still a gift

I wish to begin some reflections on the gift I’ve carried inside me the past ten years.

At the end of 1999, my individual existence was given a gleam of real life, and it has never dimmed. I entered into a rag-tag group of followers, dedicated to seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, and touching the intended message (word, instruction, logos, if you will) that a rag-tag group testified to at the start of the first century.

A decade ago I left behind ideas of bringing together (or building or maintaining) a group of believers who outshown other groups. I’d never felt at ease in the striving for best of God’s show. I’d tried to express my growing sensibilities to friends in communities over the years: “I think it’s supposed to look something more like, well, like we’re exploring, learning, kind of like we joined Star Fleet Academy.” My old friends had stared at me, flummoxed.

Now I’ve spent ten years able to explore strange, new worlds, finding the way forward (inward, maybe, deeper) with a bunch of misfit vagabonds that holds its own sorts of prime directives and is flawed, as are all groups of those espousing faith, and yet is gleaming. So much closer to real.