“-Isms”…

-“…only after I’d come to everything else did I come to Christ. Only after I tried drugs and addiction and approval and fame and prestige and privilege and money and indulgence and hedonism and epicureanism and rationalism…”

–Russell Brand, from interview on Apologetics Canada podcast #535

-For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

–Ephesians 2:10

-But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

–Galatians 5:22-23

-What would ever make me think that I’m in control of my life? I’m not even in control of my hair!

–field notes, February 2025

I love God so much.

He is love and comfort and peace and rest, my strength and energy and perseverance and discipline and endurance. He is my Creator and Sustainer and Provider and Protector. He brought me salvation through His Son, and His Spirit guides me every day.

Because of Him, I live and breathe and have a purpose.

I have not forgotten where I was, before I came to this place.

1986…

I was following two rigorous courses of study in Paris. There were my official classes in the education program at the Sorbonne…and the deeper research conducted in obscure bookshops and libraries, musty lecture halls, and smoke-filled cavern cafes throughout the city…

The quest for my raison d’etre.

Where better than the hotbed of philosophical debate?

I’d become disillusioned with conventional religious institutions. Since early childhood I’d been witness to a pageant of mindless rituals, hypocrisy, empty words, empty gestures, empty-tomb people checking off all the boxes on the doctrinal to-do list one by one, year after year.

At least that’s how I viewed it…and I was done. Done with it all.

(That didn’t stop me from entering numerous cathedrals to admire the architecture…and to kneel in prayer when terrorist attacks flared up…but…basically I was done.)

My search began! I dove into every work and treatise, by every author, on every “-ism” I could unearth. One kept rising to the top…

Existentialism.

“Existentialism is absurd. Life has no meaning. Death is the ultimate absurdity; it undoes everything life has been building up to. One is born by chance; one dies by chance. There is no God.”

Okay, so, when you’re a college student who has abandoned the church and is exploring cynicism and is seeking answers to questions…

“Where is God? Does God exist? Why are we here? Why am I here?”

It sounds like a plausible path.

There is no God. You can stop looking. You are here. You have the freedom to find your own purpose.

Hmm. Further digging…Jean-Paul Sartre…

“Existence…we are. Essence…what we are. An individual is responsible for making himself into an essence, of lifting himself beyond the level of mere existence.”

“Yeah,” I thought, “there’s an essence here alright. Smells rather like a farm yard.”

I then reasoned that, if this was an answer, or the answer, it should be reflected in his life. The proof is in the pudding, so to speak. This track took me to the relationship between him and fellow existentialist Simone de Beauvoir. For those not in the know…

Simone was heavily into Jean-Paul. Like me, she was breaking free of the constraints of a traditional upbringing, and, like me, intellect appeared to be her aphrodisiac. So she’s like, “Dude, we can change the world AND have this hot passionate affair of the brain and the body.”

He was down with that, as long as it included plenty of savory stuff (aka other women) on the side.

They called it “an open relationship built upon the essential love between the couple while allowing for contingent love affairs.”

Essentially (pun intended)…polyamory, back in the day.

Uh huh. There’s that “essence” again.

Despite all their posturing, there was an undercurrent in private writings and even between the lines of the public ones…disappointment, discontent, resentment, and often jealousy. Their worldview tainted every aspect of their lives. Beneath the shiny-apple shell of fame, status, adoration, wealth…rotten to the core.

A passage came to mind…

By their fruit you will recognize them…every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. (Matthew 7:16-17)

I saw the fruit of their relationship, their lives, their “-ism…”

Absence of God. Absence of meaning. Absence of purpose. Absence of joy. Absence of peace. Absence of love.

I decided…I wanted nothing of it.

That’s when I stopped chasing “isms,” and started pursuing Jesus.

Once I gave my life to Him…well, I’m here to tell you…He is the answer to all those questions…

And all the fruit is good.