Hersh, this one's for you, buddy.....
As I've mentioned in a previous blog, I own a two bedroom condo in Dallas - affectionately known as the "Holly Oaks Hostel" that I use to house various guys in different transition stages of their lives, whether it be someone going through a difficult time in their life, or just a wandering derelict needing a place to stay - like myself. Roommates have come and gone (and stayed... you know who you are), but no one embodied the description of a wandering derelict more than my friend Josh. He graduated from college several years back with a ministry degree, and after a brief stint in youth ministry and inner-city work, decided to move to Dallas and get a job parking cars to pay off some college debt, so he would feel truly free to do whatever he believed God would lead him to do. A mutual friend told him I could help get him a job parking cars; they showed up at an ultimate frisbee pick/up game I play at, and my life hasn't been the same since.
You see, when I first met Josh, he pretty much embodied the life I felt like I should be living, but never had the guts to fully embrace. He drove a beat-up Geo (owning no more than he could fit in it), ran around everywhere barefoot, hardly ever dressed up to impress, and pretty much rebelled against all forms of "Christian" orthodoxy as taught by his legalistic Church-of-Christ college. He was living a life and doing ministry radically different than the way our society and even the American church was telling us our lives should look like. He was living his life, in essence, in a way that exposed the facade, artificialness, and meaninglessness of what the average American Christian's life looked like. He had a heart for ministry and humanity and with it big dreams; he wanted to live an epic "Frodo-like" life; he wanted to re-invent or impact the world in a way that would benefit all humanity for the better, and he was fearless in trying anything. He had looked the world in the eye and, like the Joker, told it "You have nothing that I want!" He paid off all his debt and moved back to Abilene a year later to take a ministry position, and began his attempt at an epic life.
Fast forward 3 years later... the ministry position didn't work out, he moved back to Dallas, got kicked out by his roommate (who got married), and spent the next two years parking cars, living on various people's floors (including mine), pursued romance, and took various adventures around the world... basically trying to find out the next direction for his life. Everything kept seeming to end up in dead ends; he began spending evenings hanging out at the condo drinking whiskey, eating cookies, ranting about society's and humanity's failures and its blindness (political and social) with other indulging roommates, and attempting to convince himself and other condo guests that life is meaningless. Fortunately, this life state was brief - he's got his RPM certification and is moving to New Zealand (Frodo land!) in June to try to kick-start his life again. He's a much better writer than me and has written a reflective blog post called Phat Base on his blog to which I responded to. You can read it and my comments at thebarefootjungleboy.blogspot.com.
I have yet to indulge in the Holly Oaks Hostel whiskey nights, but I've enjoyed the reflectiveness of the commentary, even if it is a bit induced. I mean, isn't that what the human heart cries out for? To know our lives are relevant? To know our existence serves some purpose? If so, what then is the meaning of life? John Piper gives my favorite definition in saying "Man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever!" OK, this sounds pretty, but how does that look in a pragmatic way - a way that we can live out on earth and see results that confirm to us that our lives do have meaning?
I've been attending a "mega-church" here in Dallas for about the last 6 months. I'm usually not a big fan of such - in my opinion, most are showy, extravagantly waste resources on themselves, and give a pretty watered down "feel-good" version of the gospel which threatens no one and keeps everyone coming back to fill the pews. However, for whatever my opinion's worth (obviously God's is the one that counts - it's His bride, after all), I think Watermark does ministry well. They encourage community and accountability through many small group situations and certainly don't water down the gospel. A few weeks back, they showed a film called "Who will write my name?" in which various people that came to know Christ through the witness of a friend at the church were shown in various situations holding up a big sign with that friend's name written on it and talked about how that friend had originally invited them to Watermark. As I sat there feeling judgmental about how the video seemed to be overly promoting the church, it struck me that in its effort to encourage its members to invest in the lives of others around them, the reality was it was appealing to the desire of the human heart for validation, which is ultimately filled in others telling us our lives have had meaning, that our existence has affected theirs, that our lives have had a positive effect on this planet. It made me wonder who, if anyone, would "write my name" and hold it up for others to see.
I think this is the summation of what makes life meaningful - that others speak meaning into our lives, letting us know that their existence in this world has been made better directly by ours. We long for this validation - our entire existence seems to revolve around this, so much so, that we start blogs, Facebook accounts, and twitter in order to get people to take interest in our lives in an attempt to manipulate respect out of other people for the things we've done with our life. However, even Jesus said "If I testify about myself, my testimony is not valid". In essence, we can attempt to promote ourselves (we all do), but the true measure of promotion of our lives will come FROM others as they testify TO others and to the world what our lives have done for them and their world.
This practice is extremely Biblical as God often "holds up" or writes/speaks the name of those whose lives He believes have positively affected His earthly story to bring glory to His name. "Consider My servant"(Job), "My friend" (Abraham), "A man after My own heart" (David), "Behold My Son (Jesus) with whom I am well pleased", and "Of those born of women, none was greater than (John)" were just a few of the people whose lives God Himself spoke meaning into. There have been/are/will be others as well, all WRITTEN into the book of life. I'm pretty sure that having God hold, write, and exalt our name before all creation will validate and fill our lives with a sense of meaning that we currently can not comprehend. It's God's job to exalt us; it's our job to humble ourselves. If we attempt to do His job, He will probably do ours for us.
Sorry, Josh - I obviously can't come anywhere close to this in terms of "name-holding", but for you, this is the best I got. So here's to holding your name before fellow humans, letting them know that by your life, you've taught me the importance of living fearlessly on Earth in an attempt to create eternal good. I'd make you a poster as well, but I know you'd probably disapprove of the waste of resources. If I climb Mt. Sneffels again this year, I'll make it a point to eat a peanut butter sandwich on top and tag it on Facebook with your name on it. Just by being you, by living your life, you have affected my life for the better, giving me a greater desire to live a more "epic" life for the kingdom of Christ by encouraging me to fearlessly "jump in" to different life opportunities. Hopefully, I'll see you in New Zealand.
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