Life at 3 miles an Hour

As I have so many times in the life of this blog, I find myself writing in the midst of another life change.  This time, despite a year ago swearing it would not happen again, we are once again moving ... changing residences ... new address, new neighborhood, even a new zipcode this time.  In reality it is only about a dozen blocks away, but I'm also a dozen months older than the last time, which was a dozen older than the time before, and a dozen older than the time before that.  At this point in my life, I can certainly physically feel it.  "I ain't as good once as I once was". This time though, not only is it felt physically, it's being felt emotionally and spiritually, with a weariness that I'm not used to. Someone recently shared with me that it seems as if, quite possibly, the nomadic wandering is a cost, or a curse, of the path that we have chosen, specifically the path of planting a new community of Jesus followers in the core of a city.  Not just a...

In recent weeks I've been blessed with a  challenging personal question, followed a few weeks later by an opportunity for some rest and reflection, where the question kept struggling to the surface.  The question in this instance was what I considered to be my greatest weakness as a practitioner of the pastoral arts.  The way it usually works is that a burning personal question appears in one form or another, followed by some brief attention and then a dive deep back into the next thing, resulting in not only forgetting the response, but eventually also the original question.  Ironic because my answer to this particular question was my difficulty in slowing down, backing off, and resting. For twenty four years I've lived and breathed "church".  Although there are some in the world convinced that I only work 30 minutes a week during my preaching and teaching opportunities, multiplied where multiple weekend services are involved and an occasional wedding or funer...

In my earliest years I never gave it much thought.  I guess that I kind of had a "the world is flat" opinion that never really prompted a consideration for what lie to the West, beyond "the Great river" that split our country.  Sure I read the text books, saw the movies, studied American geography, played "Oregon Trail".  It wasn't until we made our cross country drive 16 years ago to take up residency on the West Coast that this nagging question "Why?" began to dominate my thoughts on travels back and forth on highways birthed from the wagon trails of old. Every time I find myself heading back to the West on these same highways, I imagine life before these asphalt trails  and the unimaginable effort it took to navigate this treacherous and desolate terrain.  I attempt to imagine the unimaginable and it always leads to "Why?" in so many contexts.  Why would you leave the relative comfort of what you knew?  Why risk for something ...

Generally I prefer relaxed in a coffee shop environment.  All I need is a good blend of coffee drawn by competent hands, a comfortable place to sit, some table space and free wifi, and I'm a happy boy.  Usually, it goes without saying, the relaxed part comes with the territory.  It's an unwritten social norm that such an environment is for casual connections or introverted joyous solitude.  However, at least once a week I find myself seated in a Starbucks where this social norm doesn't rule the day.  Like a moth to fluorescent light I'm drawn to ground zero in the heart of the Amazon campus to be enveloped by the intensity of a culture that rarely rests.  It's rarely relaxed. I usually come away from the experience a bit more exhausted and weary, but I keep coming just the same. There is almost never a line of less than a dozen waiting to order and another dozen waiting on orders placed.  Most conversations are animated and elevated to overcome the ...

I wrote a letter the other day.  When I say that "I wrote a letter", I mean I actually wrote it ... with a pen and actual paper.  I'll have to admit that it was a unique experience.  It wasn't a post it or a memo, it was an actual letter with a beginning, middle, and ending ... on paper ... in ink ... with questionable penmanship.   It was void of all the usual trappings that I have become accustomed to.  There was no spell check, and I couldn't just backspace to get rid of my spelling shortcomings.  There was none of that annoying blue underline grammar check begging the question "are you sure you want to construct this phrase this way?".  I tend to ignore those anyway. Possibly more of a challenge though was my entering in to this letter without a clear vision of where I was headed.  There wasn't even a blinking cursor to follow across the pages.  Actually, this lack of direction delayed its writing for several days.  All I had...

I've never been known for my optimism.  People might even be quick to label me a pessimist, but I would have to disagree.  I consider myself a realist.  In my definition of these terms, and since I'm writing, I get to define them, a pessimist is someone who often or always thinks the worst based on nothing in particular.  A realist is someone who thinks the worst based on past history.  See the difference? For example, I happen to be someone who is very time sensitive.  Some might say anal I suppose ... whatever ... the point is that I live amongst a people who aren't ... time sensitive I mean.  A pessimist would assume that everyone would be late for everything.  I only assume this of people who have proven this to be so.  For the others I cling to my optimism and try not to look at the clock.  It seems to me, in my corner of the world, that we as a culture are far more pessimistic than I remember us being.  What's more alarming...

As someone who has been given a certain mechanical aptitude along with the accompanying joy of building things, living in this neighborhood can sometimes be a virtual playground for my imagination.  In the midst of the expected annoyance of noise, dust, and traffic diversions rises a sense of wonder and amazement of watching buildings from 7 to 40 stories high rise on nearly every corner of my neighborhood ... many at the same time.  Living here and daily walking these streets I have had the privilege of watching these steel and glass giants rise from deep holes formed by concrete and rebar.  Like a time-lapse video, this process spans the course of months until, before you realize what you're really seeing, the finishing touches are being put on and those who have crawled over, under, and inside these structures pack their lunch and tool boxes and move on to another corner and another reclamation of abandoned space.  In recent days, a...