Crystal Cheatham — Indie from the start

That conversation with Jennifer got me thinking. What is Adventism to me? If it drives me crazy, why do I still claim the faith? I mean (however young) I’m an adult now. I have options!

When I was younger I think I accepted it because it was the culture of my family. In the many Adventist institutions I saw that I could reach not only my academic potential but my career based potential as well. I saw that I could learn and grow right into it, like growing into your long legs or broad shoulders almost. But then I grew up and went to college and began to see things I hadn’t seen before.

What happened was my religion began to feel like an heirloom passed down from my great granddad Brown and my grandpappy Cheatham. I came to realize that although I had wrapped myself in this thing called Adventism, even though I had come to love and adore its inner workings and the structure it provided my life, it did not seem to love me back the way I thought it should. Now I say that because I had grown up thinking that Adventism was a living breathing organism. Imagine growing to love a dog because it is always playing with you and making you run faster and filling your hearts emotional desires, and then when you’re eighteen your parents tell you that your pet dog is really a robot and will never have the emotional capacity to engage you the way your heart desires. I feel that way about Adventism now.

I really just wish that Adventism could be passed down to my generation without all the attachments. Instead of hating on the drums, instead of worrying about drinking, earrings, and what we should be doing with our Sabbath hours, we all just worshiped together and cut the show and “do/do not” mentality. And in this way, this simple none-assuming way, I as a young adult could claim a bit of my heritage as my own. Like a graph to my skin and not a prosthetic limb.

So. Ironically enough the thing that keeps me living this kind of faith is the thing that both crushes me and lifts me up. It’s the culture. As an Adventist I have found a network of people so true, so strong in their moral standings that I doubt I will find the caliber of friends and family anywhere else. But then again, a culture that cannot grow will not succeed. I love it and I hate it. What’s a girl to do?