About

Outside The Camp is a collection of my personal, original writings and poetry. The term “Outside The Camp” comes from Hebrews 13:10-14:

We have an altar from which the priests in the Tabernacle have no right to eat. Under the old system, the high priest brought the blood of animals into the Holy Place as a sacrifice for sin, and the bodies of the animals were burned outside the camp. So also Jesus suffered and died outside the city gates to make his people holy by means of his own blood. So let us go out to him, outside the camp, and bear the disgrace he bore. For this world is not our permanent home; we are looking forward to a home yet to come.

While this scripture is not often taught by today’s religious personalities, it is one of the most challenging, guiding the follower of Jesus to a new world and way of being.

When we go outside the camp, we leave the familiar to enter the uncomfortable and find ourselves among those we normally don’t associate with. Outside the camp, we are often unseen…and, at times, unsafe. Outside the camp, we frequently bear disgrace – at least in the eyes of the world. However, it is only outside the camp that we find a certain ineffable purpose and meaning in our existence that extends beyond time and space. It is here and here alone that we escape the artifices of temporal value systems and shed the burden of our ego’s desire to be approved by others. Outside the camp we find revelation of eternal truths regardless of their compatibility with our culture or contemporary ethos. Outside the camp, we are enlightened.

All of the spiritual teachers taught this principle in one way or another, but none encapsulated and lived it to the degree that Jesus did.

Going outside the camp isn’t defined by actions or works, although it does yield these as its fruit. This is a way of being, in every moment; a posture of surrender with open hands that let go of all we hold so tightly to and all we think we know; a submission to be led to unknown, overlooked, and dangerous paths by the voice of the One who is already there.