High School Daze: Most Innocent

I was quite reckless; I rushed on headlong in such blindness that when I heard other youths of my own age bragging about their immoralities I was ashamed to be less depraved than they. The more disgraceful their deeds, the more credit they claimed; and so I too became as lustful for the plaudits as for the lechery itself. What is more to be reviled than vile debauchery? Afraid of being reviled I grew viler, and when I had no indecent acts to admit that could put me on a level with these abandoned youths, I pretended to obscenities I had not committed, lest I might be thought less courageous for being more innocent, and be accounted cheaper for being more chaste.
--Augustine of Hippo

A soul that turns away from you therefore lapses into fornication when it seeks apart from you what it can never find in pure and limpid form except by returning to you.
--Augustine of Hippo

Rather than reviewing each year of high school, which have literally melted into one big pile of colorful memories like a box of crayons left out in the Arizona sunlight, I'm going to focus on some particular themes that played important roles in each year of my high school education. There are only a few things that stand out to me about my three years in high school. The rest is just white noise in my memory.

The one thing that seems to define everybody else's high school experience didn't seem to have any effect on my experience whatsoever. Cliques obviously existed in my high school like they do in every high school. There were the jocks, the popular guys and girls that didn't play sports, the band geeks, the bookworms, the gothic and punk crowds, the socially inept group, the dungeons and dragons group, and many more. I recognized them when I saw them, but I never really paid much attention to them. I remember having some lunches with my friends in band, the next lunch I would sit with some of the girls on the cheerleader squad, and the next lunch period I would sit with the popular kids. I knew when I was out of place and when I was in my element, but I never felt like I was limited with the kinds of friends I could make. I was a clique anomaly. I mixed into each group but I belonged to none of them. I had something in common with all of them but I didn't have everything in common with any of them.

Some of my friends were in band, some of them were the class clowns, some of them were flirtatious cheerleaders, some of them were the dramatic girls who lived for the next scandal, some of them were bookworms who loved playing RPGs, and some of them were popular because they were funny, good-looking, and somewhat nice. When I looked at them, though, I didn't see the cliques they belonged to. I just saw someone who would talk with me, who would laugh at my jokes, who didn't treat me like an outcast. I just saw a friend.

If my friends didn't call me "Matt" they called me "sweetie." Yeah, that tells you that most of my best friends were girls. It seemed like the girls were more down-to-earth than the guys. At least the girls that I befriended did. I was drawn to the intellectuals and the thinkers. I was drawn to the group of friends that were thinking about the future and life after high school rather than the groups that were completely inebriated on the present, living the good life, living each day like it was their last, and seemingly wasting away into moral oblivion before ever reaching their 18th birthday.

We talked about a curse that existed at our high school because every year at least one student would not make it to the end of the year. I remember visiting the funerals of a few students in high school and I couldn't help but think it was such a waste. As the rest of my peers were drunk on the spirits of feeling invincible and untouchable, I felt like life was very fragile. My fellow peers were not dying because of drug overdoses, gang violence, and making poor choices but because of car accidents, physical conditions, and freak accidents.

Over Spring Break in 2004, my brother got a call from one of his friends that graduated in 2002. His brother, the star athlete on our football team that year, was out on the lake with friends when a bad storm rolled in. The boat he was in capsized. Everyone in the boat swam to the shore, but there was no sign of him. Several days later, they found his body. His brother called my brother the day he got the news that he was missing because he knew my brother was a Christian, and he asked us to pray.

Coming to school after that Spring Break was harder than ever. Keith's death shook the school to its core. We returned feeling like one of the immortals had fallen. I don't think there was a soul in the auditorium that morning that didn't feel touchable, fragile, and mortal. I was not friends with Keith, I only had a PE class with him, but I was surrounded by people that knew and loved Keith very much. The school seemed immersed in grief for a couple of weeks, but time passed by, people moved on, and everyone settled back into their untouchable fantasies. However, something about Keith's death stuck with me. I never felt untouchable again and death and judgment filled my nightmares often.

Of everyone in the school, my classmates would think that I was the last one to worry about death and judgment. My senior year, I was the runner-up for being voted most innocent in the yearbook. Ironically, the guy that won the vote was known for not being innocent, and people thought it would be funny if he won. I, however, was known for being innocent but I was not at all. I was quiet, I was gentle, I was sympathetic, I was the loner that everyone kept trying to draw out, and there was something about my personality that led people to believe that I was innocent. They called me "sweetie" just like my grandma did. I was the sweet guy.

