I entered college in August of 1991.
Hold on a minute, I need to recover from that.
Where were we? Oh, yes: college, August, 1991. My college choir director put me in contact with the music director at First Presbyterian Church in Raleigh who hired me as his tenor section leader. For the next nine months I went to church every Sunday morning, dutifully sang the music placed in front of me, and felt absolutely no connection to the church or God. It was a gig, it paid, that was it.
I had a conversion experience one morning in the shower. I remember distinctly hearing the voice of God that morning. What God said I don't recall; I don't even remember if it happened during my freshman or sophomore year. I just remember being very afraid. If I knew then what I know now about mental disorders I would instantly have assumed I was experiencing a positive affectual symptom of schizophrenia. My fear subsided quickly and was replaced by a feeling of longing. I couldn't say, however, just what I was longing for.
My conversion experience wasn't enough to put me back on the path to faith. Something much more dramatic had to happen in my life to capture my attention and point me towards God.
My father had been diagnosed with emphysema a year before I entered college. His illness had helped me decide to go to college fairly close to home -- the NC State campus is about an hour and a half from my family's home. I anticipated that one day the phone would ring and I would be informed that I needed to come home quickly. When that day came, I didn't want to be dependent on airline schedules; I wanted to know I could hop in my car and make it home quickly.
The phone call I awaited with dread came on October 6, 1992. My father had been taken to the hospital after collapsing in his bedroom. I wanted to come home immediately but my mother told me not to worry, that things would be okay and that I should stay and finish my midterm exams. Fall Break was only three days away, and I'd be home then. Two days later, I could the situation was going from bad to worse and my sister encouraged me to drive home. When my mother didn't object, I knew things were much worse than I had been led to believe.
I limped west on Highway 70, afraid to take my car on the interstate. I remember praying, "God, if it's time for him to die and for his misery to be over, then I am at peace with that. Just please let me get home to see him before he dies." My "Check Engine" light came on, as it was wont to do in those days, but I got home in just about two hours. I dropped off my bags at the house, called my mother in the hospital room to see if there was anything she wanted. (I remember taking up Oreos; I don't recall if they were for her or for me.) I got to the hospital at around 3:00 on the afternoon of October 8, 1992.
My father died at approximately 6:00 that night.
I had requested something of God, and He delivered. In retrospect, I think that's a lousy reason for going back to church. Theologically it seems almost heretical to follow the teachings of Christ only because He has done me a favor (other than the favor of crucifying Himself for my sins, but that was a favor for everyone, not just for me).
In the aftermath of my father's death my yearning for God became more acute. I sought to learn more about the Presbyterian Church since that was where I was spending most of my Sunday mornings. Unfortunately, I didn't get much past the whole Predestination thing. In fact, my last Sunday singing at that church featured a sermon defending that most Calvinist of beliefs. I took it as a sign that it was time for me to move on.
I didn't find a church home the rest of the time I was in college, though in honesty I didn't really try. My longing for God waned over time, but I had permanently regained something in that conversion experience and the death of my father -- I had regained my faith. I no longer considered myself an atheist. I identified as a Christian because that was what I knew how to be. Christianity is a credal religion, and I'm not sure I could have stood up and honestly claimed to believe the tenets of the Nicene and Apostles' Creeds. (To this day bits of both give me pause.)
When my father died two months short of my nineteenth birthday I was put back on the road of faith and restarted my journey towards God in earnest. Two years hence I would seek out both God and my father at a time in my life when I felt no one on Earth could understand my pain, and nothing corporeal could heal my spirit.
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
Saturday, March 25, 2006
My Faith Story, Part I
I attended a wonderful program at my parish last night that featured the Rev'd. Jim Adams, founding director of The Center for Progressive Christianity. Father Adams spoke for a couple of hours on what it is to be a progressive Christian, and how we have largely abdicated our claim to the truths of the Bible to the Christian Right. Among the points discussed last night, the one that struck me as being most accurate and most worrisome was the notion that many of the people in the pews of Progressive Christian churches. such as my church, cannot readily articulate why it is that they choose to be Christian, and why they choose to go to church. In contrast, it was said, people going to Fundamentalist/Evangelical churches, especially of the "mega-church" variety, can often tick off a list of reasons they follow Christianity and why they attend their particular church. In short, Progressive Christians are either uncomfortable or unfamiliar with the idea of sharing their faith stories.
