Ian Morgan Cron - Chasing Francis: A Pilgrims Tale

In the middle of the journey of our life

I came to my senses in a dark forest,

for I had lost the straight path.

Oh, how hard it is to tell

what a dense, wild, and tangled wood this was,

the thought of which renews my fear!

DANTE , Inferno, Canto 1, lines 1 6

A S A LITALIA FLIGHT 1675 BEGAN MAKING ITS FINAL DESCENT INTO Florence, I nervously fanned the pages of my copy of Divine Comedy. Two decades of sitting in my damp basement had left a powdery coating of mildew that wafted into the air around me. For a moment I saw it, tiny specks and spores floating idly in the rays of sun pouring through the window. I hadnt read the Inferno portion of Dantes classic since I was an undergrad. At nineteen, of course, the freight those first few lines carried would have been utterly lost on me. Now, reading them with thirty-nine-year-old eyes, I wished I could call Dante up and schedule a lunch. I had a long list of questions for him.

Through the patina of condensation on the planes window, I surveyed the Tuscan countryside below and knew I had lost the straight path and entered a dense, wild, and tangled wood. Two weeks earlier, Id been Chase Falson, founding pastor of the largest contemporary evangelical church in New England. My fourteen years in the ministry were a church growth success story. Id considered myself one of the privileged few the heavens had endowed with a perfectly true compass. Id known who I was and where I was going, and Id been certain that one day I would see the boxes neatly checked off next to each of my life goals. Id liked myself. A lot.

These days, lots of people dismiss you when they discover youre cut from evangelical cloth. Once youve been outed as a conservative Christian, they assume youre a right-wing, self-satisfied fundamentalist with all the mental acuity of a houseplant. Every Christmas, my Uncle Bob greets me at the front door of my parents house, gripping a martini in one hand and a fat Cuban cigar in the other. He slaps me on the back and yells, Look whos here! Its Mr. EEEeyah-vangelical! Its disconcerting, but Bobs an idiot and suffers from an impulse control disorder.

For many a year, the terms New England and evangelical have been considered mutually exclusive. My church history professor told me that Jonathan Edwards referred to New England as the graveyard of preachers. Baleful as that sounded, it didnt dissuade me from heeding the call to head east after seminary. My three closest friends were incredulous when I told them about my decision to start a church in Thackeray, Connecticut, a bedroom community thirty-five miles from Wall Street.

Have you lost your mind? Even Gods afraid of the Northeast, they said.

I laughed. Its not so bad. I grew up there.

But you could probably get a job at a megachurch somewhere, they argued.

Truth be told, I wasnt interested in working for a church someone else had built. I wanted to be the pioneer who broke the code for the spiritually barren Northeast, heroically advancing the cause of Christ into the most gospel-resistant region of the country. As a native, I was certain I knew the cultural landscape well enough to reach the Ivy Leaguers whose homes lay discreetly hidden behind stone walls and wrought-iron gates. A little self-important, but there you have it.

And yet, I had delivered the goods. Id built a church where, at last count, over three thousand people came to worship every Sunday a Herculean feat in a part of the world thats suspicious of things that are either big or new.

With the benefit of hindsight, I can see now that Putnam Hill Community Church had been built on the appeal of my belief in a God who could be managed and explained. Id held such an unshakable confidence in my conservative evangelical theology that even some of the more skeptical locals had been won over. After Id put in years of seventy-hour workweeks, Putnam Hill had become a church brimming with young Wall Streeters and their families, many of whom had come because they were disappointed that happiness hadnt come as optional equipment in their Lexus SUVs.

That world had detonated ten days ago. Gazing down on the terra-cotta roofs dotting the approaching Tuscan hills, I found myself on a forced leave of absence, and chances were good that when I returned home I would be out of a job.

I have discovered that reaching the climax of a spiritual crisis in front of a thousand people is less than politic. In retrospect, I should have realized I was standing on the precipice of a yawning existential abyss. Subterranean streams of doubt had been leeching into the well of my most deeply held beliefs for two years. The scaffolding that supported my whole belief system was shaking as if some unseen force were trying to pull it down.

Three months before the cover came completely off the ball, I began meeting with Dr. Alistair McNally. Mac is a sixty-five-year-old psychiatrist, and the only decent therapist within a thirty-mile radius of Thackeray. Born and raised in Dublin, Mac had tousled shocks of white hair and a bawdy sense of humor. Hes the only Christian shrink I know who doesnt make those annoying throaty humming sounds when you tell him some painful detail about your life. He doesnt insist on maintaining eye contact with you like a Martian practicing mind control, either. Hes just a regular guy who has a lot more mileage on his odometer than I do, and I like him. Macs secretary, Regina, is a member of our church, so we met outside the office under the guise of playing squash at his club. My erratic moods were fast becoming a topic of conversation at church. The last thing I needed was for people to find out I was seeing a psychiatrist.

One day, after hed trounced me three games in a row, Mac and I sat on the floor outside the court, trying to catch our breath.

So how are we doing this week? Mac asked.

I heaved a sigh. I actually feel worse than I did last week, I said. I still cant sleep and Ive gained three pounds. Ive picked up a new hobby, though.

What is it? he asked.

Road rage.

Mac laughed. So what do you do when you cant sleep?

You mean when Im not glued to the TV, eating gallons of ice cream? I asked.

Mac chuckled again. Yes.

I spend a lot of time staring at the ceiling, questioning everything Ive believed in for the past twenty years. I cant figure out whats come over me. I used to be Bible Man just push the button and Ill give you the answer. Next thing I know, Im Bertrand Russell. Someone pulled the chair out from under my faith.