Superstitions, or, Welcome to Houston, Sucker: Part Two

Yesterday, I had the passing thought, If I believed in and followed God in a much more superstitious way, I would be fleeing from Houston right now rather than desperately trying to maintain my bearings.

It seems the "signs" were piling up, the "bad omens" were weighing upon me like millstones. My shoulders are still weary today, under the stress, under the bewilderment, under the inconvenience of all that moving to Houston has entailed.

Family arguments, ongoing financial disagreements, misbudgeting, the breaking and entereing of my Jeep, inability to procure a moving truck, problems with the finally-procured moving truck, a left-behind wallet, still more financial misunderstandings, a mishandled order with the automobile glass-repair place, and to top it all off ... yesterday my Jeep was towed right out of my apartment complex. I had to fork over $186 at the impound yard, which took an hour and a half to find.

Leigh's mother remarked to me that it is a good thing I am in love, or all of this simply wouldn't be worth it. I hate to agree, but she is right.

But, yesterday, as I sat in my only recently-rescued Jeep, dejected and utterly defeated, after this thought flashed in my mind, I suddenly realized what a prideful ponderance it was. After all, while I believe that much of Christianity is becoming seized in a prision of humanistic superstition, I could not help but admit that I have some level of superstition in me when it comes to the things of God. We all do.

We all believe in God with some level of superstition. This is the humanity - the stuff of earth - that we cannot seem to shake when we seek after Him. Ideally, there is nothing superstitious to the work and lordship of God. He blesses, He curses. He gives, He takes.

It is our phony superstitions that contribute to our stumbling, our misunderstandings, and our rebellious ways. If we feel even the least off-kilter in what we are doing or where we are going, the slightest misfortune becomes so much more than it is - it morphs into a "bad omen." Now, I don't believe that all the mishaps and problems I have encountered are "slight" misfortunes, but I also don't chalk them up to God, which, if I did, would make Him a sneaky prankster who would rather deviously manipulate my circumstances than communicate with me honestly. And I don't blame them on the devil, either. I think evil is a lot more subtle than tow trucks and petty car theives.

I once watched a Joel Osteen message in which he recounted a story about trying to go out and enjoy a Friday night with his wife, only to be made late to an engagement by a slow-moving train. He resolved to not give into frustration, he said, because he suddenly recognized "that this was just a test sent directly from God," and having to wait on this train was part of a divine lesson. Such a story confused me - I think Joel was just one of the thousands of marginally unlucky people who found the inconvience of having to wait on slow-moving trains that day. Since when does God have to be so intimately involved with the railroad conditions in Houston, Texas?

Please, dear reader, don't get me wrong. I believe deeply in the reality that God works in and through a million little things a day. I believe we can find direction from Him in dozens of circumstances throughout the day. However, there's a difference between His being in them, and His manipulating of them.

I am weary, and colliding with feelings of despair. I don't believe that there are "signs" telling me to pack up and flee Houston, but this doesn't ease the stress that has me teetering as if on the precipice of a cliff. However, I suppose the best thing to do is to pray for awareness of those million little things of wonder, and all the more, to pray, pray, pray.

Welcome to Houston, Sucker

"Rescue me, O Lord, from evil men; protect me from men of violence, who devise evil plans in their hearts ... Let burning coals fall upon them; may they be thrown into the fire, into miry pits, never to rise." - Psalm 140:1, 2, 10

It was a bit surprising to read such a wrath-filled lament in the psalm selections for the morning hour today, but who am I to argue with the Book of Common Prayer's determinations. Indeed, the above psalm and its partner, # 142, fit quite nicely into my tumultuous morning. Perhaps "tumultuous" is took strong a word. Let's call it inconvenient.

Rich Mullins once said in a concert, "The Bible is okay until you start reading the psalms, and then it really wigs out. All that vengeance and stuff. Of course, that's the part I especially like. I know 'Vengeance is mine, thus saith the Lord,' but I just want to be about the Lord's business."

Today, I was woken up by my girlfriend's father (the Wrights have been very generous to let me stay with them until I can move in to my new apartment) who informed me that it appeared my Jeep had been broken into during the night. Indeed, he was right. The left backseat passenger window had been smashed and some theif's (or theives') grubby little hands had rustled through all of my belongings. This normally would not have been that dire of a problem, except that, as I am in the last few days of moving, my Jeep is currently packed to the roof with boxes, pictures, paintings, clothes, bags, and a dining room table. Not to mention the treasure claimed by the theif - a carrying case containing my Xbox and all its accessories, including my three favorite games. Didn't this guy (or girl, because you ladies are just as suspect) realize I was a youth minister and that I needed that thing to trick kids into coming to church so that I can proslityze them? Surely the c.d. case containing lame (in his mind) Christian albums mixed with socially-reflective folk albums would have given him a clue.

