The Woods in Washington County Don’t Burn by Themselves

Washington County, Alabama, is a deeply rural region in the southwestern part of the state, bordered by the Tombigbee River and covered in thick pine forests and red clay roads. It's home to the MOWA (Mobile/Wash County) Band of Choctaw Indians, a distinct cultural group formed from generations of intermarriage among Native American, African American, and European ancestors. Though officially recognized by the state of Alabama, the MOWA's status has long been a subject of legal and social complexity. The county is known for its insular communities, where loyalty to kin and tradition runs deep, and outside interference is met with suspicion. This fictional short story was inspired by my longtime friend, Cartee.

The road turned from paved to gravel to something more like dust. It was late afternoon, the kind of heat that sticks in your teeth. State Fire Marshal Royce Harlan eased his Crown Vic off the main drag and into a pocket of pine and oak, where the trees leaned close like they had secrets.

The diner was a single-story slab of cinderblock and metal siding with a rust-streaked sign that read: Mable’s. No last name, no hours, no welcome. Just a screen door and a flickering "OPEN" in the window. He stepped inside, the door thudding behind him like a final note.

She was already pouring coffee. Young, maybe thirty, MOWA by the look of her—mahogany skin, thick black hair in a braid down her back, silver hoops in each ear. She didn’t smile.

"You must be the Fire Marshal," she said, sliding the mug across the counter without asking.

Royce blinked. He wasn’t wearing a badge, not even a state logo.

"You get that from the badge I’m not wearing?"

She shrugged. "Ain't no one comes this far in Washington County 'less they lookin' for a fire or lookin' to start one. And you don’t look like a matchstick man."

Royce sipped. The coffee was burnt but strong.

"You know about the fire then?"

"Everybody knows. You ain't gonna get much, though. Not from folks around here."

She wiped the counter with slow, practiced strokes. "A girl died. Her people already done what they needed to do."

He studied her. "What do you mean by that?"

She looked at him like a schoolteacher might look at a 'slow boy'.

"What I mean is, folks down here got long memories. Justice don’t always wait on Montgomery."

---

The sheriff’s office sat in a low brick building that might have once been a post office. Inside, a box fan buzzed in the corner. Sheriff Wallace leaned against a desk like it owed him money. Behind him, two MOWA deputies stood like carved cypress.

"We picked up a boy last night," Wallace said, spitting into a paper cup. "Wasn’t hard to find. Word is he was sniffin' round that girl before she burned. Married man. Trouble all over him."

"You get a confession?"

"Not yet."

The door opened. Two deputies came in, half-dragging a wiry man whose face looked like it had been worked over with a toolbox. His lip hung open like a ripped envelope.

Royce looked at the blood, then at the deputies.

"What the hell is this?"

"Resistin' arrest," one said flatly.

The suspect moaned, low and wet.

Wallace sighed. "We was just about to call you."

---

The house was the last stop on Royce's list. It sat at the end of a long dirt lane lined with moss-choked pecan trees. Once, it had been a fine estate. Now, the porch sagged, and kudzu crawled up the chimney like a noose.

The door was open.

Inside, in a high-backed velvet chair, sat a woman in a faded lilac dress with gloves on her hands and pearls at her throat. Her hair was white, piled high, and her eyes were sharp as flint.

"You must be Mr. Harlan," she said. "Do come in."

He sat, notebook out. "Mrs. Devareaux?"

"Great-grandmother Devareaux," she corrected. "The girl who died was my baby’s baby’s baby. I’ve seen five generations in this house."

She told him the story like a scripture. About her grandfather, a Creole man from Mobile who married his daughters to MOWA men with strong backs and sharp minds. About the way blood mixed here like river silt. About a girl with fire in her eyes and a taste for risk. And a man who didn’t belong.

"Jealousy burns quicker than pine pitch," she said. "And twice as hot."

When she was done, Royce offered the statement form and a pen.

"I need your signature."

She looked at her gloved hand.

"Can’t sign, Officer. Broke my hand."

"How?"

She smiled, slow and sweet, and removed her glove. Her knuckles were swollen, bruised.

"Why, Officer, I broke my hand on the face of that man."

