Catch up and communal minds

I'm not quite sure what happened. I thought this blog was going to be a regular thing when I started it up.

Oh Well.


Well, here I am right now.


I'm at my mother's house. Up in the mountains. It's pretty cool. I've been hangin out with my awesome nephew. His name's Luke, and he's two years old.

Yesterday, I taught him how to play the bass guitar. We've been playing this other cool game, where he stands up on the bed and I push him over. He laughs and laughs and gets back up for another go. It's great. ^_^

I've also been seeing a lot of friends. Really special friends. I've been catching up with the people who first influenced me toward Christ. My old youth minister Danny Joe. One of my best friends in the universe, Josh. I can't get enough of these people.

I've been talking to my lady on the phone a lot. She's moved off for a semester or four, so we're probably going to be doing a lot more talking on the phone. I hate talking on the phone. But, I love Amanda, so it's really not all that bad. I guess I hate talking on the phone to MOST people.
Everything here makes me think of her, it seems. Josh is engaged and getting married this May, so he and his fiance make me think of Amanda and me every time I see them. My friend David has a g/f named Amanda. Geez, even the commercials on TV make me think of Amanda. I don't know how I managed to con her into thinking that I'm something cool.


Lately, I've been thinking a lot about community. All semester long, it seems, I have been thinking about community. Everything has a communal aspect. Or, at least, everything I've thought of and encountered this past semester. Do you ever just look at the church (that is, the universal church) and try to picture it as a community? I try to do that some times, but it takes a LOT of effort. We're so fractured. Yes, I'm talking about denominations. I think that there are some good things to a denominational type system. I mean, if some one says "I'm Southern Baptist," then you automatically have a pretty good idea of what they believe. But it's sad to see denominational disputes that end with "you don't believe like I do, so you're clearly not a Christian."

I haven't experienced that since I've been here, so don't think that at all. Just the opposite. Josh has been a shining example to me. He was talking about a book that he read to Danny Joe, and told me that I'm not allowed to read it because, as he says with a wink and a smile, "It'll just fuel some of your crazy theological ideas." That, however, in the same day that he calls me brother and worships beside me. I still remember what was at that point in my life a CRAZY idea, when Josh's father Bob stood up in front of the church with leaders from other denominations and churches in the city, holding hands with all of them, and saying "Unity, not uniformity."

But, that too seems to me to be something a bit off. Not the unity part, but the part about "not uniformity." I mean, there has to be a line somewhere, that's not even a question. However, I think it's more than just believing in the authority of Christ that is important to the community here. How far are we to take Paul's urgings to be of one mind?

But, of course, this brings us right back to the point where I feel it's wrong to say "If you don't believe as I do, then you must not be a Christian."

I don't think that this post was actually going anywhere. It's just what's on my mind right now.