A Single Layer

I'll tell you what gives me more joy than anything else I can think of: creative communities. I don't mean formal communities with logos and schedules, though those are nice enough. I mean when you find out that Benedict Cumberbatch is friends with Tom Hiddleston who's friends with Zachary Levi who's friends with Nathan Fillion who's friends with Joss Whedon. Just imagine that dinner party for a moment. Now you see what I mean. Yesterday afternoon I was in a room of people, most of them friends, some of them strangers, reading through "The Merchant of Venice". Each person read a different role. And the whole thing was brilliant. I found myself looking around me at the other readers with a particular appreciation, because I was in the midst of my own convergence. The creative community had happened. Not a single person in the room was "famous", but every one of them was graced with a good measure of talent—and a few of them with the kind of t...

I wrote this responsive prayer for our service yesterday as part of a 40 day series on the Lord's Prayer our church is going through. My mother asked me to post it here. I do what she says. Lord Jesus, teach us to pray: For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. This is your world. You hold the past, present, and future in your almighty hands. Because the veil was torn and the Spirit has come, we are always—even now—standing in the presence of our God. All of creation bends to you—and would we hesitate? The rocks sing your praise, and the waves rest at your feet. How often we forget! Lord Jesus, teach us to pray: And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. All around us—and within us—we find excuses to ignore your persistent presence.   We settle for easy dissatisfaction in things that are not of you. We have stepped too far over that line that runs through each human heart. We’ve compromised to keep ourselves from sufferi...

Let me tell you a little bit about my life right now. It's quite lovely, actually—I have a perfect apartment, good friends, precious family, and I ate delicious sweet potato gnocchi today. But it's not particularly cheerful at the moment. It seems nearly everyone I care about is going through their own personal gauntlets, and I am left to pray. Which is a good place to be left in, but not easy. I have made this observation elsewhere, but I'll make it again here. Something happens when you crack open the door to grief. You become almost physically aware of the feelings that are due things. That which is delightful suddenly strikes you as the most beautiful thing in existence. That which is sad can set you to honest weeping. I find a certain sanctity in this. After all, Jesus wept. In the midst of all this, I've been personally "suffering" a lot of Stupid. My wallet was stolen a month ago, and for a pile of reasons, it's taken all that time to get acces...