Ep7 In The Shadow Of The Mountain C.L.Knox stories

The speaker discusses their dissatisfaction with a previous recording and their decision to redo the episode. They reflect on the importance of using the right words and phrasing to convey ideas accurately. They talk about their Christian worldview and the concept of worshipping created things. The speaker also reflects on their difficult relationship with their father, their struggles with depression, and the healing conversation they had with their father about a newspaper article that revealed their past experiences with drugs and a dysfunctional family situation. The conversation brought them closer and changed their relationship with their father. Okay, episode seven. I already recorded this once and wasn't happy with it. So I attempted to edit it and it didn't work out so good. I ended up chopping it up into unusable pieces instead of the original recordings. But I think I'm just going to try and redo it, redo the episode. I haven't done any editing up until now. So when I did that, it was when I started to edit the piece that I did that I wasn't happy with. I like the idea of just being spontaneous and just talking. When I do that though, sometimes I end up using perhaps not the right words or phrasing. So it ends up a little bit vague, maybe, or not actually relaying the idea or concept that I'm trying to get across. In the last episode, I had said that the universe was inanimate, which isn't incorrect by a definition of the word inanimate, but it wasn't what I meant to say. What I meant to say was that it's a created thing. The universe isn't of itself self-supporting. It had a beginning and it will have an end. So in worshipping a created thing, I believe that you put yourself in a position of admiring or worshipping or honoring. Honoring is not right. Adoring something that's less than the creator who made it. There's a place for that. I think recognizing the beauty of the universe or the world or anything else is valid. Not only valid, it's important. Understanding that we are also created in the image of God to be creators, which makes us unique among created things, created creatures on this planet. Those are valid and important points from my Christian worldview. But the higher form of worship, and we all worship, you can say you don't, but I think if you closely examine your life, you'll recognize that we all worship something. Often it's ourselves. More often than not, it's ourselves. So in recognizing that we too are created in God's image to be creators, we have a higher understanding or appreciation for the created things. That's part of how we function, humanity functions. Anyway, that's that. And I mentioned the word worldview too, and I said that in my last pod. I've said it a few times. It's a word I use often, and I've probably said that already. Worldview is basically, it's the way that we view the world, the way that we view reality, the way that we view what is true. So it's not always true what we view as true, but it's how we view it. So I'm not trying to be complicated there, but there's a basic set of questions that we all ask. We may have asked them earlier in our lives and don't ask it anymore. We may continue to ask those questions, but the questions are that of origin. So how did I get here? Reason or purpose, why am I here? What happens when I die? Those kind of questions. They're questions of deeper understanding, how we form the way that we look at the world. And theoretically, we should act out of the answers. We should live our life in line with those answers. But again, more often than not in this era, probably in all eras, we don't live cohesive lives. We don't live according to what we say we believe. We live helter-skelter. One day we'll live according to what we believe is why we're here, and the next day we will live according to what we believe on where I go when I die or what happens when I die. To have a coherent worldview, to have a worldview that sticks together and works together, that's a high calling. That's a good thing to be able to do that. So we need to be re-examining our lives and our worldviews on a regular basis. So there, navel-gazing right off the top, which is probably relevant because today the story I want to share is about my dad. I haven't talked as much about my dad as of yet. So when I left Birmingham when I was 11 years old, I mentioned this in another episode, and I flew to Los Angeles. And I called my dad once I got into Los Angeles and told him that I was there and I wasn't coming home. And that put my relationship with my father on a very dysfunctional level. That was the beginning of having a difficult relationship with my dad. I was 11, so I mean, it's hard to comprehend maybe, but that's where it was at. So later in my life, like all of my life, I had struggles with depression. Now, there is a dearth, not a dearth, there is a glut of depression in our culture today. Over half of our population is on antidepressant drugs of some kind or another. And then there's also the self-medication, the use of drugs and alcohols to overcome depression and pain and inner suffering, inner turmoil. So starting when I was about 10, and there was a bunch of things that happened in my life when I was 10 years old that were not good things. And it has a lot to do with being exposed to the things I was exposed to as a hippie kid. And divorce, it affects everybody that goes through it, every child that goes through it, it affects you. I don't care what the experts say. I know what I experienced, and I know what I've seen in other young people, children, and young adults, what they've experienced going through their parents' divorces. Anyway, so why am I talking about depression? Well, it carried on, like when I was 11 and 12, I