Stumbling Toward God?

“I have some terrible, terrible news…”
“Oh no! Is it about the good times?”
~homestarrunner.com

It was quite an eventful weekend, as well as the past couple of days. There are many anecdotes that I could share. But there’s something else that I’ve been reflecting on for awhile now. It’s what I consider the “Golden Age” of 20 Somethings: the summer of 2004. To me anyway, that’s the point when it seemed to change from a casual meeting on Sunday nights to a real fellowship, and it seemed like stuff was happening three or more nights per week.

Maybe it’s just where I was at the time. I had been going to church for about a year, and it still had that newness and wonder. I was finished at RCC but had not yet begun at Cal Poly. And of course, there was that ever-so-intriguing girl… [even now, I still remember the first time I realized you were beautiful.] All in all, I had such hopes…

Good times come and good times go.
I only wish the good times would last a little longer.

People move on. Some people physically move away, others move in life priorities, some just drift slowly away until you’re not even really sure when they were last around.

Of all the people that I have seen come and go, last weekend was the first official 20 Somethings going away party that I can recall. Perhaps it was because four people were leaving at once. Perhaps it was because they work for a missionary organization with ties to our church. Maybe the leadership team was just hurting for ways to fill July. Regardless, the party was had, and the parting was made.

To me anyway, this truly feels like the end of an era. Perhaps that era has been fading away for a long, long time. After all, that “Golden Age” I mentioned was TWO YEARS AGO. But this just feels like the final close. No more Elves, always up for whatever people want to do, even if that happens to be somebody else throwing a party in their apartment. No more Nathan and his unique philosophical perspectives. No more Dave bringing the Oreos… some things in life you just count on. And I really can’t say that I foresee Tuesday lunches continuing much into the future.

It makes me sad. At the risk of stating the obvious, you seemed sad before… Well, what are you going to do. Every single day is a point of no return.

i spend so much time sleeping
trying to dream of a better world
but reality can be so persistent
and when i’m awake
my dreams are so much darker

Some various thoughts:
I have been wanting to write a piece about community for some time now. The church is my community. I’ve mentioned that before. It bothers me that my church group seems far more concerned with community that it is with God. I was seriously contemplating boycotting the 20 Somethings annual “July o’ Fun”… but it’s too late for that now. I also wanted to criticize my, ahem, “Bible Study” group, which I recently keep having to correct people on the fact that it now an “Activity Group.” I can’t help thinking about how the last time we actually did a study and were sharing prayer requests, every last one of those people said that they wanted to spend more time with God… yet they’ve decided to use the time specifically set aside for that to go to restaurants, plays, whatever. It would be funny if it wasn’t so sad.

But what do I care anyway? I don’t even believe in God. I didn’t ask for prayer about spending more time with God that day- I had been looking for ways to fill all the time that I used to set aside for God. But I’ve had no trouble finding other things to do. No trouble at all…

So I’ve been boycotting that group, but why? You would think that I would want to go to the activities and ditch the study. Ah, but it’s the principle of the thing. I dare talk about principle, when I drive home every single weekend just to go to a church when I’m long past any hope of finding a God there? But I STILL have that unbroken streak, as if anybody ANYWHERE could care about that… I wanted to talk about that too, my reasons for going home every weekend, what I hoped to get out of it and how irrelevant it is now. (How long ago did I sell my dreams… and what was the price?) The first weekend after starting school again, I went back home on Friday for a movie night that did not happen, I wanted to hear a speaker on Sunday who wasn’t there, and there was no official 20 Somethings meeting that weekend, just a casual Pool Party/Ice Cream social… only there was no ice cream and I don’t swim. That all certainly made the trip worth while. Finally, this past weekend I spent what may have been my first Friday night ever in Pomona, despite technically living here for almost two years. I was planning on spending the whole weekend here, but that didn’t work out. Surprisingly, I attribute my final caving in on Saturday evening to hunger and the unusability of the kitchen here (yeah, don’t ask.) I say surprisingly, because, roughly calculated, I think I’m down to eating an average of five times for every three days… you wouldn’t think food would be a big issue. (Who am I kidding- it was probably the lack of internet.)

