Five Minute Friday :: Disrupt

Monday at Vacation Bible School 2014
ready to collect backpacks
for Community Christian Service Center's
annual back to school initiative.

• Five Minute Friday :: Disrupt Linkup

Kate's story intrigued me and because it was familiar, I decided to piggyback on it!

Intro:

When I still was in Previous City, the place I was living needed mold remediation. In their process the contractors decided to disrupt my bedroom instead of my landlady/housemate's art studio per her request, which created awkward entry and exit from my room. (Her studio was bedroom 3 in a 3 bedroom house).

Part 1:

For the mold exit week, we found a hotel with a good deal for pets, so we took P's small dog and my two cats there. It meant two humans and three pets in a regular size hotel room. And you know what? That disruption for everyone worked out fine for all of us.

It was August and Vacation Bible School week; with the church some distance away from the hotel because of our pet-related lodging needs, every morning I traveled to VBS during rush hour. That trip was a relatively minor change or disruption from when I lived around the corner from the church and could walk there in less than five minutes, but the less familiar scenery energized me—maybe by disrupting my usual expectations and routines?

Part 2:

Because getting the mold out meant a major structural disruption of ripping out a wall, my friend decided it would be a perfect time to update the second floor bathroom that had some mostly age-related concerns and that – like at Kate's house – was the only full bath.

Back in the Tierrasanta/ Holy Land neighborhood the week after our hotel stay that also was the week after VBS, since the mold people had left, the bathroom contractors were able to start. Did I mention it was August?

Because August is hot in Southern California, one (you, me, any person) had best not skimp on showers. So? We arranged with two different neighbors to shower at their house. Two households so as not to disrupt only one every day.

Outro:

You may be expecting to hear about another disruption, but the new bathroom with a working shower finally happened, so that's the end of this week's Five Minute Friday.

Since then the church's senior pastor has retired, his kids now are adults, and the church has a new fellowship hall. Since then I've moved north to Los Angeles.

I've enjoyed reminiscing because it showed me what might be possible again. And now? It likely will take a few more disruptions before my days are full again. Thanks for reading!

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Five Minute Friday :: Shift

If anyone has the world's goods
and sees his brother in need
yet closes his heart against him
how does God's love abide in him?
1 john 3:17
• Five Minute Friday :: Shift Linkup

My first impulse was shifting from one musical mode or key to another, shifting gears in a vehicle (did you know I loathe, despise, and abhor automatic transmissions?), changing styles, switching activities, changing your mind about something, an attitude shift. Then I read Kate's blog about work shifts! Of course! Although unlike her son, I've never worked third shift, in a past life I knew someone (RIP) who had. He explained a special kind of person loves third shift, often for all their lives.

To continue the employment topic, I can tell you working second shift isn't nearly as bad as I'd imagined. Without a doubt it's partly my gratitude for a job, almost any job, and for the most part I like the job. My fave work schedule is odd irregular days, preferably with a couple of split shifts during the week (unusual, I know). If work needs to be Monday through Friday days, 7 to 3 fits best, though in real life I've worked those hours only two separate summers.

When I was a lot younger I worked five jobs seven days a week and loved it; I'd like to figure out something like that again. Because some of those jobs had fluid hours, I averaged 35 to 40 hours each week, almost never more than 45. That was so good because I had large chunks of time off most days.

Having said that, shifting from one job to another might be on the horizon for some of us. What does a major shift like that entail?

My header art asks how God's love can abide in someone who doesn't love their sister or brother? God's love wants to abide, to make a home – an abode – in us.

We have passed out of death to life because we love the brothers and sisters. Whoever does not love abides in death. 1 John 3:14

The Greek means to pass over, to change, to depart, to move. Death to life is a very big shift! # # #

Five Minute Friday :: Afford

• Five Minute Friday :: Afford Linkup

It feels as if everyone except the ultra-affluent is mired in an affordability crisis. Cities like New York, London, and San Francisco aside, who can afford housing, transportation, groceries, almost anywhere? Can anyone afford an out of town vacation? To quit their job and take time to find another that in the long run will be a better fit and pay more? Can you afford to start your own business? What kind of entertainment can you afford?

With more and more conventional goods becoming luxuries, what now?

Most of us who write to these prompts knew life in the previous century. Even if we started using technology early on, most Five Minute Friday writers aren't digital natives. Can you sense where I'm headed? Maybe you're already there?!

Step back a couple of decades to a backyard garden. Rent a community garden plot. Check out the farmer's market or a sidewalk vendor. Their fare may be more affordable, it's probably fresher, and you can benefit the nearby economy. Besides, can you really afford to pay Big Ag and all the supply chain intermediaries?

Step back from streaming and try hard to remember days of board games and analog puzzles together. Preparing dinner together. How's your memory? Try to recapture some of the free or inexpensive entertainment that probably included conversation and a major bonus of getting to know each other better.

What shape does your everyday take? Can you afford your current arrangement? It would be surprising to find someone who hasn't considered those concerns.

