2013 was a busy year for me. A lot happened!
To start with, I've had three jobs and three homes in three cities. I started the year living at with my parents in Colorado Springs and working at the local Walmart as a cashier. Quitting there in April without another job to go to, I was offered a position at the YMCA of the Rockies in Snow Mountain Ranch not one week later. I returned to live on campus there in what is technically Granby, Colorado--but practically the middle of nowhere. While working there as a janitor, I continued to seek work for an eventual move to Fort Collins, finding employment at JAX as a cashier. This prompted another move at the end of Septemeber, to my present job and my present home. I am happy with my job as it is now. The pay, hours, and work are all good, and the employer is absolutely amazing, an inspiration of servant leadership in action. My hope going into 2014 is to stay with this company in this city, though I may try to find other housing arrangements when my lease is up this summer.
The three moves necessitated three churches, which has made connecting with other Christians difficult, but I have made a few friends among my brothers and sisters that I'm proud to call my own. Much attention throughout the year actually focused on one church, Summitview Community Church, which I had attended while in college. At the beginning of the year, I was reeling from having been kicked out of a small group in that church's college ministry (the Rock) for a conflict which was supposedly all my fault. The previous summer, I had found out that the conflict was largely due to emotional purity and leadership mishandling of the situation--and that the Great Commission Church movement of which Summitview is a part had confessed to mishandling similar conflicts in the same way over 21 years ago. At the beginning of the year, I was on the "De-Commissioned Forum" made for and by ex-members of the GCC, including several newcomers from Summitview and the Rock. While there, I stumbled upon an article by the current leader of the GCC, John Hopler, and took exception to it, contacting him to voice my criticism. To my surprise, he responded and publicly apologized. Hopler worked tirelessly to get me in touch with the pastor of Summitview and the people I had been in conflict with the year previous. As a result of his efforts, I was put in touch with the leader who'd given me the boot and the young woman who'd thought it necessary to protect her emotional purity. Both apologized and the work of repairing these broken relationships began. Unfortunately, in late June any hope of restoring some semblance of Christian love and unity with the young woman was lost when she sent me a sudden accusatory email (wherein she alleged that I was harassing her by trying to be friends with her, which she'd said she wanted to be, and by trying to resolve a conflict between us she'd said was bothering her--but of course admitted it would not be harassment if I was a girl) and cut all contact between us. Though fellowship with her was ruined, I still felt I had reconciled with leadership of Summitview and the Rock and could return to both without problems. I was wrong. The young woman was already a member of both and was unwilling to share mutual friends and relationships, and leadership was still quite willing to take her side under the dictates of emotional purity. By the end of November, I realized that even though my own position had changed and I was willing to allow the young woman to ignore me and have no fellowship with me as she pleased, the leadership's position had not changed and the young woman's position had only crystallized beyond absurdity. In a final meeting, positions on the understanding of God's will that the leaders had specifically disavowed only a few months ago were reaffirmed (specifically, the position that a Christian should listen to their peers and leaders moreso than the Spirit directly speaking to them). I walked out of that meeting and left that church. I posted a defense regarding the emotional-purity based accusations which had been made of me and began to seek a new church.
All of this led to a lot of spiritual and emotional turmoil for me. As my posts this year reflect, God has been speaking to me consistently about the importance of love and unity and I have tried consistently to pursue these things with the young woman, the Rock, and Summitview. I have learned the value of such love and unity in their absence. I have also learned that achieving them is something that must be accomplished with conscious effort by all parties involved, or not at all. One party was definitely not interested, and so unity was broken. But that wasn't the only thing I learned. I learned what sort of a man I am, what I'm capable of, and whom I follow. I learned I am a good man, committed to love and unity, that I am capable of pursuing these causes far beyond the point where others would have given up, and that I follow God and none other, no matter what. One of the leaders of the Rock said he was praying this would be a watershed decision for me, to build me up for days ahead. I do not pretend to know what kind of character he was hoping for, but I am pleased by how my character has developed through my seven year trial. It bodes well for my ability to face whatever is to come, I think. Nevertheless, I am glad that the trial is over and that the Rock and the young woman are behind me now.
