"And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and
he that shall humble himself shall be exalted."
Matthew 23:12
I visited the Cross of the Nomad Empires of the Half-Step today, which is located between the cornfield and the mosquito farm in the small town in which I live in Mexico. It is a monument to not only Christ, but also the nomad empires that seek to transpose their lives into a different key. Paradoxically, the only way to transpose your life into a higher key is by humbling yourself; to presume to elevate yourself to a higher key is to find yourself aggressively detuned until the strings flop around like dying fish on your guitar. There is no music to be played in the key of the dying fish. The only way to play music in a key higher than the key in which you are currently playing is to humble yourself, to realize that God is the master composer, and that we are all merely de-composers, strumming the skeletons of notes we stole from the ocean of life.
We didn't even bother to put the notes in an aquarium. We even mistook their flopping around as a morbid, nihilistic form of interpretive dance. We were wrong. The songs were gasping for air. They were dying. The vision was murdered. We thought we were the author of the ocean, and we treated our musicians like creators of oceans instead of the fishermen they are, and lost all our fish in the process.
We must humble ourselves, or pay.
The rightness of this town persists, even when I have my doubts and put one foot out the door to test it. I'm not even trying to test it. I just find that every now and then, I'm more comfortable when I'm packed and ready to go. So I pack. It isn't urgent or dramatic. But the town keeps me here, as though the favor of God Himself was shining down upon it. While the town and house aren't "perfect," there is actual, genuine, heartfelt regret from my neighbors at the thought that I would leave. Tough, blue-collar guys who don't speak a syllable of English. In direct contrast, I can't even get anybody in Gringoland to respond to an email, and I'm talking about friends. Which isn't strictly true. But it's at least 99% true. 99%. There is wrongness there. A ton of it.
"Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall."
Proverbs 16:18
The clearance of the gates of Heaven isn't high. You couldn't fit a moving truck. Whether it was full of furniture and virtue or not. You probably couldn't even fit a sports car that only comes up to your knees when it flies by you on the street. The gates of Heaven aren't that tall. You have to duck. Maybe even crawl. You have to transpose the key of your life at least half a step down, in order to get in.
"But many that are first shall be last; and the last shall be first."
Matthew 19:30
The video above contains the first publicly-visible footage of my (rented) house in Mexico, and I only post it now because I am finally able to glorify God by posting it. A year ago, it would have been boastful. But the rightness of this town persists for at least another month, and I don't take it for granted that it will last beyond that. Though, I might be here until the Rapture. Tonight? Tomorrow? Election day? Early January? The end of the world as we know it, at least. Whatever the case, after all these years and all that drama, noise, and instability, God led me here. God is keeping me here. He is the stability for the one-man nomad empire (whoever he or she may be), not the house or van or passport or relationship. Wherever you are, if it's good, God can keep you there as well. If it's bad, He can easily deliver you from it. But you have to transpose the key of your life at least a half-step down. Everybody in the U.S. is trying to transpose their life into a key that is so high, it's actually impossible to sing. Remember:
Happiness is the flowers growing on the grave.
The joy is buried underneath.
