My Road to Christ

I would like to start this off by first stating that I am by no means a religious man. In fact, I abhor organized religion. But in my 3+ decades on this planet I have had an interesting journey. I grew up in Philadelphia going to an Episcopal church. The African American Episcopal Church of Saint Thomas. Some of my earliest memories are of attending Sunday school. As I grew in the church so did my commitment. I became an acolyte at age 8, and kept that position until I was 18. During this time, I learned every aspect of the church. See I was a very curious child. Before I became an acolyte I would often cut Sunday school to explore the church. I would go places that no one was allowed except for the church faculty. Storage places, attics, etc. Often I would do these things alone. Not with any malicious intent but just to explore. I would sit there and listen to the service and the choir sing. How beautiful it all sounded from the top of the church. I would hold many private conversations with God up there too. Not praying or asking for things but actual conversations like you would have with a friend. In my eyes there was no better place to speak to him. Among all the discarded relics the church doesn’t use anymore but still holds on to. Boxes of bibles and crosses. As a child I thought that was as close as I could get to God without actually going to heaven. So high up (so I thought) the preacher and the choir in the background just close enough that you felt safe but just far enough you felt alone. It was as if having a direct line to God. We would sit and just talk. The funny thing is I can’t remember about what. I just know those days helped me through some of the darkest days of my young life. Of course there were times when I would get caught up there by Butch. (the Sexton) The first few times he would run me off and back to Sunday school but after the 4th or 5th time he would let me stay. I think he was the only one that understood what I was saying. I always felt better after my little talks and sad the days I couldn’t make it up there.

As I grew older and my responsibilities grew within the church, my visits to the top of the church waned until they finally stopped. It was always next week; I’ll go next week. As an acolyte I had to actually participate in the service. Part of me felt that this would actually make me closer with God. I was up on the alter helping the pastor. But in many ways this made me feel distant. I didn’t know how to explain it. After a few years I knew the service inside and out to the point that with the exception of the sermon I could conduct the service myself if I needed to. Then something happened. The church moved. I would never get to go to my spot again. We moved into a bigger church and while I was sad to leave our old building I was excited to go to a bigger building and the opportunity to find a nice spot like I had before that I could have my discussions with God. But alas by the time we moved it was no longer cute for me to disappear and go places that I didn’t belong. The elders in the church no longer found it amusing and neither did my grandmother. So I settled with being an acolyte and that would have to do. I didn’t hear from God for a very long time after that. As I got older like most kids, I got bored with church. I felt like it had showed me everything it could. It became an endless cycle of repetitive jargon. Oh it’s the third Sunday after lent. The pastor will be wearing this outfit and we say this gospel and the sermon will be on this topic. So now church had become less about learning about God and his word and more about spending time with my Sunday friends. The worst thing you could do to us at that time was to make us sit in the congregation and listen to the service. This is a form of torture to a teen or preteen. I even went to bible study for a time. Took the classes so I could receive communion. And all the time I never heard from God. So I started asking those that I though surely must talk to God on a daily basis. I asked the pastor and the elders, even my grandmother. They all gave me pretty much the same answer. You talk to God through prayer and he does not talk back, at least not in a way that we can hear. I’ll never forget the day I told the pastor he was wrong about that. I told him as a kid I spoke to God every Sunday in the top of the old church and this look of concern came over his face. As an adult I’m sure you can imagine the look and the questions that followed. Also the talk with my grandmother. Finally, they believed me that no one was up there with me and the proceed to explain that I had an imaginary friend and because I had gotten older that’s why he stopped talking to me. This was after all between the ages of 5 and 8 and I’m now 15. I felt like I had truly lost a friend that day. This was also the start of my downfall with the church.

So know I’ve been told that “God” was not actually God but it was cute that my imaginary friend was named God, and I had grown more and more distant from the church. I started having questions that no one could answer. I surely wasn’t going to ask some figment of my imagination and the pastor was no help. Just telling me to have faith. By the way that’s no answer, if you don’t know just say you don’t know. My grandmother was uneasy with me asking these questions. I would bring up the contradictions in the bible, the way God told us not to kill but then would command an army to kill. How can God be love but he lays out laws for slavery? Why is Jesus portrayed as a white man but was born in the middle east? Why do we have graven images and bow to them but it clearly states that no graven images should be made. All the normal questions that a person has, plus many more. Including questioning the Bible itself. The more I questioned the more non-answers I received. Just have faith or answers that had no basis in the bible. The more frustrated I got. So I set off on my own. Once I turned 18 I stopped attending church and started doing my own research.

