Why me?

I am just amazed at how much we have been blessed with.  We have gotten so much good used stuff lately it blows my mind...and the best part is that it was all free.  Our living room furniture is about the only thing we have actually purchased for our house.  Everything from window treatments... area rug...the chair I am blogging from right now...weed eater(just a crack in the gas tank to fix)...a rear tine tiller(just needed a new bushing and fresh gas)and the grandaddy of them all...a $300 chlorine pump(for our sulfur water) that I was just getting ready to purchase when it was dropped in our lap out of the blue...

Why me? 

I believe it is so we can continue to give away what we have to those that need it.  I think we've been given to, so that we can give it to others.  It is easy to say that, but it's hard to actually pry my fingers off of the stuff I consider to be so important to me.  Sometimes I get to thinking that I'm the king of this kingdom here...that I can actually call the shots...what an idiot...
 
Lord, continue to loosen my grip on the things you've given me.  Remind me that none of it is mine, but that you've only allowed me the oportunity to keep track of it for a while.  May this life we desire begin to become a reality as we seek after you...

Holiness

The past several days I just can't get past these two passages from Merton's New Seeds of Contemplation:

If I am to be "holy" I must therefore be something that I do not understand, something mysterious and hidden, something apparently self-contradictory; for God, in Christ, "emptied Himself." He became a man, and dwelt among sinners. He was considered a sinner. He was put to death as a blasphemer, as one who at least implicitly denied God, as one who revolted against the holiness of God. Indeed, the great question in the trial and condemnation of Christ was precisely the denial of God and the denial of His holiness. So God Himself was put to death on the cross because He did not measure up to man's conception of His Holiness....He was not holy enough, He was not holy in the right way, He was not holy in the way they had been led to expect. Therefore he was not God at all. And, indeed, He was abandoned and forsaken even by Himself. It was as if the Father had denied the Son, as if the Divine Power and mercy had utterly failed.

Would we recognize His holiness today? If He came back in the flesh to live and walk on this earth at this moment, I don't think many people would recognize His life as a holy life. What then does that mean for us...I think our conception of holiness is just as distorted now as it was then for the pharasees. I'm afraid we've become the "whitewashed tombs" of our day.......Merton continues on holiness:

None of this can be achieved by any effort of my own, by any striving of my own, by any competition with other men. It means leaving all the ways that men can follow or understand. I who am without love cannot become love unless Love identifies me with Himself. But if He sends His own Love, Himself, to act and love in me and in all that I do, then I shall be transformed, I shall discover who I am and shall possess my true identity by losing myself in Him.

This paragraph describes, in a way I couldn't put into words, what has happened to me. I have a difficult time understanding why this hadn't happen until the past couple of years. I had offered myself fully to Christ for years to be made holy, to be sanctified, to be empowered...yet only until recently has this work (that only He can do) been done, and continues being done, in me. Why did it take so long? I can't know or understand His ways, but I do know that what it means to love my neighbors has taken on all new meaning these days and I am no longer the same person I was before.
Jesus, Your love is a mystery...

Big Bash

Check this out...maybe we should try this at some point in our neck of the woods.  I'm looking for more good excuses to get neighbors out of the house and this just might work even out here in the country.

Good Meeting

We had a good staff meeting today.  Sometimes I am not really sure why I am on staff, but today was good and productive yet the struggle between my place in the institutional church and in the house church continues.

One of the other staff shared this at the meeting and I thought it was on the money...sort of...

The future of the church depends on whether it develops true community.  We can get by for a while on size, skilled communication, and programs to meet every need, but unless we sense that we belong to each other, with masks off, the vibrant church of today will become the powerless church of tomorrow.  Stale, irrelevant, a place of pretense where sufferers suffer alone, where pressure generates conformity rather than the Spirit creating life--that's where the church is headed unless it focuses on community.

Larry Crabb  from The Connecting Church

I hate to break it to him, but the church isn't headed there...it IS there...So the question isn't what are we going to do to keep us from heading there, but it is more accurately what are we going to do to get us to a place of authentic community from where we currently are...enter the house church...less emphasis on Sunday morning and more on building relationships outside of that larger gathering.  Both are still essential in my mind, but a catastrophic shift in priority is necessary to begin this process of building authentic community.

can this realistically be done...I guess we'll have to wait and see...

Sunflower Princess II

The sunflowers just keep growing with absolutley no help from us...Macee loves to check up on them every few days.

The Bachelor

I finished the porch on Friday afternoon.  I must say...It looks extremely good...I was really nervous about the carpet but it came out quite nicely.  I'll have to get a picture of it to post...maybe a before and after shot. 
 
Yesterday I helped a friend rip old aluminum siding off in preparation for the new vinyl next weekend.  There were a couple other guys there and we had a great time...it didn't seem much like work at the time.  We talked about having a traveling crew to help each other work on our houses when the need arises and I like the idea.  Meeting needs...building relationships...and loving life...sounds like church...
 
Sara and Macee have been in Dayton with Sara's sister since Tuesday and I am past ready for them to come back.  Being a bachelor again is ok for a couple of days but it gets old really quick...I miss my girls...
 
