Traveling Thoughts

Change can be extremely uncomfortable.  When you find comfort in a routine or a place in life or a state of mind, and that suddenly changes, life can become extremely disoriented and disillusioned, which I have also found not to be a completely bad thing.  In my own fears of being brainwashed and stagnant, I have found myself in a place of emotional and spiritual ambiguity.  I have begun to question many of the things that I have always found to be fundamental and central to life. Consequently, my paradigm has threatened to change drastically which is both terrifying and exhilarating.  
    For many people who have grown up in church, the teaching seems dualistically a blessing and a hindrance, whether the teaching was sound or ludicrous.  There are things about my own faith that I have never really understood or owned that I now find myself questioning.  Unfortunately when a Christian begins to question the foundations of his tradition there is the realization that new convictions may remove him from participation in mainstream Christian faith or being a part of the communities that seem to be so important.  
    Last fall, I took a trip across Europe with a friend.  We started in Ireland and made our way through Scotland, Britain, Amsterdam, and ended in Italy.  It was an amazing experience that left me with a sense that the world is so much bigger than I had ever thought.  This world is full of people with different histories, cultures, lifestyles, and faiths that are vastly different than our own.  After seeing this, I had this nagging feeling that there was something greater than I had ever been able to grasp.  The American church is so convinced that they have it all right, and that we are the chosen and blessed nation.  Except that the vast majority of the world does not believe like we do.  We study our theology and doctrines and have the Bible interpreted so fully that we have not left room for God to be big.  We love to attend church and small groups and conferences and worship services.  We will sit through music that moves our spirit and a presentation of The Passion of the Christ that moves our emotions.  We feel so victorious and justified with all of our efforts with making church “relevant” and “engaging” and “seeker-friendly” when we are able to say that 300 people raised their hand during the invitation.  But after sitting through hundreds, possibly thousands of these worship services I have become bored despite my greatest efforts.  Church has become a job and a place of income.  And I’m just not so sure that I buy it all anymore.  
    Biblically we are told that we must “accept” Christ and that we will be justified through the sacrifice that Christ made for us on the cross.  We are told that grace is all encompassing and that we will, through our life with Christ, become more and more like him.  Well, all of that sounds really nice, but what about reality?  When I think about the history of my own faith, I cannot pinpoint a point when I was “saved”.  As a matter of fact, I’m not so sure that I’m really any better than I ever was, that I have seen sanctification in my own life.  I’m just not a very good Christian by church standards.  I like to drink whiskey and beer (even in public), I swear, I like cigarettes, I smoked pot in Europe and don’t feel guilty or embarrassed, I hate Christian music because it sucks.  And I doubt.  I thought that all of that was supposed to go away when we become endowed with the power of the Holy Spirit.  I thought that the desire and ability to resist sin was ingrained in us.  
    Instead, I feel like I am just not who I am because I am trying to fit the mold.  Trying to be a good boy so I don’t get rebuked.  I don’t want to be a “stumbling block”.  Because I want to wear my righteous piety like a plumed marching band hat.
    Now, I find myself at this point of change when I want to know what I believe and really believe it even if I am judged and ostracized.  
    I have been wondering if everyone might be saved.  Meaning that no human soul will suffer eternally in hell.  The idea of universalism is ridiculed and discounted as heresy by the majority of Christians, but we will say things that flirt with the boundaries.  We will say that it is by grace that we have been saved, not by works.  We will say that God loves the world; the whole world.  We will say that God is sovereign.  We will say that God wants all men to come to a knowledge and love of him.  We find hope in the prophecies of a worldwide kingdom of Christians that will be established.  We do our best to expound on the vastness of the grace and mercy of Christ yet we limit both of these things to what we have explained by theology.  With my heart, I sense that there is something more than our salvation formulas.
    For the first time, I am trying to approach the Bible objectively without all of my preconceived notions and indoctrinations.  It is hard.  It is scary.  It is painful.  What if every word of the Bible is not God-breathed and infallible?  Paul, a man, wrote a vast part of the New Testament 30 years after Christ.  Christianity had just been invented in a radically different world and culture, yet we take all of these words verbatim and direct our lives based on a literal interpretation of Scripture.  What if we actually have to think about Scripture and not read off passages as mindless regurgitations of the rules?  What if we are supposed to view Paul’s letters as a conversation instead of a dictation? What if we actually took time to understand overarching themes of the Bible without feeling pinned down by specific scriptures, allowing them to choke our intellectual and emotional questions?  Is it possible to appreciate scripture and the traditions while still feeling free to pursue God with a different mindset?  

