Explaining the Name...

I am being asked to explain the name "My Chlorine" though I was hoping to leave people guessing. Nonetheless, since this blog is about disclosure, I'll spill the beans. In the early 1990's I was serving as a volunteer youth worker at my home church, Ward Presbyterian, and I had the chance to work very close to two boys who were super-creative. One thing they did was take someones first and last name and create a new two-word label. Example: Dan Czach (one of the boys whose last name phonetically is "Zack") referred to himself as "Dan's Acne" -- if you say his name quickly and add "nee" at the end you can hear it. I, being Mike Lawrie, was called "My Chlorine" -- again, say it a bit different and add "ine" and you can hear it.

As I thought about naming this blog, that name came back to me. I thought about it on a simple level - that being a nickname that reminds me of creativity, yet, allows for some anonymity. However, I eventually chose it because of how I was thinking of it on a deeper level. Chlorine cleanses and makes things new again; it takes cluttered and filthy things and allows them to function again. This blog, as a discipline, allows me to write, confess, lament, celebrate my journey and it reflects what the Lord is doing in my life -- namely, making me new again, clearing out the clutter, and erasing the filth.

The second part, "And Other Spiritual Cocktails," perhaps seems oxymoronic, or at worst, you may think I am moronic. However, cocktails, is in reference to something that I came to understand not long ago. Upon reading and studying what we as Christ-followers are called to know, be and do, I realized we were called to be made "new" and not simply "change." In Jesus we experience a "new" covenant, he tells a Pharisee he is to be "born again" or "made new," Paul explains that in Christ the old is gone and the "new" arrives, and John's vision of the end is of a "new" Jerusalem. It is like the difference between making grape juice and wine. Grape juice is about gathering grapes, water and sugar and mixing them together to drink a refreshing drink. Change took place by swirling the elements together and enjoying the drink. However, wine is another story. The elements are similar but with one necessary component: yeast. Grapes naturally have yeast and sugar in their makeup but these elements are difficult to control, thus, the winemaker needs to add the yeast at the right time to control the fermentation process -- fermentation makes the drink something "new." Through a long slow process of time, care, pressure, science, art within a controlled environment (i.e. light, temperature, time), by virtue of the yeast eating the sugar and making alcohol, the winemaker actually creates something totally "new." It is the great difference between "change" and "new" -- change is good but to be made "new" is our calling. To be "new" is to die and rise with our Lord, it allows us to embrace the necessity of the Gospel each day (though I continue to rest on our security in Christ), and it allows me to see the sweet-grace impressed on my being.

So that is the story of the name -- My Chlorine is my Spiritual Cocktail; cleaning me out and making me new...