This Is What Happened...

I don't know how to do this. I always thought forming community was easy, it was just a matter of being proactive; going to enough church potlucks and bringing brownies to your small group. It was about being present and playing sports and getting in there. I suppose that is all sort of true but it's not the easy thing I thought it would be. After having recently moved west to the California coast I've had to test my theories. When you're 29 there are no organized playground games. There is no four square. You cannot just go out to recess and make friends while playing tether-ball. There are no “welcome to adulthood” orientations where men and women a few years older take you across campus to show you the ropes. There is no seminar on instigating meaningful friendships within a group that already exists without seeming needy or insecure. There is especially no senior center where on Friday nights all the people your age go to play bingo and drink prune juice. It&#

I went to a movie yesterday. It was the one starting Daniel Radcliff placed in the 1800s. In the film Radcliff is a lawyer told to go to huge old manner house covered in ivy and a layer of dust. I don't really watch horror movies but one thing I've learned is that if you are going to watch one it is always a good idea to be looking where you are not supposed to be looking. Always watch the casual small areas of the screen the dark out of focus places in the backgrounds. These are always the places the demons live, always the places the whispers seem to slither from. They touch you like feathers on your neck, like whispered breath licking your skin. They suggest lightly that there are terrible things out there, things that you do not understand and more, things that know you . Everything you have ever known is less than there actually is. This mystery speaks to us all...we hate it and at the same time love it. It is why millions of Americans pay to have scary creatures and the

I watched a goofy movie tonight. It was called “I am Trotsky.” It's about a high school kid that believes he is the incarnation of Leon Trotsky and lives his life trying to re-create a social revolution comparable to his previous life. He has it all planned out on note cards in his room at home. In the last scene he is walking off with a guy named Vladimir whom he is convinced is the incarnation of Vladimir Lenin. Together, he believes they will change the world. It was kind of inspiring in a comdeic, far-fetched, nerdy sort of way. He left the story with purpose, a plan, passion, relationships (both romantic and platonic), that were centered around a hopeful cause. The cause was counter cultural and different enough to draw life into hearts long bereft of a reason to live outside of themselves. I've been listening to an audiobook again by an author named Donald Miller. He talks a lot about life as story and how life matters, or more pointedly, what we do with life matters.