Over the last year and a half, I've experimented with other live events, called The Piazza, or The Pub, or things like that, which were meant to be live gatherings with Q&A, and discussion of whatever comes up - a place for conversation. We had several of these events, and they were attended by "the regular suspects" and we had great conversation.
However two things make me need to rethink how we do live events. One is that we don't really yet have a critical mass of people who want to attend live events, and the other is that it is getting increasingly hard to schedule a live event for any time when enough people are available to make it viable. What I am discovering is that a community like ours needs a larger pool of people to draw from in order to have enough people available at any given time to make a live event work. I don't mind that our community is still relatively small, because I'm not looking to be famous (I'm in introvert, after all) but we're probably going to have to wait for some more growth in numbers before we get back to live streams other than the weekly Bible Study.
Having said that - thanks to those of you who have joined recently - we are glad you're here - and everyone should invite their friends!
In the meantime, I hope that you will all feel free to post here in the community feed - comments, observations, reflections, prayer requests, and questions. I will continue to post my morning reflections (The Cafe) whenever something occurs to me, but you should consider the feed here to be all "Ask me anything" all the time. As you know, I'm not on social media and I don't have comments turned on in my YouTube videos, so this is where the conversation is!
And while I'm on the pilgrimage, and then on vacation, for the next couple months, I will post when I can, but it's going to be less than usual, so - talk amongst yourselves...
Dear friends - Please take 10 minutes to watch this personal update from me:
I'm back, up and running, and ready to go - I should have a new JOURNEY episode within the next week or so - and because you are my loyal peeps, here is an exclusive, just-for-you, behind the scenes SNEAK PEEK into my new office:
I mentioned in The Journey that I wrote a song based on Isaiah 2, which is one of my favorite OT passages:
In days to come, the mountain of the Lord’s house
shall be established as the highest mountain, and raised above the hills.
All nations shall stream toward it. Many peoples shall come and say:
“Come, let us go up to the Lord’s mountain, to the house of the God of Jacob, That he may instruct us in his ways, and we may walk in his paths.” For from Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
He shall judge between the nations, and set terms for many peoples.
They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; One nation shall not raise the sword against another, nor shall they train for war again. House of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord!
I hope you like the song!
The problem with us men is that often we don't have the wisdom to be a father until we're a grandfather.
This may sounds like some ironic statement that makes you nod your head in agreement but shrug your shoulders in resignation, thinking, well there's nothing we can do about that. But the practical application of that is that it demonstrates how important it is for kids to grow up around their grandparents. But as in our culture the family becomes ever more fractured and spread out, that is harder and harder to do.
Lately I've been thinking that part of the problem is the whole concept of college. It used to be that everyone thought a person had to go to college to make a good living. Not only is that not the case (truck drivers make more money than I do) but now college has gone from useless to actually ruining our kids. But when I went to college, what you were supposed to do is figure out what career you wanted (as if anyone knows that at age 18) and then go away to the college ...
And don't forget, if you would like to read my latest novel:
The Sword and the Clover - just let me know by email.
I'm happy to send you the PDF version, even if you haven't been a monetary supporter of the community - all I ask is that you don't share it with anyone else.
My email address:
Keep in touch!
JIm
If you haven't already signed up - this comes to your inbox no more than once a month, and will keep you updated when new books come out, or when we're leading pilgrimages, etc:
https://jimpapandrea.us16.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=a7c3793af6d238b47f3463784&id=2abdd7219d
