Happy Valentine's Day from Seattle!

Yes, it's Valentine's Day and I'm in Seattle, writing from a hotel room only a few blocks away from the legendary Space Needle.

I embarked on this crazy adventure on Sunday after recovering from a crazy breakfast-for-dinner Pajama Party the night before. Before boarding the plane in Burbank, I followed the suggestion of one of my young adults and bought myself some Zebra Popcornopolis popcorn and discovered that it was indeed as delicious as I thought it would be. My flight to Oakland passed pleasantly uneventfully, and once I landed there, I procured some Fenton's ice cream just so that I could photograph it, thereby proving to my young adults that it is a real place, not someplace Pixar made up for the hit movie, Up.

As I was enjoying said ice cream, I looked up and spotted a smattering of much-missed PUC-Ites--Jessica, Geoffrey, Cameron, and the new chaplain, Laffit Cortes. I was delighted to see them, and laughed with them at the crazy coincidence that we had wound up on the same flight. They were lucky to get on that flight, as it was oversold, but they made it. Arriving at Sea-Tac, I took the city's amazing public transportation system to the center of the city, meeting a very nice couple recently returned from Indonesia along the way. I was pleasantly surprised when I got to my cheapo hotel on Sixth Avenue and discovered that the bed is comfy and unlike the naysayers on hostelworld.com, it does actually have hot water.

Once I had checked in, I walked over to the Westin to check out the space we would all be meeting in for our gathering, the One Project, and to see who I would bump into in the lobby. I wasn't disappointed; one of my former youth from Yountville, Gilbert, totally took me by surprise and we spent a good time catching up on each other's lives from the past few years.

Because I wasn't staying at the fancy-pants Westin, which provided breakfast, I scoped out the McDonald's between the two on the way. I had the surreal experience of eating oatmeal with a spiny-looking fish staring me down. That was surreal. Over at the Westin, I also had the pleasantly surreal experience of meeting one of the acquisitions editors for the Review and Herald, which reminded me that not all hope is lost on getting that book of mine published.

Then began the first batch of One Project meetings. They were very clear about it being a gathering, not a conference or a symposium. The room's arrangement reflected that--instead of straight rows of chairs, there was a platform in the center of the room with tables all around it. The people at these tables also reflected an incredible cross section of the Adventist church--men, women, high school students, college students, pastors, random GC officials, publishing house representatives, writers, church members of all professions, of all races assembled in the name of Jesus.

The music chosen for the gathering pulled from the experience of this diverse group--both hymns and contemporary music were represented there. The first day's meetings took different focal points in Adventist history--1844, 1888, and 1957--and applied the lessons learned about how the church handled Jesus' legacy to the here and now. Each speech was followed by a half hour discussion period, which gave everyone a chance to explore these ideas and discuss the messiness of their applications.

To my surprise, half the people at my table were from cities less than half an hour away from my church in Southern California. So, I enjoyed lunching with them at Il Fornaio as a sort of celebration of the start of what looks like some beautiful friendships. It's a strange world when you travel 1,000 miles to meet people who live less than 50 away.

After the afternoon batch of meetings, one of my PUC friends and I headed over to explore Pike Place. We probably spent over an hour there, exploring the fruit stands and a vintage print shop, and, of course, taking a look at the original Starbucks. Stopping at the Westin to pick up my belongings, I found out that he had been there earlier in the day already--and hadn't said a word about it the whole time! I teased him about it, and he said, "Well, I wanted to give you a chance to tell the story." I'm not sure I would have been that gracious a traveling companion. Over dinner at a great Indian restaurant, we swapped stories about PUC and about ministry, which was the sort of camaraderie I've been missing since my schedule started isolating me from non-work people for the last few months.

Later that night, my colleages and I met at the Westin to work on planning the Pheron Retreat, a Young Adult retreat the weekend of March 30-April 1. After getting the big blocks away, though, we fell to talking. The conversation fascinated me, as it exhibited an honest authenticity that we rarely achieve back at home in the context of the various rooms in the conference office where we meet. We probably shot the breeze for an hour or more after we had finished the business of the meeting itself.

This morning, the discussions on doctrine and mission really moved me. One of the emerging themes of this whole event has been of trying to embrace Adventism as it describes God, rather than as it distinguishes it from other religions. This concept, as far as I'm concerned, is the hope of the church's survival--being Adventist for the sake of being Adventist leads to isolation, while being Adventist for the sake of highlighting various aspects of God's character will keep it in a state of beautiful, dynamic, loving service to the world around it. Just like Christ would. Food for thought, at least.

Speaking of food, over the lunch break a group of PUC-Ites and I made the obligatory walk out to the Space Needle and the Experience Music Project, laughing and chattering as we went. On our way back from lunch in Pioneer Square (at least, I think that's what it was), we were puzzling over a crazy-looking place called the Wexley School for Girls. Amused by our bewilderment, one of the men inside invited us in to have a look around; it's a marketing agency. But I've never seen an office like this. Their meeting room has a white grand piano converted to a table as its centerpiece. Their main office floor is a mini-golf course, with workstations next to each hole. One of the executive offices is a lifeguard tower. On one wall, there are framed, voided checks. I asked the man what that was all about. He said, "At the end of their first three months working here, we offer everyone $3,000 that they can take and leave, no questions asked. If they decide to stay, we void that check and frame it to remind everyone what they gave up to be here."

That amazed me. These voided checks framed a beautifully-painted mission statement: "We are brave crusaders. We are wildly successful and selfless with a fanatical commitment to our work and to each other." As my friends and I walked out of there, we reflected that perhaps we had learned more about good ministry and Christian community from this random encounter than from all of our meetings, as good as they were.

