Conversions and De-conversions - Unequally Yoked

I had it easy.  Mom had long since left her Pentecostal religion behind her, and for all I knew, was apathetic towards religious belief.  Dad had fully given his life over to the Mormon Church, and only occasionally talked to me about his religious beliefs.  They had both divorced decades earlier, and although there was no animosity, they rarely had need to speak to each other.  I was 42 years old, so my parents had long ago lost any influence over my personal religious beliefs.  Both lived over one hundred miles from us, and Rosemary’s parents lived over 8000 miles from us, so they were not involved with our daily activities.  Rosemary and I had both moved to El Paso to find employment, and had spent only a few years investing in local friendships and commitments.  Despite our activities in both La Puerta del Cielo Baptist Church and St Michael the Archangel Catholic Church, we had not formally joined either church as members.  Probably most importantly, Rosemary and I had no children to drag through the confusion I felt after losing my Faith in Jesus.  I have since read countless, heartbreaking stories by former believers who, because of concerns over children, parents, an overbearing church involvement or religious culture, cannot completely make the break from the religion they no longer have Faith in.  The only person I felt accountable to was my wife.  My Baptist church?  Since I was not a member, I simply stopped attending on Sunday mornings.  I figured that I did not owe anybody there an explanation.  Cowardly?  Perhaps.  But since I liked Pastor Alvarez, and did not object to his more tepid form of Baptist preaching, I just did not want to raise trouble where I thought trouble would not be welcome.  My Catholic church?  Since I never said anything to anybody at that church, outside of the rote, ‘peace be with you’, nobody there knew or cared about my personal religious beliefs – or even non-beliefs.  I bet half the people in that church were heretics of one kind or another, but people in that place rarely talked about their beliefs.

Without any societal commitments, my departure from Faith was relatively easy.  Not that it was painless.

Rosemary knew that my beliefs were changing.  She could see the books that I had been reading, and she was troubled by some of the conversations that I was starting with her.  I was honest and open with her throughout the entire transition away from Faith.  I have read some stories of apostate husbands who must break the news to their wives that they no longer believe God exists.  Such stories have always astounded me.  Had I done this to Rosemary, had I hid all my books, inner thoughts and secret doubts from her, then just slammed her with the news from out of the blue, she would not have understood anything.  It definitely would not have ended well.  But since I never hid anything from her, nothing took her by surprise.  We had our share of difficult conversations, but at least I shared everything with her, honestly, and from the beginning.

Rosemary once asked me bluntly if I still believed in God.  Did all that reading and skepticism destroy my Faith?  I said it did.  But, of course I still believed in God!  I was not sure who or what He was, and I was struggling to figure all that out.  But my Faith in God was pretty much gone, and I was still trying to discover what I could have Faith in!  Rosemary was relieved.  I did not have Faith, but I was a ‘Searcher’.  I would eventually find my way.  I did my best to explain that I had come to believe that the Bible, along with other Holy Books of the world, were just man's attempt to find God.  God was out there, and he gave us what we needed, but He was also leaving it up to His faithful to find him with the tools He made available.  Somehow, I also must find my way to God, in my own way, and with my own kind of Faith.

Rosemary then asked me about our marriage.  If I no longer believed in God as I had once understood Him, what about the marriage vows that we had taken in His name?  Did I feel that our marriage was still valid?  Would I ever feel justified in leaving her in this unequally yoked marriage if I felt I did not have to answer to God?  Was marriage no longer a sacrament?  I think this was the most painful question that I had to answer upon leaving Faith.  My own wife was frightened about her unbelieving husband.  I did my best to help her understand that not only did I did make a vow before God during our marriage ceremony, but I made the same vow to her.  I made the vows before her family, my family, all our friends, and even Pastor Alvarez who officiated.  I may no longer hold God to be sacred, but I did hold everybody else high enough to honor them with my marriage vows.  It took her some time to understand, but eventually she did.  A couple of years later, her mother asked me the same thing.  Needless to say, this devout Catholic woman was not too thrilled with a sudden Heathen as a husband for her daughter.  Over time though, and after a concerted avoidance to speak about religion to her, I think I have earned her trust.

I had only shared the mildest of doubts with the believers in my small home Bible study group.  Pastor Dave Shultz, the usual leader of our group, had no warning when I suddenly announced that I would no longer be able to host the Bible study in my home.  I tried to avoid trouble by giving no real reason, other than I was not feeling convicted to host the Bible study any longer.  Pastor Dave, suspecting that I was up to something fishy, told me that he would like to schedule a time where we could discuss my conviction privately. 

I was nervous when the appointed day came.  I had hoped that he would visit, that I would give some lame excuse about not feeling led by the Lord any longer, and that would be the end of it.  But when I tried that lame tactic, Dave’s pastoral discernment told him that I was hiding something.  While our wives spent time making deserts in the kitchen, Dave interrogated me until I confessed.  And confess I did.  I figured that if I was going to make a clean break from my religious beliefs, and if he was going to be insistent enough to get me to confess all my grievances against the god of our beliefs, then I would give it to him with both barrels.  So I let Pastor Dave have it.  The years of pent up doubts.  The frustration with praying to a silent god and resting all our hopes on an indifferent deity.  The realization that the Almighty was thoroughly impotent without the Faith of His followers.  The admission that I could not honestly reconcile what I understood about science, particularly theories of our origins and evolution, with my Biblical understanding of the origins of the universe, our world, and Original Sin.  Finally, the years and years of psychological torture that I endured with the superstition called Eternal Life.  My confessions gushed forth like bitter water from an untapped well.  Pastor Dave tried to answer with simple and unconvincing apologetic responses that I was already both familiar and disgusted with.  There was no reasoning with me.  I was given over to a reprobate mind.

Meanwhile, Kate and Rosemary were preparing deserts in the kitchen.  Rosemary admitted that she was still a believer in God and always would be.  Kate was relieved that the wife remained in the fold, even if the husband had given himself over to a life of apostasy and sin.  Knowing that Rosemary still believed in God, Kate thought that she could confide in her:

“Joe is losing his faith?  Is he still a believer?”

“I don’t know,” said my wife.  “He is searching.”

“His spirit never seemed to stay at rest.  He was always questioning.  Questioning is OK!  God welcomes questions!  But at some point he has to rest on Faith.”

Rosemary was already uneasy with the direction Kate was taking the conversation.  Rosemary was particularly shocked when Kate said,

“We might not be able to let you watch Henry anymore,” referring to her autistic son that we sometimes enjoyed taking out for pizza and miniature golf, “I don’t know that we can trust Joe.”

“Why won’t you trust him?”

