Stumbling Toward God?

I was recently contacted by someone whom I have not seen in a great long while. It has forced me to really think, how have I been? How would I sum up the last several years in a couple of paragraphs? Well…

I made a valiant yet foolhardy effort to marry a girl that I barely knew, which never-the-less lead to such significant life changes as abandoning hobbies like drinking and guitar playing in favor of Bible study and church attendance, where I was stalked/harassed twice and met, then subsequently lost, the love of my life while never actually finding the “truth” for which I was searching.

Meanwhile, I took longer than most to get a degree that I don’t use from a university I hated in a field that I don’t care about, all the while my family has been dying off at a consistent rate of one per year. I got a part time job running sound and video at a mountain retreat center where christians who can afford such things can go to get a Jesus high for the weekend, and I spend the rest of my days sleeping, reading webcomics, and idly wondering why God felt the need to spare my life in the accident that totaled my car. I guess it just wasn’t my turn this year.

And I bought a bicycle for $10. That should bring us up to speed.

A friend of mine is getting married. Something about it has been bothering me for a while. It’s not that I having anything against the bride, because I know the family and all. Perhaps it’s simply that they became engaged after knowing each other for less than a year and now they will be married about a year and half after the day they met. I know in my own experience, it has often taken two or three years for the blinders to come off and realize that this girl isn’t so right for me after all. Perhaps I am slower than most. Or after all look who’s talking. Perhaps I am merely envious that he is succeeding where I have failed.

Another friend is having a rather informal wedding later this year. I do not know enough of the story there to comment. But the whole thing makes me wonder, am I making this harder than it needs to be? I am but a man, no more, no less. There could be many young ladies who would want one such as me. It’s just that my upbringing and experience have heavily skewed my perception of a woman’s expectations.

Awhile ago I heard a woman’s testimony on the radio. Part of it included the fact that four months after becoming a Christian, she became engaged to a man that she had “never kissed and never dated.” (It struck me as unusual that she specified those two separately, but perhaps I am more old-fashioned than I had realized.) It also struck me that I am SO going to do that… This whole dating thing is crap. I have fallen flat on my face enough times. All or nothing, baby.

THAT is your big master plan? You actually think you have better chances of success with a cold proposal? That is just about the worst idea ever. Not to mention the fact that I have serious blood diamond issues.

Not that it matters. Because I read the Bible.

I could not count how many times that I have heard directed toward Christian singles something like, “Don’t worry, God has someone for you,” or, “Even though you are single, God can still use you.” That is excrement. For you non-christians out there, I am going to let you in a very well-kept secret: the New Testament actually discourages marriage.

To summarize 1 Corinthians chapter 7: it is not a sin to get married, but it would be better if you didn’t.
But I want you to be free from concern. 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, and his interests are divided. The woman who is unmarried, and the virgin, is concerned about the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and spirit; but one who is married is concerned about the things of the world, how she may please her husband. -1 Cor 7:32-34

Similarly, after Jesus speaks about divorce, one of the disciples exclaims, “If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry.” While you might expect Jesus to defend the importance of marriage at this point, he instead rather cryptically repies:
“Not everyone can receive this saying, but only those to whom it is given. For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let the one who is able to receive this receive it.” -Matt 19:10-12

Keeping in mind that neither Jesus nor Paul was married, then however else you may interpret what Jesus says, clearly remaining single in some way benefits the kingdom of heaven.

Furthermore, when questioned about marriage at the resurrection, Jesus responds:
“For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.” – Matt 22:30, c.f. Mark 12:25 Or more explicitly, in Luke:
“The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage, but those who are considered worthy to attain to that age and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage; for they cannot even die anymore, because they are like angels, and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection. -Luke 20:34-36

In summary, as far as worldly activities go, marriage is not so bad. But it is, after all, a worldly activity. The proper consolation for Christians should be, “Even though you are married, God can still use you!”

One of the more difficult concepts for me to grasp has been to not to try to apply what God has told me to other people. Just because I believe God does not want me to be married, does not mean I should look down on people who do.

In any case, we now come to the root of our standoff. For I only started going to church in the first place in an effort to get married. If God does not wish it to be so, then WHAT DO I NEED YOU FOR?

Postscript:
Though I had already planned out what I wanted to say, it took me awhile to actually get it all down. The wedding I mentioned has already passed, and I caught the MF-ing garter. Why do you mock me so?

I may have mentioned to a some people last year that I was being “consumed” by a certain project, and needed to put it away. I never actually said that I did not finish it first.

It’s been along time. So, this is what I keep in my closet. I have been learning an awful lot of web programming lately in order to make that page, so I do hope it works.

Today I finished school. I mentioned this to someone yesterday who responded, “That would make a great birthday present.” I can’t imagine how this particular person would have actually known when my birthday was, which makes for a terribly unusual thing to say. While talking to someone else, it came out that my grades are, in fact, quite good, and they asked, “Are you actually really smart and you’ve just been hiding it from me this whole time?” Uh… what do you do with that?

