Personal Spiritual Journey

Spiritual Auto- Biography
I hesitate to discuss personal issues but this is needed background to offer a better understanding of my spiritual journey. I love to discuss the importance of ideas but the personal truth can provide insights just as big. As I read through it, it’s rather bland but I want to say that the important thing is the ideas come towards the end and my conclusion. So I invite you to plow through the mundane events, no great testimony or salvation story or burning bushes or epiphanies or heavenly voices, etc. but arrives at a spiritual feast provided by the Ancient Orthodox Truth.
As a child my family didn't practice any faith. My father was hostile to belief. I gathered he regarded that it was something for a fool. If he ever would attend church, the roof would collapse, he used to say.
There was some turmoil in my parent's marriage at that point, some loud arguments and some tension. Dad always insisted on being the dominant spouse and getting his way. And the family revolved around his desires in large part. Eventually, I took my mother's side in all of this. I was too immature not to be resentful of my self-centered father who otherwise was a good provider and family man.
When I was twelve along with my mother, I joined the Seventh Day Adventist Church, and I was a fervent believer for few years. Membership in this faith community felt fulfilling. I was given a Trinitarian baptism with full emersion. The biggest personal influence in my life was my mother. She is a dear Christian example of self less love and charity. No matter how far I wandered I always had her example to refer to. My mother, who was raised near the Ozarks, then moved to Michigan in her late teens, was raised Seventh Day Adventist. After marriage she wasn't attending regularly until she re-joined the Church when she was about forty years old. I also remember being sent to Sabbath School as a pre-schooler on occasion.
I went to college to study History at the Seventh Day Adventist affiliated Andrews University in Berrien Springs, Michigan. While in College I rejected the Adventist Faith, I'm thinking my cynicism got the best of me. I only had a "shallow" faith. I had no daily prayer or Bible reading regimen. At the beginning it was enough to have an inspirational belief. Unfortunately, all that was preached upon was the impending End Times (Second Coming of Christ), Old Testament Diet restrictions, (Adventists follow the Old Testament Dietary Restrictions) and 7th Day Sabbath. It was very Old Testament and Jewish from a 19th century rural American viewpoint with nary a mention of Holy Spirit or Grace it seemed. One night while in Vespers, I was disgusted with my lifeless Faith and put aside my Christian beliefs. I didn't claim any Christian beliefs for another 10 years.
My Junior year of College I transferred into University of Michigan, whose University Hospital I was born a more less than 18 years before as an RH Negative baby (always fatal for an unborn except for the first child, previous to this medical breakthrough). Upon attendance at U of M I began to drink to excess and drank somewhat heavily for 10 years. I also began to use Marijuana as well for a period of time. I loved to get really "stoned" (2 doobies) and experience sensations and sounds under its heightened alternate consciousness. A couple of bad acid (LSD)Trips put a halt to the Marijuana however since they would prompt flash backs. But I continued to enjoy inebriation which meant a "good" drunk oft times.
However in contrast to this excess, I had a period of a few months of euphoria and complete well being. I felt at complete peace. My drive to excel was not being rewarded with outstanding grades and at a moment I gave up my effort to strive to achieve (only someone raised without missing a meal and in middle class comfort could set this aside his ambition so easily) and decided that the competition within the university was in some way disordered. The onset of which was this liberation and euphoria. For months I had a feeling of well being and an emotional feeling of affection for others. I was on a cloud it seemed. When this feeling left me after a few months as mysteriously as it came, I was in despair and distraught, feeling isolated and lonely. I had no true friends, female or otherwise. It's a wonder I got through this period. Life seemed hopeless. I was isolated from my own true feelings.
