Nearly a week ago I wrote a piece here wrestling with some concerns I’ve had about Sunday morning worship. That post went past with relatively few comments, but this morning I had a conversation with a brother from Stonebridge who, without regard to the content of my concerns, asked why I hadn’t just come to folks at church directly with my thoughts before publishing them on my blog. Furthermore, he let me know that there were feelings hurt by what I wrote.

We had a good conversation, one with which I’ve been wrestling for the rest of the day. And while I don’t feel like this was a situation where someone had wronged me and I should’ve been following Matthew 18, in hindsight (don’t you hate that word, hindsight? just its presence indicates that something was screwed up) I can understand that there could be folks who were hurt by what came across, despite my best intentions, as public criticism of them and their service at church.

With all that in mind, I want to say just a few more things, and hope that they can settle the topic for now.

First: if my earlier post caused you hurt in any way, I apologize and ask for your forgiveness.

Second: I tried to say it in my earlier post, and I’ll try to say it again here and hope that it comes through clearly: none of the criticism I was bringing was directed at any person. I certainly have enough experiences doing unprofitable things in church on which I can look back regretfully. I am fortunate that I have had people who noted those, corrected me in a spirit of love, and then encouraged me to get out there again. I want the same for Stonebridge, but I obviously handled the lines of communication poorly.

Finally: I’ve only been at Stonebridge for less than a year, and have had precious little opportunity to get to know any of you, so I’ll say something that in better circumstances hopefully wouldn’t need said: the last thing I desire is to cause disunity within the Body. My only desire is that God be more glorified in each one of us, individually, and in all of us, corporately, with each passing day.

I earnestly yearn to chew on these topics with you in the days to come.

A month ago today I resolved I was going to put down my endless string of library books and spend a month just reading the Bible. Today is the end of that month.

April 20 I started reading in Genesis 1 and decided I’d just read through, getting a feel for the breadth of the story. A month later I’m through the book of Ezra, maybe a third of the way through the whole Book if you just look at how many pages I’ve covered. It’s been good reading and good reminder.

There have been some times I’ve really missed having some other good book to read – most notably the hours I was on an airplane traveling to Salt Lake City and back, and occasionally in the evenings when something less-than-memorable is on TV and I’m in the habit of reading while the TV’s on.

I think it was a worthwhile exercise, though. It made me more convinced that I need to focus on reading quality books, things that will be worth my time, and avoid just rushing through a long string of mediocre titles just to max out my reading list. (I know there’s no way my list will be as long as Kari’s – no sense in going crazy trying.)

I’m going to be done with work a little big early today. I’m going to suggest to Becky that we make an “overdue” stop at the library.

There’s something about sunsets that make me nostalgic. I’m not sure what it is about them, but give me the chance to look to the horizon as the last light of the day streaks across the landscape, and I’m entranced.

One specific sunset comes to mind… Open one of the photo albums at my parents’ house and you will find some pictures that date from the summer of 1990. It was a tumultuous year for us. Dad had to head to Colorado to work for two weeks, which was an eternity for him to be gone. Later on that summer his job situation would cause us to move from Nebraska to Texas. I was 13, had just finished seventh grade.

Several times during that two weeks that Dad was in Colorado Mom would take us out to the state park outside of town. As I see it now, she was probably just trying to keep her sanity after dealing with five kids in the house all day. But we’d go to the lake in the evening, fish, swim, and just hang out until the sun went down and it was time to go home and to bed.

One of those nights Mom brought the camera along. I don’t remember the night exactly, but the pictures she took capture the sunset-streaked moments of me and my siblings on the beach, playing in the sand and the water. There is one particularly memorable photo of my brother Aaron, the little awnry scamp, with a bucket of water cocked and ready to fling right at the camera. (The actual existence of the photo probably indicates he didn’t actually fling it in that direction at that moment.) Every time I look at those photos, the emotions kick in. Something about the sunset signifying an end, the end of my childhood years, of that season of my life.

I’m not the first person to notice that seasons change. Read Ecclesiastes sometime. There is a time for everything. Sunsets may have tinges of sadness to them – but without a sunset, there’s no chance for the sun to rise again. I don’t know when my life’s next “sunset” will come, but those pictures remind me that even as seasons change, we have hope for a new day coming.