The Domino Effect

I used to not be a very good person. Not a horrible person, but not a very good one. If you had asked me in that chapter of my life though whether I was a good person, I would have adamantly insisted that I was. Mainly because my definition of good was completely different than what it is today. To me, being a good person simply meant not blatantly hurting anyone, following the rules, and not breaking any laws. Sure, there were the occasional times that I did something nice for someone else, but they were way too few and far between. Usually, the only person I was doing nice things for was myself. Ironically, the most good I did during that chapter was not for humans at all, but for animals, volunteering at a pet shelter with lots of cat and dog orphans.

But my life back then was in the pursuit of pleasure. Hedonism at its finest. And hedonism always seems to lend itself to narcissism, doesn't it? I was that, too. I took it upon myself to set up all the social plans for my group of friends who were also self-absorbed pleasure seekers by nature. I surrounded myself with these people for 14 years, never seeing many of them for the emotional vampires that they were. They took and took, they reached out when it served their means, they gossiped about each other, and I eagerly followed suit, proving to be just as two-faced as they were. I was not a good person.

It took a nasty divorce to realize that many of those people were not and never had been my friends. Since my ex-husband and I were at the center of this colossal social circle, our friends saw our divorce as the equivalent of breaking up the band. Many of them were quick to toss me out like so much trash and join him in his hatred of me.  And as gutted as I was to learn how few friends I actually had, I was also deeply humbled and grateful for those others who refused to pick sides and instead affirmed that they would always love me. That was my darkest chapter and they stuck with me through it, without judgment, without condemnation, and with unconditional love. I am friends with them still and I will always be thankful for their kindness then. My family held me up as well, and ironically, they were strangely relieved to learn of my divorce. They saw through my marital charade long before I did, recognizing that I was a bird in a gilded cage, not a free, happy, or respected woman.

But through all of that drama, through the highs and lows of gaining independence, and the small victory of moving into my tiny one bedroom apartment which was far from the most glamorous place I had ever lived but definitely the most exciting, because it was mine and mine alone, there was one thing missing. The most important thing. My relationship with God.

Sure, I believed in God to some vague extent and was one of those people who only bothered to pray to him when the sky was falling, when I needed something from him. Looking back, my one-sided relationship with him was not so different from the one I had experienced with my now ex-friends. But my relationship with him was always based on my terms and my timing, and I deluded myself with the idea that I was still in control of every part of my life.

Having grown up in a house whose only form of Christian practice was the hour we spent at church every Sunday (and with only one parent, as the other one was an atheist), I had never really practiced Christianity. We had never prayed outside of church or discussed it unless it was in jest. I don't recall us doing volunteer work or helping others. We were our own little self-sustaining island of four, and that was fine with us. When we did do good for others, I don't remember us focusing on whose message we were really living out, or who the real root of all the goodness was. So I fell farther away from any slight influence from Christianity, and gravitated towards the comforts of science, launching into an atheist's mentality and deciding as a teenager that we all switch off like lights at the end, and that's just fine. And then one of the greatest human beings I had ever known, my grandfather, had died when I was 16, and I was forced to look upon his lifeless body - against my will - during the open casket viewing, and I caught but the slightest glimpse of his head and face before fainting in response. It was all too much and too terrible. I remember my godfather's fury at my family for forcing me to look at such a thing, and I now understand why he felt that way. That experience drove me farther into atheism, farther into that ice cold sense of hopelessness.

There had been undeniable correspondences from God that should have acted as the catalysts for launching me straight into Christianity, real Christianity. Like that same grandfather visiting me in a dream after six straight months of nightmares, and telling me point blank that there was a heaven and he was in it, and a God who ran it. Like my heartbeat and breathing stopping for two minutes after an allergic reaction when I was 18, and me having an out of body experience that showed me the slightest glimpse of the afterlife, a peaceful and euphoric place. (But that's another post for another time, once I work up the courage to write about it.) Yes, these were less than subtle communications from God that should have launched me straight into Christianity, if I had bothered to actually listen. But instead, they only nudged me from being an atheist into being at least an agnostic. A step in the right direction for sure, but still a thousand steps away from where I needed to be.

