'I must be an acrobat, to talk like this and act like that...' -Actung Baby,U2
I am Jacob Bailey. I have been writing here for a while now. I am 27 years old, on the brink of moving to Spain. I love my wife and two beautiful children. Glad you stopped by - please let me know you were here by posting a comment.
leading with QUESTIONS
Tuesday, January 25, 2005
check out our new site
our web site is up and running...follow the link at the top of the menu list on the right and check it out. Thanks goes to Jesse R. who put in the hours for me on this thing...
Thursday, January 20, 2005
the power of story
I have been really focused in the inate power of story this week. To speak of life and our experiences and the experiences of all humans for that matter in terms of story is refreshing. Story is helpful in that is translates up and down and through the middle. We can speak of story in terms of the large metanarritives that man people subscibe to, we can speak of story in terms of the story of this or that local community or tribe, and we can speak of story in terms of the small scale story of our individual lives. Identifying the story I am living for seems helpful. What is my story? What is my tribe/comunity's story? What is "our" story / or the story of the larger global community? Am I living the story that I have been given? Am I living the story that I want to be living? Am I locating my "small" story in the right "larger" story? What are the competing larger stories? Which is worth living for? What are the competing local stories that I should not live in? Do I know my story? Do I know where I have been? Where I am? Where I am going?
Follow this link to an interesting story about story and how it saved people in Indonesia. This article in the BBC is really amazing as it highligts the story of a community that at the right time became useful and saved many.
Tuesday, January 18, 2005
yosemite dreams
I have been climbing again. Olympia opened a new gym called Warehouse Rock Gym. I have waited a full 5 years for this place to finally arrive. We bought a 90 day membership...I have been down there to boulder now probably 6 times since. I love it. I just bought new shoes. You can see them here.
So last night I laid in bed from 10:30 to midnight remembering...I thought back to those early days in Yosemite when I was so young I didn't know any better. I remembered the smell of granite, the big sky bordered by walls reaching high up into it. I remembered the moves, the techniques employed to set an anchor and haul a bag. I remembered individuals routes like liking Sons of Yesterday and the Serenity Crack. I dreamed while I was awake...I longed to return and feel the gentle Californian sun on my back and sink my hands deep into cool dark places sercuring my every movement upward. It was so good for my soul...when life get's freaky this place and my family is all I really want. Call it escapism and you wouldn't be wrong, but to me it is simply remembering my home away from home in His creation...
chameleon...my new shoes...it's amazing what a shoe can do. It's a little known secret that in rock climbing it is all about how you use feet not your arms.
Monday, January 17, 2005
moving too fast so I spin off something incoherent (sorry)
man I wish i could keep up with this thing linking it to my life. But I can't (really). I mean this is an attempt but it'll fall short I am sure...anyway...
do I recap or rant? recap or rant? hmmm....
life is moving along so fast...we are on par for making the move to spain a reality . People keep giving to make this thing happen...and we are trying hard to do our part. I am fearful and hopeful, excited and anxious, focused and scattered...all of that at once or aleast from one moment to the next...something must be changing...can we ride the avalanche or will be swallowed by it? Who's to say...
I am feeling disconnected...it's vague like when you've had everyone there before then they are all gone and you keep waiting for them to show up (because you know they will) but you know they really won't. Or like bachtracking when your hiking (versus hiking a loop) - it's like this was great the first time but now it is all somehow so hollow cause it's not new...or somethingl like that...
What has happened in the past few weeks...I "preached", I soaked up NT wright, I married some (beaufiful) folks, I heard brennan manning in cannon beach...all this and I lost the plot again. ONe thing stands up against another and they both fall down...and I scratch my head wishing I was live at the local stand up commedy bar, sipping down a Hefeweisen (con lemon) while at the same time making people laugh as I talk about the church and my strange wanderings there. And my feeble imagination gives birth to sketchy hypothesis which I then test for a while forgetting to pool the results and then starting some other project as if I learned somethign that I didn't.
And I wander...and wander...here there too and fro I wander...lost in activity with so little substance. reacting only reacting to life as it comes to me..