“Because we don’t understand him anymore.  We cannot relate to him.  It is going to be very difficult for us to love him.”

Rosemary became very upset at the willingness of her friend to completely dismiss us, based not on my actions, not on my morality, but simply because I had unacceptable and offensive beliefs.  I had offended her simply by not agreeing with her beliefs.  Rosemary was finally coming to understand how conditional our Christian friendships really were.  Rosemary was open and accepting of the beliefs of others, but was always skeptical about accepting Baptists and their beliefs for herself.  She had resisted joining their church.  Kate had assumed that Rosemary held more devotion to her church than to her husband.  Kate had assumed that Rosemary, as a believer, was willing to hate her father and mother, her brother and sister, and even her husband for His sake.  Under the same circumstances, I know that many women would think of ending their unequally yoked marriage.  But even this unbeliever was lucky to have such an understanding and faithful wife.

After Pastor Dave Schultz had the full confession that he had come for, he and Kate left our house.  Rosemary and I never returned to La Puerta del Cielo Baptist Church.  I figured that my confession of nonbelief to Pastor Dave officially made me out as an apostate to that Church, and I had no desire to return to explain myself.  I saw Kate briefly in the airport some years later, but other than that chance encounter we never again saw them.  Rosemary could not believe that Kate had confessed that they were going to have a hard time loving me, when I was trying to be as honest as I could.  Apparently God welcomed questions and doubts, but at the end of the day I had damn sure better get the right answers.  God cannot tolerate wrong answers from honest questions, and neither can His followers.  

Rosemary and I still talk about how we miss their son Henry.

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Have you lost your mind?

I awoke this morning before the sunrise.  It was still dark in the house, and mindful not to wake Rosemary, I felt around for the clothes I had left out the night before.  I put on a ragged flannel shirt to protect me from the morning chill, and a wide athletic belt around my waist to carry a water bottle and a baggie full of peanut brittle.  I laced my favorite running shoes on, and left the house.  Still dark, I drove 15 miles north to the border of New Mexico where there is a stretch of road over a pass in the Franklin Mountains called Anthony Gap.  I parked my truck on the side of the road and looked ahead to where I intended to run.  A little less than 8 miles uphill and over the pass, then back down until the road meets with I-10.  The skies behind me in the east were slowly starting to brighten.  I figured the sun would be above the horizon in a half hour or so and warm me on my jog up.  I did not want to run on the shoulder of the road.  There was far too much traffic to make that a comfortable option.  Besides, I have always found jogging on the pavement to be boring and tedious.  There was a maintenance road of rock and dirt that ran parallel to the highway.  It was more of a trail really, since only the sturdiest 4-wheeler would be able to navigate through the numerous arroyos that were bridged by the main highway.  Even though it was rough and uneven, I figured I would run on that trail to avoid traffic and not allow the smooth pavement to make my run monotonous. 

I placed the bottle of water in my belt holster after taking a sip, and bit into a generous chunk of peanut brittle.  I looked at the trail ahead of me.  A few miles uphill before disappearing over the mountain pass.  My hands were freezing, and I could not wait for the sun to rise and warm me up.  I blew my nose, muttered to myself, “Have you lost your mind?” and headed uphill on the uneven, rock-strewn trail.

I started running almost 12 years ago, in July 2001.  Although I have always been an avid mountain and desert hiker, the extent of my athleticism ended there.  On the contrary, I did not feel that I was in very good health.  I had struggled more or less, mostly more, with cigarettes since Air Force Basic Training way back in 1982.  Cigarettes were part of Air Force culture.  Half my Basic Training squadron was composed of fresh-faced, innocent kids, first time out of mom’s house, and had never before touched tobacco.  While conducting drills or policing the grounds, our drill instructor set aside five minutes every hour or so for the smokers’ benefit.  “Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em!”  Half the squadron, myself included, started smoking just so we could take a break from the drudgery.

By 2001, a stressful and sedentary study environment in grad school gave me a two pack per day habit.  I was not picky.  I smoked whatever JB’s Smoke Shop had on sale.  That usually meant something called Premium Basic, which I could get for $1.15 per pack.  A lit Premium Basic was the perfect companion during countless all-nighters spent buried in school work, and I puffed constantly while struggling with insanely difficult physics problems.  But my breathing was getting more labored, and my throat burned more and more often.  I knew I had to quit.  I had managed to quit for over four years back in the early 1990s, but had started up again soon after enrolling in University.  Since then, I could never completely stay off the cigarettes.  I managed a day or two numerous times before finally caving in to the lure of nicotine.  The first puff after two days deprived of cigarettes always made my head spin.

In July 2001, I was walking in the marshlands by the Rio Grande with my dog Comet.  For some reason, on this particular day, I felt full of caged energy.  It must have been the coffee.  I walked along a dirt road atop a dammed up arroyo, and for no good reason just started running.  I ran with soaked water shoes as fast as I could, with Comet happily following close behind.  I managed maybe 100 meters before I stopped and keeled over out of breath, wondering what had just come over me!  The next day my legs, especially my inner thighs, were quite sore.  I had awakened muscles I had not used probably since the Air Force.  I ran again though, this time a little further.  Just a little.  I was a runner for only one day, and I was already hooked.  I would trade in one habit for another.  My last cigarette was in October 2001, and I have been running ever since.

I continued to run almost exclusively on dirt trails.  This was easy for me since I lived in a rural area.  Every powerline that crossed the desert was sure to have a rugged maintenance road running with it.  The desert was full of sandy arroyos that made for difficult but satisfying running.  And of course, the Rio Grande had dirt roads running parallel on both banks for as far as anybody could possibly run.  I was soon running over 10 kilometers every day.  Running was the perfect escape after a long day filling my head with theorems and equations.  If the day was too busy, if my emotions were running amok, if personal dramas were overwhelming, I could easily renew myself with a run in the open air.  Running in the desert felt nearly like a primal instinct.  I felt unleashed from the world when running around in the desert with nothing between me and the harsh environment but the thin cloth of shorts and T-shirt.  I loved the rush of adrenalin after a long run along some cattle trail.  Running to the top of the Chupaderra Hills and looking down from when I came was almost like spiritual epiphany.  Every time I hit the trials, I felt young, unencumbered and free!

