Saran Wrap and Waterfalls

Warning: Slippery When Wet.
Imagine with me, if you will. I'd also ask you to close your eyes, but that wouldn't work so well, since I am approaching you through the written, visual media. Therefore, imagine. Imagine that you are somewhere in the Rocky Mountains and that you've found this wonderful little swimming hole in a deep, deep gorge on the side of a mountain. The path to the picturesque little piece of heaven is steep and very narrow, but it's worth the trip: the water in the pool is fed by a beautiful cascading glacier waterfall that spills over the ridge above into this tiny basin. Just behind the gently pouring water, however, is a gurgling & gushing hot spring, whose steaming waters mix perfectly with the glacial waterfall for a beautiful temperature.

So, having found this amazing wonder, you decide to spend the afternoon there frolicking in bliss. As the hours pass, you begin to notice the formation of some pretty ugly clouds overhead, and as the sun begins to be veiled by the black, ominous masses, you decide that it would probably be a prudent decision to head back down the mountain before all of your clothes on the beach get soaked.

The sky cracks and growls with the impending downpour as you finish drying your hair & quickly tie that last shoelace. You take one last photo of the spot so that you can show your friends this amazing little getaway for a future visit, and as you just get your camera safely packed away, it begins.

At first, it starts out as a few drops, and then it progresses to a light drizzle, but by the looks of those clouds, you know that this is by far the nicest part of the oncoming storm. You look up the long, steep & narrow pathway to the top of the ravine & decide that you had better get a move on before your only way up turns into a tiny rivulet. So, up you go. The pine needles under foot are still dry, and the roots from the surrounding trees provide a good natural staircase, but as you survey the ground before you, you notice that those little patters from the raindrops are becoming more frequent—and larger. One last look back at the pool makes you cringe: The surface of the water on the other side of the pool looks as if it was boiling, and the white sheet of rain causing it was ripping across the surface towards you. Desperately scrambling up the tiny path, you try your best to make as much of a headway as you can before the fury of the thunderstorm hits, but you only manage to make a few hurried steps until you could swear that there was less water falling on your head under that waterfall than there was right now.

You were smart enough to put on your hiking poncho, so your pack and your body remains dry, but everything that was not directly under your rain gear is now thoroughly drenched. Those nice, crunchy pine needles & sturdy roots have disappeared. They have been replaced by a greasy mash of needle-filled mud, which proves to be Teflon's biggest competitor—or so it feels. The roots, which used to be a sought-after bastion of safety, are now avoided like the plague, in fear that a poorly placed step could cause you to slide 20 or 30 feet back down the steep trail. Your ascent has now become the dreaded "one step forward, two steps back" routine as—without fail—every time you shift your weight to that newly placed foot, the mud underneath, now quite like black margarine, smears beautifully until enough of the goo accumulates behind your foot to provide sufficient mass & friction in order to bear your weight. The higher you go, the trees become increasingly sparse, preventing you from using their trunks as footholds & handholds. After what seems like an eternity, you finally reach a narrow crevice, up which is the only way out. The walls, being sheer and smooth, are just far enough apart that you cannot use them as braces in your ascent. The mud here is relatively shallow, and you can see the smooth, slick shale in patches where the rushing water has washed away what used to be a fine layer of silt. You attack the smooth rock with your muddy boots, but to no avail: each step you take only lets the slippery surface taunt you more as it revels in its mastery. Whether it's one step up the slab or three, the result is always the same. Without fail, either by a loose patch of gravel, or a fresh gush of mud from the pouring water above, you manage to lose your footing and slide ever so "gracefully" down to the base of the now quite clean shale face. What makes the experience all the more rewarding is that every time you make it up a little farther, you have come to realise that the inevitable loss of footing sends you sliding down the steep valley even further.

