This week we are celebrating Journey's birthday. Six years ago, a small group of friends took a chance on building a faith community led not by people but by God. They put aside their own egos and needs and did their best to follow the path of love. This week in Refractions, we are looking back at six years of radical inclusion, embracing imperfection and providing safe community. Finally we reach 2010, when we celebrated our faith community's birthday at a roller skating rink!

This week we are celebrating Journey's birthday. Six years ago, a small group of friends took a chance on building a faith community led not by people but by God. They put aside their own egos and needs and did their best to follow the path of love. This week in Refractions, we are looking back at six years of radical inclusion, embracing imperfection and providing safe community. Four years later, Journey has moved out of the YMCA and into the Warehouse. Here are some photos from our picnic in 2009, held in the Warehouse parking lot and featuring guest musician Sara Hickman.

This week we are celebrating Journey's birthday. Six years ago, a small group of friends took a chance on building a faith community led not by people but by God. They put aside their own egos and needs and did their best to follow the path of love. This week in Refractions, we are looking back at six years of radical inclusion, embracing imperfection and providing safe community. Continuing our look back at the really early days, here is a video from our first anniversary picnic on that very wet day in July 2005 -- the closing hymn, "Spirit in the Sky."

This week we are celebrating Journey's birthday. Six years ago, a small group of friends took a chance on building a faith community led not by people but by God. They put aside their own egos and needs and did their best to follow the path of love. This week in Refractions, we are looking back at six years of radical inclusion, embracing imperfection and providing safe community. Here are some photos from our first anniversary picnic on a very wet day in July 2005.

This week we are celebrating Journey's birthday. Six years ago, a small group of friends took a chance on building a faith community led not by people but by God. They put aside their own egos and needs and did their best to follow the path of love. This week in Refractions, we are looking back at six years of radical inclusion, embracing imperfection and providing safe community. Here are some photos from our first picnic, held not long after Journey's creation in 2004.

Cold, hard, grey concrete bearing the marks of its past lives, passed lives
Circular red rust stains from the round feet of the machines that manufactured computer chips
Graceful curved lines and white hand-painted letters forming words from the 2007 prayer vigil labyrinth
Rigid, perpendicular 2-inch tape residue dividing the room into quadrants from a Bible study exercise
Brown, black, yellow, red, pink, and florescent purple tree roots painted over most of the room that represent the human family as one from a worship service
The yellow brick road from the 2009 women’s retreat representing our journey through life.

The Journey floor bears the marks of its past lives, passed lives
Some are worn, no longer shiny bright
Some are splotchy, haphazard 
Some are visible only under black light
Some are broken and chipped, scratched by pushed furniture 
Some are painted over with new lines, new lives
These marks are what make this floor:
Beautiful. 

How magnificent it must be for God to have made a creation that chooses;

            Chooses to love,
            Chooses to share,
            Chooses to care,
            Chooses to embrace each other and the creative force.

Humans carry this creative force within them;

            Creating poetry,
            Creating sculpture,
            Creating music,
            Recreating the creative force from which they came.

And yet so static are our human creations, just a shadow of the creative force;

            Often lovely and yet small,
            Often fixed and unchanging,
            Often beautiful yet unable to choose,

A reflection of the unfathomable creative force of the universe.

God, the entity, the being, the thing that created
That set it off with the Big Bang if that’s really how it started.

We retain a connection to that creator
We feel a pull to understand and describe
It started with myth and stories of creation
It evolved into science and religion

Science attempts to explain
Religion attempts to nurture the connections

Does God/entity/being/creator care if we worship him/her/it?
Perhaps our striving to connect feeds something to him/her/it.
Perhaps worship feeds only us
Perhaps that is enough.

Must we understand the unknowable
Accept what is and see how it turns out

From Psalm 107, a part of the Hebrew Songbook

Thank God. She is so good! Her love never runs out.
All of you who have been set free by God – tell everyone!
Tell the people around you how God freed you from oppression,
And then rounded you up from all over the place,
From the four winds, from the seven seas.

Some of you have wandered for years in deserts,
Looking but not finding a good place to live and rest.
Half-starved, parched with thirst,
Staggering and stumbling, on the brink of exhaustion.
And when you were desperate – you called out to God.
She got you out in the nick of time;
She put your feet on a beautiful road
That took you straight to a good place to make your life.
So, thank God for her marvelous love for you!
For her miracle mercy to the children she loves!

Some of you were locked in a dark cell,
Cruelly confined behind bars,
A hard sentence, and your hearts so heavy,
And not a soul in sight to help.
And when you were desperate – you called out to God.
She got you out in the nick of time;
She led you out of your dark, dark cell,
Broke open the jail and led you out.
So, thank God for her marvelous love for you!
For her miracle mercy to the children she loves!
She shattered the heavy jailhouse doors,
And snapped the prison bars like matchsticks!

Some of you were feeling sick because of how life had turned out,
Your bodies feeling the effects of how you were living.
You couldn’t even stand the sight of food.
You were so miserable you thought you'd be better off dead.
And when you were desperate – you called out to God.
She got you out in the nick of time;
She spoke the word that healed you,
The words that pulled you back from the brink of death.

So, thank God for her marvelous love for you!
For her miracle mercy to the children she loves!
Give gifts to God, as acts of thanks;
Tell the world what she’s done – sing – celebrate! 

Lord, enable me and empower me with a love

that is willing to approach the unapproachable,

to touch the untouchable, to love the unlovable,

and to accomplish the impossible in your name.