The New Humanity

All good discourses seem to start with a story. Here's some of mine.
I had grand plans for this semester, and they were simply to make sure I graduate on time. Unfortunately, that is probably not going to happen. And I'm okay with that. I'm alright with a GPA that doesn't reflect my intelligence, a reputation that doesn't reflect who I am, and with being a big screwup. Because people that have it all together must live some pretty boring lives.
In the big picture, what really matters is how I live. And I can't live a lie any longer. I can not be a person I am not, even if that means that I don't necessarily fit with very many things. I'm okay with having a niche, and I'm very much okay with not really knowing where my life is going and eventually not being the best at what I do. It doesn't really matter, because what matters is who I am.
I'm supposed to be a person that loves everyone for who they are, including myself. I fail at doing that a lot in all cases, including in loving God how He deserves. But perfection isn't my life. Living in death is. Giving up and letting God's strength shine through in my weakness is. Being a modernist, postmodernist, existentialist, Christian, philosopher, theologian, psychologist, intellectual, emergent, liberal, conservative, "goth," Dark Boy...
I just don't care what I am anymore. It does not matter. The chips will fall where they may, and I will keep being who I am, which is a person made just as I am that screws up a lot and doesn't show the love he believes so strongly in how he's supposed to. I'll keep creating categories, systematizing the things I know and trying to find out more, and I'll keep trying to exist in a way that is right and true, even if I fail at it so many times. I'll keep thinking about the things of God, and I'll keep writing my thoughts down, because they burst from me forcibly if I don't write them. Maybe those thoughts will get published one day and a lot of people can read what I think.
That would be funny, frankly. But I would hope it would be filled with the hope I am given, the hope that has nothing at all to do with my turbulent and messed up emotions, the hope that has nothing to do with my intellectual doubts, skepticism, system of beliefs, or lack thereof. That hope is that Love exists, and its' nature is one of Truth.
If I can live for that, it doesn't matter what category I go in, whether I can make a difference in any way anyone can discern, or what exactly my beliefs are. Jesus did not spend years trying to put himself in a category of rabbi (which is what he was). He lived. He existed true to himself. He was plain about who he was, but he never tried to create a reputation. A good name is not what Jesus was after. He was called a drunkard, a glutton, a blasphemer, a liar, insane, and the public at large didn't know who he really was, just a bunch of rumors. He kept living rather than tried to correct them. I don't think he ever once regretted the incarnation or laying down his power. He lived in peace and love, and was killed for it by the religious establishment, which chose to hate him for not fitting in their paradigm. He didn't care, he conquered death and forgave them all for wronging him.
How am I supposed to be like that? Truly, only God himself could have such love as to go through all of that and still pursue us endlessly and relentlessly. I can not think of a single person that can love that relentlessly, least of all myself. Jesus the Messiah is the Prince of Peace indeed.
I've struggled with many things at TFC. Reputation, misconception, negative attitudes, insults, gossip, disapproval, disagreement, argument, unfair situations, rumors...name it. In the end, those things don't matter in light of the New Humanity. Not even my chronic depression and my life that is seemingly becoming a huge mess matters in the light of who Jesus is. This is me forgiving and forgetting for as long as my fickle heart will allow, because I honestly don't care anymore. I don't have the strength to care, and I no longer have the will.
I care more about being the person I am supposed to be than making sure everyone knows who that is. I care more about friendships and treating people with love, as their intrinsic worth demands, than with trying to correct ways I've been wronged and/or get revenge. I care more about making sure people know I am listening to them than trying to communicate some "truth" I supposedly have. I care more about understanding God better than trying to make sure my philosophy and theology are right on. I care more that I've made someone's day better than what I get out of that. I care more about love than my selfish desires, which are still very much there, and will continue to hold sway on many days.
Surely, I am still the person you all know. But that's not the person you knew yesterday, and it's definitely not the person you knew last year or when I first came to TFC. Almost everything about me has changed, and it is continuing to do so.
If there is one constant about me, it's that nothing ever is constant. If there can possibly be another, it's that I try very hard to be a person like Christ, and I fail spectacularly and frequently. You can all cite at least one example, I am sure.
Jesus lived a certain way. It's not like he thought about a set of rules and obeyed them. He was himself, and being God incarnate, that was good and true. Since them, people slurred "Christians" have tried to do the same thing, because something about how Jesus lived got to them. It might have been the love that would make him leave wherever he was and come here just to see us, hang out with us, and promise us, the bride, that he'd come for us. It might have been the way Jesus spoke and used story after story to communicate something he just couldn't put plainly because our heads would explode, but we keep seeing glimpses of, and how that resonates with who we know we were created to be. It might be how Jesus chose death over power, Love over safety, and Truth over mediocrity, and then took death, the constant of mortality and humanity's folly, and broke it beyond repair with a new life.
The early Christians, far before the word "Christian," called this "The New Humanity." A new way to be human. Existing for something more. Power in weakness, strength in humility, honor in all things, truth in spirit, love in existence, and a whole lot of messing everything up and profaning anything and everything sacred with our foolishness.
A rejection of reductionistic religion, the radical idea that reality can't be just what everyone says it is.
And people are still reductionists. Somehow, after all of the glimpses of ultimate reality, all of the confusion and astonishment and wonder of pondering what Jesus says, after being unable to understand how Kenosis or Resurrection or the Trinity works, we still create and zealously, bloodily, and hatefully defend systems that have taken the place of "Truth." And, dare I say it, "Biblical Truth?"
Regardless of the religious establishments of today, the New Humanity still lives, because Jesus still lives.
I have no monopoly on Truth or on Love, I merely try my hardest to find them everywhere and in every way I possibly can. Join me?