Baptism!

Renée Antrosio – November 8, 2022 6 Comments

Drummer, lead singer, guitarist, and new friend James Bean will be re-baptized at NCF on November 20. His story is an inspiration and testament to God’s stubborn love for us. If you or someone you know would like to publicly choose to follow Jesus’s way through baptism at this time, please let me know! Meanwhile, please add Jimmy to your prayers in the coming weeks. -Renée

I am sharing this in the hope that it might inspire another lost soul. I have found an all-inclusive church that not only accepts but welcomes this studying and practicing Buddhist, and I feel loved and cared for. I have found my tribe!!! Did I mention that I am going to be baptized again soon? (Then I will consider myself to be a studying and practicing Christian Buddhist.) 

After attending New Covenant Fellowship church for most of this summer and playing in the band and singing in the choir I have been inspired to be baptized (again.) I was baptized at First Christian Church in Champaign when I was a little boy, but I truly didn’t understand what being baptized meant. As a kid, I saw many of my heroes who were athletes wearing silver necklaces with crosses hanging from them. I asked my mom if I could have one, (necklace and cross), and she explained that it represented having faith in Jesus Christ and professing my dedication to being a Christian. I agreed to be baptized because at that time I would do anything to have the same kind of necklace and cross that my heroes had.

In my ’adult’ years I became an agnostic. I had convinced myself that Christianity was the cause of most wars and that it had caused much more damage to the world than good. That made it easy for me to stay away from churches and justified the hedonistic lifestyle that I had adopted. After more years than I care to admit of being the lead singer in a rock band and partaking of booze and drugs in excess daily, two things happened that SHOULD HAVE changed the trajectory of my life but I have always been immensely ‘hard-headed’ if nothing else? 

After a gig with my band ‘Sticky Wicket’ at a club in Decatur on February 16, 1991, I attempted suicide. Long story…, but as I was trying to blow my head off with a shotgun and when I reached down and pushed the trigger, the barrel jerked from under my chin and blew a hole in my right shoulder the size of a softball. Incredibly, although I lost a lot of muscle mass, I still have full use of my shoulder and went on to being a union rigger for hundreds of concerts, touring Broadway shows and such years later, and my shoulder was never a problem. (I even earned a Black Belt in TaeKwonDo many years after that horrible incident, messed up shoulder and all.) I also currently play the drums without that shoulder getting in the way. Pretty nasty scar and lots of muscle missing, but that’s about the extent of damage done physically. (Mentally is a whole different story.) 

On December 17, 1996 my dear, sweet, loving mother was attacked in her sleep and murdered by her husband. Without going into detail, it was a horrendous death not only for her but also for her husband, who after slitting my mom’s throat and struggling with her until she made it to the front porch of their home where she bled out, killed himself with the same butcher knife he used to kill my mom with. Both families have suffered for the rest of our lives because of this, and I am as sorry for their family as I am for mine. I was already an alcoholic and drug addict so turning to those things was easy for me.

By 1999, my drinking and drugging had helped me to become homeless. I rarely slept on the streets however because of many friends who cared more about me than I cared about myself, none-the-less, sleeping on couches and in basements was a real punch in the gut to my ego and all that I really wanted was for my life to end. I had given up on myself and any chance of living any sort of ‘normal’ life. 

After being on the streets for the summer of 1999, I was helped by my little brother, Hughie, out of the kindness of his heart, to rent a small studio apartment at 406 W. Healey in Champaign. (I lived there for 15 years.) I started working as a stagehand again that summer and started doing solo/acoustic gigs on the side. I was still drinking and drugging in excess but somehow maintained well enough to keep my job and even join the International stagehands union. 

On Mother’s Day of 2003, after walking a few blocks to the liquor store (which was one of the reasons I chose that address as I did not have a driver’s license any longer and was facing a certain prison sentence if I was caught driving again without a license), when I got home and was about to crack my first cold Busch beer, I looked at all of the pictures around my place of my beautiful, sweet mom. Not literally, but I could imagine hearing her say to me, “Jimmy, ENOUGH OF THIS ALREADY SON!!! You have spent the last 6 1/2 years feeling sorry for yourself and spending all of your well-earned money on booze and drugs! STOP IT, AND STOP IT RIGHT NOW!! You have two daughters that need you to be the man that I raised you to be. Courtney and Taylor DESERVE to have a father that showers them with love the way that I did for you. It is your turn to be a loving and doting parent for those girls, especially in my absence. I love you son, and it’s breaking my heart seeing you destroy yourself this way. If you can’t be strong enough to stay sober for yourself, then DO IT FOR MY GRAND-DAUGHTERS! I raised you to be a better man than this, I gave you all of the love and caring that I could. Now is the time for you to be the father that your daughters NEED and DESERVE!” 

I dropped down to my knees and cried like a baby, asking my mom to forgive me for being so selfish and not living up to the standards that she had taught me. I promised to start doing better that day and to continue to do better until my final breath of air is taken. I poured the bottle of Crown Royal down the sink, and wrote the date on the bottom of the 12-pack of Busch and stashed it in a closet. (It’s in my garage now.) How many homeless guys do you know that have a garage?? (I will be celebrating 20 years of sobriety on Mother’s Day of 2023.) What I have that is more important than anything else in my life is the love AND RESPECT of my dear, sweet daughters.

I started studying and practicing Buddhism in 2007, searching for the spiritual experience that had evaded me up until then. Buddhism taught me how and why to forgive the man that murdered my mom, and how to calm myself even in times of rage. (It was no accident that my last rock band was named ‘Anger Management’.) It also taught me what “all-inclusive” truly means, which is what I’ve found at New Covenant Fellowship.

I want to thank especially Pastor Renée Antrosio, and my new friend, Vern Fein, for being so inspiring! (Mr. Fein’s book ‘Radical Faith’ was extremely inspirational and was definitely a big part of what encouraged me to be baptized again.) I am also hoping that Vern will be there to lift me out of the water (and the darkness), with Renée when I am being ‘cleansed’.

I wish to thank each and every friend who cared enough to help in times that I truly needed it. I’m not sure why yet, but my life has been spared several times and for whatever reason, I obviously still have some work to do before my time is finished. I will do my best to be the best father and friend that I can be, and hopefully celebrate another 20 years of sobriety one day!!

Namaste, (‘The light and love inside of me recognizes the light and love inside of you.’) JJB