So why did you become Orthodox?--Part III: Inquiry, conversion, journey

In July of 2005, I attended my first Orthodox service, a Great Vespers at St. Mary Antiochian Orthodox Church. I remember that the building was primarily empty. I saw a woman chanter (later my friend, Holly Walsh) at the stand in front of the pews, but what I mainly remember was the icon screen in front of the Church. I had no idea what this was or why it was there. I just remember that this style of church architecture was nothing I had ever seen before. I was full of questions and of wonder. Later on, a person in a black robe introduced himself as Aaron Warwick. He also was a chanter. He invited me to stay afterwards and meet the priest and I said I would.

I had no idea what I was in for. I just remember the beauty of it all, the chanting, the prayers, the incense. I was particularly stricken by how much of the hymnography revolved around the psalter. You hear selections from the first kathisma of the psalter (Psalms 1-8), then the complete recitation of psalms 140, 141, 129 and 116 with hymns dedicated to the crucifixion/resurrection of Christ as well as hymns to the saint. It was constant prayer, no breaks. There was something very ancient about this mode of prayer. Of course, I was following as well as I could with the service book but not knowing what quite to expect. From my western liturgical upbringing, which, unfortunately, rarely, if ever, included the celebration of Vespers I was struggling to find things I recognized. The only thing I found was the canticle of Saint Symeon, which we in the West call the "Nunc Dimittis," "Lord now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace." The rest of it was completely new. I also was not used to having no organ play. Everything was chanted in a plainsong which I later learned was called Byzantine.

The service concluded. It was less than an hour and Aaron introduced me to Fr. Don Hock. I had a host of questions, but I remember that one of the first I asked regarded whether the Orthodox were in communion with Rome. At the time, I seemed to think that communion was Rome and fidelity to the pope was absolutely necessary. Fr. Don answered negatively, but that was not a deal breaker. For the first time, in a long time, if ever, I found a worshipping community, a church inundated with a long and living tradition of prayer, free from innovation and the emotionalism that has come to dominate western expressions of Christianity. Such was my first experience with Eastern Orthodoxy. It was not to be my last. But my days with the Lutheran Church were drawing to an abrupt halt.

Aaron made it a point to keep in touch with me and I appreciated it. He invited me to more of the services especially as the Feast of the Transfiguration was approaching. I thanked him but replied I was going to my cousin's wedding in Minnesota. I did ask what I could be reading to further my inquries and he recommended to me two books both by the same author "The Orthodox Church" and "The Orthodox Way" both by Timoty Ware, himself a convert to Orthodoxy, who later became Bishop KALLISTOS in England. I took these two books with me on my trip to Minnesota adn the more I read, the more I knew I could no longer be Lutheran. I was struck by not only the historicity of the Church, which I considered an important criterion for the true church, but also by its mysticism and its central focus on prayer. I found it striking that, unlike the Catholic Church and other western expressions of
Christianity, there was no need to dogmatize everything. It's not that the faith was left to choice or individual conscience, but that there was a strong lex orandi, lex credendi where the "law of prayer is the law of faith." In other words, the prayers are the faith and there is no need to go further than that.

I was filled with zealousness. Too much as a matter of fact. On my trip to Minnesota for my cousin's wedding, I began to find every fault I could with the Lutheran Church. My cousin was married in an ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America) church and his wife was going to be a minister in the ELCA. Although the ELCA and the LCMS have many doctrinal differences, there is still a more or less settled truce which allows members to receive the eucharist in services of the other. I refused. My dad did, too, but only, and correctly, because he regards the ELCA as heretical. My mom and my sister both received and I remember that they asked why I did not. All I could was respond that I was becoming Orthodox and that my Lutheranism was behind me. Unfortunately, my desire for Orthodoxy was not tempered by humility but I became arrogant with the knowledge that I was now pursuing correct doctrine and the correct faith and that everything else should either conform to it or be shunned. I know better now.

