musings...of a wandering pilgrim

I believe that as we step into the places of need within the lives of people we rub shoulders with every day, we will find Jesus already at work there. And we will also find that even in the darkest of places, He has been there waiting for us.

SO…what do we do as representatives of this scandalous friend of the unloveable? This reckless saviour who would risk it all for the undeserving(like me)? We pursue people. And love them with all that we are. And point them to the dangerous lover, Jesus the Christ.

How will we do that? Well now, that is the great adventure.

Even as i read this again, i am reminded by how many people really struggle with a non-linear life plan - one that is not framed within a set of goals or markers...and some days i am one of them. But I love the idea that the Glory of God is a man fully alive. And that is what we truly believe Jesus gives us. Full life.

Redemption is a mystery...why and where did we get our perspective on conversion? and how did it become so pragmatic? As I read the words of Jesus, being converted was never something He addressed. We truly believe that Jesus travelled with people and they ended up following Him...changed by His tenderness and His teaching.

Is that not our call? To redemptively move people towards Jesus, with His tenderness and His teaching? "His kindness leads us to repentance...", ever heard those words?

Some followed Him closer than others....but where was the line of saved or not? I am not sure that there are answers to that questions outside of the questions of what does it mean to be fully alive? Fully drawn by the Jesus story. My heart needs to be captured by what it means to be a fully committed husband, father, and friend...fully believing that we are to be full of His Spirit so that as His power is at work in us it changes my street, my community, coffee shop, school, etc. I want to believe that His presence in me is enough.

There is the crux. St. Francis said, 'preach the gospel at all times and when necessary use words'. Do I believe this gospel enough to live it out in all of my life?

The people of God should be marked by an unwavering belief in the world's ability to change...which is what makes apathy so dangerous...it is an affront to the Holy Spirit's work in my life and world. HOPE.

WE HOPE.

He is not a private club or a corporate strategy...nor is His kingdom something He is holding onto like a old man on unsteady legs who white knuckles his cane. The days of the church portraying it that way must end. We must paint a picture of a God who offers His Kingdom and grace daily...o what a compelling picture.

So what do we do? We intentionally step into the lives of the people around us. Into the lives of the people on our street, school system, neighbourhood, gym, workplace...into every level of culture. And His presence in us makes those places potential places of worship.

I am convinced that when my life is clothed with His, and I choose to live for His glory...all that I do, all that I am, what I see, what I taste, what I hear, what I say...becomes holy and truly sacred. This IS the message, the KINGDOM OF GOD IS NEAR TO YOU NOW!

Something i wrote several years ago strikes me as fitting:

I love that when I play basketball with Caleb or wrestle with Rosie, and I do it with Jesus in my heart... it is holy and His Presence is there.
I love that when I cook a magnificent plate of steaming curry, and I do it with Jesus in my heart...it is holy and His Presence is there.
I love that when I have a cup of coffee in the morning as the sun rises with a book in hand, and I do it with Jesus in my heart...it is holy and His Presence is there.
I love that when I sit a table with people I love and listen to them talk and watch them describe life, and I do it with Jesus in my heart...it is holy and His Presence is there.
I love that as Darlene walks the hallways of the hospital being an instrument of healing, and she is aware that He has placed her there...it is a holy place and His Presence is there.
I love that as Erin works in her office as an instrument of integrity, and she does it aware that He has placed her there...it is a holy place and His Presence is there.
I love that as Brian mediates crisis in teenagers lives, and he does it aware that He has placed him there...it is a holy place and His Presence is there.
I love that as Lani works with the poorest of the poor and helps them step back into the society, and she does it aware that He has placed her there...it is a holy expression of Him and His presence is there.
I love that as Scott walks the hallways of academia as a missionary to the mind of our culture, and he does it aware that He has divine purpose there...it is a holy endeavor and His Presence is there.
I love that as Tracey captures God's signature on people by ripping back the veils that hide true beauty and captures who they truly are on film, and she does it aware that Jesus has placed her there...it is holy and His Presence is there.
I love that as my kids go to school and learn to love new friends, and they do it knowing that Jesus is smiling...it is holy and His Presence is there.