I ended up going to Oklahoma for school. While in Tulsa I went to several different churches, I had this feeling of lack. This feeling that I was missing something. I couldn’t describe it. But those same questions kept popping up and I would receive the same answers I did as child, which just infuriated me even more. I so wanted that feeling of fulfilment and wonder back that I had as a child. I had not talked to God in years by this point. Yes I had prayed as I was taught but I had not talked. I no longer believed that it was God I was talking to. Years of being teased and analyzed for saying that I hold actual conversations with God had taken their toll. I agreed with the doctor that it was a coping mechanism for the troubles I had as a child. I just wanted to be normal. None of my friends spoke to God or their imaginary friends anymore, so why should I. But the more I closed that part of me off the more distant from I felt from everything that made me happy. I no longer looked at the night sky in sheer awe. I no longer walked through the woods with the amazement that I once had. I could no longer feel the same way I felt when it came to love, joy, happiness. It was if my life had a permanent gray lens obscuring everything I saw, felt, smelled and tasted. No matter how many friends I had I always felt alone and did not know why. That hole inside of me just grew and I knew I had to fill it with something. I looked into many different religions. Acting as though I was doing a project for school. I practiced Wicca, had Druid friends. Looked into Islam (but couldn’t give up pork), went to a synagogue with my Jewish friends. Many forms and sect of Christianity. All filled the hole in different ways but none made me feel whole. I finally just gave up.

By this time, I had dropped out of school and closed my heart off. I moved back home and decided to join the Navy. I was too lonely to care. I figured if I cant find what I had through God and I had searched, oh boy did I search, then I would find what I needed through man. I poured myself into relationships, only to have nothing poured back into me. This left me a miserable person. Instead of searching for God I was actively trying to disprove his existence. After all he cant be real. That was just a imaginary friend I constructed to get me through the bad times. I’m an adult now. Time for me to stop believing in fairy tales. Santa Clause is a story we tell little kids to get them to behave, and God is nothing more than an adult version of Santa. I used my knowledge of the bible to argue anyone that would come to me about God. That hole while still there had been there so long it felt like a part of now. I actively sought things out that I knew would displease God, I cursed his name, I denied his existence. I called myself an atheist but that’s not the right title. An atheist simply doesn’t believe. I believed, I just denied and tried to convince myself that I didn’t believe. In all my anger and rage I told myself I don’t need God. He is an absentee father. Just another person in a long line of people to let me down. But I still felt this need. As much as I tried to deny it this pull was still there. There were times in great lakes while in school I would go sit on the stones overlooking lake Michigan. The water was calm and it was quite as quite can be. No signs of humanity. No rumblings of cars, airplanes, noise from everyday day life was gone. It was just me with the sounds of the water slapping against the rocks with nature playing her calming music in the background. Those times I felt the most at ease I had ever felt in years. And a few I whispered “I’m sorry, I just want you to come back” but nothing. Of course I took this as the doctors were right. Those who had teased me were right. It was just my imagination. So I would strengthen my resolve and go forth to God as I would show my own father that I can do this without you.

Then it happened. Everything came to a head. The woman I asked to marry me had cheated on me, my mother was going through another one of her episodes, the pain and emptiness inside became too much to bare. So one night while at a rave I decided (while under the influence) that I should just end it all now. No one would notice. So I proceeded to try to OD on Ecstasy and LSD. Figured if I’m going to go then I may as well go with some cool visuals. Well that’s just what I got. I picked a place out of the of everyone where I could slip away with little notice. I sat down and closed my eyes. Within a few minutes I hear the music playing but it sounded as though it was far away. Then I saw a figure dressed very nicely walking towards me. Once he came in view I noticed it was me, but the me that I wanted to be. Then me and myself proceeded to talk for what seemed to be hours or even days. We talked about everything from the meaning of life to why I act certain ways to the most mundane conversations. I hadn’t spoken with anyone like this since my time back in the church speaking to God. Of course I cant remember most of the conversation. But before I left I told myself stop pretending, listen to your heart, and you’re not done here yet. And most importantly I never left, you just have to learn to listen. That’s when I walked away and faded away and I woke up. The same song was playing as when I closed my eyes. I made myself throw-up and felt as though a weight had been lifted off my chest. That was a turning point.

