A Birthday Pilgrimage.

Conversation I had today, June 28th, 2009:

Friend A: Why'd you go to North Carolina all of a sudden?
me: I wanted to go to a church I listen to online, but the pastor was leaving for vacation, so it was sort of now or never.
[the conversation got interrupted for a few hours and then somehow it resumed, but beginning with other topics]
me: [...] so then I half-jokingly asked the guy if he'd become a Christian for me knowing he hated religion and-
Friend A: Ok, you know it's really weird to hear you talk about religion.
me: Yeah, I know.
Friend A: Earlier, you said you went down there for a church and I hung up the phone and was wondering, "Who is this girl? Who was I talking to? I don't know this person."

Religion and I so did not get along. Like any other religion-bashing Quebecer, I was openly disdainful of it all while being unknowingly completely ignorant of any of it.

My birthday was last Sunday. At the end of the day, I lay in my tent in a state park just outside Raleigh, North Carolina and with wifi being unexpectedly scarce, I decided just to write out my blog post and copy and paste it later. It's closer in format to the way I write on my regular (private) blog (i.e. just unplanned thoughts written as they occur), but since it's religiony, I'll post it here instead. Here's what I wrote that night:


Today was my birthday. Every year on my birthday, I have a panic attack. I don't know why or how it started, but it's become tradition and as a result, I dread my birthday. Last year, I was in Texas on my birthday and I saw the symphony with the boy I loved. When it was over, I thought that I might actually make it to midnight without a panic attack. As we drove home, a bus stop with an led board displayed the date and time and the second I saw, “Saturday, June 21, 2008” the panic set in terribly. I made him take me home and spent the rest of the evening fetal in the bathroom while he worried on the other side of the door.

In spite of the inevitable panic attack occurring anyway, last year's birthday was pretty memorable. Usually, to break up the monotony of my birthday, concerts end up on my birthday list of things to do. A lot of bands start playing in the early summer and as a result, there's usually somebody to see, especially when my birthday falls on a weekend. But the problem with doing memorable things on a birthday is that the following year, you end up having to top those memories so you don't feel like your life is starting to go downhill somehow. So what to do this year? I'm broke, single, and bored- not a great combination for an awesome birthday.

I decided a few weeks ago that since my birthday fell on a Sunday, I wanted to go to North Carolina to spend it in my favorite church in spite of the money (or lack thereof) issue. Maybe it's meant to be, I thought. But then I started dragging my feet. I thought if I coupled Jean Batiste day (June 24th) with Canada Day (July 1st), it'd give me a Wednesday to Wednesday vacation while only using four vacation days. Nine days for the price of four would make it more worthwhile to drive the fourteen hours since I'd have more time to hang out down in the hot, even if waiting meant I'd miss the sermon on my birthday. Meanwhile, I discovered that Sam Roberts was playing a free show on the 20th and they were making snow for the show too. Snow on my birthday? Good enough, I decided, and my lazy side won out.

Before settling everything, I emailed my favorite pastor's assistant and asked if the pastor would be preaching the next weekend, on the 28th. I was told he wasn't going to be and would be gone for the three subsequent Sundays also. “So what about this weekend?” I asked, somewhat hesitantly, somewhat leaving it up to God to decide for me.

Well, it turned out he would be, so it was now or never.

I chose now.

I told the pastoral assistant I was coming and he told me to email him when I got there to tell him which service I'd be attending so he and his wife could sit with me. I replied that it might not be a good idea because I'd probably do something terrible like fall down or something and cause a scene of "massively dramatic proportions". He tried to convince me that I'd be fine, but it didn't really take. I'd been in a few churches before and I had yet to make it out without a little humiliation and some glares of condescending irritation.

Wednesday afternoon, I got the email about the pastor preaching, and the plan was to leave Friday night. Not only was figuring out the logistics of it all stressful, but I had to find a doggy daycare for my babies that was open on a Sunday and would take two strange dogs without an assessment and without the bordetella vaccine (kennel cough). I don't give it. I think it's a bigger waste of time than the flu shot.

Anyway, I left it up to God. If this is really what God wanted, He would take all the things that are far out of my control and make them work. And He did. Jemma and Boo were accepted at the daycare after my vet faxed over their shot records. I was so relieved, I didn't even bother to ask how much it cost. God did his part and I wasn't about to get petty. (When I went to pick up my dogs later today, they ended up not charging me at all... I insisted on paying and in the end, they charged me half price. I have no idea why they didn't want to charge me anything. I guess my dogs are that awesome...?)

Friday night, I was so disorganized. Upon discovering devastating family-related news that broke my heart, I was trying to get things done, but my repression turned into clumsiness and lack of efficiency. By three in the morning, I was still not packed yet and I had at least two more unfriendly bruises. My patience was wearing so thin. I couldn't do it. I took a break to just breathe, and somehow, by four, I was asleep.

My alarm went off at six and I snoozed it till seven, my anxiety growing as the deadline to get there was fast approaching. I had to get to Raleigh, a fourteen hour drive from Montreal, by nine on Sunday to drop the dogs off at the doggy daycare if all this was going to work.

