By request. Please note that some of the events in my story may only be mentioned in a particular phase but in reality they happened over a longer period of time and that some of this is a blurr to me now.
Pre-fall
Ill start this story by talking a bit about what my life was like before I became lost. I was baptized into the Lutheran church as an infant. Growing up, I stayed relatively active in the church starting with Sunday school, childrens choir, acolyte, and during high school, ushering.
My time in the church, I never really learned to question anything and I never payed attention to the other denominations (or religions for that matter). I knew of them, but I did not know of the various other beliefs. I followed God and Christ and there were many at my church I looked up to as examples of what is good in Christianity.
The only time I went to another church was for a year in Arizona (Catholic, very few memories) and one of the megachurches in high school. There the preacher talked about an error in the KJV bible about how something that was added on. This was the first question of What can I trust.
Another thing that would have a ramification on me was becoming a volunteer Sheriffs Deputy. I learned to question everything and to always doubt things at face glance.
The damn breaks
It was during my third year of high school that I joined Campus Crusade, a Christian outreach group. At first, it wasnt a very deep joining, just going to weekly meetings. But during the last year of school, I began to go to the night events and this would be the beginning of story.
It was there that new beliefs were introduced into to me for the first time. Things I wasnt taught at church but that I did not know to be careful of. Once Saved, Always Saved, Symbolic Pressence, new concepts of Revelations, the invisible church, and many others that come as a blurr now that I am older.
It was the OSAS though that really hit hard. It caused doubt at first until one of the Campus Crusade guys gave some advice. There were signs from the beginning that this doctrine wasnt sound (that I continued to sin) but I followed what they said.
Things went somewhat smoothly from then. Some events in my life dealing with the drama of the other students hit me, and this would lead to me leaving the group. Unbeknownst to me, I was drifting from my church. After graduation, I stopped going (usually I only missed summer but after summer ended, I never went back) and this was partially due to the idea of an invisible church. Why worry about going to a visible church when there was an invisible one?
Over the next year, God and church became less and less important. I didnt notice the loss, nor did I notice that sins Id never faced before began to creep in. I dont know exactly what caused the damn to break, but sometime near the beginning of fall 98, I just lost it. Somewhere in this, my cousin and his talks about his church and God just upset me and added to the confusion, though I am not sure where it fits in here.
Three things about the time that stick out is the constant religious antics at college (SWAT for Christ comes to mind though this was later) and just a pure confusion of who God was anymore in my mind. Another was my new girlfriend (my first gf and I had ended our relationship during the summer). She wasnt a bad girl, but she introduced some massive mixture of New Age stuff into my life. Something of a mix between shamanism and Wiccan.
The last thing, was a search for myself. The sins were beginning to press and I was dealing with the beginnings of some new spiritual problems. Years later, I started calling them howlers (demons if you will) as they found some of my sins and constantly howled for me commit the sins, something I refused though I would feed them a bone now and then and so it went and internal war was joined.
The search for God, if there is one
All of this new stuff really caused me to struggle. I became Christian in name only. I toyed with shamanism and runes for a while. The constant infighting of the Christian sects, the bad doctrines, and the self-righteous of so many popular Christians pushed me farther from Christ. I still prayed sometimes but I wasnt sure if God really existed.
So I turned to the one stable thing in my life, science. I have always been good at looking at the big picture of things and I decided to put that to good use to find the Truth. I had no idea what the Truth was, but it was out there somewhere.
I began to take science class after science class, trying to expand my understanding of the big picture. Biology, archaeaology, sociology, psychology, astrophysics, anthropology, and others as well as religious cult class, philosiphy, and history.
Three things here really touched me and I remember them well. First was the Big Bang theory. I remembered Genesis and how similar the theory was to this event. The second was history of the rise of the RCC and some of their historical events. The last was a lecture by my Biology professor when he was talking about the first cells and how they were formed. His comment still rings with me, We just dont know how this happened.
God had given me a taste of the Truth. I realized that no matter how big of a picture I had, it would never be big enough, but there was a pattern that I could see that hit like a wall. That creation was not random and that it was perfect. That small revelation would change my path. I backed away from the runes and shamanism. I knew that the Truth was there but that it wasnt pantheistic.
