Conversations with a 24 year old Idealist

New Blog. New Ideas. Same Ben.

www.betweenthetrees.org

Fridays are good days for stories.... I was walking with Tina, who works at the Center for Art and Community Partnerships at Mass Art, after our meeting for work. She asks me what I am studying. I reply that I am studying theology with urban studies mixed in for good measure. She asks if I am becoming a priest, I reply that I am. She then asks me about Anglicanism. At this point I reply with my a story of a husband a wife and what their kiss means to them describing a sacramental worldview and how we are involved in the great story of God bringing the world back to rights. At this point we are back at Mass Art and she is showing me a gallery space I will be using for an event. In the gallery I tell her that once I saw the world through this lens, everything changed. I mean everything and I have never looked back. She replies, "oh you didn't grow up anglican". I confirm her response and she asks what I believed growing up. I tell her that I grew up in a small evangelical baptist church. At this point her eyes widen and exclaims, "How did you turn out to be so cool?" This my friends is the power of Fridays. See on Friday, even the uncool kids are cool.

This is a new series where I will seek to explore why I am what I am. I will mainly explore why I am 1) Christian and 2) Anglican.

Why I am...Christian: Part One

When I meet new people, they inevitable ask what I do. I always take that question on two levels: occupational and existential aka what am I all about. I usually answer that I am doing community organizing in Mission Hill, but that I am also studying to be a priest. They respond, "Oh Catholic?" I say, "No Anglican." They look confused and I usually leave it at that. But I have been hanging out with a couple of new kids recently where they asked me further questions about the whole priest thing. So this series is a summary of all these conversations I am having.

I think a lot of what or who we are is due to the experiences we have and the way in which we understand and analyze these experiences. I grew up in a single-parent home with my mom and my brother. My mom made sure I went to an evangelical church every Sunday. When I got to high-school I started hanging out with kids who looked at the Text (Bible) differently than I had before. Growing up it had been either an answer book for life's questions or the litmus test to see if you were in or out. So if I wanted to know if I could smoke pot or not: Look to the Text (their answer was no). Or could you be gay and still be "in" (again their answer was no).

But all the sudden these kids around me told me that the BIble was actually something much different. As I went to college my professors and peers were saying the same things. After some significant time in the classroom and time spent in refugee camps in Indonesia and war torn Israel-Palestine I began to see the Text as a manuel for revolution. Jesus declares that life is about generosity, peace, reconciliation, equity, justice and self-sacrifice. I was shocked. Honestly, I was. According to Jesus the key to living our best life now is to give our money away, seek peace and above all else put ourselves last. I looked around and thought I was surely mistaken, because others didn't see what I saw. But my professors assured me I was right on.

I have come to realize that the Gospel has been hijacked. It has turned into something its not. And my response is to dedicate my life to this revolution and see it actualized in this life, in this city, in this community. I found a revolution and bought into it and have never looked back. It has taken me all over the world and more times than not, put me in the paths of danger. But I believe in it. I guess I believe in a revolution, not a religion.

In Part Two I will define this revolution further.

What I have tried to do is lay the groundwork for both a personal Rule of Life and a communal Rule of Life. I truly believe in the witness and necessity of intentional christian communities and I hope to be part of an Anglican community in the near future. It is my hope that the thoughts laid out here will be the beginnings of a future Rule for a future community.

Lord, have mercy.

The Rule of Life of An Urban Community
Introduction
Chapter One: The Witness of Life in Community
Chapter Two: The Challenges of Life in Community
Chapter Three: Commitment
Chapter Four: A Vow of Poverty
Chapter Five: A Vow of Chastity
Chapter Six: Spirit of Obedience
Chapter Seven: The Eucharist
Chapter Eight: Worship
Chapter Nine: Prayer
Chapter Ten: Intercession
Chapter Eleven: Scripture
Chapter Twelve: Study
Chapter Thirteen: Solitude
Chapter Fourteen: Silence
Chapter Fifteen: Rest
Chapter Sixteen: Feast & Fast
Chapter Seventeen: Holistic Mission
Chapter Eighteen: Hospitality
Chapter Nineteen: Reconciliation
Chapter Twenty: Hope

Chapter Twenty

Hope

We must remember that we are not acting in vain, but that Jesus has promised that one day he will return and we will be granted new bodies in the final resurrection. It is because of this hope that we pray, work and live. We currently look “in a mirror, dimly” but one day the world will indeed be brought back to rights and evil conquered. It is this hope that must inspire us and encourage our worship of God.

We cannot be driven by optimism or by pessimism, but we must remain motivated by the hope of the resurrection. Indeed, it is in this hope that we find value in our physical bodies and why we believe in a holistic mission. Our community is centered upon the prophetic witness of what the world is to be and it is in this hope that we offer ourselves as a sacrifice to God.