I was listening to old episodes of This American Life, my favorite radio show, and ran across ‘Fiasco!’ The first act is really, really funny. It’s about a live production of Peter Pan that goes horrible wrong. The rest of the acts are okay, the usual stuff. Check it out!
It turns out that working does not leave much time for blogging, at least the kind of insightful, articulate thoughts that I imagined my blog having. I started this when I was on vacation…Anyway, enough with the excuses.
In New York I spend a lot more time walking around than I did living anywhere else and while walking I think about things I would love share, but unfortunately there isn’t someone following me around with a recorder/taking notes in shorthand so I am going to have to see what I can remember thinking about this week.
I think about the amazing (good and bad) anonymity that the city provides despite and because of the crowds. I think that I love listening to M.I.A. on the subway, I feel so cool, way cooler than I really am. I think that being satisfied with the life God has given me is so hard in a place where the very best that humanity has created is drawn - the best fashions, civic and academic thinkers, art, architecture, food, music - and then sold to us. How can I continue to see through all that into the abundant eternal life? Where can I get more coffee, because it is soooo cold out. I think about how much I love living in a place of such diversity, diverse races and nationalities, dreams and plans, social and economic status. How can I minister here? How can I lead here? Where is God at work already? I think about how heavy my laundry and groceries get when hauling it from the laundromat and grocery store, respectively, and wish that I had bought one of those carts that everyone else seems to have. I think blessed I am to be living my dream.
Okay, so they aren’t really there, but what other church has awesome rappers (and a painting of Jimmy Hendrix, not pictured) where it meets? There’s a video coming soon with more stuff, I just really liked this picture.
After being homeless for the past few weeks I have found an apartment, well, a room in an apartment. I wanted to thank everyone who has been praying about this. It’s in Astoria, a part of Queens with lots of families, Greeks, and people from Forefront. There is also a senior citizens water ballet team, so that’s something to look forward too.
As much as I love Auburn and dislike all the other SEC teams during regular season, I just have to gloat about the South Eastern Conference. SEC had a 5-2 bowl record and LSU, Georgia, Tennessee, Florida, and Auburn all ended the season in the top 15. Yeah.
Tonight in Brooklyn I heard something I haven’t heard since my trip to the Middle East last summer - an Islamic call to prayer. The imam’s voice was the familiar haunting, melancholy chant. I couldn’t understand the words, but when I recognized what it was gave me pause. What calls me to pray?
For those of us who live in communities that don’t regularly call us to prayer (most of the people reading this, I assume, Johnson City folks excluded), what sparks our minds and hearts to turn towards God? Is it lost keys, a doctor’s visit, the win of a ball game, or sitting down to a meal? Some of us might pray in bed as we fall asleep or the especially saintly (in my night owl opinion) get up early and spend time with God.
But what is the call? What triggers that desire inside you? That trigger says a lot about what you think about God. Provider, healer, an ever present help in time of lost items. I would encourage you find something that regularly (daily or throughout the day) calls you to prayer, whether it be alone or with others, because God “is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine”!! When we align ourselves with God’s will our lives will take on new meaning and direction. We will begin to see people as God sees them and to be able to interpret life events through an eternal lense.
So to get you started, here’s one of my favorite prayers, from the letter to Ephesus: ”I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, for ever and ever. Amen” (Ephesians 3:16-21).
My first Sunday as a Forefront Leadership Resident included, but wasn’t limited too:
-Getting up at 5:45 and out by 6:15 to catch the G train, L train, and N train
-Buying shoe inserts for my poor, tired, suburban feet
-Buying air freshener to mask the smell of piles of week-old trash someone left in the theater
-Hearing awesome teaching (thank you to Brian Moll) and equally awesome music
-Catching up with people I met on my March visit and meeting all sorts of fantastic and interesting people.
-Spending time being thankful that Forefront has such great volunteers for all the set up, tear down, welcoming that happens.
This is the view from my great aunt and uncle’s apartment. I was up there tonight after a fantastic dinner marvelling at the night skyline and how many people’s apartments I could see in to from up there.
I walked around midtown Manhattan earlier today trying to get my bearings and to see what I could see. Both Forefront’s office and The Blender Theater, where we meet for Sunday services, are in Midtown. There is such an energy about New York that I love. It was a lot of fun to pray and people watch; the fun-level was aided by the fact it wasn’t nearly as frigid as it was yesterday. I’m so excited about being a part of what God is doing in the city! I’m not entirely sure what that looks like yet, but as in everything it starts with being Christ to those around me. The rest will come from that.
The apartment search is still on. Feel free to pray about it as often as you like.
I’ve made it to New York City! I’ve been here for less than 24-hours so not much to report other than I have my own desk and it’s really cold. I’m staying with some incredibly hospitable people in Brooklyn until I get a permanent place. More later.
I’ve received a lot of good presents over the years, and especially in that past few weeks (honorable mention goes to Brian Zehr for being an awesome secret Santa and getting me the fun talking-picture-ball-thing). But yesterday I got something from Stephanie Moore and it tops them all for knowledge of my idiosyncrasies: “Goldfish I have Loved (too much?)” stationary. My goldfish of five years, Jonah, pictured above, passed away a few months ago; he was a loyal and personable fish, and concerning Jonah, I might fall into the goldfish I have loved (too much?) category. Stephanie was my roommate in seminary and knows first hand my obsession. During an important interview (for the Middle East Travel Seminar), when they asked me if I had any hobbies, my mind went blank. Hobbies? So I began to gush on and on about my goldfish, some how they still let me go. There are other stories, but I won’t bore you any further. If you have a favorite Jonah moment, feel free to leave it in the comments.
For those of you who care more about small groups that goldfish (hard to believe), Stephanie is doing an awesome job as adult education minister and works with intergenerational small groups (can it be done?) at Cherry Lane Christian Church in Meridian, Idaho.
