Pastor John Van Sloten

This is what makes me cry.  On a day when nothing seems to be moving fast with either the book or my level of sermon inspiration, I make this Arcade Fire/Biblical text connection.   In a new song called ‘City with no Children’ I hear, ”I feel like I’ve been living in a city with no children in it, a garden left for ruin by a millionaire inside a private prison,”  and the words just grab me… and I can’t move on.   I keep thinking “no children in the streets… no children in the streets.”  And the image of a ruined garden just hovers in my mind… the parallel to our ‘East of Eden’ world palpable.  So I head off into the Old Testament prophets, knowing that it’s there somewhere, and find these words from Jeremiah;

“For death has crept in through our windows
      and has entered our mansions.
   It has killed off the flower of our youth:
      Children no longer play in the streets,
      and young men no longer gather in the squares.”  Jeremiah 9:21, NLT

And I lose my breath for a moment… at God’s amazing parallels, at how he’s above time, and authors all truth, whispering it to prophets old and new. 

And then, after I come down from the mountain, a Google Alert surfaces with a link to a national news story on the book, and then I get an email request to come speak on the topic, and…  the beauty of it all is; in recent weeks I’ve been thinking about  how I need to  balance my day job/real calling and the book – that I really need to put my heart into continuing journey into the idea, developing it, growing it, and living it FIRST…  the rest will take care of itself. 

And so it does.