Why Faith Matters... or Does It?

Walking Away from God...

The details seem a bit fuzzy these days, but I can tell you what started my walk away from Christianity. Or I suppose I should say, what finished it.

I was nineteen years old, and from the moment I walked through the doors of Faith Tabernacle, the mid-sized Pentecostal church just minutes away from my childhood home, I sensed something bigger than myself at work. People moving towards a place with which I wasn't wholly familiar, a place that looked and felt like hope. It was celebratory and expectant, and I got caught up in the euphoria of it all, lapping it up like a thirsty traveller who'd been on the road for a long time. I determined that I would never go thirsty again, and so I consumed it all. Books. Videos. Services. Music. Anything about this new movement—this new life – that I could get my hands on. The world made promises about peace and happiness and contentment, we were told, but it never delivered.

God always delivered.

Trust him.

Trust us.

Join us.

And I did.

For a while, there was nothing to not like about being this kind of Christian. It was a community of happiness, like a love commune from the sixties but without the drugs or sex or instability. It reminded me of my trip to Cuba a couple of years earlier, my first time experiencing the brilliant white sands of Varadero beach. Looking out from the shore, the water's clear translucence a colour and clarity that could never be coaxed from human undertaking, and like a siren it called with such a whispered grace of its gentle swells that I found myself unable to move at first, until finally I waded in, my feet digging into the silky sand bottom. I'd never been to such a beautiful beach, and the promise of those waters was something to be savoured, as sure a promise of perfection that I would ever experience. Such was the experience of my first few years in church. It too, held great beauty and promise.

Once I had waded out far enough however, the church was no longer beautiful or innocent. It was dark and deep and foreboding, and what looked like little fish from the shore were actually much bigger and far more terrifying, and they circled about the others, waiting to bite and sting. I shouldn't have been surprised, but I was, probably because I believed the illusion. I didn't understand so-called Christian leaders using their influence to enrich themselves. The pettiness in people who had been Christians for twenty or thirty years. People using prayer as a tool for gossip. The disregard for women and minorities. The sense of us against them, that we were all so different from those outside the church. My steps became more cautious. Protecting my reputation became important. No sudden movements that would allow the predators a chance to attack. Before, the water had looked inviting. Now, it was the beach that I longed for again, longed for the time when I'd merely wished for a place of hope and believed that such a place existed. I couldn't help but wonder that if Jesus, if he had ever existed, no longer lived here. It took a few years, but eventually I waded back to shore. Back to the beach, where the water looked as unrelentingly graceful as ever, the gentle waves rolling onto the shore. Only this time I knew better, and no matter how the sand burned my feet now, no matter how the smells or sounds of the waters called to me, I wasn't going back in. I'd learned my lesson well enough the first time.

***

Faith is not easy. I say that because there seem to be a great mass of people who feel that it is. Perhaps it's just the ones with the biggest mouths and highest amount of insecurity, but their voice is still loud and repeated by Christians as if it's a mantra. When I first waded into the waters as a pastor, I would have agreed with them. Jesus is the Son of God. Just believe and things will work out. Okay, let's get to work. It was in the work however – the doing of church, the praying, the morality, the schedule, the interpretations – that it stopped being easy. There was a dichotomy between the concept of faith and the application which I did not understand. At first, I merely blundered down the path believing God would sort it out. That's what faith was, wasn't it? And then I saw how destructive the results could be. How simply "believing" could ruin people's lives with its unintentional consequences, especially when the more selfish individuals used the naivete of some to do what they wanted. After that, the only thing left was to turn to the structures. The rituals. To be conscious and completely rational about every application. To leave nothing to chance or wind. It helped, but it also cut me off from the idea and sense of God's presence. To be a Christian, it seemed, forced one into a decision. Either the spontaneity of a relationship with God, or the careful applications of well thought out morality and religion. Both held consequences, and neither was perfect, but it was all we had.

Through the years, I lived both in sequence. First the spontaneity, and then the careful, religious application.

And then I stopped.

Neither felt right or complete, and I couldn't hear God's voice any more. And for me, it had always been the Voice, the whispers in my heart that despite all, the world was loved, people mattered, and that God had not forgotten us.

When the Voice disappeared, I lost my way, no longer called myself a Christian. Suddenly the world was a very different place. I wasn't sure that I liked it much, but I was out of options, and I'd long since given up the idea of lying to myself. That I eventually returned surprised no one, I think, but it shocked the hell out of me. A few years have passed, and I still find it hard to believe sometimes that I am not only okay with the idea of church, but that I still hold great hopes for her.

***

If you were to ask me what it meant to be a Christian fifteen years ago, my answer would have been automatic. These days, I'm less sure. My faith, such as it is, mostly feels like an echo. As if I have wandered into a large canyon and the voices I hear are not from the heavens, but the reverberations of lives and truths over the centuries around a single Event. I am both heartened and dismayed when I read that the early church made a number of mistakes. I am heartened because they remind me of me, with their misunderstanding and unloving applications of what Jesus said, and I am dismayed because it all feels so impossible. If they couldn't get it right, how can we?

There are a large number of Christians, of course, who will tell you that the early church never made a mistake. That they followed "The Way" perfectly, and that we can too. There's no proof for it, merely the insistence that Scripture is infallible and inerrant and inconceivably and irretrievably absolute. If you dig enough, they'll tell you that it comes down to faith.

Hey, everything comes down to faith. It takes faith to believe in evolution. It takes faith to believe that tomorrow will be a good day. It takes faith to believe that no one will cross the little yellow line in the middle of the road, especially when you're driving a compact and everyone else is driving an SUV. For people like me, the literalist idea of faith is a bit like eating your grandmother's cooking. You remember how good it is until you try to eat it, and realize that it's indigestible pap.

What you won't hear in most sermons is that being a Christian is as much about mystery today as it was two thousand years ago. Or that following Jesus, a crucified Roman criminal, makes about as much sense now as it did then. And the reasons to NOT proclaim Yeshua as the Messiah are just as arresting now as they were then. How do we know Jesus rose from the dead? The story of the twelve disciples has been told in other traditions, what makes this one special? Was he really born of a virgin… or was it a young woman, as the translation indicates? Weren't a lot of his teachings taken from other Jewish rabbis?

