Autobiographical Material

I’m an alcoholic. I started drinking when I was fifteen — actually, I was frequently given Boone’s Farm in a sippy cup when I was a toddler and someone wanted me to go to sleep, and I had a lot of sips of beer and occasionally split a stolen can with a friend many times when I was a kid, but I didn’t get myself sloppy drunk until I was fifteen. Getting drunk immediately became my top priority. When I was eighteen, I was drinking daily and experimenting with drugs. I was also depressed — in my twenties, I finally got into therapy and was diagnosed with chronic mild depression and reoccurring major depression, with psychotic features. That means I had hallucinations and heard voices, but I usually knew they were products of my own mind, not aliens or demons or whatever.

I regularly stayed drunk for months at a time, drinking beer while at work — food service — and switching to bourbon or vodka at night. I took a lot of drugs, but I never developed a physical addiction to anything other than alcohol. Depression was constant — either mild or major — and I wrecked most everything I touched. I was raised up and baptized in the Church of the Brethren, but I became an angry atheist.

When I was twenty-eight, I decided to quit my job and drink and drug myself to death. After a few weeks, on Christmas Eve, 1997, I was standing in a convenience store parking lot at sunrise and I had a revelation — something was revealed to me. I became aware that there was a supreme intelligence in the universe, and that this deity had kept me alive because there was a purpose for me, It was unlike anything I’d ever experienced. I came out of it and a friend who was with me told me that I had been unresponsive for thirty seconds or so. I told her that God had told me there was a purpose for me. Then we went back to the basement room where I lived to drink Olde English and smoke pot. There were probably benzos and meth involved. I know we got some vodka later that day.

I didn’t want any sort of god in my life interfering with my drug and alcohol suicide. About forty hours later, the night of Christmas/early morning the next day, I got into a fight. Some people broke up the fight and someone gave me a ride to the emergency room. I had a dislocated finger and some other minor injuries. While I was at the ER, I had another revelation. This time, I was given to know that if I didn’t do something to change how I was living, I would be dead in the near future. I didn’t doubt that this was true and I suddenly didn’t want to die. I started trying to detox myself, but I wasn’t able to stay sober until I checked into rehab in February ‘98.

I started associating with recovering alcoholics and addicts, got appropriate treatment for my depression and began to explore spirituality. I had no trouble believing there was some ultimate spiritual power — I’d experienced it — but I didn’t know what spiritual path to follow. I’d seen The Power of Myth and was impressed with Joseph Campbell, so I started reading his books, then other books on comparative mythology. For twenty years, I read and investigated the various religions of the world and I got used to thinking of myself as an “ecumenical pagan”, always learning and growing, but not attached to any particular religion. During this period, I got an associates degree in social work, became a parent, worked at various restaurants. I certainly made a lot of progress, but I still frequently felt like I was struggling.

In December, 2018, God called me to ministry in the Lutheran church. It came to me like that — just a sudden knowledge that I should become a minister in the Lutheran church. I knew nothing about the Lutheran church. I wasn’t a Christian. But it was so real that I decided to just go with it and see what happened. The next Sunday, I showed up at the local Lutheran church — Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, though I didn’t know then that there were different forms of Lutheran in the US. I was amazed to discover that the Lutheran service was exactly what I wanted. I felt like I’d come home. I was surprised to discover that the intellectual disagreements I’d had with Christianity were gone.

Now, I still have a couple things to finish up to complete my Bachelors, but they’ve let me start taking classes at a Lutheran seminary. I’m on track to become a Minister of Word and Service — a deacon — with plans to work with homeless people. I’m especially interested in working with homeless youth. Virginia is pretty good at providing services for homeless adults, but pretty bad with homeless youth.

I’ve thought about the fact that God let me wander around for twenty years. Like, why didn’t He just call me to ministry twenty years earlier? My best guess is that He wanted me to learn about the various different religions before I became a Christian. I’m not a Christian who condemns other religions. I know that Christianity is right for me — God told me so — but I don’t think I have the ability to determine what God’s plan is for other people. If He wants to call someone, He can do it.

I’m figuring things out. I said I’ve been diagnosed with depression — the way I experience it is that I have the appropriate response to the world as it is. I mean, I think anybody who can look at the world and say “Yeah, this is cool” is mentally ill, not me. I remember being five or six and seeing one of those commercials where they show you a bunch of starving kids in Africa and ask you to donate a dollar a day, and I was horrified. I couldn’t believe that adults could allow such a thing to exist. I remember I asked my parents about it, but I don’t remember what they said. My parents weren’t exactly helpful. Actually, they were a combination of neglectful and abusive, but I didn’t know that at the time. I’ve learned to live in the world as it is — with a significant amount of antidepressant medication — but I don’t like it. The world I see presented in the Bible — Eden, at the beginning, and Zion, the new Eden, at the end — that’s the world I want to live in. That’s the world I want my kid to live in.

I’m going to be writing this thing out, trying to articulate some of the ideas swirling in my head. The main thing I’m after is how do we get to Zion, but I’m sure there will be digressions and asides because A) that’s how my brain works; and B) Christianity in the west took a hard turn away from the teachings of Christ something like 1,700 years ago, when Constantine converted, and there’s a lot I feel I need to address.

This autobiographical section seemed necessary. I don’t want to write about me, but I felt like I should provide some kind of context. There are much more important things that I’d rather focus on.