This has taken far longer to finish than I meant. But this is the third and final post on a trip I took back to LaGrange, Georgia recently nearing a year ago now. I lived in LaGrange during high school. It is a good thing I wrote most of this last fall because I wouldn’t even remember at this point.

Sunday morning, we attended Western Heights Baptist Church where Rev. Steve Vickery, Micah’s father is a pastor. After lunch, we began the trip back home. But as it seemed like we weren’t pressed for time, I asked if we could take a detour. Micah wanted to drive through downtown LaGrange, and from there we took a back way up to Grantville where I actually lived. This was the route I would take in 10th and 11th grade when I started coming to LaGrange willingly, not just for school. I remember loving to drive these roads in my dad’s old red Toyota pickup truck, a truck which I still think of as my favorite vehicle. There was something about the smell of that truck that seemed to encapsulate my entire life. What I wouldn’t give to have that truck back.

I imagined being in that truck again as we drove down these largely unaltered roads between LaGrange and Grantville, GA. The first place I saw that took me back was the Zaxby’s where I worked. I didn’t work there very long, and I remember there being some sketchy stuff going on there, maybe drug dealing. Then we passed by the Kroger Grocery I worked at after Zaxby’s. The only things I remember there are the coworker I dated and the fact that I used to get Stouffer’s Lasagna every time I had a meal break, which would take the entirety of my break to heat up and then would be too hot to eat. So naturally I’d be late coming back to work. At the time I felt like a victim about all of this.

We continued down Hogansville Rd., and came to “downtown” Hogansville, which isn’t anything. I have a strange memory about deciding to try to drive my truck into the woods (ironically to impress a girl, I think. The coworker from Kroger!) just to see how far I could get. Or I may have been driving the old Buick Century that my Great Aunt Claude left me when she passed. Either way, I guess I made it out of those woods.

Man. That Buick. I wore that car out. I’m honestly not really sure what happened to it… I guess it just disintegrated. If you looked at the roof from the outside, you could see hundreds of dents going up, not down. Because I had a tendency to drive down the road punching my fist into the ceiling as hard as I could while listening to NOFX, Millencolin, NUFAN, etc. Not sure if that was anger or excitement. I’m glad to report I don’t do that anymore. Anyway, this was an excursion.

We kept driving and I started recognizing a lot of things I had not thought of in years and years. A particular house; a cinder block building; the way a small road turned off. The way is pretty much a straight shot, though at one point you have to veer to the left. I was surprised to instinctively know where that happened.

Interestingly, this is where I stopped writing last fall. So the rest of this is from my older (30 now!) more enlightened May 2014 perspective.

Veering off put us on LaGrange St, the street I lived on. As we drove, I recognized everything. It was as if the town had frozen in time. We came up on Reese St., so my old house was just two away. Pass the big faded yellow Victorian house that old Coot and Elaine lived in and… there it was.

It isn’t much to look at; just a simple brick ranch. I remember when we were first looking at the house. It had an in-ground pool in the back yard, which really is the most unlikely thing we would have had. We would have so many youth parties and birthday parties at that pool. There were also pecan trees and boy did we harvest them. When we were looking at the house for the first time, we heard a loud train and realized there were train tracks literally in the back yard. Nervous about this, my parents asked the owners how often the train ran. They said “not that often, it hasn’t run today.” When my parents told them it had just run and how could they not have heard it, they insisted that you get used to it and you stop hearing it. We found that to be true.

We lost many pets while living there. I mean, a few dogs and several cats and kittens. I’m amazed at people who grew up with one animal; we managed to go through them pretty quickly. They would get hit by a car, or eat something poisonous, or be mauled by neighborhood dogs. Or they would simply leave and not come back, which now that I consider it, was a wise choice.

I remember the cool youngish couple that lived next door. He let me play his video games. Pretty sure his dogs killed some of our cats. And on the other side of him were the sisters, Tiffany and Tabitha. Tabitha had a dimple in one cheek because she said she fell on a mounted deer head’s antlers and one poked through her cheek. Tiffany was my age and I crushed on her for a long time. My sister and I would camp in the back yard with Tiffany and Tabitha (they had a little brother, who apparently wasn’t very important to me.) And we would play “Truth or Dare” (with my sister!?!) and my sister would dare me to do scandalous things with Tiffany like pick her up and carry her around the tent.

