Messy life & blog titles

It's been nice to have my wife home a few days this summer. Life moves so fast at times and our schedules so different - even in LA. Last month was our 3 year anniversary. Life is indeed good. But, life together is all the more beautiful. Not like a sunset, or a postcard, or a national park beautiful. More like - stuck on the side of the road w/ a flat tire in the pouring rain, but there's no one else i'd rather be stuck with - beautiful. Life is very, very messy. If someone famous didn't once say that, they should have. It is, after all, the intricate, ornate, messiness that makes it beautiful. Over the last three years we've been blessed to navigate these washed-out trails, grueling switchbacks, and unmarked trails together.

For those of you following this blog for a while now or if you've just recently stumbled over it, you're probably wondering why in the world the name of your blog is so long (or where in the world would you come up with a title like 'those to whom love is a stranger')? I'm glad u asked. Well, when I decided to begin the blog this Lent, I found some inspiration from a fellow colleague and respected elder in the WNC Conference who titles his blog 'Bear witness to the love of God in this world.' As soon as I saw the title, I knew where he had taken the language and I knew what my blog would be called. It comes from the wedding liturgy as a benediction in the UM Book of Worship for a Service of Christian Marriage. If there was one thing i paid significant detail to for our wedding - it was the order of service. As we looked over it together, one thing we both absolutely loved and easily agreed upon was choosing the benediction to be: "Bear witness to the love of God in this world, so that those to whom love is a stranger may find in you generous friends." It was the charge to the entire congregation and a charge to us, a newly wed couple. We've never forgotten those words. I pray we never will. They meant so much to us in that moment because there we were experiencing a measure of the fullness of God's love in relationship with each other, and yet at the same time we were deeply aware of so many all over the world (and some right there in our own friends and family) for whom love is a stranger.

To blog and write has been a great discipline for me thus far. Part of my hope is that maybe, just maybe, these reflections, as i too journey on through this life in stages, might somehow be a spark for those to whom love is a stranger. Life is messy. Love is elusive, even foreign. What's new? But in our deepest being, it's there. And, if we're lucky, it's embodied by those we meet along the way. May those to whom love is a stranger find in you (a) generous friend.