Welcome, welcome, welcome, my friends. This is entry one in the Reed family's second blog. Like that first blog-- The Reeds in Liberia (you can access it from our links area), we intend this site to be a place where we can regularly update you with the current events of our lives as we go about our business, as well as give you a place to respond and interact. We of course will be using email as well, but this blog is an ongoing journal of sorts, and we will feel free to use it to observe, celebrate, complain, spin, and give you an inner glimpse of life from our perspective across the waves. If the past is any indication of the future, "we" means "me"--Bob Reed-- 95% of the time. But every so often, Renita, Hannah, and Noah will chime in with an offering.
If you are new to this site, you might ask, "why in the world would I be interested in the Reeds as they 'go about their business?' After all, who cares?"
Well that's exactly the kind of question I love.
Call this blog an experiment. Call it testimony. Call it evidence.
If you are at all like me, you wonder about the nature of things. You are not so smug as to think you have it all figured out, nor have you uncovered all the rocks under which truth dwells. Even if you are, like I am, deeply devoted to to a particular faith or philosophical orientation, you may acknowledge, as I do, that your devotion is regularly tested by your perceptions of reality.
This blog is an experiment in devotion-testing. My particular faith explicitly, implicitly and logically guides me to a certain way of doing and being, that I spend my time and my life consistently with the implications of my faith.
This blog is a testimony, for better or worse, of the kinds of things that happen when a family continues to say"Let's take what we say we believe to the next level of action." To testify is to bear witness; affirm as fact or truth; to declare, profess, or acknowledge openly. Our goal is to share our lives as openly and honestly as we can.
And so, this blog hopefully will be evidence. Evidence not only that humans can be increasingly successful at living true to the logical implications of their beliefs, but evidence of something more. Hopefully, if we pay attention--all of us who wonder-- will see evidence that something greater than our faithfulness or even "logical consistency" is here. Hopefully, if we pay attention, we will see evidence that something greater than our work, or ourselves, or even what we smugly call truth is here.
As I say, it's an experiment.
In the book of the Hebrew prophet Malachi, we are told that God is angry. God's people are not taking Him seriously. They are not being logically consistent with the implications of their stated beliefs. They give meagerly to His works. They do not push themselves beyond their levels of comfort. Their spiritual leaders are corrupted by greed. They do not understand the spiritual discipline of sacrifice. So God, understanding that unbelief is at the heart of their hypocrisy, tells them something remarkable. He makes a deal. He says, "Put me to the test. Live it like you say you believe it," He says, "and see if I don't show up." God apparently loves a good experiment.
I believe in God, and I believe He works like this. When we show up, He shows up. Hence this blog. Let's see if the Reeds are just whistling in the wind, or if they are whistling in the Wind.
Let's see if He shows up.
Some members of the Reed family, four weeks ago in Liberia. Standing: Renita (holding Little Renita), Hannah, Noah and Yers Trooly. Sitting are Eastman and Trokon.
