Coming Clean

Revelation in Progess

Looking Back on the Road So Far

Looking back, there’s one thing left I should mention. I’ve alluded to it once before, and that is the exegetical Bible studies I did in college.

The one on Galatians was a Reformed study. I found that I just did not believe in Christianity the way it presented it. There was something so fatally wrong with faith alone – like it was trying to have things both ways. Faith alone justifies you, but your faith will move you to obedience. …well, which is it? Do I merely need faith or must I also be obedient? Where in the Bible is it clear and simple that faith alone justifies and clears all objections that could be raised by all other Scripture? It isn’t there. All the arguments for faith alone are on the side of convoluted.

Then I did a study on Romans with my roommate Jason – the would-be Roman Catholic Priest. This study blew me away. It is a taped study entitled Romanism in Romans by Scott Hahn. And so, instead of talking about all that stuff myself, I’m going to link to Scott’s own conversion story from being an old-school Presbyterian minister to perhaps one of the most articulate Roman Catholics I’ve ever heard.

This is Scott’s conversion story.

And here, too, are two links that debate some issues dealt with in Romanism in Romans. It tackles the two topics that are central to Protestantism existing: sola scriptura and sola fide.
This is Scott’s debate with Robert Knudson on the authority of faith.
This is Scott’s debate with Robert Knudson on justification.

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Food for the Road

This post is a reflection on the seeming fork in the Road at Emmaus:
One road leads down a path where the Eucharist is merely a sign, though very significant, of Jesus’s Sacrifice and a remembrance of Him.
The other road leads down a path where partaking in the Eucharist is partaking in the very Body of Jesus Himself.

Ignatius of Antioch

“Take note of those who hold heterodox opinions on the grace of Jesus Christ which has come to us, and see how contrary their opinions are to the mind of God. . . . They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, flesh which suffered for our sins and which that Father, in his goodness, raised up again. They who deny the gift of God are perishing in their disputes” (Letter to the Smyrnaeans 6:2–7:1 [A.D. 110]).
Justin Martyr

“We call this food Eucharist, and no one else is permitted to partake of it, except one who believes our teaching to be true and who has been washed in the washing which is for the remission of sins and for regeneration [i.e., has received baptism] and is thereby living as Christ enjoined. For not as common bread nor common drink do we receive these; but since Jesus Christ our Savior was made incarnate by the word of God and had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so too, as we have been taught, the food which has been made into the Eucharist by the Eucharistic prayer set down by him, and by the change of which our blood and flesh is nurtured, is both the flesh and the blood of that incarnated Jesus” (First Apology 66 [A.D. 151]).
Irenaeus

“If the Lord were from other than the Father, how could he rightly take bread, which is of the same creation as our own, and confess it to be his body and affirm that the mixture in the cup is his blood?” (Against Heresies 4:33–32 [A.D. 189]).

“He has declared the cup, a part of creation, to be his own blood, from which he causes our blood to flow; and the bread, a part of creation, he has established as his own body, from which he gives increase unto our bodies. When, therefore, the mixed cup [wine and water] and the baked bread receives the Word of God and becomes the Eucharist, the body of Christ, and from these the substance of our flesh is increased and supported, how can they say that the flesh is not capable of receiving the gift of God, which is eternal life—flesh which is nourished by the body and blood of the Lord, and is in fact a member of him?” (ibid., 5:2).

So these were the quotes that pretty much broke me. Never mind everyone else who came after them affirming this position as well. These guys were forming the early church, and there is no question of their faith in Jesus physically present in the Eucharist. All the Protestant arguments about the Eucharist being just “a symbol” could not convince me otherwise: the early fathers say so… how could they get this wrong? To get it wrong is to perpetuate the worst form of idolatry known to mankind let alone Christianity. So, I cannot believe that this teaching is just a simple (or even grevious) error in understanding or judgement by our forefathers: they believed it deliberately, as they were taught, and professed it in faith. Just as I was receiving this teaching from them, they had received it from the Apostles (Ignatius particularly studied under John according to his own letters).

