Finding Normal

At 25 I am finding myself to become more and more normal. Last night I had a dream that I was watching an episode of Modern Family and showing the show to a friend. That was my dream. That was my dream! To be fair, I did just get dish installed. They had a good deal going and the woman I talked to online could have sold me a cruise ship. She was that good. So I signed up. Why lie to myself, I love watching sports. It sort of bothers me that I have to pay $30 a month in order to have ESPN and ensure that the channels that already come over air just come in clear. But only sort of.

One time, shortly after I had graduated high school (I was either 18 or 19) I remember sitting next to a girl on the couch in her house. Her and I were in the same group of friends, all being Christians, all being radicals.

At that point in my life I had basically vowed to never be normal. I would live off some sort of poor salary, have homeless people sleep in my house, live in community, and probably spend 50 percent of my life overseas working with the abject poor and suffering.

I would never have the white picket fence, 9-5 job, collared shirt and comforts of suburban life. God had not called me to that and I never wanted it.

Back to the story. At one point in the night she turned to me and wondered if we were just young and foolish and someday we would realize that life was just about having kids, taking care of them, and getting through the daily grind. I can’t remember if I only thought this or said this but I was so sure she was wrong and went through all the details of why that was the case. That was before I really had any sort of filter so I am going to go with, “I let her know and then some.”

Years passed, I finished college, got a 9-5 job, got rid of the mohawk, learned how to wear nicer shoes, bought a house, and started attending a church where homeless people weren’t everywhere. Call it growing up? Selling out? Realizing what life is about? Forgetting what it is about? I think that 19 year old Colter had some things right. He definitely didn’t know how to present those ideas and pretty much always had the volume knob at 10 and turned the abrasiveness knob up to 11 because it felt good.

I don’t think I would mind if there was a white picket fence outside my house. Actually, I think it would look nice, it just wouldn’t really match the rest of my house, the main reason that I don’t have one. I work on my yard most days. I would create a ratio for amount of time I spend trying to further my career and taking care of the house to taking care of homeless people, but if we are using the criteria as the last 18 months then there really isn’t a ratio where the second number is 0. That’s the moment where computers get confused and say, “we can’t compute this, this isn’t math.” That’s how computers talk.

I am just starting my masters degree and now seeing what it looks like to have a career. Is 25 late for that? I think for my generation it’s probably about on par. I’m excited. When I mow my lawn I look at the big tree in my yard and think, “I hope that I get to build a treehouse with my kids here someday.” I romance about sipping coffee with my wife on the porch on the early hours of a Saturday morning.

I’m trying to learn what it looks like to have a heart after God and follow him radically. I’m locked into this house right now and have got a few years left of school so I hope those things fit in. I’ve started meeting with a man for breakfast who is literally three times my age. He’s been successful, loves the Lord, and I like him a lot. He’s sort of how I see myself in 50 years. If I have that much joy and energy for life at 75 then it will be a victory. Hell, if I had that much now I would be jazzed.

I don’t know where I’m going to land. I do know that I’m not trying to grow dreadlocks anymore (I gave that up when I found out how long it took). I suppose I should just continue to try and chase after Jesus. It can look a lot of different ways but I’m sure it will be exciting.

The Core of Creation

Perhaps it was the disappointment of tossing and turning the night of bringing home a new $1000 mattress that left me feeling the way I do today. Well, to be honest, the mattress isn’t really $1000. I got it for 400. It’s 1000 for the set but I didn’t need the box spring and I got it after somebody used it for some time less than 100 days. I suppose it wasn’t that great of a deal, but it was supposed to be a great mattress; though perhaps my preferences are not that of the ordinary when it comes to the position of one’s slumber. However, that probably has everything to do with nothing and was just something I felt like venting about.

Henry Miller said “The best way to get over a woman is to turn her into literature.” Ironically enough as I write, my way to get over a woman is to turn her into music but just as well, I currently have no woman that I need to get over. Somewhere at the root of our humanity, (perhaps at the masculine heart, though I don’t want to exclude women from this) we find great satisfaction at creating. Just as well, we find a similar satisfaction when is comes to destroying.

One time I noticed this while I was camping. My friends and I sat out to spend the night in the woods to celebrate our graduating from college. The idea of camping has always been a tad baffling to me. Why is it that we trade the comforts of our home for the discomforts or the woods? I have since learned how nurturing it is for the soul but at first glance, the idea of camping is a bit odd.

