To be uncommon is to not be of the typical nature of anything that surrounds…it is to be a believer, but also in other aspects in being, not the typical New Yorker…it is to grapple with complexity and with the created order…to put one self upon a narrower path than the other, it is to be intensively contextual but all together removed. Refined yet rough and poised yet transparently clairvoyant. These are the things I strive and ask my Father to allow me to be. To fully break into Being.

In the things before me, and who I am, I am finding I’ve always known these things. I however have forgotten their importance. I am not typical nor normal, I shall not claim to be nor strive to be, nor should I ever strive to be. Why should I take after the world’s fashion. Here in it’s full viewing, I find it altogether trifling. This non normalcy is who I am. Who I am finding myself to be. I am a piece, a vital piece in a community. An inhabitant in the land I come to be in, being infused into not formed into. 

In my confession. Almost always little in measure or lacking in mention. I find these four things to be in need of redemption. 

I need redemption. In this I find the judgmental nature always with its petition” modernity communism, lifeless organism” “be who I am, have discovered and know life to be, to be what I have decided with and move for and toward.” Yet, what a lifeless petition!

Yet I confess I am in the wrong. I am to be as I am yet, under the Lordship of one in every aspect of my being. Still in sin yet redeemed fully. 

I need redemption. In this I find the Intuitive side of my nature in conflict with the winning nature. Inner demons such as my judgmental and emotional tendencies. In this I see clearly “the still being perfected man before thee.” I see a vision of the church. I see growing love, a thousand many more aspects than the ones in which my nature has been so easily subdued in. 

Yet I confess I am in the wrong. I am to be as I am yet, under the Lordship of one in every aspect of my being. Still in sin yet redeemed fully

I need redemption. In this I find the Introverted side of my nature. More mentally clear more complex and more focused.  And how I need to be! I am a farmer tilling the ground at work in this so oftentimes sea, This unlikely place for me! These small Islands I till til the abundance of water I find myself in breaks into being.  I am a rare breed. I am a necessary creature. Even at times if I wonder how or why I should be here or there or striving or being. 

Yet I confess I am in the wrong. I am to be as I am yet, under the Lordship of one in every aspect of my being. Still in sin yet redeemed fully

I need redemption. In this I find the thinking side of my nature able to subdue the typical. A mind redeemed yet still largely breaking into being… often drown out by the hysteria and noise outside my door. In this - silence comes in to sweep away worries or the occasional screaming. 

Yet I confess I am in the wrong. I am to be as I am yet, under the Lordship of one in every aspect of my being. Still in sin yet redeemed fully

In these there are seeds of a redeemed nature but other aspects of my being that refuse to be. Seeds scattered across the waters that will grow as I grow. Which is needed for this place. Face to face, mano e mano, actual interaction! The conversations I crave yet never can find myself brave enough to break into being… over breakfast the coffee or cupcake outings. The strolls down fifth avenue, down Broadway or the cross town walk across Spring Street in Soho. The things I hear, the things I judge so easily. The things I am learning and the things I can’t completely wrap my mind around. The things I can’t retreat inward in, because this place does not allow it and pulls me to be under His kingship into the better being. The things I should trust, the things I know I should do.

These are my thoughts, the complexity in my head with this next beginning this same place yet this all together new thingy.

…..

I have been struggling to find the proper words for a little over a month now but I think the only way I can think to begin this is that perhaps it is the nature of these past two years that makes this  limbo - this in between - this pulling in a million directions - this transition into the fulfillment that is before me unexpectedly difficult. 

Even though in every way it is extremely joyful to be doing what I’ve dreamt of doing for a long while, not exactly how I pictured it but perfect in every way… and to be finding myself very good at what I have battled inside my soul for years with doubts in - These tearful streams of joy inside my soul that bare the sure nature of these words.  Again surprisingly I find it to be unexpectedly difficult.  And I would not bare the truth if I did not say I am struggling in the changeover. 

If these past 7 weeks of working three part time jobs and the 6 day work week bares testimony to anything it is that life is not as black and white, and as defined as we make it out to be. It is a blurry mess. In that, I still find myself transitioning from a season I have grown to love and cherish and grown to be at peace with.

To be letting this architecture job become what it was always meant to be is not as easy as I imagined it would be. There are so many things I’ve only begun working through.

In truth the implications to this end of a journey in between and the many people I have had the time to serve love and share this particular journey with is hard. Now I must sort through and seek the Spirit’s guidance in what to take with me on the road set before me and what to lay aside to see again in all it’s glory and eternity in the ever so close heaven or to be picked up at a later date .  

And there in lies the great difficulty…Better is the end of a thing than its beginning, and the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit. Ecclesiastes 7:8 

In truth in my nature, I can be so inclined to retreat inward in these times rather than in celebration of the joy set before me in these new beginnings. 

And what a new beginning! New Neighborhood, New Community, New Church, New Job, Old Jobs and the Patrons for the Future Dreams. All in the same broader City.  

Yet in this I must note that I am beginning these alongside so many other things under this prevailing image and awareness that I am settled in every way. And in this I am having and finding myself to be everything I am not naturally because settled is an illusion and God tends to pull us out of ourselves to get at something much richer and deeper. To be inevitably uncomfortable when I could so easily choose to coast. 

This too is God ordained for my sanctification. 

