Donald Miller said in his book “Blue Like Jazz” that our biggest problem as human beings is that we are in love with ourselves. This problem becomes an obstacle to our awareness of others around us and keeps us from being able to share God’s love in this world. I resonate with the truth of that.

During our recent bible study, we were reflecting on what James called “the royal law” which is Christ’s command for us to love others as we love ourselves. I love the wisdom and the depth of this simple statement. It inherently assumes that we love ourselves, and simply requests that we love everyone else with the same level of ardor that we pour into ourselves. I have pretty much decided that no matter how self-actualized I get in this life, I am never going to become such a good Christian that I manage to forget about me.

One of the members of our study commented that this rationalization didn’t work for her because she struggled with liking who she was, and that she was often overly self-critical. As a woman who has struggled over the years to gain a certain sense of self-esteem, I realized that there is a big difference between liking one’s self and being self-involved. They are two separate accomplishments, and the term “self-involved” might better be described as “self-aware.”

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by Darrin Munson

Yesterday I got one of those calls.

He needed a ride to get some money or he was going to be kicked out of his one room studio. It was an emergency. I had things to do, I had to go to work in a few hours, and I really had no desire to again enter into his life and be confronted with all of the chaos and hurt. I really just wanted to say I was too busy to help.

So, at 8:30 in the morning, I drove downtown to pick him up and hear the whole story. He had gone on a drinking binge (again), got in a fight with his girlfriend, and she left, taking what little they had. This caused a downward spiral into a deeper multi-day drinking binge, and now he was broke, lonely, and on the verge of being homeless. I had already resolved not to allow myself to believe his excuses, or to lend any money, but there was something about the way he kept telling me, “I really f-ed this up”, that made me realize that God was already working here. Read the rest of this entry »

I got this story via our blogmaster Helen Mildenhall, who got it from our new friend and graphic designer Josh Brown, who somehow knows the author of this story, Corey Hau, who is apparently a photographer but is also a pretty good writer from Seattle, WA. The story was posted on Easter Sunday on Corey’s blog, HERE.

I stood on the roof and watched the sun set one last time. We would be kicked out of our apartment only a few short weeks later and I was cherishing the view from up here while I still could. Mt. Rainer loomed enormous far behind this city of men, putting into perspective just how petty our tallest buildings stood against the backdrop of a dormant, snow covered volcano.

Feet shuffled unwillingly to the edge of this two-story structure. I am not fond of heights. But I am fond of gaining a new perspective so I braved the roof and even peeked over the side to the street below. 43rd, the street directly in front of me, ran east to west and became a sort of hallway for the last rays of sun to be channeled within. Human shaped silhouettes emerged from the darkness on either side holding coffee cups and dog leashes, passed through the corridor of light, then resumed their journey back into the sun forsaken shadow lands.

Then there was a sort of waddling figure slowly dragging its old bones across the light. With a cane in one hand and some bags in the other I watched this weary soul leave the light and head for a bench beneath the green bus stop shelter. Even from my perch up on the roof I could see some sort of dark stain covering the entire backside of his light colored pajama bottoms.

No, surely it wasn’t that. Perhaps it was coffee. I mean after all, he had been sitting in front of the coffee shop before he made his short trip across the street. Yes, that was it; he had spilled coffee on himself.

But then came a woman with her dog. The woman walked by and acted as if everything were normal but dogs don’t follow societal protocol. He tugged on his master’s leash as the pants in question put his keen sense of smell on high alert. The dog sniffed at the pants and his owner had to pull him away.

It was not coffee. Read the rest of this entry »