What do Brad Pitt, Josh Groban, and Sleepless in Seattle have in common?
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This post is part 6 in a blog series that I have entitled “the wilderness between legalism and grace,” in which I share how I came to realize that I had an incorrect view of God and self and how I became free of the system of legalism whereby I was trying to earn God’s favor. You can view all of the posts in the series here on the series landing page.
I walked across the dorm to the room where devotions were being held. This new college didn’t hold dorm devotions every night, which I felt probably meant that they were horribly “unspiritual”- and yet I still somehow always dreaded going. I hated being around these people that I didn’t know (and didn’t care to) at this school that I didn’t really want to be at, trying to hold back the tears and hide everything that was going on from these strangers.
I arrived in the room and plopped down on the floor – then I noticed the picture on one of the laptops sitting on the desk, which looked something, if not exactly, like this:
“Is that your boyfriend?” I asked the girl innocently…
If there were funny looks or snickers, I didn’t pick up on them. I just remember the short response:
“No! That’s Brad Pitt!”
I just shrugged in ignorance. I’d never heard of the guy.
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Her name was Tara and she was the fun, short, quirky girl who bunked beneath me. The one who changed her hair color every few weeks and made me laugh.
Tara was the girl who introduced me to Josh Groban.
“You mean you’ve NEVER heard of Josh Groban?” she asked incredulously.
When I informed her, no, I hadn’t, she started gushing about this amazing singer and his amazing voice, and broke out her favorite CD. She popped it in, turned the volume all the way up, and skipped to track-Remember-When-It-Rained. She sang and danced and swooned with freedom to the music.
I just stood there in a sort of shock. I was waiting for someone to break down the dorm room door and kick us out. Music like this just didn’t fly where I had come from. It made me uncomfortable. I couldn’t figure out what the song was about, but I had to admit it was beautiful. I envied her and her freedom to enjoy such beautiful music without a thought of concern for the “rock beat” attached to it.
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Same dorm room, same incredulous questioning, same gushing – only this time it was my roommate Meg and she was going on about this movie.
“You mean you’ve NEVER watched Sleepless in Seattle? There’s like this scene and they are watching an Affair to Remember, (have you seen that movie?) and she’s eating popcorn and she cries “And all I could say was hello!’ It’s the best movie ever! YOU HAVE TO SEE IT!”
I smiled and nodded as though I was listening to someone speak a foreign language but pretending I knew exactly what they were talking about… I felt so lost.
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Attending College #2 was an experience. The rules were laxer. Girls could wear pants on campus (although I most certainly didn’t). Dating couples could meet off campus, alone, as long as they drove separately. You could listen to Josh Groban in the dorms, and we even watched the Winter Olympics on the TV that the dorm supervisor was allowed to have in her room.
It was a weird stage of my life for me. Internally I compared everything to College #1 (best) and judged College #2 (sub-rate) for being so…”unspiritual.”
But over time, I cried less and relaxed more. I laughed. I made a few friends. I stopped looking over my shoulder constantly afraid that I was going to get in trouble with the administration. And I may or may not have broken my toe mattress surfing and sliding down the banisters in the stairwells of the dorms.
College #2 was still a good, conservative BAPTIST college, but it was a slightly different “flavor” than what I was used to. And in many ways, I felt like I had stepped into a whole new world.
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Legalism can be isolating. When “separation from the world” is elevated to be the most important thing a Christian can do, and that separation is taken to extremes, the Christian can lose touch with the reality of his humanity and the world that he lives in. <—tweet this!
Growing up without a TV, never going to the movies, being terrified (literally) of rock music, and only having friends at my church – I lived in a clean, sterile little bubble of Christian goodness. It was safe, floating above the world – because I couldn’t touch them and they couldn’t touch me. And I was happy in the bubble. Very happy.
Then the bubble popped, or I no longer felt good enough to be in my own bubble of Christianity – I felt forced out. It was scary. I wanted to be back in the bubble, away from all of this worldliness. And yet there was a freedom of movement when I was no longer in the bubble – a freedom to touch the world and have it be okay.
