Greetings friends!
In addition to the habit of trying to keep a daily J-Blog going, I decided that it would be a good idea to run a daily lectionary commentary on the blog on the Westminster website (click here if you just can’t get enough of J’s writing). So, I’m a bit crazy, aren’t I? Especially one day after nearly falling off the habit of the daily J-Blog, it seems ambitious and crazy to try to run two of these each and every day.
And truth be told, while this runs counter to just about every single book or blog or YouTube video I’ve consumed on the topic of making habits work, I like when I can be a bit crazy. I like when I have a wild idea that seems so messed up there’s no possible way it will work. There is something about the challenge of that, the insanity, the looks on the faces of people that say “There’s no way he will be able to keep that up” that keeps me going. Maybe I won’t be successful. Maybe I’ll fall off the wagon here and there. But I’m certainly going to give it my all, and see what comes of it.
On that same topic, I was at a meeting this morning where a kind man from the JCC was telling us what they were up to in Pittsburgh. His whole message was that the concept of “Love your neighbor as yourself” wasn’t so much a Scripture as it has been a long held value for the world’s religions. So he and his team have dedicated themselves to cultivating a community that embodies that value. It is sad to me how creating and sustaining a community that loves our neighbors as ourselves strikes me as every bit as crazy as trying to keep two daily blogs going at the same time. It feels like a big project. Why is that such a hard thing? I mean has our political discourse really devolved to the point that it’s an uphill battle to imagine a nation where our first instinct was to love, rather than to argue? To care rather than condemn? To be kind rather than cruel? Maybe it is crazy. But I’m going to work on that too.