07 March 2007

Next "mesh" gathering - 19 April

So last fall, my friends Susan and Will and I attempted to start a faith-based discussion / fellowship group in Northern Virginia for the young (20's/30's) and young at heart, called "mesh". Since Will moved to the Left Coast to take a cool job with Grace Cathedral, and as Susan and I have gotten frightfully busy, we've had mixed results drumming up interest for folks to read a book and come chat about it. So this time, we're leaving out the book. If you're in Northern Virginia or the DC area, and interested in getting together and hanging and praying with a bunch of faithful folks from the area, please drop by on 19 April. (I should warn you that it's probably gonna be mostly Episcopalians and maybe some folks from my nondenominational church, The Common Table, because, uh, that's who we know.) :-) Anyway, here's the post Susan put on the mesh blog, verbatim. I can't improve on it. BTW, to get directions, you gotta join our "meshcommunity" Yahoo! Group, 'cause Susan's too smart to post her home address on a blog.

It's about time for Mesh to meet again, except for one thing: our brains are tired. Or, more accurately, our capacity to read any more books at this point is totally maxed out. So we're going to meet with no intellectual aspirations at all--just socializing and evening prayer. Oh, and food, of course. Come and celebrate Easter with no brainwork required.
Hence:

Join us on Thursday, April 19th
at 7:30pm
in Sterling, VA
(location given upon email request)
FOOD. DRINK. TALK. COMPLINE.

Bring a friend, food, or drink to share if you feel so inclined. And let us know if you have serious dog allergies. Mesh is geared toward people in their 20's and 30's who are interested in discussions about faith, but all are absolutely welcome.

Patience

Well, praise God, incompetent hack though S/He may be.

The "HOPE" I mentioned in the update to my last post seems to be proving well-founded. My cousin John stood up yesterday, for the first time in a month. On both legs. He's not going to have full use of his right leg - not without a lot of PT and further surgery - but it's looking like he's almost certain not to lose it entirely. And his white blood cell count is almost down to normal, so I think maybe the Beast is finally giving up. So praise God!

In a comment on my last post, I said,

I seem to be getting one of those "tiny message storms" that I tend to interpret as a message from God. Does that ever happen to you? When, like, in the course of a day, two or three friends, my morning Bible study guide, and one or two other things I read all seem to say the same thing, coincidentally? This time, it's, "Remember that you are dust. Patience. Wait on God. God's time is not your time."

So, OK, I hear You. I'm trying. But the fact that I haven't seen an update on my cousin makes me terribly afraid that he lost his leg yesterday. And expressing that kind of anger toward You is something that the Psalmists did all the time, so I don't feel that guilty.

So I wait, and try to be patient. But I don't wait serenely. I wait with some anger, because faithful assurances that "it's all going to work out just fine in the End, when the Kingdom comes" sometimes ring pretty hollow.

Patience is hard. And it frequently is not rewarded. But, I'm thinking it's a lesson I need to learn this Lent.