So we arrived at our campsite not long before dinner time and sunset. We had to create our site, build our tent, lay out our sleeping bags, get our stove and food set up, and perhaps most importantly, collect fire wood so we could stay warm, see, and cook our food. Something about that next hour gave everybody meaning and it seemed that everyone of us had decided that building a fire was perhaps the manliest thing you could do. You get to chop down trees, break branches, and then turn those things into a fire that takes care of you. You see, somewhere at the core of creation we find the need for destruction.

This brings me back to the Miller quote. He tells us that to get over a woman you must turn her into literature, which I am loosely interpreting as art. When we think of art we mostly think of creation. Taking a blank canvas, painting colors on it until we have created some sort of image in our mind. I might attest that most art comes at the expense of what has already been created. In the sense of getting over the woman you are not creating a piece of art. I believe that the balance lies further in the hands of destruction; destroying the feelings that you had for her and perhaps her image along the way. Most break up songs are written describing how terrible the other person turned out to be. In both ways you create a new image for this person but also destroy what their old image was, at least to you.

Though destruction is deemed as a negative concept, I would like to turn it into a positive one. A theme in my life that I am beginning to understand is that in order for a new self to be birthed a death to the old self must occur. My priest said that in order for him to become a married man he had to die to being a single man. In order to become a father he had to die to being a young adult.

This can go on and on and perhaps seems trite. I don’t think it is though. I think it is the very thing that we fear. Perhaps this is why so many marriages fail, because we never kill the single self. Sure, the married man and the single man can have certain things in common. Somewhere there exists a ven diagram of what a married man can do, what a single man can do, and what both can do. Different relationships vary but I’m sure there is some sort of ideal that exists to help marriages succeed. To kill the single self is to move completely out of that single circle and live fully in the married circle. Again, certain things may be able to come with but only if they already existed in the married circle.

The trick here, I’m sure is discerning what needs to be destroyed and what should not be destroyed. Satan is out there to destroy what is beautiful and Jesus is out there to destroy whatever is destroying us. Jesus said that whoever tries to hold on to his life will surely lose it and that whoever wants to live must die to himself.

Last night while I was playing volleyball at the park there was a storm for about 30 minutes, about an hour before sundown. As Denver does, the storm quickly passed and the clouds parted. Shortly after, there was the most beautiful sunset and two beautiful simultaneous rainbows. If you were parachuted into the scene it would have looked like a beautiful day without any weather. And for some reason, this thought lingered in my mind: At the core of creation we find destruction.

Overtipping at Subway

*I wrote this sometime in October of 2012*

I’ll never regret the $20 tip that I left for my 6 dollar subway sandwich. I had had a very long day and was heading home after music practice at around 9:45. I still hadn’t gotten dinner that night and was very hungry. Not terribly satisfied with the fact that Subway was about my only option, I went through the door to wait in line behind two women, who were ordering sandwiches. There was a girl working by herself. I quickly realized that she was probably less satisfied that she was closing up Subway at 10 pm than I was with the fact that I would be eating there for dinner.

Of course, I was engulfed in my iPhone checking to see if Reggie Bush had somehow scored a touchdown, as it would have had (very minimal) effect on my fantasy football match. I was awoken back to reality by the question “what kind of cheese do you want?” I looked up to her eye contact and felt really stupid for looking down at my phone while this young lady was just trying to make me a sandwich, whilst making two other sandwiches. She looked very haggard but her eyes didn’t tell me that she was complaining about the fact that she had to work. Perhaps my claims to being intuitive about people are just excuses to let me judge them.

I’m sure that Subway isn’t the worst job ever, but I imagined that this girl was about my age. I’m sure it’s a fine job for when you’re trying to make your way through school or something, but at the age of 25 it seems like there are so many other opportunities people would want to be taking advantage of. I’m definitely not judging her this time, who knows where her life has lead her?

Anyways, I live my life on a sort of modified cash budget. I pay for my groceries, bills, and gas all on my card, but any food I want to eat out, drinks I want to buy, or fun I want to have, I use cash. I put a certain amount of money in my wallet every Monday and when there is no more money, I don’t do any more things. Sometimes I break the rules a bit and will buy Sunday brunch on my debit card, but I often have to turn down fun when I’m out of money. I actually only had about 30 dollars left in my wallet on this night and there were still a few days left in the week, but I felt like this girl could maybe use something to brighten her evening.

