Have We Finally Come to the End?

8/9/2019 Have We Finally Come to the End?

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Have We Finally Come to the End?By Thom Hunter

http://thom-signsofastruggle.blogspot.com/

The Weight of Who I am

Chapter One

Have We Finally Come to the End?

“Do exactly what we tell you to do . . . or he will shoot

you.”

Maybe it is true -- and who really knows for sure? -- that

your whole life flashes before your eyes just before death,

preceding the darkness with the bursting brilliance of life,

slowing that final moment, expanding the time to wash the


http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_oCEuRwKfN0s/TGGb_88XfBI/AAAAAAAAANE/wMiuUg0gb4U/s1600/Black+Portrait.jpg




brain and heart in memory. Falling of a cliff, sliding beneath

the waves, crashing into the barrier wall, or just seeing the

faces of the medical team around you slowly fade away as you

lay on a table, may bring comforting visions of the beautiful

moments of a re-hashed life, filtering out the times of

unloveliness, the grey days of loneliness, the harshness of

sandpapered relationships that wore you away. I don't know.

I do know that death is not the only occasion for the

panoramic view of the mixed-up-mess of past, present, future.

Try being arrested, knowing that in that brief moment -

with few words spoken -- life is changing. You're not dying, but

it is.

“Do exactly what we tell you to do . . . or he will shoot

you.”

When I replay those words from my past, it as if I can

hear them all again. They are embedded in my memory.

Perhaps in time they will fade, as God allows. Or perhaps they

will remain in place as a reminder of where I have been . . .

where I am now . . . and where I am going because of Him

When I heard the words that past April day, I sat very still

and processed them, my heart beating faster with the

absorption of each syllable . . . my brain freezing time,

searching through each cell for a way out of reality . . . I



analyzed them. Where was the emphasis in the phrasing?

Was it on "exactly?" Was it on "you?" Or was it really on

"will?"

"He will shoot you."

Really?

As my life spreadeagled before me, as my brain sifted

through all the possibilities -- even the remote one that

perhaps I was asleep and dreaming -- I froze, afraid to move,and had the briefest separate thought -- rooted in reality --

that if I refused to do what I was told, I could -- no, would -- be

shot and I might die. I would go to glory in a gory blaze of

glory. Pay out the life insurance and put a "finished" stamp: on

this ragged race. I could just give it all up. Make a run for it

and be done.

Until the moment the undercover police officer opened

the passenger side door of my car and spoke those words,

looking into my eyes while tilting his head toward the officer on

the other side of my car to make it clear where the shot would

come from, I thought I might escape. My mind was racing,

working up the words to talk myself free, searching for a

convincing explanation, a plausible way to defuse the

accusations I knew were coming. But as my head turned in his

direction and I saw the seriousness with which the officer

looked straight into my eyes, his convincing tone struck down



all hope. I’d better do exactly what “they” told me to do. I had

no doubt in his warning.

My life stopped flashing before my eyes and settled in slow

motion to just this one moment.

The office had pulled his car up in front of mine only seconds

before, blocking me into my parking space. The man, in the

pickup parked beside me, with whom I had been talking, had

said to me the words that signaled his partners, apparentlylistening in, to race in.

“I’m an undercover police officer and you are under

arrest.”

Me? Under arrest? What an understatement for

someone having taken the earth and shaken it.

My quick sunny-day lunch in the park, a convenient spot

to pull into while out running errands, had turned into a

darkening nightmare, my life careening wildly out of control, at

just the point where life had seemed so in control. The quick

short-circuit was stunning. Even in the context of personal

history, it made no sense, not on this day. Years of struggling,

falling, denying, crying, destroying, re-building, ignoring,

learning, steadying, slipping, climbing, stumbling, relying on

self, then relying on God, descending into darkness, emerging



into light, doubting, knowing, renouncing, rejoicing . . .

stubbornly resisting . . . slowly changing. Just when the roller-

coaster seemed ready to slow and glide into the end gate, the

operator – was it God? – pushed the button and I plunged into

another round. Why not just unbuckle the seatbelt and once

and for all plummet to the ground?

In a matter of minutes, my guard disintegrating through a

string of poorly-chosen words -- inappropriate words of

response to a flattery I knew to resist -- I had turned my lifeover to others. Lunch became a lunge into no-where . . . or

wherever I was told to go. If that flashing former life was a

video, I had just discovered how long it would take to erase it.

Five minutes. Five minutes is exactly how long I had been in

the park. But how long had I been traveling down the road

that took me into that park? While it was just a 20-minute

drive from the office . . . my glide into the parking spot of hell

was the result of a decades-long road-trip that had brought me

to this place.

