Why

The other day, I was contemplating for perhaps the hundredth time what it was that made me leave the church I left to become Orthodox. When I left, Philosopher Pastor asked me why, and I have never had a good answer that someone who has not walked this same road would understand. "I just knew I needed to" won't cut it for most people. I cannot claim that what follows will be anything close to complete. I may never know the complete answer myself. However, this is the answer I can give for now. This may come out with an odd mix of distinctly Protestant and distinctly Orthodox vocabulary, but so it must be, for such has been the journey.

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I've mentioned before that I realized I needed someone to teach me. Call it discipling; call it mentoring. I knew I needed someone who would take responsibility for training me and commit to it. Book learning is good and useful, but by itself, it cannot bring life. I needed someone of whom I could ask stupid and not so stupid questions. I needed someone I could call if I had a really rotten day. What I needed was a godparent, a concept which simply does not exist in the world I was in. They've tried to implement something of the sort on occasion, and in some cases it has worked, but I always managed to miss out. The closest I ever came was when I got talked into meeting with the Stephen Minister person. That was a fantastic situation, but the program is designed to be temporary. I was fortunate in that when my time with her ended, I was already in the transition process.

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I needed community. I did not need more friends at church who I might talk with for five minutes once a month after church on Sunday. I needed to not exist in a bubble that hardly anyone ever ventured into. Knowing nearly everyone by name and being recognized by everyone does not create community. It does, however, turn the spotlight on isolation when it exists. Knowing everyone does not mean that one does not find oneself sitting at home alone six nights out of the week. Knowing everyone does not even guarantee a substantive conversation on the walk from the church building to the parking lot.

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I needed transformation. Everything pointed to that need. I have never questioned the reality of my own brokenness, but the more I traveled, the more I observed those around me, the more I realized the model most of us functioned with was incomplete. Praying one prayer one time is simply not sufficient. Salvation may be free, but it is not cheap. We can never earn it, but we must contribute to the process. I cannot sit around being a reasonably good person and a Christian and expect that to be enough. I was a reasonably good person and a Christian, and I knew I was still dying. I saw no sign in myself of abundant life or peace or freedom or any of those other things that one might expect.

What I did see in myself was a proliferation of the things I definitely did not want, and I had no power or means to truly deal with them. Still, the half-formed notion I had gotten somewhere along the line was that I was to somehow let God change me, and in the meantime, try really hard. But trying really hard is like filling a swimming pool with a leaky bucket. Meanwhile, God is not going to suddenly zap me into a new and improved Spidey. Neither was I interested in just muddling through until such time as I finally got to heaven and only then finding a much better me. Having hope on your deathbead is probably nice, but what about the thousands of days before? No, the Gospel is only truly good news if it is good news for today as well as some day sometime in the future.

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I was talking with Fr. Patrick today, and he was joking that I probably had no idea what I was signing up for when I showed up at his parish. He is without question one of the goofiest, quirkiest people around, and he knows it. It didn't take me long to respond.

The way I see it is I left something I loved that just wasn't working, and I found everything I was looking for, plus I got a bonus.

And I did get a bonus. Not only Fr. Patrick, either. Everyone I've gotten to know there, those who were there before me and those who have arrived since, they have all been an incredible gift.

No, it's not perfect. How can it be? There are issues, as there will likely always be everywhere. But somehow there is a sense of rootedness that I've never had before. Oh, and that elusive life, peace, freedom, and even joy.