Post-Hester-Community-Gathering-Post.........

Just what I needed.......a little infusion of the sweet, yet fascinatingly convoluted life of our church in all of its wildness and unpredictability.

Lasagna......brownies out the wah-zoo.........Southern sweet tea that a freekin' northerner from Waldo, Ohio makes (northerner at least to a Tennessean) -who incidentally is getting good at it............conversations happening all over the household (including the loud one outside that continued through the open kitchen window from dinner THROUGH the still, quiet moment after the worship music subsided)..........a spontaneous drum circle and rhythm worship session erupting...........Joe blurting out his approvals and spontaneously welcoming Jesus to the living room on our behalf.........hearing the words "dragging" and "ass" used in the same sentence (a first for me) in reference to witnessing to/inviting a recalcitrant unchurched friend to our community........this by a very precious Veritasian, whose continued presence with us and growing trust in the God-stuff going on here continues to unfurl, amaze and warm me. I am thankful to God for the chance to show love right where this person is at. To hear this person talking about inviting a friend to what we are doing here has God written all over it.

And I would not have it any other way. Raw, uncut, uncensored, amorphous, unplanned- pure life on the cutting block. This is Veritas. Not neat, incessantly messy, not boxed, not cozy to yours or my sensibilities, not keen to imposing impractical piety and sometimes unapologetically irreverent to my puritanical persuasions. It is people where they are at spiritually, emotionally, physically- minus the false pretense. Certainly, it all does not surprise our God who never slumbers, though we be as perpetually wide-eyed and befuddled as a calf at a new gate.

Tonight, we dreamed a little bit together of what it is going to mean to go deeper as a community. We dreamed of being more intentional with communal housing as a natural outcropping of what's been happening, of an invitation to a journey to more effectively shepherding this city into relationship with Jesus and what that entails for us. What a joy it is to see and hear the coming-alongsidedness of our people.

And so, like the ditzy Molly Shannon Saturday Night Live character, I point my legs skyward, crying, "I luhvitt, I luhvitt, I luhvitt, I luhvitt- AH LUHVITT!!!