To really get at the heart of the matter, you have to start asking: what, then, is the purpose of the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist? What about this tradition makes it so important that I, a Protestant, cannot partake of it? Why would my Protestant forefathers reject it?

Well, the best that I could ever establish to the last question was that the Real Presence just makes no sense: it violates human sense and human reason. Why would God put such a stumbling block up? To that I can only say this: if reason is what keeps you from believing, then are your objections truly grounded in faith and belief? Or is it not that you are objecting to something that deliberately transcends reason and sense and thus requires a true, unreasonable, yet harmless belief?

The last part of that question leads into the purpose and role of the Real Presence in the Eucharist: what is the point? To paraphrase any number of Protestant friends I know on their take on this: sure, believe in the Eucharist and all that other fantastic fancy-shmancy stuff. It’s not like it does you any good even if it were true.

But doesn’t it?!?! I mean, c’mon people, we’re talking about JESUS. This same Lord – that is our means and hopes for Salvation – has, is, and ever will be made present every day around the world in the Eucharist. Is it wise of us to dismiss out of hand this belief as being of no benefit? I cannot see how!!

And so, we’re left to consider of what benefit is the Eucharist: is it more than some highfalutin idea that makes us feel good about our Savior being among us?

And I daresay, yes, even from my own casual meditation on the Eucharist before I began really studying what it is that it means. These are some of the things I have found to be of benefit:

And from there we return to what the Early Father’s taught. My above sentiments are pretty much in line with them. Augustine especially was all into how the Eucharist brings the Church together into the Mystical Body. It unites us with the poor considering that Jesus, at the time of His Sacrifice, was the poorest among men (John Chrysostom). In drawing us closer to Christ, it helps prepare us with our struggle against sin.

Looking back over this post, I’ve probably done more to reflect on what I stuck with than with the real struggle I went through… but the struggle wasn’t so much in the learning and the debate. I mean, really, there is no debate in light of history: the early Church wins hands down every time. The struggle was with overcoming my preconceptions of what the Eucharist is, faithfully learning the faith of the early Church, and trying to reconcile myself with my faith being at odds with the early Church. In the end, I did not have to so much abandon my faith as much as I had to add to it… but there are some core things that, flowing out of studying the early Church, I had to change.

And the Eucharist is where it all started, and I don’t find that insignificant. It makes sense that all that I believe would change, not over bread and wine, but over Jesus: really, truly present in substance in the Eucharist.

“The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?” (1 Cor. 10:16)

“Therefore whoever eats the bread and drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord. . . . For any one who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself” (1 Cor. 11:27, 29)

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Finding Brothers On The Road

This is perhaps a story that Jeff has not the wholly heard.

So, by the time I was off to college, I was more or less getting back on the straight and narrow, and I was looking to involve myself with similar people. But I have this tendency to track fellow geeks, nerds, fantasy buffs, and other “social rejects”. Oh yes, do not let all this personality fool you. I am a social reject. I can be “that guy” at the drop of a dime.

So, my first couple of days at college, I was a little depressed because I was finding myself among “my people” and not the people I wanted to be with. As a result, I reluctantly and dejectedly went with a bunch of guys to the Fall Fraternity Rush. We were all going for free food and entertainment. A few of the guys were going under the pretense of hooking up. Me, I was just going to be with these guys. Along the way, we passed a place I would have never expected. I probably would not have even noticed it if we had not deliberately passed it by. The only reason why I noticed is because one of the guys said, “Oh, do we really want to go to a place that has that?” And he pointed to a cross up on the side of a house. …a fraternity house…

Well, we passed by it and got our free food and had our entertainment. It was all fun and games, but I kept thinking about that place with the cross on the side of the house. It was probably just some kind of gimmick or “ritual” thing, but it was the only frat house I had seen with a cross on it. Curiosity won me over so that by the end of the night, when we were heading back to the dorms, I feigned I had left “something” behind at a house, and I went and visisted the house with a cross.