I move on to other trials. Beginning in June of this year, I began to read the Book of Mormon, taking seriously its challenge to read and study it, and putting to the test its claim to be comparable to the Bible. The Comparable to the Bible Series was born. While the actual business of seeing if the Book of Mormon measures up to the Bible has been a dismal failure (14 posts and most of one book in, and I can already say with certainty that the Book of Mormon isn't remotely in the same league as the Bible), the business of writing them and reading the Book of Mormon has been a success. I have grown tremendously in my appreciation of the Bible and Christianity by comparing them with their fraudulent counterparts. Additionally, the business has now put me in touch with a number of Mormon missionaries and given me an opportunity to present the gospel to them.
In other writing news, I finished my draft of my first-to-be-published fantasy novel this year and put it up for Open Beta, gathering reader feedback in preparation for a round of editing this coming summer, followed by publication! I am very excited about this. In the wake of this project's completion, I've turned my attention to other ventures. I've completed two Star Trek Online fan fiction stories, with a third underway, as well as a novel-length fan fiction for The Secret World (all of which can be found here). I've also spent a lot of time working on worldbuilding and backstory for an original dystopian military science fiction. I even have a partial draft for a short story set in that universe, which I plan to continue and finish. Speaking of things I have plans to continue, there's my old webcomic, "Dragon Hunt". Long neglected on the back-burner, I worked out a script for the rest of chapter 4 earlier this summer and found it again today. On New Year's Eve I also managed to recover the critical files for restarting the comic. I also know how to overcome the technical hurdles which caused it to stop being produced last time around (I could not get my computer to render crowd scenes, but now I can just make a bunch of separate renders of different people and combine them to get a large crowd). The only thing left is actually sitting down and doing the renders and postwork--which means the adventures of Bill and Lia should be returning soon.
So looking back, 2013 was a busy year and a hard year in many ways, but overall, a good one. I look forward to discovering what 2014 will bring!
To start with, I've had three jobs and three homes in three cities. I started the year living at with my parents in Colorado Springs and working at the local Walmart as a cashier. Quitting there in April without another job to go to, I was offered a position at the YMCA of the Rockies in Snow Mountain Ranch not one week later. I returned to live on campus there in what is technically Granby, Colorado--but practically the middle of nowhere. While working there as a janitor, I continued to seek work for an eventual move to Fort Collins, finding employment at JAX as a cashier. This prompted another move at the end of Septemeber, to my present job and my present home. I am happy with my job as it is now. The pay, hours, and work are all good, and the employer is absolutely amazing, an inspiration of servant leadership in action. My hope going into 2014 is to stay with this company in this city, though I may try to find other housing arrangements when my lease is up this summer.
The three moves necessitated three churches, which has made connecting with other Christians difficult, but I have made a few friends among my brothers and sisters that I'm proud to call my own. Much attention throughout the year actually focused on one church, Summitview Community Church, which I had attended while in college. At the beginning of the year, I was reeling from having been kicked out of a small group in that church's college ministry (the Rock) for a conflict which was supposedly all my fault. The previous summer, I had found out that the conflict was largely due to emotional purity and leadership mishandling of the situation--and that the Great Commission Church movement of which Summitview is a part had confessed to mishandling similar conflicts in the same way over 21 years ago. At the beginning of the year, I was on the "De-Commissioned Forum" made for and by ex-members of the GCC, including several newcomers from Summitview and the Rock. While there, I stumbled upon an article by the current leader of the GCC, John Hopler, and took exception to it, contacting him to voice my criticism. To my surprise, he responded and publicly apologized. Hopler worked tirelessly to get me in touch with the pastor of Summitview and the people I had been in conflict with the year previous. As a result of his efforts, I was put in touch with the leader who'd given me the boot and the young woman who'd thought it necessary to protect her emotional purity. Both apologized and the work of repairing these broken relationships began. Unfortunately, in late June any hope of restoring some semblance of Christian love and unity with the young woman was lost when she sent me a sudden accusatory email (wherein she alleged that I was harassing her by trying to be friends with her, which she'd said she wanted to be, and by trying to resolve a conflict between us she'd said was bothering her--but of course admitted it would not be harassment if I was a girl) and cut all contact between us. Though fellowship with her was ruined, I still felt I had reconciled with leadership of Summitview and the Rock and could return to both without problems. I was wrong. The young woman was already a member of both and was unwilling to share mutual friends and relationships, and leadership was still quite willing to take her side under the dictates of emotional purity. By the end of November, I realized that even though my own position had changed and I was willing to allow the young woman to ignore me and have no fellowship with me as she pleased, the leadership's position had not changed and the young woman's position had only crystallized beyond absurdity. In a final meeting, positions on the understanding of God's will that the leaders had specifically disavowed only a few months ago were reaffirmed (specifically, the position that a Christian should listen to their peers and leaders moreso than the Spirit directly speaking to them). I walked out of that meeting and left that church. I posted a defense regarding the emotional-purity based accusations which had been made of me and began to seek a new church.
