Contemplative Comics day 94

Fired guy 3/11

“The path to salvation is the path of humiliation.”

— Jonathan Martin (How to Survive a Ship Wreck (2016)

Contemplative Comics day 93

Fired guy 2/11

“It is possible to fail, and not have our faith fail us. It is possible to lose our lives, and not lose our souls.”

— Jonathan Martin (How to Survive a Shipwreck, 2016)

Contemplative Comics day 92

Fired guy 1/11

When you are making a daily comic and a bomb gets dropped on you… well, I had to take a break. I actually stopped making the comic from this point until December 1st. I always intended to come back to it, so I journaled. And I journaled. And I journaled.

When the time came to go back and finish November… I hated everything that I had written. None of it felt right. I did not want to use any of the notes I made. I was nervous about being unfair to people who had been friends because I was hurt by their decisions. I was right to feel hurt. I was right to be angry for a time. I was right to lose trust. But I would not be right to lash out, point fingers, cause division, or make sharp cut downs in my pain.

I decided not to go into details. Honestly, they’re boring anyway. “Non-denom church has smart, talented people who were immature church leaders (of which I was included) and made decisions that hurt people.” A fairly common story. Not very original.

So I came up with these 11 comics that I feel are an incredibly accurate depiction of what it felt like to get fired from my position of Pastor of Mobilization at Brick City Church and lose my community.

Contemplative Comics day 91

The Great War saw the death of 9 million soldiers with another 25 million wounded.

It also saw the death of 5 million civilians.

“The war to end all wars” would give way to another, more destructive global conflict only 20 years later.

As a Christian, I don’t know what to do with nationalist holidays. I don’t have a flag. I don’t say the pledge or sing the National Anthem. I usually keep quiet about this. It is a faith decision. It isn’t something I feel compelled to push on others. I don’t feel that my theology makes me morally superior to anyone.

I don’t think Christians belong in the military, or possibly even law enforcement. I don’t even believe Christians should carry guns.

Yet many wonderful Christians I am friends with do all of these things, and I greatly love and respect them.

(Ironically, I will likely inherit several family rifles, and I am totally fine with hunting.)

I don’t make it a habit of celebrating war. There haven’t been many wars that I think were fought for very good reasons.

I hold the value of human life dearly. The majority of our soldiers are just normal folks serving for a variety of reasons, holding a variety of ideologies and values. Often they are people from rural small towns like the place I am from. Many are from unimportant families or lower classes trying to find their way and make something of themselves. I am from the generation that was told college was everything to be a person of value and the military fought hard to get us to join in order to pay for that college (a small event you may remember from September of 2001 put an end to this particular style of recruitment, at least for a while).

These regular folks who make up our military don’t decide who fights in the war or what the rules are.

They didn’t decide to come home with physical and mental injuries or in coffins wrapped in flags.

They didn’t decide to spend their adulthood battling PTSD.

They didn’t decide it would be awesome to have to fight for insurance to help cover the effects of serving their county.

They didn’t decide to come home totally whole and healthy while good friends they served with didn’t come home at all.

They’re just folks.

Today, I remember, honor, and pray for those folks.

May the families who have lost their children to war find peace in Jesus.

May the families who have lost their parents to war find hope in Jesus.

May those who have come back from war find healing in Jesus.

May those who are currently serving find shelter in Jesus.

Amen.

Contemplative Comics day 90

A few nerdy thoughts on these comics I love…

1. Will Eisner is one of the most amazing comic book storytellers who ever lived. Few things bring me as much joy as stumbling across an old Kitchen Sink Press floppy of The Spirit in a comic shop or thrift store.

2. I will never grow tired of telling folks how amazing Usagi Yojimbo is, and how kind and thoughtful Stan Sakai is.

3. I may or may not have blazed through about 75 episodes of Lore since mid-September, and now that I have a better understanding of lots of the folklore that inspired some of the Hellboy storylines, I am itching to read through it again.

That’s all.

Contemplative Comics day 88

Happy birthday to my most special friend.

Contemplative Comics day 87

This makes me miss some good folks.

