Bold Prediction

Fifteen years from now, on VH1's "I Love the First Decade of the 2000s (because we never agreed on what to call it)," there will be a 5 minute segment on p90x when they get to 2010.  A bald Judah Friedlander will try and demonstrate various moves and Aziz Ansari will talk about how people gave ubiquitous p90x updates but no one else cared and Gilbert Godfried will talk about all the people you knew who started it and then stopped after 2 weeks.

That's my thought about the current phenomenon that is p90x.  I'm not denegrating having it and doing it, or getting it and not doing it, I'm just amazed at how popular it has gotten in such a short amount of time.  I think it's on the list for the 2010 episode.  Then I googled "VH1 I love the" and saw that in 2008, the network ran a series called "I Love the New Millenium."  So really, it'll be next year.  And no, this is not a way for me to announce that I'm doing p90x.

Mastering Memphis, step five

Meeting Jesse meant several fantastic and exciting changes for me.  For one, I now had someone with which to share the joys of college football.  At that time, she was my only friend with a TiVo or an iPod, so that was cool.  The click wheel was so novel.  I discovered a bunch of new music and I had the option of eating fresh, cooked food that did not have to be heated in a microwave.  Also, I started turning left at the light at Park and Cherry.  Before I met Jesse, a la Zoolander, I had only turned right (that was the direction of the Target).  And, as if that wasn't enough, I now had a host of people who could barely contain their excitement and curiosity upon meeting me.  For some reason, there were literally hundreds of people who became very interested in meeting me and finding out everything they could about me.  Before, it was just me, Biff, and McFly, but now, it was odd people with names like Buster or Bubba or Gerald or Michael.  If this eclectic group of people had one thing in common, it was that they all cared deeply for Jesse and wanted to make sure that she hadn't fallen in with the wrong type.  If they had two things in common, it was that they all met at the same place to worship the Lord on Sundays.

Before I met Jesse, I had spent a couple of months at Sycamore View because I'd had some friends from undergrad who were there.  In fact, when I first met Jesse, I stayed out there for awhile longer because I didn't want to leave one place and then show up a month later and have to explain my absence.  It didn't take long for me to change my mind and head over to Highland for good.  It took even less time for me to be welcomed without reservation into a very big family.

The first time I met Buster was at the old duplex on Ellsworth after a Wednesday night when I was still at SVCC.  It was cold and I had a hoodie on.  It was dark, but he introduced himself and we chatted shortly before he left (it was cold).  Buster told Jesse and Brooke the next day that he thought I looked like Nathan Shank.  I think he's changed his mind since then.

I also remember the first time I went to Intermission.  I was in the lobby before we left on Saturday morning and some guy I had never seen before walked up to me and said, "Hey.  You seen that new intern girl? (Kyla Kiser) She's pretty cute.  You should go talk to her."  I responded, "Yeah.  I actually think that Jesse girl is cute.  She's my girlfriend."  Nice to meet you, Alan Moltz.

I'd met her once before, but that weekend was also the first time I'd see Leslie and Jonathan together.  The first huddle I attended (with Jesse - apparently, it was bring your boyfriend to huddle day) was also the first time I met Sarah Bagley.  I honestly don't remember the first time I met Gerald and Susie or Pam and Steve, but it wasn't long before the word got out that I was a keeper and I found myself spending Easter at the Guinn's or stopping by for a coke at the Jerkins.  It should also be noted that on our honeymoon, Gerald (what's the most graceful word I can use)... Gerald gently hoisted Susie through the back window of our house so they could get in to feed Owens.  That's what family does, I suppose.

I may not be able to come up with a more graceful word for "hoist," but certainly "family" fits and it's true to this day.  Memphis wouldn't be home for us without family.  And though it's expanding, I think it's safe to say that our Memphis family will always have strong Highland ties.

Mastering Memphis, steps four and following

Keeping a blog is an interesting process.  You choose to keep one and no one else really makes you.  But, if you don't maintain it regularly, it can become a source of guilt, stress or frustration.  Of course, if you do maintain it, the same can be true...  all because of something you choose to do.  Beyond that, you are choosing to publish words that other people read except, in most cases, you have no idea what they think about it.