I must say that I wouldn't trade my life with anyone else for anything...I am overwhelmed with gratitude at how rich I am both monetarily and relationally.  I think the world trains us to be pessimists by nature and I have begun to realize that there just isn't any time for that.  I am just amazed at how many complaining and sour attitudes represent those that call themselves disciples of Christ.  How can I constantly look only at the negative if I truly love Jesus and other people.  I suppose I have finally allowed the love of Christ in me to overpower my desire to dwell in the negative and wallow in the misery of unmet expectations and disappointing circumstances....believe me, that is an absolutely miserable place to be

My Body Hurts

My Parents have done a lot to their house the past several years and the front porch had been talked about for the last two.  It needed to be checked out, reinforced, and then carpeted.  I thought since I'm off I could do that as kind of an a "mother's" and "father's" day gift.  A couple of nice perks is that dad has helped me out even after a long day at work and my mom has made some awesome meals. 
 
I started Tuesday night and I'm still not done.  I hope I'll finish tomorrow...actually that would be today I guess since it is Friday right now technically.   
Everything hurts...my back...knees...right heel...my hands...
I must be getting too old to do things like this.  Car repair and home improvement marathons didn't used to get to me like this one has.  The reward will be worth it though when I look at the porch tomorrow and see it completed(minus the rail...I'm not doing that).  I'd like to have a porch like that...a lot of memories could be made out there, but we don't have a set-up very conducive for a porch...I guess we still have the barn.
 
I thought I had something a little more profound to say, but it must have escaped me in my state of  exhaustion.

My Prayer

I just keep coming back to this as a prayer that really speaks to what my heart longs for...

Untie my hands and deliver my heart from sloth. Set me free from the laziness that goes about disguised as activity when activity is not required of me, and from the cowardice that does what is not demanded, in order to escape sacrifice.
But give me the strength that waits upon You in silence and peace. Give me humility in which alone is rest, and deliver me from pride which is the heaviest of burdens. And possess my whole heart and soul with the simplicity of love. Occupy my whole heart and soul with the one thought and the one desire of love, that I may love not for the sake of merit, not for the sake of perfection, not for the sake of virtue, not for the sake of sanctity, but for You alone.

Thomas Merton from New Seeds of Contemplation

What Hell is like

Correction...I hadn't run a race in 17 years...I think that extra year made all the difference.

I was thinking that an 8 minute mile pace would be a great pace for this. So I saw Tiffany at the race and she said she was going to try to keep at a 7 minute mile pace. I thought Scott and I would be able to gauge ourselves off of her since neither of us had a watch on. The gun fires and we're off...Tiffany takes off like a dart...I'm thinking, if that is a 7 then I'm running an 8 or worse...then we get to the first mile mark where they were calling out the times...57...58...59...7 minutes....

I don't think I have been or will ever be as happy as I was at that point to hear those two words...7 minutes...because that whole first mile I thought I was actually running an 8 minute pace which seemed ungodly fast for 8. So anyway...at this point I said to Scott, "I think I can keep this up for the full race."

Then came the first water station...the guy in front of me took a cup but in the process of grabbing it he hit me with at least half of it right in the face...I didn't need that...I didn't even want any water...

So I hear the second mile time of 14:09 and I'm right on pace, just need to pick it up a little. As I approached the 3 mile mark I didn't think I was going to make it...I just kept saying to myself, "just a little longer...just a little longer..." and finally I turned the corner and saw the 3 mile mark and the finish line. My mind told my body to pick it up for the end, but I don't think my body heard...or maybe it said, "you can go to hell!" in response, it was hard to tell with all of the screaming my body was doing at that point. I then crossed the line and looked at the big clock as I did...21:46...7:01 per mile...

I thought I might fall over after I finished, but I didn't...or at least I don't remember falling over...

All in all it was...hell...something I don't think I'll do more than once a year to remind myself of why I don't like it. I think I'll just stick to my leisurely 3 mile jogs around our neighborhood
Ok, so it wasn't that bad...in fact, the longer I sit here less hellish it seemed...pretty soon I might be saying it was actually kind of fun...

What was I thinking?

I'm running a 5k race tomorrow...

1. Why am I still up?

2. What was I thinking?...it's been 16 years since I have run a race...

3. I really like lists

4. I like them so much I wanted to make this post a list even though...

5. I don't have enough material to really make a list...

6. but I just couldn't resist it...

7. I mean come on...

8. 3 days in a row with lists

Vacation

Had a mini-vacation this week. We go up to the lake(Erie) and spend a few days at a cottage my parents rent for the week of the 4th every year. I have a few highlights of the trip:

1. On the way up I noticed that by pressing both the "low" and "high" buttons on my A/C controls that a "medium" setting can be reached...it only took me 5 years to figure that one out...so we cruised up to the lake at a comfortable "med" on the A/C. Pretty exciting I know...

2. I had my first beer...ok so it was an O'douls...

3. I did have some "pink smash" at the Old Firehouse Winery which didn't taste all that great and reinforced to me why I don't drink.

4. We went down to a park and listened to the Lost Sheep Band play live while we ate popcorn and Macee played...I felt very rich that night.

5. We ate lunch at Eddie's Grill before we headed out and enjoyed the fine cuisine and atmosphere...

Church?

I think audioblogger is having some technical difficulties...at least I don't think my last post is working, but maybe I'm just a moron...then that may be true anyway...

Sara and I had a great time in Columbus and we learned some valuable lessons. Here are just a few:

1. Meeting people whom you have only known via their blogs can be really disappointing...hehehe...just kidding.

2. House church is very similar to yet entirely different from big church all at the same time.

3. House churches don't have to spend a lot of money on being an organization therefore they can focus more of it on others.

4. Quit trying to figure out what form or model we're supposed to use and just start something real and see what it becomes.

5. Communion with real wine in the common cup is a whole new experience.

6. Being able to gather together several smaller groups as the collective body of Christ is still a very valuable.

I'm not sure if that is it or not...maybe more later...

First meal night will be next Wednesday...I hope...