Currently The Shade of Poison Trees By Dashboard Confessional see related

Is there ever a good reason to leave?

That question has flooded my thoughts and dreams in the past few weeks more than I would like to admit.  While everything else is going on around me, I had that thought on my mind a lot.  It seems my decision has been made. 

Early this evening I received the word that one of my best friends had also made the same decision.  He had amicably parted ways with our senior pastor and heartbreakingly walked away without looking back.  I don't know what the next step for either of us will be... but I do know that it's not going back. 

I'm not sure if it's the "right" thing to do.  Mostly, I haven't had a conversation with God about this church in months.  And when I do...its like those conversations you have with people where you're talking and listening but you're just not connecting.  Some people end relationships over such things, thankfully however, God is not one of those people.  But regardless... it makes it really hard to tell if I have done right by him or if I'm just drowning in the raw emotion of everything. 

I wrote before about the fog.  I feel as if the fog has intensified its hold over me.  Tonight, my friend and I had an honesty talk where he voiced some concern over where I was headed.  It wasn't criticism... but it echoed back to me my own emptiness over the whole thing.  I do not have a place to belong.  You see, since moving out here... I have lost much of my roots.  I have lost friendships to time and distance and I have lost the connection that I ever had with my family over the same thing.  I knew that it would happen and for most of the past year or so it has felt ok.  It's now that I'm just not sure where to land.  I need a home to go to at the end of the day that is stronger than the friendships and relationships that I have now.  Mostly, I need God to show up.  I don't need prayers or pity... or maybe I do and I'm just too proud to want it... I really don't know. 

I'll be honest here... I'm not really sure what is best for me at the moment.  The only thing I know is that I can't go back. 

If you knew, what I knew would you try...

The fog

It's that surreal feeling you get when you're driving into fog or heavy snow.  You look around and all you can see is white.. sometimes if it's really thick you can easily get disoriented. 

I remember one time driving in snow so bad that I couldn't even tell if I was on the road or not.  It was horrifying.  I wondered if that was what crazy people felt like all the time, only... I wondered if they didn't know they were crazy so it felt normal to them.  And then I wondered if I was crazy and didn't know it. 

Right now, I feel like life is similar to that kind of disorientation.  I can't tell which way is forward, which way is sideways and I have no idea when that next killer curve could that I'm about to drive off of and plummet God knows how far down.  It's very surreal.  My whole life I've had a steady direction (or at least since about 7th grade, when God supposedly got a hold of my life and changed me... or was that just the charasmatic camp speaker telling me that?  see, I don't really know).  After that fateful day at summer camp when everything suddenly made sense (or was that just the hormones talking... because the cute college aged male counselor had actually smiled at me 10 minutes before that)... and then I knew I was supposed to give my life over to Jesus.  As you can see, I'm questioning everything I ever believed about Christ and the Bible and living for something bigger than myself. 

There are exactly 2 things I hold certain at this point.  Jesus is God and God is a lot bigger than me.  I'm not sure what my response to that ought to be.  I was always told you should attend all the services of your church and be involved in "ministry".  That means, you ought to work with people somehow to push a sort of agenda.  I'm not going to say if I think that's a good or bad agenda... an agenda is (as defined by webster) a "program of things to be done" and I don't think there is anything inherantly evil in wanting to accomplish something.  After all, we all have lists of things that we need to do everyday and even in the deepest of relationships there is something that we hope to achieve either for the person or ourselves and I don't think that in and of itself can be bad.  It is when the agenda becomes about something it was never supposed to be about that it becomes bad.  So I have to ask myself then, is the agenda that I've been living for since the hormonal age of 13 good or bad?  And regardless of what you may think or say... I don't have a good answer for that yet.  It's part of why I feel like I'm living in a fog. 

In the past year or so I have returned to reality (as in outside the walls of a bubblized collegiate institution) to gain some experiences that have shed some light into the dark recesses of a subculture that I no longer feel in my heart of hearts is really what God has in mind.  In fact, I am going to say this despite the fact that I know I am probably going to offend some people who read this... many of which I don't know (because this xanga seems to have a more extended reach than the friends I know of who read it, as I have gotten several reponses in the form of IMs or comments), I think God is mad at a lot of what is going on.  I haven't been able to bring myself to say that very many times because I want to be careful not to misrepresent Him myself.  I think God gets mad people with selfish agendas who use his name and cause to make themselves feel more powerful or right.  So much of what I have seen in the failure of the church that i attended for the past year and in most of evangelical christianity is the extent to which respected men and women will go to be right. 

I don't want to to be right anymore.  I just want to know truth.  I think I used to be like a lot of these people... conservative in values and politics (which really are not too terribly different), angry about all the bad theology in churches who weren't calvinistic, and hungry to be right and to win arguments.  Then one day I met people.  I saw the oppresed and the weak.  I saw beautiful people who are being abused by the powers that would in churches that I associated myself with.  This isn't just another 20-something idealistic punk kid who feels like yelling at someone and being right again.  This is me trying to make sense out of the terrible mess we've made of truth.  I don't think we're supposed to make ourselves a separate culture that effs with our minds and the minds of our children to hold a perspective that is simply not realistic (and that's another can of worms that you wouldn't want to read right now... but somethign that's been heavy on my mind lately).  Odds are conservative evangelical reader, if you're not seeing what I'm seeing... you might be part of the problem and I'm sorry if that offends you. 

