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I haven't recently written here, as I have been well occupied, for some time now, with other projects.
I am keeping journal alive for archival and networking purposes, but most of my recent work is up at Nathaniel's Journal and Nathaniel Kidd and Sarah Kidd: The Pilgrim Road.
Come check it out!
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I'm not particularly surprised at this result, given that the primary influences to my spiritual life these days are (1) Anglican (2) Orthodox and (of course) (3) Catholic, all of which fall into Catholicism fairly well on this rubric.
The first time I took this test, I scored very strongly Neo-Orthodox, and my Catholicness has been rising slowly since then little by little, probably about 10% every time I take this quiz.
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What's your theological worldview?
created with QuizFarm.com | | You scored as Roman Catholic You are Roman Catholic. Church tradition and ecclesial authority are hugely important, and the most important part of worship for you is mass. As the Mother of God, Mary is important in your theology, and as the communion of saints includes the living and the dead, you can also ask the saints to intercede for you.
Roman Catholic | | 82% | Neo orthodox | | 79% | Emergent/Postmodern | | 71% | Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan | | 68% | Classical Liberal | | 50% | Charismatic/Pentecostal | | 46% | Modern Liberal | | 29% | Reformed Evangelical | | 29% | Fundamentalist | | 25% |
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 | You scored as Mystical Communion Model. Your model of the church is Mystical Communion, which includes both People of God and Body of Christ. The church is essentially people in union with Christ and the Father through the Holy Spirit. Both lay people and clergy are drawn together in a family of faith. This model can exalt the church beyond what is appropriate, but can be supplemented with other models.
Mystical Communion Model | | 67% | Servant Model | | 67% | Sacrament model | | 61% | Herald Model | | 50% | Institutional Model | | 28% | </td>
What is your model of the church? [Dulles]
created with QuizFarm.com |
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What is a Christian, they say. What is a Christian?
The Christian is a man for whom Jesus is more than just a religious figure.
He sees Jesus, not only in the liturgical service or the painted icon; not only in the praise songs or the cheap souvenirs, but around every corner, in every ditch; cleverly disguised in each passing heart. That man is a Christian.
He sees Jesus especially in the dirty places. The least, the lost, the littlest, the lowliest, the loneliest. He sees Jesus there, as clearly as in the Eucharist, as clearly as in prayer, as clearly as in the Gospels. That man is a Christian.
The Christian is a man whose way is foolish to the world. His trail is crooked and painful, filled with sacrifice, danger, and discomfort. And when you ask him why he walked that way, he will answer that he saw Jesus there, and he had to keep going. That man is a Christian.
The Christian is a man who dies wrecked, disfigured, and humiliated. Yet in death, he smiles still, for he watched his Jesus die the selfsame death. That man, that man, is a Christian.
…
I worry, sometimes, that I am not sacrificing enough for the Gospel. I live a good life. A very good life, in fact. My belly is full, my back is clothed, my spirit is satiated.
But there are moments that I look at Jesus, that bright, radiant figure who lightens the dark shadows of my heart and lifts the black clouds of earth, and I am so moved by his beauty and power that in that impulsive moment, I long to throw everything out the window that I might be unencumbered to go and follow.
The morning after, I wake up, take a comfortable shower, put on a comfortable shirt, eat a comfortable breakfast and go forth to continue living my comfortable life.
I wonder if I am missing something.
Maybe I need a good divestment strategy. A twelve step program for overcoming materialism. A good get poor quick scheme. Maybe I need more inspiration. If I believed enough, I could sacrifice everything. Or more education. If I was sure I would succeed, then I could move forward, no matter what the cost.
One morning I want to wake up poor and happy with nothing to my name but my Jesus.
Yet perhaps the deepest reality of Jesus’ call to poverty is the fundamental realization that all that I have, from my creation, to my redemption, to every material, relational, and spiritual possession I have is a gift from God, and that if God should take them all away tomorrow, I would not be all the worse off for it. For the greatest gift, is, of course, God himself. Not because he can give new gifts, but simply because he is God!
God certainly calls people to radical poverty. He calls martyrs and he calls missionaries. Oh that I should be honored to receive such a calling! If it ever comes, may my heart be supple and my ears unplugged.
In the meantime, wealth is to be emptied joyously on lavish generosity. |
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It was, without a doubt, and by a very wide margin, the best movie I have ever seen.
It was also the clearest picture of the Gospel I have ever seen on film. And here, I have seen movies explicitly based on the Gospels: Godspell, the Gospel of John, Mel Gibson's Passion movie...yet it is this Bollywood film which, completely unintentionally, sheds the most light on the workings of God, the character of God, and the mystery of God.
Perhaps it says something about the wide gulf between the Postmodern West and the highly traditional third and two-thirds world that I can hear the Gospel more clearly in Hindi than in American English. That is probably a question to ponder more in the future.
Right now, I am simply in awe.
Simply. |
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I remember only the last line of my dream.
My good friend, probably my best and closest non-Christian friend these days, asked me, “Am I content?”
It wasn’t a remarkable dream. But it woke me. It woke me at 4.30. The wheels in my mind started turning, to the point that I became conscious, dropped into something of a minor crisis of faith.
As an American, it is difficult to deal with Christ’s narrow claims of salvation. He claims to be the way, the truth, and the life. Do I believe it?
