I’m so excited to post this link to Elemental Project, where the sleep out event is featured on their blog today.
Check it out today and share it across this crazy cyberspace so more people can get excited about what the Micah Project is doing on the streets of Tegucigalpa!!
And here’s a video for your viewing pleasure!
Today my world both shrunk (in the global village sense) and exploded (in the opportunity sense) and I am practically bursting with excitement.
In the span of a few hours, I somehow connected some intercontinental dots and I’m now finding myself in very beautiful company. I’ve written before about the beauty of friendships drawing out things we never knew we were hiding. In the past, this crazy exchange of joyful energy has happened in a very close-knit group of friends (which is, I’m sure, the kind of crowd to which C.S. Lewis is referring).
Today, something very strange happened. Today, I felt that same joy leap inside me in response to a circle of friends connected through this funny thing called the internet in different countries and states altogether.
Here I am, in Honduras, trying to stay hip and creative and on some undefined artistic edge while working with two drastically different populations in a country more known for its airport landing strip, drug problems, and coffee than artistic movements. I fail pretty regular with the hip/creative/artistic edge routine, but I don’t mind because whatever comes out in the process is inspired by the people I’m rubbing shoulders with everyday.
So, back to that strange leap of joy earlier today. Thanks to two social networking sites, I found myself tweeting, direct messaging and emailing two fabulous organizations.
LOVE IN STEREO is all about “uniting people behind causes and social good using art, artists and fans.” When I found their site awhile back, the words “cause,” “social good,” and “art” immediately captured my attention. I’ve followed them ever since… well, in a twitter/email subscription sense. Today, through some twitter exchanges, I got beyond excited about the possibility of being more than just an admirer in their efforts.
ELEMENTAL PROJECT is using their “website and digital magazines as platforms to showcase positive stories, and promote cause based businesses, charities, and individuals who are actively helping others.” Whoa – super intense! I stumbled upon them through an acquaintance from college and I am so impressed by their commitment to make this explosion in social media and technology matter for the people who need it most.
I wonder what C.S. Lewis would say about internet-induced joyful episodes. Well, in any case, there is some beautiful potential staring back from this calendar day and I intend to claim it! I now have new friends in Michigan and Tennessee and if our inspirational conversations can’t happen around a local brew, they just might percolate over these internet waves.
And that is alright by me.
I just want to say something… a simple something with switchfoot as accompaniment.
Few things hurt more than watching beautiful, amazing, inspiring, lovely kids live without the unconditional love of their parents. It can be a kid on the street or a kid in my office. Oh, boy… it HURTS to hear of empty houses and awkward dinner conversations and all sorts of cover-ups that make it seem okay.
it’s NOT okay.
This is a link for a free download of a Switchfoot song covered by Darren King of Mutemath. It’s called, “Yet” and these words keep playing over in my heart today:
If it doesn’t break your heart, it isn’t love.
what is breaking your heart today?
I love Mondays. No, really. I LOVE Mondays.
You think I’m kidding, but today sealed the deal. Here are some of the things today that overflowed my cup:
I hope you are going to
let LOVE fly like CRAZY
I love the Sabbath. I love that God loves the Sabbath. I love that the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath (Mark 2:27).
What a beautiful, precious, intentional time to pursue the Savior in rest and reflection. Today, I was reading this from Tim Challies at his blog and thought I might share it with you. I have a beautiful mess on my bedroom rug and, slightly paint-covered, have deemed myself unfit to type any more words.
In Challies’ post, he quotes Walter Chantry’s thoughts on the subject and I’m drawn to it by one word: delight.
Are we delighting in the Sabbath today?
let LOVE fly like cRaZY
Is it true? Am I really cracking open the cover of yet another book? I have pictures and napkins and bent pages marking so many books still clinging to “in-the-middle-of” status. Yet, the summer stack (in all its glossy newness) is under my window and it catches the light just right in the afternoon.
I know. I have an unhealthy appreciation for the written word. That aside, today I am starting something different and possibly brilliant. I don’t want to judge a book by its first few pages, but if I did I would be searching for a purple ribbon. Kevin DeYoung is an author I admire and follow not just because I read his books and blogs, but because I know someone who knows him and he assures me DeYoung is the real deal.
So, this afternoon, I picked up “The Good News We Almost Forgot” and I’m headed to a coffee shop to meet up with some students. They will probably be reading Cosmo or NYLON or the newest, trendiest vampire thriller. I’ll be there, with my book about the Heidelberg Catchechism like it ain’t no thing.
I hope (for my more than your sake) that this book uncovers some of the roots the saints in previous generations saw clearly.
And so it begins.
Well, friends, I think I successfully imported my old blog posts from Musings of a Foreign Heart to this wordpress blog. It was … surprisingly easy. I just had to find the button! I’m a little sad to see that electronic “leaf” officially turned, because it was my beginning as a blogger. I’m sure I’ll recover.
I finally finished my September Newsletter (in October) and so I wanted to use this post to kind of explain all the functions and buttons and drop-down menus of this new blog. I’m excited to offer more information about some of the ministries I have the privilege to work with and also provide a more accessible way to link to newsletters.
At the top of the page, you’ll see the the categories. You can click on each one to find out more. Several of the buttons have drop down menus, so don’t be afraid to check those out as well.
I’ll use this post as an example – there is now a NEW newsletter posted under Honduran Horizon newsletters. It’s the September edition. If the pull-down menus confuse you, here is the link.
So, you should check that out… and then hop on over to some of the other pages – especially the Honduras ministries!
Please leave questions and comments about what is confusing or annoying or delightful 🙂
I’m just trying to
let LOVE fly like CRAZY
If you think God might be tending to other, more important matters today, here is a very necessary reminder: you are the important matter. God is intimately involved in His creation and the process of our sanctification. He cares so deeply and is so relentless in His pursuit of us, that He offers a transformative grace to draw us into His presence.
Sometimes that grace confuses us because it isn’t peaceful and comfortable and full of relief. Sometimes it means getting broken… actually, I would say more times than not. Read this article by Paul Tripp about the beauty of grace and David’s prayer for broken bones to rejoice in Psalm 51.
He writes,
“Although our greatest personal need is to live in a life-shaping relationship with the Lord, as sinners we have hearts that have a propensity to wander. We very quickly forget God and begin to put ourselves or some aspect of the creation in his place. We soon forget that he’s to be the center of everything we think, desire, say and do…
It’s time for each of us to embrace, teach, and encourage others with the broken-bone theology of uncomfortable grace. Because as long as each of us still has sin living in us, producing a propensity to forget and wander, God’s grace will come to us in uncomfortable forms.”
Pack that up in your lunch today, Â folks.
Here is something to start off your morning… a message from Francis Chan that he gave this past weekend at the Desiring God National Conference in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I woke up this morning still thinking about it and challenged by it in my morning devotions (ironically on the self-centeredness of Saul).
Anyway, if you feel like meditating on 1 Corinthians 8:1-3 and growing a heart for your brothers and sisters, you better listen.
Think Hard, Stay Humble: The Life of the Mind and the Peril of Pride on DesiringGod.org
MUSINGS IN THE MIDST 