Anyway, I never imagined that this day would actually come. At first I was numb. Then I was nauseous. My God, what a waste. That’s an awful lot of years I won’t be getting back.

So what happens now? i’ve done what you asked. Can i please come home now? Done, you say? Hardly. Stagnation is not perseverance.

There is a certain expectation that upon completing a degree in electrical engineering, one seeks employment in the field of electrical engineering. I realized a couple of weeks ago that, all other things aside, doing that would most likely involve moving. Now, I’m not strictly opposed to moving. You know, I once left my job, my house, my girlfriend and moved to a different state to learn how to build guitars?
-No you didn’t.
No really, I did. It happened. I was there.
-Oh, please. I know you too well… and I don’t believe it.

Whatever. I wasn’t planning on staying in California my whole life anyway. It’s just that I don’t want to move somewhere that is not a developing nation and I certainly do not want to do any electrical engineering when I get there. I’m not interested in having to start over someplace where no one knows me, for no good reason. But haven’t I spent months whining that no one even really knows me here?

So, endings, beginnings. I broke a guitar string yesterday. Those were originals. They came with the guitar. I had them for six years. Now that’s absurd. I’ve also been having such strange dreams and strange thinkings lately. How can I have such wildly different interests and priorities from one day to the next? What’s the matter with me? I’m too old for this crap.

By the way, as long as we’re somewhere near the subject, there’s something that’s been bothering me. Which is this:
N.O. 2/21
A.J. 4/2
E.D. 8/4
D.B. 5/2
J.D. 1/25
K.K. 12/12
A.D. 12/4
I don’t know. Maybe it’s unusual of me to dwell on such things.

You know, I don’t think that I have.

A long time ago I set out to prove something, set out to find something. And a long time ago I lost my way.

There’s been a lot of talk about mentors lately. I admit that as a new Christian I did not appreciate the importance of having a mentor. I regret that now. It was not until I went through a Campus Crusade Bible study about how Jesus chose disciples who would make more disciples and so forth. This is is what true Christianity is.

And how am I supposed to make disciples? You know, I was never even “lead to Christ.” I was just sort of kicked toward Christ and then left to figure it all out on my own. I have never even attempted to share the gospel because I wouldn’t wish what I’ve been through on anyone. Should it really be on me to find a mentor? Is that not like a child choosing his own parents? What kind of church would allow a young man to wander in and randomly poke at things for FOUR YEARS without ever bothering to find out if he really “gets it”? But finding my own mentor really is my responsibility, because we just aren’t set up for that kind of thing.

A couple years ago now, I was talking to someone about not quite this topic but something similar, and suddenly something snapped and I started listing example after example of times when I had honestly tried to ask questions, and either the person did not understand what I was asking or they just didn’t know or never got back to me or whatever. Each case taken individually was perfectly excusable, but taken all together only reinforced the idea that no one had the answers I was looking for. So naturally, I eventually just stopped asking questions.

I have been trying to post on Friday’s, and last week I was planning to describe my impasse with God in detail… but then I got some unexpected news.

My God… they actually named the baby after me. I… I better start doing something with my life.

I mean, they probably didn’t literally name him because of me… but surely they must have realized that that was my name, especially considering that, well, I had told them to do it. I was simultaneously shocked, honored, flattered, confused, and… horrified. Why would anyone do that? I am not a role model!

On another matter, tonight was certainly the first time that I’d heard of anyone using the F-word during prayer requests. And I wish I could say that was the worst thing that I’d done this week. It wasn’t even the worst thing that I said to anyone today alone.

So to you iiitimothy, I sincerely hope you do better than I done.

As for me, well, a lot of other “that was weird” moments happened this weekend. Too many to mention now. The kind of thing that makes you wonder if someone’s not trying to tell you something.

Two Sundays ago, I had a particular engagement to attend. It was located approximately ten miles from my house, and I had decided in advance that I would ride my bicycle there. (I purchased this bicycle for $10 at a garage sale some months ago, and it is somewhat surprising that I have yet to mention it, as I love it dearly. )

The foolishness of this plan became apparent rather quickly. Though I choose the bicycle over my car whenever feasible, I had yet to ride more than two miles at a time, if that. So here, I had chosen to do my first long ride, predominantly uphill, in the heat of a July afternoon… having eaten very little that day, I might add. Never-the-less, I persisted.

Approximately halfway through my journey, I had to stop. I had already traversed the steepest hill, but the rest of the way was still almost entirely uphill. I had also gotten a much later start than I had planned, and it was taking longer than I anticipated. At this rate, I would arrive so late as to hardly make the trip worthwhile. However, to give up and turn around would require going back over the hill that I had just come down, which was not an attractive option.

It occurred to me that there were probably at least five people that I could call who would drop whatever they were doing and come pick me up right then. But how embarrassing would that be? If I know myself at all, I would much sooner pass out by the side of the road than call anyone for help.

