Contemplative Comics day 110
[End of week 1]
Psalm 25: 4-5 (NRSV)
“Make me to know your ways, O Lord;
teach me your paths.
Lead me in your truth, and teach me,
for you are the God of my salvation;
for you I wait all day long.”
Contemplative Comic day 109
Contemplative Comics day 108
Luke 21: 25-36 (NRSV)
“There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in a cloud’ with power and great glory. Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”
Then he told them a parable: “Look at the fig tree and all the trees; as soon as they sprout leaves you can see for yourselves and know that summer is already near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near. Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all things have taken place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.
“Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day does not catch you unexpectedly, like a trap. For it will come upon all who live on the face of the whole earth. Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.”
Contemplative Comics day 107
1 Thessalonians 3: 9-13 (NRSV)
How can we thank God enough for you in return for all the joy that we feel before our God because of you? Night and day we pray most earnestly that we may see you face to face and restore whatever is lacking in your faith.
Now may our God and Father himself and our Lord Jesus direct our way to you. And may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, just as we abound in love for you. And may he so strengthen your hearts in holiness that you may be blameless before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.
Contemplative Comics day 106
Jeremiah 33: 14-16 (NRSV)
The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David; and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety. And this is the name by which it will be called: “The Lord is our righteousness.”
Contemplative Comics day 105
Contemplative Comics day 104
I started making these daily contemplative comics back in August of 2018 as a prayer practice. When I lost my job, I wanted to stop making them. Newborn kid. Job hunting. Crushed spirit. Feeling lost.
Not exactly prime creative material.
I remember hearing Jonathan Martin tell a story about his life being at a similar place of pain and desperation. Shipwrecked. He talked about finding his way into an Episcopal church and receiving Communion. Thus started the journey of a Pentecostal engaging in liturgy.
I was in my own journey into liturgy when I found myself shipwrecked. I was neck deep in planning Advent. So I decided to keep making these comics, expanding on my plans for the Advent worship services that never were.
Each week, the comics follow the Advent readings of that particular Sunday. I used a podcast called Same Old Song as a sort of commentary to help. It has been a sort of preaching school on how to craft sermons around the liturgical church calendar.
I did not face a crisis of faith in Jesus during this season, largely I think, because the liturgy helped me have something to hold onto. Instead of staring at my bible and feeling clueless as to where to start or guilty about being too overwhelmed to start anywhere in particular, there were the weekly readings built into the calendar. There was the Collect framing the theme of each week. And while I wasn’t connected to a church, I was participating in something simultaneously with Christians all over the world following the same church calendar and reading the same passages of scripture.
The Advent liturgy, and working through my pain and my theology by making these comics, formed a kind of tether to Jesus.
Contemplative Comics day 103
“The Advent season encourages us to resist denial and face our situation as it really is.”
Contemplative Comics day 102
Fired guy 11/11
“People try to offer us an explanation; God offers us a Eucharist.”
Contemplative Comics day 101
Fired guy 10/11
“Nobody survives a shipwreck on their own. When your ship goes under, there are a handful of people in your life who will stay with you. It’s no time for saving face or maintaining credibility - it’s time to put real weight down on somebody else who can help carry you. Let your ego drown in the watery grave. The only way you have of saving yourself is to let someone outside of you do the saving.”
Contemplative Comics day 100
Fired guy 9/11
“Please do not give up. You can think about it again tomorrow if you have to, but please not today. Please do not let yourself drown. Please do not let the merciless tides tread over your precious head. There is so much life for you. I know, because I’ve found it. And dear God, I want the same for you.”
Contemplative Comics day 99
8/11
When I made my first public post about getting fired, I got a message from a dear friend. He was the youth pastor who led me to Jesus. He was my mentor. He was my pastor when we fought for years to plant a church together. He was open and honest with me about his struggles and the hardships he had faced and the pain he had experienced from ministry.
I got a level of formation through his friendship that few people do where I am from.
And when he found out I had been fired, I received this message on Facebook which made me laugh so hard I started crying:
”Aaaaaaannnnd now you are a minister.”
Contemplative Comics day 98
Fired guy 7/11
“The trademark of the Spirit is to first bewilder, not clarify. The fog that comes doesn’t always obscure the Spirit - sometimes it is the Spirit.”
Contemplative Comics day 97
Fired guy 6/11
“Deep living comes out of deep healing, which requires us to go deeply into our pain, mistakes, and failures to find the God who meets us there at the bottom. This is the slow, painful process of soul work.”
Contemplative Comics day 96
Fired guy 5/11
“My faith did not fail, even when I did. I did not lose my soul, even when I lost my ship. Even if I was, in fact, a monster, the God I love is the God who loves monsters and knows how to tame them.”
Contemplative Comics day 95
Fired guy 4/11
“What I was, what I am... is a failure. A deeply flawed, deeply loved human being with a great capacity for good and a great capacity for evil, just like everyone else.”
Contemplative Comics day 94
Fired guy 3/11
“The path to salvation is the path of humiliation.”
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.”
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.