All of this led to a lot of spiritual and emotional turmoil for me. As my posts this year reflect, God has been speaking to me consistently about the importance of love and unity and I have tried consistently to pursue these things with the young woman, the Rock, and Summitview. I have learned the value of such love and unity in their absence. I have also learned that achieving them is something that must be accomplished with conscious effort by all parties involved, or not at all. One party was definitely not interested, and so unity was broken. But that wasn't the only thing I learned. I learned what sort of a man I am, what I'm capable of, and whom I follow. I learned I am a good man, committed to love and unity, that I am capable of pursuing these causes far beyond the point where others would have given up, and that I follow God and none other, no matter what. One of the leaders of the Rock said he was praying this would be a watershed decision for me, to build me up for days ahead. I do not pretend to know what kind of character he was hoping for, but I am pleased by how my character has developed through my seven year trial. It bodes well for my ability to face whatever is to come, I think. Nevertheless, I am glad that the trial is over and that the Rock and the young woman are behind me now.
I move on to other trials. Beginning in June of this year, I began to read the Book of Mormon, taking seriously its challenge to read and study it, and putting to the test its claim to be comparable to the Bible. The Comparable to the Bible Series was born. While the actual business of seeing if the Book of Mormon measures up to the Bible has been a dismal failure (14 posts and most of one book in, and I can already say with certainty that the Book of Mormon isn't remotely in the same league as the Bible), the business of writing them and reading the Book of Mormon has been a success. I have grown tremendously in my appreciation of the Bible and Christianity by comparing them with their fraudulent counterparts. Additionally, the business has now put me in touch with a number of Mormon missionaries and given me an opportunity to present the gospel to them.
In other writing news, I finished my draft of my first-to-be-published fantasy novel this year and put it up for Open Beta, gathering reader feedback in preparation for a round of editing this coming summer, followed by publication! I am very excited about this. In the wake of this project's completion, I've turned my attention to other ventures. I've completed two Star Trek Online fan fiction stories, with a third underway, as well as a novel-length fan fiction for The Secret World (all of which can be found here). I've also spent a lot of time working on worldbuilding and backstory for an original dystopian military science fiction. I even have a partial draft for a short story set in that universe, which I plan to continue and finish. Speaking of things I have plans to continue, there's my old webcomic, "Dragon Hunt". Long neglected on the back-burner, I worked out a script for the rest of chapter 4 earlier this summer and found it again today. On New Year's Eve I also managed to recover the critical files for restarting the comic. I also know how to overcome the technical hurdles which caused it to stop being produced last time around (I could not get my computer to render crowd scenes, but now I can just make a bunch of separate renders of different people and combine them to get a large crowd). The only thing left is actually sitting down and doing the renders and postwork--which means the adventures of Bill and Lia should be returning soon.
So looking back, 2013 was a busy year and a hard year in many ways, but overall, a good one. I look forward to discovering what 2014 will bring!
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