“Letter to Myself” by Furthermore, Wednesday, January 24, 2021
I'm 33 years old as of January 2021, and I'm listening to a song called "Letter to Myself" from the year 2002. Now I'm imagining that I'm back in my dusty room in a house my parents moved away from in 2006. Of course we packed, but let's imagine that we didn't. I see the loft that my dad built, some plastic shelves, my now rusting dumbbells. I see the two dressers. I open up the drawers and see the old t-shirts, my socks, boxer shorts--and I notice some papers written. Old songs? Poems? I cringe. Imagine that when listening to this old song. Where were you back in 2002--if in fact you were alive? What would your 14 or 15 year old self tell the 33 year old? What were the hopes and fears of year? How have they changed? What's still the same?
DEAR ME. Pop singer Anne-Marie released a song called "2002" a few years back in which she uses a bunch of familiar choruses from Britney Spears, *NSYNC, Nelly, and others. At that time, I had an interesting relationship with pop music. I thought it was a worldly influence. I listened to Active and Alternative and Classic Rock because I thought that it could inspire my own music, but I felt the safest place was Christian Rock. I had started making the switch from CCM to Christian Rock maybe the year before (2001-ish). My memory of pre-2001 Christian Rock scene was hardcore and metal, and it seems around 2001-2002 there was more middle ground between Steven Curtis Chapman and Zao and there were cooler groups than Audio Adrenaline and the Newsboys. For instance, there was Switchfoot, who, my dad said were just a knock-off of the Foo Fighters. Switchfoot, of course today, can't be compared to the Foo Fighters. There was Earthsuit, the Benjamin Gate, and Starflyer 59. But I digress.
TRUTH IS FICTION. 2002 was also the beginning of the war in Iraq and the insane gas hike. At church they were telling us we certainly were entering the last days. No one could have imagined what had happened on 9/11. In the Fall I started going to a new Christian school, which was more Baptist and more Republican than anything I had ever experienced. We learned that there was never a justified abortion and about the ideals for gender roles. "Truth is fiction, a lot of confusion, maybe some additions." (the internet was so slow back then) I think my parents did their best to provide an education for me and my sisters. They talked about their views, especially when they were different from what we learned at school. But still, who was right? I wanted to be right and liked by everyone. Wow, what an unsatisfying goal in life.
A RELATIONSHIP MAY SAVE YOU, OR ENSLAVE YOU. COUNT ON BOTH TO HAPPEN. I've been thinking a lot about spiritual abuse lately. How much Christians idolize their pastors and trust them to interpret the scriptures for them. How few lay Christians can actually read the original scriptures, and how that's not encouraged at all. It seems that when you control the reading of the scriptures, you can control the people. I'm sure I'll get into this better later throughout the year, but I'd imagine that the letter to myself would have scripture and lines from pastors or Bible teachers' manipulations.
BEFORE YOU SAY GOODBYE. I'd wonder what I would have told myself to keep my future self grounded. I would have thought that I would still be playing music. But if I could write a letter of encouragement to my younger self, I would say not to worry about what some small-minded people in the foothills of North Carolina thought about me. I would tell myself that the world is a much bigger place and there are different kinds of people to call your friends. I would say don't waste your time or money pursuing orthodoxy. If God is real, he finds you where you are. And finally, check your levels of obsession. Be passionate, but watch out for when they take out the Kool-Aid. Don't drink it. Just don't.
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