I asked her, “Are you the only one left here tonight?” She replied that she was. I then gestured to the empty tip jar and said, “So you get all the tips?” She sort of smiled, laughing that there was no money in there. So I dropped my 20 dollar bill in the tip jar and wished her a good rest of her night. She was so contritely astounded. You see, I don’t live in the nicest area of town and I’m not sure that people with a lot of money are frequenting the Subway restaurants near my house, though I’m open to being wrong.  She said how I didn’t have to do that and how it was so nice and said “wow” in between about every one of those sentences. I didn’t want to make it a big deal so I smiled, said I insisted, and quickly left.

I know that 20 bucks isn’t a huge deal. It’s a bigger deal to me than a lot of people with better jobs than I have, but even to me it’s really not a huge deal, at least in the grand scheme of my life. I’m not going to look back in five years and say, I really could have used that 20 bucks! Not having that $20 has made money a little tighter for me this week. It’s a Saturday as I write this and I’m already planning on how I have to stay home tonight since I’m out of money! I wasn’t expecting God to somehow give me extra money since I was diligent with what I was given. In fact, I’ve actually had a few unexpected expenses come up in the past few days. What I do know, is that for a few moments on Thursday night I was able to write a good story for my life. Do I wish that I had $20 to go spend tonight on drinks and having fun with friends? Absolutely. But I guarantee that when I look back on this week, I won’t regret the fact that I had to stay home on Saturday night in order to give a 350% tip on my buffalo chicken sandwich.

Don't Call It a Comeback...I Never Left

Ok, actually I did leave. I haven't written here in a long time. Such a long time that my last post was on committing to a church that I am no longer committed to. It's not that there is anything wrong with the place, I suppose we just went in different directions.

I have written a fair amount in the last 18 months. I think I came to this place of feeling like if I couldn't blow anybody's mind then I wasn't doing it right. I am far from arrival when it comes to the destination of complete integration. I haven't started posting again because I have figured anything in my life out. I don't have a theme of what to write about such as musings on one that lives radically. Perhaps I'm beginning to find out that 25 yields much less knowledge then I was hoping for and more of a desire to learn.

 Like I said, I've written a fair amount in the last 18 months. I don't think I've come up with anything that nobody has ever though of before. I have found that I enjoy writing. When people ask me what I did on a morning that I had written and I told them I had been writing, they are usually surprised. I thought I would jump on the blog train again in hopes of quieting those surprises. I think it's good for any of us to keep the creative juices consistently flowing on regular basis.

I'm not committing to posting on any sort of regular basis. I've found that when I say, "I'm going to do this every monday whether you like it or not..." I end up not doing it. I'm still trying to get myself in the habit of doing shoulder rehab everyday. I'd just hope that this telling posting this one time might convince me to write a little bit more. I'd also hope that some of you might interact with me.

-Colter

Be Committed

As some of you may know, I recently went on staff at Refuge Community Church. It has been a long road for me since I moved to Denver, but I'm very happy as I begin my career in ministry.

Refuge is a small church. I really like the things that we are doing there but I won't tell you that we are following Jesus far better than every other church. I think that most people want to look at their church and say, "this is the best place there is to be." I'm not saying that Refuge is or isn't the best place to be, because I don't think we can really know where the best place to be is. I think that if you are looking for the best place to be, then you have already lost.

We are far from perfect. Both as people and as a church body. I will not say this is the best place in the world, but I will say that I am committed and I think that is what the church needs. I feel confident in saying that the people I attend church with are committed to Refuge. That's really all I want anymore. When Jesus had people come up and say that they want to follow, He didn't give them a good pitch as to why they should follow. He more discouraged them from following, warning that the road ahead would be rough and could lead to death. I believe that He did this because He wanted people that were committed. It is better to be committed and united as few than idle and divided as many, IMO.

There is no best place for you. Yes, there are churches where you might flourish more than others and churches where you might find life in God more than others. But a church is not the speaking style or the pastor or the production of the worship music. Find a place and be committed. Ask how you can make that church better. Better yet, just make that church better. I am sure that the staff won't be upset if you randomly show up early to help set up, make dinner for somebody in the congregation, or start a prayer group on Sundays after worship.

Come see the amazing Jesus and win a prize!

For those of you who don't know, I have begun an internship with Refuge Community Church. Part of my job description is to help establish a presence on a few college campuses in the Denver metro area. Being that Colorado Christian University is closest, we decided to start there. On Friday, CCU had a church fair so that incoming students could check out some of the churches in the area and see if there was one they might like to attend.

