Thin~Spaces

Finding the Balance pt.2

Ok, I’ve gone from one extreme to the other. For the last several evenings I have been socializing. I’m making up for lost community time if you will.

Last weekend Cheryl and I met a couple who were new to our city. We invited them out for coffee on Tuesday so we could get to know them better. Tuesday night was a great time. Michelle and Cooper had just purchased a house and invited back to their place to show us.

Before we knew it the time had gotten away from us and it was ¼ till ten. I am so reminded that life and community are about the other person and not us. Yet the reward of living a life focused on others is beyond verbalization.

Wednesday night was similar. Though we were not making new friends, we were connecting with old ones. Starbucks has become the pub of our culture. It’s a neutral relational space to just hang out and connect with people.

My prayer is to find a balance for all the relationships in my life so I don’t go from one extreme to the other. You know…Out of balance therefore overcompensate to achieve equilibrium. I don’t think I’ve found it yet but am confident that I will.

To Be in Community.

It has been a long and tiring two weeks. I've worked over 100 hours, not gotten enough sleep and have a sore throat. I'm physically run down and needed some rest. Not that I am complaining. Having been unemployed for over a year, I'm enjoying having a job.

But in my exhaustion last week I began thinking about the lifestyle of a typical Suburbanite like myself. We work long hours, get exhausted and live for the time-off on the weekend. While driving home the other day I thought, "If this is all there is then we are truly to be pitied." In my bussyness over the last two weeks I've missed my community time.

Our group went to a bush league baseball game last Tuesday. I was so run down that I went home and slept after work. The week before I was working 15 hour days and had to bail on a movie night to work as our website was moving into alpha testing. The bottom line: I missed my community ~ my friends ~ my pack ~ my tribe. I felt alone.

Community! It takes time and dedication. I'm still trying to find the balance between work and community. For the last five years I've been working for myself and setting my own schedule. Now I'm working for a large financial company and have to keep the hours that my teammates are putting in. Our website goes live in 20 days. It's a big shift in mindset.

While I've been taking the time to "slowdown" and listen to God in silent meditation, I also need to be in community. The balance point is always shifting, flexing, and rearranging from week to week. Without God, this would be an impossible way to live. No wonder our society is in a mess. We lack the type of community we were created for.

Rather than spend my weekend doing chores or sleeping (as I'd like to do) I went to the ballet recital of a friend of ours 5 year old daughter. After the recital we went to Ted's house for a BBQ and spent the evening in conversation. You see, while I needed rest, I need community more.

A Notion to Reject

The more I think about it, the more I wonder if there has been any fundamental change in the Christian ethos since the reformation. Sure Protestantism has arisen but the "practice of church" has been pretty much the same in the West for the last 3 centuries. The forms are codified, social expectations are strong and change comes slowly if at all.

As Emergent Christians, I don't think we should try to change the forms of church. People in the mainstream of society are too hopelessly inured in the system to be turned on to a new way of being. Sure some will make the shift, but I don't think we should seek to change the church at large.

I'm not saying that we reject God's church. In the words of Paul, "May it never be."  I'm saying that we should reject the notion of intentionally seeking to change the church. We should be more concerned with reaching those who do not follow Christ.

I say, Stay on the fringe. Live in the margins. Reject Evangelical success. Love the Pagan. Strive to love God. Give your entire being. Live as authentic Christ-Followers in our era. Gather together to celebrate the grace and freedom of Christ. Follow Christ as he leads us. Forget about being influential. Let God worry about changing His church.

History demonstrates that God brings renewal to His church through people who live like this.

I've become a Pod person

I'm a pod person now. I'm referring back to my previous post about getting a 40 gig iRiver. Which, by the way, I love! But I've also joined the ranks of the Pod people today.

My wife and I went to the grand opening of a computer & Electronics store this afternoon. We were going to get another cell phone as we currently only had one and use it exclusively for our long distance calling. As it turned out, the store was having a cell phone sign up special. Purchase a phone, activate it and get a free 1GB iPod shuffle.

Hmm. If I updated my calling plan as intended would I qualify? I did. They had the phone we wanted on sale for $45.00 less than any other competitor and I get a free 1GB iPod shuffle. Being a techno-freak that I am, I just could not pass up such a great deal!

Get the calling plan and phone I was going to get anyway and get an iPod shuffle as a bonus! How can you go wrong. Some days just seem to come up aces.

I'm still Alive!

It may seem that i have died, or vanished in the last week. I apologize. My work has required weekends and 13 hour days as our website is to be deployed tonight at midnight. 

I'm still alive, but I'm a working machine these days. It is really cramping my life. I hope to return to a more normal schedule on Friday. 

Darren~

Gender ~ Language ~ and God

Earlier this month i recieved an email asking me to explain why i use the terms He and She when referring to God in my posts. ( I know this is a big issue with people) I thought it was such a good question that i decided to post my answer for all.
____________________________

You ask a very good question. As to enlightening you ;-) I can only give you my motives why I use the masculine and feminine pronoun when talking about God. It is not my intent to imply that God is female, or male for that matter.

The English language simply does not provide a genderless description other than "IT". Coming from a Christian frame of reference, I cannot use the genderless term "it" to refer to God. Stylistically, I don't like the s/he mixing either. It seems to reduce both terms to a meaningless word that does not evoke our mental maps. My solution is to alternate using he and she to talk about God.

The simple answer is that I use it as a literary tool to shake the mental image of God in the mind of my readers.

Why do I feel it is necessary to do that?

ThinSpaces is a Year Old!

WOW! Where did the time go?

Recently I've been rather lax about updating my blog to keep it visually fresh. Now that i maintain websites for a living, it seems more like work than play. An unintended consequence of letting your hobby become your job. Not that i mind.

I just want to thank all of you have been journeying with me in this last year as i have gone through some dramatic changes in lifestyle and time allotment. I feel bad about not keeping-on-top of my blog. It's easy to spend hours thinking and writing when you are unemployed. Get a 8-5 job and life gets more hectic.

I'm looking forward to another year and hope you will continue to walk with me. 

Cheers!

Darren

PS. The company that i am doing temporary work for is going to hire me on as a regular employee on the 17th of June.

The Hands of God

Last night our group talked about forgiveness. The consensus view was that the Christian community has become known for "shooting its wounded." Rather than being a place of healing and restoration, the church is often seen as being unforgiving, rigid, and very judgmental in its quest to stomp out sin.

Sandy brought out a good point, "Forgiveness ~ Something every Christ-Follower has received yet most take it for granted." In America we are an unforgiving people. Our entire social mythos elevates the lone individual. In a culture of individuals, forgiveness is often in short supply. The church as it is commonly thought of is no exception.

After someone in the church commits a "visible" sin, the rumors start and we isolate that person like a cancerous tumor. This should never be! We should seek their restoration rather than adopt a false piety of words while our actions separate us from the person in need of forgiveness. We maintain our "Church unity" while the hurting person becomes more isolated and may fall away from the faith. Our false piety is simply evil and contrary to The Way we are to live.