I still get occasional surges of breathless emotion, even after 12 years of running.  I sometimes run several miles into the desert, maybe on the top of a ridge, far above the desert floor.  I have left the mundane city far behind, and as I climb in elevation, listening to nothing but my own footfalls and labored breathing, I can feel the air cool, I can see the desert flora change, and the horizon widen below me.  When I reach the top, spent from the exertion of miles of uphill running, I can turn back to look at the seemingly endless expanse of desert that I ran through to get to this spot.  I can see the tangled maze of arroyos and notch canyons that carve through the mountain’s alluvial fans.  The wind may pick up, and I see that a monsoon cumulonimbus has suddenly formed over the horizon.  Rain is threatening, and I have a long way to run to get back to my parked truck.  But for this moment, this special place where few people tread, a place deep in the desert and far above civilization, for this moment this place is almost Holy.  To think that I reached this place with nothing but the power of my own two feet, I sometimes feel a need to be grateful.  There may be nobody to be grateful to, but running to places where I am surrounded by the vastness of the desert wilderness leave me feeling joyous, humbled, even awed at my total insignificance in the midst of the whole.  I still cannot help feeling grateful at my ability to run into this momentarily sacred place under my own power, before I run back downhill, out of the desert and back into the more familiar, trivial, mundane world.

Yes, I do occasionally feel these moments of epiphany.  Can you tell that I love to run?  

The only time I stopped running for any length of time was when I had to nurse an injury.  I stopped for three weeks when my left knee hurt.  I stopped even longer when my calf muscle was strained.  I stopped for a couple of months when I was forced to rest my painful hip.  Deprived of running, but compelled to continue exercise of some kind, I decided to ride a bicycle instead.  I could never get used to the bicycle.  I crashed every time I tried off-road riding in the desert.  I found cycling on the highway with the traffic to be nerve wracking when I was not bored stiff with the monotony and tedium.  I was too used to my slow humping over the desert rocks and brush, with eyes glued to the ground lest I step on a camouflaged rattlesnake.  But cycling was better than nothing.  I found that if I did not run, or at least strain my breathing and heart rate once every few days, I would become cranky.  I had too much pent up energy.  I needed to move!

Running is a low maintenance activity.  It requires no special equipment.  It can be done nearly anywhere and at any time.  Along with eating, sleeping and sex, it is as basic, primal and natural an activity as I can imagine.  There is something about the simplicity of it that I find aesthetically attractive.  There is almost an elegance and ease to running.  There are no rules to follow, and the form seems to come naturally.  Unlike most athletic events, the runner is unencumbered with gear.  All that is required is to get up and propel oneself forward.  I have learned to keep the intense desert sun off my bare skin.  My sleeveless, bare-skinned days are long over.  On sunny days I will run with plaid cowboy shirt with long sleeves to cover my arms.  If it is not too windy, I will jog with my wide brimmed cowboy hat to keep the sun off my face.  I am the only person I know who regularly jogs with a cowboy hat and shirt on.  You can’t say I am not fashion forward!

I recently started wearing my stopwatch again after years of going without.  I found that I suffered as a result of going without – I was running much slower than I imagined I was.  As I get older my comfortable pace gets slower and slower, and without my stopwatch I never realized just how slow I was going.  I have not challenged myself in a long time.  I entered a half marathon at a friend’s request two years ago, but I loped along at such a slow pace I never even noticed I had jogged over 13 miles.  Besides that event, I have not been in a competitive race since 2005.  I say competitive, when the truth is I have no chance of ever winning any race I enter.  I can barely even place in my age group.  For me, if I enter a race, I can only truly compete with people who are going at roughly the same slow pace as me.  At the first 10k race I ever entered, I was 1 kilometer from the finish line and I was simply pushing myself to pass the two people just ahead of me.  Just ahead of me to my left was a kid no older than 12.  Just ahead to my right was a man no younger than 70.  C’mon!  Surely I can go faster than an old man and a little boy!  Nope.  They both passed the finish line just ahead of me.  That is about the extent of my ‘competition’.

Since I started wearing my stopwatch again, my times have improved.  I even started keeping a log again, and I found myself running more to meet my weekly goals.  I still do not find most races intriguing enough to enter, but I will be making a single exception next Sunday.  Throwing all reason aside, I signed up to run in the Bataan Memorial Death March, held annually at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico.  It is not officially a race, but a commemorative march to remember and honor the veterans who endured a forced march at the hands of the Japanese during WWII.  I considered joining a team and marching the entire route with a heavy pack on my back.  But I decided instead to run the entire route, which runs mostly on sandy desert trails with very little pavement.  That is my kind of race.  I am a little nervous about the distance.  It is marathon distance, just over 26 miles, and well beyond my comfort zone.  I have entered two marathons in the past, and both ended in terrible knee pain.  What makes me think this will be any different?  Who was it that said repeating an action and expecting a different outcome was the definition of insanity?  I cannot remember, so whoever said that must have been wrong.  Of course he was wrong.  Obviously.

So I have been logging extra miles in preparation for the Death March.  That is why I woke up before dawn this morning, to hump over the Anthony Gap.  The first 4 miles was pretty easy, even though they were all uphill.  Anything less than 10 kilometers is a routine distance for me.  Suddenly the trail disappeared in a tangle of creosote and cactus, and I was forced to run downhill to I-10 on the shoulder of the highway.  Monotonous pavement running, and all downhill!  The pounding on my knees began.  Then I could feel my thighs start to chaff.  What?  My thighs have never chaffed before!  My mind raced to think of what I could wear in the Death March to avoid painful chaffing.  Assuming I could survive this one.

After running just shy of 8 miles, I reached the on-ramp of I-10.  I was half way finished, and now I would have to turn and go back the way I came.  I stopped and gave my legs a good stretch.  They still felt fine, even though I knew they would be stiff as rods by the time I reached my parked truck.   I placed the bottle of water in my belt holster after taking a sip, and bit into a generous chunk of peanut brittle.  I looked at the road ahead of me.  A few miles uphill before disappearing over the mountain pass.  My hands were warm but slightly swollen, as they tended to get during a long run.  The sun was well above the horizon, which brought warm weather along with a seasonal stiff wind.  I would be running into the wind for the remaining 8 miles until I reached my truck.  The chaffing on my thighs was beginning to burn.  Great.  I blew my nose, muttered to myself, “Have you lost your mind?” and headed uphill on the smooth shoulder of the highway.

A morning run in the Franklin Mountains

Many of my blogging buddies, for some reason, also happen to be avid runners and joggers.  They have put up their own great ‘race reports’ and stories about their running addiction.  I started running about 12 years ago, just as a way to relieve stress from all my class assignments, and I have been addicted ever since.  We have a few organized races here in El Paso, and I have run a few 10k races and a couple of marathons, but with the exception of only one, I do not have an interest in entering any more of these races.  They are just not my thing. 