Contemplative Comics day 86

A long time ago, in an election far far away…

(seriously, this feels like 20 years ago in 2020 time)

Contemplative Comics day 85

I DO NOT miss teaching on a Sunday morning and watching the most conservative in the room squirm a little or watching the most liberal nod at me with teeth grinning, waiting for me to go over some line they have established in their heads.

I also don’t miss all the group invites and Facebook tags for things much more extreme than I have been.

People want to claim the pastor in validation of their views or have a good excuse to write them off so as not to have to listen to them.

It has to do with power and self-righteousness. It has little to do with community. Honesty, it has little to do with helping the most vulnerable or marginalized people in our midst either.

I am not convinced that there is anything a pastor can do to avoid this from happening. Perhaps the only action that can be taken is to be vigilant in our own souls to prevent ourselves from adding to the noise.

The last thing I want to do with my life or my voice is co-opt the teachings of Jesus for some ridiculous political movement.

I also have no interest in building some kind of platform. I prefer the work the circuit riders of the colonies and early American republic who traveled to people with the gospel and education classes… out amongst the dirt and the leaves. It suits me better than the stage, pulpit, lighting, and podcasts.

At the time I made this comic, I was angry with the things I saw the broader American church doing politically, I was not satisfied with the more progressive Christian opposition, and I was growing bored with my work as a minister. Playing songs and writing discussion questions for another pastor’s sermons and trying to teach youth on the few nights of the month they weren’t busy did not seem very helpful to the moment.

I was also suffering from depression. But I didn’t know that.

Contemplative Comics day 83

I made this two years ago, and at the time it felt like I was saying something pretty radical. Not so much anymore.

Evangelicalism feels like a phantom limb to me now. One I severed a long time ago, but I still feel the pain.

I know people of color would read this and tell me they’ve been saying this and experiencing this for quite some time. I just wasn’t able to hear it yet. But I hear it now. I will continue to listen, learn from, and attempt to amplify those voices of men and women who have endured for the Gospel.

As I saw Charlie Dates post on Twitter yesterday, I will vote like I am a lobbyist for the poor. I will pray like I am a lobbyist for the outcast. I will teach like I am a lobbyist for the marginalized.

And I will continue to study theology from below.

On earth as in heaven,

-joshua (11/3/2020)

Contemplative Comics day 81

“Start by doing what is necessary, then what is possible, and suddenly you are doing the impossible.”

-St. Francis of Assisi

“The Lord was pleased to strengthen us, and remove all fear from us, and disposed our hearts to be as useful as possible.”

-Bishop Richard Allen

"Sometimes it seem like to tell the truth today is to run the risk of being killed. But if I fall, I'll fall five feet four inches forward in the fight for freedom. I'm not backing off."

-Fannie Lou Hamer

Contemplative Comics day 80 "SLICE"

I didn’t become a Christian until I was nearly 18. I wasn’t raised in church. I went by myself. I had no idea about Evangelical culture. This was 2001-2002. So when my girlfriend told me that they grew up never trick-or-treating because it was unchristian, I thought they were BONKERS. It’s one thing if your parents just don’t do it. We didn’t always go because we lived in the woods, which meant we had to drive to a neighborhood. So for me, Halloween was a privilege.

No Halloween. No Harry Potter. Not really much of a Santa Claus tradition. The Halloween/Santa Claus dichotomy was always fascinating to me. Like, Santa Claus doesn’t matter to us Christians because he isn’t real and we know the reason for the season. But Halloween is the devil’s night and witches and such!

Anyway, I resolved that my family would do all the fun things I rarely got to do as long as my kids would tolerate it. Its pretty fun.

Contemplative Comics day 79 "JOLT"

Churches go all out for those Vacation Bible Schools. It’s wild.

Contemplative Comics day 78 "DOUBLE"

Making these comics during my research was sometimes a great way to think”out loud” in a way. They’ve been really great for my brain. You should try it sometime.

Contemplative Comics day 77 "GIFT"

This is a good ending for Davy’s wild birth story. At this point, he was just kind of part of the family. Our tiny little dude.

Contemplative Comics day 75 "STRETCH"

Peace Prayer 3/3

Two years later… not much has changed. I fantasize of teenagers who sleep all day.