The answers to all of those questions are simple enough, aren't they? And without faith, becoming a Christian is a pretty stupid idea. Unfortunately, the literalists/fundamentalists acknowledge this part of it, and believe that somehow being stupid and having faith are the same thing. That's why Christian writers insist on defending their faith as if it's a scientific argument. And why scientists (fundamentalists of a different 'ilk) insist on defending their studies as if their making a theological argument. What separates them is the mystery, and the human tendency to avoid it at all costs. To know is better than to not know. In the case of faith however, we don't know, and we never will. But instead of simply acknowledging our human limitations, we produce books and writings and music and videos to both remind and teach us that faith can be remembered… if only we could remember it more often. The question then, if faith is so important, is why do we keep forgetting?

***

When I was a young pastor, I always worried when I felt like God got away from me. I wondered how I could be a Christian if I wasn't reminded of his presence on a daily basis. I was taught that the "world" hated God, that it was a natural thing, and that I had to fight to keep my faith. It was part of the reason we were encouraged to go to church three or four times a week. In a "godless world", it was necessary to remember why we were here and what God had called us to do. When I read my diary from twenty years ago, I can sense the daily panic when all is suddenly not as it should be, when God seems distant and I suddenly feel merely human. A good deal of my pastoral counseling was aimed towards getting people, both young and old, to getting that "good feeling" back again. In many ways, my idea of faith mirrored our culture's pursuit of happiness. A frantic sort of passion channeled into energetic vows of eternal longing. The culture of godliness and the culture of the "world" might have been opposing forces, but thank God they traveled at the same breakneck speed.

***

I still listen for the Voice. Still long to hear the quiet whispers of something Other to interrupt my daily musings, or remind me that the world is more than my own needs and wants. That the world is more than another commercial or YouTube video waiting to go viral. It seems to be getting tougher to hear these days, and while I'd like to blame it on culture, the truth is that faith is hard, and most of the time it sucks. It asks much, and for long stretches seems to deliver so little in return. It asks me to take risks, asks that I don't shut down when strangers and strange people that I don't like ask me questions. It asks that I accept people I would never hang out with, and worse, asks that I accept my own failings and humanity. But as tough as those things are, the most difficult thing it asks is the acknowledgement of my own humanity, my sameness, on a regular basis. For all that it reassures me that I am loved, it reminds me that I am loved only as much as my loud neighbours next door and the criminals in prison and the gay couple across the street. That God's love is infinite matters little, because most days I want more; I want to be special. What I really want, more than anything, is to be greater.

And that's why I'm a Christian. Because more than any other religion or doctrine or creed, what it means to follow Jesus is to be less than those around me. It contradicts all that we strive for naturally as humans, and the wrestling with it, however much we try to help it by our enforced commoditizing (Jesus bracelets, nic nacs, videos, etc…), never ends.

Surety is fool's gold, especially when it comes to God. Religions try to sell it because the very nature of their humanity almost demands it. They think that you and I are too stupid to know the difference, or that you've never been to a bad sale before, where the actual price was much different than the one advertised. It is however, what faith demands. Faith demands that we never truly know. It tells us that we will never be God, no matter how many charts and books and videos we can produce to prove our theories. Faith stands the test of time because, like time, it is always present and doesn't change to suit our needs. If God was anything less, I would question His existence, the way I question the empty arguments seeking to prove that there is no Creator. But the essence of life is not in what we know, but what we don't understand, and it's something for which the cure is neither willful ignorance nor a Harvard doctorate. The cure, strangely enough, is merely to ask. To ponder. To question. It isn't easy and it is never simple, but the power of faith is one that echoes through the centuries, and if we listen closely, can be heard in our own lives, if only we are willing.

-Steve

God as a Woman?

NOVEL WORD COUNT: 111,313

28 days: Day 6

Psychologists and theologians tell us that our first impression of God is our (human) father. This is especially true in monotheistic traditions, where God is depicted as male. The question, one often ignored, is whether or not this is a good thing.

The problem with the 'father' association is especially poignant in abusive homes, where many children grow up with an image of God that is harsh and cruel. No wonder those individuals have difficulty believing in a loving Creator. Frankly, I've never understood why certain Christians insist on the maleness of God. Their insistence that God, in both the Old Testament and New Testament, chose to be known as male, seems both patriarchal and self-serving. It's here that we see one of the many logistical holes when we take the Bible literally, how we actually diminish Scripture by insisting on a meaning without cultural context. For one thing, Israel's concept of God was radically different than our own, particularly expressed by the idea that Yahweh was 'kadosh', or Holy Other. The Creator was Holy Other than humanity. For the Israelites, YHWH could never be compared to their human father.

In Forerunner, the Creator's identity is primarily feminine. The characters always refer to "Her." After so many months of living in this world, it has become increasingly natural for me. Now for most believers, we understand intellectually that God is neither male nor female, that it is merely a reference point (and yes, I know Jesus was a man) but the implications of our association have been, in many cases, highly destructive. What if we thought of God as our Mother? It neither changes the character or substance of God if we do, and yet it completely alters how we think about God, doesn't it?. If we thought of God as Mother, would we be able to so easily justify the religious wars and violence as we have throughout our history? If we thought of God as Mother, would our first instinct, the instinct of fundamentalists, be to remind people that they are sinners and that God is holy and righteous and wrathful?

The process of writing this novel has altered my ideas about God, and how our perception can be so easily changed by simply changing the gender reference point that we have all grown accustomed to.

Consider this: Studies have shown that complimentarianism, the dominant view of the family throughout the history of the church, leads to more family violence than any other worldview. The patriarchal ideals, the ones preached by men like John Piper and James Dobson, are responsible for widespread abuse, abuse that makes it difficult for many people to reconcile the idea of a loving God with such a nasty father. And yet, those same individuals and churches would be the ones least likely to consider altering our reference point by referring to the Creator as "she". (For the record, I would never use the word 'goddess', which is a misogynistic term that immediately implies 'the female version of the real (male) version'. It's the same reason I refuse to use the term 'actress.')

