Forty-one Years Ago

Forty-one years ago this morning was a significant day, a turning point in my life. I still remember it rather well because I had come to an impasse in my life, not only spiritually but emotionally as well. But a little background needs to be explained to make sense of that statement.

I grew up in a conservative religious environment in the sense that I had been led to believe in a very strict, arbitrary, demanding God who expected everyone to keep His rules perfectly or face punishing. Very likely this was because that was the way I was generally treated by my parents, particularly my father who was not adverse to using corporal punishment whenever he felt it might be useful to force me into more obedience. Thus my view of God increasingly was filled with fear and intimidation.

As I entered my teen years my heart began to rebel more and more against this kind of life. But at the same time my conscience had been trained to always be honest, to try to be good and to seek for holiness as far as I could figure out what that meant. I now realize that this is the double-mindedness that James speaks of in the Bible. And as I learned all too well, double-mindedness always leads to instability.

The religion of my childhood in many respects resembled the cultural religion of America in those days, a culture where authority demanded implicit, unquestioning obedience and every infraction of the law was met with stern retribution. But as I was approaching adulthood in my early teens things were changing in our country; the Vietnam war was raging and coming to a climax and young people both there and at home were chafing under the abuse of a country exploiting them and using them essentially as cannon fodder in a far away land.

Protests began to break out, but not just over a stupid war that was going nowhere but in reaction to increasingly abusive authority here at home. Hypocrisy was on the rise among the older generation and the youth were hungry for more authenticity, for something that addressed the real issues down inside instead of just repressing everything for the sake of keeping up appearances. Out of this environment the Hippie movement was born with a rather colorful history and mixed reviews.

Whatever you might think was going on with the Hippie movement (which was slightly before my time in some respects), it was truly a mix of reactions to the abuse of power, not only by the government but by religion and adults in general. Some of the young people in that movement were honestly seeking for real freedom, to explore uncharted waters not unlike Columbus who had 'discovered' America long ago, and they also wanted to a better love and learn to real. As with any revolution there were also those who took advantage of the uprisings to express their selfishness by exploiting others and causing havoc. But it cannot be denied that the repressive atmosphere of abuse by those in charge brought on this massive movement not unlike what we are seeing all throughout the Arab world today.

My own life was being lived out in an even more restricted, protected environment. I was carefully shielded from nearly all outside influences such as popular music, movies and most other cultural activities that were considered worldly in society. I am not saying that this was all bad but simply stating that this is what shaped my thinking and perceptions during my formative years. But because of the intensity of the pressure to conform to the rule of law both at home and in my church as well as in society at large, I found myself increasingly chafing under the pressure for conformity and started having my own urges to revolt myself.

As I mentioned previously, my conscience had been trained quite intently to act as a guard against my straying too far into off-limit activities. I had great ability to heap enormous amounts of guilt and shame on myself whenever I felt I had sinned. The problem was that I had very nebulous ideas about just what sin really was and this was part of what fueled my confusion and growing resentment against authority. My conscience had become very sensitive, but without experiencing real love I increasingly lived in growing terror of losing my soul if I did not 'confess' every last little 'sin' that might still be lurking in my past or present.

I came to believe from the teachings/threatenings of well-meaning religious instructors that God, who could see all things even in the deepest recesses of my soul, was always looking over my shoulder waiting to condemn me to burn in hell if I did not perfectly conform to every last requirement/demand expected of me. To make matters worse I never seemed to be able to determine just what demands were from God and which might just be petty demands of those in authority. For it was not unusual – in fact it was the popular method in even secular culture – to make up rules more for the convenience of those in charge than for the good of those under their authority.

So in many ways I entered my own 'Hippie movement' in my own way, but not necessarily at the same time as the one going on outside my home. And even though I did begin indulging in listening to forbidden music on a radio I discovered in my house, which raised the friction level between me and my parents significantly, the pop music I listened to was more reflective than instructive in my life.

During this period in my life I began to experience an internal conflict that I can only describe as resembling schizophrenia. Because of my very dark views of a demanding God waiting to punish me reinforced by a father who was very similar, and an overactive conscience that did its share of condemning me as well, I found myself in essence 'doing penance' that increasingly consumed more and more of my waking hours. During this period of time when I was around 11-13 I took on my first job as a paper-boy for a Chicago newspaper and suddenly had access to far more money that the pittance my parents had given me for an allowance each week. That gave me resources to do many more things but not necessarily all beneficial for me. But pervading my conscious mind through whatever activities I found myself involved in, and like a computer virus running behind the scenes consuming more and more of my mental CPU, was a mantra of sorts that ran over and over and over and became more and more obsessive and compulsive.

