Part V - My How Things Have Changed - Buzz

The very first time I really remember the sensation was in about 1996.  I had a migraine headache (I have had them for years) – but this one was different.  I was really dizzy like usual (a certain amount vertigo is usually part of a migraine), but there was something else with it- the only way I can describe it was that I felt like I was “buzzing” everywhere.  Not audibly.  Just a persistent sensation of buzzing.  So, like usual, I swallowed a handful of pills and went home to get into a dark room and try to sleep it off.  After 2 hours or so, the pain and vertigo were gone, but the “buzzing” was still there- and, it had localized to both my hands.  It felt like the inside surfaces of my fingers – the sides – were asleep.  I could move them, but…..really weird.  Didn’t think much of it, and it lasted about 2 days and went away.  A few days later, I woke up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom.  I could move my legs and feel my feet, but I couldn’t get out of bed.  I also couldn’t talk.  I was basically frozen in motion, but my bladder was working fine…….you do the math.

And, thus began a long and persistent slide downhill for me, physically but more mentally.  Honestly, I thought I was losing my mind.  I saw doctor after doctor and solicited prayers from any and all takers, and no diagnosis or intended cure came.  By 2001, I was at a breaking point.  I didn’t know what to do.  These weird symptoms would come on with no order and no warning.  Almost never was it the same thing twice.  And when they did come, they were steadily worse.

Some 5 years earlier, I had joined a church almost immediately after settling down in Seattle.  It was a very different church than any I had ever been in before- not only did they have the single coolest music ministry (that had a jazz-fusion septet that would gig in clubs) – but they had an incredibly charismatic leader in their senior pastor.  He had been a very successful and famous professional sports star; retired from that; and after serving in a large-ish church in a suburb of Seattle, elected to start his own church.

His ministry was different, too.  He advocated multi-ethnicity in all things, but more than that, he preached with a near fire & brimstone demeanor.  Completely fearless in all aspects- as an example, one year they started a series where the pastor was going to preach starting with Genesis 1:1 and just go through the Bible.  As luck would have it, they got to Genesis 38:4 – on Easter Sunday – and this pastor did not change his message one bit.  (If you aren’t acquainted with this passage, it’s known as “The Sin Of Onan”, a rather notorious set of passages.  Highly recommended reading.)  At the end of his sermon, he gripped the edge of the dias, beamed out to the crowd and said, “Are ya glad ya came to church TODAY??” very loudly, while the congregation squirmed away.  He was very vocal about a great many things- a lot of which I really didn’t cotton to- but he was learned and articulate.  And, very Biblical.

His staff, however, tried as hard as they could to keep up with him, but never quite got there it seems.  He had the single most talented composer I have ever met in my life on staff as the Pastor Of Worship, but he was very dissipated in a number of other ventures, and really smacked of the ADHD Poster Child.  This pastor did not know (and still doesn’t) the meaning of the word “simple”- everything had to be at a Christmas Eve Service level or beyond – casts of thousands – and no one was ever really prepared for anything – or worse (and more common) – everything would change after a lot of preparation.  I distinctly hearing him say, “the Holy Spirit is telling me to play this song now”, to which the drummer leaned over to me and asked, “How come the Holy Spirit only tells *him* these things?”  But, I digress.

This constant problem, and my own physical problems reached a fever pitch in May, 2001.  We were supposed to do a multi-church event, and this Worship Pastor volunteered my own personal amplifier for all the other bass players (there weren’t supposed to be any other bass players- I had been tasked with learning all the other church’s songs and had done that) and had neglected to tell me that.  In the middle of the gig, another bass player walks up on stage, unplugs me and plugs into my amp and muscles me out of the way.  I just couldn’t take it anymore, and I left the stage and would not return.

The next day, I wrote an email to the Music Director of this church (different guy) who was a good friend and the trombonist in the fusion band.  I basically told him that I was very confused as to what was happening – about church, sure- but more about my physical and mental well-being.  I felt like I should step down because I was angry and confused all the time, but I didn’t want to step down out of the fusion band.  His reaction was truly shocking- I received a ranting email asking all kinds of inappropriate questions and suggesting that perhaps my Christianity was all in my head – just go ahead and return all the music from the church and he then thanked me for my 6 years of service.  (I had only been there not even 5) I was fired.  I tried to call him- clearly there was a miscommunication on my part – but he wouldn’t take my calls.  I was out, and there was no way back in.  To say I was devastated would be a vast understatement.  I felt like an outcast, and I dared not show my face there again.

About 2 weeks after all this happened, the final diagnosis came in: Multiple Sclerosis.  EDSS Scale 4, Remitting/Relapsing.

The word got out quickly.  Through some other friends, this diagnosis was transmitted to a bunch of churches in the area over a period of days and weeks.  I expected to hear from my friend the Music Minister, or the Pastor of Worship or the Senior Pastor of the church I had been serving at for 5 years, but nothing happened.  A friend of mine in the choir at that church sent me an email with an attachment of a screen shot showing that I was on their online prayer list – so, they did know – but still, absolutely no one from that church contacted me to call, to see how I was doing, to see how my family was doing- absolute silence. 

On a Saturday afternoon, my wife and I came back from running an errand and there was someone sitting on my front doorstep.  I didn’t know them, and neither did my wife.  I got out of the car, and they stood up.  I asked, “How can I help you?”, to which the gentleman replied, “Oh- I am here to find out how you are doing.  We heard about your diagnosis at church, and I thought I would call on you.” 

