[aron]

Originally Posted by aron

More from the same testimony.

This group I joined is generally referred to as "the Local Churches,'' by those who have heard of it who are outside the group. Those inside refer to themselves "the Lord's Recovery'' or "the church'' most often, although they claim they won't take a name. Perhaps that irony says more than a name ever could.

People join this type of group for various reasons, but they're always seeking something. Some need cause to strive for, a truth, to give their lives meaning and purpose; perhaps they are attracted to a warm, caring, stable community; or maybe it's a group of people who share one's own values. These are legitimate human needs, and a religion is a traditional means to fill these desires. I entered ``the church'' in my senior year of high school, and when I went to Berkeley for college, I entered the "the church life'' in full step, baptized just before I left.

I left my senior year of college, without much fanfare. I didn't tell anyone explicitly that I was leaving "the church'' until I was gone, because I was still unsure of whether I really would until I was actually in Boston. I didn't want to cause a stir by my departure--- many of my friends considered me "solid in the church life,'' and I didn't want to let them down, or worse, disrupt their faith.

What happened in between is involved, so I will allow the reader to choose to read those aspects that are most interesting. I want write about it so that I can have it all out in one place. I think I've come to some important conclusions about myself.

My Entry into the Church Life

As an adolescent, I was rather oblivious to the things that junior high kids get into (except when I was picked on for it). I was thoughtful, and enjoyed lively debates with my friends about everything from evolution to the appropriate name for lip balm (I saw nothing wrong with Chapstick, even if it was technically a brand name). I considered myself Christian, and both my parents are Christian, although I never went to church after I was 8.

I was a late bloomer to say the least--- people thought I was ten when I was sixteen, because I looked young, and was quite short. I was also considered smart, so I had the whole "Doogie Howser'' thing going against me. Even after my growth spurt, it took a while to shake that picture and start to come into my own socially.

So I was a bit lonely in high school, and had a hard time getting a date. I sought out the best means of meeting the type of girl I liked--- I started doing community service through Key Club (don't get me wrong, girls weren't the only motive--- I did plenty of community service in Boy Scouts although there were no girls to be seen anywhere), and decided I should try one of the Friday church groups that all the girls seemed to go to (don't forget, I considered myself Christian, and I sincerely wanted to meet with other Christians and study the Bible).

Through Key Club I met a girl who I ended up with a crush on. She also went to a Friday church group, and was very devout. So devout, in fact, that she refused to date or even go to dances, so that was a dead end romantically. Yet I admired her for her faith in God, and couldn't help liking her. Eventually, she found out I was reading the Bible on my own, and sheepishly invited me to one of their Friday meetings, which I gladly agreed to go to.

The meeting was bizarre at first--- they sang the songs and then repeated the verses aloud, calling out the verses and responding with a loud Amen. They also "called on the Lord,'' repeating "Oh Lord Jesus'' in a manner that reminded me of our yells from Boy Scouts or of cheers before a soccer match. It was different, but it was clearly nothing like chanting or other forms of hypnosis, so I sat through it. The Bible study was more interested--- they spoke about Noah's ark and the Ark of the Covenant and assigned spiritual meanings to its various aspects. I liked the symbolism--- it reminded me of the way my high school English teacher ascribed meaning to every detail of Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter.

At the same time, I was still a bit lonely. All right, I wanted a girl friend badly. I was happy to see that he girls were starting to notice that I was growing up, and one or two even found me cute. Yet I was attending the Friday young people's meeting at "the church'' more often, and I was absorbing some of their doctrines.

They taught that the world was a product of man's fall, through which Satan was able to take control of the earth and human society and turn it into a system intend to oppose God's plan with man. As believers, we needed to give ourselves wholly to God and reject the world, so that He would fill us with His life. As young people, we were particularly vulnerable, because we were surround by so many fleshly lusts--- rock music, parties, dances, romance. We needed to flee these things, and pursue the things of God (2 Tim. 2:22).

