Tuesday, September 7, 2010

We Built This City


So, I rocked out to some Jefferson Starship on the way home from the Airport tonight.  I'm not sure if they are still cool, but I don't care.  I actually felt ok about myself so I rocked it with the windows down,

So, I starting thinking about what kind of city I want my kids to grow up in. What will be the foundation they have to stand on.  I'm not talking about within our family as much as the community we do life with, our village.  If it takes one to raise a child, I think we need to be intentional about what the one we live in values and is characterized by.  I'm on this now because I've had, for me, a rare opportunity to hang out with my friends in somewhat large groups lately.  Our small group split and so there is one on a night I can go to now, first time in over 60 weeks.  And some of the guys started having breakfast together once a week. I hope that this will be my new norm, and I'm excited about the change it will bring to my life and my family, but with two kids I can't help but wonder what they will see in the community we have chosen to raise them in.

Obviously, we want all we do to be founded in and born out of the gospel of Christ.  He is the rock everything else is built on.  I thought about leaving this out because it should go without saying, like when I say Sandra Bullock is the hottest woman alive I clearly mean with the exception of my wife, but I knew you would judge me.  The problem is that as soon as you mention Christ the discussion of anything else, even with different terminology, seems off.  Its difficult to mention anything else, what can follow Christ as an answer?

So, if you ask what we are building our city on and have Christ as the obvious given and will not accept that as the answer thereby forcing me to come up with non-christian, or not expressly Christian, answers then I'd say the following:  We are building our city on laughter.  We laugh a lot.  Only a few of us are funny at all, but we still manage to laugh a lot and I love that about us.  We are building our city on the long meal.  We eat together, I'm can't explain why that means so much, but it does.  We are building our city on openness, honesty and vulnerability.  I'm convinced these things only exist together.  I know the people I hang out with.  I know things they won't put on facebook or tweet about.  I don't read about them, I experience them.  We built this city on honesty and trust.  We built it on vulnerability and laughter.  We built it on dinners and parties and drinks and cigars.  Its built on faith and grace and just a little rock and roll.