I don’t know.  

    But these are my questions, and I intend to pursue the answers if there are any.  I know that God is not offended by my questions like you may be.  I feel that it is my responsibility and privilege to pursue and seek knowing who God is my whole life without feeling confined to certain regulations.  I feel that I have been invited to drink deeply of knowing God.  Maybe I’m not a Christian.  Whatever.  You can keep your titles and labels.  I don’t need to be witnessed to or saved.  I’m not backsliding.  I know that I am afraid and uncomfortable.  But I am trying to be brave enough to follow my heart and ask the questions.  I invite you to join me on this quest.  What if you dropped all the mystic answers that you have about how God interacts and communicates with us and forgot about all of the church answers that you have for all the questions?  Let’s let God be God and be big and be incomprehensible in all of his ways.  We can search for God together.  I think that this search will be much more rewarding and fulfilling.  The search for who God is instead of how to be a better Christian.  

I grew up in a very traditional, conservative Southern Baptist church. My family and all of my friends attended this church. Simple bible stories, matters of faith, a set of behaviors, and the expectations for Christians were ingrained in me. I attended this church from birth and into high school having these lessons and ideas pumped into my brain. The problem was that I never actually thought for myself. I never actually had the chance to decide what I believed and why. Perhaps I had the opportunity right under my nose but was always too much of a coward to explore these thoughts. Therefore, when the time came when I felt the need to leave this church and do something new, my ideas about God and faith were so stunted and handicapped that it was excruciating to think outside of all of the things that I had been taught. Homosexuals, non-married couples who lived together, consumers of alcohol, smokers, and people who generally didn’t fit in to my little world of suits, ties, and Sunday school were to be afraid of and separated from. I was taught that good Christians didn’t go to the parties where there was drinking because someone might think that I was “one of them” and that the possibility of doing any good in this world would be forever erased from my destiny. Catholicism was painted as a cultish, vampirish, non-Christian, and misdirected group of people in need of salvation. Yikes. Basically, I had been taught a number of false ideas, and I bought every bit of it because I was told it was true and good. The point of saying all of this isn’t to bash that church because I have heard that there has been some good progression in the past couple of years. I am just trying to paint a picture of the type of environment that I grew up in. As you can see, my view of God was manipulated and distorted into something untrue.
All of that said, when I began to try and think for myself, I couldn’t, and I continually battle and pray for repair of the damage that was done. Lately, I have realized how truly weak and emaciated my own faith is. Not just because of my church, but because I have been lazy in pursuing the ways of God myself. However, I have been experiencing a breakthough lately. I have seen my faith morph into something new that I have never experienced, and it has come through a journey that has lasted several years that I would like to share with you.

When I was in seventh grade, I received my first bass guitar from my parents for Christmas. I asked for this so that I would be able to complete the orchestration for my first band that was affectionately called “Eggs and Bacon”. We began rehearsals in the drummer’s basement and proceeded to attempt “Jimi Thing”, “Machine Head”, and “Jesus Freak” for hours at a time. Despite the apparent lack of quality of the rehearsals, the dream was born to be a professional musician or as we put it at the time “making it big!”. This idea carried past the devastating end of “Eggs and Bacon” and saw the birth of church praise bands and local battle of the bands, one of which I won with a band called Neveah. (that’s “heaven” spelled backwards, if you missed it.) I invested a lot of time in this. However, I always had a vision of musicians inevitably “living in a van down by the river” eating cold beans out of a can. I mean, I like beans, but not cold out of cans…

