celebrating what's right in community

yesterday was so wonderful. it was no momentous occasion, but a steady rhythm of grace and good all day long. starting out with 8:46 when i woke up to a panic having missed my first sixteen minutes of class and being three miles from school and in my pajamas. out of all classes, i hate to miss this one-- my professor is amazing, when he speaks i feel as if i'm at a poetry reading or a evangelical church service, he's got a lot of passion in his voice, it's wonderful. he's a math teacher, my favorite thing about him is the way he says algebraically, "al-ge-burr-ik-ly".

making it to math class by 9:01 wasn't the highlight of my day, i'm glad i made it though. work was good, incredibly busy, i worked with some great people. i usually go straight to work from school, but yesterday because i went to school in pajamas i came home in-between to change (and made a delicious quick breakfast).

last night we had an acoustic house show. comparing myself to the very first house show of the summer to this one shows me how much i've changed. it's fantastic. here's ten things i loved about last night:

1. the iuka house became fans of one of our biggest heros in a different venue. levi ely has been our favorite photographer ever since he showed up and we met him for the first time at our first house show in june and now he's one of our favorite musicians also!

2. without facebook, i hadn't even a clue on who was coming. i had invited my group of friends, but even with them-- you never know who's going go show up! the people that were there were just the best. i met some great new people, saw some friends i met last week and had a whole bunch of my golden old friends.

3. free starbucks coffee, in make-it-yourself french presses in kitchen. thanks to andy malone for spending this chapter of his life in the barista business.

4. it was finally cold enough, to have a fire. all summer long we've liked the idea of fire, so sometimes we'd make one even as it's gift to us was highly unpractical. visually, okay. but temperature wise, we'd constantly be moving away from the fire!

5. the first house show in june, was sensory overload. i walked around like a zombie saying quick hellos to everyone and giving out popsicles. after the first several i looked back and realized i hadn't had any decent conversations lasting more than a minute or so. last night was great, i had lots-- i still struggle with being distracted when there are so many people in such close surroundings, but i had some really great chats with people.

6. the party usually crashes from a ton of people-hangoutforawhile-and then it's simply done. what i love about last night, is that it whittled it's way down slowly and there were six or eight of us hanging out for several hours, sitting around a hookah and sharing playlists and at one point introducing ourself and telling why we adore mumford and sons (one guy doesn't get the craze at all, totally understandable).

7. sometimes i have ideas, most people think they're not good but sometimes there's just one person who believes in the idea and considers it good and comes alongside you and-- in this case, we made pancakes. for everyone. glenn is the idea-activator. he wasn't here for six minutes at half past eleven when he was using our mini-whisk to stir a big batch of pancake batter. so fun, standing around in the kitchen eating pancakes with different generations and all types of people.

8. my pastor-friend jared, came and brought his first grade daughter. i told him the night before that he should. he asked, "why?" and i told him "culture." i think she liked it and i think that someday if i have kids, they'll enjoy frequenting house shows also.

9. by googling jonathon hape, for which i wanted to say i not only enjoyed his music (& matt potts also!) but i also enjoy the handmade ten-of-a-kind fox harf (hat-scarf) that he sold at his merchtable, as i googled him on his blog, i came across this guy who was also at the house show and i had no idea who he is, but apparently he's theAdamGlass, which is pretty cool. (press play and listen to a story about new pants)

10. is that levi's wife and my friend- val ely organized this show. from flier and inviting people to knowing and inviting the musicians to play, from start to finish it was wonderful having her do that. i sat and listened.

these are just ten glimpses of the good and grace of last night. i'm realizing that for so long my vision for community has been unrealistically wide and last night was a perfect width and was the context for community now being cultivated more deeply.