The gathering concluded with an impassioned speech on Christian community and with communion. I don't know why, but I got really emotional about this particular communion. Perhaps it was the collective experience of the two days, or the hope of seeing a movement within the Adventist church that is offering a focal point that leads to beautiful unity rather than eating each other alive, or a personal reaction to being reminded of the love of Jesus, who is always with me, but it was powerful.

Tomorrow, as soon as I get off the plane, I'm going back to work. But I will return refreshed by a greater hope and love than I could have possibly encountered in the routine ways I have come to spend my weekday life, even my days off. Sure, I'm spending Valentine's Day single and alone in a city far away from home, but in many ways, this is one of the best Valentine's Days I've ever had, if not the best.

I wish you all a Happy Valentine's Day, full of the love of Christ.

Two Two-Day Adventures

Once upon a time, I was a good little blogger who actually wrote to you about one adventure before embarking on the next one. In the spirit of those good old days, I am condensing the last two before I go to Seattle next week.

Sore from karate and Sabbath morning's working demands, I took off in my car on the 14th of January, unwinding to the apostle Paul's monotonous voice on my audio Bible. City gave way gradually to mountains, then to desert, where the clear blue sky meets the dusty earth. I had been irate about the regional pastor's retreat I was headed to because I felt like my friends in teaching needed it far more. However, it did me great good to see my colleagues that evening at the Doral Princess Resort in Cathedral City as we roasted our beloved Regional Director, Gerard Kiemeney, on his 60th birthday.

On Sunday, I found myself growing more comfortable with a few of my colleages that I don't see as often--Mitch Williams from Downey, the Paschals, the Fredericos, and others. There were twelve or more of us all crowding up a local Indian restaurant after the morning batch of meetings by Dr. Arlene Taylor. I have waxed poetic about this woman's work in a previous letter, and I've got to say, the review was incredibly helpful and refreshing. Back at the hotel, I swam with some of the families with young children as I watched the sun set, a magnificent purple tapestry.

After the evening meeting, I felt compelled to go to the prayer room Miriam (one of only two other female pastors working in our region) had set up. There were many stations, including a self-portrait in clay, communion, artwork, and various others. It was the clay station that got me the most, though. I found myself spending a long time at it, breaking the clay into tiny, tiny little pieces. So much of the last few months has been about brokenness. Then, slowly, I started to put them together, constantly having to go back and reattach different little pieces, until it was a beautiful mosaic of a flower. God can take my brokenness, I believe, and make me into something more beautiful and whole than I was before, if I let Him.

I returned to the room, a little more at peace than I had been before, and gleefully indulged in girl talk with my room mate--one of the young adults from my church. The next day, I spent a delightful time with my relatives out in Desert Hot Springs. It was so good to see Grandma, so sweet to spend time with my cousins. I played Mario-Kart with them in their room , and they were very gentlemanly about my lack of skills. There was a cheerful, teasing fun to the whole thing and it made me wish I could make it out to the desert to visit them, my aunt and uncle and my grandmother more often.

A mere three days later, I was on the road again. Or rather, in the air--Thursday of that week, my father and I took off for the Ralph Carmichael concert we'd been preparing for since before Christmas. Landing in Oakland felt like coming home, and it was surreal to have to rent a car out of there. We made good enough time, though, that we were able to have lunch with my great grandmother in Yountville before attending to concert business. Even though she would be there for the concert, the meal actually gave us time to talk, which we relished.

Arriving at the Napa Community Church for sound check, I was immediately impressed at the band's setup for the concert. I could tell it was going to be an incredible night. The choir was a motley mix of singers from the Napa church choir, people associated with Pleasant Hill, and singers from Christian Edition. The charts we sang were lively and rhythmically challenging. The real star, though, was the band--we could feel the floor beneath us vibrate from the great sound of the brass.

Between sound check and the concert itself, though, I was glad to greet and give well-wishes to Jim Pederson, for whose birthday the concert was organized. It was a joy to see both him and his family, and as I was greeting his daughter Lisa, I couldn't help but think about how fast time has gone. It seems like just yesterday Lisa was in high school, I was in Junior High, and Jim was the Napa pastor. Now, Lisa is out of school and married, I'm a pastor, and Jim is a conference president. In the fellowship hall where we were all feasting on Jim's scrumptious soup and Debbie's delicious desert, it was also strange to think that I'd been a youth pastor there only a year and a half ago, and so much had changed.

When it came time for the actual concert, it was as though time had been suspended. Did it last two minutes or two hours? The music was so rich, so energetic yet divine, that instead of it having timelessness, it was a music of timefulness. It was full of Ralph's collected life experience, full of the many different instruments lent to that singular purpose, full of the affection of the many attendees who had come to spend a good evening together, full of the Biblical and the film narratives that weave throughout Carmichael's work.

Later in the evening, I would enjoy the company of my mentors--Marvin Wray, Jim Lorenz, Roy Ice. At four the next morning, my father and I would be frantically heading towards the airport to get to work as dawn would cross the Los Angeles sky. Twenty four hours later, I would be holed up in my office, desperately trying to finish writing small group materials on the eve of our church's small group launch. Forty eight hours later, I would be crashing at home after the effort it had all cost.

But for that evening, while the band was playing, none of that mattered. The advice I needed from my mentors did not matter. The airport did not matter. The small groups materials did not matter. My own physical and mental limitations did not matter, because for a rare, beautiful moment of timefulness, all of us in the room were made one through the power of great music.

Two adventure of two days each--or rather, two nights. Two birthdays. One adventure about the hopeful future, and another about the joyous past. May you also be able to celebrate them both.