BOLO

One of my favorite visual art serial compositions recently introduced me to the term "BOLO," it means: "Be On the Look Out." The term came back to me this morning as I was, once again, doing some soul searching on the purpose of Welcome to Love.

The foundation of Welcome to Love is, obviously, love, universal, accepting, transforming, agape love. We seek it for ourselves and as Christians are called to share it with others. This is the calling that drives this place, sharing love with others in a transforming and purposeful way. The purpose, love, is clear but the method has not been so apparent.

I'd like to share a little bit from my journal this morning:

"The trouble here, kids, is that the stories that really matter are the ones that are lost and forgotten. They are not interesting to us because they are our own stories. They are boring. We cannot see the extraordinary in the ordinary. We're afraid to seem ridiculous or overly joyous in the simplicity. The truth is that every moment truly is a miracle, a gift. Every person who walks through my life matters. They have a story, a dream, and a purpose. Each story is precious and each life has a plan. I don't have to know it but I have to believe it and be moved, be changed, by it."

The general trouble is that we do not recognize anything extraordinary in the ordinary. This is what drives us, drives me, to boredom, depression, fantasy and escapism.There are wells of extraordinary hidden beneath dusty and ordinary covers. Behind the fading paint of the neighbors house, there is the beauty of humanity that we have come to regard as mundane. We are surrounded by need, purpose, beauty, drama, and life but have dismissed all of it in favor of canned drama pouring out of our television sets and none more guilty than I.

Though the method has not been fully born yet, perhaps a small foot has emerged from the cloud: the need to recognized the extraordinary in the ordinary. So I issued a BOLO of sorts to myself to watch for these. To pull my head out of my dreams and see the dreams in the people. It is my prayer that each little extraordinary-in-the-ordinary "sighting" will build into a lifestyle of loving "ordinary" people for that which God sees as extraordinary.

As a good faith payment, here's a gratuitious little "sighting" for you:

I've noticed that cleaning has a miraculous effect on my well-being. It's catharic, useful, can last as long as you want it to last, gives you a wonderful sense of accomplishment when you are done, gives you a wonderful opportunity to reflect on the purpose of your blog, and as a bonus it makes things clean! I cleaned my grimy range for 2 hours yesterday and was in a good mood the rest of the day!