No, the real change happened when I met my now husband (who I have so affectionately referred to in prior blog posts as "Tex") and we started to go to random church services. We church-surfed for a few years and the need to find the right church became more urgent once I was pregnant and we realized we wanted to raise our baby Christian, even though I still didn't know exactly what that meant yet.  And then one Sunday morning, we stumbled upon a new church where the music was terrific, the sermon was mind-bending, and the congregation greeted us, two total strangers, as if we were long lost friends who they had been waiting for years to see. We were enchanted. And so we found ourselves returning Sunday after Sunday. And then I started to experience what I think of now as the domino effect. The more sermons we attended, the more sermons we wanted to hear. I had developed a thirst for the epiphanies that came from these sermons, and I couldn't wait to see which of my mental horizons would be broadened each week. And with the repeated visits to this church came the growing friendships we developed with this congregation who we now refer to as our "church family". When our son was born, our pastor made a point to meet him right away, and to check on us in the hospital. And after we got out of the hospital, our church family was leaving meals on our doorstep as we adjusted to being new parents. I started reading more and more about Jesus and what he was really all about, until I had a breakthrough amidst Lee Strobel's "The Case For Christ", during which my mind was changed, and I accepted that Jesus is divine. So I had multiple influences, between our pastor, our church family, what I was reading, and the steady and quiet guidance of my husband. Our music director invited me to play cello for the church, and to sing with the choir. Our nursery director worked tirelessly with us to ensure that our little boy was in the best possible care during Sunday school. Our elders recruited Tex to help with ushering, giving readings, and delivering meals to poverty stricken children. We took workshops, we went on mini-retreats, we celebrated holidays; we did so much with our church family all in the name of Christ, and the power of good just got stronger and stronger. 

And the domino effect continued, as I realized that after I was changed by my influencers, I unknowingly became one, myself. I sent my dad the Strobel book and after a lifetime of atheism, he started to believe, and to open his mind to it. Now he is a follower of Christ. Suddenly, my brother was attending church regularly and when I asked him what inspired him, he said it was seeing the change in me. My mom and stepdad started attending church regularly, too. I don't mean to sound like I'm crediting myself for any of this. It was all God's doing, of course, and I was merely His instrument. But what an honor to get that opportunity. And as our associate pastor said in today's sermon, keeping an eye out for those opportunities is what it's all about. Now we have several new friends who have been through tremendous tragedies of their own, people who we want to help through this painful time, who have reached out after we kept the lines of communication open, and asked if they could come to church with us sometime. I have a friend who used to take great offense to the expression "I'll pray for you", but in time, started asking for prayers when times got tough. So there are all of these little - but not so little - amazing moments where we have chances to spread the word, to help our fellow mankind, to do true good, and to remember who is at the center of it. I love watching God's domino effect as he uses us to reach others. Powerful, powerful stuff.

Matthew 9:35-10:1 (NIV)

35| Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. 36| When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. 37| Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.        38| Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”

The hills are alive, with the sound of paaaaniiiiiiic

So I'm a compulsive planner, to say the least.  Especially during the summer.  And especially here in Colorado.  Because in Colorado, there's really no such thing as spring.  It goes from winter into some sunnier months that one would normally refer to as spring, but with the "holy shit, what is this?" snowfalls as late as Mother's Day, and often later.  And then - BLAM! - summer is here and QUICK, YOU HAVE TO PACK ALL OF YOUR FUN HOT WEATHER ACTIVITIES INTO THESE THREE SHORT MONTHS BECAUSE THE SNOW WILL BE HERE BEFORE YOU KNOW IT AND THE POOLS ARE ONLY OPEN DURING THIS TINY SLIVER OF TIME AND AAAAAGGGGGH, EVERYONE FREAK OUT!  So our summers tend to be insanely busy and insanely pre-planned.  One of the things we love more than anything is to go camping, and we had been in the habit of going to the same spot every year, right in the heart of Rocky Mountain National Park.  And for me, it's never just been "let's go camping here".  No, no.  It's "let's find the best camping spot here, and stake our claim".  So year one was doing online recon and trying to find the best looking site from the pictures.  Then we arrived and saw in person where some better sites were, and years two and three were spent at those better sites.  Then year three was bending the ear of the park ranger and learning about the secretly best spot in the whole park.  And so we planned for that spot this year, on year four.  And true to form, I found out the exact earliest date that we could make reservations, and I made our reservations on it, exactly six months in advance.  Planning.  So for six months, we've been doing all of these other great things, and in my heart, I was positively giddy over our upcoming camping trip.  Reservations, check.  Packing, check.  Secured house sitter, check.  Working like a crazy person to get to a good stopping point so I could actually enjoy my vacation, check.  Everything was all set.  And then the night before our trip as we were driving to Subway, Tex turns to me and says, "Did you see the weather forecast?  It's supposed to storm there all weekend."  I almost crashed the car.  Then I started pummeling him with questions on just how accurate this information was, and can he name his sources?  Then I went into denial and thought, "We're still going.  Canceling is not an option.  We'll go and we'll have fun, no matter what the weather's doing!"