More than anything else in my high school years, I wrestled with the idea that I was innocent. I didn't feel innocent. Unlike Augustine, I didn't listen to my friends bragging about their immoralities, ashamed that I was less depraved than they were. I always felt more depraved than everyone that surrounded me and for that I was ashamed. Many times I would be sitting at the lunch table and someone would use foul language, somebody would bump them with their elbow, nod their head in my direction, and the person who cussed would apologize to me as if they just cussed in front of their grandmother. I was seen as a saint to many of my classmates, and I didn't know how to rectify their misconception of me.

They thought I was so pure, so righteous, so holy, but in all reality all I ever seemed to think about was sex. I wanted love. I wanted fellowship. I wanted romance. I wanted companionship. I wanted to feel wanted. I wanted to feel needed. I was fully immersed in an addiction to pornography, hoping to find what I was seeking. Having turned my back on God, no longer even contemplating how to please and obey Him, I turned to my new god: sex. It seemed to fulfill me for a time, but hours of pornography always left me feeling void and null.

Pornography morphed my worldview and turned my eyes further and further away from God. I didn't view women as creatures created in the image of God. I saw them as objects and as trophies. I misconstrued love and romance into a competition. Although I was repulsed by the notion, love and romance was only the means to an end: sex. The only reason I could think of for loving someone is in order to have sex with them. You comfort them, you make them feel wanted, you are gentle to them, and you seemingly care for them so that they will reward you with their body.

For the longest time, I believed that God had set aside one woman for me to be my one and only beloved wife. However, as I immersed myself more and more in pornography that belief became less and less appealing. The people I watched seemed fulfilled. They seemed happy. They seemed loved. They seemed satisfied. They were not married. They were not sworn to one person. They were taking full advantage of love, by having as many partners and as many experiences as they could. The thought of saving myself for my wife became less appealing, and I started to look for a trophy of my own.

Although surrounded by friends, I felt all alone. I felt like nobody loved me. I felt like nobody even knew who I was. I did not even know who I was. Everyone believed that I was an upright, moral guy filled with integrity, fidelity, and love for God. I felt like a science experiment gone horribly wrong. In public, I appear as a saint while in private, I was fully enveloped by sexual immorality. I was seen as pure, but I knew I was severely defiled by my sinful filthiness. I lived a lie. I put on a show.

However, I no longer wanted to be "most innocent." My hands were dirty, and I wanted people to know it. I didn't want people to think that I was less courageous for being more innocent. I didn't want to be counted cheaper for being more chaste. I felt outcasted in a way because I was too good. I felt as if many people alienated me because I made them feel uncomfortably immoral. I wanted to reveal to everyone that my morality was merely a façade and that I was the worst of hypocrites. I wanted to blow my own whistle, to reveal my true nature to them, but I didn't. Why?

My best friends were Christians that believed that I was a Christian too. My family believed that I was a Christian. My church family believed that I was a Christian. I felt no loyalty towards God, but I felt a loyalty towards my family and friends. I knew that if tried to leave the church, if I tried to live the life I was drawn to in pornography, and if I tried to run away from it all, I would not get very far before they all came running after me. I knew that if I revealed to my parents that I was addicted to pornography, that they would be disappointed for a time, but that they would forgive me. I knew that if I told my friends that I wanted to have sex before I got married, they would only start praying for me. I knew that if I tried to run away, God would somehow find me. I knew that if I tried my hardest to enjoy love as pornography represented it that God would show me what love truly is.

I was a boy who called himself a Christian, but the greatest fear in his heart was the idea that God just might make one out of him. Pornography made it very hard to want to be a Christian. I wanted to worship my new god, but I knew that my new god was not compatible with God. As I sat under the preaching of the Word in a Reformed church, I couldn't help but hear the scope of the Law. In my high school years, I knew that my salvation was forfeit. I knew that my self-righteousness counted as nothing. It was revealed to me that my good deeds are nothing but menstrual cloths to God. I couldn't go before the King of kings with menstrual cloths and expect pardon for being an outlaw, a rebel, and an anarchist in His Kingdom. I was doomed!

If I was doomed, then I might as well make the most of it while I can. I knew that my works counted for nothing and that I must cling to Christ for salvation by faith. However, that could wait until later. I was only going to be young once. The immoralities that my friends bragged about sounded fun, and I felt like I was missing out by putting on this innocence show. I seemed to be fooling them, but why live a pious life only to fool man but still receive the wrath of God in the coming judgment? You live a life of celibacy, miss out on the joys of sexual immorality, and you still suffer eternal damnation. No thank you. I would have my peace of debauchery, give God something to forgive me for, test the scope and depth of his love and forgiveness, see just how large a multitude of sins love could really cover, and see if Jesus's sacrifice was efficient, even for me. That was the attitude of my heart. That was my true desire. I was sick of being called "sweetie" and "most innocent." I wanted to show the world and especially God just how bad I could be.

