So Long Old Friend

Well, this actually happened two months ago, but let's pretend its more recent. After four years, I have said goodbye to one of my best friends, most favored traveling companion, and one of the things I have personally loved a great deal in my life - My truck. To me he was Thomas, after all the great Thomas' of history and Christian faith (primarily St. Thomas 'A Becket of Canterbury, my patron). To many others, he was known as "The Lady's Truck." All the same, he was great and will never be forgotten.

I came to the conclusion upon returning to the East Coast that a pickup was not practical, both for its size and financial burden on gas. My mother offered to give me her car, paid for in full. A Toyota Camery, 2001, with less millage, and containing more of the color beige than the most boring persons wardrobe.

Thomas was with me for 80,000 miles from Maine to Florida, Massachusetts to Wisconsin, and went with me as far west as Kansas. With all the things I have left behind in the last few months, he will be among the most missed. He was loved by many, passengered many, and driven by many. No matter what Chad Nusbaum says, Thomas was a great truck!

Thanks for all the adventures! Good bye old friend.

We Believe

Ok, so its pretty much established that I have sucked at this Blogging thing. But I want to share the greatest thing that has happened in my life recently that reinforces the "No Man is an Island theme of this blog.

RED SOX NATION!



Last Sunday the Red Sox swept the Colorado, something or another (Frankly, I've never heard of them) to win the World Series. I love these guys! All through the playoffs I received text messages and phone calls from acros the country of dedicated fans of the best baseball team in the nation (sorry Cubs fans, I sympathize with you). The Red Sox Nation is strong and binding and pulls a people of frustration and despair together. Go Sox! And this one was for you Grandpa Pierce!

There are many many other things that I need to catch up on, the most important of which is that I am working. In the coming days and night I will, I promise, be better at writing what's on my heart and mind. Until then... We Believe!

Miss Teen USA 2007 - South Carolina answers a question

Well, you win some... and you loose some...

More to come soon

Few and Far Between...

I have returned to Catonsville, MD and have spent the past week searching for a job. Reality is often an undesirable place to be... Still I have a very difficult time viewing life through the rose-colored glasses of pretension. My weeks in South Carolina were good, restful, and more peaceful than I have known in several months. While there I also celebrated my 27th birthday which was surprising pleasant despite the quiet and distance from friends.
On the road back to Maryland I stopped in Durham, NC and spent some time with my friend Ross and his wife Liz. Ross is a great friend from the African chapter of my life. While I was setting up a study abroad program in Uganda, Ross was really making a difference in the world working for the African Council of Churches in Nairobi, Kenya and sitting in on peace keeping deals for Sudan. During that year we spent Christmas together on Zanzibar Island, climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro, and trekked through the rain forest for Mountain Gorillas. Because of our unique experiences both together and individually in Africa, the bonds of our friendship are strong, rare, and deeply rooted in faith. Before this visit I had not seen Ross in nearly three years. Naturally we spent many hours reminiscing on our ridiculous adventures across the globe and how those experiences have shaped and integrated our world views. The visit was a great reminder of those lonely days in a foreign land and the achievement of accomplishing the task of taking one day at a time.
This week as I have found myself in a foreign land where friends are a bit closer than ocean widths apart, but still few and far between, I have been reflecting on my time with Ross ascending a 20,000 foot glacial capped mountain in Equatorial Africa. The majority of the climb was not very difficult until the last few thousand feet when the air was thin and we were tired. We made it to the base camp just below the summit around 18,000 feet where most people stop... But not us. Around 1:00 AM we were awakened by our guide for the final ascent to the summit. The purpose for leaving at this hour is to reach the peak at sunrise and take in the spectacular views. In complete darkness, aside from the dim illumination from out headlamps and flashlights, we climbed up the steep, jagged, and rocky face of the Western Breech of the mountain. All through the night we put one foot in front of the other; one icy rock after another. For a while we were stuck on a pure sheet of ice at what must have been less than a 45 degree angle. Ross and I sat there for an hour while our guide scrambled to find a way out. I remember that my knees were killing me long before the sun came up and every step took us away from solidarity and towards uncertainty. There is no set path on the Western Breech. The only way to make the journey is to literally keep moving through the darkness and ice, securing each foothold as you climb up and up until you reach the top. And then, about seven hours after we had begun, there we were at the Uhuru Peak - on top of the largest free standing mountain in the world - surrounded by glaciers, hardly breathing, and utterly exhausted. It was magnificent!
The point of all this is that I am drawing many parallels in my present life to the climb. To take one step at a time, using caution while planting each foot on the ground to keep from slipping, its tedious, frustrating, and exhausting. Sometimes the air is thin, the darkness confusing, and the lack of a clear path is beyond daunting. However, I believe there is a way, a path that not only has been prepared, but is going towards something good, solid, and corresponds to path of Christ crucified. As the writer of Ecclesiastes states, “To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven...” And from this place I will continue walking and breathing and keep my eyes heavenward.

From the Island...

I arrived in South Carolina last week in my home town of Pawleys Island. All of my possessions are packed up and taking up space in an attic in Catonsville, Maryland - my new home. I do not yet know what I will be doing there, only that I am taking time from pursuing Ordained Ministry for the moment. I will be in Pawleys Island for the next two weeks house-sitting and taking care of a Shitzu called Vivi and a cat named Toby. In a small condo near the marshland of the South Carolina coast I have been granted a gift of "alone time." While I don't do "Alone" very well, I am looking forward to having this time and space in a place that is familiar, yet distant from family tensions. A place that I am deeply rooted, but is not my home. A place where I can pray in solice and solemnity and strive for clarity from heaven as to where my life should go from here. I have only recently discovered how wounded the final days of Nashotah actually were to my soul and personhood. I previously understood all the other emotions and continue to place them at the Cross where our Lord has already died for them. However, the "wound from which recovery won't mean the status quo," will simply take time. All that said, I am proud to be a Son of Nashotah House and pray with the faithful who have gone before me and whose bodies lie in its earth that this pride continue as a spiritual discipline. While I may have been a "Lost Sheep" to some, I know my redeemer lives and is coming for me. And I am grateful to the friends who I consider family for their love and support in an uncertain time in my life.

