Shane Crash

I thought I’d do a follow up post to yesterday’s. Reactions to my coming out as nonChristian have been mixed. I’ve received over one hundred e-mails. Most of them have been positive, affirming acts of kindness. A few have warned me of impending destruction and some have been angry.

I’m not surprised that this has broken the camels back. I tend to post every point of view in relation to God. For instance I shared a quote by Mark Twain recently, “if there is a God – he sure hates people”. I see this a valid view. It’s a legitimate thought, whether or not I agree with it.

Many Christians did not respect this view and subsequently broke ties. I can’t say I’m particularly upset over this. I refuse to pander to one people group over another. If I can’t fellowship and cultivate thoughtful dialogue and holistic thoughts, I’ll lose my mind. I can’t imagine a life spent entertaining only one breed of thinkers.

I’d be lying though if I carried on pretending that this isn’t extremely painful and disappointing for me. Perhaps I was a bit naive believing that the all of my friends considered me a friend because of who I am and not the beliefs I hold. It’s inevitable though that I’ll become a stray dog to many friends. This is the inevitable price I’ll pay for my lack of faith. I didn’t choose to lose faith. It just happened over time, depleting day after day, but I’m confident I’ll come to terms with whatever I lose as a result of my disbelief.

In regards to this, my brilliant friend asked, “what the hell did you expect?” My optimism is funny in hindsight.

Regardless, I’m trying to keep my spirits high. I realize now that there’s an entire world, full of people I can relate to – now that I’m free from adhering to other people’s expectations. I can be free of religious language and all of the headaches. I can just love people without an agenda, just for the sake of love.

Tonight as I was lying in bed with my beautiful wife, she turned to me and asked, “how does love work Shane?”

I smiled at her for a moment before responding. “I don’t know. When I was younger, I thought I knew, but now I don’t have a clue.”

She smiled and kissed me deeply. ”Well, I love you. I’m sorry this is happening to you.” I pressed my forehead to hers and kissed her goodnight.

I was being honest with her. I really haven’t the slightest idea. If our love and affirmation for each other is based on an idea or a belief, I don’t think it’s love at all.

But what do I know?

Earlier this morning I posted a verse from a song entitled “Best Ever Death Metal Band Out of Denton” by my favorite band The Mountain goats. You can listen to the song here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IsXKMkDAMQ

The lyrics I posted are “hail satan. hail satan tonight. hail, hail”. This caused quite the uproar from a few evangelical folks. I was accused of hating God. I don’t really care what Christians spout out at me. It doesn’t bother me or affect my relation to them. I have no interest in being offended.

It’s amusing though that this caused so much anger and confusion. For me and I think anyone who is familiar with this song, it’s a rally cry for hope and defiance in the face of spiritual abuse. It has nothing to do with worshipping some malevolent deity.

I mostly received messages of support and encouragement. But I did have a few concerned pals come to me urging me that I had crossed a line. This is probably true but I don’t have the energy to hide my provocative statements from every Christian who follows me via twitter or Facebook. The truth is that I don’t need to maintain any kind of standard on their behalf because frankly I don’t share the Christian worldview and I find the God/Satan game for human souls narrative preposterous and cruel. I think in order to make sense of where I am now, I must first go back and lay out my side of the story.

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I spent the earlier years of my youth working with my father and brother on our family farm just outside a small town called Treloar in Missouri. In some ways this was my garden of Eden. My parents had purchased acreage and moved us up from Houston, Texas to be near my father’s family. They built a massive two-story log cabin. Calling this cabin anything short of remarkable is an understatement. Directly in front of this cabin was a gorgeous lake that my father had created himself. Within the walls of white pine and caulk, to quote Vonnegut, “everything was beautiful and nothing hurt”.

My father is nearly disabled. Back in 86′, on the very day my mother discovered that she was pregnant with me, my father had an accident. He was an electrician working for Warner Cable. (I believe, in any regard, it was a cable company) There was some sort of accident as he was working on some power cables from a bucket, above his work van. He was electrocuted and killed. The doctors told him that when he collapsed and fell from the bucket to the van, the impact restarted his heart. He was crippled for a while and burned badly all over. He still suffers badly from chronic pain and has trouble walking the way he once did but he’s a tough resilient man.

