a journey

When I was in junior high and high school I didn't really see where I fit. Through my eyes I did not see people like me. I would look at history books or hear stories about people who succeeded at doing this or that, but they were not me. I would look at family and church and see those that were 'successful' as being the preachers. That was not for me.

An insecure ball of feelings, deep emotions, desires and superficial dreams.

Rock and Roll!

I would go home and turn on Mtv the radio and hear myself in these people. I was empathetic with them.

I tried to live life similarly to how I perceived those people who I connected with lived there’s.

They were also perceived to be successful. Something that I did not picture myself ever being.

I never did quite fit in with everyone that I got high with. Existed with. They didn't care about anything. I only pretended not to.

We got pregnant

How do I love? Where do I look for success here? Where do I, in my current reality, find someone I connect with or perceive to be successful at loving?

Mom, Dad and Christ

My own experience of love at home mixed with my own experience and all I knew about Christ left only Christ to look to. Our only companion for this new journey. (Christ that I experience in my parents and others as well)

In trying to model myself and allowing my heart to be modeled after Christ's I began to love much more than just my own family. How do I go about helping this world? How do I go about helping The Church? So many of us have missed the point! About life. About love. About the mission of the Church. It's all about love! Doing it and experiencing it. His love in us for each other.

Being the insecure person that I am I have looked for my path to be plotted out for me. I have, subconsciously, tried to mimic your's or his or her life.

I need to return to, not even mimicking Christ's life, but letting go of myself to allowing Him to live in and through me.

"We must become the change we want to see." - Ghandi (and Joshua Rudd(?))

All of my life I have been the little brother. The tag along. A follower. A layperson as apposed to a leader. Never quite fitting in or being excepted. Even in my church. My wife has the same problem in church although she is definitely not a follower.

I pray that God takes me and guides me and my family, as individuals and as a unit, into the mission and purpose he has for us. I know that to be loving.

My ego wants me to stop being the little brother and the one who's different and doesn't quite fit in and to start being a 'leader'. I want to have a degree and a cool job that you envy or admire. I want to be able to write well so you think I'm smart. I want to have something big and profound to say.

Forget all that though. More than any of it I desire that change in me and in the world. And the only thing that little Scotty can do is to be that change. My house a sanctuary. My family a church. Our lives a mission. That mission love.

It's not big and important by the world standards, but whether you are white, black, red, have spots, gay, straight, modern, postmodern, male, female, confused, sick, well, republican, democrat, Muslim, Christian, atheist, Hindu, upper, middle, lower, no-class, Southern Baptist or Catholic, you need love.

"Live simply that others may simply live." - Mohandas K. Gandhi

"You shall love your neighbor as yourself." - Jesus