[clivis] - "Dweller on the Cliff"

I moved back to Woodland Park 15 years ago to take a position as Director of Student Ministries. This is the same town and the same little fellowship I cut my spiritual teeth on as a student back in the day. Our local paper runs a "Religious" page each week. On that page is a directory of local ministries. Gathering times, phone numbers, location and staff. Somehow my name...Chris...was misread and printed Clivis: "klie-vus". We all got a laugh out of it that first week. I called to make the correction, but six months later it was still being printed as Clivis. It was the birth of a new nickname.

Meanwhile, I'm busy establishing this community called Highland Youth Ministry. It's was a pretty high octane group of misfits and ragamuffins that gathered for more then ten years. The mission of Highland Youth Ministry was to "take people to the edge and push them over." The "edge" is the threshold of faith. That place in our lives where clarity ends and risk begins. That point of connection between what exists in the unseen world of God's Kingdom and what we know in the natural world of our lives. Many of us stare at the threshold with wonderment, but few of us choose to cross it. To cross it is to forgo the security of clarity.

Mother Theresa gained the audience of a successfully retired business man one day. He had traveled to her in hopes of sorting out how he would spend his time, energies and money in this new season of his life. She asked him what he wanted. "I want what you have...I want clarity". Her response stunned him. "You don't want clarity, you want control." From his perspective, the impact of her life and the focus of her ministry was the result of clarity. She went on to explain, "I don't have clarity. What I have is the voice of my Father and the grace to obey his leading." The people with great affect aren't always the ones with the clarity. They are the ones who step over the "edge" into dependence on the Father.

Fast forward 2 years. We are expecting a child and are searching the baby name books for inspiration. For the fun of it I look up the name Clivis. With a sense of God's smile, I discover the name to mean..."Dweller on the Cliff".