A few weeks ago, while visiting Los Angeles, I went to church, as I have most Sundays this year. After the first speaker, I turned to hymn 97 in a tattered green hymnbook, its pages yellowed with age, its weight familiar in the palm of my hand. As the congregation began singing, “Lead, Kindly Light” pressure swelled in my throat and face. I held back tears until I could join at the lyrics, “I loved to choose and see my path; but now, Lead thou me on!”
Until 14 years ago, I was on the path I had chosen for myself in high school. I went to BYU. I served a mission. And after graduating from the accounting program, I joined Bain & Company as an Associate Consultant. In my future I saw Harvard Business School, a career as a media executive, and a second career in public service. I felt in control of my destiny.
But God had other plans. I reluctantly accepted that the path I loved to choose and see may not actually be the one for me. With new experiences my sense of self and the world grew, and with that growth came a greater trust in a process I don’t control. Which is why—when I heard a call back to religion a year ago—I responded. I went to St. Nicholas Orthodox Church for its Divine Liturgy, live-streamed a Roman Catholic Mass and Episcopalian Eucharist, and dropped into the Baptist worship across the street. I was in the market for a church.
I browsed the websites of every option nearby to delay entertaining the one I knew best.
When I confided in a friend about what was happening, he sent me this excerpt from Christian Wiman’s book, My Bright Abyss: Meditation of a Modern Believer:
You can’t really know a religion from the outside, and you can’t simply “re-create” it to your liking. That is to say, you can know everything about a religion—its history, iconography, scripture, etc.—but all of that will remain intellectual, mere information, so long as your own soul is not at risk. To have faith in a religion, any religion, is to accept at some primary level that its particular language of words and symbols says something true about reality.
I nodded along as I read the excerpt. Wiman goes on to say, paraphrasing American Lutheran theologian George Lindbeck, “… the religion you grew up with has such a bone-deep hold on you that, as with a native language, it’s your only hope for true religious fluency.” That wasn’t what I wanted to hear. But I needed to hear it.
I had known that at some point I’d check out the local LDS ward as part of my research. Weeks went by and I didn’t go. On Christmas Sunday last year, I finally did. I’ve kept it up, frequently attending, though I often arrive late and exit as soon as the congregation utters “amen” to the closing prayer. A month ago, though, I stuck around for the second hour of the two-hour block. I shook hands with the bishop and introduced myself in Elders Quorum.
Back to LA. The topic in Sunday School was fasting. The teacher asked for those in the class to share their experiences with the practice. I waited several beats for someone to answer. In the silence a reflex kicked in, and I raised my hand. I explained that at the end of my mission, I could sense how easy it would be to relax my effort and let my mind drift forward to post-mission life: reuniting with family and friends, resuming my college education at BYU, and dating. I resolved to fast each of the last six Sundays of my mission, and prayed to the Lord for strength to remain focused on service and the teaching of my investigators. Like a runner rounding the final leg of a race, I drew on the energy stores I had left to speed through the finish line, not limp across.
That young missionary wouldn’t have believed you if you said that eight years later he’d leave the church. And yet, both the exit and the return seem to be one of a pair of palms, a unifying story in the unveiling of my inconspicuous life. Though at times I wish for light to illuminate more of the path ahead, I’m learning to exercise faith by walking as though “one step [is] enough for me.”