Monday, October 29, 2007

 

Life is good when your heroes are your friends


In church matters, I'm very lucky. Church is an area where I am not a leader; rather, I try to be a good lay member of the church, a reliable part of the body of Christ. I am lucky in that I have found a church (Seventh and James) that fits me very well and where there is inspirational preaching (usually by Raymond Bailey) that almost always makes me think about that topic the rest of the day.

Yesterday, though, I went to go hear my friend Hulitt Gloer preach at Calvary Baptist Church. Hulitt and I, together with Randall O'Brien, teach a class in Oral Advocacy every Spring at the law school, and over the six years we have worked together, I have come to really admire him. Yesterday, Hulitt preached on the idea of the body of Christ as the church, and it was stunning. I'm not sure if it was appropriate (I'm like that lately, as evidenced in the last post), but afterwards I hugged him and told him I loved him, which is true. It is a very specific kind of love-- for a friend, but also for someone who is one of your heroes.

Of course, I am looking forward to the regular humiliation I suffer every Spring, speaking third after Randall and Hulitt. After those guys, I feel like an ape scratching and grunting for an audience.

Comments:
I loved that class-- it was like you guys were building on each other every time.
 
You could always break out the air guitar.
 
Sincere expressions of love are always appropriate, and usually most welcome. I guess it can be awkward nowadays because most infer a sexual connotation from the word "love." But that really shouldn't be the case. After all, the most sincere and truest expression of love ever known is the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

So I'm sure Prof. Gloer was moved by your expression of love, not offended.
 
As a biblical scholar, I'm sure he understood your meaning as a filios-type love and not an eros-love--unless, of course, you pinched his posterior.
 
Um, no, I didn't pinch him.
 
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