I returned to Nebraska to begin my second year at Bellevue East, but Sundays were now different for me. Rather than trying to wake up early to get to Lamb of God Lutheran Church by 8:00 am, I now woke up at the same time and headed to St. Mary's where I first attended Orthros at 8:45 and then the Divine Liturgy at 10:00. I still continued my attendance at Saturday Vespers as well. But, I didn't know what to do. As I said earlier, Vespers was attended by only a handful of people. I found that the same was true of Orthros (Matins). Hardly anyone came to this service, but I immediately became enamored with it. It became my favorite service to go to and I learned some of the hymns and started chanting it, from my seat in the very back, with the chanters in the back. My favorite was the Evlogetaria, the Hymn of Resurrection sung every Sunday (well, most every Sunday). I loved the melody and I loved the text. I don't think I ever heard the centrality of the Gospel, the Resurrection of Christ, both God and man, which we may partake of at the end as well.
But, I still was largely in the dark as to what was going on. I didn't know anyone there and the one person I did know was at the chanter's stand.

The Liturgy began and again, I really didn't know what was going on. Though there was a book in the pew about the Liturgy, the whole essence of what was going on could not be described by the texts or the music, the various times when the sign of the cross was made or when it was appropriate to stand or sit (though I learned later that the correct posture for prayer is always to be standing). I know that I couldn't even begin to understand what was going on and that only with a lot more attendance at these Liturgies could that happen. At the end of the Liturgy, instead of people just simply leaving, they came up forward to kiss and reverence a cross that the priest held. I admit I was uncomfortable with this, not because I didn't reverence the cross (I very much did) but the idea of kissing a holy object was totally foreign to me. But I did it and it felt very natural. Fr. Don then invited me to come back for coffee hour and to set up an appointment with him to talk some more.

Over the course of the next couple of months, I regularly attended the full cycle of Vespers on Saturdays, then Orthros followed by Liturgies on Sundays. I loved being engaged in a church life that was totally devoted to worship of the One God in Trinity. Trinitarian invocations and doxologies were said or chanted a myriad of times during these services. It confused me. Also confusing was the numerous repetitions of phrases such as "Lord, have mercy" or "In the name of the Father, Son and HOly Spirit" etc.. This was clearly a more mystical approach to theology that I had never considered because it was just not part of mine growing up. Helping me through all this confusion was the continued guidance of the chanter, Aaron Warwick and his wife Gwen. The two of them were very generous towards me, frequently inviting me over to their place for dinner. I was also starting to make other friends in the parish such as Dr. Mike Kutayli, Jessica Mannion and Rachel Ream. With the exception of Dr. Mike, all these people were converts to the Orthodox faith and so it was comforting to know that I wasn't the only one in this situation.

Beginning in late October, I went to my first catechism class. The purpose of this class was to instruct those who wished to be received into the faith. These were held on Sundays after coffee hour and went for hours at a time. Whenever I went to one of these at the Lutheran church, such a class was always held to one hour. Such was not the case here. We would discuss things for hours. I meticulously took notes and read as much as I could. I also started to try pryaer in the Eastern tradition. I picked up a copy of the Holy Transfiguration Monastery Prayer book, which Aaron recommended. It was very odd and very different. The repetitions were still there and the prayers were nothing like I had ever prayed before. For so long, I had been searching out the right words with which to call upon the Lord and I had at last found them. The language was a little difficult to get around but I sensed not only the antiquity in these words but the profound theological debt. I also started to collect icons for my private devotional life.

