I thought I would include a page of my journal from two years ago. It’s interesting to reflect and revisit that season and thank God that at sometime in the last two years I made a u-turn from the jaded cynicism that was threatening to spiritually suffocate me at the time.

“How oddly out of touch is the corporate religious world. Like a band of people who have gathered together with their back to reality. An inwardly utopian subculture of faith that is outwardly far removed from the ability to identify with those outside the fold. A meager attempt to squeeze honor and authority together with titles and ties. The authority stems from relationship alone and goes only as far as the bonds of those relationships. In other words, don’t expect an airline stewardess to give you an extra bag of pretzels just cause you got credentials. In this world where one creates one’s own world while living in another, the only obvious test is how unobtrusively your planet floats from everyone else’s. The Arkansas redneck and the House of Commons are two different worlds on one planet. The denominational, evangelical, fundamentalist world is floating farther and farther away from the world we are called to go ye into all of. Our perception of being separates involves taking on god’s creative role of producing an Edenic pasture fenced in by the laws of our choosing while we are encouraged to graze on the grass of grace. Much like cattle, head down, self absorbed, blissfully unaware, and regurgitating the same thing over and over.”

I found myself in a Denny's in College Station at 6:30 this morning, sipping coffee, reading the paper, and having a lady named Lois call me 'darlin'. I'm attending a seminar on management skills. It's raining. I didn't get enough sleep. This speaker is good. I still have the taste of undercooked bacon in my mouth. yum...
I'm going through the Band of Brothers series these days. There's a section in there where a WWII vet says that the only way he could do the job at hand was to consider himself to be dead already. It was the only way you could overcome the reality of mortality breathing down your neck and do your job. The Bible says that we are dead to sin and alive to God. I believe that the only way to do the job we're called to do as Christians, is to reckon yourself dead. Every breath, then, becomes a gift.