Several of the people I read regularly, like DaGoodS and DoOrDoNot have written about their experiences with jogging, and joining races like the exciting ‘Warrior Dash’.  Adventure races like the Warrior Dash looks like a chance to get muddy and have great fun, but so far there are next to no races like this in my part of the country.  The Zombie Races that I saw while visiting Maryland last year looked like a blast, but so far, nothing like that is happening in El Paso.  So, I am forced to sort of do my own thing.

Not that I am complaining too much.  I live in the southwestern desert of the U.S., and I try to do the bulk of my running in the desert and away from the pavement.  If there is a cow trail, a powerline road, an old mining road, or even a gutted arroyo near my house, I have probably run on it.  I have fallen in the mud, gotten caught in hail, surprised a few bobcats and coyotes, had my legs shredded by underestimating some cactus, and have had more near-misses with rattlesnakes than I can count.  I would never give it up, even with those nasty hazards.  Those slight risks are far outweighed by the thrill of it all.

I will run on the pavement if I have to.  I am sometimes forced to jog on the hotel treadmill if I am out on business travel.  But what I really love is the desert floor – the rocks, the cactus, the sand, the dry air. I really thrive on getting back to my desert source.  I love the desert.  I love hiking and exploring, but I especially love running in it.  I find no greater sense of freedom than when I am alone in the elements, listening to nothing but my own footfalls, my own labored breathing, and the occasional coyote yipping behind that creosote bush up ahead of me.

Since it does not look like I will be reporting from a Zombie Run or Warrior Dash any time soon, I thought I would take you on a guided tour of one of my typical runs in the desert.  So put on some shorts, shoes with sturdy tread, a wide-brimmed hat and a water bottle and let’s hit the trail!  Oh – don’t forget the camera!

Never try holding a camera in front of you when you run

Last weekend I decided to take my dog and run in Franklin Mountains State Park.  A little background:  The city of El Paso has a very unusual shape.  It was founded at the southern end of a pass in the Franklin Mountain range.  The Rio Grande runs through the pass, and takes a sharp turn from south to south-east – hence the city’s name ‘El Paso’.  Over time, the city grew and spread northward on either side of the Franklin Mountain range.  Now El Paso wraps around the mountains.  That whole mountainous area, in the middle of the city limits, is designated Franklin Mountain State Park.  I believe it is, by far, the largest urban park, or city park, in the entire country.  You can hike to the top of North Franklin Peak, about 3400 feet above downtown El Paso, and miles from the nearest house, and still be within city limits.  It is easy access to get outdoors and a very popular area for mountain biking and hiking.  Every picture in this blog article is within El Paso city limits, even though it may look like I am in the middle of nowhere.

We will start our run at Chuck Heinrick Park in northeast El Paso.  There is a retaining wall just beyond the parking area that separates us from the desert trails.  The wall is there to protect the residential area from flash flooding.  When water pours off the mountain during monsoon season, it has to go somewhere, and the floods are rare, but fierce.  The trails are constantly being eroded by flood waters.

Here is my running buddy.  Sunshine is about 4 years old, and full of energy.  This little fella is always ready for a desert run!

Here is a look at Franklin State Park from the parking lot.  Plenty of space to bike, hike, jog and explore.  That is one huge city park.  It is much, much larger than Central Park in New York City, but it does not get quite as many tourists.  I am not sure why. 

hmm.. there's some trails in there somewhere.

Our jog will be a loop through that desert, and our goal will be some abandoned tin mines somewhere way up on the side of that mountain.  First we will run parallel to the retaining wall for about a mile.  Then turn a sharp left and run towards the mountain through a gutted arroyo until we hit the tin mines.  Then on a well-worn jeep trail back to the parking lot.  I have never measured the length of the trail, but I will guess about 7 miles for the whole thing and an elevation gain of maybe 1000 feet or so.  Ready?  Let’s hit it!

Oh my aching knees!  It usually takes me a while to warm up during these runs.  The first mile or so is always the worst part of the run for me.  That is OK.  I am in no rush.  We can take it easy during the first part and shuffle along.

And these blasted arroyos!  They are everywhere blocking our path!  Those rare flash floods can be really fierce.  It is really tough when they cut through the trail like this.  I have to either find a way around them or climb through them.  My days of attempting to jump over them are long gone.

After a mile, we turn a sharp left and head straight toward the mountain through a gutted arroyo. 

The trail on this part of the run is really tough.  The trail is straight, but it is dredged out of an old arroyo, so there are loose, smooth rocks everywhere.  Running on this stuff is pretty treacherous.  You do not want to take your eyes off the trail, or you risk tripping and falling.  I have fallen on rocks like this, and it is not fun!

After a mile or two of some really rough running straight uphill through some nasty, loose rocks, we finally leave the arroyo.  Veer left.  The trail starts to smooth out a bit and makes the running a bit more enjoyable.

Look at all those bicycle tracks.  I don’t see too may bicycles out here today, but on weekends, especially in the mornings, this place is pretty popular.

Just because we left the loose rocks in the arroyo does not mean I cannot take my eye off the trail.  Whenever I run in the desert, I must constantly scan the trail ahead of me because there are plenty of creatures out here who do not care to be stepped on.  And they are not always easy to see.  Over the years, I have had plenty of close calls with these guys:

Don't tread on me

Do you see it?  They blend in so well with the ground, rocks and shadows that they are easy to miss.  Rattlesnakes are extremely dangerous, and if you get bit way out here more than a few miles away from the nearest help, you are going to be in a world of hurt.  Rosemary scolds me about not carrying my cellphone when I run out here, but I have never been in the habit of carrying gadgets with me when I run.  Just carrying this little camera with me during this run was a bit of a chore!  I admit, I am used to my desert jaunting, and I live with the risk.  Anway, as dangerous as rattlesnakes are, there is a bit of good news.  They are non-aggressive.  I have never had a rattlesnake chase me.  I have heard plenty of stories of snakes chasing people, and maybe some are true, but I have never witnessed it.  As long as I am outside of striking distance, I can watch them safely.  They will rattle and rattle and rattle and finally get bored and crawl off.  A simple rule of thumb is - if you don't bother them, they will not bother you.  Rattlesnakes basically just want to be left alone.  Don’t forget to keep your curious pets away too!  Come on Sunshine, let’s go!

We are getting closer to our goal.  Can you spot the tin mine on the side of the mountain?

After we run another mile or so, we are just below the tin mine.  I am certain you can see it now.  We just have that really steep bit of jeep trail left to muscle up. 

We have to take the steep trail to the left.  We have already run about 4 miles, and Sunshine does not look too thrilled with the idea of humping it up for the final stretch.  From the looks of the bicycle prints that obviously avoid that steep trail, nobody else was too thrilled about going up there either.