Back to the present. Micah was driving the van, you remember. So he pulled into the driveway of my old house, wanting to go knock on the door. So… that’s what we did. And a crazy old northerner answered the door with a look of utter incredulity on his face like we better have a damn good reason for being there or he is going to beat us off his property with his cane. So I just dove right in, “Sorry to bother you mister, it’s just that I used to live in this house years ago when I was growing up, and I just wanted to see it. When he heard this, he softened, determining that my presence was justified. I say softened; really he was still a crazy old northerner with a crusty exterior. But he seemed to really want me to come inside and see every nook and cranny of the house. So we did.

Memories. Waves of memories crashing against the levees of my mind. Anna’s birthday party. Spencer and the matches. The day dad had to put Buster down. The mice (or rats) living in my bedroom closet, and the time Jesse the cat caught one just as I was going to sleep. The time Jennifer busted the window banging on it and cut up her arm and we thought she was going to die. So many memories.

After thanking the nice crazy old northerner, we got in the car and left. I really was speechless. I kept trying to talk about it but it was like I had a big lump in my throat and I was on the verge of tears. I couldn’t have been with better people besides Micah and Blair to process all of this with. I couldn’t put my finger on what I was finding difficult about all of this. I think it was partly just a lot of dusty memory files all being accessed at the same time, for the first time in a long time.

But I think a big part of the difficulty is that I spend my entire life developing a summary view of myself which is largely selective. I subconsciously decide what memories to drop and how much of what memories to keep more at hand. This summation of myself is not really very accurate as I tend to highlight my strengths and downplay my weaknesses. I remember myself as being a good, responsible, respectful kid who loved Jesus, cared for others, obeyed his parents, and always wanted to lead worship. But suddenly being confronted with actual data really shook my categories for how I viewed myself. I started to realize I wasn’t nearly as innocent as I had always thought. What about the kid who was so disrespectful and mean to his mother that she had nearly given up? What about the kid that looked at porn? Or the kid that didn’t stand up for his sister and show her love? Or the kid who was always playing with fire when it came to physical relationships with girlfriends? Or the kid who didn’t bat an eye at some of the most vulgar conversations with friends that even now make me blush? This list could go on. Because the flood of memories didn’t contain only good memories. Spread throughout were memories I’d rather stay locked up. I have far more to be ashamed of than I realize, and far less to be proud of than I’d have you believe.

It was about a five hour trip back to Charlotte. So we sat in silence some, and we talked some about the past.

I don’t have an easy take away from this trip other than perhaps the realization that people are far more complicated, I am far more complicated than I realized. I like to figure things out, and I like to think that I can figure people out. But people are such a wealth of shaping experiences, you cannot just summarize them in a brief bio.

The good news of all of this is that none of it is any surprise to Jesus, and he died for all of it. Every single thing I’ve done, the things I remember and the things I’ve conveniently forgotten, every single thing is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more, praise the Lord, O my soul!

So who am I? I’m a son; a bastard; a brother; a friend; an enemy; a husband; a lover; a failure; a success; a sinner; a saint. I’m all of these and I’m none of these because my identity is in Christ. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so.

This has taken far longer to finish than I meant. But this is the second of three posts on a trip I took back to LaGrange, Georgia recently, a city I lived in during high school.

The trip from Charlotte is a straight shot down I-85. I’ve long marveled how the course of my life has poetically stayed in close proximity to this interstate with the exception of my year and a half in Charleston. Grantville, LaGrange, Newnan, Anderson, Greenville and Charlotte are all cities that are not just accessible by 85, but 85 runs straight through them like points on a constellation.

Friday evening we arrived in LaGrange, Ga, right off of West Point Lake where Micah’s parents still live. Micah asked me if I recognized it, and I didn’t. But when we walked inside, memories rushed back in. The one I’ve never forgotten is the time that Micah convinced me in an act of piety to destroy all of my secular CDs. I’m not sure how much of this act was for the sake of purity and how much was for the sake of the exciting colors and shapes that CDs make when you burn them with a cigarette lighter. But we took my CDs out into the back yard and sacrificed them unto the Lord, as a burnt offering. The moment we walked into Micah’s old room I felt as though I could see all the burnt CDs, and I could remember listening to Johnny Q. Public and the W’s and the Supertones. Micah told me that one reason he liked me being around is because he could just say “play this song” and I would start playing and singing it. For him it was like having live music following him around. That was actually gratifying for me to hear.