I became weighed down with a terrible guilt over listening to music and attending rock concerts, to the point where I was sometimes in tears (and I do not cry easily). When prom came around, even though it was obvious that a couple girls were hinting in my direction that they wanted a date--- and I would have happily gone out with them a month before--- I was caught in a terrible struggle trying to avoid succumbing to the lusts of the flesh.

On the other hand, "the church'' preached that the Spirit of Jesus Christ was a real and effective force in the Christian life. As believers, we shared all the befits of the death and resurrection of Christ. When I first read the Bible, I was confronted with impossible demands--- here they told me it was not I who was to fulfill the law, but Christ who lived in me (Gal. 2:20). I was eager to pursue the Lord, to seek out His infinite riches (Eph. 3:16-19).

While at the church a year later, I would testify that it was only the Lord that could have brought me through that time, and out of "the world'' into the "church life''. I see it differently now. I was constantly sabotaging my life: resisting the impulse to listen to music because I would soon get used to life without it; holding out until prom and refusing to ask a girl to the dance because the temptation would soon pass; trying to give away my tickets to rock concerts; forgetting my promise to teach a girl I had liked to ice skate, despite her reminders. I wanted "the Lord'' to fill my heart, yet it always ached when I thought about those missed chances and things left behind, even in the best of times.

But the children of Israel died in the wilderness because they lusted after the things of Egypt, while God had much better things planned for them in the land of Caanan. So when I moved to Berkeley from southern California, I sought out "the church life'' right away.

Lamentation on the Faltering

This was written in November of my senior year at Berkeley, while I was still in "the church''. Much of my outlook has changed since then.

I suppose that since I have the time, I may as well write this all down. I'm not sure whether I'm trying to solidify it all, to have a systematic position, so that it would be that much harder to change my course, or whether I really am open. In a sense, I don't want to forget, so that if the source has only ever been myself I will be able to see something more concrete that just my recollection of feelings I have had.

I know I truly have had enjoyment of the Lord in the past, even recently, even two nights ago. But I have lost the assurance that it is all real. I'm afraid that I have only wanted the experience, because it seemed like the right thing to do. That has been my fear I suppose--- that I haven't truly known the Lord, but some sort of sense of duty, or a romantic notion of how I should be, and that all the change that has been wrought in me has been merely a change in habit.

This became bad one Thursday, although I had been ignoring it more or less for--- I don't know how long, the past always seems different depending on the colored glasses my mood has put on. But I was walking to class, and I saw a girl who reminded me of a friend from high school. Since I had decided before that following such impulses to look to see if it really was the person I knew only ``got me into my flesh,'' I ignored the impulse and without a second thought went on walking. None of the transaction so far was truly conscious, yet as I have often discovered, something will linger after such an occurrence that is not entirely tangible, a sort of after taste, a feeling like a light was turned on and off, yet there's still a faint glow that is hard to place. (I'm assuming its biological, something to do with the perpetuation of the species.)

That this had happened didn't hit me until she did. It was actually my friend from high school, and although we weren't that close and never even really hung out together, we had some common friends and a common counter-culture cynicism and generally gloomy outlook on life. Perhaps my faith wavered at that moment simply because I was attracted to her, seeing as I regarded her as ``cool'' and not at all difficult to look at, but the thoughts that came to me seemed to have deeper roots. I felt like I saw a picture of who I'd become.

I used to be proud, in a way, of the Lord's mercy, in that I wasn't like my friends who were pursuing all sorts of vain things. My goals were so much more noble, so much more refined--- I was pursuing the Lord, and for him I split my time between Him and my studies, not those silly night clubs and emotional trips and evenings hanging out. I felt the Lord had really done a work to separate me from the world.

Well, over the summer I said just about as much, boasting a bit that the rock music at work didn't bother me in the same way it used to. During my freshman year that had been my major struggle, because I really came to love my music in high school. I thought it was so cool, the feelings and ideas and attitudes that went around with it, all the clever poetry, and the beat. It was something that was shared among my group of friends, and that could instantly make new friends. We could talk about it and about our feelings and our thoughts and have so much in common. I pictured myself cool like that for the rest of my life, because that was what I identified with, something with which I could convey my personality.

