What's in a ring?

Just found my class ring. These clumpy rings mean a lot of things to a lot of different people. The best years of their life. A time when they thought being on the swim team was their greatest success. For some, it's the awkward reminder of the geek in band. A first love. A petty fight. Friends and growing up.

Not mine. High school was a bleak time with a few bright spots. But mostly it was a time of tears. Not the tears of a broken teenage heart. The tears of a broken soul in the night. Tears of hopelessness and homelessness. These are the tears shed in silence. In darkness. In solitude.

But the ring... that was pure defiance. I was forbidden from purchasing it, so I got a secret job and did. It was an extreme act of self-definition, of independence. I didn't know it at the time, but the message I was trying to send was this:

"I'm not a bad kid. I want simple things. I want normal things. And I'm willing to do what it takes to get them myself, because I know no one's handing them to me. So, lay off. Back off. Keep your distance if you're not going to help me. Because I'm not a bad kid. The things I want aren't bad things. I want a class ring. I want to graduate high school. I want to go to college. So stay out of my way, because I'm doing it. With or without you."

Just a few months after this, I finally moved out of the house: A teenage run-away for all the right reasons.

Now, I know this blog is supposed to be about God. About the academics of faith. But you see, I don't come from ivory towers. I wasn't born to this life I live. I wasn't raised to this faith I profess.

I'm not the same person that bought that ring. But if I'd never been that person, I would never be who I am today. The anger and defiance, the yearning for something more - those drove me on. And that, that was God. That's my theology.

More than ten years have passed since I bought a ring. Somehow, I don't think I'll be putting it on again.