As I started to learn and grow in the faith, I also started to become arrogant. I had found the true faith, the true church, thus, everyone needs to know and everyone needs to believe as I do and if you don't, your're wrong, plain and simple. When I went home for Christmas, I first went to Christmas Eve services at the Lutheran Church with my parents and all I could do was complain about how backward and irreverent it all seemed and said that the Orthodox faith was nothing like this. I also remember that as I went into the sanctuary, I made three metanoias, which I should not have done. One of the parishioners called this "garbage." Wow! I had no idea that showing reverence and feaer of God would ever be considered "garbage." However, on closer inspection, I realize that what I did could only have brought attention to myself, which I know I didn't want. Since Lutheranism is part of the western tradition, I should have, instead, simply knelt and made the sign of the cross. After that, I went to the OCA parish which began it's celebration at 10:00 pm. And it was magnificent. There was such great singing. I even got to witness a whole family received into the Orthodox Church. I knew that is what I would be going through soon.

I celebrated Christmas with the rest of my family and then went back to Omaha. I continued on my journey and then I entered into the great and holy fast preparing for the Lord's Pascha (what the Orthodox call Easter). FAsting was difficult for me simply because I had never done it before. I asked Fr. Don what I should do and he said that I should gradually and steadfastly practice a limited fast of maybe only two days a week. At the same time, I was always reminded that fasting was not the goal, but the means to a goal--becoming like Christ and partaking of His nature. So, I tried that and I increased my prayers for aid in this time of repentance. The thing which struck me was the massive increase of services during Great Lent. When I was Lutheran I remember that during Lent only one service would be added a week. During the first week of Great Lent, there was something every day of the first week! It was magnificent.

During the first week of Great Lent, I went to the service of Great Compline. I looked forward to the chanting of "God is with us" from Isaiah in tone 6. Later on, there was the chanting of the Great Canon by St. Andrew of Crete, a long poem composed by a sixth century saint about repentance. The words bit me and stung hard because, from these words, taken from the whole corpus of Scripture, I realized that nothing I have done could even be called repentance, but, at the same time, I should not fear because of God's great gift in the form of His only begotten Son that whatever repentance I lack, he makes it sufficient. That does not excuse me from repenting since, one of the things I learned in catechism class was that we work with God in our salvation. This was in stark contrast to Lutheranism which held that one can do nothing for his own salvation, that everything is dependent upon God, that man has nothing good in him. This is mainly an inheritance from St. Augustine who believed that man's goodness from creation was totally destroyed with the first sin of Adam. But such is not the Orthodox belief, which holds that man's goodness was blackened and made corrupt but not utterly so. Thus, there is something left within us, very small to be sure, which we can draw upon to work with God. It's not about percentages though. It's not like God does 90% of the work and I 10% or anything else. It's not about numbers, but we are called to work with God as St. Paul tells us "to work out your salvation with fear and trembling." We do have responsibility, but at the same time our weakness is perfected by God and that is why He came in the flesh to die.

As I progressed through Lent, I was growing ever more excited and more nervous. I didn't think I was doing enough. I didn't think I had prepared myself enough or had done all the right rituals. I was still in the mindset that the faith was about checklists and doing certain things that needed to be fulfilled before progressing to the next step. I was told repeatedly by Fr. Don, Aaron and Gwen that such was not the case. I tried to believe that but I still had difficulties. Aaron and Gwen decided to have some fun with this. I chose them both to be my godparents/sponsors for the Orthodox faith. So, they started telling me that I had to do all sorts of different things to prepare. One of them was that I had to wear all white for my chrismation. Of course, I didn't have anything all white so I went nuts trying to find an actual white suit. Of course, Gwen and Aaron were laughing their asses off at what I was trying to do.

