Guilt from Doubt

Into the mindfight

From those first seeds of doubt, my life grew in a very different direction. You could understand my young spiritual life as a never-ending quest to find innovative new ways to feel bad about myself, and this was a new level of bad. I had an idea that I couldn’t shake, I felt further away from God than ever before. Jesus could only come into your heart if you truly believe.

I didn’t have a clear moment that before it I believed in God and after I did not. Instead, a strange pattern of belief and anxiety started to unfold. Whether or not I believed in God at any given moment was more like a probability than a certainty. When I believed in God, I believed all the way, but I no longer believed all the way all the time.

You might be picturing a pious little Christian boy, but that was only true sometimes. More generally, I filled the niche of too bad for church, too good for everywhere else. I introduced my church and homeschool friends to the worldly ideas I held so much curiosity for. My favorite shirt said Jesus but written like a skateboard brand or album cover. When my friends wanted to do sinful things, I shyly declined. I didn’t want to be a rebel, part of me wanted desperately to fit in. But the other part of me found creative new ways to make that impossible.

I spent more and more time at friends’ houses. At a friend’s house I felt safe, I felt normal. It was there that I listened to Metallica. My friend and I would each hold one side of the lyrics from the cassette case, our teenage voices trying to carry a tune and sound like James Hetfield. I played Magic: The Gathering once with my cousins and I loved it. But I heard that it was possible to become possessed by a demon that way, so I never played again.

At church, I was recognized for my knowledge of the Bible. I tried to win every contest that involved memorizing scripture and looking up Bible verses. I learned the guitar and sometimes led the youth group worship. I went on missions trips where we built houses for families in need. These were some of the happiest moments from my youth.

My youth leader graciously tried to help me work out my theological and existential issues. I’m worried that I was not always very gracious myself. My basic dilemma was this: those feelings that let you know you are saved? You can explain them many other ways. Those feelings that let you know you are unsaved? You can explain them many other ways. The voice of the holy spirit, how do you know that’s not just your voice? Why do we believe the Bible is completely true primarily because it says it is completely true? He eventually resigned from the position.

In 9th grade, I went to school for the first time, a private Christian school called Jim Elliott. It was a culture shock, I had to learn how to be among other teenagers all day while also navigating completely new educational challenges. The content of my classes did not follow what I had been learning at home, I was starting from scratch.

I met my first girlfriend. We kissed outside the store between classes, at a time and place that we were sure that no one could see us. We weren’t even allowed to hold hands, so that was definitely against the rules. We had planned the whole thing out. We passed notes to each other in the hall, so I did not have a lot of extra time left over to listen in class. I met her at the mall one night after school, it was the first time I rode the bus from Parker by myself.

You might think that a private Christian school would be an easier transition for me, but I was expelled before I could make it through a single semester. I had some difficulty following the rules but the biggest reason is that I tried to change the rules. I wrote and circulated a petition for a minor change to the dress code. Most of the students and some of the teachers signed it. I clearly remember the moment that I was called up to the principal’s office, it turns out she was not democratically minded on the issue.

Public school was surprisingly easier. The other kids had a harder time understanding why I was so strange, but I made a lot of friends. I felt most at home among the stoner kids, but I had already learned that I hated smoking pot. It seemed to cut time into little discontinuous chunks that flowed like staccato. That would last for days, not hours. I began to worry that I had broken my mind and would never feel normal again, but eventually time began to flow more coherently.

Even though I couldn’t be a legit stoner, I related to the stoners the most. They seemed to like everyone, and so did I, and it felt not very different from the vibe that Jesus had. They said things that reminded me of the DJs from 92X, my favorite radio station and biggest cultural influence during my homeschool years. They played Nirvana and No Doubt and also my favorite genres, punk and ska. The DJs sometimes even talked about Jesus, not his faith but his philosophy. I celebrated the rare convergence of those parts of my life.

I wrestled with a question: Jesus was all about love and acceptance, and Christians are all about following Jesus. So why is it easier for the world to show love and acceptance to Christians than it is for Christians to show love and acceptance to the world?

When I was very young, I thought it might be possible that I had already become possessed by a demon, because we heard stories like that in Sunday School. When I was alone, I would act out how it must feel to be possessed by a demon as a way to reassure myself that it probably wasn’t that. I had nightmares that it was my mom that was actually possessed by a demon and she would reach out like she wanted to hug me but with a sinister look on her face and I had to say her name over and over again until she turned back. As an adult, whenever I see a new dentist they tell me that I need a mouth guard, I’m grinding my teeth in my sleep. I try to reassure them that it was a long time ago, that I don’t anymore.

Something happened when I was very young that I’ve written about before so that I never need to write about it again. But it was at the top of my mind each time I prayed to be saved from hell.

I learned somehow that when rake a pencil across my arm hard and deep, it hurt a lot, but it felt better somehow too. I thought it could make me tougher. I wore a lot of bracelets to cover up the scars. I had relationships and experiences with girls that made me feel more like a real person but sometimes left me with the most intense guilt of all, because it had to do with not just my soul, but someone else too. I walked into to my house late one night, right after one such experience, and tried to end my life.

I began to spend more time alone. My friends would sometimes visit me and they wrote their names on the basement wall of my room. I’d look at them all the time. I wished I could be with them. But another part of me, one that I couldn’t control, wanted to block out every light and hide.