Enough Already!!!

S

So I came home tonight and decided to go for groceries...which in and of itself isn't so bad.  It's when you get to the checkout and it is time to find the right "rewards card" (read: gimmick to annoy you) in your wallet.  Of course, Carla has the one I need so they'll look it up...except we've moved like 83 times and changed our phone number like 114 times since we've had the card so they can't find it.  I applied for a new one so I could save 8 bucks...but it took longer to fool around with the rewards card bullcrapola than it did to actually shop for groceries!


And then I need help getting to my car...not because of the groceries.  No, I can handle them alright.  I need help carrying ALL THE FREAKIN' REWARDS CARDS!  Everywhere you shop you have to have a "rewards card." (read: card from hell.)  WHY?  WHY CAN'T WE JUST LOWER THE PRICES WITHOUT A CARD?  

OK, I'm done.  I feel better too.  Now I'm going to work on the addition to our home to store all our rewards cards.

Where's the Joy?!

So as many of you know, I hain't a pastor any more.  So I have this weird experience of having a weekend!  Wow, I could get used to this!  Part of the cool part about a weekend is that you get to go worship in church.  As a pastor, I found it very hard to worship...always thinking about what I was preaching on or what was happening next or what went wrong.  And even on vacation, I would always critique and compare the pastor of the church we would visit...forgive me Lord.

But now, we're kinda looking for a place to put down some roots, or maybe a couple of places to call our church homes!   So on Sunday, we're back at a place we've been to a few times and as the worship service started, I began to weep.   Part of it was tears of joy...I was so caught up in loving on God.  But part of it was tears of sadness...for all those in my life who have never found this joy.  

Even among many Christians we have known, people seem to lack true joy.  And when you're a part of a group of people who have it, you get caught up in it and get bummed for those who don't.   I'm not talking about happiness, you know, at good stuff that happens.  I'm talking about true joy...that peace that transcends our understanding and, quite honestly, all the bad and good stuff in our lives.

At least I'm grateful that we've found a few great churches so far that are oozing with that true joy.  And maybe most of all, that He has led me to The Pittsburgh Project where I am literally surrounded with those kinda peeps everyday!

Free from "social" media...

So this morning I met a great friend for coffee...for like 2 hours.  We met in a quaint little coffee shop just up the road...The Muddy Cup in "downtown" Bellevue.  The coffee was great, the atmosphere was even better, and the conversation was phenomenal.  And it got me to thinking...

Lately, I haven't been on facebook as much.  I have been on twitter even less.  These little e-gadgets are designed to put us in community with one another.  And in a sometimes sad, often inauthentic, way they do.  I believe what these so-called "social media" tend to do is to create a sense of community which really couches the reality of isolation.  

Often, facebook updates are attempts to gain self-pity and to draw attention to oneself.  Twitter, it seems, caters more to the ego.  We tweeters tend to espouse our own intelligence, or worse, to "retweet" the insightful maxims of alleged gurus of a particular field.  And what, at least to me, tends to be the end product?  Isolation.  

And yet a conversation on the porch with Carla, my best friend in the world, is priceless.  It isn't proud, or selfish, or inauthentic in any way.  The chat in the "the farthest thing from Starbucks" coffee shop this morning is tacitly irreplaceable by any alleged "social" media. 

I'm not deleting my facebook page, or shunning twitter for eternity.  But as I find myself less and less attracted to them, I find myself having greater and more inspiring, and yes, more "social," interactions than ever!

The REAL meaning of Easter

So I'm leading worship for the Easter party at The Pittsburgh Project the other day.  I had maybe 30 K-2nd graders in the room at the time and I asked them why we really celebrate Easter.  One little boy raised his hand and said we celebrate Easter 'cause it is Jesus' birthday.  Nice try.

So then another little girl raises her hand and she said "we, um, we celebrate Easter, um, 'cause we celebrate, um, Jesus' recreation from the dead!"  (note that I added the bold and italics.  You can't really do that while you're speaking.)

So for the past week I've been thinking about Easter and how it kinda really is Jesus' recreation from the dead.  He recreated death...so that in Him, we no longer must fear it.  He recreated death...so that in Him, death can be not only and ending of a chapter but the beginning of forever.  He recreated death...so that in Jesus, death is victory instead of victorious.  

I guess He knew what He was talking about when He said that we must become like little children...they're a whole lot smarter than we are sometimes...


Happy Easter, and may you experience a recreation from death!!!