Before I start in on my shameful backslide into the pits of Protestantism again, I should probably mention that my beautiful baby girl is 9 months old as of yesterday! And not only that, she finally put all of those flailing motions and angular tumbles together into a very respectable crawl. She’s now fully mobile. The line has been crossed, and there’s no going back. Whatever time I was waiting for to baby-proof is now past. Big props, Amira. You are the best and I love you dearly.

So, yeah, I’m a worship leader again. Or, at least, planning to be. For a youth group. At a Protestant church. And not just any Protestant church — the Nazarene denomination, the fairly conservative church I spent my 6th grade – college years in. You can’t fault God for not having a sense of humor. After 3 years of declaring my loathing for all things Protestant and steadfastly refusing to participate in church at all, things have suddenly come together over the last three months to where I’m right back in the thick of it. Or, at least, planning to be.

You’ll recall that I was having a problem with God (back a few posts). From what I can see, the world around me doesn’t jive with a God who gives a damn, and I was holding it against him. I didn’t want to hold it against Him particularly, because I felt a strong desire for Him, but I couldn’t reconcile the conflict.

One night, Janece’s dad got a movie called “I Am David” through his Netflix subscription (lovely company, Netflix is). The movie isn’t award-winning as movies go, but the theme broke open something for me. It’s about a boy who essentially grows up in a prison camp, torn away from his mother/father. Another prisoner, played by Jim Cavaziel, takes him under his wing and looks out for him. When the boy steals a bar of soap, Jim’s character takes the blame for him and is shot to death as a consequence. A guard who was friends with his parents takes pity on the boy and helps him escape, along with sealed papers with a secret and instructions to go to Denmark to deliver the papers. The boy begins a long journey from Bulgaria. He is very strong and tries to be brave, but he is deeply suspicious of the people he meets along the way and is bearing the guilt of his friend’s death. He finally crosses paths on the way into Switzerland with an old woman who lost her son when he was David’s age. She gently takes him in under her wing and coaxes out his story in sly and creative ways. She helps him complete his journey and helps him reunite with his family.

A couple of things really hit me. First, I really got for myself that there are two sides to this world — the side of hate, greed, fear, cruelty and despair, and the side of love, courage, forgiveness, self-sacrifice and joy. And I got clear that there’s really only one game in town that I want to be a part of, one side that I want to be on — the side of love. I still haven’t resolved my conflict about God and the world, but I do know that my life is about helping to bring the transformative love that God is and gives to the world. Second, I got that David’s character is me — suspicious, running, scared, alone, and untrusting, but desperately desiring to trust and be comforted and know that, as Julian of Norwich put it “All shall be well and all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well.”

So, epiphany. Fast-forward to several weeks ago. Brent Hudson, the youth pastor at Lynnwood Church Of The Nazarene (where Janece’s parents attend), sets up a meeting with me to talk about a new worship service they’re starting — wanting ideas and input. We ended up talking over lunch for several hours, where I spilled a whole bunch of ideas that I’d been thinking about over the years I haven’t been in church. A couple of conversations with him and his wife, Julie, later, and Janece and I found ourselves agreeing to join with them in creating this new worship experience. We threw out every possible roadblock we could think of — our liberal theological leanings, our past problems with the church, our leadership styles, potential conflict points with their volunteers — but they kept coming back with the same response: “It’s OK — we understand what we’re getting into and we’ll work it out.” They are deeply committed to something new, vibrant and powerful, and they feel like God brought us together to make this happen (as do we).

So, we’re having our first vision meeting next Thursday with all the kids and the volunteers. I’m not so much nervous as just trepidatious about whether this will be successful as a result of my work, but I’m mostly excited. I’m really looking forward to having something in my life besides just my work, something that I can feel passionate about and that can have a lasting impact. I’m excited to have a forum where I’m required to think artistically and write music on a regular basis. I’m excited about the people contact and the chance to be a part of connecting people with God’s love. And I’m excited to meet God in the process and be changed.

Janece and I saw The Village last week. (It was OK — I’d give it a 7 out of 10.) One exchange in the movie really stuck with me. One character asks the other, “How can you be so fearless when everyone else is so afraid?” He replies, “I don’t think about all the things that could happen — I just think about what needs to happen next.” That’s where I’m going to live with this worship project (and everything else, for that matter). I don’t want to second-guess the ending. I just want to do the best that I know how, and open myself to trust that God will honor our work and grace us with His presence.

Janece and I did some initial talking about the structure of the service today. I’m sure I’ll be sharing our work on that stuff as time goes by.

I make myself giggle. I’m going on and on in my last post about missing 5 days, and then I don’t post for almost two months. A little cheese with that whine, Mr. Moment?

Where have I been? Well, I’ve been hard at work avoiding anything that occured to me like extra drudgery, which includes housework, cleaning up my desk, exercising, and posting to my blog. For the last month I’ve been working on just cleaning up my projects and watching Buffy/Angel episodes wherever humanly possible. Those two things take up more time than you’d realize. Add to that cooking all of our meals in-house (we usually go out to eat all the time) and helping Janece here and there with Amira, and it’s pretty much a full slate. I did do a couple of cool things, tho.

Eric, my friend and work partner in Trivekta, and 3 of his relations came up on a West Coast power stint following Porcupine Tree for three or four shows. They stayed a weekend here and followed the band down to Portland, and then San Fransisco. It sounded like a succesful week-long pilgrimage. I went to the PT show with them here in Seattle at the Croc. The band is tight, and their songs creep into your head, but I find it hard to fully embrace their nouveau-Pink-Floyd progressive vibe. I’d say they’re great in a mix, but a touch too much all in one go. But it was cool to catch a show — probably the first in 4+ years — and meet the band in their bus afterwards (which we got to do since Eric and co. built and maintain their web site). We also went to Thai Bistro in Mill Creek (recommended) and The Rock (wood-fired pizza and good beer, also recommended).

I also actually went on a hike for the first time in ages. Janece, Amira, Ris (Janece’s cousin’s wife) and I went on a hike Ris found in the Seattle Times’ Outdoors section. The hike was a “hike of the week” pick, and it’s to Lake Dorothy, the first lake in a series of lakes in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness near Stevens Pass. It’s a steep hike, but short — 800+ elevation gain in 1.5 miles. It’s a very well-kept trail with a lot of man-made steps and other pieces, as well as a bridge in the middle of the hike that lets you pause and enjoy the view of three streams running together to form the east fork of the Miller River. It was a cloudy/rainy day, but we hit the bridge right at a sunbreak which made the view even more beautiful. Lake Dorothy is also really picturesque, even in the rain, and we were up high enough that we were watching clouds drift past the peaks and right over the lake. We took the dogs — Tova and Ris’ two beagles — and they had a great time playing trail leaders. Amira was great, too. We toted her in the Baby Bjorn and she did famously — only fussing a little at Lake Dorothy towards the end of our time there and a little on the way back because she was hungry. The only difficult thing about carrying here was that on the way down, I was trying to navigate the steep drop that was muddy and wet, trying to not to hit any slick roots and what not, while trying to see the trail past her little head right in my line of sight. But we did fine. She fell asleep in the car on the way home and looking heart-breakingly beautiful. I also did pretty well for a fat-assed web designer who hasn’t excercised in months. I wasn’t even sore. All in all, a great time and I’m looking forward to the next jaunt.

Oh yeah, and I’m also going back to church to be a worship leader. But more on that in my next post.