I'm an Atheist

His eyes looked extra blue today. It may have been that slim fit white polo with light blue stripes or the glasses he wore because he knew it would make me happy… and he probably didn’t want to deal with his contacts, but for story sake, it was for me. I even got to try them on.

I reached over the table and snagged the glasses off his face. I needed something to entertain me as we waited for the African American server with a bindi piercing on her forehead to bring us our Thai food. As I put them on my face, I realized that my left eye could see about fine, but my right eye, it struggled. We joked about how blind he is, in one eye, and shifted our dinner conversation.

I had just got back from coffee with a friend who was visiting from college, and I shared with him how she melts my heart whenever she comes to mind. No, not the romantic melt-my-heart, but the love that says, “I’m so lucky to know an outstanding and unique person such as you.” You know, sometimes you absolutely love someone for who they are, mostly their quirkiness or maybe their originality.

One time after we got coffee together, I blew her a kiss. She grabbed it out of the air, threw it in her mouth, and chomped down. The attention I got from the rest of the coffee shop for my outburst of laughter left me slightly embarrassed. “Oh my gosh I love you,” I laughed as she walked away.

I continued to tell him how my friends at my university blow me away by the depth of their character.

“Praise Jesus,” he jested, sipping on his Thai iced tea.

He knows I go to a Christian university. We joke about it sometimes. If anything, he grew up with more of a Catholic background, but he’s not a really fan of Christians or God, or so it seems. I don’t blame him. It was a difficult task for me to stay connected to the church, and I wouldn’t have if I hadn’t gone for the Christian college emersion technique.

“Shut up,” I jokingly sneered. “They really are outstanding people, beyond the Jesus stuff. I think you have the wrong idea of Christians.”

These wrong ideas are the shackles that inhibit people from gaining a better understanding of God, the immense jungle that we limit to some trees, vines, and coconuts. If we hold on to these limitations, we will never see the different breeds of animals sneaking through the jungle brush, the trillions of species of insects bouncing across the leaves, and the families of delicious fruit hanging from the limbs of the zapote trees.

God is more than we Christians share. We’ll throw out words like “omnipresent,” saying that God is always with us, but we leave out where and fear to say how. I’m an atheist too when it comes to the tree-vine-coconut God, the expansive, over-arching figure evaluating our every act. I believe in the God who is already present in miniscule good that seen all around us, in both the acknowledged and the neglected:

Revealing in the cycling ministries of our Mormon friends,

Renovating in the truth-demanding, honesty-yearning questions of a non-believer,

Reconciling in the authentic and healing love found between two homosexual men.

Through extensions of the love and Spirit of God, the work of God is displayed in the crevasses of each relationship between individuals.

One of our greatest problems is starting with the lofty idea of “God,” where people already have their lack-love, judgmental presuppositions and theories that must be broken down. Perhaps we should start with Truth, Hope, and Love, the things that everyone believes in and longs to see. Tell them to pray to Truth, to sing of Hope, and to paint for Love. Then, hopefully, they discover that these three figures all have the same name, Yahweh.

Gift of Life

She and I had just enough room to sit and talk. We were in the nook of the stairway of the coffee shop, the spot where the stairs go up mid-level and then switchback-like the trails I hiked back home in Oregon during the summer. A few days ago, she emailed me about some research and needed some friends' influence for her social work, and ironically, sharing my story excites the once fearful child inside me. She pressed the record button on her iPhone, and our conversation rolled.

“When did you first know?"

“Why did you decide to come out?”

“What has changed since then?”

These were fundamental questions which, to my surprise, rarely come my direction, causing the answers I spouted out to be insufficient. Consequently, our conversation neared an end, but she made one last request, “So tell me about the most recent date you’ve been on…” the interest and eagerness in her voice booming.

“Well, I haven’t really been on a date,” I responded, “… but here’s the closest thing I’ve had…” She stops the recording, and I began describing my day with that I-definitely-wouldn’t-hate-bringing-you-home-to-momma-Lewis-but-let’s-be-real-I-have-no-idea-what’s-going-on friend, who strikes my fancy just a little too much.

“Do you like him?” she playfully interrupts.

Pausing, “I think so…” I said reluctantly, fearful of the truth I was admitting to her yet more importantly myself.

She peered into the chapters of my life – both past and present – that passed like a freight train blowing through a railroad crossing, leaving one oblivious as to what was just seen. The barriers go up, and we cross the tracks to continue down the road.

Her questions brought me back to that train, where I noticed that the blur of a passing train was composed of countless carts with different colors and signs of graffiti, along with that one with the transient sleeping in that open door.