And it bears truth to the decay of my self that in truth I have longed for the ability to coast when this time has actually come but God’s good purpose has been to bring me to the point where I find myself inclined far past the deepest nature in my flesh. And perhaps it was the God ordained circumstance that finally tore me limb from limb and did something to damage my flesh further, in every direction til I was finally brought to a deeper understanding of my need to kneel and found a bit more of this surrender I so desperately need. 

I see a little clearer now…a little more so every day. He has fought for my deepest joy in these things and even in what I may deem difficulty or hardship…the Father loves. 

What a sure hope we have and what a joy to be His son. 

JG

One cannot disassociate a man from his life. I fear we may do this today as we celebrate the death on the cross and the blow to satan from the blow he dealt to Jesus through a corrupted world. The two are tied together. Jesus’ life and Jesus’ death… and so is with everyone - life is tied with death this is the point I have found of the cross and many reflections on it. 

Today I think of Jesus and I think of the words “ why have you forsaken me.” The resonance of a heart that knew God’s presence in every moment, but felt it stripped away for this decisive moment. 

I wonder what death felt like for Jesus…when he by credal testimony “descended into hell”…and then arose. And in that death and life after death and then the life after life after death that was given through the spirit, what agony of having all you need, given up for a moment. 

It speaks to me…  at least in the ways I need it most. Resonates deeper in my heart than anything does.

Speaks to the crippling I think every man feels when he feels love is lost.  

But the beauty of Jesus is that our Christ compels us to move past such things and that he does not bring us through them without and for good purpose. He leads the way in all things and especially forgiveness. Which I have been gifted in every way for all the many times I feel I have lost love along this strange course of life Jesus walks alongside me in and through. 

Telestai- it is finished…What’s done is done. the path is past…so move past the past. The cross of Christ speaks to this more than I could ever. 

And if in this reasoning I am to speak of what it resonates with in my heart it is that all this, the painful the tiring and the exhausting years. The striving and everything inbetween and most especially in the coming into what is to be given - it is to say simply move past such things and remember the love - remember Jesus. 

We deem moments important, but how much more so a lifetime of actions. Feeling arrived or at a moment is hardly what it ever was dreamed to be especially in our world - always in motion. But it is finished - death put to death. Life given to life.

May He who overcame by death infuse our world with the richest of life and in the moments we feel alone as Jesus did in that moment on the cross remember : He who bore our sins bore all things that we might be called sons and daughters of the Father. 

Tis truly a good Friday. 

JG 

I am grateful over the course of my life to have been able to live in many places. I have a perspective that many don’t due to it and I think God has most certainly shaped me in these places I have had the ability to live in, into who I need to be for whatever God is or will be using my life for. I see that very clearly moving to NYC.

I’ve been waiting and in arriving have found even still I’m waiting: to finally feel like “this is what I am meant to be doing” as if arriving were so easy and “this is where I will settle down” as if that is able to be answered so easily and”this is where I will make my home” as if that too is so easy to answer. In my heart and in my being I want to be in a position to shape a place not just be shaped by it. To recognize a need and help in God’s work of filling the hole…Feeling like I am actually contributing to the long term good of a place. But it’s so damn complex!

Coming from three years of trying to reconcile calling ( knowing what I want to do) and the actual real world ( agreeing with me) and now living In a city of a million things to see and do and a million people to know it’s no wonder why my brain swirls and swirls most days! It’s hard to be still enough to let silence speak or hear our Maker’s still and authoritative voice and cast some type of vision for our time especially alongside of three years of complicated thoughts and emotions reconciling calling and the actual real world in economically down times.

And perhaps in that, you like I, realize what humanity has built for itself here. How they have shut out the voice of God in their age and lost themselves in the million things forgetting the One who truly matters.

It breaks my heart.

It confuses my mind…makes me cling closer to the Savior.

…

See, I’ve been meaning to write for a while now. In fact, I mean to write a lot more than I do. But life continues on in its usual silly pace and I find myself oftentimes without time, energy or always without uninterrupted time to do what I intend and mean to do. I imagine many of you can relate.

…

To hear and to write takes time…a luxury not afforded us in the real world. Time is limited and is a treasure. What we do with our time, that says many a thing.But how does one reconcile being in the real world as a believer and find such time to be who we are meant to be. I think he always intended us to stand out, He always wanted us to be more than we are.

There are so many things swirling through my head right now… and I have to let them most of them still swirl. Because I simply don’t have the time. I have to believe and trust He is in these things in the swirling complexity of thoughts and circumstance.

It is in these times I miss the simplicity of college life in California. The comforts of it. I liked the mental stimulation of thinking through everything on a level that no one ever does apart from that milieu and feeling coherent. I liked the flexibility to have a community where it became about the same thing - mental stimulation.

But things have changed. Life has moved into the next season. And with that comes with it a new beginning and a throwing out of old ways of doing things and the building of new ways. Creating culture where there is much of it gone a wicked way.

It’s time to build in so many metaphorical and physical ways. There is no excuse to be who I was and not embrace who God is shaping me to be for this place for His church and Himself.

Two thousand years ago or so today the Carpenter marched into the city, He had work to do. I don’t think much has changed in regard to that in our world. The craftsman has much to do still in a city such as ours.

May He reign in this place!

JG