The only way I know to begin to change that is by sharing my faith story in this forum, where literally fives of people may read it.
I was baptized into the Body of Christ as a young child. I was old enough to remember bits of the ceremony -- the chill of the water, the white cloth used to mop the Holy Water from my newly Christened head, the anxiety of my parents -- but not old enough to remember exactly when this occured, neither the date nor my age nor even the season. The baptism took place at Friedens Lutheran Church in Gibsonville, NC, the church in which I grew up.
As a child, I don't remember particularly liking or disliking church. Much like school, it was a regular activity in which I had to participate. As with school, I figured at some point that if I had to be there I might as well put my best foot forward and get as much out of the experience as I could. In church I sang in the children's choir and served as an acolyte. In my church the acolyte's sole job was to light and extinguish the altar candles, as opposed to acolyting in the Episcopal Church which is much more involved and choreographed.
The normal "path" for children in the Lutheran Church, at least when I was a child in the Lutheran Church, was to start catechism at around 6th grade, join the youth group, and eventually make a mature statement of faith, a process known as confirmation. At about the time in my life that this would have occurred, my parents separated. My mother, sister and I moved too far away from Friedens to make it practical to continue attending services there. We talked for a couple of years about finding a Lutheran Church near our new home. We never went, even once.
I found myself drawn towards atheism as a teenager. I can't remember when I first heard the word, but I remember that I was shocked to learn such a belief system -- that is, the absence of a belief system -- existed. It seemed instantly comforting and familiar. Corporate worship was a distant memory by this time, and my only connection with Christianity was Christmas and Easter presents. Most years I was shocked when Easter Sunday arrived and the presents showed up on the couch.
In high school my atheism was prominent. During my sophomore year my English teacher did a unit on the Bible as literature. Days before our exam, and only as an afterthought, she polled the class to see if we were familiar with certain passages from the Bible not covered specifically during our classroom sessions or assigned as homework. She assumed we would have learned about these passages in Sunday School. There were three of us in the class who didn't know these unassigned texts. My teacher seemed genuinely shocked, and my classmates were quite obviously surprised to learn that there were non-churchgoers among them.
You see, in the South, after someone asks you who you are and where you're from, the next question is always, "Where do you go to church?" Usually, what is meant is, "Which Baptist Church do you go to?" There are plenty of folks in the South who don't understand that the Catholic Church is a Christian organization. I'm not lying.
I remember getting into arguments with people I sang with in high school over my lack of faith. A big part of that was my own damned fault -- I once spoke ill of Christianity, although I think I actually expressed disdain over all organized religion. One boy, a minister's son, said that he just wanted to hit me until I converted. That's the most warped example of Evangelism I've ever run across, even to this day. Another boy I sang with, whom I admired because of his beautiful tenor voice, argued vociferously with me over the concept of evolution. He asked me, "So you're telling me that if I put a fish in a pond for a million years it'll become a person?" My response was, "No, it'll become a very dead fish." Creationism arguments are rarely more poignant or insightful than this.
The summer after I graduated from high school I was hired by my high school choir director's wife to be a paid singer at the Presbyterian Church in downtown Greensboro. I dutifully showed up each Sunday, put on the itchy polyester choir robe and sang whatever music was put in front of me. I felt no connection to the music -- I sang sacred texts a lot during high school and assigned them no more significance than musical settings of texts from Shakespeare or John Donne. When the service was over I hung up my robe, got in my car and went home.
When I entered college in the fall of 1991 I was still an avowed atheist. I also considered myself to be heterosexual. By the time I graduated in the winter of 1994 I had rediscovered my identity in the Body of Christ, and understood that I was something I feared being all my life -- gay. Perhaps no other revelation about myself was more important in guiding me down the path towards faith, although it was a tragedy in my life that really caused me to start on that path in the first place. In my next entry, I'll talk about what happened in college that changed my life.
The only way I know to begin to change that is by sharing my faith story in this forum, where literally fives of people may read it.