And so I sit here with a fru-fru dog named Vivi and Toby Cat and am reminded in this solitude once again that I am not alone. I even have evidence in Pawleys Island itself; that it is connected to the mainland by two causeways allowing a those not on the island to come and share in the joy and the beauty of the ocean front. And so I say in all confidence that I am not alone.

Moving on...

Love is never far from danger...

... I guess we’re gonna leave here strangers.

Goodbye.

I can live with this...

What Be Your Nerd Type? Your Result: Literature Nerd   Does sitting by a nice cozy fire, with a cup of hot tea/chocolate, and a book you can read for hours even when your eyes grow red and dry and you look sort of scary sitting there with your insomniac appearance? Then you fit this category perfectly! You love the power of the written word and it's eloquence; and you may like to read/write poetry or novels. You contribute to the smart people of today's society, however you can probably be overly-critical of works. It's okay. I understand.
Social Nerd
Drama Nerd
Musician
Artistic Nerd
Gamer/Computer Nerd
Science/Math Nerd
Anime Nerd
What Be Your Nerd Type? Quizzes for MySpace

Church "Fails" to Spread Message

This article was posted today on BBC international news. While I am not always inclined to make comments on Church Politics publicly, I have to say that I agree with this article.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/north_yorkshire/6534587.stm

If there is one thing we need to remember this Holy Saturday, it is that the Church belongs to God and is the Bridegroom of Christ. For 2000 years the Church has existed, transformed lives through the Holy Spirit, and failed at many, many of its objectives in spreading the Gospel. No matter how much we (as humanity given charge over the Church) muck things up, attempt to muck things up, or let the importance of issues slip through our hands, the Church still belongs to God and He will save her.

Lenten Poem

Wild wood wilderness;
So tempted by the bitterness;
Smoke and drink washed emptiness
Come, oh come sweet tenderness
Fill this hole over.

So confused, alone, and cloistered.
In one hand the world, my oyster,
A pilgrim’s shell proves only a coaster
Flat and stained upon the table bolstered.
Heaven cover over.

The cold stone of this tower in rage
A smoke stack over Pittsburgh, not a cage
Fuelled by doctrine’s page by page
Rising towards the sky from age to age
Pillar of fire stands over.

Burning into the wee hours of the night
Refining, reshaping, re-pressing it’s Light
Only uncertainty in sight
Of what’s been certain through the might
Brokenness ain’t over,

Up from underneath the walls close in
From above the air is trim
This bed and your itching skin
The wall beside me paper-thin
When will this be over?

Staring straight into the deep,
One more promise that won’t keep
There is no sleep, nothing to eat
A nobler man there once did seat,
Help me move over.

Another lie for feelings sake
Against that Wall that will not break
I can’t comprehend how you forsake
The Cup in my hands can’t stop the shake
My cup runneth over.

In this world I long to flee
I fall and Fall in misery
Down, down, down to the pit for me
So much snow for eyes to see
Hell has frozen over.

Blog and Explanation

No Man is an Island… this poem has spoken to me greatly over the past months. As I near the end of seminary, I find I am beginning something completely new, completely terrifying, completely… I don’t even know what! Of all the things I have learned in three years of seminary, the most fascinating and bizarre object of curiosity to me is the human condition and its relation before God.
While training my mind, heart, and soul for the priesthood I have encountered a great many strange people in the same process. The thing about it is (to me anyway) that we are all in the same process and hopefully that means that we are all striving, seeking, laying our lives daily before the Almighty and trying to figure out what we are supposed to be doing with our lives as sinners called to live a life above reproach. The best conclusion I can come up with is that we seem to be called to a life of utter failure sprinkled with moments of glory. Recently it occurs to me that those glimpses of glory which get us from one rough patch to the next is an absolute dependence upon God and the salvation we have in Christ Jesus. In this we are not alone, we have never been abandoned, and we will always have someone standing with us.
If mankind is given grace enough, the gift of friends will be granted. There will be times when we will need to depend on those friends to show us Christ; for us to be seen through another’s eyes outside of ourselves and even possibly through the creator’s eyes himself. In my understanding of friendship it is always a two way street and we therefore hold each other together. Some of these friends are only for an appointed time, some are forever, some will hurt us for any inexplicable reason, and others will love of beyond measure. The point I am trying to make here is that the human condition is the most unstable of all God’s creation because we are susceptible to sin. And yet we are all placed on this earth for such times as we have been given. Even the most reclusive of persons cannot admit to a yearning for something more. Our friends and our enemies; our love, hate, and indifference for one another – we are a part of mankind. Under Christendom we belong to the Father and are unified, justified, and brought into the Light. How we act and react toward one another is the catalyst for which the Holy Spirit can draw us together, or how the demons can tear us apart – individually and collectively. And through that Spirit John Donne informs us that we are not in fact islands entire of ourselves we are one body working and functioning together. At times working together for good, and at times working against one another for schism. But never send for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee. And this is the beginning…

No Man is an Island

No man is an island, entire of itself
every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main
if a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were,
as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were
any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind
and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls
it tolls for thee.
- John Donne