{"id":38,"date":"2008-09-13T14:12:04","date_gmt":"2008-09-13T14:12:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/flirtingwithfaith\/2008\/09\/on-being-cool.html"},"modified":"2008-09-13T14:12:04","modified_gmt":"2008-09-13T14:12:04","slug":"on-being-cool","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/2008\/09\/on-being-cool.html","title":{"rendered":"On Being Cool…"},"content":{"rendered":"

Repost from Sept 13, 2008. \u00a0Happy New Year all…
\nI don’t think I am remotely cool enough to roll with the new Christians. I\u2019m forty-two and I sometimes watch mindless television. I wear pointy high heels and makeup and I don\u2019t drink beer.<\/p>\n

Of course, I used to be cool enough. Back when I sat on the roof of my apartment smoking cigarettes, reading A Clockwork Orange<\/em> and looking down my nose at the people who didn\u2019t get it. Back when I didn\u2019t wear shoes or makeup but I did drink beer\u2026and rye whiskey, which I preferred.<\/p>\n

When I was cool God was in the poetry of the Bhagavad Gita or captured in a rose quartz crystal or dancing next to me at a Grateful Dead show. God was in a kiss or on a breeze or buried in the deep recesses of my mind when I\u2019d created the perfect chemical storm.<\/p>\n

And then, once I\u2019d applied my considerable intellect and more considerable arrogance to the question, God was nowhere. I stopped searching and I was alone.<\/p>\n

Fast forward a couple of years, a couple of kids and a couple of drinks and God became a \u201cpower greater than myself.\u201d And, armed with a hint of humility I began to change.<\/p>\n

Jesus had not called me yet\u2014but I think he was watching.<\/p>\n

When he came it was unannounced and uninvited. There was no frenzied altar call or sinner\u2019s prayer. There was no hip pastor or tail-kicking band. No French roast coffee or modern art. There were no candles and no incense. No Power Point presentation or fill-in-the-blank bible study. It wasn\u2019t even a particularly welcoming environment.<\/p>\n

No, my Damascus Road was not modern or post-modern or denominational. It was God doing what God does wherever and whenever God wants to do it. Once I assured myself that the pain in my chest, inability to breathe and nausea was reverential fear and not a heart attack, I somehow knew that I believed something<\/em> and that I would never be the same.<\/p>\n

Of course I knew nothing of Christianity or Jesus or the Bible at the time. I thought I did, having debated the atheist party line for years. But, in the true spirit of Amazing Grace, <\/em>I went from blindness to sight in a moment and was compelled to learn.<\/p>\n

This story could go on for pages\u2014and it eventually will\u2014but I need to get back to my original premise, why I am not cool enough to be a new Christian.<\/p>\n

It has been a little more than five years since I came to believe. In that time I have had some of the most wonderful and some of the most terrifying experiences of my life. I have learned from everyone\u2014the whole mismatched Christian family\u2014including televangelists, silver-haired, hymn-lovers, Southern Baptists, emergents, people who used to believe and Mike Seaver from Growing Pains<\/em>.<\/p>\n

While I might not share their style, or their politics or their history or their views on what it means to be a Christian (or a follower of Christ), each and every conversation, sermon or rant is a gift from God. These folks\u2014 like it or not\u2014are my new family. And I am learning to love this new family; every quirky one of them. Even when I don\u2019t really like what they say or how they act or what they claim to believe.<\/p>\n

This unconditionally loving approach to life is brand new for me and it makes little sense. It is often uncomfortable and always counter intuitive. Sometimes I fail miserably. But sometimes I don\u2019t. And when I don\u2019t I have come to believe it is a gift from God.<\/p>\n

Because, back when I was cool, I loved conditionally, starting with myself and extending to a small group of people who also read A Clockwork Orange<\/em> and smoked cigarettes and drank beer\u2026or rye whiskey\u2026and looked down their nose at people who just don\u2019t get it.<\/p>\n

Thankfully, I\u2019m just not that cool anymore.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Repost from Sept 13, 2008. \u00a0Happy New Year all… I don’t think I am remotely cool enough to roll with the new Christians. I\u2019m forty-two and I sometimes watch mindless television. I wear pointy high heels and makeup and I don\u2019t drink beer. Of course, I used to be cool enough. Back when I sat…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faith"],"yoast_head":"\nOn Being Cool... - Flirting with Faith<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/2008\/09\/on-being-cool.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"On Being Cool... - Flirting with Faith\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Repost from Sept 13, 2008. \u00a0Happy New Year all… I don’t think I am remotely cool enough to roll with the new Christians. 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