the community blog of vine & branches christian community - a journal of who we are and what we're going through as a community of faith
Pray with us
> 22nd week in ordinary time
> psalter week 2
> morning prayer
> evening prayer
> night prayer
> lectionary reading
click here to donate to palmer's medical bill fund through vine & branches. your gift through paypal will be tagged for mark's needs. note: paypal does charge a small fee per transaction, can't help that. thank you!
atom xml feed
Recent Posts
> Wow, it's been over a month since I posted in here...
> I'm really just posting here because everytime I g...
> Well, I guess I couldn't handle it. I'm at my pare...
> Well, here's my long awaited blog. Alan is going ...
> I've got a little simple coffee house church thang...
> Here's the "Christian quotation of the day" from C...
> A few photos over there to let you in on what goes...
> I started to post this on The Scriptorium, but dec...
> Had a good talk with my roommate the other day abo...
> Abbey of Gethsemani...Aaah...3 days of silence. O...
Archives
> April 2002
> May 2002
> June 2002
> July 2002
> August 2002
> September 2002
> October 2002
> November 2002
> December 2002
> January 2003
> February 2003
> March 2003
> April 2003
> May 2003
> June 2003
> July 2003
> August 2003
> September 2003
> October 2003
> November 2003
> March 2004
> May 2004
> June 2004
> July 2004
> August 2004
> September 2004
> October 2004
> November 2004
> December 2004
> January 2005
> February 2005
> March 2005
> April 2005
> May 2005
> July 2005
> August 2005
Nobody's posted here in a while. I guess we're all too busy posting in our own blogs. Here's where you can read what's going on in our individual heads: Alan, Liz, Debi, and our latest vbcc blogger, Matt.
We've all seen LOTR The Two Towers lately and have some interesting thoughts on the spiritual parallels we've seen. You don't have to push these by the way. Tolkien was a Christian ans put them in there on purpose. Of course there will always be those things that speak to us as particular people on a journey, or community.
Here is a big snip from my blog (post of Dec. 24) concerning this community, the vision, etc. It's probably just as relevant here - not that anybody reads this thing.
The other thing about having this vision is that it is always being judged by everyone around you. They don't even have to say anything - you know. "How's your 'church' going?" "How's it going with your 'thing'?" Now, what does all that mean? I can never straightly answer that question because everyone who asks it has something different in mind when they ask it. Well, not really. About 90% of them have one thing in mind - "How many people do you have now?" And when you answer whatever you answer - when I answer whatever I answer, it's me we're talking about here - you get a range of looks and comments. I don't know what to do with that. I'm sort of tired of it. Maybe that sounds bad but it's just a fact. I just want to be what we are - to do what we're supposed to do - and not answer a bunch of questions about it.
I guess part of it is that I quite do not like feeling like a dork in front of people. I don't like not having the answer that would make me look good in the eyes of the asker. And I usually don't - so that makes for some uncomfortable sessions. I know, I know, I need to get over it and just answer what I answer. Yeah, I agree to a certain extent. I also think that people who go around asking these questions need to stop being ignorant - stop being so single-minded as concerns what the answers mean - what they should be. Of course that's not going to happen any time soon. So, I'll just have to suck it up and keep giving overly complicated apologetic answers. Maybe that's education. And as I go along maybe I'll get less insecure about the answers as well.
| posted by + Alan | 12:39 PM | |