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I won’t pretend to know what made me this way, nor will I assume all pastor’s kids are like this.

My healthy distance from Christendom, the bubble in which I was raised and for which I find myself simultaneously grateful and embarrassed, has afforded me the luxury of reflection as of late.

It is a luxury, by the way. Not everyone has time or a stable enough life situation to sit down and contemplate why or how life happens. That’s one of the many views I’ve come to realize behind the Pastor’s Kid magnifying glass: Arvin, some of these horrendous life choices are being made in the middle of several chaotic oceans all competing for the chance to drown this person.

If it sounds vague and unclear, then I’ve written it accurately. To grow up in the home of parents whose day-to-day life is essentially an index of the best and worst of dozens or hundreds or thousands of other families is to travel an unpaved, bumpy and often muddy road. It is messy, jagged, and rewarding.

—

Messy because it constantly fluctuates. It’s a volatile market where you learn to balance life’s greatest milestones alongside it’s densest deprivations.

It is pausing from scheduling your parents’ flights to another city where they’ll attend the funeral of a dear friend who lost her battle to cancer to call back and celebrate with the gentleman whose excited voicemail informed you he just won his. It’s doing this without losing hope.

It is hearing a beloved friend excitedly tell you about their recent growth in Christ and how they’ve come to learn how to Trust Him™ due to an event or conference, knowing the fuel thereof is sure to run out, and God will be blamed for infantile Western entitlement, the kind you feel guilty for pointing out. It’s doing so without getting bitter.

It is smiling and nodding, listening and honoring as adults give you advice they never took themselves, refuse to take now, and will never take for as long as they live. It’s doing so humbly, knowing the merit of Wisdom is not determined by the one who gives it.

Oh boy, is it messy.

—

Jagged because the means stay the same, but the end keeps changing.

It’s serving to please God by pleasing Godly people in authority while quickly finding yourself idolizing their attention thoroughly enough for God to push you into a life where they deem you ungodly because you’ve deemed His opinion most important. It is knowing precisely what you’re called to do, and nodding respectfully, lovingly, as they inform you how wrong you are off a hunch and a skip.

It is being misunderstood until you finally learn that God created you complex on purpose, that no one would be able to understand you solely for his purpose of his attention being your sole comfort. It is enjoying God’s presence when the Bubble deems you unworthy of it.

Oh, God, it is jagged.

—

Rewarding because you’ll find yourself privately age 13 going on 65. 65 because you’re already over it. Privately because saying this to a 65 year old is preposterous, problematic, and unnecessary.

It’s rewarding when you find yourself crying in your car in your driveway as you realize you are living in the days you’ll miss and that your parents won’t always be alive before you get where you’re going or find yourself forced to say goodbye too soon.

It’s rewarding because every so often, you’ll get a glimpse of the cosmic joke you’re living in:

how you’re fighting for a notoriety and status in life you’ll ultimately resent for selling you a lie you were eager to purchase,

going from house to work to car with dozens of pit stops in devastation and adulation,

and all while you’re talking about how dope tomorrow will be.

Yes, it’s rewarding.

—

If this seems vague and unclear, it’s because it is. It’d be dishonest and untruthful of me to portray a life so ambiguous in a manner that might mislead you into believing I think I’ve figured something out. I’ve seen a lot, but I’m still an ant.

Amidst it all, I marvel at God’s ability to celebrate our growth today while fully aware of our failures tomorrow. I’m in awe considering that he can do so without condescension, with sincerity! I’m rendered speechless every few minutes when I remember that within this messy, jagged, and rewarding existence, there’s a cosmic joke being told by an omnipresent Comedian…and my only job is to laugh.

I rewrote Psalm 139 as a letter from God. I hope you’ll insert your name where I’ve placed mine:

O Arvin, I have examined your heart and know everything about you.

I know when you sit down or stand up. I know your every thought, even when you’re far away from me.

I chart the path ahead of you and tell you where to stop and rest. Every moment I know where you are.

I know what you’re going to say before you say it, Arvin.

I open for you and close after you. The hand where I keep all my blessing is on your head. This knowledge is more wonderful than you can handle. My greatness is enough that you’ll be discovering new heights forever.

You can never get away from my spirit or my presence. When you feel like you’re in heaven, I’m there. And when you feel like you’re tasting hell, I’m still with you.

