Trying to follow

It’s extremely difficult to recognize and acknowledge that what you are doing is wrong. It’s much easier after the fact, or when you are not in the midst of your crime, to reconsider things and give an opportunity to entertain the otherside.
So many arguments are often worthless because we are such stubborn creatures, standing firmly in our opinion refusing to back down. It’s only after the argument when we’ve stepped out of defending our views that we can go back and acknowledge the correct views of our opponent.

Specifically, I’m talking about our lifestyles though. I’ll give some specific but controversial examples. It’s hard to willingly acknowledge the arguments of Walmart’s clothes being made in sweatshops, when we regularly shop there. It’s difficult to agree to the benefits of using less gas, when we have a long commute and drive everywhere. Seeing how good it is to compost or recycle or not eat red meat is tough, when it has never been a regular part of your lifestyle.

This is one of the reasons I’m so excited to be living in the community that we are a part of now. All of us have chosen to step out of our normal lifestyles and come together to live in an intentional way. The way we are living is a bit different then are lifestyles have been in the past. What is exciting is that this will give us a huge opportunity to consider our faith again, and really address how we feel our faith is to be lived out in our lives. And, we are having the opportunity to do it, while not in the midst of a lifestyle that might strongly contradict what we want to acknowledge as part of our faith.

Step away.

From folks like The Simple Way and the Camden House, a new collaboration of communities calling themselves the new monasticism have begun to spread the word, and now they are doing “conferences.”

From
New Monasticism

Introductory Schools— Existing new monastic communities host three to four day intensive Schools during which participants pray and work with the community, study the biblical and theological foundations of new monastic community, and reflect carefully on the community’s responses to the particular needs of its location and make-up. For a list of upcoming dates and locations, click here.
New Monasticism Retreats— If you are part of a church, Bible study group, community, or ministry organization that would like to host a retreat on new monastic community and Christianity as a way of life.

We live in a culture of specialized education where people incur an incredible amount of debt and invest as many as twenty-five years in education for the sake of professional training. Hardly anyone, however, invests time and resources into learning how to live well. Even less in becoming holy. Yet Christians claim that this is the goal of life: to be holy as God is holy. SFC is a response to the great need for a space where Christians can think carefully about the way of life that Jesus taught and practiced while experimenting in the new reality of God’s kingdom here on earth.

Find more info and everything else at New Monasticism.

I pretty much gave away everything in the title here, but I’ll share the story anyways.

The place we just moved into will eventually have a Washer and Dryer. In my hope that that might happen soon I neglected to really settle in, specifically as it relates to dirty cloths. Let me backtrack a little.

The day we moved from our old apartment it was raining outside. Not a big deal usually, but it means the dirty clothes from soccer, biking, etc that I usually hung on the railings on the back porch did not actually dry, they got wet. When your moving you don’t have time to think about how to quick dry your already nasty smelling stuff so you find a big plastic bag tie it up real good and throw it in the truck.

Said bag then came out of the truck and sat in the corner of the kitchen of the temporary location for over a week. I guess I was thinking it might magically dry or something. Add to that story the fact that the air didn’t stay on in that unit after we moved out of it (man I know this is confusing to most of you), thus providing a nice warm, wet, dark environment.

On Wednesday, I finally pulled some stuff out of the bag, my soccer shoes and shinguards. Little did I know mold of white, green and yellow colors can grow on fake leather shoes. I was impressed and disgusted all at the same time. I wish I had taken pictures of it.

There is still a bag full of clothes sitting there and today I think it’s time to open it and wash away the mold that has now made a nice home amongst my personal items.

Final Tip: keep things dry.

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Our lease in this apartment started on the 15th. Unfortunately, all that was supposed to be done to the apartment, stuff we had agreed upon with the landlord that would be done, was not done on the 15th. I think, since he had let us move in earlier into the two bedroom next door, he felt he didn’t have to stay within that time-line. I’m not sure the reasoning, but on the 15th those things where not done. On Friday, the 18th, we rented a carpet cleaner from the grocery store and cleaned the carpets ourselves. We moved in on Saturday.
Just yesterday an air-conditioning unit was finally put in upstairs (where Mindy and I sleep). There are still holes in the walls that need to be patched (a priority mostly for efficiency of air escaping, not so much aesthetics), and the toilet in the bathroom is still leaking, and there are a couple other things. Eventually they are going to put in washer and dryer hook-ups as well.

Mainly though, our air-conditioning upstairs is working, which means it’s not 90+ degrees. This means I can comfortably work at my desk, unpack my stuff, and what you’ve all been waiting for, sit undistracted and type. I think that means I’m back. Hopefully you can tell by the amount of posts this week.