Of Os

On Tuesday of the week past, we at the TFA enjoyed a visit from Dr. Os Guinness. Some of you are excited to hear this, others are wondering who Os is. Well, Os is a remarkable man: he has a PhD in the social sciences from Oxford, he has authored more than 20 books--most of which are centered around astute cultural analysis-- he is a wonderful and warm speaker and conversationalist, and his family is the namesake of the Guinness brewery. So I had plenty of reasons to be excited about Os's visit, but it turned out to be even better than I anticipated.

Os set up his talk by putting into perspective the uniqueness of our present age in the context of human history. He listed many factors that make our period of time unprecedented, but the foremost was this: we in the West have greater choice than any human society before us has ever possessed. What does this mean? Throughout most of human history, people's lives were mostly determined by circumstances beyond their control. Where you would live, what you would believe, and whom you would marry were largely determined by where you were born.

But in the wealthy consumer culture of the modern West, we have unprecedented self-determination. Those lifestyle choices that used to be determined by birthplace are now matters of individual preference. Do you want to live in Haiti? Then move there. Do you want to be a Buddhist? Read the “How to become a Buddhist” guide on Wikihow, and go for it. Even our sex can be changed if we have the money for surgery. We have the money and technology to remake ourselves into virtually anyone we want, and our culture does not give us any clear directions on what we should do with that freedom.

Rather than liberating, though, the result of this freedom tends to be confusion and identity crisis. My generation, my peers—we do not know who we are, and we have a very difficult time determining who to be. As Joni Mitchell says, there is a level of “crazy you get with too much choice.” And I think Os and Joni are right about this. Nietzsche spoke of the power to self-create as the ultimate freedom; but what I see in my own life and the lives of my peers is that this “freedom” tends to act more like a cage than a liberator. For two reasons: 1) there are no agreed-upon answers to the questions of identity. Who should you be? No one can say, so you are left alone in a noisy universe to decide who to be, and 2) even with all this power to be self-determining, we are still unable to change a lot of things about ourselves that we would like to make different—our fears, longings, weaknesses and needs.

What will help us in this situation, this identity confusion my peers and I were born into? Well, Os’s response is one word, but it is not simple. His answer is Calling. Even as I type this, though, I know it sounds trite. "Calling, what's that?" It looks like some Christian-ese word loaded with connotations that are apparent to no one save a select few. Well, it is a kind of squishy concept in some ways. But I think it is worth your time and mine to try to make sense of it. I hope I can unpack the set of concepts in that loaded word over the rest of this entry and the next.

Calling is the intersection of purpose and identity. Discovering a Calling is discovering who you are now, who you are meant to become, what you should work toward and hope for. Sounds good, doesn't it? But how on earth does anyone get a solid set of answers to such questions?

Os argued that in the kingdom of God we have the option to either a) reject God and go our own way or b) accept God’s love and give our lives to him for his purposes. There is no third option “C” in which we accept God’s love and yet go our own way. Thus, everyone who claims Christ also has a call on his or her life. "Come, follow me," Jesus said.

But what does that mean for me today? What does it mean for me or you to be a Christian and accept God’s calling on our lives? How do I go from being just another person trying to live my life, pay my bills, and avoid loneliness to being someone who lives with purpose and identity before God? Does this all sound like fancy words from a whimsical religious world?

These are questions that have burned in my head for the last couple of years. And only in the last month of my life have I started to see some clear answers. Os’s talk added come clarity to a set of ideas that was already starting to coalesce around me. I will take up those in my next post. I hope to explain what has been swimming in my head this summer and what I am trying to figure out while I’m here at TFA.

That next post will be up soon. But until then, let me know what you think. Do you think Os is right? Especially I ask this of my peers: do you think that we recent college grads suffer from some of the "crazy you get with too much choice"? Do you think there's a real issue of identity confusion in your life or in the lives of your friends? I think I see it, but I'd like to know what you think.

Oh, and the song I wrote a week ago is now recorded and available at kevandem.com. My new friend Brad Bell here at the TFA engineered the recording, so it's a bit more polished than some of my other recordings. Thanks, Brad! Thanks also to Kevin and Emily Smith--two of my favorite people on earth. They have agreed to host the audio file. I hope you enjoy it. Feedback is always welcome.

This is Wandering

I arrived in Maryland on the wings of Hurricane Ernesto and 5 days without a visible sun. Those who know me understand that this is a daunting way for me to begin my time in a new place: sunless weather tends to deliver depression on my doorstep. Fortunately, however, the pace of the first 3 days did not allow much time for the sort of self-reflection from which despair blooms. In fact, my initiation into the community life of the Trinity Forum Academy has been punctuated with joy, excitement, and contentment.

The eleven “fellows” who have committed to spend the next 9 months at the TFA with me are the sort of people that inspire and encourage. By all counts they are intelligent, sociable, and self-motivated—the kind of people who will make our close-knit community both lively and constructive. That said, at this point most of my estimations of the community and the people are just that: estimations, projections of what will be. So while I am bolster by thoughts of the kind of community that we are creating, I still do not really have any sense of knowing or being known here.

We are a fun bunch. We laugh loudly and share stories of ridiculous things we have done with friends in other stages of life. And though I am a prominent participant in the mirth and beauty produced by our times of fellowship, I have withdrawn quickly many times afterward. I have spent a lot of time isolated in the Chapel taking stock of my demeanor—wondering at how I can feel deeply connected at one moment only to feel utterly alone in the next. These are the stark contrasts of my new life in Maryland: I have felt alive and engaged in a new and exciting way, but I have also felt the pangs of loneliness that I thought were buried artifacts of my freshman year in college.

I do not think I am alone in these feelings. Although no one has said as much to me, I suspect when I see other fellows quietly retreating away from the group that they are dealing with similar mysteries in their souls. I hope so. My struggles have forced me to seek refuge in my heavenly father and friend, and he has proven faithful to meet me in distress.

The sun came out on Sunday, helping to make my Sabbath a needed source of hope and rejuvenation. I spent the entire afternoon in the Chapel and outdoors reading scripture, praying, and writing a new song. The new tune, my first in several months, is about loneliness and love: I think they are both overworked words that we use, for lack of better descriptions, to categorize the most confusing experiences of our souls. I am happy with the song. Do any of you know a good way I could host an mp3 recording on this blog?

On this site I intend to share explorations of my personal and interpersonal experiences here at the TFA, but I also plan to provide a window into the academic study I do here. And already, Dallas Willard’s The Spirit of the Disciplines has begun shaping my thoughts concerning the Christian life. I will post another article shortly containing that set of thoughts.

For now, however, I will close. I hope I have painted an honest and somewhat clear image of my thoughts. I want you to know my excitement and joy, but I want you to understand how frail and scared I can be, as well. That’s all from Maryland today.