He starts up a conversation in a little bit.  Totally cool.  Great guy.  We’re just talking away…he tells me what he’s doing, a bit about his past, what he thinks of the current news story that’s playing on the TV.  And we talk for a good half an hour.  Really kinda cool…and then it comes out that I work as an Associate Pastor, and the whole conversation changed.

Now…he didn’t stop talking to me.  He didn’t get nervous at all…but the conversation completely changed to religion, and spirituality, and some of the struggles that he’s had.  Turns out he’s had some experience in the church world.  But I struggled with the fact that religion became our conversation.  It was like a switch was flipped when I mentioned what I do.  And that happens pretty often.

I called a friend of mine (who also works in the church), and we talked about that experience.  She mentioned that she shared the same struggles…that when people find out what we do, it changes things.  She thought that if that information was disclosed too early in the conversation, that it usually ended up changing the conversation, focusing it about God, instead of whatever the conversation may be about,  BUT, she said, if you have a conversation and the fact that you work in the church comes out at the end, as your wrapping it up, it actually changes the experience.  It makes it feel more like the church is actually living within this world.  Instead of becoming the topic of the conversation, it makes spirituality, religion, God, (whatever you want to call it) a foundation to the conversation.  Instead of changing the conversation, it just changes the context.

I thought it was pretty insightful.  I love my job.  I love what I do.  But I want that to be a foundational aspect of my life in this world, rather than for it to set me apart from this world.

It makes me wonder if that’s why Jesus told people not to talk about him.  Because it would set him apart.  Instead of working as the son of God in this world, he would have been set apart from this world.

Who knows???

And it amazed me how isolated I could make myself, even while the men around me fought that same isolation.

Community must have more to do with a state of mind, and a state of heart, than with simply being around other people.

I’m not sure why I always remember it, but I always do.  And I always want to go see my Grandmother in the nursing home.  I’m not sure if I will get to do that tomorrow, but I always want to.  I really don’t have a lot to say about it, usually this anniversary spurs me on to some sort of blog posting about him and his life.  I guess, sometimes, there aren’t alot of words to say.

Anyway…here’s to you Grandpa.  You are in my thoughts today…and certainly will be tomorrow.

I’m praying this morning…and I usually have a card of specific people that need prayers.  But today, I couldn’t find my card.  Well…that’s ok.  I figuired I’d just pray through without it…no big deal.  About halfway through my prayer, an image of a friend (who I know wasn’t on the list) was burned in my mind.  So I prayed for that person.  Then, came the image of Marshall (read We Are Marshall to learn about him).  And I prayed for Marshall.

Sometimes I wonder if my list doesn’t get in my way.  Maybe my list of people to pray for puts a limit on what I will hear from God.  It doesn’t limit God…but it limits me.  Thank you Lord, for continuing to teach me to pray.

Perhaps I’ll lose my card again sometime.

I sat this morning in prayer…but again, my mind went elsewhere.

Turn my thoughts to you, O God, grant me the peace of mind to remain focused on you.

I hear so much about that.  I hear so much about how I shouldn’t sin.  How sinning is bad.  And it is, don’t get me wrong, but I wonder if there is a different message to hear.

What about our original Glory?  We were made in the image of a perfect God.  That is how glorious we are.  That is how we were created to live.  What if, instead of focusing on the sin, and the life that came immediately after that sin, we focused on what was BEFORE the sin. 

Sinning is central to our core.  Ever since that first sin, we have never been able to get it right.  But more central to our core is the glory that God created within us.  Sometimes I think if everyone tried to live in to that glory everyday, this world would be a better place.

“Restore me in the image of your love this day, that my passions for life may be full.”

                                        - J. Phillip Newell, Celtic Benediction

I been asking God alot recently about how He wants me to pray.  Every so often in my life something changes in how I feel I’m supposed to pray.  Sometimes it’s through journaling, sometimes it’s through reading, most recently it’s been through working out.  My hope is that someday I will be able to incorporate all those things into a “super prayer”…and then all things in my life will be perfected through Christ.  As of yet, though, I’m not there. 

I’ve been sensing a transition in how I pray.  Still not sure where it’s headed.  But this morning, in prayer, I read the quote above, and an image immediately washed over me.

Tumbleweed.  Tumbleweed rolling along a dry, dusty, lifeless road.

I don’t think that’s where I am, but, honestly, God gives me images like that sometimes.  Images that spur me on to either let God transform my heart, or show me where my heart is headed if something doesn’t change.

