Snapshots: One Man's Journey

I have decided to follow Jesus,
I have decided to follow Jesus,
I have decided to follow Jesus,
No turning back, no turning back.
Though none go with me, still I will follow,
Though none go with me, still I will follow,
Though none go with me, still I will follow,
No turning back, no turning back.
The world behind me, the cross before me,
The world behind me, the cross before me,
The world behind me, the cross before me,
No turning back, no turning back!

Summer 1977, New Orleans, Trinity Christian Community

Heart pounding, full of desire to follow this amazing, radical Jesus that I read about in the Gospels, I stood in the water singing with all of my heart. I was confident that at the end of that last "No turning back..." the young pastor whose arm was around me would plunge me under that water, and I would never be the same again. I fingered the silver and turquoise ring on my right hand. I had bought it in the Fall of 1972 at the Ann Arbor Hash Festival where I had pushed past my nagging conscience and grabbed onto the tail of the '60s movement in my desperate desire to be part of something exciting. Now somehow that ring symbolized for me all the selfishness and futility of those past five years. "The world behind me, the cross before me..."

With silent determination, I slipped the ring off my finger and let it sink to the bottom. No one saw me do it. "No turning back, no turning back..." I emerged from the water jumping for joy, full of zeal to follow Jesus, one of countless young people touched by the Jesus Movement of the 1970s.

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