So, I'm going to attempt to revive this little site. Much has changed in my life since the last post, and so I will do a brief filling in "about me.
In April of this year I got engaged to Jocelyn Jones, who has become my closest friend and co-creator in this journey called life. In May we both graduated from Lee University in Cleveland, TN. I had been accepted into the MDIV program at Mars Hill Graduate School (mhgs.edu) back in December. Around February Jocelyn was accepted into the JET program teaching English in Japan... This led to several months of turmoil and decisions, concluding in our engagement and decision to get married on August 4th.
Throughout the summer we worked, and searched for jobs and housing in Seattle, after deciding that a move across country would probably be better for us as newlyweds than a move across the world. Jocelyn quickly found a job working through Americorps with a great literacy program in the city.
Our wedding day came and went, and was absolutely wonderful. I can't imagine a more joyous celebration. We were so blessed to be among a great many wonderful friends and family members.
After our wedding we left for our honeymoon in the southwestern U.S. where we soaked up as much sun as we could prior to our arrival in the city of rain.
Three days before flying into Seattle we managed to secure an apartment in Seatac, WA. This was a great relief, as I started school at Mars Hill two weeks after our arrival.
Since moving in, all of our worldly possessions finally arrived on a truck from TN (Much thanks to some dear friends for facilitating that process). I started classes and found a job working mornings at a French bakery at Pike Place Market. Jocelyn has been training with her job and Americorps, and we are adjusting to the bus system of Seattle (we sold our car in TN).
So needless to say, life is moving at a breakneck pace. We are learning what it means to be married, to adjust to a new city and a new community, and what it means to hold onto dear relationships from thousands of miles away.
Our life is a journey of grace. Each day I am learning new expressions of God's great love for all humanity. There are so many ways that we are learning to participate in the incarnational love of God, and so many opportunities we miss each day.
Yesterday as Jocelyn and I were walking to the bus stop, a man who appeared to be homeless made eye contact with me on the street. We were walking toward each other and his body language made it clear that he was going to initiate some sort of interaction. Not unused to this, I felt myself literally draw away from the man as I walked. I'm not sure if it was out of fear, or simply desiring to not be inconvenienced by another human being at the end of a long day, but I noticed my move away from him.
As we came alongside one another, the old man smiled broadly, bent low, tipped his hat at us, and went on his way humming a merry tune to himself. I was shocked. I was humiliated. I was caught up in the act of grace that he had just extended.
We continued walking up the street and moving farther from the man, and I told my wife the reaction I had observed in myself. I had tried to withdraw. I attempted to act like he wasn't there. I didn't plan on rejecting him if he asked for help, I simply planned to not give him the opportunity.
I am constantly awed by the way God graciously pierces into my heart and wrestles with my selfish desires. I wanted to protect myself. To avoid "that man." God had other intentions.
At the end of a long day. As I left a class in which we had discussed reconciliation, relationships, and the light of God in all humanity, I showed by my actions that I intended to keep these ideas in the realm of the theoretical.
God decided to incarnate them.
Incarnating himself into the smile and nod of an old black man on the streets of Seattle, God's grace struck into the center of my ingrown soul. Sloughing off my piety, God saw me naked, in the street, seeking to withdraw from an old man that I never thought to give a chance to express himself as the image of God. And in that moment, the reminder I got from God was not a harsh rebuke, fire eyed conviction, or deep shame.
No, it was the grace that I needed to understand. It was a smile, a gentle bow, and a joyful song. These are the things that rendered my heart helplessly exposed to experience something transformative from God. It was great grace in the commonest of places--grace in the face of a fellow human being.
I am left speechless by the tender love of God, who seeks to call us all as children.
God's grace is boundless. God's kingdom is bursting forth from all the loose seams and broken places and cracked edges of this world. All our faith and hope collide in this entangled mass of human suffering and joy that is found in the incarnation of the love of Christ each time we choose to embody the grace so freely given to us.
Peace.
P.S. Tomorrow is the International Day of Peace. The nations of the U.N. have agreed to cease fire for one day as people the world over pause to celebrate the hope of peace for our world. Let us all take part in this day and join with creation in groaning and straining each day to bring about the already/not yet shalom of God's dream for our world.
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