As I continued to go through Lent and my catechism classes, one of the things that I had to do before Holy Week and my chrismation was make confession to Fr. Don. I was not looking forward to this at all. I remembered when I made confessions to Fr. Houser when I was a Lutheran, but I knew this would be different. This would be a complete enumeration (or as close to it as possible) of the sins of my life. I spent hours going over some Scriptures that are appointed to be read before confessing, reading questions I should ask myself, praying to not be ashamed or hold anything back. I made a complete list. It was five pages long (and I still have it!), single spaced. I made my confession, reading from this list, and my eyes welled up with tears. I knew I was a sinful being, but I had no idea that this lifetime of sins would be so much and so overwhelming. Like many people, I tend to view sin as something inevitable in human life and so you begin ignoring them. But as I knelt there, before the icon of the Transfiguration of our Lord with Fr. Don standing before me, I wept and I filled my face with tears. After so long, I realized that all of these "little sins" had amounted to, indeed, a great amount. These tiny drops of water formed a pool! I was ashamed and I was embarassed. Fr. Don said that he felt blessed to hear my confession. How can a priest possibly be blessed to hear a confession like mine?! But, after he gave me absolution, I realized that Fr. Don was a man to whom I really could tell anything. I felt comfortable with him. After absolution, he embraced me as his spiritual son and I continued on my way towards Pascha. And, for the first time in a long time, I felt clean and free. I especially felt free from the guilt I was still carrying from Sara's suicide, which I still blamed myself for.

Holy Week arrived and again the number of services increased. There was something every morning and every evening. At all of these services, the catechumens were brought up and prayed for. I needed all the prayers I could get.

I cannot go into the depth of all the services I witnessed especially on Thursday and Friday nights. I have never experienced the passion of our Lord so profoundly as I did on these days. It is such a rich tradition that one can only experience for himself what goes on.

HOly Saturday came, the day of my chrismation and reception into the Orthodox Church. I prayed the night before and the morning before the service that I would be made worthy to receive the life giving body and blood of my Lord and God and Saviour. I think I looked ridiculous, though. Still heeding Gwen and Aaron's words, I wore my charcoal suit with a white shirt and a white tie. It looked stupid, but I did so because I still believed, thanks to their influence, that I had to wear all white. Gwen and Aaron were both laughing. Typical. The service was long and it was inspiring. I was given the seal of the Holy Spirit upon my head, my eyes, my lips, my hands, my feet. Every time this was done, the word "Seal!" was shouted by the congregation. It gave me chills. It gave me a lot of chills, actually. Did I know what I was doing?

Finally the time came when I received the Eucharist. I had been without the Lord's body and blood for a long time and I was wondering what would be different. Would it taste different? Would it transform me? Would I start to glow? I'm serious about those questions. But I received it and there was no physical change, but, if anything it made me realize that this was something worth waiting and preparing for.

At the end of the Liturgy, the other catechumens and I came up to the front of the church where we were blessed again and "God grant you many years" was sung to us. I broke down in tears because I had finally come to my spiritual home. It took a long time, but I was so happy to have finally arrived.

But the journey has not ended. I still continue to grow and I still continue to stumble and fall. Being Orthodox is not a "get out of sinning free" card. I still have many temptations and passions that I wrestle with on a daily basis. Orthodoxy is a life and it is a difficult life to follow in spirit and truth. I have made more than my share of mistakes and I will continue to do so. I was told in catechism class that the Holy Fathers always viewed the Church as a hospital. Here, in the Orthodox Church, are all the tools, physicians and medicines to make one truly healed.

Glory to God for all things!

So, why did you become Orthodox?--Part 2: College and Graduate School and coming to Nebraska

Here's a little summary from the previous entry. I grew up Lutheran in the LCMS (Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod). Though a conservative church unlike the ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America) which basically reduced Christian teachings on "settled" theological issues to mere options or suggestions and that Scripture really didn't mean what it said and that God was ever changing. But with the LCMS, I felt it was too fundamentalist, almost Baptist. The historic liturgy was more and more becoming just a mere option and personal preferences and praise bands became more of the established status quo. I thought that the way for me to attain a greater spirituality was to become Roman Catholic. I thought that all the historical research I had done would justify my claim.

