Give them an inquiring and discerning heart, the courage to will and to persevere, a spirit to know and to love you, and the gift of joy and wonder in all your works.
~ From The Rite of Holy Baptism

When I was eight years old, I received my first Bible. In front of the small Baptist congregation my closet-Catholic mother was part of, a small group of us were presented with red leather-bound books with gold letters and shiny gilt pages. As I sat back down in the pew, staring at the book, my mother told me to read it every day, even if just a little bit, and to pay attention to the words in red; those were the things Jesus said.

I had absorbed my mother's piety through osmosis, I think. I dutifully kept the red book beside my bed and opened it every night, looking at the passages in red. I was greeted by passages like this:

Woe unto thee, Chorazin! Woe unto thee, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works had been done in Tyre and Sidon, which have been done in you, they had a great while ago re-pented, sitting in sackcloth and ashes.

I didn't get it, of course. I could follow some of the parables, though I didn't quite understand all the tares and snares and scorpions and serpents and camels that populated those pages. I had the same anxiety for the Bible that I had for algebra when I first sneaked a look at my older brother's math books; I was absolutely certain that I would never under-stand this stuff. That set the tone for the rest of my religious life: that God was something very, very important that you can't understand, a very important homework assignment you will never finish.

One slow, sunny day in the middle of summer when I was twelve, I saw a Public Television production of Mark Twain's The Mysterious Stranger. It was a great story about an underdog printer's apprentice who is befriended by a magical visitor—the kind of escapist fantasy that always snagged my attention. But at the end of the story, the Stranger tells the apprentice, "There is no God, no Devil, no Heaven or Hell. Just you. And your dreams."

When I heard this, a big gong went off in my head. Long after the TV was turned off, I sat there listening to the static pop on the dark screen. I got up and walked outside into the pastures in front of our house and sat on my usual thinking rock. As the sun slanted down on the ferns and the Johnson grass, warming the rock I sat on and pebbles I tossed randomly into the grass, my mind quietly exploded. I was terrified by the prospect of no God. In that instant, every vague doubt and fear and misunderstanding in my life solidified into an awful dark revelation: I didn't know if God was there.

For the next few years my usual long walks on our mountain became shorter. I didn't dare to be alone for long, because if I was alone I would remember that I didn't know God.

For me, doubt was the beginning of religious observance, rather than the end of it. I went to church. I joined the youth group. I sang in the choir. I surrounded myself with the stuff of religion, hoping to regain the faith I couldn't admit I had lost. Still, I found little solace in the church. The interminable sermons, the music that did nothing to stir my soul, the wood pews and visitor cards, and the deacons with waxy plastic faces and studded suits, all wool and silk, rich and plush and fake, like fine clothes on the body of a dead man. Men dozed, and boys folded their church programs into paper airplanes. There was only one time that the church hall seemed holy: when it was empty. Sometimes, before choir practice when I was the first one to arrive, or the last one to leave to go down to dinner, the church hall was silent. The dim light barely illuminated "Do this for the remembrance of me" engraved on the altar. Sometimes I would sit in that stillness for a long time. Like the stillness that surrounds a sleeping baby, gentle and protective, soft, fragile and profound. I always regretted when someone finally came in and broke the silence, laughing and talking and gossiping, and suddenly religion once again became something put into words that I did not understand.

One Sunday, without warning or preamble, my twin brother Gene stepped out of the pew and walked down the aisle during an altar call. Now, for the Baptists the altar call is a monumental moment. The Baptists have a very straightforward notion of faith: there are the Saved and the Unsaved, and the saved should spend their time and energy winning over the unconverted. Conversion is the most important thing in life; to hear a Baptist talk about it, you would think it was the Fountain of Youth, nectar of the gods, and really powerful LSD all rolled into one. Once you accept Jesus, the story goes, everything works. Your life is changed, you become full of joy, and you get to live forever. The altar call is the moment at the end of every service when the preacher comes out from behind the pulpit and stands in front of the congregation and calls for anybody who has not accepted Jesus as his savior to come forward and receive the Gospel.

Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, nothing happens. Most people present have been Baptists all their lives. But still they do it, always waiting, always hoping. I oftentimes sat through the altar call wishing I had not been raised in the faith, so I could have the experience of being born again.

And now, suddenly, Gene was walking down the aisle to the preacher. And only two seconds pass before I followed him. Yes, this most solemn of occasions was precipitated by the fact that I was not about to let my twin brother one-up me. The Reverend Futrell held his hand in a solemn handshake, and Gene was telling him that he wished to receive baptism as a public declaration of his faith. I think I said something similar, but what I really wanted to say was, "I don't know God. I don't feel saved. Can you make me feel saved?" The reverend kept saying over and over, "So young...so young."

