Finding Momentum

This Tues­day was my last day at Riverbed. I’ve moved onto a year­long min­istry intern­ship at Regen­er­a­tion, and moved in across the street from the church in Oak­land. I’m start­ing to see how this is shap­ing up to be an urban monas­tic exis­tence, as Justin put it. It’s funny, because I used to think that being an engi­neer meant work­ing in a cube all by your lone­some, but even then I was sur­rounded by peo­ple. Now I’m not sure how to deal with all this solitude (!).

I’ll post more about this in detail, but I real­ize that this sea­son of study, ser­vice and intro­spec­tion is going to be more dif­fi­cult (and hope­fully, more reward­ing) than expected. I’m excited to see how God shows up.

There may be a new blog com­ing soon. Stay tuned!

Be still, Andrew.
Pay atten­tion to your soul.
Dare to own your pain.
Trust in your Father.

Photo cour­tesy of Jeremy Brooks (Flickr).

I have dis­cov­ered you can­not prop­erly grieve in a city; it won’t give you a damn sec­ond to be alone. I’d like to have a moment of silence in an alley­way, behind the dump­ster, over the beggar-man, to the cacoph­ony of car horns and ice cream carousel jin­gles. No dice. The city clam­ors, roars, and cries for attention.

Once I sat in Oak­land traf­fic and watched low-slung motor­bikes and Cadil­lacs rush by in hip-hop time, their mourner-passengers lean­ing out win­dows and moon­roofs, flail­ing their arms and curs­ing out the world. Because when the city pays you no atten­tion, you must raise your voice and roar.

Maybe I’ll hold the wake behind the sta­dium, or under the piers, or by the train tracks. It’d never work though. The guests would get lost in the crowds, bump­ing shoul­ders with cruise ship pas­sen­gers. What could they hear over the roar of the fans, or the earth­shak­ing rum­ble of the 252? Tourists would train their cam­eras, passers­bys would gawk, it’d be a spectacle.

So that’s why when funeral pro­ces­sions snake through Chi­na­town, they are accom­pa­nied by a band. Because when the city drowns you out, you must raise the horn and wail.

All my life I’ve lived in the elec­tronic! always-on! hyper-connected! world of the Future. I real­ize that it promises inti­macy but can­not deliver. Get me away from these late night bright lights and cold screens. I wanna float about and explore inner space. Linger in the warmth of friends and sim­ple con­ver­sa­tions. Stretch out in the expanses of silence and there hear the inner voice of love.

Inspired from Gen­e­sis 28:16.

A beau­ti­ful wed­ding at the Moun­tain Win­ery in Saratoga, CA

Grace, grace, it all comes from Grace. Today I heard that I deserve noth­ing; every­thing given to me is a gift. I think it was the mil­lionth time I’d heard it, but the first time I actu­ally thought about liv­ing it.

I think the Gospel is crazy because it talks about a Jesus who suf­fered rejec­tion. A Jesus that for­gave his ene­mies not because he was a nice guy ask­ing to get run over, but because his Father was ulti­mately the one who dealt jus­tice. I really like that Jesus knows about (our) suf­fer­ing not in an omni­scient, detached way, but in a lit­eral, expe­ri­en­tial man­ner. I really like that in the end, I can trust that the end out­come is swift jus­tice, steady mer­cies and over­whelm­ing grace.

So grace, grace; I deter­mined that I need this truth ham­mered into the far inner crevices of my soul–where truth must stick to my rib so I may know that I deserved noth­ing, but received every­thing through Jesus. I need in this time to stop liv­ing in self­ish fan­tasies and move toward sweet release. I want to move past bit­ter­ness into grat­i­tude, con­trol into sur­ren­der. Though she is no longer here, my mem­o­ries reveal graces small and large. Though they are reclaimed by the Giver, today I glimpsed free­dom to travel toward the new country.



Henri Nouwen is kick­ing my butt.

I am now dis­traught with sweet, sweet grief in accept­ing what I do not understand. “Child of weak­ness watch and pray, find in Me thine all in all.”

The mis­sion next year is to live in faith, seek spir­i­tual renewal, and develop per­sonal bound­aries. In that order, until things change again.