Silver Taps is the student body’s final tribute paid to an Aggie who, at the time of his or her death, was enrolled in undergraduate or graduate classes at Texas A&M. The notice is posted at the base of the flagpole in front of the Academic Building
- Campusology #4
Without question, all the festivities surrounding Aggie football games were amazing. It was definitely some of the best times I had experienced in my life to that point. What was really cool was for so many of the games, we would be standing right up front on the first or second row down near the action on the field. It was not uncommon for family and friends to text screenshots of Lara and me on national television standing together along with my outfit in the stands, cheering the Aggies on. But the other part of it was quite laborious – the standing part. You see, at Texas A&M, members of the Corps of Cadets and the entire student body are required to stand for the entire game. That becomes a challenge during a four hour game, especially considering we had been standing pretty much all day before the game with the march-in and other festivities.
It did not matter if the temperature was over 100 degrees and we were standing in direct sunlight without shade. Come hell or high water, we stood the entire game. But that responsibility was part of the mystique surrounding E. King Gill and the 12th man. It’s just what we did as the student body. We all stood ready to help our team if they needed us. Yes, it was symbolic but we did it literally all game. And I have to say, as I turned 42 that September in 2017, my broken foot didn’t get any better from running around all week and then cramming it into rigid low quarter dress shoes all day and sometimes late into the night. I really had to be committed to this Aggie thing. Let me tell you, it hurt. I simply had to learn to ignore the endless throbbing pain. But I chose to do it because I wanted to. Standing all game was a ritual of being a member of The 12th Man at Texas A&M University. But I admit, it was painful.
The other pain I had to endure was that the Aggies didn’t really win that much. My freshman year we were never ranked and didn’t climb out of the gutter all season. But my buddies and I made the best of the situation and had a blast goofing around in the stands, cheering on the players we knew personally, and yelling at the refs. Officially, Aggies aren’t supposed to yell at the refs but being on the front row, it was hard not to give them hell every now and then for a bad call. However, standing all game came with a price. On Sundays, I was forced to sit in my recliner with my foot propped up being iced down and complemented with a steady stream of Advil. That ritual helped a bit but for the most part, it was pretty much a life lesson in enduring discomfort to achieve a greater goal. Besides, the medical specialists I had seen assured me I was not doing any further damage to my foot. It was just painful. But it was worth it to be an Aggie in the Corps and I was beyond happy.
As the weeks went by, I continued to do well in my classes and enjoyed just being a student on campus. I studied harder than I ever did in my entire life and read pretty much everything that was assigned. I was diligent in my work because I knew the opportunity I had been given and I wasn’t going to let things slide. The average student and slacker I had been before was beginning to evaporate. By God, I was going to push myself to see just how smart I might be. If I wasn’t in class, you could find me on the second floor of Evans Library at one of the public computers studying. I’d have my textbook opened up and be making notes with my headphones on, sitting there in my uniform for hours. I was just your typical 42 year old cadet living the undergraduate life that I had always wanted.
But I still didn’t have any money coming in. With my time filled by classes, Corps activities, studying, and being a husband, I didn’t have much left over to go out and search for jobs. But the good news was that I had gotten a scholarship for being in the Corps, and the government finally granted me loans to cover my tuition for the year. I wasn’t paying for room and board or a meal plan so the cost was actually reasonable. That first year, my total cost at A&M was roughly $10,000. We were scraping by on Lara’s teacher salary and our savings account was running out, not that we had much to begin with. We had an affordable house payment because we found a home in the country away from the elevated costs near College Station, but like everyone else, we had cars and other bills to pay. And we needed to eat. Eventually, I’d seriously need to make some money. But for the moment, I focused on my studies and being in the Corps.
While every day in the Corps was mostly fun for me because I was just so thankful to be there, I have to admit there were times that weren’t that enjoyable.
For example, there were a few times when my class of fish buddies and I “got smoked” because our uniforms and other such things were not up to standard. Let’s face it. It’s kind of easy to get all the little details right in the beginning when everything is fresh and fun. But as the weeks kept coming and all the other pressures and responsibilities in life added up, especially as adults, it became much more difficult to give our absolute best every single day in the Corps. That’s when we got in trouble. And by “getting smoked” I mean that we were run hard and made to do many physical tasks to make up for our indiscretions. Like a rack of meat on a barbecue grill, they would smoke us until we were done.
