Category: Tohu-Bohu

Today my friend Patty threatened to send me a card, a care package, or a small car stuffed with clowns to help me endure the couch induced doldrums I have while mending from having my foot improved. Long time friend Matthew happened to call last night as I was mulling over some difficult transitions in some long term relationships. Noah and Camila came over and carved out jack-o-lanterns in a way that I assumed were carving holiday-themed neuro-pathways in their little skulls as well as little hope shaped etches in my cynical soul. Just when you hit a funk or things get dreary, sometimes a little gem cmes your way. These are little jokes, little providences and interventions that make me tilt my head and see I may have been reading life, well, wrong.

Since the semester in Los Angeles that I read “Compassion” (which was co-authored by Henri Nouwen), I have had both the desire as well as the conviction that I needed to live in an intentional community. In 2003 I was confirmed Roman Catholic for many reasons, the greater of which was to discern a vocation to the be a monk or join some other order. As of the date of this writing I neither live in a formal intentional community or a monastic order. I do not have a family or a partner and am not moving toward having one. So when I read St Benedict’s instruction on stability I have reasonable fears that I may be a “gyrovague.”

It was a rocky and complicated relationship I had with the church I was attending in Pasadena, California I had been attending. By rocky I mean horrible and by complicated I mean extremely painful. Even though by then I knew that it was the Body of Christ, the Church, that was the love of my life, I was seriously considering a separation. I don’t know how these ecclesial spats get rolling but when they do it can quickly become a snowball from hell. I thank God Kevin moved to town or my faith may well have gone a different direction.

We had spent the weekend at what was one of the all-time greatest celebrations of my life. We adorned our bodies with streamers and danced to the flute and accordion  just before we processed in to the great foot washing service we were about to celebrate.  It was a retreat being animated by Jean Vanier, the founder of L’Arche which is a organization of small communities all over the world of people with more and less visible disabilities living an intentionally communal life.  We gathered in small circles to begin this incredibly physical and intimate rite of love.  I’ve participated in this before but I had never entirely understood it like  I suddenly did watching the group next to me.   And it all hinged on a man who has never walked or spoken.

There are certainly times when every one feels like they don’t belong. Most of those times are in junior high school but the don’t necessarily up-and-disappear after college. It can even at times be excruciating even as an adult. However, I have been learning, especially in the last few years of not ‘fitting’ isn’t always something for which some people should strive.

“Listen…”   -St Benedict

For the record, I hate the word blogging, blog and bloggers.   The words themsleves are far less elegant than painter dancer, baker, or custodial technician. Unlike the preacher or the academic, the blogger is not a formal office with any kind of authority.    “It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers some to be bloggers?”  Ephesians 4:11 ….and a little added. Hm.