Autobiographia

I’m Justin Crisp, and I’m amazed that I get to live this life!

Can I just get that out there?

See, I have been blessed with a wonderful family; a terrific group of friends; a loving, welcoming church that is my “thin space”; teachers and professors who genuinely cared about my education; and a beautiful region of Creation to call home.  All these things help to orient me when the world starts to change – and does it ever!  You know, when Mrs. Sue Dunlap told me my life was going to change when I went to college, I don’t really think I believed her.  She was correct, nonetheless.  Over the past few years, I have grown intellectually and spiritually, more fully realized my vocation, taken concrete steps toward the ever-elusive “rest of my life,” drifted apart from many I never thought I would drift apart from, and grown close to many I never thought I would grow close to.  

I trust that all things work together for good for those who love the Lord.  I must keep working –  but wait for the miracle.

These two maxims – one from Scripture and the other from a sermon – are integral parts of my identity.  I know this because I now better know myself, and I know what I am called to do in this life.

In 2007, on a cold October Sunday, I walked into the nave of St. John’s Cathedral (Episcopal) with my friend, Marcus Baker, and nothing has been the same since.  I had been visiting Episcopal parishes since that spring, and by this time, I was an Episcopalian in my heart, if not on paper.  It was just a matter of which parish to join and explore, but as God would have it, this too was settled by the end of the service.  I found myself immediately overwhelmed by the incredible architecture, then by the organ, then by the beauty of the High Church liturgy, then by the sermon, and then by the Eucharist.

Something really beautiful happened.  You see, as I kneeled – red prayer book in hand – I carefully watched John+, Thom+, and Mary Lee+ stand behind the altar and celebrate Communion.  And I said to myself, “I could do that for the rest of my life.”

Everything clicked.  Everything.

I understand The Episcopal Church is not for everybody – no single denomination has a monopoly on Christ, after all – but she is the one for me, for it is in this branch of God’s one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church that I feel most at home.  

I am an Anglican because it was through Anglicanism that I genuinely fell in love with God for the first time.  And I am, consequently, in love with his Church.

I’m on a mission to save her.  You should be too.