Problem, though- he wasn’t from my church.  He was from another church that I had played at just a few times.

(I’ll jump ahead a bit for you- it’s been 11 years since I was diagnosed, and to this day, no one from that church has ever called on me.  Not one, single time.)

It’s taken a long time for me to get over this- and, in many ways, I’m still not over it.  I have had several occasions to interact with this church since then in some capacities, but every single one of them has ended very, very badly.

The problem here is that this church, and many like it nowadays (especially in the Seattle area, where “controversial” churches are really en vogue) are quick to take on anything that will quickly gain them a reputation without having to work very hard at it, and worse- to really know the reasons why they are doing it.  In the case of the church I am citing here, they DEFINITELY “had it going on” from a musical perspective, but lacked any way to really minister to their body at large.  They would attend every single anti-gay marriage initiative and would rail against that; they were militantly pro-life; militantly conservative in political viewpoints – your basic, what the press would call “Conservative Christian” – but really all they were was militant.  If you opposed them on anything within the church the reaction was swift and severe.  I consider myself to be a post-tribulationist (look it up) but the church was pre.  Any thinking, rational Christian will tell you that post or pre doesn’t matter- what really matters is that Jesus is coming back and that’s the main thing, right?  No- not these guys.  I was told that because of my view, I wasn’t allowed to lead any groups of any kind for any reason- Sunday School, teach, head of a prayer group- nothing.  Ridiculous.  Another friend of mine was divorced, and as a result there was real consternation as to whether or not he could serve in any ministry at all.  Again- ridiculous.

What’s worse were the 2 other large-ish churches in the area that were trying to be just like this church.  They paled in comparison- one was (and still is) run by a pastor who is really more of a used-car salesman, and the other is run by an absolutely brilliant young man who has a breadth of theological knowledge and absolutely no people skills whatsoever.  Together, these three churches take delight in going down to Olympia each Christmas and protesting loudly over the atheist “There Is No Christmas” signs and have even gone as far as to try and enact legislature to get those signs banned.  When that doesn’t work, they resolve to calling the governor of Washington names and making accusations about other people’s character.  Also, true to the character of such a shallow imitation, the young man that I mentioned that is the pastor of one of these armed camps called “a church” is happy to tell anyone who will listen that he knows he’s right about the things he says because he has received death threats, and that the congregation shouldn’t question his authority because he’s the pastor.  All three of these churches have no problem with shunning people out of the church – I was actually witness to an elder losing his elder status because his “fault” was that his unwed daughter had gotten pregnant- and another time when my church was shunning an entire other church because their pastor, who had been accused of a sexual impropriety, refused to step down during the investigation.  (I completely fail to see how one can connect the shunning in either of these cases.)

I’m calling shenanigans on this whole thing.  Why?  Not because I am anti-church or anti-Christian or anything like that.  I’m calling shenanigans on it because all they really do is either:

1. Attract the type of Christian who is all about being “edgy” but has no grounding.
2. Alienate the people who need Christ the most.

And, in both cases, when a church member really, truly needs them, they aren’t there for them.

How does this play into worship?  It’s simple- this church, as I said, “had it going on” musically.  Nobody could touch us.  For the non-musical portions of church, we had the appearance of “having it going on”- we were edgy, different, and fearlessly evangelical- and yet, just below the surface, nothing was there.  NOTHING.  Both musical and non-musical aspects of the church require the exact same degree of excellence and completion with regards to depth of knowledge and ability to execute.  Each of these steps requires thought and deliberation, or they really don’t serve the intended purpose now, do they?  At some point, in either a worship or non-worship environment, the rubber is going to meet the road, and the real important stuff begins.  We all have to be ready.  To be edgy and different, while fun, serve no purpose at all other than to generate noise.  To be the same as everyone else without the knowledge of how the ship gets from Point A to Point B – or why a Gmaj7 is related to a C9 chord – is equally inappropriate.  At some point, these kinds of topics are going to come up.

When I first started out working in the church, none of this was ever questioned.  There were standards by which people acted and were measured by. (Notice that I did not say “judged”)  It was clear to everyone – not just a select few – that having a heart to do something was not enough.  It was about being ready for the tasks – the unplanned tasks – dealing with life and all its warts and carbuncles – that is what mattered.  Just talking or saying the right things were never enough- there had to be substance – and in 27 or so years, that has changed drastically, and not for the better.  For the worst.

Now, lest you think that my entire purpose in this installment is to grind an ax, I have a couple of epilogues that do show that God is still at work, and the situation got better, but just not as a result of this (or the other 2) churches:

• My friend, the Music Minister and I finally talked – for the first time in 9 years – about 1.5 years ago.  He told me that he left my former church about 2 years ago- because (as he put it) he realized that everything that church stood for was completely hollow and had absolutely no meaning.  All they were doing was forcing “the ideal Christianity” on people, but had no way to back it up and really minister to anyone.  He also had no idea that I had been diagnosed with MS, because no one in the music ministry had taken it from the choir prayer list to the leadership of the church.  He and I have since renewed our friendship, and that is a GREAT thing.  He continues to struggle with the fallout of having ever participated with that church.
• I have retained good, solid relationships with all but one of the players from the former church’s fusion band – despite my former church’s meddling in those relationships.

 

One last thing – in case anyone is wondering why I haven’t used the word “cult” in describing this church (or the other 2) that is on purpose.  They are not cults.  They don’t get that pass.   They are Christian churches, and are therefore held to that standard.