The Highway.com

Six years ago Thanksgiving evening it all began. Clinton was president, his sexual impropriety beginning to take a center stage, yet the economy was strong, the fiscal budget in the black. The biggest fear of the day, Y2K, was just starting to take shape, half humor half dread filling the airwaves as a world awaited the transition into the new millennium. My wife had invited a lifelong friend to celebrate a feast, her last before leaving to evangelize overseas, a "covert mission for Christ." Fundamentalist, nondenominational, "Born Again" evangelism had invaded our home, violated our family, and shocked our senses along with our crude understanding of the current religious big picture. Left speechless, flabbergasted in the wake of a tradition gone horribly awry, it marked the beginning of a journey that would change our lives forever.

Has it really been six years?

Full Circle

(December 3, 2005)

A lot has changed since then. Y2K ushered in the new millennium "not with a bang but a whimper."(T.S. Eliot) Bush became president as a nation shifted politically to the right. Our nation came together in mourning and vengeance as two towers fell, only to slowly polarize as an "army of liberation" became an occupation with no real end in sight. Abortion, gay rights, and a clause in the First Amendment joined the new Vietnam on center stage as non denominationalism, fertilized by a population of Neo-Cons, fully blossomed and seized control. Jesus’ robe was now red white and blue, and Bush was his second coming. Those that made and carried the traditions of Christianity were now the lukewarm cultists, and the "Christian Quiz"marked a new litmus test of belief. Our missionary friend left then returned, her evangelist success story passing much like the millennium. The friendship died much the same, the damage done with no need for fireworks to rehash bitter nagging memories. I parted ways with the Christian contractor I worked for, along with the coworker who tried to save my soul. A book became published then lay virtually unread; a web site was born with much the same fate. My wife and I had opened a spiritual door which could no longer remain closed. We read, studied, discussed our individual faiths. We discovered a new level of closeness as we realized at the core we were much the same. We took a stand to defend our lives, home, and relationship with the divine . . . became big fish in a very little cyber pond. My wife transformed into a follower of the Christ, and I finally accepted, embraced a title that as a child would have signified a fate worse than death.

We also bought a new home.

The house we now live in, the first home we actually owned, has always been good to us. We bought it five years ago after renting it for two, a modest raised ranch in a quiet suburban neighborhood. It saw my transition from laborer to carpenter, from working with bungalow bricklayers, through my stint with the Christian contractor, into my growing reputation as a concrete man worth keeping. It saw my wife establish herself, a well rounded casino dealer passing her tenth year of employment. It watched my oldest daughter graduate highschool and marry, witnessed my son grow into a young man, and helped nurture my youngest daughter from a child to an outspoken, well grounded, self-assured teen. It mourned the death of our smooth fox terrier, more family than pet, and welcomed a gawky Irish wolfhound puppy that would become as big in size as a fixture in our hearts. Not necessarily a dream house, it was always a harmonious home, and we saw it as the place that would hold us until the day we would die . . . or so we thought.

"We’re buying a new house." I smiled, resigned to fate, my wife’s golden flecked brown eyes, and Cheshire cat grin.

We had been helping our daughter and her new husband secure their first home, a townhouse sold by a well established, reputable builder in our area, when my wife first saw the floor plans mounted proudly on the wall of the main office beneath an elegant artist’s rendition. For years she had looked for the perfect home, her "Barbie dream house," but we never found the right mix of design, timing and personal finances to make it come true. As she tried to picture the image before her, she felt drawn, new construction on ground less than three miles from our current home.

"You can always look at the models," the salesperson suggested, but my wife just politely smiled when she learned they were more than twenty-five miles away. We weren’t really looking. We had just refinanced our home, put on new roofing and siding, completely remodeled our kitchen. We had decided this was the place we would stay and it was time to fully bring it up to date. She left the office and consigned the image to the back of her mind.

A couple of weeks later we celebrated the Fourth of July with the daughter of her best friend, who lived in northern Wisconsin. The week before I picked her up on my way home from visiting my parents, and the arrangement had been made to meet half way for her return. It also offered my wife an excuse to catch up with her friend. They left early in the morning and met for breakfast, a restaurant along the highway surrounded by dairy farms and wooded hills. They ate, reminisced, laughed, and parted tearfully wishing they could have more time, promising to keep in touch more. Still excited from a long overdue visit, on the drive home, a billboard caught her eye.

"Models Now Open."

