His Vigorous Heart

Recently, Nadia Bolz Weber shared an article written by my friend Connor about deconstruction. And today I came across a comment about deconstruction while I was stalking a Facebook post by a friend of a friend (as one does on the internet....no? Am I the only one? Alright.) 10 years ago--even 5 years ago--deconstruction meant something different than it does now. Back then (when cell phones still had hinges) it seemed like a perfect phrase for what I was going through. Like everyone, I had a boat , a house of cards, that I grew up within and was very familiar with. Not a "bubble", per se, but an entire personal framework and foundation for viewing and understanding the world around me. You could almost think of it as my identity; it was the way I interacted with the world, the container in which I held my conception of reality. It was comfortable in my little house, and I had a place to store every single thought or idea. But then slowly I started encountering things th...

Grace: (n) : The free and unmerited favor of God Can we talk about grace for a second? I feel like this has been the year that this concept has been thrown wide open for me, and it’s absolutely blowing me away. Grace isn’t conditional. That might seem obvious, because it’s in the very definition of the term, but somehow it’s sneaked into our doctrinal understandings that we somehow have to earn it. As if there was something we could do to make ourselves worthy of God’s goodness and love and compassion (and even more insidiously, as if we were UN worthy of it in the first place). (Yes, sin exists. Yes, we are capable of great evil. I’m not denying that. Anyone who looks at humans can tell that we are clearly broken in the ways we perpetuate pain and chaos in the world. But the story of creation doesn’t begin in chapter 3 of Genesis; it begins in chapters 1 and 2, where God creates women and men in His own image and calls them good. No matter how much mud and filth we roll around ...

They said, As a child, That if you held your eyes crossed too long They'd stay that way (But that never happened.) So I wonder Why, As an adult, Do I feel like my future is Wet cement About to dry? I wrote this poem at work today, approximately 3 hours before I put in my resignation. I turn 27 in a week. I know 27 isn't 30, and 30 isn't 50, and 50 isn't really that old, but somehow it feels like my life is just flying by. And it feels as if somehow, in the past few years of merely pursuing the next paycheck, I've missed the life I was made for. Somehow, at 27, I'm still waiting for my real life to start. So I’m choosing to start it now. More to come soon :) --JD

That’s a provocative title, so maybe I’ll come up with something else to call it by the time I’m finished writing. (Here’s hoping) Here’s the deal. I work at a desk job where I do nothing but stuff envelopes all day (and don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful for it in so many ways; it’s teaching me a thing or three about grace , and I’ve already made more in 5 months than I’ve ever been paid in an entire year, so that's cool), but my point is, it’s not exactly what I want to be doing. I have a lot of time to listen to podcasts and reflect on my life and the deeper questions and issues therein, though. And in the process, I’ve discovered a few things about myself and my decisions and the shape my life has taken. So naturally I’m going to talk about it on the internet. First, (and these are in no particular order), I’ve noticed that it’s really, really hard to teach the way of Jesus inside a church. Here’s why: people who go to church already think they know everything. Most of them...

Hey! It’s been a while (yet again) since I’ve posted. So much for New Years’ Resolutions of staying on top of my blog game.  You might remember from last time that I had just moved into an exciting new community house in Roanoke, VA. I’m still here! Things are slowly shifting into place, and we’ve been hard at work making the house a functioning environment. We just welcomed our third member this weekend after he graduated from college, and we’re looking forward to a summer full of events to kick off the Aidan Community in style. (Come on out if you’re in town!) Some of you guys have asked me where I’m working, how life is going, etc. I’m fortunate enough to work right across the street from my house. (You might also remember that my car sort of...exploded...in November and so I was without a set of wheels for about 5 months.) It’s not a thrilling job -- I sit at a desk stuffing envelopes for most of the day -- but it provides my needs, it’s within walking distance, a...

"New beginnings give me hope, but they also scare the living daylights out of me. Will this be the one? Will this make me happy? Will I be successful here? Can I serve Jesus here? Will it meet my expectations? What if they don’t like me? What if I don’t belong? What if I fail? What if I’m miserable? What if I suck at my job? What if I can’t do the things I want to? What if I’m too old? What if I’m too young? What if it’s not what I thought it was? What if…? So many questions, so many doubts, so many fears. As a millennial entering his 7th job and 6th city since graduating college a scant 4 years ago, I’ve had more than my fair share of transitions. From a support-raised ministry position in Chicago that burned me out, to a non-profit internship in Shreveport where I attempted to heal, to a swim school instructor job in Richmond just to do something different, I’ve put a lot of effort into keeping my options open. ...Mostly because I’m scared of commitment. If there’s one...

There is a very thin crack between the worlds, and I always seem to find myself stuck at the bottom of it, wedged between its narrow walls, stuck between a rock and the proverbial hard place. Once again, the world has chewed me up and spit me out. Once again, its system has allowed me to somehow slip through the gaps and fall through the cracks, forgotten, unnoticed; The Crack Between the Worlds, my forever home. Maybe we all live here, or have at least visited it a couple of times. Maybe we don’t like to talk about it. Maybe we’re all too uncomfortable with the idea to even admit it to ourselves, even in the privacy of our own souls. Or maybe I’m just different. Unique. ...Broken. But from my vantage point in this chasm so often accompanied by loneliness and despair and the shadow of death, I can see the outlines of two very distinct cities on the clifftops above me. To one side is the world we’re all familiar with, full of jobs and cell phones and money and Netflix and...