Finding Momentum

I’m get­ting freakin emo, you just watch what I type in this post. It’s gonna be drip­ping with it.

For once, just once, I wish I could have a messy, soiled, dirty past instead of the G-rated one I carry with me. I wish I didn’t have this Per­fect Chris­t­ian™ per­sona… I hate hate hate how it shuts peo­ple up from me, how it almost iso­lates me from friends who feel like they can’t show their messy sides to me. I hate this gulf, how I wish I could say “I’ve been there” or “I’ve got­ten through it” but instead all I have are mean­ing­less words (or awk­ward silences & pauses).

It’s never sup­posed to be like this. Like Jesus, how he walked with the penny whores, the sleaze­ball tax col­lec­tors, the mod­ern day losers and lon­ers and nobod­ies. He held out Life and peo­ple flocked, I say, they RAN to him. They knew He had life. They didn’t say, oh, I’m too ashamed to go to him. They fought each other, kneed and elbowed their way in crowds just to get a chance to speak to him.

I think more than ever it’s just this Chris­t­ian Per­sona™ that is dis­gust­ing me. Specif­i­cally, I’m talk­ing about the pride and the high­fa­lutin’ lan­guage and pompous behav­ior that VERY SUBTLY sneak into the mind and actions. And espe­cially how I was so blind to it, espe­cially in high school.

I real­ize this now because hind­sight is pretty 20/20. So this is a pub­lic apol­ogy. To my friends who I may have alien­ated because I… I dunno. Maybe more so to those who I went to church with, led wor­ship ses­sions with, prayed and led Bible stud­ies with. I apol­o­gize for play­ing Per­fect™. And if that soured our rela­tion­ship, then I am so. freakin. sorry.

You know what’s hard? Bal­anc­ing the need to scream I’M MESSED UP TOO with the desire for FORWARD MOVEMENT, not away but TOWARD GOD, together. Ain’t that community?

Then I think my big issue right now is… I begin by apol­o­giz­ing for pompous­ness, but (hey IV com­mu­nity) I want us to move for­ward into the men and women that God’s called us to be. No com­pro­mise, PLEASE. But what the freak, I just lost all abil­ity or guts to call my friends out because of this Chris­t­ian Per­sona™ and the Pride­ful Idiot I Still Am.

God, this is so futile. I don’t know how to do this. Heck, I am at a place where I don’t even know how to pray for this. Break the catch. I don’t know where to start. Please.

Like Jesus right? Let’s live out Life and an unex­plain­able love. It’s so sim­ple, but we need to ask God for it… straight from the source. Amen? Who’s with me?

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Christ­mas break. I’m shoot­ing hoops with Gabe Tseng at Cal­abazas Park. He busts out a the­ol­ogy les­son as he grabs a rebound from the seven foot rim.

“You know, lov­ing God’s not that much dif­fer­ent from lov­ing a girl.” He passes me the ball.

I’m inter­ested. “Naw, how so?” I shoot, brick. It’s the low­ered rim.

He steps up to the elbow of the key and dri­ves in. “Look, you spend con­stant time with the girl, you need hon­esty with the other party, and — oof!” (He tries to dunk, it clangs off the rim and the chain rat­tles) “— it involves being in touch with your feel­ings. Inti­macy, man”

I grab the ball (it is so under­in­flated it thunks against the court) and pull up for a fade­away jumper. “So we’re learn­ing to be sen­si­tive guys huh? Girls like that.” Brick, freakin ball.

He laughs. “Yeah, but one’s gonna take pri­or­ity over the other.” He doesn’t elaborate.

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Caught myself feel­ing the same way today, unin­ten­tion­ally com­ing across some sappy fic­tion (dan­git). And I real­ized that same call and need for inti­macy is the one that so eas­ily gets filled by another per­son. No, this is not a bit­ter post. This is an acknowl­edg­ment of the long­ing (and I’ve heard it described, the “burn­ing” — haha) and how deep it cuts. And it’s also a post say­ing, before g1rl fills that up, I need to learn how G-d does.