Vivace: Accidently Discovering the World

This true story follows a shy Midwestern boy who enjoys an almost idyllic adolescence of tranquil Americana; he seems to have the world at his feet, including a picturesque girlfriend, until his arrival at an esteemed university unexpectedly brings him to an evangelical Bible study. There, a rigid presentation of Christianity challenges his understanding of the secular world he knows and loves.

As the young student tries to reconcile a growing desire to believe in God, with the prospect of hell and the restrictive teachings of a new church, the daunting prospect of giving up everything he knows as normal —from sex to literature - becomes almost paralyzing. The young man desperately tries to separate opinion from grounded truth in order return to the world he once knew, without compromising a God he is trying to understand.

Ironically, as the young student contemplates giving up the world to save his soul, his internal struggle is accompanied by a vivid global journey among intensely secular backdrops and personalities, as he searches for a career and his own truth. From a rose-haired, Bohemian Manhattanite, a cocaine-laced model in a pre-Katrina New Orleans, to unexpected friends in Europe’s elite jet-set, old and new figures often called sinners intervene along an unplanned odyssey from Chicago to Istanbul to peel away false internal fear, to a balanced “outside” world — dripping of life and love.