Time For The Big Guns

Time for the Big Guns was written and drawn between March and October 2023.

It was a time of healing after a series of bad decisions. I have since come to realize that what happened in November of 2022 was not the trauma I at first thought it was. I mean it was impactful, but not the source of what is, I guess, a midlife crisis. Lord, why couldn't is just manifest in buying a red sports car?!? My decisions that night were a symptom of a much larger, long-running problem: burnout.

Those to whom I am closest tried to tell me. But I couldn't listen. Or more accurately, those in my life who I kept pleading for help from didn't listen.

I complained recently to her how frustrated I was that over the years since the pandemic, I asked and planned to offload a lot of my local responsibility but that all the other men would do is nod and say 'but you're doing such a great job.' and 'We'll think about it.' how even our CO would just tell me, 'don't worry about your larger venues of service, focus instead on your congregation responsibilities.' Meanwhile, Bethel and LDC asked me to make them a priority while keeping local things in checked balance.

She told me I sounded like a spoiled child. Which ended the conversation. That's the thinking I have of myself. This is also why I would just keep doing more and more and more and more and more and more...

If you take a people-pleaser and keep tasking them. They'll keep taking the tasks. It's a psychological problem I have only come to understand in the the year 2024. That no matter how much I do, it never feels like enough. So anything that is asked of me, I just try to do it. And when I ask for help and they don't come through or refuse, I do it myself because... it needs doing.

How does one reconcile two things that are fundamentally incompatible? I can't set one down (local load) and I don't WANT to set down the other (Bethel/LDC).

Well, thanks to an untenable situation, the problem has now solved itself. In nov 2022, I was such a spring let loose I let myself do things I never thought I would to someone I love so fundamentally that it is difficult to describe. But I think you have some inkling of how important you are to me. Your whole family is like my family.

And now, the decision is made FOR me. Not all I have to worry about is the local assignments. And I have SO MUCH resentment for that.

So much.

Toward my boe and my co. I told them I came here for Bethel. I stayed here because we could have a positive impact. But the experience I feel ruined me. A ruined dream that I had. i was doing the thing I felt like I was born to do and it was so wonderful. But there is such a social and emotional vacuum here. You said once that this place is toxic. My god, you have no idea how accurate that statement is.

It's a reductive environment.

Two kinds of people come here: A) intelligent, well-meaning and engaging B) problematic, troubled, mentally ill

Either type a leaves or becomes type b.

I fear by not leaving, I am become (or have become) type b.

If you find yourself burning all the candles at once, both ends, up, down and sideways. That's fine and I applaud your ability to do so. But STOP before it's too late. You will reach a point where you can't take it anymore and you will start making worse and worse decisions that cost more and more. And one day you find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile. And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife. And you may ask yourself “Well, how did I get here?”

Enjoy the sketchbook. Make good decisions. Don't ruin relationships. Big ships turn slowly.

I miss you both and hope that everything is okay for you. God bless the patient ones, and forgive all the rest of us.

Love always,

Charlie

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wrinkled pages

wrinkled pages