A Jester in the King's Court

As most of you know, my military experience is considerably minimal. I was never in the Army, the Navy, the Air Force or the Core. I don’t actually know what the National Guard does, and I still think the Coast Guard is the Navy’s AAA team. However, I play Risk now and then, I have seen Saving Private Ryan and Forrest Gump on numerous occasions and growing up had plethora of GI Joe toys. So, while I know nothing about the military, I think we can all agree that Parker Brothers, Hasbro and Tom Hanks make me more than qualified to address matters of a militaristic nature.

Last year, the season finale of Saturday Night Live had a skit in which Will Ferrel talks about a vacation to Vietnam. Every time he does, he breaks out into Billy Joel’s Vietnam War song “Goodnight Saigon”, even though he clearly was not in Nam. Well, the song is catchy, and for the last year I’ve listened to it fairly regularly. The other day it came across my iTunes in the midst of a rather frustrating situation with an old High School camp friend, and it struck me how sadly easy it is for my conversations about the friends from my youth to sound as though I’m a war vet talking about my comrades in arms who, to quote Mr. Joel, “Left their childhood on every acre.”

If you grew up in the church, you probably know what I’m talking about. A group of teens, bonded to each other with Christ as the central focus. You go to the same Bible Studies, memorize the same verses, go to the same camp, do the same youth activities. You all knew the answers to the questions the study leaders would ask and you could all say a prayer that earnestly moved any who heard it. Every now and then one of your battalion would stumble and fall, but that is to be expected, after all, war is difficult. Some may have even distanced themselves from the main group, but that’s okay, they still wanted to win the war.

Then something happened. Leaving High School was like the Tet Offensive, but your platoon didn’t respond quite as well as did the US did to the surprise attack. All of a sudden you look around and there are your fellow combatants strewn about on the battlefield, having decided that all the teaching and training they received was useless, or “just not for them”. Instead of evading the enemy, they allowed themselves to take shrapnel to the knee. Instead of jumping away from a grenade, they decided to pick it up, just to test their limits. Instead of fighting, they decided to surrender to a force that doesn’t take captives., it either destroys or assimilates, but never incarcerates.

The problem is, we knew this Tet Offensive was coming. Everyone warned us about “the real world” and it seems so few of us cared. We were all told about the importance of infusing our life with the theology we had been taught, but it was of minimal concern to the majority of our squad. And thanks to that apathy, whenever those of us still fighting meet each other, we all have horror stories about our close friends who we’ve lost “in the thick of the fight.” It’s sad that as a 27-year-old Christian, I can name so many people who have fallen. And that’s not to say that I don’t have scars and bruises all over me. That’s not to say that I don’t have limbs that might need amputated and have seen things that I can’t unsee. But it does mean that I, and those like me, have gotten up and pressed forward on the attack…like a soldier should.

When I sit with some of my compatriots who, though battered and bruised, still fight dearly for what we were taught in our youth…or when I speak with some of my old teachers (drill instructors for the analogy). Its sad to see how often the question of “What happened??” can be asked. I think back on all those I was connected with who have turned from the faith and wonder what would have happened if they had survived? What would churches look like today if the majority of their soldiers hadn’t fallen in battle right out of the gate?

The song’s chorus says, “And we’d all go down together.” I know that the “together” part was the mindset of my group of friends leaving High School. But somewhere along the line, “Let’s win the world for Christ” became “Let’s win the world” in the majority of their minds. The unity disappeared and suddenly it was just “We’d all go down” and rather swiftly at that.

I know it’s a bit of a melancholy post, but those of us still fighting the war, we should be encouraged we’ve made it this far, and be inspired to show a lost world that “We Didn’t Star the Fire” and let’s be creative about that by spending some time in “The River of Dreams.” Okay…no more of that, I promise...
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Piano Man

Ok, now I’m done:]