I'll Take The Dirt Road
"I'll Take the Dirt Road"
Many of you on facebook aren't familiar with how I grew up. I was raised in Tennessee, not the pretty mountain part in the East, but the hilly woods of the western side. The town I grew up in was too small to have a traffic light, the entire 8th grade was only 14 kids, and the nearest bookstore was an hour drive away and in another county, it took us about half an hour to get to McDonald's, which was a big outing for most. I lived in both a log cabin (the real kind, no central heat and air or internet, we even had goats that had the nasty habit of blocking the road when the school bus tried to take off) and a trailor park. Which probably gives me double bonus redneck points, which are redeemable for wresting tickets and beef jerky.
I spent many years plotting, scheming, and dreaming of ways to get out of the woods. I was desperate for "civilization" to the same level as women in horror movies are desperate to get out of the woods just before they inevitably twist their ankle while being chased. I finally managed to join the Air Force and was stationed in Germany, which then paid for my college, which sent me to Europe again to be an exchange student and to Nashville where I dabbled in the songwriting scene. In July of 2000 I was bagging groceries for a living at a local store and working 3rd shift at wal-mart, and homeschooling myself to finish High School, all while living in the same county that didn't even have a bookstore for 20 years of my life.
Then, the next summer, I am sitting in Paris, France drinking a cappucino within pebble throwing distance of the Eiffel Tower. A few months later 9/11 happened and 250 members of my 254 member unit were deployed overnight with flak vests and M-16's and last Will and Testaments squared away. I was one of the 3 that stayed due to the fact that we were Commander's Support Staff and not Combat Troops. After Germany I was sent to Oklahoma during which time the war in Iraq began. While in Tech. School the U.S.S. Cole had also been bombed. After the military I moved to Nashville and worked at a half-way house for men who just got out of the prison, which was located on Music Row. I also joined a songwriter's association and tried my hand at wanting to be rich and famous (due to writing, not singing or playing). In Nashville I attended a very expensive private Christian school (military paid my tuition) that caters to Musicians, Brad Paisley, Josh Turner, Trisha Yearwood, and alot of other famous people graduated from there. I met my future wife in June on Myspace, got engaged officially on August 24th, then flew to Germany again on August 25th. This time I was an exchange student by way of a Rassmussen Scholarship. Then I spent 6 lonely months in former Eastern Europe (Dresden, Germany) living just like any other college student in Europe. Then I moved to Ga, then to Tennessee where I finished my history degree and nearly finished my German degree, and got married on December 12th 2008. Less than 10 months later, we found out we were having a baby, well, Jessica was having IT, I was just suppose to pay for diapers which sure beats labor.
Even then,after all of that craziness (I left out the time I also got arrested in Germany for being an illegal immigrant when my Student Visa expired, and almost getting caught in riot between the Neo-Nazis and the Communist Youth) I still had plans to work for the Foreign Service or Department of Defense Schools, or possibly move to China or Japan to teach English to pay off my student loans and finish my Ninjutsu training. What was I thinking????? I don't know. But I must have been crazy.
After all, whoever "Wins" the Rat Race, is still a Rat in the End.
After all of this. I can honestly say that even adventure gets boring, the fast lane wears you out so that life is simply a ten minute dream in the passenger seat, and you forget who you are, where you came from, and what you stand for. In the fast lane, the speed is disorienting. Too much change, too fast, leaves you dizzy.
As for me, as I push 30, for the rest of my life:
"I'll Take the Dirt Road".
I want to get my Master's in Marriage and Family Counseling, move to the mountains of North Carolina near a large town or small city at most, and set up a Christian Counseling Practice. I want a porch swing, a yard, friends that I will live near for more than 6 months at a time, and ones who aren't about to graduate, be deployed, or are too busy with their "Shows" and recording sessions that night to get a cup of coffee, oh, and a very loyal dog-probably a lab. I want life without a watch, a dayplanner, a multi-language phrasebook, or 3 kinds of currency in my pocket and a complete and total paranoia about losing my Passport. I want to watch my child on the way grow up, notice that I said WATCH, not ask "what was that blur that just ran by through the time and space continuum, entering at age 3 and magically emerging on the other end with a 2kids and a mortgage, what happened to all those years in the middle?"
I believe that the "Tree of Life' is found at the end of the dirt road, the narrow path goes through the gates of G-d's City. On the dirt road, you are forced to go slow, which is boring at times but at least you have time to see where you are going before you drive off the edge on the Right or the Left. You have time to converse with your passengers, to listen to The Voice on your spiritual radio, and the luxury of being able to stop and help a stranded motorist without holding up traffic or getting run over yourself. There isn't alot on this road, few billboards, few restaurants, few DISTRACTIONS. You go where you need to be, and take your time to get there-arriving exactly on G-d's time whether that be everyone else's idea of the appropriate point of arrival or not.
Proverbs 17:1:
1 Better is a dry morsel with quiet
than a house full of feasting with strife.
Proverbs 27:10:
10Do not forsake your own friend or your father's friend,
And do not go to your brother's house in the day of your calamity; Better is a neighbor who is near than a brother far away.
Ecclesiastes 9:9
Enjoy life with the woman whom you love all the days of your fleeting life which He has given to you under the sun; for this is your reward in life and in your toil in which you have labored under the sun.
Ecclesiastes 5:16
This also is a grievous evil--exactly as a man is born, thus will he die. So what is the advantage to him who toils for the wind?
Ecclesiastes 5:18
Here is what I have seen to be good and fitting: to eat, to drink and enjoy oneself in all one's labor in which he toils under the sun during the few years of his life which God has given him; for this is his [ reward.
Ecclesiastes 8:15
So I commended pleasure, for there is nothing good for a man under the sun except to eat and to drink and to be merry, and this will stand by him in his toils throughout the days of his life which God has given him under the sun.
The Dirt Road by Sawyer Brown
Listen Here:
http://www.youtube.com/
Daddy worked hard for his dollar
He said some folks don't, but that's o.k.
They won't know which road to follow
Because an easy street might lead you astray
Chorus:
I'll take the dirt road, it's all I know
I've been a'walking it for years
It's gone where I need to go
It ain't easy, it ain't supposed to be
So I'll take my time
And life won't pass me by
'Cause it's right there to find, on the dirt road
I have lived life in the fast lane
You gotta watch your back and look both ways
When it's said and done the time we have is borrowed
You better make real sure you're headed the right way
Chorus:
I'll take the dirt road, it's all I know
I've been a'walking it for years
It's gone where I need to go
It ain't easy, it ain't supposed to be
So I'll take my time
And life won't pass me by
'Cause it's right there to find, on the dirt road
On the dirt road
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