My Name is Lazarus

If you are searching my name online, you have likely come across this photograph, along with the many stories that have followed me over the years. Yes, I am the person known as the “angry torch guy” from the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. But that image captures only a moment in a past I have left behind. My name is Lazarus, and I am alive.

My name is Lazarus comes from the poem, The Convert, by Catholic Writer and convert, GK Chesterton,

The Convert

After one moment when I bowed my head
And the whole world turned over and came upright,
And I came out where the old road shone white.
I walked the ways and heard hat all men said,
Forests of tongues, like autumn leaves unshed,
Being not unlovable but strange and light;
Old riddles and new creeds, not in despite
But softly, as men smile about the dead

The sages have a hundred maps to give
That trace their crawling cosmos like a tree,
They rattle reason out through many a sieve
That stores the sand and lets the gold go free:
And all these things are less than dust to me
Because my name is Lazarus and I live.

I Came Home

After Charlottesville, I realized that even at twenty, I was making the wrong choices and walking a path I would later come to regret. By chance, or perhaps by divine providence, I was photographed at that rally in the midst of my rage. The subsequent backlash from across the country forced me to step away from politics and the noise of public life, giving me space to reflect on my actions and who I truly wanted to be.

It was during this turbulent time that I discovered G.K. Chesterton, whose writings opened my eyes to the joy of Christian faith and the power of forgiveness. I learned that there is always a second chance for those who repent. Placing my trust in God, I was received into the Church on Easter Sunday of 2018. In that moment, I truly came home.

My conversion has given me a new beginning and a renewed way of seeing the world. Today, as a student at the Catholic University of America, I seek to advance social justice and the common good, to serve my fellow human beings and live out the teachings of Christ as he commanded, redeeming myself in the eyes of God and my neighbors alike.