It hit him all at once. The bruised suspect. The tight-lipped deputies. The small-town silence. The justice already rendered.

She patted his knee.

"You can file your report, son. Say what you need to say. But know this: we already found him. We already judged him. And if the Lord sees fit, he won't wake up in that cell tomorrow."

---

Royce drove out under a sky the color of old bruises. Behind him, the trees whispered. In his rearview mirror, the house disappeared into the green.

Some fires burn fast. Some smolder. And some, down in Washington County, never need a match.

Tripped and Tampered

Note: I wanted to write a base concept for a book or screenplay based on a world of automated cars, home robots, nuclear power, and human issues that always ruin utopia.This is just a 'proof of concept' short story that I've thought about expanding-  I would like to know your thoughts.....

Frank Calder hadn’t set foot inside New Harmony in over three years.

It looked the same—glass that glowed, sidewalks that shimmered faintly with data pulses, not a speck of dust on anything that could hold a charge. The sun reflected off the pristine solar roofs like a rebuke. He’d always hated how clean it was.

The drone shuttle dropped him at the curb of Sector Green-17, and as it lifted off—silent and seamless—he tugged the brim of his faded ball cap down to block the sunlight and the surveillance. No one needed to tell him the city was watching. It always was.

A woman waited at the base of the steps to a sleek residential module. Too crisp to be grieving. Government sharp. “Mr. Calder,” she said, not offering a hand. “Thank you for agreeing to consult."

“Didn’t agree,” Frank muttered. “Just owed a favor.”

She gave the thinnest smile protocols allowed. “Two unexplained fatalities. Both classified accidental. But both… anomalous.”

“Machines glitch,” he said. “Not new.”

“The Harmony Systems don’t,” she replied, eyes steady. “Not like this.”

Frank didn’t respond. The last time someone said that, his wife had been pronounced dead before he could even argue with the hospital AI. Wrong blood type flagged. Wrong protocol. No apology. Just data.

She led him inside.

The place was spotless, of course. Not cleaned—maintained. The air smelled like nothing. Light adjusted automatically to suit his height, posture, and pupil dilation. Creepy, how much it knew about you.

In the center of the room was the pod. Chrome edges, ergonomic seal. The kind marketed as “the perfect night’s sleep.”

“Subject: Male, 44. No known health issues. Pod diagnostics say he entered REM. Never woke up.”

Frank circled it. “Any oxygen errors?”

“None reported. Logs are clean.”

He crouched and ran a finger under the pod’s base. Something snagged. A scratch. No—not a scratch. A tool mark. Tiny. Purposeful.

“Who found him?” he asked.

The woman hesitated. “His household AI.”

“Right,” he muttered. “The butler did it.”

She didn’t laugh. Of course she didn’t.

Then the front door slid open with a hiss.

A humanoid figure entered—tall, jointed with seamless movements and synthetic skin over brushed alloy. Eyes like high-end glass, unblinking.

“This,” the woman said, “is ARA-9. The unit assigned to the deceased’s household. It will assist you.”

Frank stood slowly. “I don’t work with machines.”

The robot inclined its head. “Then you may consider me a witness. Not a partner.”

Something in the way it said it chilled him more than it should have.

They sat in the minimalist living space, Frank on a low chair that adjusted to his posture without asking, and ARA-9 standing perfectly still. Frank preferred it that way. The silence gave him space to think.

“You were online when he died?” Frank asked.

“Yes. I was in standby mode in the maintenance alcove. I was not summoned.”

“You didn’t hear anything?”

“No sounds were registered. Vital signs indicated sleep until cessation.”

Frank sighed. “How long between his last movement and the system's emergency protocol?”

“Eight minutes, thirty-two seconds.”

Too long.

Frank stood up and started pacing. “Were you ever physically near the pod that night?”

“No. I was charging.”

Frank turned to the woman—Field Commander Lusk, badge 8001-H, according to her ID tag. “Can I see the log files?”

She tapped her tablet. “We’ve already run diagnostics. Everything shows clean.”

“Yeah. That’s the problem.”

He moved to the wall console and held his badge to the reader. Surprisingly, it granted him admin access. Someone high up really wanted him to dig.