I love that where ever we live, and we live there for Him...it is a holy, sacred place, and His Presence is there.

and maybe that's what this church thing is all about. maybe that is question we need to be answering...Is He here? Is He honoured? Maybe we need to be mission-aries who are guides that help others discover that He is here now.

I think that a gathering of people who understand this...that when we, together, live in the name of Jesus, His presence is real; the places we live in become holy.

and maybe, just maybe, that is enough to change the world.

hmmm.

“The church today should be getting ready and talking about the issues of tomorrow and not the issues of 20 or 30 years ago, because the church is going to be squeezed in a wringer. If we found it tough in these last few years, what are we going to do when faced with the real changes that are ahead?… One of the greatest injustices we do to our young people is to ask them to be conservative. Christianity is not conservative but revolutionary. To be conservative today is to miss the whole point, for conservatism means standing in the flow of the status quo and the status quo no longer belongs to us… If we want to be fair we must teach the young to be revolutionaries, revolutionaries against the status quo”

Francis Schaeffer (1981)
He was an American Evangelical theologian, philosopher, and Presbyterian pastor. He is most famous for his writings and his establishment of the L'Abri community in Switzerland.

to the hilt.

"be courageous."
I have said it, had it said to me...but i have some questions...

Is courage a spiritual quality? Or a natural quality? Do some people have it and some don't?

I stumbled across this in some reading late(very late) last night. The word courage comes from the Latin word cor, which means "heart".

A courageous act is an act coming from the heart. A courageous word is a word arising from the heart. The heart, however, is not just the place where our emotions are located. The heart is the centre of our being, the centre of all thoughts, feelings, passions, and decisions. Its the womb of our dreams, the place of our divine DNA (who we were meant to be as His kids).

Being courageous is living with your heart. Putting it all on the table and givin' er...

with that on the table, I have some thoughts...so follow me for a sec...

Life provides us with opportunities to catch glimmers of who we are, or who we could be.

I had a conversation regarding 'religion' once and it made me think about the word 'courageous', in its best sense. James talks about religion of value. Religion you ask? Yeah, religion; something that describes an area of life and experience where in some way or another we have stumbled into mystery and heard a summons to follow. An encounter that overwhelms us in that we have glimpsed something (or Someone) so far beyond us and bigger than us that we are captured...either by fear or love.

I think in some way we are all mystics, filled with a hunger for the supernatural...the taste, the touch, the feel, the awareness of that which is beyond us...we all carry a yearning for mystery.

AND really, we have all seen more than we let on...even to ourselves. Through moments of beauty or pain we catch glimmers of what the "saints" or "hero's" of the faith were absolutely fixated by. But what separates them from the average person is not the experience. Rather, its their response. The reality that captured and held them, we tend to miss or DISmiss in order to go on as if nothing happened. No pause. No reflection. Little more than a pulse fluxuation.

Come on. Stop pretending you don't know. Relationship break up - cry for a day, find a new one. Sharp word spoken in anger to you - speak one back and move on. Loneliness - pick your medication...food, TV, porn, work, people. Insecurity - find something that you are good at and don't venture out ever again. Positives? Personal relationships - eye contact, a moment that creates opportunity to express love...and there is that uncomfortable pause and desperate lunge towards escape by cracking a joke or saying something sarcastic. Quiet - an opportunity to sit, to pause, to reflect on who we are and who we are becoming. Instead we look for the remote or something to do. A Divine Moment springs from a conversation or a prayer, where God once again stirs the dreams of your heart - find a way to stuff them back in and move on, cuz I mean, its not reasonable to think that stuff...are you following me yet?

We find ways to regain control...regain the flatline. But a truly alive and courageous heart has peaks and valleys...highs and lows...pain and joy...regularly...and each of those moments are filled with the awesome, overwhelming, mystical reality of the alive Lord Jesus...not our fake, serene looking deadpan Jesus, the one in most paintings. BUT the inescapable passionate Jesus who created us to live fully alive.

