I remember it like it was yesterday. I was 17 years old and I was sitting on one of those old rickety pews in this cookie cutter southern Baptist church watching the baptism of several people up on the stage of this place. It was powerful. I was in fact so moved at the event that I decided to walk up and be baptized myself. After all, I was told that to be truly "saved" you had to accept Jesus and be baptized or you wouldn't go to heaven when you died. So in t-shirt, blue jeans, and all, I took the magical plunge to salvation! Everyone cheered and I was handed a towel AND a certificate of baptism for my participation.
I must confess to you now, because I wouldn't then, when I was dunked under the water and I rose back up I felt exactly two things... wet and cold. That was it. I didn't feel any different. There was no blissful feeling or moment of enlightenment. No angels singing. Nothing. It wasn't for a lack of trying you see. I mean I wanted to feel like a brand new "saved" soul. I really, really, really wanted to. And the preacher gave one hell of a dramatic speech before dunking me like a basket ball into that Houdini styled water tank. Real Oscar stuff. But... yeah. I was still... me. Same old sinner.
Aside from my melancholy aquatic religious experience the previous Sunday, I went ahead and decided to dive full force into the bible, Jesus, church, all of it. I went to church three times a week- twice on Sunday and once on Wednesday. I was like a little teenage pastor in training. I was just missing the Jesus Freak bumper sticker for my car. But something still felt a little... odd.
One week, I was in Sunday School, and one of the other teens there asked the youth pastor if people who didn't accept Jesus would all go to hell. He said, "Well, yes. Yes they will unless they accept Jesus as their savior." The teen nodded his head and then asked if the Jews will be going to hell since their faith doesn't recognize Jesus as the Son of God. The youth pastor paused, took a deep breath, and said, "Well... if you believe what the bible says, then yes. They will all go to hell."
That answer didn't sit well with me. In fact I started to do something that the church hates: I started to ask questions.
Why would "God's holy people" (the Jews) all be damned to hell if they are His people? Why are the Buddhist going to hell? They don't start any wars. Why is it the people who are going to heaven seem to all be old, wealthy, white people? It just didn't make sense. But for my questions I got the old song and dance routine of, "Have faith" and "The bible says..." Neither one of these answers were very informative or very comforting. (Don't even get me started on the church's bigotry of homosexuals.)
I kept praying and reading my bible everyday, despite my wonders. I kept perfect attendance with church. I was a "good Christian." Well... So I thought. One Sunday it was announced that the Sunday School class was looking for a new Sunday School Youth Leader and they would be taking volunteers to lead the class until someone voiced that they wanted to do it regularly. I immediately jumped at the chance. After all, I was a devoted church member and Christian.
I cant remember the guy's name who was a youth leader there but I do remember he was an over weight, late twenties, white guy who still lived with his parents and had never even kissed a girl. Well this guy let me lead the Sunday school one Sunday. After church I went to him and proclaimed that I had it on my heart to teach Sunday school. I was so excited to do it. It felt right and I was 100% into it! I remember him telling me to follow him and he took me up to the church's attic and sat me down and there he pretty much told me that "a lot of stern eyes would be on me" and that I wasn't "good enough to lead the Youth Sunday School." He went on and on about how his family had gone to that church for years and blah, blah, blah. By that point I had tuned him out. I was busy feeling, well, terrible. I felt like a degenerate. An outcast. Just not good enough. I guess being a long haired, rock music listening, teen who had lost his virginity many times over disqualified me from church leadership. It didn't matter if I had repented, I wasn't "one of them." At least, that's how this "good Christian" made me feel.
Some weeks later I was at a book store looking around for a study bible and I looked over and to my surprise I saw the strangest thing. I saw a monk. Yeah, a real life, robes and all, Asian, monk. I couldn't take my eyes off of him. I sensed he knew I was staring. The monk just kind of glided around looking at books. I finally decided that I had to talk to him. I mean how often do you see a guy that looks like he stepped out of Kung Fu movie standing right in front of you. So I politely and sheepishly spoke to the monk. I asked him if he was a Buddhist monk; which he kindly said he was and he went on to answer all of my silly westerner questions. I told him that I was a Christian. And he said that was very good. He then said that he had something for me. A gift. I was very surprised to hear this. I mean what could a monk in robes have for me? I didn't see him carrying anything. But like magic, he moved his arm very quickly and precisely and all of a sudden he had a book in his hand. Not one from the store either. This was a book that belonged to him. He kindly presented it to me and told me that when I was ready, I "would embark on a great spiritual journey." I looked down at the book and it was a small soft cover book on Buddhism. I excitedly excepted the gift from the monk and I thanked him.
I hurried home and started reading the book that this monk had magically produced out of thin air and gave me. The philosophy was beautiful. It paralleled Christianity marvelously. And it helped explain the nature of the self and human suffering in ways that the bible kind of skipped. It also seemed to offer a few extra things: It didn't tell me what to think but more so asked me what I thought. It encouraged meditation and looking within yourself for answers rather than regurgitating a bunch of passages from a book or some old guy's behind a podium opinion. It gave something that I hadn't experienced before... it gave me space. Space to think. Space to be rational. Space to use science and reason and logic and self understanding. It gave space to practice!
Excited by my new spiritual journey I began talking to and asking questions to the youth leaders, pastor, and "wise" church elders. I even talked about this book to a born again Christian, ex crack head, who I worked with. All of them, and I mean all, told me that the philosophy was good, the love, the compassion, and all that it offered was right but it lacked Jesus so it was wrong.
Disappointed and depraved I try to forget about the monk and about Buddhism. I had been training in the martial arts for a few years by then, and to me, the philosophy of the east was a better fit to my life than stuck up youth leaders, fire and brimstone, and some archaic writing that seemed to cause more division than unity. But... I continued trying to be a "good Christian."
I remember being warned by the pastor that many teens would stray away from church by the time they were adults. I thought to myself, "that's not going to be me! I'll never stray!" But funny enough... I finally did. And yeah, I looked back. And every time I looked back, my desire to keep running kept growing. Somehow I knew that my happiness in this life, my salvation, my spiritual journey, was going to be up to... me.
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