When I was 16 years old I was angry. Frustrated, I had
stepped onto a road of rage that would last some 20 or so years.
We used to cruise Shoney’s and McDonalds listening to loud
rock, looking for a fight, excitement. “Burn down the mission,” was our mindset.
There was a Billy Graham revival at the coliseum. I despised
religion. I had lived in violence and alcoholism all my young life while
religious people wagged their condemning fingers and stood idly by on the
premise that a man’s home was his castle and it was wrong to interfere.
Truth was (and I knew better) they were just afraid, just
like I was. Just like we were.
I’d heard Billy Graham this and Billy Graham that until it
popped the now bursting bubble of my resentment and I exploded under the bright
light of that profane, circus colored Mc Donald’s.
“F—K BILLY GRAHAM. F—K Billy Graham," I screamed. He’s nothing
but a bible thumping HYPOCRITE and you are ALL BLIND SHEEP running off a cliff,”
until they snatched my skinny arms back between my shoulder blades, cuffed me
and threw me into the back of a squad car.
I raged there, kicking and screaming until exhaustion set
in. My voice began to break and crack and I lay down on my side still cuffed
and wept in my sweat, face against the filthy vinyl seat, the wet laboring
breath of defeated youth roaring in my ears like a storm.
Many years later … another life and I went to a spiritual
retreat in Montreat, NC. By then I had experienced real hypocrisy. Hell, I had
been the biggest hypocrite of all.
Dr. Graham had spent many years just up the mountain. He was
still living. Walking the shaded streets of the retreat center, I apologized to
God and all his messengers and asked for forgiveness.
I still don’t agree with the finger wagging. I find
traditional, Calvinist religion limited at best yet I have learned one
fundamental thing.
There are many paths to the summit yet the goal is the same.
Whether it is Dr. Graham, Ghandi, Martin Luther, Mother Teresa,
seven red headed aunts or a wounded but devout father … God sends his messengers in many forms.
What matters is that we are on a path to the summit and are
aware of it because you see, we are all
headed there.
Turns out, we just have to listen. Maybe if we hang on,
rather than sobs of defeat, we will hear the voice of God.