And then there’s that community. Because simply put, when I’m alone I wish I was dead. Sometimes people ask for prayer for a friend, asking that they be able to see their need for Jesus. I can see my need for Jesus. I see that very, very clearly. What I HAVEN’T seen is any compelling reason to believe that he actually exists. You really expect me to believe that a God who abandons countless generations to live in oppression and spiritual ignorance/deception actually cares about a “personal relationship” with me? I think not. So I perceive a need for which there is no fill. This is why I ransack my house. I don’t get road rage… I get “theology rage.” Yet, are not both ultimately a lashing out in helplessness? They are not so very different… (especially if I happen to be in the car at the time.) Anyway, how do you people not lie awake in the dark and rage against the utter futility of it all? God ain’t here… and he ain’t coming. Hell, at least the demons talk to me. Like I said, community is important. Exactly how long has that darkness been threatening to consume me? But has it yet? …So what’s the big problem?

So I find other things to do. Some constructive, some decidedly less so. It’s amazing how quickly perfectly innocent activities can lead to very dangerous paths. (Curious too, how it perfectly coincides with my ceasing to read the Bible.) But so what huh? If all paths lead nowhere, what possible difference can it make what road I take, and how fast? Who would even notice if I didn’t mention it here?

Still, not all paths are the same. Strange how so many signs (or shall I say, “influences”) from so many different angles all seem to point in the same direction. But the other signs all point exactly the other way. So make the choice… the path of pins or needles? So I walk, I sprint, away from God. But all things are connected. One thing leads to another and another which curiously relates to that other thing from way back there. Somehow I come right back around to where I was before. Convergence. I can’t tell part of the story without the whole. Once I had a story that, to quote The Life of Pi, “will make you believe in God.” At least, it made me believe in God. Once. I only see God when I’m not looking for him. I only see God when I’m very specifically NOT looking for him.

I happened to ask a simple question. I got an honest answer. But no… this can not be… it just can’t… you don’t understand…
So tell me then, where in the Bible does it ever describe God as doing the kind of mind-fuck he’s running on me?

How can I have so much to tell, yet still nothing to say?

I wanted to write about something else this week, but hey, look what day it is. Another year already? What a spectcular waste of time that was.

I used to think that there would be some dramatic moment of revelation, some significant event that would change everything. I tried to force it a few times; tried to assign undue significance to minor things and declare that henceforth everything would be different. It never “took.” Time rolls on, and change happens at its own pace. People come and go. Seasons come and go. But there is no great revelation coming. Whatever else might be said, it’s clear that the God I’ve been looking for for three years isn’t looking for me.

God isn’t who I thought He was.
Love isn’t what I thought it was.
Electrical Engineering definately isn’t what I thought it would be.

But where would I go? Who else has the words of life?

If I was to be completely honest, I would have to admit that my life couldn’t possibly be any easier. Yet I remain miserable. And I always have been. There have been moments of happiness, days, seasons perhaps. But I have never had lasting joy. It’s not about circumstances; there’s actually something wrong with me. I once thought that God could fix that, but not anymore. I’m working on accepting the idea that happiness just isn’t in the cards for me.

So three years then. Should I make a cake or something? How about a song:

i want to…
i want to be someone else or i’ll explode
floating upon the surface for the birds
the birds
the birds

you want me?
well f~ing well come and find me
i’ll be waiting
with a gun and a pack of sandwiches
and nothing
nothing
nothing

nothing

you want me?
well come on and break the door down
you want me?
f~king come on and break the door down
i’m ready
i’m ready
i’m ready

i’m ready

–Radiohead

Lately, I just want to break things, all the time. It’s really quite irrational, and you know I just can’t abide being irrational.