Whatever the economy does, laying the foundation of the days, the weeks, the future hopes, how about following the admonition of scripture to…

Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ has forgiven you. Ephesians 4:32

Can you afford forgiveness? How can we not afford to forgive? Please remember: it's aways possible to forgive, yet sometimes it's impossible and/or unwise to reconcile.

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Five Minute Friday :: Phase

• Five Minute Friday :: Phase Linkup

We go through short phases and longer ones. Kate wrote about being a little kid as a phase in their lives and in a parent's life. Sometimes we decide it's time to phase out a certain behavior or activity. Sometimes we don't know we're in a particular phase until it's over. Does something else take its place? Sometimes. Does its exit leave an empty space? Sometimes. But every time-limited aspect of life isn't necessarily a phase, is it?

Today I'm thinking about the years I spent in the Intermountain West. I lived along the Wasatch front, but with Utah being such a beautiful state, I took day trips and half-day excursions to other locations. But I regret that I took next to zero photographs. How could that be? I was going through a phase of grief and loss but without anyone to admit it to, lacking someone else to acknowledge it, taking pictures didn't even occur to me.

And the times I spent in Boston. Although I was born in the deep south, I grew up in Boston in a family that was Midwestern and Southern. That first phase was long, with friends, schools, many activities, and plans for a future of service and participation.

My second Boston-Cambridge sojourn featured another phase of professional school—some would call it "grad school," but I reserve that expression for high-end academic programs and not so much for something like an MSW, MDiv or others with practical career content, even though they all include some heavy-duty academics.

My third Massachusetts layover was Boston and Cape Cod. Someday I might even write about that important phase.

All of those are long phases defined by a particular geography, and inside that longitude and latitude, defined by what I did and by what happened to me.

What kinds and lengths of phases has your life had?

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Five Minute Friday :: Route

Downtown Los Angeles in May
• Five Minute Friday :: Route Linkup

In my footer pics you can see one of my takes on the sign at the very end of Route 66 at the Santa Monica Pier. My church sits along Route 66; second pic is the sign on the building accented with a couple of cables. It's always a joy when the sun comes up on the Santa Monica Boulevard along Route 66 and we're there to gather around Word and Sacrament. Again. And next week, too.

What can I say about a route, a path, a road? The road home, or the road to the cross? The route that intersects with another every time I venture east or west or almost anywhere?

I'm writing about a route and routes on Thursday 16 July. It's the middle day of July, it's this blog's twenty-fourth blogoversary, and I'm still working through an anniversary post that I'll pre-date when I finish.

My header provides a hint of what my intended route has been all along. Only a hint, because my passion for cities and The City includes downtown with its skyscrapers, mid-city, the CBD, the edges, the margins, the central city, and the not yet imagined.

How does a person discern their path or route? Gifts, passions, opportunities. Circumstances, too, as a subset of opportunities. My chosen route felt so logical. The way opportunities and circumstances came together, I knew God was choosing the city for me, and awaiting my response and participation. What happened?

Did an alternate route slowly or suddenly appear? No. Did I uncover an old interest and try to revive it? No. Did I change my mind about cities and The City and decide to sit things out? No.

Or did the city start happening and then continue with sometimes clear, sometimes imperceptible twists, turns, detours, and dead ends? Not that I've noticed. Did I take a different route home? No. I didn't and I haven't yet.

What personality and path has your route or routes taken?

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Five Minute Friday :: Short

Owe no one anything, except to love one another,
for any one who loves another has fulfilled the law.
Romans 13:8
• Five Minute Friday :: Short Linkup

Buy short; sell long. Today I'm short on cash. Again. The short end of the deal.

Everyday.

Why do so many aspects of life keep coming up short? Not enough legal tender. Not enough human tenderness. The larder and the pantry lack. No rain for forty days and forty nights. Then nothing but rain with no sun for forty days and…

Knowing all that to be the case, what can we say about living in grace?

Maybe especially when we study the apostle Paul's theology, we contrast law and gospel.

Scripture reveals a world where we don't come up short, but one filled with abundance. The Hebrew scriptures particularly emphasize God's way as one of shalom, a peace that's far more than the absence of conflict. Shalom is wholeness, justice, goodness, bounty, and commonwealth. When we love one another we create shalom for the long run.

Shalom is integrity and honesty with each other. Shalom is the gospel lived out wherever we go. Shalom never runs short; it's the fullness of everything we need.

In the Acts of the Apostles we learn the newly birthed church born of Spirit, water, and Word, made sure everyone had enough, no one came up short on essentials. What can we say about living in grace?

"Owe no one anything, except to love one another, for any one who loves another has fulfilled the law." Romans 13:8

"Happy are the Shalom-makers, for they will be called children of heaven." Matthew 5:9

They'll be called children of heaven because when they practice shalom, no one comes up short. Everyone has enough. That is good news. That's gospel!

