My Steps In Faith part. 1

I grew up in church. I attended 3 separate independent, fundamental Baptist churches, and a Baptist school until about the age of 19. I had a lot of phases regarding church as a kid and teenager, but I never really let them out. I just had small changes of mind. I wasn't really even conscious of these changes at the time.

I remember being in Sunday school between the age of 5-7, I can't remember exactly what age. Anyway, our teacher was asking what we thought we might want to be when we grow up, and I told her I wanted to be a comedian. Now, at that age, I don't even know where I got the idea that I wanted to be a comedian. I remember watching Johnny Carson and Arsenio Hall with my dad, and that's the only place I can think of where I had ever seen a comedian, but that is what I wanted to be. Upon telling my teacher that, she told me I shouldn't just be a comedian; I need to be a "Christian" comedian. I remember being saddened by that.

The Baptist school I attended was about 20 minutes from my house in Blanchester, Ohio and one of my teachers, who also lived in Blanchester, would take me home after school every day. One such day, I was very excited because the ladies softball team at our church was set to play a game on their softball field. I sat in the back of his car and as soon as he entered I remember sitting on my hands to withhold my excitement. He then asked how my day was and I said, "good, but it'll be even better because I'll be back here tonight." "Tonight?" he replied, "What for?" "Well, my mom's softball team from church is playing on your field, so I get to come back here with her." At this point his wife inquired, "Will they be wearing pants when they play?" "Uh, yeah?" I said back in confusion. That was the end of that conversation.

I arrived home and a little later asked my mom when we were going to the game. She said we weren't because they didn't want women wearing pants playing on their field. Apparently the pastor had okay'd it but the members weren't happy with it, or at least this particular teacher. I wondered what I did wrong. Did they now think my mom was a bad person? Was I a bad person? I didn't understand what the deal was with the pants. I later learned that men and women are to be separate, woman wear skirts/dresses/culottes and men wear pants, but never shorts. It is okay for women and men to both wear t-shirts. It is okay for both men and women to wear hats. Basically, anything above the waste was neutral, but below the waste(where our naughty parts are) was where God needed to make the distinction.

As a teenager, the night I actually decided to accept this whole Jesus thing, in youth group, we were going over the reasons the Harry Potter series was bad. I wasn't really interested in the series at this time anyway, the whole thing didn't matter to me. I had been having a hell of an existential crisis and needed to have some sort of relief. I was literally dreaming of burning in hell. It consumed me. I would sleep in the living room or on my mom's bedroom floor out of fear. I was 14 years old.

Anyway, so we were discussing the Harry Potter series, and we never discussed the plot. We never discussed the deeper meanings. We simply discussed how J.K. Rowling uses occult imagery. If you know anything about literature, it is that authors are artists, and when they dream up a world, it doesn't matter what that means to our world, it is itself a separate universe. The battle of good versus evil, and the deeper subtexts are what we are to study. No one is reading Harry Potter and hoping to become a satanist, and I assure you, more people have probably read the Left Behind series and turned from God, than the Harry Potter series. At least Rowling doesn't bastardize the Bible by turning it into a disaster story for the entertainment of others. I digress...

In Sunday school, when I was deeply saddened, even at that young age I had a feeling that that was BS.

That same frame of mind falls into the debacle regarding the softball game. I knew then that it was BS, but I also knew that I was a kid and had very little knowledge of the Bible or truth, and these people seemed to have a firm grasp on it, so I was afraid of my doubts. I accepted it outwardly, and went on to worry for my moms salvation because she still wore pants.

It all comes back to image. That particular brand of Christianity isn't exactly tied to the Christian business market. It actually reverts itself to before that model even came into place. Gospel music and maybe Southern Gospel, are the only God-given songs we are allowed to sing or listen to. We must appear different. We mustn't see any film with cursing or sex in it(violence is okay of course). It's all a matter of the appearance. Let's change the outside first and then the heart can change later. That's not how true change works, and they aren't creating disciples, they are creating robots. All you have to do to survive at a church such as that is to learn the right language, dress and etiquette, and you'll be seen as "Holy, Holy, Holy".