Last night I dreamt that I was getting Baptized again. It seemed to be in a backyard swimming pool. A small boy went before me. They wanted to make it quick, because he was freezing. Then it was my turn. Then the baptizer turned to me. He knew me, but I did not recognize him. (A situation which has literally happened to me at least four times in the past month.) He reached out to me with a very hairy arm. He asked me a question that in the dream I did not understand, and now I do not remember, but it had something to do with the audience, and I responded with something like, “You mean, these people?” My mother was there, as before.

Then, instead of bracing me with his arm and lowering me into the water, he simply gave me a shove on the chest, and I fell over backwards and sank immediately to the bottom. I lay there on the bottom of the pool wondering, “Is he going to come pull me out again, or what?” Finally, I could wait no longer, and frantically swam back up on my own, breaking surface into the waking world.

On Monday, I went for a walk. I went to a local park, but as it was Memorial Day, the park was full of picnickers and families and that was a little depressing to me. I left by a different route than I normally take and happened to pass by a retirement home. An old lady sitting on her patio beckoned me over. I naturally did a mental, “Who me?” but there was no one else around. She asked me what day it was, and I answered that it was the 28th. She then asked when Monday would come, and I replied that it was Monday now. That seemed to surprise her a bit. Then she commented on how nice of a day it was, and how she always sits on her patio and asked if I had ever seen her sitting there before. I could only admit that I do not come that way very often.

I would not even venture a guess as to how old she was. She was quite likely the wrinkliest person that I have ever seen. I somehow got to wondering if she had ever been beautiful, if she had ever been loved, but now she was alone every day on her patio. Time always trumps love and beauty in the end. We really do not have that much time.

That, of course, only reminded me of my mother, but then again, what doesn’t?

I read The Da Vinci Code last December, after hearing about the “controversy” for some time. I found it irritating. To be fair, I categorize it as a “decent” thriller. I have definitely read better, but I have also read some absolute trash, and this was certainly above-average.

What really irritated me is that so many people seem to read this book and suddenly think that they know more about Christianity than Christians do. It’s a work of fiction people; which is not to say that Dan Brown personally made up the claims in this book, (because in many cases he did not) but he did combine various theories together in a way that suited his own plot. I find the fact that multiple books have been written about this book to be rather absurd, because honestly, I can only imagine that anyone who would actually take their theology from a work of fiction is probably far more interested in fiction than in theology. (Of course, at this point, the atheist would be quick to point out that the scriptures of every religion are merely works of fiction, but that’s a slightly different issue.)

Of course, people find it interesting for the questions it raises. Even if you haven’t read it, I assume by now that you have heard the claims that Jesus married and had children by Mary Magdalene. (Or maybe you only heard, as I have on at least one occasion, that Jesus married “Mary” and assumed this meant the Virgin Mary, his own mother.) Am I bold enough to say that I have such confidence in the accuracy of the Bible as it has been preserved for us that I am one hundred percent certain that that never happened? Of course I am not. But I just happened to be in Paris while I was reading the book, and could not help but wonder, “Have you actually been to the Louvre, Mr. Brown? … Because I was there this morning, and it wasn’t like you described.” I have since talked to a couple of other people who declared that the book also contained rather serious errors within their fields of expertise, and we all quite readily agree that if the book is wrong on things that we do happen to know something about, why on earth should we trust it in areas that we do not?

Obviously the most grievous error is Dan Brown’s characterization of what Christianity “is”, verses what it was supposably meant to be. The book claims something to the effect that the Jesus intended to leave Mary Magdalene in charge of the Church, not Peter, and that there has been a conspiracy of male dominance ever since. I neither defend nor speak for the Catholic Church, but protestants hold that Jesus himself is still head of the Church, and Christians are not answerable to Peter or anyone else on earth. If you have not read the book, allow me to spoil it for you: according to Dan Brown, “true” Christianity is basically a goddess-worshiping sex cult. I mention this in the off chance that the producers of the movie tastefully decide to leave out the orgy scene (which somehow – I doubt.)