I think I have come to believe it only functionally. If you were to ask me last week, I probably would have said, “Jesus Christ is the only way of salvation that I know. And he gives good indication that he is indeed the only way. So let me talk about my Jesus; you may draw your own conclusions.”
Yet if Christ is indeed the only way of salvation, there is a greater firmness and urgency to his call on the lives of those who do not follow him. The medicine of the Gospel may indeed be bitter, but it cures, and every man I see on the street is perishing without it, whether that decay is visible or not. That is a bold statement, and I do not know quite how to respond to it.
I worry that my faith is American, more than it is Christian. I worry that my faith is filled with little compromises which warp and distort the true Gospel, impinging on both the transformative work it is doing in my life and the forward motion of the Kingdom of God from me outward into the world. My assumptions, my instincts; they are all American. In speaking of my faith, I am quick to laud the spiritual benefits of knowing Jesus, but I ignore his radical, beautiful, paradoxical plan of salvation.
Why? Because I, like most Americans, am not a sinner. I have absolved myself of any moral obligation, either personal or collective. If I see a poor person on the street, it is not my responsibility; we need a better bureaucracy to protect the rights of the poor. If there is a problem in my life, I do not need salvation, I need therapy. It is not my fault, not what I have done, but what has been done to me.
I must put to death my Americanness, and let God raise me up a Christian.
At any rate, this is of course far removed from that initial thought which woke me. My friend asked, “Am I content?”
I thought a great deal about this after I laid aside other theological concerns. Besides being such a good friend, this man is also a good person; I find much in him admirable and worthy of emulation. He has a natural gift of hospitality, a natural ability to lead and direct others; something that I hope to have one day with much difficulty and training on my part.
When he asks me, then, he speaks not only for himself, but also for a idealized version of myself. He speaks that clever and sagacious fellow, I daydream myself to be. He speaks for that respected and influential member of the community who sits in his office surrounded by the warmth of books and the sharpness of wit. “Am I content?”
And the answer is, to both of them: You are not content, but comfortable. You are not content, but complacent. It is the living experience of the Living God which brings contentment to all: rich and poor, smart and dull. To follow him is to move, yet you are sitting still, justifying your discontentment with so many shallow words. Hear the words of Jesus to the rich young ruler: If you would have eternal life, go, sell all you have and give the money to the poor, then come, follow me.
To our shallow lives, Jesus responds with a call to sacrifice, and then to journey.
As a brief aside, I do not think it is a coincidence that while I sat writing this, I received a return email from the chair of the Department of Archaeology and History of Art at Bilkent University, Turkey. The fact that this is an uncomfortable and somewhat unexpected place for me to go makes me wonder all the more: could this be God’s calling?
But the reality of obedience is that it is something we can only take one step at a time. We shall see what tomorrow brings.
Jan. 4th, 2007 @ 07:16 am
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Praise to the Lord through Jesus Christ! For God is here, and He is good.
How can I put in to words all the things that have happened over this weekend? Surely they would not begin to ascribe to God the glory He deserves for the wonderful things He has done. Nevertheless, here I sit in the early morning with my heart pounding and words circulating through my veins, and that one, nagging command, “Write it.”
Yesterday began with the most powerful contemplative experience I have had in my life. The context was an InterVarsity leadership retreat. We were worshipping in response to the beauty and power of God’s Word in John 13, when Jesus strips down and washes his disciples’ feet, and then commands us to go and do the same for one another.
Whatever its virtues and difficulties from an objective standpoint, contemporary worship is not now, never has been, and probably never will be a form which speaks easily to my soul, in which I personally can connect with God. It’s also probably not something that I am going to be able to get away from in the course of my life. So I live in this tension: do I connect with the culture by participating in the form of worship, or do I connect with God by stepping back from the form? I found myself, in this instance, praying alone and quietly in the back of the room, ruminating on the scripture we had just studied and discussed.
Suddenly, my hands went numb. Not so much numb, really, more that I ceased to be aware of them, and was somehow aware of the fact that I was not aware of them. I found myself in a deep and beautiful darkness. My senses weren’t giving me any information. It was like being asleep, but somehow, being awake while being asleep.
Though my senses were blank, I was aware of things intuitively. A table, carefully and comfortably set. A naked man in his final hours. The trickling of water, a swipe of the towel. A series of excited whispers. I was there, somehow; I was inside the Scripture. And I was the bowl. I was the bowl which Jesus carefully took down from the shelf, which He filled with water, and with which He began to wash His disciples’ feet. The power of the image swept over me, and gave me great peace, and great joy.
Later that night, after coming down from the mountain, I allowed myself to be led by the Spirit. I allowed myself to be tenderly lowered from the shelf by Jesus, to be filled with His Spirit, to let him carry me about for the purposes He saw fit. I was that bowl again, in a very different way.
The Gospel is, fundamentally, Good News. But how often is it really good news? I find that in my own mind what Jesus gave as good news I have reduced to good theology and good behavior. Evangelism, then, becomes my feeble attempts to get others to have better theology and to be better behaved, in order that they might attain to the weak, ethereal promise that the people who believe the right things and behave pretty well in this world will have it better in the next.
