Finding Momentum

I was think­ing back to high school today, how ide­al­is­tic I was (and still am) and pas­sion­ately I lived. Although these days it seems that I do more rem­i­nisc­ing for those days past than liv­ing,  today I felt a few gusts of wind and I wanted to fly again.

I remem­bered how it feels to drive through Cupertino’s cookie-cutter streets and eat eight-dollar pizza in air-conditioned strip malls. Yeah, I remem­bered the excite­ment of hope & of change. I felt the breath­tak­ing move­ment of a trans­for­ma­tive King­dom. Nine-to-six, don’t bring me down hey hey.

Some­times I feel that the older I become, the more prag­matic (read: bor­ing) and straight­for­ward (read: staid) I become. It’s a meta­mor­pho­sis I’ve been try­ing to fig­ure out for awhile now. Per­haps it comes with age; per­haps it’s a side-effect of matu­rity. I can’t quite fig­ure out if it’s for the bet­ter. I find myself mak­ing cal­cu­la­tions and cost-benefit analy­sis on every­thing from chores to sleep to social gath­er­ings. It feels cold. No, that’s not it. It feels divorced from feel­ing, from impulse and from emotion.

Sarah told me some­thing tonight that gave me pause: “I want to see what wor­ship looks like in the Ten­der­loin.” She believes that trans­for­ma­tions can occur in the most hope­less places. She envi­sions what is not at first vis­i­ble, but has the faith and con­fi­dence that she will see it soon . The girl is a dreamer (yeah, I like that about her.)

And ear­lier today I saw glimpses of what-could-be. I felt it, and I swear I could taste the hope and joy and peace. This was real; it didn’t feel like nos­tal­gia. This was excite­ment com­ing out of nowhere. This was peace flood­ing my heart sud­denly. This was new, and yet, it was very, very familiar.

“And although [it might not be what I thought it would be], I know it’s there,” Sarah fin­ishes. Yeah, would it be there. Would I dream of hope, peace, restora­tion, Shalom, jus­tice & trans­for­ma­tion. Would I know Jesus so closely that all I am able to do is dream.