clouds must enjoy good espresso. they are in seattle every morning.

I have grown weary of merely writing updates about my life, which I consider to be no more worthy of the internet than anyone else’s. So I’m not going to write an update.

“‘ All things are lawful,’ but not all things are helpful. ‘All things are lawful,’ but not all things build up. Let no one seek his own good, but the good of his neighbor.”
1 Corinthians 10:23-24

“So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. Give no offense to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God, just as I try to please everyone in everything I do, not seeking my own advantage, but that of many, that they may be saved.” 1 Corinthians 10:31-33

“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.” 1 Corinthians 13:1-3

Jesus is not after our pens and to-do lists.
Jesus is not after our smug looks in evening bathroom mirrors.
Jesus did not give us liberty for a weapon deep as words.

He is after our hearts. That we would be changed at the root of ourselves to be vessels of mercy and self-sacrifice. That we would ambassadors of the love He showed us, which knows no end.

I am learning these days that if you want someone to know what you mean, you can’t just throw out a word like ‘love’ without giving it a backbone, so,

love is doing your roommates’ chores three weeks in a row.
love is my mother and father thinking about things I might need, before I do.
love is hiding the beer when your Pakistani Christian brother is staying with you.
love is sitting through an hour of mediocre poetry to support your friend for 3 minutes,
and listening,
love is caring about friends’ passions more than your own,
love is hot lemonade for a sick roommate,
love is 8 hours in an emergency room lobby,
and next day’s 8 hours of work on 3 hours sleep,
love is your bearing,
love is setting aside forty mental years to invest in a child,
love is looking through a black eye with compassion,
love is driving to Houston every weekend to sit in ICU silence,
love is obedience,
love is submission,
love is steadying a just hand,
love is dying for people who hate you,

“Love is patient and kind;
love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude.
It does not insist on its own way;
it is not irritable or resentful;
it does not rejoice at wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth.
Love bears all things,
believes all things,
hopes all things,
endures all things.”
1 Cor. 13:4-7

On buses, sidewalks, and in coffee shops, it feels sometimes like my fellow Seattle dwellers and I are walking down isolated hallways that just happen to be next to each other for minutes at a time. The walls are made of ipods, laptops, and planners, and we are content to marvel at them as we walk.

Today I have grown weary of writing updates because I have grown weary of my hallway.

Lord, let us represent you well.
Let us build doors where we are scarred,
food banks in place of safety deposit boxes,
and crosses where there are mirrors.
Let us love.