Just a quick post to mention a couple new blogs on my blogroll. They're both great reads.

First up is Justin Walters. He first commented on my blog when I mentioned People of Praise. A couple weeks ago he introduced himself to me. And then a couple days ago, while working on Emmaus Project, I realized that Justin was in the same industry as I. He fooled me with most of his recent posts being over-my-head philosophy and theology stuff.

My lifelong friend Abe Olson apparently has had a blog for a couple weeks and he didn't even tell me! OK, so I guess I should follow my Technorati a bit more studiously. Abe's got some great insights into technology as well as all the fascinating stuff he has been studying in school. He's come a long way from the FFTV Times.

Just a reminder to the avid reader that this is not the only place that I blog (if I ever actually decide to write something). I have a couple posts rolling around in my head for my inReview.net Blog such as a bit about the new delirious? DVD, a documentary I watched this past weekend, and a Red Bull exhibit. So get that page on your Google Reader too.

For me, this weekend is one huge celebration of life. Many of my brothers and sisters in Christ are coming to town for the People of Praise covenent making. Myself and a handful of people are making the covenant, many of which I know well. It's going to be great to have many special people in town to celebrate, including my sister. It's so exciting to have many great friends who I am going to live the rest of my life with.

Also, packed into this weekend is also a wedding of a couple friends from the high school days. I hope it's a great celebration, and if you have a chance, pray for Ryan and Anne because they have been sick for the last couple days. It wouldn't be fun to have a wedding when feeling under the weather. Ohh, and praying for good weather is always a good idea too for a wedding.

Today's readings from the Roman Catholic liturgy brought home something I've been thinking about for the past couple days. Here's what Jesus said in Matthew 7:

Hear me, all of you, and understand. Nothing that enters one from outside can defile that person; but the things that come out from within are what defile.

From within people, from their hearts, come evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly. All these evils come from within and they defile.

It reminds me of what Dan Haseltine of Jars of Clay said about Tuesday's release, Good Monsters. For the cover story of CCM, he explained:

[Good Monsters is about the process of] maturing in a person's life, coming to grips with incredible good and incredible evil in the same body and being willing to share the bad parts and the good parts with others in the community.

This rings true in my life because the world of Christian community is exactly what I am joining. The past couple days we have been moving into a brand new house. With this move, we have about thirty people living within a block of each other. We're working on bringing "a new way to live" to the University of Minnesota campus. Central to our life is large amounts of common space and having as many daily meals as possible together. We have morning prayer and evening prayer. And we try to keep our lives on a common schedule.

This, I suppose, is a very radical form of community because we keep almost everything in common. But in a couple weeks, I will be joining a larger community. In two weeks I will be giving my life to Christian community. I will say that I love the people in the People of Praise so much that I am willing to bind my life with theirs. There is no fear that I will no like it or not want to be a part of it later in life; its exciting to be a part of the move of God's spirit.

Is there risks? Yes. Is it going to be easy? No. But all of us are "good monsters", are not perfect, but are still OK with that. The editor of CCM said in response to Dan's comments, "I'm certainly not mature enough to intentionally live my life out in community with the kind of humility, gentleness, and risk Dan's talking about. But I aspire to it." I'm not mature in many ways, but I'm deciding to live my life with others for good and bad.

Tonight it took me over two hours to get home.

As most know, I usually take the MetroTransit Hiawatha Light Rail line to and from work. Today was no exception, although I was very disconcerted when no trains showed up between 5:20 and 5:40 at my stop (not even going in the other direction).

Finally, about then, they said that the trains were not travelling down the middle section of the line. I've seen trains be shutdown before, and usually they are fairly quick to bring buses in to reroute people, but for some reason the official word on the platform is terribly slow to get out. I mean, whenever there is a problem, I always have to wait at least 20 minutes before they even tell me why a train isn't coming.

After a train finally came and took us northbound, we got to the part where the buses were to come. And sure enough, there were three buses there within 10 minutes, which was a great response. The MetroTransit employee who was there told us that someone had been killed while trying to cross in front of a train. That's too bad. Twenty minutes later, the bus drove by the scene of the accident, and there was certainly a ton of emergency vehicles. If i could see better, I would tell you about the scene, and although I couldn't see anything terribly wrong (just all blocked off), most of the other passengers could.

Now that I'm home, I now read that a 30-something man on a bike was hit by the train while trying to cross the intersection. As the MetroTransit employee said to us a Fort Snelling, it's another reminder not to try to race the train. This is the third fatal accident on MetroTransit's only light rail line, the first one not involving a motor vehicle, I believe.