A Boy named Christian

It was a small town that seemed big to a boy.  My father was a preacher and small business owner.  We attended church twice on Sundays and once on Wednesday nights without fail.  Our particular Protestant denomination was on the strict side of things with a litany of prohibitions to help us avoid being tainted by “the world.”  The women wore dresses and out-of-date hairdos.  The men never wore shorts or went shirtless outside.  It was all about modesty and self-control, not to mention submission (especially if you were of the female gender).  My friends from school did not share our particular kind of faith which made for a rich missionary field of lost souls who needed to find their way to our sure salvation.

There was a great deal of guilt tied up in all of this.  Always a question of whether or not we were “witnessing” to those around us.  We were to share the “good news” of the Gospel which entailed imploring people to say “the sinner’s prayer” and then follow all of the rules of dress and conduct as well as attend those three “services” a week.  

The most anxiety provoking part of these services were times set aside for people to “testify”  (I keep putting words in quotes because there was a lot of lingo in that particular culture that is probably unfamiliar to most people).  My grandmother was particularly good at testifying.  She had suffered a lot in her life (much of it self-inflicted) and I am sure it was an opportunity for those rush of feelings and disappointments to find an outlet.  How could it be anything but cathartic as her voice swelled and quivered, ending in a dramatic wave of her hand exclaiming like Job before her, “I know my Redeemer liveth!” after which she would gingerly lower her arthritic self back into the pew leaving us all a little weepy and shook up.

I was a shy kid and the thought of standing up and “sharing what the Lord had done for me” was a terrifying prospect, but I was supposed to set an example for the other young people in our church.  It was a tremendous battle in my head as I would sit there with sweaty palms and pounding heart.  If I could just reach out to the back of the pew in front of me and rock forward I would be able to find my feet.  Being the only person standing at that point would force me, against all my natural inhibitions, to speak.  “I just want to say… I’m thankful for…” it was choppy and awkward.  I felt like I was going to throw up, but after I finished and sat back down it was a feeling of tremendous relief and accomplishment.  As a father now, I can only imagine my Dad also felt a sense of relief and accomplishment at my brave act.  His son was walking in the “narrow way” after all.

But this story is not about me.  It is about a teenager named Brian Christian.  I had first become aware of Brian’s existence through a neighbor friend’s older brother who played bass guitar.  Brian was a drummer and had a catchphrase that he would use regularly, “Neil Peart, no problem.”  For those who are not in the know of nerdy teenage musician-wannabes, Neil Peart is the drummer for a band called “Rush” and is considered one of the greatest rock drummers of his generation.  Brian was spreading the Gospel of Rush by greeting people with those words.  He and some older teens, both boys and girls, were hanging out in my neighbor’s basement when I stumbled upon them.  They made no exception to my presence as a much younger kid, but also did not refrain from telling crude jokes  and engaging in explicit banter that left me feeling uncomfortable.

So this is what little I knew of Brian Christian: drummer, Neil Peart devotee, and rough around the edges.  But then somehow he came into the orbit of my family.  It may have been that he was working for my Dad.  My Dad owned a carpet business and hired older teens to work on his carpet-laying crew, mostly during the summers.  Shoot, I worked with him some summers beginning in middle school when I was strong enough to handle carrying at least one end of a roll of pad or carpet.  It started with simply bringing him the tools he needed and progressed with time and maturity to actually doing the work itself, wielding a hammer and then a carpet knife loaded with razor blades.

My Dad must have invited Brian to our church, but not only that.  He invited him to bring his drums to help with our little impromptu band that was set up in front of the church opposite the piano.  My Dad was playing trumpet, my sister was on saxophone, I played the baritone, and another teenager honked on her clarinet.  It was a motley crew of amateur musicians playing along with hymns and maybe even being featured for an instrumental or two on Sunday morning, songs that had been practiced after church on a Wednesday night.

I’ll never forget that first time we went to pick him up and load his drum set into the back of our van.  I was fascinated by the sparkling red toms and shiny cymbals.  I was also perplexed.  Didn’t he have gigs to do or friends to rock out with?  Why on earth would a rock drummer in the prime of his teen years be playing at a church with a group of off-key horn honkers?  And to further add to the surreality of the situation, he could only use his brushes because the leaders of the church thought his drum sticks would be too rock-n-roll like, ie, “worldly.”  This may sound strange to someone who is used to seeing drums in Protestant churches these days, but at that time it was unheard of, especially in our particular denomination.

I was in awe of this guy.  He had such a kind and humble spirit which completely blew my stereotype of him out of the water.  No one was forcing him to be there and if his friends had seen him quietly brushing those toms and tingling those cymbals in our church I am sure they would have had great fun at his expense.  

I am not sure how long that arrangement lasted and I do not know what became of Brian Christian after we eventually left that church and moved to a different town.  I can still picture his unruly hair, five o’clock shadow, and shy smirky-smile.  It is thirty years later and I have just recently become a Rush fan (the ring tone on my phone is their song “Tom Sawyer”).  Brian is long lost to my life story but I trust he is doing OK and that his life is truly “no problem,” Neil Peart or no Neil Peart.

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