Now that's encouragement

Goodness.  Both the exclamation and the noun.

Yesterday, at Neilsen's:

I love this place.  It's the happiest place in the world.  There is light, coffee, pastries, happy little old people, strangers walking by outside just begging to be written about.  Oh, and a small beam of sunshine named Holly.

Thank you for this moment to not have expectations.  To sit and sip and read.  To escape from the sun, but still feel the summer.  To know that I am known.  Because there is great value in that.

Today, Jill and I walked down the ninety degree streets of Seattle, talking of religion and truth.  That is my most favorite.  I have learned to love answering questions with, "I don't know."  And I've learned that there is no shame in that answer.

Search.

My pastor asked me out to coffee to talk of Iona and Celtic Christianity.  I am more than excited.  I am also indescribably encouraged that someone so wise [and so cool] thinks the Celts had it right.  I was getting a little worried that my grafting onto their version of Christianity wasn't the best of plans.

But really, I think they are great.  I'm not sure about the assurance of angels, but I have to hold so tightly to the belief that everyone seeking the sacred truth of God [no matter under what name] to to be wholly respected and accepted.  This is so difficult to implement in reality, but if this is a part of our foundation, it's a good place to start. 

I have to accept that we are not doomed, that there is choice everyday, to encourage or destroy.  But the tension this brings up in regards to the redemptive work of Jesus is troubling: isn't that something not to be questioned?  Anything that undermines or weakens the power of Christ's death and resurrection...  but perhaps there isn't a lessening, but a necessary new emphasis on the resurrected Christ, and his continued work and presence in us - this is how we see new creation every day and how God is still at work in our world.  And I do love that; I feel as though the crucifixion is often too heavily emphasized to the detriment of the power of the resurrection.  Without the latter, the former means nothing.

It's hard though; you still have to question a lot of things: When someone walks up to you and says, "Why is there evil in the world?" what is your answer going to be?

To be hope-filling in the world, life-giving; not hopeless and life-draining.  This is what I subscribe to.  People of hope, harvesters of light.