Passion play

My cousin is pretty phenomenal. He's the other half of the famous Scottish Cousins that terrorized Alma and several Parks family Christmases. He went to the Ohio State University because U-M screwed him over (that might not be true). He's a NASA man. He competitively swing dances. He rocks a fedora. Every day, he takes a picture of whatever he's doing at 7:59 p.m.- just so you know what he's doing every day at 7:59. Geez, I feel like I'm writing a spot for the Most Interesting Man man. But that's just who he is. He's like Miles Davis.

So why did I write this paragraph of gushing praise? It's to let you know two things.

1) The following piece (in italics) was written by him as a Facebook note.

2) It would have been an amazing piece had anyone else written it. The fact that he wrote it means that it is amazing multiplied by all that stuff I said about him. To say that it had a Deep Impact on me would be to say that Ryan Reynolds is 'cute'.

Anyways, I'll stop talking (for now). Here is what he wrote.

This week there has been a big flap about the second coming of Jesus thanks to Harold Camping and his followers. Anyone who reads the overt literal text of the new testament can see that the bible is clear that no one knows when Christ will return. So in view of this, I've done my share of making fun of them. But in the middle of all of that, something has bothered me.

I never hoped that they were right.

Today, May 22, is the day after the end of the world. And for the people who sincerely believed that yesterday was supposed to be different, it's got to be unsettling. "Obviously I was wrong, but how much have I been wrong about?" The fact that the sun came up today finding everyone still on earth would shake my faith if I were in their shoes.

The thing is I believe the bible does say that Christ will come again... sometime. But, if Christ never came, I doubt that it would shake my faith. Which makes me ask, do I really believe it?

In the same way that the followers of Harold Camping are asking themselves how much they were wrong about, I find myself asking how much I actually believe. What are the parts of my worldview that, if I were wrong about, would shake my life to the core?

Honestly, I'm not sure if there's anything. And as someone who claims to follow Jesus, that troubles me. It troubles me that I have not arranged my life around the things I claim to believe. It troubles me that I have not pushed all my chips to the center of the table. I have diversified my portfolio of belief, between Christianity and deism. And in doing so, I can't help but think that the impact of my life is less than it could be.

People of passion make a difference. And say what you will about Harold Camping, for the last month or so, his passion has made a difference in his world.

People of passion make a difference. People with passion for the right things make the right difference.

Lord, give me a passion for the right things.

After reading that, I realized that I haven't really ever been a person of passion either. Not just with this Jesus thing- I mean with everything. Sure, I've had passions, but there are no passion fission chain reactions in my internal fuel rod core.

Before I get too rock-n-roll, let's look at what Mr. Dictionary has to say about passion. I'm only listing what I feel to be the relevant-to-blog definitions.

Passion (taken from dictionary.com)
–noun
1.any powerful or compelling emotion or feeling, as love or hate.
6.a strong or extravagant fondness, enthusiasm, or desire for anything.
8.an outburst of strong emotion or feeling.

So I can breathe easy. I've had moments of passion before. Felt a powerful feeling? Check. Extravagant fondness? I can think of a few. Outburst of strong emotion? Uh huh. But what about being a person of passion- a person not merely experiencing passion, but living their life in a passionate fashion?

Passionate - adjective 1. having, compelled by, or ruled by intense emotion or strong feeling; fervid

Houston, we have a problem.

I've always been like an outsider looking in. My emotional spectrum doesn't have very many colors, and the ones it has aren't well developed. I'm an objective observer in a subjective life. I exist primarily in my mind. Life happens all around me, and I watch. I soak it all in, playing out the scenarios in my brain, trying to unravel the mysteries without so much as a peep or a facial twitch.