When you’re riding high on life or find yourself forgetting what it was like to ever not be in a storm, the hand where I keep all my blessings is still on your head, guiding you. Your support will be dependent on how strong I am.

I mean, you could try to cover yourself in darkness. You could try to turn bright days into dark nights of the soul, but even then, Arvin, you can’t hide from how much I love you.

To me, your blanket of evil might as well be see-through! I’m present in and aware of your worst moments as well as your best.

I invented all the pieces that make up “Arvin.” I threaded you together in the privacy of your mother’s womb. I made you awe-inducingly complex on purpose (ehem…you’re welcome).

I’m so proud of the way I made you—and how aware you’ve become of it all!

I’m watching as you become yourself in your most private moments, Arvin. You were not put together like cheap furniture, every thread of your existence was sourced from my heart.

I read an old copy of my final draft of you before you even learned how to read.

I’ve already written down your destiny in un-erasable ink.

When it comes to your life, I didn’t make a map based on the land that already existed. It was the other way around. I laid out what I wanted to do, and then started creating.

My thoughts about you are precious, O Arvin! I’ve lost count of how many things I love about you. You couldn’t count them if you tried. It took me longer to list all the things I love about you than it did to make all the sand in the earth from beginning to end.

And Arvin, I’m not a one-night-stand kind of God. I won’t show up with all these amazing blessings and sayings and then bounce before you wake up. I’m the lover that makes you breakfast. When you wake up, I’m still with you.

O Arvin, I hear your intense urge for wickedness to get out of your life and never come between us. I hear your declarations against everything that seeks to kill our intimacy. I feel your passion when you decry anything that doesn’t honor me. I know you’re possessive of me and my vision.

Yes, I know you’ve aligned yourself with me and my heart. I’ve already examined everything about your heart, but I’ll keep roaming around in it, tending my garden. If anything tries to stop me, I’ll point it out to you so I can keep filling you with Life, the kind whose new heights you’ll never stop discovering.

To Anita, My Sister

I’m not exaggerating when I tell you that I’ve held off on writing this letter for several years. Perhaps my subconscious kept it reserved for a milestone as special as your 30th birthday, or maybe I wasn’t a good enough writer to do it justice (and I’m not necessarily suggesting I currently am gifted enough). Regardless, what I’m about to tell you has been brewing in me for quite some time.

When I’m getting to know someone, a missionary with whom I’m sharing a drive through the African desert in 123 degree heat or some random buddy that wants to grab coffee, I say the same thing every time I’m asked about you: “Yes, I do have a sibling. I have one sister. She’s older than me and she did everything right. My whole life, my parents were constantly reacting to how perplexing and baffling they found me after my sister was so easy to raise. She was smart all through school, raised me and my parents in the ways of American life from the time she was in 2nd grade, earned her way into business school and married a great guy. She demolished the corporate world and moved on to challenges more important to her when she started having children.”

I say some semblance of that every time. I can say it while thinking of something else because I’ve said it so many times. It’s ironic that I’ve never said it to you—do you realize, during any of your best/worst moments, that you blazed a trail for our family when mom, dad, and me didn’t speak english or know what to do in so many challenges?

—

What started brewing in me several years ago was something I realized when reading Exodus. As I know you remember from our countless hours of Sunday school, the climate into which Moses was born was not ideal—babies were being murdered and Moses’ mom was terrified that her son would be next.

The parallel to the world you and I were born into is pretty easy to notice. Mom and Dad have told us the story several times—you were born and breastfed while Saddam’s bombs were going off around the country during the Iran-Iraq war. I was born just between two of our dear family friends being kidnapped and murdered for their Christian faith.

But we escaped together. And you played an instrumental role in getting our little immigrant family off the ground when we landed in the United States. You learned English first. You went to college first. You went to job interviews first. You figured everything out the hard way in a climate that was kind to neither immigrants nor women.

You handled the crocodiles and sharks with such ease that my existence served as a thoroughly confusing curveball for Mom and Dad. Anita was so easy, they often thought, why is Arvin struggling when it’s so much easier for him?

—

You’ll remember the Lemon tree in our first house in Tulsa, the one we grew up in together. Mom loved that Lemon Tree (I think she moved it to their new place). It was clearly outgrowing the space we had in that first house, but Mom was terrified of keeping it outside because of what might happen to it in Tulsa’s climate, often too cruel for her to control.

