When I was 18, I was trying hard to be a real Christian. I had been the other kind: one whose beliefs were right but heart was wrong. Maybe because I couldn’t remember a time when I wasn’t going to church and wasn’t supposed to be Christian, I never had much of an out of the darkness into the light experience. I had plenty of wickedness, but it was all half-hearted, lamely guilty, and more sad than glad. Anyway, I knew what I was and what I needed to be.
Out of high school and working at Westbrook Wood Products, I figured if I could be a real Christian working in a mill, I could be a real Christian anywhere. My key verse for this was Galatians 2:20 I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me. I did, indeed, have an old Mark that needed to be dead and new one that needed to get busy being godly. In short, I needed all this verse proclaimed.
I memorized this verse. I am terrible at memorizing Scripture. I focus on ideas more than words so everything I memorize comes out a muddled paraphrase. But I did memorize this that summer. To help, I wrote it on a 3×5 card and kept it in my back pocket where most at the mill kept their Skoal.
We had 30 minutes for lunch. The lunchroom was cramped and smoke-filled. I often stretched out on a stack pallets or a half-filled bin of veneer, ate quickly, and read my verse over and even prayed. I was not, I hope, an obnoxious Christian. In fact, I probably should have been more concerned about getting my fellow workers saved. I was, however, too busy getting myself saved.
Yes, I know; no one can save themselves. And I fully understand that salvation is a free gift, not of works, lest I or some other idiot decides to boast. I was, you might say, working hard at resting in the grace—the kind of grace that changes you deep down.
Honestly, it took—change came. That verse was something I started saying when tempted by stuff outside or stuff inside like pride, jealously, greed, or lust. Sometimes I shortened it to, “I’m dead; Jesus lives.” This was especially helpful in combating anger because instead of saying, “blankety-blank you”, I would sigh and say “I’m dead; Jesus lives.” This helped me stop cussing and holding grudges.
I went through a couple 3×5 cards that summer. They would get covered in pitch and sawdust; stained by sweat. All this came back to me today while reading the Wendell Berry short story “That Distant Land”. In the story Andy is tending to his grandfather who is weak and about to die. After his grandfather reads him the 23 Psalm, Andy says:
I had heard it and said it a thousand times. But until then I had always felt that it came from a long way off, some place I had not lived. Now hearing him speak it, it seemed to me for the first time to utter itself in our tongue and to wear our dust.
The other day when I tried to quote Galatians 2:20, I mangled it badly. But I got the idea right. And I know this verse has worn my dust.