What might seem to some a brief indiscretion was

transforming rapidly into a relentless wrecking ball that would

destroy my reputation, end my career, turn away my church,

drive a deep wedge between me and my friends, further

distance my children, and thrust me into a spotlight I had spent

many years and countless energy avoiding. I had endured this

spotlight before, but once outside its glare, I had relaxed too





The choices were narrowing further now. Even the

opportunity to die was passing me by as I found myself doing

what they said. The tension was relaxing; the guns were kept

out of sight.

Unwilling to acknowledge to myself that I had battled a

sexual addiction through the years, much less share that

reality with others, I had opted for deception and the decay it

brings into the life of the deceiver, which spills over into the

lives of those who want to love him, even as they take movesto convince him of his lies. Caught in a serious offense, I’d

deny it, cover it, much like Adam and Eve did when confronted

in the garden. My survival instinct would kick in and I would

say what was necessary, blame carelessly and proclaim

breathlessly my innocence. Not this time. I was fresh out of

fig leaves. I find myself envying those sinners who just own up

right from the start. Not me. Not if I could escape, buoyed by

that inner voice that says so convincingly: "I'll never do this

again."

“Put your hands on the steering wheel,” the officer said

as he slid into the seat beside me, carelessly tossing my cell

phone, newspaper, lunch and everything else from the front

seat of my car into the back. “Do you have any weapons in the

car? Anything you could use to harm yourself or anyone else?’

“No,” I said. I felt very harmless.



“I want you to slide across and exit your vehicle

through the passenger-side door,” he said, before realizing

that would mean climbing across a console and gear-shift,

which I would have done just to avoid the threatened bullet. I

awaited instructions and focused on breathing.

“Alright,” he said. “You can get out on your side, but

walk slowly around the front of the car and put your hands

behind your back.”

I determined to move slowly though my heart was

racing and my mind was way out in front of me, already trying

to predict the outcome of my disastrous decision to

be there that day, to have that conversation. Why that park?

Why that moment? I wanted God to tell me right then and

there in very plain English exactly why this was happening to

me. Certainly some of it was the result of my own decision-

making, but the randomness of it hit me as well. This was not

a plan gone wrong; there was no plan. Just a tuna packet and

newspaper and a baggy full of Goldfish crackers. And then a

rolled-down window through which chaos flew.

Not totally resigned to the futility of my situation, I

immediately began to plan my recovery. What will I tell people

when they hear about this? Is there a chance no one will ever

know, or will the struggles of my hidden life be revealed? Is



life as I know it over? I could ask myself all the questions I

wanted, but for now, decision-making had moved beyond my

control. There were no answers.

I wanted to pray, or cry out to God, or run, or melt into

the pavement, or just die. These seemed reasonable choices,

but weren’t among the ones being offered. The only prayer I

could think of was “Why, God, why?” But why what? Why was

I being arrested? I knew the answer to that question. I wanted

my life back, though I had not even begun to see how far goneit was.

“Face the side of the car and put your hands on the

roof,” the officer said. He spoke in a demanding but casual

tone, barely audible over the pounding of my heart and the

serious effort my mind was making to blot out my self-

implosion. I heard him, but it seemed as if he should be saying

it to someone else while I viewed from a recliner with my feet

up, waiting for a commercial to cut the tension.

The officer waited for me at the side of the car, where he

patted me down, handcuffed me behind my back and told me

to get back into my car in the passenger seat for a brief ride

that would change my life. My little indiscretion, a letting down

of the guard, would become a reckless revelation. My life’s

secrets would be spilled out like the belongings on the

floorboard of my car. It would be impossible to gather them



back up, to reconstruct the pre-park life. Some things are done

before you even know you're contemplating them.

“Why are you doing this?” I asked the officers. “You

don’t have to do this,” I pleaded. I can't imagine how many

times these very officers had heard the pleas of the offenders

who want just a chance to take two steps back into the

past . . . to scratch a few words from the script.

“Tell it to the judge,” he replied. Despite the matter-of-factness with which they did their job, I could see small

glimpses of sympathy, more of the “thank God it’s not me”

variety. The resolve with which they worked was evident; this

was not going to go well, this revelation.

Growing up I became aware there were things about me

that, if revealed, would not be acceptable to the people in my

world. Having felt the sting of rejection early on in life, I had

learned to hide the parts of my self that scared me, on

occasion threatening to claw their way out of the closet.

