I'd Be A Pear

"Weird Americans crying about apples."-Scott...excuse me, Rev. Scott Heare

Flem

Feet Of A Deer

19 The Sovereign LORD is my strength;
he makes my feet like the feet of a deer,
he enables me to go on the heights. - Habakkuk 3:19

I've never been a fan of heights, in fact I cried a little when I had to climb up and down a scaffoldtine to white wash a gigantic box for the projector in the "Riverotherside" building. The thing was only like 9 feet high. So when asked to plan a highschool girls' retreat naturally I replied, "dude lets climb Enchanted Rock!"...

I didn't even take into account that one of the girls going was resigned to a wheel chair. I pretty much thought I had struck out every time I thought about the trip...all the way up until we took a look down the face of the rock and told our wheel chaired Eve to check out the "mountain" she had just climbed.

They call it a rock, but it became very clear on the summit...that we had just climbed a mountain..

We took turns in groups of three carrying her + the chair up the rock. Periodically (like every ten minutes for me) trading off people. All along the way people gazed at us in amazement, with their packs and walking sticks...their Dalmations and Golden Retrievers huffing and puffing, even the beasts looked a little down and out. Meanwhile, we firmly walked...a half-gazel thing going on...we would lightly throw out "feetofadeer'"(mingled together as one word) every twenty minutes along the way.

Three young dudes stopped us not even half-way up and offered to help. The group had passed us earlier. We could'nt believe it, perfect strangers, highschook football players no less! (I've always been extremely critical of H.S. jocks)
After our own little "Sermon on the Mt." we headed back down. Only to be stopped twenty-five minutes later by the jock boys again! They were almost offended that we would head off without them.

On the way back to town our wheel-chaired Eve said something along the lines, "I see things different now"
And I would be lying if I said that I didn't see the world different too.

P.S. I got rid of that fear of heights, it's amazing what you can do when your focus is not on yourself anymore

"He who has ears, let him hear."

It occured to me today that not many people would have been with Jesus for more than thirty minutes. Not many people can make somone's face shine within an hour. Except that Jesus dude...he's like the life of the par-tay. Thirty minutes, what does that say about us?

What Do They Call French Fries in France?

In this post I will be reffering to people as either "Adam" or "Eve."

9 " 'When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. 10 Do not go over your vineyard a second time or pick up the grapes that have fallen. Leave them for the poor and the alien. I am the LORD your God."-Leviticus 19

I went out to lunch after the services on Sunday, I was sitting across a dude whom I have become good friends with and he offered to pick up the tab for me and another person at the table. I was taken aback(as I always am when people want to pay) but I went along with the flow, hey free lunch! Towards the seventh inning stretch of the meal...I had had my fill and left only a few remaining french fries (I think the French would say, "our fries"). Then a giant, lovable, moose-like man made his way around the corner, and greeted our Texas banquet table (that's what we call picnic tables with cheap table clothes that have been thrusted together to seat a party of 8 or more). I yelled a greeting at him, he sauntered over and snatched two of my fries. I just laughed at him and said "hey!" because what's the use...I was already done.

I was already done, and the two potatoes skins were no "skin" of my nose. But, I heard a story today that blew me out of the water. There is this local coffee shop that shut down at around 11:00pm last Friday evening. Workers at a another competing coffee shop shut their own doors...to join the indebted manager in scrounging up some last dollars in order to pay a burdening debt. There was reportedly no less than 150 people in the small roadside joint an hour at a time. For one whole week a whole community decided to spend their money at the floundering java establishment.
There was a silent auction in the back and musicians playing the whole time.
One kid brought his mint condition acoustic guitar to donate to the auction. All of the musicians that played at the Espresso Extravaganza signed the glazed maple with popping silver Sharpie. An "Adam" saw an "Eve" casually eyeing the guitar, she had always wanted to learn how to play, but never had owned one.
At the end of the auction the gang was packing up and handing out the items to their new owners.
EVE- let me go get the case for your guitar.
ADAM- thanks
(EVE brings over the case and gently puts the instrument inside)
ADAM-(grabs it and hands it right back) now I want to bless you with it.

