Last week I turned 35.
Last week I saw an old friend that I hadn't seen in close to 20 years.
Last week I learned a little bit more about myslef, and this friend reminded me that I am who I am suppose to be just by being myself.
But before we get there, we have to go back to the day I first met him.
I entered Kindergarten at the age of five. And I had just one friend. His name was Justin. Justin and I did everything together. We played together, did art together, we ate lunch together. Justin was my closest friend. Justin was my only friend. Then one fall day, Justin moved away. I remember my teacher telling me this would happen. I remember my partents warning me that school would be different with out my confidant there. The next school day I would turn six. (Actually, this probally happened closer to October or November, but I am trying to build some symetry here.)
I remember that day. I rememberr standing at the back of the room looking out at all the toys, looking at all the art supplies, looking at all the other kids, and having absolutely no ideas what I was suppose to do. I didn't know how to interact without Justin there. So I simply stood and stared.
Then a kid named Adam Kline bounded into my life. He came over and we played together. We did art together, we ate lunch together. We did everything together. Adam and I grew up together. We spent as much time together as we did with our own biological brothers. Adam was my closest friend. He taught me that the best way to have friends is to be a friend. He was the one that introuduced me to comic books. Adam was the one who first saw something unique and good in me. (He said of all the Avengers (our template for how the world worked) that I was most like the moral and upright Captain America. This was the first time someone saw something good in me before I saw it in myslef.)
Then junior high hit. Adam moved across town and went to a new school. Then highschool hit, followed by college. I moved out of our hometown. Adam stayed. Somewhere in the middle of all this we lost touch with each other. We knew more or less what the other one was doing, but with few exceptions we now lived seperate lives.
Last week Golden Shoulders of Nevada City, California played in Chicao, Illinois. Adam Kline is the front man for said band. They were playing on my 35th birthday (this time it was in fact the actual day). There was no way I was not going to see this show and miss a chance to hang out with Adam Kline once a gain.
I grew up in a culture of Christianity that was conservative in every since of the word. Good people, who love God, but they saw a closed world, with closed theology, which often lead to closed off missions and closed off lives. I have found the typical reaction to this form of religiousity is to either accpet it lock, stock, and barrell, questioning nothing, and accepting closed theology and a closed off life; or to throw the cross out with the conservative bathwater (if I can mix and mangle my metaphors).
As I look around my predominatley liberal Christian culutre here in seminary, I wonder if I am the only one who grew up as I did, the only one who still sees the value in absolutes, but doesn't hold them absolutely.
Speaking with Adam after the show I found out that I wasn't alone. I was assured that there was someone else who had taken the same
journey that I had. I was comfrted to talk with someone who had sifted and weighed what we were taught as
children and held on the good, held on the truths, held onto the cross,
but has left behind that which can led to a closed off life.
The title of this entry is "My second sixth birthday." It is taken in part from the idea presented in this comic, that breaks life into seven year chunks. At "35" I am just beginning my sixth life. (I fudged the timeline of when I first met Adam, to be able to get away with saying):
So I spent my second sixth birthday as I spent my first: learning from a guy named Adam Kline that
I don't have to stand at the back of the room and stare at the new toys and wonder where I fit with the new kids. I am who I am suppsoe to be. And more importantly, I am who I am just by being myself.
--Serving alongside all of you, just from further away,
--Jesse Letourneau
