Hi, my name is Amber, and I'm not really an evangelical

An e-mail popped up in my inbox from Faithvillage.com, with the subject line: Hi, my name is ______ , and I’m an evangelical. Since I don’t consider myself an evangelical (but used to), it’d take a stronger person than me not to click a link like that.

Faithvillage, from what I've gathered, presents as a faith-oriented social media website, with an interactive town as the primary navigator. Users’ avatars can live in a loft, while connecting with friends, following blogs. Sort of Facebook with Twitter/faith chaser, it's very hipster and cool.

Except my cynical, non-hipster side wonders if I'm really cool enough to use the site. And if I'm even really christian enough to gain admittance.

Like Jennifer Knapp once said, I'm a recovering christian. And claiming the brand of evangelical feels like signing up for an advanced trig class when I can barely count to 10.

I used to be an evangelical. I used to know the words to use and the people to know. Then, I went exploring. Coming back, I can say life back at the house for the prodigal daughter feels nothing like the life of an innocent princess.

Based on personal experience and conversations, the label "evangelical" conjures images of a slick salesman, with red tie and three-piece suit, pushing Jesus like an eternal warranty program. He has Robert Tilton's hair, John Travolta's chin, and the ethics of a politician.

Mr. Evangelical raises money for initiatives at his church, but remains fashionably, coolly compassionate. Sunday morning finds him on the same comfortable pew as last week, condemning more than considering; repeating what he's been told without question or doubt. His worldview rests solely on the rose-colored stained glass idols he faithfully worships.

In short, he’s Ted Haggard.

Evangelism originally meant sharing good news. Having a hope in the dark; a future where none seems feasible; being able to say to the broken and desperate "you are loved, where you are, as you are, because you are" defines good news.

Most sharing good news in the dark, hurting places focus more on what they're called to do than what they are called, or what they call themselves. They are, by action and not by claiming, redefining the label of evangelical. They do un-sexy work, supporting and unseen with little recognition for their brand.

If Ted Haggard represents the recent past of evangelicals, then charity: water founder Scott Harrison shows its possible remaking. According to an article written in the January/February 2012 issue of Relevant magazine, using his 31st birthday as a kick-off, Scott raised funds to start charity: water, a non-profit organization making water accessible in African countries. Leaving behind a life of sleekly lavish excess, Scott literally brings water to people of the desert.

Call him christian if you wish, but Scott bluntly states he “didn’t start a faith-based organization.” He strives, rather than to claim a label and be known by it to “live out [his] faith with as much as integrity as possible.” With 4,282 water projects supplying water, wells, and education to more than 2 million people in 19 countries, charity: water fits the supplies to the need of a given situation; meeting needs where they begin.

And therein lies the rub. 

Scott readily self-identifies as a Christian; but would he claim the evangelical brand? Even if his actions show faith; even claiming a relationship; even if his actions prepare the way for a conversation or conversion later; do these base qualifiers justify the label of evangelical?

Or is it just a pity brand? 

Everything fits the guidelines (or close enough), and it’s convenient or easier. Scott’s actions makes the brand look better, makes christianity’s brand look better by extension. Perfectly justifiable.

Except that being more concerned about appearances and fitting people into little boxes is… well, bad news.

Living the life evangelical requires courage, requires more than right thought or right action. Taking the brand of evangelical accepts the responsibility of an obligation to connect an ethical core to a deeper faith.

Bearing that cross must be a personal decision, and not just a word tossed as a half-hearted compliment. Sharing good news requires wrestling, growing, struggle. Because good news, being part of sharing that star-like light, starts with understanding its worth.

Hi, my name is Amber, and I’m learning how to be an evangelical.

not unforgettable

Here's a secret
from me to you
I'm forgettable

someone i loved
told me so
so it must be true

and as soon
as i walk away
i expect you
to replace me too

call it something
different
it's not me, it's you
say there's no chemistry
you need space

but the ghost
in my head
of someone who
should have loved me

will say
with echoes of bruises
short temper
and subtle disproof

not that i'm
wondrously imperfect
but just not enough

here's a secret
from a voice in my head
i'm forgettable

George the Fish

George, my Beta fish, hates me, which is fine, really, because he’s a fish, and I think it’s kind of funny. George’s one of those really pretty, slightly mysteriously colored fish, whose scales shine bluish-black in the light, hanging like an ink drop in a clear pool of water. Like his scales, George's journey to my home radiates an enchanting mystery, too.