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Five Minute Friday :: Outcome

• Five Minute Friday :: Outcome Linkup

Soccer and the World Cup isn't one of my preoccupations, but I love Major League Baseball (MLB); I've been known to get excited and despondent during the post-season. My first ever MLB game was at the old Tiger Stadium after I'd taken my first solo flight as a passenger. I was in grade 7 or 8. I've noticed parents and kids often make things complicated when a kid or a teen flies unaccompanied, but I went to Boston-Logan, got on the plane, flew to Detroit-Metro, got off the plane. No big deal, but that may have been because I'd been riding city buses and subways alone forever.

Fenway Park by Chris Devers, 2004
Although back then I had next to zero knowledge of the game, in retrospect the Tigers game with an opponent I don't remember was a watershed. A couple years later during high school the Boston Red Sox and Fenway Park started to become part of the narrative of my life. Later on when I served an inner city Boston church, senior pastor was able to get Red Sox tickets almost on a whim, and I went to many games that way. A few times I drove youth group kids to Fenway in the church van; other times we traveled there on the subway. For sure I considered myself On The Clock whenever I took on that responsibility.

Today's word is outcome. "I often remind myself" the best way to predict the future is to create it; that's what I knew I was doing with a series of schools, skills, and experiences. As of now, the outcome is far from the minimum I'd anticipated. But God's promises and God's faithfulness are outside of time as we humans measure time. Can I trust God for the outcome of all those years of preparation and expectation?

There's spring training and there's the fall post-season, but I love that baseball is mostly an icon of summer. Although baseball is country, suburban, and everywhere, there's something particularly urban about it, and cities are my jam. Did I already mention Detroit and Boston?

I love baseball's leisurely pace as if clocks and watches don't exist. I love that baseball is an American invention. I love those memories of Fenway Park. I love watching stellar defense and crazy offense. Baseball majorly qualifies as one of my major Life Stuff topics. As I wonder about hopes, dreams, and disappointments, "I often remind myself" baseball is a perfect model for life.

The outcome? You win some; you lose some. Tomorrow is another day, another game, another outcome.
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Five Minute Friday :: Pivot

North Hollywood California Coffee Shop
• Five Minute Friday :: Pivot Linkup

I love the skateboard illustration!

Kate wrote about her son's summer job not happening, after all. How many of us have had that exact experience? Maybe a related one or two or three? That's the ongoing employment and housing story for too many of us over the past decade. At least for the short term, he's been able to pivot into some other activities while he waits to hear from his other job apps.

Recently I've gotten reflective as I've evaluated my behaviors over the years. When life and expectations have disappointed me, Instead of pivoting into a new direction, I've kept going in the same one, chasing after activities and opportunities related to my sense of call that still won't quit. But honestly? Keepin' on keepin' on often is the name of the game in any case.

My life got smaller and emptier. Not simpler. I'd lost people, routines, reasons to get out of bed every morning. My world had become silent and still. I may have lost (I had lost) the days I expected would continue, but I still kept getting up in the morning and pretending. I kept hoping… you know about living "as if?!" Practicing resurrection?

I've even tried to rebuild the last place, that last time my world made sense. Would that count as pivoting away from the status quo? Paradoxically(?) I don't know the time or date or place.

How can I find life with pulse and rhythm again? "Meaning and purpose keep you sane" isn't simply a truism. I long for, I need messy noisy healing chaotic again. And then?

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Five Minute Friday :: Vibe

• Five Minute Friday Vibe :: Linkup

As someone who's never watched a soccer match – or an American football game – I still had to experience the vibe I could hear from outside, so a few minutes ago I came back from a stroll to observe and to feel some other Los Angeles denizens alive with the vibe of South Korea vs Mexico in World Cup 2026.

In my current "between lives" circumstances, I live and work in the Koreatown community of LA. Many of my neighbors citywide (and this city rocks a very wide swath) are Mexican immigrants or otherwise ethnic Mexican, to such an extent most signage everywhere is bilingual.

A few years back as I reminisced with a now former friend I'd met when we both lived in the same Koreatown hostel, she observed, "Koreatown has a nice vibe." Although maybe the part of Koreatown on the other side of Wilshire where we first met does, I'm not sure about this south of Wilshire section. But today's World Cup vibe isn't "nice" or tame—it's competitive yet neighborly yet still wanting my side to win.


But our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Savior, Jesus Christ.
Philippians 3:20

There is no longer Jew or Greek;
there is no longer slave or free;
there is no longer male and female,
for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.
Galatians 3:28

And yes, Thomas Friedman! Because the world keeps getting flatter every day, why would we want to emphasize our own tribe, our own ethnicity, culture, or brand? Maybe because it has so much to offer the world, just as your tribe, your perspective, your ways of being could enhance my world and broaden my vision. And let's all celebrate and live into the reality that the ground is level at the foot of the cross.

As I'm finishing this FMF, I can feel the roaring crowd that's gone way beyond a chill vibe. Mexico won! Enjoy the moment!

What's your vibe today?

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