BitterSweetLife

And We're Leaving Our Downtown Loft for Another Downtown Loft

This week we’re packing up for a move ten minutes further north, which puts us just outside of “downtown Kansas City” proper. That’s cool with me, since I’ll finally qualify for gym membership at the North KC Community Center, the most fully-featured fitness club within a 50 mile radius. As well, we’ll be closer to my seminary and the high school where I teach. We may also get to stop paying taxes to “Kansas City”—money they obviously don’t spend on the roads, which look like the surface of the moon anytime we get an inch of rain. Plus the new place has some extra amenities like grass—as in, you know, sod.

We’re moving to a better place—in terms of square footage, at least—but the parting will be bittersweet. Lindsay and I have lived here for most of the first five years of our marriage, and we’ve had some wonderful times. Events not related to pillow talk have included: decorating the place together, exploring downtown, inviting lots of friends over, and sharing conversations (both naïve and wiser) about how our life would be shaped.

Of course, these walls have witnessed some huge blow-ups too. Angry diatribes. Slammed doors. Discouragement and angst over a remarkably diverse portfolio of life issues. Not to mention the incidental excitement over smashed car windows, pot-smoking neighbors, and a painful lack of vegetation.

So when you move, what gets taken and what gets left behind?

Aidan has been throwing a bewildering array of objects into a gigantic suitcase that is taller than he is (claiming they are his “favorite things”—since when is the coffeemaker his favorite thing?). Apparently his enthusiasm for the new adventure is unbounded, and I’d like to join him.

Are we entering a new era now? Are Christ’s mysterious goals for our lives closer to materializing? They must be. We are.

Moving is an apt metaphor for sanctification, is what I’m saying. I’m nerving myself to claim that we are moving “further up and further in”—deeper into the purposes of God. We have learned some things (albeit things we will relearn periodically, probably) and we’re getting older in Christ.

Who’s to say a change in spatial location can’t reflect a new era of life transformation?

In my mind's eye I can see our new home as a place where I spend less time getting mad at life and more time getting acquainted with Humility. I can see a place where Lindsay, Aidan and I play like kids, all three of us, in a beautifully biblical sense. I can see a place where seriously good conversations happen, and where new stories get written. I can see new friends, and better old ones. I can see brave plans being made and carried out. I can see new paths branching out from the concrete slab at the front door. I can see a place where the taste of Christ's glory is in my heart and on my tongue more often.

Are you listening, God? I'm counting on you to bankroll this.