My Journey of Faith: Final Part

Greenville College is a Mecca for young Christian musicians - when I arrived there in 2001, I was a starry-eyed young idealist looking forward to honoring God with my talent by becoming a better minister and musician. To an extent, I did that, though not as intended. My first major was Contemporary Christian Music, as it was for 33% of the freshman class. And like most freshmen, I realized quite quickly that it wasn't for me. I switched my major to Digital Media, and gave up my dreams of professional musicianship after one semester.

It was in the second semester at Greenville that the seeds of Catholicism that had been planted long ago in the masses I attended at St. Anthony of Padua in Effingham began to be watered. Greenville has a required curriculum in the liberal arts that also requires some degree of general faith formation - I say general because there wasn't anything denominationally particular about these courses, and inter-sectarian discussion between Catholics, Wesleyans, Reformers, Lutherans, and Charismatics was encouraged. Despite this, there was a bias among most of the religion faculty toward high-church tradition, and many were Free Methodist ministers with PhDs in Philosophy or Historical Theology from St. Louis University. From them I learned that "tradition" and "ritual" were not dirty words or obstacles that stood between a believer and God, but rather the continuing preservation of the Church Universal's collective experience of God.

This faith formation curriculum had in this second semester course a very unique bit of experiential learning - a trip to the religiously diverse city of Chicago, to tour and dialogue with other faith traditions (Catholics, Anglicans, Charismatic Catholics, A Christian Commune, Black Church United Church of Christ, Greek Orthodox, Buddhists, Muslims, Jews, and Baha'i). Numerous were the reactions among the students, some of whom had never attempted to engage in any tolerant dialogue with any tradition but their own. Some were angry; some evangelicals tried passionately to convert our tour guides on the spot; some began a slow turn away from Christianity to agnosticism... I still quite vividly remember the moment that I felt my heart embracing the Catholic portion of my faith tradition.

Until then, I had associated Catholicism with empty ritual and passionless, spiritually lethargic congregations (not that these aren't all too common), and with my mother and step-father, who, despite having been forgiven for the sufferings they caused my brothers and I during adolescence, still did not strike me as role models. When I came into Holy Name Cathedral of my own accord, saw the noontime worshippers in prayer, the homeless sleeping in the pews, and felt again the rhythm of the mass, I knew immediately that this unique part of my spiritual heritage could be neglected no longer. My professor encouraged me to integrate this heritage into my faith tradition, but as I grew deeper in faith, a mere integration would become less and less acceptable.

In the meantime, I began preaching. What started as a few sermons given on special "youth" Sundays at the First United Methodist Church of Vandalia grew into my being a confirmed and certified lay minister in the United Methodist Church. I led a worship band for a contemporary service, often leading the entire service and preaching the homily on days when Holy Communion wasn't to be celebrated. On one occasion when a pastor of three nearby churches had to be away, I took his "circuit" for the day and preached at all three - a truly exhausting experience that I believe the Holy Spirit wholly guided and sustained me through. I studied homiletics and scripture and theology at Greenville, taking a minor in religion and continuing to explore Catholic belief.

I wish I could say that my transition from United Methodist minister to Catholic laity was always smooth, charitable, and well-ordered... but it wasn't. By 2004, I was burnt out from balancing my ministry at the church against the demands of school and my then girlfriend. My girlfriend broke up with me just before Lent, my car broke down, and the keyboardist and self-styled leader of my band at the time decided my services were no longer needed. Depressed and exhausted, when my pastor was transferred to a new church, I took my leave as well.

What seems obvious in hindsight as the Adversary's attack on my faith and my morality did not occur to me then to be anything but a string of unfortunate events. After several months of only occasional attendance at church services, I presented myself to the pastor of St. Lawrence Catholic Church in Greenville for RCIA. My motives were aesthetic and theological - the mass was to me, beyond compare as a method of worship. Where I had seen some contemporary worship services become an irreverent spectacle, or cults of personality centered around charismatic musicians and speakers, the masses I had experienced were always reverent and beautiful times of prayer and celebration (though I would later learn firsthand about liturgical abuses that make them less so) . Where I found Lutheran and Reform theology deficient, and exclusivist -- a trait I found unloving -- I found Catholic theology robust, inclusivist, and loving, even when I disagreed. Conversion, however, was not easy. St. Lawrence had no active RCIA program, and so as my initiation classes, I helped teach the high school confirmation class, learning the tenets of the faith as I taught them. My scriptural knowledge impressed my fellow RCIC instructors, and perhaps it was this knowledge that blinded them to the fact that the obligations of the faith were as yet unknown to me; for example, my attendance at mass and my obedience to rules was out of a love for mass and God, and it never occurred to me that one had an obligation to go to mass on Sunday, since the opportunity was there every day -- something I never had as a protestant -- so if I slept in on Sunday or didn't feel up to going, I'd "make it up" through the week, or not, whatever.

