2.24.7

just an update.

things are so good here. what an unpoetic typical understatement. i don't know how else.

after my first few weeks here, john asked me what the hardest part of being in san diego was. i told him it was trying to dig deep and peel back the layers with people. for the first little while, the questions here between us were a continuous, repetitive stream of "where are you from? did you go to school? what is your IC story? do you have siblings? what's your family like? what music do you listen to? favorite movies? etc? etc? etc?"

i missed walking into katie's house, or the girls' house, or encounter, or the office, or a coffee shop, and knowing that the questions asked were real ones, and that the answers given were real ones. i missed living soul to soul. cheesy... so cheesy. but it's truth. the only layers we dug through were far beneath the surface, and were so painful to peel away, and were so freeing to move beneath.

i guess the Father knew this was the one thing i hurt for. within days it began, and it's so real. conversations started happening - the real kind. instead of "what is your favorite..." it became "why do you think that" or "why do you think you do that?" or "what in your life makes you react that way?".

it seems that as soon as i stopped striving to make real friendship happen, and remembered (or was reminded) to just abide in Him, and exist as the person i now am because of Christ and His cross, then it happened. how refreshing. how beyond us.

when will and the team left auburn, he called me and told me how his heart ached for the people there. how he didn't understand it, but he knew there was a hole in his heart that could never be filled except by the people he met there.
and i realized, it's the same for me. i have a gaping hole in the pit of who i am for the community in auburn. and i like it that way. i don't want to fill it, i don't want the hurting to stop. i'm learning to embrace that void, because it means that i'm one of the few who are priviledged enough to have those connections. i hope that no place and no people ever fill the place i have for auburn.

and the sabbath's day's walk that will lead me to them... what a thing to look forward to.

john foreman:

Here we are now with the desperate youth and the pain
We're awakening
Maybe it's called ambition
You've been talking in your sleep about a dream
We're awakening

i like this better than emailing. it just seems easier to read.
i also like lists, they keep my attention better.

1. living here, for me, has been living. there is something so profound and undefinable about stepping into the life you are meant for. not that this is the end all - certainly not. but i have found my tiny place in the story that He has always been writing. and i really like this chapter.
2. i miss auburn so deeply - we've heard it a thousand times - the community there really is unique. it is irreplaceable, and i hope i never find anything like it.
3. i spend my day on the other end of the line from college and high school kids who tell me incessantly that i inspire them. it's the most ridiculously humbling thing i've ever experienced, not because they tell me i inspire them, but because the things their doing in their world blows me out of the water. i literally hang up from every phone call and just sit with tears in my eyes. you have to have a small recovery time before you can jump back into it, because you can't believe how alive God is all over the place - in the hearts of these amazing people that you'll never meet. i can't explain it, and i just failed trying.
4. there is a really fun cheap deli next door to our office with great coffee and sandwiches and fountain coke. it makes my day every day.
5. our office is not an office - it's a 15,000 square foot warehouse without heat. we learn a lot in that warehouse.

















6. lots of cool connections here. our first day we went to seaworld for free. then six flags for free. friday we got tonnnnnns of jedidiah for free.
















and yesterday was free disney land.















7. for those of you who know "to write love on her arms" - i live with that girl's best friend. the story is about the girl, and her 3 friends, one of who is ashley. pretty cool.

8. it's kind of beautiful here


































































9. please come visit.

10. i live with 19 people, and 4 more are moving in. it's surprisingly clean and quiet, and i surprisingly love it.

11. it's been a lot of fun discovering Jesus in new things. it's an adventure, seeing Him in movies and hearing him in phone calls and feeling the freedom of His weight all over you. i feel like i get to live in the epitome of the Kingdom that is to come and that is already here. i see the deepest and thickest pain - where the Kingdom is needed most, and is to come. and i see the Kingdom that is already here, rushing toward that pain. i don't get it. crowder says: i think Jesus insisted that the kingdom of heaven was not just a space we would later inhabit, but also one that He was bringing here and now. that it is surrounding us. that we are walking around in it. that we are bringing it.

i'm praying that we all continue to seek the Kingdom that is here and that is coming.

method acting

so michael, please keep the tape rolling. boys, keep strumming those guitars.
we need a record of our failures. we must document our love.
i have sat too long in my silence. i have grown too old in my pain.
to shed this skin, be born again, it starts with an ending.
so thank you friends for the time we shared.
my love stays with you like sunlight and air.
oh, how i truly wish i could keep hanging around here but my joy is covering me.
soon, i will disappear.
it's not a movie, no private screening.
this method acting, well, i call that living.
it's like a fountain, a door has opened.
we have a problem with no solution but to love and be loved.
so, i've made peace with the falling leaves.
i see their same fate in my body.
but i won't be afraid when i'm awoken from this dream and returned to that which gave birth to me.
and the story goes on and on and on and on.......

bright eyes - lifted, or the story is in the soil, keep your ear to the ground

who even blogs anymore? oh well, i need an outlet...

"i think we live in a space divided. i think Jesus insisted that the
kingdom of heaven was not just a space we would later inhabit, but
also one that He was bringing here and now. that it is surrounding
us. that we are walking around in it. that we are bringing it. that
the eternal begins now. here. we exist with one foot here in the
earthly and one in the eternal. yet we rarely feel it. we rarely live
with a sense that someone should take a picture. that what is
happening right now bears documentation. that we're in two places at
once.
i want to live in a faith that is a reflection of the cost of its
eternal origin, not merely a reflection of my transient one. i want
to feel the reality of where we sit. that the things we decide here
are eternal ones. that our conversations mean something. i want to
live in a manner that feels heroic, that turns the invisible into the
visible, that is a solid intrusion of the eternal into the divided
streets of humanity".

-crowder

read his book.

i did dega.

and it was real.


please note the couple on the far right. let me tell you, they make a mean bratwurst. and there is literally a 30 mile radius of trucks and RVs and people just like them. literally. 30 miles.













the track is 2.5 miles around













230,000 people. this is serious.













i highly recommend this.

sing it john. sing it.

"so scared of getting older, i'm only good at being young... so i play the numbers game to find a way to say my life has just begun".