Saturday was when all the festivities were planned at the school. The deal was that there would be a girls basketball game and a guys basketball game, old students versus current or recent students. I had no part in this, but after the games there was a concert with former students performing. I was really excited to play a couple of my own songs for this, as well as accompany a couple of other pieces. But more on that in a moment, just one more excursion. While watching the games, I had a moment to catch up with Mr. Cippola, the principal of WGCA then and LCS now. I never had a particularly close relationship with Mr. C. but he walked up to me after 12 years and knew who I was. I was grateful to be able to share a memory I had of him that left a mark on me. When I was in 9th or 10th grade, someone from a newspaper in LaGrange contacted me and asked if they could take some photos of me for a back to school fall fashions bit they were doing, I won’t even attempt to try to explain this because I never understood it. My personal style was just rebellion and I never knew why they had my name and number. But I kept at what I find to be a hilarusly unlikely situation. Somehow, though, mew ended up at my school, taking pictures of me in my safety pinned hoodie and cut off dress pants in front of the school sign. The article ran and Mr. C. started getting angry phone calls. So he called me in his office to talk about it. I was geared up ready for “the man” to tell me what I could and couldn’t do, and how small minded people were upset because I, in one fell swoop of fashion iconoclasm had deconstructed their perfect worlds of pleated khaki shorts and polo shirts that all Christian kids wear to Christian school. (Insert anarchistic punk rock anthem here)

But Mr. C. handled me in a different way. He didn’t tell me I was wrong or berate me for being “different.” He talked about the concept “deference” and what it means to willingly lay down rights out of love for others. This was a category I didn’t have, and it stuck with me. I’m not sure how much of this idea sunk in and effected change in my life, but I’ve never forgotten it.

Onto the concert. It was a surprisingly diverse performance base spanning from a classical aria to folk music to praise and worship to hip hop. Organizing the music was a dear lady who was one of the most important people in my life, Mrs. Darlene Shaw. I’m not sure I could overstate the influence this woman had on me as a musician, singer, performer, and worship leader. She was the head of music and drama at WGCA and she encouraged and validated me like few ever had. Micah asked me what about Mrs. Darlene impacted me so much. After some consideration I said that Mrs. Darlene was an amazing musician who made me feel like an amazing musician. Something about that encouraged me to work and excel and to think of myself as capable of a higher goal musically.

After going out for some drinks, we retreated back to the Vickery’s. Before going inside, Micah, Blair and I laid down on his driveway to look at the stars. I don’t see a lot of stars in Charlotte because of the city lights but from Micah’s house the heavens were overflowing with an army of radiant celestial sentinels. We laid there just silent watching shooting stars and still stars and planets and feeling very small and just a part of something very big. We must have laid there for an hour, and we were all just hoping for one final shooting star to end the night. Instead, a bat flew right over our faces and scared us to death. We jumped up with stifled screams and started running and flailing our arms frantically finding our way safe inside, still human, to sleep.

I’m writing this in three parts because it has just gotten unwieldy for a single blog post. This is part 1, and the other two parts will follow in subsequent days.

I’ve never lived in one place for very long. I can think of at least 8 different residences I had in 5 cities and 3 states before I graduated high school. Many folks have stories like this due to military life or some other vocation but I’m honestly not sure why this was our story. Because of this, I’ve always thought of myself as a sort of restless go-er, without the need to really put down deep roots or keep in touch with people. It wasn’t until college and marriage that I started to think of people and places as things not to be simply discarded with a change of address like so many pieces of junk mail to a prior resident.

