I am particularly grateful for my Christian faith and experience. I have been a Christian since I was fourteen. My conversion was dramatic and I was a teenage Jesus Freak. You could say that I was a fanatic. I'm not any longer. I was having this conversation with a friend yesterday. As I seem to be very focussed on my faith he asked me, I think, reasonably, if I was a fanatic. I told him no, and for these reasons:
When I was a teenager, my brain was still developing, my family and life circumstances were difficult and challenging and suddenly I had a sense of meaning in my life. Jesus became everything. My learning curve began but it also became something all-consuming to the exclusion of all other interests. This might have been unbalanced, but I think at the time it was still necessary. I was on a crash-course as a Christian. I wasn't simply trying to justify a belief system. I had experienced, first hand the presence of God in my life. This was huge and overwhelming. But I was also zealous to make it as real as possible because I was still only just beginning to believe. I wanted everyone to know what God was doing for me and I wanted to share with others this beautiful experience.
Unfortunately I had little or no support for getting on with my education and vocational preparation. As I said, my family life was in chaos and there was no one available to mentor or help me get into university or vocational school or whatever. I was stranded on my own at eighteen, and already had lost my zeal. I struggled to find employment, a roof over my head, and friends. My life became a daily struggle. The Christians I knew had become cultish and difficult to relate to and we soon went our separate ways. I backslid completely and dramatically into a lifestyle of drugs and very loose living. I was also reading a lot and seeking some kind of depth in myself that God hadn't yet touched.
One night in Toronto I had a profound rediscovery of Jesus and this has continued for me for the rest of my life. Only, this time it was different. I seemed to have accessed something much deeper and more meaningful than before. I found that I didn't have to work so hard to prove or justify my faith as it was becoming for me a living reality. I also became aware that I had the responsibility to grow and develop as a complete human being. It wasn't simply a matter of living as a super Christian. I already basically knew the scriptures and the teachings. I didn't need further convincing. But something very significant was going on deep in the centre of my being. My conversion had become authentic.
I said to my friend yesterday, that for me the importance of the Christian faith is that it be internalized, a living reality in my heart, and that rather than tell other people what or how to believe, that I simply live out the reality of the Christian life. Rather than turning back into a fanatic my mind, my life, my vision and my horizons were suddenly opening and broadening like never before. I was taking a newfound interest in the world around me, in art, literature, history, politics, economics. I discovered humanism and found that it did not have to contradict my Christian faith or experience. I began to discover and explore and respect other religious faiths, only to discover that they had much to teach me without drawing me away from my experience of Christ, but rather, enriching and enhancing my sense of the reality of Jesus.
I am thinking of a conversation I had with an elderly Japanese gentleman the other day who practices Shintoism. He mentioned, critically, that Christians don't appear to appreciate or respect the sacredness of all things. I replied that, yes, we can be very obnoxious. I added that the Japanese Shinto approach has inspired and informed my Christian experience and that I have come to appreciate the sacred in all forms of nature. Where we don't necessarily agree is that I do not credit each tree or rock or waterfall as being inhabited by a god, but I do appreciate the divine presence or essence in all things, and I think this is where we can compromise. He seemed to like my explanation.
For me, in the last several years, it has been more a matter of letting Christ within me become such a living reality that this is what influences and informs my entire life, my worldview, my interactions with others. Really, it has been a matter of getting away from the doctrines and the dogmas, which serve their role as foundation and scaffolding, but to really focus on the essence, the spirit of what I believe and to make that real in my work of care-giving for people in mental distress, my friendships, working for social justice, my art, writing, the way I take care of myself, living a disciplined and ethical life, and taking joy in nature and in other people, and treating others with respect, love and kindness, and living in a way that is courageous and that embraces the world.
I think though that there is another clear evidence that one is not a fanatic. It is called having a sense of humour. Fanatics tend to take everything, especially themselves, very seriously. They are not able to laugh, they don't seem able to have fun. Neither do they seem interested in anything that doesn't relate directly to their belief system. It is almost as though they are still not really convinced, themselves, of the truth or reality of what they believe, and always have to work overtime to convince others, in order to convince themselves.
God has never been more central and more fully in my life as he is now. And I have never been less a fanatic than I am now.
It's all about joy and gratitude, of course. But especially love. If our lives are full of love then we are also full of God and that becomes a living current of beauty, wholeness, healing and life that flows from us to others.
To quote Teilhard de Chardin: "Joy is the most infallible sign of the presence of God." When I was fifteen and a teenage Jesus Freak I had that poster on my bedroom wall. I think that finally those words are beginning to sink in.
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