Guarding your Cheese Muffin

So there is this intern, J (pictured as the guitarist on the right with D) , and he's a remarkable individual. So many wonderful words cannot even being to describe his energetic personality. Hilarious. Loving. Talented. Truthful. J is a tremendous person to have on this project.

This morning at a meeting he was sharing a story from Sunday morning. He and my roommate, C, head to a Sunday morning Mosaic venue inland at Chino. As they waited in line at McD's in the wee hours of the day, Jesse was enthralled to receive his 32 oz. cup for Powerade. C, a strong anti-morning individual, was astonished how anyone could consume anything that is 32 oz. at the break of dawn. In rebuttal, expressed how anyone could eat a cheese muffin, coincidentally C's order.

What does this funny little story mean? J preceded to share that he's held onto various things in order to find his identity. C's comment about his 32oz. was more than a shot at the concept, he perceived it as a shot at him. He wanted to guard his Powerade, so he took a shot at the cheese muffin. But the cheese muffin was being guarded too.

It's remarkable how we let things rule ourselves. More so, it's remarkable at what community does. In the past 5 days, the community here among the interns has improved by a countless percent. The dynamics of the group started to make an upward swing when we confessed we had grudges against each other, deep struggles we weren't sharing with our close friends to enable them to walk along side of us, because it wasn't an area that could be trusted. A great measurement of a healthy relationship is the level of trust that is present, because where we find trust we also find the heart of the matter.

This is always about that.

It's never the fact that the laundry was taken out and thrown on the top of the washer. It's the fact that there is a sense of disrespect in the relationship.

It's never the fact that someone was trying to help me and I rejected it. It's the fact that I feel like I can't do it on my own because of it.

This is always about that.

Rob Bell speaks of this theory in the first chapter of his latest book Sex God, where he explores the endless connections between sexuality and spirituality. When a community chooses to confess and talk with each other, it unleashes the starting fruit of healthiness both socially, but also spiritually and emotionally.

Remarkable how so many components of spirituality, emotional, and social health are inversely tied. I personally found that without a healthy social community where trust is established, I cannot be fully alive spiritually. The Gospels scream community. Constantly we can find Jesus being so relational with others in groups and in one on one situations. I truly believe that God desires community within His creation because despite our anti-social tendencies, being part of a family with a foundation of hope, faith and love, it enables our heart to once again wildly beat.

The whole story is crazy. You know, the story of God. The whole journey I've been on in my life is just out of the world nutty. Ridiculous, really. The road ahead is so full of wondrous uncertainty. And even though the road to seek a mysterious God of this love and power and mystic nature, it's the sweetest thing I've ever tasted.

Last night at the Mayan was one of my best Sunday nights in California. Why? I had a community. A family. And I have a loving God who intensely wants to take me on this adventure to follow Him, to find out about Him through what He's written to me, and to embrace the sweetness that he desires to give me.

The sweetest thing I've ever tasted.