I was seeking a measure of meaning and became enamored with Eastern Religion popularizers like Alan Watts and Baba Ram Das. I liked the idea of a spiritual reality but with no obligations or consequences to my life and no moral absolutes to inhibit my libertine life style. I had no belief in a God or Gods, personal or otherwise. I was open to the idea of a transcendent reality that would allow you to escape the mundane. I even tried Transcendental Meditation for a few months which amounted to more dabbling. These were evidence I was a seeker and not ready to truly take on a belief system. I didn't see value in Christianity, not seeming to have a transcendental or mystic tradition.
I graduated from College with a History and Teaching degree. I soon realized I was not suited for a High School classroom. I kicked around for a year or so out of college, substitute teaching (which is an out of body experience in itself dealing with unruly immature students) and soon decided I needed a skill and got some computer training to get work which was none to easy to obtain. This concluded my financially carefree days and I was rather ashamed at my lack of business/professional success, in fact. This was a sobering series of events in a manner of speaking but not always in regards to my frequent consumption of alcohol. Please don't misunderstand; my alcohol never interfered with work, just my driving.
Continuing my spiritual search I apprised myself that as powerful and magisterial as science was it had no ultimate answers. Each period or so the definitive answers change; Newtonian physics cedes to Einstein's Relativity and Steady State (Universe has always been here Science insisted. There was no act of creation.) bows to Big Bang (Ooops, it had a beginning, they say!). Discrete atoms make up matter ....no, it's a confusing maze of particles and sub-particles.... Wait! There is a logic to this zoo, based on a system of "quarks", whose laws in no way explain the natural universe we can observe beyond the atomic level. So as we see, even the scientific laws and rules are limited in their own paradigms or "relms" given space and history. Science, while it can reveal very profound knowledge of our observable universe, fails over time and across the universe to grant ultimate insight. Science even gave me life through marvelous medical procedures as a new born (RH Negative blood which was fatal previously) but no meaning.... what's meaning without life? ... I mean life without meaning? I’ll set that discussion aside to some time later. But Science had no ultimate answers.
My search for constructive belief began in earnest when it was impressed upon me I needed to quit heavy drinking (namely by an appearance for DUI at the 53rd District court of Livingston County, enforced by my lovely wife and my local employer). I'm trying to remember if my wife and I were already attending a local Lutheran Missouri Synod Church or not at the time. I remember with the absence of frequent bouts of inebriation to be desperately seeking meaning. Not having a faith in a divine being at the time, I called out in prayer that if there was a God, come make thyself known. I almost made this a mantra. I gradually relied more and more on this concept and became accustomed to a belief of the Christian God. That belief continued to grow and be more important to me and my well being and be integrated into my life.
During this period I arrived at a most profound insight, an epiphany. I had unknowingly harbored a deep resentment of my father. This made itself apparent to me after the drinking bouts ended. But an insight into one’s relationship to one’s parent doesn’t always come to people. I realized how much I unconditionally loved my father and afterward I looked on him as a person with human failings not as a child would view a parent. This was a great step in my life and actually occurred prior to belief in any Omnipotent, Personal, Ethical monotheistic being we call God.


