Friends and Family!


Greetings and good tidings to all! Just wanted to throw out a hey, hello, how's it going to all the best people in the world, and well-wishings and such.

I wanted to shoot you all a little catch-up email about life and all the good and crazy things I've been learning this winter. Even though I would greatly enjoy hibernating under an electric blanket for these wintery months, God's been good to me. It's been a good winter. Since leaving Tech in May and getting a real job (assistant vineyard manager, yes, Michael has held a job for months!) back in charlottesville, I've been getting some big life lessons from the Big Guy. Now college was good, and I learned a lot about myself and my mind and the world- especially how people work. But in the last 8 months I've been given different lectures... and all the good lectures begin with a good question. I think without realizing it, we as people ask ourselves our whole lives "What is real beauty?" Yup, sappy, sure. Until you take a closer look at it and see it in full shocking splendor. As Christians, our faith in our God is beauty. It is radical, it is painful usually, it confronts, it is alive. What we believe is ridiculous and I mean to embrace it. In May, I left the university and thought I was done with school. The past 8 months I have been in another ethereal classroom with God as the lecturer, schooling me in beauty.

But why this question? Because it transcends all of our other questions. As a dude, I ask myself "What does being a man of God really mean?" Or even down to "what does this life account for? What am I doing here, really? What's my purpose?" Right?! What is real beauty? So into my life comes a podcast by a guy named Peter Kreeft. Kreeft is an apologist/philosopher/writer/professor at boston college... I heard about him in college but I finally found a keynote lecture of his last week and said to myself "alright big guy, tell me things." The name of the lecture is "shocking beauty" and Kreeft sums up what I've been thinking about in the last couple months. So, it's not that I find all answers in this guy, but he sparks something great that reminds me of the fire of life that we are all a part of in Christ. I was thinking of summing it up a little bit and share what I love about it, but I'll just share the lecture and let God speak. I love hearing what others think about the beauty of our faith so I loved this blip, and if you guys get a chance I'd love to hear stories of what the fire is doing in your lives.

The lecture is about an hour and twenty minutes, but if you get a chance listen to the whole thing, preferably in one sitting with nothing else going on. And if you get another minute, I decided to start a blog at
retroset.blogspot.com
with the purpose of connecting the fires and connecting the dots. So please! come comment and share.

So here is the mp3, and the link online... http://www.peterkreeft.com/audio/36_shocking-beauty.htm .



Love you all like crazy- more than you know, and thanks for reading and listening.
Michael