But this is not the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Jesus proclaimed that God is near, and that God is love. Jesus proclaimed release to captives, recovery of sight to the blind, healing for the sick, the binding of broken hearts, not just some metaphysical, salvatory event for a small community of religious people. “Lift up your eyes, and see,” Jesus says, “God is just behind the curtain of this reality. Look, you can see it quiver with His every breath!”
The Good News is that God has not abandoned us. God does not sit on some far away celestial throne and judge us for our adherence to an esoteric set of moral principles. He came to us, and He is still with us. He loves us. He is still working that same mission, He invites us to be a part of it, and He calls us to abundant life in Him. In Him there is healing, in Him there is freedom, in Him there is joy, in Him there is peace that will last.
This is the Gospel that I shared with every soul I met last night. From my druggie, atheist roommate, to the flock in Slocum, to an old friend I met at a party; Christian and non-Christian, spirited and sober, busy and still. And truly shared, as two people would share a meal, for it is Good News to my soul as much as it is to any soul. Only as the Gospel moves through me do I understand that it is truly Good News, and its incredible power is transforming and redeeming the world through Jesus Christ.
This is not what I believe, it is simply what is. And as simply as the bowl responded to Jesus Christ that night nearly two thousand years ago, so I will respond to my Lord. Lord, if you will, take me, fill me, and use me to wash the feet of any that you choose.
Sep. 10th, 2006 @ 05:01 am
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| » a psalm |
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When I asked El for strength,
He said no.
When I asked El for endurance,
The Heavens were silent.
When I asked El for courage,
I felt only fear.
When I asked El for peace,
The cruelest armies of the world
declared war against me.
But when I asked El for victory,
my heart helpless,
as trusting as a child,
He smiled.
The Lord lifted His hand,
He lifted His right hand.
A thousand fell at my left,
and ten thousand at my right side.
My enemy lay dead before me,
El took them all.
El made a straight pathway.
How blessed are they that trust the Lord!
Again, I say, they are blessed!
When the Great Storm comes,
They will find the one shelter of stillness.
Aug. 19th, 2006 @ 11:32 pm
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| » Feet: 1 ... World: 0 |
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This time, I was ready.
It happened in the Albertsons, the one at the intersection of Highway 115 and Cheyenne Boulevard in the south side of Colorado Springs. My mother and I stopped by to do some quick shopping after church.
“Do you want to come in with me, or are you going to wait in the car?” she asked.
“I’ll come in, but I might get kicked out,” I replied. Usually I carry a “just in case” pair of shoes, if there’s any question, but I can’t remember the last time I wore shoes to the IAC. I didn’t bother to pick them up this morning.
The pavement was a good temperature today, giving my soles that comfortably warm sensation that is one of the basic joys of being human. How good it is to walk on God’s green earth, and Man’s black dreams!
I think that Albertson coolers are angled toward the ground. Their tiles seem a lot cooler than Safeway’s, but perhaps I spent more time barefoot in Albertsons today than I ever have in Safeway. I would call it “cucumber cool” – it felt kind of like I was sticking my feet into the vegetable drawer of a refrigerator. The temperature was just slightly below comfortable.
“Oh,” said my mother as she grabbed a box of Chili Macaroni Hamburger Helper, “you just got a look.”
I hadn’t noticed. I’m not really conscious of when people are looking at me; perhaps that’s why I dress so oddly. Or perhaps I don’t notice other’s glances because I get so many of them. But while I didn’t really care what other shoppers were thinking of me, I was acutely aware of the employees—where they were, what they were doing. I felt a bit fidgety around them.
We had just passed the bakery when it happened. My mother was fondling a packet of ham, while I was looking intently at a container of beef bologna. They came up behind us (they always seem to come from behind); a tall, white man with glasses, reddish-brown hair, and a beard with a dark, stocky, goateed fellow wearing a butcher’s apron on his left side.
“Excuse me, sir,” the tall one said as they approached, “I’m going to have to ask you to either put some shoes on, or leave the store.”
The adrenaline hit me like a hammer. I looked at his name tag. I didn’t catch his name was, but I did notice that his title was “Grocery Manager.” He definitely had the authority to kick me out. I looked at the guy he brought with him. He definitely had the muscle to throw me out. My heart skipped a beat.
“I’m sorry,” I said quietly, “I didn’t see a sign or anything…”
“We don’t have one,” the manager said, quickly, “but it’s a Health Department regulation…”
“Actually,” I said, “it’s not. Here, I carry this just in case.” I reached into my back pocket and pulled out the letter from the Colorado Department of Health that I printed off the day before. “I suppose it is your discretion if you want to kick me out, but…”
“Well how about that,” the guy said, skimming over the note. “I guess you can stay for today, since we don’t have a policy. But tomorrow, I’m putting up a sign.”
My mom jumped in. “What that comes to,” she said coolly, “is discrimination. You just assume that the person who comes in with bare feet is homeless, dirty, a hippie, the kind of person you don’t want in your store. If it’s not against the law, what right do you have to make arbitrary distinctions like that? I mean, I don’t approve of his bare feet either, but if it’s not against the law, oh well, let him do what he wants.”
“He’s dressed pretty well,” the stocky guy threw in, with a quick, good natured laugh.
The guy nodded, and kind of scratched his head. “Well…I seem to remember something about a corporate policy…It’s a liability issue, you know, ‘cause if you were to come in here and step on something, we could get sued.”
