If you’re a long time reader of my work* you may be aware of the fact that not only am I an exceedingly mediocre person of faith, but that I get paid for my mediocrity in the practice of said faith.
(*Note: the use of the term “work” to describe one’s poorly-edited, borderline incoherent internet ramblings is the equivalent of “dressing for the job you want, not the one you have” so please take it easy on me, we can’t all go viral.)
Over the past two years
–yes, I really have been pounding these things out for so long that my mom doesn’t even bother to read them anymore–
we’ve covered a lot of ground.
Stuff Like:
Doubt
Shame
Bob Dylan
Fear
A College Football Playoff Selection Committee featuring Condoleezza Rice and not Buzz Aldrin
Elevator Farts
Death
Calvinism
A Noah’s Ark Theme Park in Kentucky
Inerrancy
Trayvon Martin
Internet Fame (or, rather, lack thereof)
Apologetics
The Dave Matthews Band
The Beatitudes
The Resurrection of Tennessee Football
The Resurrection of Jesus Christ
Mega-Churches
Dave Ramsey’s Private Island for Guns and People with cash in envelopes but no credit
Generosity
Michael Brown
Grace
Vaping
Peace
Pugs
and, as of last week, the impending birth of my son.
Whew, when I see all of it listed breathlessly I realize I really should stop living life one 800-word-entry at a time…
but then I remember your insatiable desire to ignore loved ones and coworkers by staring at your phone when you should be driving or helping your partner recall her lamaze breathing.
So, don’t worry, in 2015 you’ll have plenty of things from me to furiously scroll past as you attempt to locate that Buzzfeed “article” your college roommate shared 3 days ago about what celebrity dogs look like without make-up and magazine airbrushing.
Which reminds me of the immortal words of Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter:
History prefers legends to men. It prefers nobility to brutality, soaring speeches to quiet deeds. History remembers the battle, but forgets the blood. Whatever history remembers me, if it remembers anything at all, it shall only remember a fraction of the truth. For whatever else I am, a husband, a lawyer…a president…I shall always think of myself first and foremost…as a hunter.
And all God’s people said: “YOU HAVE TO SHOOT THEM IN THE HEAD”
Right in the midst of my soaring nostalgia over the past couple of weeks I’ve had to come to grips with quite a few disquieting realizations about my life as an almost-30-almost-dad:
1.) I never managed to become the youngest person to do anything, except maybe vote in a local election.
2.) I teach something people call “Sunday School” professionally (THIS IS NOT A JOKE).
3.) It recently took me somewhere just north of 20 minutes and 1 wardrobe change to peel a Clementine, only to accidentally drop it in the trash, and then to not-so-accidentally brush it off and eat it.
4.) I recently (of my own volition) read a 250 page book about chairs.
5.) And, despite the cooing tones of my mom and the 18 dermatologists I spent my days with in high school, my acne has, DESPITE SCIENCE, reached adulthood.
6.) I realize now, I should have been a dermatologist, because at least then my neck-acne would serve some redemptive purpose. Perhaps, even as a sign of inflamed solidarity to the pock-marked teenagers crushing candy and cracking trivia in the lobby.
My 2015 pug-calendar tells me January 6th is Epiphany, and for those of you who do something other than mark bored teenagers “present” or “absent” on Sunday mornings at 9:15am for a living, it’s the ancient celebration of Jesus’ presentation to what sacred tradition refers to as “the Gentiles”*.
*Read: “BBQ Fans”
Currently, Orthodox, Catholic and Anglican Christian communities all celebrate this day as a remembrance of the times Jesus revealed his divinity to the wider world through his birth, the visitation of the “wise men” at his manger-side, as well as his baptism in the Jordan river.
In Greek, Epiphany is the word “epiphania” meaning: “to show, make known, or reveal.”
For thousands of years, despite calcification, infighting, embarrassing tweets, abuse, shame, racism, sexism, homophobia, violence and the stubborn seduction of power, the historic Christian faith gathers together her children annually to pause and pay attention to the presence of divinity quietly inhabiting our world.
The celebration of Epiphany is the acknowledgment on the other side of honey-baked-holiday-euphoria that God resides with, alongside, amongst and-however confusingly-in solidarity with our limping, polluted and corrupted world.
And, not only that, Epiphany also carries with it the reminder that if God partners with the hair-caught-in-the-drain of our collective human experience, then it’s a safe bet to assume that God saddles up to the limping, polluted and corrupted parts of our own selves and our own families and our own histories and our own relational baggage and our own doubt.
Epiphany reveals that there is divinity humming in all of us, even if we never own it or acknowledge it or honor it or love it or nurture it.
The divine,
much like a “mild” case of high-school/college/adult acne,
stubbornly clings to us despite our best efforts to the contrary.
So may you, in the revelations and resolutions greeting you this January, uncover the truth of the ages and even of your own existence. A truth that greets us not with condemnation, anger, disappointment, shame or guilt, but with light and the quiet reminder that all of us, despite the mistruths we may whisper to ourselves deep into the night,
at the core
…are hunters.