And yet, after saying all that, it's only through the writing of this book that I have become comfortable with addressing God as 'she'. It just goes to show you, no matter how much we talk about change, it's still uncomfortable, if only because it forces us to address things we thought we'd already worked out.

-Steve

Everyone a Child

It rises like a small mountain just outside the city. Every kind of garbage is piled here. From rotten food scraps to metal bins filled with chemicals. Broken furniture and rusted hunks of old cars, all covered in dirt and sand, along with the carrion eaters who squawk and circle above it like a dead carcass. The fetid stench is made worse by the blistering heat and extends miles past the villages. On any given day however, the hill will be covered with something else: children. Phnom Penh's municipal rubbish dump outside of Cambodia is home to hundreds of families who live on and around the 100-acre site, making their meager living from the materials they collect on the steaming rubbish heap. The children swarm across the broken, fragmented piles in their bare feet. Some carry tin pails, their tiny fingers dirty and weathered as they dig, hoping to provide food for their families. If the children are able to collect enough pieces of metal, glass and plastic, they'll be able to sell them for about ten dollars a month in the city. A kilogram of plastic or a kilogram of iron and glass will get ten cents. But these slim pickings are all these families have. Many of them arrived in Phnom Penh from the rural provinces in the hope of finding better work, only to discover their only option was to join those foraging for rubbish. Most of the children will spend twelve hours on the hill before they come home, and their childhood will be defined by their time there. A few of them are playing tag, mindless of the toxic waste and shattered edges despite their naked limbs. They are, after all, just kids.

***

"He's just a kid. What do you expect?"
The woman wore a wide white hat and a fitted mauve sweater. A wide, studded belt and tight, expensive looking jeans, along with knee high black leather boots. The perfume was strong and sweet, and just standing in front of her felt like I was taking a wet shower. It was the beginning of April, and I'd stopped at the playground on my way home to visit with some of the kids.

"Well, he was running around and bothering the other kids." I said. "He's picking on them, and I thought you'd want to know."

The woman snorted as she watched her boy run to the swings.

"He's only nine. Besides, who died and made you principal of the playground."

"I work at this school, ma'am. I work with some of those kids."

"Yes, well, school's over isn't it?" She said, lifting her nose, which I was sure had seen the edge of a scalpel.

I nodded and went over to say goodbye to some of my students. I told them to stay away from the young bully, and watched the woman's son as he clambered up the spider-set alone. With a sigh, I headed for my car. I felt sorry for the boy, because I knew what would happen as he got older. If he didn't figure it out on his own, he'd be spending a lot of his life wondering why he had no friends. I glanced back at the mother, who was standing with one hand on her hips while the other held a cigarette loosely between her fingers. When I grow up I want to be a cliché. I sighed and headed out. The mother was right about one thing, they were just kids. There was always a chance that her boy would grow out his bullying, and that he would change when he was older. Everybody had to grow up sometime, didn't they?

***

A lot of my friends have children now, and whenever I go visit I'm always amazed at the changes. By their size. Their language skills. The way they see the world. Often it feels like they are completely different humans. That it's expected makes it no less revelatory. Their brains and bodies grow as they mature. Slowly they learn to deal with abstract concepts and the psychological complexities of life. As adults and parents, we often talk often about the changes that occur in a child's life over a decade, from grade four to high school graduation. Unfortunately, one of the most prevalent and persistent myths in our society is that following childhood, once we have reached a certain age, we will act in a certain manner befitting our supposed physical and psychological maturity. We even give it a name (Adulthood). Most civilizations have done this for the purposes of law and government, and in ancient times, for breeding and marriage. It is practical and, to most observers, makes perfect sense. Unfortunately, while we may have reached an age where we can understand abstract concepts and produce children, there is no evidence to suggest that we have 'grown up.' In fact, most of the evidence points to the contrary. Studies indicate that not only do we continue to mature physically, but that we will continue to develop psychologically and emotionally, continually encoding our brain with new experiences and new information. At no time in our life are we anything like we were ten years ago, and the changes are just as radical, if not always as easily spotted.

Don't believe me? In the next ten years you will most likely vote for a different political party. Most of us will be involved in a different romantic relationship, will have moved at least once, will work at a different job or career, will have said good bye to old friends and made new ones, will have different opinions on sensitive subjects such as sex or money or religion, will worship at a new/different church or no longer worship at all, will have made or lost a substantial amount of money, and will have completely different ideas on how the world works and what it all means. And for those of us who do not experience any of those things, so the paradox goes, we will be considered to not only have a boring life, but to have not lived at all.

***

I couldn't live without her. I looked around my empty living room and stared back down at the pages in front of me. I'd started journaling the year before to try and help me figure things out, but the words meant to give me comfort gave me no relief at all. All I felt was the aching loneliness. The house was quiet, except for the hum of the wood stove and the calls of the loons from across the lake. I moved to the window, where I could watch the warm breeze rustle the water gently against the dock. It was my last semester in school, and the cottage I was renting had proved to be something of a find. Only twenty minutes from campus, it was isolated and quiet, a perfect place to study, and a perfect place for misery. Especially if the girl you loved, your first love, had just ripped your heart open with the rusty blade of an email.

She'd come back, though. She had to come back. I'd prayed for it, and God had answered. I was sure of it. I'd even written it down in my journal, so it had to be true. God was in the business of healing. I was a believer, believed all the stuff I'd been told to believe and even more than I'd been taught. I was fervent and passionate and knew without question that so long as I prayed and had the faith of a mustard seed, (a really, really small seed that grew into a huge plant) God would hear me. In fact, I'd even told my professors that I had the faith to move mountains. I hadn't done it yet, but I would. For now, I'd settle for my girl and getting things back to the way they were supposed to be. Yup. I was going to get it all back. I'd prayed and God had told me.

I took a deep breath and headed back to the couch. Despite my prayers, prayers made righteous and true by my faith, a little voice whispered that the break up had nothing to do with faith, but something else entirely.

"Bah! Everything is about faith!" I said, my voice loud in the empty house. "I just have to keep praying."

