Freedom
I've not spoken much of the church in which I grew up, but more and more I realize that although I sit here on my bed, some nearly 14 years since I frequented her doors, some thousands of dollars in a liberal arts and religious education later, with a few countries under my belt, and two BIG U.S. cities, that her words still resonate somewhere deep within, in my subconscious, and they color me.
I'm thankful for this church which first introduced me to Jesus, which gave me some of my childhood best friends, including my first love at the ripe age of 4th grade. I'll never forget when he slipped me the tattered note before a cantata one night and, in his messy 10 year old boy handwriting, asked me if I'd be his girlfriend. It was like the heaven's had parted. Life was now going to be right. It's amazing I remembered the words to my solo that night which was, rightly so, about love. "Love is a very special thing. A smile, a tear, a soft Summer rain. It has no beginning. It has no end, but I like it best when it's shared with a friend."
I remember writing him throughout middle school and high school, long after we'd broke up, and behind the backs of the boys I dated then. Somehow I just knew I'd eventually marry Justin Saxon. I think one day I got too cool for him and quit writing to him, and then 5 years later when I decided that I wasn't too cool for him and that we could get married, I called him up, but by that time, he was too cool for me. Such is the woe of childhood love.
There were lots of rules at TBC, my independent 'fundamental' Baptist church which was NOT by any source of the imagination associated with the Southern Baptists, shudder the thought. They were far too liberal for us. With pride, I would explain to my friends that I went to Trinity Baptist Church, a FUNDAMENTAL Baptist church. I had no clue, at the time, what that word meant other than 'holding possession of the TRUE truth of God which all other Baptists and denominations misunderstand yet THOUGHT they have.' I felt really bad for my other friends who went to churches like Warren Baptist or Abilene Baptist. I hoped...**hoped**....they were going to heaven. And then my Methodist or Episcopal or... gulp ... Catholic friends, well I just prayed for them a lot.
Although I'm sure this church did a lot of things right, and probably does a great many more things right today, some of what I learned within her walls and wish I had not learned were tenants of legalism that still haunt me. Right and Wrong were two of two options. There was no gray area in life. All that existed was evil and good. Unfortunately, many things in life, or MOST things in life, small pleasures to abused pleasures, ended up on the evil list. Obviously, one did not have sex before marriage if one said to be a follower of Jesus. One also did not date, ever really. Courting, maybe. One also did not smoke, or do drugs, or socially drink, or try a cigar, wear bikinis, or wear shorts above the knee, or any type of pants on Sunday (unless you were a man). And if you were a man, Sunday pants could NOT consist of jeans....and shirts MUST have collars. You were coming before the Lord. It was out of respect that you wear these items. People would not turn away someone who came in NOT dressed accordingly, but once said person was 'converted,' said person was immediately required to adhere to the code. Boys had short hair; girls had long. End of story. Young girls could wear pants on Wednesday nights, but women could not, especially not teachers. There were stories about what was said to women who attempted to push the limit in the pants department. They should know their place. They were lucky they were even allowed to teach children. Women were NOT permitted to hold authority over men and should NOT do anything to cause a man to stumble.
Any movie rated greater than PG was taboo for any age as was any form of cursing, dancing, going to bars, eating at places that HAD a bar, listening to music other than Southern Gospel, or listening to music with 'too much' instrumentation even if it WAS Southern Gospel. Contemporary Christian was not good, too close to the Devil's music, etc. We were, I suppose, a church that lived up to our name of 'fundamental.' Rules were clear, God's rules that is. They were preached, and I was terrified of breaking them.