In reality, he or she was the worst theif ever. If he had really looked, he would have found a lot more valuables, like my iPod cradle, my c.d.'s (yes, they're worth something), some picture frames worth quite a lot, and, of course, my car c.d. player. Now, not taking the music is insulting. Not taking an expensive music player is just plain stupidity. I feel like I want to coach this person on the importance of being thorough in his theivery.

So, in light of this new injustice perpetrated against me, I will be opening up a Sympathy Fund for myself, so that all you faithful readers can send your donation, that I may soon be able to replace my Xbox. E-mail me at ragamuffin_vagabond@hotmail.com for information on where to send your cash or check.
And please, if you don't do it for me, do it for the good people of Aberdeen, Scotland, who, now that my Xbox and Fifa Soccer 2005 game have been swiped, are without a coach as their up-and-coming team was the only one left in the Scottish Premier yet to lose a game as the new season opened.

Oh, the humanity! I'm with the Psalmist. Shower the evil ones with burning coals and toss them into the fire. How inhospitable can you get? Welcome to Houston, sucker.
___

The third part of my journey of faith will be posted soon. Please stop by again for another visit.

Faith Journey: Part Two

The journey continues...

If life is a road, then eventually my journey down it wound away from First Baptist of Buda. It was a forced change of direction, for the church split. At age seventeen, I did not seek, nor did I care, to know the real reason for the ailment that cast out my pastor and youth minister. I was content merely to complain about the injustice of it all. Years later, I found out it was a parishioner’s entrepreneurial business deal, in which he sought investors from within the church, that divided the congregation, and those I followed out of First Baptist, the pastor, youth minister, and a small group of parents, were the ones mistakenly mixed up in the sour boondoggle. Nevertheless, my parents, who had become less than satisfied with the church and, having been duped, lost money in the investment, decided to move their membership to another Baptist church across town. It was there I finished my last year as a “youth.” On one of the first Sundays I began attending this new church, the youth minister resigned and left within the week. To this day I do not know the reason. This rapid succession of change – these potholes in my life road – wrapped me in uneasiness. I was certain of nothing. Just as, at age eight, I lost all confidence in the certainty of a long life, so did my cozy home environment crumble as I began college at Southwest Texas State University.

The only thing left to fall would be self-confidence, both spiritually and physically, and the wrecking ball would come midway through my first year of college, from a Bible study in which Hebrews 11:1 was expounded. “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” I was taught that the word “hope” denoted certainty rather than unsure expectation. It was tight-fisted assurance rather than a wringing of the hands. Therefore, the verse could be read, “Now faith is being certain of what we are certain for and certain of what we do not see.” I was taught that this was the essence of being a Christian – to know you were saved and to completely rest in that fact. And because nothing in my life was certain – especially my own salvation, which I agonized over silently year after year, my constant sins of dishonesty, laziness, and adolescent lust jack-hammering my mind with doubt – I feared I did not possess true faith. In those years, full of confused prayers and dozens of “rededications,” I continually recalled a heavy-as-brick statement by Rick, a speaker at one of the youth camps I had once attended. With dark, certain eyes and an intensely fixating glare, Rick had looked us all over and said concerning salvation, “If you’re 95% sure you’re saved, you are 100% wrong!” This quote pounded in my head for years.

Hebrews 11:1, if it commanded me to be certain, was a verse to which I knew I could never live up. In high school a pattern of “rededicating my life to the Lord” had begun, taking place at almost every event I attended; I believed salvation was all about my individual decision, and I had prayed for salvation enough times to save a small country. This cycle only grew more intense in college. After all, I imagined I was so young that night years before under the covers that I most likely did not get the prayer right. I hadn’t fully understood the weight of sin or the weight of glory at that age, so obviously that cry to Jesus was of dubious validity. There was no joy in my journey of my faith. Was I even traveling the right road? As each year passed, I would come face to face again with the euangelion, and each year the need for salvation would gain more weight, become much direr a situation. So, kneeling again, I would grapple for grace, beg for eternal safety.

