Epiphany Again

(Originally July 31st, 2005)

Me walking up 8th Avenue today, hiding tears by rubbing them back along the sides of my head, then rubbing my palms together in the heat of the afternoon the way you'd do under the dryer in the men's bathroom--if you're the type who'd bother.

I've had epiphanies (def. 3b) before about all sorts of things; what train would get me downtown fastest and then realizing I've boarded the exact opposite as I sat for the fourth consecutive minute, stalled, waiting for the local to catch up to my so-called express. I've even had epiphanies about my spiritual life before, such as the one I've had today, and I will count every one of them as valid--as awesome and life-changing.

So, instead of kicking around a little longer in Central Park until reporting to my job at an NYU-area Starbucks in two-plus hours, I came dashing home today from church because I wanted to establish this blog. In doing so, I felt that I would again allow my life to change, instead of just chomping at the bit of a chance of change, and never really doing it. For years now, that's all I've done; teased at re-establising my churchlife and having a good cry as assorted meetings, but never really letting my spirit take root again, the way it had done between 1980 and The Year 2000.

I will, in time, unfold all the leaves of detail regarding that 20-year period of my Christian life, but not here in This, the first day of my new Reedemable Life. You can investigate the events of my last year and a half here if you'd like, but my personal little saga has changed today and the story of it needs to continue here.

Today I woke up late to get to work. I usually like to give myself about an hour and a half to get the cobwebs out, mourn for What Could Have Been, harass my cat and let her harass me, then root through the laundry for something suitable to wear. Hygiene depends on what time I have left, and whether my building's plumbing wants to give me hot water at that moment. Today, several things just weren't happening. Cat got fed, but it cost me blood on her jagged food can's metal. I dashed enough hot water on me not to be offensive, but I had to wear my Starbuck's uniform to save time when I would arrive at work, eventually. Mind you, there was a chance that I'd make it still, but the margin was closing off like the space between subway doors as you dash down the steps towards the train. (Was that the 2nd train analogy or 3rd? Hmmmm....)

The morning was sizing up to be another warm and damp one. I pace-walked down my block, wondering if I should finally call one of my cousins or aunts and confessing that my blazing career had come crashing down and I was a month away from eviction (for the 3rd time). Maybe they could help me, and I'd not have to follow through with the plan to go live in Paramus for free with a reacquainted friend whose life appears to me to be a wreck, but he is at least wealthy so I'd have that to count on. I did not, by any stretch of anyone's imagination, want to move away from New York.

The first time I did so, I was about five years old, and it was against my will. My mother was holding my hand on the corner of 141st and Broadway and we were waiting for the bus to take us to the George Washington Bridge bus station where I would begin a suburban life in Rockland County. My father was standing across the street, on the southbound side, watching us go. He was slightly older than I am now when he wife decided she was never coming back to him. She started another life 25 miles away, and now she was declaring the seriousness of her seperation by coming to get her child to join it. My father had lost his last chance to make things right. The following years would see him attempting to correct his fatal error, to no avail. Every drunken, blundering, and violent attempt would only drive another nail in the coffin of their marriage. Odd, then, that my mother would end up dying before him.

Regardlessly, my chances to become a well-adjusted adult was irrevocably shot to all Hell that day, as well as the events that occurred on several days before then, and a hundred times that many since.

So here I was, 35 years later, living in New York again and about to get kicked out. The least I could do was get to work on time. There is a big empty lot diagonal to my block where they are building a new condominium high-rise that they will call "The Langston". Across the street from it, they already completed "Bradhurst Court". This and 800 like them are going up all over Manhattan. Beautiful bastions of success and wealth. Monuments constructed in tribute to the lives of individuals who have much such better choices than I have. In pasing them daily, I seethe with jealousy and even more geniunely--sorrow.

When I first moved into the area, I thought all this renovation was a great chance for me to upscale my own life. I came to an affordable little apartment with plans to increase my income and my chances. I would be able to take advantage of this housing boom for the moderate-incomed. I thought nothing of the hundreds of thousands around me who would be able to do nothing but watch. Now I am one of those and I am watching, and I am feeling what they've been feeling for years.

On my way to the station, I tried calling the job to tell them that I might be late, but the fax machine picked up instead. Instead of trying again, I just plunged ahead and hoped I wouldn't be TOO late. The A-train showed up just as I reached the platform. I literally thanked God.