GAAG!!  This thing is steep, uneven and rocky.  Even Sunshine is lagging behind.  Screw the jogging.  I am walking up this final stretch.  I am not that crazy!

Don't try this at home

And finally, we are at the tin mine!  Abandoned mines are dangerous, and they are covered with metal grills to keep us meddlesome joggers out.  I went in there once on a guided tour.  Nothing too exciting.

A look back to the city far below us:

I need water!

Poor Sunshine looks pretty wiped out.  Fortunately I always carry a water bottle and a drinking pouch for the dogs during these long desert runs and we can take a break for a few minutes.  Don’t worry, it is all downhill from here. 

the next bit after we leave the tin mine is my favorite part of the run.  The trail runs parallel with the mountain.  I am out of those awful arroyos and the trail is smooth.  I can take in a bit of the scenery.  It is absolutely beautiful up here.  I love running in the high desert like this.  There is nothing blocking your view, and you can see forever!  I have hit my stride after running 4 miles, and I am running almost effortlessly.  I love this part of the run!  If only I did not have those tough 4 miles to run before this!

Then in front of me, from seemingly out of nowhere, the trail just disappears into another arroyo.  This one is on the side of the mountain, so it is long, deep and treacherous.  UGH!  This one is going to take some time climbing through.  Here is a shot of my feet balancing on a thin ledge on the opposite side of the arroyo.  I can handle arroyos, but this was a deep one!

Yikes!  Crossing that added about 15 minutes to our time.  Oh well, when running out here, we cannot expect to set any speed records!  But it is a straight shot down an old jeep trail for a few more miles back to the parking lot.  It is all downhill, so we can run very fast.  We blast down in half the time it took to run uphill to the tin mines.

Back in the parking lot, safety and civilization.  Thank goodness Burger King is just around the corner cause I need a Whopper.

Well, not much of a race report, but this is what a typical desert run is like for me, and I thought I would share it with you.  I love running in the desert.  I have run in many different environments, in the city streets, along mountain passes, but my favorite has always been the high desert.  It is thrilling, exhilarating, and I would not give it up for anything.  I hope you enjoyed the jogging tour of my desert home.  If you ever make it to El Paso, look me up and we can hit the trails!

Conversions and De-conversions - Traditions

The first seriously major blow to my Christian Faith came soon after I began dating Rosemary.  My Faith had certainly changed through my many years as a Christian, but it had never been radically shaken at its foundation.  I remained a Christian despite all the chicanery that I witnessed from Faith Healers, the lies that I had heard from my favorite pastors, even after experiencing the disappointment of hypocrisy from my closest Christian friends. Understanding the importance and methodology of critical thinking did not destroy my Faith.  Evaluating the world through the scientific method did not destroy it either.  My Christian Faith remained safe from scrutiny.  I kept it sealed away in a sterile environment, far removed from the contaminating influence of questions and curiosity.  But my entire Christian belief relied on several fundamental pillars, one of which is commonly called sola scriptura, or Scripture Alone.  It is the particular flavor of Protestant dogma which states that Scripture alone is the sole and exclusive basis and authority for Christian belief.  This is why everybody I knew was fond of quoting Scripture.  The means and method of salvation through Jesus Christ could be stitched together from various passages in the New Testament. 

How was I to know how Christians were to behave?  The answer to that is simple.  Just look for what Jesus said in His Sermon on the Mount.  Emulate examples of righteous behavior from characters found in the Bible.  Anything and everything that we needed in our Christian lives was to be found in Scripture, and nothing could be taken as inspired authority that was not found in Scripture.  We believed that we had no need for the worldly traditions that mortal humans brought to the pristine simplicity of the Gospel.  Traditions were the baggage that carnal Christians used in place of a personal relationship with Jesus.  Traditions were what the deceived religious people used in their vain attempt to achieve salvation under their own feeble strength, merit and worth.  In fact, I thought, tradition was simply another word for religion.  I insisted that I was not religious.  I did not have a religion, and I had no traditions.  I just loved the Lord.

A loving heavenly Father who desired intimacy with His creation, could not feel our love if we tried to express it through silly religious traditions and rituals.  We as believers were to stand boldly before His throne, and talk to Him, worship Him and love Him just as if He were our Daddy.  Our loving Father had communicated to us through His inspired Word – The Bible, and this Scripture and this Scripture alone was to be loving Father's divine communication to us. 

I believed in the Bible.  I had no need for tradition.  The whole idea of communicating to God through tradition was absurd.  Sola scriptura was one of the fundamental pillars of my Christian Faith.  The Bible was plumbline, my standard, the only authority that I could trust.  There was nothing else.  No tradition could ever replace that assurance.  But then I met Rosemary.

I moved to El Paso in 2003 for employment.  I had never previously visited the city, and I had no family or friends who lived there.  I had spent the previous seven years in Socorro, New Mexico attending university.  In those seven years devoted to education, I did not abandon my Faith, but I did let it go fallow.  I had other priorities at the time that I felt were more important.  Yes, education during those years was more important to me than Jesus.  The fact that I placed priorities above and beyond Jesus would have been blasphemous if it had happened during my Calvary Chapel years, but I believed at the time that there are times in life when even the most devout of Christians must place Jesus on the back burner, even if only temporarily.  Important concerns of life must occasionally take precedence, and in my case, I needed to remove myself from the imposed ignorance of my church, and fulfill my latent potential as a physicist.  I had to do it, not just for my own future and livelihood, but also for my sanity.  But as my university years ended, and I started another chapter in my life as a newly employed scientist in high tech industry, a tax paying, responsible, middle aged and responsible member of society, I realized that I was again alone.  I was starting over again at the age of 39.

For the first time in my life, I had meaningful employment.  I had fulfilled all of my dreams.  When I left Calvary Chapel in 1993, I was ignorant, yet in my extreme religious certainty I thought I understood more than I really did.  Paradoxically, seven years of education made me realize just how truly ignorant I was despite the vast amount of knowledge and skills I had acquired.  Unlike my years in Calvary Chapel, this ignorance was not imposed on me by my favorite Bible teachers, but instead was a realization that I had to accept uncertainty about nearly all my presumed foundational truths.  Another difference was that I graduated college and arrived in El Paso with something I had never before possessed – a fair amount, I hope a healthy amount, of self-confidence.

