Music, Tears and Eternity

As I mentioned in my previous post, I went to a concert tonight. The guy's name is Sam Bradley. I like his live music better than his recorded. But then again, all he has is myspace music, no cd yet. He's fun to go see because he loves it so much. He's doing exactly what he wants to be doing. I wish I could talk to him about the gospel.

There's another couple of people I've found on myspace. Aoife O'Donovan and Marcus Foster. Love them. Serious awesomeness. Marcus's song Fourteen Times owns me. And Aoife's Burning Heart moves me. Marcus is coming to Nashville in August. I wanna go. Hmmm.

I learned a little more about community tonight. I learned that watching a non-christian experience/observe true community is, um, awkward. There is a flow to true community. There's an intimacy that can only come when the Spirit is testifying, pouring life back and forth. To someone without the Spirit, there's something both uncomfortable and enticing about that. On the one hand, community and relationship are what they are created for and long for. But on the other hand, there is a knowing and a being known that is scary and vulnerable. It's beautiful and ruthless at the same time. It is a love that hangs on and says, "I know you're messed up and you're probably going to hurt me, but I'm just like you and I choose to love you anyway." There is safety in true community because it comes straight from the heart of God.

I am seeing God expand my vision to include eternity. It changes the way I see everything around me. I remember telling G a long time ago that I did not like the thoughts of them leaving to go to Ireland. He just looked at me and said knowingly, "I know. But you will. One day you will." And now I do. I see the future of heaven as a place for all the unhindered fellowship I long for here. And I see the beauty of sacrificing a little bit of that fellowship now, for a time, so that others can hear and have the same kind of redemption and fellowship. It is a very worthy cause.

As I sit here, exhausted, writing my heart, I cry. I cry for the loss I already feel when I think of the Donahoos and Morgans going. I cry for the loss that will come soon when the Springville plant is ready to particularize and we move our activities there. I cry for the beauty of the Spirit in my volitional family that holds me and pours into me. I cry for the lost who are called lost for a reason. I cry for their fears and their lostness. I cry for the blessings of the faces that come into my mind right now. Melissa Mohr. Bekah. Sonja. Jessica. Jawan. Leslie. Laura. Trisha. I see a hundred faces and know that they are known by me and I am known by them.

I cry because I am tired. And the tears are friends, expressions of love and beauty and connectedness. But alas, now I ramble....