To allow something to be as it is, to admit something HAS happened in us even though we are not sure what it is, or where we are supposed to go with it...that is a powerful part what this journey of FAITH is all about.
Don't shut it off. Don't shut it down...let it be what it is and embrace it...Because He is in the middle of all of it. In order to engage the reality of Jesus, the path goes through your heart. Does it mean we live by emotion? No, we live by following the LIVING WORD...and feeling the tension, struggle, hardship, joy, exhilaration that colours and shades our lives is part of the incredible experience we call FAITH!

Courage. Living with your heart.
What did God say to Joshua? 7 times in 3 chapters. BE STRONG AND what?
Yeah. my translation? let me give you the strength to live out the dream(s) of your heart. a promised land. ignore the nay sayers, the people who will never believe and RUN.
The key? Don't shut your heart off. Your heart speaks the language of courage.
And the pain and joy that is a part of the pursuit? Do something with it. write. paint. speak. sculpt. design. do. start. live. love.
Let your heart feel and breath and speak and sing...in the words of the martyr Jim Elliot, wherever you are, be all there, live life to the hilt.

Embrace it all, and maybe you will learn something about the profound mystery that is you...and the God who made you.

Let me leave you with a story I read about Blaise Pascal. No room to tell you who he is...look him up.
After he had died a servant found this paper sown into his jacket "since about half past ten in the evening until half past midnight. Fire. Certitude. Certitude. Feeling. Joy. Peace." This great man, stammering it out like a little child. But he had to...its what we do when we are courageous...we find a way to get it out.

read the book of Joshua...or at least the first 5 chapters...you'll see what I mean.
yearning,
Jonathan

Trust and Creativity

fully rambling...chuckle. creative writing right? my mother is after to me to start editting...i may...one day.

Trust.
Creativity.
What are the first things that come to your mind when you think about those two words?

The first thing that comes to my mind is failure.
How we deal with failure and mistakes is actually the best measure of the level of trust in a community, whether that community be a family or an organization of thousands. When you trust people, you will always find moments when you’ll be disappointed...where someone has failed or really made a wrong choice. We can use it as a basis to not trust people...and end up using it against them...or we can learn something else.

Have we learned to love in such a way that people feel free to fail? Have we created places that are safe...where you can roll the dice, risk it all and make a mistake? Are we creating environments that are based on confidence in God and in people? Or are we creating places that are filled with fear?

Can we learn to create places that are full of love and freedom?

I am learning that the more people I love, the more I make decisions that are not based on myself. I look at people who lie, cheat, steal, murder, rape, etc...and in that moment of their lives, they’ve decided that their personal satisfaction as more important than all the pain they might cause everyone else their actions touch....

The more people you love the more difficult it will be for you to make lifes destructive decisions. Seems to me there is a Jesus message in their somewhere. I get asked lots about how to grow your faith. And I am learning it has alot to do with how much I value me. Mother Theresa said it like this:
If faith is lacking, it is because there is too much selfishness, too much concern for personal gain. For faith to be true, it has to be generous and loving. Love and faith go together, they complete each other.

I have been wrestling with this as a leadership issue. If we choose to trust and develop creative environments, what is the balance between freedom is control? How much control should i have?

What I am realizing is that every organization, group, community, team, etc. has places of tight control somewhere. All of us have had experiences with organizations that want to control the end product, which is not a bad thing. But what would it look like in our circles of influence, if we pushed for having control over the quality of people we trust.

When I trust a person’s character, I can let them have an immense amount of freedom—yes, even freedom to mess it up...cuz God knows i have destroyed a few things in my path once upon a time! And it was the wise and patient people that God placed in my life that shook their heads, winked at me, helped me clean it up, asked me what i learned, and told me to go for it again!

Unfortunately, so many of us are so afraid of making mistakes that we don’t; that’s why so many people that I have talked to say they are not creative. The creative process always dies in the atmosphere of fear. Because creativity and failure are twins. Maybe the problem is that there are not enough wombs of trust that birth children who dream of a different world...and have the courage to fail until they succeed.