Common infractions for us as a fish class were sloppy uniforms, people showing up late, hair out of regulation, people being intoxicated during the march-in after drinking too much at the tailgate, not memorizing campos, and questioning the officers. Now, as for me personally, I never got one single demerit and was pretty much always on point. That’s no exaggeration. In my entire four years in the Corps, I never received one single demerit. The first two years, I was just excited to be there and the second two years my discipline carried me through. I had already done my time as a compromising slacker through my 20s and 30s. Now in my 40s, I wanted to see just how excellent I could be.
With that outlook, over the course of that first semester, I became one of the natural leaders of our fish class. Yes, I had definitely been a leader in several big roles over the course of my life and that certainly brought me skills and experience that helped. But this was a whole new game. These weren’t students in my high school classroom that I could just tell what to do. These weren’t seasoned members of a fire department that I was training. They weren’t actors or crew on a film set. No, this eclectic group was completely different, mixed with a variety of individual needs, desires, and expectations that all needed to come together to have the best experience. It was a fun challenge that I took to heart. While there was no official leadership position in our fish group, I would say without hesitation that I became the unofficial motivator of our fish class. But I didn’t tell people what to do. I inspired them with joy and gratitude to join me in my push to be outstanding and encouraged them to come along. And that is exactly what fish year is all about. Learn to lead yourself. Then learn to lead your friends.
For example, one of the places where my enthusiasm helped a great deal was during all the endless physical activities we had to undergo. During such exhausting episodes, I would make sure to crack jokes and encourage everyone around me, despite the fact that it was super early and we were all tired. The effort was paying off. For me personally, during my first Physical Fitness Test (PFT), I put up a respectable 40 pushups in one minute, 50 sit ups in one minute, and I ran 1.5 miles in 11 minutes and 55 seconds. It wasn’t a world record performance by any means but I was 42 years old and just getting back into shape while keeping up with youngsters half my age. I was proud of how I was doing. But I wasn’t going to stop striving. I wanted to get even better. And I was doing it on a busted foot. That alone was motivating.
As September turned to October in 2017, another tradition at A&M came to the forefront. But this responsibility was much more somber – Silver Taps. On the first Tuesday evening of each month, Aggies gather to honor students who recently died. As a member of the Corps, this meant we honored those who passed by wearing our dress uniform to classes all day and then standing silently at attention in front of the Academic Building later that night. The Class A uniform was beautiful. I’m sure you’ve seen it in the movies. It’s the traditional Army dress uniform that has the tan pants, dark green jacket with gold buttons, dark tie, and round service cover cap with a big gold emblem. I was excited to wear the uniform and be dressed up, but I also felt the weight of the reason behind the ceremony. For me, it was personal.
We had actually gathered back in September for the first Silver Taps ceremony of the year but because of lightning the event was canceled. By October, there were several Aggie students that had died and it was a full roster of names we had to memorize as a fish class. Along with knowing the names, each of us chose one person from the deceased to learn about and carry their information around on a card with us over the course of the day. The person I chose, I felt was ordained by God for a very specific reason.
Caroline St. Clair Killian
While I had not met her personally before she died, the Killian family were members of my father’s church in the suburbs of Dallas. Caroline was the daughter of Ken and Lisa Killian. She was killed in a three car accident in College Station over the summer when another driver made a left turn into oncoming traffic. I did not know Caroline but I recognized the significance of the connection and felt the impact of her loss.
Caroline was a beautiful person. From the pictures I saw of her, she clearly had stunning outward good looks. But more than that, from her biography, I recognized that she was an amazing person. A marketing major set to graduate in 2018, Caroline was known for her unmatched positivity and selfless service to others around her. From the reports, she was always the first one to step up when someone needed help. It was said she greeted everyone she met with a warm welcome and a loving smile. With a vibrant and contagious personality she made people laugh and ensured they felt special. From Fish Camp counselor to Vice President of Communication in her Delta Gamma sorority, Caroline was a positive person with a big presence. Looking at her pictures, you could just tell she was an amazing person.
