Paradigm Shifting of My Mental Tectonic Plates

This is a difficult post for me because I'm not quite sure where to start. I know, a lot of memoirs begin with that line, but this time it's true...

Almost twelve years ago, in 1993, I made a commitment to Jesus Christ to be a born-again Christian; I "got saved" as it were. I was in 8th grade, and at first I was going to church mainly to impress the girl who first invited me there.

It was an evangelical Pentecostal church... very charismatic. A lot of dancing, shouting, speaking in tongues, and "slaying of the spirit". There were times when our pastor skipped the entire message because we were too busy running around in circles, jumping over pews, shouting "Hallelujah!" and laying hands on people. A lot of people cried; everybody sang. The church band would keep on playing during these services, up-tempo comtemporary praise & worship with an electric emotional charge. The music provided an extended soundtrack to the service's deluge of emotion, excitement, and righteous furor.

For a kid who had never been to church or raised in a religious home, this stuff blew my mind. All of my preconceived notions about Christians went flying out the stained-glass window. This was exciting, it was fun! It was loud, emotional, and most of all, I felt a sense of acceptance. I mean, it was a building full of shouting, crying, dancing wack-a-doos, but they looked so sincere, so honest, so open... And I was drawn to it immediately.

You'd stare at me in amazement and half-disbelief if I told you about some of the things I witnessed at that church. Not bad things, or shady things, or kooky cultist things (it was never like that)... More like entire groups of kids, up to thirty of them, filling up a church basement so they could cry as loud as they wanted, hug as much as they wanted, pray as hard and as furiously as they could... all for each other. And these were kids, mind you, 8th and 9th graders... maybe a sprinkling of upper-classmen... But we were just kids...

I remember one year, at a Winterfest in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, our youth group attended a rally of over 5,000 young Christians. About a third of the way through the speaker's message, one of the girls in our youth group was overcome with the Holy Spirit and started crying and praying out loud. She began to lay hands on us. At first we were all like, "Hey, Barbara, calm down... The speaker's still talkin', this is kinda rude to the people sitting around us..." But pretty soon the people around us started to cry, too, and they wound up joining Babs in prayer.

And then it started; like a wildfire, it spread from one group of kids to the next. Pretty soon strangers were walking down the aisles to join us, this big group of sobbing, weeping, moaning young people. Finally the speaker noticed what was going on; but instead of getting upset or angry that his message was being interrupted, he instead spoke into the microphone, and addressed the congregation of thousands: "People... Do you see what's happening right now? Do you see that, over there? That's God... He's here, right now, among us. I think we should all pray."

A mass wave of Christian hysteria washed over everyone in that arena then. It almost bordered on a riot. I have never seen, I have never experienced that kind of intensity. A thousand Christian kids, total strangers to each other, their faces puffy and red and streaked with tears, praying for each other, loving each other, forgetting pride and prejudice and just crying out to God. The snowballing mass of weeping, praying bodies grew so large that Security had to usher us into the arena's siderooms to make way for the next conference.

Our youth group stayed behind for several hours to continue praying. Eventually Security threatened to call the police and kicked us out.

The point is, never before in my life had I experienced something like that... That kind of excitement, that kind of emotional outpouring of love, understanding, and acceptance. And it wasn't contained to just us, to just our youth group. It extended outward, to everybody...

I'm getting ahead of myself, though. I attended that church for a few years, and I had a good time there. But then I started to notice something; the youth group, even the adults, kind of waxed and waned in their spiritual fervour. Sometimes we were "on fire" for God, and sometimes we weren't. Things really took a turn when our youth group leader started having marriage problems. Eventually he and his wife separated, then divorced, and this sent our leader on an (understandable) downward-spiral. Unfortunately it struck a mortal blow to the youth group, and our attendance dwindled down to the regular attendees. Ten or twelve of us, the "Remnant", the ones who always showed up, regardless, out of either habit or boredom. But I had this sense that everything there was based on feelings, on emotions. Maybe we were reacting to the way the music made us feel. Maybe we were getting carried away by the burdens of our lives, and wanted to just jump them or cry them away. We could do that there without looking like maniacs. Maybe we were maniacs. Either way, I started to crave equilibrium... I wanted spiritual and emotional stability. I wanted to be taught, instead of preached to.

In high school, things picked up again. I hooked up with a bunch of new Christian friends, and I started to attend another youth ministry called "Prime Time" every Wednesday. These kids were a lot different than my old youth group. Those kids came from Meigs County, a "redneck town" out in the middle of nowhere. But the kids from Prime Time... they were smart. I mean, intelligent smart. They were good students, excellent at math and science. They got straight A's, and played instruments in the band. Their parents were professors at Bryan College, or teachers at Rhea County High School. They didn't come across as the progeny of charismatic yokels (not to belittle the people of Meigs County, or my old church there... they were amazing people, too). Most of all, they were stable. They had a passion and zeal for God, but it wasn't based on an emotional feeling. It was centered around their knowledge of the Scripture, with an emphasis on practical application.