You were the first one to point out that I was that Lemon Tree—too big to hide but utterly terrifying to let go of.

Moses’ mom had a Lemon Tree of her own: “But when she could no longer hide him, she put the baby in the basket.”

Anita, check out verse 4: “The baby’s [older] sister then stood at a distance, watching to see what would happen to him.”

When he ends up at the palace, poised for a life of achievement and privilege, it’s his Older Sister that brings him home in verse 7: “Then the baby’s sister approached the princess. ‘Should I go and find one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby for you?’

“…so the girl went and called the baby’s mother. ‘Take this baby and nurse him for me, and I will pay you for your help.’”

The audacity of this little girl to put her family and her little brother before herself with such bravery. She approaches the princess of the nation in which her family and her race are slaves and pitches an idea that boosts her family’s income for something the mother wished she’d get to do for free.

—

I know that when the world at large, all the congregants and conference attendees, the television audiences and readers of Dad’s work look at our family, they see a bold, bright Persian man who can film 40 episodes of preaching in 5 days. I know they value his messages and love having him around at their parties. I know they’re all looking at me to be like him—funny like him, anointed like him, whimsical like him.

But what utter nonsense would it be for us to forget that he was able to become the man he is because of the woman he married and the daughter who handled enough logistics to afford him the time to work on his personality like that? Can anyone become himself or herself without the team around him/her picking up the torches they simply can’t afford to keep lit?

Can any of my life’s accomplishments be totally attributed to me when it’s obvious the privileged environment in which I was raised was constructed by a family whose Oldest Daughter had the wherewithal to keep an eye on him and the bravery to confront royalty for his sake and the sake of their parents? You landed in a foreign country, learned the language, overcame sexist and racist attacks before doing so made one go viral. It was thankless, unacknowledged, and often went over our head as a family just how demanding of a situation you were put in—and you did it. You won.

I’d be a fool to separate my achievements from yours! I’d be a fool to ever discredit what a Woman can do when most of my self-esteem was put together in a room that could only be built because you were there to translate the English instructions into Farsi!

Where would Moses, the Israelites, and the Christian faith be if not for the bravery and audacity of this Older Sister?

And what would my life look like if I didn’t have an Older Sister to keep an eye on me, confront principalities and powers for me, and soothe the aches and pains I felt when I treated your advice as common? Thankfully, this is one mystery I’ll never find out.

You’re about to turn 30. You have a husband who adores you, 2 children who’ll never know what it’s like to go hungry or unloved, 2 parents whose success owes you more than we’ll probably ever find out, and a brother who hopes he can be a Man as well as you’ve been a Woman.

Until I find the right words to thank you adequately, I’ll just keep saying thank you.

Happy Birthday,

The Baby in the Basket

[3 am]

“Hi, welcome to Jack in the Box.”

“Hi, yeah, could I get a—“

“Arvin?!”

“Ummm…yes?”

“Go ahead and pull around, baby. I’ll give you your usual order. It’s free tonight. You come here often enough.”

—

Overfamiliarity with scripture can be harmful. Feeling like we have a general idea of the high/lowlights of Biblical legends robs me of the understanding that can actually bring change in my life.

And when I run into inevitable seasons of what is going on? The blame falls on me in that vile method that ensures I’ll numb myself with clinging to artificial intimacy.

The Bible’s a long book already, but I’d like a version where the length of the story is proportional to the amount of time discussed. Exodus does a decent job of this, describing the 40 years the Israelites spend in the desert. But what if Exodus took 40 years to read? That’s the version I’d like to see.

—

Take David. You think of Goliath and Bathsheba, but do you realize the amount of years that fit between those two names?

David is seemingly anointed way too soon. It’s almost cruel the way Samuel pours out oil, talks mad game, and walks away. I picture David watching him leave until the smell of sheep dung snaps him back.

That’s what a lot of this feels like, right?

You’ve got a dream or ________ you’re looking forward to, but you’ve made the unpunctual mistake of entrusting it to a God whose timing remains exponentially comical.

—

Oh yeah, Saul gave chase to David and it took a while before he actually became King.

But it’s worse than that. Worse enough, in fact, that David’s journey starts to look a lot more like the one I’m seeing in the lives of friends, acquaintances, and mirrors. It’s exhausting enough to make a person angry.