Chuck Swindoll said, "In vain I have searched the Bible, looking for examples of early believers whose lives were marked by rigidity, predictability, inhibition, dullness, and caution. Fortunately, grim, frowning, joyless saints in Scriptures are conspicuous by their absence. Instead, the examples I find are of adventurous, risk-taking, enthusiastic, and authentic believers whose joy was contagious even in times of full trial. Their vision was broad even when death drew near. Rules were few and changes were welcome. The contrast between then and now is staggering."

In the leadership push of the last ten years, we have been taught to focus on excellence. The last couple of days has taught me something. Ready? When your focus is excellence, and your focus is execution—in terms of it having to be executed precisely so it’s efficient—excellence and efficiency actually become enemies of the creative process.

Maybe instead of talking about finding ways to be creative in effectively administering the mandate of the gospel...we need to be creatively finding ways to express that which is beautiful about the Gospel. Calling people who are weary, worn, overwhelmed and overcome by the darkness of sin to the majesty of a wondrous Savior who is able to bring His light into the darkest night. And when His light appears in the darkness, the darkness cannot stop it...redemption happens.

As the people of God, we are all artists. Our lives are the painting of God crying out to a world with His love, with the powerful message of redemption! Is it clean, sterile and disinfected process? no. Efficient? no, but really, art is never efficient...but it does move our souls. We are His masterpiece. What is more moving than a redeemed life living with joy and wild abandon in following the dream of His Kingdom?

I don't want to live with fear...trying to find rules and regulations to control "end products". We are stretching to base our entire life mission on the reality of Jesus actually transforms people. So much so that I feel no pressure to try to make people act or be a certain way. I’m banking everything on the fact that Jesus is the redeemer of broken lives. AND when we call people to Him, everything changes.

Maybe that's what faith is. Banking it all...on Him.

Influence...just a thought

Influence.

We either influence, or are influenced.

Why is it that Mother Teresa could stand up before crowds of thousands and simply repeat simple New Testament phrases, and a hush would sweep the room?

She didn't say anything new: "Jesus loves you," she assured you. "We're sons and daughters of God and we have to love Jesus' poor." Yet people walked out renewed, transformed and deeply challenged. I remember reading through her message at the National Prayer Breakfast several years ago in the United States. She was speaking about the moral destruction that a pro abortion society experiences. And then she said, "if you dont want your children, give them to me...I will take them."

She wasn't a priest. She wasn't well educated. She didn't have a position with authority. Her influence came from her life-style.

What influence does your life-style give you?
j

Thomas Merton thoughts...

“We must expect to be making mistakes all the time. We must be content to fail repeatedly and to begin again to try to deny ourselves for the love of God…

We want to shake off the hateful thing that has humbled us. In our rush to escape the humiliation of our mistakes, we run headfirst into the opposite error, seeking comfort and compensation.

And so we spend our lives running back and forth from one attachment to another.

If that is all our self-denial amounts to,

…our mistakes will never help us.

The thing you do, when you have made a mistake, is not to give up doing what you were doing and start something altogether new, but to start over again with the thing you began badly and try, for the love of God, to do it well."

When I Stand

When I stand at the judgment seat of Christ
And He shows me His plan for me,
The Plan of my life as it might have been
Had He had His way, and I see

How I blocked Him here, and I checked Him there,
And I would not yield my will --
Will there be grief in my Savior's eyes,
Grief, though He loves me still?

He would have me rich, and I stand there poor,
Stripped of all but His grace,
While memory runs like a hunted thing
Down the paths I cannot retrace.

Then my desolate heart will well-nigh break
With the tears that I cannot shed;
I shall cover my face with my empty hands,
I shall bow my uncrowned head...

Lord of the years that are left to me,
I give them to Thy hand;
Take me and break me, mould me to
The pattern Thou hast planned!

Martha Snell Nicholson

remembering the works....

Hey...
Need some help here. Have spent some time over the last week reminiscing...working my way through some of the incredible ways that Jesus has transformed lives over the last 10 years....