As we gathered silently in the dark of evening for the official ceremony, I ran my gloved fingers over her card that I had been carrying in my pocket all day. I had memorized all of her background information. I took it to heart. Gathering in front of the Academic building with all the other members of the entire Corps, we stood silently in the pitch black night. And then, from on top of the building, the haunting melody of Silver Taps began to play. The entire Corps came to attention and held a salute. We kept our salutes firm while the buglers sounded out their song three times. Once to the north. Once to the west. And once to the south. The song is not played facing the east because the sun will never again rise on these memorialized Aggies. If you haven’t heard it yourself, I can tell you it’s an incredibly moving moment. The song is much like Taps but it’s played with the haunting melody of several buglers that harmonize together. You’ll never hear anything else like it. It will impact your life.
As I stood there in the dark silence holding my salute along with all the other members of the Corps, I couldn’t help but think about the situation with Caroline and compare it to myself. She had been a beautiful, positive, young woman with her entire life before her. She was kind and put others first. I was an ugly, middle-aged man who had been compromising his values and judging people for years. Why, Oh God, would you take away someone like her and leave an old man like me? This should be her time, not mine. I didn’t understand it. If anything, she deserved to live and I deserved to die. At least that’s what I thought.
Standing there in the quiet, with Caroline's information card in my pocket and her name on my heart, I couldn't help but think of a film that reminded me of a similar situation. In the movie Saving Private Ryan, a group of soldiers sacrifice their lives to save one soldier they didn’t really know so he could go home. They sacrificed so Private Ryan could return to his mother after all her other sons had died. As Tom Hanks playing the character Captain John Miller sits dying from a gunshot wound, he voices a charge to Private Ryan against the backdrop of several men who lost their lives so that Ryan might live. Captain Miller simply offers the directive, “Earn this.” Thinking about Caroline and my own situation, I related the sentiment to myself. For whatever reason, Caroline, a wonderful person, was taken, and I was left behind. I didn’t know why. But I made a vow that day that I would forevermore keep Caroline on my mind and never take one single day for granted. In my own way, I would earn it. I recognized that it was a gift from God to be alive and there was nothing I could do to earn that privilege. But I was going to take full advantage of it. In that sense, I was going to earn it.
More than just taking advantage of life and the opportunities the Lord had given me at A&M, I began to consider the kind of person Caroline had been against the backdrop of the man I had been up to that point. I began to deeply analyze just who I was and what kind of man I wanted to be. I don’t know if God intended any connection between Caroline’s passing and me just getting started at A&M. Yet, I could not help finding significance in the moment, especially understanding that God had given me a second chance to enjoy my life instead of taking everything for granted. In place of whining, complaining, and compromising about the gifts he had given me, I used the moment at Silver Taps to solidify a greater purpose. That moment, I began a quest to become the best version of myself that I could be. I recognized that my life was an incredible gift and I didn’t want to waste a moment. That process of deeper self evaluation began right there on that night of Silver Taps as I felt the weight of the compromise in my life up to that point compared to the angel I saw in Caroline Killian. Why did God take her and leave me? It was a question I did not have the answer to. But I decided it was because the Lord had things he wanted me to do. And so I started to take a look at myself.
I was definitely already taking full advantage of the opportunities as a student at A&M. I was on my way to earning high grades in my courses and pushing myself to soak up everything I could in Geography and the Geosciences. I was heavily involved in the Corps of Cadets as a fish, being a part of the tradition, learning to discipline myself, and inspiring my fish buddies toward consistent excellence. All of those took up a significant amount of time. In any spare time I might have had left, I volunteered at the fire department in town where we lived. Other than that, I played guitar in church and enjoyed just being at home with my pack of crazy dogs and my best friend Lara. As far as fully taking advantage of the opportunities God had provided, I was packed full of blessings. No doubt about that. Those things, I was already doing well.
But the big aspect of my life where I recognized I was falling short was in my compromises. As I’ve mentioned previously, there were several obstacles in my path that I seemed to put there myself. Those barriers weren’t necessarily terrible things but they kept preventing me from really being the man I wanted to be. When I looked at myself in the mirror, I was disappointed in the physical image I saw. That’s where things started. Some of it was getting better because I was slimming down and adding muscle during that first semester in the Corps. But looking at my face every morning and evening, there was no hiding from the old, bald man head with three hideous moles right up front on my face. I hated it. I absolutely could not stand it. Yes, my hair and beard could grow back when I left the Corps. That alone would help a good deal. But I could not help thinking that God was using my time in the Corps without any hair or beard to force me to really take a look at myself. There was nothing to hide those moles. They were exposed out front for the world to see. I was embarrassed and humiliated by them, along with my dying, old man, Darth Vader, looking lumpy face.
