I read some of my friends' blogs, I just know some of my friends, I think about who and what I am publicly associated with in the ecclesiastical world, etc. - all these things, and it makes me wonder who people think I am, and who I am in reality. Sometimes it just doesn't compute, doesn't add up. This may make no sense at all. It's an odd thought pattern, I admit that. That's why the title - "off kilter" - that's how this makes me feel a bit.
So, here are some things I think of today - rainy Sunday noontime...
Suburbia: I live there and I like it. I've talked about this before here and there. I have friends who would have at least most of their teeth pulled before they lived where I live. I have to deal with that somehow. I simply don't think it's bad or anything like that. And I really don't have a secret longing to live in an urban setting. Try rural.
Cool: If I mathematically added up my cool vs. uncool points, I pretty much think I'd land in the uncool category. Do I care? Mostly not. It's more the connections with people I have who are cool, whether they want to call themselves that or not, that is odd to me. I have one of those little goat beard things, but my hair's too long in an uncool way. I listen to a lot of different (sometimes cool) music, but I don't play any. I like the cool coffeehouse in town but I'm not truly a regular there. I don't nearly go to enough indy concerts. I have no tattoos and don't really plan on getting any. I only had one ear pierced for about two days once in college and took it out. I'm not a vegetarian and, God help us, I would even kill an animal and eat it. Yeah, I'm a pacifist, but I would never protest at some rally against, well against nearly anything. I don't have a bunch of young cool emo kids hanging out in my house all the time playing guitars and stuff. How do you get those anyway? I like watching TV, and I let all my kids watch TV (gasp!). Let me see, anything else... Probably, but it may take too long to tick them off. It's just odd, you know?
Mission and evangelism: Yeah, this one is very odd. I don't seem to care about these things. Wow. What the hell? You heard me. I don't seem to get much worked up about the fact that I'm not doing enough to spread the Gospel or to help the poor. That whole worn out guilt thing about all that is not in me. This makes me different than many people I know. It feels weird sometimes, but I don't worry about it much. I think I know my place in the Kingdom economy. And no, I don't think I'm fully living it out. I've got a ways to go. I certainly don't want to get all into the theology of misseo dei or what evangelism means in a bullet point. My ideas about how that all works are not unique but they are also not the closest kin to protestant evangelical thought either. Again, I find myself in an odd place sometimes.
That's not all, but it's enough for now. Maybe some of this resonates with you? You never know. I think I may go take a nap or something. That's a good thing to do on a day like this. Pax vobiscum.
"Then, if we cannot as yet think alike in all things, at least we may love alike. Herein we cannot possibly do amiss." John Wesley
"Keep your eyes on the crucifix, for Jesus without the cross
is a man without a mission, and the cross without Jesus
is a burden without a reliever." Fulton J. Sheen
"...I am deeply convinced that the Christian leader of the future is called to be
completely irrelevant and to stand in this world with nothing to offer but his or her own vulnerable self." Henri Nouwen
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