Not Dead Yet...

"You guys are still at R Street? I heard things were really weird..."

"I heard you guys were shutting down"

It's funny, the things people will say... Sometimes others' version of your story is so convincing you begin to worry that their version is the correct one... and that you are simply delusional. I am really glad that the R Street story is not my story but that it is our story. Glad that I need not trust my version of the story because we are telling the story together.

And I am thankful.

Thankful that we are still here.  With loss of place and loss of some who began the story with us... we are still here.  When logic seemed to indicate a splintering and scattering... the wagons were circled instead.  When it seemed that the last of the day's sunlight was calling us away from the playground and home to wash up for dinner; instead, we locked arms and started a new game of red rover.

I am thankful for the family i have chosen... for the family that has chosen each other. I am humbled by the fierce determination to remain a family when it would be easier, and maybe even more prudent, to scatter and join other families.  I am thankful for a community who needs and loves one another because of the life we have already lived together and for the commitment to live through the story to come... together.

And so we change... Faces change. Places change. But WE remain. And we are strong; not because we are made up of strong individuals but because we are a family who knows our individual weakness and has found that we are only strong when we are connected.  Everything changes... everything but the things that still define us...

community... mission... inclusion... worship...

And contrary to what you may have heard...  We are not dead yet.

into the great wide open

“Into the great wide open
Under them skies of blue
Out in the great wide open
A rebel without a clue” ~Tom Petty

Most folks assume that reckless, foolish behavior is something we grow out of – something that subsides with maturity. In many ways it is probably true. I am finding, however, a new kind of recklessness as I near the half century mark. The recklessness of youth assumes success; that our endeavors cannot fail. When we are young we are invincible. So, really, it is not reckless at all.

Real recklessness – true foolishness – fully accepts the possibility, hell, probability of failure… and acts anyway. The reckless spirit I am discovering peers over the edge, knows it is too high for survival, and jumps!

Butch Cassidy: Alright. I'll jump first.

Sundance Kid: No.

Butch Cassidy: Then you jump first.

Sundance Kid: No, I said.

Butch Cassidy: What's the matter with you?

Sundance Kid: I can't swim.

Butch Cassidy: Are you crazy? The fall will probably kill you.

Sundance Kid: Oh, shit...

This week the tribe I lead peered over the edge and jumped. We shook off the last bit of safety and stepped into the great wide open. And we jumped together. None of us are certain where we will land or even if we will survive. We only know that to stay, to stand still, is worse than the risk of the rocks below. We jump because, for all our doubt – all our questions, we believe in a “dangerous love” that calls us into a wild adventure; a call that leads us over the edge and into a new story. And we carry the old story with us…

Who we are and where we are going is the cliffhanger of our old story. It ended with a bunch of scared and tired outlaws trying to decide between the river gorge ahead and the posse at our backs. The new story finds us in mid-air, terrified and exhilarated, as we speed toward the rushing currents below. And at least one of us has never felt more alive…