Another event in the process of becoming devout in my faith was attendance at a Marriage Encounter Weekend (my wife and I attended 3 of these as it turned out). It was here I gained a deeply emotional attachment to my personal Savior in addition to the intellectual concept of a personal God I had arrived at earlier which gave me meaning. I was very hesitant at first to devote an entire weekend just to my wife and me at a retreat without TV (sports mainly) or a watch or newspaper ( I was an avid reader of Newspapers at the time). Much of the weekend is devoted to writing romantic letters back and forth to each other on a notebook. I developed a profound emotional romantic attachment for my wife that had been missing despite my commitment to our marriage and our relationship and in addition a deep love of my God as well. As my love for my wife grew, the love of God grew with it. I highly recommend this retreat to spice up a good marriage. Note to guys: women seem to love that romantic stuff.

I truly had no doctrinal understanding of Lutheranism at the time we attended and I didn’t really concern my self with doctrine. I had enough doctrine with Seventh Day Adventist with their insistence on their 7th Day Sabbath, Old Testament diet restrictions and such and didn’t put much importance in Biblical exegesis. The main things were the basics. The Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod, we attended was a very fine faith community and I loved the pastor. But we moved farther away and it was no longer convenient to attend. After a year or so we began to attend a United Brethren Church of Christ (a tiny denomination composed of an amalgam of Mennonite and Methodist heritage) in our local village. We were looking for something that was fundamental: a church that believed in the Bible as inspired; that the atoning sacrifice on the Cross and the Resurrection of Christ being a real historical event as well as his miracles recorded in the Bible has actually occurred, that kind of stuff. This group is an enthusiastic and sincere group of believers. The idea that Jesus was simply a moral teacher and example or guide and that the Resurrection was spiritually symbolic not a real event and the Gospels were inspiring stories but had no historical veracity held no appeal to me. It was meaningful spiritual truth I sought, not comforting stories. This became my Faith for twenty years.

Steve Malson, Pastor of the local United Brethren Church was critical to the development of my faith. He took the time to hold a Men’s Bible Study over a period of months. He has my highest respect for being a mentor. Here is the first time I was strongly encouraged to read the Bible regularly. In its reading and study I became a fully devote Christian. The Holy Scripture came alive and I fell in love with the simple truth of the Bible being God’s word to his believers. Theological concepts were absent but simple love of the “Good book” and Jesus were present. Uncertainties about claiming “Biblical” belief fell away. Fundamentally speaking, I felt the Bible made complete sense; I took it to heart so to speak.

At the time attendance at Promise Keeper’s conferences where thousands of predominately Protestant Christians gathered in Stadia across the country hosted by Coach Bill McCartney were tremendous events. I went to several of these; I lost count. The first was in Indianapolis Hoosier Doom filled with 50-60,000 men. Great inspiring preaching, fellowship, booming contemporary rock-influenced Christian music all designed to create a very emotional spiritual experience. You felt part of this Evangelical wave sweeping the nation. The group singing of thousands of men together was beautiful and inspiring. You came back all fired up and this emotional high never lasted more than a day or so however. I would do by best to retain the feeling then try to restore it to no avail; passion upon passion that soon led to let down. Full of superficiality but no substance I would come to understand later; basically “spiritual” entertainment and thrills.

Let’s segue some years later. As my daughters become teenagers with drivers licenses I realized my fondest hope of them buying into my devout Christianity was not taking place. This was a profound disappointment to me. I felt this was my failure as a mentor and become very depressed. I’ve battled depression from time to time through out my adulthood and have acquired various strategies to combat it. But nonetheless it precipitated a bit of Mid-Life crisis. I began to question the worth of what I had accomplished throughout my life in terms of my Christianity. I knew I wasn’t a great missionary or held to be a great knight in shining armor to my wife, since my careless sloth about household cores was patent. Thinking back as I write I realize I put more time and effort into my business career than anything. I wanted to avoid poverty and aggravating and unfulfilling work that can accompany it and so I spent a great deal of energy to better my business and employment circumstances. Besides I didn’t want to push religion on the girls so I left the “training” to the Church which came mostly in social events as overnights or camps not substantive doctrinal training which in today’s touchy, feely faith is deemed unnecessary; the feeling is foremost. There’s some rationale to that; relationship versus indoctrination.

Providentially, the AM Christian Contemporary Rock station I listened to on my daily commute to my dismay was bought out and become a Roman Catholic funded station. It started to broadcast a Christian Talk Show host, Allan Kresta much to my surprise who previously had a talk show on a Protestant talk/rock-influenced Christian Music station. He was the most articulate and incisive radio show I knew. He had left the WMUZ station some time ago and I always wondered what happened to him. Unlike many Protestants, especially in the past who consider Roman Catholics of the devil (as did Luther the Medieval Popes) I thought in this secular society it was time to circle the wagons. I even considered becoming a Roman Catholic in the late 70’s inspired by the genius of Thomas Merton. Its presence held a colossal place in Western history and Civilization; I felt like you tapped into the most sublime religious traditions of the West. Upon visiting a local church I was put off by the perceived ritualism and was suitably shocked when half the church coming forward to take communion then continued indifferently out the back door before Church Service was even finished. I’d never seen anything like this in a Protestant Church. The local Priest, shockingly fouled mouth, was no example either. This ended a brief taste of a sacramental church not to be renewed for 25 yrs.