That week I went to the school bookstore and checked out a tiny book by Gary Smalley, If Only He Knew. One of my older (and wiser) married friends had recommended it. I started reading it in the bookstore and couldn't put it down. I paid for it and immediately headed to the library. Maybe it wasn't all about faith. For one thing, women were so different from men. It was like, they were totally different! Not only that, but everything they did was in direct response to what I did. I was the spiritual leader. I was supposed to set the example. I put down the book to think about what I'd read. I'd totally failed my girlfriend. It was a heart breaking read, but I forced myself to keep reading. When I came to a chapter that contained a list of 100 things men needed to be doing in their relationship, I pulled out my highlighter. It was time to get serious. I read through the list and marked every item that I hadn't done. It took a while, but at the end I counted them out, and I'd come up with a definitive checklist of fifty two things.

I headed to the computer room and sent my girl the longest email I'd ever written. I mentioned ever single one of the 52 items, with an explanation for each, and promised that in the future I would be the man. I would be the leader I was supposed to be so that she could be the woman God had made her to be. Smiling, I whispered a prayer of thanks and clicked Send. An email had torn me apart, and an email would redeem me. Hmmm. There was a sermon in there somewhere, I thought. Women were different, and I still had some stuff to learn, but Gary Smalley had helped me figure out the most important thing. Me being The Man allowed her to be The Woman.

For the next two weeks I fasted and prayed and waited eagerly for a return email or a phone call. It never came. The next month I finally got a short email from my girl. She'd been busy with her school but she was enjoying her classes. Her family was fine. She hoped all was well. How was I doing?

***

I stared at the question on the open window of my MSN Messenger but didn't type a response. The light filtered dimly from my lamp in the corner. A single, empty beer bottle balanced precariously on top of my computer tower. Everything else was quiet. I'd started chatting with Rose in one the Christian chat rooms, and she'd decided that her personal mission was to encourage me. I wasn't sure what to think, but at this point, it was nice to have someone to talk to, even if I didn't agree with her theology.

Jesus loves you, Steve.

I bent to the keyboard and finally typed my response.

I'm pretty sure God doesn't know I exist. Which is okay. The feeling is mutual. How are you doing?

Don't change the subject, Steve. I know things aren't good right now, but it will get better, I promise.

All I need to do is pray, right? …Sorry. Crappy day.

I know. I'm sorry it wasn't better.

Any luck with the doctor? I asked.

This time it was her turn to take a while to respond.

No. Maybe I'm not supposed to have children. God knows how much I want to be a mother, but maybe I just have to wait a little longer.

Rose lived in southern Alabama. She and her husband had been married for ten years, and trying to have kids for the past three. It didn't look good. Which was totally stupid, of course. I'd been a youth worker for the past eight years, and most of the kids I dealt with, like the ones at the group home where I was currently employed, came mostly from homes where they were unwanted. God is stupid, I thought. I didn't type it though, because Rose deserved better than that.

That sucks, Rose.

Will you pray for me?

I wanted to tell her that prayer was about as effective as throwing water on a grease fire to put it out, but that somehow seemed cruel.

Okay.

Thank you. Hey, I have to go. My husband says hello. We're praying for you.

Thanks, Rose. TTYL.

I stretched and moved from the computer to turn on the TV. Another night in paradise. I still wasn't sure how my marriage had fallen apart so quickly. What really pissed me off was that a couple who so desperately wanted kids couldn't have them. I dealt with jerk offs every day who seemed to have them at will and then treated them like crap. God is stupid, I thought. This whole world is stupid. I picked up the remote and switched over to the late game.

***

It wasn't like watching a bad TV show, I thought, you couldn't just change the channel. Dan had finished telling me what had happened, and he looked a bit lost as he sipped his coffee. I hadn't understood it when I was his age either. Back then, everyone was always promising change, and it was always easy. Buy this book. Come to this church. Take this course. Be better in ten weeks or ten steps or ten minutes. As young adult, the coolest feeling was this idea of possibility, you know. Like anything was possible. We just had to get things right, which wasn't a problem because there were a million shows and books and people spouting off about how easy things were. Fix your marriage. Fix your finances. Fix your kids. Fix your health. Even Oprah had gone from dramatic shows about fighting and stuff and become this self-help guru. There was definitely money in the "fix-it" world.

"It's going to take some time, pal." I said. "Diane probably won't come back. I'm not sure that she should."

"What does she want, Steve? I don't get it."

"Well, what do you want. She probably wants the same thing."

He scratched the mass of curls on his head.

"She's a girl. It's totally different."

"No it ain't." I said. "Listen, as long as you think girls are different, you're going to have problems. I've learned THAT much. You treat her like she's your possession."

He shook his head as if I was speaking Latin or telling him two plus two was sixteen. I understood though. I'd done the same thing when I was twenty-one.

"I thought we were friends, Steve."

"We are. Doesn't mean you gotta act like an idiot." I paused. "Look, I was an idiot when I was younger, and now that I'm old, I'm still an idiot. But what I do know is that the choices you make now are gonna affect you down the road. A lot of people never figure this out. Stuff happens and they get upset but then keep doing the same thing. Most of the time it's because they want their life to change, like, right away. And when nothing happens right away, they give up. And then they complain about their life when they're old like me. And you know, we're all like that in some ways. Ain't one person who's got it all figured out, just people who think they have."

We chatted for a while longer, and he told me he'd email later in the week. I told him I was there if he needed me. As a young adult, I'd always been kind of intimidated by older leaders because most of them were so sure about everything. That's why I made sure that Dan knew I didn't have all the answers. When I was nineteen, I'd just started going to church again. They told me I was saved. They told me that since I'd asked forgiveness God loved me forever and I had a mansion coming when I died. I was really liking the whole church thing, but I still couldn't figure out how all these people knew that they were right about God. All these adults singing and praying and talking about Jesus. Lots of talking. And all of it with that tone, you know, that teacher tone people use when they're reassuring one another that they're right. Anyway, I couldn't figure out how they could be so sure about everything, so I asked my pastor. He told me that he knew it in his knower. I said, you know that you're right about God in your knower? And he said, yes, that when we knew God we knew it in our knower. I asked him what happened if we didn't know it in our knower. He said that eventually I would. And that if I didn't know it in my knower that maybe I needed to spend more time at church so I would know it. Know God, I asked him. No, he said, know that I was right about God in my knower.