However hard I tried to run away from God, I was cornered. I had nowhere to go. I had nowhere to run. Most people, when thinking of Christian conversion, think of something along the lines of an alter call after a moving sermon about hell and salvation. They think about something clean and crisp. As if a person, contemplating Christianity, finally hears that one thing that clears up all of his doubts, and allows him to hesitate no longer, and put all of his faith in Christ. However, that was not my experience at all. It was dirty and messy. I climbed into a pit to escape God, and He started climbing in after me. I jumped further and further down into the pits depths, and yet God descended farther into the pit after me.

People imagine a God that gives you one shot, take it or leave it, and if you reject him then he will reject you. God, however, loves whom He loves and hates whom He hates. This biblical principle has been detested by many in the church over the centuries, and it is scorned as the lie of Calvinism. If it is not true, though, then how can I account for my salvation? If God only loves those that love Him and only hates those who hate Him, then why do I now share my testimony of faith with you? I hated God and I loved pornography, sex, and debauchery. I ran away from Him into the deepest depths, and yet He persistently pursued me. God's love for those whom He loves is infinite. It knows no bounds. Should I jump into a bottomless pit, God's love would still reach me and draw me out. God's love is gracious, not meritorious. God's love is unconditional, and is not conditioned on our acceptance or rejection of His love. No one can escape the love of God, although many more than me have tried our hardest to run in the other direction.

Christian conversion is transformational. Christians don't make themselves into Christians. For many Christians, the last thing they ever wanted to be was a disciple of Christ and a lover of God. They tried to run for a time, but to no avail. We did not choose Christianity, but rather it was forced upon us. Like medicine forced upon a dying, stubborn man, the love of God must be forced upon the hearts of the wicked. We flee from our cure, we would rather remain sick than be loved by God. God's grace, although we might resist to our uttermost, is irresistible.

For he says to Moses, "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion." So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy.

(Romans 9:15-16)

I was still entangled by the earth and refused to enlist in your service, for the prospect of being freed from all these encumbrances frightened me as much as the encumbrances themselves ought to have done.
I was thus weighed down by the pleasant burden of the world in the way one commonly is by sleep, and the thoughts with which I attempted to meditate upon you were like the efforts of people who are trying to wake up, but are overpowered and immersed once more in slumberous deeps. No one wants to be asleep all the time, and it is generally agreed among sensible people that being awake is a better state, yet it often happens that a person puts off the moment when he must shake himself out of sleep because his limbs are heavy with a lassitude that pulls him toward the more attractive alternative, even though he is already trying to resist it and the hour for rising has come; in a similar way I was quite sure that surrendering myself to your love would be better than succumbing to my lust, but while the former course commended itself and was beginning to conquer, the latter charmed and chained me. I had no answer to give as you said to me, Arise, sleeper, rise from the dead: Christ will enlighten you, and plied me with evidence that you spoke truly; no, I was convinced by the truth and had no answer whatever except the sluggish, drowsy words, "Just a minute," "One more minute," "Let me have a little longer." But these "minutes" never diminished, and my "little longer" lasted inordinately long.
--Augustine of Hippo

Conversion put me in a complicated and comprehensive chaos. I sometimes wonder, when I hear other Christians pray for the salvation of the "lost," if they realize that this comprehensive chaos is the desired end of such prayers. Often, people asked me to describe the "lessons" that I learned from this experience. I can't. It was too traumatic. Sometimes in crisis, we don't really learn lessons. Sometimes the result is simpler and more profound: sometimes our character is simply transformed.
--Rosaria Butterfield

The Prodigal Son at least walked home on his own feet. But who can duly adore that Love which will open the high gates to a prodigal who is brought in kicking, struggling, resentful, and darting his eyes in every direction for a chance of escape? The words “compelle intrare,” compel them to come in, have been so abused by wicked men that we shudder at them; but, properly understood, they plumb the depth of the Divine mercy. The hardness of God is kinder than the softness of men, and His compulsion is our liberation.
--C.S. Lewis

High School Daze: Day One

In 2002, my parents made the decision and their decision was final--I was returning back to public school. To say the least, I was scared. My last public schooling experience was 5th grade. I never had to travel about school to different classes, I never had a block schedule, I never had to figure out whether I went to "A" "B" or "C" lunch, I never had to fiddle around with a locker combination, and I never had to study for a test. I was terrified. Home-schoolers are supposed to do really well in public school because they have independent study skills that most public school teens don't acquire. The only thing that I had independently studied over the past couple of years was pornography on the internet.