In addition to educational difficulties, I began to feel ostracized and separate from the protestant community and tradition I was leaving. Where once, I could identify with being a "good child of the Reformation," as I had been, now I found the phrase and even the notion problematic when the president of the college used it in a general address to my class, now seniors. I was bitter and uncharitable in my heart and speech toward churches that used a "stage" instead of a dais or altar. I was making provocative art to challenge perceptions, I wore makeup to challenge convention, and I drank alcohol -- strictly prohibited by the college's guidelines for communal life -- to challenge the institution. I settled down to some extent as graduation approached, and immediately after graduation I moved to St. Louis. I realized I had been uncharitable, and unwise, but I was still a poorly catechized new Catholic with no Catholic friends, newly out on my own in an environment filled with more options than I had ever encountered.

Despite my unwavering belief in God, and my love of the Catholic Church, my life over the next few years was one that could be accurately summarized with the phrase "Drugs, Sex, and Rock 'n' Roll." My drug of choice was alcohol, and lots of it, though I tried a few others. I gave up my virginity, and though I regretted that, I continued having sexual relationships without regret or remorse; the infamous "Catholic Guilt" is not something I possess. It was toward the end of one of these relationships that I realized that my growing interest in and understanding of Catholic teaching was convicting me of the glaring contradictions in my life. I sought answer after answer, and was slowly making some friends that were also Catholic, but orthodox in their beliefs and practice. I, naturally, as I learned, became more orthodox as well, and the buried desire to minister in some fashion became awakened within me. The permanent diaconate appealed to me, but my lifestyle was an evident problem - If I truly sought holiness, I knew I could not live a double life.

I finally got the nerve to go to confession. It was my second confession, the first since my confirmation. My confessor was an ancient, half-deaf Jesuit, but he definitely heard my confessions, as I heard the surprise in his voice as he responded to the long list of grave sins spanning not days, weeks, or months, but whole years, and helped me through the rest of the rite.

"Well..." He paused a moment. "Welcome back!"

It is good to be back.

My journey of faith has been one of continual motion, from the foundational faith of a child, the passionate faith of a youth, the jaded faith of a wanderer, to the reforged faith of the reconciled. I feel like I have reclaimed the joy that I had felt as a zealous youth, my heart stirs when I read the pages of a theology book and marvel at the complexities of God and faith and the Church, and there is no feeling like it.

As I look forward, trying to see the end of my journey, I can't fathom what comes next, and judging from what I thought I'd be doing at 16 and 21, at 27, it seems almost foolish to venture a guess. But, as I've chosen to summarize myself on facebook, I'm a trusting, passionate scholar and artist: I want to make a difference, and I want to have faith. Lord help me be all that you made me to be.

My Journey of Faith: Part Three

I sought The Lord, and he answered me, and delivered me from all my fears. Look to him, and be radiant; so your faces shall never be ashamed. This poor man cried, and The Lord heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles. The angel of The Lord encamps around those who fear Him, and delivers them.

-David, Psalm 34

Christmas came and went, and I refused to speak to my mother, or visit for the holiday. Every evening ended the same: me, face down in my pillow, praying through the tears that often came when I stopped to think about my situation. These couple of months in my life are perhaps the months that created the most radical change in who I am.

I remember, in hindsight, that I had been dedicated to God even before my birth, and what that really means, I'm still not totally certain, but I can say that were I had been, my faith and my devotion were not being nurtured. The hostility of the environment was hardening my heart. The pain of feeling forsaken and the need to adapt in my new situation would strip all that away, and begin a new work within me.

In the first days of matriculation, I learned quickly that my arrogance and pride must be diminished if I was going to make any friends. The new kid in school wasn't going to make any friends because he was competitive, and while my confidence, competitive spirit, and my particular style of sarcasm will always be part of my personality, it was then that I first knew that coming in and attempting to immediately assume my old roles as lead percussionist and chief thinker wasn't going to work out all that well. A new approach was needed.

