January 4, 2006

• New site music: "007", of the album D’Arranged, by Phil "Harmonic” Epstein.

  Building this house is dangerous, risky, like a James Bond adventure, confronting a vast polylithic bureaucracy that is unconsciously conspiring to prevent new construction in South Central Los Angeles... not to mention building the relational network that will make this house a home, among challenges like our "young friend" mentioned several times in the last month. Unlike Bond, we are trying to pull the teeth of the “bad guys” and work with them, befriend them. We have a license to love, not to kill, a mandate to give our lives in obedience to God, not to take lives in obedience to M.

  So this cover of the 007 theme song seems appropriate: acoustic guitar and bass played by one lone artist. Like the song, we do not come with full orchestral backing and special effects: we are not doing this as part of an international well-funded ministry, or a government-backed redevelopment initiative. We’re doing it on our own, inviting friends and sympathizers to join us.

  But all the thrill and intrigue is still there. We are organizing a “fifth column” of God-lovers on this little block in FruitTown territory. Ours is a gentle revolution, a breath of Spirit into stuffy oikoses, a trickle of living water across the pavement and tar paper of West Adams, seeking thirsty cracks to fill.

  Are you a thirsty crack? I am. Let’s be honest about ourselves and use humble metaphors. We’re "not all that”, as an old neighbor used to say. We’re only human. Cracked, flawed, not entirely right with the world. Some of us know what it’s like to be paved over and trodden upon. Even the hardest surfaces crack, given time, but not all feel the thirst within.

  Let's hope for thirst in 2006.

  • 8:13 pm
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