I remember my first day of high school quite vividly. My brother was a senior, and we drove into the dirt parking lot of our rural school in his Toyota Corolla. I remember the very quick and loud ride from home. The stereo system in my brother's car was probably worth more than the car itself, and he always enjoyed trying to catch some air on the hilly rural roads to school. I felt somewhat relieved that my brother, my best friend, was taking me to school and that I didn't have to ride the bus. However, the bus ride would have allowed me to linger from the coming nightmare a little longer.

He hopped out of his seat, and I slowly got my backpack and my lunch bag from the back seat. We approached the school building, and I could already tell my brother was in his element. People were saying hi to him, greeting him back, and it almost seemed as if they felt like the school year was going to be so much better now that he was a senior. I don't remember anyone realizing a tall, skinny, pale kid far separated from his element close behind him. We walked through the dreaded doors, my brother walked with me to my locker, and split down the hall to his first class. My heart was pounding, my hands were sweating, and I felt like sitting down and bawling my eyes out. However, knowing that such behavior would quickly paint me as a target for ridicule for the following three years, I tried to pull myself together.

I tried the combination to my locker to no avail. I must have practiced it thirty or forty times during orientation, but the whole process was fuzzy in my head now. I had a locker buddy, but I had never met him. I was hoping that he would stroll up and open the locker for us, but no such luck. I only had ten minutes before first period began, and I felt like time was racing by. It felt like every effort to open my locker was taking hours. In a panic, I began to contemplate my options. I could just carry all of my textbooks in my backpack for the whole day and never have to fiddle with this stupid locker. But I brought my lunch. I couldn't bring my lunch box to class with me; not teacher would allow it. My first class was biology, and if we weren't allowed to chew gum then I was sure we would not be allowed to bring our lunch bags to class.

I got to the point where I just felt hopeless and stared at the locker. An extrovert would have quickly noticed the myriads of students surrounding them getting in their lockers and would have had the nerve to ask one of them for help. However, I was an introvert, and worse than that, I had spent the last couple of years home alone. I was afraid of the guys because they were bigger than me, more outgoing than me, their hair looked better than mine, and they would probably just make fun of me. I was afraid of the girls because they were all too beautiful and would probably just shrug me off as a loser. I took a deep breath in, however, turned around to face the mob, looked for the most gentle soul I could find, tried not to sound like I was about to cry, and mumbled something to the effect of "Please help!" After the words left my mouth, I noticed that I had asked a pretty girl and she did seem shocked that I had talked to her. I felt like I had just made a terrible caste system mistake, but her shock did not last long. She was most likely shocked because she did not recognize me from the year before, or perhaps she mistook me for a freshmen like most of my class, and wondered why a freshmen had a locker in the sophomore hallway. Nevertheless, she asked me for my combination, and effortlessly opened my locker. I mumbled some words of thanks, stuffed my lunchbox in my locker, and slammed my locker shut as I raced towards my first class.

I had a good memory, and I had no trouble finding my classroom in the fairly small school. I was surprisingly early. Looking at the clock, I still had eight minutes before the bell rang. The whole locker ordeal occurred in a few minutes. I sat there, nervously running through my mind the nightmare that just occurred. I would have to go through it again for lunch. I still didn't know when I was supposed to go to lunch, but I tried to put that out of my mind.

A cute blonde entered the room with a huge smile on her face, her hair was all made up, and she was current with the latest high school fashions. She perused the room for her seat based upon the seating chart. It was in alphabetical order, and her last name started with the letters S-T-E. She sat right next to me. I tried not to look at her. She was too beautiful. However, she was an extrovert and she proceeded to relate to me a story about another girl falling on her butt in the halls. She put lip gloss on her lips, and pulled out her book and binder. As other students began to fill the empty seats around the room, Katie, the girl next to me, began to talk to familiar faces. I sat there quietly the whole class and tried not to look around. For some reason, I felt like I had no place in this room. I just wanted to go home, but I had the whole day ahead of me.