My struggle centered not only on spiritual uncertainty. My daily behavior while in college was shaped by a pervading sense that I was not – could not be – anyone of importance. With my friends I would welcome, sometimes even instigate, humorous but degrading jabs directed at me, mainly because I did not feel worthy of nobler words. In the occasional relationship with a girl, time and again she would mention my lack of confidence, how disconcerting it was to her that I saw myself able to influence no one. The few periods in which I took on a leadership role within a campus ministry or church group, I was plagued internally by constant doubts that I was doing any real, lasting good. I believed that once I stopped sinning and perfected a daily practice of reading the Bible, praying, and, as a result, experiencing daily revelation from God, only then would I feel the love of Christ that so many other Christians gushed about. God would not be silent to someone who was truly faithful, truly saved.

One of the first moments of illumination through the dusty murk of this crisis came halfway through my time in college ...

To be continued...

Faith Journey

In light of the good news that I have finally been offered a job, I am currently reflecting on my "testimony," which is the evangelical word for the story of how one comes to faith in Christ. Thankfully, I have written and rewritten, told and retold, my own story many times, so I am not starting from scratch. However, it is a weighty thing to describe to a congregation the intricacies of how you have encountered the living God. I find that to give this account is never a regurgitation of a previously-told tale, but an all new expression of an always-new story. It is a story that is shaped continually, every day, in both our waking and our sleeping. This Sunday, in what I expect will be my new local church home, I will express my story anew.
I have realized that I have never done this via the blog, so I found a recently written version of my story that I thought I would share ... in forth-coming parts ... in case anyone was curious about my faith journey. If anything, perhaps it will inspire you to consider more deeply your own journeys, either to faith, or fleeing from it.

___

“It was on a Monday somebody touched me …”

On a Sunday night sometime within my tenth or eleventh year, in a celebratory, hymn sing-a-long service at a small Baptist church in Buda, Texas, where I attended with my parents for the majority of my youth, I summoned enough courage to profess a faith I was not even sure I possessed. This was quite a change in activity for a boy who usually passed most of the time in the traditional services with a tired head reclining on his mother’s shoulder and the slightest of snores in his nose. The music minister led the congregation in “Somebody Touched Me,” a chorus that always seemed to me as depicting Almighty God as no more affectionate than a golf buddy encouragingly patting his friend on the back. Still, to stand up during this song was to announce the day in which one accepted Christ as Savior, and to me this felt like the equivalent of Peter stepping out onto the tumultuous waves. As the simple chorus repeatedly bounced about the little sanctuary, and as members of the congregation stood to declare which day of the week it was they had prayed for Jesus Christ to save them, I prepared myself to respond, despite the childishly narcissistic fear that all eyes would immediately focus on me when I did indeed rise from my pew. The chorus rolled on, “It was on a Thursday somebody touched me … It was on a Friday somebody touched me …” and the members continued to stand, some clapping, most beaming, and all appearing to me both pure and confident. No such assurance could I feel inhabiting me. But as the final day of the song was sounded, with knocking knees and trembling legs I pulled myself up from where I sat and contorted my face into the most satisfied and joyous grin I could fake. “It was on a Sunday somebody touched me …” Looking over my shoulder, I caught the eye of my mother, who had recently sat back down after her day’s verse ended. I’m not sure if she stared back in surprised happiness or startled confusion, but in that moment I realized that this decision I had made was not meant only for me personally; instead, it affirmed a connection to all these other people, whether I knew them or not. It would be a long while before I found myself comfortable with that radically communal reality.

Mine was not the most convincing of new births. Around three years earlier, it was another Sunday night service at First Baptist of Buda – a choir concert followed by a simple Gospel presentation – that carried me to the brink of the decision to pray for salvation as I then understood it. Months earlier, my only sibling, Katy, had died suddenly in a freak accident during a Christmas caroling hayride with the church youth group. My parents were still coping with the initial devastation of her loss, but as I was still a child, I know longer suffered the shock of separation, and in its place I was experiencing a morbid fixation on the inevitability of death. This concern kept my ears piqued during any time the church pastor would mention heaven or salvation. That particular night, following the concert, he spoke of the grave importance of making a “decision” for Christ so that we might one day be with him in Heaven rather than separated from him “and those we love” in Hell. Later that evening, I lay huddled beneath my covers, a nervous eight year old normally frightened of whatever shadowy terror my imagination could conjure. Only this night, what struck the greatest level of fear within me was the thought of Hell – that dank, cavernous wasteland where red-eyed, razor-toothed demons prowled on orders from their dark master, the Devil. I was terrified of ending up in such a place and, even at such an early age, I was weary of dreading death and of fearing that my end could come without warning, as had Katy’s. Praying to Jesus to save me meant I could avoid a hellish destination at my imminent death (which is a plausible possibility to an eight year old afraid of the dark); there was no debate. Under the covers, I mumbled to Jesus that I was a sinner and I needed him to take my sins away. The early formation of my theology was thus concerned with little more than a “Get Out of Hell Free” card; I became a Christian to avoid Hell and gain Heaven.