It has been literally more than a dozen times since you have seen where the stone face once again meets muddy soil, and due to your frequent, quick returns to this location, the middle of the approach has now worn much of the mud away, revealing more bare, smooth rock in an ugly, mocking grin. Your knees have been bleeding for so long that whatever is left of your poncho is now beginning to stick to the swollen joints. Your hands have long been numb from the continual abuses of both the frigid rain and from the repetitive blunt traumas associated with your rock adventures. It has come to the point where you really don't think that the beast is scalable in these conditions, but looking up at the sky tells you that these clouds have no intention of letting the pathway dry out even for a moment. You are cold. You're tired. You're more wet than you have ever cared to be in your whole life. Every muscle in your body is aching either from exhaustion or from damage—or, as in most cases, both. You have no way of making a shelter, because you brought no rope & because the terrain is too steep to really make anything that will truly shelter you anyways. You are now kicking yourself for not bringing that book of matches, but the stupid weatherman told you that there was only a 30% chance of thunderstorms today—and we all know that 30% never means that it'll actually rain. You are very aware that if you don't get out of this weather soon then you will start getting severe hypothermia. The stupid, frustrating rock has made you so miserable that you almost want to cry when thinking of trying it again. You have to ask yourself, though: What do you want—and do you really want it? What will you do, what will you put yourself through to make sure that you actually get it?



This is how I currently feel in my Christian walk. I am frustrated by what little effort I am presently trying to make to overcome the little bumps & upsets that are quite inseparable from striving after a Christ-centred life. I originally started writing the above narrative illustration over a week ago, but many many things have crept into my daily drivellings that have distracted the discourse's development. However, in doing so, many many developments have occurred which will inevitably contribute to the content of this entry. I will start with my original thoughts & continue with the developments afterwards. Shall we? Let's.



It has been fifteen days since I have been tied to a relatively stable, obligatory duty. That being said, I really haven't had any drive to go around and do anything until school starts again on the 8th of September. Does that mean that I have been doing nothing with myself for the past 2 weeks? Quite the contrary. I have successfully filled my schedule to the same level of busy-ness that I previously experienced while in school. How come? Well, I have reached the conclusion that explains my tendency to fill my schedule to the brim, and it goes something like this: I do not allow myself to kick back & relax because of my old habit of using busy-ness to escape from the reality of my life. Being busy is easy. Everyone needs an extra hand once in a while, and when you're advertising that you want to get involved, they will call you on it. It's a lot easier—at least for me, because of how I grew up—to offer help & to become overly busy than it is for me to look inward & address those things in my life which need to be looked after.

Due to the lack of structure that comes with the ceasing of an obligatory duty, I no longer have an easy time getting around to spending any really time with the Lord. For me, this really, really sucks, especially since I just started back up in reading my Bible & praying. The amount of worship songs running through my head have now dwindled very much. I am also becoming more prone to the "darker thoughts" which further seems to disable me in my other thought processes, especially my thoughts on self-efficacy, on self-concept and on the nature of others' motivation(s).

So, how does this resemble the above story? Well, it seems that as much as I try to actually get back to a proper and disciplined communion with God, as much as I try to spend time with Him who I most desire to be with, I seem to just not be able to do it. Due to my free time, I end up doing other things & saying to myself, "I'll spend time with God later," which never seems to actually come to fruition. Rather, I just end up doing a whole whack of "good things," and although I do find these activities highly rewarding, I know that they are not the things that I should be letting trump my one-on-one time spent with the Lord. But they do, and it really, really sucks.



Interim of Progression


The past few days have been interesting to me. I have spent much time with some people that I really haven't seen for months—and in several cases, years. What surprised me the most about the whole time spent with my old friends was how very awkward I felt being around them. I felt as if I was an intruder—perhaps not unwelcome, but definitely not a true part of the group. It felt so weird being around these people with whom I used to interact very well, and with whom I used to have good conversations, and with whom I used to have quite fulfilling friendships. It all seemed to have changed within the past year or so, and this was most apparent with one of my more valued friends.