This virus that increasingly took up more and more of my waking moments was a cycle of confessing whatever violation or past sin I might be able to imagine or remember and begging God to forgive that sin so I would not face punishment for it. However, even this activity brought very little relief for I had no way of being sure that God had relented and chosen to wipe that sin off my records in heaven. Thus I would find myself repeating the same confessions again many times because I still wasn't sure if I had gotten it right and removed it from the list God was using against me for the day of Judgment.

This may sound very bizarre to some but may resonate a great deal with many others. Whatever the case, this was my situation and no one around me had any clue that this was what was going on inside my head nearly every moment I was awake. Things progressively got worse though, for my overactive conscience pushed me harder and harder to comply with the expectations of religion as I perceived them, which meant that I was also supposed to close my eyes, bow my head, kneel down and fold my hands whenever I prayed. But since this cycle of fearful, compulsive 'penance' was happening during many of my waking moments, increasingly it was impossible to do all of those things at the same time. That of course, brought up the potential that I was adding even more guilt to the list of sins I was trying to whittle down with all my frenzied, obsessive praying.

I can remember riding my bicycle through car traffic in town trying to recite my penance routines and feeling compelled to close my eyes in because I was praying but with dangerous results. Finally I had to just keep reciting my mantras without doing any of the outward physical requirements just to stay safe but in turn that only increased the weight of guilt I was already feeling. My condition could easily be compared to the situation of Christian in the story Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan. He is described as having an incredibly heavy burden fastened on his back that he could not escape. That description of the Christian life truly resonated in many ways with my own journey toward God.

This obsessive-compulsive habit that was developing in my internal world finally became so disruptive that people must have begun to wonder about me, yet no one ever bothered to ask or to allow me the freedom to share my fears and confusion with them. The only thing I got from the adult world were more expectations and ever-increasing requirements that I needed to conform to in order to be accepted as well as prepare my life for heaven.

With this background explanation it can be more readily understood why I felt the way I did when I woke up on my sixteenth birthday and lay in bed pondering my predicament that cold morning. A number of things crossed my mind that began to inter-relate to each other. One thing was the popular notion that the age of sixteen may be some sort of magical transition point in life from which the expression “sixteen and never been kissed” emerged. And while it was true that I had never been kissed by a girl, being the pragmatic sort of mind I was, I rather disdained such notions. But that morning I began to ponder that just maybe there might be something significant about turning sixteen that was outside my frame of awareness. I began to wonder if something might potentially be different for me that day, something that might surprise me, that might cause me to take a different direction in my life. Little did I realize that I was indeed about to turn one of the most significant corners that would affect my journey for eternity.

As I lay there in bed pondering whether there was anything to this sixteen business or not, another thought began to emerge more forcefully from my heart. My resentment had been building up for years against my internal picture of God who demanded impossible levels of penance and expected me to live such a dysfunctional existence as I had been experiencing for several years. My heart was so suppressed and squashed by all this abusive internal frenzy that I was finally ready to consider throwing in the towel so to speak and giving up on all of it. Maybe this religion was too crazy for me, and certainly it was becoming clear that the direction I was heading was untenable. It was impossible to live much longer with this compulsive obsession sapping more and more of my energy and it was interfering with my relationships and even my ability to concentrate on normal activities. It was only increasing my levels of shame, guilt and fear rather than diminishing them and it was starting to become clear that this must not be the right road to heaven. The way things were going I would soon have a mental break-down rather than a breakthrough into holiness.

As I lay there and thought back over the past few years of my life in connection with this obsession, I decided to make what felt like a very dangerous decision that morning. In the light of the pain and dysfunction this obsession was bringing into my life, I decided that for at least that one day I was going to attempt to suppress this compulsive urge to confess and grovel every time it presented itself no matter how insistent it might feel. Only if I obviously committed some egregious sin would I choose to try to make it right, but for all the other real or imaginary sins that seemed to never go away anyway, I decided that for this day I was going to fight back and refuse to obey this internal dictator any longer.

As I made this decision I felt a threat emerging from the demon (I now see that is really what it was) that was driving me to live this way. I could hear him threaten that I would surely burn in hell if I didn't continue to obey this obsession. But in response I decided that it couldn't be much worse to burn in hell than the miserable existence I was already experiencing. And somewhere deep inside I felt just a flicker of hope suggesting that maybe, just maybe what I had been doing was not really God's plan after all. And if that was true then maybe this decision might possibly open me up to a better option than the one religion had produced in me thus far.

