on wanting you, friend, to particpate

okay, okay. I'm going to do this: a semi-functional post. Because struggling with the Incarnation, Word become flesh, can sustain a blog for only so long, I'll actually do something of utility. How do you like me now?

As I'm sure you've gathered, I'm going on an internship with the HNGR program at Wheaton College. I will be working for six months at FOCUS in Kampala, and I would like to update you on the situation. I will occasionally post on this "thingamajigger," but they will not be functional/helpful/all-that-advantageous-to-be-read (see, I can still undermine myself in a semi-functional posting, hooray for the inadequacy of language!).

All that to actually say, if you would like to receive e-mail updates from me while in Kampala, please make comment that you would like that. Feel free to attach any other encouragements or salutations, because I have no idea what my readership is here. And, I like it when folks respond to my words, it helps them (the words) enter into the communal space–try that one on for Anabaptist size (hooray for obscure theologies!).

And it makes this whole weblog a little less artificial. But it is so, so artificial, isn't it?

So, let's war against the artificiality–let's be vulnerable (in e-mails, where I know who's reading, who they are, what they sound like, what they tend to wear, their demeanors, the impressions of their characters). That doesn't work as war against the weblog, but don't overdo it.

"some people wake up on Monday mornings
barring maelstroms and red flare warnings
with no explosions and no surprises
perform a series of exercises"
"Simple X" - Andrew Bird

on april's effort to match the joy of my anticipation

Today is a beautiful day. The mercury is rising and the clouds have all but departed; the ones left are the pillowy kind–the cotton candy kind. And, it all seems suited to the voices of my favorite singers and songwriters, because that is what a good day does in reinforcing.

And, as I come to a place nearer the place I will soon be in Uganda, I heave big, big sighs because I am going from one place and state of mind to another very different place. I want to learn all about it, and I want to leave this place in good spirits and in good standing with the people I cherish.

So, here I go in going out!

on the changing weather and my disposition

I don't take much pride in the fact that the weather, especially days like today, the unexpected snow during the first week of April, directly influence my state of mind. What a shitty day. The clouds have conspired against the sun and the ground is freezing cold. It is as though April never showed at all ... save Monday when it was 60 degrees and quite nice.

I have never longed for Monday before. Not once, and this entry will be the first time I long for a day such as Monday. Mondays are reminders that we repeat instead of progress. I spend so much energy longing that I can't adequately make myself present. I sense that acute longing when I look at this campus or when I walk in between the aisles of a supermarket or when I wait in line behind someone at an ATM or when I hear someone's music from two cars over at a stoplight. We are all groping against it, and we can't quite articulate what to call it.

And, when we can't name it, we can't claim it. To name is to call into existence, because language–it will save us. The Word become flesh, and a bevy of phrases come to mind: the Incarnation! The Incarnation? To call it a name, to believe, to long, to look with expectation, these are things we call the human impulse. Language doesn't suffice. So, why would we pull the Word into the world of language and make language to suit the Word?

When I can't find the language, the words, the phrases to match my disappointment in a world that requires war–where men kill men and women, I doubt it–all of it–so profoundly that I let it disappear into concretions and only concretions: a woman riding a bike, a table holding a plate full of spaghetti, a book made from the widdling away of trees, a fingernail clipping that can be divided into molecules and particles then quarks until we are all comprised of energy, a space in which we exchange symbols–crude representations of what we mean.

But, the Word! What does He do? What does the Incarnation mean to peace? to meaning? to equillibrium? All things moving toward some good? Those who love him?

There: community. All things moving toward community; being known and being loved, it must be where we are going.