I had no choice but to pray and continue on my way, motivated by the fact that there was a pool at my destination; to which I successfully arrived, a mere hour and a half late.

The next Sunday, I was returning from church on my bicycle. I never did see what I hit, but I certainly heard the crunch and the hiss and felt the unpleasant loss of pressure in the back tire. I walked the bicycle for a significant amount of the way home, before eventually deciding that this too was madness. I eventually located a discrete place to chain it up and walked the rest of the way home to get my car and retrieve it.

Once again, having apparently learned nothing the week previous, not only did I avoid calling anyone, but I even walked past the house of someone that I know without stopping to ask for assistance.

Last week, I finished my 5 week crash course in Psychology. I found it pretty interesting. (Which furthers my claim that if you randomly select one GE course and one major course that I’ve taken, I will almost invariably have enjoyed the GE course more. (People think that I’m being facetious when I say that I have a midterm in my 4:00 class, and they ask what class that is, and I respond, “It’s the class that I have at 4:00.” I know the time and the location, and that it has something to do with ECE, and beyond that I honestly don’t care.))

Of course, both in the book and in the videos I had to watch, they seemed to be repeatedly emphasizing, “No really… this is real science… honestly…” Which becomes less convincing with each instance.

Nevertheless, there were some interesting ideas. One was the “spotlight effect”, which is when one assumes that people are paying more attention to you than they really are. That certainly applies to me. I only blog because it makes me feel like people give a crap.

Another concept really made me think, now there’s what’s wrong with me:

I suffer from a great deal of cognitive dissonance.

A couple of years back I felt very disconnected. I had a blog. Some people read it. I imagine that they associated it with a certain person that they occasionally saw and interacted with. That person, however, would rarely admit to even having a blog, and when questioned directly on a specific post, I think you would find that he had no more information than you did, as if he had merely read what was written himself… or in some cases, had not even done that. That person was a fake.

I remember an incident back then, when someone who had moved away was back visiting the church. He asked how I was and I gave whatever answer one gives in such circumstances. But he persisted. “You’re not ok, are you? Something’s really wrong… it’s like… your dead inside.”

I was shocked. You can see me! The REAL me! Fortunately, this fellow also has a rather short attention span and was quickly distracted by someone else whom he had not seen in awhile.

The point of my last post was that I really have no idea who I am anymore. I complain of superficial friendships, but it is not them… it is me. I do not even see a person in the mirror anymore, all I see is that beard. What happened to me? I used to have depth. I was a boxing black hole of depth.

Awhile back, we were playing a game called “Loaded Questions”, where one person will read a question and everyone else writes down an answer, then the first person has to determine who said what. One of the questions was something like, “Who do you think is dishonest?” There was no stipulation that it had to be someone in the room, yet three people still wrote down “Tim” … including myself.

This week, I confronted myself about the fact that recently, whenever I am around a certain individual, I calculate my behavior to create an impression that is not, in fact, true. Overlooking for the moment that this practice is despicable, I do not understand the point of this game. I can not see what I have to gain here even if successful.

Phewforaminutethereilostmyself

Last month:
“Can we sing As the Deer?” she asked, “I LOVE that song!”
I was almost nauseous as I felt the bottom drop out of a project on which I had been working for several weeks… again. Screw these people. They’re not your friends. I acted like I was going to the bathroom, then slid out the side door, walked all the way around the building to my car and left. Would anyone have really cared if I had gone straight out the front?

Two weeks ago:
Whilst I kept busy with my favorite, though utterly pointless, hiking games, “Guess which U.S. President…?” and “Does he have a beard?”, I was constantly catching little bits of deeper conversations about theology, relationships, mentors… all of the things I wish I had myself but don’t know how to get.

Last week:
I stopped in my kitchen at a picture I pass everyday. I picked it up and stared quizzically for some moments at… myself… with shoulder length hair. That can’t be right?

And on:
So, I’m now the drummer for my church group. The drummer. By request no less. I drum even worse than I play guitar. As a matter of fact, I once was determined to play “live” drums on one of my songs, but my rhythm was so off that I eventually just recorded the drum track twice in the hopes that the mistakes would average out.

Well, you’ve obviously found the new website. You may have noticed that I have not yet pulled the plug on the old one, but it won’t update anymore.

Anyway, awhile ago I went through a season of turmoil, then a season of reflection, and now I’ve moved firmly into a season of… what? I had been playing an awful lot of “Bang!” Lately, I’ve been doing an awful lot of homework. I’ve done several hours of homework on 14 of the past 15 days, including Friday’s, Saturday’s and one national holiday. That’s not like me at all.

So I stay busy. I can’t find the time to return phone calls or emails, but I still manage to go out. Though honestly, I can’t recall the last time I went anywhere or did anything with a group of less than five people. I don’t know when I started going for quantity of relationships over depth. Somehow I’ve managed to trade a reclusive antisocialism for a public one. Hiding in full view of everyone.

This too shall pass.