The Three Billy Goasts Gruff

Some tales told are unbelievable. Unless we experience them for ourselves we find some tales as hard to believe as the story of The Three Billy Goats Gruff. The story in which three goats seek greener pastures, and in the process have to cross a bridge under which lives a gnarly troll who is ready to eat them.

I’ve come to discover there are great spiritual insights in the story of The Three Billy Goats Gruff.

Sometimes people are bemused to discover that I was once a deejay. They look at the spreading gray hair that’s practically overtaking my entire scalp and simply chuckle with a look in their eyes like they’ve just seen a 600 pound gorilla.

It’s true though, I spent over six years as a mobile deejay performing for Wedding Receptions, Frat Parties, Corporate Events and Charity Christmas Gatherings. My first performance came in 1988; I was still spinning vinyl and using cassette tapes—it was a wedding reception for a Christian couple. I elicit more laughs when I tell people I used to spin vinyl.

By 1990 I had bought my first dozen CDs through the BMG Record Club, including a Beach Boys disc, a Wilson-Phillips disc and everybody’s favorite—Whitney Houston.

All that seems like a lifetime ago; certainly you can find those CDs in the Bargain Bin at Half Price Books today for a buck. But those CDs are about as desirable as a toenail fungus infection.

I could have easily written a book about all the experiences I had, including the time when a woman in her 40s tumbled across the dance floor at a wedding reception like a cheerleader doing hand springs on a high school basketball court, however she was wearing a mini dress. Or, the time when a drunken guy kept requesting a song at a wedding reception that the bride and groom didn’t want played; he tipped me $20 and said, “Thanks for being an asshole!”

By 1996 I was beginning to sense that God saw my deejaying as an incongruity in my spiritual life; I was talking to people about God and Jesus, and at the same time I was playing songs at wedding receptions like AC/DCs Highway to Hell. The money was so good that it soothed my roaring conscience; I would make around $800 for 5-6 hours of work.

So the tale goes something like this…

I had been married less than a year in 1997 when I was performing at a wedding reception at a very exclusive and private country club west of Columbus; a place where there were stuffed lions and other big game that previous generations of owners had bagged while on safari in Africa. There were also baseball World Series trophies in the display cases near the entrance of the building.

I had performed at the same place a year earlier.

The night was as familiar and typical as a pair of penny loafers to Wally Cleaver. Guests began to arrive in the early evening, the bar was open, the o’rdourves were plentiful and tasty and after about forty-five minutes the bride, groom and bridal party arrived.

In the story of The Three Billy Goats Gruff the first of the three Billy goats crosses the bridge and is accosted by the troll. The little goat explains that a significantly bigger goat is following him, and, that the bigger goat would be much tastier to the troll. The troll allows the little goat to pass. We’re not told the name of the troll, but I want to imagine that it was something like Clyde or Chester.

One of the perks of being a deejay is that you get to eat what everybody else is eating, so that night I had a meal that was as good as one would get an upscale restaurant. Between bites of roast beef and chicken I would spin tunes like I Believe I Can Fly by R. Kelly, It’s All Coming Back To Me Now by Celine Dion, Pony by Ginuwine, I Love You Always Forever by Donna Lewis and Last Night by Az Yet.

Typical things happened that night; I introduced the bride and groom to a standing ovation, I introduced their bridal party to a nice hand clap, we had dinner, cut the wedding cake, the bride tossed her bouquet to a mixture of blue-haired widows and anxious wannabe brides and tiny tikes, the groom tantalizingly removed the bride’s garter and then tossed it to increasingly inebriated young bucks.

Following that revelry the bride was ready for the traditional Father/Daughter Dance, followed by the bride and grooms first dance. By year six all of this had become routine and painfully boring at times, but money helped to break the boredom.

My playlist started to grow the moment guests began to arrive; 10-year-old girls wanted to hear songs by Backstreet Boys, the bride’s uncle wanted to hear Old Time Rock-n-Roll by Bob Seager, somebody wanted to hear Coolio or Sheryl Crow or Warren G.

I would be asked, “Are you gonna play some good music tonight?” Just once I would like to have responded, “No, I’m just gonna play bad music all night long!”

The bride and groom finished their first dance and the floor was opened for dancing and songs by request. I generally started the evening off with something everybody could dance to, something like Jive Bunny; a compilation of Big Band jive and 50s and 60s early rock-n-roll—songs like The Twist, Great Balls of Fire and Surfin’ USA.

Invariably I would play The Electric Slide, The Chicken Dance and a few other party favorites of which I only wanted to escape.

There was method to the madness of deejaying; I would play a set of about 20 minutes of high energy dance music, and then take things down for 2 slow songs to let people recover. The same process would be repeated throughout the night and included sets of Classic Rock, Club Music, Top 40 Hip Hop/Rap, sometimes Country and sometimes Oldies. The night usually went by rather quickly.

This particular night I was scheduled to play until 10:00pm. Everything went swimmingly and by 9:30pm Aunt Trudy and Uncle Ralph began to head out as the festivities started to wind down. The bride and groom were doing less and less dancing and more socializing as they said their goodbyes to guests.

