So I finished reading Blue Like Jazz last week. I realized when I wrote it that I was naive to expect Answers from a mere book, but I think maybe I was so desperate that I found some anyway. And I’m not sure that the answers I got were in the writing as much as in the realizations I saw in myself.

First thing I realize: I don’t know God. I keep trying to leave Him and I can’t. There is something in my heart that is connected to him and there is no denying that no matter how much I try. So I know that he is real, but WHO is he?

There was a time in my judgemental youth that I was sure I knew God. I knew that he wanted me to be radical for him and tell other people that they were wrong for not living (the way I thought they should) for him. That they were wrong for cussing and partying and smoking and sleeping around. I was pious and judgmental and had every appearance of being Very Good. Out of everything I’ve done wrong thus far, that is the one time in my life I regret the most.

I cannot say how much.

I think it was some time around November that I realized that I don’t know God. I was expecting him to do something for me. Actually not for me, but for someone I love. I was certain that he was going to come through, certain that I saw the way he wanted things. I was wrong. Or human mistakes messed up what God wanted, but things did not turn out the way I expected. And after 20 years of being a “Christian”, I found myself further away from knowing him than ever. And it wasn’t that he wasn’t there, it was that I deluded myself into thinking that all the “good” and “righteous” things I’ve done in my life were a replacement for knowing who he is.

Although it was then that I realized that I don’t know God, it wasn’t until reading this book that I realized that knowing God is what I’m missing, what I need. The author points to something real in his own life, something undeniable and very raw. Something that as a “Christian,” I’ve never truly experienced in my life.

I realized that if there was something there between me and God other than me expecting things out of him and being hurt when they don’t happen, I would not be so hurt by the bad experiences I’ve had with “his people.” I would not have looked to my pastors and my time at church to fill what I am missing from not knowing him. Of course knowing that does not negate the fact that I’ve gone through some crap regarding church, but it points out to me why it hurt so much.

How do I know God? Well, I’m not so sure about that part yet, but it doesn’t scare me like I thought it would. I think, if I stop looking at him as a slot machine, that would be a good start.

Second: I realize that I really do want to go to church. (Don’t fall out of your chair.) It may not be church as we know it, but I know I’m desperately lacking a community. I wrote awhile back about being lonely, but this book pointed out to me how detrimental being lonely is. Wow, do I see it in my life. I’ve spent the last 5 years being stuck in my house with two small children. Two small children that I love, but two small children that I have not had enough patience to train to behave the way I expect them to in public. I’ve been a prisoner in my own life.

That is going to change immediately.

Knowing that the kind of church I want exists in Portland, gives me hope in that it does exist somewhere. I’m not so sure I’m going to find it here, but I know now that I need to keep looking. I know that I want to belong to a community of like minded, beer drinking, swearing, cigar smoking followers of the Jesus whose first miracle was to make more booze for a party. Actually… scratch that, I want to be around people who are themselves, not people who are trying to fit into a cookie cutter mold of what a Christian should be (or what I wish a Christian would be). If they drink beer great, if they don’t great, just as long as they’re not viewing themselves as superior for abstaining. I want to give all I can give, and receive all I can receive. I’ve never been a part of something truly healthy.

So, overall, was I disappointed? Not at all. I think I was inspired. I needed to see someone who views God differently than I’ve been raised to view him. I needed to be reminded that he is more than what I can get out of him. I needed to be encouraged that things in the religious world CAN change and that we are not so far gone that we can’t love people without a hidden agenda. That being a “Christian” doesn’t have to be about politics, hating gay people and being Very Good. There is hope. There is hope for me and there is hope for church. And having that hope is a very good thing.