To say that I grew up violent would be a fairly accurate fact. There are many people who have led more violent lives than that of my own as well as people who have lived less violently if violent at all. Comparisons are pointless, big stick diplomacy only leads to war and war stories only lead to war lust. This is not, however, a story about violence but one of love. That being stated let me talk about violence for a little bit. Some of my earliest, and fondest memories involve violence but there are also memories that involve love.
I am the oldest of four boys born to a southern preacher who was the youngest of four boys. There was no embezzlement, sexual perversion (from our parents) or spiritless hypocrisy in our home, so for those looking for a screwed up church story please look elsewhere. We did grow up violently, as any home with five males would, our father wrestled us lovingly, and we fought neighborhood kids relentlessly. We were spanked for our wrong doings, there is a fine line between punishment and abuse, but the latter we never experienced from our parents. I remember the first time I got punched in the face, the first time I punched someone in the face, the first fight I won, but for some reason not the first I lost (but have lost many). This is not a bad ass brag, everyone who fights knows that there is someone that can beat them, and truly some of the best fighters I’ve known are also some of the nicest people. Beware a smiling face, especially in a world enveloped in professional fighting sports, fighting in a ring is much different than in a bar, or school, or parking lot, or street corner. Sometimes that smiling face is humoring your soft nose and pretty chin.
In our household was a prevalent love, one that I am truly blessed for and will never take for granted, most people probably have not experienced what it is like to live in a home where you are loved no matter what or who you become. It is through this home that I found a revelation in something that has saved many noses from being broken and ribs cracked. When I started doing martial arts is still debatable between my parents and I. They say at a young age probably between 4 and 6, I say around 10 or 11. My memories are not always chronologically correct but my real training started very, very young with a neighborhood kid named Patrick that I exchanged ass kicking’s with on a weekly basis, some weeks I won, others I lost. Around 13 I started taking Ninjitsu, which for a young teenager trying to defend himself in school was not very practical, pulling someone’s jaw from their face is not something they send you to the principles office for (don’t worry I never did that to someone). At age 15 I started taking Muay Thai which I have been akin to personally ever since, it is a brutal, strictly ass kicking art form that has left many people broken but not disemboweled.
All of this is to show that while a violent life was unavoidable (I’ve been to 14 different schools in my life and lived in some very racially tense areas) these martial arts merely increased my odds of survival. I probably reached my violent peak in quantity around the age of 17 and in quality around 22. After I moved off to my final college (2 colleges are included in the before mentioned schools) I only fought once, which my good friend and roommate witnessed, I actually kicked someone’s ass without laying a finger on him. My violence declined out of necessity, I didn’t want to get kicked out of school for a change, and it is the way that I learned to clinch my fist instead of swinging it that brought about a beautiful concept.
Jesus Loves You, this I didn’t always know. When someone was provoking, or even just looked like they needed a good elbow to the temple, I simply thought, hey, Jesus loves them and my arm loosened back up. It’s a very simple thought with a very simple result, this egotistical, womanizing, ignorant moron is loved by Jesus. Then, for some reason, they seem a little more tolerable, not entirely bearable mind you, but endurable. I am a firm believer that some people just need a good knuckle to the jaw, and in many cases I would be more than happy to deliver it to them. In my life now, the number of jaws have lessened, I have yet to be in a situation where the thought of Jesus’ Love for everyone has not been a successful deterrent, I am sure there are several mouth’s rambling right now that will one day meet my fist but for the ones that haven’t, their mouth’s should be thanking Jesus.
