You don’t know half of it! Seriously, it would be beyond ugly. And I’m not talking about the cosmic perspective of, you know, not even being born if He hadn’t made me, or that if He would withdraw his breath my heart would stop beating. Though that’s also true. No, I’m talking about how endlessly dependent on His presence, nearness, counsel, Word and relational affection I really am. Like one of my best friends said in a vulnerable moment the other day: “I’m the blind guy calling for mercy, I’m the poor widow begging for bread, I’m the one not daring even to lift his eyes towards heaven and the lame man needing healing to walk upright.” FYI, I am too. Gone are the days when I forgot who He is to me and I thought I had anything to offer on my own. At least I hope, by the grace of God, that those days are truly gone. They are the worst, for both me and the world around me. I told my friend to remind me, should I ever forget.
My favorite book besides the Bible is The Name of The Wind, by Patrick Rothfuss. It’s part one of three; number two is also great (though it has a few parts towards the end I honestly think we could do without), and number three is mildly put long overdue. I won’t spoil it for you if you haven’t read it, but it’s the story of a great man, Kvothe, who for reasons we’ve yet to fully understand withdraws into a quiet life in incognito mode. He blends in as an innkeeper in the middle of nowhere (literally a town called “Newarre”), and leaves his true name behind. Names are a big deal in the book’s magic universe, and going by “Kote” (instead of “Kvothe”) seems to be more significant than one might expect. The book switches between the story he’s telling about his legendary life before withdrawing, and the “frame story” where he’s just the ordinary innkeeper. The saddest and most sobering part to me is that it seems that just blending in and leaving his true name and identity behind for so long makes him forget who he is. Pretending to be ordinary, alas, makes him become ordinary. There are moments when he’s called Kvothe even in the outer story, moments where something sparks a memory and his colors (and perhaps even magic?) returns for a bit. But then it fades, and he’s back to being a withering ordinary man. A man with a great story, granted, but bland and dull all the same.
Oh, how I long to not follow his path. It scares me to death.
“I want to be Kvothe, not Kote” Link to heading
I wrote the above in my journal while spending time with Jesus last week. And a few hours later I got a message from the only guy I know who has “Kvothe” as his Slack handle, asking me to review his blog post on Haskell for Elm developers. You might call that coincidence, but I will not. I’ll rather call it a loving confirmation from Jesus, one of His ways of telling me that He sees me and that we’re aligned on this one.
In fact let me go further, and speak plainly without parable: I want to be a true disciple of Jesus, His Spirit within, His power and wisdom working through me. Not some ordinary guy doing his best and blending in. The truth is that following Jesus makes me more like him each moment. I’m not claiming to be special in that account, btw, but rather stating how discipleship works. In case my introduction wasn’t clear, the significant part of my true identity (or “name”, if you will) is all His doing; on my own I have little nothing to offer. But as long as I stay in The River of his grace and Spirit, the Stream takes me toward who I’m called to be, and there’s nothing ordinary about it.
The weird thing, though, is that whenever people treat me like the one I was a few years (or even months) back, it becomes tempting to leave who I’ve become behind. To sneak back into that remote inn and just blend in, blend in with the expectations, blend in to be the guy matching people’s memories of who I used to be. To be an ordinary guy, being mindful never to do anything unexpected (like offer healing from God, the eternal hope and power of His gospel, or an introduction to King Jesus Himself).
To hell with all that.
I’m with Jesus. Adding to my friend’s list of who I really am, I am also bought and paid for by His blood, born again as a new creation in his likeness, called and chosen by His grace before the foundation of the world was even laid. In other words: Not ordinary, not in any sense of the word, nor meant to blend in in any way. That’s part of why being a consultant is good for me, actually. It’s easier to be myself when people don’t know me as that other guy, the one I was a while back. Being disruptive for the sake of it is also good for me. Like writing a blog post about Jesus on an otherwise very tech-centered blog. I don’t know, but I’ll do what it takes.
“Kote” is not for me.