I was beginning to realize that life is really, really messy. You can hide in a bubble, but eventually the mess will get you. As great at it sounds to be “in the world but not of the world,” you can’t be in the world without touching the world.
Being in the world means sometimes you will get your hands dirty.
Being in the world means sometimes you have to keep up with current culture and trends or you will simply be a joke – completely unable to understand, let alone reach, those around you.
God gave us humanity, and it is a gift. He knows we will fail him and our humanity will be our downfall. He knows that being holy like him, keeping the entirety of his law, is impossible. In fact, the reason he gave us law was to show us this very fact.
Then he gave us grace.
When I was in high-school, I used to get physically sick to my stomach with guilt after I had watched a movie where an unmarried couple so much as kissed, thinking I was “setting [a] wicked thing before mine eyes.”
But Jesus ate with prostitutes.
He spent more time with the sinners than the saints. And I think that if Jesus had been living in 2006, he would have known who Brad Pitt was. <—tweet this!
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Before the end of the semester I had watched both An Affair to Remember and Sleepless in Seattle, and by the end of that summer I was in love with the music of Il Divo and Josh Groban. Two years later I would watch my first Brad Pitt movie.
I had started feeling a lot more human, more real.
This is one area of Christian living and grace that I don’t have all figured out, so please don’t look to me as any sort of stellar example of the perfect balance between holiness and God’s liberating grace.
But can we Christians stop for a moment at look outside our perfect little bubbles? Can we see what Christ did? Can we take notice of the fact that he seemed to relate better to the sinner and denounced the actions of the white-washed, commandment-keeping, separated-from-sin Pharisees? Can we stop being afraid to touch the world that God gave us to live in? Can we just take a deep breath, relax, and embrace our humanity?
I would love to hear from you on this one! How have you been affected by living in your little bubble of Christianity? How have you learned to relax and be okay with touching the world, while still recognizing that you are a child of God?
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To view all the posts in this blog series, visit the landing page.
Next post, part 7: perfection is not possible
44 Comments
kathrynann24
“Growing up without a TV, never going to the movies, being terrified (literally) of rock music, and only having friends at my church – I lived in a clean, sterile little bubble of Christian goodness.”
^ ^ that was all me, no tv, my dad controlled and watched any kid’s movie before we watched it, never went to the movies until after I graduated high school, and rock music was taught to us that it was of the devil.
I felt the same way at the college I went to and eventually had to leave because my anxiety from it all was too great. In answer to your question, when I finally got away from it all, (my parent’s divorced, I quit college and went home to finish online) and got in a good church I realized that I can’t go by my parent’s convictions. I have to go by my own- what’s right between God and I.
The rock music struggle was one the biggest strongholds as I always felt immensely guilty even listening to Christian music with a beat,but eventually God showed me that these things aren’t sins. It doesn’t say thou shalt not listen to this music or go to the theaters in the Bible. It gives us rules and guildlines and it is up to each of us to decide how we meet those – it is our convictions and it is between us and God.
Some may feel it’s wrong to watch rated R movies, while others may not. We can’t be their Holy Spirit and we can’t judge. Each of us answers to God and God only and the things we choose to do or not do – our convictions are between us and God.
Great post! I was like you in so many ways… but I was able to get away from it more after my parent’s divorced. My mom was much more lenient than my dad was on these things.
Aprille
Thank you for sharing your perspective!!!
Brandy
Exactly what I thought when I read your quote about your “bubble”, Jesus did not live in a bubble. It is a difficult balance but we need to be able to connect to sinners. He purposely sought out some of the people who were looked on as being the “worst sinners.” And, he called out the people (Pharisees) who thought they were perfect and above everyone else. However, I do think that we need to evaluate the things we are watching,listening to, etc. If we feel convicted, then we shouldn’t do it. I also think that it’s hard for kids who grow up in this kind of environment to make sound decisions when they enter the world and they have been sheltered so much and not seen the reality.
