I have reached another landmark in my life, and I feel like this one is very important to share. It brings a full circle to my life especially where my marriage is concerned. On my first date I did many things when looking back I would not have done. I was running late, and instead of being creative in my excuse I explained how my toilet had backed up and I was force to unclog it. Not the sort of first impression that you want to leave with someone you are trying to impress.

Not only did I have that inappropriate conversation but I willingly offered up a flaw. Probably offered up freely because I thought that it was so obvious that she would have noticed anyway. I began to discuss with Karin on our first date my unusually long nose hairs. Not just the one or two that tend to creep down our of your nose in an attempt to join the mustache in which I don’t have. For most people this is not a serious problem but for me I had a regular stream of hairs that would grow out of my nose.

It was so bad that the guys who I coached lacrosse for, as I would call them into the huddle, standing above them they would yell, coach it is like a “forest up there”, “where is the weed whacker, we need it for coaches nose”. Of course I made sure that they never noticed that I was sensitive in this area for I would never hear the end of it.

So last week I entered a new chapter of my life, one most men may have to enter at some point. I purchased noise hair trimmers. Looking like a new person I no longer have this flaw that I held as so dear for this many long years. Needless to say Karin was very amused when she found out I had bought them.

How would my life and ministry be different if I no longer pursued what the immediate needs seem to be or what the latest whim, but if I were to live so that the life of my child might be better? That the mark I leave on the communitymay never be a benefit to me and might end up costing me a great deal yet God would choose to make the Bay Area more like the city of God for my children. Would I make different decisions with my time and energy each day if I had that in mind? What if my generation is not so important and what we are leaving for our children is actually the key?

My concern for the fix is more like the actions of a drug addict rather than a pastor. My drive is for the big high and when I get that I crash and jump to the next thing. Frustrated when life just continues about the same even though I have exhausted my energy.

If I were to impact the world for my child through my community it would mean I must pray. Not just throw up a prayer but make it a deep and powerful part of my daily rhythm. I would do what I can in a day and trust it was enough. My wife and I would model a healthy marriage so that my daughter would see what is meant for the church to be the bride of Christ.

Oour world is nuts, I don't know how else to describe it, I moves faster than even my young body and mind can comprehend. In this moment I am aking the questino, am I too close, are my goals to short-term, and might a few good steps back change everything?

There appear to be so many obstacles against what is appearant to me to be good things. Everyone understands that peace is a good thing and yet some feel it is necessary to declare war in order to achieve it, that boggles my mind. The issues I am perplexed with on a daily basis tend to not be quite so large. Often I am not sure whether it is just my youthful ambition in which I still feel like I could be a part in changing the world, even if that means only on my street, or the struggle of those my age desiring to be in the position of power that is now occupied by the boomer generation.

Regardless I don't understand why people would not want to be invovled in a loving faith community search to gain a better understanding of God, the gospel and how their lives are impacted by such things. Yet it seems to me there is so much struggle and battle over where we worship. Why? I mean isn't our place of worship meant to prepare us for the struggle of life? The place where we go to learn how to face, impact, and love those in our family and work. Instead it seems to me we just carry over the battles going on in those places and use where we worship as the place that we beat up on people. I don't care what the issue is, it can be race, theology, genuine connection, or sexuality. There is just a constant beating up of eachother rather than an embracing in love.

Now I get confused because I know in order to embrace in love we must struggle with each other through these problems, yet sometimes all I want to do is kick someone in the head. Or throw my hands up and say don't let the door hit you on the way out. I guess what I realize in this is that for most people faith/worship/whatever tends to only be one compartment of their lives, whereas for a spirtual guru (like myself) my faith is my work, family, friends, and place where I come to experience God. Makes for an awfully strange life.