would say I was depressed at 30% of the time, if not 50%, maybe even more. It became a sort of a normal way of being for me. I began to exist in that realm a lot. And maybe that's part of the reason why I like, I'm sure it's part of the reason why I like doing drugs as a kid, is it lifted me out of that. Now, in that era, in the 70s, there was a book written. I never finished reading it because I was a kid again, but there was a book that was written called I've Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up To Me. And I remember reading that when I was 12. I'm sure I didn't finish it. But anyway, that sort of, just the title stuck with me. I mean, it's, you know, 50 some odd years later, I'm still talking about it. So, I should look that book up and see what it says. I'm remembering the title. Anyway, as I became an adult and had kids of my own, and and got married, you know, I had a family and, you know, the depression came with me. And that was difficult for my wife. It was a hard thing for her. You know, I don't want to go into what I think she felt or believes. But at one point, after my two oldest kids were born, we were living back on the farm as a family. So, we moved back there in 86. Wife and I moved back to the farm with our two, well, with our youngest, our oldest, and then our second child was born while we lived there. And I was experiencing some pretty severe depression. She took the initiative and got me a ticket to Alabama, a plane ticket, and I went to visit my dad down in Birmingham. I spent, I don't know, my memories, I spent about two weeks down there. And in that time, it was a pretty healing part of my life to be able to communicate as an adult with my dad and address some issues that I had with him and him, issues he may have had with me. And during one of our discussions, he told me a story that I was unaware of until that time. And the story was that there was a newspaper reporter who had infiltrated, he had become friends with a man and his wife or his partner in Birmingham who were using illicit drugs, marijuana and other drugs, and living or experimenting with the hippie lifestyle, and had surrounded themselves with college-age people. These two people, the husband or the man and his partner, were in their 30s, and they had children living with them. And the names of the people involved weren't revealed, because apparently the man was a professional musician, and to reveal their names, for one, everybody would have known who he was, because he was a known entity in the city. My stepfather was a professional musician. He was the principal bass player for the Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. So he sat up front whenever the symphony performed, and he was a recognizable character. He was a character. I mean, he had a look that was different for the day, especially in Birmingham. I mean, he probably wouldn't have looked so out of place in San Francisco or somewhere else in California, but Birmingham, Alabama, it was kind of, you know, for 1968, it was a little bit odd. So anyway, in the story, the guy would weekly report on what was happening with the family, and that the children, it fit with us anyway, it fit with us. And my dad said that as he was following this report, this story, that he knew, he had no doubt that the family or the reporter was talking about my mom and my stepfather and his own kids, and that the kids were using marijuana and being exposed to, you know, some pretty questionable sexual behaviors. And when he told me this story, I thought, you know, man, why didn't you do something about it? Like, you didn't do anything. And I asked him about that, and he said, his philosophy was that it would work itself out. In the end, everything would work out fine in the end. And I said, well, it didn't work out. It created a lot of issues for me and my brother and my sister and even my older brother who wasn't living with us at that time. And through that, there was a couple of things I understood about one myself, you know, we pick up things from our parents. And my own parenting methods or skills, that's something I had to be aware of, the protection of my children, caring for them. And also the recognizing that he, in not doing that, in him not standing up and protecting us, there was some pretty intense pain came out of that. Now, I say it was healing, because in the end, we talked a lot about it, and just having it brought into the light, and both of us were teary eyed. And like, we weren't sobbing, but we were both crying. We were both affected by that conversation. And it changed the way I related to my dad for the rest of his life. And my, you know, my relationship with him got deeper. When I had become a Christian at 13, the group I was with was aggressively evangelical. And we went out on the streets and handed out tracts and, you know, told everybody Jesus loved them. And it was an aggressive form of proselytizing. And at that time, for a couple years, I would write letters to my dad. And, you know, he felt that I was pushy with him. And he had basically, I would say he was probably a deist, not a theist. He believed that there was a God of some kind, or, you know, a creator of some kind. And that creator was pretty much hands off, you know, put everything in motion, and then let it run its course and only intervene when, when the creation was destroying itself, you know, or it was imperative that he, the deity intervene. And so to, to push my Christianity on him was, even though I was only 13, 14, 15 years old was, it was another brick in a wall between us. So we talked about that as well. Anyway, to remove that, I don't know if it ever got completely removed. My dad had other family members that were evangelical in their, in their belief system, their Christianity. And