I have always been drawn to the unique, the different, the odd, the misfits and the eccentrics of the world. I have tried to distance myself from the popular and “normal.” By any standard I am most certainly weird. I have always been intrigued with the hippies of my parents’ generation. Not because of the drugs or the free love but because of what I perceived as freedom. It was this bucking of the system that drew me in. I have glamourized them in my imagination. I saw them as rejecting of worldly things like money, status, and career. I viewed them as living simply. They seemed to value the deeper truths of, people, love, the earth, animals, and life. Add to this the fact that my parents loathed everything they stood for. In my own rebellion and innocence, I focused solely on an altruistic version of them if not a realistic one.
At a church camp I attended in Junior High a traveling theatre troop preformed “Godspell” one evening for us. I was enamored with this hippie version of Jesus. I was hooked. That was when I knew I wanted to live my life for this long-haired God/man who came to love people. I wanted to be radical like him in my love for others. I wanted to change the world. I wanted to care for those who God cared for. I wanted to show people their worth.
What happened to the Godspell Jesus? When did he get replaced with the Caucasian, rules, beliefs, separate from the world Jesus? When did the church move from welcoming to excluding?
As I moved into early adulthood, marriage, and motherhood I eventually got tired of being different. I got tired of marching to my own drum. I gave in to “normal.” I lost a bit of myself. In college, I had studied social work, which in many ways connected me with that part of me that wanted to make the world a better place.
I have always been very interested in “saving the planet.” It has long been my belief that Christians should be leading the effort to care for the world that God created. Toward this end in my young motherhood, I used cloth diapers, I made my own baby food. I even made my own baby wipes. I took scrap fabric and made cloth napkins that I washed and ironed weekly. I shopped at health food stores and made as many natural things as I could. I recycled before it was really a thing and while it was still inconvenient at best. I read to my children, took them to the library, and taught them about Jesus.
I encouraged my children to make their own fun. We made our own playdough, bubbles, sidewalk chalk and games. My grandmother’s Hoosier cabinet became “Creation Station” full of art supplies that were available at a whim to turn ideas into reality. We had very little money as I was home full time for 12 years, but I scrimped and cut coupons and we enjoyed ourselves. My husband is very handy and creative, and he and the children had their own projects and activities. We tent camped as a way of traveling and vacationing. I wanted my children to appreciate the little things.
This way of living felt real to me. It connected me to the Godspell Jesus. It grounded me. As my children grew and got involved in activities and we moved to a Church in a more affluent community, I found my Godspell Jesus was being replaced with a more suburban, conservative, let’s take care of our own Jesus.
Now that my children are all grown and living their own lives, I am finding myself longing once again for the Godspell Jesus of my youth. I find I have grown weary with his replacement. I still desire being a part of the movement to make the world a better place. I am yearning for the radical faith of my adolescence. I ache for a faith that is real and meaningful, caring, and helpful. I have let go of the need to judge, to label, to shame, scare and control.
I am thinking of buying a Volkswagen van and painting it with bright colors as I search for what is new and yet not new at all. For now, I will keep loving and caring for the people who find their way into my counseling practice. Making the world a better place one valuable person at a time.