Once upon a time...

This is my story. A story of how a pastor without questions became a wandering mystic without answers.

5 years ago on my last Sunday morning as a pastor, I sat at a piano in front of a church congregation and said my final words before I made my exit."I'm struggling with porn."

My wife and I still chuckle about that final farewell to this day. But it's also significant and I'll tell you why. I've come to find out that those four words were the beginning lines to an adventure that I certainly never would have chosen. An adventure in trying to pull the veneer away and really see the wizard behind the curtain. "I'm struggling with porn" has become the "Once upon a time..." to my dust ridden fairytale story.

And so the story goes...

Once upon a time, I was a dedicated Christian out to save the world and nothing in the world could have stop me. I prayed ferociously, pursued ferociously, debated ferociously, and served ferociously. At the time, it was called "being on fire for Christ." When I wasn't strumming my praise chords (G, C, D, and E minor when shit got serious) and leading the hand-raising church faithful in singing about "The overflowing fountain" and "The God of Wonders," I was reading my bible and saying my prayers in order to properly place Jesus on the flannel board of my life.

Although church was sprinkled lightly throughout my early childhood, it wasn't until high school that I became serious and turned my life over to God. I prayed the four spiritual laws, got re-baptized (the light dab of water on my head at the age of 7 was apparently just the appetizer), and I dove headfirst into the salvation seas. I was heaven bound! As fast as I accepted Jesus as my lord and savior, I was just as quickly helping others to do the same. Yes, I was indeed on fire.

Here and there, my flame sputtered a bit but I really never lost focus on my dedication to Christ. Usually, it was some sort of "sin" that tripped me up. Like any teenage boy, it almost always had to either do with my dirty thoughts and/or the separate adventures of my penis. But the fuel pump of forgiveness was always available and with a little prayer and confession, my shame tank was filled with the free gift of grace. Premium, not unleaded, of course.

Fast forward to many years later. My Christian journey led to finally finishing college with a degree in ministry leadership. I worked my way through two pastoral internships, all while leading worship at one of the biggest churches in the northwest. Soon after, I became a pastor at a couple of local churches, the last one being the porn confession farewell tour.

But slowly through my last years in the church, I began to doubt. My stone wall of Christ centered confidence started to show cracks and no theological reasoning seemed to make it stronger. I began to hear questions louder than my gun slinging answers. I found myself going through the motions in my leadership and slowly resented myself and others for it. I couldn't understand why my Christianity was slowly crumbling away.

In reality, I was afraid to be honest and honesty was now catching up to me. I was afraid that if I followed my deepest confusion, I would most certainly fall into some kind of black hole of eternal damnation (hell) and lose everything (heaven). I was afraid to be vulnerable because my past suggests that vulnerability leads to rejection and abandonment. And if I hadn't recently been married, I'm not sure I would have had anything or anyone else to turn to. I was losing the love of my life.

It's easier to see today what was going on then. I grew up in an institution that thrives on providing answers and more often than not, fears to conclude with questions. There tends to be pressure as a pastor in particular to always be a congregational parent and to always have things figured out. I believe without a doubt that the unreasonable pressure put on a pastor leads many of them to have hidden addictions to soothe the anxiety. I was certainly one of them.

So here I am now... a wandering recovering mystic searching through the muck of my life for identity, purpose, love, liberation, and probably more than anything... the courage to be honest. I find myself more interested in spiritual mystery (the "mystic" part) than religious conclusions. I still have a feeling that I'm loved by an inner and outer being. Sometimes I think of that mystic source as Jesus or Mother Universe, but I like what the AA community calls it... the higher power. There's freedom in leaving things out of the box and thus the chapters to this fairytale are about unpacking.

I want to use this blog to get naked in my questions, to be real about my confusion, and read to you some of the most provocative chapters of my dust ridden fairytale adventure. There's liberation in showing one's nudity. I'm not here to shock anyone and I'm certainly not here to bash any institution or person. I'm here to skinny dip in the gray because I'm no longer convinced that life is black or white.

Once upon a time...