.: ghost town :.

Last Saturday night, my summer at Mount Hermon came to what I would consider an official end (we still have Labor Day, but only a handful of the summer staffers are returning)... and I hit an emotional brick wall! Just as I was returning from having dropped off two of my closer friends from the summer, I found myself beginning to feel overwhelmed by the conclusion of what has turned out to be one of my most memorable and meaningful summer experiences. I finally got back to the campgrounds and just crashed as I felt my whole world begin to (seemingly) change radically in a matter of minutes. It has even gotten to a point where I cannot walk around this place without remembering powerful moments from the summer that took place in special and familiar "spaces". A major factor of my feeling this loss so deeply is because (as I am beginning to realize) I have not been this close to this many people in what feels like years. I mean, I knew I was growing friendships with many of these students (with a handful of ones that are turning out to be deeper than I realized even up to a week ago), but to see the end of this summer hit me so abruptly, I am left here for the remaining week with a deep sadness - even loneliness - that is beyond what I have come to expect within recent years. What happened here was rich and deep and life changing... and unrepeatable! And it is that final element that has me gasping for emotional breath. I know I will see many of these people again, even in the coming weeks. But this almost feels like too much for me to handle at the moment.

Father God, give me the necessary grace and strength to endure the prevailing waves of grief for the loss of what was so meaningful to me... even beyond what I could ever have expected or prepared for!

.: braved and conquered :.

I overcame my fears of heights, if but for only 20 minutes, and went on the canyon course today at Mount Hermon. Having been in charge of the Adventure Faculty Summer Staffers, I have only been able to help out on the ground the whole summer by harnessing people up for the course. But at around 3:20 PM today, I threw off my sandals, put on the sweaty shoes of a grade schooler (without socks... which only makes me that much cooler), harnessed up, and crawled the ladder to the course above the ground. Needless to say, I was shaking the whole way, but the different Ad Fac members were more than graciously encouraging of me as I tried to make my way around the 5 different elements (ranging from 20 to 60 feet).

The worst one was having to walk across only a log suspended with nothing to hold onto... except for the straps that supported me, had I mistakenly fallen (thank God Almighty, I didn't have that happen!). I am proud of myself for doing it. It was easily my toughest physical challenge during this entire summer. But there was too much frustration mixed in with all my excuses for not doing it to avoid at least making the effort to try my hands (and head - after all, the whole fear is a mental thing) at it!

.: coming to terms :.

(Excerpt from article for MH Newsletter)

I think I am slowly but surely getting the hang of these "goodbyes". It seems like every place I go, the inevitable end haunts me throughout my entire stretch of fellowship and adventure. And of course, as a wise person once said, "All good things must come to an end." But no matter how many times I am confronted with the closing stages of something that has felt real and deep and personal, I often find myself somehow scrambling to try and make it last well into wherever the Lord takes me next. Truth be told, I don't care much for the thought of never seeing again those who have become so close to me in so little time (heck, who is, right?). But at a deeper level, beyond the uncontrollable tears and swiftly spoken promises of future reunion, there remains a profound celebration for having been here, which is often strangely matched with an anticipation for the future... come what may!

In all honesty, who would really want their old experiences (no matter how enjoyable they were) to be played out over and over and over again? The thing we would really hope for is typically something even beyond those vivid memories - something that would make an even deeper impression upon our souls. And in reality, maybe the fear (if it really made itself known to us) is that of never being sure we are where we were meant to be. Maybe we are really living in between the "possibilities" of real life... life as it was meant to be lived... the life we were designed for. We are a children that have been cast from Eden (Genesis 3), who are now wandering through this "desert life", hoping for glimpses of what used to be. We were built for fellowship - no wonder we cry when we stand to lose it. We were built for honest relationships - no wonder we shutter when they are threatened by distance and time. And we were built to be unreservedly loved by others - no wonder we grieve the loss of those who seem to have offered that to us in such genuine ways (if even for only a little time).

For myself, I am only now beginning to find beauty in the process and tremendous splendor in the journey. And rather than experiencing the sense of loss, I am becoming someone who is able to rejoice in parting from close friends for the sake of potentially discovering something new that both echoes past encounters, as well as offers me a place to continue to thrive and stretch and flourish... in new ways! And so we celebrate our time together this summer, knowing that we have come only steps further in our excursion towards becoming more like the Son, but having found a joy (deeper than all our sadness) that springs from the fact that we are living lives that are able to possess borders beyond "bottled experiences".

For those of you who feel like I am discounting the sorrow of moving on, please hear me clearly. I will miss you all, though undoubtedly some more than others (go ahead... curse me for saying what we are all feeling), and there are moments and mental images from this summer that I will carry with me for the next couple years (even one or two that will haunt me up until Heaven). But I am more greatly excited for what lies ahead for all of us who have irresponsibly rejected selfish caution and the charade of creating a life that we can control... and who have thrown our lot in with the One who offers life to the fullest (John 10:10). I fear that I would only be selfishly thinking of what I might lose if I somehow fought to keep you all here. And no matter how sad we may feel in the coming days and weeks, none of us would truly want that! For we are those who constantly long for more, in the hopes of finding something that endures!