 

Once I stepped away from the university environment, I found that I missed church.  I was away from Jesus for seven years, and I missed the experience and fellowship that Christianity gave to me.  I was not returning as an apostate or backslider.  I felt I had nothing to repent over.  I knew I had to temporarily place Jesus as a lesser priority for good and legitimate reasons.  I was just away for some time on an educational retreat, but I was ready to return to worship.  I missed my Church, which seems strange considering how much I had come to despise my former Calvary Chapel congregation.  Actually, I don’t think I missed my church so much as I missed the camaraderie that I felt with my fellow believers.  I did not miss the actual hymns and worship so much as I missed the spirit of fellowship when I was engaged in worship.  I missed the feeling of communal ritual, as if I was a small part of some grand, unseen, cosmic fabric that was orchestrated by our loving Creator.  I missed all that, but despite the lure, I knew I could not go back to church as I had known it.   I wanted no part of a church like Calvary Chapel ever again.  The giant soccer complex that they met in.  The charismatic Bible ‘teacher’.  The rock and roll praise and worship band.  The bogus and hypocritical nature of the Christians in that particular denomination.  I hated it all that phony baggage.  But that was practically the only Christianity that I knew.  I was not about to revert to my childhood Pentecostal beliefs.  Watching several episodes of Benny Hinn’s healing crusade freakshows on TBN was enough to keep me far away from Pentecostal practices.  I had dabbled with the Baptists when I was in high school, but all I remembered about them was their incredible legalism.  If I joined the Baptists again, I could forget about enjoying good music or meeting girls who wore pants and make-up.  After meeting such diverse and interesting people from around the globe while in university, I was not about to go back to that suffocating tribe of legalists who called themselves ‘Baptists’.

 

But what else was left?  During my time attending university, I had occasionally visited a United Methodist church and a very tiny Baptist church, but I never felt quite comfortable in either church.  The United Methodists had a female pastor, and the rest of the clergy wore elaborate robes.  But I had been raised to believe that special priestly vestments were not Biblical, therefore part of some meaningless tradition, and such customs were not something that a personal God would be happy with.  And ashamed to admit it as I am today, at the time I could never accept a female pastor in my church.  It just seemed too defiant to be an acceptable practice, and far too distracting for me to concentrate on worship.  My other option, the Baptist church, was so tiny and desperate for members that they nearly suffocated me with unwarranted displays of affection.  After my first visit, the head pastor, a bulldog of a man who had worked cattle his whole life, gave me an emotionally uncomfortable bearhug as I left the church.  I found myself voting with 30 other church members for a new assistant pastor, after I had only attended the church three times.  It was all too much.  I felt like I was being swallowed into Socorro’s tiny Baptist church far too quickly.  I felt like they were too desperate for a young man like myself to join their aging ranks.  I felt like an obsessive girlfriend who would not stop calling after a single, nervous first date.  Much to their disappointment, I had to leave the Baptist church.  I had no desire to attend another one when I moved to El Paso.

I scanned the El Paso yellow pages looking for congregations.  I was skeptical about any generic sounding churches with names like Abundant Living Faith Center, Cielo Vista Church, or Destiny Family Christian Center.  I had no idea what I would be getting into with a place ambiguously named Faith Bible Fellowship, and I feared that anything with a name like that was probably Calvary Chapel – lite.  I was desperate to stay as far away from Calvary Chapel and its bogus non-denominational imposters as possible.  El Paso Chapel of the North Hills?  Forget it.  But I made the search harder on myself by judging more mainline denominations as worldly and burdened with needless rituals and traditions.  The traditions and practices of Lutherans and Episcopalians  were unknown to me, but I viewed such churches with rich heritages and history with suspicion.

But I had no other options.  After I rejected whatever meager Christian pedigree that I had, I did not know where else to turn.  I was not from a mainline church tradition, and had no real idea of what they were.  I did not know a Methodist from a Presbyterian.  All I knew was what I had been taught – that these churches were old and stale, that they were in all likelihood carnal and worldly Christians who relied on their dead traditions to achieve salvation rather than a personal relationship with the living Jesus.  But after learning that Calvary Chapel had been wrong about so many things, I decided, somewhat hesitantly, they were probably wrong about that one too.  So I decided to look cross that hurdle and do what I had once loathed in noncommittal, cafeteria Christians - I started church hopping.

I picked any decent sounding church out of the phone book and went to check it out.  Despite my best efforts, I almost always felt uncomfortable.  I was unfamiliar with many of the practices and rituals.  I could never get used to priestly vestments or female pastors.  I was almost always greeted at the door with a little too much Sunday morning enthusiasm than I was accustomed to.  Sometimes the pastor wanted to shake my hand and welcome me himself.  I was sometimes asked to attend Bible study with them, which I only accepted once.  I was once a little late for one church service and walked into the sanctuary with the sermon in progress.  There in front of me was a dashing, young pastor lecturing with his entire sermon emphasized with colorful graphics on an overhead Power Point show.  I had never in my life seen something like this.  The congregation frantically took notes in their enormous, leather-bound study bibles.  I immediately did a 180 and left the building.  That church looked too much like Calvary Chapel for the 21st century.  No thank you.

I found myself in a strange dilemma.  The churches were either too familiar or too foreign.  Either I could not relate to them, or I could relate to them all too well.  I was searching for something, but I could not find it.  I did not even know exactly what it was that I wanted in my Spiritual life.  It was frustrating.  I am not exactly sure what I believed at the time.  I guess I just figured I would know it when I found it.

 

In late 2004, I met Rosemary in a coffee shop in El Paso.  I was smitten with her friendly nature, her exotic, tropical features and her huge, vibrant smile.  Me?  Well, she says in hindsight that I was a nerd.  When we met I had unkempt hair, too many pencils in my flannel shirt pocket, and eyeglasses far too large and outdated.  How could she possibility resist me?

We began dating soon after we met.  I had initially thought that she was Chinese, since I had many Chinese friends while in university.  No, she was from the island nation of Philippines, she told me, although she did have a drop or two of Chinese blood.  Filipinos have many influences on their culture, she told me.  Her native culture and heritage was mixed with those of the Indonesian, Chinese and Spanish.  There were very few Buddhists left in the Philippines, since that was a relic from their Chinese past.  Most people in Philippines, at least the northern islands, got their religious heritage from Spain.  Rosemary was of the Catholic religion.  While we were dating, I had to come to grips with the fact that this woman was Catholic.  I was a bit torn.  Although my mother came from a Catholic heritage, she herself had never accepted that religion.  I had my grandparents and several cousins who were Catholic, but I knew next to nothing about their beliefs.  Actually I thought I knew all I needed to know about them to know that they were not true Christians.  Catholics were heretics.  They prayed to Mary and they worshiped idols.  They sacrificed Jesus anew at every Mass.  I had been taught my entire life, in my Pentecostal youth, in my fervent years in Calvary Chapel, that Catholics were next to the Anti-Christ in their evil, pagan beliefs.  Now of course, by the time I had graduated college, I had met people from all over the globe with diverse religious beliefs.  I was open-minded enough by the time I met Rosemary to not believe she was evil, a pagan or the anti-Christ.  That was just silly.  But being friends with people with a variety of  religious beliefs was different from dating somebody of a different religion from my own.  At first I was skeptical.  But we were falling in love.

