i lament...

people living in trailers

broken and messy people

being broken and messy

leadership that fails when needed

communities lacking a voice

work that trumps people

20 months of storm damaged lives

ears that do not listen

voices that remain unheard

leaders not rising from within

redemption that seems so slow

tears that will not flow

assistance that yields dependance

amateurs believing they have to be professionals

Let Your Love Be Strong

In this world of news, I've found nothing new
I've found nothing pure
Maybe I'm just idealistic to assume that truth
Could be fact and form
That love could be a verb
Maybe I'm just a little misinformed

As the dead moon rises, and the freeways sigh
Let the trains watch over the tides and the mist
Spinning circles in our sky's tonight
Let the trucks roll in from Los Angeles
Maybe our stars are unanimously tired

(chorus)
Let your love be strong, and I don't care what goes down
Let your love be strong enough to weather through the thunder cloud
Fury and thunder clap like stealing the fire from your eyes
All of my world hanging on your love

Let the wars begin, let my strength wear thin
Let my fingers crack, let my world fall apart
Train the monkeys on my back to fight
Let it start tonight
When my world explodes, when my stars touch the ground
Falling down like broken satellites

(chorus)

your thoughts?

Should I give money to people on the street who ask for it?

intriguing... yet so simple?

“Fasting is never the central spiritual discipline of the Christian life. Fasting is not a separable spiritual discipline like prayer or study or solitude. Instead, fasting is a physical condition in which all the disciplines can occur. Fasting is not effective in and of itself but is the expression of the kind of person – a person who has given all of herself or himself to God – that stands before God in trust and obedience, yearning for what that person wants in the face of God in the hope that God will hear that yearning.“
Scot McKnight (thesis from his soon to be new book)

my poem

the name i did not choose,
        nor the charge it bears
through all the twists and turns in life
        it is my constant tare
‘til one day i become the man set free
        from this fallen plight
Kerry is my name;
        the “dark one seeking light”

she may be on to something

do unto others...

“if i don’t have red, i use blue”
~pablo picasso~

me likey rain (especially the torrential variety)

hope is rising.

why do mosquitos bite with their two back legs in the air?

palm sunday

so today is palm sunday, and for the first time that i can ever remember, the text for the day was taken from mark and not one of the other gospel accounts. scott talked a lot about the significance of the mundane when talking about the story today. ya know, the things like stealing a donkey, throwing clothes all over the ground and waving branches at the dude; the usual king treatment. but one of the things that really struck me today is how all these people were so excited to have a king come to town that they could overlook the absurdity of the donkey and all the other things jesus had been saying and the fact that probably didn’t really look like much of a tough guy. so they yelled “hosanna,” save us now. as if this crazy carpenter dude could just march into jerusalem on a donkey and fix everything (insert “bad-ass” pun). ironically, when he went for to do just that, everybody just cuts and runs leaving him on his own. i think we’re the same way. we want the king, but not the kingdom. the king saves us, rides on in and represents all our hopes and dreams and expectations. but then when the king get to work setting up his kingdom, we want nothing to do with it. maybe that’s because the kingdom involves imprisonment, beatings, a cross, and a tomb. these are irreplaceable parts of the story. the kingdom is messy, sometimes hard and definitely flies in the face of what we want reality to be. we want the luxury of designing the kingdom ourselves for the king. Hosanna, save us now, but don’t you dare meddle with the rest of things.

so this is my question... can we really, truly celebrate the kingship of christ without the cross, without the tomb, without the kingdom?

thanks be to god for an empty tomb and a resurrection to ensure that they cannot be separated... easter is a pretty special thing...