I am not sure how best to say this. There have been certain aspects of my life that I have underplayed on this blog. To be entirely honest there are aspects of my life that underplay as context sees fit. When I am writing here I am very much the faux intellectual mentalist, when I am leading the film club at university I am every part the culturally soaked movie buff and when I am with my Christian friends I easily slide into being a Christian.
A friend said that I am very compartmentalised which I suppose is true. Another friend once said that of all the people he knows I am the one most likely to be able to hold a conversation with anybody who I come into contact with. In an effort to break down these compartments I am going to write a bit about being a Christian. If this is something you want to avoid then by all means turn away, I do trust though that most of you like what I write enough to continue reading and I hope you do.
I’ll start at the end because that is the most sensible place to start. Two months ago or so I was on a bus home from Aberdeen and I had just finished reading a book called Blue Like Jazz. The book is a look at various issues of faith from a Christian’s perspective; it is well written and is light on scripture quotations and heavy on the musings of an articulate Christian who has clearly accepted Jesus into his life. So I was on the bus having been swayed into conversation with a man who works on an oil rig service boat, but was at times eavesdropping on the conversation two women ahead of me were having as the man was spending a great deal of time falling asleep. When we reached Dundee one of the woman who was having the conversation left and the man was asleep so I started a conversation with the girl. From what I had overheard she was a Christian and I thought she may appreciate the book. So I told her what it was about and we started talking. As it turns out she had only been a Christian for a week and she was very interested in what I had to say about being a Christian. So she asked how I became a Christian and I told her my testimony. It goes a little something like this and as is my custom there is plenty of preamble and it could be made more lean but you are getting the full fat version.
I was christened about four months after I was born so I know I was in a church then and I know that I was there for my sister’s christening but other that the first time I remember being in church I was five. I don’t remember much about it and much of the early stuff is prolly a composite of memory from the time and when I taught Sunday school. I begin remembering with more detail when I am about eight, in fact most of my memories start at this age with only a couple puncturing the misty veil that covers my previous seven years, so I was in primary four (fourth grade). One of the clearest memories is how I made a concerted effort to learn the order of the books of the bible, there was some incentive involved and I was one of the first few to be able to name all sixty-six. So I continued tripping through Sunday school during my primary school years which mainly involved memorising the occasional verse from the bible, completing worksheets and on occasion doing some kind of craft. We were taught all the stories thought of as childrens’ bible stories but to be frank in hindsight they are very far being just something fluffy for kids. Noah and the ark is not just about animals and building a boat, it is about the genocide of sinful people.
So after primary school there was nothing for us kids, that was until Bob step into the fold. Bob recognised that twelve year old kids do not have the staying power to sit through what can be a long sermon. So doing what he does Bob found a practical solution. He formed another group for kids who were in the first two years of secondary school (grades 8 and 9). The group was small and focused around discussions, talking through our thoughts on situations and for the first time using the bible for more than the occasional sweet memory verse. This was hugely better than sitting about during what I consider stale, dry and boring sermons. But then I turned 14 and was too old for Bob’s group. I was still expected to go to church and there was no way I was sitting through a sermon so I needed a way out and I found it in teaching.
I have made very occasional reference to teaching Sunday school and it has always been the same shameful admission: I have taught whilst still under the effects of alcohol. It didn’t start that way though. I taught for three years and I had the same class for all that time by which I mean I started teaching the primary one (grade one) class and finished teaching the same group of kids when they were in primary three(grade three - you’ll be getting the hang of this),y’see ? So I would play games with the kids and read them bible stories and help them with their worksheets and it was all gravy. But I still wasn’t a Christian. This is where we come to the rebellious phase.