That day became one of the most significant turning points in my life up to that point. Because of my choice to begin to turn away from desperately dark pictures of God in my head and move toward a more healthy picture of Him, my life has been on a different track ever since. I am not suggesting in any way that it was the intention of my parents or religious guardians to lead me into such insanity. But nevertheless it was the product of a legalistic approach to religion that always results in malfunction and a loss of peace in the heart. And peace is one of the most important ingredients for a Christian to experience if they are to grow and thrive and mature.

As I thought back on this day that changed my life 41 years ago this morning, I couldn't help but feel again that I am in some ways continuing that choice again today. I find myself in the middle of even more intense questioning of my dark pictures of God, pictures that still pervade the thinking and teachings of most of those around me in religion even today. The same atmosphere of fear still pervades not only my own church but every brand of religion throughout the world to some extent. Only recently have I begun to discover that the real truth about God is even more radically beautiful than I could ever have dared to imagine that day I turned sixteen. Now here I am still processing and rejecting faulty opinions about God so many years later and wondering how much longer it will take before I can be free of the inhibitions and rebellion that all of those lies instilled into my psyche during those formative years.

I made a decision back in those days that I was going to take the harder road than many of my friends were choosing. Rather than throw out religion as being worthless or impossible or a fraud as many others chose to do, I decided that the real problem was that I didn't have a correct perception of what was really true about God or religion and that I needed to figure out what was really true in contrast to what I had been taught all my life that made me so terrified of God. That choice has shaped the rest of my life up to this day and continues to be the basis by which I live my life.

I am now more convinced than ever that the real problem, not only in my life but with all of us, is that we have grown up in an environment so saturated with lies about God that unless God intervenes to show our hearts the real truth about Him there is no hope of us every figuring it out. But on the other hand, if we allow Him enough respect to give Him a chance in our hearts, He will begin to share with us a love and will ravish our hearts in ways that cannot be matched by anything else we could imagine. The human heart was designed to be satisfied by only one thing, and that one thing is the passion of the God who created it to start with. But the thing that keeps us from embracing that love are the myriads of lies we still believe that prevent us from trusting Him with our hearts.

Religion has miserably failed to present the real truth about God, not just to the world but to its own adherents as well. Religion still insists that God operates primarily through laws and even so-called liberal theology is obsessed with resolving our legal standing with God. What I have been discovering is that God is far more intent on winning my respect and my affections than He is on me achieving perfect conformity to a list of demands. Trying to fulfill a list of rules actually diminishes my ability to love, yet love is the only thing that prepares my heart to live in His presence. The only way I can live in love is to lay aside my obsession with rules and first learn to appreciate the real truth about what He is really like in contrast to all the lies religion and/or culture has foisted on me. Then as I come to know Him more and more intimately my life will naturally begin to gravitate toward being like Him without me obsessing over whether I have offended Him or not.

I still have a long ways to go to get rid of the many lies that still lurk deep inside me and get triggered from time to time. But God is faithful and His love is everlasting which is the only thing I can depend on when it comes to my salvation. The more I focus on knowing who He really is the more I sense my own heart beginning to heal and to increase in its capacity to respond with reflective love back toward Him. And this, I am discovering, is the real preparation for heaven that my heart has been longing for all along.

Temporary Beach Bums

Leaving behind the sweltering heat of the midwest, wifey and I flew out to chilly Northwest Washington last Monday to visit with our daughter for a few weeks and see some of the beauties of this region. Knowing how little pictures really convey what needs to be seen and smelled and experienced firsthand, I sometimes fail to take enough pictures. Yet they can serve as reminders of the fuller memories of cherished experiences for those who participated in what the pictures represent.

Today we went out to the 'ocean' such as it is in the straits of the sound. I can see how I could very quickly get addicted to just spending weeks strolling the beaches exploring the millions of kinds of life in the tidepools available here, smelling the scent of the sea and soaking up the peace inherent in nature as God designed it. I missed seeing the Bale Eagle on the branch that my daughter caught with her camera, but we did finally come across some amazingly beautiful creatures in the tidepools before retreating ahead of the returning tide.

Sea Anemone

Starfish

Sunflower Starfish

At the risk of boring those who find this commonplace, I will share a few pictures of how our morning transpired today. It sure beat the baking sun of Illinois but did require that I wear a few more layers of clothes than I am used to having this time of year.