If you were are a part of The Revolution; FireHouse; G.C.; SuperCamps; Summer Camps; Conferences; Missions Trips...you name it. Whether in the Philippines or in Canada...

Tell me about what happened in you. What did Jesus do in your life? What did He say to YOU? What did you walk away with? How has it altered the way you live, see, think, breath?

believing.

pj

Influence. Part 2

Daniel 4:36-37 and 6:26-27 records royal decrees of two kings. Both of them ruled at one time over one of the greatest cities and nation-states in the ancient world.

These two men came from different cultures: one was a Babylonian by birth; the other was born a Medo-Persian. They also belonged to different generations. Yet they were both tied together in history by their relationship with one unique individual - a Judean prophet called Daniel.

Daniel, or as he came to be known in Babylon, Belteshazzar, was born a Jewish prince in the 6th century BC. As a teenager he was forcibly taken from his home and heritage and transplanted to the Babylon of king Nebuchadnezzar. There, Daniel and his peers were trained for service of the Babylonian empire. Their training involved a process of changing the essence of their personal cultures. How you ask? Their names were change, their cultural food was forbidden and their connection with their homeland was severed. Some 'mm, mm good' stuff to think about right here...but another time!

Daniel was a slave who rose up through the ranks to become a trusted advisor, a confidante, to not one but five successive kings of this ancient city.

In the process of Daniel's service, he led two of the kings to faith in God - this in a nation that virtually invented astrology and worship of the stars.

Whether they liked him or not, all the kings who knew Daniel respected him. AND all agreed: the spirit of the gods were in him!

Daniel's incredible and eventful life reminds us, again, of one great fact: We were created for influence. Regardless the scenarios or situation, we are architects of atmosphere and engineers of environment.

Let me say this again, Genesis 1:26-28 outlines the first calling God placed upon the shoulders of humankind - the mandate to influence the world.

How do we win this tug-o-war for influence? How can we shape our culture more than it shapes us? How can we transform our life situation before it transforms us?

Be a Culture-Creator in your world.

Having real influence is about creating a culture -- a new way of seeing and doing things, a fresh way of interpreting what is right, normal and acceptable. Without this kind of cultural definition there can be no leadership. The person, or group, who has the strongest culture will inevitably rise to leadership.

Wherever Daniel was involved, the prevailing culture changed. People, even those in high status positions, were forced to rethink what was right, normal and acceptable.

To influence your world, you must define and build a culture in your own space that is stronger, more dominant than the culture that surrounds you. People must feel that when they're around you, certain things are normal, right and acceptable.

Proverbs 29:18 is about setting goals for our lives. Its about you and me redefining the culture of our immediate environment, our sphere. The Hebrew text says: 'Without a redemptive revelation the people lead undisciplined lives.'

God wants to give you not just a set of goals, but a redemptive revelation of himself. He wants to show you something of his own nature; something so revolutionary that, if you live it out, it will actually redeem things around you for the kingdom of God.

Because of that revelation, you will be able redefine what it means to be in business, to build a family, to study in school, to do whatever it is that you do!

Now i know it is easy to become overwhelmed, so hold on. In my last post, i quoted Abraham Kuyper the nineteenth century journalist, theologian and Dutch Prime Minister who wrote: 'There is not one part of our world of thought that can be hermetically separated from the other parts, and there is not an inch in the entire area of our human life of which Christ, who is sovereign of all, does not cry "Mine!"'

While some churchmen of his era taught that Christians should retreat from everything relating to the secular world, Kuyper borrowed from Paul’s teaching to give us the idea of ‘sphere authority’.

This is the idea that church and state are both of divine origin, yet both serve different functions.

Each must obey God's laws: the state must not try to be neutral towards God, but must recognize his supremacy over the civil sphere of authority. Government policies and procedures must respect God's moral precepts, so they must uphold the sanctity of marriage and the family; they must restrain and punish.

No one is entitled to rule absolutely, for that is a divine prerogative alone. God delegates authority to human agents in family, church, school and state, and those who govern in such spheres are accountable to God in the discharge of their duties and in the exercise of their limited authority.