"This game is fun.  Fun, dammit."
     -- Crash Davis, Bull Durham

And my mind was racing with our options, going into that panicky, neurotic, anxiety-ridden overdrive mode, and as I was babbling incoherently to Tex and checking off pros and cons list in my head, I looked up and saw a splendidly perfect rainbow adorning the Subway parking lot.  I could see the whole thing from start to finish.  It was breathtaking.  And something in the back of my lizard brain felt like maybe that was God saying, "Everything will be fine.  Just chill."  Except in my brain, it played more like the scene in The Big Lebowski, except I'm The Dude and God is Walter.

"Nothing is f***ed here.  You're being very un-Dude."
     -- Walter Sobchak, The Big Lebowski

So Tex and I went into action mode and formulated a plan.  I would spend the night researching the weather all over the entire state of Colorado, then pack the car, and we would head out first thing in the morning in hopes to find a walk-up spot somewhere not stormy.  After an exhaustive search, I found exactly one spot within a 4 hour drive that predicted virtually no storms: Steamboat Springs.  So we headed there and called the National Parks people on the way to find out about availabilities.  They kept telling us to call back in an hour, and inevitably, when it was an hour later, we'd be on a patch of road with absolutely no cellphone service.  Eventually, we reached them and got some pointers.  Went to destination #1 with hope in our hearts, and they turned us away.  They only accepted campers intending to stay one night only.  Obviously not us, considering our car looked like a clown car, it was so packed.  My heart jumped into my throat as my stomach cramped into one big ball of nerves, and I fought the waves of anxiety as we drove to destination #2.  Being the ever faithful pessimist, I prepared myself for the reality that there would be no available sites, and we'd have to turn our butts around after 3 hours in the car and drive 3 hours back to our house, in defeat.  But apparently The Big Man Upstairs had different plans for us, since not only did destination #2 have available sites, but it was breathtakingly hit-yourself-in-the-head-wondering-if-this-is-real beautiful.  We literally got out of the car and surveyed our site, a perfect little camping spot nestled in a sea of wildflowers and backing up to an expansive and lush green meadow.  We weren't in Colorado.  We were clearly in Switzerland and this was clearly the set of The Sound of Music, since Wee Man started running through the meadow chasing butterflies in the sunshine.  I would not have been surprised if he'd burst into song.  Lord knows I was ready to.

If I were to try to share the details of that four day camping trip, this post would be 10 pages long, so I'll just leave it at this: it was amazing.  And the wildflowers.  Ohhhhhh, the wildflowers!  They were everywhere.  They were on our hike to the tops of the peaks, they were on our hike around the lake, they were everywhere.  That trip included some of the most dazzling beauty I've ever witnessed, and it simply took my breath away.  The weather held out beautifully, with only a small bit of rain on our last day, and before we knew it, it was time to drive home.  In classic Colorado fashion (worst drivers ever), all three routes home were covered in accidents.  So we ended up adventuring and taking a crazy route home that involved a very steep pass and at least 30 miles of back mountain roads with hairpin turns.  But it gave us a bunch more ideas on camping spots, and when we finally neared our house, I looked to the right and what did I see?  A rainbow.  Okay, God.  I get it.

"It's not a subtle point you're making."
     -- Simon Bishop, As Good As It Gets

In case I had any doubts that he'd told me four days before, "Hey, spaz.  Chill out.  Everything will be fine", he bookended our trip with a finale rainbow to drive the point home.  If I had a dime for every time God said "Told you so, told you so", I'd be filthy stinking rich.