Saint Brad of St. Louis

He stands like a statue, motionless except for the baggy, white clothes fluttering in a strong westward breeze from the Mississippi. He wears a backwards baseball cap emblazoned with a cross over a pure white bandanna. Back to the river, he stares silent and still at the Gateway Arch, the symbol of the city he is trying to save. In his left hand he holds a large Christian flag that billows in the wind. At his feet is a towel, positioned like a prayer mat on the hard concrete.

Passing tourists are puzzled. Everything else about the day seems so normal, peaceful even. Jazz floats on the wind from a moored riverboat. People snap photos and marvel at the arch's elliptical wonder.

But this strange man stands out; he emanates mystery. He begs for engagement, either in ridicule or just plain curiosity, but no one dares approach. The saint of St. Louis never moves. His sunglasses remain fixed on the arch and the souls milling around it.

In town for a wedding, our family encounters him on a quick trip to the city's iconic monument, which stands as a symbol of America's bold shift westward at the turn of the 20th century.

After staring for a few moments at this odd display of faith, I decide there's no way I'll find out what sparked it unless I ask. Having shared my faith overseas and encountered university street preachers barking hellfire and brimstone, I've been fascinated with how people try to fulfill God's command to make disciples of all nations.

"Onward Christian soldier," I say as I approach, mentioning the Christian hymn as if it's a secret password designed to break his stony gaze.

He seems surprised, as if this is a first, but keeps his stark posture as we begin to talk. I quickly spring into interview mode. Under his superhero getup is a story of faith more interesting than I could've expected.

A few years ago, Brad Lee was living a rebellious lifestyle and felt that nothing could touch him, but it didn't take long for life to shatter his facade of independence. A female friend, Sunshine, was diagnosed with cancer, and the doctors weren't sure she would survive. The news sent him into a tailspin. Broken down, he cried out desperately for God's help.

Brad felt God drawing him toward repentance. Somehow God revealed that he was not a genie in a bottle. It would take commitment - a full turn from Brad's careless ways - for his prayers to have any weight.

Relationship with God restored, Brad turned his attention and prayers to Sunshine. For him, those Bible references to healing weren't literary devices. They were promises that God hears his saints and responds when they ask for something in the name of Jesus.With the zeal of a radically new believer, he threw himself into fasting and prayer. In light of God's power, he would only accept a full recovery.

Though given only three months to live, Sunshine's health began to dramatically improve. Eventually she was cured completely. Brad saw this not only as an answered prayer, but a new commission. He would pray for as many people as possible, hoping God might similarly change their fate.

So now he stands stoically in the same spot every Sunday from noon to 3 p.m., three solid hours faithfully hoping and praying that God will lead an injured soul his way.

I lay my hand on his shoulder and pray for his ministry. Then I walk away scratching my head. It's not that I question Sunshine's healing, but almost automatically I begin questioning Brad's methodology. Does the healing of someone you love give you the gift of healing? Will God will hear your prayers for any stranger on the street? And the pure white clothes, the Christian flag, the way he almost tests God by showing up in the same place every week - Isn't it just a bit, well, crazy?

After turning it over in my mind, I decide that it is. But instead of leaving me feeling superior, this realization leaves me convicted.

Brad has the audacity, born of faith, to actually believe what Jesus says, that we will do greater things than he, that prayers seeking his kingdom will be granted. I rarely venture to a place where worldly wisdom runs out, where risk forces me to rely on God's power. I never ask for it, and then I wonder where it is.

I think every true believer needs a dose of craziness, at least by the world's standards (think Noah, John the Baptist, even Jesus). Maybe then our first reaction to an act of radical faith won't be criticism, but celebration knowing that there are still some of us out there who take God at his word, despite what others - even our fellow believers - might think.

A Three-Book Course on Evading the Status Quo

I've always been a bit of a cheapskate. It's not that I don't like luxury. I enjoy sheets that are soft enough to polish your sunglasses with and food that looks too pretty to eat just as much as the next guy (ask my wife).

I don't hate luxury. It's just the luxury, by definition, is not practical. It rushes beyond utility and tops it with the whipped cream and cherry of outlandish comfort. When I experience lavishness, I appreciate it, but I rarely expend my resources to achieve it.*

There are just too many useful things to spend money on. In essence, I try to prod myself with the same argument your mom used when you were little. You know, the thing about the starving kids in Ethiopia who would've loved a bite of that spaghetti you didn't finish or those Brussels sprouts you couldn't stomach.

So I walk the line between staying frugal and becoming miserly. In America, frugality is an anomaly, looked upon as old-fashioned and quaint as the world whizzes by - on your computer monitor and TV screen, in your magazine - with the latest in fashion and gadgetry. I love gadgets, so it's easy to get caught up in consumerism's storm.

But as I've gotten older and seen how much responsibility costs, I've learned that the people with the toys aren't always the ones with the real wealth. In fact, they're usually compensating for some emotional shortfall. I see this in myself sometimes. We want approval, love, affection, value, and we buy the lies that lead us to buy the things we're told will fulfill these needs.

