HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!!

I'm sitting here at my grandma's house, rendered imoblie by the profundity of food I have just consumed. I enjoy holiday's about eating and more than that, I enjoy the people around them. It seems like feasts like this are all about connecting and bonding and- for lack of a word less churchy- fellowship. Maybe that's why Jesus ate with people, because-- rich or poor, pagan or pious-- we all need to eat. A deep type of sharing emerges from the holidays. We learn that we are all essentially the same--- some of us know God, others don't and we all need Him more. We pray for each other, sure, but we learn that we shouldn't begrudge each other's spiritual progress at meals, after all, we got food to eat, right? I guess I'm all about a God who commands us to rest and enjoy time with Him and our families, at penalty of death, for most of our year (Read the Old Testament and the laws of the Sabbath and the Holidays--- while not applicable to Christians, they certainly show us where God's priorities are at!).

The point is, I am all about rest. As Christians in modern, post-modern, whatever-you-want-to-call-it, era, we must make every effort to free ourselves from the mindset that our worth lies in what we produce. Don't mistake me, God wants us to do well and to live vibrantly, to "be fruitful and mulitply" in the world in which we live. But if we don't or we can't, if we refuse to live in that suburb-slave mindset that demands that we are not really living well if we aren't at peak efficiency, pushed to the limits of production till we begin to die, God still loves us anyway. He still cares for us, and He still made us Who we are, regardless of if we conform to the doctor/lawyer/dentist mindset the world tell us we can't live with out.

I guess what I'm saying is I am all about the Bohemians and the wanderers and the street-corner, coffee shop intellectuals. Maybe it's cause I'm a college student or a malcontent (some would say they are synomonous!) that I'm probably too hard on the suburban crowd. After all the smartest people I know (my parents!!!!) are die-hard denizens of the suburbs. I grew up there, for pete's sake! It's just not for me.

Regardless of where you live, we do need to rest in God and each other. The Bible makes that startilingly clear. I guess the question I have to leave you all with, is, if you are doing what you love for a living, how do you rest from that, still enjoy your passions, without falling into the trap of endless production, without really living. How do I still study my beloved languages without thinking I need to study in order to validate or prove myself worthy?

Josh is buggin me to leave, so this is over. leave comments!!!!!!!!


Daniel