Take my last post, for example.  Not only did I use the antiquated phrase, "dear reader," I also thought it was clever to refer to Jesse as "said female" as if there were some kind of mystery about who she was.  Sorry about that.


The truth is, it's difficult to fit Jesse into one moment or one step in the process of making Memphis home.  That's because it wasn't just one step among others - it's been every step since the day I met her.   Every step since that day has included her, in one way or another.  From helping her walk Owens down Ellsworth on Sunday mornings to her helping me edit last minute bibliographies, I found a friend who quickly became God's richest blessing in my life.  Jesse is technicolor to my black-and-white - my life would be so much less rich and full without her in it.

The first time I wrote nice things about Jesse on my blog, people thought I was proposing.  This time, as then, I don't have a particular reason except that I'm in love and I want to express it publicly in words.

When I moved here, I didn't like it at all.  The only people I saw every day were Biff and McFly and a perfect day included me being anywhere but Memphis.  Now, the perfect day includes me being anywhere in Memphis with Jesse.  I can't imagine life without her, and thankfully, I don't have to.

Mastering Memphis, step four

Shortly after I arrived in Memphis, I (along with Biff, McFly and several others) was invited to a dinner at the apartment of HUGSR secretary/student, Amy Hagedorn.  As the first person one saw when walking through the doors of the main building on campus, Amy was the hub of most HUGSR activities.  She had taken it upon herself to host a dinner for the new and returning students who lived on campus.  Since HUGSR is more masculine than The Situation's abs, it makes sense that she would invite at least one other female student.  Said other female arrived late, in a t-shirt and jeans.  She mistook Biff's name (the real one) as Bruce.  I thought this was funny - he kinda looked like a Bruce.  Said other female was funny and cute.  Incredibly, she was in the minority of people in the apartment that night who actively watched and liked sports.  Said female happened to be my teammate for the inevitable game of Trivial Pursuit and as far as anyone knows, we won (I'm pretty sure that the night ended before the game did).  We won even though one of us knew that the start of every Kentucky Derby is heralded by "My Old Kentucky Home" but deferred to the other's insistent guess of the William Tell Overture.  Said female was single.

Now, lest you, dear reader, decide that fate had provided but one choice, I should admit (to my shame) that said female was not the only female attracting my attention at that time.  That may be too vague.  It would have been much easier if said male was single.  Clearer?  Regardless, I wasn't, so this chance encounter began with the timeless and always ill-conceived manly attempt to be honorable during the overlapping end and beginning of relationships.  It would be the first of many times where the present would seem much less shameful than time would show it to be.  I bring this up for a reason: it gives me an opportunity to point out that said female has been gracious and forgiving to me from the beginning.  Grace and forgiveness are things often required by me, being a man.

Too many details for this post took place over those early months.  Auburn games, runs together, ironed t-shirts, Red Sox games, TiVo, rocking chairs, hoodies, city maps, who chased whom, Sunday morning dog walks... this is starting to look like a junior high yearbook, pages-long note.  It didn't take long for said female to become the female.  I like to say that said female was the first normal person I met in Memphis.  In truth, that couldn't be farther from it.  I'd never met (and still haven't) another human like her and I really liked her.  So much so, that she's going to need at least two steps in this process of mastering Memphis... stay tuned.

Too Long for Twitter

"Thou, O Lord, canst transform my thorn into a flower.  And I want my thorn transformed into a flower.  Job got the sunshine after the rain, but has the rain been all waste?  Job wants to know, I want to know, if the shower had nothing to do with the shining.  And thou canst tell me - Thy Cross can tell me.  Thou hast crowned Thy sorrow.  Be this my crown, O Lord.  I only triumph in Thee when I have learned the radiance of the rain."

- George Matheson.

"The fruitful life seeks showers as well as sunshine."

Wow.  That is some good old-fashioned theology.  As Dr. Fortner would say, "How can you have faith and not know... [this]?"

