Following Christ isn’t for the meek. It is for those who are walking point. You probably know, but on the chance that you don’t, walking point is the task of marching at the front looking for the enemy. I know you know. But I don’t know who reads the crap I post. So give it a rest, ok.
In ‘merica, in the year 2025, vox populi is not tolerant of risk. The voice says we are to sing from a very limited hymnal. The hymns praise 毛澤東, bemoan evil WHITE PEOPLE, and blame all ills on those outside the tribe. It is the outsiders that must come to heel and abase themselves as reparations for their innate evil. Once outsiders come correct Eden will be restored to its pre-fall paradise free of risk.
Over two thousand years ago a Nazarene stone mason began to teach. His followers called him a rabbi even though he was uneducated. Established teachers and followers of דרכו של משה רבנו said the words he taught were blasphemous. Rome worried this stone mason threatened their control over יִשְׂרָאֵל.
Spear Tip
I only give myself 1500 words in one post. So everything that can be said about יֵשׁוּעַ won’t fit in this space. He returned home to sit at the right hand of אלוהים האב over two-thousand years ago. We are still writing about him. דברי ישוע עדיין מטרידים את העולם.
יֵשׁוּעַ walked point. He died and rose again on the third day. It was his most egregious act of defiance. Even death could not stop the message God sent him to deliver. Still true today that you can kill the messenger but the message is immortal.
So you say you follow Christ. Do you? How devout are you? Are you enough? Is your devotion free from sin? Could you cast the first stone? You cannot? Why not?
פעל לפי תורת משה
I have a phrase for the zealots devoted to Karl Marx and 毛澤東—Woke True Folk. If we would just follow their law all the promises of Abrahamic religions post apocalypse would ensue. Problem is, without grace and post-fall, we can’t פעל לפי החוק הקדוש של מאו דזה דונג any better than we did לפי חוק משה. Jesus autem adhuc opus.
So that’s great. Tell myself and anyone reading this that authentic discipleship means accepting the risk inherent in walking point. A true disciple will completely rely on Christ. Uh huh. In a LARPing utopia all the support trades would be invisible. Things would just work and those doing the work wouldn’t be visible. We live here, in this messy and conflicting world where evil is extant. Somebody has to clean the latrines.
Your fealty to lex mosis doesn’t matter when it’s your job to pump the shit out of the portable outhouse tank. Nobody cares what your adjectives are or your intersectionality score. Nor do they care how many times you went to confession this week. We just want the outhouse serviced, thank you very much.
Shit Pumper
Totalists care. Totalists judge you as the cause of their misery. It is objective truth that you are a failure, an embarrassment to the tribe. They be some rather miserable folk. This doesn’t have to be.
I hope you agree that a popular singer had a hard road to the Billboard Hot 100. They didn’t just pop out of their Mom a million song selling pop star. The struggle is real. Also, there is something for everyone to do. Not everyone can occupy that small circle in the spotlight. Shit pumping is good money.
To be recognized on the Billboard Hot 100 takes thousands of hours of practice. Even then there are no guarantees. Most people that attempt this never get beyond the annual Midnight Mass recital. Pump shit during the week then in the off-hours attend choir practice, Wednesday Fellowship, a missional tourist trip or two, church retreats, and so on. It’s a good life.
On Point
I don’t mean anyone behind the one walking point is a failure. That’s a rather totalist take on this. Nor is it good to shoot the one walking point because he or she is too bougie. We elected two proletariat Presidents and put a potential third on the ballot. That went well.
This is why I made you read a 500 words–following Christ is a skill you can master. It’s an old point of mine: that we are as good as we can be at every point of our lives while also needing to be better. Talent is part of this. Those with talent have an easier time becoming accomplished. The rest of us will just have to work harder.
A need to work harder is a gift of grace. It gives us purpose and some mercy if we aren’t as skilled as we wish to be. We won’t all walk point. But we can keep growing in our discipleship even if we never get Billboard Hot 100 good.
Walking Point Because We Want To
I’m one of the romantics. Someone who decides to walk point because out front feels right to us. We know the risks, heard the shouts of “you are going to get shot!”, and volunteered anyway. This space is about 560,000 words. I have a B.A. in English Literature. So I have some training. The rest is decades of false starts, battling anxieties and grind.
I’ve lost this space because I couldn’t afford the hosting bill. I had worldofwebb.org and lost it. There were 250 posts in a lost version of this blog. At every loss I could have walked away and finished out another anonymous foot soldier. There would be no shame in it.
Just a blessing of giftedness isn’t enough. Even the talented still need to train, get educated, and grind. The recognized masters I respect still don’t feel like they are done growing. We look at their work and are amazed. The result of their efforts comes from both gifts and hard work.
Exploding the Curve
Then . . . יֵשׁוּעַ. Oh My God. Talent doesn’t begin to explain the Son of God’s interpretation of the law. John 14:6, “Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Excuse me? Who the heck is this stone mason from Nazareth? Who does he think he is, God?
That’s Level Holy Crap! insane walking point. The claims of Jesus were enough to get him crucified. God had tried over thousands of years to get His people to follow the Law. They would, for a while. And then they’d stop.
So . . . here is the question—how close to the front of the patrol are you willing to march? Christian history is replete with saints who walked point and died. Saying you want to walk point is crazy stupid risky. It’s much safer at the rear. The mess tent has better food.
Yes and Amen
There are two narrative threads that run through my genealogy. They are the romantics and the workers. I am a romantic. Lecture me about how stupid it is to walk point and send back reconnaissance and a piece of me just gets happy. Ask me, “would you rather spend a day writing or working a day job,” and I’m conflicted. I’d rather spend a day writing but if the price is a warm house and a full fridge . . . maybe a day job instead.
I’ve answered altar calls multiple times. Christ appeared to me in a vision when I was fourteen. A recurring topic in this space is my life as a disciple of Jesus. I’ve drifted away from Him. But nothing beats those orange, coconut and pineapple Jello molds from my youth. They taste like home.
It’s why my life runs in rhythms. Every three months or so I run to an end where I fear losing everything. I fire up the laptop and write more moaning dirges about a new address in a shopping cart. It’s easy to be an authentic writer because there is nothing else going on in my life.
Poor Fit
Then I get hungry enough for church lady orange jello and return to the work needed to keep my house, the lights on, and a full fridge. An offer of a day job comes to me and I accept it. Life resumes the 60Hz thrum of normie life. I can dream again about walking point.
The ambitions expressed in my dreams are like Odysseus’ sirens. They call to me and I’m too weak to resist. I get restless and as another quarter closes I’m singing that my true calling is tapping out letters on a keyboard. Here we go again. I’m the king of the world! Ok, Alan.
Some of us can’t march at the rear. We call cadences in weird and changing key signatures. Our steps syncopate. We are walking point because out front is where we are most useful. Ok, maybe the use is as a bullet bag. Maybe it’s to warn the company of what’s coming. But out front we find our purpose.