Almost fifteen years ago I climbed to the top of a mountain, in epic fashion, and sat on the precipice in tears proclaiming my faith in a God I’d just met. The wind blew up from the valley cooling the fresh saline streams on my flesh. Somewhere in the distance, the town I now live was just out of view. At the time this place was just a place, it was far from home. I was single, lost, and then found. The broken path led me to war, then up a mountain, and later to a church where I’d find my wife and perhaps a calling. What is providence anyway?
My best friend spent the better part of a year indulging my pessimism and skepticism towards his religion while we both dodged bullets and road side bombs in a land Jonah once rebuked. Those long nights on crater riddled roads led me a to a boulder a world away in what felt like the blink of an eye, as far as time goes. I don’t understand calling. I don’t get why you can simultaneously be “called” to something and buried by it, but here I am living in the liminal space between salvation and sick of it all.
My life did a 180 after that mountain top moment and I studied to find myself approved, so to speak. I enrolled in a Bible college and studied like my life depended on it. Prior to my formal theological education, I’d only read the Bible to make Christians in my small town feel stupid for having no idea what they believed. Ironically, I retained quite a bit of those words when I shifted gears and changed teams. I went from an atheist bemoaning the ills of cultural Christianity to fervently preaching to youth all in the span of a summer. After dropping out of college for the fourth time and putting the death nail in my biology degree path, I transferred to a small Bible College. I graduated top of my class with a degree in Biblical Studies with a focus on youth ministry. I now have a shiny diploma that’s collecting dust in my attic.
I got ordained and carried the title “pastor” and hated if anyone actually used the name. I never did anything for titles or accolades and really despised the over use of the term. Many times, in the communities I found myself in, so many held the title of pastor but very few had the calling. A large number of those with the moniker were simply perpetuating the family business. This was the only job they all knew. It seemed as if it went from father to son with everyone getting a title, a church, and a large salary. I was a nobody who came from working class people unaffiliated with the system. I didn’t want to be there; I just knew I was supposed to be. What is calling anyway? I guess I had a chip on my shoulder. Maybe I still do. I’m sure I still do.
I’ve never been handed anything. The thought of living with my hand out as a pan handler for Jesus repulsed me. That was the model the church laid out in many cases. “Go get support for your ministry, make calls and get people to donate…” etc. The business side of church work made me often work for hours for free at a high personal cost. The thought of making a living off of the donations of hard-working people and the elderly sickened me. It was something I just couldn’t swallow and made me work countless hours alone trying to find ways to make ends meet. I just didn’t want to take money from people working with their hands while mine were lily soft from flipping the pages of an ancient text. I grew up working hard. Nothing ever came easy, and I’ve worked a myriad of jobs ranging from a literal ditch digger, to pet store attendant, construction, videographer, photographer, fabrication, after school counselor, soldier, just to name a few.
Very quickly I learned having a zeal and very little wisdom was a surefire way to get me fired from a church. I worked for a youth pastor whose only qualification was his father was a powerful lawyer and on the board of directors for the church. His “calling” had dollar signs attached I suppose. After challenging his leadership one too many times I was moved from working in that department to behind the scenes making videos and editing sermons. I enjoyed the opportunity to shape narratives in creative videos but more often than not I was told in so many words to just shut up and row.
After a year of working in the shadows, now with my newly acquired bachelor’s degree, I tried to meet with the main pastor that I worked for to discuss my calling. Even though I was in the “inner circle” on staff at this organization, it still took six months for the good pastor to find the time to meet with me, one of his lowly staffers. When I bumped into him in the hallway, he said he’d been meaning to meet with me and then promptly told me they were making cuts to my department and dissolving my position. He encouraged me to take my personal ministry full time and that’s when I started doing my animal programs called “Catching Creation” as my primary source of income.
