I Can Look Farther Than I Can See!

My office is festive. i like it this way. lights, garland, tinsel, tree...its all very warm. i have candles burning...i feel so very much like a youth pastor right now. I even made a call from my office phone today, which always makes me feel dignified and legitimate. Despite wrestling with facebook for half an hour trying to convince it to let me post a video on someone's wall, today has been rather calm and dreamy.
I spent the majority of the day mulling over, writing and reworking the values, goals and vision statement for Ignite so it can go up on the new website in a few weeks. This creedo reads, in part, that we are Love Focused, Relationship Oriented and God centered. it says that we, as a group desire to Love Jesus, Love people, Know our Culture and bring Jesus to our culture. it is, at it's core, meant to inspire, to ignite (pardon the pun) passion and give vision, focus and direction. i hope it does. whenever i see those words and think about what they mean i get inspired (which is good...). But i do wonder how many of my Jr. High students who see our values and vision written on the walls of the Subway really see them. really study them. really know them. really LIVE them. Vision is worthless unless it is lived out.
I'm a visionary type of guy. but just because i HAVE vision doesn't mean that i automatically convey it...or even live it. The passion in me is worthless unless it produces passion in others. and that passion is worthless unless it drives people in a direction that fulfills God's purpose and glorifies His name.

Vision: "A picture of the future that produces passion" -Bill Hybels

Passion.
What in interesting word. it is used to describe everything from Christ's death on the cross to inner strength and conviction to a sexy scene in a movie that you need to fast forward. I wish i could really define it.
Passion.
Where does it come from? does a proper vision ignite passion? or does passion ignite a proper vision? Does the frenzied thoughts of my brain fuel my passion or is it the splashing overflow of my bubbling heart?
Passion.
I have it. i want it. i need it.

These little vanilla and cinnamon flavored candles burn brightly above me under my gaudy tree. The wax levels are already noticably lower than they were yesterday when i lit them for the first time. this could be due to the fact that they have been lit for a considerable length of time. but regardless, i cant help but be stirred. The flame, once ignited consumes the wax. it burns it away. it disappears into little tendrils of smoke drifting up and away into oblivion. So often i feel like the fire of my passion, once ignited and fused to my ministry and vision has the same effect. over time, if i'm not watching, i turn around to see that my vision is dry, it is run down, in danger of running out. Vision must be maintained, supplied, received from God...not just conceived. These little whisps of smoke curling towards the ceiling (hopefully not towards the smoke alarm), and disappearing, remind me artfully to place the care and focus of my vision in the capable and skilled hands of God. the author and protector of my passion and vision.

A wise man once said: Vision without action is daydream...action without vision is a nightmare.

Lights Camera...Action

The biggest reason for Thanksgiving is to be thankful for Christmas. (this is how i am justifying the Christmas music that is currently being played from my laptop.)
I can support this theologically...so im pretty much secure in my life choices right now.

In other news, the advent (haha...you like that play on words?) of Christmas music on the radio at this time might be incentive enough to actually pop the CD out and actually turn the radio on for the first time in a decade. Although, come to think of it, most of the Christmas music on the radio is like the rest of pop music on the radio: namely, a bunch of worthless drivel set to some semblance of music. its only redeeming quality will be the fact that it is themed around Christmas. (kinda like Will Ferrell in Elf...only brought a notch above vomit-inducing since the movie is about Christmas).

But i digress. Christmas season is upon us, and despite the protests of some die-hard "after thanksgiving-ers" i am currently in my annual hunt for a new Christmas album to add to my collection. let the amorous, nostalgic search begin!

Heaven is a Place on Earth...Well, Not Really...