.: dealing with the shifts :.

There is often a place between where I am leaving and where I am heading to, and in that space lays incredible sadness, intense loneliness, irresistible mystery, and an eerie silence... especially on the part of God. Like so many other people, I hate to not be "home". I hate to be parting company with those who offer me love and safety and acceptance and protection and "a place where I belong". I hate airplanes, I hate driving away, I hate moving on, and I especially hate goodbyes (no matter how temporary they are). No, maybe not all the time, but a lot of the times when a special period of fellowship has developed and a small tight group has forged its way through some adventure, I hate coming to the end of it... no matter how much lies ahead for me at my next destination. I hate those lengthy transitions when you are moving back into your current place of residence from a period of joyous reunions and restoring fellowship. I hate having to leaving those spaces of time to go back into what was seemingly acceptable just a few days ago. I don't handle those shifts very easy at times because at a soul level, it feels like the abandonment of what I was built for. At times, I almost even feel forced out to return to my place of strengthening, preparation, and maturing. Why can I not simply find that place and never have to see the end of it? It's as if one must not venture out of what each day has brought them into simply because the slightest change of conditions or location brings on a wave of something that is nothing short of full-blown grief. It is that very sorrow that I despise, though it does in fact remind me that I am built for something greater than the temporary situations that I flit around among. Will I never be allowed to find what my heart is longing for - a space that assumes no time limit? Will I ever be offered a home without some sort of boundaries or shortcomings? I long for that kind of companionship... for that sort of dwelling... for that depth of eternal satisfaction!

.: union of friends :.

I had the privledge of serving as a groomsman today at the wedding of two of my good friends. It was the first outdoor wedding I have ever been to, as well as been a part of. It was beautiful... and brutally hot (up to 110 degrees during the day). Thankfully we were in the shade for the most part. I am rejoicing with them on this special day, praying that God would continue to bless their relationship and use it to bring about His glory through their love and commitment to each other!


The Extremely Happy Couple


Celebrating Drew and Bekah's Marriage

.: the process of a lifetime :.

I must admit that the work of the Lord often times seems as a tremendous burden to me. Now I am not speaking here of those things that we set our hearts and hands towards doing for the sake of ministering to those all around us, but rather that which the Father is in the very midst of doing in us as individuals. It's that very labor which so frequently feels like such a burden to put up with. I mean, after all, what He has set out to do is to radically change everything that we are into something greater, something that is slowly growing closer to His original design (similar to that of the first beings before the all-inclusive Fall of Genesis 3) for our hearts and spirits. This is no small task! But I feel at times as if I may never see the process come to fruition in light of just how well I know my own stubborn will. And when how I behave once again falls so short of how I ought... well, therein lays the rub.

Time and time again, I want to silently lean over to the Lord and question Him of just how sure He is about actually accomplishing His will in my life (as if He doesn't already know my subtle strategies of resistance and flip-flopping). Yes, I too have desired (often in times of weakness or weariness) that He would simply wash His hands of me and just let me have my own way once and for all! Just to be able to live the so-called "natural" life - life completely handed over the one living it. This idea of the Spirit of God working in and through me, so as to transform every fragment of my possessed fallenness, is such a weight because it brings with it the responsibility to live, move, and breath in rhythm with it, rather than against it. But for me to do that would (at this stage in my 28-year-existence) require that I possess even a shred of love or even yearning for that way of living, one that seems so foreign to me, in certain spaces of who I am.

"Father God, how many times must I remind you that my spirit so often cares so little for fidelity to Your cause... that it remains so doggedly thirsty for fixes like safety and comfort and staggered doses of idolatry?" But then again, He probably already knew that... and maybe even (in all of His omniscience) took that into account when He set out with such grand intentions for His creation. It's just that the cry from the author of Hebrews 12:2 to "fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith" seems like a nice idea, but not quite so realistic in the company of so many other objects that capture our gapping stare.

Oh, if I could just set my sights on Christ and trust them to remain there... but I guess that would undo the need for desperate faith, wouldn't it?! And after all, the divine purpose of our Heavenly Father was never to create precise and unblemished machines, but rather relational beings that are whole on all accounts. I am a man who is far too consumed with the end product, living in relationship with a jealous God (jealous for me... for ME!!!) who cares far more for the journey. For in that process of partnering, moving, struggling, and yes, even failing, He is far more pleased with our togetherness than He is bothered by my necessarily deserving such. In light of that, I can surely rest in the fact that greater things are happening, beyond my making the Will of God come about in my life on my own terms.