it always, he loved them. It wasn't that he didn't love them or me, but it was always abrasive to him. And I don't know if he ever expressed that sentiment to other family, extended family members, like a brother and his family or cousins or whoever else. He did to me, he let me know that he found it abrasive. And I stopped, I stopped doing it years ago, you know, I only did it for a couple of years. And then my faith became deeper to me that there was, it wasn't just a surface, it wasn't just an experience. It was, it was, it became a real important part to my, my way of thinking, you know, and that was over time, you know, it's kind of the same as growing as a child. You know, you learn, you become part of, you're born again, they call it, and then the whole process of growing up into this new life. Along the way, people get hurt. And I mean, that was part of the depression that I had, was seeing how the church body, the people of the church treated other members of the church. It was, and the hypocrisy, I mean, and that's one of the things that people that kick against Christianity, they hold up the hypocrisy in the church. There's hypocrisy everywhere. It's not just in the church. There's power struggles everywhere. That's humanity. That's a human trait. That's a human, and it's part of humanity to, you know, greed, the lust for power, the control, lust for control. I mean, we see it, you don't, you don't have to look very far in today's world to see that raising its ugly head in our political system, in our corporate system, in our, you know, big pharma, big ag, big, all these, you know, greed and power hungry, you know, struggles of individuals and corporations. And anyway, I believe that there's a way to overcome that. That's part of my worldview. And that, overcoming that is having peace, inner peace. You know, we talk about, everybody's looking for that. Everybody's looking for that peace. And that has everything to do, like, I don't know, I'm not a huge Russell Brand fan, necessarily. But that's one thing he talks about often is, is peace, that inner connection, relationship, love, like we use these words. And I don't think there's any better way to actually know what those things are, than to return to the Creator. So to me, again, to be clear, the Creator, when I speak of God and a Creator, I'm talking about the triune God, the God of the Bible, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And that, you know, as you grow an understanding of what that is, and you can't grow an understanding of what that is, or who that is, that entity, that God, if you're not seeking Him, and in seeking Him, that's understanding, reading and understanding and delving into Scripture. And as a whole, it's like, there's 66 books in the Bible, it's not one book. But all these books, which are written by 40, at least 40 different authors who wrote those 66 books, letters, we call even the letters, short letters, part books, they all have the same thread running through them. Just as I talked about a thread running through my life, there's a thread running through the Scripture that gives you, provides understanding to the universe, to why we were created, to what it is to be human, and what it is to know God. So all of that, all that comes out of life, using drugs, and being a hippie, and having depression, and overcoming it, and having kids, and it's on and on. It's everybody's life. Everybody's life is there for a reason, and for a purpose. And anyway, a lot of navel gazing in this one, and I hope that's not too offensive to you. If you have any questions, get back to me. I'm going to record a, I'm going to post a song that I recorded a few years back, a number of years back. I haven't had access to my room that I do the music in because my daughter's been visiting from Port McNeil, and my grandson was with her for the whole week. So I'm running a little behind on everything, so I'm going to post this song that I did. I think I recorded it in the 90s with a couple other guys, and it doesn't have a video with it, so I'll just post some something for the YouTube part. Anyway, thanks for joining me, and I will do episode eight hopefully by next Monday, although I got a busy week and a busy weekend coming up too, so we'll see how it goes. Anyway, next time. You say that you're not happy here. You said I think I'll try the coast. You lived in cities and you lived on farms. You still have found what you want to mow. Don't you talk to the Lord. He'll hear you when you call his name. He'll never leave or forsake you, no. Your life will never be the same. I was there with you once, seeking my own. Seeking, looking, trying to fill my heart with desire. But on my own, I was a dying, proudest man. I did my best. I said I'd do the best I can. Even then, I knew there wasn't good enough. Something else inside of me had to change. I felt like a jewel untouched, like a diamond in the rough. But how, tell me how, Lord, can my new life be arranged? I said I'd talk to the Lord. He heard me when I called his name. He'll never leave or forsake me, no. My life will never be the same. That's why I'll sing praises to my God. Oh, the light and the light of the world. Who was and is and is to come. The Father, Spirit, and the Son. . . . There in your heart's despair you've heard the words I sang. There in the truth you know they're dealing for your pain. But out of fear you stop and won't go any farther. And as you wait, my friend, it only gets much harder. Why don't you talk to the Lord? He'll hear you when you call His name. He'll never leave or forsake you, then. He'll be your very closest friend. I said, why don't you talk to the Lord? He'll hear you when you call His name. He'll never leave or forsake you, no. Your life will never be the same. . . . . . .