I was driving on the 110W this morning and saw that there were two H.O.V. lanes.

I don't usually stay-up this late, and definitely don't usually have anything sensible to write this late, but tonight I'm filled with the fullness of a rich evening, so wide awake.  Shared an outdoor dinner with dear friends, Bob and Sandra (who housed me for my first six-weeks in LA, beginning exactly 2 years ago, to the day!), along with their son, Steven, another friend, Erin, and two folks from Pretoria, South Africa.  The night nibbled and rambled and sipped toward the stroke of midnight, and yet it was one of those eves where time's presence felt absent.  This crew does life in such a unique and peculiar and passionate way that they can't help but leave one inspired.  So yeah, anyway, just grateful this evening and stuck with a spirit too alivened to sleep. 

I couldn't sleep so decided to get across town before traffic.  Not much open at 5am but coffee shops.  And I like coffee shops, and the 5am silence when I'm up to hear it.

Figured I'd crank out some good reading and writing.

But apparentely Richard couldn't sleep either.  He wreaks of homeless and talks of business.  Seems to know every face that passes and likes to talk about every face that doesn't.  Says he's had cancer for twelve years and was in prison for six.  He details cars for a living and knows uncanny details that would leave Jepordy champs speechless.  "Shares peace with pot."  Loves Jesus, but won't call himself a Christian.  "Spiritual," he says, "but right when you claim a damn religion, people the Truth."

Richard hasn't stopped talking for close to an hour.  In fact there's no way I could've grabbed ten minutes to write this had some seemingly well-known woman with a dog shown-up. 

His phrases make a lot of sense, but when you try to string 'em together, they're absolute garble.  Every sentence seems to summarize a point of his sixty or so years.  I guess in some ways this makes him seem holisic, able to integrate his span of living throughout his present.  But in other ways, it makes him seem really isolated, unable to hold enough awareness of his present, to have any holistic semblance of his past.

 



 

Um, yeah, so apparently Californians are into Independence Day.

My landlord told me he was leaving town for the weekend.  And they never leave town.  "Too many loud pops," he said, throwing his hands in the air.  I thought this was his Romanian way of saying Americans get a little giddy about their freedom day and go watch fireworks.  And well, this is what he meant, but by fireworks, I don't just mean the grand show at the local park, or the downtown celebration following the parade.  I mean like whole neighbhoods (namely mine) with whole driveways stuffed with grandma, grandpa and cousin Juanita, seated in lounge chairs, lap chairs and those long inflatable bench chairs...all for the fourth of July!?  I've never been in a war scene, but if I were, I think this is what it would sound like.  Loud, really loud, bursting flames of light scattering the sky.  I feel like I should hover against a wall like we did for tornado drills in middle school.  The moon is really rad tonight, but it's hard to find its crescent, given the thousands of brighter moons distracting its view.  Oh shoot, and now Dirty Dancing music is being sung by some far off stereo system.  This is crazy.  The people across the street just brought out their whole dining room table and are now salsa dancing in their grass.  Where am I!?  There are literally like hundreds of people lighting the air on fire in my vicinity.  Loud, hundreds of people.  Illegally loud hundreds of people.

Suffice it to say, Californians win the patroitism prize. 

As of tonight, I hope my house doesn't burn down.  And I'm proud to be an American (even though it's my Mexican neighborhood making all the loud pops).

The polarities of college ministry are often so extreme that it feels like we’ve gotta choose “one way” or “the other.” 

Local church vs. parachurch 
Discipleship vs. fellowship
Small group vs. large group
Singles vs. Marrieds.
Boundaries vs. freedom
Grace vs. truth 
Drinking vs. no drinking
Date vs. wait
And the list goes on…

So many questions and opinions, and yet so seemingly few agreed upon “answers.” So maybe—just maybe—our answers are somehow founded in our questions?  More specifically, maybe our answers are founded in questioning what we really believe.

Do you believe God cares about your campus more than you do today?
Do you believe He’s the one who’s actually transforming lives? 
Do you believe there is nothing you can do to enhance the process of your sanctification?
Do you believe God is enough?
Do you believe God?

No matter where you land, your “answers” here unveil what I believe as the true questions. It’s no mystery that college ministry struggles to find answers.  So maybe we’d find it helpful to start staking more in our questions (of belief, namely), than continuing to struggle for “answers.”  To truly see, I wonder if we might benefit from the unseen; to truly know, I wonder if we must cooperate with fears of the unknown; and to truly believe, I wonder if we’ve gotta start risking pride and exposing unbelief?

I went to a really bad church a couple weeks ago.  And it made me wonder why people go to really bad churches.  But then I forgot to write about it.  And so now, after returning from a healthier church experience, that title from two weeks ago is still on my mind.  So I've just decided to use it.  Even though it doesn't pertain.

I've been on a bit of a church hiatus.  Nothing against a particular church, per se, but more so have just been enjoying the space and permission to explore what "church" might be in the first place.  I've dabbled in different known congregations, as well as simply showed-up to completely unknown ones.  (Like literally, I just get in my car and drive until I pass a church with a relatively near-by service time.  I've done this twice.  Once was amazing.  Once sucked.  They both served nutter-butters after the service.)

