Thursday Dinner

Well, it was a great night. We had all been feeling like we needed to read the Scriptures again, a whole book. So 19 of us sat down to read/listen to the Gospel Of John.

Melissa made a great dinner-- potato soup and some hearty bread.

We read. Leo started us off.

Some memories: Samantha read quite a bit.

Leo held a balloon while he read, so Katelyn would have something to play with when she came up to him.

MatthewHighfill, Charley Reed and Keith Reed teamed up to read John 21. We sometimes think youth don't care, aren't paying attention. On the way back to his house, Matthew told me:
"It's amazing how Jesus appeared to his disciples, and how He still does it today." Robert and Matthew want us to do it once a month, and it strikes me that if we do, we will read each Gospel three times. Something in our lives would change.

Somewhere around John 9, we served soup and bread. We ate together while we continued to be bathed in the Word.

After we finished, we had communion, served by Keith and Charley.

Then we sat around for a while, loving each other.

Leo stays the night Thursdays. It strikes me how good it would be on so many levels if a bunch of us lived together. The trick is constant spiritual formation and common work; the very things that, in a variety of forms, make a family. The very things that so many who clamor for community ignore. It's a nice thing to talk about-- harder to pray as much as necessary, harder to welcome the difficult people, harder even to put your back into work.

Leo and Sara want us to make a retreat where we go for 6 days and read Scripture 12 hours each day. You'll read the whole Bible that way. Could we rest on the 7th day?