In a former life, I worked in the bookstore. Some random day, I glanced down while I was at the information desk. I blinked when I saw a fish. In a bowl. In a bookstore. 

A black and white ribbon wrapped around the frilly rim of the bowl with an oversized, overly bright pink Gerbera daisy stuck in the middle of a bow's knot. Inside, a single fish, dark as night, swam still in the center. 

I thought I must be seeing things, and asked a friend if she knew what was up with the fish. She said a customer left The Fish at the desk, because it’d been given to her as she’d been window-shopping. The customer said she'd have kept the pretty fish, but as she told the original fish-giver, “Um, I have cats.” Somehow, though, the situation clicked not with the free-fish-giver-away-er, and The Fish in the frilly bowl remained in the hands of some stuck person who couldn’t keep it, couldn't give it away.

The Fish (soon to be known as George) seemed a rather large Beta for such a small container. Given paper books and water don’t really mix well, we were told the fish had to be moved from the desk. That posed the question of what in the world are we going to do with The Fish, as the customer nowhere to be seen in her own sea of books. We could page her, maybe?

“Would the owner of a blue-black Beta please come to the information desk? We’re afraid the fish you don’t want, which your cats of as sushi, will topple his very small fishbowl and damage our books. We need The Fish and his bowl to go away. Now, preferably. Thank you, and thank you for shopping at our bookstore.”

Ok. Maybe not.

I’ve never had a fish before, and I have to admit, I was more than a little intrigued to have one so close. I’d eyed fish as possible future pets before; they were so entrancing, their colors flickering and quivering. Plus, they don’t have claws like cats, aren’t big enough to fill the kitchen floor when they stretch out like a particular dog I love; these are chief selling points. Seriously. The Fish was starting to look like he’d found a home. 

Maybe. But, um, I have cats, too.

That bowl, the one with more cuteness allowed anything not a newborn? NOT coming home with me. Asking around, I found out that Betas like smaller spaces, and I knew we had containers at home that would work, but the question arose: how do I get The Fish from ugly-as-sin bowl A to home bowl B, half an hour away? Answer: Plastic cup C.

I filled the cup with filtered water from the café, but didn’t think to check the temperature of the water before I started encouraging The Fish into his new home. I really should have – because it was cold. So cold, The Fish started changing colors. I wasn’t really sure how to fix that or what to do about it. 

Funny enough, none of the fish books I could easily locate talked about what to do when a blue-black Beta starts turning light blue-silver with angry red-orange fins, but I was pretty sure that was bad. I knew the heater in my car worked really well, so out to my car I scurried, a silvering-was-blue-black Beta fish with his proverbial scales chattering in tow.

Starting the engine, I set The Fish in the Cup into one of those handy cup holders just in front of one of the heater vents. Possibly killing the first fish I’ve ever had as a pet less than an hour into my actually having said fish seemed bad. So I turned the heater on low and sat there. Absently, the thought occurred to me. I'm probably the only person in Texas who wishes for more heat in the middle of spring. 

The Fish flicked his tail at me, his fins sharpening into points as he pulsed angry, angry fish eyes at me. It was like he saw me, and blamed me, solely and entirely, for everything ever to happen to him since his birth in an ocean far, far away. I tried to talk to The Fish in the Cup, checked his color like a nervous habit, checked the temperature of the cup, tried to make sure he was still swimming, and hadn’t gone belly up. It was a long, awkward drive home.

Once home, The Fish shimmered more silver than even light blue, the tips of his fins sullenly orange red. I prepared another container for him, a simple glass bowl with a wide mouth, with distilled water at room temperature. The Fish was not pleased. He started swimming against the pull of gravity, having grown rather attached to his Cup with its designer coffee logo. 

His fins and tail slashed through the water furiously. He was not going to leave his previously-unwanted home. I was not going to make him - not if he had any choice in the matter. 

The Fish, being impressively obstinate and strong-finned, just kept swimming against flow, making it halfway up the cup before gravity won. He was beyond not pleased at this point, and sloshing water over the sides of the bowl not only as he entered the bowl, but as he swam around it.

My mom laughed, watching him swim around the edge of the bowl as if he were inspecting the perimeter of some untrusted, undisclosed location. I made every effort to keep him safe, but I was so limited in what I could use to help him. I knew he was mad, blaming me for messing with his world, but I couldn’t have left him where I found him, alone and unwanted. 

