A Deathwish or Reason to Believe in God
Like most 90’s kids growing up in the Bible belt, church was a way of life. Of every shape, size, and denomination, churches stood tall and proud on every street corner, and on Sunday mornings, the parking lots were full. The worship music was as stale as the suit and ties the pastors wore, and as long as you stayed away from sex and alcohol, your ticket to heaven was as guaranteed as Sunday brunch at Shoney’s.
I was 12 when I nervously raised my hand and slowly made my way down a chapel aisle, to officially turn myself over to Jesus, you know, just in case His second coming was planned the following day. A week later I was baptized, and I still remember the overwhelming peace and joy I felt when I was dunked and lifted out of the cold bath water. I remember turning to someone next to me and saying something like “do you feel this way too? I’ve never felt this happy before!” It felt like drugs. I know this because 3 years later I discovered weed.
a kind of church where you can share your burdens, void of ridicule
Since then my life was a wack-a-mole of spiritual awakenings and fall out. After a few years of backsliding like a drunken snowboarder, at 17 I began the journey of rediscovering God on my own merit. I traded vices for a Bible and a vegetarian diet (because why not) and I began driving myself to a small church of hardcore kids and a pastor who occasionally cursed from the pulpit. This is where I got my first taste of authentic Christian community, a kind of church where you can share your burdens, void of ridicule. I could’ve rolled a joint off the bathroom sink and they’d still offer me a coffee and front row seat.
During this time, I was also introduced to the incredible beauty of Eastern Orthodoxy. By chance I visited an obscure coffee shop in downtown Nashville near my college, not realizing it was run by an Orthodox priest who was also vegetarian. The walls were adorned with icons, something I’ve never seen before, and Gregorian chant was playing on the speakers. I’ll dive more into my Orthodox journey in another post. But while all of this was happening, an impending war was encroaching inside me. I had a solid church life, a pastor I could actually talk to, plenty of friends, but I was beginning to question my Christian beliefs.
Around my last year in college my deconstruction officially began, unpacking my faith like dirty laundry, questioning the Bible’s authenticity, wondering if church was even necessary, and why any of it mattered. After I graduated from college, I moved to Chicago, and courageously updated my Facebook religious status to “agnostic”. It was official, I was no longer Christian! No one cared or even noticed. After my short stint in Chicago, I moved again a few hours north to Grand Rapids, Michigan where I rented a closet (I’m not kidding) for only $150 from a longtime friend, who still had strong Christian beliefs. I occasionally went to church with him, which I’m thankful for, as my time in Grand Rapids was a memorable beginning of my reconstruction process.
Was it a suicide mission…a deathwish? No, but it was incredibly stupid
One Sunday morning, I spontaneously loaded up my kayak, and drove to Lake Michigan. If you’ve never stood on the beach of Lake Michigan before, imagine the ocean, you can’t see the other side. Its so large, the distance of water between Alaska and Russia is shorter than Michigan and Wisconsin. You get the idea. Unbothered, I parked right on the beach, pushed my kayak out, and decided I was going to paddle as far as I could, just me, the water, and a single bottle of Gatorade. Maybe I was going to cross the whole lake? Was it a suicide mission…a death wish? No, but it was incredibly stupid.
After some time enjoying my little excursion, I stopped to take a break. The water was still and the sky was silent, not even a gull flew overhead. I scooped my hand into the lake and wondered how many millions of microbes were living in the little puddle resting in my palm. I then figured I was so far out, the lake floor was likely hundreds of feet deep, and I began to wonder what kind of fish and how many where swirling beneath me. There’s no sharks or alligators, but it still felt unnerving. As simple and meager as this all sounds, I was overwhelmed with a sense of awe, and at that very moment, I figured it would require of me more faith and reason to maintain an agnostic/atheistic worldview vs a “Creator” worldview. I thought to myself, “well, whether I like it or not, whether I’ll find all the answers, and whether I’m good at it or not, I think this Jesus stuff must be real.”
Having felt satisfied, I turned my kayak around for the first time to start heading back. I could still see the shoreline, but my car was about the size of a coffee bean. I was really-really-REALLY far out. I then turned my head 90-degrees to the right and noticed a very large cruise ship headed straight for me. I knew there was absolutely no way it could see me; how and why I didn’t notice the floating skyscraper until then is beyond me. I figured I had minutes left to live if I didn’t start moving, so with sweaty palms and a pounding heart, I made peace with God, and paddled toward shore as fast as my arms could oscillate.
I found God again on death’s door, go figure. While the experience of natural wonder initially drew me back to God, this was just the beginning of a long reconstruction process, and there was still much work to be done to rekindle a trust in the Bible and church, which I’ll unpack more in future posts. As I look back at these significant moments in life, one could conclude that if there is a God, He must be incredibly patient and longsuffering.
”The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.” Psalms 103:8 (ESV)