CHAPTER ONE| TWO ROADS

"The Law makes rebels of people who want to love and be loved."

When you're young, the life ahead of you is a pristine, never-opened book. It has that intoxicating new-book smell. You've just cracked the cover, the pages are white and clean, and you absolutely know there's a grand story ahead. When you're very young, you could be a cowboy or a ballerina. In the glory of youth, you and your friends are dread pirates, widely-adored pop stars, superstar athletes, gallant knights, or a queen whose rule is just and kind. Later, the fantasies fade, but the dreams become more focused. Maybe you'll be the first human being on Mars, or the doctor who cures breast cancer. The story is whatever you want it to be, and you're still in the opening pages of your great novel. You know, though, that the story will be great. You know you have a destiny, a purpose in this life. Some of those dreams are your own, it's true. But some of those dreams, those hopes of destiny, are from God.

As we grow older, some of those dreams begin to fade, washed in pain, cynicism and failure. The edges tatter, the thread grows bare, and sometimes the fabric falls away completely. Something unnamed repaints the horizon. The mundane, agonizing details of life build and build like bricks. Soon we are too weary of wrestling with our everyday existence to entertain grand visions of destiny. Even our relationship with God, which seemed so wonderfully beautiful and life-giving at first, dims.

We don't stop walking, but we may as well. What toxin is this that can turn a wide-eyed dream into a grinding drudge? It's as if we all woke up one morning under a curse we couldn't shake. We push on, one foot in front of the other, but we stop wondering why. The next thing we know, we've got rocks in our shoes and lungs lined with dust.

The curse is not a metaphor, though. The curse is a lie all of us buy into, sometimes suddenly, sometimes slowly, like a frog in a pot. The lie breaks our hearts, and it scatters us in different ways. Some of us find shelter in religious discipline. Some seek solace in cynicism and unchecked deconstruction. Some are driven away completely.

Then we place blame: On ourselves, others close to us, our religious systems, the government, fluoridated water, or God Himself. Some of this blame is valid, for sure. Some of the places that should have been safest perpetuated the lie the loudest.

Here is the li