happy global education action week! educate yourself about poverty this week. here are a few places to get started: data mennonite central committee world vision care usa interaction let me know what you learn.

mother teresa says... Jesus taught us how to forgive out of love, how to forget out of humility. So let us examine our hearts and see if there is any unforgiven hurt - any unforgotten bitterness! It is easy to love those who are far away. It isn't always easy to love those who are right next to us. It is easier to offer food to the hungry than to answer the lonely suffering of someone who lacks love right in one’s own family. The world today is upside down because there is so very little love in the home, and in family life. We have no time for each other. Everybody is in such a terrible rush, and so anxious…and in the home begins the disruption of the peace of the world.

sunday night chai has arrived in columbus. sunday night tea is a tradition that started about ten years ago in upland, indiana, when a few friends would gather every week to drink tea and listen to "hearts of space" (that spacy music program on npr.) over the years, it's expanded to munice, boston, cincinnati, and now columbus. in cincinnati, we added homemade chai and a group viewing of "the simpsons". (tv optional, especially when it's warm enough to sit on the porch.) so. this sunday. 7pm. home chai. other tea options. simple snacks. you. us. the simpsons. all ages and new friends welcome. a comment or call to rsvp would be nice, so we know how much milk to buy. see you then!

things to do this weekend: 1. game night at the stetler's (hooplah!) 2. make a garden 3. plan menus for the next couple of weeks 4. buy groceries for the aforementioned menus 5. reinstate sunday night chai 6. change the oil in the passat 7. call and catch up with several friends 8. have a party with my church on saturday night 9. play in the sun! i am so happy it's friday!!

It is surely an exercise of faith for us to see Christ in each other. But it is through such exercise that we grow and the joy of our vocation assures us we are on the right path. Certainly, it is easier to believe now that the sun warms us, and we know that buds will appear on the trees in the wasteland across the street, that life will spring out of the dull clods of that littered park across the way. There are wars and rumors of war, poverty and plague, hunger and pain. Still, the sap is rising, again there is the resurrection of spring, and God's continuing promise to us that He is with us always, with His comfort and joy, if we will only ask. dorothy day happy spring, dear ones!

it's far too late on saturday night, but my head and spirit are brimming with fullness and inspiration and questions. right now i'm in a holiday inn in grand rapids, michigan, where daniel and i were part of a 36 hour "festival of faith and music" at calvin college. our friend justin is with us, snoring in the second bed as i write. we've been immersed in truth and beauty and plain reality for the past two days, and now i'm exhausted. so. the details will have to wait a day or two. but until then, the primary point floating around in my sleepy head is that "Confession is the only mode of truth-telling." (david dark) feel free to comment on that assumption, dear ones! sweet dreams!