This Was Written In November Of My Senior Year At Berkeley.....

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http://www.mit.edu/~muno/lamentation.html
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http://www.mit.edu/~muno/sftt.html
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"The church life was secure and comforting, there was always someone to care for me, I knew what was expected of me, people appreciated me. It is definitely possible to be happy there for a lifetime, but it takes a certain personality that I can't fake . . ."

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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.

Feel free to mail comments to: muno@mit.edu

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My freshman year I lived in the dorms at Berkeley. I felt a little bad about it, because there was a house near campus for the brother's to live in, but I used the excuse that the deposit was already paid on the dorms to bribe my conscience to stop bothering me. The brothers were very supportive of me--- they made sure I was settled in, and looked out for me when I came down with the flu a couple weeks into the semester. I enjoyed spending time with them, playing ping-pong, learning the guitar, and talking about the Bible.

I was also invited to a family's house for meetings every Friday night. We talked for a while, and then started the meeting by singing, and continued by sharing our ``experiences of the Lord'' from the week, or anything that we read that we enjoyed or that touched us. The atmosphere was very relaxing and comfortable for me--- it was great to have a ``second home'' to go to, and we could listen or speak as they wished. I still appreciate the hospitality and care I received from that family.

Yet there was an evangelical move on campus, carried out under the auspices of a campus club, Students from the Truth. We were encouraged to preach to our friends. The ``co-workers'' as they were called, who served with the college students at ``the church in Berkeley'' actively tried to meet new students, and the brothers and sisters in the church were encouraged to sign up their friends in a ``Truth Course'' during which we were to go one-on-one with our friends and preach the gospel by ostensibly practicing to teach a lesson we were given. There was also a table on campus, from which we handed out pamphlets. A few people started responding, but rumors about Witness Lee and the Local Church dissuaded most of them, even though some of the rumors were unfounded.

I was involved, but I was also shy, and very reluctant to preach the gospel, because it felt too much like shoving things down peoples' throats. I desperately wanted to be a living testimony of Jesus Christ, and I also tried to stay normal, not to seem too eccentric or fanatical--- nonetheless, my roommate from that year recently referred to me (in past tense) as ``the resident religious zealot''.

In social settings outside the church, I constantly struggled with ``the world,'' because I missed flirting and listening to rock music and conversations about the latest style and offbeat cultural references.

On the other hand, I took a liking to debating about the ``truths'' in the Bible, and this spurred me to study it more. I liked the seemingly endless layers of meaning in the word, and even the challenge of understanding it in a self-consistent manner.

The next year I moved into a house with some brothers and began to throw myself into ``the church life'' more whole-heartedly. A couple students from campus joined the group enthusiastically, and the evangelical move began to gain momentum. I was struggling with problems with my housemates, who stayed up talking while I was trying to sleep and wouldn't do their dishes. Then I felt more isolated as their zeal for the gospel increased and I couldn't muster up the enthusiasm to match it. I retired to reading ``the Ministry,'' books by Witness Lee and Watchman Nee, as well as books by Andrew Murray, Brethren writers, and biographies of Christian evangelists. I also decided to learn Greek, to better understand the New Testament.

I also began to care for other brothers. One had been meeting with ``the church'' since high school and was undergoing a crisis of faith, and I often engaged him to try to get him out of his bitterness and self-pity so that he could get back on track in his classes at Berkeley. Another entered my freshman year, and still considered himself Catholic--- I called him every morning to pray, and always made sure he felt welcome at meetings.

Eventually I moved to a different ``brother's house'', to make room for another ``babe in the Lord'' and to give myself a respite from the silent conflict I was experiencing. Yet my junior year was more troubling. The gospel move gained more momentum after a student at Berkeley was strongly saved and wanted to tell everyone about it. Shouting, which had always been a part of ``touching our spirit'' in the meeting, moved on to campus, as a small group began to preach in the main plaza. The theme became ``losing one's face'', that painful shyness that got in the way of most people talking to strangers about Jesus. The move was coincident with a conference at which Witness Lee declared strongly that ``God became Man to make Man God'', a line taken from the early church Fathers as a summary of doctrines that had been taught by Lee for years. Out of this teaching came the term ``God-man'', which was actually printed on baseball caps (along with ``Jesus is Reality'') and distributed to the students for them to wear as a testimony of the Lord on campus.

I didn't like the hats at all--- I thought they were a silly gimmick, an embarrassment, and I refused to wear one with the sheepish excuse, ``I don't wear baseball caps''. I also didn't like the turn the gospel had taken: they were shouting ``God became man to make man God!'' and other ``catchy'' slogans on campus, to attract attention and ``lose face''. They encouraged us to stand up before lectures and preach to the class, or at the very least wear the hats to class. The persecution, the funny looks the hats attracted, was a glory to us and the Lord. They even organized a couple ``sweeps'' of Telegraph Avenue during a Labor Day conference at the church, during about a hundred people marched haphazardly up to campus handing out flyers and shouting ``Oh Lord Jesus!'' at the top of their lungs. They said it was exhilarating, full of the Spirit. I participated once. I felt silly. Apparently this brought back many memories of the younger days of the ``Lord's Recovery,'' in the sixties.