“I don’t think so,” I said, “There’s a good discussion of this on Barefooters.org, if you want to check it out.”
The guy nodded. “Well, great. I learned something. I didn’t mean to come over here and cause a stir or anything…it’s just…a customer complained, and I had to do something about it. Thank you guys,” he said. He and his buddy turned and walked quickly away.
It wasn’t all that unpleasant. I remained shaky the adrenaline for a while, but other than that, I walked away feeling pretty good. And, as a bonus, my mother and I had an excellent conversation about barefootedness, law, discrimination, and writing.
I find myself at a juncture where I need to put some more thought and prayer into my barefoot philosophy and theology. My mother is not excited about ending up in many more engagements like this, and I don’t want to punish my friends by getting kicked out of establishments because of my choice of footwear. At the same time, a serious call from God is serious business; it’s not something to be taken lightly. If God has called me to be discalced, I can’t just go shoeless when it’s particularly convenient, or when I am in a fighting mood, but I have to have an understanding of and consistency with my calling. Perhaps I will never completely develop this philosophy, but I no longer have the right to completely ignore the question.
Next time, I will be ready.
Jun. 4th, 2006 @ 02:46 pm
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Today, for the first time, I was ejected from a retail establishment other than the school cafeteria for not wearing shoes.
Summer work has been modestly fruitful for me thus far; accordingly, I had a check to deposit. The nearest Wells Fargo ATM to my house is in the Safeway across the street. I set out on a nice, leisurely stroll to complete this errand.
The ground, as usual, was wonderful; today, the sunshine made it warm and inviting. I smiled to feel the heterogeneous medley of textures pass underfoot; the wide and beautiful variety of the earth God made and is redeeming. Pavement and grass, gravel and asphalt, each step delicious. Even the floor of the supermarket was pleasant to feel—a cool, refreshing tile met my footfalls with characteristic hospitality as I crossed the threshold.
There was a man standing at the Lottery Tickets counter, donning his Safeway apron. He was a large and rather unusual-looking man, a ruddy fellow with a scruffy beard, short hair, and beady, suspicious eyes. I took an extra second to look at him, and to bless God for this stranger by the side of the road.
Apparently, he took an extra second to look at me, too. I had taken perhaps twenty steps past him on my way to the bank when he called after me, “Sir!”
I turned around.
“Sir,” he said again, signaling me with his hand. I began to walk toward him. “Can’t come in here like that, sir,” he said, “You’ve got to have shoes on.” Then, as though to justify his argument by his own footwear preference, he lifted his foot and pointed to his own black and white Nike.
“Alright,” I said quietly and distantly, and exited the store.
A fountain of confused responses bubbled up within me. Rage—should I be angry at the man? Despondency—am I merely an idiot to walk barefoot in public? Shame—how should I respond to this sort of public humiliation?
It was a moment of truth. Would I acquiesce to the standards of society and reduce my discalced ventures to a personal pleasure, or is this something bigger, something deeper, something which connects to my soul, something I am called to?
I prayed, and the fog cleared from my mind. I sat down up my computer, and popped one word into Google: Barefoot. Sure enough, the first thing I find, Barefooters.org, contains a letter from the Colorado Department of Health stating in no uncertain terms that there is no health department regulation demanding that patrons of eateries wear shoes, and that, if there is such a policy at an individual vendor, it is at the discretion of that owner.
I returned to the Safeway with a copy of that letter in my pocket, and carefully surveyed the premises for any posted signs warning “No shoes, no service,” or, more pointedly, “No shoes, we’ll kick you out.” Finding none, I went inside and did my business.
I saw the guy on my way out. He was bagging groceries. But, for better or for worse, he did not try to stop me again.
It is a milestone on my discalced wanderings. I have stumbled upon the larger barefoot community. I have found articles defending barefootedness in a temporal sense, and exploring barefootedness in a spiritual sense. I can say now, confidently, that while I don’t know what was in God’s mind in making me barefoot, it is in God’s mind, and not merely my own.
Jun. 3rd, 2006 @ 10:56 am
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| » From the Quiet Places |
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What a wonder is the mind of man!
So full of intricate connections,
twists and turns,
and unexpected
dead-ends.
I wonder
if God would lobotomize a man
to save him.
Jesus said
a simple man
who his like a child
would inherit the kingdom.
Yet God made
all the hollow places
all the empty corridors
all the shadowy corners;
and when His breath
blows over them,
it whistles.
Will His light illuminate
all my twisted darkness?
Will it transform my fears,
shape my anger,
and make my tendency
to rationalize and manipulate
a balm of service and love?
Or will His sword of judgment
cleave all that part away?
May the Gospel at work in me,
be, as Jesus said, like a mustard seed;
may the roots of the tree of life
fill all the thin and empty places in my soul;
may God, in this weak and fragile shrub
be glorified.
Amen
May. 20th, 2006 @ 07:28 pm
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| » Birthday Speech |
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Good afternoon, everyone. Let me begin by thanking you all for being here, and thank you all the more for enduring my eccentricities. It means a lot to me that you would be willing to take the time to recognize and ponder this rather peculiar threshold of my life with me. For better or for worse, this is the space in which I best know how to love and be loved by people—a cup of tea and a barrel of words. And as we all sit here, together, I do indeed see you all that much the more radiantly, and praise God for the spectacular community of friends and family He has placed me in the midst of.