This time of year always makes me miss the comfortable confines of home. The sweet smell of the pines, the subtle chill of the wind as it tickles through the trees, heavy with the delicious sharp scent of smoke spilling from the neighbors' chimneys'. The bright leaves swaying in their dance to the breeze. The crisp crunch of darkened leaves carpeting the sand and drifting into deep, earthy and musky scented piles. And of course all those hilarious squirrels nervously dashing about, alternating between scolding, and running from, the dogs. This time where fall begins to give way to the colder influence of winter always makes me a bit nostalgic...and maybe, honestly, a bit melancholy. Maybe its because Christmas is so close, or because so many memories are packed into these shortened, dark days. memories of intense touch football games woven in and about the trees littering the yard. Memories of deep woods explorations and glorified hide and go seek games amongst the barren branches of the brush beyond the back fence. Or those times spent collecting buckets full of acorns and using their shells to create secret whistle codes during school hours.
I think all together it reminds me how important childhood is, how important relationships are, family, love, life, trust...and the comfort it brings. how important it is to have a place to call home and to sink my anchor...even if its just for a short time. There is a longing for home in my heart. but home is not just a place. its not just a geographic location i can pinpoint on google earth (I even have google earth's snazzy iphone app that allows me to show everyone my house and woodland haunts from a thousand miles away...oh the joys of technological advancement). its not just the trees, or the woodstoves, or the leaves underfoot...because i can go to a thousand places and find those things. Even this little village of Winnetka (so desperately trying to create and convey an image that hides it's proximity to the bustling chaos of the city) has it's unique charms. the window displays, the coffee shops lit up at night, the main street lined with lights...the charming old English building facades, and bank employees who know my name...its all very quaint and appealing. But its not what my heart is looking for.
I dont want to just say that it's all about family and friends and the general good feeling and well wishing of the season. that feels dull, overused, tired and trite. I want to go beyond the typical cliche-ridden verbal accolades of this holiday season. I want to say something meaningful, express the deep longing of this boyish heart trapped in a body and mind that's growing up. But the truth is, i cant. I dont think it is possible. I've written myself to this point fully intending to find something clever, witty and profound to say. but now that it comes to it i dont think that language possesses the appropriate capabilities to capture and convey with precision the words of the soul. (And that in and of itself annoys me because it is a cliche.) But i think that is the way it is meant to be. C.S. Lewis once said that the beauty in the world causes our hearts to ache and long for something greater. he said it is the "eternity in our hearts" planted by God. a longing we all have for the things of heaven stirred by the beauty we see here on earth. I like that. i think he is right. I think we have all experienced it in one way or another.
I love the complex beauty that God has formed into this world. its why i love art and perfect photographs. But for someone like myself, someone who places a high value on people, I think relationships are beauty too. friendships, love, family...its all beauty in it's own rite. and it equally trips the eternity in my heart and makes me long for the things above that words fail to adequately and properly surmise.
So as the air aquires its bite and the leaves flutter to the ground leaving the trees bare and i see the golden sunsets, i will know that the ache in my heart for the cozy fire burning in the livingroom of a little tan rancher on Linden Ave. is also, really, pointing my heart towards the perfection of relationships in Jesus Christ fully realized and accomplished in the glorious confines of Heaven. That, my friends, is what i am homesick for.

What, what, WHAT are you doing?

Let me not be a slave to anything that has mastered me, save Jesus Christ.
I don't want to lose sight of the eternal while ministering in the temporal space of this earth. I want God-sized dreams that are not influenced or limited by man-sized thoughts, ideas, criticisms, or problems.
I suppose that this means i first need to possess God-sized dreams. To conquer fear and doubt and not be focused merely on the possibility of failure and adjust my plans and goals accordingly, but to be driven by the promise of success contained in the power of God at my disposal. [Today's journal entry]

As i write this i am sitting at my desk listening to Anberlin whine out of my laptop's speakers and trying to avoid working on anything that resembles productivity. My iPhone keeps buzzing with texts and facebook updates that i am systematically ignoring. Why am i shirking responsibility? its more than just me being my usual ADD, procrastinating self. And its not just the fact that the office is empty save for myself and the smartly dressed Ricoh copier repair dude. (and Jesse...somewhere up in the Loft shouting Sunday's already finished lesson down to empty chairs. dirty overachiever)
I'm supposedly teaching tonight for young adult's bible study. and by "supposedly" i mean "i am"...And, in all honesty, i've done all my research, written out all my notes in my little black book, and done some extensive reading of books on the subject. All that is left to do is synthesize my rambling, scrawled notes into a legible Word document so i can actually read them come 6:30 tonight when people arrive and expectantly look at me to utter some profundity about Luke 15.
but i havn't even so much as opened up a Word doc yet. Here i am, poised over my computer, paralyzed by the unrealized and unsubstantiated fear that possibly i won't be able to organize yesterday's semi-chaotic thoughts. I even worry that i will have a flash of exegetical brilliance and find a new concept or central theme in the passage and have to do the pain staking work of reordering my notes. It's really all very laughable.
But yet i still havn't even opened my notebook from yesterday.
So i just sit here and eat little red fish out of a yellow plastic bag and muse about my particular short comings. If i am a slave to anything, i must confess, i am a slave to the many faceted nuances of fear.