When I first got 'saved', it was largely because of fear- my scattered base of biblical knowledge started to bubble up when I was in my first collegiate tour of duty. I was afraid of the end of the world. I was having thoughts of Jesus coming back and me being left there as my mom and sister were whisked away. At night, I began to pray 'Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep' because I was afraid of what might happen to my soul if I were to suddenly pass away. Eventually, through a series of what I still believe to be divinely orchestrated events, I found a church, and I found Jesus. I did the whole sinners prayer thing, and I was off and running- and my fear of God was fed continuously by things like Y2K, the Left Behind books, and 9/11. And when I say 'fear of God', I don't mean the 'reverent awe that is the gateway to wisdom' fear. I mean the 'Crap, I better toe the line so I don't get zapped' fear.

Even in those days, I was not a passionate person. I was never "on-fire" for God- at least not in a way that I envision people being on-fire. Several times I have heard the verse from Revelations admonishing believers to "return to your first love" and it might as well have been delivered in a foreign language. I do believe that I have loved God with all of the ability to do so that I could muster. But I've never had true passion or zeal for the Lord- because I've never had an inner well to draw these things from.

The Facebook note really brought all of these issues to a head, and I realized that I had become perched on a precipice of sorts. A professing Christian man who has been hedging his bets with a faith that in reality has sort of danced between deism and pragmatic agnosticism. A thirst for knowledge, a desire to challenge the conventions of our society (including the religious systems)- and a deeply held belief that Jesus is who I have been told He is.

See even though I question things about the Bible- and sometimes feel like just disregarding it altogether- I cannot shake the fact that for all my faults and flaws and mistakes and half-faiths and doubts and questions, I have had meetings with spiritual forces greater than my own understanding in the name of Jesus. I met and eventually married an amazing woman in the name of Jesus. I started playing drums in the name of Jesus. So to me, there simply has to be something to this Jesus.

I suppose the preceding paragraphs could be seen as an exposure of a fraud. After all, I've been a youth leader. I've worked at a Christian bookstore and a Christian school. I've played worship music for over ten years. All without having a life that was defined by a passionate pursuit of the One to whom I said I was living for.

I disagree though. I feel that I've loved God and lived a Christian life to the best of my abilities for these past 12 years. But I know now that this is not enough. The note my cousin posted on Facebook resonated very deeply with me. I realized that I have managed for these 32 years of life to be a shallow surface person. That doesn't just go for God- that's friends, family, and even my wife. I constantly keep things in the kiddie pool because not only am I unsure of what lies in the depths of myself, but I'm not sure how to get there. A friend spoke a word over me a few years ago, telling me that I was like an 'iceberg of greatness'. I've been lying in wait for most of my life, slightly visible from the surface. But now the great ship Titanic has come (in this analogy, my cousins writing) and struck in a place that no one could have possibly imagined if they were merely glancing at the oceans top.

So what now? A clean slate- a God-sanctioned do-over. In a place of brokenness Sara and I came together last night to pray about all this. As I prayed I felt this sense of heavy, overwhelming peace just flood my being. At the same time, I felt a sort of weightlessness. It was amazing! Afterward I started to try and think of any sort of physiological causes- and I stopped. I realized that whether it was the physically manifest presence of the Lord or some sort of neurological response was irrelevant. The fact is that I prayed and felt the most intense, yet softest, peace I have ever felt. And it happened during a prayer. To this Jesus. I don't need a reason. I don't need a reason.

So this is me starting to go all in. This is me pushing my chips gently to the center of the table. This is me building my faith not upon fear of the end, but upon tangible peace that engulfs me. This is me- becoming a person of passion.

It's the end of the world as they knew it

Well, May 21st has come and gone. No earthquakes, a small volcano in Iceland, a 6.1 earthquake in New Zealand, beautiful weather in Marquette (and some sunburn on the arms)- and no Rapture. No judgment day. Life as we know it for now goes on- at least for most of us.

Right now, I'm feeling simultaneously sorry for and pissed off at the people that bought into this whole 'May 21st Judgment Day Rapture Apocalypse' crap. I imagine that most of them were probably well meaning people trying to live lives pleasing to the Lord. They probably caught wind of Señor Camping's teachings, saw him throw some sweet Bible verses together with some phat numerology, figured that this guy knew what he was talking about, and decided to go all out and follow the May 21st movement.

