We are called to live and called to love

For me, life is full of undulations of the heart, waves that oscillate up and down and I wear it all. Right now, I am inspired and ridiculously amazed at how we live and how we love. Not that we got it right but that we try. We are trying to do mission. It is becoming real to me.

It has been difficult for me to bear this burden of mission. i have wanted to run to comfort and run to solace. But, on Monday, I woke up differently. Everything was more beautiful. The air around me, the sky above, the trees outside, and the people, of course the people were the most beautiful of all. I saw love all around, people who have it and people who so desperately desire it whether they know it or not. A friend of mine has been going to the Good Sam feeding lately, and after this last time I felt I could feel how she wanted to love and see love, how the faces of the poor actually resonated with her. And the men and women at the good sam, I couldn't help but see Jesus in them all. The broken and downtrodden, and they were happier than I had been for months. And grateful for watery mashed potatoes, stale chicken patties and bread on the verge of being moldy. And they are so thankful.

God is moving among us and within us. He is pouring himself out all around us and calling us to do the same.

A friend of mine from high school has been on an 11 month mission trip all over the world called the world race. I have been keeping up with her blog (http://emilymilroy.theworldrace.org/) and I am inspired by her willingness to go in spite of fear, and the diligence with which she confronts all the challenges God places in front of her. She has open hands and she allows God to move within her and use her to move. We strive to do the same, we strive to move according to His will. I have been pushing against Him lately because it started to hurt. He started to ask too much of me. But he never stopped loving me in spite of my resistance. He never pulled away but waited patiently as I went through being a whiny brat about it all. And finally whene I turn and wake up to Him, He reaffirms me that it is all ok. It is ok because He can replace the crap i have filled my life with, it is ok because as He asks me to let go of one thing, he fills that emptiness within my soul.

I live in a house where two dogs damage everything, roaches can never be fully killed, we find mice in toilets and someone uses a pair of tongs to throw it across our neighbors yard. I live next to a liquor store with street walkers on the corner. I live in a house where 10 poorly equipped, naive, selfish at times, arrogant at others, decide to commune with one another, to build and equip one another, to put each other in their place when necessary and pick each other up when they have fallen. And we don't do it because we love one another. We do it because we love God, and He loved us first. When you experience that it becomes an overflow of the heart and you cant help but love the people your are around. As Emily said in her blog, we strive to live with hands open, that the overflow of the love within our hearts meet each other and everyone we come in contact with. That the chaos that is the Lake House may help a life come to know Jesus, and help each other to remind us that it is Jesus that is our focus, nothing else. I want to desperately listen to the voice of God, and I pray that if I never reach the point where I can listen, that the desire to listen will be enough. I pray that each of us continues to be intentional in the way we live. Our actions will never be meaningless, each of them reaches into the souls of those around us, and into our own whether we pay attention or not. I love and i strive to love abundantly. I pray that it never ceases. That as I look around, I see Jesus in everyone, the good bad and ugly. As this post is, my life is a jumbled mess of emotion, thoughts, desires and people. I would have it no other way and I pray that it is God that separates it all out and uses me for what he would have of me. I thank each and every one of you for being in my life, putting up with my crap, and loving me all the same. Mad props.

Seek God, he is waiting for you with open arms and he will teach you, refine you, burn away the crap of your lives. It may hurt at times, but in the end you will be the beautiful creation, made in His image, that he intended you to be.

Love you guys

Death of St. Scratch & Dent

Dear Brethren,

May Gulley's rest in peace. It served us as loving and faithful companion for many years now. It allowed us to live a healthy and abundant life. Granola bars for 10 cents, tea boxes for a 25 cents, dented cans for 35 cents. They say you can't buy love, but the truth is, Gulley's sold love. It came in an expired and dented box in the spoiled milk isle.

We should place a picture of Gulley's on our wall. No other store has the ability to evoke so many fond memories (ex. Will eating a cup of maggot infested oatmeal. Me drinking a full cup of brown and rotted apple juice. Eating canned food that had a two year old expiration date).


Please respect Gulley's passing away.

Benji's Song

The mess that we're in is as common as sin,

But we've never been quite satisfied

With our petty offenses, our own recompenses:

The guilt, and the secrets we've cried.