Truth, all truth and nothing but the truth, is whatever is real.  If it doesn't exist, it's not Truth.  I don't know all of the implications of that, but I do know it true. 

Regardless by the end of the night toinight I hope to have settled on a decision that will change the course of the months of my life that will follow in regards to church attendence at the church I have been attending for a while now.  I am deeply heartboken and distressed about having to make this decision and neither choice I have is an easy one.  To be perfectly honest, I am not even sure where God is.  In the past couple of months I have at least found myself able to pray from time to time and I have read through some portions of the book of Ecclesiastes.  It is the most I have been able to feel the existance of my relationship with God.  Regardless, it is time to step up the plate and take responsibility for what I believe is important. 

When the winds of change come, some people build walls and others build windmills.- Chinese Proverb

And here we are...

So, last night... I think I finally arrived at the the climax of this whole thing with church. I realized it was hopeless and I wanted to cry. 

I don't like to call things hopeless because there is enormous potential where God is concerned.  When you look at a person through the eyes of God, you no longer see what they were or where they came from or the weaknesses of them, and you no longer have the tendency to strive... you have all the things that the person could be, you see the good in where they are already and when they don't live up to the potential that is in them... you want to cry.  I imagine God does too.  As my good friend Maryanne said the other night, "I think God is really mad."  I think he might be... only because if I in my humanity am this upset... God in his infinity has got to be infinite times that. 

Before the service, after having heard another round of bad news from Maryanne... I went up to the sanctuary and I played the piano.  I wanted to cry... I couldn't focus my thoughts on anything other than what I had heard, despite the fact that 20 minutes or less before that I had felt fine and had told myself I wasn't going to have a bad night.  It was so hard.  I looked up at the ugly light up cross that sits behind the pulpit.  I really just wanted to cry.  I loved that room... with it's piano and all the things that I had seen it becoming from Ohio.  I saw the people who had made me feel so welcome loving the unlovables in the community.  And I swear I never saw the politics and abuse.  If I had, I knew that God could get rid of it.  I still know that he can.  Unfortunatly, if that's his goal.  I'm almost certain that he doesn't want me to be part of what changes them. 

I have never been one to give up on my "lost cause" of choice.  However, at this point it has become painfully clear that this thing is dying.  If God doesn't do something to stop the downward spiral... it's over.  People can change, because God is a God who can change them.  But if they will not choose to listen to Him, if they will continue to do what they have always done expecting different results, then they will not change... and there is nothing I or anyone else can do to change them.  It's the saddest realization I've ever come to. 

Last night Jordan preached on 2 Tim 2:24-26

Moving

I just completed my first adult-like move.  It felt nothing like moving in college.... It felt, odd and stressful and totally unromantical. 

There was nothing fantastic about not sleeping the first night and worrying that my car was going to get stolen because the same day i moved the window finally died on me.  There was nothing extraordinary about my first night in the new room... feeling all sentimental.  It just happened.  And now, I'm still unpacking and moving things around and I feel pretty much no enthusiasm for the whole ordeal.  I suppose... that's exactly what I had expected (actually I had no expectations except that i wouldn't be getting up as early or driving as much). 

As I was getting ready to go to bed (actually the floor lol) the night before the move, I was thinking.  For all the romanticism that it held back in college, moving on this time was nothing like it.  Sure there is a lot of "new"... there is a new route to find, a new landlord (odd name for the owner of your house... lord? lol... just a thought), new neighbors (odd ones i'm afraid), new experiences but nothing is as big or extraordinary as it once was. 

I think, that's kind of part of growing up.  It's the part I think I dreaded the most a year or more ago.  Losing some of that enthusiasm and raw emotion.  I was afraid that if I didn't feel it, it couldn't mean anything.  I'm learning though that new chapters don't always start out with earth shattering raw and nude emotions.  Sometimes, things change... new relationships begin... new apartments become homes... new thoughts take you captive and it just is.  There's nothing extraordinary about it.  It's not that you don't feel any excitement or emotion.  It's just that suddenly, you're not Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee taking the first step farther than you've ever been before.  Suddenly, you're like Bilbo... writting stories about adventures gone by and dreaming about the ones to come and that's just life.  It's good, it's wonderful and adventurous but it's not what it used to be. 

I guess what I'm kind of saying is that life as a "grown-up" feels a lot different than it once did and that's good. 