As it turned out, this house didn’t merely have a cross on it. It had Christians living in it. They publicly identified themselves as Christians and seeking Christians for membership. What and how could this be? Fraternities are social beer orgies. Not so with this one.

After talking with a number of the guys, I realized I liked this place a lot. This had a lot of guys that I wanted to know more, that were interested in living and growing as I was, that liked to do a lot of the same things I did. I decided I wanted in, and so I returned over the next few days.

It also happened during this time that the brotherhood took an interest in me. A cool and cautious interest. Apparently my interviews were not all up to snuff. For example, I argued against predestination. I argued for the freedom of man. I did not deny the omnipotence or omnipresence of God, but I would not name it as predestination – namely because I identified predestination as an active and forceful predetermination on God’s part.

I never really learned what was and was not said about me. If I had, I probably shouldn’t say anyways. What happened during this time though was that it became apparent that there were some Calvinists/Reformed in the crowd, and they wanted to hear it said their way. So, I’m a smart guy, I know this is the right place for me, and I know what they want me to say. So I said it. And then, after talking with a guy in private – in a bathroom stall – I got saved. Again. Sitting next to a toilet. …I wish I could remember how we ended up in there…

I was pretty miffed at this whole “saving” business, but, again, I was pleased by people’s desire to faithfully and truthfully serve me. I got over it. Besides, there’s nothing wrong about professing your belief a thousand times over if it will be of some benefit to someone – and I don’t mean me.

But still, pretty awful, huh? Probably the best lie I ever told though! And to tell you the truth, I’m not really so sure it was a lie. It was just confusion on both parties parts. Probably mostly mine. I’d like to hear what I said that got everyone so concerned – but no one has ever been able to tell me what it was. …who knows… But after that, with a few minor personality bumps along the way, I was brought into the brotherhood.

My time in the fraternity has all been of tremendous benefit to me. I really blossomed in my faith and as a man during this time. I became very close with a number of great and Godly men, and I spent a lot of time in prayer, study, and discernment with them. In a lot of ways, it was the spiritual environment that my church and family should have provided me – the kind of thing I had with Scott back in the day. It was not hyped. It was not one gimmick and flashy thing after another. It was raw, personal, challenging, encouraging… it was a communal life of faith. It was Christianity for the glory of Jesus and for our sake.

This chapter of this fraternity has in many ways has helped and shaped me into the man I am today. I love Theta Xi.

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A Lament and An Explanation

The Road I Travel is slow going and without a lot of details… but I suppose, that’s the way it is in general. It’s important though to understand at the very least my feelings and my thoughts on how it is I am where I am today instead of just knowing that I am here. It’s an attempt, though feeble and perhaps ultimately fruitless, at avoiding a label. Labels are destructive and dehumanizing. It’s part of how the Nazi’s brainwashed Germany into killing “Jews” and not Jewish people. If I merely subscribe to allowing myself being labeled without some form of explanation, my road is lost on all those I encounter for all they will see is the label. I, like the rest of us, am more than a label – I am a person and hope to be treated with the dignity that accords.

Yet, it is also curious how willingly people will subscribe to labels. They welcome being treated and talked to as a thing and not a person. I suppose, perhaps, that it may be so that they can shirk responsibility for what it is they cling to – “I’m just saying that’s what my religion says. Tough cookies for you if you want me to talk about it.” Or perhaps they truly are certain that the label is representative of all that they are – but that’s a tough pill to swallow for the rest of us (or at least me) I think. I don’t dislike people who identify themselves as or with a label; they just frustrate me because sometimes (if not all the time) they deliberately have nothing personal to say.

Certainly labels and categories have their place concerning our ideas about people. It forms the basis of our identity with people and how we talk to people. But the role of the label is diminished in active relationships and active dialog, and that’s what I’m trying to build in some way here.

If I can encourage you to be more than a label, then maybe Coming Clean about The Road I Travel isn’t as fruitless as I think it might ultimately be.

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Where The Road Began

My parents were both brought up in Southern Christian families. There were mostly Southern Baptists and Methodists in the mix, but, it has seemed to me anyways, that the South has its own form of Christianity that seems pretty consistent between denomination lines. You’ve got to go grab catechisms and what-not to really find out what makes them different aside from the rituals they do.

