To be Part of a Broken Body

I get why so many people I talk to are disenchanted with church and Christians. I’ve been to a handful and have heard of countless churches that were filled with veneered, holier than though types. Where pastors recite extreme, outermost feather on the right wing poetry and read from newspapers instead of opening the Word of God.

Last week, I went to coffee with one of my favorite people, Kelsey. We snagged the only outdoor table at this little café so we could enjoy the subtle crispness in the air and the freedom to become boisterous if the occasion called for it.

Kelsey is a senior at a public high school in Harford County. The age gap is six years between us. I used to babysit her and her sister way back when. Then, after graduating high school, I got involved helping with the middle school youth group at my church which Kelsey was a part of. After a couple years hanging out with the young’ns and hearing all about… everything (boy, middle school girls can talk!) I aged up with them when they moved to the high school youth group. So yeah, for a while I was a contracted mentor of sorts, but Kelsey has become this wise, beautiful, interesting woman and one of my best friends.

Anyway, there we were, perched on cast iron stools at the matching pedestal table, talking about school, work, friends, faith, boys—the usual. One anecdote she shared was about a recent conversation she had at school with several peers. Somehow religion came up and Kelsey and another girl identified themselves as Christians.

“You’re a Christian?” one boy asked Kelsey incredulously. “You don’t act like one,” he added. At that point Kelsey’s mind whirled, Oh no! Why is that so unbelievable? What am I doing wrong?

     “What do you mean?” Kelsey asked, casually.

     “I don’t know. You’re cool.”

     Fwoo! What a relief!

The relief didn’t last long though. Sure, she can feel good about herself—she is representing Christ in a way He’d be proud of. But Kelsey and I ended up solemnly sipping coffee amidst this realization that hung like a cloud of smelly green smoke around our table. The title of Christian has come to be this awful thing in our culture. Something I’d never volunteer to be a part of: goody two shoes, legalistic, feeble-minded, “God hates fags” sign-toting hypocrites. But…

I am a Christian! I mean—I wear the name of Christ; “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.” I wish there was some way to separate what we’ve let Christianity become from the life, love and sacrifice of Christ; or that we could throw Christianity like a dirty towel into some cosmic washing machine and that it’d come out all Bounty fresh. Even if that was possible though, we’d mess it up again—just give us a little while.

The reality is that we are a bunch of sinful people and that we’re completely imperfect and that there is no way we can represent Christ in the way that He deserves, especially when it comes to the large scale stuff—the media and all that. ‘Course we’ll always look bad. (Everyone looks bad.) Kelsey and I will just close our eyes to all that stuff though, and live our normal, boring, ordinary lives trying our best to make friends and love everyone and stand up for the weak and lonely and be responsible and praise God for all the ways He has blessed us.

Yes—rainbows and butterflies. Cupcakes and sunshine… cookies… and milk. There’s plenty of hurt and sorrow and death in the world; I’m glad to be the smiling fool who remembers every day that I don’t have to worry about that stuff anymore because Christ did. He suffered all and conquered death and now--we live.

The Little Sonata that Could

I visited my Kevin last weekend. He goes to school in Grove City, Pennsylvania, which is a five hour drive from home on a perfectly clear, trafficless day. Of course, on Friday, the day I drove up, it was pouring rain the entire way. So I spent six hours en route, letting my mind wander and carefully rationing pieces of candy. Kevin’s brother is a sophomore at the same school, so their mom sent with me little goodie bags for each of ‘em. I snagged a peppermint patty from Kevin’s bag and a Reeses’ from his brother’s. (Yeah, I know—I was impressed with my self control too.)

I’m not someone who particularly minds driving long distances or driving in the rain or in the snow or at night or whatever, especially when I have a handsome stud waiting for me at the end of my journey, but there were definitely some white knuckle moments. You know, when you’re driving through the rain and you end up behind a Mac truck that creates a persistent flume-like wall of water splashing on your windshield? Yeah—there was lots of that. There were moments when the rain was falling so heavily that people were pulling over, hazards flashing, for the stillness and comparative safety of the roadside. Not me though. I was focused. I hadn’t seen Kevin in nearly three weeks! I felt like I was—or my car, rather—was the hero of some child’s storybook as my little car drove steadily along, slowly passing 18-wheelers and SUVs and other small cars who’d given up the ghost. (She’d have to be a brightly colored car though to have such a starring role. Her dingy silver paint would blend right into an illustration of the Pennsylvania Turnpike on a rainy day.) With the radio off, the splashing under tires and percussion of the downpour on the roof seemed amplified. We chugged along though, with no coffee break for me and no gas break for her.

Around the time that my GPS, informed me that I was ten minutes from my destination, I heard a loud bang at the windshield, like the sound of a rock making contact. I was confused for a moment. Added to the rhythmic swoosh and thump of my windshield-wipers was a terrible SKREEETCH… SKREEETCH… SKREEETCH.

The windshield-wiper blade on the driver’s side had broken and flown off as I drove down that large, unfamiliar highway. I could see nothing but blobs of light through the thick, flowing coat of rain that the driver’s side of my windshield wore. I had to keep the wipers going though, and continued driving, leaning across the center console to look through the other half of the windshield. I turned on my radio for the first time in hours in an attempt to drown out the terrible, sharp sound of metal rubbing glass. (Paired with the stream of profanity and noises of frustration, it was quite successful.)

I drove ten under the speed limit for that last bit of the trip, but I made it! And after rubbing and rolling the crick out of my neck and getting a new wiper blade at a near-by auto shop, I had a wonderful weekend with Kevin. So worth the drive.