I’ve been watching The 35th Anti-Magic Platoon recently.

It’s pretty typical of the “magic soldier school” subgenre. It’s better than you think, although not totally creative. What’s unique is that unlike other shows, there’s a big focus on teamwork and being a part of each other’s lives. The main character is a rather gung-ho young man who is in charge of a bunch of misfits, all of which he has to help bear their inner turmoil. They in turn help him as they all struggle against malevolent witches and the demands of campus life.

This may sound like whining, but it’s the polar opposite of what Christians are.

This post was sparked by a rather nasty realization that I had. I suddenly realized that for all my time in church, I don’t think I could count a single person as a close friend. To be honest, I’m prickly and acerbic now, but then I didn’t have those qualities. I still had issues..probably a lot of them on retrospect. I grew up in the middle of a divorced family with little idea of what even to do through puberty and life. I was babyish, and probably the kind of guy most would avoid.

But…I still can’t remember a friend.

I remember a youth group, but that was me listening and me doing things with others. Once I left for college, it all withered up. Most of the other kids weren’t geeks, and I don’t think we had much in common. I remember names: Andre, Alfredo, Tara. But I don’t remember real friendship, even despite going on retreats.

In Christian college, the same. After college, the same. I helped out, but no friendship.

It grates on me now, because it makes me feel no one really cared about me. I’m not entitled to receive that, but you’d think Christians would be different, right? All that talk about love.

2 Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. Gal 6:2

I don’t think anyone did. I’m not sure if I did so myself. I mean I volunteered, but that’s not bearing burdens. It was me being bored in a balcony soundbooth above the service, picking my nose and waiting for it to be over.  It was putting chairs away or weeding the pastor’s driveway. I think for most of my time there, it was just me, trying to bear everything myself. Is it any wonder I fell away several times?

I think the idea of the nakama-the friend-family- is so appealing because we really need others to help bear our burdens. The latest episode of Anti-Magic has them all rally to help Usagi overcome her own difficulty. You could actually make some Christian analogies in that series, like how the church ought to be a place where you train to do battle with witches, yet witches and magic themselves can be redeemed. But it’s just cold to realize what I did recently, that I bore my own burdens alone, despite years in a church.

I’ve fallen out with people because there’s too much expecting us to fill roles in Christian churches. The idea really isn’t a place of healing any more, it’s a place where you come in, fill the role of worshipper, tither-provider, listener, and then maybe worker. It’s all how you provide for the Church. You show up, follow the ritual, and leave when its over. You make good familes and more Christians, or if not you work instead. People pray over each other, but it’s kind of showy. A few people do help, but they tend to be women who seek connections with other women.

It’s just a hard thing. And it seems like right now I’m facing hard thing after hard thing about who I am. Maybe in a way that’s good, because it kicks out from under you any idea about you being good, or the illusions we have about yourselves. But you get angry at God a bit too.

This is because there’s too much focus on ourselves. An MMO I play has forums which tend to go over the top with blaming players who have little skill in the game, but rarely task the developers for making the game a pain where low-skilled payers tend to happen. Christianity can be the same way. At some point, God has to act. We aren’t strong enough any more. We are like Gideon, so afraid of the enemy that we can’t even keep our grain out in the open. I blame God sometimes over this, but I guess I don’t lose faith. A Christian is like someone with a distant or absent parent; you may really miss or need them, but you don’t give up believing you have a Father because of that distance. It’s hard though, wicked hard.

You really want that little platoon of your own. You want to help bear and have people bear burdens. In my MMO I do, in a little way. But the Church? Eh.