David goes from tending sheep to killing a giant to playing music and serving in Saul’s army. It looks like quite the climb. But the most overlooked portion of this is what happens when David is finding it difficult enough just to survive.

He’s climbed the ladder only to have it now collapse on him until finally, in 1 Samuel 27, he toes the line between giving up and barely surviving for 16 months. I need the version of the Bible that makes me read the same monotonous sentence over and over for 16 months just to see what happens next.

Or it forces you to keep going to the same redundant not-your-dream job every morning for 16 months.

Or it makes you sit lonely and frustrated on your couch as you’re simultaneously furious at God for withholding his promise of a spouse and humiliated at the notion that you feel so desperate and can’t tell anyone for fear you’ll be mocked and misunderstood.

Or, okay, you get it—you’re on your way to the life you were born to live but it doesn’t feel like it at all. It feels like you’re barely surviving.

That’s where David goes for 16 months. The frustration and angst makes one angry.

—

“David kept thinking to himself, ‘Someday Saul is going to get me. The best thing I can do is escape to the Philistines.’”

The Philistines. As in, the people David defeated when he killed Goliath. Can you imagine the humiliation?

Perhaps you can’t, but you can imagine talking a big game but then having to wait tables or file paperwork, hoping familiar faces won’t come in.

What about becoming King?!

David becomes angry. We know this because he goes on rage after rage, killing people in various villages and not sparing a single life—for 16 months.

—

Oh, that we could be unfamiliar enough with the rest of the story to experience even the slightest hint of hopelessness and utter embarrassment he must’ve felt. Night after graceless night, raging at the world around him, angry at the times he’s living in.

Now, your anger probably doesn’t express itself in murderous conquests. But you probably know what I’m talking about when I tell you I killed a tub of ice cream last night, or found the drive-thru lady recognizing my voice at jack in the box at 3 am because of how often I’d go on calorie-raids.

How many of your addictions and numbing agents are tied to the anger you feel with the way things appear now as they’re compared with what you dreamed and were taught to trust God for?

Yeah, you’ve had your raids as well.

—

Why does God do this?

It’s too easy an answer. You already know what I could be writing here instead of this sentence (Oh, he prepares us for our destiny and yes yes yes, sure).

But where’s the version of the Bible where you don’t get to read the next chapter for another 16 months? Where you have to live in that humiliation? Where you’re angry at the times you’re living in because you’re eager for the times for which you’ve been called?

Of course, you and I already have that version of the Bible—

we’re living in it.

And since that is the case, perhaps we should pause and look at this anger and rage. Perhaps, like every other miracle God provides, your anger is your destiny in disguise.

Perhaps, for those like me who are underwhelmed by their overfamiliarity with scripture, anger is the last emotion God can use to speak to us, to penetrate our eye-rolls and self-sabotage, and actually reach our heart.

When I keep my eyes open long enough, I catch a glimpse of Anxiety as he darts around the corner. I don’t call out to him, but follow him back to his house.

I see him walk up several stairs and close the door behind him. I look around his neighborhood, here’s his address:

Anxiety lies at the corner of these two streets:

1. An insatiable appetite for a life story too profound and wonderful to have been created or thought up by any man or woman.

and, contradictorily

1. Ever-humiliating guilt over being incapable to create the life story for which I have an insatiable appetite.

If it’s manageable enough to be possible for me to do, I’m bored. And when it’s too beautiful for me to create, I’m shamefully furious over my helplessness.

—

There’s more than one reason for this. One is that like any fortunate young man, I want to be just like my Dad. Not just for his character, but for his story.

The man survives the heartless murder of his colleagues before enduring his own portion of interrogation/intimidation with death threats. “You’ll never see your wife and kids again” prison guards would tell him. Those cliches belong in predictable blockbusters, not memories of your 30’s.

Couple that with an intense escape from the only nation you’ve ever lived in and decades of success on television and in thousands of sermons around the world before adding a healthy dose of whimsy.

I’m serious! You think I haven’t asked him what jail was like? Instead, this 5’8” fugitive can’t wait to tell me what his cats did earlier that day or how he removed every damn leaf from the backyard with the same pride I saw in Kevin Durant’s face when he lifted his first Finals trophy.