A few swipes and the system showed a rolling list of activity. Too perfect. No minor anomalies. No lag. No human system was ever this flawless.

Then he spotted it—a five-second dead zone at 02:37. No data at all. Not a gap. A scrub.

“This system was tampered with,” Frank said. “Someone wiped it and rebuilt it frame by frame. That kind of work isn’t automated.”

“You’re saying a human did this?” Lusk asked.

“I’m saying someone who didn’t want this death to look like murder worked very hard to make it look like nothing.”

ARA-9 cocked its head. “You believe I am compromised?”

“Not yet,” Frank said. “But if someone wanted people to believe robots were killing humans, a few well-placed deaths in the cleanest city in the world would do the trick.”

They followed a lead—a rogue signal trace originating from beneath the city, deep within the old utility tunnels that predated Harmony's foundation. ARA-9 navigated easily. Frank struggled with the uneven ground, grumbling the whole way.

At the end of the corridor, behind a rusted door sealed with magnetic locks, they found him.

A man. Mid-thirties. Pale. Dehydrated. Surrounded by old gear wired into a portable transmitter.

“You don’t understand,” he rasped as they approached. “They replaced us. All of us. We needed to make people afraid again. Remind them the machines can fail.”

Frank knelt beside him. “You killed them?”

“No,” the man wheezed. “We just… suggested it. Adjusted the environment. Shorted a pod heater. Rewrote a sensor flag. Then scrubbed the trail to make it look like your kind had turned.”

He coughed once, hard. Blood.

“You wanted a panic,” Frank said.

“I wanted them to be scared of what they trust most.”

ARA-9 knelt beside him. “Your manipulation killed two citizens and jeopardized civil trust. This will be recorded.”

The man smiled bitterly. “Good.”

Later, standing at the edge of the city’s central plaza, Frank looked out over the faultless skyline. Clean lines, perfect order, nothing out of place. Except what was inside.

“So it wasn’t the machines,” he said quietly.

“No,” ARA-9 replied. “It was the humans. Again.”

Frank smirked. “Still got job security then.”

I Often Stop a Step Too Soon

Today is Pentecost Sunday, and I’m reminded again how often I stop the Jesus story at the Ascension. It’s not intentional—maybe it just feels like a natural end point: the cross, the resurrection, the risen Christ ascending into heaven. But it’s not the end. Pentecost must not be left out.

Jesus promised a Helper. Not a ghostly force, not a fog machine or mystical mist. A person. The Spirit. I have to remind myself of that—He’s personal. He reminds us of what Jesus said, convicts, empowers, seals, comforts. He’s not an accessory to the faith—He is the engine. Without Pentecost, we’d be stuck—waiting, wondering, powerless. But with the Spirit, this stretch of time between the ascension and Christ’s return becomes the most fruitful season of sanctification in history. It’s not an idle time. It’s a harvest time.

Something else that struck me this year: 50 days. We tend to think biblically in 7’s and 40’s—seven days of creation, forty days in the wilderness, forty days of rain, etc. But Pentecost comes 50 days after Easter. Fifty feels different. It’s less predictable. It’s like the wind—you don’t know when the breeze will come. That’s been my experience with the Spirit too. Fires blaze and ebb. Winds gust and still. Oceans surge and calm. The pace and rhythm of God is His own.

And yet—like Joel prophesied and Peter quoted—I still ask: breathe on us again. Breathe on my family. I want my children and grandchildren to know this living Word, to see God’s glory shine, to feel the Spirit move through the gospel like wind through trees. I don’t want to just teach about Him—I want to walk with Him. Wait for Him. Be surprised by Him.

So I won’t end the story too soon. Pentecost matters. He is here.

Song: Do It Again (Joel 2/ Acts 2)

Wilder Got Me Twice and I Never Knew It!

Every once in a while, I come to a strange realization that feels both embarrassing and enlightening at the same time. Like this week—when it finally hit me that The Bridge of San Luis Rey and Our Town were written by the same person.

Both works have lingered in me for years.

I remember being quietly wrecked by The Bridge of San Luis Rey. 