I guess you can say I was laid off into fulltime ministry. That’s the old Christian spin anyway. I was pretty broken and felt like the rug had been pulled out from under me. To say the environment at that church at the time was toxic would be a vast understatement. People were being churned through that place like a machine fed on human bones. It was likely a blessing in disguise to have left that place. I wasn’t the first creative with a passionate voice to be let go and I was far from the last. I took all of that as a sign from God, tried to remain obedient to my “calling” and shifted gears again. I tried very hard to swallow my bitterness but a lot of my motivation from that point forward was to prove them wrong. I knew what I’d heard in that still small voice, so why wasn’t it coming to fruition?
I worked harder at that job that any I’d ever had, but on paper I was hemorrhaging money just to give my ministry programs away for next to nothing. I thought of men like my father, brother and uncle who worked with their hands and scoffed at the work I was doing. They may never had said it to my face, my brother surely may have, but they didn’t consider what I was doing as “real” work. I am not sure I did either. I didn’t want to live with my hand out. I wanted to work, and the reality is again, I worked harder with that job than just about any other, it just wasn’t manual labor.
My days would revolve around me cold calling churches and sending email after email trying to bring my unique program to schools or youth programs. I was hung up on more than once when I mentioned I used living animals like reptiles and snakes to illustrate messages from the Bible. Being a friendly snake handling preacher is a hard sale no matter who you are. I got kicked out of a few churches when during my program I pulled out a large boa constrictor and apparently that information wasn’t passed along to the pastor’s wife who abhorred snakes. I had a lady get up and run out all while yelling “aww hell no” repeatedly when I pulled out a giant cane toad in her church. I visited every denomination under the sun and sat through some real weird experiences all while chasing a calling that there wasn’t exactly a road map for. I was a modern day circuit rider…with snakes.
After five years of trying to scrape by and survive on the scraps I felt worthy of accepting for my toil, I gave up. I truly felt I heard God release me from that ministry, with nothing on the horizon. I just knew it was time to change again. I got an opportunity to apply as a temporary employee with the Federal Government through a friend I’d met at church. With him vouching for me, I went from my last Catching Creation program on an Easter Sunday in 2015 to two weeks later wearing a tie and khakis and sitting under dull florescent lighting. I was still serving. In my mind, I was still following my calling. Whatever that means.
Why am I telling you all of this? I am honestly not sure. I think I’m still trying to figure out who I am and what I am supposed to be doing. I’m currently feeling the same dissonant feeling I always feel at times of transition. I know the season is changing but I have no idea what that even means. I know I was called to do more than die at a desk. I feel I have exhausted every means to make a living that makes sense and now I’m here staring at a blank page spilling my guts to a few strangers that may read this. It’d be easy for me to make some positive spin about not giving up and following your dreams despite the cost, but dreams alone don’t pay the bills.
There are verses in the Bible that talk about having vision and the lack of vision leads to death. Whether that be spiritual, emotional, or physical death, I’m unsure. I just know my vision is blurry at best. I know if I’m called to do anything it’s to serve. That’s why I put on the uniform and raised my right hand in 2001, that’s why I worked with the homeless and tutored under privileged kids, that’s why I serve veterans despite the scope of my job relegating me to the nasty underbelly of that system on most days. Service is in my blood. Having a purpose and mission is deeply important to me, and currently I feel pretty rudderless.
I’m not a zealot anymore. Some days I barely even believe, but I’ve seen too much good to discredit the almighty. I guess that’s the beauty of faith, it ain’t real unless you’re wrestling. I suppose if you had it figured out you wouldn’t NEED faith. All I know for sure is my faith is all I’ve got these days. It’s what keeps the literal gun out of my mouth when I feel hopeless. It’s what keeps me moving one foot in front of the other despite having zero idea where I’m even going most days. I wish God would speak. I wish His voice wasn’t so hard for me to hear anymore. I guess above all, I wish I understood what calling even means. Maybe God will call me back to church work, I hope not, but who knows…crazier things have happened. I assume I’ll figure it all out when I do. Until then, I’ll keep clawing my way through this wilderness looking for a path to follow and a light to lead the way.
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