Multiple Starfish of bright colors

Upcoming Director

A week ago my wife and I went to the last practice of the Barbershop Chorus I am a part of before their annual show last weekend. Since I was not singing in the show we decided to sit in on the dress rehearsal which would be the next best thing to attending. At the end of each rehearsal every week it is a tradition worldwide for Barbershop choruses to sing the anthem of the society, “Keep the Whole World Singing”. Our director usually selects someone from the group to direct it and the chorus usually pays close attention to that director to follow whatever they might do in their leading of the song.

In the past when I have been chosen I have usually made the song rather unexpected which requires the men to watch quite closely to my directing. Since I have not been to practice much over the past couple months I suspected in my mind that he might select me to direct the song. I said to myself that if he chose me to do it I would get my wife to do it in my place.

Sure enough, the director asked me to lead the song so I turned to my wife and invited her to lead it in my place. She was extremely reluctant and embarrassed to be so assertive in front of so many people, but upon a little physical coaxing and encouragement from the men she finally stood up to direct.

Since she has never done anything like this before and had no idea of what is involved in directing a chorus and didn't even know the song, she asked me what she should do. I told her to just wave her arms around and see what might happen.

Sure enough, as soon as she began moving her arms the men began singing the song according to her gestures. She seemed rather shocked and sometimes just stood there while they were stuck holding a note. I had to encourage her to keep moving her hands so they could finish the song. It was all very interesting and after the song we all gave her a standing ovation. (Well, they were all standing anyway)

If any of you like to sing I would encourage you to check into finding a Barbershop or Sweet Adelines (the female counterpart) chorus in your area and at least listen to a practice or concert. These societies are open, relaxed and have a lot of fun together. Its also a great place to make friends and improve your musical abilities. You don't have to feel obligated to be a professional but if you want to learn they are always teaching skills that can help you learn how to be a better singer.

For more information or to find a chorus in your area you can visit their worldwide web site at Barbershop.org.

On That Note

We are blessed to be able to live out in the country. Because of that we are much more aware of the rhythms of nature, and this year is one of those rare moments that only happens every seven years. This is the year we get to enjoy the serenade of the cicadas.

It began with many small holes suddenly appearing in the ground around our yard. It almost looks like someone fired at the ground with a large caliber machine gun in places. The cicadas emerge from their underground hiding places once every seven years to take over the surroundings by storm. I have recently heard stories about campers being overwhelmed with cicadas covering their food within minutes after placing it on the picnic table. We have not seen near that many here, but our dog has enjoyed a few as tasty morsels on his daily walks occasionally.

The other morning as I listened to the constant singing of these cicadas I decided to guess what note they were singing, what pitch they were using as they all sang in close unison all through the surrounding woods. I guessed that it might be the note A, but after checking it on the piano I discovered it to be E instead. So much for perfect pitch on my part, huh.

Today we noticed in the times we spent outside (though it was a very hot day) that there is another competing, or complimentary, chorus in concert with the cicadas. The tree frogs have their own symphony going on that is different than the constant note of the cicadas. Their song intensifies and diminishes in a cycle with no distinct note like the other background song of the cicadas.

It reminds me of the truth that “all nature sings and around me rings the music of the spheres. This is my Father's world...” I am gladdened by the songs of the birds that arrange their wake-up chorus of intense praise early in the morning, though we don't hear it too well with the windows closed. The cheerful expressions and colors of the Oriels when they come to the hummingbird feeder brighten our day on occasion and the buzzing and chirping of the many cute hummingbirds and their occasional dive-bombing over our heads when we walk by are reminders of a Father's love for beauty and variety.

Of course there are uncomfortable things in nature that remind us that sin has marred many things. The deer flies that attack us when we walk the dog present daily challenges to keep our head covered while still having to flap our arms around gracelessly as we walk down the road. But it is still better to be close to nature and away from the many distractions and isolation from much in nature that those living in town experience.

This year we will enjoy the cicada's songs for as long as they last. I'm not sure how long they sing for, but it is not very often that they come around so we will enjoy them and remember them after they are gone in anticipation for their next grand appearance in another seven years.

Fading Winter

Due to setting up my other blogs and mainly focusing on those topics I have not been very good about keeping this one up to date as far as my own activities. Some things happen that I intend to post about but by the time I get around to it it seems so far after the fact that I just don't bother. Like the singing Valentines event where I sang in a quartet all day to surprised women all over town. Of course there is also the fact that FaceBook has nearly taken over the role that blogs used to have for people's expression of their lives. But even there I almost never post anything because of the very public nature that intimidates me. Knowing that almost no one looks at this blog makes it a little easier to post things here than where I am guaranteed that hundreds of people will immediately see it.