Months later, on the morning of our baptism, Gene and I and two other people stood in the upper loft above the choir loft, where the baptismal pool resided. This part of the church was rarely if ever seen, and it seemed a little dark and dreary. One-inch tiles covered the wings on either side of the pool, and a handrail followed tiled steps down into the pool. It was just that, a pool, more like a wading area at an old YMCA than the banks of the Jordan. How odd that the antechamber to salvation was like this, while the pews and church offices were so much fuller and richer. Off to one side, I saw the Reverend Futrell in his grey suit, but now he was putting on huge rubber fishing waders that came up to his armpits. It seemed so ludicrous, like he was going fishing in his Sunday best. He pulled a white choir robe over his head and smoothed back his gray hair, and then you couldn't tell he was anything but the Reverend, his gray striped tie with silver dove pin poking up above the robes of white. "I have to be ready for the altar call, you understand," he said, smiling. "You can take your time drying off, but I have to get back to the service after this is through."

The Reverend stepped down the tile steps into the pool and waded to the center and looked out to the congregation. The hymn concluded and he said some words about salvation that I didn't quite hear. And then a signal was given that I did not see, and the first to be baptized walked down and was dunked. It didn't look all that fun; as they came up they blinked and stretched their faces, fighting the urge to wipe away the saving waters from their brow and eyes as they made there way across to the other side of the pool.

Then it was my turn. I stepped into the pool, and every quiet solemn meditative thought I had summoned for the moment was lost in the icy coldness of the water. COLD! Hhha!...Breathe! COLD! As choir robes swirled and pulled around my legs, I struggled through the pool to where the Reverend stood. I crossed my arms over my chest as I had been instructed, and let the Reverend cover my nose and mouth with a cloth so I wouldn't come up all spewing and choking on a mouthful of holy water. Whoosh! I was underwater and whoosh! just as quickly up again. I struggled once more against cold, wet, clinging r o b e s, mechanically walking to the other side. I didn't even make it there before I knew that nothing had changed. I pulled wet robes off, and warm clothes on again. I sat in the stillness of the dressing room off in the wing of the church, my hair wet, feeling no d i f f e r e n t. Before I went back out again, I knelt on the steps and prayed that this would do it, and I would no more doubt my salvation. I thought maybe I had somehow botched it.

My family went out to McDonald's afterwards. The meal seemed unusually quiet. I made some small attempts to beam Christian cheer at the girl behind the cash register, to look and feel like someone who has received the Good News. It didn't take. I was hopelessly depressed as I munched on French fries in silence.

All I knew was a vague syllogism that went something like this: "People who accept Jesus are happy and content. I am not happy and content. Therefore I have not accepted Jesus into my heart." For weeks and months afterwards I struggled with this; surely there must be a way to be sure of my position with God?

I went back to my long and rambling walks over the mountain, but this time to carry out secret and furtive rituals of my own devising. I walked down the long dirt road from our house and came to where the road split in two, the left fork dipping down and the right fork turning up and away into the forest. I erected a small foot-high cross made of two bits of twig. I knelt in the sand before this cross and prayed, and prayed, and finally I stood up and walked up to the right fork. I did this again and again, practically every day, trying, literally, to take the narrow path to salvation, the high road to God. I don't know where or how this little ritual came to me—maybe from the same place from which every ritual comes, the imagination of desperate people trying to solidify a dimly perceived truth. Every time I would try to completely surrender, and every time I walked away, solemn and hopeful. I rarely got home without knowing in my heart that I was still the same. Once I didn't even make it away from my cross before the despair set in, and I sat in the dust and cried until my mother, returning home with groceries, drove by and found me there. I couldn't explain to her. Either I had lost my faith and thus lost God, or God wasn't real at all... Either way I was damned.

A few years later, I stood again in church to profess my faith, but this time in St. Phillip's Episcopal Church. My mother's Catholic roots had finally pulled her through the red Episcopal doors, and I followed. I had despaired of finding my conversion, at least the way the Baptists envisioned it. The Episcopalians did not seem to put as much emphasis on the conversion experience, and that gave some slim hope that I was not lacking something. With no more assurance of God, but maybe slightly less hysterical about it, I decided to be confirmed in the Episcopal Church.

The service was filled with the usual professions and vows.

"Will you proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ"

"I will, with God's help."

"Will you persevere in resisting evil, and, whenever you fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord?"

"I will, with God's help."

I'm not sure how, in my state somewhere between hope and skepticism, I found it in myself to profess those beliefs. Perhaps it was that extra phrase, "with God's help." It was as much a plea as a commitment... "Lord, I believe. Help me thou my unbelief."

The Bishop finally laid his hands on my head, saying, "Defend, O Lord, your servant Georg with your heavenly grace, that he may continue yours for ever, and daily increase in your Holy Spirit more and more, until he comes to your everlasting kingdom."

This, at last, was the one prayer I could manage. Always before I felt like God was calling upon me to do something—to yield up my faith, my belief, my love. But finally, I heard something else: God seeking me. Suddenly my belief or disbelief seemed irrelevant. I prayed: "God, if you're out there...if you want me, you can have me. Please...I can't find you by myself. You will have to find me." And I cried, but not the same tears I had cried before. I cried because I knew something, at last, was finished.

