God rest ye merry gentlemen
Let nothing you dismay
Remember Christ our Saviour
was born on Christmas day
To save us all from Satan’s power
when we were gone astray

Oh tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy
Oh tidings of comfort and joy

After Thanksgiving our folks
unpacked the manger scene
With Mary, Joseph, shepherds and
Three kings on bended knee
But left the manger empty
til we slept on christmas eve

And now my wife and child dream
of gifts beneath the tree
While I place in the manger
baby Jesus figurine
Sipping Christmas whiskey
wondering if I still believe…

Click here to download the MP3

This song, a live rendition of God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen by David Bazan with the first part of his song Harmless Sparks, has captivated me this Christmas. David Bazan is a prophet in most senses of the word. There is something about that last section that has resonated with me all this month as I struggle through my beliefs of Jesus, consumerism and culture. I spent a total of 25 minutes or so in stores to get a few items to put Rachel's present together, and that was enough to get me irritated at what Christmas has turned into.

At theStory this year we set up installations all around the space to inspire different reactions toward the season. Some were positive and others were negative. My favourite one was a wall splattered with Christmas store flyers with the message "Please take the Christ out of Christmas Now" on it taken from this post by Stupid Church People. We did have the whole post up there, but we thought it would be more poignant for just the one line. Joe did a post here with all the installations at Thinker Labs.

I've tried to respond properly through the last few weeks. In the end, Christmas day was great this year. Spent time with my family, taught them Settlers of Catan, and ate great food. Rachel and I made each other the exact same Christmas gift as each other without knowing it two years in a row. Our family Christmas with Rachel's side of the family is going to be on Saturday so I'm looking forward to all the great things, games, food and family. I could do this every Christmas over and over again, and just include more and more people all day long, I can't get enough of it. The more Christmas' I can have that are filled with those things, I think the more I'll be able to cheer up a bit more during this season. It reminds me that there is still good in this world, and that there is hope. It reminds me of Jesus and that he came into a messed up world of greed, selfishness, murder and still loved us.

A good friend of mine here in Sarnia, Barry Mielke, has been working relentlessly the past few months to put together an EP to be released in France with Red Plane Records. (the site is in French, so that is the translated link)

He then got my other friend, Darryl Silvestri, one of the guys who wrote me a song for my wedding to play some guitar and add vocals to his tracks. The result? One amazing CD that sounds a lot like the styles of Appleseed Cast, Explosions in the Sky and Mineral. The band name is Driving on City Sidewalks, and we'll be releasing the CD in Canada sometime in the new year if your interested.

All that to say. I took them on a 20 minute, involuntary, forced photo shoot today and here is what I came up with.

You have to love that there is a book called this.

How to Talk about Money Every Sunday: Without Talking About Money

Here is the caption.

Here's an innovative way to instill in your congregation the vital importance of generous giving ? without having to directly make financial pleas! With this collection of brief offering sentences touching on the themes of giving, offering, and sacrifice, each week your parishioners will read and hear what scripture says about this important topic. It's a practical worship resource that effectively, yet inoffensively, promotes truly biblical stewardship.

My friend was listening to CBC Radio and they were talking about Christmas. The one guy said that it's easier to spend money than time, which is why he thinks we've seen such a rise in shopping over the Christmas season. Our culture has tied up all our time with whatever we do, so instead of spending time with each other, or our children, we just buy them more stuff and think its a good substitute. Just an interesting thought. By the way, you know you can listen to CBC Radio online? I think us Canadians don't know what we have with this one, probably some of the greatest radio programming online. I love a radio station that can tackle good subjects.
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Four great videos. One is a satirical story about Supply Side Jesus and the other is about a guy trying to get everything free at a grocery store (20% extra chocolate, and he goes and eats the 20% extra). (ht). This one is a funny video on getting rich through web 2.0. This one is an amazing video that is an old interview with a senator, I can't even tell if its real or not. (ht)
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This is my favourite Google invention this week. Find info on your flights and maybe even luggage, how amazing is that? My second favourite invention is translators built into Google Talk, imagine talking to someone in another country speaking another language and being able to talk to them normally. This is a technology that is going to change the face of chat yet once again.
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Some cool photography exhibitions.
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Stupid and funny business mistakes.
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More funny comics.