But the reckless abandon that these people exhibited in their pursuit of this thing is a little disconcerting. After having failed on a previous end of the world prediction...why would they believe this guy? He's been wrong before! Fool me once, shame on Harold Camping, fool me twice? Fancy numbers and exact dates and self confidence- that don't impress me much. Look, there's two things you need to know about numbers:

1) Numbers never lie

2) Numbers can always be made to lie

What I mean is that numbers by themselves are as objective of a data source as we can hope to find on this planet. People experience most things in different ways, but if I have three apples, it doesn't matter whether you like them or not. I have three apples (boo-yah). But numbers can also be manipulated. Any good statistician can take survey/poll results and spin them to make you think exactly what they want you to think. And if you allow symbolic numbers to enter into the equation? Then you're basically cutting out the middleman and humming the Pied Piper's tune to yourself.

That's what Camping did. Basically he took some Bible stuff, mixed with his own Colonel Sanders concoction and POOF- instant Judgment day! Just add naivety, 'dumb' sheep mentality, and sincere hearts and you have a movement that got way more followers and press than it really should have. Most people knew this was ridiculous. Even most Christians were able to point to Matthew 24:36 and say 'Hey, I don't think this is correct'.

And now it's May 22nd, and those people are being forced to answer the question that merely two days ago seemed so preposterous to them that most of them wouldn't even dare to venture there with their thoughts.

So how do they bounce back? I mean, getting laughed at and scorned and mocked is probably the least of the worries. After all, that's part of the Christian tradition- you join up and just brace yourself for the persecution. So if anything, that would seem to be a minor thing. Shoot, this could be a way to seriously amp up those persecution points. Maybe I should have jumped on the bandwagon... Although it could be argued that they don't really get persecution points because they did this to themselves. If a damsel knocks on the ogre's door and jumps into his arms, can she really claim to be distressed?

But seriously- I read about a guy who spent $140,000 on advertising for this thing out of his own savings. A family stopped saving for their kids college because they figured 'what's the point?'. Another young family quit their jobs, spent their savings, and budgeted all their money up until May 21st. It'd all be fricking hilarious- if it wasn't people's lives (especially children) at stake.

That's just it though. This thing did have serious ramifications on those lives. People will wake up on May 22 with no means of financially supporting themselves. Their children will want food that just isn't there. Seeds of doubt will no doubt begin to creep into the minds of some, while others will forever shut that door in their minds because of this experience. Yes, there's the whole free will/personal choice angle- people are responsible for what they do with their own lives. Unfortunately, a religious system that can foster a culture of dependence does deserve at least a little bit of the blame. If our churches taught us to look at things critically- maybe someone like Camping fades quickly from the spotlight. Maybe Jim Jones doesn't coin the phrase "drink the kool-aid".

We all like to think that we are somehow immune to being deceived- that we have to be in the know because of x or y, and there is really no way that Satan is slipping one past our goalie. But do you really think that the Squad 5-21 woke up one morning and thought 'Hey, you know what? I really feel like being deceived this morning. I think I'm gonna turn on the radio and give up everything to follow the first crackpot I find'. Sure, there is wisdom in the Bible. Yes, there are pastors and speakers that can share messages that impact our lives. But at some level, we have to be able to think for ourselves. Maybe God doesn't want you to quit your job and move to another state- maybe you just feel homesick. It's highly possible that you weren't called to Ezio that abortion doctor- does it really make sense to kill in the name of pro-life? It could be that some wires got crossed and you were supposed to give that $140,000 to a more worthy cause- like me.

I hope the best for the May 21ers- especially the ones with young children. But I also hope that their tales will remain as cautionary reminders that if we merely listen to persuasive peddlers that we could very well end up on the other side of judgment day.