I knew some individuals that toe'd the line or even crossed it occasionally, but I also knew what was said about them behind their backs, what the deacons thought of them, what the PASTOR thought of them, and that they were really disappointing Jesus. A few times, I worked up the nerve to do something on the 'do not do' list, but such shenanigans always left me feeling like I'd taken 15 steps backwards and would have to wait longer and work harder if God was ever going to delight in me or answer my prayers, give me a good boyfriend, make my house not hell, make my sister not hate me and think ill of me, or save my father's soul. And when the prayers for the aforementioned things were not answered like I expected them too be, I deduced one thing, that I was NOT doing things right, there was some rule I was breaking, there was something that displeased God. If I could figure out that piece, maybe he'd forgive me. Maybe then Jesus' blood would cleanse me, but if I couldn't, although I might make it to heaven upon my death,my life on Earth would be miserable, and once I was in heaven, every sin I hadn't repented of would be flashed up on the big screen for all the other Christians to see, gawk at, and shake their heads to. Shame, to put it shortly, was a well-acquainted friend of mine at home, at church, at school, and most certainly in my talks with God. Shame filled my mind.
I remember going to another Baptist youth group with a boyfriend when I was in 10th grade. It was a Wendesday night service. They sang...praise songs, not hymns. I hoped God still heard me singing even though I was singing such wild music. My boyfriend said I could wear shorts. I recall Mom's eyes looking at me as I walked out the door, disapproving and fearful eyes, questioning where she had gone wrong in bringing me up. What was God going to THINK when he saw me? She was nervous, and rightly so, because she knew no better.
I suppose high school is when I started gravitating away from my church. That's when my parents divorced, when my dad decided he would 'be saved' so Mom wouldn't leave him, when everyone at church turned their back on Mom FOR leaving him, and when an actual court Judge ordered my family that we attend two different churches since the five of us being under one roof ANYWHERE was conserved dangerous to the children's emotional, mental, and physical state. Although Dad had before this time only frequented the doors of our church to listen to me sing special music, he now was claiming to have had some deep revelations with God and that he HAD to remain there. He needed them. We could either stop the divorce (yes, I say we- WE divorced Dad...not my mom), or find another church. The choice was clear. We had to leave.
I still remember people at church being so disappointed with Mom, with my siblings, with me. They didn't understand why we weren't rejoicing that my Dad was now 'saved.' They didn't believe it when we tried to tell them stories about what was going on at home, OUTSIDE the church doors, stories about how Dad was saying, "Look, I did your church thing. Now you HAVE to say." Dad was repenting that Mom had gotten the strength to stand up and walk away. Dad was not repenting in a biblical sense, but we were told we could not be the judges of that. I wish the Pastor and every person who said that to us could have lived as a fly on the wall for just 24 hours- maybe even less time. They would have come away singing an entirely different tune.
Needless to say, leaving that church was painful. I lost a community of people that I'd been with since I was two. I didn't have them as friends anymore, and I was quite certain they now believed that I had 'back-sliden,' since I knew that is what we always thought about people who left the church under good terms before I did. I'd left under awful terms. I was going to hell. I had a lot of Christian friends at school who went to other churches and seemed to have REALLY deep faiths. It was strange to me because sometimes they broke the rules. I never understood how that worked. This confusion lasted for a while. I remember really hating our campus intern in college because he smoke cigars with some of the guys in our fellowship, one of whom was my boyfriend. I had learned about freedom in Christ, but I was quite certain this guy was using his freedom to sin and lead others to sin.
But I suppose college is also when I started really to understand the Gospel, however, and realize that ethics were often many shades of gray, and that regardless how many rules I followed, I still couldn't be pleasing to God on my own. I remember the first time I heard a pastor curse from the pulpit- so emerging, but not quite emergent, and yet, so freeing. Christians could be democrats? You aren't serious. Oh you are. Wow, I needed to chew on that.
