Greenblade - creation - faith - justice

Road Work Ahead

It's been sitting there for weeks - the highway department's sign that reads "Road Work Ahead." For a while there WAS road work and we were prepared for it, thanks to the sign. Then they finished that stretch and the road was clear but the sign remained. Then some road work started about a mile closer to campus, which gave the sign some meaning again. Then that work finished and the sign began to take on a kind of spiritual quality. It looked a little forlorn, sagged in the middle and listed a little to starboard. But it valiantly delivered its message: Road Work Ahead. I began to take it personally, as though it knew something I didn't. If the world is alive with God, after all, I don't see why the Holy Spirit can't work through abandoned traffic signs. 

In any case, the sign applies to Greenblade right now. We had been going along the same ... MORE

It's Been Three Years

Do you remember three years ago today? Katrina made landfall on August 29th. The weather was much as it is now; the students were back. Far away, a city, an entire coast, was drowning. Since that time other communities have been hard hit by natural disaster, but it was not the natural disaster that changed us. It was indifference, abandonment, and callous stupidity. Over these three years we have channelled our shock and passion into an awareness of the fragility of our lives as a community on the earth. Knowing that we can do little in the Gulf Coast, we have tried to do what we can where we are. (If you would like to review our journey at ECC, the blog is still available. Read from the bottom up.)

 

Three years later Greenblade is still at work. Following the interests and callings of the people who make it up, Greenblade now links and supports ... MORE

Thunderstorms

It has been quite the summer for storms. It seems every day a storm comes through, often moving quickly on its way to the coast. Quite often we get two or more storms in one day. I love it. My dog does not. She looks up into the sky toward the direction of the thunder and in her face I see the primal awe of the enormity of the earth. Then she finds a safe corner to be in to wait it out while I sit on the covered porch.

The clouds come in almost always from the west and move right across the back garden. Wind whips the trees into a frenzy, exploding the calm greens into a kaleidoscope of silvers from the underside of the leaves. Lightening cuts the sky and it is almost impossible not to count - one-hippopotamus, two-hippopotamus - to see how far away the center of the storm is. Then it ... MORE