My Love Letter to NFOB
In anticipation of my lifetime commitments to vocational singleness and to the Nashville Family of Brothers, I wrote this letter…
Dear brothers,
I choose to love you for the rest of my life because of the love we've already shared. And I look forward to spending the rest of our lives nourishing that love and sharing it with others, all so that more people come to know the Savior who made this all possible.
When I made my first commitments to the Nashville Family of Brothers, I cried through the liturgy because, for the first time in a long time, your friendships gave me hope that I might have my own real family one day—one where people committed to each other and lived together for a lifetime.
When we visited an older urban monastery and debriefed the weekend, all James could say (through trembling tears) was, "Shit, this could be real. This is real." In a way, he spoke for all of you and your growing sense of how terrifyingly beautiful the possibility of NFOB was. Over the next few years our family grew, and every time one of you moved in, I was like a gleeful, giddy kid on Christmas morning. My hope and love grew even more.
I cherished the Thanksgiving when Jim was sick because I saw the ways you all came together, invited Jim's parents into our home, and extended hospitality to Mistead and Andrew despite your pain. I knew then that we had what it took to be a family.
We felt more like family when instead of falling apart or running away during difficult moments, you stuck around and leaned in—like the weekend we spent in that cabin over Memorial Day exploring Super Kroger and enduring my inedible keto chocolate cake. We felt more like a family when we moved into our too-good-to-be-true home at 1523 16th Avenue North and celebrated our blessedness with hot chicken and champagne.
I treasure singing about Beersheba together, wearing matching Christmas cat t-shirts, assembling flotillas of air mattresses when we travel to visit friends, and visiting our parents across the US and consistently saying "Ohh, you make more sense now..." I treasure Jim's corny jokes and James's glares, Hunter's visceral distaste for bathroom humor, Kevin's willingness to chaperone me at Bonnaroo, Jim's willingness to field my constant requests for outfit feedback, and Forrest's company and conversation over hot tubs. I treasure all of you putting up with my constant requests for group selfies, making fun of me for being a wannabe social media influencer, tolerating my annual over-the-top birthday party plans, living through my never-ending nesting efforts in our house, and (accurately) guessing that I've cooked my usual for family dinner: pre-marinated pork tenderloin, undercooked rice, mediocrely roasted broccoli, and a dessert from the Kroger discount rack.
I choose to love you because of the times we've listened to Snoop Dogg read NFOB's Community Covenant, the mornings we've prayed through NFOB's liturgy together, sanctification check-ins where you've been vulnerable with me, and kingdom work check-ins where you've shown me how the Lord is using your singleness. I love you because you've held me and reassured me during my worst failures. I love you because you've seen me through seasons of silence from God and doubt that imperiled my faith. I love you because of the many moments, often over meals or around bonfires or while playing Jackbox, when you've been enjoying each others' company, and I've paused, looked around, and soaked it in: This is a family. We have a family. I have a family.
I love you because you've made it easier to love. You've made it easier for me to believe a God exists and loves me (because nothingness couldn't bless me so deeply). You've made it easier for me to love others, particularly those that my selfish heart has found it challenging to love. You've made it easier for me to be patient and be vulnerable. You've made it easier for me to put down my work, believe that it'll be okay, and be present with those I've been given to love.
When I was a kid, I secretly believed I was doomed for loneliness. But your love has made it easier for me to hope for family again. The closet convinced me I'd never be known or loved by men I admired. I believed I was cursed and unlovable and destined to be alone and stuck in a revolving door of temporary friends. But you've chosen me, at least for a season, and given me hope that I was made for and am still made for more love than I ever imagined: the lifetime love of brothers in my own family.
Most of all, I love you and will continue to love you because I choose you. I will love you because I have committed to you—because I want to know what it feels like to live with and love the same men for a lifetime, and then look back decades later and savor what has been earned and built. I love you because you'll be the men who will hold my hand when the people we love pass, who will love me harder when the world cancels me, and who will love me even when my ugliest parts show.
These commitments are unconventional in a terrifyingly beautiful way. They're scary because they won't be reciprocated yet, and there's a chance they'll never be reciprocated. This is me fearfully casting my heart toward you and hoping that some of you will eventually have it. I will wait. For months, years, to see who, if anyone, will have me. Will choose me back. Will embrace my heart and offer theirs. But in this waiting, my love will not wain or spoil. It will grow. It will deepen. It will mature. It will become stronger and gentler. Because the best is yet to come. In its own way, this love is even more intense, even more eager, even more packed with potential than vows that are immediately made back. For now, I get to cherish the dazzling potential among the Nashville Family of Brothers. But as beautiful as my lifetime commitments are, imagine how much more beautiful those days will (hopefully) be when, one after another, more of you commit to our family fully and finally.
Imagine decades from now when dozens of us have made lifetime commitments. We'll know who will be there on days of celebration and days of mourning, and we'll know who will be there on the normal days in between. Imagine sitting around the tree at a family Christmas decades in the future, listening to the youthful celebrations of younger generations who have joined our ranks and celebrating the ways we've been able to serve God's kingdom. One after another, we’ll revel in the ways stable family has empowered us to serve and bless our neighborhood as teachers, nurses, mental health therapists, advocates for the marginalized, pregnancy crisis center workers, and a laundry list of other opportunities to bring forth the kingdom and bring the gospel alive with single-minded devotion.
Imagine learning to care for each other with even more attentiveness and precision that only comes from decades of shared life. Imagine learning to love each others' quirks, or at least joyfully tolerate them and laugh. Imagine all of the parents we'll be connected to and the kids we'll help raise in the Lord. Imagine the Nashville Family of Sisters that we'll have helped plant and the families of brothers and sisters across the US and across the world that will grow. Imaging being part of a discernment, vocational singleness, and intentional Christian community revolution, leading to millions of Christians accepting their calling to vocational singleness. Imagine that next generation of believers using all of their availability to bring forth the kingdom and bring wholeness and justice to those on the margins—embodying the gospel alive in ways that make it easier for people to believe that Jesus exists, that He loves them, and that there's nothing more worthwhile than joining His mission to the make the world right.
That's what our love could do. That's what our love will do. We only need to keep loving each other. That's why I choose to love you today, and for the rest of my life.
