transformed by the grasp

we are like an infant in the arms of God, unable to grasp but being transformed by the grasp.
Peter Rollins
How (Not) To Speak Of God

i always enjoy reading an author who seems to be writing what's been locked up in my head. each page i turn i find myself nodding thinking, 'exactly!' as i drag my highlighter across another sentence/paragraph that i would have written had i only been more committed/eloquent/focused.

this is not one of those books. rollins, founder of Ikon in Belfast, is tapping things that make me both uncomfortable and at home at the same time. faith as a/theistic. God revealed and hidden. my head spins... and i'm only a chapter or two in.

thanks to brad for turing me on to this stuff... now if i can only get a cup of coffee large enough to help me through this stuff. possibly more to come as i wrap my head around the "hypernymity" of God. his being unknown, not because he is anonymous, but because he is hyper present... yeah, this might take a while.

on getting back in the saddle

a few weeks back i had the pleasure of speaking at amy's home church evangel worship center over in menasha. it had been a few weeks (as in two months) since i had last preached. which is the longest stretch i have had of non-public speaking since graduating in '00. all went well (at least i thought it did).

we looked at living life right here, right now (not through the lens of van halen...sorry). of how tomorrow and the idea of having fun then can rob us from being in the present. we also looked the flip of the past getting in the way of now.

which is exactly what i was doing the night before... i was drudging through all these questions of do i really have anything to add to this faith conversation? or does this even matter? all those good kick you in the gut self esteem questions. and then i was spinning around all these what-if's. past and future very much in the way.

what would happen if we who say we follow christ really got in the present. away from our "future hope" stuff that really excused us from living responsibly toward our neighbors, environment, and social issues. what would the church look like if we got away from the idea of eternal life being down the road and realized that it is about right now? what would it look like to really kick off the past stuff that mucks us up? i wonder.

anyway, here's a link to the message...nothing fancy, just another conversation of trying to figure faith and life and stuff out a bit more.

CARPADM

jason and i saw this on a license plate several years ago and agreed on how clever it was (carpe diem - get it?). truth be told, the last time we purchased license plates we remembered it and were tempted to steal the idea. but alas . . . the expense was deemed unnecessary (by ONE of us) and we settled for the slightly less popular "752-EYZ".

as our family (that sounds so weird) finds itself in a very strange and uncomfortable season of transition, jason and i are doing our best to be mindful of the importance of seizing each day . . .regardless of the circumstances that may be swirling around us.

jason just spoke this past sunday at the church i grew up in and built his message around an incredible quote:

Let each of us examine his thoughts; he will find them wholly concerned with the past or the future. We almost never think of the present, and if we do think of it, it is only to see what light it throws on our plans for the future. The present is never our end. The past and the present are our means, the future alone our end. Thus we never actually live, but hope to live, and since we are always planning to be happy, it is inevitable that we should never be so.

-Blaise Pascal
Pensees

it isn't always easy to stop "planning to be happy". I do, however, find it quite easy to be caught living unaware of the priceless moments that make up each day . . .right now . . .

so here's to working on it. no matter how uncertain the future may seem, our lives are about what we do and who we love today. may we not allow the past or the future to rob us of the incredible moments of right now.

here are a few i was fortunate enough to notice . . .

sophi turns 6 months old



















napping in the shade










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cheering for the detroit tigers














enjoying eachother's company