(xaris and shalom)

Sometimes, it is so good to be reminded -- that the job that I do every day -- the every-day routines that seem so mundane: waking up before 6 -- washing lipstick off of mugs -- tamping down espresso -- making change -- it matters. It's about more than getting people their caffeine So that they de-zombify. It's about more than getting a paycheck, More than having a respectable job. It's about creating a space Where people feel safe To walk in and answer honestly When we ask: Hey, how're you doing? It's about bringing people together As they see each other over and over So they start to see  each other And to ask questions. What's your name? What do you do? It's about facilitating opportunities For people to get to know each other To let down their walls To search. To find. To be found.

The past two weeks all of my Bible studies have seemed to be of a piece -- which, I know, should not surprise me at all.  And I'm not surprised, exactly, but it's beautiful, and timely. In Exodus with BCCC and HopePres , we've discussed/argued/wrestled with the idea of God's sovereignty.  How can you not, looking at the exodus and seeing His might -- and wondering about why He left them in slavery for 400 years?  It's all unfathomable to us when we try to answer the why  questions... but it's taught so clearly.  We've talked about Job, too, about looking to Who,  not why. Then at CBS , we've been studying 1 John, where he hammers away (over and over and over...) at the dangerous lie of gnosticism, the insidious creeping of the Platonic notion that the spiritual is pure and the material is tainted, evil. Last night, with my little group from HopePres, we sat around in Jake's living room, discussing creation, God's sovereignty and goodness, the es

Remember the day, Love when You molded man of earth bent down and breathed Your life into him? Remember the love that spun out Flung flagrantly through creation Wefted into the singing universe's fabric? And yet history tears and twists Under the cutting weight of the damning record: Rebellious subjects, a whoring bride. We fled from You to the muddiest pits Forming images of ourselves to proclaim our glory Defiling Your image and defying Your authority. We clung to these idols, gave them our breath Offered our lives to make them grow strong Glutted them with our children's souls. After such sin, what forgiveness? Think now -- oh my God. What hope of homecoming, of reconciliation? And yet You bring all stories full circle Bending low to become a second Adam God incarnate, Logos in flesh. Dying to ransom our forsworn souls From the crushing maw of death Overturning the enemy's schemes with divine irony. Resurrecting as guarantee of our future Rest on the seventh day, Light o

Two points from The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment  that I've been thinking over recently. The more palpable and remarkable the hand of God appears to bring about an affliction, the greater is the sin of murmuring and discontentment under an affliction. So yeah -- when I can't understand why something is happening, because it makes no sense to me -- maybe then I should take a lesson from Job and close my mouth, trusting that of course God is working. To be discontented though God has been exercising us for a long time under afflictions, yet still to remain discontented [is a great sin]... So when you are first a Christian and newly come into the work of Christ, perhaps you make a noise and cannot bear affliction, but are you an old Christian and yet will you be a murmuring Christian?  Oh, it is a shame for any who are old believers, who have been a long time in the school of Jesus Christ, to have murmuring and discontented spirits. So I pray to be a better student.