Anyway, I remember being dropped off to college. I had just turned 18 and I was as a deer in headlights. I didn't know what I should do. To top it off, I didn't have a car to transport me around. Anyway, after getting settled in for a few weeks, I really noticed that the college culture was very different from the sheltered one I had encountered under the care of my parents. People thought much more radically and differently than I did. And there was such a range of opinion that I had never encountered before. I was in a very secular and liberal mindset on campus. And if you believe that, that's fine, but it's not for me so I started seeking out spiritual refuge. I knew there was a LCMS church in Kirksville but I thought Catholicism was the way to go. So, I started attending Mass. My friend Dan Baack, a friend of my roommate, Matt, from Joplin loaned me his car so I could drive over there. Anyway, I started attending Mass and, falsely, I already regarded myself as a Catholic which, I knew in my heart, was wrong. I even remember partaking of the eucharist and I should have known better but I did anyway. However, I soon became disenfranchised with the Catholics.

Why? I noticed no different in the Catholics than what I saw with the Lutherans. The liturgy was abandoned and more "happy-feely" hymns replaced the staples of the Catholic Church. So, in other words, the Catholicism I read about was not the Catholicism that was practiced. And that should never be a surprise. Reading about something is almost never the same as experiencing it. And that especially goes for matters of faith. So, I stopped going. I didn't go over to the Lutheran church in Kirksville, either. I was in a spiritual vacuum. When I went home I went to church with my parents still, but I was still unsatisfied. Tradition and history were still being replaced with what feels good and right. Nonetheless, I endured. This was pretty much the standard that I followed through the rest of my college years.

Now one might think that if I wasn't going to church that I started on a deep descent into bad habits and bad morals. Well, not really. I never considered myself to be a big partier or anything of the sort and I didn't do that. I just studied and hung out with my friends. I didn't date mostly because there was no one interested.

HOwever, at the end of my junior year, I was a preceptor at Joseph Baldwin Academy at Truman State University. This academy drew students from seventh to ninth grade to take college level courses. My fellow preceptor was Nichole Torbitzky (now Nichole Torbitzky-Lane) who had decided to go off to seminary when she was done with college. She was a member of the UCC, whose theology was way too liberal and care-free for what I was looking for. Nonetheless, she was trying to persuade me that my spiritual enlightenment could be better achieved if I wasn't so hard of heart and actually invited love into me. I think she was right, but I would never have given her credit at the time. But this is also where I met my first girlfriend, Sally. When I returned for my senior year, she and I continued to date for two months and then it ended.

My senior year ended and I still was in my spiritual void. I was going to go to graduate school at the University of Missouri-Columbia. When I went, I didn't even attempt to go to Mass or Church. I just wasn't interested. Now a question may be asked about why I wasn't doing more individual praying? And I've only found the answer to that question recently. It is hard, very difficult to pray on one's own. It is a work. We have to remember that our prayer life is ultimately communal. Just as it is difficult to really get workout results without a partner to help you and motivate you and encourage you, so it is difficult to come to prayer without someone else. I didn't realize it like that at the time, but it makes sense.

Eventually, I started going to the Lutheran Church which wasn't far from where I lived in Columbia, but it was not a good experience. I hated it. First, the church architecture was horrendously ugly. Why is it that whenever I go to a new town, the most ugly church in town is always the Lutheran one? I'm sorry, but that is just my opinion and I've been proved right far more than wrong. The worship was stale and it was no different. So I stopped going there too.

I only came back when a very terrible event happened. My very good friend, Sara, committed suicide. I loved this woman with all my heart and I cherished her though the feelings were not reciprocated. I won't go into the details, but, needless to say, I was thrown into a pit of such despair. My parents did their best to help me out, even calling Pr. Gerike at the Lutheran Church to come visit me at where I was working at the time. Eventually, I went over to the church, since it was Lent, and the other pastor heard my confession. But, I really can't say I felt better as I was carrying a lot of guilt and I carried that guilt with me for a long time.

