Allow me to Process...

Wow. The past three days have been that word. I wish I was a better writer so I could fully describe to you what I’ve experienced. I will try, but will only provide poor reflection at best. The richness of being in a room where Dan Allender speaks with passion on life is like trying to describe the sunset to someone who has never been to the ocean. Ok a little overtly dramatic but hopefully I got my point across!

I had 12 hours of class this week where I listened to Dan speak on faith, hope, and love, the title of the class. When I first heard of that title, it sounded lame, and I was not real excited about spending so much time on topics I had heard so many times. And I guess that is where the beauty had been all week for me; Dan’s ability to speak in a language that not only brings such depth and life to those words, but also his skill in bringing your own story and experiences into a head-on collision with them. I was completely captured by his exposition of what those three words really mean; how they touch every part of our life - past, present, and future. It was the opposite of reading a definition. It was like taking each word of a definition and defining those in experience and then constructing out of that a theme which best described what the word meant.

He drew out my emotions, some I hadn’t felt in some time and some I forgot I had. I was about ready burst as he led me down the road of pain and betrayal and madness and glory and redemption and the faces we have and the stories that shape who we have become. And again, all these words can only be experienced in the moment, in the context, like any great story. In the setting, the people, and the face and person of Dan. He is the only guy I have heard a girl say has a beautiful face where she was not talking about his attractiveness. It just looks like it has done a lot of life, seen darkness and joy in one experience after another. It is worn. It can quickly change to reveal a new expression that colors his speech. And it has exuded the passion of life and the Gospel for me this week.

The talks were not direct. He did not read his notes like the teacher going through a syllabus on the first day. The ideas were hard to understand, like Jesus and the parables he taught. You had to engage in the story he was telling and relate it to your own heartaches and disappointments and hopes and longing for reconciliation. Dan did not teach on what should be taught or what is more reputable for him and the school. He taught on his life, his story, the stories of so many broken people who have come to him in agony, hanging by a thread. It was life, not what we want life to be. It was more like listening to a song than a monologue. Hearing the beauty in the rhythm and the highs and lows that usually describe experience much better than words.

That was my week, put into words as best as I could in the time I have. Thanks for allowing me to process.