So, my dad has done the whole engineering thing, and he’s the posterchild for the American dream. He did the musician thing, kinda went to school, and worked his way from blue-collar electrician to be The Boss at a Michelin plant. So I begin thinking, “Hey, my old man’s alright, I like cars and motors, and I’m pretty good with my hands. I’ll be an engineer!” This lasted through my acceptance into Clemson’s engineering program until the time when I looked at the suggested course for freshmen which included Calculus for Rocket Scientists, No Life for You 101, and a bunch of other classes where the course titles contained words that I had to look up. Then I realized, I hate math like the plague, I’m not so hot at science, and most of all, I’m lazy. Therefore, I quickly withdrew my name from the Nerd List, and set about rethinking my future. And nothing came…except music. For the next several months of life and through my first semester of college, I ignored the calling and insistence for my heart, trust, and obedience by the One who had engineered me. At the encouragement of my best friend and the support of my family, I finally succumbed, and decided to move back to Anderson where I would continue to be involved with the church that I had become a part of and loved. I also enrolled in the music program at Anderson College two weeks before classes started. Doing this gave me the peace that comes only from the surety that I had done the right thing and that I was indeed taking the first step in pursuing my dreams not to mention doing what I knew God told me to do.

Fast forward 3 years.

Life was great! I was learning music, playing and making money, part of a cool new church in Columbia, SC, had great friends, and a girlfriend on whom I doted. Then God stuck his big hand on my chessboard, and with a mischievous grin began to dismember my strategy. First, I had this unpeace about this church that I was with. Not that there was anything wrong with the church, but that I began to hear in my heart that I was not meant for Columbia. Knight. A few months later, the band that I was playing with and counting on as something to do after graduation went down. The members were just going in different directions. Rook. Then I began to see. God is moving in my life. “Ok, God. Here I am, send me!” After months of endless, maddening debate, and talks with my family, friends, girlfriend, I began to see that God may indeed be calling me to pursue full time music in Nashville. I was almost to the point where I am ready to say, “yes” and leave all of my friends behind. But I was hesitating. So, the girlfriend to whom I had given all my chips gave them back.

Now, I feel like Harry Potter just put the Body-Bind curse on me. Hello Ground, meet my face. I feel like one of those logs that you always see on the backs of big trucks on the interstate. I have been uprooted, my branches sheered off cleanly, and am being transported elsewhere. The time for decision has come.

Now, with nothing else really to do, I have decided to move to Nashville. Looking at the situation, I cannot help but laugh because of the obviousness of God moving the pieces in my life. Honestly, I’m scared out of my mind. I know some people will talk about me as if I am just chasing a fool’s dream. Some people will think that I just need to grow up and get a real job. What it all boils down to is that I have to do what I feel God has called me to, and, at this point, I’m scared about what would happen if I didn’t! I was in Nashville a few weeks ago, just checking things out. I don’t know if there was ever a more scary and lonely time for me. I have a total of 1 friend in Nashville, no real job leads, no place to live, and I just wish it could be easier. However, after my time there, I see that through all of this God has strengthened and prepared me for what he has for me. I can only trust that he has success for me where he takes me.

I feel the urge to tell my story because there are so many of us who are searching for the next step in life. Especially my own peers who are recent graduates or soon to be and are making these same considerations. I have felt the burden and the blessing of God’s will on my life. It is not actually a myth that God takes real and practical steps in our lives although sometimes it may not seem so. Sometimes God has to break us to make us listen or to at least be able to, but amidst that brokenness is the joy and the realization that God has a bigger something for us. It is at this place where we are able to see our weak, pathetic, and emaciated faith turn into something good. It is at this point where for the first time in my life I have enjoyed the peace that God is in control and that I can rest in his shadow. I cannot attribute this growth to anything that I have done, but that God has pursued me and drug me here. All I can say is “thank you”.

