You know that thing when you haven’t talked to a friend in a really long time, and then it takes you even longer to connect because you know you need a good long uninterrupted stretch where you can talk on the phone? That’s how I feel about my blog right now. Like I never have enough time to do a catch-up justice, so I just never call. So instead, let's pretend this is a boxer message, which is a much less intimidating way to catch-up, particularly for introverts who avoid phone calls at all costs.
2017 guys. Somehow it seems like a whole other world than the one we left behind just over a month ago. Somehow it’s already February, and somehow the cherry blossoms are trying to push out of their winter slumber oh-so-early, like the whole earth is in a rush.
I decided to do another 365 project again this year, and I told Adam that over 50% of my pictures are just our kids playing in the backyard. Because our world is big and small, wide and ever-closer-to-home. We are doing our best to live out big things like peacemaking and bridge-building, reconciliation and faith; but to do it in decidedly small ways, right on our street, with our neighbors and each other (this is much harder than it sounds).
Yesterday, we were lucky enough to get a tour of the pediatric heart research facilities at CHOA, where Caden had his surgery just a few months ago. Caden, in fact, required much assurance that we were just looking, that no one was going to give him medicine or poke/prod/slice him. On our tour, we saw a 3D printer working to print heart valves to put inside children. We saw the work they are doing to study the hearts of rats, beating in quick tiny pulses. They explained the ways they are studying ever-smaller pieces of the heart, the ways they break everything down to individual cells, in order to find solutions for the whole hearts of kids.
And this, of course, is exactly what we have to do. Raise our voices for things that matter, while every single day breaking everything down to its smallest parts. Loving our family, loving our neighbors, spending time on the tire swing with folks who look nothing like ourselves. Sharing meals across tables, reading less BuzzFeed and more books.
This year I also officially went on staff at Blueprint 58 (our nonprofit). This feels embarrassingly like non-news. I mean I have been a part of things all along, I have never not had my life and our home and family entwined profoundly and inextricably from the “work” our nonprofit is doing in the community. But we decided in 2017 that sometimes “wise choices” and health insurance and raising more support are actually just another way of labeling disobedience to our calling, another word for fear. And this year seems like as good a time as any to choose obedience, to choose courage, to step out in faith.
If you want to know more about what I’m doing at Blueprint, and the ways we are trying to grow this year, PLEASE send me an email or message or phone call. I would love to chat about it more, particularly over chips and cheese dip and diet coke or margaritas, please and thank-you.
All of this to say that we are still here, still living in our community and family in the most faithful ways we know. Listening to the voices we trust on all the (potentially scary) things that are happening in the world, both big and small. We are making ourselves lower and less, in order to figure out how to make bigger changes in the community and world we are rooted in. We are committed to justice and to peace, to life and laughter, and having all-the-people over for dinner (get on our invite list!).
So there's my Voxer message/update, now it's your turn! Feel free to leave me a long, rambling message about what's going on your life (ps - want to actually connect on Voxer? yes please!) Or you can just comment or email me, I'd love to connect.
Yesterday, we were lucky enough to get a tour of the pediatric heart research facilities at CHOA, where Caden had his surgery just a few months ago. Caden, in fact, required much assurance that we were just looking, that no one was going to give him medicine or poke/prod/slice him. On our tour, we saw a 3D printer working to print heart valves to put inside children. We saw the work they are doing to study the hearts of rats, beating in quick tiny pulses. They explained the ways they are studying ever-smaller pieces of the heart, the ways they break everything down to individual cells, in order to find solutions for the whole hearts of kids.
And this, of course, is exactly what we have to do. Raise our voices for things that matter, while every single day breaking everything down to its smallest parts. Loving our family, loving our neighbors, spending time on the tire swing with folks who look nothing like ourselves. Sharing meals across tables, reading less BuzzFeed and more books.
This year I also officially went on staff at Blueprint 58 (our nonprofit). This feels embarrassingly like non-news. I mean I have been a part of things all along, I have never not had my life and our home and family entwined profoundly and inextricably from the “work” our nonprofit is doing in the community. But we decided in 2017 that sometimes “wise choices” and health insurance and raising more support are actually just another way of labeling disobedience to our calling, another word for fear. And this year seems like as good a time as any to choose obedience, to choose courage, to step out in faith.
If you want to know more about what I’m doing at Blueprint, and the ways we are trying to grow this year, PLEASE send me an email or message or phone call. I would love to chat about it more, particularly over chips and cheese dip and diet coke or margaritas, please and thank-you.
All of this to say that we are still here, still living in our community and family in the most faithful ways we know. Listening to the voices we trust on all the (potentially scary) things that are happening in the world, both big and small. We are making ourselves lower and less, in order to figure out how to make bigger changes in the community and world we are rooted in. We are committed to justice and to peace, to life and laughter, and having all-the-people over for dinner (get on our invite list!).
So there's my Voxer message/update, now it's your turn! Feel free to leave me a long, rambling message about what's going on your life (ps - want to actually connect on Voxer? yes please!) Or you can just comment or email me, I'd love to connect.