On my way to the fair I called Chris (pastor of Refuge) because he was running late. I asked him what I should put on the table. He told me to just wear my Refuge shirt and put out my business cards, we should go for the minimalistic thing. When I walked in, I found glorious church info tables everywhere. Every church there had massive signs, pretty table cloths with their names on them, pamphlets, handouts, magnets, and catchy Christian phrases (my favorite). Many churches were even giving away candy or other prizes. Clearly, I had come quite unprepared. The whole thing felt very weird and dirty.

I found the lady who was coordinating the event and she lead me to our designated area. However, we were unable to set up at our table because one of the churches had brought so much stuff that they had overwhelmed our table and there was no longer any room for us! I found that situation incredibly illustrative and hilarious. I was shown to a different table. I sat down, put out my business cards and threw an extra Refuge t-shirt on the table, so people could at least read our name.

The results of the day were amazing. We were one of the most popular tables and people consistently told me that they loved that we didn't have anything out trying to woo college students over to our table. I even had a few people say that this was their favorite set up and that they were immediately drawn to it. I told people throughout the day that I didn't think Jesus would throw candy at people in order to get them to follow. Just about everybody agreed, smiling that they didn't think He would do that either.

Is the gospel not good enough? If it is, are American Churches living out the gospel? Do we need to sweeten the deal with some fun size crunch bars? (if that's your approach then get real, because snickers is where it's at). Jesus had a man come up to Him and say, "I want to follow you." The softball of church questions. Jesus said, "Then go and sell everything you have." The man left and was very sad. Perhaps if He had given Him some candy and said, "let me tell you about our mission," things might have gone a bit better.

I'm not a Christian

So something interesting happened the other day. A few weeks ago I had to go to the hospital (SPOILER ALERT: I'm fine). I took an elbow to the head in basketball, five days later I was still in pain, parents convinced me to go to the ER, so I went.

Once I sat on the bed the nurse came in to ask me some questions. She started off with the normal questions, height, weight, celebrity look alike (I saw her pencil in Brad Pitt). Then a question I haven't normally heard in these types of situations came up. "Do you have a religious preference?" I'm not sure why, but I was taken back by the question and wasn't sure what to say. The first thing that came to my head was, Christian, but I hardly ever use that word to identify myself (I normally say that I am a follower of Jesus). The next thing that came to my head was to say, follower of Jesus but I wasn't sure if she had to check a box or write my answer in, and I was pretty sure there was no box that said, "follower of Jesus." The whole situation was getting too complicated in my head so I simply responded, "No, I don't."

We moved on as usual and I am guessing that she never caught the subtitle of the book I was reading which read, "What is Jesus worth to you?" The nurse exited after asking me everything she needed to know and I was left with my thoughts of why I had reacted in such a strange manner to her simple question and why someone who works in ministry identified as having no religious preference. I came to realize it is because the word Christian doesn't mean to the world what it means to me.

According to a very scholarly source (wikipedia) 76% of Americans identify themselves as Christians. To me, to be a Christian is no simple identity to take on. Peter Rollins writes a parable in which the world is in a battle with Christians. In his story, a man is on trial for being a Christian, which in this world is illegal, and the world holds the following stance; "The court is indifferent toward your Bible reading and church attendance; it has no concern for worship with words and a pen. Continue to develop your theology, and use it to paint pictures of love. We have no interest in such armchair artists who spend their time creating images of a better world. We exist only for those who would lay down that brush and their life, in a Christlike endeavor to create a better world. So, until you live as Christ and his followers did, until you challenge this system and become a thorn in our side, until you die to yourself and offer your body to the flames, until then, my friend, you are no enemy of ours."

That very last line really gets me, "Until then you are no enemy of ours." I get that and that resonates in my heart. To be a Christian, to be a follower of Jesus is to be an enemy of the world (see 1 John 2:15, Romans 12:2). If people heard the word Christian and were afraid of what it might mean, I might want to use it. I do have interest in reclaiming the word, but the last thing I believe that Jesus and his followers were was normal. I believe they were different in a challenging way, after all, most of them got killed.

I don't think that everybody needs to feel the same way that I do. However, that word means just about nothing in my mouth. If I could go back to the situation with the nurse, I wish I would have said something to the effect of, "well I am a follower of Jesus, but you can just write down Christian if you want."