Because I had completed the freshmen curriculum as a 8th grader and the sophomore curriculum as a 9th grader, the school required me to re-take many freshmen courses in order to get high school credit for it. I had several sophomore courses, but enough to cause my peers to believe that I was their peer. I was in freshmen world history and Spanish. My sophomore courses were biology, English, and geometry. Except for Spanish, all of these classes were repeats for me. However, the last time I took them, I cheated on everything.

My freshmen world history class had a different feel to it. I wasn't the only "new kid" in the class. In fact, everyone in the classroom seemed to be starting over with a clean slate. Unlike the girls in my sophomore class, these girls seemed to put too much make-up on, push the limits with their wardrobes, and they giggled way too much. I felt too mature for these people. I felt like a 25 year old in a kindergarten class. I was sitting in the middle of the room, and I couldn't help notice several girls in the room pointing me and other guys around the room. I felt awkward. I had a feeling they were sizing us up, trying to figure out who the cutest boy in the room was. Eventually they seemed to reach a decision, and I was thankful that I didn't seem to qualify.

I arrived to my third period class only to find it empty when the bell rang. I decided that this meant that I was supposed to be at lunch. I walked to my locker, and I got it open on my third try. I arrived to the cafeteria or the "commons room" as they called it, only to find it packed full of freshmen, sophomores, juniors, and seniors. Tomorrow, a "B" block day, I would have lunch with my brother, but today I was on my own. I felt like I was on stage looking at an audience of strangers. Hardly anyone noticed that I arrived to lunch late, but the few eyes that I did catch forced me to look at the floor quickly. I found a table with only one other person sitting at it. I didn't even think that I might be sitting at the "reject" table. I just found a table with the fewest people and I sat down. The other kid at the table paid no attention to me and I paid no attention to him. I sat there and ate my lunch.

I was almost half-way done with my lunch when a girl walked over and invited me to eat lunch with her and her friends. Although I was scared to death of interaction with peers, I was relieved that I did not have to eat alone. I recognized some of the girls from my freshmen world history class. One of the girls at the table, that I didn't recognize, asked if I would go out with her. I was completely taken aback, but my response was cool, collected, unhesitant, and briefly harsh: No. It was nonchalant, straight to the point, and it felt somewhat rehearsed.  She looked a bit rejected, but I didn't feel bad for her because I did not know what she expected. I didn't even know her name. I had only just saw her for the first time two minutes ago.

My third period class began after lunch was over. My English teacher, Mr. Miller, was a short, well-built, balding character who acted like the adult in the class sometimes and like one of the students at other times. He began class by writing several expletives on the dry erase board. He pointed to each one of them and had the class recite them. I just looked at Mr. Miller with a stunned look on my face, and listened as the rest of the class had no problem reciting language from "R" rated movies.

"Now that you have that out of your system, I do not ever want to hear those words again in my classroom. I don't want to see them written on my desks. If I find them written on one of my desks then I will have you here after school cleaning all of my desks and all of the desks in the whole school."

My fourth period class was freshmen Spanish. I had taken a year of German, but I didn't learn a thing. The curriculum was terrible and I cheated my way through it. I hated Spanish. In fact, I didn't care much for people that spoke Spanish. I found it a political travesty that Americans had to learn Spanish because the illegal immigrants didn't bother to learn English. I already hated the class before I entered the modular outside.

The teacher of my last freshmen class at least knew how to control his class. This classroom was out of control, and the teacher didn't seem to have a clue what she was doing. I had heard about Profe Burns from my brother who had her for history last year. Apparently this was her second year of teaching. She was happy to have a Stickel in her class, but I think she was quickly disappointed to find that I was nothing compared to my brother. I was quiet, reclusive, strict, and I detested childish language games. She quickly realized that I hated the class. In the following weeks, Profe Burns confided in me that she needed my help to make her class better. She asked for my advice about how to better control the class and whether the games we played were effective or just wastes of time. I hated the class, but I quickly began to admire Profe Burns. Not because she asked for my advice, but because she noticed that I detested her class and wanted me to learn Spanish and enjoy it.

I quickly began to admire all of my teachers. Mr. Miller scared me quite a bit that first day. I wrote him a letter telling him how I did not appreciate his approach to teaching us not to use foul language. He never responded to my letter. Perhaps he found it out of place for a student to correct their teacher. Perhaps he was shocked that one of his students was trying to take the moral high ground over him. Perhaps he didn't even read it. However, Mr. Miller showed a peculiar interest in my writing abilities over the next three years. He would often tease me here and there during class, but he would pull me aside several times after class and encourage me to continue to utilize my writing talents.