In those transitional years from childhood to adolescence, Christianity and the Church always went hand in hand, by default. I never considered their separation, mainly because one did not make sense without the other. This is perhaps the one theological ideal that has remained constant throughout my life. However, the thrust of Christianity to me as a young teenager all boiled down to the matter of moral obedience. Am I obeying my parents? Am I respecting my teachers? Am I treating my friends hospitably? Am I a “good” person? Therefore, church was not a center for worship or, as it has been famously described, “a hospital for sinners,” but a command post for the enforcement of morals. When I thought of myself as a Christian, the roots of such an understanding were shallow, concerned only with the cosmetic. Nowhere was this thin belief inculcated more than at church. There, in that quaint, small-town gathering, I grew up within a community of people who considered themselves as genuinely loving to one another, but, in actuality, were concerned chiefly with keeping up appearances and offering allegiance to conventional moral standards. This small-minded faith became not only the plumb line for determining whether or not I was being “good,” but if I was worthy of God’s love. Though it was preached with good intentions, the message of the church was a gospel of moralism. The salvation that I sought years before under the covers became to me akin to a loan that must be paid back by daily deposits of moral obedience. And I did my best. We all did our best.

If life is a road, then eventually my journey down it wound away from First Baptist of Buda. It was a forced change of direction, for the church split ...

To be continued soon ...

An Open Letter to the World

Dear World:

I owe you a long overdue apology, and one of significant penitence and supplication.

I apologize for the mistaken Christianity that has plagued all my actions. It burdens the depths of me, like a disease. And for what it is worth, I sincerely apologize for all the rampant mistaken Christianity all around me and within you. I am sorry that I have made no true attempt to do something about it. What is more, I am sorry that most of the time the whole problem remains completely outside my thoughts. It must be so frustrating when I elude blame by claiming I am "not of you."

I am sorry for judging you so harshly, yet neglecting to take a serious, self-determining look at my own self. I am familiar with the argument that I am what you have made me, but the reciprocal of that argument is just as true, and there seems to be much more evidence backing it. I confess to you that I have confused what it means to "despise the world," which is the phrase written in the Scriptures (you know the Scriptures - they are the ancient, inspired writings I claim to believe but fail to follow). In attempting to despise you, I have attacked you with cynicism and hypocritical close-mindedness. Forgive me, World, because I so often know not what I do.

I am sorry for pouring as much hate into you as I have poured love. I don't believe the two cancel each other out, but the sides are much more even than they probably should be. I apologize for confusing the act of love with the practice of intellectualizing and the display of pity. I have intellectualized your history, your sciences, your politics and laws, your wars and your reasons behind them. Oh World, I have pitied your gays, your minorities, your poor, your handicapped, your unemployed and your laid-off, your criminals, your unwed mothers, your divorced and deranged, your diseased and dying. And in the midst of all this lack of love, my judgment of you has been more narrow than the eye of a needle.

Of these things I repent, oh World.

I repent from loving the things that do not help and will not last. I repent from caring about the things that matter so much less than the things I refrain from considering. I repent from sometimes confusing the laws of man for the Law of God, and for blurring the lines between the two all other times. You deserve something better than this.
I repent from replacing the life-changing grace of God with obtuse, burdensome rules and commands that I unsoundly pass off as the precepts and wishes of God. You deserve someone truer than me.

Forgive me, World, for feasting on your garbage and casting aside your beauty, so that you are no longer sure what is worthwhile for a human soul and what is detrimental.

Soon I will be free from your troubles, O World, but I am so sorry that I enacted so many of them in the first place. It was never my intention.
Have mercy on me, O World. I was so caught up in myself and my theology and my beliefs and my morals, that I didn't notice you dying right in front of me.

Is it too late to save you? Is it too late to save myself?

Signed,

one who dwells upon you