I kind of stopped asking questions after that. Especially since I didn't know it in my knower. In fact, the more I knew, the less sure I became. It wasn't that I didn't believe in God, although I wasn't even sure how that worked anymore, I just found it tough to give closed answers. You know what I'm talking about; those tiny statements that people say when they think they know stuff that doesn't allow you to answer. As I got older though, I realized that while these people thought they were sure about everything, there were gaping holes between their life and their beliefs. It made no sense. Worse, it was as if they couldn't see it. It was like that fairytale about the Emperor's Clothes, the one where he's naked but nobody will tell him that he's naked because he's the Emperor. I felt like I was walking around a bunch of people who were always telling me about their clothing and why their clothes were the best. Religious clothes. Science clothes. Relational clothes. Business clothes. Everyone was telling me what they were wearing, and they were all naked. I figured it didn't matter though, because pretty soon I'd be an adult and it wouldn't be like that anymore. The good thing about growing up was that people didn't look at you like you were a child.

***

There's a story in the Bible where Jesus says we're all supposed to be like children. That the only way to understand God is to be like a kid. The Bible has a lot of good stories, but I'd always thought that this one was kind of dumb. I'm not saying that Jesus was wrong or whatever, but he clearly never spent time as a youth worker. Adults and kids are really different.

I worked at an elementary school for a while, and most days I had to chaperone outside during recess. Kids were always running up to me, telling on their friends, saying silly stuff about stuff that didn't matter like the rules of these games they made up or why their snack was better. They'd call each other names and complain about this person or that person and why they were right and so and so was wrong. And that was just during recess. It was pretty annoying. I like kids, but by Fridays I was always tired.

That's why I think the idea about coming to God like a child is so ridiculous. As an adult, I'm much bigger, can drive a car, and can stay up as late as I want. It's totally different. I don't think Jesus knew what he was talking about. As I said, I'm not trying to be mean, but he was always hanging out with grown-ups. What would he know about kids?

***

It's uncomfortable being young. That's the biggest thing I remember about my childhood. I was never, truly comfortable, because there was always someone bigger than me who could tell me what was "really going on." And every time I learned something, I would learn something else that would make the earlier thing I learned not seem right anymore. The sad thing is that it's still happening. When I think back to what I knew five years ago, I realize that I didn't really know anything, I merely perceived that I knew things. Oh, some things haven't changed, but my perception of things has changed in almost every way. Especially my perception of knowledge. The more I've learned, the less I know, and yet somehow, it feels like I'm making progress.

Adulthood, it seems then, is an enlarging of our childhood. Enlarging in that it allows us to learn more, and as we do, to become more childlike through our knowledge. It is a form of becoming less by understanding more. The one who knows they are naked is infinitely more equipped to handle life than the one who believes they are fully dressed, aren't they? How else do we explain our actions? How else do we explain a world where two billion people would not go hungry if, for example, a country like the United States stopped wearing makeup for a year. Or a country like China had spent the money they put towards the Beijing Olympics towards their poor. How else do we explain a world where people steal from one another, betray one another, lie and cheat and browbeat and berate. A world where families abandon each other, offering excuses but no apologies.

We call people 'adults' when they reach a certain age. We give them rights and privileges, as befitting their new status. We give them expectations about what life is and what it should be. And yet, nothing changes, does it?

I don't know. Maybe Jesus is right. Maybe we not only need to approach God as if we're children, but in doing so, remember that everyone else is a child too. It's funny, but when a kid misbehaves, it's easy for me to forgive them. They're just kids, you know. It doesn't mean there aren't consequences, but it doesn't make me nearly as angry as when an "adult" screws up. I always think they should know better. But here's the thing: if you haven't experienced something, you're no different than a child, right? Not really. And what would happen if we all looked at each other as kids? As if we didn't have all the answers? As if we weren't supposed to know everything and it was okay? And what if we did approach God as a child? What if we trusted that He loved us and that he would help us to find our way? I'll be honest, I'm not sure it would work or whether or not it would matter. But then, I'm just a kid. I'm not sure about anything.

-Steve

Is Change Really Possible?

 

    I used to believe that change was possible for everyone. That for someone going through hard times it wasn't that difficult to make their lives better. All they had to do was, well, change it. I was younger then, and the world was a very different place. I didn't know about relationships or loyalties, addictions or abuse, finances or psychology or personality types. What I knew was that we all had choices; we just had to make good ones. At the time, I was a twenty-one year old pastor who believed that Jesus could change anyone's story. (Come to church and see what God can do in your life!) I was so excited by this possibility that it consumed me. I spent every waking minute devising ways to communicate this life-altering message to people. I handed out tracts and knocked on doors. I held youth events and youth meetings. I spoke to old friends and made new ones. People came and went. Some bought into what I was saying and came to church and good things happened. Others came to church and heard mean things about who they were and why they weren't good enough and left. Through it all, I was steadfast in my principles. There was no such thing as being inappropriate when it came to sharing my beliefs, because I knew it could change a person's life.

I remember meeting an old high school acquaintance in the parking lot of our local shopping mall. He was sitting in his car with his girlfriend, and he smiled when I stopped by to say hello. Within minutes I'd handed him a pamphlet explaining my life-changing message. His face wrinkled up as if he'd tasted something sour, and his girlfriend rolled her eyes. "Uh, that's great, Steve." He quickly put his car in gear and drove away. I hoped he would listen to what I'd said, but it didn't really matter. Whether he accepted it or not, at least now he knew how he could change his life.

The thing about preaching change is that sometimes you forget your own life. You get so intent on changing other people's lives that you start to think your life is perfect. That you are perfect. I don't think it's intentional, I think it's human and inevitable. The result however, isn't pretty, because with everyone you meet you start to think how they need change and what they can do to be better. You never say it, or even think it, maybe, but what you're really wondering is how they can be more like you.