The more I felt the frustration of seeing those exposed moles on my face, the more I began to discern an understanding from the Lord that seemed to be getting louder and louder. I started to see the moles on my face, not just as physical blemishes, but as blemishes on my character. I felt like God was using the moles on my face to annoy me so much that I would actually do something about the moles in my character. Slowly over the course of that semester, I began to understand that the blemishes in my character were as ugly as the moles on my face. It was as if God was telling me that enough was enough. I was frustrated and disheartened at the physical moles on my face. When I looked in the mirror, I didn’t see an inspirational man. I saw those ugly moles obstructing the view of a below average face. I understood the analogy. God was tired of the metaphorical moles in my behavior. Sure, I loved Jesus and I wanted to serve the Lord with all my heart. But the choices I had been making were in direct contrast to that desire. In no way am I saying that everyone with moles has done something wrong. That would be a ridiculous statement. I’m simply saying that for me, I felt like God strategically placed those moles on my face to get my attention. And boy did he! But it wasn’t just the moles on my face that made me pay attention.
Along with those disgusting moles, everywhere I went around College Station, there was the loud, annoying sound of train horns blasting. Every single time, the jarring warning of a nearby train made me shudder and shake my head. They seemed to always be so loud and they were all over the place! Granted, College Station was known for, and even celebrated, its relationship with the trains. In fact, A&M was founded as a stop for trains on the rail line. That’s why it’s called College “Station.” The Union Pacific railroad runs right through the middle of campus. So anytime I was at A&M, I would hear trains. But it didn’t stop there.
Trains also blasted past our home in Calvert. Located 35 miles north of College Station, the house we picked out had a huge yard and sat in the quiet historic district where you rarely saw a vehicle pass by. The problem was that when we looked at the house before we bought it, we did not process that we would be living just two blocks from an extremely active rail line. Throughout the day and all night long, it was not uncommon to hear trains blasting their warning horns as they chugged through town. And since there were multiple road crossings near our home, the conductors of the trains always blasted the grating warning horns over and over and over as if they celebrated being as annoying as possible whether it was day or late at night.
The noise from the trains was so bad that semester that I would be dead asleep in my bed at home in the middle of the night, exhausted from Corps activities and the stress of being a student, only to be jolted awake by the screaming warning horn of a passing train. To be honest with you, I started to get angry with God for allowing us to buy a house that close to the tracks. I felt like he tricked us into doing it because Lara and I prayed fervently about the house before we bought it. When we visited several times before purchasing it, there just so happened to never be a train. So we didn’t realize it would be a problem. Besides, I had grown up two blocks from the train tracks as a boy in Coppell. But we never heard the train. I don’t even know if the trains used that line. So in that sense, I guess I was desensitized to living near the tracks. I didn’t think anything of it when we drove over the tracks looking for a home in Calvert. But God knew. And because I recognized that we had been praying about the home we would buy, I began to understand that there must have been a reason why the Lord planted Lara and me right by a train that blasted its warning horn constantly all day and all night long. Along with the moles on my face, the loud, annoying trains that seemed to be present everywhere I went also made me feel uncomfortable. But there was still more that was getting under my skin.
Along with the moles on my face and the loud, annoying, train warnings, I started to have dreams about massive storms circling around our home and flood waters rising so high that they came into the house. The dreams were so potent and unnerving that I would wake up feeling like something was terribly wrong. It wasn’t just one dream. There were many. And those frightening dreams continued to come at me all semester long. Each time I would start my day feeling extremely anxious about the state of our home and over time, I began to feel pretty miserable. The images of flood waters invading the sanctity of our house were overwhelming and deeply concerning. It was as if God was making sure that I would be as uncomfortable as possible day or night. If I survived looking at the nasty moles on my face and hearing the train horns blasting, I would still be tormented by dreams about our house leaking and washing away. But that still wasn’t all that was bothering me.