This means, for example, that neither the state nor the church is to intrude upon the other spheres. Each should seek to protect the rights of the other to operate freely.

Kuyper's concept of sphere authority contradicted the basic principle of socialism that would give the state the right to regulate life in practically all of its aspects, economic, political and social.

According to Deuteronomy 28, God’s people are destined for leadership; AND leadership on any level begins with creating a culture.

There are, I think, two fundamental questions we need to answer, if we're each going to win our battle for influence.

The first is this: what kind of neighbourhood, city and nation do I want to see around me in 10 years from now? What kind of city and nation would God want me to be living in by that time? What changes would he want me to make; what things would he want me to redeem around me?

The second question is this: seeing that preferred future, what am I now prepared to do to set that in motion? I quoted him already, but he bears repeating: As Bill Wilson, the great apostle to children in New York, likes to say: 'It's not important what you achieve in life; it's what you set in motion that counts!'

dreaming...
Jonathan

25 Things

i have been asked to re-post this...so i have...welcome to my world...

hmmm....I have been tagged a bunch of times and am usually very disinterested in responding to such things...BUT, for some reason this one has provided a spigot for inner musings...here we go:

**
once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. at the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. you have to tag the person who tagged you. if I tagged you, it's because i want to know more about you.

(to do this, go to "notes" under tabs on your profile page, paste these instructions in the body of the note, type your 25 random things, tag 25 people (in the right hand corner of the app) then click publish.)
**
1. i love to journal. the discipline of articulating thoughts, fears, dreams, prayer, love, etc on paper provides me a place of stillness. good for my heart. BUT i have been wrestling with switching to some sort of computer program, cuz when i die NOONE will be able to read anything i wrote...which is great for the immediate privacy problem - i don't have to worry about someone reading something - but terrible for posterity.

2. coffee. hmmmm. finding/making the perfect cup of java is a truly noble endeavor. earthy. bold. well balanced. and just about boiling. perfect. sigh.

3. i had 5 concussions my junior year in highschool. one of which left me with amnesia for 3 days. highschool wrestling was the cause of 4 of them. and the amnesia causing one was the result of a crack the whip on roller skates gone bad. forehead...cement...blood coming out of nose and ears...you get the story.

4. Tracer, my lover, is truly the most gifted photographer in the world. The way she captures people is incredible. She has the ability to capture who people are in a moment...quite often moves me to tears.

5. Which leads me to this thought...i cry alot. I never know what may cause tears. The sight of the Pacific Ocean can do it...or a piece of music, or a face i've never seen before...or maybe one that i haven't seen in a really long time. A look. A smile. An expression. A moment. Almost any movie that has the heartbreak of loving and loosing. A high school basketball team running onto the floor at the end of game, exultant in victory...or the opposite team, broken in defeat. Two young lovers exchanging a look and a kiss on a train, or two much older lovers, exchanging a years-filled glance and a gentle caress. Memories..and dreams...i can never be sure. But of this i am sure. Whenever i find tears in my eyes, especially unexpected tears, it is wise to pay very very close attention.
example? I was reading a Berenstein Bears book to Rosie this evening...and those unexpected tears came on the last page. Why? Gran and Gramps has swept brother and sister bear into their arms and were saying how thankful they were to have them as granbears(grandkids - for those of you who don't know Berenstein Bear language).
I was thinking a little later, after Rosie asked me what was wrong and I quickly moved along, that those tears tell me something about the secret of who I am. What is it that strikes the chords of my heart in such a way that I am moved to tears? As I think about those moments, more often than not, God is speaking to me through them of the mystery of where I have come from...and is summoning me, if my heart is willing, to where I should go next.

6. I cannot stand the Toronto Maple Leafs. Sorry...gotta keep it real.

7. I love airports. love em love em love em. Back in the day, when Trace and I were dating, we used to go to the Calgary airport, sip coffee, flirt and watch the planes land. There is something awe-some about watching people and wondering where they are going, or coming from and what their life is made of. My favorite airport is the Hong Kong Airport, followed closely by the Vancouver Airport.