The exact same thing goes for the Harry Potter thing. It isn't about thinking intellectually about the series, but instead, right when I see the cover, it doesn't look Christian, it looks like something from a demonic book. It's burning my eyes! Throw it in the fire! We harped on about how one character in the series said he was the age 665 a year before, which means his age at the time was 666, and God forbid we wait til the series is over to find out that character turns out to be bad.

Image, it's all that matters to most Christians, and I must say, that's much more reminiscent of the world outside of the church than if we were all just honest with each other. 

I'm struck by how the Bible isn't a collection of stories where people do the right thing, listen to good music, wear the appropriate clothing, and never make a mistake. The Bible is full of broken people, making mistakes and apologizing to God, turning from those mistakes and then doing amazing things and helping other broken people while still being broken themselves.

Do we think King David wasn't broken forever after committing adultery, murdering, lying, stealing, etc? We read through Psalms and see that David had deep, deep issues. He was constantly doubting God and praising God, sometimes in the same chapter. David was a man after God's own heart. Nowadays, he would be apostate.

Peter, the person Christ placed his church on, denied Christ 3 times on the night of Christ's death! This wasn't before he started following Christ, this was during his walk, and Peter does these types of things throughout the Bible, but because of his brokenness, he is so much more effective for Christ. He doesn't put up a front and say, "hey, I'm good, let me teach you, you sit back and learn and then start acting as I do." He is broken and through the books of Peter we see his brokenness, and his heart for Jesus and the people of Jesus.

The apostle Thomas doubted Jesus' Resurrection, even when told by the others that they had seen him. He said he wouldn't believe until he could touch the hole in his side. He reminds me of the doubts and struggles I have. Yes, when he finally does see Jesus, Jesus says he was blessed because he had seen, blessed more are those who haven't and still believe, but Thomas is the first person in the Bible to call Jesus "My Lord, my God". He refers to him as both. How much more deeply affected was Thomas than the other apostles who believed more easily? This isn't to say doubt is necessary for the Christian faith, but it is to say it shouldn't be condemned.

Let's leave the image for the Pharisees and show the world that we are broken, imperfect people who are simply seeking redemptive lives, seeking perfection but never reaching it in this life. When we accept that about ourselves, we no longer need image control.

So it goes...

I remember sitting there, the sand between my toes, staring out at the great expanse called the Pacific Ocean. The air was chilled, in that nighttime way, where you know the sun is the most hidden it's going to be. And this is, as cheesy as it sounds, the beginning of the rest of my life. 

So it goes, much like any beginning, I have my doubts. I analyze and criticize every inch of the situation, but cannot find a scapegoat. It's pathetic really. I am having the time of my life yet I have still let fear creep in and make itself a home in my heart.

This is the next step people take. They fall in love, get engaged and get married. They then have careers, make babies, raise their children and then grow old together. It's a beautiful cycle that many people go through, but only when it works out. When people tell the stories of this beautiful cycle, they leave out the hard parts. But these days, we all see them. Our parents aren't smiling all the time like they were on 1950's television. They argue, they cry, they ignore one another, they go to therapy, it doesn't work. 50% of marriages end in divorce.

So you have love on one side and fear on the other. Fear is a beast. I have been exercising my fear for as long as I can remember, so it's much bigger than love. In the classic film starring Robert Mitchum, Night Of The Hunter, he plays a pastor who has the word "love" tattooed on his right hand and "hate" tattooed on his left. When he notices a kid staring at his ink, he says:

 "Ah, little lad, you're staring at my fingers. Would you like me to tell you the little story of right-hand/left-hand? The story of good and evil? H-A-T-E! It was with this left hand that old brother Cain struck the blow that laid his brother low. L-O-V-E! You see these fingers, dear hearts? These fingers has veins that run straight to the soul of man. The right hand, friends, the hand of love. Now watch, and I'll show you the story of life. Those fingers, dear hearts, is always a-warring and a-tugging, one agin t'other. Now watch 'em! Old brother left hand, left hand he's a fighting, and it looks like love's a goner. But wait a minute! Hot dog, love's a winning! Yessirree! It's love that's won, and old left hand hate is down for the count!"

