Dec 3rd, 2007: Greg, we'd like to honor your work as a shift supervisor for Starbucks and the three separate (and not terribly different) job interviews we just put you through by making you an Assistant Store Manager!! Where? Rolling Meadows. We know you've never heard of it and that you currently live nearly an hour away in unincorporated Kane County, but it's your destiny!
Feb 3rd, 2009: Greg, you've been in the 6 month ASM program for 14 months now, and though we've shut down around 600 stores and have cut labor like a Hebraic foreskin... but do we have an opportunity for you!! Woodfield Mall! We need a store manager of your caliber to begin immediately. Nevermind the store you're at and your schedule next week, just take over in a new position in 3 days at store you've never really visited... it's your destiny!
Feb 20th, 2009: Greg, nevermind this very slow ('cept on the weekends) cafe store whose mall hours you've recently finally become accustomed to, or all the advancements you're making with the partners and the HUGE promotional platform you've prepared the place for; What you need is a place where you can leverage your drive through experience! How about an underperforming store in Northlake? Where is that? Think Elmhurst, but farther and with 1/3 of the capital and 3x the ghetto. It's losing money left and right, we need you there, it's your destiny!
Mar 27th, 2009: Greg, we regret to inform you that your new store is, as expected, going to be shut down in the near future. Thanks for taking over and cleaning up the place, it'll be a whole easier to pull the plug on this place now that it's running more smoothly. We have no idea what's going to become of you, but rest assured we will find a home for you... a store to foster your talents, where you can grow as a manager and where you can develop and shepherd other people... a place where you can fulfill your destiny!
April 6th, 2009: How does one interpret Providence in light of life's circumstances? How much of the cliche is true that says, "When God closes a door, he opens a window"? What is destiny anyway? Walk by faith, not by sight, I know the plans I have for you, all things work for the good of those who love God, Follow Me, it's your destiny!
Monday, April 6, 2009
Thursday, March 5, 2009
onto-relational chores
I should be writing this in the outline for our Small Group: Growing in Virtue, which convenes in T minus nine hours; but i'm working on getting into the Blog scene (why?!? call it corporate solidarity, community?, whatever, that's a different post altogether)
Love. That's tonight's virtue. I was just doing a whole lotta dishes and even though it's Lent, i had an epiphany. These kinds of things happen often while I'm working with my hands... whether doodling, landscaping, barista-ing, or in this case Husbandry (that means doing things around the house, right?). For whatever reason, God seems to have built into me a strong connection between my devotional thought-life and manual labor, for which I am quite thankful... i love doing both!
So, as i'm watching the sudsy bubbles of my hard work swirl down the drain, i make a connection between the nature of Trinitarian love and the water cycle... [pause for reflection] Okay, so to start with Trinitarian love, like you do: Before there was anything, there was God- Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, one God in perfect community, giving and receiving love in perpetua. Then God said, "Let there be..." the God who be, called forth things outside Himself to be, so that the loving community could expand all the more. God also said that is was all good in the hood... rough translation of the gangsta Hebrew. In doing so, He was saying, "I love you- it is good that you exist!"
In order to prevent blog boredom or the blog shock i'm prone to inducing by means of huge long-winded posts, i'll drop the analogy here: The water that was used today to make my dishes clean was in some form existant when the Spirit was hovering over them. The nature of the water cycle is to evaporate and condense so that the same molecules have been around since the initial act of creation, there has been no new creation of water and water hasn't ever simply disappeared from existance.
In the same way, the nature of love is to be continualy in flux, transitioning from being given to being received, such that it is against the nature of love to be stagnant. Stagnation in love would be to try to receive love without giving it back. The Trinity is always in love, giving and recieving perfect love in community, similarly, knowing that God loves us and receiving that love must necessarily initiate the act of us loving in return and sharing in the same love that has existed since existance itself began to be being.
Love. That's tonight's virtue. I was just doing a whole lotta dishes and even though it's Lent, i had an epiphany. These kinds of things happen often while I'm working with my hands... whether doodling, landscaping, barista-ing, or in this case Husbandry (that means doing things around the house, right?). For whatever reason, God seems to have built into me a strong connection between my devotional thought-life and manual labor, for which I am quite thankful... i love doing both!
So, as i'm watching the sudsy bubbles of my hard work swirl down the drain, i make a connection between the nature of Trinitarian love and the water cycle... [pause for reflection] Okay, so to start with Trinitarian love, like you do: Before there was anything, there was God- Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, one God in perfect community, giving and receiving love in perpetua. Then God said, "Let there be..." the God who be, called forth things outside Himself to be, so that the loving community could expand all the more. God also said that is was all good in the hood... rough translation of the gangsta Hebrew. In doing so, He was saying, "I love you- it is good that you exist!"
In order to prevent blog boredom or the blog shock i'm prone to inducing by means of huge long-winded posts, i'll drop the analogy here: The water that was used today to make my dishes clean was in some form existant when the Spirit was hovering over them. The nature of the water cycle is to evaporate and condense so that the same molecules have been around since the initial act of creation, there has been no new creation of water and water hasn't ever simply disappeared from existance.
In the same way, the nature of love is to be continualy in flux, transitioning from being given to being received, such that it is against the nature of love to be stagnant. Stagnation in love would be to try to receive love without giving it back. The Trinity is always in love, giving and recieving perfect love in community, similarly, knowing that God loves us and receiving that love must necessarily initiate the act of us loving in return and sharing in the same love that has existed since existance itself began to be being.
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