Eventually it occurred to me that the change was not what I thought. It wasn't that I didn't like the music, but that I didn't see it as such an immediate danger like I did as a freshman. My heart didn't seem so close to being taken from the Lord, because I lived in the brother's house and when I went home the atmosphere was so different and I would sit down and read Life Studies or study the word or Greek or something else to keep myself occupied.

Eventually, I found myself singing the songs on the radio. What's worse, I found myself liking music from groups I had previously been a bit afraid of, because they seemed evil in an amorphous way. I remembered that when I was young, I did not like any rock music, because I sincerely linked it with the devil after hearing sensational stories of the night stalker wearing an AC\DC hat and the suicides that followed a Judas Priest album. Yet later I got into some stuff that seemed harmless, like Weird Al, and that led me to realize that a lot of the scary music wasn't all that bad. In high school, alternative rock matched my mood and outlook, and I enjoyed it with my friends for its intellectual and emotional appeal.

I feel like I've been around in circles, and I don't know what's right or where it's from. I can't honestly say I've seen that the world is evil. I have heard it said, believed it, and accepted it, but I'm afraid that the night I threw away all my cassettes, my heart uttered a prophesy, "I can take it out of my life physically, but it will always be in my heart and playing back in my head.''

There was another angle too, though. I realized that I was becoming bitter. Although I have made acquaintances, I really have no friends I can truly open to, not even in the church. With them, I don't want to tell them what I'm really thinking, because I'm always pretty sure that its wrong. So I seemed to myself to be a facade. I realized that toward others I was always apart, because they knew I was devout and that always carries a kind of mysticism to it that makes others a bit--- I don't know if its wariness or respect or fear or what. It probably varies from person to person.

What's worse, I've become really cold toward women. When I was introduced to a female graduate student from Stanford, she smiled very warmly, but I was cold, because I was caught off guard and liked the smile and got angry with myself. Eventually I realized she sensed it, and I'm afraid she thinks I'm a chauvinist or just have an attitude problem or something, which unfortunately would not be all that untrue.

I've just raised up this defense against being attracted to things that seem to me to be wrong, yet which my heart still desires, and about which things I can't really say why they're wrong except that ``it's not the Lord.''

So there I was rather disgusted with the way I'd been treating people and upset at myself for being things I should not have been while behaving like something I was not, and I haven't been able to get over that for a couple weeks. Now I'm fed up with my spiritual pride. I've decided I don't want the spiritual things, to follow in the footsteps of Madame Guyon in her deep experiences of the cross, or of Charles Finney and the great outpourings of the Spirit which he experienced. I don't want to tell others about how I've experienced this kind of suffering and how the Lord was such grace to me. When I remember the times I felt that way, something in me rises up and shouts that I was just proud, just romanticizing it, just feeding off the self- satisfaction that I was before the Lord, working for Him, pursuing Him, where I was supposed to be.

At one time, I wanted the experience that Watchman Nee had when he wrote, "Since Long Ago at Bethany we Parted.'' So I prayed about it a lot, and really gained an appreciation of that song. Oh, how wonderful it was to love the Lord! For Him to be my only goal! To have nothing on this earth and just to long to enter into that celestial city! I look back on those times and can't help but wonder, was I in love with the Lord or with the idea of being in love with the Lord. There's something in me--- I can't allow my falling in love with an ideal to be my reason for sticking with this trip.

This is a fear I've had lingering for a while, ever since I considered myself to be in love. I'm a bit bitter now about it, because even when we hadn't talked for months, I still had myself convinced I was in love with her. In fact, when the object was nowhere near, it got worse. It seems like we were just good friends, until we lost contact. There was something going on, but it was under control, or it seemed that I had control over it. I hope she never got as mental as I did, or if she did, that that letter put an end to it. I wouldn't wish my stupid fantasy world on anyone. I don't know whether the feelings were me in love with her or me merely wanting to be in love.