My mom’s eyes warmed when she smiled, asking if I’d thought of a name. I hadn’t, what with the worrying about the water, The technicolor dream Fish, the Cup... She nodded. “Well, he’s red, white, and blue at the moment; why not George?” she asked. 

So George, the fish who hates me, came to live with us.

It’s funny to say, but I love George. I really do. I know he’s just a single fish, and he’s not ever going to just swim happily up to me when he sees me. He doesn’t like me, but I still feed him and talk to him. He’s so pretty in his bowl, making bubble nests and being all fishy. He also explains God a little for me, too.

I tried the best I could, given the tools I had to work with, to help George when I brought him home. He has a home now, and will be safe for as long as he lives, but he still, months later, gets all sorts of riled up whenever I drop food into his bowl, or even come near where his bowl rests.

It’s sort of like Donald Miller said, “sometimes you have to see someone love something before you can love it yourself.” Only sometimes you have to try really, really hard to love someone, do everything you can to save them and make their lives better, only to be shown to disadvantage and blamed for all the discomfort which comes with changes and adjustments to understand you’re not the only one it happens to.

George just knows that I moved him from a place where he was happy to one where he was not happy, and then finally dumped him into some other place entirely new he had to completely learn. He doesn’t know Betas come from southern Asian countries and are bred to fight. He doesn’t care that his cousins live in rice patties, killed if they don’t swim fast enough or bite hard enough; he just knows that this big, unidentified being made him uncomfortable, then seriously mad, and now appears daily to toss more food into his bowl, making weird noises as she peers into a bowl he didn’t even ask for in the first place.

I’m not saying it doesn’t matter where we came from – from apes or dust. It does. It colors how we view each other, and that, again, affects our divine use-ability, too. We get so wrapped up in being right about what we believe or how we see the world, we forget that we are tiny beings. We forget what we can do with our lives matters most, as it echoes through eternity, in big or small ways.

At the end of the day, my life, like George’s, is not overly affected by where my cousins rest their heads. I swim in my pool, bewildered when food rains from the sky whether I ask for it or not, or when this oh,-so-much-larger-than-I Being tries to talk to me, using words I don’t understand. I can flounder and flash, trying to show I am so much larger and greater, or I can... not, accepting worlds and worlds of things I don’t understand exist and, though the thought terrifies me, trust all of it rests in hands capable of controlling it all.

aquaphobic fishies

When I was a kid, life and God, right and wrong, good and bad were basic. The rules simply stated: God. Always. When not God, bad things happen. Period.

Which worked… until it didn’t.

Then all the years of wearing skirts to play sports, not cutting my hair, going to church every week at least 3 times a week.. disappeared. I was no longer chosen, no longer set apart. I was alone, and terribly, terribly lonely.

Where do you go when God was your life and you’re not allowed into His house anymore?

We’ve all got horror stories. Christians suck. They, we, should be the first to admit it. We should work harder on not.

But before we can change thousands of years of history and a mindset of generations… right now, what to do?

Every ad tells me I’m the ruler of my universe; that everything wants to be personalized to the way I see life. I can choose what to bind, what to loose, what to believe, what is right for me.

And if that’s true, then I should be able to do whatever I choose to, and not feel like I need forgiveness. Ever. My world, my rules, right?

Except. There’s me. Alone and in the quiet. There’s me and all my imperfections and pain.

To make better choices means I have to know more than I do. The choices made as a kid I wouldn’t choose now. That means I know something different now than I did then; imagine what I might know next year, or in the next decade.

This week, I made a choice I never thought I would. And even as something in me resonated wrongness – wrong choice, wrong situation, wrong. for. you. – I stayed in that space, with that choice. Choosing not to choose any differently.

Now I have another imperfection to echo through my lonely silence.

When I was kid, faith meant getting a hamburger if I’d not chicken out on being baptized. Now faith looks a lot like trying to fit together broken puzzle pieces.

And feels like trying to convince an aquaphobic the ocean’s really pretty: just because it is doesn’t mean it’s not still terrifying to consider.

Being the controller or customizer of my universe weighs too heavy on my shoulders. Conversely, God rarely mollifies usurpers.

And so… tomorrow I try again. Taking my broken puzzle and aquaphobic being to a sacred space, I’ll admit to my longing for more than just to rule my universe.