Anyway, having rambled on about that too long, I thought I might post at little here both in review and in advance. The advance is that we have a concert coming up on March 20 with our Barbershop Chorus. It is our annual Lenten concert where we invite ladies to sing with us in the concert. This year it looks like we might even be outnumbered by the ladies which would be quite interesting. If any of you would like to attend this concert we would love to have you and I know you would enjoy it. I think my wife and my sister who recently moved in with us will both be singing in it this year.

As far as what has happened recently, my wife and I spent right at two months during the dead of winter in Michigan with our lovely (adopted) daughter refurbishing her house to ready it for rental. It had not been taken care of much for many years as far as painting and repairs so it took much longer than she had hoped to finish the job. But after spraying all the ceilings, fixing and painting the walls, replacing carpet with laminate floors and cleaning and painting the whole basement it looks better than it ever has since her original family moved in years ago.

But even more exciting was the deepening bonds that were experienced between all of us during this extended time we were able to spend together. We have taken her in as part of our intimate family for a number of years now since both of her own parents died less than a year apart, and at times it has been stressful for all of us. But over the past couple years she seems to have gone into a growth spurt as far as maturing emotionally and spiritually which has opened up our relationship dramatically. She is currently attending the seminary which is keeping her very busy and pressured, but then what's new – she is very smart and has always pushed herself very hard in school.

She also is keeping her eyes open to see if there is a man for her somewhere while training herself to rest in God's timing and guidance for her life. We are so proud of what she is becoming, the choices she is making to move into deeper intimacy with God and her willingness to take much bigger risks trusting others, especially in her relationship with us as her surrogate parents. She has chosen to be more affectionate, more trusting, more open and more patient which has allowed us in turn to be more open and vulnerable with her as well. What has come out of this while we spent this extended time with her is a much deeper bonding as she has allowed us to bring healing to some of the deep wounds from her past and damage from previous relationships that were less than healthy.

Like us, she is learning to trust God much more through this time and is learning how to distinguish His voice from other counterfeit communications which is something all of us need to learn too. Though she is often frustrated she is choosing to be patient, to open up to others and ask for help, for advice, for wisdom which is very brave of her given where she has come from emotionally. At the same time I feel suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that God is providing through her an opportunity for me to practice how to be a better father than how I performed when my children were younger. And though she is the same age as my other grown children now, she is still choosing to relate to us in a trusting way as a daughter which is allowing us to share our lives with her as caring parents and to have our hearts attached to her in a way that is uncommon today even within biological families.

Living in Michigan again during the middle of winter gave us time to enjoy more snow than we see back home in Illinois. While we were gone there was a very hard ice storm at home which we missed. Now the weather is finally starting to ease up and make us very hungry for warmer weather as it teases us in fits and spurts. But it was nice to drive in the snow again. I know, many might think I'm crazy that way, but I enjoy the challenge. It's like a game to use cars interactively with snow that can't be done under normal conditions.

While in Michigan we also had the wonderful privilege of connecting with some old friends and to tap into the many cultural and religious resources not available where we live. We had some wonderful times of refreshing in meetings, social gatherings and small groups that really enriched our lives and made us wish we could do something similar with people in our area. Maybe someday.

Toward the end of last year my sister and her husband moved in with us from Virginia. This means that our house is again overflowing with more stuff, more furniture and boxes and the garage is once again full to the brim challenging us to sort and shuck and make lots of hard decisions. We are remodeling one of the upstairs bedrooms into a kitchen which is nearly finished now. Another one is turned into an office with the intent of allowing them to have their apartment upstairs though they have not started staying there yet. The forth bedroom upstairs is still packed to the ceiling with storage which is not helped by the fact that both our child and their child have left some of their stuff at home for storage.

Since we now have found a way to deal with the Early Blight problem in the soil with products from the company I joined, we now plan to have a full-blown garden this year. It helps too that there are four people to help with it instead of just two. We are still trusting God to provide the income necessary to take care of our needs here, but He has been faithful to send us jobs and other things and we have all that we really need. We still are eating food canned by our parents years ago and have had some given to us from others on top of that. We live out in the country in the woods and have a creek running through the property. God has blessed us and we want to become better channels of blessing to others.