So we collaborate and we systemize hate

Into broad multinational schemes

That don't stop with the murder of one poor sheep herder,

But rend all the flock at the seams.

If our minds can't dismiss our Judas's kiss,

Then we'll hide it behind the bright mask

That we wear in the crowd, where the cheers are too loud

To admit our own role in the task.

What is murder for me is a triumph when we

Pin a flag or a ribbon to claim

The dark deed as a virtue. Don't blame me if it hurt you

To blot out your memory and name.

And if all of the men and their wives and descen-

-dents have fallen and bowed in their shame,

Then the earth will fall last--the die has been cast

and the ash will remember our name.

After pillaging kin, our own house will cave in

On our crimes, our excuses, our pride.

Only then will our lust to ground men into dust

Will be, with our death, satisfied.

We Have Our Moments

Sometimes entropy can be observed by just looking at our community. Convictions wane, intentionality is stilled, & the aroma of apathy clings to everything. We become irritable, selfish, resentful, and unkind. The proximity that deepens our intamacy also amplifies our angst. We unknowingly retreat into the solace of isolation and deprive ourselves of the very cure. The past month seems to have been one such season.

Then, as though God had planned such a period for dramatic effect, He blows through the house like a rushing wind of intentionality, reconciliation, reflection, repentance, and restoration. Last night was one such night.

The night began as a cool evening at home with housemates, a few guests, wrestling matches and haircuts in the kitchen. It became a series of independently initiated & intentional conversations consisting of things like confession, repentance, reconciliation, personal challenges and convictions. I had the privilege of being either central to or at least included in almost a half dozen such conversations in one evening. (and in a strange way there was a common echo happening in them all) While it may sound like a tedious or stressful evening it is quite the contrary. Like a withered plant being watered, I felt restored and wanted to just bask in it. Nights like that remind us of why we live the way we do, correct the insidious ideas that have been eroding our clarity, and give us a taste of the communal life that beckons.

Gettin' Conscious!

INVICTUS

by William Ernest Henley
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gait,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

Rewritten by Dorothy Day
Out of the night that dazzles me,
Bright as the sun from pole to pole,
I thank the God I know to be
For Christ the conqueror of my soul.
Since His the sway of circumstance,
I would not wince nor cry aloud.
Under that rule which men call chance
My head with joy is humbly bowed.
Beyond this place of sin and tears
That life with Him! And His the aid,
Despite the menace of the years,
Keeps, and shall keep me, unafraid.
I have no fear, though strait the gate,
He cleared from punishment the scroll.
Christ is the Master of my fate,
Christ is the Captain of my soul.

יהוה אחד

Yesterday morning the eclectic collection of micro churches in the broader Tampa Bay area came together at the HUB (Huge Underground Building) to represent the love they have and the people they love. For some, that means African American girls, and for others, it's the local homeless, the self-deluded middle class, Haiti, Manila, Hamburg, St. Petersburg, the college students, the aged, the dying, or for us, it's the people who knock on our door. It was hard to answer the question of who we are or what we do. Do? We do stuff. And who we are is part of the Body: just one houseful of people trying to crack our door wide open to the neighborhood we love. It was good to see other pieces of the Kingdom, each with their own passion and calling, none of them encompassing the totality of the Gospel, each of them invaluable in their own expression of it. And we are one.

After the micro church showcase, we worked alongside our friends to move them into a new house where they have decided to enjoy the reality of christian community among women. It's good to have sisters. On Saturday at a wedding, I sat next to one of them, Lauren, and we watched the groom kneel down and wash the feet of the bride, who then knelt down to wash his feet in turn. I leaned over to her and said "This is why I love Christianity" and her smile nodded in agreement. We are blessed to love one another by serving each other as we would want to serve ourselves. We are excited to work with Lauren's girls, excited to see them flourish in service to each other. And we are one.


In the evening, after our normal house meeting, I took the liberty of testing the boundaries of christian community, of calling the bluff on unconditional love. It's a gamble that I've come to love losing, because each time I've packed my bags in preparation for rejection, for judgment or condemnation, each time I've expected these believers to act like 'those christians', I have seen their judgment suspended, giving way to mercy, seen their words quieted so they can listen. I see their spirituality, with all the doctrine, dogma and discipline that entails, swallowed up in the Spirit, Who is the same in each of us. And we are one.