By the time I showed up in their lives my parents had become involved in a Charismatic church. I spent many of my formative years among the speakers of tongues. It has, in many ways, jaded me of pretty much anything good that could and does come out of those communities – even while I still very much believe in it all! But that’s another topic for another time.

I spent my first 8 or so years in a small, homegrown church that my parents helped start. I was very aware of their faith, and I asked a lot of questions about it. It was what lead me to make a profession of faith at the age of 6. What can a 6 year old know about matters of faith? Well, the only thing I can tell you is that I remember from that time that I was to follow Jesus. I was to learn to think like He thinked, to walk like He walked, and anything short of that was going to land me on my face (and I would likely find myself there anyways no matter how hard I tried). It has in many ways formed the core of my faith, though, I might be able to say it has changed some over the years, too.

I attended kindergarten and 1st grade at this small church as well. So it was very much a part of who I was. But that all started to change when I started attending public school in 2nd grade. At that point we began attending church on-again/off-again. By the time I was 8, church had become one of those things you just do when you get around to it, so when we changed churches, it wasn’t as much of a big deal as it probably should have been for me. I was pretty bummed because I was losing all my best friends, but a child can only do what his parents are going to do.

Public school was a big adjustment for me. Kids are mean there. I was picked on a bit when attending school at church, but that was nothing like what happened to me in public school. And kids encourage you to do bad things in public school… which I did not understand either. But, for the most part, I held my own in elementary school. I was a quick runner and a smart kid. So that kept me out of harm’s way during recess and made me the apple of the teacher’s eye during class. I was pretty well liked all the same, but children will take advantage of other children if they sense that they can. It seems that many people have thought that they can take advantage of me throughout my life, but nothing on a deeply scarring level.

Anyways, the new church was cool because I made a friend named Scott. He and I liked a lot of the same things. And we could talk about Jesus, which was even cooler. As a kid, I knew a lot of people either (1) didn’t know who Jesus is or (2) didn’t have much to say about Him. Scott was different. I had in him, essentially, an elementary accountability partner. I LOVED going to church so I could see Scott during Sunday school. I bet our conversations would be pretty neat to hear now… but no such luck. I just remember him being a good kid that I could talk and share with.

Just as I entered middle school, Scott’s family moved away. Church lost a lot of meaning for me at that point because then it was just about adults and the things adults do. I knew adults talked about Jesus, and I listened a lot trying to pull it all in… but adult stuff is for adults and doesn’t do a lot for a kid. The other children that were in my sunday school class never seemed to talk to me when it was just me and no Scott. And when you’re an island of a child in sunday school, there’s just nothing there for you.

Essentially, my childhood — that time before middle school — was a great time for me spiritually. It has probably laid the foundation for who I am today, though I’ve tried to tear it down a few times over now. I always remember it nostalgically, especially in light of what was to come next.

I firmly believe, never mind the tongue in cheek, that middle school is hell manifested on earth.

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Crossroads and Homecoming

The toughest decision for someone raised in a very Protestant family in a very Protestant part of the world is not abandoning the faith but to consider conversion to Catholicism.

To illustrate, consider the following – the first conversation I had with my dad about Catholicism:
“Dad, what if I were to tell you I was thinking about converting to Catholicism?”
…silence…
And then he said, “I would tell you I raised you better than that.”

And that’s about as deep as I’ve ever had an opportunity to really dialogue with my family about it.

Friends weren’t much better. Some just stopped talking to me. Others just don’t like talking about it and so don’t. Which is a pity because if I ever needed a friend to help show me “the error of my ways,” it would have been then. But no friends were to be found.

Except those that were Catholic. Those that were excited, inspired, and encouraged by my conversion. To tell you the truth, I really didn’t need their sympathies/empathies – though they did lighten the burden some. What I needed most were the folks I was leaving behind, but they never came.

