A good weekend

Most people, when they say "good" as in "X is soooo good!", mean that it tastes good or that they like it or it sits well with them. The word "good" has come to mean "agreeable." But I like to think "good" has a deeper meaning, as in when we discuss God's goodness. There is a real kind of good, just like there is a real kind of love.

This weekend was a good weekend -- real good.

Saturday, I went along with the Microsoft interns to hike Paradise for a few hours on Mt. Rainier. A more surreal landscape I have never seen. The place was fire and ice. One moment you would be tromping a path through green grass and meadowland, edged in by trees and rocks, and the next you would be slogging in spring snow. We took a shortcut across Skyline trail by sliding down a glacier ("glissading") on plastic bags. (What a ride that was!) And there is true beauty up there; at the apex of the trail, I looked to the north and saw Mt. Rainier's summit towering overhead, capped in a halo of lenticular clouds; I looked to the south and saw great toothy peaks slowly descending toward Oregon, Mt. Hood towering above them in the distance, and to its West Mt. Saint Helen's, a grim reminder of the awesome power that God has locked up inside these mighty vaulted domes.

That short hike left me thirsting for adventure. Cue Sunday.

I decided for the first time that I'd go to church. So, I looked on the Foursquare website and found a nearby place called Lake Sammamish Foursquare ("Lake Samm"). The sermon focus was on Psalm 84:5-7:

5 Blessed are those whose strength is in you,
who have set their hearts on pilgrimage.
6 As they pass through the Valley of Baca,
they make it a place of springs;
the autumn rains also cover it with pools.
7 They go from strength to strength,
till each appears before God in Zion.

According to the speaker, there are three characteristics of pilgrimage -- feasting, expecting God, and adventure. That third one struck me as most applicable to the here and now, for me. He said one thing that really stuck out to me: "When you hear a voice calling you to adventure, you know it's God if your first thought is 'that's impossible!'" And how true it is! The truly awesome power of God is that, by enriching the person with his power and wisdom and by guiding them with his Word, he can make anybody able to do anything he asks -- even the impossible. We worship the God of impossibilities: the God who made Israel's greatest hero out of a murderer with a speech impediment; the God who tamed hungry lions for the night that Daniel spent with them; the God who likewise extinguished every scorching flame that licked at Daniel's three friends that refused to worship Nebuchadnezzar's idol, preserving their life; the God who made a virgin to give birth; the God who raised His Son from death and once for all conquered it, causing death itself to die. And this God calls us to adventure.

So, after the service, I started my day's adventure by meeting people. The first was a new hire at Microsoft -- it was his first Sunday there, too. Then, the three guys who sit outside the service as "greeters." Then, Sandy, who is going on 28 and spent most of her 20's in the army as a spy (so she says). Then I lost track. So, having nothing on my agenda for the evening, I decided to meet up in Crossroads park with the "Focus" group, which is the name for the 18-28 year olds who meet in the park to barbeque, pray, and worship. And I made friends, socialized, and threw around a frisbee. Even better, Troy, the church's worship leader, led us in worship with his guitar (Dave, I think?, was on the drum) out on the grass. Worshipping outside like that fills you with feelings of freedom, and reminds you how many people are actually open to listening to a group of people praise the Lord. No one told us to take it back to church; it seemed to brighten up the few people around us.

I digress.

The session at the park ended with a devotion and prayer time, and it was the kind of fellowship that I've really been needing lately. As people gathered up to go, Sandy and Kate (Cait? There are eleven spellings at least, and I don't recall which is right) were talking about going swing dancing. Not knowing enough about swing dancing to really talk about it, I asked Sandy "what would you do if I did this..." and held out my hand like you do in Lindy. She recognized it, and instantly I had to come swing dancing. Having been adventurous all day, of course I accepted!

And that was refreshing and novel, too. I'd never gone to a real Swing club, and found it was just like swing-dancing at school. By the end of the night, I'd remembered enough of how to dance the Lindy Hop that I could close my eyes and (roughly) lead my partner. I'd forgotten how much fun it is!

About 12:30, the last dance was over, and I and my new friends went to a burger joint to get ice cream (think In-N-Out, only sketchy), where a drunk and homeless native american man asked us to pray for him. It was awkward, and we did, and we suspected it was a front for begging, but I trust that God will hear that prayer for old Lakota who's scared of dying out on the streets tonight. You could pray for the man, too, if you felt the calling to.

I think that many people might consider such a Sunday mundane or ordinary. But this Sunday, and this weekend, brought me closer to God, through awe of His majesty and fellowship with Him and His people. I needed this, and it was good.