formulating a Plan

Okay, so exciting things are beginning to happen. Of course I'm impatient to get there, but it's going to take a little while yet, and I'm working on this whole living-in-the-now business instead of dreaming hazily about the future while sitting still.

While I learn how to view myself objectively and positively, and begin to explore and untangle all sorts of ingrained habits rooted in old traumas and hurts, I have other plans too. I am more and more convinced that my calling is to the church universal -- that my job, my life's great duty, is to work to unite the divided denominations. Not to dispel denominations; that's not possible. People think differently, and there are many different theological perspectives as a result. But I see the church universal as the worldwide body of Christ -- and I see each denomination as one of the many parts of that body. Right now that body is dismembered, like the gang-raped and murdered concubine in Judges 19, whose husband cut her into twelve pieces and sent those pieces to every part of Israel. And separated from itself, divided against itself, this body is largely useless. Aren't we seeing those effects everywhere?

But if we were united, if love were the blood running through the body's veins, uniting, sustaining, think what we could do! Instead of wasting time fighting amongst ourselves, we could be turning to heal a suffering world.

I've been sitting around on my ass since I got back to Erie. Part of that is, in its way, understandable, particularly in this last month. But there are things to do, and I'm beginning to formulate a Plan.

Linnéa and I were talking on Sunday, about how blah and run-of-the-mill and insulated and sleepy and complacent and bureaucratic and corporate our town is in regard to Christ. Now I'm not one who goes about shouting for "revival"; but I do have a reformer's heart. So does Linnéa. We think that the way things are run doesn't work anymore, and it's time to do something new.

This is going to ruffle a lot of feathers; but we're not talking about talking about it. We're talking about doing it. Since we're not quite sure where God is going to have us start, we're going to start it simple and small: an open-invitation Bible study on Saturday mornings in the local coffeeshop. And we're not going to study someone else's study of the Bible. We're not going to have a middle man filtering God's Word. It's going to be we and the Scriptures.

That's a start. She and I and another friend, John, are the starters. And not one of us is quiet, and each one of us is impassioned, articulate and intelligent. I'm hoping to attract others by merit of those things alone.

Meanwhile I'm going to be meeting with the pastor of my parish and seeing what wisdom and light he can shed on the subject. I have a world of respect for Fr. David, and think he'll be very much on board (he's annoyed the bishop by interacting with the other churches in our town -- good sign).

And, for the middle-term (since turning my hometown on its head is the short-term, and doing something with writing and speaking and teaching to unite the church universal is the long-term), I'm looking at seminary. I need some kind of training for this (although there's no "niche" for the sort of thing I'm going to do), and most especially I want to learn ancient Greek and Hebrew, so that I'm equipped to read the Bible in its own languages. And this is perhaps hilarious, but I'm leaning toward a Baptist institution. Nobody knows the Bible like Baptists. Plus I'm generally comfortable holding an opposing viewpoint to the crowd, and I'm familiar with Baptist perspectives.

That's all subject to change, of course; but to seminary I plan to go for my MDiv. And I'm looking at the South -- I've never lived in the South, and Hillori is moving down thataway this fall, so she'll be there for a few years, and we've always planned to live in proximity to each other at some point in our lives. Location is subject to change, too, but I really feel a peace about this -- the kind of peace I haven't felt since my decision to attend Grove City my senior year of high school, and my decision to move to South Bend my senior year of college.

So I have a lot to do to prepare. But I feel like, for the first time in six years, I can catch a glimpse of the path ahead of me. Which is thrilling -- this journey is through wild country, and I get to see God "making a way in the desert / and streams in the wasteland."