A letter to my current community

I thank our God and Father for a chance to live with brothers and sisters so willing to lean into the not yet promised us through Jesus. That not yet of what I speak being a future lived plainly in the sight of God and each other, a future with no more darkness. A future in which there is no fear of pain and therefore no fear of intimacy. A future marked, guided and upheld by the love of Jesus. A future whose foundation is the ultimate ending of all grief and sorrow pain and suffering and most importantly the end of all judgment, for I have come to understand of pain that it causes more of it self and that in our being wronged by others the trail continues backward with no end and without a singular culprit on which to place our blame. So now, it is my understanding that God’s justice is to deal with this kind of doomed cycle of pain and transgressing by the death of his son, which is ultimately for us a sign or gateway by which we enter into a new life. We are welcomed to enter into life founded on unwavering love, love in the face of distress, love in the face of betrayal, love in the face of enemies, and love in the face of death and by this kind of love the doom of this world can finally be undone.

All of this should suffice to say that I would like to live as if this life that Jesus has opened to us is possible and I am glad to share it with you all and whoever else may be glad to do so as well.

I commit first and foremost therefore to love, and pledge my love to be like Jesus, to give grace as he did, to be interruptible as he was, and to seek the heart of God as my greatest desire when I wake and when I sleep.

Also I commit to a life of learning which in a sense may very well be a life of failure. I am not sure if Jesus ever failed and if he didn’t than to some extent I must confess I will endeavor to be like Jesus without needing to BE Jesus or otherwise I think I miss the point of a savior.

I know that if for nothing else I am here with all of you to learn to live into the things I have just mentioned.

How long I will be here I am not certain, but perhaps certain that it will be determined by love. My love for you, your love for me, but most of all the love of our Father as he enables me to be the message of love and reconciliation found in Jesus. Perhaps this love will some day lead me away. I think it is likely and I am sure when it does it will be a great passion to share this life we have learned with others as a way of making sense out of a two thousand year old story that at times is misunderstood and often represented with very little relevance to it’s original message.

For out rule, and for this life, this is my hope.