It of course has not escaped me that this is an unusual way of celebrating one’s birthday, particularly a 21st birthday, which in our culture has come to represent such a significant rite of passage. What my friends and neighbors so graciously and quickly observe about this new era of my life is that I am “legal,” which of course on a superficial level, indicates that I now have, in the eyes of the law, the privilege of imbibing according to my own whims whether that is an occasional glass of wine, or a lifestyle of perpetual celebration.
But on a deeper level, this phrase indicates something much more. As of May 7, 2006, I am 21, and I have somehow transitioned from young adulthood to full adulthood. I find myself the proud owner of several new, annoying little responsibilities. My insurance company asked me to send them my social security number, presumably so that they can bill me instead of my parents. (We’ll see about that one.) The Department of Motor Vehicles informs me that I have twenty days to renew my driver’s license. And I am sure that it is no coincidence that in my college career I am transitioning out of classroom pedantry into a world of larger, more independent projects as I enter into my senior year, and internship with InterVarsity.
This didn’t happen suddenly, of course. It’s not as though at the stroke of midnight beginning the 7th of May a fairy dropped down to wish me luck and wave me magically into adulthood. Maturity, in its each an every sense, is of course something that happens gradually. Though it feels like clowning around some times, yes, I have learned an immense amount from my liberal arts education, both in book knowledge, and in knowledge of how to relate to other people. I can say that the community at Colorado College has helped me mature both intellectually and relationally. And before that, the International Baccalaureate program, and my community of high school friends—some of whom are here today. As ill-defined as I am sometimes, I cannot imagine what I would have been without these spectacular friends to pour their love and care into my growth. Finally, of course, my family is responsible for the core of my substance, which, while ever evolving, is something we all like to think fairly solid, and mostly good.
I have matured in responsibility, and my ability to take it. As my parents and peers can probably testify, there’s still a lot I need to learn here. But nevertheless, through a long and tedious process of living the daily grind and conducting tiny experiments with how I structure my time, I have developed some sense of the world around me, and how I need to be engaged in and responding to it responsibly. I have a more realistic sense of what the dollar is worth, and what an hour is worth, and, above all, what a relationship is worth.
Finally, I have matured spiritually, following Jesus down the path he has ordained, and growing in love for him as the days go by. I find myself with each passing year more receptive to his voice, even when what he says is strange or foreign to my nature. It has been my great pleasure in this journey to walk alongside InterVarsity, the Remnant of Israel synagogue, and the International Anglican Church, and sharing this pursuit of God with these community.
Certainly, I can look at the growth marks my metaphorical doorpost and say with come confidence and pride that I have matured. Maturity comes as a process, of course, not because the march of my days has reached a particular check point. Nevertheless, it is difficult to honor and share these processes without referring to a single point in time, and so, we have sanctified by law and custom the 21st birthday as the time when a young man rids himself of the last restrictions and protections of childhood, and sets his face toward the world.
Now, recognizing the importance of this transition, the passing of this date tends to encourage one form of celebration or another. Some people, and I believe this is a minority, do merely smile and wave it by; I know one person, at least, who spent their 21st birthday in the DMV office. A good many, however, chose to pass the occasion with a copious amount of celebration, unleashing a veritable river of alcohol consumed in any variety of interesting postures and ritual means. Our waitress at Jack Quinn’s the other night, for instance, reported that she didn’t manage to sober up once during the first three months of her 21st year.
I, however, have eschewed both of these options. For whatever reason, I have deemed that it is important to me to drink, not alcohol, but tea in excess, not to do a keg stand, but to stand somewhat awkwardly at this makeshift lectern and bore my friends and gracious guests with a few words that I, in some incredible moment of foolishness, thought worthy of sharing.
And what is it, after all, which causes me to be set apart in this way? There are times when I would have boasted of my foresight, and made some claim to know the best way for a man to live despite the obvious decadence around me. There are other times when I would have alluded to vaguely religious moral scruples, invoking the name of God to justify my distain for drunkards and carousers—interestingly enough, the very people that Jesus came down to earth to hang out with.
But today, I can see and provide only one reason for my strange behavior, and that reason is God. God created me as a specific person with a specific calling, and both what I am and what I am called to, if they are anything, are weird. Everything else I am left to look upon, not in judgment, but in awe. God’s Kingdom, it seems, is big enough for sinner, scholar, comedian, juggler, plumber; all the wild, fragile bits and pieces of humanity we see scattered in front of us every day.
And it is most assuredly Jesus, and Jesus alone, who allows me to be myself. I am not even really clever enough to figure out who I am without the hands of God forming me, his people around me, and his voice whispering in my ear. I have watched our entire generation go crazy over the Disney channel idea of “being yourself” or “discovering who you are” and at the end of it, most people seem to be more confused about who they are than when they started in the first place. Strictly speaking, I am entirely disillusioned with that project; I simply do not have the insight necessary. And if I hardly have the resources to connect with myself, how can I hope to have anything to offer my community, or the world?