As if that wasn’t enough, I began to find big cockroaches in my shower. Yeah, they were disgusting. Let me tell you something. I hate cockroaches. I hate them with a passion. And I think God knew it. It’s not like the cockroaches showed up anywhere else in our wonderful home. Nope. They only showed up in my shower. So super early in the morning when I was exhausted and didn’t want to get up at 4 a.m. because I had been kept awake by trains and tormented by dreams, I’d step into my wonderful shower only to discover a huge nasty cockroach or two. Let me tell you something. I love to feel clean while taking a shower. But seeing those cockroaches completely ruined it for me. Instead of feeling fresh, I felt dirty. How could I feel good if I continually found disgusting roaches in the one place where I intended to get clean? I could not stand it.
So there I was having the time of my life at Texas A&M University in the Corps of Cadets with all of my new friends and yet, it was also a moment when I was extremely uncomfortable. In fact, I was becoming so unnerved that I began to get pretty angry with God for allowing the four things that were ruining my experience. Moles, trains, nightmares, and cockroaches. And they all seemed to be hitting me at the same time. But then I started putting things together.
Sure, I could have simply taken each of those different and seemingly unrelated things at face value and thought nothing about it. And at first, that’s exactly what I did. On the one hand, I lived in a region with a lot of trains. Nothing unusual about hearing loud warning sounds all the time when everywhere you go has train tracks. So, I could have dismissed the ridiculous idea that God had anything to do with trains. As far as the moles on my face, I had gotten older and as my skin changed, some blemishes came up. Completely normal. So I could also reject the thought that God had anything to do with what my face looked like. Good to go. Considering the dreams, it’s not uncommon during times of stress for your subconsciousness to blow off steam by using the mind to process everything that’s happening while we are sleeping. I had a lot of stress. I was a full-time student for the first time in twenty years and I didn’t have any money with lots of bills to pay. It only made sense for me to have unsettling nightmares about storms. That made sense too. And while maybe not everyone has to deal with cockroaches, we did live in an older home that was built in the 1960s so it made sense that there could have been a place underneath the house where roaches had been living for years. So with those rational explanations in mind, each of these situations was completely normal.
And yet, there was something extremely potent about how each of those four different annoying things came together. It was as if they were all amplified. It wasn’t just a train here and there. The dreams didn’t hit me all on their own. The cockroaches weren’t showing up anywhere else in the house besides my shower. And those moles had just come up as if out of nowhere. Put together, I just felt like those four uncomfortable scenarios were all right in my face. And because I was a guy who really tried to follow God and hear his direction, I started to think that maybe the Lord was trying to tell me something. I didn’t know if that’s how he worked. But because each of those four aspects of my life continued to annoy me with great amplitude without ceasing, I began to seriously consider if it actually was the Lord who was trying to get my attention.
When I considered the Bible, it seemed to make sense. All throughout the word of God, the Lord used different signs and various situations to get the attention of his people. God spoke to Moses in a burning bush and told him to lead his people out of Egypt into the promised land. The Lord had a giant fish swallow Jonah until he agreed to tell the people of Nineveh to repent. He put dew on a fleece of wool as a sign for Gideon to defeat the Midianite army. During the time of King Belshazzar, fingers of a hand appeared and wrote on the plaster of a wall to inform the king that his reign was about to end. And at the birth of Jesus, a star appeared in the sky that guided the wise men to the home where the savior was living. The list goes on and on.
I didn’t know if God did things like that anymore. Maybe those were just metaphorical stories from the Bible. And those characters in the scriptures were really important. I was just some unknown guy. Why would I ever think God would talk to me like he spoke to those heroic characters? But it sure seemed like he was trying to say something to me. And it just kept coming. While I didn’t hear a voice from God telling me exactly what to do, in the quiet of spirit, I just knew. So I made the conscious choice to simply believe that was exactly what God was doing with me. I accepted it and just went with it. And so, I began to pray consistently that he would help me understand his message if there was anything he needed to tell me. Over the course of that first semester at A&M, I started to believe that he did have something very specific to say.
I realize that all this might sound crazy for people as they read it. I understand that thinking trains, facial moles, and cockroaches might be a sign from God is kinda nuts. Without question, I get that. But my entire life, I had wanted to glorify the Lord. That joyous desire was just something I had inside me from the very beginning. As a young boy, I looked around at the opportunity and blessings we had been given in life and I was thankful. Life excited me and I wanted to show God just how grateful I was that we got to live it. But over the course of my life, I had forgotten that joy and replaced it with various forms of compromise to cover up the fact that I was disappointed with myself for choosing short-term pleasure over disciplined rewards. Yes, people might have known me as an intelligent guy who was funny and charismatic. But I hid behind my humor and used my status as an average guy to make the excuse that I could live like a boy instead of the man I really wanted to be.