I woke up the next morning feeling a bit less gloomy, some of the colors had returned and I felt just a spark of my old self. Very shortly after this I meant my future wife and we had a beautiful baby boy together. As I held my first born son I told him I would be the father I never had. Then I heard a faint whisper in the back of my mind say “See I told you, not done with you yet” I looked at by new born son and saw love. I saw the face of innocence, the face of purity, I saw the face of God. All I could through the tears was to say I’m sorry. I still had much anger and resentment inside of me, but I knew for me to be the father I could be I would have to let it go. That is a lot easier said than done. Over the next few years I attempted to find God again. I attended church but it never felt right. I went back to my home church and was welcomed with open arms but something had changed. I had changed. My mind and my heart were still jaded from being abandoned. I was actively looking for reasons not go. I still argued with people about the bible. I still felt that emptiness. But a funny thing happened. One night while some where in the middle of the Atlantic I looked up and was struck with awe, the way I was when I was a child. The sky was lit up as I had never seen it before. It was a moonless clear night and for the first time I could see the milky way. I decided to just sit there listening to gentle waves lapping on the ship and rocking motion relaxing me. For the first time in a log time my mind was quiet and my heart was open. That’s when I heard him. A simple I’m here. I refused to believe it. I refused to believe after 20 plus years he had finally returned. That would mean I had wasted the past 20+ years of my life. Thinking I had been abandoned. No!!!! That is not the case. My anger and resentment are justified. Don’t you dare think you can just walk back into my life like you never left. It was you that abandoned me long before I abandoned you. I shut my heart again. Who does he think is that he can just walk back in my life. When I needed him he wasn’t there, now I don’t need him.

Then I met Matt. He would quickly become one of my best friends. We would consistently debate the bible. He would force me to have to read and reread the bible to prove my points and I forced him to have to do the same. Unknown at the time this lead me down the path I’m currently on. As time passed I stopped arguing with everyone about religion (with the exception of some key topics) and I started to accept my role in this thing called life. I moved back home to Philadelphia strangely not upset about how my marriage played out. I was now a single father but I was starting to feel this calm come over me. My debates with Matt graduated from me having contempt for God to us having philosophical differences with the way things were interpreted. I still refused to attend church on a regular basis, it just didn’t feel like home. I would visit every once in a blue moon but the same feelings just are not there. But I started being able to truly enjoy the things that always captivated me as child. One night I found myself staring up at the sky again in amazement. It was a late night so no one was out and very few cars. Because I lived in the city I had to struggle to see even the brightest stars. But once again I felt at peace. Then I heard him again. I’m still here. This time I was bit more receptive. I allowed my friend the one I called God to come back into my life.

Now here we are present day, the relationship has been tentative on my part. I still won’t go to church but I feel closer to God then I have felt since I was a child. I still talk with God and while he doesn’t answer nearly as much as he used to. But When he does, I don’t ask for things, I have a conversation with him. He has left me with words of wisdom. Learn to listen with your heart. Even if you cannot see me or hear me, I’m right by your side. You are a part of me and I a part of you, once you understand that you will have a direct line to me through you. Once you learn to listen to that voice you will know what to do. I’m not done with you yet. I know some people will scoff at the idea that I can talk to God, (yes I do believe it is God) but oh well. Since I have opened myself back up my life have turned around. I still have a long way to go to get to where I was. I realize now that he never left me, but I’m still angry over that. As I grow there will be more to this story. I’m not saying it has been easy, but I have dedicated my life to listening to that voice deep inside. That is the voice of God. I have come to realize that God does not reside soley in a church. It helps to gather among other faithful but that does not mean that God is there inside that building. God is in everything. After all he made us and you can’t make something without leaving your imprint on it. God is not found on the pages of some book written over a millennia ago. He is found right here in the hearts of man. That is how we find God.