Devotions

I am officially ridiculously into alternative and integrated medicine. I want to convert the world.


I remember when I was in high school (a religious private school) there was a wave of evangelical fervor that swept through, and people were obsessed with speaking in tongues and casting out demons, vicariously causing me all kinds of distress and disgust. Anytime a class would get distracted by demon conversation I just felt an icky darkness descend upon the room, and I wondered why anyone would want to be brainwashed into channeling that crap. My Led Zeppelin albums were considered evil and, yes, I didn't do 'devotions' every day so I was probably not going to be Saved. At one point I was eating lunch in the cafeteria and I could see a group of students ascending the art building across the parking lot. They were climbing to the roof because they thought the rapture was happening over the lunch hour. I saw them later in study hall.


Summer break happened and then by fall all the kids who found Christ kind of calmed down. They were just my classmates and life went on. At that point I realized it's the initial falling in love part and wanting to share it with everyone that was uncomfortable. I was uncomfortable in the face of so much certainty and passion.


Now I realize the value of that. We need to be uncomfortable sometimes. We really do. We need to allow people to be head-over-heels in love with whatever they've just discovered. It doesn't last, after all. It gets tempered by time and by living. Resistance to early expressions of devotion just creates rock-hard human beings, clinging to their truths. This is dangerous business. We must bite our tongues and open our minds and allow people to discover truth on their own. We all have our own path, and our paths enrich one another.


So, I humbly present that I am now that annoying 'Christ' kid who wants the whole world to have pins stuck in their meridians and herbs jammed down their throat, and kale mixed in with their scrambled eggs. It actually messes with my ability to write song lyrics; I guess that's my karma. Certainly, I expect my daily devotion will be tempered and maybe then I'll have words to sing again. The irony, here, is not lost on me. In the meantime, though, I only have words to shout from a mountain top: don't ever settle for band-aids for symptoms when you can discover and treat the causes of your illness. Don't accept your diagnosis at face value. It probably fits a bigger picture. Make sure you're looking for the big picture, that combination of spirit and science. It's worth it! There is that quote, "You don't find by seeking, but only the seeker will find."