I was baptized into the Body of Christ as a young child. I was old enough to remember bits of the ceremony -- the chill of the water, the white cloth used to mop the Holy Water from my newly Christened head, the anxiety of my parents -- but not old enough to remember exactly when this occured, neither the date nor my age nor even the season. The baptism took place at Friedens Lutheran Church in Gibsonville, NC, the church in which I grew up.
As a child, I don't remember particularly liking or disliking church. Much like school, it was a regular activity in which I had to participate. As with school, I figured at some point that if I had to be there I might as well put my best foot forward and get as much out of the experience as I could. In church I sang in the children's choir and served as an acolyte. In my church the acolyte's sole job was to light and extinguish the altar candles, as opposed to acolyting in the Episcopal Church which is much more involved and choreographed.
The normal "path" for children in the Lutheran Church, at least when I was a child in the Lutheran Church, was to start catechism at around 6th grade, join the youth group, and eventually make a mature statement of faith, a process known as confirmation. At about the time in my life that this would have occurred, my parents separated. My mother, sister and I moved too far away from Friedens to make it practical to continue attending services there. We talked for a couple of years about finding a Lutheran Church near our new home. We never went, even once.
I found myself drawn towards atheism as a teenager. I can't remember when I first heard the word, but I remember that I was shocked to learn such a belief system -- that is, the absence of a belief system -- existed. It seemed instantly comforting and familiar. Corporate worship was a distant memory by this time, and my only connection with Christianity was Christmas and Easter presents. Most years I was shocked when Easter Sunday arrived and the presents showed up on the couch.
In high school my atheism was prominent. During my sophomore year my English teacher did a unit on the Bible as literature. Days before our exam, and only as an afterthought, she polled the class to see if we were familiar with certain passages from the Bible not covered specifically during our classroom sessions or assigned as homework. She assumed we would have learned about these passages in Sunday School. There were three of us in the class who didn't know these unassigned texts. My teacher seemed genuinely shocked, and my classmates were quite obviously surprised to learn that there were non-churchgoers among them.
You see, in the South, after someone asks you who you are and where you're from, the next question is always, "Where do you go to church?" Usually, what is meant is, "Which Baptist Church do you go to?" There are plenty of folks in the South who don't understand that the Catholic Church is a Christian organization. I'm not lying.
I remember getting into arguments with people I sang with in high school over my lack of faith. A big part of that was my own damned fault -- I once spoke ill of Christianity, although I think I actually expressed disdain over all organized religion. One boy, a minister's son, said that he just wanted to hit me until I converted. That's the most warped example of Evangelism I've ever run across, even to this day. Another boy I sang with, whom I admired because of his beautiful tenor voice, argued vociferously with me over the concept of evolution. He asked me, "So you're telling me that if I put a fish in a pond for a million years it'll become a person?" My response was, "No, it'll become a very dead fish." Creationism arguments are rarely more poignant or insightful than this.
The summer after I graduated from high school I was hired by my high school choir director's wife to be a paid singer at the Presbyterian Church in downtown Greensboro. I dutifully showed up each Sunday, put on the itchy polyester choir robe and sang whatever music was put in front of me. I felt no connection to the music -- I sang sacred texts a lot during high school and assigned them no more significance than musical settings of texts from Shakespeare or John Donne. When the service was over I hung up my robe, got in my car and went home.
When I entered college in the fall of 1991 I was still an avowed atheist. I also considered myself to be heterosexual. By the time I graduated in the winter of 1994 I had rediscovered my identity in the Body of Christ, and understood that I was something I feared being all my life -- gay. Perhaps no other revelation about myself was more important in guiding me down the path towards faith, although it was a tragedy in my life that really caused me to start on that path in the first place. In my next entry, I'll talk about what happened in college that changed my life.
Sunday, March 12, 2006
Best Day Ever
Topsy-turvy was the order of the day. Several fantastic bits of news and events were tempered by one incredibly tragic story.
At church this morning I found out that my buddy Matt was finally released from the hospital. As I was leaving church I peeked in at the folks attending the 11:15, and saw that Matt had actually made it to church! I stayed through the service just so I could speak with him and tell him how excited I was to see him outside of a hospital room.