Too Long for Twitter

"A method of meditation or a form of contemplation that merely produces the illusion of having 'arrived somewhere,' of having achieved security and preserved one's familiar status by playing a part, will eventually have to be unlearned in dread [ie, an overwhelming sense of one's own unavoidable unholiness before a holy God] - or else we will be confirmed in the arrogance, in the unpenetrable self-assurance of the Pharisee.  We will become impervious to the deepest truths.  We will be closed to all who do not participate in our illusion.  We will live 'good lives' that are basically inauthentic, 'good' only as long as they permit us to remain established in our respectable and impermeable identities.  The 'goodness' of such lives depends on the security afforded by relative wealth, recreation, spiritual comfort, and a solid reputation for piety.  Such 'goodness' is preserved by routine and the habitual avoidance of serious risk - indeed of serious challenge.  In order to avoid apparent evil, this pseudo-goodness will ignore summons of genuine good.  It will prefer routine duty to courage and creativity.  In the end it will be content with established procedures and safe formulas, while turning a blind eye to the greatest enormities of injustice and uncharity."

-Thomas Merton, Contemplative Prayer

Mastering Memphis, step three

Tomatoes and steak knives aside, I made/kept some really great friends during my time at HUGSR. 

The farther removed I am from undergrad, the more I realize those years were a bit of a lost cause for me.  I was a stupid college kid.  The odds are I was much dumber in college than I was in high school.  This makes sense to me.  High school - trauma and all - is still a time of increasing competence.  At least, it was for me. 

I had been living in the same house since the first grade, same school friends since then, same church since forever, etc.  That was my world, and by the time I was 18, it's fair to say I had figured out how to exist in a house on Creekside with my family, in a school called Berkner, on two soccer teams, in the school band, with the BRCC youth group, etc.  That was my circle and I had explored it's outer limits and could move within it really well.

I think it might be fair to say that this is the case for most middle-class, suburban kids.  I think it's probably also fair to say that these are the same kids who go to college and, like me, become complete idiots.  I would argue that the average High School Senior is less of an idiot than the average college Freshman.  Of course, it's the Senior's fault that the Freshman is such an idiot, the mistake being that the high school senior thinks he/she has THE world figured out, when in fact, he/she has only figured out THEIR world.  Thus, when they move outside of "their world" and into a new one, they take with them this feeling of having it all figured it out, when they ought to be thinking that they are, once again, complete babes in the world.

At least, that's the mistake I made.  I was a dumb freshman.  I didn't know anything about the new world (tiny though it was) that enveloped in the mythical Harding bubble.  Had I known better, I would have done a lot of things differently.  I'll leave it at that.  For the present, it's enough to say that I have lost or failed to maintain most of the relationships I made in college.  A lot of this, I think, is natural.  Distance and time have a lot to do with it - when you aren't eating with the same people every day, being made to stay in after 11pm with the same people every night, etc., you're naturally going to drift apart.  I don't really regret this about my college years as much as I have tried to learn from it.

At one point or another, we all must learn that it takes a strong bond to overcome the separation of time and distance that comes with the increasing speed of life, regardless of where or during what period of life that friendship was made.  This is what I learned from my time in Searcy and I've tried to apply it to my time in Memphis.  Thankfully, I had some friends who transitioned with me.

To the big three: Bob, Bobby, and Greg - thank you.  Brother Bob, you're welcome for the use of the shower on the days you biked to school.  Thanks for being the best conversationalist I know and for volunteering to stick around in the library so we can have instant access to the next big idea or great book.  Bobby, blessings in Africa.  For the two Bobs, here's to good food.  Greg, we took the most classes together and I always appreciated your critical perspectives.  I wasn't often thinking ahead to where you were, but you were generous in helping me see that the road was there.  I also really appreciate you laughing when I told Dr. Powell that Jesus was my favorite early church history figure on the first day of class of our first class ever at HUGSR.

To Robert Meyer, Dorn Muscar (ping pong champion and co-creator of HUGSR Home Run Derby), Heath Amos (#1 Star Wars fan), Jeremy Garman (snores louder than me), Mac Sandlin, Justin McCreary (dry wit connoiseur, Stella-watcher), Amy Hagedorn (matchmaker), and anyone else who ever dined with us at New Hong Kong - thanks for making life in the cave bearable.  To the Maccabees, you know who you are.

