You Know?

I’m not sure what I think about life right now. I’m not sure what love is, or what it looks like, and I’m bothered by abstract statements made in Christianity (Galatians 6:2—What does that mean? What does that look like?). Well, here’s the deal—I don’t doubt the truth of my current convictions; I doubt the worth. What I mean is this: Though not more satisfying, life would be much simpler and much easier if, indeed, it were about me. In order for life to be about me, however, I would need to ignore the truth and fabricate a lie in my mind, because I know life is about love and glorifying God. I know that all that matters is loving God, loving people, and being loved, but I don’t know if I’m ready to accept the consequences.

 

Now, don’t freak out on me; I’ll say that this is most likely a slump, and that I’ll snap back into it in a day or two, if not later today, but I don’t think doubts like this should be ignored. If God is God and the God He says He is, then He’ll come through, and we have nothing to worry about—right? Right.

 

My friend John is too amazing for the world and too amazing to be my friend. Frankly, I don’t know why anyone would want to be my friend. I’m so damn selfish and talk about my problems all the time. If you are my friend, you are probably a good listener, and I am sorry for all the talking about me I have done. (Sidenote: If you haven’t discovered the likes of The Velvet Underground and The MC5 and The Stooges, then discover them. Now.) John is always there and John listens and thinks he doesn’t give good advice but he does. He helps me. But he is doing this thing called The Forge at Pine Cove which is great but I don’t want that to separate us, and I know that is selfish but it is true and if it is true it should not be hidden—(which I need to realize because up about I obviously contradict that statement).

 

Also, when someone says, “I’m praying for you, Hunter,” what the hell does that mean? Does it do anything? What does it mean? Is it just the Christian version of a nostalgic, “I’m thinking about you, Hunter”? I don’t understand people when they say that. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know.

 

I don’t know. I don’t know about a lot of things. I know a lot of truth but don’t know if I’m willing to follow it. Is that so terrible? Is a moment of doubt so terrible? Is it? I’ll be through it soon. Humor me, will you?

 

You know, do you doubt? I hope you do. I think that if you don’t doubt then you maybe don’t have true faith. I’ll say that and sleep fine tonight. If you don’t doubt then you aren’t struggling with things, wrestling with them. Wrestle. I have plenty of friends who wrestle and it makes them stronger. (These Velvet Underground songs have such fantastic heartbeats, you know?) I’d encourage you to doubt. Go a day without believing in God, and see where you end up. Do it! Is that a terrible thing to say?

 

They say, you know, that things are never as easy as they seem, and I agree with that but I also disagree with that. I think that things are never as easy as they seem, sure, but I think that things (that life in general) is so much simpler! than people make it out to be.  Love is all that matters. Love is abstract and love is bitchy and love is hard and love is dirty and love is difficult and love is all these but love is life and life’s love is all that matters. I believe that. Live now and love now.

 

I believe it.

 

You know I believe it, but I still haven’t found what I’m looking for.

 

You know?

419

I’ve only just gotten back, so don’t (yet) expect anything grand or altogether beautiful; don’t expect good things or bad things; don’t expect anything but the truth, as abstract as it may be. As I begin my story, the story of the last six weeks, I must admit I’ve been utterly hypocritical, for though I warned you to expect nothing, I myself went into camp with expectations. I expected to have an emotional time (I didn’t); I expected to grow closer to God the way that you normally would at camp—a mountain-top experience with a slight fall afterward (there was no mountain for me there); I expected to change lives (and I learned, or re-learned, that only God is the changer of hearts).

 

I’m out of writing practice so this will all be very sloppy and rather poorly written, which is a travesty, but I need to start processing things as soon as I can. Here I go:

 

Though I expected those mentioned things above, I came into Pine Cove with a large number of prejudices, prejudices that I’ve had with me for a while, prejudices against the North-Dallas, upper-middle class, white, fraternity/sorority types, prejudices against the South and against the semi-conservative nature of things down here in Texas. Before I start out with camp, let me give you a few-month’s-prior-to-camp history.

