Already, not yet: reflections during Holy Week

The past year has been rough on our friends. Our friends have lost many loved ones, another one recently received a terminal diagnosis.

What it means to be healed

You will, after service, be asked if you would like to receive prayer, and having been pushed to a rather desperate place in your life, you jump eagerly at the chance.

The soul

Happy new year!

What I did in 2012

Competitively, this was a good year. I ran a 3:05 PR at Napa (yay!), but missed Boston by seconds (argh).

Finding reason for thanks

Say to my soul

Through your own merciful dealings with me, O Lord my God, tell me what you are to me. Say to my soul, I am your salvation. Say it so that I can hear it. My heart is listening, Lord; open the ears of my heart and say to my soul, I am your salvation. Let me run towards this voice and seize hold of you. Do not hide your face from me: let me die so that I may see it, for not to see it would be death to me indeed.

Seasons' shift

I feel like seasons are changing, not just in the air but through my life. I’m outdoors more often, laughing more, more okay with things being stuck, or in-between, or just not formed yet.

On the man I'd like to become

Intern lessons learned

The Regeneration interns and I are wrapping up our year here at church. What have I learned?

Today was a good day

Channeling Ice Cube:

About to board

I’m sitting in the terminal at SFO and about to board and it’s finally hitting me–here we go. A few of you may have gotten this, but here’s a quick recap of what I’m going to spend the next few weeks doing:

Dreams of a city of ash

A confession of a poverty of love

The more I stay here the more I realize that I am tired, I am selfish, I am resentful. I am being changed–yes–by entering the lives of people in poverty and seeing the grace of being invited into their lives. Yes, I am learning from them a simple faith and a simple life. But it is difficult, and it’s a place I do not know how to inhabit.

Staying close to the ground

Justice and me

I’m wrestling a lot these days with the idea of Justice and what it looks like to be a Christian–and a human–in the midst of it.

Slavery Today (Infographic)

On humanity, brokenness, and stuff

Tonight, we watched a video in Stephen Ministry that left me moved and feeling heavy at the same time. Dr. Diane Langberg spoke a message about the reality of brokenness and suffering in our lives and the need for compassionate Christians to sit with the hurting and minister with presence.

Watch us, protect us

We’re all holding hands on the street. Bear on my left, a stocky, grizzled Filipino dude wearing a hard expression under squinting eyes. Pancho on my right, a wiry black man with a thin face and a black “OAKLAND” beanie with big, gothic lettering. Cece is between the men, finishing a prayer: “And keep us alllll”–she draws out the word in her Native-American accent–“safe from the Devil!”