Semper sursum

I want to have an encounter with God.
I want my church to have an encounter with God.
I desperately want my church to have an encounter with God.
I want Kyrgyzstan to have an encounter with God.
I want us to get hit so hard that we'll never be the same again.

I want us to be desperately in love, desperately in pursuit, unashamed of our mendicancy. I want us to live like nothing else matters.

Because, really... what else matters?

Иисус, Ты любовь моя

Иисус, Ты любовь моя,
Иисус, не оставлю я Тебя,
Из темноты Ты забрал меня,
Дал свободу и теперь знаю я:

В Тебе я нуждаюсь,
Я люблю Тебя, навеки будь со мной.
Спаситель, мой лучший друг,
Прославлять Тебя я буду вновь и вновь.

Lord, I'm sorry for all the times I've gotten in the way of Your work, especially with the parents of CCCNJ. Please forgive me, and work anyway in spite of me. Take me out of the picture, just rescue Your people.

God, I'm so sorry.

Years later, years down, later down the road

On the bus with your FM radio
Half drunk, cigarette hanging out
What happened to your lonely soul, crying out?
What happened to your lonely soul, screaming out?
You say, "Try and lose."
You say, "Try and lose."

Everything you know
Everything you seen
Everything you've loved
Everything you've been
And everywhere you've walked
Every song you sing
Every time you wake
It haunts you once again.

Endure

I am so tired of the shrill female Mandarin voice coming from my neighbors upstairs, especially when they have long screamfest fights. Makes me want to tear my hair out.

Fumbling in the dark

Life takes so much skill. Lord help me.

O Come O Come Emmanuel

And ransom captive Israel.

Ellipsis

The leaves are not falling
I am not falling
This song is rising
But I am not flying

Rhetorical

I just want to worship with people who want nothing more.
Pray with people for whom prayer is like breathing.
Laugh and eat and hang out with people whose sole desire is to love and serve Jesus.
Talk about life and love and politics and sports with people who love life and care about this world because they are gifts from God.
Cry with people who care about something more than themselves and their immediate circle.

I'm the pastor in a church; why is it so hard to find?
Why am I unable to build such a community?

Lord take the log out of my eye, cut off the right hand that causes me to sin, and touch the coal to my lips. I am unclean.

Camus, my brother

I came to this earth a stranger.
I'll leave a stranger.
Why do I feel like I will die as a stranger in a strange land?

When that day comes, I think I will look around at blank, unfeeling
eyes and feel that it is all strangely fitting.

Lord have mercy

Here we are again. I love it when the Facebook feed shows me pictures of my younger friends and their 7 year old kids.

I'm at a strange place in life. My heart feels 21, but I've been thinking about mortality like a 70 year old. As a side note, pondering oblivion will turn your brain to mush. I don't know how Zen Buddhists do it.

Where's the reset button on this thing called Life?

Freedom is here

I will not fear.
I will not hide Your love.