love grieves and waits...

Love grieves and waits. It waits above all for God's intervention. God, who has moved in love through his Son and by the Spirit, we know on that basis will continue to act on the grounds of what he has done and accomplished in Christ. So we wait, knowing he is faithful to change us first and to change another as he sees fit. We wait for restoration and reconciliation.

It doesn't matter whether or not we like someone. Someday we will. Why? Because God made all things good and in Christ he is remaking all things and all who are in Christ. We need to reach out at least in hope and prayer as to what God can do in ourselves and in that other who may or may not be alienated from God. Is he able to make all things new, including the longning for relationship with that other that is in our hearts? Yes, of course.

And I can grieve when I don't seem to care anymore about a broken relationship, that God would renew my hope and faltering steps to both pray and to reach out in love. After all we know in the end that it is God who can take us both in into the joy of the perichoretic dance of love that is at the heart of who he is, as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This will ordinarily happen in humble human ways, but isn't that what God is all about? He became human so that we might become one together with him. And it is to begin now, grounded in our relationship to God in Christ.

Let's therefore not give up. Let's reach out in love, and especially in hope and prayer to God. Someday we'll fully be realizing the love and potential that relationship brings, together in our God. But through Christ that can begin now.

~Ted Gossard~

nothing new under the sun, huh?

we were meant to live for so much more...

If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing. If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing
Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.
Prophecy and speaking in unknown languages and special knowledge will become useless. But love will last forever! Now our knowledge is partial and incomplete, and even the gift of prophecy reveals only part of the whole picture! But when full understanding comes, these partial things will become useless.
When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things. Now we see things imperfectly as in a cloudy mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.

Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.

1 Corinthians 13

(sometimes a little reminder is necessary)

things just never seem to be simple

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/03/24/iran.uk.history.ap/index.html

trying to hear what is really being said...

(although that sometimes leads to a much lesser view of humanity than i want to believe)

Don't have anything to do with foolish and stupid arguments, because you know they produce quarrels. 2 Timothy 2.23

what a week

4 trips to new orleans
georgie getting roughed up by his innards
parents, grandparents and little bro in town
850+ miles driven for work
locked keys in car
birthday party for mommy
beautiful weather (again)
steaks with family and friends
grandpa on bourbon street
long days and late nights
switchfoot

yup... i’m officially exhausted, yet so thankful

breathe slow

Until my body cracks the pavement and shakes the face of the basement
Lacing the foundation with scars that sacrifice is bound to leave
Break inner-city boundaries so suburbanites are down to see
This cultural way of life and how music is more than sound to me
But freedom's lungs are heavy from pushing these smoke signals out
And we've become so disillusioned that we're scared to notice
The eviction notice speaking its clout with screams and shouts, but trust me
Clarity's waiting there on the other side of your focus
So snatch the breath from blasphemy emphatically
Transform naturally, control the art before it masters me
Breathe slow and hold the hand of whoever you can reach for
Touch the ones you've never seen before 'til the common good is restored
'Til the homeless are all execs and capitalism yields to ethics
'Til janitors live in mansions and schoolteachers can push a Lexus
'Til beef is deaded and debt is erased or collected
'Til the projects and country clubs are now and forever connected
I'll speak my messages 'til they get it
Until you're touched by something sacred and love is all that you're left with
Blessed is the head that shares the crown that he possesses
Consider yourselves my brethren and this song is my confession
'Cause man shall not live by the bottle alone
I keep a fist raised to the sky so you can follow me home
And all your problems can't be solved by one call on the phone
I keep a fist raised to the sky so you can follow me home, it goes..

Canticle of the Turning

Canticle of the Turning
Lyrics: Rory Cooney
Music: Irish Traditional, Star of the County Down, Arr. By Rory Cooney

My soul cries out with a joyful shout that the God of my heart is great,
And my spirit sings of the wondrous things that you bring to the ones who wait.
You fixed your sight on the servant's plight, and my weakness you did not spurn,
So from east to west shall my name be blest. Could the world be about to turn?

Refrain:    My heart shall sing of the day you bring.
                Let the fires of you justice burn.
                Wipe away all the tears,
                For the dawn draw near,
                And the world is about to turn.

Though I am small, my God, my all, you work great things in me,
And your mercy will last from the depths of the past to the end of the age to be.
Your very name puts the proud to shame, and to those who would for you yearn,
You will show your might, put the strong to flight, for the world is about to turn.

Refrain

From the halls of power to the fortress tower, not a stone will be left on stone.
Let the king beware for your justice tears ev'ry tyrant from his throne.
The hungry poor shall weep no more, for the food they can never earn;
These are tables spread, ev'ry mouth be fed, for the world is about to turn.

Refrain

Though the nations rage from age to age, we remember who holds us fast:
God's mercy must deliver us from the conqueror's crushing grasp.
This saving word that our forebears heard is the promise which holds us bound,
'Til the spear and rod can be crushed by God, who is turning the world around.

Refrain

Welcome to the fallout
Welcome to resistence
The tension is here
The tension is here
Between who you are and who you could be
Between how it is and how it should be

I dare you to move
Like today never happened

can we say messed up?

so one day i’m told that i’m incompetent and can’t make decisions and the next i’m told i’m supposed to babysit a 50+ year old man who just doesn’t want to do his job... this morass of genuine leadership is killing me

camping

seven of us went camping this weekend at a state park about an hour away. so much fun just to enjoy the beautiful weather, play some disc golf and enjoy good friends late into the night (oh yeah, and amazing stars). refreshing indeed.

long hours on the porch + great people + lots of laughter = sore tummy muscles :)

welcome back to the mississippi gulf coast, mr. bush. i’m so glad that you were able to take the time and come look around. we are so grateful that you needed to shut down our main highway for your tour knowing that you did so in order to take the best look possible at things. we did not mind one iota that the transportation of volunteers and materials was drastically complicated by your presence.

for da birds

there sure are a lot more birds singing in the morning down here in mississippi than up in chicago this time of year...