The bottom line was, I never wanted to see one more cockroach in my shower ever again. I hated cockroaches. And I loved my shower. My morning shower was supposed to be a clean place where it was just me and my thoughts. I loved to slowly wake up and enjoy praying to God in the shower as I prepared for my day. But it became a frequent occurrence for me to see a roach there. Nothing upset me in the morning more. Talk about taking away joy at the first of the day! We called an exterminator. It didn’t work. He said it would take some time. It did take some time. It took me time to realize that chemical poisons wouldn’t get it done. I was the one who needed to get rid of my own metaphorical cockroaches of nasty compromise. I was tired of hearing annoying train warning sounds and I was exhausted from dreams that gave me fitful sleep. And I would do anything to get rid of the moles on my face. God had my attention. Whatever I needed to do, I was going to do it.
So as I stood there in the quiet, somber moment of Silver Taps with Caroline’s card in my pocket, I pondered all those things and wondered what exactly I was doing wrong to make God work so hard to get my attention. I loved the Lord. I tried to serve him every day. Why were a few compromises a problem? I mean, I was a nice guy like everyone else around me. What did God have against me? That’s what I desperately needed to figure out.
I had three big moles on my face. For some crazy reason, I figured that meant that I had three big obstacles I needed to be done with. I had no idea if that was right or if God was even a part of this misery, but I hated those moles, cockroaches, warning horns, and nightmares. Three moles. Three majors sins. It didn’t take long to come up with three things in my life that I was ready to try getting rid of. Cussing, drinking, and eating like a pig. I decided to start with those because they seemed to be the most obvious. Maybe against the backdrop of our society, I wasn’t doing anything wrong at all. But considering how God called us as his people to be set aside for him, I didn’t think it was really much of a stretch to see that I was not following his guidelines.
Blemish #1: Cussing
Growing up I didn’t really cuss much because I wasn’t that interested in it and I wanted to honor God with my mouth. But over the years, I grew weary of being the naive kid who didn’t really do anything bad. In a lot of ways, I felt I was isolated from bonding with whatever group of guys I happened to be hanging out with at the time. Honestly, I just got tired of feeling like the special little Christian kid who didn’t cuss. Whether it was on a baseball team, fire department, event production crew, or just hanging out with friends, more and more I just really wanted to feel like I was one of the guys. And remember, I slowly started taking things for granted over the years so that didn’t help for maintaining standards. So, over time, I began to cuss as bad or worse than the mouthiest member of any group. At first it was to fit in. Later it just became who I was.
These days people can pretty much say whatever they want and use any words they choose without repercussions. Society is accepting of almost any language choice, even in public. But the Bible is clear about the power of the tongue and how it reflects what’s really inside the heart. The verse that stood out for me at the time was Proverbs 29:11 which says, “A foolish man gives vent to his anger but a wise man keeps himself under control.” I definitely had not been keeping myself under control. In fact, I had been saying absolutely anything I wanted out loud. Maybe my terrible language wasn’t a sin. Maybe none of it was. I mean, the Bible talks about not killing and I hadn’t done that for sure. But the Ten Commandments definitely say not to take the Lord’s name in vain. I admit without hesitation that I did it all the time. I wanted to honor God with everything about me. Yet I didn’t honor God at all with my mouth. I wanted to. I just chose not to so I could “fit in.” The problem was that I had become a person who stood out because of my mouth.
Blemish #2: Overeating
My eating was no walk in the park either. It was not uncommon for me to down a big meal at dinner consisting of something fatty like pizza or loaded nachos and then finish off two entire boxes of cookies. Honestly, I did that a lot. Yup, relaxing in my recliner and not moving for hours while eating boxes of cookies night after night became my ritual. I did not eat healthy and take care of the body God gave me. I treated the amazing gift like it was a garbage dumpster and put whatever junk food I wanted in there as often as possible. I was cramming down loaves of bread, burgers, fries, cheese sticks, huge bowls of popcorn, and anything filled with sugar. Then I’d wash it down with endless sugary sodas. Perhaps I wouldn’t officially be designated as a glutton but I wasn’t anywhere close to the man God was calling me to be. Eating food in a balanced manner is not a sin at all. But what I was doing was overindulging often and the foods I was ingesting were terrible for my body. If I wanted my body to be a reflection of a man who was a disciple of Jesus, the way I had been eating was not acceptable.
