::::DISLCAIMER::::

I accept that ed’s notes from the basement are ed’s and may be messy or hard to follow. think of it as more a pollock or a rothko than any realist. it may be obsessive or repetitive. it may have mistakes or typos along the way. think life. clicking /agree/ on any piece of software installation or webpage signifies you agree with these terms and conditions. oh, and i accept it is rated pg-13.

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We get together. We worship. We hear. We declare. We express. We know. We believe. Jesus.

Then we walk away. That’s hard. It felt so right. And out there is where it all seems to change… There are not candles and bands to follow me around. That sense of church is not portable. It is the church gathered. It is the place where we talk Jesus first, Jesus plain, Jesus in art. it is Kingdom and the King is there. Sure it is fractured…duh, we’re there! The fractured part only matters if we lie to ourselves and God and pretend we are not fractured and so we never work on healing. ah, how the Spirit gets too close to home for preacher’s to stand sometimes.

So, here is what i know. I love church [ed, are you just saying you love church because you saw the church's webpage?]

i love church. Every bit. the small, stupid stuff, like getting to call a friend “steak”. the small serious stuff while getting ready for the service and seeing it all. people climbing the little submarine ladder up to the sound booth. and everyone seems happy. there is passion. it is really good to me. and when the service goes on, people are engaged. we start in the space and we make it sacred not because it has a cross on top or is off the city tax roles. the place is sacred because where two or more are gathered in his name, as the christians, when the brothers and sisters huddle around him…he is there. and we worship annd pray and we hear and we respond and we know we want more [i can still hear my heart singing with Scott and the band "there must be more than this" as if i heard some disembodied voice on my left calling it out and saw our bass player du jour, steak gardener, singing too] and we find more of jesus. i know when the brothers and sisters who will be on stage that day gather and pray, that is what we do – we pray for more of jesus to be revealed. well, to give full disclosure since there is no window on the green room, people eat croissants or “freedom rolls” if we still have some deep beef with the french. except for the woman who snubbed me in paris when i asked her directions and the cop, also in paris who gave me a love tap with his boot when i was sleeping in the train station, i have nothing against the french…but i digress. we also take communion together back there. they tried it on stage. drummers are the only ones with enough coordination to multi-task like that. the matzo crumbs blowing out from the vocalists would be horrible. so we do it then. we usually pray. what we pray, and i know it is passionate, is that Christ be revealed…he be greater…we show him with all we have and are. we pray he gives us the strength not to worry the worries of someone on stage…what do people think of my skills, of what i did….let’s face it, we don’t want to do poorly for alot of reasons, but we want to do well for one. we ask that not us, but jesus be revealed. it felt right reciting together the last words spoken. our voices all saying the one thing, in truth, with passion, with faith. “christ has died, christ has risen, christ will come again”

then it was beautiful. we get together and see Jesus behind worship. we hear from the spirit behind words. we experience together what that is. we angle our souls at God’s calling. we see him afresh. we chase Jesus. it is wonderful to gather. but we must journey. “walk alone” pilgrim moments lay ahead. we know there is a place where we will gather. a place for the church to be forever gathered. a place where we see him not for moments more clearly, but as he is. we will never be bored adoring eternal beauty. we will never tire of infinite love. we will never be disatisfied living with perfection. but that’s heaven. and this ain’t that.

it is an icy january day in the northeast. it’s cold too. i am sure people think it is odd to see me snowblowing in the icy wind early on sunday. i hope they don’t think i am doing this to show up at service. would they understand if i told them what gathering with the pilgrim saints at a night club was really like? probably…if we ever really got to the point where we could talk and listen to each other. but we pass too fast in suburbia. kids off to school. rush to work. take an excercise class if you’re ambitious. get kids to more extra-currics in one night than i took in 8 years of college. sneak in a curb your enthusiam, daily show or part of a movie. who has time to watch a whole one? anyway, it’s icy and i am snowblowing with the snowblower my mom and her husband sent me. she does not want me to hurt my back shoveling snow.

anyway, it’s cold up here and i go to church, have a great experience and now i am out there again. in the cold. but i am still with the center of the church, Christ. i feel it at the arts center dropping the kids off for lessons. i am stressed, sure. this is not a planned event…this is life. i’ve got a friend’s daughter with us…on crutches, my ‘xtra’ son denny with me. i have a friend’s dog over, but that’s under control. it’s just life. but there are wonderful unplanned moments with God out here too. there are the pieces of discovery of who he is and exclamation in poetry and theology of that, there is what i see and struggle and celebrate and the interaction with all the folks around me. there are moments of community, tribal connection. out here is where it happens. it is incarnation. me on a journey. fresh ground with God.

that’s all i got.