And yet, God of his own compassionate accord is already at work in me, in my community, in the world. His breath is upon the waters, his spirit in the wind, moving the trees to clap their hands in praise, and all creation lifts its voice to acknowledge him. As the cross-beams of architecture are hidden in the construction of our buildings, so the Cross is ever present in the world, just beneath what is firstly visible. God is telling his story through this creation, and in telling his story, he is also revealing his new creation.
For reasons that I can hardly comprehend, God invites his people to participate with him in this process of re-creation. He invited the Israelites to be his light to the nations, he asked David to rule over them as king. He stood on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, and said to a few fishermen, “Come, follow me.” History is rife with his calling, and abounds with examples of people who have followed it.
And here I stand, a party to that same invitation. I would rather be no where else, and hearing no other calling on my 21st birthday.
I hear the call to Christ. It is the call to community, a journey with brothers and sisters both present and all across space and time who are thirsting to hasten the coming of the Kingdom of God by their obedient acts of love and healing. It is a relationship of authentic transformation, which, of course, colludes necessarily with world-changing action. And finally, it is a matter of articulation; struggling to put comprehensible words around God’s incomprehensible and inexhaustible deeds. It is something happening that I don’t quite understand, like a seed, growing; a tiny mustard seed which, though the tiniest of seeds, becomes the mightiest of herbs, in whose branches all the birds of air find habitation. It is something unbearably present and unbearably exciting.
It is in this spirit that I wish to make this announcement. I, Nathaniel Ogden Kidd, being of sound mind, willfully, voluntarily, and publicly declare my intention to dedicate myself for the rest of my days to full time ministry.
Now I have the rest of my life to figure out exactly what that means. After all, the ministry God calls us into is nothing more than following Jesus and leading others in following him, and this vocation does not need a special collar or a pontifical hat. I can and do make this my desire whatever I do, whether laying bricks or scrubbing toilets. But what I do mean is this: my time is not my own, to simply be sold and exchanged for material comforts, but is a gift from God to be invested according to his vision and his priority.
And that is where I am as I pass this precious threshold of twenty one years of age. Thank you all for joining with me at this hour, and God bless.
May. 16th, 2006 @ 11:25 am
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| » a prayer |
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Jesus,
Be near to my eyes,
that I may see thee in all things
and see all things in thee.
Be near to my ears,
that I may hear thy whisper in the wind,
thy word in the chatter of little birds.
Be near to my mouth,
that I may speak thy life into this world,
thy love and peace to stony hearts.
Lord Jesus,
Be near to me.
Thou in me, and I in thee.
That your kingdom
nearer to earth may be.
May. 8th, 2006 @ 09:48 am
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| » In Confidence... |
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Today I went home and I cleaned my room. What a depressing experience. I have so much shit, and my life is pretty much worthless.
It’s not usually something I have to deal with. My room at college is fairly Spartan; I have what I need, and little more. At home, I have the random remnants of ten thousand misadventures. There are two dead computers under my bookshelf, souvenirs and unfinished poems and projects under my bed. I have a crate filled with thirty marble notebooks I filled up during high school with God knows what. What of my past self has survived the turbulent waters of time is fairly random, and almost everything I have done has had no lasting impact on myself or anyone else.
Oh, I have grown much over the past several years, and so has my community, and so have people around me, and I have been blessed to be a part of that growth at times. But it just happens, is done, and I move on. I do not reflect on it, nor do I feel any accountability towards what I learned or experienced, I rarely feel a commitment to the people I was in fellowship with, and the skills I learned rarely translate very easily. They say there is no such thing as a failed experiment, and I agree, but there is such a thing as a forgotten experiment, and that is fairly horrible thing.
But how do I change this? I want my experiences to help me grow and mature, and help me to guide others in that process, rather than groping blindly through life. My first response is to rejuvenate my journaling project, but do it meaningfully and constructively. But who is to say that the things that stick out to me as valuable will in fact be the things I value? And furthermore, I know enough about the Holy Spirit to know that that strictly religious project would begin to become more of a burden than a life-giving endeavor very quickly. (It was, after all, Jesus who said “The wind blows where it wants, and you do not know where it has come from, or where it is going. So shall it be with all who are born of the Spirit.”)
Besides, I don’t know exactly what I’m looking for in terms of “good journaling technology,” but as far as I can tell, it doesn’t exist. Journaling platforms I find on the Internet are heavy on one of two things—either privacy or publicity. And I am not interested in the level to which my thoughts are consumed by others—God bless anyone who has the foolish patience to dig through every ill-conceived word I spin—I am interested in recording the past in such a way that it means something in the present.
I am not done with this question, and, God-willing, I will not finish with it until I have sucked from it the life there is to be had from asking this question. But neither will I resort to frantic activism. What I will do is pray. Though my interests and allegiances have been as sturdy as the wind to all earthly things, they have been solid and steadfast to God. And through God, I will learn this lesson of how each day I can grow a little nearer to Him, walking with Him in the present, out of a known past, into a future, unknown, but secure in Him.
Apr. 21st, 2006 @ 08:04 pm
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| » Rock'em Sock'em Easter Robots |
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He is Risen!
Leap for joy, Purple Mountain, at the news which echoes in your valleys.
Wriggle like jello, make your stony edifice as spry as his resurrected flesh.
Can you ring with the royal exuberance of this day?
Can you quiver with all Creation at what the Lord has done?
Oh suburban blades of grass, shout to God in mutant shades of green!