Calling it a rebellion is a bit grand as after all it was never a case of “I’ll show them” and even if I was showing them they didn’t pay much attention. I was going to Gregor’s parties which he held every-time his parents went away; he would have an all-out-bender party on the Friday night and a chilled party on the Saturday. For awhile the focus was on music and it was through the multitude of music videos channels I first came to hear Radiohead’s Just which I still mark as being the start of when I became a music fan; we were also listening to Nine Inch Nails, System of a Down,Korn, Rage Against The Machine and Deftones and though I am not a huge fan of much of the music that populated those parties without it I would have never have got into the music I do love. Not being a big drinker I preferred the chilled party but I would keep pace during the Friday parties. It was during these parties that I first came aware of drugs or rather it was the first time I became aware that people I knew were using them and no-one thought it was that bad - I came to agree with them. It was also during this time that I lost my virginity. To say I lost it sounds silly, I didn’t misplace it, I know exactly where it went. This was the turning point though, afterwards there was no basking in the afterglow of orgasm as I felt so horribly guilty I bundled up my clothes and darted to the en-suite toilet where I threw up. On the occasional subsequent trysts there was some basking but they were always unceremonious affairs. The turning point did not manifest as a complete recoil and out-spill of a sinful heart but a much more muted turn against peer pressure. Gregor was responsible for introducing me to sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll and for this I am grateful because it taught me a far more important lesson: peer pressure is stupid, if you like it you like it and if you don’t you don’t and that is all there is to it.
All that was going on as I was teaching six year old kids. Even worse is that at the age of six Sunday school really only extends to Jesus loves you and then a series of stories designed to help kids understand moral conceptions. My moral compass was all over the place and I was guiding these kids, thankfully I had worksheets. When I turned seventeen I ducked out of teaching Sunday school so I could “focus on my studies” which was totally a cop-out.
So in my final year of school I probably went to church three, maybe four, times. After all in sixth year I was taking three advanced highers, was part of the charities committee, was a prefect, was a peer mentor and was head of a department of the yearbook committee so I had no time for God. I had no time for God when my best friend’s dad died and I didn’t know how to help. I had no time for God when my girlfriend ended the relationship when she remembered her sexual abuse as a child. I had no room for God when I found out about friends self-harming. And most of all when I was so stressed and tired and depressed I started cutting I had no time for Him. I just never thought to talk to Him because despite all those years in the church He was never real to me, not even once.
Things began to change because of D. D was once brave enough to sing Hit Me Baby One More Time (it is a fantastic piece of pop and I will agrue with anyone who says otherwise) in falsetto whilst we both played guitar in front of the school; because of this I have a great deal of respect for him. He, as with most people, comes with annoyances: the one that got me most is how quickly he can drop into the role of pious sage as he dispenses advice and it is prolly because of this it took me as long as it did before I became a Christian but that is skipping ahead. He asked me to write a song with him. The song was for a church playscheme which is a mix of craft, games and teaching as well as songs and a drama for five to ten year-olds . We wrote the theme song in an afternoon and it was fun and full of silly actions. Mainly to distract myself from my growing stresses I volunteered to be a leader at the playscheme. It was fun and all but I found the leader’s prayer meetings awkward and much preferred the being-silly-with-kids part.
Around April I had began to form friendships with some of the other leaders who I had sporadic contact with when I went to the youth fellowship on a Sunday night. It was one of them who marched me into the doctor’s office to get help with the self-harming. I was still pretty far from being a Christian. I was going out with J who was just as depressed as I was and was also self-harming. It was not the healthiest relationship as I have said before but equally when we were on we were really fucking on. I think the first day that was brilliant was during a school trip to Alton Towers, a theme park with some impressive roller-coasters, and it was ace. We spent the whole day together just mooching around, falling into one another and sharing hotdogs and sitting on the lawns spreading our fingers through the glass.
My summer was mostly spent moping with Jon or J. Jon was just as depressed as me and I spent many days with him sprawled on his bed and me sprawled on his sofa watching John Candy comedies. Days with J were either spent lying together on her bed or maybe playing Zelda. I also got involved with the summer playscheme at the church. This was a good thing as I was beginning to lose my mind to depression. So the theme was superheroes. We made a phone booth for the heroes to change from doldrum worker to daring hero. We made a super car. We made a super-computer backdrop that became a royal pain-in-the-arse. There was a core group of us and some people were spending nights at the church, working late and watching movies on the big projection screen, I stayed a couple of nights. It was during this time that I first met R, I think to be fair the friendship took time to begin. My first conversation with R was about being sleep-deprived, the second I was admonished for thinking of depression as cool and the third was about music, I think.
R was the first person who I knew as a Christian who didn’t seem compromised by their faith. Throughout the week leading the playscheme I came round to realising that a lot of the people I was “working” with were also Christians who hadn’t been compromised by their faith. It was only at this time did I see that there was a difference in these people but that although it undoubtedly coloured and shaped them in a similar way they were also all themselves. This perhaps seems like a silly thing to realise but it was massively important to me. This realisation meant that accepting and believing all the things I had been taught and had taught my class did not mean that my personality would be swamped under my faith. So on the Friday night of the playscheme week I became a Christian.