I have always admired HDR photography. It is beautiful and captures something that normal photography can't but the eye can. In a lot of ways I think it bridges the gap between the eye and the camera that has existed for so long. Here is my first HDR photo attempt.

Every Christmas season I find myself getting angrier than I normally do. For some reason, come December I have stronger opinions and want to share them a little louder and more forceful. There are lots of things that drive me crazy about the whole ordeal. It’s not so much Christmas and what it’s supposed to be that I hate. I love getting together with my family. I love eating with people. I even love giving gifts. I love Jesus and I love the story of when he came to earth. I love celebrating these things with the people I love.

Let’s be honest though, Christmas in reality is none of those things anymore. Christmas is first and foremost a time to shop. We love the sales, the discounts and the rush that we get of buying something new of loading our wallets full of receipts and emptying our bank accounts. We love Boxing Day and all the more stuff we can buy for ourselves on sale. We love it so much that we stress ourselves out because we have to make sure that we have gifts for everyone and that no one is left out. Sometimes we have to make sure that our gifts are better than everyone else’s. Other times we just are in the habit of giving something so we wouldn’t imagine not buying them anything this year. This is I think the worst part of Christmas; giving out of guilt or meaningless routine.

We all know what happens, all of sudden we get envelopes of gift cards and cash from all the people you would never expect a gift from in the first place. Gift cards are a win (buyer) win (receiver) win (business) situation. It’s the easiest gift going, and everyone loves getting them because then they don’t get stuck with crappy gifts. Businesses love them even more because well a lot of gift cards don’t get redeemed. Our horrible habits of having to buy people anything, and then resorting to gift cards, ends up just giving these companies free money.

Christmas today is nothing more than another outlet to buy more shit and settle our conscience and give us an excuse to do what we love to do all year. The presents, the decorations, the gift cards; it’s all part of the same cycle that demands we participate in fear that we will lose what Christmas is all about. The looks on people’s faces would be priceless if you tried to do Christmas today without presents. Presents (ie. Stuff) is so intricately tied into everything we do that we would get offended if you tried to separate them.

Christmas isn’t Christmas anymore and that’s why I hate it. I have to learn to not just be a hater and sit back and moan and complain, but instead be proactive in how I handle my Christmas season. Every year Rachel and I make gifts for each other, we aren’t allowed to buy each other things. The last few years I’ve been buying people in Africa turkeys and chickens so they can sustain their families, instead of giving my family anything. Other people have responded differently. There is Buy Nothing Christmas alternatives. There is Buy Something Christmas. You can buy stuff for families who are in need.

Sometimes I wonder if I should do anything with the gifts/money that is given to me for Christmas. After all it really is easy to just not give anything and receive away with open arms. What if I took all the money and gifts I was given for Christmas and turned around and gave it away to someone else? Would that work or be a valid alternative? I see that offending a lot of people, but it might help get across the message that I really don't want/need anything and might help people for thinking about what they do with their resources for upcoming holidays. Any thoughts on that one?

The point is to just not be another clueless consumer who buys out of guilt or necessity for no other reason than because it’s Christmas and that’s just what you do. We don’t need to buy more and for the most part the people that we buy for don’t need anything else. I like where Jordon is coming from, “Don't "buy nothing" this Christmas but use some of your wealth to make a real difference in someone's life.” I love the idea of Buy Nothing Christmas also as a discipline to break the cycle that is present in most of our lives. Make it a Do Something Christmas instead of just another Do What I’ve Always Done and Buy Anything Christmas. Do something to break the cycle, do something to actually help someone else, do something for Jesus this Christmas, after all it is supposed to be his birthday.

Sometimes it's weird reading posts from a couple years ago. But here they are anyway.
Posts from 2006
Why I Hate Christmas but Love Turkey
Miroslav Volf at Christmas

Posts from 2005
Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, Happy Return of the Sun

Post from 2004
My Christmas became X'mas

Darryl got us backstage, all access passes to the latest Thrice and Brand New concert in Toronto at Arrow Hall. I don't think I want to go to show ever again unless it's all access. Free all you can eat catered buffet, watch the show with the rest of the bands from the side of the stage, get treated a bit like royalty, and you just feel so much cooler than you really are. It was an amazing show and I like them both all the more now. Here are some pictures I got.

