4th of July, Wild Goose, and Addicts Saving My Faith



I find my husband’s family—the Christensen clan—is absolutely delightful.   Fourth of July is a big event for us.  I’ve been to Hill City’s Independence Day celebration since 1996, except for one year, last summer.  I was super busy doing an internship in recovery ministry, and just couldn’t get away.  But this year I was back, and wow… something strange happened.



After taking a year off, everything felt new again.  The same feelings I had in 1996 came back:  “Wow, this is so much fun.  What a sense of family!  What a sense of community!  Babies to seniors, all playing together.  Pontoon rides, campfires, fireworks, street games, etc, etc, etc.” 

After going north for the 4^th of July year after year, it’s almost as if I was desensitized to the whole sensory experience of it.  So this year, it all came flooding back.

And what’s even stranger, the thing that took me away last year—recovery ministry—is another one of those things where I had a bunch coming flooding back to me.  Super weird how these two things connect.

This week I’m heading to a place I’ve wanted to go for a long time: Wild Goose Festival.  It’s a progressive Christian festival with awesome music and awesome speakers.  And I even get to present on addiction and recovery ministry with an incredible individual from Florida.  I’m speaking on something I’ve never spoken about publically… how people in recovery saved my faith last 4^th of July weekend.

My faith has always been really experiential.  The closest thing I recall as a conversion experience happened around a campfire—crackling and popping fire, heat, stars in the dark sky, music and dancing around the fire.  Music, stories, images, and metaphors have always been what my spirituality has looked like, felt like.  Well, until seminary anyway….

My faith became super brainy there.  If you really want to know, I have a pretty academically strong “worked out” constructive theology, and I’m a dang good Bible scholar.  But during the deconstruction and reconstruction process of seminary, I lost some things.  I lost the experiential part; I lost the sensory experience; I lost the stories and music.  I did my other, main internship at a super cerebral church where lots of people were awesome seekers—almost to the point of being faithfully agnostic.  And that’s a great kind of faith, but it was different from my previous faith.  And I was headed to the constant seeking, brainy faith.  I knew it, and I wondered if I would fall out of faith.  Until….

I started working with addicts and people in recovery.  Immediately I was struck by the power in their faith.  So powerful.  So powerful it could yank them from the prison of addiction and liberate them.  Stories.  So many stories of people being gripped by the Spirit of God, and the Spirit pulling them towards grace.  Music that mostly sounded great, but sometimes sounded terrible.  But it was always really loud and full of life.  The music was their medicine, and they had to consume it to be healthy. 

And I realized… these folks had something I had lost.  Or maybe I had never had it.  It was a desperate faith.  Faith that kept them alive.  Has my faith ever had to keep me alive or sustain me?  My friend Collin reminded me, “You think you don’t have to have it, like it’s just a choice for you, but you do need it.” 

Communion at the Recovery Church is the most sacred thing I’ve ever witnessed.  People from all walks of life go forward to the cup of salvation and bread of life.  Some kneel at the rail… and wow, what happens there is amazing.  Nothing is spoken aloud, but you can feel begging, pleading, and complete surrender to the Higher Power:  “God, take this away. God, keep me strong.  God, I am helpless.  God, help me make my wrongs right.  Jesus, I need your grace.  Jesus, you did it for me.  Jesus, resurrect this life of mine.”

And last July 6^th—instead of being at the cabin with my awesome in-laws—I decided to stop just admiring what these addicts had.  I decided to get out of my stupid head and let it go.  (Cue Frozen… Let it go, let it go, can’t hold you back any more.)  And there it was, the experience again… the smell of the gentleman next to me at the rail who, I think, walked off the street.  The aftertaste of the juice.  The hustle and bustle.  People singing, “I saw the light, I saw the light, no more darkness, no more night.” 

I don’t know.  Theologians have a word for this: ecstasy is another way of understanding.  It might be that.  I admire mystics, but I’m not one, so it’s not that.  It’s simply faith that’s experiential—that feels and knows in a different way.  It’s a sense that stuff really matters, because it really matters.  Where you can let yourself get desperate because it’s better relying on this mystery God thing than not. 

I’m glad I missed the 4^th of July cabin celebration last year, because I was able to appreciate it again this year like it was new.  Missing it also saved my faith.  The addicts at the communion rail inspired me back—brought me beyond the desensitization of my brainy faith.  Because of them, I was able to experience my spirituality new again.  

Cue the music again: “Spirit of the living God, fall afresh on me. Melt me, mold me, fill me, use me.  Spirit of the living God, fall afresh on me.”