Chunkwise, Some of Me

I am not a Theology Guy. Sometimes I begin thinking I am until I get into a conversation with a real theologian. Then, the entire time he's speaking, I can only think about doughnuts and how easily Jack Bauer could take out the dude.

I am not a Literature Guy, even though I have a couple of diplomas saying I am. Half the time I don't know what Literature Guys are talking about either. So much philosophy gets poured over literature that it all sort of falls apart in my hands. While Literature Guys are deconstructing the text, I'm sitting in the back of the room snickering over the fact that Chaucer talks about someone hanging his erse [sic] out the window and farting. The teacher calls on me and asks about Derrida and the text and all I can do is laugh and say, "He said 'fart.'"

"Uh, and Derrida?" she says.

"Uh, fart?" I say.

Different worlds, is all I'm saying.

I am not a Theology Guy. I am not a Literature Guy. But those are circles I enjoy. I'm a Simple Guy who loves life. I love theology that is strung out in beautiful stories. The concreteness of the life and passion of Jesus, His death and resurrection, is, to me, so much richer than discussing the abstraction that's been made of justification. I like Mark's gospel more than I do Paul's epistles. Sorry, Paul. Sorry, God. But in the gospels it all seems so radically different - simple and difficult and always-fresh all at once. Jesus says Love me, Follow me. And yet it's still so easy for me to get lost in all the Pauline chatter, and pretty soon I start to wonder if this Jesus fellow knew what He was talking about. I mean, the only time he talks about being justified is when he tells a story about some poor shmuck beating his chest, wrecked by sin, asking God to have mercy on him.

I am a Church Guy - I love the high ecclesiology and the beautiful symbolism of Catholicism. But I'm still not always so sure about being a Church Guy. It's all so new. And, besides, life was so much easier when no one thought I was a heretic. I'm kinda lazy when it gets down to it: downstream beats upstream any day of the week. That's in my book, at least.

I love a lot of what takes place in the emerging conversation - I might even call myself an emerging Catholic if I weren't so busy trying to scratch my way into heaven. And Foxe has been dead for a few years, so where would that leave my story?

I am, without question, not a Sports Guy. I pretty much hate sports. Not absolutely, of course, but talking sports is about as exciting to me as scraping off fresh dog poop from the tread of my Birkies.

That's some of me.

Someday I hope it can simply be said that I loved God and I loved people. Because I do and I want to. That's all, nothing less because there's nothing more.