So, I'm struggling to pull the trigger on this TLP re-launch
Update (12:50 p.m. on 4/7/10) - It's up. Click "TLP" in the navbar above.
I’ve been wanting to re-launch The Lighthouse Project for awhile now. Most of last month’s planning revolved around making TLP work in conjunction with my web site, schedule and overall vision and goal for myself as a writer. There are a few old entries in there -- which I'll later revise, improve -- and I've been working for the past month or so on a new saga, working hard to break it down into more easily readable portions. Because while I like writing a lot, I don't like reading 7,000 words on a computer at once, so I know you don't.
Yet here I am, ready to publish the first few entries to a likely 10-part saga …. And I just can’t. I mean, I will. But it’s harder than I thought. I want this to be great. I want to start things off again with a phenomenal story (which I’ve been given), write it well (I’ve spent enough time on it to be happy; can’t spend too much because TLP unfortunately doesn’t pay any bills just yet) … yet I haven’t been able to pull that trigger. Well, really, click that “Publish” button.
I think a large reason why is because this story hits a lot closer to home than I originally realized.
It’s about a guy to whom I’ve given the name Todd. He went through a lot of things that I definitely haven’t, things that devastated him as a child. They’d devastate anybody. Todd’s a really nice guy, albeit a bit quirky, one of those types who seems like he’s always had a couple Red Bulls. Yet as he spilled his guts to me while we sat in a downtown Wilmington diner, his usually chattery voice slowed, his pitch dropped, his throat clogged, and more than once tears filled his eyes.
He wore bruises as a child, free gifts from an alcoholic, abusive father. He was kicked out of his Christian middle school then humiliated in high school. He became a drug addict. A friend’s drunk uncle molested him once. He more than once overdosed; he twice was jolted back to life in the emergency room.
His story ends well. He sees God, which blows my mind.
But what really hits home is where his downward spiral really began. In that Christian school.
You’ll see more details when I finally post this, and I will later today, but this school handled Todd like a sick animal. They didn’t love him; they tried to find ways to run him out. Deprived of "Christian" acceptance, Todd turned to the people they preached against.
When you read the school's reason for expelling him, you’ll want to laugh, cry, and hit someone all at once. It’s laughable, it’s ludicrous, and such a school shouldn’t have the name “Christian” in its title at all.
I grew up in a Christian school. I have no regrets about this, and while I had my run-ins with
administration for being too argumentative sometimes, it was a 99 percent great experience. I had to grow out of a lot of things that became engrained in me there, but I love looking back on the whole process. I’m nowhere close to bitter or upset my parents made me go there. And they did. I begged them to let me transfer out, more than once. But they kept me stuck there. Now, I’m so glad they did.
But there were other students there who, now looking back, I know were like Todd. They were the rambunctious ones or the moody ones or the “bad” ones, but deep down, I’m guessing that, like Todd, they just had questions, too. Only they were afraid to ask because they knew that whatever they really wanted to ask would be flippantly dismissed because they were “bad.”
So "vigilant" was my school that they literally stalked students on Facebook and punished them for pictures they deemed too risque, or pictures that showed them partying or attending concerts or acting "unChristian."
(Of course, that's an entire issue in and of itself, Facebook and the posting of pictures and whatnot, but I'm already rambling too much....)
Labels have a way of killing people, you know.
That’s why this story hits so close to home. I've not only seen people labeled....I've done lots of labeling myself.
I’ve probably sat beside and talked with kids, my peers, who were just like Todd growing up. Who knows what they went through outside of school? Who knows what their home lives were like, what their backgrounds were like? All too many Christian educators care only about teaching rules and imploring us to remain clean, sober and abstinent and preaching against rock music – “discerning” the bad things – when really they’d better reach people by discerning hearts.
As you’ll see in Todd’s story, telling someone something is wrong only goes so far. Until someone understands why its wrong – beyond “God says so” – knowing what is wrong does little good.
3 Comments | Apr 7, 2010
Reader Comments (3)
I'm excited!
Nice entry. And yes, i often how many people I've "labeled" as not worth getting to know, and how much I missed out on.
Paul! Great to see you back 'round these parts, brother. Thanks for the comment.