I was also gratified to learn that there is hope for the next generation. Admonishing one of the members of our treble choir, our choir director warned a young woman that she would wind up singing like Britney Spears if she didn't adjust her posture. A young boy, about ten years old, raised his hand and asked, very simply,
"Who's Britney Spears?"
Alleluias were widely exclaimed, Lent be damned.
Sadly there was a bit of terrible news that overshadowed these bits of good news. One of our parishioners lost her nephew and niece in a house fire, and another nephew is in critical condition in the burn unit.
Today humor and continuing life were intertwined with tragedy.
This is life, kids.
At church this morning I found out that my buddy Matt was finally released from the hospital. As I was leaving church I peeked in at the folks attending the 11:15, and saw that Matt had actually made it to church! I stayed through the service just so I could speak with him and tell him how excited I was to see him outside of a hospital room.
I was also gratified to learn that there is hope for the next generation. Admonishing one of the members of our treble choir, our choir director warned a young woman that she would wind up singing like Britney Spears if she didn't adjust her posture. A young boy, about ten years old, raised his hand and asked, very simply,
"Who's Britney Spears?"
Alleluias were widely exclaimed, Lent be damned.
Sadly there was a bit of terrible news that overshadowed these bits of good news. One of our parishioners lost her nephew and niece in a house fire, and another nephew is in critical condition in the burn unit.
Today humor and continuing life were intertwined with tragedy.
This is life, kids.
Saturday, March 11, 2006
Corporal Acts of Mercy
Here's a quick quiz . . .
Do you know what the corporal acts of mercy are, and have you ever performed any of them?
The corporal acts of mercy are directives to Christians pertaining to living out the Gospel of Jesus Christ through performing kindnesses to the needy in our midst. The specific acts are the following:
1. Feed the hungry.
2. Give drink to the thirsty.
3. Clothe the naked.
4. Shelter the homeless.
5. Minister to the sick.
6. Visit the imprisoned.
7. Bury the dead.
As for the second part of the question, well, only you can know the answer to that.
I was struck recently by the starkly different examples of living out the gospel presented by two prominent Roman Catholics, Roger Cardinal Mahoney of Los Angeles and Thomas S. Monaghan, founder of Domino's Pizza and supporter of right-wing politics and politicos.
In a recent address to parishioners, Cardinal Mahoney assailed H.R. 4437. The Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act would not only cruelly curtail immigrants' rights in this country but would also criminalize activities of charitable organizations that provide meals and shelter to needy persons who happen to be illegal immigrants.
A bedrock of living out the gospel is to minister to anyone in need, regardless of their immigration status. I have heard many fundamental Christians stomp their feet and complain that their right to freedom of religious expression is being abridged by laws preventing them from discriminating against gay men/lesbians/bisexuals/transgendered persons (in their language, "ho-mo-sex-shuls" and "queers") or forcing them to fill the legally obtained prescriptions of women obtained from licensed physicians. Curious that these same folks are deafeningly silent now that a law would particulary and directly discriminate against Christian religious expression.
Jesus tells us that the greatest commandments are to love the Lord our God with all our heart, and to love our neighbors as ourselves. In fact, we are actually called to love our neighbors in the same way that we love God. Believe it or not, there is no biblical injunction commanding us to deny housing and employment rights to GLBT persons, nor is there an order telling us not to sell birth control pills to women.
That brings me to the topic of how dear old Tommy Monaghan is living out his baptismal covenant. He has decided to focus on #4 above -- sheltering the homeless -- by building expensive shelter for upper middle-class families who are seeking to live a purely Catholic existence in sunny Florida. Mr. Monaghan is building a Catholic community and university, both called Ave Maria. His utopian village will be centered around a Catholic university, a very large Catholic church, and what is purported to be the largest crucifix in the world.
Oh, did I mention that the town won't stock condoms or birth control pills in the drug stores, will disallow X-rated television stations and pornography will not be sold anywhere in the community?
Admittedly the last few interdictions, if not exactly laudatory, may not seem worthy of disdain. But let's get real, folks. Denying people access to birth control is ridiculous and, frankly, dangerous. (Anyone ever heard of Griswold v. Connecticut?) If this municipality can disallow pornography, then disallowing anything deemed unseemly when viewed through the lens of strict Catholic teachings -- gay and lesbian literature, feminist writings, perspectives from other religions and sects -- is likely to follow.
