Excellent perspective and response to your Muslim friend. By its very nature, faith is reliance on the unseen and unproven. When the church acts as if the answers to life’s toughest questions are certain and scripted, it does a disservice to God, who is limitless potential!! 🙏🏼
Love this. I hope we hear more from Ahmed. I also applaud you showing us the in between. The state of the changes you went through. The writing is so good.
"Time and change have an inseparable relationship. The shock, the incredulity, the dissonance of change morphs into reality, and reality tempers with time to become acceptance, eventually settling into the ordinary...After 34 years of process control work in an oil refinery, I decided to retire from that work and I chose to venture into a second half of life pursuit: loving the homeless as an associate pastor at an outreach storefront church in a strip mall on Crenshaw Blvd."
I mean… Allah is literally the Arabic word for God. This doesn’t have to be complicated… yet so many Christians speak so confidently for the God of the universe. What else is new, I guess.
Thank you, MaryAnn for being here. The whole reason I’m really leaning into the box metaphor is just that, Western Christianity is so marked by wanting to restrict God to everything that is accepted as orthodoxy—but an infinite God is sooooo much more! Thanks for your insights, friend.
I’m happy to see that you’re willing to go beyond canned and scripted answers, Steve. This event is from 2016 but you’re no longer at the Crenshaw center, are you?
Ohmy Steve, this made my cry. How you physically describe your restraint in the face of pastor Dick's rigid callousness, how you reach out to Ahmed, the repetition of the word canned and the description of the correct responses and how you defy these things moment by moment with Ahmed. And those last three paragraphs, how you describe God: "I think he’s happy to just talk and spend time with you" and that last line, "We’re all the same, Ahmed. We’re all the same.” Thank you for this. 🙏
One of the most difficult things about writing in this manner is what to keep, to keep the big story going, and what to leave out. This series describes a journey that honestly, never ends. I really want to emphasize the change here and I think I’m accomplishing that. Thanks again for being here, Jocelyn.
Thank you so much for the close noticing, Nina. I have a lot of issues with organized religion but hopefully thinking outside of the conventional boxes society has created will eventually be beneficial to all.
I'm with Kara here. This middle portion is so important. I really appreciate you sharing it. We spend so much time in the middle (I mean, our whole lives could be consider the in between). And I can relate to the particular space you describe very well. As always, I'm looking forward to the next part.
Thank you so much for your affirmations, Emily. It was a bit of a challenge to compress the timeline but glad you saw it. Thank you for coming on the ride with me, friend.
I really enjoyed this recording but the volume on the sound is quite low. I had it on full volume and it was still quite faint so that's just a heads up. Your voice is very soothing although the subject matter goes over my head a little. That's a me issue... it was very well read (unlike me!) LOL thank you
Excellent perspective and response to your Muslim friend. By its very nature, faith is reliance on the unseen and unproven. When the church acts as if the answers to life’s toughest questions are certain and scripted, it does a disservice to God, who is limitless potential!! 🙏🏼
Thank you so much for this, Korie. That’s exactly the message I’m trying to put forth and I totally agree—I don’t want to box God in.
Nice, Steve. I’m here, I’m listening. 🙏💚
Thank you, Don. That’s what you do so, so well—listen and see 😉
Love this. I hope we hear more from Ahmed. I also applaud you showing us the in between. The state of the changes you went through. The writing is so good.
"Time and change have an inseparable relationship. The shock, the incredulity, the dissonance of change morphs into reality, and reality tempers with time to become acceptance, eventually settling into the ordinary...After 34 years of process control work in an oil refinery, I decided to retire from that work and I chose to venture into a second half of life pursuit: loving the homeless as an associate pastor at an outreach storefront church in a strip mall on Crenshaw Blvd."
I’m really glad you landed on this section—it’s my favorite and I really spent time with it.
I mean… Allah is literally the Arabic word for God. This doesn’t have to be complicated… yet so many Christians speak so confidently for the God of the universe. What else is new, I guess.
Thank you, MaryAnn for being here. The whole reason I’m really leaning into the box metaphor is just that, Western Christianity is so marked by wanting to restrict God to everything that is accepted as orthodoxy—but an infinite God is sooooo much more! Thanks for your insights, friend.
I also love that the pastor recognized your gifts, and got way more than he bargained for 😂 Go Holy Spirit!
Haha glad you brought this up. Future posts are going to illuminate that bargain more—for better or worse depending on which side you’re on 😉
I’m happy to see that you’re willing to go beyond canned and scripted answers, Steve. This event is from 2016 but you’re no longer at the Crenshaw center, are you?
Thanks for the affirmation, Paul. No, I left there in 2019 but I still have some good stories to tell.
Such wise words!
Thank you so much for being here, Stan. Now if I could only be faithful in following wisdom 😉. And thanks for the restack Stan!
See my other comment, lol.
Haha!
Ohmy Steve, this made my cry. How you physically describe your restraint in the face of pastor Dick's rigid callousness, how you reach out to Ahmed, the repetition of the word canned and the description of the correct responses and how you defy these things moment by moment with Ahmed. And those last three paragraphs, how you describe God: "I think he’s happy to just talk and spend time with you" and that last line, "We’re all the same, Ahmed. We’re all the same.” Thank you for this. 🙏
One of the most difficult things about writing in this manner is what to keep, to keep the big story going, and what to leave out. This series describes a journey that honestly, never ends. I really want to emphasize the change here and I think I’m accomplishing that. Thanks again for being here, Jocelyn.
Several of your ideas really moved me:
"Truths can exist simultaneously no matter how dissonant." This is not immediately obvious, but possibly is true.
"choosing instead the possibility of an immeasurable amount of outcomes..." is to overcome the motion that there are fixed givens and singular truths
My thought: it's also possible that God is not the great giver ... we must actualize what we want
Your beautiful final words to Ahmed: "We're all the same" . Hopefully he will integrate that truth.
Thank you so much for the close noticing, Nina. I have a lot of issues with organized religion but hopefully thinking outside of the conventional boxes society has created will eventually be beneficial to all.
I'm with Kara here. This middle portion is so important. I really appreciate you sharing it. We spend so much time in the middle (I mean, our whole lives could be consider the in between). And I can relate to the particular space you describe very well. As always, I'm looking forward to the next part.
Thank you so much for your affirmations, Emily. It was a bit of a challenge to compress the timeline but glad you saw it. Thank you for coming on the ride with me, friend.
You're welcome! And I'm definitely here for the ride:)
I really enjoyed this recording but the volume on the sound is quite low. I had it on full volume and it was still quite faint so that's just a heads up. Your voice is very soothing although the subject matter goes over my head a little. That's a me issue... it was very well read (unlike me!) LOL thank you
Thank you for the restack, Chasey. I really appreciate it.
Thank you for being here, Chasey and thank you for the feedback. I’ll work on the technical issues for next time.