Well, I was willing to admit that I'm just an idiot the other night, and it took a big burden off me. I don't feel like I have to justify myself anymore. When I see the people with whom things seemed so rough, who I would be ashamed to look in the eye, I want to say, "Yeah, I was pretty stupid and let a lot of silly things become way more important than they were and a lot of feelings got blown out of proportion because I'm just who I am and have a lot of notions of how things should be and what I want out of everything, but since that's past I don't see any reason to be ashamed and avoid it, because I'm just human, and a fickle one at that, and I am no longer making any claims that I know what I'm doing, and--- don't take this as being condescending-- but I really don't feel any animosity toward you if that's ever been why you've avoided me.''

I can picture myself saying that to a lot of people as life brings them back around again, and I want to, because I hate to feel guilty about what I've done to people every time something comes up to remind me of them.

So perhaps it's obvious why I'm so confused about the Lord. I just can't be so sure anymore, and now all those other desires seem to have gotten worse. I feel like I understand Ecclesiastes 3:11 the way the translators of the King James may have seen it: "He hath made everything beautiful in his time: else He hath put the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end.'' Ecclesiastes truly is a cynical book, how can it not be, when things are only looked at from under the sun? God has not put eternity in man's heart so that man could not find out His purpose--- eternity should reveal His purpose!

No, I don't think I'm bitter at the Lord Himself, although the thought that the glorious product is accompanies by an awful lot of waste has crossed my mind. I don't think I've rejected the Bible either. I've just given up. There seems to be a void in my being, a dystopian gospel which the Lord has not filled. I can't blame Him, I must not have let Him. Yet I don't know what to do. At my worst, I feel that I vacated a space by my own struggling, eliminated those things from my life and trying to occupy myself with other things, cleaned and swept my inner being so that bitterness and jealousy and pride could return with the melancholy which I didn't really mind when it inhabited me alone. I don't know what else to do. I can go on like I did before, but I am repulsed by the motives I presume to have perceived. What's more, I've lost my heart to continue struggling. I want to toss the stupid paddle out of the canoe, and enjoy the warm afternoon sun reflecting of the cool water. Right now, the sun only beats down on my striving.

So I've decided romantic notions can't keep me. There is no person to keep me here, save one base reason that I'm still frustrated over, and for which I have no respect. There is yet one thing I'm afraid of, and that's the consequence of staying in my present state. I feel that if these thoughts are known, they can only do damage, they can only instill the same doubts that are tearing me apart. I can only ask the Lord one of two things: that He respect my fear of the warning of Luke 17:2, for the world and the Lord can have nothing common in the same place, in my heart and much less in His Church, or that He manifest Himself, so that I could have the assurance that I am pursuing Him and not some dead-end wild-goose ideal.

Right now my desires are rather base, I admit, but they're genuine and they aren't mixed with a whole lot that leaves me with anything to boast of, having spent any time before the Lord. I want to listen to and sing the music that I still like that matches my moods and not have to worry about whether it is appropriate for me to feel that way. I would like to be able to fall in love--- a romantic notion I haven't been able to purge--- and not be concerned that it is my flesh or that it is natural and needs to go through the cross. I don't want to be somewhere where I am expected to be spiritual when I am not--- where when someone meets me they see one thing, yet when they get to know me they realize I am not and are disappointed, or, worse yet, see what I am that I should not be and use me as an excuse before the Lord to hold onto something He is touching them to put to death.

I no longer feel like I could rejoice when the day of the Lord comes. I know I can't do it. I started building the tower, but I just don't have it. I'm not one who desires spiritual experience. I'm not thrilled by revival. My heart never stopped loving the old creation. I hate trying to appease my conscience all the time.

Life was so much simpler in the world: it promised nothing, asked nothing, gave nothing except what I tried to get out of it, and that wasn't too bad. The Lord promises everything, asks for everything, and I'm faced with the probability that I can't do it and that I'm not open enough to the Lord for Him to do it.

I never understood what existentialism was until these past weeks. That's always been my philosophy, yet I never had a name for it. I thought it was just apathy, but its a bit more active than that. I want to be a leaf, enjoying the sun and the cool water while its there, taking the cloudy days and occasional eddies as events in the normal course of life (nothing of the supernatural attached), and flowing off into wherever the course of this life takes me, because I'm not really sure anymore whether there's anything else to be concerned with.