poverty, and decades of racism having raised a family of 4 on an 8th grade education. He wanted more than that for me.

My mother and I, similar as we were, were constantly at odds. When I turned 18, all I wanted to do was get away from her household and my small-minded hometown. College was my underground railroad to freedom. I thought I was running away from home, but really I was fleeing directly into a place God had set up for me. Continue reading →

Lay Your Weapons Down

[Word count: 1605. Approximate read time: 6-8 minutes]

tony-leung-gun-standoff1

I’m hearing a familiar voice calmly asking me to “drop my weapons.” I hear you. But I can’t do that yet. I’m sorry. I want to lay them down. They’re heavy and cumbersome. But there’s a conflict. I picked up this weapon after someone I trusted hurt me pretty badly. My guard was down. I didn’t even see it coming. I’m holding this weapon because I have to. Not because I want to. As long as I hold it, they can’t hurt me again. Not like before. And I still haven’t found a safe place to rest yet. Dropping my weapon would be certain death, tantamount to suicide.

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Love at First Sight, but Not Second

[Word count: 408. Approximate read time: 2 minutes]

While trolling through a clearance CD rack, I flipped past an album I’d always been interested in. Not so much because of its music reviews, but because the album cover was absolutely beautiful to me. The purpose of good art is to attract attention to good artists, and everything about the packaging just got me excited! Soft, warm fleshy browns contrasted with icy pale turquoise under white minimalist type. I opened up the jewel case to find a classy, translucent frosted disc adorned with a cute, flirty icon to match the front. Flipping through the booklet, there’s only page after page of eye-pleasing photos of the beautiful woman on the cover. I fell in love with that alone.

Biding until the perfect moment to see what the music sounded like, I just popped the disc in today. The first track wasn’t too bad, so I kept listening. The second track was so-so, until the end. I couldn’t identify with the lyrics and then the vamp really started grating on me. The third track was mostly forgettable. The fourth whiny and angry. Midway through, I rolled my eyes and skipped it. The fifth sounded like it was going in a nice direction, but turned out to be just a spoken interlude. The next few tracks used some great samples, but after not too long, it was hard to ignore the singer’s drifting pitch.

By the second half of the album, I went from listening to full songs, to listening to half-songs, to scanning each for a minute. As each song seemed to compound the previous one’s disappointment, my attention span got shorter and shorter. Ultimately, there were a few pleasant surprises, but overall, it really fell flat. It doesn’t even look as good now that I’ve listened to it.

I sat for a moment in silence pondering how such a beautiful cover could be wrapped around such lackluster work. They couldn’t have spent some of that packaging money on improving the actual content? Better producers, writers, or even a talented engineer to AutoTune it all could’ve helped dramatically. Talk about the epitome of anticlimactic.

I couldn’t believe something that looked so good could disappoint so badly. I spent money getting this. I spent time listening to it looking for something of value. It was kind of a waste, except for one thing. In a moment of clarity, I thought: “I really need to stop picking my women this way.”

Not Enough, but Compared to What?

[Word count: 1255. Approximate read time: 4-5 minutes]

One day, I was talking to a mentor about how it drove me crazy that a particular woman would not so much as give me the time of day. No eye contact, no casual hello, nothing. One would’ve thought she was harnessing her mental energy to metaphysically wish away my existence. The world has never known reception so icy. I could’ve stored raw meat on her shoulders for months.

It dominated my thoughts. Did I say something to offend her? Was my hygiene bad? Does she resent guys with hair longer than hers? Does she dislike Black men? Skinny men? Eventually, I didn’t really want her attention anymore. I just wanted to know why I couldn’t have it, and what rendered me ineligible. Maybe I wasn’t the fit for her. And that’s okay, I guess. But things like this exacerbate a long standing tradition of feeling like I’m not something enough. Pick any something:

  • Not Black enough.
  • Not strong enough.
  • Not man enough.
  • Not important enough.
  • Not cool enough.
  • Not young enough.
  • Not established enough.
  • Not charming enough.
  • Not skilled enough.
  • Not accomplished enough.
  • Not Christian enough.
  • Not persistent enough.
  • Not talented enough.
  • Not attractive enough.
  • Not driven enough.

Bear this in mind. I am aware that I am indeed all of the above. It just seems like it’s never enough.

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God and the Silent Treatment

[Word count: 869. Approximate read time: 3-4 minutes]

“I— I got a question
I got a question
Where are you?
Did you leave me unbreakable?
Leave me frozen?
I’ve never felt so cold
I thought you were silent
I thought you left me
For the wreckage and the waste
On an empty beach of faith
Was it true?”

— Jars of Clay, “Silence”

IgnoreMeWhat kind of Christian song is this? I don’t recognize any scripture. These lyrics aren’t uplifting. They’re fraught with doubt! Preposterous! Jars of Clay must have fallen away from God because of their crossover compromising. I must call my local Christian bookstore and alert them right away before someone loses faith. Oh, Jesus be a compact disc recall.

Psych. I love this song. Adore it to the core, depressing lyrics and all. And though it’s the sullen cousin of a funeral dirge, the fact that it exists comforts me. That means someone else has gotten the silent treatment from God and lived to tell about it.

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Cast Away

[Word count: 771. Approximate read time: 3 minutes]

Are you a Christian? Do you go to church? If you’re anything like most Christians I know, you probably go to church… a lot. But what if you were like Tom Hanks in Cast Away, stranded on a remote island, far removed from society and its helps? What if your only company was a volleyball named Wilson? Tom Hanks as Chuck Noland in the film "Cast Away" along with his inanimate volleyball friend Wilson. What kind of Christian would you be in that situation?

That’s the situation I’ve placed myself in by abandoning my church membership. For any group of people, there is the temptation to put your best foot forward just in case the focus falls on you. It’s human nature to portray yourself ideally. But apart from having an audience to perform for, I come face to face with what God has to look at every day: the kind of Christian I actually am.

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Deuces

[Word count: 721. Approximate read time: 2-3 minutes]

What would we do without “us”?

In 2003, I found a group of amazing people and together we started a church. These people were especially helpful through my twenties. Peers could commiserate with me about challenges encountered in a life of faith. Middle aged members helped guide us through missteps and unfamiliar territory. Elders with a wealth of life experience sailed out ahead of us all to offer wisdom.

As long as I had them, I felt sure to win! Not only were they great resources, I also came to genuinely love and respect them. When someone becomes that dear to me, I often tell them, “I don’t know what I would have ever done without you.” And then I thought “what if I HAD to do without them?” As strong as we felt together, I always believed we should have a plan… just in case we were ever apart.

I felt I should know how to be a Christian with or without community support, just like you might take a self-defense course in case you’re attacked while alone. I wanted to know I could “survive in the wild” if necessary. Though a fleeting thought, it was my premonition that such a day would come. True enough, it came for me in June 2011 when, after much consideration, I decided to leave my church.

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