How do you beat that with a childhood in Tulsarusalem’s Culture of Cling around a bunch of other people who can’t wait to tell you how long it’s been since they’ve sinned?

—

Even if you weren’t raised by the Persian Larry David, you know this Anxiety I’m talking about—a God-given yearning for an incredible life sitting right next to shame you feel for not having it yet.

You’re quite the combo—ambitious and Godly. Your success isn’t just something you want, but something the world needs. You want to be a successful musician. Writer. Businesswoman. You dress like Kanye West because it reminds you childhood bullies might someday wait in line to give you their money. Whatever it is, you want it (as you should).

But this Anxiety over it all is not random. You know he lives at the corner of What You Were Made For and What You Can’t Provide For Yourself. But if you get close enough, you’ll see the name of the building he lives in: CLING.

—

In 1 Samuel, the Israelites are fed up with being led by God. They want someone else to be in charge. They see the nations around them and begin asking for a King.

You’ve done this, too. If you’ve felt anxious over the next or last several decades of your life, you’ve been invited to CLING. The most dangerous yet unsuspecting way CLING will keep you from your destiny is by luring you into an overemphasized infatuation with your destiny.

Eventually, God gives them what they want: A King. He warns them about the consequences, but relents as he instructs Samuel, “They’re not rejecting you. They’re rejecting me.”

I’ve been pining for this my whole life—in preaching, in filmmaking, in rap music, in writing, in relationships, in acting, in grabbing coffee with someone who needs help, and dozens of other areas.

What I’ve come to grasp is that often, my hunger for my God-given destiny is eclipsing my hunger for God.

In other words, like the Israelites in 1 Samuel, I’m begging God to replace himself with the life he has for me. I’m begging God to replace himself with the life he has for me. I’m begging God to replace himself with the life he has for me.

The Promised Land was a good place, God’s idea. And yet, the yelling and moaning over “WHEN?!” turned into a journey that ended up being a dead end for those who died in the desert.

I want a good story more than I want a good Storyteller. This has been ruining me. Delaying me. I wonder how CLING has been harming you.

—

Before I sat down to write this, my seasoned yet whimsical father texts me in his still-improving yet adorable english: “My lovely son Arvin jan [“jan” is like saying “Dear”] . I love you and miss you . I wanted you know you have me forever till I’m alive.”

When I start to wonder about how this guy isn’t clinging to his crazy life story, I realize what he’s really about.

The Storyteller showed up. Since then, he’s been less interested in his own story and more interested in the stories of his wife, kids, and dear friends near and far.

Paradoxically, as is almost always the case, this lack of CLING has led to him having a life story I can’t help but be jealous of every day.

I CLING to every ambition I have. I beg God to replace Himself with His Plan for My Life™.

I hope I cut this out. I hope you do too. Because I bet my Promised Land has a lot to do with yours and vice versa. And I hope once we get there, we learn from our elders well enough to never cling to our memories or dreams, letting both flow fluidly as they’re mostly none of our business. I hope we set our aim on telling those who desperately need our help, “You have me forever till I’m alive.”

There’s a certain kind of irony I love. It’s not the sarcastic kind. Pointing out something ironic in yet another cynical observation is the social equivalent of asking someone how much money their parents make. But when a story, fictional or not, folds over onto itself in a way I failed to predict, I’m overjoyed. Unless, of course, that story is my own.

Early on in college, I was waxing poetic when I texted my on-again, off-again girlfriend these words: The journey ahead of us is only as tough as the grip we have on doing things our own way. She loved it. She wrote it on a poster and put it up in her room. I was so proud of myself…

Until I had to show up to prove what I’d told her. I failed in every miserable way, reminding myself over again of the irony in what I’d felt so proud of thinking up. That’s the irony you don’t laugh at until years later when you write about it.

It’s been a long time since then. But the truth of what I wrote that night (whether I believed it at the time or not) still stands. The only amendment I’ll make leaves the statement looking like this: The journey ahead of us is only as tough as the grip we have on anything temporary.

—

I wish I’d had a comprehensive list of what is and isn’t temporary. On it would probably be written: 1. College girlfriend (temporary) 2. Incredibly fun memories (temporary) 3. Difficult, dark seasons (temporary — thank God).