Of course, by that time, too, I had burned a lot of my Protestant bridges and many of my friends knew it. I had essentially renounced sola fide (as Protestants understand it anyways). My research into and conversion to the Eucharist pretty much had killed off any sense of sola scriptura. So perhaps by that time, people had already given me up as a lost cause. I hope not, but I really don’t know either way due to the silence.

My family did make the biggest noise about it all… not so much on theological grounds – how could they, they don’t know and don’t want to know anything of substance about Catholicism – but on familial grounds. And it’s still a very bitter pill to this day. For example, I had to tell them that as part of my conversion I should no longer accept communion in a Protestant church, and my family should not accept communion in the Catholic Church. The reasoning is simple: why partake in something you don’t believe. I think I can make an argument by familial bonds in the case of me taking in the Protestant church, but the reverse does not hold for my family.

So I was only left with my conscience, and I got on the road to conversion with my conscience made confident by faith in Jesus. A journey of 3 years it took me to beat a path to the Emmaus that is Rome: half a year of researching the patristics, Catholicism, and Protestantism individually, and two and a half years of religious formation in the catechumenate and continued research.

I entered the Church on Easter Vigil night 2001. I have attended no other celebration that rivals the Catholic Easter Vigil. It is glorious in every sense of the word. On my night, I was Baptized (because I had never received Baptism) and Confirmed and at long last I partook in the real Flesh and the real Blood of Jesus the Christ in my first Communion.

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The Emmaus Road

This is a very difficult post, particularly starting around the middle through to the end. Not because it is me or because it is what I believe but because I have suffered for it. I have no regrets in this post… only a whimper of fear of pain that may come from it. …but that is another post altogether.

Alright, so up to this point I’ve described:
My Childhood
My Own Personal Hell
My Adolesence
The Start of College College
and now we’re at my theological formative years.

Now, as I indicated in the previous TRIT post, I entered college with a bit of a personal struggle: namely going along with Reformed theology. After finding myself immersed in it, I eventually adopted it for lack of anything better. I mean, I got to give it to the Reformed tradition: it is vigorous and thorough. I really had an appreciation for that. There was not anything Reformists would shy away from: it tried to pull everything into its context.

So, I started to attend Church, and I most regularly attended (if you can call my attendance regular) Jeff’s church, Grace Presbyterian. I. love. this. church. It was seriously out of my way, but I was always enriched when I attended, and it really welcomed us college folk. I felt welcomed; I enjoyed and was challenged by what was taught.

At school I got involved with a number of guys for Bible studies and prayer groups. Most of them were informal things; a few of them were formal in that they followed specific study material – and most of these were apologetics of some kind. I did two exegetical studies: one on Galatians and one on Romans. I never much cared very much for exegetical studies because, well, at some point or another, the study tends to ram rod you: ignore what it seems like it could be saying and repeat what we’re saying it means.

As good counterpoint to everything I was doing, there were among my brotherhood a few Catholics… and I liked to pick on them. It wasn’t a mean thing, it was a brotherly-ribbing thing, and plus they welcomed it because they had a lot to share about Catholicism that a lot of people would not otherwise know or understand. Also, because of some of the apologetic studies I had done, I liked to see how far it would get me with the Catholics ;) Surprisingly (or not), not very far.

So what I saw in all of this was that I was getting a good, holistic Christian education and becoming able to see the Mere Christianity in all of it. That’s when I decided to pick up Mere Christianity and give it a read through (stopped short in the last 100 pgs.. can’t remember why). The book is fascinating. There are a lot of things that people can learn from C.S. Lewis in how he presents it. I’ll sum it up in three brief, overly broad, and unjust rules: (1) Know where you’re going (2) Explore and destroy all other paths in brief to get there (3) Don’t expect people to understand the destination – explain it to them.

The next big thing to happen was Lisa. Lisa and I began talking over the Internet the fall of my sophomore year. We met because my friend Jason added her to my ICQ list. She and Jason had met at a church retreat the summer before and had been chatting in email. When Jason learned I had ICQ, he added her to my list and would chat to her or have me send messages to her. What’s that you ask? How is it that I and Lisa actually started talking without me possibly dashing any love interest between her and Jason? Oh, well, there was no love interest between Jason and Lisa – see, it was in Jason’s plan to enroll into seminary upon graduation and head into the Roman Catholic priesthood.