We raised Emu’s on our land. As a kid I worked my ass off with my brother and father to help run the farm. I daresay I worked more than an average American youth. That’s not to say that I didn’t read my fair share of Goosebumps books whenever I could. As I grew older it became increasingly difficult to see my father suffer in so much pain. And it became very apparent how angry the pain made him. He was especially angry that he had to rely so heavily on my brother and I. Regardless, life was a utopia on our farm.

When I was eleven years old my parents suffered from financial ruin and were forced to sell the farm and all of our land. My heart broke as I was ripped from the world I loved and helplessly thrust into a foreign life, far from my utopia.

Around this time my I watched my bipolar brother begin to struggle in life. He warred with my parents who didn’t understand his medical issue at the time. In spite of his mental instability and continuous screw ups, I loved my brother and he loved me. One day though I watched in horror and anguish as he succumbed to all of his confusion, pain and anger. He sprinted furiously from my driveway and left our family behind.

This was the first time I can remember losing a loved one.

It stuck with me.

After my brother’s departure I struggled to thrive in the small town we had relocated to after losing our farm. I had an illness that caused me chronic pain. As a result I was unable to keep up with normal guys my age. I was small and frail and alone so I began to construct make believe adventures in the woods behind the old farm house we had moved into. When I was fifteen or sixteen years old, I met a girl and we formed a close friendship. Together we lived out these fantasy lives we had constructed. We read Arthurian Legends and fantasy novels. We knew it was all bogus but we felt safe. At least I felt safe in the midst of all of life’s uncertainty. I constructed my make believe world to hide from attachment to real people because I was certain that I’d lose every one I dared to care for and I was safe from that in my books.

I was healthy and strong and heroic in my make believe world.

In the midst of all of this I was trying to form a relationship with God. I began to attend a youth group. It was like any other youth group. It lured me in with pizza and girls and indoctrinated me with tales of a loving God who cared for me. I started to replace my make believe world with faith in God. I was certain that this was the way to be saved for good. I hoped that I would be safe from Hell and that one day I’d get to be with my brother again.

Eventually I began to love this girl. It was strictly platonic, a young, innocent kind of love. It was pure. I remember very clearly the day that she told me of her love for me. We were up late talking on the phone. She sang me a song from the other end of the receiver.

“I’ve got a lovely bunch of coconuts, deedly deedly. There they are standing in a row. Big ones, small ones, ones as big as your head. I love you Shane.”

We were best friends or as close as we could be given the make believe safety nets I had put in place. But I loved her very dearly.

Time went on and we grew up a bit. One day a phone call came and just like that the river flooded between the two of us. Our make believe world crumbled and I withdrew in anguish. Life had played a cruel joke on me once more. The last memory I have of her was at a funeral. Our friends mother had died of cancer. Her death scared me. We stood in the rain on the edge of a pavilion outside the winery hosting her service. She clutched my hand with the tips of her fingers and I wasn’t afraid anymore. And not long after, just as quickly as she had come into my life, she was gone from it.

I turned to God for comfort. I had my doubts but God was the only shelter I had from the storm. My faith grew and I prayed continuously for things to be put right. I prayed for my dad to be healed. I prayed for my worn out bones to be made new. I prayed for the wires in my brother’s head to be uncrossed and made right again. I prayed that my friend was safe and happy in her new home and I carried on.

Fast forward a few years. I was still somewhat young and content when I fell in love for the first time. It was a mad kind of love. I was mostly intact and I had every thing to give of myself. This girl that I had fallen for returned my feelings and we were madly in love. I was happy but with my happiness came a kind of torment. Fear crept in like a disease. I had everything to lose now so I did what I had learned to do. I coped with the fear by distancing myself and constructing make believe lies and safety nets.

My love was sincere and my lover’s feelings for me were true. But she loved a person who had hidden their past, their suffering and fear behind carefully constructed lies. Lies that would inevitably pull apart years later. My carefully constructed lies pushed many away. Several of my friends saw through them and stuck with me. When the inevitable loss of my great love came, my friends rallied around and helped me pick up the pieces. This was a devastating loss. My plans withered around me. I tried to repair the damage of my endless lying but it was too late. As I reached out in futility, my dreams slipped through my fingers like smoke. This time I was responsible for love leaving my life.