It's interesting how his character says that the right hand "has veins straight to the soul of man". When you get married you put the wedding ring on your left hand, because the ring finger has a vein that goes straight to your heart. I think the battle of love and hate is really a battle of love and fear, because hate is simply a product of fear. And love is attached to your soul, but fear is always right there, trying to take over your heart.

Staring out at the Pacific Ocean, I was watching boats a far off. They looked like fire burning at the edges of the earth. I imagined myself on the boat, coming upon the earth's edge and stopping right at the point where the boat would fall off. I go to the bow of the boat and look over...nothing. It is a vast abyss. I try to adjust my eyes to see if perhaps it's simply darkness that I might get used to and see just fine. But it never changes. The abyss is now staring back at me. We are caught in a moment of eternity. Both fearful of what might be if one of us entered the others world. 

This is love. Love is the unknown, and sometimes all we can do is stare at it, be afraid. We all know how to "act" in love, or how to "be" in love, but none of us really ever grasp the notion of true love. And this is why so many marriages end in divorce. We're all afraid of the edge of the earth. We're all becoming the abyss we stare into; an empty void of nothingness. 

This isn't to say that if you don't end your marriage you haven't succumb to the abyss. I do sometimes, and I'm trying not to. The abyss isn't real. The earth has no edge. We have nothing to fear yet it's what drives out actions, rather than love. Nice people are nice people often out of fear. Mean people are mean people often out of fear. People fall in love out of fear of being alone, and fall out of love out of fear of being stuck. 

Imagine if we were all honest with each other. Instead of saying "I love you" we would say "I fear you". 

After a year of marriage, we had burned on a cookie jar that we painted the verse I John 4:18, one of my favorites. This verse talks about the perfect love God has for us, and how that love should cast out any fear we have, but it also works in any type of love, if we're loving people the way God loves us. The verse says:

"There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love."

I scream to my crew to take the boat over the edge, and as I close my eyes, fearing for the instant we drop and disappear into nothingness, nothing happens. We continue moving as we did before. I look over the bow and see that we aren't over an edge, in fact, there wasn't an edge at all. 

So it goes....

I fear what I fear what I fear

"The worst sorrows in life are not in its losses and misfortune, but its fears.'
A.C. Benson


Some days I really just don't want to be me. Yeah, I am sure that comes across as some super sensitive 14 year old girl who doesn't get her way, but don't all of us have that in us from time to time? If we're really honest with ourselves, don't we all just have our days or weeks where we just want to get our way? Maybe it is just me, well, in addition to actual 14 year old girls, but I'm willing to go ahead and say that I have those feelings.

My brain is telling me not to say that because I have a hard enough time being a "man" as it is. I have very little body/facial hair, my voice isn't what one would categorize as manly(especially when it randomly cracks), I'm not really into hunting/guns/UFC/Action movies/cars/heavy metal...this could go on and on. I am pretty passive and laid back. The thing is, I'm okay with all of that. I don't think that I need some way to prove myself. So what if I cried like a baby during a film like Dead Man Walking? Is it really a big deal if I would rather spend a day at the mall than a day fixing a car or shooting a gun?

The thing is: no one has ever confronted me about my lack of manliness. I doubt anyone even knows that I cried during Dead Man Walking or Up. And now that you know, you probably are wondering why I am pondering on it. This isn't some way of me coming out of the closet as a film crier. It's more a question of my identity, and where I get it from.

We all seek to be seen in a certain light. Some of us are able to reach a level where we say, "This is who I am". But it's rare that a person truly has one of those euphoric moments. It's sad because I think an identity is a terrible thing to lose sleep over, and I don't technically lose sleep over my identity per say, but I do wonder about job's or things in my life, what should I get rid of? What should I keep in order to maintain the identity, or the me I want others to see, or at least think I am?