Moreover, the most important change since coming out became evident moments after our conversation: the newfound affirmation that never existed in my life. My life is my life. What shame do I have for my life and all the authentic beauty that accompanies it?

Up until a few months ago, I rummaged around for someone that I believed could bear the weight of my story, and to muffle my actual story, I filled conversations with heavy words dancing around spirituality – never giving my old friendships justice. I turned our moments together into a test of having them prove themselves worthy in my eyes. We deem individuals unworthy by holding onto presuppositions based upon the few who treated us poorly.

Girls, not all guys are the same.

Gays, not all Christians are the same.

Friends, not all people are the same.

Truthfully, most people aren’t like those few who made us think otherwise. While the words and actions of the few are crippling, the general community understands your uniqueness with some of the best gifts to offer, questions and listening ears.

Our lives, whole lives, are like that brook – as the Creator inspired from the beginning – in enriching relationship with the creation, with the Creator, and with one another. If we continue to withhold the areas of our lives where God's grace is necessary, how can we be a testament to God's grace? The words of our lives are those waters that which sink deep into the soil and give life and beauty to the forest around us. Friends, each life is a gift of life to the other. Share It.

Relentless

I never really understood how I broke his heart, crushed as some would say. He knew my priorities from the beginning: “roommates, friends, then whatever else.” Despite my loneliness, I knew I did not want to find my comfort in a relationship.

He could always see that I was struggling, though. He could see I had feelings for him but could not abandon my beliefs. He could see that I was lost, not knowing between right and wrong, failing to just give up. This made some of our conversations heated.

We were in his car overlooking downtown San Diego – from where some would say “make-out point” – when the words “I envy you” slipped from his mouth.

“Why?” I said, sitting up straight, slightly raising my voice, and feeling him dig a little deeper into who I am.

“Because you’re a Christian...”

The shock eased me back into the seat of his car because there, at that moment, I remembered my beliefs are so deeply integrated into my being that to be apart from them is to be apart from myself.


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Café Bassam is by far one of the best coffee shops to have a conversation in San Diego. Antique trinkets populate the shelves, and painted portraits decorate the walls. Dozens of round two person tables provide “spots on spots” for seating, and of course, the chai is choice.

A friend and I exchanged moments from the past few weeks with our mugs half-filled with Bassam’s regular chai. We hadn’t carried a long conversation for a little over a month, and much had happened.

After remembering claim after claim from smitten friends emerging from broken relationships, I complained, “I don’t get love. I don’t think it exists.”

“Of course you do!” His tone speaking to my doubt, and instantly, stories of his past relationship filled my mind.

“Oh yeah,” I mumbled. “You’ve seen it...”

“You know it exists,” he quickly interjected, and I had no choice but to confess,

“Yeah, I know it does. I just don’t get it so I’ll go with ‘I don’t think it exists.’”


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The spring of 2011 was a rough time for me and my spirituality.

My philosophy class tinkered with my thought, and my friend – a philosophy and theology major – kept the questions rolling. Weeks passed, and the questions grew along with my lack of peace. One day, my confidence in God held strong, but the next morning, I would wake up doubting God’s existence.

As much as I tried to abandon God, I couldn’t escape. No matter what, I couldn’t escape the idea of God and my belief in God’s existence. Call it my background, what I was taught, or whatever. But as much I said, “I don’t think God exists,” somehow, I believed God was there. Somehow, I believed God was present.

Then, I encountered love. All the times I’ve been shown love are the times, I’ve been shown God. All the times I ran from the love of my family, the love of my friends, the love of others, are the times I have been running from God and God’s presence in love.

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I had this dream once, one of those dreams where I was being chased – not by a dog, not by a bear, not by an alligator, and not by another person, but a dinosaur. A big-ass tyrannosaurus obliterated each of my footsteps behind me, ready to dismember my body bite by bite.

Approaching a cliff, the consciousness of the dream became aware to me, and I realized, “This is a dream, and once I hit the ground at the bottom of that cliff, I’ll wake up and be away from this monster.”

Flying off the edge of the cliff, I watched the ground from limbo. As the ground got closer, I anticipated the jolt that would bring me back to reality, and I hit the ground.

I didn’t wake up, and seeing the carnivore tumbling in the sky above me got me running once again.

Even when I thought I knew a means to slip away, my attempt failed, and I continued to be pursued.

Love is the relentless force out there chasing after me, and there is nothing I can do to escape from it. The more I pull away, the more it surprises me. It’s revealed moment after moment. It’s prolific. It’s everywhere. It’s God, God sweeping me off my feet and showing me there is something more, something better.