I finally got on the road at 8AM, which put my ETA at 10PM not including any stops or detours due to getting lost (which I do... often).

“Please, God, give me the strength and the energy to do this,” I prayed over and over.

By hour 14, I was still more than three hundred kilometers away from Raleigh. Virginia kicked my ass. Near the middle of the night Saturday night, I ended up on the wrong highway and it was a narrow highway that wound up and over mountains. It was horrible. I had to keep stopping to let Boo out because he was just too anxious. It took forever.

“Please, God, tell me when I've had too much. Tell me when to stop before I become a danger,” I prayed.

By the time we were an hour out, I had pretty well given up. I passed a hotel and that particular chain has a dog friendly hotel in Raleigh, so I turned around and pulled in and figured I'd just do the last hour of driving in the morning.

“How you doin' tonight?”
“I'm ok.”
“You sure? You don't look ok.”
[well, no, I've been driving forever and had bits of frustrated crying interspersed between bouts of getting hopelessly lost. I probably look as terrible as I feel. I sidestepped the question entirely, knowing if I told the truth, I'd probably cry, and so I asked about the dogs...]

“No ma'am, we only allow service dogs.”

Back into the car.

After getting lost two more times, I finally was on some semblance of the right road. Renewed by disappointment and anger and the desire to sleep somewhere comfortable, my energy jumped back up again, even though I was nearing hour eighteen on the road.

Finally, as I approached Raleigh, I saw a Days Inn. I knew for sure I'd seen them on the dog friendly list. I told my doggies there was a sharp turn coming and pulled in abruptly.

“Do you allow dogs?”
“Yeah. There's a $35 fee though.”
“That's fine.”

It was past 3AM. He could have whipped out any number and it would have been fine.

Of course, I'd regret it later. :D

I got into my sweltering room and tried not to touch anything. The carpets were stained and everything was just kind of icky. I'm a snob. I discovered the extent of my snobbery last night. I removed the excessive bed coverings, laid out my sleeping bag and pillow and the bed was surprisingly comfortable. “I love this pillow,” I thought. “It puts me to sleep so fast.”

The next morning came so quickly. I dragged myself out of bed, straightened my hopelessly curly hair (ridiculously humid here) and headed to the doggy daycare, leaving my pillow behind (I managed to get it back later though.. lol).

The guy at doggy daycare seemed to fall in love with my doggies right away. He was chatty, super friendly, but I was in a hurry to get lost on my way to church. He insisted on printing out directions for me, which ended up being “go straight”. lol

I hit the road with Boo barking so sadly in my wake, and prayed the whole time to make it there before eleven. I had twenty minutes for a drive that google maps said took sixteen minutes.

I got there with ten minutes to spare. And I didn't get lost...

I asked the parking attendant, whom I recognized from twitter, if I had to pay for the pay parking. He said no... Bonus.

I went in, got greeted four times before getting near the sanctuary, and then I asked a fifth greeter to point out the pastoral assistant for me. While I recognized the guy outside when he was alone, I have a complete inability to find anybody in a crowd (even people I have known since I was little). She pointed him out, and I went to say hi, somehow expecting him to know what I looked like simply because I knew what he looked like. :D I introduced myself and he introduced his wife and we sat down... So far so good.

The band played and five people raised one or both hands at varying times during the different songs both at the beginning of the service and when the band played again at the end. The pastoral assistant beside me did a few times, and four others closer to the front row. When the first guy put his hand up, the deep agnostic roots in me mixed with my judgmental personality (yes, I'm terribly judgmental. I know and I'm trying to work on it...) and instantly associated the gesture to a cult-like mentality. I couldn't help it. My first reaction was that he was brainwashed. But then this guy on the edge of the second row a few rows directly in front of me did it and he had a red and silver watch on. Something in my head changed when I saw that red watch.

Brainwashed people don't wear red watches. Brainwashed people aren't different. They don't stand out. They blend. They don't have a personality. When this guy raised up his red watch, suddenly, he was normal. Suddenly, he became a regular person with a profound love of God and a complete lack of inhibitions in expressing it. Every time I looked at that red watch, my eyes would well up. I'd immediately look at either the floor or the nearly empty cup of water in my hands (which I'd already spilled most of all over myself and the floor beside me- hey, it was better than falling down at least... and nobody glared!). “Think of something else... Think of something else...” I thought as I tried to subliminally suck the tear juices back in before anybody noticed. I'd think I had it all under control, lift my eyes up and there it was again- the red watch.

I'm not openly Christian. I still hide it for the most part. I know how it seems to the agnostics and atheists around me. I know. I was one of them. And being on the other side of that argument is easily among the scariest things I've ever had to do. Part of me, I discovered today is agnostic still- not in beliefs but in the judgment of Christians. Even after reading the Bible for a while, loving studying it and loving the sermons, I still judge Christians for being Christians. By the end of the service, however, I realized why. On top of feeling the typical sort of shame for being associated with a crowd with so much historical baggage, there was also an underlying jealousy thing.

