I was already having flashbacks.
It started with forgoing the adult bliss of the Starbucks four-dollar latte for the infinitely less expensive $1.29 Quik-Trip french vanilla cappuccino. I thought about it again when I crossed the crowded parking lot in a drizzling mist of rain, cappuccino in hand, my fleece pull-over keeping me warm on a cold post-Thanksgiving night. By the time I paid the admission fee, got my hand marked with the ubiquitous black Sharpie, it was down-right scary.
The steel gym was slowly crowding with young teenagers, full of angst and bravado. You get the feeling looking at them that they think they could save the world, and for a minute you start to believe they could. The first band warmed up, and gave you the impression things might start on time. Those hopes were dashed when the waifish female singer said "I think that's good, thanks." to the flustered sound guy. The youth of America (or at least suburbia) kept filing in, each one with tighter jeans, snarkier t-shirts, more patterned neck wear than the last.
One of our college students who showed up said "Dang, these kids are so much cooler than we were in high school. Every one of them looks like they just walked out of
Urban Outfitters." I told him it reminded me of that Simpsons episode where Homer goes to Lollapalooza to get shot in the stomach with cannonballs. After the guest-star Smashing Pumpkins finish a song one guy says to another "Man, that song was good." His friend says "Seriously? or are you being ironic?" to which the friend replies "I don't even know anymore." Between the attempts at individuality, there was a sort of haze to this group, equal parts apathy, antipathy and purpose. Everyone seemed so existential. And that was the last straw.
I had been here before, and I was suddenly acutely aware of it. A flood of memories came back, mostly of traversing to tiny venues in old strip malls to see bands of a friend I knew, or a friend of a friend I knew, or the boyfriend of some girl I had once liked, but had asked me to come, so I did. Between the freezing gym, smell of french vanilla gas-station-a-chino, bad sound systems and screaming lead singers, I realized I had come full circle. I had done this same thing 14, 13, 12 years ago.
I, too, had been existential once. I had looked at the prospects of college, settling down, getting a job with benefits, starting a family. I had stared down the American dream and it looked like a great Abyss. My options were clear, either resign myself to malaise or commit to the reality of something much larger, much more significant.
I left memory lane when the keyboard player started talking. He said something like "We're all looking for something, for some purpose, something that says life is worth living. We've found that in the person of Jesus, and we'd be glad to talk to you about it." I was impressed. It was existential, appropriate, and above all, genuine. He kept talking about how heaven was good and hell was bad--really bad, in fact, and how he didn't want any of his friends to go there. He seemed to have a sense that he was saying too much, so he finished with a simple "If you're wondering about any of that, just come talk to one of us--we'd love to talk to you."
At light speed I was out of nostalgia mode, and back to minister mode--thinking how it started so good, but if he'd just left out the burning in eternal fire in the pit of hell stuff. I was thinking what I teach--that yes, eternity is indeed our divine exit strategy, but Jesus seemed far more concerned about the living of these days, and our faithfulness to him then.
I said "Goodnight" to the parents of our youth who are in the band. She asked me how it sounded. "You couldn't really hear the vocals where we were standing." she said. I actually laughed. Out Loud. Because again I was instantly in the way back machine. I stopped laughing long enough to say "Yeah, you never hear vocals at these kinds of concerts!" I kept thinking about how familiar it all felt, but by the time we got to the Chinese restaurant, we were thinking and talking about what the guy had said--about what that message says about our faith and about our Jesus.
I got in the car with a belly full full of General Tso's and my mind still whirring. I put the iPod on shuffle, believing (as I want to think most people do) that God/Spirit/Fate/Destiny works through the "shuffle all songs" algorithm in the iPod. I scrolled past more than a few songs until it lighted on this one.
"When I was young I knew everything..." And instantly, I was back. My Ford Explorer felt mysteriously like my beloved 1985 Jeep Cherokee, the smell of French Vanilla still in the air. I would have sworn for a moment I could even smell the "Woods" cologne I once bathed in during my high school years.
I thought about the song, how it spoke to the vanity of youth, but also the hope and despair. I though about what I thought about back in those days--what the future would hold, who I would marry, and whether or not I had just met her at the concert. I thought about where I would go to seminary, how big of a church would I work at, how soon would I pastor a church. And they came back like a flood. I thought about how if I had played keyboard, I would have said something very similar to what that kid had said.
And then I thought about how far I'd come. How the me at 16 wouldn't recognize the me at 30. How the teenage me wouldn't allow the 30 year old me into his church. How we would vote differently, act differently, speak differently, believe differently, care differently. I wanted to think I'd made a bunch of progress, but by my 16-year old definitions of success, I am a miserable failure.
The truth is, I don't feel like a miserable failure. I'm not saying I'm an unmitigated success either--there was no dance of joy for age and wisdom.
Maya Angelou uses small words to convey big ideas. She says something like "when you know better, you do better." I feel a lot of that.
I feel like I'm doing better, loving better, learning more and more how to act like Jesus would really act.
Two weeks ago Jen and I were at my alma mater, the McAfee School of Theology (not where the 16 year-old me would have planned on going to seminary, I might add).
Loyd Allen is a professor with a painful habit of diagnosing and speaking truth, regardless of whether or not you find it to be comfortable. He relayed a simple message on growth that I had forgotten, or more likely, ignored (the 16 year-old me's bravado still shows up at points).
He said most folks send people to seminary to get "more of the same." "They expect you to come back and regurgitate things you've learned that are really just another level of depth of that which you already know". This is something like looking at an acorn, planting it and expecting to get a 20 pound acorn instead of the one pound acorn. The acorn can't stay an acorn, it has to grow to become a tree--and that means all kind of branching and stretching into new territories and ideas. "But the people who sent you here", said the bow-tied professor, "they don't understand that. You will come back and say I'm becoming a tree and they'll say (at which point he points severely and takes a dramatic step forward) 'We sent you to become a bigger acorn. That is not what we sent you there for--You have changed!'"
Somewhere between the Verve Pipe and Loyd Allen it all made some sense. This "growth" business we talk about in the life of faith has precious little to do with information and everything to do living the incarnation.
So I am learning I don't know everything, but I know some things.
I am learning that I can still grow and stretch and have the courage to tell people that is real growth, not girth.
I am learning that I can love and be loved (with or without "Woods" cologne).
I am learning the 45-year old me may not know what to make of the 30-year old me.
I am learning that I am not the same now as I was then, by the sheer grace of God alone.
And I am learning that it wasn't so bad to be there then, because even my most glaring moments of bad belief, thought and practice are part of the process.
I am learning that as long as I am breathing, I am growing, and as long as I am growing there is still hope.
Thanks be to God.