I actually preached the gospel the most I ever did that year, including attempts at open-air preaching in the plaza. I was never satisfied with it, I always felt I wasn't doing enough. I knew they were only token gestures, attempts at bribing my conscience to leave me alone. I continued reading, yet even that haunted me because I found I didn't like reading ``the Ministry'' as much as the other Christian authors. ``The Ministry'', after all, represented the ``high truth'', ``the peak of the Lord's Recovery'', and was crucial for spiritual growth. I read it every day so that I had paid my dues and could read more interesting things. Unfortunately, not everything agreed, and I often came out with opinions that questioned ``the Ministry.'' This annoyed the co-workers more than once, and I began feeling guilty about rebelling against ``authority'' and letting my ``natural opinions'' get their way.

So I increased my diligence in morning prayer, and fell asleep a lot. I also testified in the meetings more, and enjoyed the warm response I received.

By the middle of my Junior year, the co-workers realized the hats and shouting were doing more harm than good, as rumors began to fly that Students for the Truth was a front for a cult. A few brothers worked to soften the impact of the three-ring circus we created on campus, and The Students for the Truth shifted back to emphasizing the Truth Course as a means to preach the gospel, as well as publishing more pamphlets and apologetics so that people knew what we believed. Our doctrines were always open to public criticism, although I don't think anyone really met the task aptly.

I became more comfortable for only a short time, and began going out with a younger brother to preach the gospel one-on-one. It soon became tough, because he obviously hated it. I felt awful when my zeal brought him to tears. The co-workers were encouraging us to be vital, to have a companion to pray with and open up to, and I tried to force the issue with my poor gospel partner. Yet again, I was under stress.

At the end of my Junior year, the large class of brothers and sisters that came in before me graduated, and many of them decided to go to the Full Time Training in Anaheim, an unaccredited Bible school that emphasized spiritual devotion, a strict lifestyle, and service in the gospel. Every student was encouraged to attend after college (the degree was a requirement for entry), and indeed it was a part of the ``pipeline'' that was supposed to create future co-workers and upstanding ``pillars in the church life.'' My plan had always been to attend graduate school in physics, and it was suggested that I defer for two years to attend the training. I swore to myself I would do so, and at one point was even willing to go to Russia to preach the gospel after finishing the training.

My senior year definitely changed that. My doubts caught up with me. I realized that I still missed ``worldly'' things; that I still was reading the Ministry out of duty; that I didn't want to preach the gospel because I was afraid of dragging someone else through what I had gone through; that I was still embarrassed by the co-workers schemes, words, and actions; that I still held natural opinions that contradicted the Ministry; that I was bribing my conscience in regard to the gospel; that I kept myself busy with studying and research to keep myself from idleness and from being dragged into the work on campus. I looked for God in my life and all I found was myself. Moreover, I disliked what I saw myself as. I became bitter and depressed, but tried hard not to let it on.

The student work, on the other hand, carried on full force. A new practice was discovered--- intensively studying and praying aloud over the outlines Witness Lee made for conferences. It struck me as a bit of blasphemy, praying over outlines in the same manner as we were encouraged to pray over the Bible. Moreover, we were to form small ``vital groups'' with other students to study these outlines and preach the gospel. The new way was certain to make us more involved, and draw us closer together with the brothers.

I managed to form a group with my roommates, who never took much initiative so that little would be demanded of me. I carried on outwardly as I had before, except I decided there was no way in hell I would try to evangelize my friends with this gospel I had lost my faith in. I applied to graduate school and bided my time, until either the Lord softened my heart or I could leave without causing too much of a stir. The latter came to pass.

Perhaps this characterization of my stay in ``the church in Berkeley'' is to harsh. I had a few good friends there, and more than a few enjoyable evenings signing and fellowshipping and praying with the brothers and sisters, or at families houses, or on day trips to the beach and weekend trips to the mountains. ``The church life'' was secure and comforting, there was always someone to care for me, I knew what was expected of me, people appreciated me. It is definitely possible to be happy there for a lifetime, but it takes a certain personality that I can't fake . . .

Even now, I have been in contact with a few people still in the church who wondered what had happened to me. I have told a couple friends honestly that I had left and why, and they understood to some extent. They wouldn't wish me to be unhappy. I am by no means an anathema to these people, and they deserve credit for being understanding.

Yet the church life always seemed ``natural''--- as opposed to ``spiritual''--- and that always bothered me. It was people making their way through life as best as they could manage, forming friendships and enjoying the sense of community. It never seemed like the ideal, and I was eating myself up from the inside trying to get there. Ultimately, I guess what drew me in and what did me in was that the thing.

Now I have hope again, in that all the things I wanted are available to me free of guilt, and I've regained the right to work out my life as I see fit. I enjoy the friends I've made since leaving Berkeley, as well as regaining some of the friendships I felt compelled to withdraw from, and look forward to many more. I now only must hold my tongue out of courtesy, no more out of fear. I've thrown off the shackles of those unreasonable demands and truly begun to run my race freely.

Feel free to mail comments to: muno@mit.edu

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