In an effort to cope I continued my search for God and focused on faith. I devoted myself to evangelical ministry. I lived alone in a lavish apartment and made gobs of money selling bullshit car warranties for a couple of corrupt millionaires. I drank myself to sleep when the pain was too intense to endure. I carried on with my faith in God. Eventually I hit the road, selling all my crap, leaving my money and security behind in search of a remedy for this suffering I had inflicted upon myself. I stopped lying and ventured to the other side of the spectrum. I became brutally honest and my faith withered and flickered and so on, over and over.

And so on.

When one theology became inadequate I would study another and grasp to the more competent views I found. I’ve struggled off and on to maintain my faith, continually changing views as need be. But my questioning and lack of faith has always rubbed some evangelicals wrong. I’m continually rebuked and chastised for my lack of faith in miracles and healing and tongues and prophecy. This is amusing to me. If anyone wants to believe in healing and miracles, it’s me. I’m the crippled kid with a broken body, fathered by a cripple and brother to a schizophrenic.

Anyway, I’ve traveled the globe, drinking and smoking and cursing as I’ve tried to sustain a faith in a God. I’ve continually hopped from one view to another. I’ve scoured church after church, community after community, looking for logical answers. All I’ve gotten from my searching is report after report of a God who plays games with humanity, blaming us for his/her inadequate control of creation.

More recently I had finally established a kind of consistent family back in Missouri. My wife and I were happy. We spent all of our free time with my beautiful sister and her family. We were incredibly happy and unsuspecting. As per usual, a tragedy swallowed us up out of the blue. The family was shattered and once more I lost loved ones to circumstances beyond my control.

We came to Portland hoping to begin our life together. I hoped to find a nice Christian community. The idea was that I’d find a way to build up my failing faith. But things are the same everywhere. It became very apparent that I do not belong in evangelical churches singing songs and reciting prayers to the air.

I’m tired of writing off inconsistencies and illogical ideas. I’m tired of making excuses for my nonChristian pals. And mostly I’m tired of trying to meet the expectations of a God I’ve never experienced. I’m tired of trying to satisfy Christians by adhering to their worldview and  their definition of truth.

I have reached the conclusion that faith in God is the final make believe that I need to be done with. This probably isn’t what most of you reading this were hoping to read. But it’s the truth.

All I have is my wife. The only comfort I experience stems from her and from writing. When I began my novel I realized that I was often at peace as I wrote. I wrote in the people that I had lost to death and distance and time and lies. When I write — it’s almost like I’m with them. I’m back in the Cetaw wheatgrass reading about Lancelot and Morgan Lefay.

We don’t have any plans now. We have each other. I’m finally free to speak and write and think like a real human. I don’t need to adhere to evangelical expectations and agendas. I don’t need to constantly fret over pleasing an invisible God. I’m free to work out life on my own.

I spent a few hours walking around Portland speaking to my oldest and closest friend Ryan tonight. I’m going to do my best to transcribe our conversation. This is more of a free writing exercise than anything.

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“You really can’t smoke or drink? Not even if you wanted to?” The sound of the trains below the overpass is ringing out a few stories beneath me.

“Probably not,” I respond. “It wouldn’t be worth the hassle and I’m judged enough as it is, jumping through hoops and dodging awkward conversations.” The smell of cigarettes and charred wood descends from a yard up the hill from me. I’m aching for a drink, my favorite cocktail a “green Vesper”.

Through the phone I hear Ryan scuffle through his front door. I hear the clanking of keys in his familiar ceramic bowl beside the door. It rests on a stool just inside his living room. “That’s messed up man, it’s one thing not to drink or whatever but it’s stupid to judge someone else for doing it responsibly. If you’re gonna judge someone, do it based on their character, not because they blow off steam with a damn cigarette or beer.”

“I know man. I know.” I trip on a metal bar as I take my seat on the covered bus bench. This is my own form of monasticism, removing myself from the world the best way that I can. “It’s okay though, I’m confident that none of this matters any way. At least it won’t in a little while.”

“Yeah I suppose it doesn’t. I don’t care if it’s any consolation. Some day soon we’ll be drinking a beer on Loch Ness man! And did you know we can take a ferry to Dublin and kick back in a real pub? I can’t wait.”

“That’s great, I can’t wait. It’ll be nice to be able to have a conversation with a friend. It’ll be nice not to feel out of place or be judged. I bet the beer in those pubs taste good. Why do you think any one would want to live in a way that excludes the rest of the world? Isn’t that lonely?”

