"Church"

Nov 02, 2010 10:03

So lately this idea has been buzzing around in my head.

First, for anyone who does still read this (doubt any such people exist, but I'll throw it out there) my path currently is as follows.
For the next two years I'll be working through the IPP, Interpreter Preparation Program, at Front Range Community College. That will transfer to Regis University for a degree in something, but basically the focus is on sign language.
For a year or two after that, I'll work freelance interpreting while getting a solid grounding in Chinese.
For two or three years after that, maybe longer, I'll be teaching English in China, while learning and becoming as close to fluent as possible in chinese (preferably both Cantonese and Mandarin, as well as any other major dialects that would be valuable).
After that, I return to the US to spend an indeterminate period of time working in corporate or government applications of being fluent (or near-fluent) in chinese and having interpreter experience. During this time I'd also devote some effort to learning additional languages, expanding my horizons and potential until my brain stops working.

Now, this is plan 3 of 3, refinements I've been making to my concept of my futre for the last couple months. Since falling in love with sign language (and most likely languages in general), and finding just how powerful my mind is in learning them, I've decided to take that course for my livelihood. They say that the best way to live is to find something you love doing and get good enough at it to earn a living.
Well, there I go.

Thing is, I haven't felt that this plan is the exact right course. I feel that it's closer than I've found thus far, and possibly the closest I'll find on my own, but I can't nail down exactly what is different.
Well, can't and couldn't. I understand better now what felt off, but I still don't have an answer.

The thing is, all these ideas aim for my future. They are all designed, more or less, with the end goal in mind, the return to the US to work as an interpreter for Chinese. And while I reach that goal through a delightfully winding path marked with a number of attractive prospects, there's one thing missing from this plan: the present. The present in the continuing, constantly existing sense. I plan for landmarks, but I have no idea what will fill that time. I have the 10 year plan marked with milestones (IPP, 2 years; Regis, 2 years; Freelance, 1-2 years; China, 2-3+ years; US, ?) but nothing in there tells me what the journey itself will hold. And there's something in me that gnaws to at least have some ideas, some possibilities.
Oh, I have some already, don't get me wrong. I could always spend that time working on another language, or doing something local with Dag or the Followers like I've failed to do for about two years now...I could start learning to draw and do a webcomic or somesuch, like I've had an inkling to do lately...or I could just keep walking and hope that I stumble over things as I go, which tends to be how I work anyway. Hell, I never meant to find Dag in the first place, but there it is. Major part of my life, even though I'm presently inactive due (primarily) to schedule conflicts.

But anyway. This idea.
What if I started a church?

The very idea is preposterous to me, really. Me? Start a church? Undertake something that requires faith, discipline, experience, steadfastness, and knowledge...all in an area in which I claim to have almost no solid beliefs whatsoever?
Insane. It's like a 120-pound computer nerd saying he's going to go win the olympics in weightlifting. It's like a blind person saying he's going to create a beautiful sculpture. Not only is the goal ludicrously out of reach at present, but it would take months, years, decades to prepare to the level demanded. Possible, but so far away and so remarkably ambitious that in all likelihood, you'd fail before you reached your first milestone.

This church would not be like a normal church. It would not be structured like a church. It would not have churchy music. It would not have sermons that moved people to awe or guilt or remorse or boredom. It would not have politics that hindered its ability to function because people were too wrapped up in achievement and title. And it would be small...very, very small.
It would be a church for metal-heads, outcasts, lost and confused and angry people to connect with a God who loves us all the same. The music would be loud, hard, driving; each "service" would be a rock concert. The "sermons" would be short, to the point, and potentially interactive, dealing with real ways to find real answers to real questions rather than getting lost in hopeless, unnecessary theological mire and empty phrases that mean nothing to people who have heard them all before.

I already see so clearly that this could dovetail with my dreams for the Followers...in a way, this is little more than an extension of those dreams. A logical outcome of sorts. This is the church i would form when the Followers grew enough to merit a church, when I'd collected enough people and talent to make it work.

My life is so short. While I'm young, I feel that I have a lot to do and not much time to do it. Ideas like this church, like the Followers, seem time-sensitive. How well can I travel, can I rock, can I fight, when I'm 35? 45? 55? How strong will my voice be, metaphorically speaking, when I have to shout over my children, or my nieces and nephews? How long could I keep up the life I lived at 22 when I've aged another 22 years since then?
There are people in Dag who still fight even into their 40's. I've met one or two. Their rarity could be attributed to a number of things, but I don't think that "growing up and getting a life" truly accounts for more than half, maybe 2/3...even those who foot that excuse are quietly grateful that they don't need to strain their bodies like that anymore.
There are rock stars who are in their 30's and 40's, I'm certain. The lead singer of Disturbed is currently 37, for instance.
But. If I look at my current path: IPP, 2 years; Regis, 4 years; freelance, 6 years; China, 9 years...I'm not returning to the US until I'm nearly 35. Maybe older. Anything I start between now and then, I'd have to either maintain or hand off to someone else. Or it would die.

None of this matters. I have to DO something while I'm working towards my future. And it'll probably be something that reveals my heart for the twisted, complex, torn-in-half wounded creature that it is, and has been for years now. It'll be something that strains against all odds to start a revolution of culture in rejection of the one I so passionately hate but cannot escape. It'll be something that demonstrates just how much He really has me, no matter what life choices I may make or how I find to express it...and something that demonstrates at the same time how little I really know what to do with Him.
I'm not good at small. I'm not good at insignificant. I'm not good at half-way. And when I find that something that finally sets me free, that finally gives me a way to embrace everything I am and destroy everything I hate...if I ever find that revolutionary idea, that ground to stand and that territory to hold...caveat terrae.
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