Looks like Eve is gonna have to learn how to play now.

Feeding the lions cold turkey

"Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings."-1Peter 5:8-9

Right here is good, not to far away, no people....good. I got some time to kill, hope God speaks to me fast here. These thoughts were swirling in my head as i looked for some place to read my Bible were I wouldn't be subject to all those stares. The collegiat crowd is fairly hostile towards anything that prevents their insatiable desires to "live it up." Thus, naturally they normaly choose to resist scriptures, usually justifying their decisions by listing off all the hypocracies committed by the "white-washed tombs" that inhabit the church....I don't blame them one bit either.
I sat down outside the Business building and busted out the Bible. There was only one guy out there and he didn't seem to notice much of anything.
After about five minutes the dude put out his cigarette and looked at me. "Good book you got there," he said. "Yep" I replied thinking, "would you shut it, I only have like 20 minutes to finish this chapter"(yeah I know). "You know I gotta read it like atleast thirty minutes a day or else I am totally derailed," he said. "Well it's good....international bestseller," I shot back hoping that he'd laugh and we'd return to our stranger status.
"you see I'm a recovering addict," he said.
I closed the book and looked at him, slightly taken aback at his vulnerablility...we hadn't even shaken hands.
Conviction- the act of convicting (thank you Webster) I then looked up
Convicted- the state of being convinced, syn. certainty
I'm convicted about a lot of things. I'm convicted that Captain Crunch is my favorite ceral, green is my favorite color, and the George Harrison solo in "Let it Be" is the best in Rock history. This dude was convicted that there was something better than intoxication and being doped. He told me that he "had to read that stuff" or else his day was sentenced to overwhelming temptation.
Here's the Kingdom, sharing each others convictions...because we know that we must "resist" the forces that threaten them for the sake of the "brotherhood." We resist these lion-like forces that are bound to break the beauty we are all entitled to right now.
What are your convictions?

When You Look Into Their Eyes, You'll See It

The t-shirts came in today. Humorously, a few members of the community where giving me a mock question and answer session when they saw me "sporting" the shirt that proclaims in big black block letters "The Kingdom of Heaven is Here." I can't wait to recieve all the glimpses, confused wonderers, and questioners as a result of this 99% cotton 1% polyester shirt. (weird right! I am used to the 90% 10%, 10%...not talking about tithes)
I saw the Kingdom again today, it is sprouting up all around in our community. Scott told a story in his sermon this morning about the best coffee house in town. And, although the story was a dead on picture of how the Kingdom of Heaven can make people react, I reacted with a mere "mmm."
It was during communion that I was broken(in the good sense) completely on the inside. It's not like this was the first time for me to cry in church, which is the beauty of it...each cry is unique, as unique as God's hand made flesh bursting into this shattered mosiac of a world.
As I was in line to recieve the body and blood(which has this awesome grape flavor) my eyes fell upon a woman and her child kneeling near the lip of the stage. I saw the Mother gently and quitely turn to ask her daughter something. My imagination tells me that she was asking something along the lines of "what do you want to pray about?" The holy spirit has this way of charging into me like a rhino(a group of rhinos is called a "crash," look it up). All I was doing was singing this song waiting for my "turn," and he revived the vitality of this can-become bland ritual. I saw a woman in a sense, empowering her kid by gently asking her to pray. The "two" of them were "coming together in his name(Mat. 18:20)," as I was about to come together with God in communion. In that moment I wept....really(I don't even know if anybody else took notice of the event on the lip of the stage).
In that moment I understood the way God relates to us, his word says "for [I] was pleased to call you mine(1Samuel 12)." I wonder if right there on the lip of the stage if that mother was thinking about her beautiful blonde-haired kid, "I am pleased to call you my own."