nakedpastor

NEEDED: PASTORS! MEN & WOMEN, YOUNG OR NOT, WHO ARE WILLING TO SERVE SMALL COMMUNITIES OF PEOPLE. IMMEDIATE!

this is another book that was given to me for christmas. it’s a whopper of a hardcover. you should see my biceps since reading it! i’m interested in U2 for their music, business and spirituality. (hm! all in the same sentence.) the photos are awesome. i think they are like the tipping point said, that something about them went viral. the drummer, larry mullens jr., writes:

i have read a lot of rubbish about U2. sometimes when i see us described in some mythic sense or called corporate masters of our own destiny, i have to laugh out loud. being in U2 is more like riding a runaway train, hanging on to it for dear life.

this is our first-born, josh. he lives in ottawa and is home for christmas. we love our three kids so much, and when he left after he graduated from high-school, it was like a friggin’ death! we sobbed like babies. it is a huge event when he comes home to visit. we have another son, jesse, who’s graduating this year and we’re already preparing for another ‘funeral’ because we’re sure he’ll head off to discover the world too. casile, our daughter, has a few more years with us. it’s been nice sitting around talking and laughing. today, he and his brother and friends are off to poley snowboarding, even though our grass is still green. snow-making machines in full swing.

Paul Scott Wilson, in his book on preaching, Imagination of the Heart, writes:

When the gospel is only stated conditionally, it is never fully released… Good news becomes better news if it is available in this second, in the already accomplished present.

this is me looking at you looking at me.

or is this me? i come to you via technological wizardry.

i see it as only a reflection, but how many reflections are there?

mirror. camera lens. my screen to yours. i am technically altered.

i am naked underneath it all, but fully clothed is how

i always present myself. even to you, my people.
i hide my eyes so that you won’t see them

because i cry when i feel. always.

i schedule times for this…

when i am alone and lost.

Krishnamurti wrote:

Can this mind negate everything it has known, the total content of its own conscious and unconscious self, which is the very essence of yourself? Can you negate yourself completely?… Can you die now to everything you know and not wait for tomorrow to die? This freedomi in eternity and ecstasy and love.

the ice, not there yesterday, appeared overnight under the stars. i didn’t welcome it or reject it. it just formed from the embrace of the frozen air while i slept. they say that if you sink far enough the water rests a steady temperature. but today, on the surface, the water and ice will kill you fast. why did i think of my heart when i first laid eyes on you this morning? i know it’s because my heart often freezes, sometimes solid. my love grows so cold it can kill when all that is my life turns my emotions to frost. o my god, don’t let me ice over. help me to keep my heart warm, even under the most brisk of circumstance. for it takes so much longer to thaw than to freeze.