If I had such a list, I’d write something at either the top or bottom about the importance of enjoying/encountering these things without clinging to them. I’d treasure the list…I’d tell everyone I loved about it…

and then…I’d cling to the list. Yikes.

It could just be how I operate, but my observation of the people and world around me gives me the courage to venture into a possibly naive generalizing statement—We are all looking for something to cling to. Even, no, especially, when it comes to the Christian faith.

We’re not the first generation to do this, either. As much as I’d enjoy blaming social media and whatever makes me sound different and mysterious to you, we both know this has been around for a long time. It’s only human.

—

Moses is leading the people out of Egypt and through the desert when God instructs him to strike a rock with his staff so water will pour out. He does it. It works. It’s great. People are happy (for now). Moses is happy. God said something and it worked.

And then Moses moves on. He graduates high school and starts going to college. He’s broken up with. She moves in with new roommates. Her life changes. He doesn’t think the same way anymore. She considers herself a Christian but no longer evangelical. He gets a job doing what he wasn’t necessarily hoping for but he dreams of what he’ll do someday. She meets someone new and moves to a different city.

Time goes on…

And the next time Moses needs to provide water, God tells him to speak to the rock instead of striking it with his staff.

In other words, “Don’t do what worked before. Do this now.” But since it worked before, what does he do?

Or her? Or him? Or me and you?

We cling. It works in categories of your life both monumental and momentous. Why do most kids go to the schools their parents went to? Why do you regurgitate the joke you heard work for that comedian when you get nervous and don’t know what to say to people you really want to impress? Because it’s what worked before.

—

Look around. Is the massive exodus outside of church and Christianity and the way you thought the world worked when you were a good kid, diligently reading your Bible not proof that these next 20-something years won’t happen the same way the first set did?

If you’re going to do the next couple decades right, I’d caution you about clinging to the Staff that made things work for you before. Be wary of honoring tradition over what God is telling you now through the music, friendships, pain and desires you encounter every day.

Moses was angry when he struck the rock and it kept him from joining the people in the promised land. Ours is an angry generation as well, enraged by the unfortunate discovery that much of what built our worldview as young people was propped up on rules and ideas that were much better suited to our leaders’ needs than our own.

But if we cling to what’s worked for us so far, the same methods of thinking/communicating/making decisions/compartmentalizing people/validating ourselves, we’ll ultimately end up betraying the next generation more thoroughly than we felt betrayed. Isn’t that what they did that hurt us so badly—cling to what worked for them in the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s while demanding that you do the same?

—

I think people like you can actually arrive at that place you keep pretending you’re already at, enlightened, decided on everything already, certain about. But if that is to happen, if you’re going to get to the promised land, you should probably remember that the journey ahead of you is only as hard as the grip you have on what worked for you before.

“No, we want to go with you to your people,” Ruth and Orpah respond.

“Can I still give birth to other sons who could grow up to be your husbands? No…for I am too old to marry again. And even if it were possible, then what? Would you wait for them to grow up? No, of course not.”

It’s a ludicrous idea, preposterous enough to get Orpah to bail.

She’s right. That could never happen. I should bail.

—

And who can blame her? Logistically, Naomi can’t do what she did before. And even if she could, the timing will be off. Can you imagine Orpah marrying Naomi’s son again? She’d be so much older than him. It’d be ridiculous. It’d be a massive waste of time.

And it’d also be exactly what you and I do every day when we expect, demand, and vehemently cling to the idea that God must do things the exact same way he did before.

I do it. You do it.

—

And I can prove it: what do you do every time something good happens? You encounter a moment for which you’re utterly grateful—a relationship manifests, provision shows up, you’re given an opportunity to do something you love…what do you do immediately afterward?

You observe the behaviors you exhibited leading up to that good/great thing, and you make sure to repeat them. You create formula. You may not realize that’s what you’re doing, but you are.

I know that because of your exhaustion and frustration when the thing that worked before doesn’t work anymore. I know because you seem ready to bail.

So far, God did things in your life a certain way. But things have begun to transition and shift. Faced with new challenges, it’s only human that you cling to the way he used to do things. And when things don’t happen like they did the first two dozen years, you find yourself ready, even justified in bailing.

—

Logistically, this looks like a waste of time, something no longer possible.

You’re right, Orpah. That’s the point. It’s not supposed to.

