At the End of the Day - 3. Sobriety - How An Atheist Saved My Soul

We called him ‘Strange Alcohol’. It was a direct translation of his name, when read by a student of the language who was not native to the script. We thought ourselves witty, for the man had strange ideas which we often mocked to remind ourselves of the wisdom we had acquired.

What boy at twenty knows the state of things? We certainly thought we did. We had been raised in the one true religion; our parents had taught us the truth since we were old enough to understand words. The wealth of experience which Lee Sang-sur had accumulated meant nothing when compared to the rich truths we had been taught to believe.

I had been raised in the religion of my forefathers. They had been members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints for well over a century. To the mind of a child, a century seems like an eternity, but when I met Mr. Lee I failed to realize he had already lived for more than half a century. How could I so easily disregard his words?

We were missionaries, there to preach the word of God. He had been a minister for over twenty years, preaching the word of God as he had seen it for as long as we had been alive. We had an agenda: we would show him what was lacking in his faith and truth to bring him around to the fullness of happiness.

Missionary work, as described by the church, is the business of saving souls. Mr. Lee was a passionate man, who held tightly to his beliefs about god and religion. While he had been a minister for decades, he had been an atheist for nearly as long after leaving the ministry. He told us he had left when he found the doctrine lacking; the answers to his questions were fleeting, and his hunger for truth was never sated.

He was just like me. I had been seeking for truth my entire life. As a child I had always questioned the way things were done, but as I had aged, I was taught that my immaturity was what made me question. I was taught to doubt my doubts before I doubt my faith. I buried my agnosticism at twelve beneath faithful church service, because it was what my parents wanted. I buried my Buddhism at seventeen beneath a pursuit of church doctrine because my parents wanted me to serve a mission. I buried myself, my personal quest for truth, within a shallow grave dug by fear of disappointment.

We preached to Mr. Lee, our youthful exuberance leading us into our scriptures to find passages to defend our limited experience. We spoke of truths we had found, but I found my words empty of truth. We preached of the joys of the gospel but I found my gospel devoid of joy. We spoke with passionate language, but my mind screamed at me with equal fervor to shut up and listen to Mr. Lee.

Mr. Lee was silent when we spoke and he listened to our pleas, and then he would respond, in a voice clear and reasoned. His voice broke with obvious strain as he tried to keep from shouting at us from the truth which weighed so heavily on his mind. He spoke with sorrow of the years wasted, of the emptiness of his ministry. His weathered hands moved slowly but surely, thumbing through a bible read time and time again by a man who knew it cover to cover.

When he spoke, it was from personal experience. He had studied for years to become a minister, out of a need to understand the universe. He had thought to find it in the doctrine, or in the service of his ministry, but his questions only brought him more questions. His doubt gave way to more doubt and his faith began to crumble. With maturity, Mr. Lee faced the fear of disappointment from his congregation and his family, and he broke free of the prison he had built for himself. I wanted to be just like him.

I hungered for more as he continued to teach. I fought and continued to argue, not because I wanted him to be wrong, though the answers he gave were hard-hitting. I knew if I continued to debate with him, he’d continue to drive his point home. A minister he had been, and a missionary he was now. He was an atheist, but he was engaged in saving my soul.

He had an agenda, and like our own he was seeking to bring about our happiness. He knew the truth did not lie behind the blind pursuit of faith. Unlike us, he did not preach out of some need to appease some alien entity, but out of an honest desire to improve our lives and free us from dogma.

I could not easily disregard his words. The man had lived three of my lifetimes, and I was a child in his eyes. Though I had been promised eternity, the centuries had changed the religion of my forefathers. I knew it would only be a matter of time before it changed again, to fit the status quo. Such was the way of the Mormon Religion.

What I had thought were rich truths turned out to be nothing when compared to the freedom Mr. Lee offered us. Beyond the words was a calling strong and sure, that we were meant for something greater than to be trapped behind tired dogma and fickle servants of a changing God. A boy at twenty knows little about the world, but the whole world is ahead of him if he but decides to seize the moment.

Our wisdom was naught but the retelling of tales from men drunk on the notion they were better than others. We’d never been native to the script ; the unholy writ of misogyny, homophobia, racism and malevolent bigotry, but we had succumbed to it as many have. Lee Sang-sur led me on a path of sobriety from the strangest alcohol of all, and for that I will be forever grateful.