a few odds and ends in my head

This is being written in my phone so please excuse any editing issues that are neglected.
I love new beginnings. New days, months, years, birthdays, and anything else that I can convince myself will give me a fresh start. Deep inside I am an optimist. Even when things are going really well I look forward to tomorrow because I believe it will be even better. So that said, I am considering with joyful anticipation this coming year and decade.



I am trying to meditate on the things I believe God has spoken over the years to me about the future. Most of those things have come from other people but some I feel like God has spoken to me directly. (I usually find it much easier to hear God about other people more than I do about my own situations.) I pray into those things. Often.



Beginning to read The Brothers Karamazov with Emily Stokes. Magnificent.



Jeremiah Werstein is a PC.



Ashleigh was singing along with Jake Hamilton's "The Great IAM" today. It was really sweet and I was tempted to spiritualize the moment for a millisecond until she began to sing, "Great I am! Great I am! Great Ashleigh is! Great Ashleigh is!" She sang that while joyfully bouncing and pointing at herself. It was fantastic! Her version and Jake Hamilton's both seem correct to me.

Jesus makes things awkward

A gregarious stranger struck up a conversation with me at a coffee house yesterday when he saw I was reading a bible. I was trying to journal and had my back turned toward him and the other patrons.  I didn't feel like talking necessarily but I was thinking about Pastor John's words on Sunday about being willing to be interrupted. I turned and tried to give him my full attention. The man wanted to know what I was writing in my journal.  I told him that I was reading the bible and if I thought that God spoke to me I would write it down.  He wanted to talk about 2012 and the rapture.  I told him that I am so overwhelmed by the radicality of Jesus' words that I spend very little time trying to figure out when He will return. I talked for a few moments about my interest in following Jesus. He then sat awkwardly silent not wanting to talk to me anymore.  It's interesting to me that it wasn't awkward for the man to talk to a total stranger, to ask that stranger what he was writing in his journal, to talk about to that stranger about eschatology based on the Mayan calendar, and to talk about the rapture (which I'm not sold on - btw).  Once I said Jesus' name it got real awkward real fast.  It was like I crossed some invisible boundary of social appropriateness.  I then wrote about what just occurred in my journal feeling pretty sure that I wouldn't be asked about it.