It wasn't long after I figured this out that a classmate and distant cousin of mine, Tiffany, invited me to play drums for the praise band at the Free Methodist Church. It seemed provincial, for them, and later for me - their previous drummer had just moved away, and I replaced him without them missing a week. This new church, this new group of friends, were passionately in love with God. Playing with a praise band was a new musical challenge, and because I was at church so often to rehearse and play, I was participating in the study and discussion about faith that I had previously not had much exposure to.

Before the semester was over, I was deeply committed in all venues religious and musical, and the same distant cousin handed to my care the before-school prayer group, Students High on Christ. Not feeling up to the task by myself, I, like Moses, found others to help me, a boy named Devin from the FM church, and a pastor's son from a Baptist Church, named Tim, who himself is now a pastor.

By the end of the year, I was reading the Bible daily, preparing talks to give to others at the prayer meeting, playing drums for the FM praise band, competing alongside my peers in a Bible knowledge competition at the Lutheran church where I had been Christened, singing in a youth choir over at the United Methodist church, playing in a Christian Punk Rock band with two guys from the praise band, organizing the See You at the Pole rally, and attending a Wednesday night Bible study when I wasn't playing at the FM church. My mother and I reconciled. I forgave her. My step-father and I reconciled. I forgave him.

Behind my back, the kids that snuck off at lunch to smoke dubbed me "God-boy," and behind my back, my brother defended me. A less-popular girl once told me she thought I was nicest person she knew. Somehow, without noticing, I'd become passionately kind. I'd learned to be more humble, less sarcastic. Where I had been emptied and broken, by God's mercy I was now mended and full, and headed off to Greenville College, a small free methodist school not far away, to pursue a degree in Christian music.

At Greenville, my faith would be radically challenged, and would radically grow in ways that I had never previously anticipated.

Again, there's more yet to come...

My Journey of Faith: Part Two

Let me preface this section by saying that this leg of my spiritual journey was a desert, and despite their role in making it so, I love my family dearly and have long since forgiven them. Nevertheless, to adequately tell this story, all things here must be included.

My adolescent life could be described accurately as tumultuous.

My parents divorced when I was nine, and I had six addresses in a span of seven years. My mother behaved as if she saw her divorce as a casting off of the shackles that bound her to her former mundane roles as stay-at-home mother and housewife. In many ways it was, and she wasted no time bringing around a new boyfriend that would, a handful of years later, become my step-father.

The newfound freedom my mother enjoyed did not include a lot of child-friendly fun. She and my future step-father would go out together, sometimes all night, sometimes without leaving my brothers or me a clue of where they were or when they'd return, and often they would return drunk, yelling at each other, yelling at us. This was what we grew accustomed to over a span of seven years. If my parents' divorce had put in me a suspicion of authority, the next seven years continued to erode what trust was left in me.

There were at least two bright points that are crucial, however, to the rest of this story, and I'll mention them both at once.

The first crucial item is that my step-father is Catholic. He has not always been the best witness to the faith (have any of us?), but he is a mass-going Catholic, nevertheless, and because of this, I attended Mass sporadically during my teenage years.

The second crucial item is a conversation that I had with my mother, one day when I was fourteen. I don't remember the whole context, but I remember standing in the entrance to the kitchen, as my mother sat at the kitchen table, drinking either diet coke or sweet tea, and her saying to me, "Jake, I've raised you and taught you what I believe, now your salvation is your responsibility."

This mini, personal, pseudo-confirmation ritual had a great impact on me. I often wonder if, because my brothers did not get the same release, it somehow gave them greater reason to rebel against faith. From then on, however, my salvation was mine to "work out with fear and trembling."

It was also at this time that conversations about religion and faith began to take place among my friends at school, and I remember first articulating what amounted to doctrinal differences with my peers when it came to the question of the "Perseverance of the Saints," or, as they would have put it, "Once Saved, Always Saved." I rejected this, though, among my friends at this point, mine was a minority view.

The very general faith I possessed was slowly becoming more specific, but I did not attend services regularly, I did not read the Bible often, nor did I identify myself as any specific type of Christian. I merely prayed, as I always had, in the same, conversational manner, thanking God for what was given, asking for blessings and protection of loved ones, sending messages to deceased loved ones, telling him that I loved him.

Meanwhile, at home, my parents spiraled deeper into alcoholism, and while we had ignored for so long the mental damage that we were made to suffer, when the clear and obvious threat of physical harm not only presented itself but was actualized, we left. On 30 November 1999, after returning from a school function, my brothers and I grabbed our things, and left. My father's house was a safe haven - one we'd initially rejected because of the relationship one forms with a stay-at-home mother, then later one we rejected because of our established friends and school, but one we weren't going dismiss any longer.

