rich’s blog

So.  I’ve got a bumper sticker too: “My shares are in Jesus-backed securities.”  What do you think?   Someday I’ll write something serious here again.  There are things stewing; just not enough time, I suppose.  

…is just one of those days.  You know?  

Are you an “mmmmbye” person on the phone?  I find myself always saying, “Mmmmbye.”  It’s like I find saying goodbye delicious. I know it’s a way to somehow affirm that we’re saying “bye” now–a shortened affirmation-sound: “Mmmm-hmmm. Everything we’ve said is good; we’re such friendly people…let’s talk again.  God be with you!”  This turns into “mmmmmbye.”  That’s reasonable.  The first sentence is long. 

(Maybe I’ll start saying “see ya…wouldn’t want to be ya!”  Zing!  That’ll build bridges!

Mmmmbye. 

This is just something to peruse.  Let me know what you think of it… ? http://www.sojo.net/action/alerts/VOP_voter-guide.pdf

Bad things are happening right now.  War, really; and people dying.  Please pray.  You can start like this: “Oh Prince of Peace…”

I was fasting recently for our church; for its needs and wants as I perceived them.  (Perhaps some of you were as well). I was hoping to take them to God, and remind myself of my basic dependance on Him who called us, who is faithful.  With each hunger pain (my plan was this) I would pray, and ask God to intervene, to receive my pains as prayers for his care, his attendance, his love to be shown deeply and fully, and his restoration that we might be restorers.  

Wow, my stomach hurt.  Seriously.  Way more than it has before.  Gas, you know?  A lot of it.  At one point, I got up from a chair and could not walk straight.  And I went into the restroom of where I was, so I could jab at my belly, because that would (am I 9?) help, of course. 

And I felt as if God were speaking to me, saying to me: 

“This is how much I hurt for SRBC, you who are mine.  These are the pains I feel when I think of your sadnesses and all that’s befallen you.  But even as I feel them, I know my own faithfulness.  I know my own hope for you; and I believe in you.  Hear me: I believe in you, believe in what you can become, believe in what you can be to those around you, the strangers you will make your neighbors.  I hurt for you; but my hurt is tempered by my mercy, and my faithfulness, which I will never relinquish.  Remember me, remember me, remember me, as I am ever remembering you and upholding you.  You will see my goodness, and even if you know my pains and longings for you, you will know them as a mother knew the labor of the life she holds in her arms and feeds at her breast.”   

I felt God saying to me “I hear you.  I see your wants, your longings, and will not be silent.  Wait upon me, and believe that I remember you.”  

Is this enough? To be remembered by God?  It is right now.  We are in a long journey, our small church with it’s broad & deep needs.  But God fits God; and we will ever be able to meet what we are truly called to do.   

Fast for us, with us.  Give up that which feels necessary to remember that which truly is.  And I pray you would sense that God is for you, always, and right now.  

One of the first experiences I had with music was when my mother made me a mix tape of U2 & Cher hits.  I still love U2.  I haven’t rocked out to Cher since the days when I would spend all my allowance on a box of Cookie Crisp and eat it in my bedroom.  But if you need a second in an “If I Could Turn Back Time” duet, let me know.  I’ll bring the Cookie Crisp.  

Have any of you been able to look at the messages over there, on the right of your screen?  What do you think?  Anything you’ve found helpful, or something you’d like to debate a bit?  It would be a help to me, at least, in clarifying my own thinking, to know what you think and maybe discuss it a little. (And if a blog isn’t about meeting your own needs, what is, right?)

Someday, I suspect, I’ll follow through with my last post.  We’ll see.

There are certain things I find hard to articulate–or, articulate well, at least.  It has less to do with content, or my ability to make content up, so much as it has to do with the subject’s closeness to my heart, how firmed up my convictions are regarding a thing. 

It’s helpful, though (maybe outright necessary) to shake down my head & my heart, gather up the things that fall out, and order them in a way that makes sense to someone–maybe even me.  

This is all by way of introduction.  (The amazing thing about a blog, which is more or less a vanity press with the added pleasure of immediacy, is that I can pretend that the one I am writing for is someone who wants exactly to hear whatever I happen to write.  how convenient for me! I can even imagine a person who hoped I would say something like this right now!  amazing!)

I want to express what I’m thinking regarding the suburbs–I’ve done it elsewhere in certain ways (cf. the “Christianity & the Suburbs” transcript to your right)–but I find most days I am so distracted by what I haven’t quite figured out regarding this place–these suburbs, my home where I live–that a good self-rattle is necessary.  Maybe I can dislodge whatever pithy, stuck things are keeping my mind from settling. 

So.  The suburbs.  

I have been thinking of them.  I have been meandering around them–in my head, and my car, on my bike and my feet–and I have brought home a pile of thoughts that, over the next few or thousand posts, I will sort through.  Feel free, imaginary person, to help.  I know you want to…