I can already smell your blood. And that's why I'm leaving.

"Dear friend,

Good morning. I almost killed you last night.

No. Your coffee didn't have a slightly bitter almond flavor. Yes. your brakes work just fine, as far I know, although now that I've mentioned them, due diligence says get them checked. No. Something else. Much worse. Much more destructive. Much more painful. And maybe much more longer term. And you can probably, even definitely remove the "maybe" from that statement.

Before you lock the doors, let me tell you a story.

Hi. My name is Eric.

I have other addictions that trouble me. Sloth has build a comfortable couch at my house. Pride is my prison. Lust knows me far more than I know wish to know it. And I have what is probably the normal human dose of "ics" and "isms." Honestly, I'd chart addiction as a simple stamp of human personality after the Fall of Human Beings. We're all addicts. This holds true for the redeemed and the not yet redeemed. It's just a question of on what day, to what degree, and how socially acceptable a particular addiction is in a particular friend group.

Warning: Here I'll be terse. And here, I'm in good company. Paul uses the word skubala, found only once in the New Covenant, to say "I consider it all Σκύβαλον compared to the all surpassing glory of knowing Christ and him crucified. Most Bible translators check out here and go with rubbish, because they start with the "Good Christians wouldn't say a naughty word for human excrement" as a basis for their translating, and quickly jam rubbish or dross or waste in the line and move on and hope no one looks any deeper. The people who read this letter all knew. The word was the word for shit. Human shit. If it makes you feel better to go with poop, OK, pull it back. But that's still not what it really says.

So Good morning. Or Good afternoon. Or Good evening. My name is Eric. I am an asshole. It's been hours. Seconds. Breaths. Since the last sip at the well of my addiction.

Wait. What does he mean by that? OK. I'll try to explain.

Imagine you grew up in a household of hunters. Where hunting was the one thing everyone did well. Not just in this house. But in the house my mother grew up in. And the house her mother grew up in. Generation after generation after generation after generation. The conversation inside the family warren, in the whispers of the wood, were stories borne and bred in blood. Larger family gatherings became opportunities to gather and glory as past kills were told and retold around the table and the campfire. Boasts and beliefs intertwined in a way that legend, both preferred past and preferred future. And in the midst of all this, in the poverty of the present, we told one another, "We have not... but we can hunt." "We are not, but we can destroy." "We never will be, but we can kill" As a junior in college, I had a professor in college who I though barely knew me stuff Hamlet into my hand and tell me "if you want to understand the people you come from, read this." Turns out he had really seen me. Confused kid from a dysfunctional Danish household of hunters.

OK. Imagine what it was like for a young child growing up in that house. That child didn't know anything else. Blooded in from the beginning. Eating far more than the heart. Taught that identity and strength and future and power came through the hunt and the kill.

And further imagine that this young child was an incredibly gifted hunter. Perhaps more gifted than anyone in his family could ever have imagined. He could track down and take down all kinds of game. In any terrain. In any climate. Just give him time. So gifted, that he could even adapt to the tools provided, and still figured out the weakness of each animal so that he could hang another trophy on his wall. Because he wanted it. So he watched for it. And waited for it. And almost without fail, came back with his kill.

Then imagine this young man was sent to continue his education, because that is what people thought good people did back in that time. But he didn't lay hunting aside. Instead, he thought about hunting wherever he was. In the classroom he sharpened his knives. At work, he imagined stalking and killing his prey and thought about the gun locked in his desk drawer. On the weekends, he spend time on the range. He was in civilization now, so he had to hunt in season, and within limit, but those hunts only scratched the surface of his hunger.

And then imagine that this young man couldn't contain his thirst. And he found the Army and the Army found him. And they discovered he had 20/10 vision and no dominant eye and brain that could intuit smell and sight and light and reflection while at the same time it was calculating wind speed and slope and velocity and gravitation fall. And even though this young man didn't want trophies and didn't care about 'The Cause' and certainly didn't care about winning, what he did care about was pleasing his superiors. So he killed. Every night. Several times a night. Night after night. Week after week. For years. And if you asked him, he wasn't just a sniper. He was addicted to killing . And his superiors did praise him. They proudly boasted about the sniper as they toured the nation. They told their allies about his abilities. When their unit's efficiency scores were posted each month and hit 99.5% and above, the commanders came by and thanked the sniper for what he did each night.

That sniper woke up one day on the road to a wedding. And he is no longer a sniper. But that does not mean he's not still an addict. I know. Because I am he. I didn't grow up in a house addicted to killing in blood. I grew up in a house to killing with words. From the time I can first remember, I was taught to how to tear people down or tear people apart with my words. From the time I started college and through the time I entered the ministry, people noticed I has a special gift for quickly assessing understanding the motivations of others after a couple of sentences of conversation. I could also quickly asses

Hi. My name is Eric. I am an Asshole. It's been hours since I last drank at the well of my addiction. Do you know when it was. It was the last time we were together. We were in the middle of what I thought was a discussion. And then I realized it was something different. Your tone changed. You got louder. Your posture changed. Your verbiage changed. Your demeanor changed. " And at that point I just put my head down and didn't say a thing. Most people thought I was pissed. Or that I'd given up. Or that I'd lost an argument and felt weak and was giving up. It was none of those things.

I put my head down, my friend, because I was terrified. I knew in that instant I could easily destroy you. The voices in my head were already calculating wind speeds-- I was wondering which opening salvo was going to do the most damage. My eyes where looking for game trails in the brush down range. I was already considering where you were most likely to run depending on where i wounded you. I even knew I didn't need a gun. A child's arrow would do. It was out of the quiver, and already notched. I was pulling back the bow. It was an easy shot. And the only thing that held me back was the tenuous veil of Grace.

I love you. And yes. Love is about proximity. But sometimes it's also about fences. Sometimes fences aren't for keeping the animals safe from the humans. Sometimes fences are solely for the purpose of keeping prey safe from hunters. I'd love to tell myself some wonderful story that I could sacrifice myself, and humble myself and put myself at risk. But stepping into that space means putting you at risk. Because I'm me. And you're you. I love you. But I'm going to love you enough not to be in proximity with you. Until the smell of your blood no longer carries on the wind.

thus spake,

me