This is part 4 of a story in five parts. Catch up here:
Part 1: Waiting for a sign
Part 2: A sinking feeling
Part 3: April showers
Quemahoning was the kind ofcamp Professor
Stansell might have mocked as too evangelical. It was here at age ten my
counselor told me I better say an official prayer to “accept Jesus” into my
heart to be sure I was going to heaven. It was here at age fifteen I experienced
a community of high-schoolers who weren’t afraid to lie under the stars and ask
big questions of God and of themselves.
Part 1: Waiting for a sign
Part 2: A sinking feeling
Part 3: April showers
Photo by Doug Beckers |
Quemahoning was the kind of
My first week back, I took twelve-year-old Bailey to play
ping-pong. I asked about her family. When she didn’t say much, I launched into
the easy diatribe I thought I was supposed to share: “God loves you so much;
there is nothing you can do to separate yourself from that love.” The words,
like a dented ping-pong ball, didn’t bounce. They landed flat at my feet and I
saw that I still didn’t believe them.
I picked my way that summer through the ponderous book of
Jeremiah—full of prophecies of sin and destruction—holding my grudge against
God for being confusing and wrathful (if he was even real). I woke in the
mornings and stared at the sun coming up over the lake. I asked God, why?
One evening, all the counselors huddled in Ellen’s
apartment. Someone spoke about how Jesus died for our sins on the cross, how
all our failures are accounted for. This is the core tenet of Christianity and
the emotional heartbeat of evangelicalism. Many of the counselors cried tears
of release and joy. I sat unmoved, bored.
The next afternoon, Ellen caught my arm as the campers
rushed off to activities. “How are you doing?” We sat on the benches by the lake.
For the first time, I let myself be angry. I thought of sitting alone in my
room in in the spring, wishing someone would stop by. “I don’t feel like a sinner!” I told Ellen.
“I don’t feel like I’ve done anything wrong that Jesus has to die for. I just
feel broken.”
Ellen reached for my hand and waited a long time as we
watched the leaves quiver against the still water. Finally she spoke. “That
lack of love you feel,” she began, “that
is sin. Christ bore that pain, too.”
*
Trying a different approach, I shared the story of my difficult
year with 14-year-old girls around a campfire on our overnight biking trip.
“God is big enough to handle questions,” I concluded unconvincingly, pausing to
blow on the coals of the campfire and down another roasted marshmallow. “Don’t
pretend you don’t have any.”
The conversation returned to beef stew and farts. As the
girls trickled off to their tents, I stayed to watch the fire die down. I shone
my flashlight around the campsite to make sure all the food was put away. One
girl continued sitting at the fire, staring at the coals.
I looked at her. “Not tired?” I asked.
She shook her head.
I poked at the coals again, and sat down to stare at them
with her. It’s a good pastime.
“How can you believe in God,” she asked me, “when you aren’t
sure he’s really there?”
I was suddenly acutely aware of my the pace of my heartbeat. This was important. Without knowing it, I had been waiting for a camper to ask me this question all summer.
“I want to believe,” she said, “but I don’t know if I do.
And I could just say all that stuff is true, but maybe I wouldn’t mean it.”
I stabbed at the coals. I felt the pain still raw inside me.
It hurts to want faith and not have it. To feel that a personal, loving God is
both the most beautiful and preposterous of notions.
“Have you read the gospels?” I asked. She shook her head.
“What I’ve found,” I said, “is that Jesus is a genius. Someone I want to
follow. There’s something real in those stories.”
But it was only people who wrote the Bible. When I pray it
feels empty. My life isn’t exactly
the best right now. I want to be independent.
Her objections were mine. As I listened to her, I was listening
to myself. “I don’t think it’s something anyone can figure out for you,” I
finally copped out. “We all have to find God on our own.”
My heart hurt when I said goodbye to her a few days later.
That summer, it was 14-year-olds who reminded me that honest
seekers yearn for God. It was music and campfires and whispers by the lake that
reminded me there is a world apart from academic criticism. That honesty and
vulnerability can be met with love.
By August, I could look out over the lake and see beauty. I
could fall asleep content at the community of lovely people around me. I could
pray quietly, thank you.
“This is how we know that he lives in us,” the apostle John
writes. “We know it by the Spirit he gave us.”
My favorite part of the story happened in the beautiful land of Tanzania in East Africa. Read about this in the final installment, Part 5.
My favorite part of the story happened in the beautiful land of Tanzania in East Africa. Read about this in the final installment, Part 5.
I've been reading these all week. Outstanding. Thanks for writing!
ReplyDeleteThanks John. I wrote a version of this a while ago and finally decided it was time to share! One more bit tomorrow.
ReplyDelete