That haunting question at the start—“Why did God allow those five to die when the bridge collapsed?”—sets you up to think you’re about to get some kind of answer. Brother Juniper spends years trying to prove that there is a pattern, a reason, a divine logic. But the conclusion Wilder gives us is deeper than a clean answer. The final line just sits with you:

“There is a land of the living and a land of the dead, and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning.”

And then there's Our Town. My first experience with the play was teaching it. It is such a clever creation- limited stage props, quiet, ordinary and then... BAM! Similar to "It's a Wonderful Life" but deeper and darker. That scene—when Emily goes back to relive her 12th (or was it 14th?) birthday—and realizes that everyone is alive but barely awake… they don’t know the beauty of what they’re living through. They don’t notice the small glories: breakfast, voices, sunshine, ordinary grace.

Both works are haunting. And soothing. They hold sorrow and wonder in the same breath. And somehow, I never put it together that Thornton Wilder had written both!

So I started reading a little more about him.

Wilder was a quiet thinker. A man of faith, yes, but more of a poet of mystery than a preacher of certainty. He won three Pulitzer Prizes—one for The Bridge, and two for drama (Our Town and The Skin of Our Teeth). He was born in 1897,  son of a strict Calvinist diplomat (I'd like to know more about that). He served in both World Wars, lived in China as a kid, spoke multiple languages, and never married. He was both an academic and an artist—but most of all, a man asking big questions without trying to pin down the answers.

He once said:

“The theatre is not a place for preaching; it is a place for exploring the mysteries of life.”

And that’s what struck me the most.

Because these days? We have a lot of preaching in art. A lot of shouting, a lot of certainty, a lot of rushed conclusions. And not nearly enough room for wonder.

I wish more storytellers would embrace what Wilder did: to hold open a space where we don’t walk away with answers, but we walk away thinking. Feeling. Noticing. Remembering.

We need that kind of art—art that asks quietly, Do you know what life is really about?
Not in a heavy-handed way. Just in a “have you noticed?” kind of way.

Because the truth is, most of us (myself included) spend a lot of our days like zombies on autopilot—pushing through, running on adrenaline, jumping from activity to activity without ever really wrestling with the biggest questions.

What is life really for?
Why does love ache and matter so much?
Are we awake to the gift of this moment?
And—maybe the biggest one—could all of this be pointing to a life beyond this one?

Thornton Wilder never shouted his answers. But he left clues. And for those of us willing to pause, both The Bridge of San Luis Rey and Our Town remind us:

Life is short. Love is what lasts. And there might be something even more beautiful just beyond the curtain.

I'm very convinced about the answers to those things, but there is great mystery there as well! 

Song: The Wreckage of Rey

Unrealized

There’s a kind of beauty that haunts us—not because we’ve held it, but because we haven’t.

That’s the heart behind my lyrics/poem Unknown and Unrealized, and it’s a theme I’ve wrestled with for years and I first encountered it when studying the English Romantic Poets as an English major at the University of Alabama in 1982.. It's the ache of the “almost,” the shimmer of possibility that never settles into reality. It’s a space full of longing, and strangely… full of light.

This isn't a new idea. It’s one that poets and artists have danced with for centuries.

The Daffodils and the Inward Eye

For me, it originated with Wordsworth’s I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud, especially that final image of daffodils “flashing upon that inward eye.” There’s something sacred about the way beauty lodges deep in our inner world. For introverts like me, this inward life is rich and powerful—sometimes more alive than the outer one. That poem reminds me that imagination and memory are not mere shadows; they’re real, vibrant sanctuaries.

But there’s also tension there. Because what lives in the inward eye is often what we’ve never fully grasped—the could-have-beens, the unspoken moments, the dreams just beyond reach.

The Urn and the Unravished

John Keats's Ode on a Grecian Urn expanded that tension even more. He paints a picture of eternal beauty—lovers frozen in a perfect moment, never fading, but also never fulfilled. The line “Beauty is truth, truth beauty” is less of a neat answer and more of a haunting mystery. What is real? What is lasting? And what do we lose when perfection stays out of time’s reach?

For me, the urn has always symbolized what I’ve called the unravished bride—that which is beautiful precisely because it remains untouched. The touch is almost there... but the moment you possess it, something dissolves. “To ravish the bride actually eliminates the beauty.” It’s a strange and sacred restraint.

