microcosm and mediator

I have always felt that the metaphor of a journey or a pilgrimage has best described my spiritual life. I started out in a Pentecostal tradition with hints of the Holiness movement (my parents are both former Nazarenes but that background has really molded their spirituality). I was always involved in church life. My mom worked at the church I grew up at in various contexts. And typically, I was always there. Although I was a pretty good kid, the reality of God and the story of Jesus Christ never impacted my heart, I was just along for the ride. Near the end of my junior year of high school I wanted to change who I was. I started to smoke marijuana and party, which is something most kids go through. Of course with my luck, I eventually got caught and was expelled from the school I attended since fifth-grade my senior year, it was pretty devastating, especially for my parents, who thought I would never be that kind of kid.

This has been a common thing in my life, whenever I get involved in something wrong (whether it be something as trivial as stealing sodas from the church office or something more serious like pot) I get caught. I can honestly say God has had his hand on my life in pretty awesome ways. But after my expulsion, my journey continued. I started to take God seriously. A week or two after my expulsion I was praying one night and telling God that from now on my life is his and that I would always be open to his Spirit, no matter where he took me. Well, I picked up my Bible that night and started reading Ecclesiastes, which, in case you aren’t familiar with that book if the Bible, is pretty intense. But something stuck with me, that has guided my life since that night. After seeing how vain life is, how fleeting our experiences are and the inevitability of our deaths, the writer proclaims the only thing we can do is obey Torah and celebrate God’s revelation. There is no theology of the afterlife in Ecclesiastes it was composed probably before the Israelites started forming a theology of resurrection (see 9.5 “”For the living know that they shall die: but the dead are not conscious, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten”). And what I got from that is that THIS life is what counts and I better make it something worth living. Friedrich Nietzsche has said something similar in his book Beyond Good and Evil: “The essential thing ‘in heaven and earth’ is that there should be long obedience in the same direction; [this] has always resulted, in the long run, something which has made life worth living”.

The commitment to this journey, this pilgrimage is not a walk in the park. It is something that will take every ounce of energy; sometimes we may fall down and get hurt, sometimes we may be on the verge of dying, but we have got to persevere. And I started really trying to form my spirituality, by reading many books and fasting and praying. I had a great mentor at my former church that really got me started. I’d meet with him everyday and we’d talk about everything and then we would always end by praying together. Those moments are something I will always hold close. I became very zealous. But that started to cool down as I approached my first year in college.

In my first Philosophy class, my world was rocked. I really started delving into deep, probing questions about God and faith. It was a dark time. I became immensely anxious about death and the possibility of closing my eyes and that was it. But this also got me to delve deeper into the Christian tradition and eventually forced me to move on from the comfort of my immature Christianity and emotionalism and approach Christianity as more of an intellectual pursuit in addition to the spiritual formation I received in prayer and meditation. Now I was learning to love God with my mind, as well as my heart.

And so I discovered the Orthodox Church. Nothing will probably ever have the same impact than this on my journey. I was timid at first; skeptical of the meticulous unfolding of liturgical worship, but the more I participated in the services, the more I understood how much meaning rested in such gestures as the censing of Icons around the altar or lighting a candle before every service. And I was overwhelmed at the depth and breadth of Orthodox theology. The treasures I was discovering in the writings of the ancient Greek church fathers was giving me an intellectual foundation I never had before. And then there was the community that I discovered there. I remember the first Divine Liturgy I attended and all the hugs I received and how genuine the love and fellowship I experienced there. It was the best place for my maturation as a Christian. And of course I can not fail to mention the beautiful woman I met there, Lauren. It was this stop on my pilgrimage that has had the greatest impact on my life.

The time I spent at St Justin’s was full of love, adjustment and growth. The mysticism of the Eastern Church was radically different than anything else I had ever encountered. It was powerful to see such a beautiful fusion of a deep theology and a deep prayer tradition. I learned that you cannot have one without the other. Knowledge without a prayer life is not knowledge at all. An ancient saying attributed to Evagrius Ponticus goes “The theologian is the one who prays truly, and the one who prays truly is a theologian”. Several families at St Justin’s became my own family, and one in particular. I will always carry with me the late night discussions with my friends Kevin and Gina about God and life, like tokens of a saint the pilgrim picks up on his way to his final destination.

And of course my relationship with Lauren is something that has reached the depths of my spirit. I don’t think I will ever lose the connection we shared, that some of her will always live with me. I grew so much with Lauren. I learned so much. I learned how to love, to apologize, to cry, to laugh, to be filled with ineffable joy and deep sadness. As many of you know, our engagement for marriage and thus the relationship has ended. This has really been hard on me the past few months. I probably have not slept more than 4-5 hours in that time period and have yet to stop crying, but I am getting stronger everyday, as I press on to the future, trusting God’s ever abiding goodness and mercy. I know he loves me more than anything and that he has great plans for my future and that I won’t be alone the rest of my life.

But this period of darkness has also been a time of an acute awareness of God’s presence. In the darkness, the late nights, the intense mourning, he has been my comfort and guide. He has not let me down. I know that he will provide.

And recently I have been introduced to a man who has become a close friend and mentor. I can not say enough how much I love this man. He has challenged me intellectually, pushed me spiritually and has been there to answer the phone when I need him the most. There is no way I could have ever gotten through this most recent part of my journey without him. He has counseled me and comforted me when life seemed pointless.

This most recent stop on my journey has allowed me to rebuild friendships. All of my friends are the best a person could ever ask for. No matter how much I have ignored them, they have always been there when I needed them.

Another tough decision has come up as well in my life. I have been struggling the past few months on very intense theological issues facing the church today, specifically roles of gender and sexuality in the church (ordination of women, homosexuality, etc). In this exploration I have kept my reading broad and my prayer intense; discerning what God is saying, open to his calling on my pilgrimage. While I thought I had found a spiritual home, God may be calling me elsewhere. And this tragedy of the break-up of my engagement has given me the opportunity to really seek God in this. This is scary and overwhelming. But I trust God and know that wherever I end up, it is where he was already waiting. This has been another event that has brought sadness into my heart, leaving St Justin’s has been heart-breaking (because of all the people I love there), but I know this break is necessary for me to heal as well as explore and who knows where I’ll end up.

I have started participating in a lot more activities, meeting new people and traveling.I am enjoying having my own place and the difficulties of living on my own. I am looking forward to a trip to Colorado in a few months and a trip to Iceland in the Spring. I am going to grad school to get my M.A. in Religious Studies at either University of Florida or Florida State University next year before I head off to seminary to pursue God’s calling into the ministry. I am excited to see how this pilgrimage of my life continues, I know that the only dependable thing in this life is God’s inexhaustible love he has for us. I know that I can never abandon him or his calling on my life, even when he changes my plans. But that’s just like the Holy Spirit, he always likes to stir things up.

I just want to let you all know, if you’ve made it this far, that I love you. I really do. I am sorry if I have not been a dependable friend, I’m sorry for my selfishness. Please forgive me; I will try harder next time to love you the way you deserve to be loved. And you have no idea how grateful I am to all of you who have listened to me grieve, listened to me give an impassioned opinion on a particular subject, been there to just drink a beer with, talk on the phone or give me a hug. I would love to hear from you all, especially if it has been a while. Thanks again.

Guy