I won't get into the details of how or why I feel that this friend was a member of a few individuals who didn't totally shun me throughout the fallout of the "joys" of last year & before, but because they actually stood by me at the times of my life in that era where I felt the most alone, the most rejected & the most hated by Christians everywhere, they have earned a great deal of respect & honour in my sight. However, for some reason that I still have no understanding of, I have felt very alienated from this friend over the past 10 months. The other night, as I bade farewell to them, I had the feeling that that would probably be the last time that I would probably ever hang out with them ever again. That thought saddened me a great deal, and it actually ended up with me getting a little lump in my throat—something that has never happened to me before when thinking about losing the friendship of another person. What is all the more sad is that I feel paralysed about doing anything to prevent it: pretty much all of my attempts to get a hold of my friend to talk have ended up being futile, so I now have become so discouraged that I feel it is worthless to even try any more (note that this perception is probably very coloured by the resurgence of my "darker thoughts" as noted above, but still taking that in mind, I have a difficult time seeing any of my efforts actually paying off.).

Because of these recent experiences, I have half decided to give up trying to be people's friends. The amount of time I expend on trying to get involved in people’s lives, when considering the amount of how effective I feel I am at achieving that goal, makes me think that I am really, really wasting my time. It's like spending a full day to find that loonie you dropped on the ground in that huge field down the road: sure, you'll spend a bit of time looking for it, but you need to know when to cut your losses. People are gay, but Christians, I find, are worse. Why? Because they're plastic & insecure, which turns them into really huge assholes. Judgementalism & "holier than thou" attitudes disgust me. I have another friend who has been called a non-Christian because he is struggling with the whole concept of the Trinity, with faith and with the mind-bogglingness of Christ being both man & God. The truth of the matter is that his biggest hang-ups centre around Christianity & its pretentiousness than truly about the tenets of his faith.

I hate the presence of the church's need for people to feel that they must have it together & with the church's demand (however unwritten & contradictory to the fundamental foundations of our faith) that every Christian must be perfect in order to be considered a good Christian & how that you cannot be a servant of the Most Holy God if you mess up here & there. If that were true, I know that I most definitely would never be able to call myself a Christian, and I reckon that you wouldn't be able to do so yourself. Why is it that contemporary Christianity has turned its foundational beliefs on its head & why has it adopted the Pharisaical beliefs of "earning your way to heaven by doing all the right things" instead of submitting to the freeing power of the cross, and accepting the fact that we are all sinners yet under the freeing grace apportioned to us by Christ? Why is it that almost everywhere I go, with all the people who are dear to me & whom I care about deeply—why is it that they are all becoming disillusioned with Christianity? How come the church is failing its members? Why are we demanding things that are contrary to the Bible from ourselves? What is with all this Plastic Christianity?


Plastic Christianity


I am very tired of Plastic Christianity & I am no longer going to tolerate it. That being said, I do not think that many of you will hear from me directly for a good long while—unless you approach me. I care very much where my friends & where my colleagues are at in their lives—socially, spiritually & internally, yet my patience for enduring the shiny, crinkly coating that Christians put on top of their true selves has reached its limit. If you want to talk to me, talk to me. Those of you who really really know me will appreciate the fact that I will literally drop everything I am doing to go & have coffee etc. with you if you do actually want to talk.


Conclusion


I'm tired of sitting here at the base of this slippery stone. I have decided to beat it regardless of the cost. Christ is too valuable for me to sit here & rot in the rain. I don't personally like wearing plastic myself, but if I find any on my person, it's being left here at the base of this stone so that it will no longer hinder me in my progression towards my one true goal. I choose Christ; I choose to go for the goal & I choose to overcome. What will you do? The rock isn't going anywhere & the rain will never stop. If you want to come with me—as I would very much like youth do—then you're going to need to leave your plastic behind as well. Suffer the synthetics no more: Christ calls us to be genuine. Let us live that way as we eagerly search after him.




Oh, and call me sometime.