"What the hell," she thought, the image from two weeks before above the words sparking curiosity. She detoured at the next exit, and twenty minutes later felt her dream take form. After she came home, she told me we would have to make a special trip.

When we arrived at the models, I saw the placard with the name of the house she had told me about during her visit to the sales office, but her eyes directed me next door . . . a two-story executive manor home, the type of house that was always on the other side of the tracks of the working man. As I entered the home my jaw dropped as her eyes glistened. It was the most beautiful mix of hominess and elegance I had ever seen, a two-story front foyer, flanked by a modest living room and formal dining area, an inviting kitchen/breakfast nook, and a massive great room whose ceiling rose to the top of the second floor. Upstairs was no less impressive with three modest bedrooms and a loft balancing a master suite which rivaled the penthouse of a five star hotel. It was the house of her dreams, a place I never thought I could have, a home we could afford.

A week later we signed on the dotted line.

Every day thereafter we drove by the site of our new home in anxious anticipation, two kids by the Christmas tree itching to finally open that one special gift we always wanted. Ground was broken. A foundation was laid, followed by decks and a shell, each step seeing my wife transform into a giddy teenager who had just gotten asked to the prom by the man of her dreams, a wife who had just said "I do." I felt like the proud parent watching my child grow, anxious to see everything turn out right, perfect, able to stand proudly all on its own. Normally unaccustomed to seeing their work so greatly appreciated, from the project superintendent to all of many trades involved, we felt as if they were cheering us along, their chests swelling with pride and that little bit of extra effort to see everything come together. They really have been doing an excellent job, and it has been a wonderful experience. (It is also kind of neat to be on the other side of construction, which I think helps all of this along.) The big picture of religion, spirituality, and politics faded into the background as the little picture of an address change seized control.

Our nightly visits to the Christian chat rooms dwindled as the house came closer to the pre drywall inspection, and discussions of finances, moving, and decorating dominated what was once an evening of religious posturing and debate. We had already gotten the answers we were looking for from the Thanksgiving evening long ago. We no longer worried about the spiritual safety of our home. We had become literate and well versed in the Bible, the history and theology of western Christianity as a whole, and could easily withstand anything the fundamentalist could muster to convince us we needed them to come to God. Many of them in our small corner of cyber space had given up long ago, feeble attempts at convincing us of their spiritual superiority consigned to the occasional "newbie" who quickly realized the score. What used to be nightly debate over scripture transformed into small talk as an ever dwindling minority probed for the chink in our "armor" . . . worse yet, a highschool cafeteria full of cliques consistently sizing each other up. We had needed to get out of there anyway, our visits more out of habit than friendship, boredom than challenge, and now we had the perfect excuse. We were building a new home, starting a new chapter in our life, somewhere where we could take what we had learned, grow, and most importantly move on.

Nondenominational evangelism, however, had the cable guy and another plan in mind.

A week before Thanksgiving, the sky already darkening before 5:00pm, the pre drywall walk through had been scheduled for the following afternoon, an appointment I knew I would have to miss. Working late at a new job, I could not afford to ask for the time off, and my wife would have to go it alone. As I drove from the job to the home site, I knew I had to walk through our "baby" once more.

"Everything looks ready," my wife’s voice crackled on my cell phone as the signal shifted towers, "except for the half wall in the family room. It seems a little loose, and there is a draft coming from the kitchen window."

"I’ll take a look . . ."

"I can see a little light coming from a spot in the corner of the window. Other than that, everything looks good to go."

There was a brief pause as I noticed the Sun fading slowly to the southwest. It would be a race against traffic to get there in time, but if everything went well, I would have just enough time to walk through before I lost precious light.

"Oh," my wife warned, "the cable installer is here. He has to be somewhere at 6:30. Now don’t get in his way!"

"Don’t worry," I replied, "I won’t." We said our goodbyes and I flipped the lid shut.

I arrived just as the Sun was touching the top of the trees, the job site empty except for a lone box van parked in our yard, a small generator humming near our front door. I knew I would barely have enough time . . . ten, maybe fifteen minutes to check everything out . . . but I had done inspection punch lists before, knew what to look for, could get it done in five. I grabbed my flashlight, just in case and entered through the garage.

As I walked the downstairs, I could hear the pulling of lines, but I did not let it distract me as my light aimed at all of the potential problem areas, my eyes probing, insuring a job well done. I rounded the kitchen, confirmed my wife’s two main concerns, and headed up the stairs.

