Hirsch - Redeeming sex: naked conversations about sexuality and spirituality

A human being is nothing but a story with skin around it.

Fred Allen

George was my drug dealer. He was also the sound engineer in a band I hung out with. All in all he was a pretty wild character who in his calmer moments saw himself as a seeker, a philosopher of sorts, in that he would get stoned, stare at the stars, and get all deep and spiritual.

I didnt take Georges seeking all that seriously given that his pursuit of truth didnt extend to his drug dealing or ripping off his friends. George got picked up by the police for a stack of unpaid parking fines and was sentenced to two weeks in the local jail. Keeping on with his quest for truth (and to quell some of the boredom), he took along his mothers big Greek Orthodox family Bible. I cant imagine what the police thought when he walked in with it. It probably weighed ten pounds.

You know what happens next. George begins reading that big Bible and the Holy Spirit falls on him. He is born again right there in the local lockup!

When the police released George ten days later, he was bursting at the seamsready to tell the world about his newfound faith. His brother John picked him up from jail and gave his life to Christ before they even arrived home.

The two then banded together, Bibles under one arm and a copy of Hal Lindseys The Late Great Planet Earth under the other (it was the 1980s after all!), and went out in hot pursuit of new converts. They compiled a list of all the people they sold drugs to and called it their evangelistic hit list. They would pray for each person and then catch up with them to tell them about Jesus. I was on this hit list, as were a number of my friends, including my sister Sharon and dearest friend Mark, the two to whom this book is dedicated.

My journey of faith didnt actually begin when George shared the gospel with me; God had been working my case for a long time. I just hadnt realized it. Like George, I was a seeker, and in the weeks before coming to Jesus I had sensed something was in the wind. I kept telling my friend Jason that my answer was just around the corner. He thought I was taking too many drugs, and maybe I was. But I was expectant, never thinking for a moment that my answer, like Georges, would also be Jesus.

When Jesus came into my life everything changed. All those old clichs you hearbeing lost and then found, being blind and then seeingapplied to me. I encountered God in such a dramatic way that I knew my life would never be the same. Within a very short time both Sharon and Mark also gave their lives to Jesus. The three of us were living with a bunch of others in a big community house, and were living and identifying as gay.