***

    My friend Naomi is studying to be a counselor. She's tall and pretty and when you tell her about your life her eyes get really big and she listens so well you feel good about yourself. She's studying emotional narrative and story as her counseling major; how changing someone's story can change their life. Sometimes I don't understand what she's saying because she's smart and uses words that make me squint, but when she talks about it I am reminded of my own time when I was in ministry. A time when I used to believe that people could change if they'd only accept my story for them.

    Last week we were talking on her balcony, sipping wine and ignoring the cold wind like we were real Canadians.

    "Do you think people change?" I asked her.

    "Well," She said. "Personalities don't change, but people can. It is, however, a slow process."

    "So how do you help people change?" I asked.

    "Mostly I listen. Then I try to help them deal with the emotional narrative they find themselves in, and change it."

    I thought about that for a while, because it seemed a different answer than the one I'd used to hand out with cartoons on the backs of little papers to friends and strangers. I was also worried that I didn't believe people could change anymore, which scared me, because if people couldn't change I wasn't sure why we existed.

***

    During the three years I worked as a full time pastor, I never considered changing my life. Not really. Oh, I made promises to God to be less angry and more humble and be more regular with my giving, but mostly I felt like I had things under control. Everyone told me what a great pastor I was going to be and how much potential I had. I figured I was a dynamic personality because I wasn't afraid of public speaking and occasionally made people laugh. So the day my wife left me, after only eleven months of marriage, was not only unexpected, it was earth shattering. Though I didn't know it, I was about to change, and it wasn't because I wanted to or thought I needed it or sensed God's voice. I was about to inherit a new story, one that didn't make sense to me at all, but it was impossible for me to walk away from it because that new story was my life.

***

    My best friend Mark has a great life. I love his story. Whenever I tell him something like that he tells me not to glamorize it. I try not to, but his story is infinitely more interesting than mine. He also happens to be Naomi's husband. I go to their apartment every Monday night for football and some important male bonding, but most of the time I end up talking to Naomi on the balcony about God and change and her clients and my clients. Mark and I talk about those things too, but on Monday nights he thinks we should be watching the game and usually he yells at us to come in and tells us that we should be watching the game. But that's easy for him to say, his life is more exciting than mine.

    Three weeks ago he told me that he noticed a homeless woman outside Food Basics, a low end grocery store in the north end of the city that my friends and I frequent quite often. He told her to come inside with him, gave her an empty basket, and told her to fill it up. She followed him around for a while, until he gently pushed her towards doing her own shopping. Mark downplayed it when he mentioned it to me, although he and Naomi are both students and don't have very much money. As a rule, I have to practically drag these stories out of him, but I do it because nothing like that ever happens to me. For a time last year I did a few Mark-offs, (which shouldn't be confused with Mad-offs) talking to homeless people and strangers and even helping a few of them. I felt alive and strange and new, but then I forgot to think about it before my day started and began realizing how little I had in my bank account and how I would never get ahead and stopped doing it. Nothing like it has happened to me since. Most days I do not feel alive or new, and I find that I think about the past a lot.

***

    For a time my ex-wife and I put our marriage back together. I realized how much I'd acted like a jerk and started writing columns about how men shouldn't act like jerks. I even got a few letters from people in different countries asking me for marital advice and felt good and important. I started teaching them how they needed to change. I'd done it. They could do it. All they needed to do was listen to what I said.

    It didn't last though, and when my wife and I decided that the marriage was not going to work we talked about it and cried together for a long time. I cried because I'd miss her and felt bad about the whole thing. I cried because I felt relief and felt guilty that I felt relieved. And I cried because I knew that whatever hope I had of being a Christian 'star' who'd put his marriage back together (a VERY good story), was over, and suddenly I didn't have a story to tell. I had nothing to say, especially when I looked in the mirror and realized that if the best stories involved change and character transformation, I was a pretty terrible character. And my story sucked.

***

    I met Bethany about a year and a half ago. She is the daughter of two missionaries and grew up in Ethiopia. When I met her I didn't know that. I saw a beautiful girl walk past me on my break outside the Starbucks where I was working and somehow made her smile. She gave me her phone number. Three weeks later we had the God talk and she told me part of her story. I fell in love pretty quick, and for some reason she did too, and we were married this past year.

    Bethany has a great story, although she doesn't think so. She is finishing the second year of her program to be a paramedic. It is the toughest medic program in the country, and most days she is very tired. But she goes on the ambulance now, and takes calls and helps people. Twice she has come home and told me that she did CPR to help bring someone back to life. On those days her eyes glow and she bounces on her toes when she walks. Other days she comes home sad because she sees suffering and death and the bereavement of family members. On those days I hold her and she is quiet. Most days though, she loves what she does and tells me about it. She tells me about people who throw up on her or the other medics, the problems they have with certain medical conditions, and the rich people who call the ambulance for a ride. She tells me and her eyes glow. When people ask me how I'm doing, I usually tell them about Bethany because I love her story, or I'll tell them about Mark and Naomi because I love their story too.

***

    Being divorced and trained to be a minister is not fun. There are some things you can do as a pastor, some things that can happen to you for you to still be accepted as a church leader, but divorce is not one of them. If your marriage breaks down, people are not that interested in what you're saying about change, because it doesn't seem like you have it all together. Why would I want to change and be like you? You screwed up your marriage! So I stopped being a minister. I worked in group homes for a while, though I spent most of my time at Masconi's, a small pub down the street. I would bring my huge writing binder and set it on the bar and work on my latest novel. Sometimes the other regulars would 'contribute' to my book, and the next day I would find a page or two of swearing and sex slipped between the pages. The guys thought it was hilarious, and I pretended to be a good sport though I was usually annoyed. I would sip my beer with them and try to explain that I was creating art. That craft was important. That to be lost in the whirls of thematic difficulty meant nothing if the reader was somehow wakened from the unconscious dream. They would pretend to listen for a few minutes before changing the subject to the Raptors and what I thought about Vince Carter.

