Thank You, Bladity Blah

(Note: Names have been changed to protect the innocent.)

I should be asleep right now, but I'm not. Because I'm STOKED.

I just got off the phone with someone I haven't seen or even really thought about for 5 years. I'm so old. I shouldn't be able to say things like that. And it was the best thing that happened to me all week!

Okay, backstory. Two days ago, I was sitting in my parents' car with my parents and sister. My sister said, "Hey, do you remember Blahdity Blah?" And I was like, "Yeah, she was in Trevin's class." And thus ensued a ten minute conversation about whether Blahdity Blah was in my class or his, and which of her sisters Jordan went to outdoor school with. Once the temporal continuity had been established to everyone's satisfaction, I asked Jordan, "What about her."

"Oh," Jordan said. "She's Orthodox."

I died for a second from the shock. Blahdity Blah and I were members of "The God Squad," the school's team of straight-laced Bible-Thumpers who organized evangelistic youth events for fun. I was the edgy rogue of the group, which means that I was in theatre class and listened to Skillet. She was, at least according to my stellar memory, one of the more straight-laced members.

We were the ones who would keep the faith. Were were evangelicals. We were the cream of the youth retreat crop. We were going to grow up to become head pastors, youth pastors, women's pastors, missionaries, and parents who didn't let their kids play with Pokemon. None of us were headed for anything more exotic than non-denominational pentecostalism, especially Blahdity Blah.

Funny how your perception of someone who you haven't even thought about for half a decade can be so concrete. Funnier how when that perception is shattered, you're still incredibly rattled by it.

Tonight, after getting off work. I sent Blahdity Blah a facebook message that basically said, "Orthodoxy. Help." Only I used more words than that. I got a response tonight a little before 11pm. Included was a phone number.

I thought for half a second about waiting until tomorrow to call her. It was very late after all. But, something inside me said, "Bugger that bollocks!" And I simultaneously dialed her number and swore to stop watching so much Spaced.

We talked for an hour, ladies and gentlemen. One. Full. Hour. She converted just under a year ago. She was baptized on Pascha. She's living with a bunch of other Orthodox girls from her church in Portland. She's fully Orthodox, an eternal catechumen.

The conversation was glorious. Although I have friends and family who are very understanding in regards to the spiritual catch 22 I find myself in, and although I a friend or two who are currently themselves coming across very similar catch 22s, this whole thing can be... well... isolating. Sometimes the isolation is self-imposed, but it's isolation nonetheless.

Over the course of this conversation I no longer felt so alone. I can only remember feeling this way once before, it was on a mission trip to mexico. I had stayed up late and was sitting around the fire, talking with a girl. Somehow, it came out that she was charismatic. I had been going to a very non-charismatic church for the past 6 years, and had somehow come under the impression that there were no charismatics, heck, that there were no christian mystics, in the entire Willamette Valley. I remember feeling like not only was I not crazy, but someone else, someone very much like me believed and understood the weird spiritual life I was living.

One major difference between that conversation and this one tonight: I remember how in that conversation, all those years ago in a gravel pit in Tijuana, my conversational partner was unaffected by the whole thing. She didn't feel alone, and so my sudden sense of camaraderie, although appreciated, wasn't quite shared. Tonight, something was shared. I could hear the excitement in her voice, as I'm sure she could hear it in mine.

Tonight, I am not alone.

And I shall celebrate with some crappy up-tempo music from high school.