Part of my identity, and I am slowly realizing this about myself, is wrapped up in pretending I could care less about my identity. To a degree this is actually true. I can throw clothes on and not really care how "cool" I look as long as I'm comfortable, and it doesn't cause me to wonder what others are thinking of what I am wearing. But, at the same time, I have realized that I maintain a certain level of sameness throughout the years in order to not surprise people, so that way they aren't questioning my identity. I have had the same hairstyle(off and on) for most of my life. I still dress pretty much how I did in high school(plaid shirt and jeans FTW). It's all a matter of how I want to be perceived. I see the weakness in others(mainly women) who worry deeply about their dress when going out. The time it eats away. But what I don't realize is that my identity is no stronger than theirs. Mine is probably weaker. Mine is so weak, in fact, that I am living in fear. The fear that someone is going to call me out on my search for an identity.

My identity is me, but I am not my identity. 

Fear is something I live my life by. Love is nice. Faith is cool. Hope is sweet. Truth. Happiness. Friendship. All the things we read in Hallmark cards is what we would like to be defined by. I know I would. They are cheesy but we buy them in bundles and give them to each other because they represent what we want to be or say or do.

When FDR said we should "fear nothing but fear itself" he was speaking truth. Fear only leads to more fear. I just cannot detach myself from my fear. I have convinced myself of that. I have befriended fear. I have slept with fear. Made babies with fear, and fear and I are raising our little fear children as I type this. But that relationship with fear has made a shell out of me. I want to be an honest person but I am afraid to be. Whoever said "honesty is the best policy" probably never had any friends. It's hard to be truly honest and be loved. There are parts of us that are ours, and if we're honest with others, those parts of our self will no longer be our own.

We all like to say we're open books, but we aren't. We're sitting on the shelf, a little dusty, maybe we're opened up every now and then to remind ourselves that we are still alive, but we're never read in depth. We're medicated, obsessed, critical of others, and detached.

I am disgusted with myself when I think about the ways I have allowed fear to control my motives. In the bigger picture and the little picture. Fear has put out the fire and the passion in my heart to do anything. Almost every decision in my life was predicated by fear and even if I overcame the fear and made the decision, that's usually only because there was a greater fear outside of that.

My identity is made up of many things, some good, mostly bad. Here is the way I see myself in all honesty:

I am ugly, but only half the time.
I am fat, but mostly okay with it.
I am pale, and totally okay with it.
I lack discipline.
I lie every day.
I don't do enough.
I rarely do anything.
I have a lot of love and compassion for people.
I am a good writer...sometimes.
I think I am genuinely genuine(how's that for an adjective) 90% of the time and a completely false person 10% of the time..
I can be funny.
I need to be funny.
I have placed much of my identity in making others laugh and when they don't I feel like a failure.
I love playing music but I am terrible.
I want to impress people with knowledge I possess but don't want to seem as if I am trying to impress them...and I hate myself for admitting that.
I am a happy person 97% of the time and the other 3% I am incredibly depressed.
I doubt myself.
I doubt God.
I make myself my own god.
I have trust issues...not in a lack of trust, but in too much trust...except when it comes to politics or religion. I have lack of trust issues there, but for good reason.
I want to make everyone happy even people I hate.
I don't want to hate anyone, but sometimes I do...and it's probably you.
I like attention but I don't like to look like I like attention.
Most of my life is summed up in enjoying something but not wanting to seem as if I enjoy something because if someone knew I was enjoying said thing, they might think I am ridiculous.
I feel like my lack of mentioning God will make some people question my faith, but though I have my doubts I hold strong to my faith, and am becoming more reliant on it through my fear.
I said the that last thing because I was afraid of being judged.

There's so much more baggage of identity crisis that I carry but just cannot remember or bring myself to say. I know we all have this, we all carry it around, and we just don't have to. I'm trying to rid myself of it.