I have come to see the cross as symbolic of my spiritual journey. Throughout my life the upright beam of the cross was in the making, starting with my infant baptism when I was introduced to the Catholic community in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. As a child, information was being poured into my little mind, building the foundation of my journey-to-be. The upright beam was largely the work of the Catholics in my life. The church was the foundation of my learning about God. My world was my family and the church grafted together. It was as if they were almost one “plant” growing in the same soil. The Catholics did their work into my early and late adolescence. As I grew into adulthood I increasingly took on the appearance of that singular plant. As with many of us there were various emotionally harmful experiences during these years. And I began digging a hole, not knowing its purpose. I used my emerging freedom to actively dig myself into darkness. But all the while church and God were still in me, even in my rebellion. I had an indelible bent toward the spiritual.

Finally, through many efforts at different brands of religion and spirituality and an in-and-out relationship with the Father, I was pushing that upright beam of the cross higher and higher, of course, with much help from others – many of them Christians. Finally, I got the upright beam planted in the earth where it stood tall. But I continued a persistent wrestling and struggle with the enticements of this world.

Along the way I had music, lots of it in many forms, and learned some of the glories of Western as well as Eastern and Native American civilizations. Many of those teachings were inspiring and growth-producing for me. Today music is a potent part of my existence. I’ve been active in creating and using that upright beam. And, of course, without that beam there is no cross.

The Cross

By Glenn Currier

The God who made the wind

blew the seed into the dirt

where rain became its friend

springing to light a sapling.

Winding itself deep

it grew a glory of leaves

until finally in great leaps

it heaved up into a tree

where roots and fungi teamed

in a forest of magnificent life

that made the upright beam

for the cross on which he would die.

Now the horizonal cross-piece needs to be found and lifted up. So here I am at the base of the vertical, having planted it in the ground. And in the soil where I have found myself, there is the darkness of many holes I and my pride have dug. But throughout, somehow, I was able to look up and see the Light. For the last several years I’ve been looking up toward the top of the upright beam. God has gotten me to look up to him from my own darkness. I think of the gothic arch that points upward to the heavens, not unlike the Catholic church and my Catholic brothers and sisters through most of my life who have caused me to look to God.

But my own darkness, created with my free will, for which I am totally responsible, somehow brought me to the Protestants. They have gladly helped me to really look up and be comfortable looking down to read, study, and become saturated with the Word of Sacred Scripture. But God, as always, wanted more than me looking up to him, he desired that I become an integral part of a community of real people to whom I would become bound. For he knew it was in the embrace of other real, vital, fallible human beings, who would reconnect me to his grace, bringing me to him.

Along the way God sent Helen to me and she was and is a true Godsend. It is her, my wife, our matrimony, along with Him, that saved me from early death and destruction. Others who were by my side in my wrestling match with Satan are Helen’s family and my own family, along with my Brother and Sister extended family.

Now God wants me to take them up with me as I ascend that upright beam. They are the wood, the plank that will be the rest of the cross. So now I am ready to take that horizontal beam -- those beautiful people -- up toward the heights, up toward the heavens.

God led me to produce the website, ChristAliveHere.com, for his glory. My people and their stories along with the stories of many others, will be the last piece of the website I’ve been building the last several months; it is dedicated to my Lord and Savior, my precious Jesus Christ. As the title of the website indicates, Christ is living among us, always dragging or inviting us onward and upward, some of us very willingly, others not so much.

Some people deride religion and churches, pointing to the perpetuation of extremist principles. I look to the founder, Jesus, who prepared his followers to plant seeds that would become the saplings, of small churches, communities that would grow into the lively loving Body of Christ. Yes, because we have freedom, we can reject love and goodness and plant hatred and bigotry.

However, we should remind ourselves – it is that very freedom, that God insisted on from the beginning. God wants us to be free, to co-create with him, and he wants us to be bound to each other as we do that. Thus, the second half of the great commandment, “and love your neighbor as yourself.” It is that very freedom that makes us responsible for our behavior. If God were determining all our behavior, then we could only blame him for our sin. But such is not the case. We always have grace abundantly available to us, but we must decide to plug into it and make the effort to do so.

Grace is sufficient for us, but because we have free will, we can ignore grace. Therefore we must pay the price of our good behavior and repent of the bad. It is the history of our sin, piled up for centuries, that hurts our Father. Yes, he has feelings and tears when his children run away from him and squander the wealth of his love by wallowing in the dark pits of immorality and even idolatry. THE original sin was human pride by which WE, our species, thought and still think that we have enough knowledge and determination to be our own gods, to take care of everything ourselves without the help of a power greater than ourselves. That is our fatal mistake.

“The Cross and Me,” by Glenn Currier, Editor

NOTE: The author's real name is used here because he is the only public figure on the site. For now, everybody else must use pseudonyms or nicknames. this post was written by him, thus the by line. Eventually we hope to have guest writers who will have the option of using their real names if they wish.