Rosemary worked as a school teacher in a local elementary school.  Despite her extremely conservative Catholic upbringing, Rosemary was surprisingly open-minded.  She was in a new country, and she wanted to experience new things that were discouraged in her own home.  The school librarian was the wife of a Baptist minister in town.  When Rosemary was invited to this Protestant church by the librarian, she readily accepted.  She initially loved what she saw.  The warm fellowship of believers seemed much more genuine and convivial than the congregation of her local Catholic church.  She was encouraged to pray directly to God in any manner that she wished, which was a rare privilege in the heavenly food chain of saints and angels in her Catholic tradition.  She found the directness of the Baptist church very attractive, and became fast friends with the pastor and his librarian wife.  I told Rosemary of my difficulty in finding a home church in El Paso.  She knew I was not Catholic so she suggested the Baptist church that she occasionally attended.  I will call my new church home La Puerta del Cielo Baptist Church.

Wait – a Baptist church?  Yes, I had vowed to stay away from those constipated Baptists of my youth, but I also fell in love with this new, independent Baptist congregation.  When I asked Pastor Alvarez (more bogus names) about their Baptist affiliation, he told me that they were Baptist as a matter of history only.  They were not members of the Southern Baptist Convention, were quite independent, and in fact were making plans to someday completely disassociate with the Baptist denomination.  “The label 'Baptist' puts a bad taste in people’s mouths,” Pastor Alvarez told me.  “They get the wrong impression about us.”  It was almost like he was apologizing for the name on the church sign.  Pastor Alvarez was not a legalistic, condemning pastor.  Most of his sermons were not on Christian dogma, but on nurturing healthy marriages and relationships.  It was a welcome break from what I had experienced from the Baptists of my youth.

In the meantime, Rosemary regularly celebrated mass at St Michael the Archangel Catholic Church (bogus bogus bogus).  Her active participation in the choir gave her some visibility within the church.  I felt that I needed to know a bit more about the Catholic church if I was going to be dating a woman of the Catholic religion, but I had no desire to convert to that church.  In the meantime Rosemary was somewhat receptive to La Puerta del Cielo, and I secretly hoped to get her more intrigued with something closer to my own religious beliefs.  We decided to alternate every other week between my La Puerta del Cielo Baptist Church and her St Michael the Archangel Catholic Church.

I was already leery of her Church, but I did my best to approach it with an open mind.  The Catholic Church was demonized in every church I had ever attended.  I think I was mature enough at this point in my life to know that Catholics were not the anti-Christ, or following the 'wrong' religion.  At least I think I was.  But I also had to learn about her religious beliefs on a personal level, all with a level of skepticism and suspicion that unjustifiably used my own religious beliefs as the ideal standard.

The first few times I attended mass with Rosemary, I simply observed the rituals and proceedings, and reserved judgment for later.  The first thing that I noticed was the joy and exuberance of Rosemary's singing.  The choral songs of St Michael the Archangel were much simpler than the overblown productions of the Calvary Chapel 'praise band'.  I enjoyed the music much more this way.  The simplicity of the musical arrangement added to its devout sincerity.  Rosemary constantly smiled as she sang, and I loved how she was able to derive that much joy out of her worship.  Rosemary had introduced me to the elderly priest, and he had a remarkable charisma about him.  However, I found his homilies to be pointless.  I was used to lengthy sermons with Biblical exposition, interlaced with history, science and other subjects that, even if bogus, were meant to serve an apologetic aim.  I was used to scribbling notes, marking my Bible and checking out the recording from the tape library for further study at home.  In contrast, St Michael the Archangel seemed to have a rotating schedule of four stock homilies, each one being a mere fifteen minute recycle of inane platitudes that would have made Hallmark Cards proud.  Be charitable towards your neighbor.  Live selflessly.  Be true Catholics in Deed rather than just in Word.  More facile life-lessons that were, frankly, more simplistic than the moral lessons I learned from a TV afterschool special.  But, as I was used to paying close attention to my sermons, I did the same with the Catholic homilies.  When I questioned Rosemary about certain things the priest had said, she shocked me by saying she was not really paying attention to the homily.  In fact, she did not think anybody actually paid attention to the priest's homily.  This really disturbed me.  How was I to get instruction on the beliefs of the Catholic church, their interpretations of the Bible, or their instructions for Salvation if I could not get it from their homilies?  Rosemary told me that this was what Catechism was for.  If I was to be Catholic, I would have to attend these extra-curricular sessions of dogmatic instruction.  So without learning much of anything about the Catholic religion, I at least learned that Salvation was much more complicated than simply reading my Bible and accepting Jesus as my personal Lord and Savior.  The ritual of the Catholic service fascinated me, and I paid very close attention to the details.  I tried my best to understand what each action and gesture in the ritual represented.  I pumped Rosemary with questions and she patiently answered.

Me: Why do you bow at the pew before you sit down?

Rosemary: We are showing our respect and adoration to the elements and the Bible.

Why does the priest hold the Bible up and kiss it?

The same reason.  He reveres the Bible as a revelation from God.

Do Catholics pray to Mary and the Saints?

Yes.  The Saints are people that we can relate to better than we can relate to God.  I don't understand God, and even though I want to talk to Him and pray to Him, it is hard.  Nobody can fully understand God.  So it is difficult to pray to him.  But the Saints have lived their lives on Earth.  If a farmer needs help with his fields and crops, he prays to the Patron Saint of Farmers, because he once lived his life as a farmer.  He understands what it is like to be a farmer, so the farmer on Earth can relate to the Saint better.  The saint is an advocate who has a more direct seat to God than I have.  At least, that is the belief.

Why do you pray to statues?

We do not.  They are just representations of Mary, Jesus and Saints.  We revere them, so we gaze at their statues in expectation of seeing them someday in Heaven.  If you travel, would you miss me?  Would you take out a photo of me and gaze at it because you love me, and cannot wait to see me again?  You do not love the photo, but you direct your love towards it, because you want to see me again.  That can give you an idea why Catholics gaze and meditate upon statues.

