An Ode to This summer, Why not?

So this summer, my life changed in so many ways. A little back story, a few friends and I went to the streets of Detroit and lived on the streets for 2 weeks. All we had were the clothes on our backs and each other. The things I saw and experienced have made a major impact on my perspective. 

Post-modernism is described as a reaction to modernism. Which as far as definitions go, I always though that was pretty shoddy. But then I realized something about human history. Eras don't exist independently but instead are a reaction to the ones before them. Does humanity ever really progress? who knows? But it sure as hell reacts!

The last six months of my life have been a major reaction. A messy, broken, painful, and incomplete reaction. But the best thing I have ever undergone. I have lived my entire adult life ( using that term loosely here) in a culture-imposed and even more a self-imposed prison. I believed the goal of life, the apex of humanity, was to live SELFLESSLY. So over the last few years, I made it my goad to live selflessly. When I did things for myself, I felt extreme guilt. Don't get me wrong, I am certain I was and am still selfish, but was so in a self-loathing state. When I played video games instead of helping others, even for a minute, I was guilt-ridden. When I had lunch with friends, instead of someone who "needed" me, I felt rotten. 

    "The man who lacked external enemies and opposition and was forced into an oppressively narrowness and regularity of custom, impatiently tore himself apart, persecuted himself, gnawed away at himself, grew upset, and did himself damage-this animal which scraped itself raw against the bars of its cage, which people want to "tame", this impoverished creature, consumed with longing for the wild, had to create in itself an adventure, a torture chamber, an uncertain and dangerous wilderness, this fool, this yearning and puzzled prisoner, was the inventor of "bad conscience". With him was introduced the greatest and weirdest illness, from which human beings today have not recovered, the suffering of man from his humanness, from himself, a consequence of the forcible separation from his animal past, a leap and , so to speak, a fall into new situations and living conditions, a declaration of war against the old instincts, on which up to that point, his power, joy, and ability to inspire fear had been based." -Nietzsche-

So before long the inevitable happened, a reaction: I didn't know what to do anymore as the year was coming to an end. I was miserable. I was making those around me miserable. I was mentally, socially, and physically unhealthy in every way. I was tormented by extreme highs and lows, mostly lows. So I reacted. If this was life, if this was Christianity, self-abnegation and denial-I was through with it. I wanted no part of it. If my righteousness was dependent on me so much, I couldn't walk that line anymore. 

And summer came, sweet, messy, uncomfortable summer. I got a new job and met some new people and started a path of unbrokenness that was the best time of my life. I rebelled. I reacted. I shook the dust off of parts of my spirit that had been forced into dormancy. I allowed myself to seek happiness again. I stopped telling myself that everything I wanted was wrong. I crossed the center line. I hopped the fence, I spilled on the carpet. And it was so messy, so disgusting. BUT THAT'S THE KEY. Reaction can NEVER be attractive, they can NEVER be that impressive. But they will ALWAYS be necessary. And so I went on this repulsive journey that can only make sense to those that are on it, or have been on it before. A journey of questioning everything, where nothing was off limits, not God, not country, and especially not self. And it hurt so bad, my oh my, it was excruciating. Terrifying. I spent most of the time wanting to turn back. But there was no turning back. Ignorance is bliss. But I couldn't turn around, it was beyond the point of no return. It had the feeling of one of those rollercoaster rides that feels like you are on the verge of flying off the tracks, except this time it felt like I did fly off the tracks and you just wanted to hit the ground so it could be over, but the ground never came, just the terror between the tracks and the ground. 

    

    "Im nowhere near hitting the bottom yet. And if I don't fall all the way, I can't be saved. Jesus did it with this crucifixion thing, I shouldn't just abandon money and property and knowledge. This isn't just a weekend retreat. I should run from self-improvement and I should be running towards disaster. I can't just play it safe anymore. This isn't a seminar. If you lose your nerve before you hit the bottom you will never really succeed. Only after disaster can we be resurrected. It's only after you've lost everything that you're free to do anything. What I'm feeling is premature enlightenment." -Fight Club

This was the bravest I have ever been. It was also simultaneously the most scared I've ever been. I spat on the religion that I was taught from the beginning of my time. I said "God, if everything I've always been told is true, then you tell it to me, tell me it's not just that I've been brainwashed by my culture" I prayed this summer more than I ever did when I was "religious". The difference though is they were honest prayers. 

And I lost friends as they dwindled away. Some friends. It was remarkable really-the people who needed me to be good enough, to behave, to be righteous, those whose love was contingent on my being "the good pastor's kid", they disappeared. But the people who just liked me-whether I was on top of the world or if I was a piece of dirt-they stuck around, and I found they were on the same journey as I was on. They became my brothers and my sisters and my fathers and my mothers and my BFFs and my worst enemies and my saviors and my "home". We were terrified together but we were happy. 

I hurt people. That's never okay. But reactions are never clean. I was undisciplined. I was out of control. I needed to be. I needed to transgress every boundary I could fathom. I needed to know, really know, why things were wrong, why things were right. 

    

   Im still recovering from this summer. There are some ways in which I am still reacting, but overall I am working my way back to normalcy. Back to average living. But now with meaning. Some areas of my life are still a little wild. But I like that. Most absolutes were obliterated, most things I'd heard in church have long left me. But I am more happy, passionate, more genuinely care about others and see hope for the first time in a long time. 

Anyways, I know that most won't read this, but it isn't for them. In a sense, its not even for me. It is but not exclusively. Its for my few friends, who have experienced, who endured, who lived and loved the summer, that will and has forever changed our lives. Who helped me push every limit, who helped me break a few rules (okay many and almost every rule), who stayed up way too late, who watched movies and got inspired and angry and laughed, who did things to get fired every day at work (and when quitting time came, suck back up time followed), who challenged everything and told the matrix with its boundaries and lies and false realities to go to hell. 

We still don't have the answers, in fact we have even way more questions. Go figure! But we are honest, honest with ourselves, honest with our spirituality, honest with our enemies. We call lies what they are and don't stay in line. Our lives are much messier now I am sure. But we can never forget this summer and never let it be taken from us. A lot of people have judged and criticized. A lot of people call it backsliding and arrogant and irreverent and blaspheme and burn out. We call it honest and challenging the status quo and sucking the marrow out of life. Its only in embracing hypocrisy that we begin to recognize salvation and in the mean time, until next summer-"we keep on waiting, waiting for the world to change"