Beefs at Brothers Campfire

Benjamin from Brothers Campfire Here!

My development in becoming a man is largely ommitted from my writing so as not to hurt anyone’s reputation.

In my late thirties, there has been a small flood of people in my life who have either acknowledged or apologized for poor treatment growing up.

It is easy to forgive them. I consider myself more ignored and unnatended than bullied as a youth.

However, I had a few beefs that carried to adulthood.

Lacking understanding, somewhere during years fourteen through seventeen, I was most certain I was a reprobate. I could not feel the presence of God and there was a woman at the church that would not let me go inside to pray during non church hours to try and find Him.

During this time, a school shooting happened in Colorado, and a large group of students who did understanding me branded me as the next school shooter and threatened my life. My appeals to the leadership were ignored.

I lived not so much in fear, but in resolution that bending to the will of my peers was not an option.

So, alone for a spell, I wandered the forested valley and the accompanying creeks and tributaries. I learned the semi arid plains, and the foothils of the Colorado Rockies.

We became inseparable and now,

I love her fiercely.

The outdoors gives rashes and scratches, but in our decades of acquaintance, she has broken my body but never my heart.

However, for those of you that believe in “Mother Nature”, she will KILL you when your back is turned and you will adjust to her will and whim in any moment of weakness you show.

I have faced drowning, a lightning strike, dog attacks, and a buch of other stupidness when she was at “that time of the month”, so the romanicism is a measured, chosen persuit.

An unyielding sigma male, I keep her in check and prune Nature to my desires regularly.

Anyway,

These two events impacted me more profoundly than most others into adulthood and I gave up on going to church. I mean, I felt God had given up on me and the peiple did not want me there.

A few years passed, and I went to a church picnic at the request of my parents.

While I was there, I was alert for danger when a man placed his hand on my shoulder from behind.

Thinking I was being attacked, I gave that hand a yank and found a Man of God connected to it.

Fearing the wrath of God would strike me dead, I apologized intensely. In our talk, I told him little, other than I had a rough go trying to navigate what I did not understand. He told me to take vengeance on wrongdoings by never letting them happen to those in my sphere of influence.

Through this man, I was reintroduced to my Maker. Personable, but seldom personal, I declined to spill my life’s story.

Yet, one of the first things he did was appoint me as an usher, and he provided a key to the church so I could open and close the doors. This enabled me to come to the church and pray any time I wanted.

A few years passed, and it became necessary to have armed security. I was among those selected. You never know when things will pop off where I live.

I have skipped a lot, but sometimes things work in full circle.

I had no clue I would be working in a prison where I would need to bend the will of evil men to keep the public safe, or that I would be the guy protecting the children of those that branded me a school shooter.

In short, I have no beefs with God or anyone else.