8. My Caleb, my 12 year old son, amazes me. The mixture of boyish roughness (his love of violence...whenever we are looking at movies is standard line in response to a movie that is rated beyond what is acceptable for 11 years olds is 'Dad I love violence, its not gross kissing stuff') and tender compassion (Trace dropped a TV on her toe the other day and it was hard to tell who was crying more...her or Caleb. And Caleb was crying out of pure empathy) is very moving...and challenges me to be a more balanced man.

9. My Rosie, my 8 year (going on 18) old, inspires me. She sings constantly. And is always asking for a hug. Since she was a very little girl she has been able to find someone who is hurting or feeling left out...and make them feel loved. Sigh. When she says, 'you are my favorite daddy'...i want to give her the world...and warn her future suitors, you mess with my little girl and i promise to hurt you. seriously.

10. food and friends...food is every cultures relationship vehicle. Around our tables, we engage each other better, especially when we do it over a meal we love. Think about where we do our most important relationship things…our dates, our relationship stepping stones, our family gatherings, our celebrations, our reflections…all are couched, encouraged and augmented by the food we eat. In an urban environment and a racing global village, many people find themselves sucked dry, and left barren. i love creating spaces that allow us to experience food, culture and people. Spaces that return the color to a pale and bleak rat race. I think of words like inviting. Stimulating. Inspiring. Soulful. Moving. Expressive. Safe. Alive. From the perfection of a dish, to the painting that hangs on the wall. From the musical ambience to the color scheme. From the lighting to something gentle and complete offered by a group of people committed to restoring your soul after a long day...sigh.

11. Top 3 places i have yet to visit: Scotland. East Coast of Canada. Aushwitz.

12. I own every Louis Lamour book. yup. all of em.

13. Speaking of books...i love love love to read. I have lots of em...everywhere. It is bad news for me to go into a book store of any kind. I have a long list of 'to read's. My goal this year is to read a book a week.

14. I notice that i pace. When i talk on the phone. When i am thinking. When i am fretting. When i am longing. I am a pacer...funny enough that is the name of our dog. Pacey is his name but we call him pacer....

15. Someday I am going to go to a Steelers game in Pittsburgh and wave a terrible towel and howl like a mad man. My son has informed me that is sooooo coming.

16. Someday I want to see U2 live in Ireland.

17. We are going to adopt some children someday. How can I not be moved by the plight of the worlds orphans?

18. We recently got rid of our big screen TV. How can our home be a place of rest when the center of attention is a big TV that constantly 'feeds' our minds. We have decided to rest more, reflect more, read more, play more, laugh more, and intentionally engage the people we care about more. Do I really need my mind numbed by a world of fiction?

19. I am deeply challenged by the words of Jesus: 'if any of you wants to be my follower, you must put aside your selfish ambition, shoulder your cross daily, and follow me. If you try to keep your life for yourself, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for me, you will find true life.' What does it look like to live life not for yourself...but to truly live in a way that gives all that you are for the good of others. i constantly rub shoulders with people who are desperately trying to outrun the feeling of emptiness inside. Fear of failing, fear of disappointment, fear of pain, fear of being alone...and I am one of them. And these words i find true mission...the power of leveraging all that i am and all that i possess for the sake of someone else...something deep draws me there.

20. i grew up in the Philippines. My mom ran a medical facility that provided care for the poor and specifically focused on providing a safe environment for pregnant mothers who could not afford hospital care. So by the time I was 16 i knew more about pregnancy and giving birth than most women. Did many a homework assignment holding baby.

21. I really want to learn how to speak another language. Top of the list? Mandarin. But could be easily sucked into learning arabic or french.

22. I play the saxophone. the guitar. and would love to master the piano.

23. I love to sing. am not sure i have ever written that before.

24. I run my own business. So does my wife. Two entrepreneurs. We were made for each other. uh huh...woot woot!

25. i love the friends we have chosen to journey with. life is full because of their love.