For instance, during the poetry segment on the lesson, Mr. Miller had the class write poems for fun for a class period. When we finished a poem, we were to bring it to him to review our technique. I wrote several poems during the hour and fifteen minutes of class. Mr. Miller, a stocky wrestler instructor who always reminded me of Joe Rogan from Fear Factor, would read my poems, laugh, and then say, "Stickel, you're too good at this. It's starting to worry me." I had a sensitive side, and Mr. Miller knew it. I think he secretly admired it. I think he had a sensitive side too that he was too scared to express. He recognized and appreciated the softer aspects of literature that are only embraced by those sensitive to its imagery, emotion, and passion, but he taught a very robust English literature class. I enjoyed reading Shakespeare and got really high marks on my essays from Mr. Miller. I was always surprised to be one of the only students in his class to get an "A" on his tests. Reading the Tragedy of Julius Caesar, Mr. Miller always picked me for the parts that said "saucy" and he chuckled every time I read the word. However, after I finished my project of writing Mark Antony's fictional journal based upon the play, his words of encouragement for a job well-done caused me to think that we clicked on some level although we seemed to be polar opposites of each other. He often teased me, but somehow I got the feeling he truly admired me.

Some teachers you quickly forget, but others stand out in your memory. Some teachers are merely speakers, while others are actually educators. Out of all the people I have ever met in my life, I held and hold many of my high school educators in the highest regard. Many of them, in fact, were my closest friends in high school. Mrs. Tyson, Mr. Blaine Miller, Mr. Boyd Miller, Mr. Galus, Mr. Smith, Mrs. Patino, Profe Burns, and Mr. White, if you're out there and you ever happen upon this: Thank you! Students never really appreciate everything you taught them until life gives them the test that you tried your best to prepare them for. By the time we realize how much you taught us and we are finally grateful that you never gave up although we must have given you the worst of heartburn every night grading our papers it always seems too late. You've lost your passion, you don't feel like you're making a difference, and you feel like you're blowing in the wind. Underappreciated, underpaid, and treated with the utmost contempt by students and parents alike. Your students will grow up, they will utilize the lessons you taught them, and you will pop into their memory and they will want to thank you but you'll have given up on teaching many years past. You make a difference, and although it is not instantly evident, your students will learn the lessons you prepared us for and we will be grateful.

My first day of school stands out vividly in my memory. It was a day of fear, panic, and humanity. I came back home, so happy it was over. I grabbed a snack and watched my favorite show, COPS. I was nervous about the next day, but I did not dread it as I had my first day. I left my home alive that morning, and I returned home alive that afternoon. I wasn't as invisible as I felt. People noticed me, students and teachers alike. No one made fun of me (at least, not publicly). It was actually a breath of fresh air to interact with my peers again.

I was going to have to study, I was going to have hunker down and do my school-work from scratch, and I would have to earn my grades from now on. Morally, it was okay to cheat if the answers were within reach, but it was wrong to go out of your way to find a way to cheat. My first quiz was in biology, and I aced it. I earned it. I studied for an hour. I felt like I could handle any quiz or test. Test anxiety became a thing of the past, and I found that if you do the homework, read the chapters, and pay attention in class then you hardly have to study at all (except for those dreadful final exams).

I was going to be completely surrounded by cute girls my age. I was going to have to wrestle with this for the next three years. I objectified women in private by looking at pornography, and when I interacted with females in public I felt ashamed of what I did in private. I felt unworthy to be in their presence. I felt like they shouldn't give me the time of day. In private they were objects for me to do with as I pleased, in public, they were royalty and I was the lowest of serfs.

My problem became further exacerbated by the fact that I seemed to get along with the girls in high school than I did with they guys. The guys only talked about sports, violent video games, and sex. The girls talked about boys, clothes, and art. I had nothing in common with the guys, and I really didn't have much in common with the girls. However, the girls wouldn't ridicule me for not wanting to talk about boys and clothes whereas the guys would wonder why I don't talk about sports, games, and sex.

In high school, I had to figure out how to find some sort of balance between objectifying women by addicting myself to pornography, calling myself a Christian, trying to act like a moral person when I wasn't, practically worshiping women with my hopelessly romantic heart, and trying to figure out who I was in all of this mess.