Having read the book, I have no desire to see the movie. I have no desire for anyone to see the movie, but I do not imagine that that holds a lot of weight. I do not think that the book was worthy of the attention and controversy it has generated. I wish that people would just stop talking about it, yet here we are.
Instead of going out to see this movie, why not rent Walk The Line instead?

A couple of weeks ago, I became increasingly aware that all of my words and thoughts had the horrible stench of regret.

The team I went with to Louisiana was to give a “report” back to the church. I have thus far not been able to talk about that trip in great detail with anyone. I could tell you about the work we did or show you pictures of destroyed houses, refrigerators on roofs, cars in trees… but I can not describe actually being there. I have not even tried.

At the time, I felt that going there was the best thing that I ever did. I could perhaps say that coming home and forgetting all about it was the worst, though that is probably not accurate. Regardless, seeing the team again, hearing the stories and watching some of the footage only reminded me how little my life had actually been changed by this “life-changing” experience. I was in a dark place before I left, and when I came home, I went straight back into it.

Yet, knowing they were there did not remove the stains of regret. What could I do, really?
What can wash away my sins?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus

It may seem hard to believe now, but I actually started my website as an evangelism tool. I wanted my friends and my family to follow along and discover what I discovered. Perhaps this goal inspired me to be more skeptical than anyone I might possibly talk to, so that if I could be convinced I could be assured that others would be as well. Of course, it was also terribly important that I not look like a fool.

Sometimes I try to imagine myself explaining the Gospel to one of my family or friends. It really is embarrassingly unrealistic from a practical, worldly viewpoint. This hypothetical person will always ask me, “And you really believe this, do you?” To which my rational, practical mind will always have to concede, “Well, not really, no.” I wholeheartedly believe in the teaching of the Bible, but I have a great deal of trouble swallowing the history.

My world religions professor said that the main difference between Western and Eastern religions is that we want to know, “Is it true?” whereas they ask, “Does it work?”

I have seen the people in New Orleans, who lost everything and had no choice but to trust in God, and then we showed up to do the work that no one wanted to do… for free. There were even people on our team with broken lives that God worked to repair as they focused on serving Him. I did not go there to glorify God. I suppose I did go there with some intention of helping people, but even that was secondary to the fact that I really just wanted a change of scenery.

How can I serve You, Lord, when I do not love You?
How can I love You, if I do not know You?
How can I know You when I can not see?
How can I see if You do not open my eyes?

Is it really my fault that I don’t believe? What more can I possibly do, when the Bible says that there is nothing I can do in the first place? Am I not searching hard enough, or looking in the right place? If someone else was seeking God more diligently, would they then find Him and be able to boast? Or is that precisely the problem? Look at me, I read the Bible cover to cover! Look at me, I have gone to church every Sunday for three years! Look at me, I won’t stop seeking and questioning until I know the absolute truth. All the while I look with disdain on children who get baptized, saying things like, “When I was four years old, my mom told me about Jesus!”

Still covered with the stains of regret; my heart full of trash that I can not remove. I don’t care if Jesus was the Christ, or if he really said the things attributed to him. I don’t care if he even existed at all. I’m not interested right now in whether or not it’s true, does it work? Does Jesus Christ have the power to change lives? It seems that he does. Then how about my life? I am ready for the seeking to stop and the healing to begin.

For my unbelieving friends and family, I don’t know what to tell you anymore. This whole time, there must have been three things that I wasn’t saying for every one thing that I did anyway. All I can say now is that if you see a change in me, you might ask yourself if maybe there is something to this Christianity after all. Otherwise, you might as well keep doing what you are doing.

Ten years ago, I promised a girl that I would love her forever. Now it would be just as well if I never see her again.

