Lunch

I don't know that any of this will make sense...you have been warned. lalb (laughing a little bit)

Grace for me - today - is a grilled chicken caesar salad and an iced caramel latte, extra sweet with whipped cream.

What I mean is, grace is given to me in the form of free time I have to passively do things I like while actively thinking about things I don't understand.

Seminary is trying to rip me ya'll. Not even nicely or neatly - like in halves or something manageable like that. Seminary is trying to gruesomely dismember me with the intent of making my entrance into heaven questionable - like into so many misshapen pieces that God won't recognize me. Sorry if that's graphic...I was a Frank Miller fan in a former chapter of my life (a really short chapter though, so you can read the rest of the blog with no worries).

But this is why I went, right? To be challenged? Accursed masochistic tendencies!!! I'm having a lot of things trimmed away and I find myself struggling to hold on to the 1 or 2 essential immovable objects of my faith. I feel a little pathetic at times - beaten, even traitorous - that of all the things I've been told over the course of my Christian life, I cannot state them ALL with confidence and conviction.

Let me not give school that much authority...if it were all that I had to do, I would kick its tail in all manner of ways that are unbecoming for a Christian to detail aka the sort that would make Frank Miller fans shudder. It's really just the focal point of a web of influences that are stretching and prodding me. 25, pastor, Black man, dating, man of the house, example, and all around "it" guy. I mean, I have communities watching me to see what I will become...people that need me to be okay in order for them to be...and young folks who only have one more time in their heart to be let down by a leader, and I'm it. It's a whole 'nother ball game to HAVE to learn to give things to God because there's no other choice - when there are words of struggle and uncertainty that could never pass from my lips to the ears of people around me, who need me to be something solid.

So now we come back to seminary, the fortunate beast that gets to battle me in a weakened and distracted state. If it wins, I become more uncertain, and so discouraged that I'll never become what my community needs. But if I am to win, I've got to forsake some of my responsibilities to the community right now - not stretch myself as thin - for the purpose of maintaining focus and faith. My 1 or 2 essentials of faith have proven themselves incredibly powerful, able to fend off unsound doctrines and the sheer bully tactics of groupthink, so it's really a matter of pressing on and adding more essentials to my arsenal without losing the communities I'm doing all of this to, one day, be able to serve.

So, in all of these things to consider, it's my inability to turn my day off and THINK that has me all frazzled. So, for me to be at my wit's end and to be gifted with a rainy New York Thursday afternoon where I can sip an iced latte and munch on chicken, lettuce and croutons - that's my evidence of a personal savior who knows exactly what my soul is craving. I guess I'm done now. Ciao.