Seminary did it for me in helping me embrace and breathe in the many colors of the Gospel that I had been missing for so long, and I think, at least, I'm still learning them. Freedom gets bigger, and the pressure on ME lessens. Sometimes I still forget why I believe what I believe. It could be because I live in New York City where everyone questions everything and believing God is anything but natural or intelligent, and I answer everyone's questions with all the answers I've learned in school and that, at times, I have really believed were true. I remember my mentor in seminary, Lita, telling me that God wouldn't put a minister in the City without making sure that minister really KNEW what she believed not just in her head but in her heart. Untested faith was not a faith that ministered. But the tests can get so weighty, I can start to rely on rhetoric and forget to be CHANGED by the Gospel. That's when I have to sit outside, toe the line a little in terms of my 'rules' I've set for myself, and let God reign down from the Sun and the clear blue sky until I remember Him in my bones again. Or maybe I really DO just have a very small ability to have faith and that's why I need a kick start here and there. I'd like to think it's the former.
I'm almost 30. In so many ways, life seems much more confined and trapping now. I'm married. I have a job which I am committed to for a certain period of time at least, and I have a school loan. I can't just move anywhere I'd like because I believe God is taking me there. I have to think about a husband too. I can't sit back and day dream about a love affair that will sweep me off my feet like in the movies and take me to heights of peace and joy yet unexplored. I have a real-life husband I vowed to love. I certainly hope there is a bit more adventure in life and that circumstances don't stay exactly like they are forever. I'm convinced I would have been a hippie if born earlier, and that Spirit still wrestles it way inside me. I'm a nomad...but one with a giant pink suitcase.
So for now, when the anxiety and hyperventilation sets in because of the claustrophobia of life, I'm glad there is freedom in the Gospel, and that I know a bit about it now. I'm glad I can flail myself out on the ground and bask in it when it seems everywhere else I am surrounded by four imposing walls that I fear I have sinfully built. I know I can't trust what I see. I know I can't trust my view or understanding of the world. I see things upside down. But God sees them right side up, and he's much bigger than me, my four walls, or the fundamental Baptist church on Columbia Road in Martinez, Ga. I need Him to remind me of that every second, and to remind me of JUST WHAT IT MEANS that since I would NEVER be able to get it right, He gave a Shepherd who got it right for me and gives me life in a form of abundance.
Oh God, give me eyes to see and ears to hear lest I perish.
I'm thankful for this church which first introduced me to Jesus, which gave me some of my childhood best friends, including my first love at the ripe age of 4th grade. I'll never forget when he slipped me the tattered note before a cantata one night and, in his messy 10 year old boy handwriting, asked me if I'd be his girlfriend. It was like the heaven's had parted. Life was now going to be right. It's amazing I remembered the words to my solo that night which was, rightly so, about love. "Love is a very special thing. A smile, a tear, a soft Summer rain. It has no beginning. It has no end, but I like it best when it's shared with a friend."
I remember writing him throughout middle school and high school, long after we'd broke up, and behind the backs of the boys I dated then. Somehow I just knew I'd eventually marry Justin Saxon. I think one day I got too cool for him and quit writing to him, and then 5 years later when I decided that I wasn't too cool for him and that we could get married, I called him up, but by that time, he was too cool for me. Such is the woe of childhood love.
There were lots of rules at TBC, my independent 'fundamental' Baptist church which was NOT by any source of the imagination associated with the Southern Baptists, shudder the thought. They were far too liberal for us. With pride, I would explain to my friends that I went to Trinity Baptist Church, a FUNDAMENTAL Baptist church. I had no clue, at the time, what that word meant other than 'holding possession of the TRUE truth of God which all other Baptists and denominations misunderstand yet THOUGHT they have.' I felt really bad for my other friends who went to churches like Warren Baptist or Abilene Baptist. I hoped...**hoped**....they were going to heaven. And then my Methodist or Episcopal or... gulp ... Catholic friends, well I just prayed for them a lot.