"Oh, your back." I heard a voice from the doorway of the master bedroom as I reached the top of the stairs. Still wearing my work clothes, he had thought I was the laborer who had been cleaning up the debris, was surprised to find out I was the new owner. Friendly and talkative, he had decided to share in our excitement of a dream come true while completing his work, me completing my walk. It seemed innocent enough, typical of any encounter I had before with the tradesmen, and I was ever mindful of both our deadlines, careful not to become a distraction, not wanting to be distracted.

"Do you go to church?" The question caught me off guard, but I quickly recovered. A wire in my defenses had been tripped, and my mind automatically assessed the potential threat, considered the most tactically sound response. I really did not want this. It was getting dark. I was tired and cold, wanted to go home.

"Yeah." I lied!

What was I thinking?

Had the question been innocent part of conversation, my answer probably would have marked a shift to a new topic, but I was always taught that two things, religion and politics, are never elements of small talk. Deep down I knew I had come face to face with an evangelist, and I had unwittingly found myself taking a pop Christian quiz.

"What church?"

I mentioned the last church I ever attended.

"Oh," his voice told me I gave the wrong answer, "one of those . . ."

Another wire in my defenses tripped. I knew I was passing the point of no return. I would either have to fight or run. In most situations, I found distance to be a great weapon against the evangelist. A polite "love to chat but I gotta go" typically would invite half-hearted persistence, but eventually the evangelist would realize he had lost the sale and would move on. After all, there are a lot of lost souls (somehow in his mind nobody else has ever even heard of Jesus before), and he is on a mission to fill his quota. I could have easily walked out the door, gotten into my car, and driven home . . . end of discussion.

But I was home!

A Fundy actually got inside my home!

I hesitated.

"Are you in?" He fired question number two.

I crossed my personal fail safe, as I silently prepared my defense.

"Are you in?" He repeated impatiently.

"Ephesians 2:8-10, should answer your question," I shot back, "for by grace you have been saved through faith; and not of yourselves, the gift of God; not from works, so no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created for good works"

The words flowed off my lips like a knife through butter.

"But are you IN?" He would not be dissuaded. His programming, so typical of the would-be nondenominational evangelist would not compute anything but a "yes" or "no." It did not matter that I showed I could quote one of the central tenets of his "relationship with Jesus" or that I used it to explain how grossly inappropriate I found his question to be. He demanded I boast of my salvation! He expected me to recite the Sinner’s Prayer, accept Jesus into my heart as my personal LORD and SAVIOR, and ultimately go to his church (the only truly Christian place to go.) For salvation being by grace and grace alone, the guy expected a lot of works and bragging.

"I trust God to do with me as He sees fit," I concluded, "and would rather concentrate on doing what I am supposed to do here and now."

"BUT ARE YOU IN!"

I knew it was going to be a long night.

For nearly an hour he tried every tactic he was taught to sell me Jesus, and each attempt left him stymied, staring blankly at me wondering what just happened. I knew each and every pitch he would use, from the passive/aggressive "you must be better than me," through "you can’t use the Word as a salad bar," past "aren’t you afraid of hellfire," finally resting on "why the bother with any of it if the WORD is really a lie."

"It is called faith!" My final answer. He shook my hand, said his goodbyes, and returned to work as I seized the opportunity for a hasty, much desired exit. An attempt to invite, convince, and eventually coerce me into conversion, had left the cable guy defending his religion against a heretic who argued from faith. I knew at the beginning it would end in a stalemate. He would not convince me, his arguments not his own; I could not stop him from trying, his belief system far too ingrained into his personality. Our "Barbie Dream House" had been invaded, a baptism in fire.

Nobody won that night.

Nobody ever does.

As I drove from new to old home, I realized a chapter in my life was about to come to a close. Six years had brought me from an invasion of my home onto a highway in search of faith to a new home, a fresh perspective, and something I no longer needed to defend. I am who I am. I believe what I believe. I decide, and nothing anyone can say will force me to follow what I know in my heart is wrong. I know there will always be those who will challenge me because I do not fit into well defined precast mold, but I am finally past the point of caring. I’m not doing any of it for them, only for the person who stares back at me in the mirror, and the One my heart mind and soul seeks to serve. The last vestige of power they held over me vanished with the cable guy’s goodbye, and I now realize a highway has finally brought me home.

I have come a full circle.

It is time I close the book, put away childish things, and live.