I got a job up here in Bellevue, NE and I moved here in August 2004. My parents still were trying to find me a church and they found one for me here in Bellevue, but I decided to go to the Lutheran Church in Papillion, the town next door. But I was doing a lot of church shopping and everywhere I went I was disappointed. Everything was about modernism. I couldn't worship at these places. Eventually, I found a very traditional Lutheran congregation that worshipped way out there in Papillion and I felt at home for awhile. But then I started to feel isolated again. Don't get me wrong; I appreciate what the pastor was doing. This pastor even practiced private confession, something which is regarded by many Lutherans as something too "Romish" and therefore to be thrown out. But, it was a very shallow form of confession. This congregation also made the sign of the cross, which again, was a very "Romish" thing to do and celebrated feast days that fell on regular weekdays. But it seemed fabricated.

Eventually, I found a Roman Catholic Church here in Omaha that actually served the extraordinary Rite of the Mass, sometimes known as the Tridentine Mass. They chanted everything in Latin, in the Gregorian style and it was magnificent. So, again, I made serious inquiries into becoming a Catholic in this parish since this was the Catholicism I had read about, that was traditional, that was more concerned with true worship than what was popular. I thought that would be the end of my spiritual journey and I would become, as I originally thought, a Catholic.

During the summer of 2005, I was taking classes at Creighton Univeristy. The class was on a break and I went out into the hall and looked around. I kept coming to this one flyer which advertised the local Orthodox Churches and their service times. I thought to myself that I never had seen a Greek Orthodox service. I had done some research into it. A paper I wrote during my senior year of college dealt with the schism of 1054 between East and West. My paper was mainly focussed on the Western side of the schism, but it was at that time that I had come into contact with books written by Sir Steven Runcimann who was and is the greatest authority on the Byzantine Empire. So, I did a little reading about the history of the late Roman Empire, but knew next to nothing of its Christian history. I had heard of such great illuminaries like St. John of Damascus, St. John Chrysostom, St. Basil and others but I only knew of the "filioque" which separated them from the West. So, I was curious. I found a church that offered a Saturday night service (there was only one).

So, on Saturday, July 24 (St. Christina's day), I attended a Great Vespers at St. Mary Antiochian Orthodox Church. And I never stopped going.

Part III will go into the Orthodox phase of my journey.

So, why did you become Orthodox?--Part 1: The Lutheran Years

This will be my first official entry on my new blog. And I thought it best to answer the age old question, "Why did you become Orthodox?" And then, of course, there are always the follow-up questions, "Weren't you happy as a Lutheran?", "Why would you go to something so...ethnic?", "What do your parents think?", etc.. So, I shall lay out here why I became Orthodox, though you shouldn't expect a thorough retelling of cause and effects, of a natural and organic sequence to come to a realization which I had not had before. Now, I should also point out that I am always becoming Orthodox. It is a process, it is not a state of being. The ontological, or state of being that I want, is becoming like Christ, partaking of Him so that, like He prays in the Garden of Gethsemane, that we become as one as the Father and the Son are one. This will be lengthy. Please, be patient.

I grew up Lutheran in the LCMS. My parents are both good, faithful, God-fearing people who raised my brother, my sister and me correctly and well. They took us to church every Sunday and I was active in the church's youth groups. That is not to say that I was always diligent or even desiring about going to Church. I remember that I hated it for a long time until I remember distinctly my parents saying that I was getting to the age where I needed to be more participatory in church and take it seriously. So, I did, reluctantly and, funny enough, I took a liking to it. Later, I was made an acolyte and I took my job seriously on Sundays when I was expected to serve. I later became a torchbearer and upon my confirmation, a crucifer.