On and off, I began to look for a church to go to. Sadly, I kept finding things that just didnt add up. Some groups theology, I could poke holes in it big enough to sail and aircraft carrier through. Naturally I avoided OSAS groups and the RCC. Strangely I never felt the need to go back to my old church.
After a good search, I felt that whatever the Truth in Christianity had at first, itd been lost under the many groups.
Intermission:Japan
But first, it was time to go to Japan. I had gotten two internships that would send me halfway around the world for a year. Here there was silence of faith that I hadnt seen before. No Christian churches in my town and the low level of Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples didnt really affect me much. My time in Japan also let me get ride of my old girlfriend which Id been unable to do, having boxed myself in so very perfectly. I did meet some Christians, but they didnt really affect my faith because I kept my search to myself.
September 11th was the only thing that affected me. It brought a lot of thought into my life, what with Republicans running up the nationalism and the constant talk of God put faith back on my radar. Coming back though was rough. It was like some sort of insanity had taken ahold of America.
One year in America
Coming back wasnt easy. It was like some sort of low level insanity had permeatted the US. Maybe the British military song The World Turned Upside Down would work here. It was a rough few months at first.
Through the internet, I looked for a church a bit. It was half hearted to say the least. I did find a Greek Orthodox Church in my city, but never followed through with my curiousity. Something else had come my way. I met a girl in Korea who simply blew my mind and captured my heart. She was Anglican and so she added a bit of Christianity into my life. I knew that if we were together, Id be willing to go to church with her and the denomination didnt matter. After that no further thought was put in. I was also introduced to Islam and was curious, but once again I didnt pursue. I didnt check into Judaism much for many reasons.
We did plan to get married. She came to the US for a month to be with me for graduation. After that it was off to Japan for me again where our relationship would last for another year and she would visit twice.
My new place in Japan was rural to say the least. The only foriegners were a Pakistani woman and a Phillipino man. Once again no church, the Board of Education at my place was a pain, and the junior high school had lots and lots of problems (elementary school was great though). But things were looking up. I had a plan for the future that included my Korean girlfriend and after two years Id go back to America for grad school and on to a PhD. Things couldnt have been better and all I had to do was wait. But God had other plans.
And the bottom drops out
This is probably the hardest thing to write about. It began with my girlfriend and I breaking up in a very spectacular way (I still have the engagement ring I was to give her) because I listened to my Pakistani friend on what to do with our problems. At about this time, my howlers became super vocal (and got their names).
I finally started looking for God again in ernest, though in all the wrong places. Surprisingly though, it was checking into Islam more that would help guide me more to the Orthodox Church. I spent many hours talking about faith with a friend of mine from Yemen and we never debated but tried to understand each other. This self examination of Christianity and what I held dear in Christianity that I did would come in handy.
At first I took being single again as a new challenge and everything was wide open for me. However it was soon followed with a financial crunch that said no graduate school in the forseeable future. My attempts at finding a new girlfriend met in disaster as well. Swallowing my pride, I asked the BoE to stay an extra year. At first they said yes, but then they came up with a reason not to employ me (I did some investigating and found their resons to be a big lie).
So, the crunch was on and a massive job hunt began. I didnt care if it was in America or if it was in Japan, just as long as I had a job. I got a job here and began preparing to move. Hopefully this would be the change of my luck.
H
ow low can you go?
While the schools were much better, other things werent. My apartment was mold infested and my chances to build new friendships or meet new women ended in bitter failure. One of the worst parts was the girl my friends wanted to set me up with. Talk about demoralizing. I made a few friends, the most important being my Baptist friend who would help me along at a later date.
After a series of set backs and futally trying to get people to stop trying to set me up with that girl, I gave up and settled into a half life. Teaching was fine, but at night, the struggles increased. My howlers would howl all night long and side comments from my friends about unrelated things would cause tempation to blare in my face. By this point I gave up trying to pray to God (I prayed once and though drunk it did come from the heart). In fact I had given up on trying to find the truth as all avenues seemed closed. I still believed in the Truth I had found in college, but that was it.
I love to read, it keeps me occupied at work too, and these stories are so interesting!