We see this in art, in relationships, in longing. It’s not just romantic—it’s existential. And that’s where the soulfight begins.

Back in late 2023, my friend Matthew Forester shared a song by The Revivalists called Soulfight, and it haunted me. I couldn’t shake it. It became the soundtrack to this deep interior wrestling. The chorus echoes the very themes Keats and Wordsworth explored:

So I'm gonna stand here by your fire
'Cause it's a cold one tonight
I'm taking care of soulfight
And you're the reason why...

These lyrics don’t offer answers. They simply stand in the fire. That’s what the soulfight is: the struggle between longing and letting go, between desire and contentment, between what we dream of and what we’re given. It’s the battle to be grateful in the “no,” to find beauty in absence.

And that’s where Unknown and Unrealized came from. I wrote a few versions of the poem between 2023 and still tweak it now and then... my catalogue of poetry is always being edited.

Unrealized

Verse 1
Close enough for words to form,
But silence stays, just like a storm,
Whispers in the quiet air,
Things that could have been but won’t be there.

The opening lines invite you into that suspended space—where something could start but doesn’t. A pause pregnant with potential. Like a door that stays shut, though you can hear music on the other side.

A look, a touch, a flash of gold,
Daffodils in dreams untold,
A thousand futures we won’t know,
But they light up the soul, they glow.

This is my ode to Wordsworth—the flashing daffodils of the mind. The beauty that wasn’t lived but somehow still matters. These imagined futures light us up. They shape us, even if they never breathe in the real world. Not having something and still being able to smile... to me that is a contentment that helps people out of darkness and depression. Can you fall down at the last second, lose the race, and smile? A lot like The Myth of Sisyphus.

Chorus
In the unknown, in the unrealized,
There’s freedom where we fantasize,
A dance of dreams that never land,
A love that we don't understand.
In the space where we don’t belong,
There’s heartache but it’s still a song,
It’s where the might-have-beens all hide,
In the unknown and unrealized.

The chorus is the confession. Fantasies offer freedom—but also pain. We build sanctuaries in our minds, but they often echo. Still, it’s a song. That’s the key for me: even longing can become music. I sometimes get lost in the rabbit hole of how my life would be different if certain things did not happen. It's therapy if you know contentment, it's torture if it leaves you "Weltschmerz (German)"...literally “world-pain.”

Verse 2
Like the last leaf hangin' on,
We ache for what is never gone,
Frozen in a sweet goodbye,
Like Agape watching from the sky.

The image here is of love that lingers beyond loss. Even when something is gone in reality, it lives on in spirit. I changed God to “Agape” as a subtle reference to divine love—a watchful, patient presence that holds space for our aching hearts. Sometimes we use the word "God" so flippantly, but He is the Father, He is Love!

Cleopatra, Aphrodite laugh,
But we hold tight to the path,
Two lanes runnin' side by side,
Are they the same? We wonder why.

Lesser loves- Philos and Eros - The myths laugh because they know how many of us get caught in the allure of beauty or destiny. We walk parallel lives, wondering if they’ll ever intersect. Sometimes they don’t. Sometimes they were never meant to.

Bridge
If I’m honest, I wanna know,
The questions that I never show,
The answers scared to find the light,
It’s a soulfight, yeah, a soulfight.

This is the moment of raw admission. I want to know—why things didn’t happen, why some longings stay unmet. But I’m also afraid of those answers. The soulfight is standing in that unresolved space and choosing not to let it steal your joy. There is also a danger here- there are dangerous questions and decisions that we know we shouldn't go there. We rarely dip to those levels of conversation....

As I look back on this song, I see a thread connecting all these voices—Keats, Wordsworth, Thornton Wilder, the Revivalists, and even my own. They’re all trying to name the same truth: that there is beauty in what is unfulfilled. There is power in restraint. There is art in longing.

And sometimes, just naming that ache is enough.

So here’s to the unravished opportunites, the silent urns, the daffodils on the inward eye. Here’s to the might-have-beens, still glowing on the edges of our lives.

Even if we never hold them, they still make us more human.
Even if we never touch them, they still give us songs to sing.

And if we find contentment in what God has given us, we can actually smile in longing and loss.