And this is the beginning of a very raw rub for me. I never intended to grow into any kind of interest in Lisa. The ICQ thing was just a thing I did for Jason. However, in between me sending messages for Jason and me making fun of Jason in those messages, Lisa and I began to talk. We had a lot in common – she and I lived close by over the summer, we did a lot of the same things, I knew of her church (Catholic if you haven’t figured it out yet) and had been there once or twice with a friend from highschool, etc. etc. etc. All the things people get to know about each other that makes them interested in each other. And after three months of chatting, I knew I was interested in Lisa. …but she was Catholic.

Now, being Catholic would have been a deal breaker if my interest had not grown so strong. And there were a couple of milestones in our “real life” relationship that helped me swallow the pill of Lisa’s Catholicism for the time being:
(1) on our third date I asked her if I would have to convert in order to marry her. She said no, so I decided we could continue dating.
(2) somewhere after 3 months of dating, it became evident that Lisa was not a fair weather Catholic… I either needed to end it ….or try to convert her. Well, I had been a jerk to all my Catholic brothers before about silly Catholicism, so I figured could jerk her around a little bit, too, if it meant I could keep her (because I did genuinely love her by now). The worst that would happen is that she’d break up with me: darn. The best thing that could happen is that she would convert: ideal. The road ahead was very long for the both of us I daresay.

So, in order to convert Lisa, I began to study Catholicism. Not just the counter apologetics about the Catholic Church but also what the Catholic Church affirmed about itself. It’s amazing how different the two sides are about what the Catholic Church says. And after a lot of time, I rediscovered the Early Father’s, and I started sizing them up in this equation: which of these two sides is telling me the truth? How do I share the Gospel to win over the other side?

If you didn’t pick up on it, I had begun asking dangerous questions: which side is telling me the truth? I had laid myself open to being won over by a side in studying how to bring someone over to my side. I find that ironic because it certainly wasn’t suppose to happen.

And this is where I found myself for certain on this old dirt road, walking with my forefathers in faith. We weren’t really talking, but they were sharing with me the core, the richness, and beauty of their faith. I speak their names with love: Peter, John, Paul, Ignatius, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, and the list goes on. This is where you can find them. There’s a lot of stuff there, a lot of context for what the early Church taught and clung to and believed. And when I began to ask them where is this road leading me, I found a common theme: this is the Emmaus road.


Luke 24
The Road to Emmaus
13And behold, two of them were going that very day to a village named Emmaus, which was about seven miles from Jerusalem.
14And they were talking with each other about all these things which had taken place.
15While they were talking and discussing, Jesus Himself approached and began traveling with them.
16But their eyes were prevented from recognizing Him.
17And He said to them, “What are these words that you are exchanging with one another as you are walking?” And they stood still, looking sad.
18One of them, named Cleopas, answered and said to Him, “Are You the only one visiting Jerusalem and unaware of the things which have happened here in these days?”
19And He said to them, “What things?” And they said to Him, “The things about Jesus the Nazarene, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word in the sight of God and all the people,
20and how the chief priests and our rulers delivered Him to the sentence of death, and crucified Him.
21″But we were hoping that it was He who was going to redeem Israel. Indeed, besides all this, it is the third day since these things happened.
22″But also some women among us amazed us. When they were at the tomb early in the morning,
23and did not find His body, they came, saying that they had also seen a vision of angels who said that He was alive.
24″Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just exactly as the women also had said; but Him they did not see.”
25And He said to them, “O foolish men and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken!
26″Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into His glory?”
27Then beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, He explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures.
28And they approached the village where they were going, and He acted as though He were going farther.
29But they urged Him, saying, “Stay with us, for it is getting toward evening, and the day is now nearly over.” So He went in to stay with them.
30When He had reclined at the table with them, He took the bread and blessed it, and breaking it, He began giving it to them.
31Then their eyes were opened and they recognized Him; and He vanished from their sight.
32They said to one another, “Were not our hearts burning within us while He was speaking to us on the road, while He was explaining the Scriptures to us?”
33And they got up that very hour and returned to Jerusalem, and found gathered together the eleven and those who were with them,
34saying, “The Lord has really risen and has appeared to Simon.”
35They began to relate their experiences on the road and how He was recognized by them in the breaking of the bread.

