I'll be Home for Christmas...

Ok, so I realize it has almost been a whole month since I've written, and that is just ridiculous. My apologies to all. I flew back to NYC from Houston last night, and to save time and brain cells I'm just going to transpose what I journaled in transit:

I'm waiting at my gate for my flight "home" to NYC after a great day of sleeping late, playing catch w/ my dad and seeing The Polar Express w/ the fam. It's both good and difficult to leave on such a high note and there were definitely some tears shed. It's hard to go back--but not too hard. There is still work to be done, lives to touch and people to pray for. One day, maybe in a few months, a year, or even several years, it will be too hard to go back--and that's when I'll know my work is finished in NYC. But for now it's ok to cry a few tears for the nostalgia of a path I am not to take at this present moment.

I feel like my emotions were at hypersensitive levels this weekend, probably due to my intentional efforts in savoring every moment. Even the Christmas Eve service at Grace made me tear up. I think because Christmas really has a whole new meaning for me this year. I guess being in such a dark spiritually devoid place makes the existence of a "light of the world" that much more dear. It's funny how things are so much more prominent to our eyes when they are side by side with their complete contrast. Like last night, I didn't pay much notice to the full moon when it had already made an appearance in the late afternoon. But hours later I could not help but gaze as it broke through the deep black of the night--a "hole in the sky" as Uncle Jim would describe it.

So what I'm getting at is that I think the Lord functions in the same way. Against the hustle and bustle and routine of the middle class suburban lifestyle the concept of needing a savior becomes a bit blurred. Of course, it's in the literature at local Christian bookstores and in the words of the pastors on Sunday mornings and even on the radio or highway billboards. But then this mysterious phenomenon happens. When you actually go looking for it--this alleged "need for a savior" that everyone is speaking and writing of--it's nowhere to be found, at least in it's purest rawest form. And that is why I think the face of our Savior is so visible in the inner city, among the poorest and most helpless. They understand real need and are thus unafraid to kneel before a God they have never seen nor studied.