This is censorship, plain and simple. It is decidedly un-American, and should make anyone who cherishes the First Amendment shudder.
Cardinal Mahoney called on his clerics to defy H.R. 4437 should it become law (note -- it has passed the House and is headed for the Senate). His actions make me proud to be a Christian. Monaghan's ridiculous real estate development initiative disguised as an act of religious piety ("I believe all of history is just one big battle between good and evil. I don't want to be on the sidelines," Monaghan, who sold Domino's Pizza in 1998 to devote himself to doing good works, said in a recent Newsweek interview. -- from CNN.com) makes me proud to continue boycotting Domino's Pizza.
Do you know what the corporal acts of mercy are, and have you ever performed any of them?
The corporal acts of mercy are directives to Christians pertaining to living out the Gospel of Jesus Christ through performing kindnesses to the needy in our midst. The specific acts are the following:
1. Feed the hungry.
2. Give drink to the thirsty.
3. Clothe the naked.
4. Shelter the homeless.
5. Minister to the sick.
6. Visit the imprisoned.
7. Bury the dead.
As for the second part of the question, well, only you can know the answer to that.
I was struck recently by the starkly different examples of living out the gospel presented by two prominent Roman Catholics, Roger Cardinal Mahoney of Los Angeles and Thomas S. Monaghan, founder of Domino's Pizza and supporter of right-wing politics and politicos.
In a recent address to parishioners, Cardinal Mahoney assailed H.R. 4437. The Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act would not only cruelly curtail immigrants' rights in this country but would also criminalize activities of charitable organizations that provide meals and shelter to needy persons who happen to be illegal immigrants.
A bedrock of living out the gospel is to minister to anyone in need, regardless of their immigration status. I have heard many fundamental Christians stomp their feet and complain that their right to freedom of religious expression is being abridged by laws preventing them from discriminating against gay men/lesbians/bisexuals/transgendered persons (in their language, "ho-mo-sex-shuls" and "queers") or forcing them to fill the legally obtained prescriptions of women obtained from licensed physicians. Curious that these same folks are deafeningly silent now that a law would particulary and directly discriminate against Christian religious expression.
Jesus tells us that the greatest commandments are to love the Lord our God with all our heart, and to love our neighbors as ourselves. In fact, we are actually called to love our neighbors in the same way that we love God. Believe it or not, there is no biblical injunction commanding us to deny housing and employment rights to GLBT persons, nor is there an order telling us not to sell birth control pills to women.
That brings me to the topic of how dear old Tommy Monaghan is living out his baptismal covenant. He has decided to focus on #4 above -- sheltering the homeless -- by building expensive shelter for upper middle-class families who are seeking to live a purely Catholic existence in sunny Florida. Mr. Monaghan is building a Catholic community and university, both called Ave Maria. His utopian village will be centered around a Catholic university, a very large Catholic church, and what is purported to be the largest crucifix in the world.
Oh, did I mention that the town won't stock condoms or birth control pills in the drug stores, will disallow X-rated television stations and pornography will not be sold anywhere in the community?
Admittedly the last few interdictions, if not exactly laudatory, may not seem worthy of disdain. But let's get real, folks. Denying people access to birth control is ridiculous and, frankly, dangerous. (Anyone ever heard of Griswold v. Connecticut?) If this municipality can disallow pornography, then disallowing anything deemed unseemly when viewed through the lens of strict Catholic teachings -- gay and lesbian literature, feminist writings, perspectives from other religions and sects -- is likely to follow.
This is censorship, plain and simple. It is decidedly un-American, and should make anyone who cherishes the First Amendment shudder.
Cardinal Mahoney called on his clerics to defy H.R. 4437 should it become law (note -- it has passed the House and is headed for the Senate). His actions make me proud to be a Christian. Monaghan's ridiculous real estate development initiative disguised as an act of religious piety ("I believe all of history is just one big battle between good and evil. I don't want to be on the sidelines," Monaghan, who sold Domino's Pizza in 1998 to devote himself to doing good works, said in a recent Newsweek interview. -- from CNN.com) makes me proud to continue boycotting Domino's Pizza.
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