I was interviewed at Rob Bell's God's Aren't Angry tour in Grand Rapids, you can read the article here. He only took one line from what I said along with my friend John, but at least he spelled my name right.
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I would like to see this post in the hands of my parents and grand-parents generation who seem to think that swearing is next to murder.
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Creative workplaces. We've been talking to our neighbour across the street here at theStory about building a desk for all our computers. He has always wanted to make a desk out of an airplane wing. So if anyone knows where we can get an airplane wing, let me know.
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Two videos that have inspired me lately and gives me hope.

That last one is one of the most moving videos. It reminds me all over again about the beauty in those that society and media disregards.
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David Fitch wrestles through the difference between evangelizing and witnessing.
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Bird's-eye-view pictures are among my absolute favourite. Google Earth partnered with a photographer that takes some of these shots to integrate them into their program which I thought was a cool idea even though I don't really use Google Earth. Check some of these shots out from the photographer they are working with, Yann Arthus-Bertrand. They tell a story you can't tell from down here.
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The Story of Stuff (ht) 20 minute video that's worth watching.

The following is what I tried to say on Sunday.

As we start moving through Genesis we are starting to notice some parallels between themes that are present in the book that are important to note as we go further. The first 11 chapters, or the “pre-history” in Genesis, that we have read so far has given us a good picture of what God and humanity are up to. Chapter 12 is a major turning point in Genesis, when God steps in and picks someone who is going to participate with him in what he is trying to do within creation a little more directly. So my point today won’t be to explain Genesis 12 necessarily, but to show how Genesis 12 fits perfectly in what has happened in the previous 11 chapters and everything that comes after it.

We start in Genesis 1 and it starts with God making the first move. He creates the world and everything in it and then creates man with a job to do. So he creates and gives a responsibility to the creation to act and to be a certain type of creation. So the first mandate of all creation is:

Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground." Then God said, "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. 30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.
- Gen:1-28-30

Then we move through Cain and Abel story and work our way to the flood. We start to get the impression that maybe this whole creation bit isn’t working out just like God planned. After all, the first story after God blesses creation is humans reversing it. Humans are supposed to be filling the earth and Cain goes and does the opposite and kills his brother. The earth eventually gets so evil that God sends a massive flood, saves a few people and wants to start all over again. We then get to chapter 6 which starts with the narrator telling us how upset God is.

The LORD saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain. So the LORD said, "I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth—men and animals, and creatures that move along the ground, and birds of the air—for I am grieved that I have made them.”
- Gen 6:5-8

We all know the story. Noah and his family get on the boat with a bunch of dirty animals, floods come and everyone else drowns around them; it’s a perfect Sunday school story. So now let’s jump to the end of the story. Keep now in mind the last verses we just read. Noah and his family get off the boat. They are tired, probably smell like crap and Noah builds an altar to God and God seems to love it. Notice the language that is used.

The LORD smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: "Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though [an] every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done.
- Gen 8:21

This isn’t just some simple statement when you remember what we just read. God changes his mind even though humans haven’t changed at all. In both circumstances we see that every inclination in the hearts of man are evil, there is no change in humans. Yet, now there is a change in God’s heart. While seeing the evil, instead of resolving to destroy humanity like he does in chapter 6 he decides to preserve them in the midst of their evil. We’ve talked already how the flood has parallels with creation in that the flood almost acts like a de-creation and then God starts the creation process all over again. So now we expect some sort of mandate/covenant like in Genesis 6 that we just read. What do you know, here it is.
Then God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth. The fear and dread of you will fall upon all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air, upon every creature that moves along the ground, and upon all the fish of the sea; they are given into your hands. Everything that lives and moves will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything.

