August 17, 2008

I'm running late this week. All the technology in the world cannot replace time and time has been at a premium these days. I just got back into Nashville from a wonderful retreat in the Catskill Mountains of New York. I'd like to say it was refreshing because it was but there was so much more going on. Truly so much has happened that I feel I could just do the monthly review podcast and put August to rest. Alas we are but halfway through and who knows what great adventure awaits?

It was particularly satisfying to have Peggy, Bruno, Kimberly and Mark decide to come from their corners of the country as DAB family members and join with this group. To hear the stories and share in community with them was very rewarding for me.

As I write this it's one of those bizarre moments where I feel as if I have so much to tell you and so much has been going on but I can't find the words. It's as if it's too big of a mouthful for this one sitting and I can't distill it down into a simple anecdote. Sometimes we're dealing with things on so many levels that God is actually shifting our fundamental awareness like tectonic plates shifting beneath our feet. The drag about that is that usually an earthquake or tsunami follows such shifting. Metaphorically that's what it takes sometimes though. We work awfully hard (or at least I do) to keep things on balance and ordered. I think it's a good thing to have such balance but sometimes we can only find what God is doing when we're off balance and looking at things from a perspective we don't normally view. God is simply beyond our imagining and no construct or framework of life is going to contain Him. We have to be up for whatever honestly. We have to absolutely relinquish all need for control and abandon the idea that our experience with Jesus is the "real" way to look at Him. He is beyond us and as He reveals Himself to me more and more I have to readjust almost as if I'm meeting someone new or discovering things that show me how little I actually knew. It's sort of disconcerting to be honest but it is nothing short of adventure. The fundamental truth that will always remain is that He loves me and my good is His desire. So let's let the ground beneath our feet roll as it must. We are the absolute focus of a God who is beyond us and yet loves us intimately and deeply. For now that's enough for me.

Onward Comrades,

Brian