I was with another girl for two and a half years. I always pretty much assumed that we would end up married, but ultimately, our lives diverged on very separate courses.

Then there was a girl that I seriously tried to marry, essentially (if you will pardon the oversimplification) because I honestly had nothing better to do.

I have also had probably more than my fair share of crushes and unrequited interests. All this time, I was looking for my soul mate, the one who would “complete” me.

Then I found someone who I did not see as perfect, and to be brutally honest, there were doubts about our relationship from the very beginning. Yet, as I had grown older, I started to realize what a serious concept marriage really is. It is easy to make promises of “forever” in high school, as your concepts of time and of life are somewhat limited. I began to fully realize that people were not like puzzle pieces that if and when you find the right match, they just naturally fit together perfectly. For the first time, I saw a relationship as a growing experience, and when there was a problem, I would actually try to talk about it rather than withdraw and brood about how we were not a perfect match. (I say “try” because I was certainly not always successful in this.)

I realized that marriage is not the goal. It’s not that you spend all the time up front finding exactly the right person, and then you just live happily ever after. Marriage is not the end, it’s the beginning. Marriage IS a battle, and it can either be an external battle, the two of you fighting against the problems of life, or it can be an internal battle between the two of you.

I saw the how those unresolved doubts could easily fester and grow into regret and bitterness until eventually the marriage would collapse or explode. The statistics on this matter are far from encouraging, and that very real possibility absolutely scared the hell out of me… but I still wanted to do it.

But hey, so what, huh? It still didn’t happen. Like I said before, I keep wanting my feelings to mean something, but am forced to admit that they do not. Can I really say that what I feel now is different than what I felt before? Of course I can say that- look what I’ve learned- see how I’ve grown… and yet… and yet…

But this time it’s different, I know she’s the one
Well, I say that for all of them
-“Crushed”
Damn it…

So there it is. This is the issue of which I can not let go. It’s why I’m here.

I was visiting my sister last Christmas, and took to reading some of her books. There was a book called Wicked that I had heard a lot about. Although I had heard nothing but praise for it, I still approached it with deep suspicion, as it’s stated intention seemed to be to reverse the ideas of good and evil. I did not get very far through it before realizing that it really ought to be higher than Harry Potter on any christian’s books-to-burn list. I presume that it isn’t because it isn’t nearly as popular, and it isn’t marketed to children. (At least, I sincerely hope that it isn’t.)

Anyway, I realized that I should not be in such a hurry to get married, as my wife is sure to cheat on me anyway. I considered how if a man cheats on his wife, it’s his fault for not respecting her. If a woman cheat’s on her husband… it’s still his fault for not respecting her. Something definitely seems wrong about that, but regardless, I am certainly the kind of emotionally distant man that would drive my wife away. (And with that realization, I gave up on THAT book in favor of one that really is higher on the books-to-burn list. But now is not the time to say what I thought of that one.)

Later, in my walks to and from school, I would consider how shortly after creating Adam, God declared, “It is not right for man to be alone.” Upon saying this, did He immediately create a whole group of men for Adam to engage in fellowship with? No! He created woman. Did not Jesus himself say,
“Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘for this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.”
If divorce is so wrong, how can a break-up be much better? Does God’s interest in the relationship only begin at the point of marriage?

Where am I wrong in all this?

Yet I am wrong. For as Paul said, “It is good for a man not to touch a woman,” because, “One who is unmarried is concerned about the things of the Lord, how he may please the Lord; but one who is married is concerned about the things of the world, how he may please his wife.” However, Paul also conceded, “It is better to marry that to burn with passion.”

I can not help but think of the Ethiopian who, immediately after hearing the Gospel, declared, “Look, here is water. Why shouldn’t I be baptized?” I say, “Here is a godly woman, why shouldn’t she be the one?” But perhaps I should not apply that passage to this situation. For lest we forget, the Ethiopian was a eunuch.