The working title for the new book is Nonconformist Faith. What I’m posting here is the draft for the book. Don’t expect it to flow all at once in a continuous stream.
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Introduction
I am a nonconformist. It’s not a label I sought; I don’t do this just for the sake of refusing to conform. The label is what the world has put on me. I have to live with it.
To be honest, I’m convinced the world is wrong. I’m not going to say it should be more like me, but that it should be different from what it is. I should have more room to be myself, but I find that just about everything is structured to block me doing what I’m certain I have to do. Maybe it’s not intentionally hostile, but it’s certainly not friendly.
That brings me to the “faith” part of the title. The reason I have such a strong sense of difference is the divine imperative. From my earliest awareness, I’ve sensed a calling from the God of the Bible on my life. There was never any doubt that I was supposed to serve Him, and I remain utterly convinced of it today. And the problem I have with the world is that what I believe I have to do is pretty much forbidden in one way or another, to one degree or another.
And it’s my faith that teaches me the world will never change. Worse, most of the religious institutions I’ve encountered act more like the world than what I see in the Bible. The reception I get from mainstream religion ranges between indifference and outright rejection, precisely because the churches want more of what the world has to offer. From where I stand, it’s that “Harlot Church” thing. I’ve had lots of wounds from that.
But I’m not some Alpha leader. I won’t compete for the top spot in the system. I have no doubt that I could lead, having taken a wrong turn a few times and finding myself doing just that. It scares me how people have agreed to follow me, until they realize I’m not building up the system on which they depend. I’m not going to game the system to force what I believe is right; the system itself is fundamentally wrong for me. The calling of God on my life is to simply take the path He has called me to take, and the rest of the world be damned. According to Scripture, this world cannot be saved in the first place. He’s going to come back and destroy it someday.
So most of what the world strives for is vanity. I’ve learned that there is nothing to gain from returning their hostility. Conquest is a dead end fantasy. I can play along some, because I’m in this world for now, but I don’t belong to it. It’s like living in an asylum. It requires a lot of effort to avoid being a part of it all.
I’m not looking for sympathy. This book is not an anguished cry of loneliness. Frankly I’m wired to enjoy the isolation. It makes it easier to be close to God. It’s not that I can’t embrace others, but that they seldom embrace me. My weirdness is too hard on them, so compassion means leaving them alone. I do have just a few friends, people who really can accept me as I am, but they are scattered far and wide. The lack of emotional connection is no hindrance, just another bit of misery from living in a fallen world.
All of this calls for a different mindset. It means embracing the isolation of being one of a kind. The drive to serve my God is the only hope for sanity I have. It means minimizing my dependency on other humans. There is little choice but to do everything for myself, because the world is disinterested, if not hostile, to what my God requires me to do. I expend a lot of effort and resources just staying out of their way. It requires a different psychology altogether to remain adjusted and in control of what little I am able to control.
That’s what this book is about: the psychology of balancing between the divine calling and the demands of the world. I have had to find my own balance point, and I’m going to tell that story. There are a lot of resources for those who struggle to find their way as part of the mainstream. That’s hard enough. But there’s not much that speaks to those who realize they are nonconformist by nature. Nonconforming means being unique, but I perceive there’s just a little bit of commonality in that fact itself. Maybe the other nonconformists out there can find something useful in this story.