Well-manicured and overgrown alike,
Publish your praise to cul-de-sacs of soccer moms in their Sunday finest.
Little seeds in the earth, sing as you germinate!
For you follow the example of our Lord and King.
Forget the pesticides and poisons of our age,
The well-meaning, but often misfired genetic experiments.
Luxuriously unravel in the dirt of this creation,
You, little mustard seed, foreshadow the coming kingdom.
Awkward flapping pink flamingos,
Charging bison, though few there are of you,
Loch Ness monster, wherever you are, living or legend,
Unfurl the bigness, the weirdness, the wonder of your lankly limbs,
Praise God with splashes and screams and stampedes.
Bask in the beautiful sunrise of this morning, and reflect His goodness,
The hairy, feathery, scaly hides that God has given you
Prove his playful provision.
Dance! Dance all you creatures of the earth!
Whether big or small, odiferous or funny looking,
Dance like you have never danced before.
Daisies and dandelions, cut loose in the morning breeze.
Little army of dust mites marching tirelessly across my room,
Do twists and somersaults as part of your processional.
Neon Amazonian tree frogs, bust a move on the belly of a three-toed sloth.
Deadbeat druggie in Loomis, nearly blind through the smog of a higher high,
Feel the explosion of God’s mercy in your feet,
Lifting you to some unpredictable and unprecedented spasm of groove.
As for me, all I can do is write a poem
As I sit, stark and sleepless for excited expectation.
The Son is coming, and soon, all the world will be filled
with the light His presence
with the aroma of His feast.
He’s making pancakes for everyone, the amazing pancakes of life.
He’s crying out to all who live the story
“Come and party with the God of the Universe!”
And He points His spatula to the sky.
Apr. 16th, 2006 @ 03:54 am
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| » old notes |
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I randomly ran across something this evening that I must have written several years ago, and it inspired me. And it got me thinking about historical memory--not in a broad national or religious sense, but in a very practical personal sense.
The problem with all the journals I used to write is that they are all stacked in a closet somewhere at my house, and if there is anything of value in them, I will never find it, because it will take more effort than I am willing to invest to investigate that huge mound.
Perhaps the most effective way of journaling is not filling a notebook or a digital filing folder, but filling ones life with whimsically organized notes, little windows into the past sprinkled throughout our daily existance. But that is more of an excersize of technology than anything else...at any rate, it is worth some thinking.
Anyway, the notebook page I found...
We have a responsibility to act boldy and faithfully
upon what we are convinced is true.
I do not think there is anything else
involved in being human.
We act as we are convinced --
We have faith that if we are wrong,
our conviction will change accordingly,
and our actions with our convictions.
All will be revealed in time.
The only way we can be assuredly wrong
is if we are not convinced
and if we do not act.
Mar. 30th, 2006 @ 10:08 pm
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| » a strange, somewhat meaningless observation |
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Being at home without my laptop for the past couple of days has caused me to realize that not all computers take ten minutes to load the BCP Daily Office from the Mission of St. Clare. I wonder what it is that makes said website load so much slower on my computer than on whatever other machine I read it from, and what I can do to correct it. Perhaps I should experiment with other computers on campus to determine if it is my machine, or if CC has diabolically blocked anything to do with liturgical prayer.
Mar. 22nd, 2006 @ 01:00 am
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| » dosti |
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Friendship is death.
I do not often pray in mantras, but this evening, one phrase dominated my mind like the pulse of church bells on the quarter hour, or the refrain of some popular song. It was like a line from a familiar poem that kept coming up and relating itself to whatever was on the screen of my mind at that particular moment, and it always made some strange, mystical sense no matter how far I drifted from those original words.
Dosti. Friendship is death.
It’s true, you know. And not just friendship, but any sort of solid relationship you wish to form. If you ever wonder why we have such weak marriages, such disintegrated families, such empty camaraderie, such pitiful churches and spiritually dead Christians, it is all for that same reason. Friendship is death, and we don’t want to die. And we live in a culture that makes death an unusually easy thing to avoid.
Friendship, in any real sense, means leaving the echo-chamber of our own thoughts and interests, laying down our own needs and wants and desires, and putting our fingers on pulse of another, absorbing ourselves unnaturally into their world. Their needs and their cares, spoken or unspoken, become our needs and our cares. We not only leave ourselves unclothed with the things we need and the things we want, but we open ourselves to the extreme pain of rejection and betrayal. It is death. Even to know how to speak the language of another man’s heart requires that the self is buried that the culture of a new and frighteningly different human being may be donned.
We live in a culture that affirms my life, my interests, my possessions. And there is nothing morally wrong with that. The only problem is that my life is death. It is worse than death—it is hell. What I choose for myself, by myself is idolatry, and I have proven this to myself over and over again. I will become addicted to books, movies, weirdness, wordplay, games, philosophy, conversation—God save me—even being a Christian becomes an addiction for me from time to time. I am simply putting on those things that make me feel good, going through the motions to define myself and make everyone (myself included) recognize that I am a worthy person.
And this? This is not life. How do I know? First, because at the end of the day, neither the deeds I have done, nor things I have accumulated for myself provide satisfaction, and second, because I have tasted life from God, and its incredible flavor makes everything else I consume ash by comparison. I know there is hope outside of my hopelessness, there is life outside of my listlessness, and there is a true God beyond my puny, impotent idols. And I know that the hope and the life He gives He gives without cost. Except...