Being Called To Something Greater...

Today was a continuation of a process i've been going through for a lil while now, but more heavily in the last week. During a personal retreat this past weekend, I saw a foreign movie based on the true story of a young girl who was beheaded for her involvement in the german resistance against hitler... it really challenged me. it caused me to look carefully at my own life, my own goals, and ask whether or not i was living for something greater, something worth dieng for. more than that, it also challenged me to give myself TOTALLY to a cause worth dieing for; not just halfheartedly. her story left me feeling ashamed and inspired.... not wanting this sort of feeling to wane, i decided i needed to keep feeding whatever this was taking place in my heart, so i got hold of a couple movies about bonefhoeffer and watched those, and once again i was ashamed and ispired. altogether i'm looking at these people's lives and learning that their faith/relationship with God informed every aspect of their lives. there was no separation between their "religon" and their "politics," or there "religon" and their "social life," or their "religon" and their "economics." it was all one integrated whole for them.

it's funny... people like sophie scholl and dietrich bonehoffer were not popular in their day. they were just ordinary people who gave themselves fully to a higher cause. they were ordinary people who did not shrink back from death. really they were ordinary who just lived their lives totally surrendered to God, and that is what made them extraordinary. that is what made their names great and worth rembereing throughout history. and those who only served themselves, who cowardly gaurded their own intrests and did not speak up against the evils of their day for fear of their own lives or family, their memory has faded away....

i'm not necesarrily interested in being remembered, but i want to live a life worth remembering. I want to live a life that really matters. Deep in my heart i want to give myself TOTALLY to a greater cause, for the betterment of humankind. i don't want regrets. My greatest fear is to stand before God and hear him say "i love you, i love you, i love you, but you wasted your life." i want to hear him say "i love you, i love you, i love you, and well done my good and faithful servant."

but if i'm honest i hold back because i'm afraid of failing, getting down on myself, feeling hopelessly screwed up and incapable of following Jesus, and then being paralyzed by my fear and discouragement. that seems to have been the trend. and i feel like God is worthy of more respect than that. God deserves better than that. He deserves someone who won't be "in and out" all the time. However, i'm sick of holding back. I feel that restlessness of not living wholeheartedly for a greater cause. I live in the shadow of knowing that my life is not totally devoted to something greater and it haunts me. i cannot be here anymore. to do so is suicide.

this is just a snapshot of what's been going on in my heart and mind this week. may the lord be good to me, be patient, and bring it to completion.

When Jesus doesn't come

My God, My Redeemer, My Savior

I suck, I am nothing...and glory to God for that.

My heart has been heavy lately. I have felt weighed down and thought many times to just give up. That maybe this community thing was just me getting caught up in the psych of it all. That I wasn't cut out to pursue God, or at least not as deeply as I desire. That maybe I can just go back to my old life without conviction, without watching and seeing pain all around me, that maybe I can just dance through life without having to carry any burdens. It has affected my attitude towards my community, towards my family, towards myself and towards God....and then He stepped in.

And now I can't stop crying this morning. I felt the glory of God, I felt His awesomeness, his power, his redemption. It was as if a veal was torn and I can see God all around me. I cant think of anything else, and I have so much to do, but I cant think of anything but Him. One of my family members just got back from a mission trip to Nicaragua the other day, a mission trip he wasn't supposed to go on, one that was a coincidence. Even then, he was just supposed to go and help build houses. He has never wanted to go to church, he has never wanted God...but we prayed.

I asked him how his trip went this morning and I saw God. I saw the light, I saw Jesus in His face. I saw the excitement of a new believer, with all the questions of a new believer. The hows and the whats and the whys. I heard him talk about the feelings and the tinglings, the overwhelming that comes with just being in the presence of the Spirit, the rush of the spirits waves crashing on our soul. I saw redemption and it shed away the rust that had encompassed my heart. I was reminded how mighty my God is, how much love my God has, and how my God never stops trying. I saw Christ save, I see Him saving still, and I can't stop crying. God has shown himself to both of us...to him through the poor and the good, and to me through him. Glory to God...He is mighty to save!!!