Written on March 25th, 2009 while sitting in the middle of Parkcity mall
So, I really should not be blogging right now, I have too much homework, business work, and life work that I should be doing but these feelings and thoughts have been stirring in my soul like a wondering banshee that needs to just find his home. So this morning I will aim to put words to them, hopefully in less then a novel.
My greatest fear right now is loosing my heartbeat. Loosing the thing that makes my heart pump faster then anything else in this life, the thing that I have daydreamed about since I was a little kid riding our lawnmower around our backyard, the thing that drove me in college to grasp the lessons, the thing that called us back into graduate school, and the thing that still now can still bring tears to my eyes.
God has given me since I was a little kid the drive to love people. To know people, to take the time and to hear about their days, dreams, lives, fears, and in some weird way be a part of the process of intersecting their life with the amazing presence of our God. To help people move from the brokenness of this world back to how God intended.
I have heard people about the “gospel” in terms that make my heart sink. This is a term that I fear is becoming as neutered and tamed in the church as a large overweight hunting dog laying next to a floor heater in an inner city apartment. It’s losing it’s wildness, it’s fullness.
The Gospel to me is so much more then simply not going to hell, all though that’s a huge thing, and a some thing that I’m personally very thankful for. But the gospel is also about our lives and this world being put back together, for wrongs being made right, for relationships learning what love, grace, forgiveness is. For parents to know what it means to love and sacrifice for their families, for kids to know what it’s like to be accepted, cherished, valued and loved. For those we pass by every day to know that they are beautifully made, and that they have tremendous value.
This is my heart beat, this is what drives me beyond a normal life.
Yet, I fear of loosing this to the demands of a world that says I need to pay my mortgage, invest in retirement, live at a certain way. Things that yet again are not bad.
I long to lead, to inspire and to spend my life investing in communities where this truth can be captured, lived, and extended.
But I currently feel like I’m not doing this, and I wondering how long people will be able to be “paid” to do this.
So, what if someone who has been trained, equipped and longs to lead in this way could say to a faith community, “what can I do to help, how can I serve this community to further that message? And guess what, I’ll do it for free”
That’s way we’re looking at starting our own business. That’s way the idea of owning our schedule looks so appealing. To own my days, my life, and then to give it to something that I deeply believe in, but in more then a here’s my couple of hours off here and there, but here’s 20 hours a week, I’ll change my schedule, my rhythms so that this message can be extended.
That’s way pearl and I are playing around with launching Pearl Street Photography. Cause you know we all have skills and talents. I’ve been blessed to know how to work a camera, now I’m asking how could I use that talent to maximize my life for the massage of Christ.
Faith, Hope, Love
May the generations to come truly know what those words mean.
May Pearl and I spend out lives living and showing these words amazing meaning.
