This lovely post by a dear friend has prompted me to put in writing the story of my conversion. I set out to do it in a night, but was only able to cover background. The next set of nights didn't get me any closer to the conclusion because relevant eddies waylaid my journey down the river. Understandably, I love this story. After all, it is mine. And there are delicious details I could NEVER cover in the 5-10 minutes they give you to share your testimony in a church service. Our testimonies get boiled down to elevator pitch speeches. There is a crisp efficiency in that, but what about a more baroque beauty? What of a naturalists walking pace encounter? A testimony of His handiwork is carved in these rocks too. Yet, what friend or acquaintance wants to sit down and hear a detailed documentary of some one's life?
You do?
Well then... for history! For my children! This is my witness. rough draft, part one! ;)
Enjoy!
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Average is not awful
We are not made for excellence
It comes at a price
Do I pour all I am
Into space, form and light?
or trade it away
for for 2.4 and a wife?
Design taking all of me,
no time to match my socks
How glorious that would be!
Yet "C" is not a crime
that disappointing balanced middle
that possible better!
given real limits.
All in one "A" basket,
and the rest to @#!*%
or spread it around
for a cumulative "C"?
Maybe I can push a high B!
I still want it all.
------
I remember riding shotgun in my friend Mark's rusty Toyota pickup with my grandmother's old couch bungeed in the bed. We were heading back to Lawrence Tech's student apartments, prize in tow for my dorm room which was something like $20 a month less expensive for being unfurnished. This was the same couch that left impressive black streaks on the concrete with a shower of sparks as the casters were ground to nubs in the 1st annual couch luge some years later. Mark and I were talking about girlfriends.
"There's no denying it." I said, "I'm an @#!*% ." My arm hung out the passenger window and cool September air started to whistle past the seat belt as we pulled out of Grandma's subdivision and onto south bound Van @#!*% . I rolled up the window.
"No, you're not." He offered, annoyed. If I was an @#!*% , what did that make him? I was the good guy, the nice guy. He was the slacker thief, the unaccomplished womanizer. I was the one who had it all together - a good family, a good career, a good woman. In truth my motives weren't that dissimilar from his. But I was a good year away from understanding that.
"No, I am." I said slowly, nonchalantly, resigned to my fate. "I'm doing whatever I can @#!*% her off and make her be the one to break up with me, so I don't have to do it. She loves me, and I'm a coward @#!*% ."
The relationship lingered, but not that long. It wasn't as painful as I thought it should be.
------
All in!
as the poker legends say.
the "A" basket it is.
I never liked matched socks anyway.
-------
Graduate school entrance essays require originality - especially for a design profession. I was still writing rough drafts on onion skin back then, letting the words flow free-form - making connections on the page, all arrows and exclamation points, delicately threading concept to concept and finding the hidden connections of word and symbol.
"Describe the significance of architecture, and why you feel called to pursue a career in design."
"Simple enough," I thought. "Architecture is my life! My one! My All! The superstitious and the weak put their trust in all sorts of things - and they do it out of fear. No social or existential crutch for me! Who needs an external prop when you can CREATE! Nothing is beyond me in this sphere. I am Master of the Universe - if I have religion, architecture is it."
-------
"So? What do you think?" I smiled proudly after reading them my first draft. I thought to myself smugly, "I've penned one of the great manifestos! Howard Roark would be proud! It's a rallying war cry for all that we've sought to become."
They sat there silent around the cafeteria table, my compatriots from the graduating class of '96, some of them slack jawed. Of course, I knew some weren't up to the call, but surely Dave - surely Shelley. They knew the instinct, the intuition, the feeling. Push! Work! Destroy! Rework... They knew. They would understand.
And then, slowly at first, words came out of their mouths. It seemed each of them gathered around this table had something to say. Strange words, almost blasphemous to my ears, unheard of words - a cripple's feeble set of words...
"What about God?"
God?!? Who says there is such a being? Surely not you. INCREDULOUS! A force? A higher power? Maybe. But a personal God?!?
"And Jesus Christ?"
Are you serious? What could a man who lived two thousand years ago possibly have to do with me?!?! SHOCKED!
"And Faith!"
FAITH? FAITH! Why would I entrust myself to some unknown and unknowable thing? I have faith in ME! I believe in my ability to take things apart, put them back together, find congruency, orchestrate beauty, discover truth!
"Who ARE you people?" Bewildered disbelief ricocheted inside my head, but my face likely didn't telegraph my dismay. I had studied alongside these men and women for three years. I knew them, so I thought. We had shared so much as we learned from the great masters of our craft, and now they come out - closet religiosos? Worse than that Christians! It was a serious blow.
Sure Dave's dad was a minister... and I was baptized Catholic! The nominal past came up on the first day of school in passing year's earlier, and never again. According to my parents the baptism was "just in case." I never attended church, save the few occasions during my early childhood when visiting Grandma. I had no interest in the goings on. But I can recall the organ! The oak and steel tubes wonderfully arranged held my attention even when not in use. I was transfixed on them through all the stand up sit down. I remember thumping the tan leather wrapped kneelers on the grey terrazzo while being repeatedly shushed and handed breath mints. We always left the service right after the Eucharist while the organ fired into closing crescendos and everyone stood. She would stream out ahead of the rush holding my little hand in her's, into the grey skied world outside, her hair held manageable against Michigan's somehow humid winter wind by a plastic babushka.
-----
Shelley walked out of the cafeteria with me that day and extended a challenge. We were crossing the quad toward architecture from the harsh brutalism of the management building. "Erik, you are downing on Christianity, but you don't know anything about it."
"Fair enough," I thought.
"We may not have been able to answer your questions, but there are answers. If you think you can take things apart, put them back together again and find truth, you should look into Christianity before you decide what it is. There is this book called Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis. You should read it."
OK, challenge accepted.
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