I am hard-pressed now to say what I believe. I still remain quiet in the hush of the sanctuary. I pray to God, though the only prayers that make sense anymore are "Thank you" and "Thy will be done." Anything more than that, and I am once again lost in doubt and skepticism. But I do believe in "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and all thy soul and all thy strength..." I think that's what I was doing, in those years of roadside rituals and prayers at dusk. Perhaps it is not necessary to believe in God in order to love him. Some people argue that I am not a Christian, if I cannot profess belief in Him. But to that I say, "Take it up with Him." I'm fairly confident in His decision on the matter.

Knocking on Heaven's Door(top)
Evan Harrison

My ideas of God have been piling up. For the last few years or so, I have felt like I have to climb over questions every time I must act. Think of it like Heaven's door. Instead of knocking and waiting for an answer, I either knock and run away, or I decide to learn everything I can about God before I knock on the door, so that when the door is answered I will be ready. But my idea of God has changed from thinking I know it all, to realizing that I don't know much of anything. With that change, my search for God is now scary and very urgent. And it seems that in order to get anywhere with my search for God, I am going to have to fall back on my faith in order to promote action. To be honest, I am scared. All the uncertainty I have from all the things I have never done becomes a dread of the uncertainty of God's nature. It feels like someone behind me is swinging a bat at my head. Although I haven't been hit yet, I still can sense that it needs to happen and that it will happen. I hope for the best, but expect the worst. Either way you look at it, I am trying to say that I need to act from my heart and not hold back...and hopefully my fear of getting hurt is either overestimated or unfounded.

I grew up in a comfortable Presbyterian church. Like everyone else in my Sunday school class, I told the congregation, "I take Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior." It wasn't the fact that I didn't know much about God or Jesus Christ that made me a little hesitant. On the contrary, I felt that I did understand what the teachers were saying. To me, it just didn't seem comprehensive. I still found enough certainty within myself to say that I did take Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. That day, I made an unspoken promise to myself that I would do the research from that point on--gather more information about the huge statement I had just made.

It might seem like a contradiction to have accepted a religion and still be troubled by questions about the spiritual path. But I feel compelled to use my body, my mind, and each breath of my life to try to be a better person. And though I take a lot from the Bible, I still have to keep reminding myself and trying hard to be better. Maybe all I have to do is sit back and enjoy the ride. But if that is the case, I have already seen that "the ride" is hard work.

I learned this in my summer job. I worked at an electrical supply place. I don't want to make this sound like the hardest job in the world, because it wasn't. But I still had to discipline myself. Not only did I need to be on time, but I had to ditch any thoughts that "I am smart and know lots of things and have a lot of things figured out." My boss, Mike, showed me rows and stacks and piles of industrial engine starters. To me, they were toaster-sized pieces of junk that all looked the same. Little did I know that there were five brands, seven main sizes, different combinations of contacts and overloads, different coil voltages, and varying pole numbers. Also, there was more than one vintage of many brands, so that each of the other variables could be the same, yet one was a "five series" and one was a "seven series." I knew nothing about these things, but I had to accept that, learn what I could by asking experienced people, and do the grunt work. I had to sort the starters and condense them on the shelves to make room for new shipments. Many times I had to go back over a whole day's worth of moving and rearrange the starters because I didn't take something into consideration. Interestingly, I felt good when I realized a mistake I had made, even though, for example, I might have to move 320 neatly stacked starters down two shelves. I felt good because once I realized the mistake, I could plunge into the work without having to be so timid; I had one less mistake to worry about.

I have seen how I can grow in my summer job, but these lessons fit into my spiritual search, too. I actually think that part of the good of having faith is that it does leave me with room to make mistakes. It allows me to take the risky steps I need to take in order to be a better person. Despite my faith, at some point in my life I became very afraid of error. Too much of the last five or so years has seemed like an armchair discussion with little action. It is hard, for instance, to look back at my fears of talking openly to people, of telling people what I really think. Have I done anything about these fears?

I am finishing this on the night before my twentieth birthday. I am glad to be moving out of my teenage years with some momentum. I have learned to use my questions about deeper matters to spur action, instead of as an escape from really getting into the pith of Life. Every time I say or do something from my heart in spite of my self-consciousness, I gain a little piece of momentum.

In a lot of ways, things aren't clear. This is the idea that I felt the church was actually pushing me toward. By urging me to go ahead and commit myself, they were trying to get me to live a life worth living, and not remain stagnant in the uncertainty. I need to keep depending on a sense of faith so I can do and say more from my heart. The bottom line is that the ideas about life and God that I have always heard are pretty simple. I've been striving to make them more complex. But by not getting frozen in the fear of making mistakes, life may actually be lived as simply as it was once presented to me. Now I'm searching for what T. S. Eliot called, "A condition of complete simplicity...(costing not less than everything)."

My idea of God dissolved and reformed before my eyes. But all that I am truly losing is the idea that my relationship with God must be complicated. I no longer need to spend time trying to answer every question that can be asked about God, and focus more on my actions. Now that I have begun to let go of some of this skepticism of mine and give myself room to walk around, the simplicity of religion in my life is beautiful. I am losing my religion—giving up the way I used to think and act about God. And I had to lose my religion before I could begin to knock on Heaven's door.