As is my custom it was not a fantastical affair with a dramatic outpouring of all my sinful acts and a burning desire to be forgiven for all I had done and would do. Perhaps it should have been. What it was was a quiet moment where I said sorry and thank you to Him. There was no bright flash of light, the bulb didn’t even flicker, but there was a lightness to me afterwards, I felt more content.
To say that God completely turned my life around in the way I expected would be a lie. I was still miserably depressed and tried to kill myself. It is difficult to see Him at times and when I took those pills I didn’t love Him at all. But He was acting, I didn’t die. It was two Christians who took me to hospital and it was R, a Christian, who counselled me through the aftermath of my act and continuing depression.
My relationship with God is not perfect, very very far from it. There is this completely asinine notion that some people have that they aren’t good enough to be loved by God. I am Christian because I recognise that I am a flawed individual, the manic depression hasn’t helped either. So sometimes things are great and we talk everyday and its all gravy. Other times I spit and rage against him. And other times I don’t talk to him at all.
To say that any of my mentalism, manic depression, self harm or anything else, is a test from God is silly. There are tests of faith, some may say that this post is one: stepping out of the Christian closet. I am aware that a lot of the mentalist crowd are atheist but really who I am writing to is incidental. This is my truth.
There is a song I like by a band called Pedro the Lion, the song is The Secret of the Easy Yoke. I will put all the lyrics at the end but want to draw attention to these lines in particular
the member’s faces were smiling
with their hands outstretched to shake
it’s true they did not move me
my heart was hard and tired
their perfect fire annoyed me
I could not find you anywhere
For a very very long time this was my experience. I could not find God through seeing other people worship, to me it was just singing, it was corporate reinforcement of a story all these folk were buying into. It was only when I spent time with Christians seeing how they live, work, play and interact with people that I saw Him. Blue Like Jazz is prefixed by a short anecdote by the author; he explains that he never understood jazz music, he just couldn’t get his head around it until he saw a street performer playing a jazz tune and the performer was really loving it, then the author understood and the author thinks that God is a lot like that, you can listen to all the sermons in the world but until you meet someone who loves God you just won’t get it.
I have been helping at a youth club at the church this past week, tonight is the last night. Last night one of the leaders spoke about being rooted in Christ. The truth is much as I wriggle and squirm and at times ignore Him and try to not let Him in on what is going on He is there and He is working. When I was diagnosed I maybe spent an hour cursing God for giving me this disease and then I stopped talking to Him but He did not stop working. I have very little doubt that it is because of Him that I have found support through writing this blog, I have made friends through this and I would never have thought that possible. I see Him working in other ways too.
I have been a Christian for about five years. When I asked last night about how deep my roots were the leader who had given the talk, who is a friend of mine and I hadn’t realised was standing behind me, gestured that I was deeply rooted. When I asked about my fruits, the things that show I am deeply rooted, I was told that I am gentle, kind and funny. When I queried being funny both the friend and three of the kids all said, somewhat emphatically, that I am.
Being a Christian has informed many of views and although the bible can be prescriptive in many things I think at times too many Christians forget that first and foremost they are called to love.
Largely I try to lead a life of temperance but I mess up and slip up on occasion, maybe often, and on some days I don’t love Him. I try to be slow to anger, I try to listen intently and carefully to what people say and I try to let what I say be smart and sensitive.
I realise that this is may be a big revelation but maybe not, either way feel free to ask questions.
S
Congratulations - you have just read the longest post I have made.
The song in full
i could hear the church bells ringing
they pealed aloud your praise
the member’s faces were smiling
with their hands outstretched to shake
it’s true they did not move me
my heart was hard and tired
their perfect fire annoyed me
i could not find you anywhere
could someone please tell me the story
of sinners ransomed from the fall
i still have never seen you, and somedays
i don’t love you at all
the devoted were wearing bracelets
to remind them why they came
some concrete motivation
when the abstract could not do the same
but if all that’s left is duty, i’m falling on my sword
at least then, i would not serve an unseen distant lord
could someone please tell me the story
of sinners ransomed from the fall
i still have never seen you, and somedays
i don’t love you at all
if this only a test
i hope that i’m passing, cuz i’m losing steam
but i still want to trust you
peace be still (x3)