To many people, money is an adversary, something they fight with daily, work for constantly, desire incessantly and in some cases, idolize. Not that I've achieved freedom from worry about it, but I've resolved that I'll do everything I can to make money a tool, something I master so that it works for me, not the other way around.

I'm a long way from doing this, so please don't hear arrogance in what I'm saying. I'm only 24 years old, so maybe I'm a bit naive, still blinded to bitter reality by the lingering euphoria of a steady paycheck even two years out of college.

My goal, though, is that money will not be a hindrance to my desire to live out my faith and life in a way that goes beyond the status quo, the humdrum monotony we all find ourselves resigning to if we let daily life erode our resistence to it.

Three books I've read in the last few months create a sort of rough guide to doing this. Interestingly enough, though they're books that have to do almost entirely with what Christians would call "secular" concerns, they've impacted the way I look at faith in the context of American life and have stoked the embers of adventure in my heart:

1. Embrace the millionaire paradox - According to The Millionaire Next Door, you don't need to have a trust fund to break into the exclusive top class of wealthy Americans. You need to be innovative, dedicated, hard-working, and have an instinct that is paradoxical in our society: You must be willing to relinquish present luxury for future security. In the words of money guru Dave Ramsey, that means living like no one else so you can live like no one else. If you cut back now, you'll be riding high later, while everyone around you is digging out of the pit they created.

2. Boost your productivity and utilize the mobility and potential for wealth creation that the 21st-century world provides - One of my favorite things about The 4-Hour Workweek is that author Tim Ferriss doesn't set out to make you a member of what he calls the "new rich" solely so you can lounge beside the ocean somewhere and drink mai tais. His ideal is activity - enjoyable and useful activity. He seeks to remove the time constraints and monetary hindrances that keep us from living the lives we want. His solution? Using carefully laid out techniques, you can boost productivity, automate income, escape 9-5 labor, and spend time on what makes you happy and the world a better place.

3. Protect what you've achieved from impending calamity - Emergency: This Book Will Save Your Life is hot off the presses. It's purveyed as author Neil Strauss' all-around guide to getting a second citizenship and creating a sort of offshore backup life to protect yourself from the calamity that befall you or your assets in the world of Y2k, ethnic conflict, terrorism, nuclear launch buttons, failing banks and shrinking civil liberties. I'm halfway through it (220 pages in one day), and I now realize that it's more of a personal narrative of how Strauss did this, which is better than a guide, in my opinion. In addition to being well written and very entertaining, the book brings up a lot of issues about America and how we're perceived around the world. Even those of us who aren't paranoid yet can learn a lot about preparation from reading it.

And there you have it, a three-book course on evading the status quo, mostly with regard to money, the tool that makes the world go 'round.

*By this I mean, beyond the luxuries and conveniences that are incumbent in American life. By no means am I taking these for granted.

Emergency! Keeping Sickness from Owning You

My head felt like a watermelon teetering at the top of my weak neck. My heart pumped up against my ribcage. The organs behind it felt like they wanted to break out of their bony prison. Cold and shaking, arms aching, I knew it was time. Emergency room, here I come.

They say you're not supposed to drive yourself, but I had no other option. My wife was working, and even though she knew how scared I was, she couldn't just up and leave. The thought of her not being there if this was something serious riddled me with anxiety and worsened my condition. Somehow I dizzily walked to the car and drove the mile to the hospital, pondering my fate. Was this morning the last time I'd share coffee with my wife?

I know. I sound like a drama queen, but this was strange new feeling for me. I normally hate even taking pain medicine, and I usually go to the doctor about once a year. But ever since the night before I couldn't shake the urge go to the ER. No matter how much I fought it, I was certain my body was rebelling against me. Was I just paranoid, or would I be sorry that I didn't seek care sooner?

I arrived with a sense of urgency. Apparently, I was the only one who felt that way. This was not TV; nobody was rushing like they do on Grey's Anatomy or ER. The automatic doors didn't open when I tried to come in. I stood there, waving and pleading for someone to open the door. The ladies at the front desk stared at me like I was a coach customer trying to weasel my way into first class. I finally got in only when someone else left.

The lady acknowledged me grudgingly. She took my insurance card and driver's license and instructed me to sit down. They'd process me after the paperwork printed out.

I sat down, and then it hit me. After the paperwork? Seriously? So you're telling me if I'm dying, it's more important to have a printed record that I checked in before I croaked? Apparently so.

Five minutes later, a neat stack of papers had rolled off the presses. I was still alive. To make a long and boring story shorter, after EKGs, X-rays, blood tests, and two bags of saline solution pumped through my veins over five hours, doctors were confident that my heart was normal along with everything else and that I was not, in fact, going to die - yet.

They discharged me, but this is just the beginning of the story. Over the next week, I went to my primary care doctor twice and mixed in another visit to the ER when severe lightheadedness rudely added itself to the growing list of uninvited symptoms crashing my body's party. Two weeks after that second ER visit, I'm back at work but still recovering.

Throughout the ordeal, I've learned some things about being sick, lessons that my good health kept me from learning over my first 23 years. If it were up to me, I'd do without these hard-earned nuggets of wisdom, but as he's reminded me in the past few weeks, God always has reasons for what he allows us to go through.

