Boxes are for Perfection
My wife and I frequent a local coffee shop in our fair city of Portland. We first discovered Urban Grind when Kathryn got a gallery showing at their eastside gallery.
We have become regulars, we know everyones name, they know us, we often chat with people we know who are also regulars.
Macker and Brenda are the owners and it is a great place. Urban Grind also happens to be a church: The Urban Church.
I have visited the church before, know some of the people that regularly attend and the pastors know my name. But recently I found out that Macker and Brenda a getting a divorce. Somehow I was shocked, yet not.
You see Brenda and Macker are also co-founding pastors of The Urban Church. I have actually been quite confused as so how a couple so intentional about ministry could be getting a divorce. The typical rumors fly through my head, but I know that surely that would not be so.
My heart leaves me sad that this wonderful coffee shop that reaches out with such love to the surrounding neighborhood could become so broken because of divorce.
How can my friend Macker be leaving his wife and 2 kids, and the ministry he started. How? How? How?
I am somewhat of a newlywed myself. Kathryn and I have been married for a year and a half, yet somehow we can only imagine the few things that would drive us apart. And it saddens me that my favorite coffee shop and one of my favorite persons in Portland has succumbed to one of those things.
I have often questioned why this divorce has so effected me. And I don't know. I am the child of divorce, and divorce has coursed the veins of most of my family, yet this seems so abnormal, so unreal.
I woke up the other morning to Kathryn praying for Macker and Brenda. Sometimes we try and make sense of everything through the Bible. Yet I know that the Bible does not provide all of lifes answers and does not comfort all of lifes hurts.
Sometimes I wonder if my faith is weak because I believe that, because as Justin the guitar player puts it, I cannot draw lines in the sand for everything.
Why do I want to draw lines for everything. I want do I want everything to fit into a nice box. I don't fit into a box, I hate having labels be placed upon me. I once was called both a liberal and conservative within a week of each other.
Since I hate those things so much why is it when I approach church I try and make things nice and pretty and make everything fit. When everything I read about scripture leads me to a place where living the Jesus filled life is a dirty one, one of journey, learning, sin, depression, hope, redemption, atonement.
So I realise that Macker and Brenda are also on a journey towards redemption and atonement and that it is not pretty, but I desperately want to see them succeed together.
This post was written while listening to the Gorillaz and while drinking an Urban Grind dark roast coffee with Irish creme with room for 1/2 and 1/2.
We have become regulars, we know everyones name, they know us, we often chat with people we know who are also regulars.
Macker and Brenda are the owners and it is a great place. Urban Grind also happens to be a church: The Urban Church.
I have visited the church before, know some of the people that regularly attend and the pastors know my name. But recently I found out that Macker and Brenda a getting a divorce. Somehow I was shocked, yet not.
You see Brenda and Macker are also co-founding pastors of The Urban Church. I have actually been quite confused as so how a couple so intentional about ministry could be getting a divorce. The typical rumors fly through my head, but I know that surely that would not be so.
My heart leaves me sad that this wonderful coffee shop that reaches out with such love to the surrounding neighborhood could become so broken because of divorce.
How can my friend Macker be leaving his wife and 2 kids, and the ministry he started. How? How? How?
I am somewhat of a newlywed myself. Kathryn and I have been married for a year and a half, yet somehow we can only imagine the few things that would drive us apart. And it saddens me that my favorite coffee shop and one of my favorite persons in Portland has succumbed to one of those things.
I have often questioned why this divorce has so effected me. And I don't know. I am the child of divorce, and divorce has coursed the veins of most of my family, yet this seems so abnormal, so unreal.
I woke up the other morning to Kathryn praying for Macker and Brenda. Sometimes we try and make sense of everything through the Bible. Yet I know that the Bible does not provide all of lifes answers and does not comfort all of lifes hurts.
Sometimes I wonder if my faith is weak because I believe that, because as Justin the guitar player puts it, I cannot draw lines in the sand for everything.
Why do I want to draw lines for everything. I want do I want everything to fit into a nice box. I don't fit into a box, I hate having labels be placed upon me. I once was called both a liberal and conservative within a week of each other.
Since I hate those things so much why is it when I approach church I try and make things nice and pretty and make everything fit. When everything I read about scripture leads me to a place where living the Jesus filled life is a dirty one, one of journey, learning, sin, depression, hope, redemption, atonement.
So I realise that Macker and Brenda are also on a journey towards redemption and atonement and that it is not pretty, but I desperately want to see them succeed together.
This post was written while listening to the Gorillaz and while drinking an Urban Grind dark roast coffee with Irish creme with room for 1/2 and 1/2.
posted by Jonathan Myers at 10:40 AM
2 Comments:
So, I've been listening to a couple of talks that I downloaded from www.emergentvillage.com. They are from the 2004 theological conversation with Walter Bruggeman. I think he would join you in not liking boxes and even refers to God as irascible. You might enjoy a listen. - Justin the guitar player
Walter is a mystery to me. Probably cause I want to try and put him in a box, yet it just doesnt quite work.
I know that my human tendency is to put myself, others, theology, God, the Bible, all into boxes. Yet inside I know it is the most unhelpful thing to do.
Jonathan
Post a Comment
<< Home