Joel

I miss my friend Martin. Martin is tall and has a low voice, a voice so low that you can often feel it before you can hear it. And since low frequencies are omni-directional, you can sometimes hear him from a mile away. Seriously. ...OK, maybe not seriously, but it is phenominally low and you can hear him from quite a distance away. Martin is a man of great depth, even though if you were to tell him that he'd probably just assure you of his brokenness...but that's one of the reasons that he is so darn deep. One day in morning men's group Martin said something so deep that it shook my ribcage. He said, [...]

“…You are God, Ready to pardon, Gracious and merciful, Slow to anger, Abundant in kindness…”There are a lot of folds in the weaving of life, and when it comes down to it, the thread that can pull all of the fragility and beauty out of life is the (lack of the) thread of forgiveness (unforgiveness). A friend of mine named Richard (the Italian gadget man) used to say, “Hate is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.” Richard, who is now with the Lord, was a smart man, and while we never really connected on a really personal level, now he knows Jesus more than he ever even knew himself. Forgiveness is so [...]

The rain is running down the windows of the house I’m staying in right now. A little after midnight, the only tones lingering are the reverberations of a settling house…or maybe it’s my heart that’s just slipping into a mode of sleepfullness that will strike soon before I'm aware (as it always does). Regardless, something is different tonight. It’s like there’s an eeriness that just rolls out its heart like the humidity outside that eventually grew so heavy that it had to burst open with rain. Maybe that’s what had me write tonight, or maybe it was something deeper...the Spirit within my spirit.Life moves in seasons. If it’s not one season it’s another, and if you’re [...]

Today is a season finale. I'm probably not going to do anything crazy like dress up in a funky costume (however, I am wearing khakis instead of jeans today). When I walked outside today the sky was grey and overcast, which is quite OK with me because it also cooled things down. Other than that, nothing really extraordinary marked to day. It's a season finale day though. It's time. Now, don't get worried, I'm going to continue blogging and imparting my brokenness, deep thoughts and dry humor to the masses; but I'm going to take what I have now, bind it into a book and make it available. I'm not doing this to make money, I'm [...]