Volume 9, May 13, 2005

Love Wins And Camp Geneva

Greetings, everyone.

Hang with me, this newsletter starts with a slightly worn subject that will seamlessly (I hope) crescend to one sterling theme. Kind of like the THX Dolby sound clip—the dissonance is worth the resolution.

I’m distracting myself—where was I?

Slightly Worn Subject: Love Wins. I continue to get email from folks with different opinions than those held forth in Scandalous Newsletter #5. A recent email got me to thinking. I realized I wasn’t satisfied with my conclusions of the Love Wins bumper sticker rant. Aided by coffee and chocolate covered peanuts, (who needs nitrous oxide?) I finally got down to why it bothers me; it isn’t just the vague feeling I get that a Christian is flipping off an unbeliever; it’s this: life cannot be reduced to a case-closed summation of “Love Wins.”

Two words cannot do what Christianity has been trying to do for 2000 years. We need more than two words, we need the Word. All of it, all of Him. We need “I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength”, we need “Therefore, brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.” Yeah, it’s not a staccato, two-punch hit. The Word is not a case-closed summation. We have to work everyday to pay attention to it, so that we do not drift away from what we’ve heard. It isn’t savvy, snappy, or easy.

Do we need another movement? More bumper stickers, t-shirts, wristbands or slogans? More gimmicks? We need Christians without introduction. Believers without agenda.

The most holy moment in my life came when I was 14. My best friend invited me to Camp Geneva. I was not a Christian at the time, did not become one for two more years. But what I encountered one evening in the cabin had a shattering impact.

I had a gift for mocking others. (Okay…I had talent for impersonation.) I lay in my high-rise bunk, third one up, and peered down on the geek who came in at night with her guitar. I couldn’t wait to mock her the next day, because every inch of her was “Nerdy Christian.” I watched carefully. (Maybe snickering and rubbing my hands with diabolical glee.)

She never said a word to me, that Christian. Never looked me in the eye. She took out her guitar and put it on her knee, and started to strum a song. I thought, Here we go—Kum Bye Yah. Can’t wait for tomorrow. They’ll laugh their heads off.

To this day, I do not know the song she played. All I know is my vision got blurry. I saw a pale light around her, and I had to rub my eyes; I thought I was seeing things. Then she began to sing, and she could not sing. Simon Cowell would have voted her off the planet. But she sang a song to Jesus, and for the first time in my life, I had a run-in with my Maker. As I stared at the singing nerd, I heard a voice say, “Not this one, you don’t.”

No, I didn’t get “This is my beloved servant in whom I am well pleased.” I got an audible, “Not this one, you don’t.” It scared the crap out of me. And I began to cry.

I stood outside something amazing, some thing she had between her and God, and I was utterly alienated from it. I knew a grief in that moment I had never known. Then God rubbed in the salt by saying I better not mock her because she was precious to Him.

It got me interested.

I wanted to find out more about this feisty God who fiercely loved the nerd, and I did. Two years later I said, “I’m in”, and the rest is bumpy history.

I said all that to say, for me, a two-word drive-by shooting doesn’t button it up. Why? Cause I can’t see the person in the car unless I look hard. God gets to us through people, not gimmicks.

I realize I am in danger of starting an Anti Love Wins campaign. It isn’t the truth. And it would be wrong. And I don’t care enough. Like I told the last guy who emailed me, if I see who is driving the car I don’t get in a tiff. Humanity disarms me. Humanity has a way of making causes moot, even my own.

That nerd never even preached the gospel. She just had her guitar, and she played it, and I cried. She was who she was, is all, doing her own thing, singing to her God. I don’t know her name. All I know is, two years later I got in on the golden thing.

Sometimes, just being who we are will throw someone a line.

Groot—out.

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