Into the grey...

Let's take a small look back into my awkward hormonal-driven teenage years, eh...

When I was 16, Ford Motor Company (my Dad’s employer at the time) transferred our family from South Lyon, Michigan to Loveland, Ohio. This was my junior year of high school and the eighth and final grade school I would attend before I graduated. If you don’t know this already, the automotive industry- much like the military- relocates their employees with every new promotion and inevitably the families have to endure the consequences. This happened to us every three years.

Of course, once you arrive at a new school, you are now an invader who is attempting to break into established clicks. But I got used to the transitions. It was sort of easy to adjust to the social circles of elementary and middle school, but uprooting in the middle of high school was a whole ‘nother challenge in itself. In the awkward teenage phase, insecurities are running rampant and the only survival is finding some kind of safe nook with a familiar environment and friends who accept you for who you are.  

When I arrived in Loveland- a suburb of Cincinnati- I used my old tactics and found ways to weasel myself into those established clicks. But I wasn't a pot smoker, I was mediocre in sports at best, school musicals involved memorizing too many lines, and my hand wasn't sleight enough to excel in the magic club. I was lonely to the core.

It wasn't until late in my junior year when some very welcoming classmates invited me into a religious club that was affiliated with the school. It was like a youth group, but it didn’t meet in a church and it’s accessibility on campus made it easier for kids to feel safe enough to check out the “Jesus thing” without feeling like they were drinking the Kool-Aid. At the meetings, there would be over-the-top games involving dairy products, loud music, a little bit of flirting, and a short God talk by the adult leaders at the end of the night. Shortly after I got involved, I was able to play guitar and lead people in singing songs with subliminal Jesus messages set to 90’s pop tunes. (“JE--SUS… is what I got. Now remember that…”)

Even though I was deeply involved, I wasn’t really serious about the commitment to faith. It wasn’t that I refused to believe… I just found myself more attracted to the cute girls rather than the attention starving Jesus that was presented. I didn’t see a need to be too serious about it and my church upbringing seemed to remind me that there was at least a one-bedroom apartment for me in the sky at the end.

But my entire paradigm shifted when our little God group packed our bags, jumped on a bus, and traveled east to beautiful sunny Myrtle Beach for a mega Christian youth conference. I had no idea what I was getting into, but it was a vacation to a beach on spring break. How can you resist that? And yes, the cute girls were aboard our caravan and I may or may not have tried to unintentionally graze one of their boobs with my elbow as I scooted to my seat.

The conference was a five-day high school pep rally on steroids and the energy emitting from thousands of kids packed in a theatre was consuming to say the least. It was nothing like the Amy Grant concert I went to at the age of 12. References to Jesus were everywhere… in the music, in the talks, and I even think I may have seen Jesus floating down the resort's lazy river next to me (although that could have just been a local beach bum with an unkempt beard). Either way, there was no escaping the robed man.

On about the fourth day, we all gathered in the theatre once more. After this dynamic and charismatic pastor captivated the room with a message about accepting Jesus into your life, he called upon anyone who wanted to pray the prayer and do just that. After four days into the Jesus freak fest, I finally got it. My entire existence was for the sole purpose of giving my life over to Jesus.

As is a common move among pastors who make alter calls, this pastor asked those who prayed the prayer to keep their heads bowed and raise their hands if you did the holy deed. At the time, this was portrayed as a way to publicly declare your new-found faith, but I realized later in life that giving alter calls is a very vulnerable thing for pastors to do and sometimes they need to see hands so that they can be affirmed they made a difference. Anyway, I bowed my head, said the magic words, and raised my hand like I was instructed. I was now a Christian! 

After we confessed our new beginnings in Jesus, we were immediately instructed to gather in groups and go outside to ask people laying out on the beach to accept Jesus, as well. They didn’t give us instructions on how to go about doing this; they just told us that God would show us the way if we obeyed. And so we gathered our little army together and headed out to the war zone of bikinis and poorly design sand castles.

I didn’t like approaching strangers as it was, but we were fired up for Jesus and now the world needed to be saved. One by one, we interrupted the relaxed sunbathers and gave our Jesus pitch to them about salvation. I don’t remember how many people actually listened to us, but I do remember that we had the lowest number of conversions- if any at all. Oh, and did I mention that we had to report our results of victories or the lack there of to the entire conference that evening? It was embarrassing. Yes, we were the Clippers of the 90’s.

I’ve had so many conversations with ex-evangelicals who have told me that their story is very similar to mine. They were caught in the flame of evangelical enthusiasm, submitted to the Jesus message in the vulnerability of the moment, and told that the sole purpose of the Christian mission is “to make disciples of Christ” and to do so by “sharing the gospel of the good news with the world.”

The problem with this interpretation is that it creates ruthless salesmen who will stop at nothing to fulfill an agenda… an agenda that balances on life or death. A lot of modern (and historical) Christianity models itself after this and it’s poisonous at its core. An agenda is dangerous when one is trying to make another mold into something that they want that person to be. It creates eventual resentment, if not immediate. I’m convinced that this is a big reason why many people like myself have chosen to leave the church in order to experience the world without an underlying motive to conform things.

For most of my faith journey up until a few years ago, I had eyes that saw the world as either saved or lost. People were either going to heaven or they were going to hell and it was up to me to make the difference. I viewed everything about God, Jesus, scripture, sin, and the world in a dualistic mindset. It was all black or white and even considering the grey was pure evil.

But now I call myself a mystic. It seems new-age I know, but it is actually rooted in the very essence of the divine. What it means to be a mystic is to abandon the black and white and breathe in the grey because the grey is where we are most vulnerable. Here’s what I’ve found out about the grey so far...

The grey is the space where broken things are refined and are not degraded by labels and judgment.

The grey is where deep questions are the breath of life while quick and shallow answers are a form of suffocation.

The grey is where our minds escape a motive or agenda and instead, find rest in allowing life to grow organically.

The grey is to let our pretenses go so as to be inspired in ways that we may naturally resist.

The grey is to dive headfirst into the darkness in order to reach the light.

The grey sounds like silence rather than chaos.

To view the Christian life as though everything is in opposition with each other (the devil vs. Jesus, sin vs. righteousness, Christian vs. non-Christian, secular vs. non-secular, etc.), we are creating a culture of control rather than being open to be moved by a spiritual rhythm that is inviting us into the song.

The more I let go, the more I hear the song. It’s a beautiful melody and the rests are placed perfectly.  

I'll sign off for now with one of my favorite lyrics of all time...

So let go (so let go)
Jump in.
Oh well, watcha waiting for?
It's alright
'Cause there's beauty in the breakdown
So let go (let go)
Just get in
Oh it's so amazing here
It's alright
'Cause there's beauty in the breakdown