Marcus, if your family were here with us tonight, what would they say? Would they allow you to stay here, or would they try to bring you back home? Would they understand what sort of life you have chosen to live here? What stories would they tell us about you?
I want to tell you how excited I am that I can call you my brother. I don't know very much about your family yet, but I do wonder what your family is like. They helped make you who you are, and you are an incredibly strong man and also one of the most peaceful men I know. That is what makes me wonder what they're like. It also makes me so excited to be growing in friendship with you!
All of us here are your brothers, and we are eager to share our lives with you. God has great plans for our brotherhood! Together, as his sons, we will stretch ourselves, and depend on one another, and depend on Him.
I am amazed at how much you stretched yourself to leave your home, leave what is familiar to you, and come here to Indiana to be with your wife. I am amazed that you would enter so openly into her life, out of a true and genuine love for her. Your example of love and sacrifice is a perfect model for me to learn from. The way that you live shows me the way that Jesus lives, and I want to thank you for that.
Marcus, may God bless you and be your strength! May He bind you and Bekah into one and shine forth into the world more brightly through you! I can't wait to know you more and more!
Monday, April 27
Marcus & Bekah Nayo!
This weekend 2 friends of mine in the People of Praise got married. Marcus is originally from Togo, Africa, and Bekah is from around here. Marcus has been here for less than a year, after having lived in NYC for awhile. He is in my men's group, and I have enjoyed getting to know him since he's been here. For posterity, here is what I shared with him at his bachelor party. I always have to write stuff like this down, because I cannot think when I'm in front of people. Someday I'll be able to. But for now, I have this stuff written down which makes it easy to save too. It's kinda ironic because you'll only get to see this stuff until I get good enough at it that I don't need to write it.
Tuesday, April 21
Why do you twitter?
Why do I?
There is the useful reason: I enjoy knowing what my friends are up to, what's on their minds, and twitter lowers the technological barrier to that. The converse is true, and so I quickly hammer out a snapshot of my state of being, putting no thought into it.
Then there is the vain reason: I am interested in eliciting some specific perception from my friends. I have even a broader scope: I can elicit a perception from the readers of my blog, and from my 400+ facebook contacts. In other words, I use it as a sort of platform, but when I try to stick to the "What are you doing?" question, it is a platform thats all about me.
Then there is the lazy reason: This manifests itself rather as a form of loneliness. My thoughts swirl about me, and I recognize my need for friendship. I want to reach out and open myself to other people; in fact I need to. Everything I say on twitter is something that really belongs in my everyday conversation, and the frequency and time in which they take place indicates a void in my social existence.
These are just a few directions that twitter can go in.
There is the useful reason: I enjoy knowing what my friends are up to, what's on their minds, and twitter lowers the technological barrier to that. The converse is true, and so I quickly hammer out a snapshot of my state of being, putting no thought into it.
Then there is the vain reason: I am interested in eliciting some specific perception from my friends. I have even a broader scope: I can elicit a perception from the readers of my blog, and from my 400+ facebook contacts. In other words, I use it as a sort of platform, but when I try to stick to the "What are you doing?" question, it is a platform thats all about me.
Then there is the lazy reason: This manifests itself rather as a form of loneliness. My thoughts swirl about me, and I recognize my need for friendship. I want to reach out and open myself to other people; in fact I need to. Everything I say on twitter is something that really belongs in my everyday conversation, and the frequency and time in which they take place indicates a void in my social existence.
These are just a few directions that twitter can go in.
It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts. Every man is tasked to make his life, even in its details, worthy of the contemplation of his most elevated and critical hour. - Henry David Thoreau
Monday, April 20
As glorious as Twitter may be, it is still dreadfully insufficient. Some thoughts I want to convey that are more than 140 characters, and I squelch them because they don't command the audience that Twitter can.
We need a conversation-ready tool similar to Twitter but which can handle full posts. Maybe I will go against my no-linking in Twitter rule and add my blog post links to Twitter every time I post.
All this really is, though, is me procrastinating tonight while I sit at the office on our first night of 60-hour work weeks hitting up some good ol' extreme programming. Believe it or not, I enjoy it. Just wish I could get other stuff done during that time too.
We need a conversation-ready tool similar to Twitter but which can handle full posts. Maybe I will go against my no-linking in Twitter rule and add my blog post links to Twitter every time I post.
All this really is, though, is me procrastinating tonight while I sit at the office on our first night of 60-hour work weeks hitting up some good ol' extreme programming. Believe it or not, I enjoy it. Just wish I could get other stuff done during that time too.
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