In The Three Billy Goats Gruff the second Billy goat attempts to cross the troll’s bridge and is confronted by the dastardly beast. Like the first Billy goat the second explains to the troll that a much bigger Billy goat with more meat on him is following, and it would be better for the troll to wait to eat that goat. The second goat crosses the bridge successfully.

Sometimes promises aren’t what they seem.

It was 9:55pm and I had just put on the last dance song of the evening, a slow tune. Within a few minutes I would begin breaking down my equipment, including speakers, lights and sound equipment.

1996 was a year in which I still looked rather dapper in a tuxedo; my chest hand not yet fallen into my stomach, and my gray hair was comparable to a few grains of salt in a pepper shaker.

As the last song played I grabbed my jeans and t-shirt, wanting to change out of my tux I stepped behind the curtain that ran the perimeter of the stage I was on. It wasn’t a large stage, only about three feet high. I pulled the curtain back to see only darkness. Beyond the darkness I could see light outlining a door as it seeped through the space between the door and the jamb, the light winked at me.

I stepped into the darkness just far enough so that I wouldn’t be seen in my boxers.

I stepped into nothing.

With my first step I stumbled, and was frantic to catch my balance. Did you know that many decades can pass through your mind in a few seconds? Unable to catch my balance I felt myself falling and in the process I began to hit my legs and arms on something; I felt like I was being clubbed by a midget.

I wanted to land; I wanted to feel solid ground in the same way that earthquake victims want to feel solid ground. The mind is an amazing thing—it’s amazing in that it can process many things in micro-seconds. My mind grappled with what I was and wasn’t feeling; I wasn’t feeling solid ground and I was feeling panic. I flailed with each painful experience, like I was boxing with a ghost.

In milliseconds I rationalized that I was about to regain my footing—just as soon as I hit solid ground again. But the solid ground wasn’t there. I fell into blackness.

Then came a terribly long fall! It was a fall that I wasn’t sure would come to an end.

In that utter darkness the fall finally came to an end; an abrupt end.

I measured time by days lived that night.

I landed on my back and had the breath knocked out of me like Mike Tyson would knock the breath out of Clay Aikens if he boxed him; it was excruciating.

I didn’t want to be in the darkness, I didn’t want to be in pain, I wanted to know where I was and how to get out.

And music played.

One time I ran into a telephone pole tension cable while playing sandlot football; it caught me across my collar bone and knocked me out. This was similar.

I groped in the dark as warm bodies swayed on the dance floor and somewhere lions roamed the Serengeti, baseball games were played under the lights and my wife slept.

There was a ladder!

With all I could muster I climbed; I climbed like an Auschwitz survivor ate the day of their liberation.

Solid ground appeared again and I crouched on all fours trying to breathe. Pain shot through my arms and legs and back and that panic of not being able to breathe clung to me like a hand around a chicken’s neck about to be rung.

Oh I wanted to breathe!

In my desperation I stood up to get on the microphone I used; I wanted to plead for help. And then it happened—I could breathe. Sweet Jesus I could breathe.

What had just happened, my mind screamed as the last song came to an end? The last thing I remembered was grabbing my jeans and getting ready to change out of my tux.

I knew I had fallen.

I made it to my table and grabbed a lamp to see what had happened to me in the time it took to buckle ones belt.

There it was! The access passage to the underside of the stage—the cover had been left off. The three-foot stage gave way to the ten feet to the basement. I had fallen nearly 15 feet. There at the bottom of the basement was the main water line coming into the building, it ran parallel to the floor about 18 inches off the floor like a cast iron anaconda. I had landed on it on my back.

An old wooden ladder was both my savior and the source of my pain; I had been hitting my feet and legs on it as I fell, scraping my shin to the bone. On the wall was mounted a number of electrical boxes, they too were the source of my pain; I had hit them with my arms, shoulder and hands during the fall.

The fall on the water line had broken the ribs in my back and shoved them into my lungs, as I stood my ribs popped back out of my lungs and I could breathe again. Within an hour my right bicep and chest turn as purple as a grape and the trauma had been so acute I couldn’t move. I could see my shin bone and a massive hematoma the size of an orange had lodged itself in my right armpit.

In The Three Billy Goats Gruff the last Billy goat begins to cross the troll’s bridge only to be met by the ogre. It’s only then that the troll comes to see how large the last Billy goat is; he was so big that a simple butting with his horns sends the troll tumbling off the bridge—all three goats safely pass.

I discovered that night something profound…without a light we don’t know the depth of the darkness.

I only came to know the depth of the darkness into which I had fallen when I shined a light into the passage. The troll in The Three Billy Goats Gruff only knew how big the third goat was when he encountered him.

I was again reminded of my deejay experience this week when God reminded me of the darkness I’ve been delivered from, and, that there were times that I kept going back to the darkness thinking it was light, just as the troll had been convinced that the goat that follows will be tastier than the current one.

Just before giving The Sermon on the Mount Jesus proclaimed, “The people dwelling in darkness have seen a great light, and for those dwelling in the region and shadow of death, on them a light has dawned.”

I have seen a great light.