    For a long time I'd believed that Jesus could change people, but when my marriage ended I realized that he hadn't changed me at all and that maybe it was all a bunch of goop. Maybe people couldn't change. Maybe God didn't care. Maybe I'd always be the jerk I felt like when I thought about how I'd been with my wife and how I'd been at church. If I couldn't be a pastor, I needed a new story, so I decided to be a writer. Even if I couldn't change, I still needed something to do. Something to embrace. I'd started writing years before, but now I tried to live the life that I thought a writer was supposed to live. I wrote every day, and drank coffee and liquor and smoked cigarettes because all writers did those things, or so I thought. Even then I realized it was only partly about the actual writing, and that my life – what gave it meaning – was what mattered. I figured that if I could just get published, my life would change and it would be okay. Eventually I did get published, though I never sold any of my books, but nothing really changed, and I only managed to sell a couple of articles.

***

    The novel I'm writing now is about a young boy who is awkward and doesn't think too highly of himself. He is tall and shy and can't read or fight. His parents were both very important, but his father is dead and his mother is missing. He thinks he is slow and dumb because that's what he's been called his whole life and doesn't know that it isn't true. I call him Josh.

    I like Josh a lot, and even though I'm creating the story I find myself cheering for him. Cheering for him to find a new story. To find his story. And no, he's not like me. He's quiet while I talk a lot, although I guess we respond that way for the same reason. I like that his life is one filled with adventure, though I don't envy some of the things he's gone through, because they seem so sad to me. I like it that he is making new friends even as he escapes a group that is trying to kill him, but I feel sorry for him because he is young and is often lonely. His story is exciting and fresh. Mine isn't.

***

    I never went back into ministry, although I still read about Jesus a lot. I like how he reaches out people around him, how he makes them feel welcome and how he loves them despite their faults. I like it because I hope that's how God sees me, because I don't have a very good story and sometimes I worry that I will never change.

I have a web site where I write about spiritual things and the church. A few weeks ago, one of my readers commented, at length, how I'd grown increasingly cynical and narrow minded the past two years. I thought about what he said for a long time because I thought he was right.

On my web site I complain a lot about the suffering and injustice of the world, and I expel a lot of righteous indignation at men who think they're better than women and people who think they're better than other people. What I don't say is that there is hope or that everything will be okay. I don't say it because I don't know it, and I think I complain because I wish I was better, or at least had a better story. Instead, I spend most of my time writing my novel about Joshua and training people in the gym who want to be fit. I prepare my wife's lunches and try to do most of the cleaning in our apartment because her schedule is so busy. She's grateful and warm and there isn't much I wouldn't do just to see her smile. I like being helpful, and often I feel guilty because I don't make very much money. I don't hang out in bars anymore, although I spend an inordinate amount of time at Starbucks because I like to write there and it isn't as lonely as writing at home. I still find people fascinating and wish I could do more to help them. But every time I've tried to build my life around changing others, it's ended up in the toilet. I get proud and arrogant and end up talking down to people who seem more like Jesus than I do.

***

 

    Can people change? Can people change their story? Naomi says people can, and I believe her because she knows more about that than I do. Can Jesus change our story? Mark says that he can, and I believe him because he knows more about that than I do. As for me, I'm not sure, exactly. I no longer think that I am destined for 'great things', because the things that I now think are great don't get a lot of publicity. Feeding a homeless person and reasserting their dignity is great. Counseling and listening to someone to help change their emotional narrative is great. Studying seventy hours a week so you can save someone's life is great. And teaching people to love one another regardless of what they do to you, and then dying to save everyone, is the greatest story of them all.

    So the answer, I guess, is that people can change. I'm not sure how we change exactly, but I know it's not as easy as I used to think. And I know we can't do it on our own.

Most change, in my life at least, has come through mistakes and tragedy and sadness. I'm a better husband because I was lousy before and the woman I'm with somehow understands me. I'm more understanding because I know what it's like to feel judged. I'm a better friend and more accepting of others because I know what it's like to be lonely. (I remember the nights I spent staring at my coffee table in a darkened apartment with no one to call.) The more I think about it the more I realize that Naomi is right. People can change, and while choice matters, it isn't just about the choices we make. It's about me. It's about you. It's a magical thing and sort of a silly cliché, but it all starts with this crazy idea that we're all God's children, as if we're one big family. We'll probably never be a happy family, because there are too many kids and someone will always feel left out or better or worse or not enough. But sometimes that's us, and that's okay too. Somehow, I think, so long as we remember the basics, that God created us and loves us, that we're going to screw up and make mistakes and that other people will too, I think we have a chance to change our story. And when our story changes, so does our life. I'm not sure I can explain it, but I've seen it happen, and if it can happen to the other kids, it can happen to us too.

 

-Steve

 

 

 

    
 

 

 

    
 

    
 

    
 

    
 

    

Broken

The snow crunched softly under my feet as I moved down the driveway. I tightened the scarf around my neck. The air was cold, but there was no wind. The lights reflected over the snow, and the whitened street seemed almost to glow, as if the winter had brought with her a different kingdom, a place of dreams and possibility. Up ahead, smoke curled lazily from one of the houses into the night and a sense of peace flooded over me as I jammed my hands into my parka. I breathed deep the crisp air and whispered a prayer of thanks into the quiet, not wanting to break the stillness of the moment or the deep sense of being that sifted through my emotions. Small tears began to form in my eyes, unexpected and unexplained, but instead of wiping them away I let gather and slide down my cheek, the cold marking their trail across my skin like a gentle caress.

In a few minutes I would go inside and attempt to write my story, I would break down the small but seemingly momentous happenings inside me this past week. I would try to explain what I felt and what God had done, not because my story was different or special, but because it was the same story that others had experienced. That others needed to experience. The kind of story that, when you looked back on it, was an event that ultimately shifted the direction of your life. For now however, I just wanted to enjoy the quietness of the moment. To breathe deep the night air and thank God for doing something I hadn't expected. Of course, I should have known that He'd be there...

...the house was quiet. My housemates were all gone, at school or at work. I could hear the rain patter against the glass of my window, and gray light filtered into my room. I lay beneath my covers, my mind racing, my body almost sore with the effort of moving into another position. It was all so ridiculous, I thought, that I was still lying here. I had so many things going for me, all I had to do was get up and head to school. The thought, however lucid, drifted away from me and disappeared into the four blank walls that hedged me in as I shifted deeper under the covers.
"Maybe tomorrow." I murmured to myself, over and over, like a soft mantra. "Maybe tomorrow." I looked at the window, at the tiny rivulets of rain trickling down the glass like tears. I tried to squeeze into a more positive frame of mind, but somehow I couldn't think of anything, and I could feel myself shut down as my eyes closed and I drifted back to sleep.