I reached the job, 138 blocks to the south, with three minutes to spare. I thanked God again, as heartfelt as I'd done before. I then discovered I was trying to get to work on next Sunday's schedule. Today, I was actually not expected to come to work until 4:00pm.

This wasn't the first time I'd done this. I had to laugh. I had packed a set of clothes to wear after my assumed shift, so I just changed into them and decided I'd have a free morning to enjoy NYC before reporting back to work this afternoon. Why not? I had a good 8 hours of sleep last night and enough adrenaline in my system that had been generated by my mad dash, so whatever. Why not do what all the others were doing? Laze about on a warm Sunday morning.

I got my free drink and went to Washington Square Park. A homeless man, clad only in shorts and dark, ashy skin scared me from the park's interior, so I outskirted to a streetcorner west of the Arch and saw Matthew Modine waiting opposite me. He wasn't waiting for a taxi, apparently, because several had passed him. I shimmied in my familiar way. I LOVE seeing celebrities. I love wondering what they are thinking. Do they want me to notice them? WOuld they run screaming from me if I dared to speak? In my Starbucks, I've taken money from and made drinks for at least 7 of them over the past year. There is only one celeb who is a regular, and I'm just now getting to dig his talent. Before, his show was an HBO exclusive but now it's re-running on TBS and soon to be the WB this Fall. Matthew Modine, however, has never come into our shop while I've been working there, so I contented myself to bask in the starglow during the surprise little vacation I'd given myself.

Then the guilt came. Why do I dote so on these people? Are they not human, like me? Years and years of counterproduction was starting to pile up, and I didn't do any work to ignore it because essentially it is correct. Celebrity worship is idolatry. If anyone deserves to be honored in my heart, it isn't people who perform in questionable and morally deconstructive work. Blah, blah, blah.

And by the way, now that I had Sunday AM free, and I was fully awake, dressed, and out on the street, what excuse did I have for not going to church THIS time? I had none. I decided to go. I didn't have to go to work until 4:00. After a year of avoiding, I was going to go. Why not? What would it hurt?

I decided not to go to the one I usually try to attend, because I was a tad underdressed, but that I could fit in to the Times Square Church because there was enough bohemians with flip-flops and shorts I've seen to know I wouldn't be an instant cast-out. (And yes, we both know that churches are not SUPPOSED to be like that--but we also know the truth of human nature). I hopped back on the A-train at W 8th street and streaked toward my Epiphany.

In a nutshell, David Wilkerson preached this morning. He is the pastor who rose to fame in the 70's because he evangelized a street thug named Nicky Cruz and as a result much Christianity reached the inner cities. A thing called Teen Challenge began as well. A movie called "The Cross and the Switchblade" was made to tell these two mens' story. Today, Nicky Cruz just happened to stop by today. It was nice to see them hug each other, two old battle-scarred lions now enjoying a life of success and redemption.

When I do manage to get to a church service of my desire, the music easily and thankfully brings me to gushing rivers of tears. It's as if all the months of confusion and lazy frustration gets washed away, and I reset my spiritual meter. I even make resolution that on That Day, I will begin attending church again on the regular but it hasn't happened in five years yet.

Today, David Wilkerson preached out of Jeremiah about "Who Will Receive The Warning" or something like it. He started as I've seen him do before. He presents like an angry old man who teeters on the edge of affection and loathing. I have felt that his affection for the congregation is genuine, but his disgust and intolerance for their habits burns through his sentiments. Habits such as watching television and going to movies. This is something I can tolerate because when my Christianity started in 1980, it was in a church that not only castigated those things, but women could not wear pants or make-up either, and any jewelry other than a wedding band and/or a school ring were idolatry. (Many other such incongruant standards saw me leave that church 18 years later and has had me floundering on the rocks of indecision ever since.)

So today, I felt like I knew what to expect from Pastor Wilkerson. I mainly went to church today because I knew I had the opportunity to do so and should, and I wanted to release my pent up tears in a good song service. As the pastor started, I felt like I'd accomplished my goals, and so the old feller could preach want he wanted to and I'd be satisfied.

He message turned into something else, though. He started with the prophet Jeremiah warning the people of God that they were all going to get His wrath because they wouldn't heed his prophets. Wilkerson didn't equate himself as a prophet, and twice insisted that he's never done so in any of his years of ministry. But we, the church, were in many ways like the people of Jeremiah's day. We, by and large, wanted to receive messages of prosperity and blessing and reject messages of doom and judgement. I had to agree with the man. Most televangelists, whom I cannot watch lest I feel like my cynicism and scorn blasphemes what might be a man of God, do only seem to preach about properity. I think, in fact, that most non-religious people mock these highly-seen evangelists based on their rediculously flamboyant carriage of blessings.