Although I'm sure this church did a lot of things right, and probably does a great many more things right today, some of what I learned within her walls and wish I had not learned were tenants of legalism that still haunt me. Right and Wrong were two of two options. There was no gray area in life. All that existed was evil and good. Unfortunately, many things in life, or MOST things in life, small pleasures to abused pleasures, ended up on the evil list. Obviously, one did not have sex before marriage if one said to be a follower of Jesus. One also did not date, ever really. Courting, maybe. One also did not smoke, or do drugs, or socially drink, or try a cigar, wear bikinis, or wear shorts above the knee, or any type of pants on Sunday (unless you were a man). And if you were a man, Sunday pants could NOT consist of jeans....and shirts MUST have collars. You were coming before the Lord. It was out of respect that you wear these items. People would not turn away someone who came in NOT dressed accordingly, but once said person was 'converted,' said person was immediately required to adhere to the code. Boys had short hair; girls had long. End of story. Young girls could wear pants on Wednesday nights, but women could not, especially not teachers. There were stories about what was said to women who attempted to push the limit in the pants department. They should know their place. They were lucky they were even allowed to teach children. Women were NOT permitted to hold authority over men and should NOT do anything to cause a man to stumble.
Any movie rated greater than PG was taboo for any age as was any form of cursing, dancing, going to bars, eating at places that HAD a bar, listening to music other than Southern Gospel, or listening to music with 'too much' instrumentation even if it WAS Southern Gospel. Contemporary Christian was not good, too close to the Devil's music, etc. We were, I suppose, a church that lived up to our name of 'fundamental.' Rules were clear, God's rules that is. They were preached, and I was terrified of breaking them.
I knew some individuals that toe'd the line or even crossed it occasionally, but I also knew what was said about them behind their backs, what the deacons thought of them, what the PASTOR thought of them, and that they were really disappointing Jesus. A few times, I worked up the nerve to do something on the 'do not do' list, but such shenanigans always left me feeling like I'd taken 15 steps backwards and would have to wait longer and work harder if God was ever going to delight in me or answer my prayers, give me a good boyfriend, make my house not hell, make my sister not hate me and think ill of me, or save my father's soul. And when the prayers for the aforementioned things were not answered like I expected them too be, I deduced one thing, that I was NOT doing things right, there was some rule I was breaking, there was something that displeased God. If I could figure out that piece, maybe he'd forgive me. Maybe then Jesus' blood would cleanse me, but if I couldn't, although I might make it to heaven upon my death,my life on Earth would be miserable, and once I was in heaven, every sin I hadn't repented of would be flashed up on the big screen for all the other Christians to see, gawk at, and shake their heads to. Shame, to put it shortly, was a well-acquainted friend of mine at home, at church, at school, and most certainly in my talks with God. Shame filled my mind.
I remember going to another Baptist youth group with a boyfriend when I was in 10th grade. It was a Wendesday night service. They sang...praise songs, not hymns. I hoped God still heard me singing even though I was singing such wild music. My boyfriend said I could wear shorts. I recall Mom's eyes looking at me as I walked out the door, disapproving and fearful eyes, questioning where she had gone wrong in bringing me up. What was God going to THINK when he saw me? She was nervous, and rightly so, because she knew no better.
I suppose high school is when I started gravitating away from my church. That's when my parents divorced, when my dad decided he would 'be saved' so Mom wouldn't leave him, when everyone at church turned their back on Mom FOR leaving him, and when an actual court Judge ordered my family that we attend two different churches since the five of us being under one roof ANYWHERE was conserved dangerous to the children's emotional, mental, and physical state. Although Dad had before this time only frequented the doors of our church to listen to me sing special music, he now was claiming to have had some deep revelations with God and that he HAD to remain there. He needed them. We could either stop the divorce (yes, I say we- WE divorced Dad...not my mom), or find another church. The choice was clear. We had to leave.