 

The second semester in Iowa City was, to even put it modestly, euphoric. Words cannot describe how much I learned about grace, about myself and about the world, about God and people and the way things work, about love. I discovered that I had truly been given the church of my dreams in Iowa City; I discovered a man ten years older than me who taught me life’s secret; I discovered a community of believers who lifted me up, who realized that it’s okay to cuss and love God at the same time, who realized that Obama isn’t the anti-Christ, who see that the Christian life is about fruit, who know that faith without works is completely dead. It was a wonderful semester. It was fantastic to be away from Texas. Blissful.

 

And then I came back to Pine Cove.

 

East Texas.

 

Conservative.

 

Cross-heavy and lacking in emphasis (to my understand) on the resurrection, on hope and the fact that we were noble before we were sinful. Not once did I hear “Imago Dei”—Hunter, you are created in the image of the living God, the “Father of Lights” as James says. I believe in original nobility and secondary sin. I believe this: In the cross we find mercy, in the resurrection—grace. It’s not that I disagree with the faith statement of Pine Cove (I agree one hundred percent); it’s that I think they focused too much on one thing and not the other.

 

I disagreed with a few focus-related things about Pine Cove, and with the gender roles they play and definitely the America-fondling nature of things there, and I was blinded by my petty trifles. For the first three weeks (orientation and weeks one and two), my selfishness inhibited my ability to live carpe diem, to live in love, and to live with the very gospel that I myself preached: the gospel of the resurrection and of salvation.

 

But things began to change Thursday night of week two.

 

Let me interrupt briefly to say thanks to the following people, without whom I couldn’t have made it through camp:

 

Opa!

Tatt

Rafiki

Davey

Silly Rabbit

Bow Thai

 

I would have been screwed without you.

 

Back to week two. So, I’m walking back to my cabin after a frustrating Bible-study type of thing (called “Cake ‘N Stake”), and I’m semi-angry with the fact that I just read a section of a book claiming to preach the “gospel” that had absolutely no reference to the resurrection. I’m walking with Opa! and we aren’t saying anything but we both know we want to say something. We part and I get to my campers, who are getting ready for that night’s theme night, and I start to cry. Damn it.

 

I wept and met with Opa!, and he had someone take my cabin and we talked for an hour or maybe more. I don’t remember it perfectly. I was struggling with my prejudices. I was struggling with the fact that I felt lonely, with the fact that I hated being back in the south, with the fact that I didn’t love being around all the smiles that I thought were mostly bullshit. I felt lonely and alienated and deserted and purposeless (I think that the feeling of purposelessness is one of the worst feelings in the world, and it goes hand-in-hand with the feeling of not being loved). It was all pride and selfishness; I only realize that now. It was like being high-school Hunter all over again. It sucked. I’m sorry, Pine Cove staff who had to deal with that. I wasn’t being the Hunter who left Iowa in May, the Hunter who lives now and loves now. Ah!

 

I spilled a lot to Opa! I spilled most of my story, all of my frustrations regarding Pine Cove and myself. I missed Iowa. To all you Midwesterners out there, I love you and you are amazing. I missed my church and the friends I had made. I told him quite a bit. Deflated. Emptied. It was a beautiful thing. There was an empty cabin. We sat on the edge of one of the beds. I had bronchitis. I was stopped up. I was sobbing. He put his arm around me and hugged me. He cried a little but not much. He prayed for me. It was a soul-molding experience. Thank you, John. Also, the washing of the feet. Thank you.

 

After that night things changed—I saw that even people from Texas A&M had stories; I saw that even people who were in a fraternity or a sorority could be deep and intellectual. I know it’s a silly thing to put large groups of people (or even single people) in boxes, but it might life easier in some ways, but I needed to learn that that was wrong. God showed me my pride.

 

I could go on and on about the last three weeks of camp, not about how great they were (they were good but not great), but about how much I learned and how—even after the night with Opa!—they were hard. But I might do another post on that. I’m just going to wrap this up by saying a few things that I learned:

 

1.        I need to be me wherever I am.

2.        Depression is in my life to stay, or at least a melancholy overtone, and I am perfectly okay with it, because I know how to deal with it—by giving it over to Him.

3.        (As a writer I should have known this but—) Don’t put people in boxes; everyone has a story; everyone has potential. If you truly want to engage humanity, leave your prejudices behind.

4.        Love and live in the present. Carpe diem.

 

 

1st John 4:19

7 words.

Live it.