Aprille
So well said on so many levels!
heartsonguard
My experience is so different from yours. I grew up outside the bubble. My dad was a Christian (but not – his views don’t really mesh with scripture), and my mom was an atheist (having been turned off from Christ early on after being told her non believing parents were doomed for hell). I grew up as a stubborn atheist who knew the Lord’s Prayer but scoffed at any notion that God was real. Then He called me and gave me the Holy Spirit , and I longed for a Christian bubble away from the world. It took me years to see that we need to be in the world, and we do need to get our hands dirty. If we don’t, we can’t serve others. We can’t share God’s message of grace from a bubble floating above. We can’t truly serve The Lord if we are propping ourselves up above him (which is really what we are doing when we insist that we can be good enough and that our deeds are what earn us salvation. To believe that is to deny his word when he blatantly tells us otherwise (Ephesians 2:8-10). :). I have loved this series and learning about your history.
Aprille
Thank you, “April” for sharing your perspective, and for reading! I know my upbringing is so different, and I’ve heard the same thing from others who grew up in a secular/Godless environment – how they longed for standards, convictions, clean/holy living, protection from sin because they were never protected from it, and were hurt by it. Sin has so many consequences and causes so much heartache, and I hope that people know that I am not trying to discount that. But a lot of rules, standards, and judgment can also cause a lot of heartache and that’s the issue that I’m hoping to shed light on.
There has to be a balance, for sure, between the two extremes. I haven’t completely figured out what that balance is for me personally, which is why I’m overly thankful for grace! I don’t know that we will ever fully understand the balance between lawlessness and grace out this side of heaven!
Amy L. Sullivan (@AmyLSullivan1)
Aprille,
What a series you have going here, girl. I didn’t grow up in a Christian home. So, there was never a bubble (which as you know, comes with it’s own problems!), but this post is a reminder to all of us even today, as parents, evaluate how we are raising our kiddos.
Aprille
Amy, thank you for taking the time to read and leave feedback!
Alyce
I grew up in my parents’ own version of a bubble – not as strict and conservative as your’s, but still a bubble with boundaries that I have had to pop and learn to make my own space as an adult. It’s definitely interesting now being a parent myself and the responsibility to care for their hearts and minds, yet at the same time not wanting to place such tight restrictions as I had as a child. It’s a constant battle!
Aprille
I hear ya. I think my grandparents generation (as parents), at least from my experience with my parents, was a little bit more liberal with rules – so my parents tried to do the opposite, and in so doing may have swung the pendulum the opposite way. I’m nervous I will do the same, but in the opposite direction again, and be too liberal or permissive with my parents. Seeking wisdom DAILY for parenting, because it’s terrifying!
Alyce
I have the same worries some times too! If I “do the opposite” of what my parents did, am I going to go too far?!
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Kat Forader
WOW Aprille…..JUST WOW!! <3
Aprille
I hope that’s a good wow.
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holly
My parents raised me in such the same way. It wasn’t until after we were married that I started feeling OK with even watching movies, any movies, on a regular basis. Then I was in college full time and felt so very out of place, because I didn’t know what they were talking about. Even their ways of talking to each other and relating to each other were so different. So I began binge watching movies from the library, feeling guilty, yet desperate to understand more of this world i was in. Through this, and through getting to know college and work people better, i came to realize that the world out there had some good parts, that the bubble was kinda boring and stifling, that sometimes people outside the church loved me better than those inside. At this point, since I have a vivid imagination and a tendency toward anxiety, I do try to be careful what I watch and listen to; but I’ve come to appreciate the talents that God’s given creative musicians, screenwriters, and actors, even if they don’t acknowledge him as the giver.
Aprille
I’ve heard from others going through this experience (as well as from personal experience) that spending a lot of time watching TV shows and “worldly” movies was a huge part of recovery, healing, and getting acclimated to the much bigger world of humanity that’s out there. I love me some Netflix therapy!!
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