His Vigorous Heart

I’m Nine-ing so hard right now. For those of you unfamiliar with the Enneagram, it is a personality assessment tool that we have found helpful at the Yellow House to help manage and understand our differences. Essentially, it categorizes 9 primary personality types that people can fall into, along with associated “wings” and periods of health and unhealth that expands and encompasses a wider range of emotional fluidity….whatever, it’s all very mathematical and complex and has already filled up countless hours of conversation in our house, with people who love it and people who are absolutely sick of hearing about it. (I fall somewhere toward the latter, but I do find it fascinating.)  The Enneagram goes deeper than the Myers-Briggs and other similar tests, looking not only at how we act, but our motivations for doing so. Apparently, this tool stretches all the way back to the Ancient Greeks, developing popularity among the monastics and Eastern Orthodox priests, and is still

The sun beats mercilessly through the windshield as I wind my way through the streets of Highland. Yet again, my arms are not so much glistening as they are dripping with sweat. The seatbelt has already stamped a diagonal wet mark across my chest, and I haven’t even been driving for 5 minutes. It’s a good thing I remembered to stash an extra pair of clothes in my backpack this morning. My car has a leak somewhere in the air conditioning system, and none of the windows roll down--so in this Louisiana heat, some days can get pretty miserable. I arrive at the Cedar Grove Friendship House where I volunteer with under resourced high-schoolers every afternoon absolutely drenched, mumble some hello’s, and head straight for the dirty bathroom in the back that never seems to have any paper towels. As I stand there trying to wipe off enough sweat to avoid soaking my fresh change of clothes the moment I put them on, it hits me: This isn’t easy. And I’m not just talking about crappy cars or Caju

I don’t know how personal to get, because I don’t know who might be reading this website, but I welcome you, friend and stranger alike, to discover who I am as we journey towards Christ together. I’ve been encouraged by more than a few friends to keep sharing my life by expressing it through writing, so I’ll allow this blog to be my outlet. I hope you find my “vigorous heart” refreshing, and I hope perhaps to inspire you to see life--and the Christian faith--a little bit differently than you did before. I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t know all the answers; I’m nobody special, but I do know what I’ve seen and what I’ve learned, and I feel compelled to offer my experiences as a chronicle here.  All that aside, it’s been awhile since I last posted a blog, so let me fill in some of the blanks that have happened in the last 9 months or so. 1.) Leaving Chicago First of all, and perhaps most importantly, I quit my job back in January. I’m not sure I ever officially anno

I don’t want to be a Christian writer if it means hitting backspace until I feel clean again. Until I’m tidy and safe and can fit easily inside of one of your boxes.  I don’t want to be a Christian writer if I have to pretend like I have my shit together, scratching out what I really feel and writing what I think your itching ears want to hear instead. I don't want to be a Christian writer if it means I can’t have doubts about this system--not the Who or the Why, but the way we go about following Him. I don't want to be a Christian writer if I have to spit out the same cliches, the same old words, the same tired traditions that no longer hold any significant meaning. (For example: Think you have your religious lexicon down? Try defining and explaining what "grace" means. Seriously, open up a Word document and type out your answer in 2 sentences or less. See how long it takes you. Then do the same thing for words like "love," "justification