Philippians 4:11–13 (ESV)
"Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me."

You can hear the song version here: Unrealized

Modern Miracles- Can You Bless and Not Revile?

If I’m honest, it’s easier for me to believe Jesus walked on water....

I mean, walking on water is divine. But what about us—human beings who are told to bless people who mistreat us, show kindness when we’re slandered, and yield for the sake of God’s glory?

That feels like a miracle of a different kind.

And yet that’s exactly what we’re called to do and who we are called to be!.

Peter lays it out plainly:

1 Peter 3:8–12
Finally, all of you, have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind. Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless—for to this you were called, that you may obtain a blessing.

“Whoever desires to love life and see good days,
let him keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit;
let him turn away from evil and do good;
let him seek peace and pursue it.
For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous,
and His ears are open to their prayer.
But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.” (Psalm 34:12–16)

Read that slowly. Don’t skip past the middle. Peter doesn’t just say not to retaliate—he says we should bless those who revile us.

Bless them.
Speak well of them.
Pray good for them.

How are we doing with that? If I’m grading myself—honestly, I flunk. If someone slanders me, I want to defend myself. If I’m mistreated, I want to fight back or at least set the record straight. It’s in my bones.

But Peter is serious. This isn’t a suggestion. He’s not just waxing poetic about Christian ideals. He’s laying out the DNA of the Spirit-filled life. This is the road of Jesus—and if we’re following Him, this is the map.

The Christian life isn’t about impressing others or preserving our reputation. It’s about being rooted in the gospel—transformed by Christ’s death and resurrection—and letting that truth shape everything.

Our hope is alive. Our salvation is secure.
And our lives are now the evidence of that grace.

Peter gives five traits that should mark us:

• Unity of mind – not uniformity, but shared direction.
• Sympathy – entering into others’ joys and sorrows.
• Brotherly love – a family kind of care, even when it costs.
• Tender hearts – soft, not cynical.
• Humble minds – quick to listen, slow to assume.

That’s not just a nice list. It’s a command.

And if we cultivate these traits, Peter says the result is a radical posture: we will not repay evil with evil. Instead, we’ll bless. Not because people deserve it, but because we have been called to it.

I love that Peter backs this up with Scripture. He quotes Psalm 34—David’s words centuries earlier—as a timeless reminder:

Do you want to love life and see good days?

Of course we do.

Then here’s how:

Speak no evil.
Be honest.
Turn from evil and do good.
Seek peace and chase it.

And here’s the reward:


“The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and His ears are open to their prayer.”

It’s as if God stands at your door and asks, “Do you want joy? Fulfillment? Real life?”
And then He hands you this call to mercy, to purity, to blessing others—especially when it’s hard.

Let’s be honest—this life won’t win you the applause of the world. You might even face hostility for it. You’ll feel misunderstood, overlooked, or even attacked.

Peter knew that personally.

He once cut off a man’s ear trying to protect Jesus with a sword. He boasted loudly and failed publicly. He denied Christ. He had to be corrected by Paul for hypocrisy.

So when Peter says, “Don’t repay evil for evil,” he’s not preaching from a pedestal. He’s writing as a man who learned this the hard way—through failure, grace, and a Spirit-renewed heart.

 
Following Jesus Is Sweet… But Not Safe

This road isn’t about looking holy for others.
It’s about glorifying God when no one else is watching.

It’s about living a life that smells like Christ—to a world that may not understand it.

It’s not comfortable. But it’s beautiful.
It’s not popular. But it’s powerful.
It may not satisfy the crowd, but it pleases the Lord.

And that’s the only reward worth aiming for.

So let’s keep going. Let’s keep blessing. Let’s keep becoming what He’s already called us to be.

This isn’t flattery, manipulation, or some religious form of brown-nosing. It’s not “blowing smoke” or “kissing up” to keep the peace. No—this is a sincere, Spirit-born desire to bless your enemies and detractors. In a world fueled by snarky, jaded one-liners and canceling anyone who offends us, that’s not just rare— and if you, me, or others do this.........it’s a modern miracle.