The mass exodus from the Christian faith you grew up with is a good thing; God-intended. But the means are not the end. This day-in-day-out deconstruction process you use to justify your apathy and unhealthy behaviors is stripped of its validity when you realize there is a destination, a point to leaving what you depended on for most of your life.

—

What is Ruth holding on to? She’s not going to find redemption waiting on Naomi. Why stay loyal to someone who can no longer help you? Like she said, even if she were to have a son, he’d be too much younger than you to make this work.

Of course, you know what happens next. You’ve probably written journal entries or led Bible studies based on what happens next. Ruth meets Boaz and everything works out. Ruth goes on to be the Matriarch of David’s dynasty and destiny, which happens to be the bloodline Jesus uses to show up. Yes, yes, it’s all great great great.

But I have to ask…

How many destinies have been logistically impossible to begin with? Don’t you feel it as well, that conscious embarrassment that surfaces in your heart when you imagine putting words to your deepest desires? Aren’t we all at least somewhat convinced that what we’re really hoping for is just too much?

—

At some point, someone, especially a good person with great intentions toward you will hand you a rather valid, reasonable, and logistical explanation for why your dream and destiny can’t happen. Your false humility will work at convincing you they’re right and they only mean well.

But there’s something else about this Ruth story I wish you’d notice—

When Boaz meets Ruth, before he marries her. He calls her, “Daughter.”

In other words, to Boaz, Ruth is a young woman. He’s older. He’s not her age and he’s definitely not several years younger than her. The problem Naomi talked about isn’t an issue at all anymore. God happened a different way, but he happened.

In other words, the fulfillment of her destiny, the likes of which would lead to King David and Jesus, was born before she was. And Naomi’s once valid concern about the age and likelihood of Ruth marrying her son again is now one big joke, barely worth mentioning.

Unless you’re Orpah, who missed it all.

I hope you’ll believe me when I tell you I’d bet that the fulfillment of your God-given dreams and desires were in existence before you were. I hope you’ll no longer cling religiously to the way things happened before. I hope you’ll refuse to be discouraged, knowing that while God is going to happen to you differently than he did before, he’s still going to happen.

I’m still not allowed to speak english when I visit my parent’s house. My parents made sure that while my sister and I appreciated life in the US, we never lost our Persian culture—Food, Language, Manners, Music, etc. This felt like a burden, a torturous measure that accentuated how different I was from everyone else. I wasn’t about it.

I bailed. I quit Farsi-class after the 2nd grade and went after as much non-Persian culture as possible. If it came across as the opposite of what I grew up in, I wanted it. Even if I didn’t want it, I made sure people thought I might want it. Food, language, girls, music—I was gonna find whatever looked unlike what Mom and Dad were used to.

Didn’t you do the same thing?

Only instead of Persian culture, you grew up in a house where your parents and extended family desperately wanted you to love Jesus and go to church and read your Bible and make sure you always believed that hell was a place because where else would everyone who disagreed with you go?

My parents wouldn’t let me speak English in the house. Yours probably didn’t let you cuss. It makes sense that we wanted to escape.

—

My escape manifested in the form of hip-hop music. I latched onto lyricists and beat makers. More and more often, my relief came in the form of well-intertwined lyrics and sounds.

People made fun of me for it. Persians called me American for it. I remember driving around with my dad, lying to him about the meaning of the songs I was playing for him so he’d think they were “Christian” (I still think Akon’s “Locked Up” has something to do with the gospel).

Then I heard Kanye West for the first time and lost my mind. I’d stay up late bouncing around my room to “Stronger” and “Power,” loving the double-entendres and sonic nuances. I started loving it when people made fun of me for it—It felt good to be associated with something I finally chose on my own.

—

Don’t you remember the first time a decision you made about your faith or life was finally acknowledged by those who raised you? Even when it came in the form of their displeasure? It probably felt good to finally have made an intentional decision, even if it was bailing on the religious practices you were raised to inherit.

I loved it—salivating at being asked what I thought about God or church or whatever else. “Actually, I think if we go back to the Bible,” I’d say, “you’d clearly see that Jesus doesn’t actually blah blah blah…” You’ve heard the rest. You might still be enjoying the rush of saying this stuff to raised brows and concerned conservatives.

Yes, it feels good to believe something you chose to believe on your own…until you’re ambushed.

