Tuesday night in the big city...

"Random thoughts" is a blogger's way of saying that I feel like writing something but I don't know what.

1. I could feel guilty about not posting anything for such a long time but guilt is one of the most useless of human feelings that I'm trying really hard to avoid it.  Besides, I think that there are probably only three people who read this anyway and Jeff won't care.
2. I'm really not in Kansas anymore.  I don't mean in a literal sense, of course, but I mean that I have landed in a strange, sometimes dangerous, sometimes wonderous new world by moving into the city.  Wonderous when it's a cool summer morning and I join the hundreds of people running, skating, riding, swimming and just chilling out on the lakefront.  I can't help but feel blessed.  Dangerous when I see that the police have cordoned off an entire block not far from my building because somebody got mad at somebody else and fired off five shots.  I don't know if anyone got hurt but it does give one pause.
3. I probably shouldn't be drinking a glass of wine on a school night.  After all, I've committed to training for a century bike ride this fall and there's a hard workout I'm supposed to do before work tomorrow.  But it's a cool summer evening and I'm having a hard time feeling guilty about that too.
4. I think I'm really falling in love with the Episcopal church in general and a couple nearby parishes in particular.  It's so unpolished, so unrehearsed and so unprofessional.  And it's so REAL.  Of course there is controversy and there are doctrinal divides.  Of course there are mean people and weird people and biased people and bigoted people there, just like in any other church I've ever known.  They just seem to more honest about it and less proud of it.
5. I think that my Christian practice has often been too long on thinking and talking and often too short on sweating.  That's why it feels so gratifying to simply be a grunt serving in the kitchen tonight.
6. I had an interesting conversation with a nerdy but beautifully humble guy at the Tuesday night dinner for the poor and homeless people in the community tonight.  He was dicing tomatoes and I was dicing peaches and we were talking about the new Batman movie and he said that he had the theme from Star Wars going through his head and I said, "Well don't share it, then it will be going through my head too!"  Then he got around to saying, "I heard that the definition of capitalism is man exploiting man and the definition of communism is the other way around."  Then I got all pastoral on him and asked, "Ok, but how would you characterize Christianity, then?"  He got all thoughtful and said, "I guess it would be man serving man."  To which I replied, "you have learned well, Obi-Wan" and he said, "Hey, I swing for the fences."

Indeed.

Comments

[wilsonian]

I've known more than one person to find faith in a kitchen. lol.