Each night for months forward, on the hide-a-bed in my father's basement, I fell asleep crying and praying into my pillow desperate and anguished pleas for help and mercy for my brothers and myself. When I remember those nights, I can feel the tightness in my jaw, the sting in my eyes, and the cool sheets in between my tightly clenched fingers as I sobbed my petitions and wondered in between them why we had to hurt so much.

This crisis stripped from me every familiar support. Despite being safe and loved in my father's house, I felt forsaken. If God was going to answer me, it was going to be in a manner that would be new, and therefore visible.

More to come.

My Journey of Faith: Part One

Jesuit theologian Bernard Lonergan spoke of conversion as a wholly unrestricted state or moment of being in love. To Lonergan, the convert, at the moment of conversion, is "a subject held, grasped, possessed, owned through a total and so an other-worldly love." Conversion experiences are not merely moments that dapple our lives, but even the processes of falling in love again and again.

Stories of conversion are the heavenly romances of our faith. The Old Testament speaks more to us of people answering God's call, the New Testament tells us of this, in addition to Paul's dramatic conversion. The stories of the saints, especially St. Augustine's conversion story, as well as more modern Christians, like John Henry Newman, C.S. Lewis, and numerous others, continue to share with us the power of love to surround and transform our very being. I'm going to begin my story at my very beginning. I hope that someone, if only in some small way, might be encouraged or helped by it, as I am encouraged reading the stories of others.

Before I was born, my mother prayed for the privelege of having a child. I'm not exactly sure of her exact words, but the story she tells is that she even prayed for my face to have certain characteristics... That the life in my grandmother's eyes would be in mine, that I would have a face like my granddad's, and so on. My mother, in these prayers, promised to dedicate me to God should she be so lucky that they be granted.

Whether by chance or providence, when I was born in the wee hours of a Late-May Saturday in 1983, the sparkle of my grandmother's eyes, and my granddad's nose and jawline were mine, just as my mother had prayed. And I was dedicated to God.

I was Christened at Holy Cross Lutheran Church in Vandalia, Illinois, not long after I was born, but it was my mother who took the responsibility of attending church most seriously. My father, having grown up quite poor, felt uncomfortable in church, among people he viewed as cut from a different, wealthier cloth than he. My mother, however, despite not coming from much means herself, did not, and made certain that as I, and later my brothers, grew up, we were involved in the life of our small country church.

As far as raising me to be Christian, by the time I have memories of church and prayer, my parents had done an outstanding job - my prayers to God, as far back as I can remember praying, were conversational prayers. I didn't have a living great-grandpa, but I figured that God must be something like that, but stronger, and a whole lot older. When I imagined God it was always as the Father, alternately appearing as an elderly, bearded man (similar to Santa Claus), or as Michael Landon, after I had watched enough "Highway to Heaven." When my grandparents died, I asked God to care for them and to tell them I said "hi."

My creed, until age 9, written as I approximate I may have articulated it, were I that age:

I believe in God the Father, who made everything (even dinosaurs!).

I believe the stories in the Bible are true and that it is God's word, and God knows everything (he's smarter than Dad)!

I believe in Jesus, His Son, who loves everyone.

His mommy was Mary and her husband was Joseph

We celebrate his birthday at Christmas and give gifts like the three wise men did.

Jesus had twelve disciples and taught good things and did miracles.

Jesus died on a cross and came back to life three days later

So that good Christian people can go to Heaven,

We celebrate this on Easter.

He went back up to heaven but will come back again someday.

People should be baptized, and then they can take communion.

I believe in the Holy Ghost

I believe that the Devil and Sin are bad.

My parents divorced when I was nine. My grandfather had just passed a way a year earlier. We stopped going to church because my mom feared being shunned, judged, or treated with intolerance; perhaps she felt ashamed, or feared the gossip mill would smear her name in our small town. I realized that when my parents promised me that they'd love each other forever, it was a lie. I also knew by this time that Santa Clause, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy were also lies. I didn't understand what was going on, I knew it wasn't my fault, but I at that point learned that my parents were fallible in ways that could hurt me.

It was a horrible couple of years that I came through alright, despite developing a keen suspicion of authority. Nevertheless, I kept praying. It surprises me that the existence God never crossed my mind as something that may have also been a lie. In retrospect, I'm not certain why I didn't doubt, except perhaps that God, to me, even at that time, was just as real as the ground beneath me or the sky above me - a fundamental fact of the universe that seemed silly to deny.

...It wasn't really until I was fourteen that I had to begin to ask questions of my faith.

More to come.