Monday, January 10, 2005
easy answerism
I am in a suspicious mode of easy answerism…for too often too many times us church people have given real people dumb answers to their deep questions and dumb solutions to there deep problems…I am more inspired by Christ to join people in the pain and help them out of it that to yell down to people to climb up to where I am at…go figure…the incarnation…that had something do with God coming down to our level…then Jesus says to his disciples “as the father has sent me so I send you…”?
some thoughts i offered to my friend Becky...I'll offer here to. Is that my easy answer? Sometimes I fear that I have caught the disease...not like the longterm fatal effects are showing - but just the symtoms...
Thursday, January 06, 2005
Wednesday, January 05, 2005
just one more entry
this journal now co-exists with a new one for Tania and I (found here or linked on the right). I don't know how I feel about keeping two spinning...this one is not "open." I say that regretfully...yes I am still hiding myself from some people. Why do I enjoy this relatively "safe" space...I don't know. It isn't right though. I long for the day when I can let the chaos of who i am unfold freely among all who I have relationships with...that's a day i have not chosen yet.
It's funny because it is and was rather difficult to keep the worlds apart - to keep the two blogs separate. I have this lingering fear that I will be "found out." Isn't that childish? But it's true...self protection I am realizing is one of the enemies of my soul. It is one place where I routinely chose to love myself more than others and love myself more than Christ....and Here I am spelling it out clear as day. Wow.
Last night I was haunted in my dreams by this video of the Tsunami that I downloaded (for real I have it saved on my hard drive). Even right up to this present moment I am hesitant to re-view it. Somehow my subconscios took control and filled in details and replayed the scene in my mind over and over and I couldn't escape. It was hell. Not because I was scared of the water but because I had to see the horror over and over and live it over and over. It was freaky. I am still pretty shaken by it.
Here's a link the one that got me if you dare or try this one if that doesn't work
Monday, January 03, 2005
more again
So...I am back again. In my study this past week I latched onto a theological ride with NT Wright (Tom Wright - Anglican Bishop of Duram). That has been beautiful. Go here to his home page for loads of resources to explore or go here to his converstation with Emergent. Both of these places have mp3's to download. His content is great plus the added benefit of UK accent and humor makes his theology easier to swallow.
I am specifically appreciating a "kingdom centered" theology that realizes the authority of Christ and takes seriously this statement in Colossians 1:17 and 20- "[Jesus] existed before eveything else began, and holds all creation together...and by him God reconciled everything to himself. He made peace with everything in heaven and earth by means of his blood on the cross."
This has been helpful as it contrasts a destructive and violent end to creation (and unforgiven sinners) and embraces a redemptive possibility for all creation. That the King reigns now in full justice (Ps. 72) and righteousness, that he will bring it all together in the end and do what is just and right (in his eyes) is comforting to me and worth living for...
That we can act out little sketches of his Kingdom come in our world seems to be a mission that I could live for. That we can paint pictures in real life of a King who has come and is coming - that we can let this be a dominant theme in our "gospel" (as it was in Paul's - see Acts 17:7) is also a relief. That we can then locate our own "little" story about personal salvation/sanctification somewhere inside this larger story about all creation's renewal in Christ is also a huge relief.
on a lighter note I am finally up and runnig with digital video - capturing and archiving my own clips for for future use proclaiming the gospel! Yahp!
all is quiet on new years day...
Okay it's not new years day....and I didn't even spin New Year's Day (by U2) on new years day this year...all though it was going through my head all day! So much to say - so much to convey (Tracy Chapman). Yesderday (according to my wife) I started singing a Dave Matthews song from the pulpit!? I was speaking about the kingdom of God and I said something like "right now we live in between...in the space between the kingdom come and the kingdom coming"...(my wife swears I sang it...I am not so sure. I do know the song just burst into my head...odd.
It's a cold day in WA which is unusual. I scraped ice off the windsheild to get to work. All last week I worked in a sermon for yesterday...I ended up going with a text from Matt 2:1-12 that I used more like a metaphor inviting the church to join me in a quest for the King (like herod and the magi). It was fun...a little scripture heavy, I took myself a little too seriously...
Here comes my buddy Gary...we need to spend some time talking I gotta run! more later