Last weekend I did something I honestly never expected to do: I attended a high school reunion of sorts. Now, I didn’t even graduate from this high school. From 8th grade until halfway through 11th grade I lived in Grantville, GA and attended West Georgia Christian Academy (WGCA) in LaGrange. At that point we moved again to Charleston, SC. WGCA has gone through much turmoil since I left in 2001 and is now called LaFayette Christian School, but it is in the same location and buildings after these 12 years, albeit having expanded significantly. Some of the staff who have been there for many years decided to organize an event they called ReConnect 2013, and they basically invited all former and present students and staff to attend. I wouldn’t have been inclined to go, but one of the few people providentially back in my life from that era is Micah Vickery. We were close friends in high school, but didn’t stay in touch when I moved away. At this point our lives have circled back on each twice, (3 times if you count the fact that we just discovered we were born like an hour away from each other in Oklahoma). Micah is an intern at Uptown Church where I serve as worship director, and I got pumped to go only because he was pumped to go.

So I jumped in the van with Micah, his lovely wife Blair and their two girls and we took a road trip to western GA. The whole experience was bizarre and surreal for me. I moved in January 2001 the day after the annual Madrigal Feast and performance in which I had a substantial role. For some period of time after that, I tried to hang on to my old world. I had a girlfriend from Georgia, and I remember making trips back for that relationship. But at some point she broke up with me and I think western Georgia just became another shadowy place from my past, another place from which I would maintain no lasting relationships. But Micah’s family still lives in Lagrange, so this is home for him. It is fairly unavoidable for him to bump into people from his past by the nature of visiting his family and going to their church. So traveling with them, staying at his parents house, going to their church, and of course attending this school-wide reunion, all of this was my experience on this trip.

I was pretty apprehensive just before leaving. I had been pretty excited up until the day before, but then I got spooked thinking about the past. I remembered that I had old girlfriends who would probably be there. I remembered that people were in different places spiritually, and that some had rejected the faith entirely. I remembered that I wasn’t nearly the “good Christian guy” I liked to think I was and many of these people knew that. I remembered that these people haven’t been tracking with me and seeing how I’ve changed and who I am now. I remembered that the past is a mixture of good experiences and bad experiences and that all the experiences are tangled and flowing in and out of and around and through each other like the roads at the intersection of I-85 and I-285 northeast of Atlanta they call “Spaghetti Junction.” I very nearly backed out, but Micah talked me back away from the ledge (or maybe back to the ledge), and Friday at noon, we hit the road.

I hope Escher is at the top of these stairs or we will fall

As is my habit, I am in the middle of a big overhaul project. This time it is our church website, uptownchurch.org. The current site actually looks decent, it just isn’t functional. The backend is Adobe InContext Editor, which no longer exists. So of course updates and support have ceased. I used to be able to get in still, but now, using three different browsers, I can no longer edit the site without going into the code. Which is not among my talents or skills.

So we’re converting our site to a WordPress based site, using StudioPress’s Genesis framework as the skeleton. We’ve got most of the wireframe data in place, just working through style. And in the process, I have been digesting more than the daily recommended allowance of church websites looking for ideas and inspiration.

I don’t know anything about marketing. Or web design for that matter. I am, however, concerned with the relationship between form and function, particularly as they relate to ultimate things such as the praise of the Father, Son and Spirit. And maybe this is just another reference to that classic triad truth, goodness and beauty. When we redesigned our worship guides, those three perspectives were of utmost importance. Perhaps form is beauty and function is goodness, while truth is, well, truth. The goal was to be as helpful as possible in assisting God’s people toward the end of more and better worship. Scripture references, citations, liturgical headers and definitions, all are intended serve that ultimate end.

I want this website to be the same. But traversing the web on the sites of some of the more notable churches in America can be disillusioning. My struggle is that there seems to be a very fine line between the language used to sell a product, and the language used to invite people to live. Our goal is not ultimately more web traffic, more stuff, more notoriety or visibility, or any of that. But to the extent that we see information and technology as an avenue of fulfilling the great commission, those things may ore may not accompany.

I think the beauty of these multiperspectival triads is that, being rooted in the Trinity, or the offices of Christ, they are parts of a fixed pie. Christ is not 1/3 Prophet, 1/3 Priest, and 1/3 King, he is infinitely and perfectly all three. Nothing we do could possibly be infinitely or perfectly anything, but the realization that you don’t necessarily have to rob one to fund the other is encouraging. So, as a goal, we want our web site to be as fully true, good, and beautiful as possible.