Rather than risk having all of me cast out, I tied the

unacceptable into bundles and stuffed them away into the

basement of my ever-leery self. Christians don’t have “those

kinds” of thoughts and feelings. Christians don’t give in to

“those kinds” of temptations. Christians don’t desire “those

kinds” of things. I knew that my acceptance of Christ and His

salvation as a 12-year-old was real. God would “fix me” in





day in the park, I intended to stop giving in to the

overpowering temptation. Since it’s never going to happen

again, I told myself, why admit it? In that earlier event, faced

with the possibility that my life might crumble, my very-strong

survival instinct kicked in fast. My career was trending towards

success; I was married and had five children to finish raising.

Admitting to same-sex attraction . . . admitting to sending e-

mails and making phone calls . . . admitting to having actually

met and sexually interacted with men, despite the fact I was a

married father of five -- seemed like a mountain too high toclimb . . . unless I intended to jump off when I reached the top.

So, I lied. I believed the lie would buy me time to conquer my

problem once-and-for-all, repair all the damage, reconstruct

the relationships and carry on with life. I had lied out of fear,

but my intentions were good.

I had lied because I believed in time I could reestablish

truth and carry on with life. I knew my same-sex attraction

was consuming me, distorting my personality, disabling my

dreams, increasing distances between me and the ones I loved

. . . but, I thought, forced to face it, I can finally defeat it. And

I intended to do so. I lied to protect myself, but I also lied to

keep the things I thought I might lose, my wife, my sons and

my daughter. I lied to others because I believed in myself and

my ability to overcome. My "self" let me down. By fleeing the

responsibility of my actions, I doomed myself to repeat them.



In the end, I lied even to myself because I wanted to be

someone else and not myself. A person who

struggles believes the struggle will end before it hurts too

many people beyond himself. He may be torn up inside, but

the end of the journey seems always in sight. The struggler's

energy goes into covering up, recovering from guilt, trying to

maintain composure, and sometimes into concocting elaborate

lies to buy time to overcome, to claim that elusive victory.

Energy that should go into the struggle itself is consumed by

the overwhelming labor of deception. The struggler becomesalmost double-minded; develops an alter-ego; maintains two

existences and worries all the time that one is seeping into the

other.

Some see the struggler as using the life he shows –

family, church, and career -- to enable the life he hides, a life

some think he would prefer if he were not trapped by his past

decisions. Decisions like trusting a Savior for salvation,

marriage, fatherhood. Decisions rooted in the same soil of

hope in which the non-struggler grows: a desire to please God.

Those who do not struggle often believe the struggler should

just face reality and stop doing what he knows is wrong. They

believe it's that simple. I wish it was. I did not choose the

hidden life I lived, and during that fateful April lunch encounter,

I would have given anything to be someone else, somewhere

else, on some other day.



This particular leg of my journey into the darkest pit of

my life began innocently enough when I left my office in

downtown at 12:15 p.m. to run the errand and go to lunch. I

called my wife, Lisa, on my cell phone. This was my daily

routine; hop in the car, buy a “Big Gulp,” call my wife; head to

a nearby parking lot; eat the lunch I always brought from

home; read the paper; go back to work.

Lisa, who was in Precepts Bible Study training at a local

church, didn’t answer. When she called me back at 12:32, Iwas driving down the highway approaching an exit onto the

street that would take me to the trophy store to drop off a flag

for framing. As we talked on the phone, I made a right hand

turn into the park to finish our conversation in a nearly-vacant

parking lot. One vehicle, a pick-up truck, was parked at the far

end of the parking lot. I parked in the center of the lot and Lisa

and I continued our conversation, which was, as were most of

our lunchtime chats, of no consequence at all.

The entire conversation, according to the phone record,

lasted 2 minutes and 46 seconds, about half the time it takes

to unravel a life.

“You have a good afternoon in your training and I’ll see

you tonight,” I said.

“I love you,” she said.



I set the cell phone down in the passenger seat, unpacked

my lunch and unfolded my newspaper. When I looked up, a

man in a pickup truck had pulled up beside the passenger

window, smiling as he moved his hand in a circular motion,

gesturing for me to roll down my window.

He was friendly and personable, and at that point, I

should have driven out. Suspended between the instincts of

survival and curiosity, I paused and returned the smile. Hebegan what seemed like a very innocent conversation, but I

should have known where he was taking it. I resisted the

conversation and the direction it was headed, but he was

skilled, perceptive and persistent and I allowed it to proceed to

an inappropriate point. I never left my car; nor did the

undercover officer who was conducting the sting operation

leave his. There was never an indication either of us would do

so.

Proceeding beyond the beautiful day comments, the man

kept prompting me with questions about why I was in the park,

to which I replied I had stopped there for lunch on my way to

run an errand. I also told him I never come to that park

because I work downtown, but just happened to be there that

day because of the errand to a trophy shop less than a mile

away. He told me he was just there on his lunch break to see

“what all was going on today.”