"Church" is the most fascinating and sad and hopeful and hopeless concept to me right now.  Not sure what that says about me (probably that I'm a nerd and a seminary student), but for whatever its worth, its teaching me a heck-of-a-lot about God.  And I like that.

Later.

If you know a purpose behind what you're facing, I think you're a lot more apt to face it in hope.

Always seems like summer holds these grandiose plans for relaxation, but somehow you get to August and feel sunburned and more tired.  So far for me, summer has been a messy transition where rest has looked pretty restless.  One day has seamlessly rolled into the next and I don’t have a gage on the last month.  And ironic, or causal, or coincidental, or affectal, it hit me en flight home from a wedding this weekend that I've also been out of sync with God.

Though I tend to buck most “traditional customs” of being in relationship with Him, it dawned on me that some of the more traditional disciplines of Christianity took hold for a reason.  Something of their end brought focus and enjoyment, for a time, to their means.  And if I’m honest, I can’t help but wonder if something of their lacking in my summer living is affecting my synclessness?  I’ve not been attending church regularly.  I’ve not been journaling much.  Serving has been sporadic.  And spending time with God’s Word has been sparse.
 
Am I saying I’ve done something wrong, or not enough right, so am therefore "out of sync?"  No!  I'm a big believer in God having me where I am on purpose, and also Him being at work where(ever) I am.  But, I am saying there’s something to be said for the gift of spiritual disciplines.  There’s something to be said for intentionality and structure and commitment in our relationship with God (or anyone).  You’d think I’d have this down after two years of graduate level study with it, but I don’t.  I’m still learning.

I’m aware that structuring discipline into my summer won’t promise an end, but I’m also aware that sometimes I don’t need an end; just a beginning.

I guarantee either you, or one you lead, struggles with body, image, or body image problems. It’s unarguably one of the most pertinent topics for modern ministry.  So pertinent, and expansive, really, that I’ll not pretend one chunk of thoughts suffices for conclusions.  But as I’ve said before, blogging is fun cause random chunks and admitted inconclusions are okay.  So here goes...
 
I’ve been struggling with my own image issues lately, so decided to put a blanket over my full-length mirror.  It’s been great. Has forced me to ponder “seeing myself” and “what I look like,” from a different angle.  And oddly enough, drawn me back to an afternoon in northern Uganda last summer.  Walking with a local through random bush villages, at one point he warned, “Now most of these people have never seen a white person, so there’s no telling how they’ll react.” What he didn’t tell me, however, was that “most of these people” were children—most of this village was under age fifteen, so young in years, maybe, but severely aged in what they’d seen. For the brunt of the afternoon, I spent time playing with kids of a different generation, different language and different worldview.  Statistically speaking, I’ll live to 78.  They’ll be lucky to make next year.  I have a set of parents, plus godparents and a handful of random parents, who could further parent me should something happen to my own.  These kids are their own.
 
Most of my time was spent with a family of nine.  Both parents had died, leaving their oldest at 11’ish and youngest less than six months.  Not only had none of them seen a white person, but neither had any of them seen themselves. The closest they’d come was the reflection from a shallow puddle, or shiny knife.  So suffice it to say, introductions to a digital camera were pure magic.  At first they seemed to think it was a gun, scared to death and wanting nothing to do with this black weapon.  But eventually, they realized the little tool could produce some pretty unbelievable shrapnel. It delivered a picture that was bright, detailed and somehow familiar.  Upon seeing one of the images, the eleven-year-old “mom” of the family ran away crying.  I wonder what she saw? Before long, dots were connected and reflections on the screen quickly yielded into mimics of our scene. And soon after that, logic caught pace with imagination, or imagination with logic, and it was realized they, then, must be in those reflections too? For the first time, these people saw what they looked like.  And yet somehow, it was still evident to me that they knew better than me what their true imaged entailed.
 
To fathom a world without mirrors…a world without measuring panes of size, shape and beauty, or seasoned sightings of how one looks…is unfathomable.  So I’ve been wondering if maybe seeing and sight has a more expansive definition than I’ve been sold—or “reflection” a less holistic answer to my “image”?  Maybe “seeing ourselves,” as we know it, isn’t the end, or beginning, it’s cracked-up to?  Though black boxes and glass are unarguably cool, maybe they don’t see all reality, or show all of ones self?  Furthermore, maybe there are other ways to learn what I look like, than a mirror, screen, or Facebook photo.  It seems that since I am inside of me, I am incapable of fully seeing me.  So maybe like these children, God permits other ways of learning to see—like seeing inwardly, as a means to my outward?  
 
How is it that I surrender something unseen (myself), to Someone unseen (God), in belief that doing so will allow me to see (faith, as described in Hebrews 11:1)?  
 
Maybe our ability to see is somehow rooted in our ability to know?  So that in learning to know ones self, we actually learn what we look like?
 
Let me get back to you.