"How much better can all this get?"

I just want to say something.

I love my church. Mosaic Austin, you are my community and I love you. I frickin love you!

I feel the meaning of these words of Paul's: "I thank God every time I remember you..." Seriously. Holy friggin moly. Can I just try to explain why a little bit?

The first night I walked into 5619 for liturgy I knew there was something about this church that was different, that I was really going to love. I was having a hard time finding a church that I really felt like I could fit in with, find relationships and, well, enjoy the "show" overall. For the previous year, I had grown really tired of church. As I was working for a ministry, I felt like I had my community already sort of built-in, and church became another a routine to fill my already over-crowded schedule. I was tired of hearing sermons that seemed to be more about motivating people to appear more pious in the eyes of culture rather than recognizing our perpetual need for Mercy and the gratuitous love of God communicated through the cross. I wanted to hear the gospel, not a self-help message. I wanted to contemplate this reality in the midst of others who would be willing to recognize the complex simplicity and depth and beauty of the mystery of Christ, not offer a nicely packaged dogma or checklist of faith. The reality of relationships is what I craved. God knows.

Aside: maybe I ought to be more hesitant to use this type of rhetoric or to make comparisons between churches or ministries, as if I am bragging that we have the best church out there and everyone else is wrong. I don't believe that is true. I don't want to make the circle smaller instead of wider in the greater Body of faith. But I've got to be honest about what I see in this community and contrast it with what I've experienced in contemporary Christian culture (as a generalization) to be able to describe why it is so meaningful to me to find myself here at just the right time in my life.

Maybe this is shallow, but...I really like the band, Sigur Ros. As I was sitting down in my white folding chair, waiting for liturgy to start, their eerily beautiful sounds started playing from the mains. I thought, "Oh - my - gosh...what kind of church is this?" Ha ha...I am cracking myself thinking about this.

Then, someone from the congregation stood up and walked to the front. He was wearing bicycle shorts and a tank top, revealing a bit of scruffly chest hair, looking as if he had just come straight from a game of racketball or from riding his bike. "Welcome to Mosaic," he said, "we're a community of seekers and believers..."

He took up a banjo and sat down with the band, who proceeded to sing:

"Song is so old, love is so new"
"We must also love the whore"
"Bandages weave into a wedding gown..."
"It cannot be too much longer!"

Everyone sat quietly in contemplation. I also sat in silence, but my soul was on fire.

I don't remember what the exact topic was that night for the sermon, but when it was over, we all formed a line to the faded formica-topped table at the front and did what may be the most important thing any group of people can do together. We were each fed a little torn-off morsel of bread, which we ourselves dipped in sugary grape-flavored juice...crude elements symbolic of the necessity that we consume this Mercy, and receive it from each other's hands.

I could go on and on, about At the Table in the fall, about being welcomed to the Simone Weil book club by -AH-, the college bible study at the -G's-, the coffee dates and dinner groups with -PQ- and -MF- with flying fall cheeseballsfrom -CP- and eating with only our right hands. The beauty and simplicity of God's presence in liturgy times. The clarity I felt in those moments that cut through my more typical state of anxiety. My long-missed ability to write a few lines of poetry as -SW- and the band played quietly during the communion meal.

But I won't do that. I will just end by saying, to anyone who may be listening: thank you. Thanks for being who you are, for loving God and each other and yourselves, and living in the kingdom in Austin with me. It has changed my life. And reading all the way through this sentimental little note - thank you for that ;)