Christmas Time entering The New Year!

Eve Service, originally uploaded by andebos.

It has been quite some time since I've actually written anything worthwhile, and I realize I have yet to update the post about settling. The post on settling has yet to be updated due to the few but thought provoking insights made by good friends on the topic...when I get these sorted in my head I'll be sure to try and create something for you to enjoy. In the meantime let me summarize the last few weeks and our Christmas time here in Kansas City.

Work lately has been tedious. I find myself working a lot and having many ideas I want to come to fruition. All of this makes me wonder how encompassing the roles of quality teacher and quality husband could ever be truly played out in my life. I am still utterly convinced that we as people work far too much for far too little. We are sacrificing way too much just for position and money, or power. It worries me because it's a suction that few of us can escape - Anyway, work's been busy. Church life has yet to overly improve but I'm doing some fascinating reading (Harry's still in the mix). For Christmas I received a book called Emergent Churches that looks very good along with McLaren's New Kind of Christian which contains Tim Keel's reader's guide. Excellent job to Tim on the questions, I'm already excited to reread and do some more thinking on matters I've let slide from my mind and heart. Many of us in Boston have been eager to see these questions and discuss them! Well that's work and church....hmm, what else? Friendships - my roommate Brooks was recently engaged and gets married in the middle of this january, my roommates are such terrific people, we get along so great and it just reminds me so much of how blessed I am, for the past 6 years I have been blessed time and time again with amazing men and women to live with in community. I know you're wondering about relationships...well, maybe some other time!

As far as Christmas, it's been great being home - except for the cold I'm most certain I received from Zack last week. That's what you get for helping a friend with his fiance's ipod. I unfortunately inherited his cold and utterly lost almost all talking ability friday night through sunday...pretty wild, Karla, the fam, BJ, and Audra can attest. I arrived home Friday night and have just hung out with friends since. Friday I was able to hang with BJ and Audra for a while and then Karla Saturday night, we watched Mr. and Mrs. Smith (suprisingly good) and had some fun times interacting in good conversation about life, God, and forgiveness, as she usually offends me! Just kidding. Before hanging out with Ms. Jordan I was able to attend one of my favorite spaces and see many of my favorite friends - Jacob's Well! JW had a xmas Eve service which was excellent if I do say so myself. My brother and I went together. Even in the midst of babies crying there was just this overwhelming presence of God, love, and community. Since there wasn't suday school and baby care there were quite a few crying babies. I would say this usually annoys me, but something about the community at Jacob's Well (or maybe through helping take care of many of the toddlers over the summer) I just felt happy they were there. It was a sense of deep heartfelt community and those crying babies were specifically that family's baby but also belonged to the church family. It was a weird sensation and one I have not felt before. Needless to say, I miss the community here and will always consider it home, all my prayers for you all. I got to see so many friends too! Including Chris and Carissa, Stephanie, Tim, Mike, the Kellemeyer's, and most suprisingly Brandy! Who I can't wait to call. What a fun Christmas Eve. It made it even better to hang out with an old friend afterwards - "you don't even realize." Christmas day blessed our family with laughter and community - I was able to see both sides of the family as we went to my Aunt's in the morning and set off for Columbia in the afternoon. All in all it was a fun Christmas, I even got a new camera! Expect some more fun styles of photography from me!! That's the summarized version of my life at the moment, things are going quite well, I have no idea where things are headed, I'm frustrated, confused, heartbroken, but hopeful, excited, happy, content, and just overall feeling very human these days - I hope I get to see many of you soon, especially those of you up north!! Be back soon

"Love came down at Christmas, love all lovely, love divine; love was born at Christmas, star and angels gave the sign."