I remember that I probably did not take confirmation classes, which was during my seventh and eighth grade years, very seriously. I don't know why exactly, but I think it was because I wanted to get more into materials and theology, if that idea can even be understood by a seventh/eighth grader. I just felt that I was being cheated out of something. I suppose, also, at that time, that my interest in history became more paramount. I started to research into the past and my favorite times were the Roman Empire and the Medieval eras. My sophomore year in High School, I took AP European History which focussed a lot on the Late Roman Empire and the Middle Ages as well as the Renaissance. The more I looked into those times, the more I also inquired into how this era related to the religious instruction I had and was receiving. And I was trying to understand why I was Lutheran. I couldn't seem to understand how Lutheranism fit into the grand scheme of history of Europe that was mainly dominated by the Roman Catholic Church.

I was different from my classmates, but in no way was this contrast more demonstrable than in music preference. I hated, absolutely hated, rock n'roll. I thought it was ridiculous and unartistic. I was not only listening to the symphonies and concertos of such illuminaries like Mozart, Bach and Beethoven but also their sacred works, most of which were written in Latin. At that time, I began to learn the Latin of the mass on my own and learned quite a lot. I also noticed that much of these texts were used in the Lutheran services, week in and week out so I naturally put forth the question, "why doesn't our worship sound like this?"

At Hope Lutheran Church, where I was confirmed, we were very fortunate to have a wonderful pipe organ. Our organist, Rick Deasley, also a friend of my Uncle David, also a world famous organist was spectacular and he and I enjoyed the same styles of music, particularly that of the Baroque. But Rick was also very much into modern praise band music and started to put one together which would perform every now and then on Sundays. I detested this. This was the basest and lowest common denominator music I could think of. There was nothing particularly reverent about the texts. They say that praise band music is basically pop music on the radio. The only difference is you substitute Jesus for baby! :) Why on earth would we discard such a heavenly instrument like the pipe organ for loud and cacophanous guitars, drums and bass? Not only was the music changing, but the structure of the services became rearranged and new every week as well. The orders of service we had in the hymnal (the red hymnal of 1943 p. 5 and 15 respectively) were routinely altered. I also noticed in the front of the hymnal were the propers (parts of the service that were changing for each Sunday and feast day) and that we never used those. I later found out that these were part of the historic Liturgy which was never celebrated. I also found out that major feast days were also not celebrated. I suppose if it wasn't on Sunday, it wasn't important.

My frustration kept growing. It was at this time that the Roman Catholic Church seemed to be calling to me. From my historical resarch, I thought that the Roman Church was the church of all time, free from innovation and free from the stale and ephemeral worship I experienced. I even started to incorporate some "Romanish" practices into my spiritual life--I made the sign of the cross, I knelt as I came into the sanctuary, I said the prayers in Latin (which drew much ire from my dad so I had to say them very quietly), I bowed as the cross came by, etc.. People started to notice and to openly criticize me because Lutherans don't do things like that. I would ask why since Luther himself did that. But we're Americans and we don't do Catholic things. Nonetheless, I couldn't make any move in that direction since I was living at home and I knew my parents would have had a very difficult time in understanding my desire for a belief system which was different from the one that they imparted to me. Out of respect for them, I did not go forth and become a Catholic, but my heart yearned not to be Lutheran any more. I kept participating in youth activities and I have many friends from these days still to this day, two of whom are now LCMS pastors and are true men of God. But I know that I was the lone voice. I went to summer camp where everything was geared towards such a emotional and feeling based version of Christianity. I just got more and more frustrated. I couldn't reconcile the Lutheran faith with my historical research and the answers I seemed to get from Lutheran pastors and elders in the church did nothing to dissuade me from my calling. I would have to wait to pursue my journey until college and that will be the next entry.

Now, you may want to ask, didn't Lutheranism do anything good for you? Oh, yes. It gave me a good appreciation for good music and a yearning for higher theology. But I could only go so far as a Lutheran. I needed something more. Now some may say that if I was in more of a confessional congregation where the historic Liturgy was preserved and such "Romish" practices were actually encouraged or, at least, not censored that I might have stayed Lutheran. Perhaps, but we'll never know.

Part II will deal with my spiritul journey in my college and graduate school days.