A New Life on the Horizon: Freeborn at Last

Freeborn was established by a congregation of Christian frontiersmen and women, looking for a better life out west. They built a white church and built the rest of the town around it. The small town prospered while ranchers and cattle rustlers frequented the small town on their runs to the larger cities. It prospered until the railroads we're built. Graystone Station was built thirty miles north and all the business Freeborn relied on was diverted thirty miles north with it. The town went broke. The Christian frontiersmen and women moved away and the town was left deserted for years. Outlaws and riff raff from neighboring towns found sanctuary in Freeborn. A few desperate locals try to make an "honest" day's wages in the town. As they figure it, even the Devil himself needs food to eat and a shot of whiskey to wash it down with. No laws, no lawmen, and all the complete lawlessness that comes with it. Sounded like a perfect formula for a town built on the edge of Hell itself.

These were my very own words. I wrote them January 13, 2008. It's a paragraph from the introduction to a short story I wrote on my Myspace blog called The Freeborn Chronicles. One day I woke up and felt like writing a shot-'em-up western, I guess. It's a story about an old western town, once pure with a large, white church at the end of Main Street that has grown run-down and battered with bullet holes as the town has been overrun with evil, murderous, licentious citizens. The once nice town was now a city of refuge for the refuse of the world. I only wrote an introduction and two chapters. The first two chapters were violent, filled with reckless gunfighters, an undertaker whose best friends in the world were his coffins that he hated parting with, and a mysterious cold-blooded killer. These are the last few paragraphs I wrote for the story on January 20, 2008:

The rain began to pour upon the streets of Freeborn. The wind started to blow harder and thunder roared across the endless plains. Main Street was quickly flooded by the torrential rains. The buzzards abandoned their victim on the street and sought shelter in the remains of the white church. A bolt of lightning struck the cross on the steeple, frightening all the birds out of the church in a flurry of feathers.  The remains of the old church were quickly engulfed in flames, despite the incessant rain. The rising waters flooding Main Street carried off the remains of the man in black into the wash on the edge of Freeborn, burying it in the muddy sediments.

It never rains in Freeborn. The relentless sun and extreme dry plague the sands of Freeborn. The only moisture the earth gets is from the occasional pool of blood from some poor soul or the unsatisfactory spit of a chewing man. The rain was a sign of change. Freeborn was being washed of its filthiness. The roads were being cleansed of the blood that had been spilled on them. The earth was going to be able to sustain life once more.  The rivers would no longer run dry. The land would no longer remain barren.  Freeborn was given a new life.

Justice was approaching on the horizon, and the lawlessness of Freeborn was coming to an end. As the church burned the bullet holes burned with it. The Freeborn chronicles had come to their climax and would no longer be written by holes in the front of a run-down church. The Freeborn chronicles would be written in the hearts of the good and the tombstones of the bad. A new chapter was about to begin for Freeborn. Freeborn would be returned to its former glory, but not before the incessant evil was purged from its midst.

Wet and hungry, Eli Coulter strolled into town in search of his baby brother.

At the time, these were merely words. They were merely descriptions for a fiction story I felt pressed to write. However, today I look back at these words seeing the sub-conscious allegory contained between the lines. My life changed completely in 2008. Freeborn was my heart. It was overrun with sin and misery. It was filled with murderers and prostitutes. It's only good citizens were only there to profit from the filth of the town. The undertaker who befriends his coffins reflected that I had made friends with death and destruction rather than fleeing from it. The once white church that now sat riddled with bullet holes represented my ecclesiology; the church was only a building to me now and the community that once filled it was gone. The rains that poured were the Holy Spirit, perfecting my baptism, replacing my heart of dust with a heart of life, purging the filth that had built up around my heart. The lightning and fire that devoured the shambles of the church were the Father, who reassured me that propitiation for my sins was made on a cross long ago and that he who hung on that cross was sufficient to wipe away every sin that riddled my self-righteous heart. Eli Coulter, wet and hungry, searching for his baby brother was Jesus Christ. Wet and hungry because he was a man. Eli because he was God. He came to Freeborn to rescue his baby brother.

But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, "Abba! Father!" So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God. Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods. But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more?

(Galatians 4:4-9)

 

 

On February 6, 2008, I wrote these words:

But I don’t want to join the dark side...go away!
Current mood:Devoted
Category: Life

Maybe I'm the only one, but doesn't it ever seem like you're selling your soul to the devil, pawning the halo over your head and joining the dark side? No? Like I said, maybe it's just me. If someone could ever come up to me and say, "Matt, you sold out," it would be now. I did sell out. I sold out to try to fit in better with people and feel more "socially acceptable." I gave up who I am, what I enjoy, what I cherish, and what I believe.