Oh, and never read the book of Ecclesiastes before going to work

A Man Named Bob

So, tonight... I was meeting with some nice guys from Youth for Christ about the possibility of involving myself in their "ministry".  We were just about finished with our conversation and coffee when a man with a cane, wearing socks with his sandals, walked up to us and said he had been listening to our conversation about church and God and wanted to know more about us.  As it turned out one of the guys that we were meeting with goes to the church that this man had attended for a short few months.  Bob, as he called himself, was very disillusioned with the church and went on to talk with us for several minutes about religion and what he believed about Jesus Christ. 

Bob fascinated me.  I could never be so bold as to come up to a group of young people (he was past middle aged) and strike up a conversation about Jesus.  It was amazing.  I might add that usually, that kind of thing would have annoyed me because it meant that I had to be smart and impressive sounding about my beliefs.  Tonight, I realized I wasn't that way... and thankfully I didnt' get to engage in too much of the conversation.  The guys took over and seemed to connect very well with this man.  And while I am anxious to learn to assert myself into conversation about diverse belefs it was good to get to know my new friends by watching how they engaged him.  For evangelicals, I was extremely impressed by the way they let this man believe what he believed and affirmed that he was cared among our table.  Interestingly enough, I had just asked the two of these guys a couple of questions about how they would handle the "denominational" and "life style" choice differences among the teens they wanted to help and the staff they were looking for.  I was impressed with their answers that this organization is not about pointing out the differences and being offensive but rather it is about sticking to the basics and cores of who Christ was.  While I'm still not sure that I want to involve myself heavily again in an evangelical organization... I am sure I would like to see what they're doing and how they're doing it and see if I can in good conscience find something productive to do there. 

At any rate,  I couldn't help but flash to my dream of church being just like certain moments in life.  When people are talking about Jesus or Ghandi.  And they really care about each other... even love each other the way Christ loved people... and the way God loves people.  At that moment when Bob dropped his defenses and really heard my youth worker friends out... I wanted that to be like church.  I wanted people to drop what they're doing... to drop what they think and how they feel and what they think they know and just listen... really listen to all the Bobs in the world.  Whether or not Bob had anything good to say didn't matter... what mattered is that we made him feel very welcome among us... just by overhearing our conversation he felt safe enough to come up to us and strike up a conversation about spiritual matters.  That has to say something. 

I want to start my own church.  I'd invite Bob.  He could hobble in with his cane and talk about speaking in tongues for all I cared.  He could drink our coffee and listen to everyone else talk about what they thought about speaking in tongues.  We'd all listen to one another.  We'd ask what we thought God said... and we'd pray... or maybe we wouldn't.  Who's to say when you talk about God you aren't talking to him in your mind somewhere anyways?  It doesn't matter.  I want church to be sitting in a living room talking about Jesus and the weather.  Politics and Hinduism.  I want Bob to be there.  I want my friends from Youth for Christ to be there.  If I was to leave the church I now attend... I would start my own church I think.  I would invite everyone I knew who might just listen to everyone else and really care.  I wouldn't even care if they were Hindu like Ghandi.  Or if they were Catholic like Mother Theresa.  Or if they were Evangelical like Billy Graham.  Or if, like me... they didn't fit nicely into any label of religion.  I say truth is truth and will stand up no matter who is in the room.  There is truth in the kind of love that it takes to discuss religion and politics without getting offended and starting wars with other people.  Maybe the answer to all of the problems lies in taking the truth that is found in real genuine human care/love and applying it everywhere else.  I like that kind of truth.  I don't like the kind of truth that kills. 

I've been thinking a lot lately, maybe heaven and hell aren't the entire point of life.  I really doubt that if you compared the amount of scripture written about heaven/hell and the amount of scripture written about everything else (like loving your neighbor) you'd find that there is a great deal more written about everything else.  It doesn't seem that Jesus spent his entire ministry talking about heaven.  He spent a great deal of his time loving the unloveables.  I think heaven is a place where life is the way it was supposed to be.  I don't think it's about angels on clouds with harps singing boring hymns forever.  I wonder that heaven is not so separate from everything we see today.  It's just a different kind of existance.  And maybe hell isn't like fire so much... but it's more like life the way it still is with wars and death and tragedy.  I said the other day that I kind of thought that hell is like living now.  Maybe it is.  Maybe this... right now... is hell.  I don't know.  You probably think I'm speaking blasphemies and are 2 seconds away from clicking that little red x at the top of the screen.  Well, go ahead click it...

I decided this week that I wanted to figure things out.  I wanted room in my spiritual existance to be wrong.  I wanted that room so that I could really just live.  You can't live without mistakes.  I don't mean that you should make them on purpose (that would be dumb).  I mean that you should never be so afraid to make mistakes that you stop really living or trying anything because you're afraid of what will happen.  That becomes such a self-fulfilling prophecy.  If you're so afraid to make mistakes that every time you try something that feels slightly dangerous you second guess yourself every step of the way then you will mess it up.  But that's what I want.  I want the freedom to ruin myself in 3 seconds.  I want that freedom because if there is the chance that I will ruin myself in 3 seconds there is also the chance that I will figure it out.  I will at least be one step closer to knowing what doesn't work. 

That's what talking to Bob reminded me of.  As they say at sears, "Life, well spent."