Old-School.

It's hard to sum up in words everything God's been saying, teaching, and doing in my life. The list is quite extensive and not always one that can be adequately expressed. Have you ever been shifting into an awareness of something so big that something in you just could not for the life of your being talk about it, even while every ounce of you wanted to shout it from every rooftop? (It makes me think of Mary when she "pondered these things in her heart." The greek word for pondered there meant to quietly meditate.)

The point I want to make today is that I've come to believe perhaps if we aren't experiencing Jesus in this way, something is very wrong. I was raised with the idea that life can just be mundane and not all that crazy big. That our eternity in Heaven is when the party really starts. And it appears to me that much of our society lives in a state of dis-content birthed out of feeling hopelessly bored and un-excited about life. (And why do you think we have so much obesity, gambling, club life, and Hollywood? Because people are bored and looking for a distraction.) But I've really shifted into seeing with different eyes lately. I am willing to argue that part of our experience and Kingdom is taking place NOW. WE are the Kingdom of the Living King. And watching Him at work and working alongside Him should be an incredibly wild, adventurous, and breath-taking experience. Every day. All the time. One of the reasons I know I don't FEEL like it is sometimes is because I spend entirely too much time looking at other people's lives, keeping in touch with them through texts and tweets and Facebook. The problem with this is that we're made for community and contact. Social media creates a weird half-contact with another that just doesn't cut it. And in the process we've in-advertantely been comparing ourselves to everyone else and seeing whether we think our lives are as good.

I am tired of my life and conversation being held online. I want to be able to actually hold a letter from a friend when I'm sad or emotional. Recognize their handwriting. Get a leap of excitement in my stomach when i open the mailbox. I want pictures of my favorite people plastered on my walls and physically in that mesh zipper of the suitcase when I'm in airports and other states and countries rather than the photo album of my iphone. I want my relationships built around early morning cups of coffee, trips to Disneyland that don't involve "checking in" at every ride, thrift store shopping, working together on a theatre production, building houses and playing with kids in Mexico and Africa, road trips and ridiculously spontaneous adventures in which we get to watch Jesus constantly at work in front of us, through us, and in us.

Don't get me wrong. I love social media, but I worry about our generation and the way we LIVE in it. I want to rebel against it just a little more often. Get together with people and turn the phone off and talk and do Jesus together. Sometimes being a bit old-school is a good thing.