I was watching The Moment of Truth tonight and I had to put myself in that chair and ask myself, "If that was you sitting in that seat, what dark secrets could they dig up?" Just over the last year I could think of a handful of secrets that I would risk $500,000 to hide. I would risk a lot more than that to keep those secrets buried.

Why so many secrets all of sudden? Was I afraid of the world knowing it? Was I afraid of my friends knowing? Was I afraid that God would all of sudden find out as if he didn't know it already? No. I would prefer my friends not know because it would change the way they look at me, but it's nothing they would let ruin our friendship. No, the people I would not want to know are my parents. It would devastate them and I couldn't bear to cause that kind of heart break.

It's scary. It's haunting. It's shameful. What scares me the most is that I don't think that Christ my Savior is devastated. I know He's forgiven me but I know it wouldn't be that easy for my parents (at least at first).

Was it worth it? Was what I did this past year worth it? Not at all. I let my family down, I let my friends down, and I sinned against my Heavenly Father. For what? The people I was trying to impress still don't want to hang out with me. I wouldn't want to anyways.

For some reason I think that hanging out with people that drink to get drunk, live for the parties, have sex all the time, and do drugs will make my life better. I couldn't be farther from the truth. They need to grow up because that's not life. The people that go places in this world are the proactive ones that accept who they are, find what they can contribute to the bettering of mankind, and shoot for the stars to achieve their dreams. I want to be that guy. I don't want to be the guy going to Freaky's to get a detox kit because their employer is requiring a drug test.

My grandma always says, "Garbage in, garbage out." It's true. The people you hang out with and the things they do will rub off on you. I got a taste and I don't want anymore of it. I want to go back to laughing when someone cuts me off on the interstate not tailgating them for revenge. I want to give people hugs and never want to let go, not give them this sissy half meant hug. I want to be more than willing to help people instead of giving them attitude and acting like it's such a chore. I want to be Christian again. Christ never gave up on me but let me walk down that road knowing that I needed the wake up call. I did, there's no questioning that.

So, I'm tired of the dark side. I'm sick of all these secrets. I don't want to be the person other people want me to be. I want to be the person I used to be in high school. If I have to go back to being the quiet guy again because I don't want to say something I might regret then so be it. If I have to go back to being that guy that everyone takes advantage of because they know I'll go out of my way to help a friend and ask nothing in return, it's worth it. If I have to go back to being the goofy kid that's random, never swears, never tells dirty jokes, never breaks the rules, has never dated, has never been kissed, has never had a drink, and doesn't plan to change anytime soon, then I'm tired of waiting. I am that person, and now I'm going to own it.

It's not a matter of good vs evil. It's God vs evil, and I'm not about to forget that.

Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.
(Luke 11:23)

So, what happened between 2002 and 2008 that caused me to think that I had joined the dark side? In 2002, I was still very much a self-righteous Christian who shrugged sin off because he looked at his neighbor who was a lot more sinful than he. Garbage in, garbage out. Pornography, violent movies, dirty jokes, foul language, alcoholism in, lust, murder, blasphemy, and idolatry out. Even a Pharisee can only fool himself for so long. Ask Saul of Tarsus. Ask Augustine. Ask Martin Luther.

The six years between 2002 and 2008 were my darkest hours. As I relive them with you, you might be tempted to think, That's not all that bad. I look back and I see God protecting me against so many terrible decisions that I could have made. My story could be a lot worse if it was not for the grace of God. God preserved me although I desired to plunge head first into the deepest depths away from Him. He only let me get so far down. Others have gone much deeper into the pit and Jesus has climbed down and carried them out. Their stories are probably much more impressive than my own because their transformations from sons of the devil to sons of the living God are so much more drastic. Although my story might not have the contrast between black and white that others do, I'm not sharing it with you because its unique. I share it with you because it is not unique.

What happened between 2002 and 2008 was nothing out of the ordinary for many high school and college youths. The struggles I faced and the temptations I embraced are the same struggles that most 18-22 year olds face today. My story could be your story. The names and faces might be different, but the circumstances are very much alike. You too have a problem with pornography. You too have a problem trying to remain true to your faith while trying to fit in with a worldly crowd at school. You too have a tendency to judge your standing with God by comparing yourself to that other guy or girl. You too sit in church and wonder why all of these people willingly spend their day off sitting, listening to some guy talk to them. You too are beginning to feel dirty and feel as if nothing can clean you. You too are depressed and no one and nothing seems to make you happy. You too are lonely and no one seems to fill that void in your soul. You and me are very much alike. I am telling you my story because if God dragged me from the pit I hid in, then He can drag you out too.