Ryan sighs into the phone and I hear a running sink in the background. “Man, I don’t know. People want to feel safe. I heard this sociology professor the other day. He said that most people are incapable of thinking for the greater good but instead they make decisions keeping at most something like sixty close contacts in mind. They think of their opinions as variables and make their decisions based on their reactions. I guess they just don’t want to lose their friends and it’s easier that way. It’s safe, regardless if it’s right or wrong to judge or mistreat people for stupid petty things like that.”

“That’s interesting.” Behind me I notice a cat creeping around. It freezes when I turn to gaze at it. It’s still as a statue. “I guess I’m the exception to that rule. I must not have self-preservation embedded in me or something. I decided to go on a public campaign for homosexuality equality and affirmation. Nearly every one I know is pissed about that. But I know it’s the right thing to do. Isn’t it?”

“Yeah, I think so,” he says. “Hell man, I think taking any kind of stand against any group who claims to understand truth or life is bound to be painful.” The can of soda in my hand cracks like a bone as I raise my palms to meet my forehead. Having a good conversation with a real person, with someone I love – it’s like being reborn. I’ve been talking to myself for so long now.

‘I think there’s purpose to all of this and I think you feel like that too. But I don’t think any one really knows what that purpose is and I think you’re going to piss off people for writing about that uncertainty. I think you’re pissing off the right people. It’s a big world and someone’s got to be wrong. In fact almost everyone, if not everyone, has to be wrong. I think the people causing pain and suffering are the ones you need to piss off.”

“Yeah I guess you’re right.” My thoughts shift in and out of focus for a few moments. “You remember when every thing happened with ‘she who shall not be named’ and I was drunk and wandering around, calling you all the time?”

Ryan laughs and I imagine him nodding in amusement. “Yeah bud, how could I forget?”

“I feel a lot like I did back then, about God and all you know. I never thought that I could recover from losing her and I thought that I’d end up killing myself to be rid of that pain. Now I just live with it you know and now it’s like the same thing with God. I can’t seem to be rid of it, you know I just can’t seem to say that it’s all bullshit and be done with it.” I pause for a moment to try and get my thoughts across in a concise intelligible way. After a moment I carry on. “Even though I know that I should. I’m not a Christian. I don’t want anything to do with any of it, the way that justify hate with scripture and their traditions and language. I despise it actually but I just can’t let it go. I mean I just can’t let the idea of God go.”

Even before I finish speaking I feel a certain kind of spectral comfort wash over me. I recall memories that I had convinced myself were make-believe moments from some other life, a life that I had never really lived.

“Shane, you can’t go back and fix what you did. You know that bud. But you’re a better man now. I’ve known you for eleven years. I’ve been with you through it all. You’re different now and I’m shocked at how much you’ve grown. But you can’t bring her back. It’s done and it happened. You wouldn’t be where you are now if it hadn’t happened. It’s been done.”

My phone drops the call so I hit the pavement again and head down toward PDX Automative. I cringe when my ringtone blares through my headphones. “Sorry bud, I lost you. Anyway, it’s getting bad again though, all I think about is drinking. More than any thing I’ll just sit down to write and think of going back and fixing things. I wish I could go back and unhurt every one. I wish I could go back and ask forgiveness.”

Ryan lets out a frustrated sigh and cuts me off. ”I know you want to but you can’t. It’s just impossible but you can do the right things now though and you are, at least I think you are. You’re standing up to bullies. You’re not the bully any more and I’m proud of you for that. If there is a God or creator or whatever the fuck you want to call it. I think it would be happy with who you are. Maybe one day some thing will happen and you’ll feel better about faith or you know what ever it is you want to find. But for now you’ve got to keep loving and questioning every thing bud. You wouldn’t be who are now if it weren’t for all of that other shit.”

“Yeah,” I say turning down Burnside. “You’re right but I just didn’t think it would be like this. I didn’t think it would be this hard to forget and move on.”

“Shane pal, I don’t think you can forget. But you can honor the past by not repeating it. You’re a lot better than you were before. At least you’re sober now and not running all over. You’ve got to learn to live with yourself and I bet beers in Scotland will help with that. We’re gonna have a good time and we’ll relax and none of this will matter.”

“Yeah,” I tell him. “I bet they will help.”