I suppose there is a risk in naming names.  There's a good chance I forgot someone, but there's a better chance that whoever I forgot doesn't read this blog.  The point is, by the time I arrived in Memphis, I had made enough mistakes to know that the relationships I forged in Memphis or brought with me from Searcy ought to be pursued with intention and cherished.  They would be a part of my spiritual community for as long as I was here.  I'm still here and I haven't forgotten.  So, to my HUGSR friends, may the bond of Christ supercede whatever distance or time may come between us.  Thank you, and if you're ever interested, I think Yi Bao still remembers my order.

Mastering Memphis, step two

The bubble did extend to Memphis. To be fair, though, not to all of Memphis, just part (the part I was in). And, to be honest, it was in me as well. Based on everything I have learned and experienced here in Memphis - and I hope based on who I am now - I can see that the person I was when I came suffered unknowingly from a few deficiencies. I've dealt with those and I'll cover them here, but first, I had/have to deal with the more pressing early obstacles (for lack of a better term) in my first few years in Memphis: Biff and McFly.

My first exposure to this oddest of odd couples was during the summer before my move to Memphis.  I had been given a number whereby I could speak with Biff about our living arrangements, as Biff and McFly were already living in the apartment we would share.  The conversation was short, but I remember distinctly asking Biff if there was room for a couch that I wanted to bring.  Biff's reply was confusing.  "No," he said, "I have a weight bench."

When it was all over, I would have two years worth of stories and encounters like this.  As they occured, I would literally have at least one per day.  I've forgotten many of them, but there are a few that remain firmly lodged in my memory.

I remember my first few weeks in Memphis vividly.  After moving my stuff to the second bedroom in our two-story town home apartment, my parents and I stuck around to meet my new roommates, the aforementioned Biff and McFly.  I call them that because Biff actually looked a lot like Biff.  McFly was shorter and more animated and the two of them shared a room and spent a lot of time together, so it just makes sense.  We stayed for about an hour getting to know B&M before leaving for dinner.  I remember my dad telling me later, "I don't think you should believe everything [Biff] tells you."  In the weeks before school, I wouldn't.  In fact, I didn't stick around long enough to hear a word.  Every morning, I would wake up early, eat breakfast, and leave the house.  I'd come home for dinner and retire to my room.  In between, I drove around Memphis, trying to figure out where things were located.  At least, that's what I told people.  The truth is,  B&M were spending their free time (read: ALL day) playing a Dungeons & Dragons-type video game on the living room (read: only place to sit besides bedroom) TV (read: only one in the apartment/mine) and I wasn't interested in watching someone else play for 12 hour blocks at a time.  This went on for two weeks.  Wake up, drive around aimlessly, avoid eye contact, repeat.

The night before classes began, there was a meet and greet for new students.  I was sitting at a table with B&M when someone asked what they had done in the weeks off between summer classes and the fall semester.  I answered for them, that their time had been spent primarily playing video games.  Out of nowhere, McFly snapped in my direction, "Take it down, Nick.  Take. It. Down."  Sparing the details (there is a convoluted and totall ridiculous explanation), I quickly learned that avoidance would be my best tactic with B&M.  As an aside, it was an almost daily routine for McFly to pull out a knife from the steak knife set he kept in the kitchen and loudly proclaim that if he ever got into a bar fight, he would come back to the apartment and get a knife then go back and stab someone.

One other story begs retelling.  Later that fall, I returned to the apartment and walked quickly upstairs.  I passed the bathroom and noticed that five whole tomatoes were resting on the floor, each one crushed and slowly oozing juice out on the floor.  The floor was their final resting place, but not the only place they had been.  Five matching streaks of tomato juice stained the far wall of the bathroom, leaving an easy trail to follow.  I turned 180 degrees and risked a glance into the room of Biff and McFly.

"Hey, Biff?  There's tomatoes in the bathroom."
"Yeah, there are."
"Um, do you know why there are tomatoes in the bathroom?"
"Yes."
(waiting)
"Biff, would you care to explain?"
"Well, McFly was singing in the shower."
"And...?"
"I didn't like it."
"I don't follow."
"Well, I told him that if he didn't stop singing, I would throw tomatoes at him."
"Uh huh.  And I take he didn't stop."
"That's right."
"Are you going to clean that up?"
"Maybe later."