Blemish #3: Drinking
In the Bible, Jesus loved people so much that he turned water into wine so the festivities at a wedding might continue when the wine that had been prepared ran out. We can see that God has a passion for enjoying and even blessing the people and parties in our lives. I’m not saying drinking alcohol is a sin. But I am saying that for me, I was drinking way too much every single night and it was obvious that I had to stop. After overeating, I commonly had no reservation washing down my meal with five or six glasses of vodka. And I did that all the time. The honest truth was, because I hated the person I saw in the mirror every day, it helped me at night to drink a ton so I forgot about the failure I knew I had become. The problem was that I wasn’t a failure. I had done some great things in my life. People loved me. My wife and I had a blast eating a ton, sitting in our recliners, watching television, and drinking to let loose and laugh with each other. It was fun.
But when I got up the next morning, tried to squeeze into my belt, and looked at myself in the mirror, I hated what I saw. I never really got a hangover so the only repercussion was how I felt about myself. I could down five or six tumblers and be completely fine the next morning. That’s what made it even more difficult to stop. No one ever called me an alcoholic or questioned my drinking habits. People just liked me so no one ever said anything to me and in fact, I was frequently encouraged to drink more because I seemed to be even more fun when I was buzzed or drunk. When I drank alcohol, I didn’t focus so much on being negative and I just had fun. And it felt fun to have fun. It was like I could just forget about how I hated myself and enjoy a few hours without judging myself. But inside, I was not happy. I wasn’t happy because I knew deep down that I was not the man I wanted to be. I was born to be a man of uncompromising discipline. But I had become an immature boy who compromised everything.
These days our society tells us we can be whoever we want to be. We can eat whatever and as much as we want. We can drink as much as we want as long as we don’t hurt anyone. We can say absolutely anything we want and really there are no repercussions. In a really big way, I kinda lived like that for years. Yes, I always loved God in my heart. But the things I was doing consistently were not reflective of a man who was devoted to following the Lord with his body. This conversation was something I underwent with myself, my wife, and with God for months as I slowly began to figure out what God was calling me to do. It was basically an ongoing debate with a trial and error period of weeks as I learned to find discipline in the Corps as a cadet. But my spiritual journey also seemed to have literal physical application out in the real world through my daily actions and choices.
I wish I could say that night at Silver Taps, I drew a line in the sand, crossed over, and never looked back. I would have loved to say that, like Ebeneezer Scrooge, I was a completely changed man in just one night. But I wasn’t. It took time for God’s messages to sink in. I constantly heard the warnings of the loud train horns at home in Calvert and on campus in College Station. I continuously had dreams about the storm waters rising and flooding into our house. The cockroaches continued to show up in my shower. The moles on my face were blatant and obvious. I began to slim down and lose weight but the moles remained, along with my compromise of gluttony, cursing, and drinking. But slowly, over time, I grew tired of the uncomfortable feelings and I began to purposefully step away from my sin. Without question, it was difficult because I had grown so used to it.
When I was depressed, I would eat food to lift my spirits. When I was stressed, I would drink a lot of alcohol. When I was upset, I would say any cuss word I wanted to vent away my rage. The challenge was that, in the moment, these things worked to alleviate the pain, doubt, sadness, and frustration. They were potent and rapid answers to questions that I did not have answers for. The problem is that those compromises were the wrong answers. And they really only raised more questions. I could cover the pain with my sin for a moment, but the very next moment I was miserable.
One day while I was wallowing in my own frustration, I felt like God wanted to have a conversation with me in my spirit. It wasn’t a real discussion where I heard a voice. It was just a very subtle understanding that was so clear that it kind of felt like it could have been a conversation between God and me. The dialogue was short and it went something like this:
God: How are you doing down there Andy?
Me: (frustrated): Honestly, not great Lord! I’m really disheartened at where I am in life! I feel like I try but I never get anywhere. I am so thankful to be here at A&M but I don’t have any money and these moles on my face are disgusting. I’m tired from the nightmares and exhausted from the loud train blasts. I’m angry at you and sick of seeing cockroaches in my shower Lord! I’m just not the man I want to be!
