I grew up in the church, and I’m grateful for that. If I were to darken the doors and vestibules of Central Wesleyan Church in Holland, MI, I would inevitably be stopped and greeted by several of my parents’ friends. That’s a good and important feeling as a young person, not to just be seen and heard, but to be remembered. I grew up in the church, but I wasn’t a youth group kid. I’m not quite sure why. Maybe it was travel soccer, or my black Texas Fat Stratocaster or Halo 2, but I spent my time elsewhere. I am a Christian today not because of a youth leader, but because of a high school teacher. His name is Ray.

Ray talked about the Bible like it was something that happened to you. Ray taught us about 1^st century Judaism, about the rock types of the Judean countryside, and he showed us pottery from live archaeological digs in Israel. I thought that was so cool, that the Bible was a book of dirt and blood and guts.

But it wasn’t the intellectual encyclopedia of Scripture that called me into this weird and wonderful thing called ministry. It was an experience of God. The summer before my Senior year of high school, Ray took a group of fifty of us to get our feet covered with the dust of names and places of the Bible. Prior to Ray’s invitation — and he was insistent that I go to Israel with him — I was going through a period of deep loneliness. One of the dreams of my young life had unexpectedly died. I felt hapless and hopeless. I didn’t have a youth pastor who hit me up for burritos. But I did have this trip to look forward to.

I had the time of my young life. It is one thing to read and imagine that one day Jesus told Simon to put out his nets to the other side of the boat. It is quite another to stand on that very shore, to touch the breeze of the sea, and to feel the temperature of the water. For two weeks I consistently felt like I was circling a burning bush. I was only seventeen, but just two days in I was already starting to feel like the Bible was the greatest story ever told.

On our seventh day the group climbed up one of the highest peaks that overlooks the entire Galilee region: Mt. Arbel. It was a grueling climb, and one of the hottest days of the year. When we got to the top we fifty young and spry high school students were smiling as we caught our breath. There before us was the land where Jesus taught, walked, ate, and was raised. It was beautiful and overwhelming. And then Ray, who was an absolute beast and seemed unmoved by the hike, got up and interrupted our guffaw.

“I want you to know, this isn’t the first time I climbed up this mountain today.”

… crickets.

“I woke up at 3AM and climbed this mountain in the dark. And when I got to this very place, I prayed for you by name.” As he said the word, “you,” he looked me square in the eyes.

That word, you, shot through me. Wrecked me. And I was surprised to feel something I had never felt before. Something from a far country, greater than my emotions and yet a part of all of them at once. I felt approached by something, encountered by someone, drawn in by somewhere. I felt with an arresting suddenness that this something was love, this someone was God, and this somewhere was home. Chills sung their meaningful songs all across my skin, and tears fell down my cheeks. What I felt was not the kindness of Ray, nor even the moving nature of his gesture toward all of us. What I felt was what Malcolm Guite in his poem about Jesus’ baptism calls “the love that beats beneath the being of all things, that calls and claims and kindles us to light.”

I did not hear a voice other than Ray’s, I did not see a face other than his. But I would bet my life on the fact that there was someone else up there on that mountain. And that someone pitched a tent in my sorrow, and I felt better, if just for a moment. And as it all overtook me, another surprising emotion surfaced. Glee. I started laughing. I must’ve looked crazy, crazy with tears and crazy with laughter, because the God who holds the world held seventeen-year-old me. One recent song from a band I worshiped at seventeen, Sleeping at Last, describes this kind of moment in a way that feels right to me,

I believe I’ve seen a ghost,
and I don’t know who it is
I can’t explain it.
I see longing in its eyes,
I can’t quite put my finger on it.
Politely I ask, “Are you real?”
It said, “Here, let me prove it.”
It placed its hand in my hand.
“Don’t kill the messenger,” it said.
You’re alive, quit acting like you’re dead.”
I’ve never related more, to anything or anyone before.
Like a mirror it spoke so clear,
“Don’t you recognize the reason why you’re here?”
To be enchanted.

I’m now 35. I’ve lived my seventeen-year-old life twice. My second seventeen has been lovely. I got married. I got ordained. I got a job at a church who loves me and loves my kids. And God has blessed me with two daughters and more caring friends than I deserve. And even so, once a month I find myself awake at night, my thoughts fixated on that moment on the mountain, wishing I was seventeen again. I wonder to myself, what did God mean by it? I wish sometimes there had been clearer directions. Apparently the raw power of the holy doesn’t come with a manual.

Maybe I’ll fully understand it when I’m 68 — that gives me two more seventeen’s to figure things out. But I have decided that God left no directions on purpose. I was sad and young, and God wanted to hang out. The being-one wanted to be with me. And somehow, some way, my teacher’s prayer introduced us. I know not why it happened then, nor why it hasn’t again since. But I do know that I’ve never related more to anything or anyone before. And when the sadness of my seventeen-year-old self that still dwells within me cries out, I will rest in the thought that I know the reason why I’m here, the reason why we’re all here.

To be enchanted. 

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