            Perhaps you can identify with the need to share.  Perhaps it is the musician in me coming out that is that little extroverted, dramatic guy that needs to express events and new wisdom to anyone who will listen.  Maybe I just want to explore a new medium besides music that may be accessible in a different way.  Whatever the reason, I have been feeling the urge to write and to put on paper the things that I have been learning.  Perhaps hearing my thoughts doesn’t make you feel like experimenting with gymnastic exercises.  If you don’t like it, I guess you can get the hell off this page, and go read something really intellectually stimulating like somebody’s blog about how many times their baby has vomited in the last week and how it’s sleeping so much better. 

             It is so interesting to think about pain.  We are so afraid of being hurt, and when we are hurt we are so anxious about being out of pain that we completely miss what God may be trying to teach us.  I have had an interesting last couple of weeks.  I have been torn about what to do with myself and my time.  What career do I choose?  Where do I need to live?  Very practical things that many recent post-graduates find themselves occupied with.  This decision had become, despite my greatest efforts, the center of my spiritual thoughts, and a constant nagging issue in a relationship that I was in.  Suddenly, I have found myself in a place where I am not tied down by anything as I don’t currently have a job and the friend with whom I was involved has thought otherwise about being involved with me.  So, with these things in mind, I felt it would be better for me to be out of town for a while, and for me to explore some options for myself while alleviating any temptation for me to attack my friend with emotional pleas in one of those post-breakup moments of insanity.  All of that said, it has been a rather emotionally devastating and confusing time.  But it has also been incredibly affirming.

            A few years back, I had a very similar time when I was in a relationship mess, and I was in the dark about what God was calling me to do.  I was a freshman at Clemson University having been accepted as a student to the engineering program.  However, I never even took any classes toward this degree because I felt strongly that I just wasn’t being called to that profession.  However, I decided to stay at Clemson as one of those undeclared-novision-tooscaredtochasetheirrealdreams-Godmaycompromiseandfindsomethingformetodohere type people. So this relationship that I was in was in the shit, I didn’t know what to do with school, and I became addicted to pornography. To those who tend to dabble in these little anatomical explorations, (purely from an artistic perspective, of course) I will say that nothing ever, ever will shred your emotions and spirituality like pornography.  If you want to be that guy who can’t help but to whine to their friends constantly, listen to Dashboard Confessional while keening away in their room alone, and watch their time with God turn into a desperate search for some answer to get them out of the rut, fruitless in every way, go ahead and take a look.  Why not go ahead and make yourself miserable? Maybe you’ll even be one of those who are really lucky and it will tear your family apart one day. 

            If you’re not really catching the sarcasm I was in some serious pain.  But you know what the saddest part of it was?  Not the fact that I had pushed my family and friends away.  It wasn’t that I was so selfishly consumed with myself that I couldn’t enjoy life.  The worst part of it was that I failed to see God in the weeds.  I couldn’t see the joy in brokenness.  I became so scared to feel anything, and so desperate to be healed that I missed out.  I love to read in Psalms and listen to David cry out to God.  Not from some sadistic pleasure, but because David has simple faith that God hears his cries and  he finds comfort in it.  He is a man in pure anguish, but he is drinking deeply of God, his love, and his promises.  It is this idea of drinking deeply that has me so captivated.  That it is in our worst and most troublesome moments that we see Christ abandon his white robe with his arms crossed and his hands tucked into opposite sleeves.  The face of pious pity fades, and he weeps with us.  In our loss of words and a plan of action and annihilation, he is able to fill all the cracks and make us whole.  It is in these times of brokenness that He draws us tightly to him and that we are able to drink deeply of who he is.  It is like the moments right after a car crash when adrenaline is still pumping and up still isn’t quite up.  But stepping out of the wreckage is one of the most alive feelings one can feel.  In the calm after the storm, the birds sing louder, the air is more refreshing, colors more brilliant.  It is for this reason why we must be broken; why we must let ourselves hurt and feel pain.  I have to bare my chest to the dagger, and know that God fills holes to overflowing.