To feel God and to feel the love of God so passionately and so freely.... I just don't see myself getting to that point. Being in a room with people who were so expressive and open about their worship of God moved me, literally, to tears. So much so, that after I picked up the doggies and we drove around for a while, I ended up back there, just in time for the six o'clock service. It was hot, and I really didn't want to leave the dogs in the car, but God made it so I got the spot right in front of the door and there was a greeter out front who promised to keep an eye on them for me and tell me if they were suffering too much. I just wanted to see the beginning worship bits again. I wanted to well up secretly again, feel the intensity of it and try to figure it out a little better. I wanted to know what it was that I was feeling that made me well up so easily and uncontrollably.

And I did well up again. Over and over and over until I just couldn't look up at all anymore. There was only one guy in this service who lifted his hand up, but after a while, I couldn't even look over to his general direction without welling up entirely. God set me free when a pastor got up to say the lead pastor had left early to catch a plane and they'd just be showing the video of the service I had been to earlier. I fled out the side doors where the greeter who was watching my dogs told me they were fine outside. Sure enough, in spite of the heat, the car was still a little cool from all the driving around with the a/c on. I gave them water, and we drove away, my eyes still welled up. I couldn't believe I was driving away from this church for the last time. It was unbearably heartbreaking.

/end of what I wrote on my birthday.

So how did I spend my birthday this year? I spent it getting brutalized-- first by the drive, and then spiritually. When I left the church, my soul felt beat up in the most amazing and beautiful way. I thought maybe I'd gotten overly emotional because of the fatigue from driving so long and getting so little sleep. But even today, exactly a week later, after rereading that bit, I still feel the same way. I'd been hiding my Christianity for so long that it just became all I could do, and all of a sudden, I was thrown into a crowd of people expressing their Christianity so loudly and so humbly all at the same time. It really was overwhelming, regardless of my emotional state at the time.

The remainder of my trip took me to the ocean and then over to the mountains, where I made a fellow blogger in Boone's home my base for a few days. On my last day there, I got brave and ventured into the Christian store on the edge of town. It was huge and I'd passed it on the way to a hike the day before. I walked in and was overwhelmed, unbelievably shy and totally out of my element. I'd thought about getting a Jesus fish for my car, but up here, aside from ebay, I have no idea where a person acquires one of those, and I thought this store would be my only chance.

I found the rack of car thingies, one of which was a Darwin fish getting eaten by a "truth" fish, which made me want to run out of that store as fast as I could, but I stayed strong, trying to find a small Jesus fish... I actually found a discreet sun visor one that I liked, but the usual big silver fish that people stick to their car trunk was staring me down. "It's now or never," I thought, remembering the ebay thing.

So I got both.

Honestly, as I approached the cash, it somehow felt worse than buying condoms. Far more humiliating. The lady at the cash (ironically) asked me if I was part of their loyalty program. I told her I was from Canada and she replied, "Really? What made you stop in here?" I answered that we don't have Christian stores back home and she said, "Well, it's awesome that you dropped in. Thanks for stopping by."

I don't remember them ever saying that for condoms...

Anyway, I walked a little less shyly back to my car and immediately opened up the sun visor fish and stuck it up on my sun visor. "Yey!"

And then I looked over at the silver car fish that seemed to get bigger and bigger every time I looked at it.

"Maybe later."

As I went to back up, a really hot guy walked into the store all confidently. Maybe being Christian isn't some sort of disease, I thought.

Maybe.

But I still wasn't brave enough for the big fish.

I packed up the car, said a long gbye to my gracious hosts (they were so awesome) and started the long eighteen hour drive home while listening to Matt Chandler's series on Luke.

I was on #14, "Blessings and woes", where he was talking about how when liberalism hit, the Christians in the states withdrew out of the schools, the city and basically out of mainstream society and built their own institutions, and as a result, there was a sort of subculture or side culture of passionate fundamentalists who would be responsible for basically keeping religion alive, even if only barely in some areas. Somewhere between minutes thirty and thirty-two of the sermon, he says, "If it was not for them (the fundamentalists), you would not be here. If it was not for that retreat, then we would be France, England, Canada- we'd be those other parts of the world where the church is dead."

Dead?

I must have listened to that part three times just to make sure I'd gotten it right.

Dead is a strong word. I mean, sure, if you look around here or talk to anybody, you'll find out pretty quickly that the church is dead, but to hear it from a very influential pastor preaching to a few thousand people in Dallas, Texas pokes at a girl's heart a little bit.

I looked over at that silver car fish and suddenly, it seemed a little smaller and a little more important.

I won't lie- I haven't stuck it on yet. But I'm getting there. Even if I have a long way to go, I'm a lot closer than I was before this trip.

After all the soul beatings you might have read about in this blog so far, spending a little less than a week in North Carolina- the people I met, the amazing scenery and just the experience in general- was the healing kind of soul beating. :D

By far, the most memorable and important birthday so far.

Next year, I'm so screwed.

But I mean, really, how can God not be here?