Easter is an odd day for me, mainly the memories are odd, but I don’t mean that in a bad way. I hardly ever use odd negatively.
Vivid memories of my younger days include dyeing eggs, loads of candy, lots of great food and dressing up so nice you would have thought we were about to meet the Good Lord. And He would have met my little brother and I in matching outfits sewn by our mother.
Church has always been a part of Easter. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve played a Roman soldier. I even moved up to Judus once. My favorite role ever was Heckler No. 2 in the Kosciusko (Miss.) First United Methodist Church’s Passion Play several years ago. It takes a special person to play the guy yelling at Jesus to save himself if he was so mighty and powerful. To this day, I firmly believe I was the best Heckler No. 2 they’d ever seen.
More than anything, Easter seems to be an odd day of reflection for me every year. I think back to my spiritual experiences, and I ask myself one question, “why do I still believe in this?”
I grew up in a Pentecostal church. The funny thing is that I never became Pentecostal, not even close. It was an eye-opening spiritual upbringing to say the least, but I never fit in. I didn’t understand why people did the things they did, like the day I had slipped out to the car as a young teenager to listen to some music that I had probably seen burned at an album burning in the past, only to see two dudes running and screaming around the church. Literally, they were doing laps around the church. They did a few, and then sprinted back inside, all without noticing me listening to some form of the devil’s music.
Since I was never really Pentecostal, it was pretty easy to change denominations when I started dated my high school sweetheart who later became my wife. That’s when I transitioned to a Baptist church, but I never really became Baptist, not even close.
Andrea grew up Southern Baptist, so it was pretty much all she’d ever known. She had visited my previous church a couple of times and was terrified. I didn’t blame her. I’m pretty sure I “joined” the Baptist church her family went to on my first ever visit. I figured that would win the future in-laws over and make a good impression on my new Baptist friends. That’s the first and only time I’ve ever “joined” a church. I didn’t really plan on doing it then, but I know my plans are to never do it again.
A silly church split saw us leave the small Baptist church we had attended and even got married in the courtyard of to move to a megachurch in the northern part of a county very close to our own. I didn’t last long there. It was during a service there that I had an awkward epiphany. While the praise and worship played some chorus multiple times and everyone basically did “the wave” to their feet, I stood there thinking. And the only words I could think were, “what in the h—- am I doing?”
After some long, heartfelt discussions with Andrea over my lack of comfort in our current spiritual pursuits, we decided to kind of go on a quest to try some different churches. Those visits included some horrible experiences. We visited one church in Forestdale where an elderly lady dropped the n-word after introducing herself to us. We immediately stood up and left.
Our spiritual quest led us to a couple of neat places. We attended a church in downtown Birmingham for several years. We still have some good friends who we met while there. That church no longer exists, because it became quite cultish, but it was good for us for a time. After that experience, a punk rock couple we had met there told us about a church in McCalla called InnerChange, which became the most genuine church experience of my life. It was a United Methodist Church, but I never became one, and neither did the church really. The UMC closed it down right after we moved to Mississippi in 2013.
During our time in the Magnolia State, we split our Sundays between the local UMC, a church plant some friends of ours had started and the local Episcopal church. And there were plenty of Sundays that we just went on family adventures to other parts of the state.
Since our move back to Walker County in 2016, we have visited many churches, and every one of them have been very nice to us. If you haven’t figured it out already, I’m going to be picky about where I might consider going on a semi-regular basis. If you have recently changed your church’s name to keep certain friends of mine outside the doors, it’s not going to be the place for me. If ALL my friends or family members aren’t welcomed or don’t feel welcomed, I just can’t do it. No judgement from me on anyone who may go to any particular church, those just wouldn’t be the fit for our crew.
Before COVID-19 hit, we had just about settled into a little local church. The pandemic hit the church hard as it had started to grow and it never recovered. Unfortunately, it’s closing next week. So as I ponder my question this year, it looks like our family might be on another quest.
Back to my question: “why do I still believe in this?”
He won’t let me stop. I’ve tried plenty, but I can’t. I’ve tried in bad times and in good times, but I simply can’t stop believing in this thing called God, and even in this dude that is called his son.
I’m living on a giant rock that’s spinning and hurling through space. There have been and are billions of other similar beings doing the exact same thing. We don’t fly away because of gravity, and there is oxygen for us to breathe. Those specifics and millions of others leads me to believe this all isn’t just happenstance, so I believe something kicked that all off and pieced it together in some way. That same way of thinking leads me to also think there’s something to this Jesus guy. Many were proclaimed to be the savior, but somehow (I know the Roman Empire had a lot to do with it) the Jesus story has survived more than 2,000 years. There’s got to be something to it. Just read His words and live like He suggested, and the world is a better place.
I’m not keen on churches or the institution of church in most cases, because our institutions were created by us, and we are imperfect beings, but somehow we think our institutions are perfect. It can be a beautiful thing when a bunch of us imperfect beings collide and are cool with each other’s imperfections and love each other anyway. That’s really cool. I’m afraid it is really rare also.
I need to wrap this up with why I decided to write all of this in the first place.
God loves you!
God loves me, so I know He loves the rest of you guys. I figured out a long time ago that He loves me just the way I am. That’s why I never even came close to being Pentecostal or Baptist or Methodist or any other denomination. God is love, and Jesus shows us that love. That’s good enough for me, so I don’t feel the need to join a particular team.
I know this was a lot of words and an odd way to get to “God loves you,” but that’s all I really wanted to say once I went through my reflection this year. If you’ve made it this far and still reading, God loves you. He wants you to know that. With no strings attached, God loves you.