I admit to being flattered that he expressed so much

interest and I continued the conversation.

How quickly resolve disappears when the opportunity

presents itself to seek secret satisfaction or to hear words that

play upon some buried need. A casual play on words moves

into the mind and creates powerful images that numb the

ability to reason, blotting out all common sense in hopes of

satisfying a personal “need” that seems real and reasonable atthe time. Resistance dissolves; awareness of the potential

costs vanishes. Selfishness takes control. Want becomes the

driver. Black and white, right and wrong, leave the scene. Sins

we think are buried deep inside show themselves to be barely

beneath the surface, easy to arouse. It takes little time to

move from where you will never go to being there. A word or

two will do.

The man stopped talking and dropped his smile as he

signaled his fellow officers who were driving around

somewhere else in the park. The time of the arrest was12:40,

just barely five minutes after ending the phone conversation

with my wife.

I engaged in nothing but conversation, very brief,

following his lead. There were no physical acts or contact with

anyone nor was an offer ever made to engage in any activity. I



was about to understand better than ever that thinking can be

as damaging as doing.

After I was handcuffed and frisked, I was driven to a

staging area a few blocks away where they were collecting

other men who had been arrested in the sting operation. My

car was impounded and I was placed temporarily in a police

van with two other men whose lives were also falling apart that

day. We did not talk, our eyes focused on the floor, our ears

on the door.

At the staging area, the officers asked some basic

questions and the arresting officer posed with me like I was a

trophy fish. After a while, I was driven to the county jail in the

backseat of a police cruiser, transferred into the county jail

reception area, fingerprinted, booked, tested for tuberculosis,

chained to a pipe against a wall and then placed in a holding

cell.

“Hey man. What are you in for?” asked the sad-eyed guy

sitting with his knees clutched to his chest a few feet down the

stainless-steel bench in the holding tank. For the second time

that day I was hearing a set of words I never thought would be

said to me. And this time, I did what came naturally and

seemed prudent: I lied.



“DUI,” I said, feeling ashamed that I was willing to accept

one sin over another. I realized I was as judgmental of my

condition as my children were, as my church would be, as my

employer would be . . . as the sad-eyed man might have been.

“DUI?” he said. “You don’t look like a drunk to me.”

I turned away and leaned against the cold tile wall. Am I

ever what I appear to be?

I sat among these men whose lives had merged with

mine on this day because of the self-interruption of our own

actions and choices. Thieves, “deadbeat dads,” drug dealers,

violent offenders ,drunkards and sexual offenders . . . the

dregs of our city’s streets, rounded up and held, to be sorted

out and placed in little rooms for processing and handling. We

had been removed to protect the community. I looked around

me at the brokenness and thought of how a graceless God

might come in with a broom and sweep us all into some big

dustpan, those with sprung sprockets, missing wheels that

made them turn in constant ever-closing circles, batteries

ebbed, paint peeling, color fading, cracks spreading, wings

skewed in wrong directions. As the day went on, I would see

the sorting; some would go upstairs; some outside; some

would slide further in to the hopelessness, finally becoming

almost one with the stainless bench or the concrete floor.



Where was my desk? My Blackberry? My piles of files

and projects? My calendar? My keys? My life had been

reduced to gray walls and trapped men, all proclaiming

innocence; all “wronged.”

I knew that outside that room my life was going on as

always, absent me. Nothing was yet amiss. The normal calls

of the day were coming in; deadlines were approaching,

messages were being left, excuses suggested for my extended

lunch absence. My wife was planning dinner. The dogs werewandering the yard and there was rain in the forecast. Only I

knew it was crumbling. I would have wept, but not there. Not

in that room, not with those men.

Several hours later after mug shots and more processing,

I was finally moved to another cell with phones bolted a wall

and piles of limp ham sandwiches stacked upon a try. I was

given the right to make the proverbial one free phone call. As

the hours had passed, I had narrowed down my choices; I had

chosen my words. I called my wife.

"Lisa?"

It would take a long time for me to know what the

minutes in the park had done to the years of my life. How a

brief conversation through a window can shut down

relationships I thought were a permanent part of my life. How



a pair of handcuffs and a ride downtown can bring both loss

and gain. How dear the depths can be. How dreams and

nightmares can run parallel . . . and lead to the same place.

Had we finally come to the end . . . or had we finally come

to the beginning?

(In two weeks: Chapter Two of “The Weight of Who I Am”.)

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Have We Finally Come to the End?