"But you must not eat meat that has its lifeblood still in it. And for your lifeblood I will surely demand an accounting. I will demand an accounting from every animal. And from each man, too, I will demand an accounting for the life of his fellow man.
"Whoever sheds the blood of man,
by man shall his blood be shed;
for in the image of God
has God made man.
As for you, be fruitful and increase in number; multiply on the earth and increase upon it."
Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him: “I now establish my covenant with you and with your descendants after you and with every living creature that was with you—the birds, the livestock and all the wild animals, all those that came out of the ark with you—every living creature on earth. I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be cut off by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth."
- Gen 9:1-11

So these blessings/mandates are getting a little more complicated now. God puts a few stipulations on this mandate and is saying a bit more than before.

“Moreover, Genesis 1:26-28 to which the divine promise and command given to Noah in chapter 9 refer, embodies a divine purpose to be accomplished by humankind and the world. This would suggest that the covenant with Noah incorporates not only the fallen state of humankind of Genesis 3 but also the divine plan for humankind and the world of Genesis 1-2.”
- William Dumbrell

In Genesis 9, God is doing more than simply telling humans what to do. He is also saying what he is going to do and starting to reveal bits and pieces of his plan. Let’s continue on through Genesis.
So the story starts up and all over again and what happens? We find out that all men have one speech/language and instead of spreading and filling the earth they settle in one area. So God comes down and scatters them all over the earth. Really, He just did for them what he asked them to do in the first place. Then we move into Genesis 11 which is basically a list of genealogies; when people are born and when people die. This genealogy serves a lot of purposes and we usually skip over it because it’s not an interesting story, or at least I do. I think however this genealogy sets us up to realize how important Genesis 12 really is. In Genesis 11 we have instances of father’s dying before their sons and wives being barren. This chapter basically says that humans are unable to fully do what God has given for them to do; be fruitful and multiply. God tells them to be fruitful and spread out and chapter 11 ends with people dying and a wife being barren; an unfortunate opposite and undoing of what we are hoping for.
We also should note the break between the history of humankind and the move into talking into the history of Israel. This reminds the Israelites that God did not create Israel out of the dust like Adam, rather Israel has the same background and history as the neighbours and everyone else. Their story stems from the same story as everyone else. The story of Israel starts with a story of hopelessness [barrenness and death]. Every time that bareness is talked about in the Bible it can be an accurate metaphor for hopelessness. With this in mind we are introduced to a new character and move into Israel’s story and into some unchartered territory for us thus far, Genesis 12.
Even though Genesis 12 is now moving on into Israel’s history, it is still very much connected to the first 11 chapters. Right away, without giving any clarification to Abram’s character or not we see that God spoke to him. This is unlike when we first hear about Noah and find out that he had favour in God’s eyes. All we know is that God started talking, and then we get some of the most important verses in the entire bible. The rest of the Hebrew Bible sits on these verses. Let’s read them.

Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you. "I will make you into a great nation
and I will bless you;
I will make your name great,
and you will be a blessing.
I will bless those who bless you,
and whoever curses you I will curse;
and all peoples on earth
will be blessed through you."
- Gen 12:1-3

Discussion/Questions
What do you think this blessing means?
How is this connected to the stories in the first eleven chapters?

Some Points for the Discussion (Make sure the come up)

If you read through the rest of the Hebrew Bible, let alone the rest of the Genesis with these verses in mind you would be reading a vastly different book than you grew up with in Sunday School. God is trying to bless his creation and he is using Abraham to do it. He wants to take him and bless him, so that he can bless others. Now there are some translating problems in this little section. Where it says “and you will be a blessing”(v.2) is actually an imperative in the Hebrew which should be read more like “be a blessing!” Abram is not simply being informed that he will become a blessing, but is commanded to be a blessing. Also, the following lines should be interpreted as the consequence of this line. In other words the promise of Abraham being a blessing, becoming a great nation and everything else depends on that he is a blessing first. (Genesis, Laurence Turner, Pg. 64)

Gen 12 is a direct attack on what was happening in Babel. In Babel, they were trying to build a city on their own terms and make their name great. In Genesis 12, God is building the nation and God is making the name great. If the rest of the world (Babel) wants to enjoy blessing, they now find it through Abram not through their own contraptions.

The word blessing in Genesis 12 shows up five times in these three verses. As opposed to the word curse which shows up in the five times in the first eleven chapters.