God: Okay then. Let’s get you cleaned up because I have things for you to do.
And that was it. I didn’t know what the Lord meant when he said there were things for me to do, but I understood what he was calling me to do. I needed to get rid of the things in my life that were blemishes on my character. Cussing, overeating, and drinking. The moles, cockroaches, nightmares, and train warning horns made me so uncomfortable, that I was ready to do whatever the Lord asked of me.
So, slowly over time, using the signs and warnings that I began to believe were from God, I let those compromises go. As a cadet, I was gaining discipline. In my spiritual life, I was shedding the sin. I recognized that God was putting the two together to train me to become the man I had always wanted to be. Perhaps most potent on my mind was the gift I had been given the night I stood there for Silver Taps. God had chosen for that event to be the end of Caroline’s journey. For some reason, he was allowing mine to continue. By God, I was going to make the most of it. It didn’t happen overnight. But it did begin to happen right then.
The miracle about following Jesus is that when he died on the cross, our sin and compromise were washed away. In the Old Testament, people atoned for their sins by sacrificing animals. In the New Testament, Jesus became the symbolic lamb that was offered as a sacrifice for all of our sins. In that moment, he became the bridge between a perfect God and a sinful people. To accept that incredible gift, all we have to do is admit our sin and follow Christ. That’s what is so wonderful about following Jesus. He already did the work. That is where we as Christians get our joy. All our sin and compromise has already been washed away so that we can experience the full blessing of the Lord forever. That is the good news.
Yet, as we learn to walk alongside Jesus, he calls us to become like him. For other people around us to see the image of Christ reflected in who we are as people, there needs to be accountability. The Bible provides us with specific and detailed ways that we can live. At times we might see these guidelines as rules and regulations that hold us back. But other times we might simply understand them as helpful ways God gives us directions to become the people we have always truly wanted to be. Like reading the instructions to put together a piece of furniture, the Bible is a helpful tool to bring us to completion so that we might be used for a greater purpose. The instruction manual isn’t meant to trick us or hold us back when we are trying to build a chair. If we follow the instructions, it helps us build it correctly. The manual isn’t meant to take something away from us. It’s there to help us. The same is true for the Bible.
Walking with Jesus is about experiencing the miracle of free salvation. It’s a joyous understanding. But it’s also about the devotion of discipleship. In my life, that’s really how I wanted to live. I wanted to follow Jesus. But it took God bringing me through the Corps of Cadets at Texas A&M University for me to understand that direction and see it as a gift, not a rule book preventing me from having fun. The Corps and the Bible were finally teaching me to live out what I knew along. I had lived a life before that when I pretty much did what I wanted. I thought it might make me happy. It never did. The discipline was what made me happy.
Silver Taps is a way Aggies honor those students who have recently passed. Along with that official ceremonial ritual, I wanted to honor Caroline Killian with my life. From that moment forward, I made a vow that I would honor her by living the gift of my life to the absolute best I could. With her in mind, I would put a face on why it was important for me to honor the Lord in my daily choices. It would still take me time to shed my compromise because those old rituals had been ingrained in me for years. But the journey began right then as I formulated a plan to replace my previous, detrimental rituals with new ones that set me on my true path. That path was inspired by Caroline.
Rituals are paramount in the realm of resilience. We can use them to honor someone like Caroline as a way of consistently remembering the type of person we want to be and the actions we need to take to fill that vision. Or the rituals we choose can send us the opposite direction through harmful continuous actions that hold us back. For me, it had been cursing, drinking, and overeating. Those were my old rituals. On my journey to find my own resilience, I had finally decided it was time to seriously begin changing the last negative rituals that were holding me back and making me weak. From that moment, I planned to initiate a mindset that produced new rituals that had the power to forge the man I wanted to be. One of the first changes I made was to take my ritual of memorizing Campusologies and transition that discipline into memorizing Bible verses. But it would still take me time to fully make the transition and transform all my rituals.
Resilience Lesson #8: The rituals we choose each day will make or break our resilience.
Question: What ritual do you need to cease and replace with a new ritual that will enhance your resilience?
-- This blog post is one chapter in a book titled I Bleed Maroon by Andrew Christjoy that is being finalized and seeks publication.
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