Dosti. Friendship is death.
Immediately, it costs me everything. He asks me to surrender every little thing I have worked so hard to define myself by, and He does not promise that He will give it back. But if I am to know Him, I must give it all away. Even though I know that by forfeiting this shadow of living I will gain true life, it is still so hard to let go of it. It is all I know. And I have earned it, though my righteousness be but filthy rags, they are my rags, and what immense struggles I have met with to achieve them.
But then at long last comes that moment where absolute faith swallows absolute fear, and you think, for a moment, you are going to fall off the world, but when you open your eyes, you find that you are standing on your head.
Dosti. Friendship is death.
What an odd jubilation. Suddenly, my prayers are on backwards. No longer do I cry, “Oh Lord, preserve my life,” but “Oh Lord, may I slip on the ice and expire, may some vehicle plow into this mortal frame that I might have no obstacles to serving you.” Like Peter, I pray, “Not just my feet, but my hands and my head as well.” My zeal itself becomes something of an ironic idol, but an adorable one.
Do you know what I think heaven would be like? Not sitting on a cloud and playing a harp, certainly, although doing so in the presence of God would also be quite heavenly. But I see heaven as that place where God is with us continually. As one of His angels who is near Him wherever I am, I would want to be in Hell, that place where I have no other comforter but Him, at the bottom of human misery, by His strength offering a glass of water to a soul tormented by the flames. Heaven is that place where His law is written on our hearts, where our zeal to obey His commandments is more overpowering than even our drives to eat and sleep and have sex are in this life. (Can you imagine if we fulfilled all of His commands with the vigor of “Be fruitful and multiply?”)
And then I meditate on this image, I want to taste death’s sweet nectar all the more. Yet the Lord forbids it, and here I sit, my ass before a computer, and my head in the highest clouds. But heaven is not merely a promise forthcoming, it is a reality that is becoming now. Christ invites us to die daily--Christ invites us to be a part of the hidden Kingdom as it becomes the Kingdom manifest And having walked a mile with death, and written a page with death, I have become a closer friend to Jesus, and a nearer participant in His work.
For friendship is death.
Mar. 20th, 2006 @ 10:49 pm
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| » prayers |
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Today’s prayers held a certain unusual power for me. The longer confession is a powerful tool for examining one’s heart, and Canticle 14, the song of penitence expresses repentance in a truly unique way. I must say, the Book of Common Prayer is a wonderful treasury of English worship.
But I realize upon reflection that where these flowery liturgical documents unearthed hard places in my heart, simple reflection should have sufficed. Even if I throw away all of God’s Word besides Jesus’ broadest injunctions, I still fall flat on my face. For he said, “Treat others as you would be treated,” and “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and your neighbor as yourself.”
Yet I scarcely and inadequately love God, and I do not love my neighbor. I spend most of my time being self-indulgent seven ways from Tuesday, and if I think of my neighbor at all, it is most likely a moment of minor annoyance that he does not love me as I need him to love me when I need him to love me.
Occasionally, the Word of God within me prompts me to do some act of love. These days, by some monumental and miraculous growth, I am able to respond faithfully maybe one time out of ten. And how many other compassionate actions do I miss simply because my heart is hard and my eyes are closed?
This is the utterly dirty, painful truth of my sin. It is not so pedestrian as “God said don’t (blank), and I went on and did it anyway,” though that happens from time to time as well. It is that my lifestyle, perhaps even my very nature, is set contrary to God’s work in the world, such that when these hands reach forth in love, it is a miraculous exception, not the rule. This is the state of humanity. God called me to be a blessing to the earth and a light to the nations, but even on a good day, I can barely see beyond the boundaries of my own little pathetic self.
But the Gospel does not stop here. God is not sitting in heaven scorning my stupidity and planning the incineration of my soul. Rather, He weeps because I have rejected the full and beautiful life He has prepared for me, and He comes down to walk beside me and show me the way I should live. And though I misunderstand Him again and again, still He keeps speaking. I kill Him, and He not only does not resist, but He offers me His life, and commands me to eat His flesh and drink His blood. And His Spirit is still with me, tinkering with my soul day in and day out, trying to salvage this pitiful wreck.
Sometimes when I think about all God had done, I think that He is insane. But then I look closer—He is not insane; He is love. He was sitting in nothingness, and His love overflowed into creation. His treasured Creation rebelled against Him, and He died for it, promising its redemption with His blood. His love is still active in the world, hidden, like a seed in the earth, transforming me and many others into His Body, the people bound together by His love and blessing the world by His love.
And this story is to define our lives, not because God will kill us otherwise, but because it is life, fully and fundamentally. Jesus, though I am dead, I want to live.
You, O Lord, are the God of those who repent,
and in me you will show forth your goodness.
Unworthy as I am, you will save me,
in accordance with your great mercy,
and I will praise you without ceasing all the days of my life
In no other place are earth's sorrows
felt more than they're felt in heav'n;
in no other place where earth's failings
have such kindly judgment giv'n.
There is plentiful redemption
in the Life that rises from death;
there is joy for every seeker
in the holy touch of God's breath.
Mar. 17th, 2006 @ 09:43 am
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