Weeds (Easter - Day 44)

(Based on Hebrews 6:1-12)

Growing up in the Southern Baptist traditions, found myself surrounded by sermons that I didn't understand, baptisms that were encouraged, the Lord's Supper, and the Sinner's Prayer. All these things were handed to me as the "foundational truths" of what it meant to be a Christian. The choirs would sing, the preachers would preach, and the old man in the front row would give a resounding "Amen!" Most of the time, I would drift to sleep in my mother's lap on the wooden pew. Although the words penetrated my mind, they would take years to penetrate my heart. Even so, I still made decisions. I still prayed the prayer. I still got baptized. I still took communion. I didn't understand it though. I hadn't been exposed to the "world outside" yet. I hadn't actually done anything sinful yet. I hadn't looked a girl in the face who I had slept with during a blackout yet. I hadn't looked at the mirror hanging off of the car I had wrecked the night before yet. I hadn't turned from the faith yet. I hadn't cursed God yet. I hadn't become more or less agnostic yet.

Through the years, I could find anyone and anything to blame for my mistakes and failures. Who better to blame that the blurry faces of my past who represented a faulty theology - a man-made system to get human beings closer to a God who couldn't be touched? What better to blame than the systems unearthed behind the pulpit on Sunday mornings, verbally covering me and all those people who sat expressionlessly in the sanctuary with me? 

Religion and the folks who subscribed to it became the perfect scapegoats. They were the reason I fell away. They were the reason this pie-in-the-sky construct of relationship with God didn't work. It had nothing to do with me, and everything to do with other humans' errors in thinking and belief. 

As a result, an invisible and potentially tangible battle ensued. It was me against them. I would get them back. I would keep believing what I believed, but prove them wrong. They needed a heart change, a mind change. They were the ones who needed fixing, not me. They were the ones who followed the pastor like little puppies and chewed on every bit of bone he threw out at them. I wasn't going to have a part of that nonsense. 

On and on it went. Day after day, I tried to find new ways to expose the faults of religion and all its followers. What I didn't know was that I was becoming agnostic in the process. I cursed the path of religion with all its warring theological systems, while the war was going on in my own heart. I cursed the condemnation that spewed from the mental statues I had constructed representing the all-American preacher, while my own heart was full of prejudice. I cursed baptism and the Sinner's Prayer they were nothing more than some man's way of turning the abstract into something real and meaningful - a mass manipulation. I believed in something, but hated everything in between. 

Maybe there are stories like mine. Maybe there are tons of stories like mine. Maybe there are millions of people like me. I don't know. 

In spite of all my own prejudice and confusion, there was always one thing that remained true. Something loved me and I tried to love it back. I couldn't see it. I couldn't hear it, but it was there. Quietly drawing me close, trying to communicate with me while all the noises of my head screamed for attention, that something stayed with me. It never left. 

It wasn't until I hit absolute rock bottom that I gave the voice a fighting chance, that I let this "something" become more of a guiding force than a quiet whisper. I began questioning my own prejudice, wondering if my problems were really a product of someone or something else's making. Or, were they my own? I had to decide eventually that they were in fact, mine. My skepticism wasn't someone else's making. Somewhere in the past were people just like me trying to take a message that was very unclear and make it presentable to a child. Somewhere in the past were broken, messy preachers trying to convey something abstract into something chewable. 

What the teachers of the past - whoever they were - did was simply plant a seed. They took their best shot at presenting a complex, dynamic message of the unseen God to a congregation of people looking for hope. It was simply a seed. 

I have a garden that I planted before Lent, which was a couple months ago. One end of the garden has a huge ant bed covering one of my tomato plants. Throughout, it looks like my plants are dying. None of them have produced any fruit, and they should have started a while ago. They're not completely gone, but they're looking sickly. I water and till the soil but they still just sit there warped and dying. I'm going to keep watering them and doing what I can to take care of them. The seeds are planted, but it's the actual plants that are struggling. The leaves are wilting and I keep finding caterpillars eating them. I'm going to do whatever I can to keep them alive, but I don't know if it's enough. I may have to uproot them completely and replant.

I believe it's the same with those of us who grew up with some sort of knowledge about God, Jesus, and anything along those lines. Sometimes the seed that was planted, for whatever reason, just didn't work. It grew for awhile, but didn't produce any fruit. For whatever reasons, the leaves just kind of wilted away. Our consciences wanted nothing more to do with what was taught us. Life happened. Parents separated, friends left us, drugs and alcohol took over, we felt like failures, etc. Worldly calamities overtook the seed that was planted deep in our hearts. Yet, it was planted nonetheless. 

I am proof that it is possible to replant, and start a new garden. I still have my own weeds of agnosticism hidden in places of my soul that I haven't even discovered yet, but the seed has turned into a plant. There is fruit. There are caterpillars trying to devour. There are definite hazards that exist, but the plant is firmly rooted. 

The point at which we mature from preschool finger-painting to works of art in the spiritual arena is when we decide to stop building our faith off of other peoples'. It's when we stop pointing the finger at those blurry figures of the past and the present, the preachers and theological systems that are set in place, seemingly exclusively and judgmentally. Have I advanced past finger-painting? In some ways yes, in some ways no. 

The point of all this is to say: No matter how far we have gone, we can still reconnect if we haven't yet to the power source that I call God. He hasn't left. Though we've been burnt up at people and religious systems, God is still here. The seed is still there, and it just needs some weeding. 

Today's Action: Make an honest list of the characteristics we have been given of God. Then, make an honest list of the characteristics we'd like to see in God. Tear up the former list or burn it or do whatever with it. Take the latter list and thank God for a new conception of Him, and the ability to till a new, personal faith.