It got me thinking about life.  Our God, our Creator, is passionate.  Look at this world.  Look at this creation.  So much love and beauty and creativity.  The passion of God is all around us.  And we were made in that image.  God created us, and gives us the ability to feel that same passion.  I truly believe that. 

But it seems to me that I get so caught up in the everyday…that I lose that passion.  I have my schedule…I need my schedule, I need that rhythm to the day…so it is a good thing…but I get so lost in that rhythm, that when I read the words “passions for life”, well…I get the feeling that I’m missing something.  Hence the tumbleweed. 

“Restore me in the image of your love this day, that my passions for life may be full.”

I just finished watching “Little Miss Sunshine.” I’m not sure why I bought it off the pay per view…but, I decided too. I guess I had been hearing a little bit about it recently (with all the Oscar hype and all)…and I heard an interview on NPR with the directors and screenwriter of the movie.

The movie had moments of laughter…but it was somewhat disturbing.

In the end however, it came down to this family.

Probably the most dysfunctional family I’ve ever seen in a movie. And they totally pulled it off. It was an amazing bit of acting…but I’m not so sure it was entirely acting…I mean, aren’t all of our families dysfunctional at some point?

I would hate to spoil the movie for anyone who hasn’t seen it…but at one point the Uncle and the Brother are talking. The brother is saying how life sucked…it was terrible. He hated his family. He hated his life.

The Uncle (played by Steve Carell, so this is said in a rather humorous way…) responds by talking about Marcel Proust, a French novelist. He says that Proust used to say that the hard years, the years where he really struggled, were his best years, because they made him who he was. He didn’t learn anything from the easy years.

In the end, this totally dysfunctional family, somehow, in their own way, pulls together.  It’s disturbing.  It’s scary.  But it’s beautiful. And it seems as though, while they totally struggled through this movie, that these were the best years for them, because it was making them who they are. 

And that, my friends, seems to me to be the function of dysfunction.

It’s been a while since I’ve written here…Believe me, I’m aware of that.  But…I was listening to this song this morning, and, while I’ve heard those words a hundred times…for some reason they stuck in my head, and I haven’t been able to shake them all day.

Lately, I’ve been telling alot of people my email address…which is also, “thissideofeden”, and quite a few people have asked about what that means.

I don’t think I could explain it any better than the song lyrics above.  We were created for a place we’ve never known…and when we get there, we’ll know it’s home. 

Eden.  Paradise.  Heaven.  Call it what you will, but we were created to live there, and we aren’t there now.  Right now, we’re stuck here…on this side of Eden.  It’s almost like we’re locked out.  All is not yet right with the world.  Heaven has not yet crashed into Earth.  Occasionally, we see glimpses of Eden through the gaps in the gate that keeps us out. 

That place is written on our hearts, for it is where we were created to be.  And I trust that, some day, that gate will be opened, and we will once again live in paradise. 

That is what living on this side of Eden is all about.  Trying to make it home.  Living life in such a way that we stand as close as we can to that gate, trying to catch as many glimpses as we can, until it is opened for us. 

I’m glad you could join me on this side of Eden.

Peace to you.

For those of you who don’t know me (and for probably most of you that do), I am a big fan of Michael J. Fox.  And tonight, I became an even bigger fan.  I just got done watching “Adventures of an Incurable Optimist.”  It is a documentary he did about optimism.  Very cool.

At one point in the show, he’s on a golf course with Bill Murray.  And they were talking about doing the next thing right.  And Michael J. Fox was saying how hard it is to go through life that way…especially for him now, as a parkinson’s patient…it is very difficult for him to do the next thing right (especially on the golf course) simply because sometimes his body won’t allow it.

Somewhere in the conversation Bill Murray says, “The next thing right, as oppossed to the next right thing.” And it really struck a chord with me.  Big time.

For most of my life I’ve concentrated on doing the next big thing in my life perfectly.  And I’ve missed alot of the in between times.  The space between.  The ironic thing is that I normally ending screwing those things up anyway.

So my new goal, to stop focusing on doing the next thing right, and focus more on doing the next right thing.

I think that’s how Jesus calls us to live our lives.  Doing the next right thing, regardless of whether we are going to screw it up or not, because we will…instead of striving for perfection by doing the next thing right, and missing everything in between.

I think looking at the world that way would make it a better place.  So I’m going to try it.

Peace to each of you.