And on it went.  Rosemary's explanations of Catholic beliefs and rituals were, on the one hand, completely alien to anything that I had previously experienced as a Christian.  On the other hand, I found that my former Churches had engaged in yet another bit of exaggeration.  They did not fairly represent Catholics or their beliefs.  I felt that much of the condemnation that I remembered was more gross oversimplification of very subtle and contextual issues.  Catholic gestures, genuflections and rituals were not simply means to an end, as I had thought.  They were the perpetuation of traditions and symbols that Catholic believers could grasp hold of as a means of contact with the intangible Divine.  It dawned on me that it was no different from what us Protestants called 'a point of contact' for our Faith.  The statue was a 'point of contact' for the Faith of Rosemary's Catholic belief.  The laying on of hands was a 'point of contact' for the Faith of my Protestant belief.  Catholics had their chanting and ceremony in their worship.  I had my raising of hands and swaying in my worship.  I had my water baptism and anointing of oil as means of placing a physical anchor to direct my Faith towards.  Rosemary had her genuflections, incense and ritual as a means of placing a physical anchor to direct her Faith towards.   I did my best to criticize the Catholic rituals, but only came to believe that in many cases Rosemary was doing the same thing that I was.  The worship was the same, only the mechanism was different. 

I eventually realized that my particular mechanism of worship was simply part of my own religious tradition.  I could no longer be so arrogant as to think I was not following an invented religious tradition just like Rosemary.  That seems so obvious to me now, but at the time, the fact that I, as a refugee of Calvary Chapel, a denomination that stressed that we followed no tradition, no ritual, nothing but the sole authority of the Bible; the fact that I followed my own tradition in worship was a major revelation.  I began to question all the assumptions that I had placed my religious authority of sola scriptura, the sole authority of the Bible that was the plumbline of Christian truth.  I believed that I based all my Christian beliefs on the sole authority of Scripture, and that every belief and dogma of my Faith needed a Chapter and Verse foundation in the Canon.  Pastor Skip of Calvary Chapel could claim all day that The Bible never endorses the alien, artificial Catholic practices, like the prayers directed toward saints.  Rosemary told me that these practices were not in the Bible, but who says that they had to be?  They were a product of revered Church Tradition.  But why did my beliefs have to derive exclusively from the Bible?  Since when did the Bible itself claim that its own contents were the sole authority of Faith?  Wasn't the assumption of sola scriptura itself a Church Tradition that needed to be followed?  True, such Catholic beliefs that Calvary Chapel ridiculed such as Purgatory, the intercession of Saints, and the Immaculate Conception, had no foundation in the pages of the Bible, and relied exclusively in trust on Church Tradition for their existence. 

But couldn't I, as a sola scriptura Protestant, say the same thing about things that I took granted in my own Faith?  Where was the Trinity, as explicitly defined by my old Calvary Chapel pastors, be found in the Bible?  Nowhere that I could tell, if I was honest with myself.  Yet the Trinity was one of the fundamental Dogmas that one must believe if they were to be saved.  Or was it?  Where was that particular article defined in Scripture?  Was that also a mere tradition?  What about the contents of the Bible itself?  The very foundation of my Christian beliefs were contained, so I thought, within the covers of that most sacred canon.  Yet, how was this canon, this foundation, this absolute standard defined? 

Tradition.

This led me to a question that in all my years of belief, in all my years of devout service, and backsliding, and repenting again, in all my years of unquestioned acceptance of the Canon of 66 books of Christian Scripture, I had never even thought to ask myself.  How was the Canon formed?  How were its contents defined?  How was this decided?  And by who?

And even if I knew the answer to that thorny question, wasn't the acceptance of that answer just the acceptance of another Church Tradition?

In all my years in Calvary Chapel, in Baptist church, in my Pentecostal youth, I do not remember hearing a single sermon or lesson explaining how our most revered Scriptures were actually formed.  Compiled?  Assembled?  I did not even know the right words.  For all I knew, it was just as if they appeared one day in antiquity, lowered from Heaven by a fiery chariot, and bound between golden covers.  I looked for an answer in the only resource that I knew of at the time - an appendix of my trusty Thompson Chain Study Bible.  Among the many articles in that resource, there was nothing dealing with the formation of the canon.  There were only a few short sentences explaining how certain books, the Apocrypha, were left out.  I will include here the entirety of that explanation:

It is commonly agreed that some of these books contain material of literary merit, and historical value.  But their canonicity has been rejected, and they have been gradually omitted from the modern editions of the Protestant Bibles for the following reasons: 

1) They are never quoted by Jesus, and it is doubtful if they were ever alluded to by the apostles. 

2) Most of the early Fathers regarded them as uninspired. 

3) They did not appear in the Ancient Hebrew canon. 

4) The inferior quality of most of the writings as compared with the canonical books, stamps them as unworthy of a place in the sacred Scriptures.

That is it.  That was the only explanation I was given  I did not know how particular books got in the canon, but books were left out on seemingly contrived, artificial and ad-hoc criteria.  Canonicity is to be rejected if Jesus does not quote from it?  Says who?  Calvary Chapel taught me to view the early church Fathers with suspicion in regards to Church dogma, yet I was to listen to them regarding the inspiration of scriptures?  If we are basing our canon on what is included in a Hebrew canon, what is that canon based on?  And just who is judging, and by what objected standard are we basing the quality of writings?  What superior quality of a writing gives that writing away as “worthy in a place in the sacred Scriptures”?

Dare I say it?  Were the very foundations of my Christian Faith, the canon of the Bible itself, based on artificial, man-made traditions?  It had to be.  I could see no other alternative.

This was a major turning point in my religious Faith and my eventual de-conversion.  I was not a Catholic Christian, and I was still suspicious of many of their practices and beliefs.  I was still a Protestant, and I still believed in the inspiration and infallibility of my own Scriptures.  Beliefs like that, beliefs that were cemented into my brain since childhood, cannot be let go of overnight.  But the problem I was having differentiating between the authority of the Bible, and the authority of Church tradition led me to abandon any notion I had that the Bible was the sole and exclusive authority of belief.  I was not about to accept the authority of a Church government located in Rome.  I did not know if there was another valid authority out there.  I suspected not.  But if I was to be consistent, I had to at least allow for the fact that the Bible was not the sole arbiter of my Faith.  Quite what that meant, I did not yet know.  At the time it meant simply that I could no longer accept the dogma, rather the assumption, the tradition, of sola scriptura.  It meant that I had to open up for the possibility that there was another source of Faith that could influence my own Christian Faith.  I had to be more accepting of Rosemary's Catholic traditions, and any other peculiar traditions held by the diverse beliefs held within the Christian religion.  I had to confess that I came from my own religious tradition, with an artificial baggage and history, and that my practices and beliefs could not be traced back to the lips of God.  Realizing that I followed many man-made traditions rattled my senses, and I felt like a major foundation stone of my Faith was kicked out from under me.  Could I be Catholic after all?

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