New and exciting

My computer died (sad). I am writing this post on my very own new mac book (happy), financed through my dad (yikes). I am now a very cool and hip kid.

I don't think I can explain to you all that which is glorious and beautiful in my life in such a way as to have you feel it and understand. Ellie, my roommate wrote a pretty nice little bit on all this goodness on her blog. You can read that.

Let me see what I can do for you: It is at times nearly incomprehensible, these countless things which are making my life so overwhelmingly good. For one who has longed for life in community seeking sustainability, pursuing environmental and social responsibility, things such as the worm compost bin we made yesterday, the day of work spent together transforming the front yard into a garden, the vegetable lasagna and fried bananas we ate with our guests, and the humane and chemical free roach traps we've set up around the house do more than just provide me with a smile, they instill in me the proof that life, as I've always wanted it, is really and truly possible- and is happening now.

I can't stop talking about these people, this place.

As Ellie said, someday I will tell my children about the time in my twenties when I lived with boys and we grew as much of our food as we could and we mended and re-mended our clothes. How while TJ built tables on the back porch and Ellie read the Russians, Kris played his guitar along side my clumsy piano renditions of Ben Kweller, Cat Power, and Damien Rice. Or how while Kris made jelly from hand-picked grapes, and I baked a blueberry cobbler, Ellie and TJ were creating something beautiful, in prose or song and maybe getting the clothes off the line

I see all of these things as ways in which the Good Kingdom is revealing its presence in the world, or at least on the 27 block of Fort Ave...which is precisely the kind of place that the King would likely move and work: small, a little obscure, oftentimes odd, but deep and rich in the lives of us four (so far).

It's like this: the beauty I'm living is like finding out more of a secret gradually being revealed, that has always been revealing itself, very slowly, and with perfect timing. And here in this place with these brothers and sisters, the loveliness and joy of the Secret, the implications and applications of this revealing Secret, is becoming less and less vague. On the 27 block of Fort.

reminders and remembrance

as of late I am reminded:

• that I am not alone
• that I am just as screwed up as the rest of us
• that "not forgiving is like drinking rat poison then waiting for the rat to die" -anne lamott
• that the tail end of a sunset and the coolness of a coming storm behind the barn can be deeply spiritual
• that working in a vegetable garden at 6am can be, too.
  
• that the kids' sermons tucked in between worship and prayer on sunday mornings are just as much for the adults as they are for the kids
• that pain is inevitable and joy is chosen
• that I have a heck of a lot to learn

as of late beauty was found:

• in sameness, in repetition
  
• in the new pub downtown
• in jon-led devotions
• in my ecumenical community
  
• in home-brews
  
• in studying the Arabian prophet
  
• in mothers and fathers
  
• in cooking for 20
• in listening well
  
• in being listened to
• in hearing from far-away people in far-away places
  
• in practicing a little discipline
• in coffee with an old, old friend
• in asking for forgiveness
• in individual faith histories
• in the old, unpretentious, worn-in, comfortable shoe called 'family.'

thanks be to God

shalom

this present moment.

You must rest a while and you must wait
Until life's empty reservoirs fill up
As slow rain fills an empty upturned cup.
Hold up your cup, dear child, for God to fill,
He only asks today that you be still.




It's raining. And it's serene and cool and everything is damp to the touch: my skin, clothes, my pillow and my sheets, all my stuff is all wet. And the rain is totally filling me up today and even though I am sleep deprived and aught to be napping even now, I am resting in Him in this moment. Damn, I love this moment.


I think I am in love with people. He's helping me to see the beauty in so many of those my flesh often wants to call "ugly" creatures. And it brings me great joy to love them, and truly love them. And it grows me. I just talked to someone for almost two hours that I hardly know but I love the pieces of him that he shared with me. I feel a bit euphoric and out of my mind, so this is crazy talk.


how 'bout this: let's be changed. constantly.