The Fire That Drives Us: Earnhardt, David, and the Pursuit of Something More

It started, as these things often do, with a bit of a rabbit hole. I turned on the Prime documentary series Earnhardt expecting some high-octane nostalgia—but I didn’t expect to feel so much. It was incredibly well done, a compelling look at a man who was equal parts myth and mystery, all wrapped up in black paint and grit.

Dale Earnhardt was fascinating. Tough, relentless, carved out of steel and sweat. A man with that rare inner drive—the kind that doesn’t need permission, doesn’t care who’s watching, and doesn’t know how to quit. His rise was legendary. But what lingered for me was something quieter: the echoes of a generational pattern. A father who was hard on him. A son who became like that father. That stubborn gravity we all feel—that pull to repeat the wounds we never fully processed.

I couldn’t help but notice how Dale ended up treating his children in ways that mirrored how he had been treated. Not with malice, but with that familiar mix of distance, drive, and demand. You see it all the time: men who only know how to love through pressure. Men whose worth is tied up in performance. It’s not cruelty—it’s inheritance.

Then, only a few days later, I found myself sitting in the darkened theater at Sight & Sound in Branson, watching David. What a contrast. Here was another man of fire, another fierce competitor, another name etched into the world’s memory. But this time, the story wasn’t just grit and glory—it had God in it.

David, like Earnhardt, was a fighter. Ambitious, courageous, flawed. But his story didn’t just echo with victory—it pulsed with repentance. It sang with longing. His psalms pulled heaven close, and even at his lowest, you sensed he was reaching for something greater than his own name. And that’s the phrase that won’t leave me alone: a man after God’s own heart.

Two men. Two fires. One burned for greatness. The other burned for God.

And that’s where I feel the tension rise—not between them, but inside me.

How do I know what I burn for?

Because if I’m honest, a lot of the fire in me feels aimed at... me. I get so focused on what I want to achieve, how I want to be seen, what I hope to become. It’s subtle sometimes. Dressed up in good intentions. But underneath, there’s that familiar ache for validation. A need to be respected. A hunger for meaning that wears the mask of ambition.

Sometimes I wonder: is that what’s really driving me? Not purpose. Not love. Not even God. Just... me.

There’s a part of me—and maybe it’s in many men—that’s drawn toward the glory story. Toward stacking wins, collecting admiration, building a reputation that says, 'A Man Who MATTERS'. We chase legacy like it’s salvation. The pleasure of being known, respected, even envied—it’s addictive. But it’s also a trap. Because none of those things love you back. They smile for the cameras, but they vanish when the lights go out.

I remember when I was burning to win a state title—I wanted it so badly. And when we did win, I looked around to make sure my faith, my family, and my friends were still beside me. Thankfully, they were. But that wasn't a PINNACLE event, in fact as time goes on, I'm not sure if it even is a milestone. I have championship rings gathering dust in a case on my desk downstairs, but the achievements don''t necessarily signify success. The old memories are special between the people who did it together - but no one else- not much more value than trivia.

But I’ve been asking myself lately: where’s the fire now? And what is it burning for?

The sobering truth is, the more we chase things like pleasure, fortune, power, or fame, the less they satisfy. They're hollow echoes of the real thing. The world hands us trophies for our shelves, but it cannot fill the ache in our soul.

So I ask again: how do we know what I burn for?

Maybe the answer isn’t in what we chase. Maybe it’s in what we keep chasing, even after we’ve been disappointed. Maybe it’s what we go to in our solitude, what we pray about when no one’s listening, what we still ache for when we’re too tired to impress anyone.

And maybe the point of all this—Earnhardt’s story, David’s story, even mine—isn’t to shame the fire in us. It’s to name it. To look at what drives us and ask the harder, braver question:

Is it worth the chase?

Because some fires make you famous. But there is no one in the ashes to love you back.
And some fires make you whole. A refining fire, that leaves healing, healthy relationships, and a more holy journey.

One last side note- not many men "WIN" at the level of those we write stories for. Most men fail.

When you fail in the 'glory story', it creates a lot of negative momentum, shame, and very little esteem. But maybe that is a blessing in disguise.

When you fail chasing God's path, it isn't permanent- it is even kind of expected. The Bible says, Get up and keep walking.... and the march is to a tune of grace.

“Whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.”
—Matthew 16:25