24th and Bryant - Flip Flops and Ripped Jeans
This morning I discovered the wonderful world of Sugarlump Coffee Lounge. I came here because I'm taking a part in a discussion
here Thursday night. What I found when I got here was the epitamy of what I thought SF life would be. As I write this I am looking out on the intersection of 24th and Bryant.
This section of the Mission is wonderfully eclectic. Every class and color can and will walk by within any 15 minute time frame. This gives way to an internal prayer that I have not known before. It is a prayer for the city that I don't yet understand. I see emptiness and loss of hope in the faces that walk by, but yet I see a longing for something just out of reach.
Across from me sits a gay couple that are very chatty. I've enjoyed listening to them plan their day and being included in their lives with simple smiles and hello's. My heart goes out to them, not because they're gay, but because I want them to know My Jesus. My dad has always said that the only Jesus most people will ever meet walks around everyday in leather souled shoes. Today I hope they see Jesus through a guy wearing flip flops and ripped up jeans.
There is a little girl running around, her father says she's 13 months. She just hugged my leg and played with the umbrella by the door getting me slightly wet. My prayer is for her. That she know Jesus during her life and that she see him even today at 13 months old. My prayer is for her parents who obviously love her very very much. She seems to bring so much joy to their lives, maybe they see Jesus in her.
I have placed myself far away from the fire because I wanted to be in the corner to work on my book, I wrote a few pages but I am consumed with these people. Hipsters, Bohemians, disfunctional families, beautiful families, color, and differing family roles all seem to make up this little world within a world.
All around me there is talk, talk of real estate, bio medicine, very little politics, except the occasional Bush bashing which I heartedly partake in.
This place is apparently larger than I thought, I've been here for an hour and a half and people are leaving I never saw come in, or was I too consumed with myself to notice.
This place intrigues me, I'll come back, I wish it was everyday, but at least once a week. Hopefully this prayer within me can be birthed. Maybe this place can be a haven of peace for the city, I don't know, but I can dream.
And maybe just maybe someone saw Jesus today, I just hope someone saw him through a guy in flip flops and ripped up jeans.
4 comments:
Michael,
It was good to hang out with you at Sugarlump tonight. I'm inspired by your heart and fresh eyes to see the people all around us. We live in an amazing city filled with wonder at every corner. Your post reminds me of the eyes I once had. In a few paragraphs you've challenged me to see the people around me with eyes of goodness and hope. I'm priveldged to be part of your life, my friend.
So what have you got against the Unitarian-in-Chief, Mike?
LOL
"I think we do. We have different routes of getting to the Almighty," Bush said. "But I want you to understand, I want your listeners to understand, I don't get to get decide who goes to heaven. The Almighty God decides who goes to heaven and I am on my personal walk," he said.
John 14:6 notwithstanding.
Seriously Mike, it's good that you do not have that fundamentalist hang-up that shows contempt for a world trapped in sin and in need of Christ. How unfortunate it is that so many get such mixed up priorities. Seminaries have too many people concerned about theological jostling with one another and they lose sight of the grace and love in Christ Jesus, and the necessity of the Gospel's proclamation.
Instead of Liberty U. having the LUPD arrest those pro-Gay Rights protestors when they came on the college campus, they should have had students ready to shake their hands, conciliate them with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Our Lord saved his anger for the religious of his day, the Pharisees, and those who had the cup clean on the outside but not on the inside. He rebuked them for their hypocrisy as a "den of thieves" and a "brood of vipers." Yet he showed compassion and offered a message of forgiveness and redemption to those perceived as the dregs of society: the adulterer, the prostitute, the lepors and the poor. What should that tell us as Christians?
Well said Ryan, thank you for your kind words and your words of wisdom...I am thankful for you as a friend
Post a Comment