The Real Presence. Proclaimed and believed from the earliest of days. Defended rigorously throughout the time of the Church. The most precious and beautiful of all Christian gifts and mysteries as proclaimed by our own forefathers.


John 6
52Then the Jews began to argue with one another, saying, “How can this man give us His flesh to eat?”
53So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves.
54″He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.
55″For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink.
56″He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him.
57″As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats Me, he also will live because of Me.
58″This is the bread which came down out of heaven; not as the fathers ate and died; he who eats this bread will live forever.”
59These things He said in the synagogue as He taught in Capernaum.
60Therefore many of His disciples, when they heard this said, “This is a difficult statement; who can listen to it?”
61But Jesus, conscious that His disciples grumbled at this, said to them, “Does this cause you to stumble?
62″What then if you see the Son of Man ascending to where He was before?
63″It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.
64″But there are some of you who do not believe ” For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe, and who it was that would betray Him.
65And He was saying, “For this reason I have said to you, that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted him from the Father.”
66As a result of this many of His disciples withdrew and were not walking with Him anymore.
67So Jesus said to the twelve, “You do not want to go away also, do you?”
68Simon Peter answered Him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life.

Broken and miserable and yet awed and overjoyed I found myself yearning to come with my forefathers in faith to the table to eat and drink of the mystery of the real flesh and real blood of the Lamb of God. Amen.

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Rediscovering Religion

In highschool, I had 4 significant milestones that lead me back to Christianity and trying to figure it all out.

The first was an “Understanding Religion” seminar that a bunch of students got together and did over a 6 week academic program I attended one summer. I was introduced to Universalists, Ba’Hai, Hinduism, Buddhism, Wicca/Paganism, Calvinism, Catholicism, and a few others. I found myself intrigued by all of them and thinking about each of them. I readily identified with the Calvinists and less so with the Catholics. Yet I had never encountered Catholicism before, so I paid careful attention between the Calvinists and the Catholics. When I surveyed the general response to the two, people felt the Catholics were asking you to make a lot less assumptions and take more on faith – especially on topics such as justification and the eucharist – and the Calvinists the other way around. I found that weird – weird in that I was trying to figure out, what’s the difference between assumption and faith? But, that’s what I got out of a few people I talked with afterward who didn’t care either way.

The next thing that happened was a class on World Literature I took my senior year of highschool. The first semester studied ancient texts which were all – surprise, surprise – religious. So, I read a lot of the Bhagavadgita, the Zoroastrianism texts, and Eastern Myth and Philosophy. That was really good for me because it got me thinking critically about pantheism, polytheism, dualism, and sorting why those do and don’t make sense. In a lot of ways, it prepared me for Mere Christianity when I read it in college. In so many ways, reading C.S. Lewis is like watching dormant and yet ventured paths of my thought blossom before me.

Third, I started attending a church again with a friend. This was both good and bad for me because while I was rediscovering the need for a communion with believers, I found myself really not fitting in with baptist theology. For example, one night after Bible Study we began a group prayer, during which someone asked if anyone was “scared of the fires of hell” to stand up. Well, I am scared of hell. I’ve got no bones about saying so. So, I stood up. You know what happened then? I gots me a good ol’ baptist saving. Okay, I really shouldn’t be so condescending – they thought they were honestly serving me. But c’mon folks… even Christians should remain fearful of the fires of hell – just as they should remain fearful of God – even if our hope says we have no need for it. But anyways…

Fourth, I began a quest to understand the early Church Fathers. I wanted to know what they thought about Christianity, what it meant, how they practiced it, and everything else. I figured if there were any Christians who knew what Christianity was about, it would be them. Calvin, the Catholics, the Baptists — they got nothing on the early fathers. They are all just poor images of the real, first thing.