When I'd first left Ottawa three months ago, I'd come to Toronto with the hopes and excitement of someone in pursuit of their dreams. I'd do my Masters, focus on my writing, and hopefully accomplish the things I'd always believed I was capable of doing. Now, only three months later, I lay beneath my covers on a rainy afternoon, broke, behind in my school, and wondering just where things had gone wrong. I knew that God loved me, but it felt like I'd lost Him somewhere. Or that He'd lost me, as if I'd been dropped off at the corner somewhere along the way. I hadn't slept much lately, and the nights were filled with worries and tightened fists.

Was this it? Was this the end of my pursuit of something greater?

I'd taken a year's leave, but the thought of going back to my life in Ottawa filled me with an unexplainable sadness. I wasn't sure anyone would understand why I was sad or struggling, in as much as I was in a new city and should just wait, things would get better, wouldn't they? Yes, yes, the pursuit of dreams was a good thing, and the advanced degree was practical, especially if you wanted to teach. Why was I getting so uptight? Relax, it'll get better. And if you lose a course, so what?

What most people didn't understand, was that while I told people I'd come to Toronto to pursue my dreams, it wasn't the whole truth. For two years on my balcony in Ottawa, during my quiet times, there was a Scripture that had arrested me so completely that I hadn't been able to shake it. "Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it." (Matt 10:39) Somehow, in some way, if there was one thing I was sure of during my quiet times on the balcony, it was the understanding that to lose my life, I needed to move. And so while my dreams forged an inspiration for me to pack up and leave, it wasn't simply for them that I'd left. No, I'd left in pursuit of something else.

I'd left my life in pursuit of the God I loved, the God I longed to serve with every fiber of my being. And now, He'd disappeared...

The clock flashed the red numbers in the darkness. 11:06pm. I was immobile on my bed. It'd been hours since I moved, but it felt like days. I could feel myself breaking inside, and I swallowed hard. People would never understand this if I told them or tried to explain it, and suddenly I didn't care. I didn't care if people thought I was crazy or dramatic. I didn't care if I couldn't rationalize what I was doing or how I felt when it came to my faith. I was tired of supporting thought structures that purported to the idea of Christianity but left out the reality of a supernatural God. I was tired of having to explain in a reasonable way this idea of Jesus, this idea that God 'made sense.' Mostly though, I was just tired of bouncing between the "rational Steve" and the "God-seeking Steve". I could no longer buy into modernity's idea that we could organize God into a part of our life.

Either He was real, or he wasn't. Either He was life, or He wasn't.

The more I thought about it, the angrier I became. So where was He? Why had He left me here in this position... like this! I slipped over on to my knees, and I poured out my anger and frustration, that somehow began to mix with sobs and tears of frustration.

"Either you do something tomorrow, or I will never trust you again!" I said finally. I meant it. I was done. I sprawled onto my face and lay prone in prayer for another thirty minutes. It wasn't as if my struggles were simply emotional, they were finite as well. School. Finances. Job.

Somewhere along the way, I passed out. When I opened my eyes again, it was 2am. I was wide awake. I didn't feel any different, but I showered and dressed and started working on my papers. My emotions were spent. The hours passed, and I thought about the previous night, but only in passing. I stayed up the rest of the day and went to bed early. For the past week I'd been unable to sleep before 5am, so this was a pleasant surprise, but not a big deal.

I began to hope that things had turned around, that God had answered my prayer, but things started getting worse. The news from school wasn't good, and the check I'd been expecting for the past two weeks would be a month late. I hadn't heard back from any of the jobs I'd applied for, and while each day I was up early now, hopeful that something good would happen, each day I was dealt at least one body blow that would suck the wind out of me.

The night before I'd gone to sleep with my face still wet with tears. I hadn't been broken just once, but shattered into a thousand pieces. And yet, the more I felt myself breaking, the more I opened myself up to my friends about the tearing inside my heart, the more I sensed something else squeezed into the newly formed cracks. Love. Hope.

Everyone likes to be the strong one. The wise one. But I could no longer do that, no longer pretend that I was strong or wise. My friends rallied around me, and I felt an emasculated fool. Somewhere along the way, however, even that began to drift. I didn't care any more. When I went out, I began to see things. I noticed the old lady on the street, struggling against the cold wind. I noticed the woman with red eyes in the checkout line. I noticed the man with dingy pants and dirty hair standing outside the mall.

It wasn't that I was blind to these things before, or maybe I was, but it was hitting me in a new way. I thought about all my pretensions and ideals, my smugness and arrogance about 'certain' people, and I could feel my heart break a little bit more. And like a laser, God cut through my selfishness and showed me what I'd neglected to see. And I cried and whispered into the cold night air when I realized why God had 'left me.'

"God, forgive me. Your world is dying, and I am more worried about MY pedigree, about MY dreams, than I am about serving you."

He hadn't left me at all. It'd been me all along. I was the one who had left.

The sun is bright this morning, but the air is icy and cold. I can't help but think about this past week, and about God's faithfulness. Even now, my eyes fill with tears as I dwell on what I've learned.

I spent many years going to churches that promised the world, that if people just came forward, God would change their life. I grew bitter over time because those changes never happened, that God never made my life 'great' the way I'd been promised, so I'm hesitant to even write my story. I am convinced that God works slowly in us, because it is what we can handle, what can be permanent. But I do still believe there are moments when God asks us to respond, when he moves in a way that can change us forever. If we let Him.

No, even now I knew this was different, because it was less about me, and more about Him. I'd learned something about myself, and something about God. As long as my dreams merely included Him, there would always be something missing in my life. But if my dreams were ABOUT Him, then I would never have to worry.

God wants to move in our daily lives. He wants us to depend on Him. He wants us to grab the 'horns of the altar' and not let go. He wants to give us joy. For many of us, however, we must first be broken.

-Steve