Canned laughter please...

I just found out that Jim Wallis is coming to speak in Lancaster on December 6. That's great news. Hope to go see him. The inter-church peace witness is helping bring him to this area.

Weblogs are an interesting phenomena. The fact of the matter is that despite the pretense of disclosure and transparency, I still choose what I reveal in this public space. It is no different than face to face interactions. We all choose how much to reveal of our inner world. Perhaps the soul is hidden behind a galaxy of business, superficial matters, or language of information.

It is in the context of relational intimacy that we first learn to express language. There is something powerless about bearing ones soul. Perhaps my babbling (blogging) is an attempt to be known and to put myself out there. Community is not possible without vulnerability. Being real is scary. Naming the truth is scary. Yet, naming the truth, I think it is called confession, within the larger reality and mystery of a loving, gracious God is what allows hope to emerge in the conditions of life. I am convinced that this is what it means to be church...to confess the reality of who I am (a sinner, saved and being saved by the mercy of God) within the community of Christ.

Eugene Peterson says, "Reverence is the operative word--en phobo Christou--awed, worshipful attentiveness, ready to respond in love and adoration. We do not learn our relationship with God out of cocksure, arrogant knowledge of exactly what God wants (which then launches us into a vigorous clean-up campaign of the world on his behalf, in the course of which we shout orders up at him, bossing him around so that he can assist us in accomplishing his will). Nor do we cower before him in a scupulous anxiety that fears offending him...