I still remember people at church being so disappointed with Mom, with my siblings, with me. They didn't understand why we weren't rejoicing that my Dad was now 'saved.' They didn't believe it when we tried to tell them stories about what was going on at home, OUTSIDE the church doors, stories about how Dad was saying, "Look, I did your church thing. Now you HAVE to say." Dad was repenting that Mom had gotten the strength to stand up and walk away. Dad was not repenting in a biblical sense, but we were told we could not be the judges of that. I wish the Pastor and every person who said that to us could have lived as a fly on the wall for just 24 hours- maybe even less time. They would have come away singing an entirely different tune.
Needless to say, leaving that church was painful. I lost a community of people that I'd been with since I was two. I didn't have them as friends anymore, and I was quite certain they now believed that I had 'back-sliden,' since I knew that is what we always thought about people who left the church under good terms before I did. I'd left under awful terms. I was going to hell. I had a lot of Christian friends at school who went to other churches and seemed to have REALLY deep faiths. It was strange to me because sometimes they broke the rules. I never understood how that worked. This confusion lasted for a while. I remember really hating our campus intern in college because he smoke cigars with some of the guys in our fellowship, one of whom was my boyfriend. I had learned about freedom in Christ, but I was quite certain this guy was using his freedom to sin and lead others to sin.
But I suppose college is also when I started really to understand the Gospel, however, and realize that ethics were often many shades of gray, and that regardless how many rules I followed, I still couldn't be pleasing to God on my own. I remember the first time I heard a pastor curse from the pulpit- so emerging, but not quite emergent, and yet, so freeing. Christians could be democrats? You aren't serious. Oh you are. Wow, I needed to chew on that.
Seminary did it for me in helping me embrace and breathe in the many colors of the Gospel that I had been missing for so long, and I think, at least, I'm still learning them. Freedom gets bigger, and the pressure on ME lessens. Sometimes I still forget why I believe what I believe. It could be because I live in New York City where everyone questions everything and believing God is anything but natural or intelligent, and I answer everyone's questions with all the answers I've learned in school and that, at times, I have really believed were true. I remember my mentor in seminary, Lita, telling me that God wouldn't put a minister in the City without making sure that minister really KNEW what she believed not just in her head but in her heart. Untested faith was not a faith that ministered. But the tests can get so weighty, I can start to rely on rhetoric and forget to be CHANGED by the Gospel. That's when I have to sit outside, toe the line a little in terms of my 'rules' I've set for myself, and let God reign down from the Sun and the clear blue sky until I remember Him in my bones again. Or maybe I really DO just have a very small ability to have faith and that's why I need a kick start here and there. I'd like to think it's the former.
I'm almost 30. In so many ways, life seems much more confined and trapping now. I'm married. I have a job which I am committed to for a certain period of time at least, and I have a school loan. I can't just move anywhere I'd like because I believe God is taking me there. I have to think about a husband too. I can't sit back and day dream about a love affair that will sweep me off my feet like in the movies and take me to heights of peace and joy yet unexplored. I have a real-life husband I vowed to love. I certainly hope there is a bit more adventure in life and that circumstances don't stay exactly like they are forever. I'm convinced I would have been a hippie if born earlier, and that Spirit still wrestles it way inside me. I'm a nomad...but one with a giant pink suitcase.
So for now, when the anxiety and hyperventilation sets in because of the claustrophobia of life, I'm glad there is freedom in the Gospel, and that I know a bit about it now. I'm glad I can flail myself out on the ground and bask in it when it seems everywhere else I am surrounded by four imposing walls that I fear I have sinfully built. I know I can't trust what I see. I know I can't trust my view or understanding of the world. I see things upside down. But God sees them right side up, and he's much bigger than me, my four walls, or the fundamental Baptist church on Columbia Road in Martinez, Ga. I need Him to remind me of that every second, and to remind me of JUST WHAT IT MEANS that since I would NEVER be able to get it right, He gave a Shepherd who got it right for me and gives me life in a form of abundance.
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| This picture was taken when I was the age from which I have the most memories of my first church. |
Oh God, give me eyes to see and ears to hear lest I perish.
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