But then Pastor Wilkerson's message become one of hope, because he turned in the Bible to Luke and illustrated that Jesus preached the answer to the needs of the church. Whereas the people in Jeremiah's day only wanted blessings and material prosperity, the people in Jesus' day were told what would truly make them happy. That the answer wasn't in building your financial prowess and beating out all competition, and wring out all the acquisitions in our society that you can manage in one lifetime.

The answer is in seeking first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and letting all the other things be added unto you.

Wilkerson asked us a question--has God met your needs?

I thought about how my car was snatched by the sheriffs and this time I had no hope of retreiving it, that I had to give up my job in Jersey. I had wanted to anyway because the job wasn't as lucrative as I thought it would be, and I was only spending more money n gas, tolls, and insurance than I was making. At that time, I went back to Starbucks to just get some kind of income. In the month that I had left, they started getting sandwiches and salad plates to sell. In my first week back, I discovered that at the end of the night, whatever wasn't sold was thrown out of given to us empolyees. In that week, I took home a week's worth of food. That was the week when I ran out of money. I even borrowed train fare in order to get to work that week, and ate these frre sandwiches and salads at night.

Had God met my needs?

Had he?

I had my latest Epiphany then.

God was still taking care of me. I had acknowledged that He had been before today, as you will see in my last series of blogs, but today I realized that I had nothing to be afraid of.

No, not afraid of being broke and having to move to New Jersey. That still might happen if I can't find a career placement in New York within the month.

No I mean I don't have to be afraid of church anymore. I was staying out of church because I was afraid of religion--of the demands it would make on me again, and of all the sacrifice I might have to make in order to fit in again. I was afraid of men like Wilkerson, who would condemn my habits and pressure me to conform I was afraid of all the secrets I hide, and having them scrutinized by those who I want to call my brothers and sisters. Poverty was nothing compared to the terror of that.

But today God snuck through the back door and told me something.

He said, "I have never NOT wanted you in My kingdom. What you think you have to accomplish, and where you think you have to live, and what you think you have to wear has never been the criteria for being My child. Whatever you have really needed, and I mean REALLY needed, I have provided for you, even when you were too scared to come back into My house.

So this time Alan, stay here and enjoy what's here, and I'll take care of the rest."

And now, with tears re-soaking my face to the point that I can't even breathe normally, I realize that He's right and I'm going to be okay.

God is going to see to it that I'm going to be really, honestly okay--the way He's done all my life.

When I left church today, walking uptown towards the Park, fighting back more tears as I realized this promise was true, I knew I had to do more this time than just walk away for another few more months unto a year in confusion and avoidance. I had to work this promise into action. I had to live like I believed it.

So I came home to accomplish two things;
1) I wanted to start this blog, and leave my last one behind. Today, I start reclaiming my Christianity and blogging about it. It waon't always be pretty or uplifting, but it's my story and every bit of it will be the truth.

2) I wanted to hear the song "How Could I Ask For More" again. The words had caused my tears today after I left church, and I want to share it. Cindy Morgan wrote it, and I just found a website that seems to appreciate it more than I do.

I'll see you again soon. God bless.


There's nothing like the warmth
Of a summer afternoon,
Waking to the sunlight,
Being cradled by the moon.
Catching fireflies at night,
building castles in the sand,
kissing Momma's face goodnight and holding Daddy's hand.

Thank You Lord.....
How Could I Ask For More!

Running barefoot through the grass,
A little hide and go seek.
And being so in love
That you can hardly eat.
Dancing in the dark
when there's no one else around.
Being bundled beneath the covers,
watching snow fall to the ground.

Thank You Lord.....
How Could I Ask For More!

So many things I thought would bring me happiness,
Some dreams that are realities today.
Such an irony the things that meant the most to me
are now the memories that I made along the way.

If there's anything I've learned
from this Journey I am on...
The simple truth will keep you going,
simple love will keep you strong.

There are questions without answers,
and flames that never die.
And heartaches we go through are often
blessings in disguise.

Thank You Lord
Thank you Lord, yes
How could I Ask For More?