Eye of the Beholder through Loss and Love I Still Haven't Found what I'm Looking For

“In the eye of the beholder, one shall truly see the depth of their own beauty and if it is skin deep” (Eye of the Beholder, Tim Kellogg, 2007). 

That's a line from one of my songs off of my first album Of Loss and Love. I'm going to bypass the blatantly Christian undertones for a minute and just point out the depth of what this means for me as a person today and a man with disability. 

My physical appearance and movement are the first thing most people see from me unless their introduction is to my writing in cyberspace and that's never stopped me from being appearance conscious about how you might see me. It's also the least of my concerns because I know there's more to life than that.

“What's one to do when they lose what they love, when their heart is broken, and there's nothing left?” (Of Loss and Love, Tim Kellogg, 2007). 

The thing about my songwriting is that it was usually layered storytelling because I didn't openly share about the stuff I faced at home. In fact, I've only written one song about cerebral palsy and that was this year's Brain Bleed. But I covertly wrote a lot about the complex trauma of religion and family life.

“A one way ticket to hell, walking the road of despair, there was nothing left for me here, I didn't think you cared” (Rollercoaster Jesus, Tim Kellogg, 2007). I've spent twenty years dealing with the doubts of the divine from within the Church, to a failed ministry career, to a lifetime of “no” as the answer to my prayers, and to my present state of agnosticism. 

I'm not sure this always comes through in my writing, but I'm not constantly angry about my life. Pain and suffering have led to almost all of the most important moments in my life. My goal today, to borrow a Lutheran phrase, is to hold the past, present, and future in tension because it's why I'm in the present as the man I am today. 

Evangelicals taught me about a Jesus that loves everyone and cares about the marginalized. I'm also fully aware that many of them today are doing the opposite of that, rolling back disability rights with the ADA, and waging war on woke. Personally, I'm not surprised. Evangelicals being shills for conservative politicians isn't new, but this is a new low because it's in direct contradiction with their own scriptures. 

I'm not looking to wage war with Evangelicals again. I've been there, I've done that, and I don't waste time on it anymore. I'm aware that some of my favorite people in the world will take offense to that and I can accept that because I need them to know that I didn't leave the Church because I don't believe in Jesus, I stayed for a long time with my doubts. I left the Church because it's message is clear, there's no home for me at the inn. Not unless I conform anyway, and I was fighting the Church about that twenty years ago. I don't know what to think about the divine itself, hence the agnostic proclamation. 

“I have run, I have crawled, I have scaled these city walls, these city walls, only to be with you, but I still haven't found what I'm looking for” (“I Still Haven't Found what I'm Looking For,” U2). I've spent my whole life looking for that space I belong. I've had moments of belonging without having to meet external conditions. But “I still haven't found what I'm looking for.”

Returning to the eye of the beholder, in my song by that name from ‘07, God was the beholder. Today, I sit as the primary beholder of my lived experience. I'm not trying to rewrite the past. I was an Evangelical Christian. It's how I got my start in ministry. It's where I spent over twenty years of my worldview with some denominational shifts here and there. I'm so grateful that Lutherans gave me the opportunity to experience faith from the lens of grace. 

I almost had the courage to leave the Church eighteen years ago when I wrote Rollercoaster Jesus, but the Church was my life. That's potentially hard to understand if you haven't experienced something similar. Growing up with an addict and an alcoholic for my parents was my life too. It's easier said than done to walk away from how you grew up. While the lived experience might be painful, so is leaving it all. My life is slightly more peaceful without my parents in it, but I grieve them every day. I could have stayed in the cerebral palsy ski program as a teenager but I chose a different form of belonging from adolescent friendships outside of that, and it happened to coincide with the full shift into my family caretaker roles, mostly for my father. 

At the time I wrote my Of Loss and Love album, I gave God the credit for my strength to survive. This isn't an exercise in dumping on where I've been, it's finally owning my part in the journey. Feeling victimized and traumatized can lead people to do a lot of things that are a betrayal of self and others. Leaving the Church was my choice and if that ever changes, it'll be my choice, not to please anyone who wants me back in the flock. If I choose to do something different from here on out, my goal is to leave the should behind. 

I should be repentant. Gone. I should be grateful. I choose to be grateful. I should respect where I came from. Respect is a two-way street. I should celebrate my disability (while you use it to make me small?) I should censor my 2010 song Cigarette Trails about losing my job so I could get another one. Why? Because I told the truth? I do think “consumer religion wants truth to be hidden.” I thought ministers were supposed to speak the truth boldly? Guess not. I should make you comfortable with my disability, with my family trauma, with my grief, and my apostate faith. It's not my responsibility to make you comfortable with who I am. Be uncomfortable. Do you think it's been comfortable fawning for my personal and professional safety for as long as I can remember? I am intentionally professional because I've gotta eat and I've got to feed my kids. 

The real me is kind and thoughtful and I look at the world with introspection. I see a lot of the things we do as human beings as kind of vain and beneath our greater meaning if you will. The wounded me has no tolerance or patience for any of that. The professional me has to strike a balance somewhere. The professional me allows some of that kindness but not enough of it to be walked all over. The professional me is very cautious about the wounded me because I know that it could cost me. As someone I willingly receive wisdom from reminded me, I'm paying attention to the impact of what I say and do. As a parent, I need to be thoughtful in my approach with my kids instead of letting the emotions get the better of me. That's hard. As a professional, my goal isn't to pretend my experiences aren't there, it's to excel with the knowledge that they're carried with me all the time. That's a very intentional act and it's very difficult for me sometimes. Some of that's essential though. Like I don't want to fawn with people and I don't want to be the opposite of who I am, but I also need to do the job well.