This philosophy bothered me for quite sometime, how can Jesus love everyone? I mean, He even Loves Lucifer, but Hitler? Charles Manson? It wasn’t until several years after this revelation that I was given an answer. As many questions have been answered before, it came in the form of a dream. I died, and was in a room sitting at a table with Jesus, the room was bright and there was a video playing on the wall. In the video was a scene from when I was either 18 or 20 and was sitting in a classroom in college. The teacher was not in the room, either getting coffee or in the bathroom, and there was a baseball player that was on scholarship who I despised for many reasons, the main one being his scholarship. This was a real event that had really taken place, for those who don’t know me, or didn’t know me several years ago, I used to be very dangerous with my mouth. I didn’t talk shit, I provoked bowel movements, my tongue was a fully automatic machine gun with my mouth spewing high caliber bullets. I wasn’t one to talk trash the whole time, when it came time to fight my teeth set into my jaw and I was done with words. But until I knew it was time to fight, I did everything I could to provoke one, I wasn’t a bully, I didn’t fight or pick on people that were weaker, however I took every opportunity I could to capitalize on anyone willing to fight. Anyway, getting back to the dream, I was relentlessly beating this kid with my adverbs and adjectives. He wouldn’t fight, like me in later years he didn’t want to get kicked out of school (we did settle things a few weeks later but the dream didn’t play that scene). I sat there with Jesus looking at myself feeling humiliated and embarrassed for how I was treating this kid, I felt shame, even felt sympathy for the baseball jockey.
As I felt my emotions start to rise Jesus paused the video, He looked at me and said, “Hold on a moment.” As if my life was recorded on VHS (maybe you kids born in the 90’s will be on dvd) He rewound the tape to another, real incident, that happened when I was a child. Do you remember my childhood sparring partner Patrick? The scene that played was from one of his birthday parties, he took karate as a child and I was so jealous. He had a karate themed birthday party, with all the kids in his class invited, they had karate belts tied all over the yard in an obstacle course that looked like so much fun. When I came down the hill into his yard to have fun at his party he came up to me in his karate gee and told me that I wasn’t allowed at his party because I didn’t know karate. So, I kicked him in the stomach and made him cry in front of all of his little karate buddies then ran home mad and crying. At this point Jesus stopped the video, no pause, no rewind or fast forward, He looked at me and said, “Matthew, this is when all of it started, this is not an excuse, but just where it began.” Somewhere afterward I awoke, and sometime later that day I told my mom the dream, she found it fascinating, I found it confusing and did not know what it meant.
As with most dreams the meaning is quite allusive and is not always understood until days, weeks, months or years later. In this case it was several weeks and months, it came in two parts with two epiphanies. The first was in my studies, or devotionals, when I realized that Jesus doesn’t compare us to others as we so frequently do. When we die our lives will not be played in split screen comparison to someone else’s life. We cannot say, “I wasn’t as bad as him” or, “what about so and so.” This is a great burden lifted from our backs, that God doesn’t point to other people and say, “why didn’t you live like them.” It is also a great woe because, while He doesn’t compare us to other people, He does compare us to Himself and but also understands that we will forever fall short, it is us that do not always understand that.
Jesus Loves us all, every single one of us, while man, church and religion do not always reflect this, Jesus does even love the one’s that openly hate Him, and also the ones that do not even acknowledge Him. This dream revealed to me the reason Jesus can love even the most vile, evil people of this planet, because he remembers them as they were when they were children. We remember our childhood, but how many of us remember what it was like to be a child, think like a child and act like a child? He does, and He knows, that even the worse of us started just like the rest of us. Many people have wondered if a child dies does it go to heaven? What is the damning age? When is it that we loose our innocence, if it was a specific age and way than maybe God would compare us to each other, but I don’t believe He does, which to me means that everything is based on specific circumstance. Some children, God love them, loose their innocence at a very young age, others much later. Whatever the case, even Hitler and Manson, even Dahmer and Pol Pot were once smiling, innocent, cute little kids. This does not excuse them for what they have done, nor does it mean that they do not deserve judgment, but it does help me to understand how they can be loved and even grieved over with every step they take away from innocence.
So to my evolution and creation fans out there, this is a brief sigh in my long journey through scientific and spiritual revelations. It will not be in my book but is still part of what goes on in my mind. Just know that there are plenty of evolutionist’s and creationist’s that I would like nothing more than to punch in the face, but hey, at least Jesus Loves them.
“When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.”
-1 Corinthians 13:11-12
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