Anyway back to Al, I began to listen to his incisive and well reasoned commentary and then after his show came “Catholic Answers Live”. It was well reasoned and had none of the frenetic, wild speech that become almost rants that you can encounter oft times with Envangelical/Fundamentalist AM Radio preachers with their overly modulated voices. They calmly explained, always in a Biblical context, Salvation by Faith unto works under Grace, Communion of the Saints, the Biblical basis for requisite Honor bestowed on Mary, Mother of Jesus, Holy Spirit being given to the Apostles as a guides to morals and truth for the Church, the meaning of Apostolic Succession and the Authority of the Church to forgive sins, the meaning of traditions and the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. Learning a love for the Holy Scripture in the Bible Study years earlier, this really spoke to me. The Bible is not wholly the province of the Protestants I found.

As a result of this Bible truth I found, I began to be drawn to a Sacramental Church, that is, a Church that believes Graces are bestowed within certain of its ritualistic practices, communion, baptism, confession, etc. Of course none of these doctrines I accepted at face value and needed to be vetted by me. I read a lot of Roman Catholic apologetics. I even read “End Times” stuff. I don’t mean for this to be the place to discuss this. I would be a book to touch on each the doctrines. This is an argument that’s being going on 500 years.

With fear and trepidation I began to attend Roman Catholic Mass in the spring of 2004. I was committed to the doctrine but I always felt uncomfortable with what I deemed cold ritualism. I was still enamored with contemporary worship or rather spiritual entertainment. A few months of furtive attendance I failed to even have conversation with anyone. I knew there’d be lots of opposition to joining the Roman Catholic Church; the thought would have killed my mother. One Saturday I dropped by a small Eastern Orthodox church in a town about 15 miles away. I had read enough of the Reformation that the biggest catalyst was the Papacy and its focus its Papal states to the detriment of needed reform; the Renaissance Popes being anything but Holy with a few biological fathers and a pedophile thrown in however. When the child leaves home, who do you blame? The father who beat him or the “deserter”? Of course the issue of the Reformation is much more complex than that overly simply assessment. The “infallible” pope promotes a unified organization but is still contrary to truth of the church being framed by the Council with the consent of the laity as the Eastern Orthodox believe not by fiat of a single infallible “Holy” Father.

Then I find what a jewel, a gem this little church is! It the flower and re-birth of ancient faith come alive. What a window to the ocean of Orthodox Spirituality! Before modernism! Before the Scholastics and Thomas Aquinas’ masterful synthesis was the church, when dissected by the modern sophist, archaic but here yet alive. Here I find true spiritual growth, fitful and stumbling and oft times hypocritical but yet the spiritual virtues are fostered; not sprung from the “magic wand” of gospel revival in fervent emotion that fades as quick as it came but in a process of growing and learning and being humbled and driven to repentance asking for God’s grace.

This make some tiny sense of my profound euphoria of my youth; if I had been open to God’s grace I would have been on journey of growth 30 years earlier. God preserved me. Here the virtues are sown as a foundation for true spirituality. The Reformers, Luther and Calvin, dismissed the virtues in light of man’s darkened nature and God’s Almighty power to bestow Grace. Growing the virtues was simply a perversion of the Gospel, a ruse of man’s religion. In contrast the Eastern Orthodox Church reveres the ascetic and the mystic and the Scholar is n’ere to be found. With this asceticism and mysticism Christianity becomes an emotional vapor and a moral renewal but not life giving spirituality. See the mystic tradition as described in the Mountain of Silence by Markides.