acts.1.eight

by all accounts i am having one of the best 24 hour periods i’ve had in a long time. even work has been tolerable today. one thing i haven’t done enough of is sleep. i am going to head home after work and not leave again till morning. last night was just one of those don’t want it to end kind of nights. good friends. good times. good talks. justin and mari and i were like college kids again. staying out past even our abnormally late bed times.

we’re big talkers as a group of friends and i mean that on many different levels. specifically though, we come up with great ideas for things to do and then we rarely do them. we start with ideas that are reasonable, but amazing, and they grow into ideas that are impossibly over-the-top. but our most recent idea, cooked up at “guitar hero night”, for this coming fourth of july, may be a winner. not unreasonable yet. so let’s keep it that way and actually pull off something awesome.

possibilities. it’s nice to see those arrise again.

sometimes i am an angry man. like friday afternoon or this morning at church. i pick on something that i disagree with or something that agitates me. i run it into the ground. i allow it to get into my head. i forget to love when love has not been extended to me. i allow the offenses of others to justify my offenses towards them.

that is not what jesus taught. “say to to your Father in heaven, forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” (my paraphrase).

are we justified in our anger or our feelings of offense? sure. should we repay those with gossip or spite? no. i think it says something about not repaying evil with evil. it says some other things too. pray for your enemies. do good to those that hurt you. i think it says when we do that sort of thing, it is like heaping hot coals in their lap. brutal.

sometimes i am compassionate. like late yesterday and earlier this evening. i meet someone like richard. someone i have never seen before. and my heart breaks and i want to do everything i can to make sure he has a warm place to sleep. that he will have something to eat. we talked about jesus when we were walking down broadway. he told me he reads proverbs and revelations a lot. he said he was in vietnam and that he had either 82 or 87 kills. along with 7 wives. he told us how to say thank you in three languages and how he was sober for awhile. he is obviously not anymore, but i love him. and then i spend time with a friend that is hurting. and we support each other and care for each other. we encourage each other and when the tears start to come we are their to calm each other. i like this paragraph of my story better than the first one. i think i will try to live it more often.

grace, are you hanging on for me?
i am stretching my ears again. probably to the dismay of my mother and my grandparents and my employers. i bought the new plugs two weeks ago and i have been working to loosen the holes up. stretching them a bit at a time to soften the scar tissue, preparing myself for the big push. i have only done one ear so far and i will probably not do the other until at least tomorrow. it does hurt, i am not going to lie. but i like the look. it will go good with mustache march which starts this week. sorry mom. it could be worse though, i could do drugs, right? a nice fu manchu mustache is not that bad. i think i make it look good.

p.s. – if you are here already, take a moment and say hello. drop me a comment or an email to let me know you are here. ok. bye.

====================*edit*====================
i am home from doing my laundry earlier than expected. if i go to bed shortly i can get a good rest and still get up to go to the gym in the morning. i stood outside the laundromat for a bit and enjoyed the night. it was a beautiful night to be outside. the air was still, not much for a breeze. very quite. the hum of heating units and the occasional passing car. i watched a plane approach from the south before losing it behind the trees and buildings. i could hear it touch down on the runway to the west of me and i wondered what far off place it had come in from. probably just minneapolis. nothing to exciting. from the east i could hear the whistle of a train grow as it came closer to town. it made me think of johnny cash, “…when i hear that lonesome whistle, i hang my head and cry…” but i did not feel like crying tonight. i felt at peace. amidst the turmoil, there are still times of calm. thank you, jesus.

i am doing much better than i was this morning. after i wrote, i got in the shower and spent some time thinking and praying. i felt comforted and at peace. i felt promise. i have been trying so hard to be strong for the last nine months, but the times i feel most secure are the times immediately after i feel most broken.

if you have not read any of donald miller’s books yet, you probably should. i have been re-reading “through painted deserts” recently. i love it.

it has been a straight up bad week. for many reasons that i do not want to get into. the literal sunshine we have had has not helped as much as i would have thought. neither have the personified rays of sunshine helped much. not when you have a black cloud hanging over you.

Lord, if things must be cloudy at least let it rain. this soil is dry and crying out for you to bring it life.

so i have decided to decline the offer for the blind date. too many things that i need to be worried in my life. maybe once things settles down. perhaps singleness is bliss?

the human face, divine – revisited
i had my coffee time with the youth pastor i mentioned before. he was 15 minutes late, but that no big deal. we had a good visit and i know that we have similar hearts. we did not talk specifically about his church or about the event i have mentioned before. i did not think we would. this was a get to know you more than anything. i told him about what is going on with me. we talked about sexual sin. he gave me a glimpse into his life. we talked about church politics to some degree. i know he and i are going to be good friends and allies. i think we can learn a lot from each other and be a benefit to each other as we seek to be ministers of the Gospel. so have my concerns with his church been relieved? not yet. that will take some time. honestly, i think i am jealous of them more than anything. they have resources at their disposal that my church can only dream of. but i think we play different roles. his church will reach people that my church never will and my church will reach people that his never will. and so we can encourage each other and push each other towards being good stewards of the resources we have been blessed with.

elsewhere…. the apple does not fall too far from the tree, or so i am told.