There are those who suggested that I married Jesse just so I wouldn't have to live in that apartment anymore.  There are those who told me when I arrived that they had specifically prayed for whoever would be sharing an apartment with B&M.  I say that now I have some really great stories to tell.  It was rarely easy and frequently awkward, but it's a part of my story in Memphis.  It wouldn't be right to just take it down.

new names

I've decided to go with something simple.  Nerd confession: I keep three blogs on blogger.  One is a private journal, which I have renamed meditatio.  Another is also a private blog for more literary endeavors, which I have renamed oratio.  And, the third is this one, which is now titled contemplatio.  I've named my blogs after latin phrases commonly used to represent fundamental principles of the contemplative life.  This fits with a personal goal of mine to become a more contemplative person in an effort to simplify my life in this world and to deepen my life in the Spirit.  Now that I've graduated, I'm trying to focus myself even more on growing my heart in God.  I feel as though my mind has gotten a head start (oh, that's a pun - unintentional) and I'd like my heart to catch up and perhaps even take the lead from here on.  So, there you go.  I recently deleted all but two of the games on my iphone (I left the two I never really want to play but might if I were stuck in an airport) and I've renamed my blogs.  Lame, but it's a start.

name change

Now taking suggestions for a new title for the blog.  Chad Billy-Steve Pknicholson doesn't even make sense to me anymore, even though I know what it means....

Until then, it's a shout out to Arrested Development.

Mastering Memphis, step one

Not all people are wired the same way. Some people play video games because they love the challenge. They only play their games on the most difficult setting. They like having three lives to challenge 1 billion immortal zombies, or they like it when the QB throws a pick on their own 20 with 30 seconds left in the fourth when they're up by three.

I don't get those people. I prefer utter domination. I play the game on the easiest setting first and wait until I'm winning football games 250 - 0 to advance to the next level (250 because the game stops counting points at that number). I prefer mastery.

Knowing this about me, you would think that I'd be pretty excited to have graduated last Saturday with my masters. You'd be right. Officially, I have letters after my name. Unofficially, Masters of Divinity has to be in the running for most egregious misnomer in history. Still, I've got the paper and the library to show for it, so there's that.

Graduations are by nature both ultimate and penultimate experiences. They are pivotal moments, the last step of one journey and the start of another, one apex before the next. Since this one, right now, feels more like a last step than a first one, I thought I would take a few posts to look back at the steps that got me here...


Most college seniors spend their last spring break, well, reinforcing the stereotype of last spring breaks. I spent mine with my dad. We took the week to travel to Pasadena and Chicago to visit Fuller Theological and Trinity seminaries, respectively. The weather in California was fantastic. The cost of living? Not as much. It snowed in Chicago. I had a great time with Dad, but the trip didn't give me much clarity about what to do. My main goal was to get outside of the normal CofC stream and expose myself to new ideas and challenge the ones that had become my own. When I got back to Searcy, I decided to talk to a few professors to see what direction they could provide. Dr. Ken Neller helped me understand more about the language of seminary and how to make distinctions between what each school was telling me about what they taught. Dr. Fortner told me, quite simply, that if I wanted to read as many different ideas as possible I should go to HUGSR in Memphis. He told me that I wouldn't necessarily find a broader perspective at the schools where I was looking than what I would get in Memphis. Dr. Monte Cox, a Trinity alum, told me the same thing. I was skeptical but trusted their advice and experience over mine.

In a few weeks, I had applied, gotten accepted, and had received a very nice scholarship offer that included working as a graduate assistant for Dr. Allen Black. All those spring breaks spent at less than tropical climates had literally paid off. After a brief period of deliberation, I accepted the offer. I would join my friends, Bob, Bobby, and Greg (admit it, you were thinking Robert) in the fall at Harding University Graduate School of Religion. I would live on campus. I would work as a GA. And I would pray that Memphis proved to be well outside of the Harding bubble.