There were a few other milestones that happened during this time that need to be talked about, but it is more appropriate to come back to them later than try to deal with them now. For in the moment during this time, these things were inquisitive but largely inconsequential.

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Into the Rough and Brambles

So this post is about the hellish three years that is known as Middle School. Middle School is aptly name as it is that time that you are most neglected, most needing of attention, and most ignored (or otherwise given the attention you don’twant) much like the proverbial Middle Child.

If I were given the opportunity to redo a group of years, I’d redo those. I have no idea how I’d redo them — heck I might even end up doing them exactly the same — but I’d like the opportunity and try to get it right. Unfortunately, I got it very, very wrong.

So, what is all this consternation about Middle School? Well you have to understand a few things about what I thought of myself prior to this point. Prior to this point, I considered myself to be a good Christian boy. Unfortunately, that’s what everyone else my age thought of me and branded me as such (and oh how searingly it burned).

Being a good Christian boy, I was out to do right. I seldom did wrong. Oh, I had my failings — resisting my parents, disobeying my parents, not standing up to the bigger kids for the smaller kids, and other such childish nonsense. But the difference between those things and what was to come is that I was still being true to myself, seeking to do good, and trying to conform those around me to those same goals. That my parents had burdened me with a Law that I did not want was their problem and not mine. My love and respect for my parents often times found myself conforming to those Laws for their honor, but every now and then, I wanted something of my own. So, any disobedience that stemmed from these times were not so much a violation of conscience as much as a contest of wills.

Beginning at the age 11 is when I began to hesitatntly, resistingly violate my conscience. I did so in two very personal ways: I denied my best friend and I cussed. All of this to be accepted by a friend that did not last the year, who eventually became too cool for me, and who relished my disobedience more than my friendship. Perhaps that’s kids being kids. It hit me deep. The shame that I carry from these things still amazes me – even in the light of things I’ve done since.

A lot of people say they know when they accepted Jesus. I know when I first sinned. It was then. That would be the one thing God and Jesus would not excuse of someone living in Their Name. The rest, we could banter about but it would all be legal and about assigning and passing blame around. But with these things I was without excuse, absolutely culpable, totally exposed, and utterly ashamed. In some respect, I think I know exactly how Adam felt. If I could run away or otherwise get a “redo”, I would.

From there, things went down hill. I sought increasingly more to be accepted. I became confused in what it meant being Christian. I acted less Christ like to the kids that deserved it most (namely, those that weren’t in anyway Christian) for the kids that acted under some kind of piety that stemmed largely from Church going. I was thorougly stuck between the two groups, looking for acceptance, and finding very little. I did not have any lasting friendships from Middle School, but I had a few good friends, for a time, here and there. But something about me always got in the way to end the friendship – whether it be lack of commitment or my own sense of “piety” or what not. God, how I thoroughly hate this time.

If it were not for school work, scouts, band, and soccer, I probably would have been thoroughly depressed and dejected. As it was, I had those things, I excelled in them, and they were the core source of my self esteem. The relationship with my parents was real rocky throughout this time, but they, sensing my need to “do”, allowed me to do at least those things and kept me away from other things (such as hanging out with “my friends”). It was real hard for me to understand their love for me in an active way back then, but I sure see it now.

Church pretty muched stopped somewhere in these years. My brother and I realized that if you move real slow Sunday morning, you become late enough that you miss church. Ah, well, really, that was just too bad in our book. Really too bad… I might just move a little slower next time to be sure. Like I said earlier, a lot of disobedience in children isn’t so much sinfulness as the contest of wills. My brother and I won this battle.

So, that’s Middle School in a nutshell. It may seem like a lot of words for not a lot, but to me it’s one of those life changing / profound times I always find myself thinking back on a lot. Certainly, I have only shared the bare minimum of that time, but you know why it’s important. But I doubt you’ll ever know just how deep it goes.

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