For three years I attended Prime Time, and Grace Bible Church, in Dayton, Tennessee (the sponsors of Prime Time). We formed a Bible Club at the high school and scheduled "Meet You at the Pole" prayer meetings. I met a lot of fantastic young people, and made friends with some amazing families. I went on a lot of trips, became involved in several children's church ministries, and forged several unbreakable relationships.

But my senior year, everything changed. (And now we're finally reaching the point of this post.) A friend of mine named Claudine Auguste, who to this day is still one of the most important and influential people in my life, lent me her dog-eared, bent, beat-up, under-lined, and generally tattered copy of Jack Kerouac's On the Road. I won't get into the story of how that book changed my life (that's another post), but it did. I read it during a time in my life where everything was stagnant, routine, and boring, even church. I was going through the motions, paying lip-service, without feeling any passion in my heart. On the Road had a lot of passion, passion to spare, and I picked up on that.

Suddenly I wanted to throw off my shackles of inhibition and dive into the raw realities of life. I wanted to know America, its people, its smells, its tastes, its light and darkness. I wanted to look at great art and read moving poems; I wanted to slum it with bums and junkies and winos. I wanted to mix it up with girls, listen to crazy music, break tradition and live like a bohemian.

I went on a Kerouac binge and, over the course of two years, bought fourteen of his books. Novels, poetry, religious notes, everything. I even bought a 3-CD set of his live readings, as well as a VHS video about the Beat Generation (Adam White, one of my best friends, bought me a copy of Kerouac, the movie.) I delved into the other authors and poets, as well: Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, Lawrence Ferlenghetti, Gary Snyder; and even the peripheral Beats: Ken Kesey, Bob Dylan, Charles Bukowski, Hunter S. Thompson.

I found another interest in Hunter S. Thompson, the doped-out renegade Gonzo journalist who authored Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, which eventually became the cult-classic movie starring Johnny Depp and Benicio Del Toro. It was this book (and movie) in particular that brought about the next phase-shift, the phase-shift into drugs, mostly pot and acid. That began the Second Chapter in the Life of Billy, and is probably the source of a confessional story I've yet to write (but will, eventually).

All this time, I was still thinking about my life as a Christian. What happened to it? Was it still there, somewhere deep inside me? Was I still a Christian? Or had I let go, and wandered into some hazy drug-induced world of meaningless philosophy, of destructive, damaging relationships, of eventual madness? I've never believed that you could lose your salvation, if you really truly believed you were saved. But I also didn't believe in using God's mercy or grace like a confessional booth. I wasn't excusing or explaining away my actions because I knew God would forgive me if I asked Him. I just acted, knowing full well it wasn't what I was supposed to be doing. I was like a cheating husband who still loved his wife, who still lived with her, who still wanted to be with her, but still slept with someone else. How messed up is that?

I've been a Christian for almost 12 years. For the last six of those years, I've known Jesus in my head, but not in my heart. I mean, He's always been there, but I've ignored Him. I've tried to do things my way. I relegated Him to the position of back-seat driver, and things just don't work that way.

I know this probably comes as a shock to a lot of people, mostly my Dad. He's probably rolling his eyes and saying, "Oh no, here we go again." But it's different this time. I've learned so much since my holy roller days.

What brought all of this about? Well... let's just say God has brought someone into my life at just the right time. A friend, a guy, a co-worker named Eric. He's another post unto himself. The guy's like this great big excitable puppy (and I mean that in the least gayest way possible), and he's a Christian. When he found out I was a Believer, too, he immediately started going on and on and on and on about this book by a guy named Donald Miller, called Blue Like Jazz. It's a book about nonreligious thoughts on Christian spirituality, and I just had to read it, he kept saying. I just had to. I kinda brushed it off, and said something like, "Yeah, bring me your copy and I'll read it." I didn't think he'd actually bring it in. But two hours later, while I was standing in front of the computer at work, he shoved a shopping bag in front of my face. "Happy Birthday, Billy!" I opened the bag. It was a copy of Blue Like Jazz. "Holy Crap, where did you get this?" I asked. He said he called his wife and had her buy a copy and bring it to me at work. All within two hours. I was shocked and kinda touched. I promised him I'd start to read it that night.

And I did. I started it that night and finished somewhere in the middle before going to bed. I woke up the next morning and read the second half. I finished it within 24 hours.

The book... the book has started something. It's like it has stolen the idol and now the Big Ass Boulder's been released. I'm running away from Something now, but I've got an even Bigger Treasure in my hand. (Sorry... Indiana Jones metaphors are kinda weak)... And now, it's time to begin again.

I'm not through talking about this, not by a long shot. I've got so many things to say, and I want to seriously discuss this book, this Blue Like Jazz. But this post is entirely too long to start up a new topic.

And my head's starting to swirl so it's time to take a break. See you soon.