Today is Good Friday/Karfreitag/Didysis ketvirtadienis.

Today i went to a Taize service held at LCC in honor of the day. I can't help it, but today i really miss MSU. I miss going to the MSU chapel on GOod friday, for the Chi Alpha wship service, with the nails, and the altar call, and the whip, and all the imagery. The wship at Chi Alpha at MSU was still pretty much the best worship I have ever had in my life. It was so consisently amazing- one of the only places i have been, where you could have probably stood on your head and the neighboring worshippers would hardly have notice, because they were all consentrated on and enjoying god so much- that unhurried pace, the amazing musicians, 5 songs could go for like an hour! I just really miss MSU and the things Gd was doing there in spite of my sin, and the way he was moving in such a special way. He probably is still moving in those ways, and i just am in a distant place.



I miss waking up in the loft in 244 Phillips Hall, looking through the old window sill out at the ALumni Chapel there. I miss my roomates there, Jon Ehrlich and Matt Herwaldt. I miss SCF (Spartan Xn F'ship) meetings. I miss that sense of urgency and community, and like we were in the middle of a great work of Gd and people were coming to know him. I miss getting woken up by Josh Hull and Brian Sinischo coming over at 8 am to eat breakfast with us in the Phillips Hall caf, managed by ex-roomate Ryan Wiersma (moose). So many brothers march in and out of my life... i get so overwhelmed by it all sometimes. Most are married now of course, and have one to several kids. And here i am, this good friday finds me in someways in the same life stage i was when i was 18- no wife, no house, no property, no kids, no car... and yet i dont and cant regret the choices i have made. Even though maybe some choices have been made because of fear, Gd has worked every decision for the Good. I have experienced so much. And some people would ask me "arent you lonely" because i am single. Of course all humans are lonely. But i think people are even lonely WITHIN a marriage. My answer would be, and honestly, no not really, i am not really that lonely. I have learned at MSU how to build intentional community and to be real with my brothers, and to engage people, and to ask them questions, and to be a friends. And i have never felt without family. One of the Psalms says "Gd takes the lonely and puts them into families". Whether those are actual families, or the pseudo-families which Gd builds, whose common blood is the Holy Spirit of Jesus Christ...





So here's to my brothers and sisters at MSU, past and present.... My thoughts and pryers are winging to the banks of the Red Cedar River, under the Elms, and past the great Katsura Tree in front of the library, the bicycles and pita stops, and ivy colored slate rooves.