—

My love for hip-hop continued to grew. In fact, it became even more specific. The lyrics had to be better than good and the beat had to coincide eloquently in order for me to memorize the song, letting it get stuck in my head and inform the way I spoke, dressed, and lived.

My respect for good writers skyrocketed. I loved the art. I officially jumped the Persian culture ship and found myself happy on Yeezy Island. Sorry, Persian music, you just can’t keep up.

—

I hope by now, you’ve found yourself pleased with your exile from Christendom. I hope you’re done deconstructing everything all the time and have found yourself rebuilding your life with thoughts you’ve investigated and enjoyed.

But you should also know what happened to me once I’d settled in on my exile.

I found out that long before hip-hop or rap became a thing, Persians were known for their poetry. I found out my Dad, who I’d lied to about the meaning of hip-hop lyrics, was a poet himself, one whose poetry had actually caught plenty of attention in Iran. I found out he actually worked with musicians who often wanted to use his poetry as lyrics for the sounds they were creating on their instruments.

Wait a second, is my Dad actually one of these lyricists I so thoroughly respect?

The whole thing caught me off guard. I put my Persian culture and brilliant hip-hop lyricism on opposite sides of a spectrum not realizing the spectrum was illegitimate. I had invented it out of thin air to soothe myself. That was the only way I could reconcile bailing on one for the other. These two things are unlike each other. They have nothing in common. One is what I was born into and the other was what I fell in love with.

Did you do the same thing with the God you grew up forcibly singing about and the gods you found more suitable in whatever industry and passion and Island to which you’ve escaped?

To settle the matter once and for all, Beyonce got pregnant again. When Jay Z and Beyonce announced the names of their twins, one of these new beautiful humans was given the name “Rumi.”

Rumi, as in—one of the most distinguished writers and thinkers of all time. Rumi, a Persian poet.

I learned that the poetry I so thoroughly admire in hip-hop owes a great deal to the poetry of my ancestors. At least, Jay and B seemed to think so.

—

What if I made the same mistake with the Christian faith that I made with hip-hop?

Bailing on Persian poetry proved to be the opposite of helpful when it came time to explore my appetite for hip-hop. It circled back around until I realized these weren’t opposites on a spectrum. Appreciating hip-hop meant chasing down my own history. I thought I was running from Persian culture when I was really running into it authentically.

And what if my departure from Christendom’s late 90’s antics wasn’t me escaping from Jesus, but to him?

If my Persian ancestry and my obsession with GOOD Music can collide before my eyes, revealing they’ve always had a lot more in common than I thought, then maybe our escape from the Christian faith as we knew it was actually God’s way of delivering us into the real thing, distinguishing between those who’ll roll over to please their parents and those who actually want to know him.

What if you weren’t really encountering life and Jesus and truth until you decided to step away from the confusion that came when you couldn’t tell the difference between pleasing your parents/church community and pleasing God himself?

I realize these are ambitious what-ifs, but this gets me excited for the ways the two extremes of your spectrum may be colliding in front of you. You might find out the very things you yearn for today (culture, art, music, sex, meaning, purpose) finds their roots in the faith you stepped away from.

Plenty of people mistakenly associate Iran with terrorism or whatever they see on the ravenous-for-ratings-news, but my culture is actually packed with millenniums of art and beauty. Architecture, poetry, and delicious, incredible food.

The Christian faith is going through a similar experience. Currently associated with so much of what it’s not actually about, many have departed from it.

But if I were to bet on what God is up to in all this, I’d bet we’re soon to meet a lot more Rumi Carters.

I bet whatever you left Christendom for is actually what God is best at. I bet it was actually him who invented it. I bet he wants to perfect it with your help. I bet you love it because he wants you to love it. I bet you can’t enjoy it fully without his help. 

I know scientific findings often come with more logic and pragmatism than tales of fishes eating prophets. I realize that time and time again, B seems so much more real/fun/enticing than A.

I imagine you’re disgusted and exhausted and hurt and tired of how often the reality you encounter seems so far from the sanctuaries you don’t miss—

but I hope you’ll do what I did, and ask your Dad about his poetry. You might find out the thing you long for most has its roots in what you’ve been running away from. You might find your eagerness to depart from Christendom was actually a reverence for the earnest, honest, and good heart of God in the first place.