A Tear or Two

I cried last night. It was the first time in a long time. They were small tears on an emotionally taught face. The conversation was a mix of sadness and joy as I sat and talked with Kent from the end of my bed.

Being out of your comfort zone is hard. Here in Nashville at Rocketown I feel like I’ve been stretched from the first day of work. While youth ministry does not scare me per sec, working with kids whose interests are different from mine has left me struggling to connect. I don’t know anything about being a skater, digging punk rock, or having this awe consuming passion for music.

I love the staff here. They are a California kind of chill, except that they don’t care where you’ve been or what you’ve done. That has been the hardest thing. I feel at home in a culture that is about impressing others, leaving your mark. But people here don’t care about that. They love you no matter what.

Some people call that grace. I struggle with the idea, not from a theological perspective, but as I’ve experienced it with my friends. It runs so counter to who I’ve been or what I’ve known. My tears, I think, were tears of grace realizing that I am loved, and out of that love Kent, those that I work with, and the kids who come to Rocketown.

My prayer is that I am stretched to be less of my ego and more of myself. To discover who I am when I can’t impress anyone or offer something profound out of my experience. When showing up and trying to love others is all that I can do.

God’s Peace, Eric :p

Fall

Two weeks ago, I watched a leaf drop for the first time this fall.

It was breathtaking. Eric and I were driving to work at the IFC and the leaf seemed to glide timelessly through the air—right-to-left—falling on the driver’s side windshield.

While camping I watched countless other leaves fall.

Sitting streamside, in The Great Smokey Mountain National Park, I watched red, orange, and brown leaves descend, one after another, from their magnificent heights down onto the open ground around me.

I think there is something beautiful about a tree losing its leaves. To me it is the idea of starting over. Every year, regardless of how vibrant a tree is, it must start over.

Eric and I have had to do a lot of starting over on this trip. Living city- to-city, we have had to redefine ourselves countless times. Everywhere we go, we are strangers. No one knows who we are or who we have been in the past.

What this has allowed us to do is figure out who we want to become. It is a process. We are slowly trimming our branches. We are firmly laying our roots.

But what this has also allowed me to do is appreciate the fresh beginning I have in Christ. I mess-up all the time, but just like the trees, God lets my dead leaves fall.

Today, I know, I am still struggling with sin. But I take joy in watching each leaf fall. Slowly, leaf-by-leaf, my trunk is becoming bare. And although the bitterness of winter is before me, I know spring time is near. Today my leaves fall but I sit with anticipation for the day the buds will bloom again.

Christ’s Peace with You,

Kent

 

Manly Men

Kent and I are manly men. For any of you who know me well that phrase alone should raise your eyebrows. We spent two days this last week camping in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Not only were we the only ones in the campground sleeping in a tent and cooking with a backpacking stove, but we also managed to hike 8 miles in a morning. Oh and then there was chilling beverages in a mountain stream, surviving bear country and the scary guy camped next to us whom we affectingly nicked named “Crazy Tom.”

This last week we have been in transition. We left the comforts of the InterFaith Conference of Metropolitan Washington and hit the road headed towards Nashville. Our last day in DC we had the pleasure of experiencing Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights, taking in a Nationals baseball game, and worshiping at Calvary Chapel Metro DC on our way out of town.

Duke Divinity School was our next stop and our consensus prettiest campus (in terms of architecture) out of the 15 or so campuses we’ve visited thus far. We spent two nights their taking in the school and visiting with friends from college. Then we spent time in the woods being manly men.

The last three days have helped us remember what a good dad and family are like with the Davis family. We’ve been to AYSO soccer games, gathered around a table, and told jokes and swapped stories late into the night. We also helped the neighbor’s move a 426 pound pumpkin. Twice. The Davis’s do live in Oak Ridge, TN (site of the Manhattan Project) but the pumpkin was for a competition in the local country fair. In case you were wondering, the largest pumpkin came in at over 1,000 pounds. We’re glad we didn’t stay next to those folks.

Spending time with the Davis’s has really helped us transition. It reconnected us to kids and the importance of making time and paying attention in their lives. As we move towards Rocketown, in Nashville, it was a great reminder as we prepare to spend three weeks straight with teens.

God’s Peace, Eric :p