My main takeaway is that my faith - however fortified I thought it to be - was weak when tested with uncertainty. And what good is faith if it's not functional when doubt arrives? That's an oxymoron, like a health insurance policy that's only effective when you're well.

With weak faith and a body pummeled by the mysterious, unnamed illness, I allowed the sickness to own me. I worried constantly and dreamed up all kinds of explanations for my symptoms, the more severe the better. This was an open case, and I wanted to solve it rather than trust God to handle it.

An earnest prayer helped me find my way out of that trap, and since then, I've compiled a few ways to keep sickness from becoming an idol:

1. Stay around other people - Sickness, at least for me, has the tendency to cause self-absorption. It's understandably hard to think about others when you've got symptoms like mine or even more severe ailments, like so many unfortunate patients I saw on my ER visit.

But self-absorption can easily morph into worry, which usually has negative physiological effects. I found that I was most positive when I was focusing on someone else. Faith helps, but a head knowledge that God's got things under control doesn't take away fear. And fear is fertile ground for worry to take root.

2. Get married - Wives save lives, and I still owe mine a nice dinner. Maybe after all the medical bills are paid. Seriously, though, she was rock-solid when I was worrying like a pansy. She refused to believe anything bad might happen. Her insistence was a bit annoying when I felt like I was going to die, but if she had melted down, I might have.

3. Learn - This will be tough and next to impossible for those with life-threatening or terminal illnesses. I understand, and I'm trying not to be insensitive. But for me, once I found out that I was generally OK, the experience became a great opportunity to learn about the glories of empathy and the woes of the American health care system. This kept me distracted, which kept me from worry, just like #1.

4. Make peace with death so you can truly live - Those first few moments in the emergency room, I tried to make peace with death. This might be difficult for those who don't have faith in God or an afterlife. Those aren't hurdles for me. My life has been a good one, and although I'm still afraid of dying, knowing that I'm satisfied with the life I've lived is a strong source of peace.

It's freeing to be content with death, because death is pretty much the worst thing that could happen to you. Beyond that, what is there to fear? The best lives are lived not with a morbid focus on death, but with a realization of our transience and the urgency with which we must steward our time on earth.

Please pray that I'll continue to recover, but more than that, that the clarity that sickness has brought won't fade when the symptoms go away.

18 Years Adrift

I became a Christian at age 6. Impossible, you say? Not at all. Children understand better than adults the dynamics of punishment and the need to be rescued from it. And like Jesus said, kids are more likely to latch onto faith. This is rare for grown-ups, whose minds and hearts have been subjected to the gradual erosion of calloused education.

At that tender age, I only knew a few things. I had done wrong. I had acted against my parents' will. I had lied, cheated, stolen, hated, physically harmed others, discriminated, made fun of people, overindulged, complained, neglected God and acted in a generally selfish manner since the womb. Conviction, the nagging sense that I was imperfect, did not need to be proven from scripture. Experience was enough.

This guilt provided the foundation for faith. My step-dad was a pastor, and every week I heard about the option to leave guilt behind by trusting in Jesus and the work that he did through his cross and resurrection. This grace, this unmerited acceptance, was life's get-out-of-jail-free card, and I knew - however childishly- that I needed to break free from the prison of my young heart's crimes.

That's what led me to ask God to save me and to guide my life, allowing the punishment Jesus' received to become my own. Email me if you're curious...

We need the faith of a child to enter the kingdom of God. Jesus said as much. But he didn't intend that we keep drinking spiritual formula and never move on to solid food. At 6, I was saved, but there was no way I was a finished work. Just ask my elementary school teachers.

As I grew, I began to put flesh on my scrawny skeleton of faith. I memorized the order of the books of the Bible backwards, a useless skill to be sure, but impressive to fellow church members. I started highlighting things in my teen study Bible and really listening to sermons. As my spiritual digestive tract began to churn, I devoured books and conversations and teaching throughout high school.

In college, I weathered the intellectual assaults of Buddhism class and the evolutionary mindset of anthropology. I led Bible studies and played worship music. I raised money and traveled across the world to build God's kingdom. I built a network of like-minded believers.

I'm now 24, a year and a half out of college, with both feet in the real world. My intellect and my intentions are full of the words of God and a desire to do his will. I've now been a Christian for 18 years.

Still, I mostly fail.

I'm packed with ideas, knowledge and ability, but I see little fruit. I'm spurred on by compassion for the needy, but I don't act on their behalf. I burn for those who don't know the freedom of Christ, but I rarely tell them.

In many ways, I'm still adrift, floating backwards from the place I began at 6 years old. Then, I was enamored with God. I loved him and felt his comfort. I really knew something not just with my head, but with my heart.

I've moved onto solid food, but I've forgotten to devour each day the meat of the Gospel, that Christ has saved us from our misdeeds and brought us into freedom - not just from this detached notion of sin - but from ourselves. We no longer are slaves to the patterns of the world. We don't have to live the lie of self-indulgence. Like our savior, sacrifice is our fulfillment. Obedience is our mission and joy.

I pray God will reinvigorate my faith with the love of a child. Only then will my spiritual muscle spring into action.