i'm starting to feel like the only thing i blog about is church

...but i feel like it is more interesting to read about than, say, the hours per week i spend doing organic chemistry or reading paradise lost.

anyway, i was at the early church today and i knew it would be an awesome morning as soon as i stepped through the screen door and heard jason singing Farther Along. (i was completely right. it was an absolutely beautiful church service).

things that i loved this morning:

ron's prayer: help us to hear Your word so that we can be changed.
the paper globes hanging from the ceiling, like multi-colored jellyfish.
an understanding of the necessity of silence - the way that we had time this morning to sit in silence and to greet our neighbors.
the old man with filmy eyes and damp fingers who grabbed my hands when i went to the counter to get coffee.
little children; the boy who played the drum while lucas was singing.
the trisagion remix (love, love, love. holy immortal, have mercy on us).
walking into the service this morning and hearing 'farther along.'
jason praying for oppressed women.
someone prayed for syria during the Prayers of the People.
conversation during lunch with an EMU grad who had taken classes with some of my professors
connections with lessons from my cross-cultural - martin said that we can take risks because we are not afraid of death. he said, i don't want to change what Jesus said, but maybe we can read it like 'You cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven unless you are like an adolescent.' 
the thought that our waiting for a future redemption should be something full of hope.
singing 'I bind my heart this tide.' mmm hymns.
all of the men with beards. they make me smile; i think because i feel like i'm stepping back in time or something...
beautiful people all around me.