The rest of the Hebrew Bible is the story of Israel and God and their interactions. And their mandate, is to be a blessing to all the nations. If we know anything about the Story of Israel we know that again, like the stories in Gen 1-11, it never happened. Israel rages wars, supplies weapons, abuses women, had forced slavery…just like any other nation. The entire Old Testament is yet a large scale story just like the ones we have read thus far. God blesses, God gives a job to do, humans can’t do it and in fact they end up doing the exact opposite of their calling. What we need to keep in mind though is that in all the other stories though we see God stepping in and somehow resolving the issue. With Adam and Eve he steps in and makes them clothes and warns them of the new steps in their lives. With Cain, he protects him and let’s no one hurt him or kill him. With Noah he decides to stop destroying and start preserving and tries to point them in a certain direction. With the tower of Babel, he does for them what he asked them to do, spread among all the earth. So we look at Abram’s promise and that gives us some idea of what to expect in his story. I would argue that the rest of the Old Testament is this struggle to become the nation of people that God wanted and mandated in Genesis 12 and they can’t do it. They can never get it done. So how does God resolve this issue? How is God going to save the day on this one?
He decides to handle it himself like with the Tower of Babel. He sends himself down to earth to do the very thing that God expected from Israel. Jesus was sent to do the job that the nation of Israel couldn’t do; to be a blessing. Through Jesus’ life, God accomplishes what he set out to accomplish through Israel, while at the same time accomplishing it through Israel because Jesus came from an Israelite line. This is why the New Testament is important, because without it there is no resolve to the promise in Genesis 12 to Abraham. God keeps his covenant because it is still through Israel (Jesus) that the nations are blessed.

The entire point of Genesis 1-11 is to set us up for Genesis 12 and beyond. It is a history of the world that eventually narrows us down to a single nation, which then eventually narrows us down to a single individual. Think of it as a funnel. It starts wide and goes thinner and thinner until out the end Jesus is there as the accumulation of the entire Hebrew Bible. The point of the funnel is to show how God has been at work all along to bring about his end goal in blessing all the people on the earth like his original intent. We talked last month about being out of order and how humanity is not how it’s supposed to be. But all along we see that God has been at work putting things back into order and through the scriptures we get to see it at work. Think about the parallels in Adam’s story to Israel’s.

“Israel was created, as was Adam, outside the divine space to be occupied—Israel outside of Canaan and Adam outside of the garden. Both Israel and Adam were placed in divine space; Israel in Canaan and Adam in Eden. Israel was given, as was Adam, law by which the divine space could be retained. Israel transgressed the law as did Adam. Israel was expelled, as was Adam, from the divine space. Clearly the creation account indicates to Israel the nature and purpose of her special status and role, which once belonged to the man.”
- William Dumbrell-

It only makes us think about the parallels between Israel and Jesus. If you are ever interested in knowing more about that, read the book of Matthew and follow the life of Jesus and watch how close it reflect the nation of Israel. Days in the desert, baptism, where he is geographically, you will be amazed. I only tell you this to show you how God has been up to the same thing all this time. God is trying to bring redemption to humankind and he wants to use humans in the process.
So we just covered a lot of history, but we are still 2000 years behind. So Jesus comes and now what? Well without retelling the gospels, we know that he was here and now he’s gone again. But once again, God leaves us with a mandate, a command if you will. This mandate, like all the others is to keep us working within the order of God. In other words, we should know by now that God is already up to something, and these mandates are not something that he is just making up on the spot. Rather, he is telling us what he is up to and invites us to participate in it.

All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.“
- Matt 28

He told them, "This is what is written: The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. I am going to send you what my Father has promised; but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.“ When he had led them out to the vicinity of Bethany, he lifted up his hands and blessed them. While he was blessing them, he left them and was taken up into heaven. Then they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy. And they stayed continually at the temple, praising God.
- Luke 24

Some scholars believe that Genesis 12 could easily be substituted as the Great Commission. They think its God doing the same thing, trying to accomplish the same purpose. Either way, we do know now that when God speaks to us and gives us a job it is the creator of the world telling us what is coming next and inviting us to participate with him in making it happen. So we, as the body of Christ, are now participating with God to bring order to his creation. Loving God, loving people and being a blessing to all the people of the earth.

So while we read Genesis 12 and beyond, we need to keep in mind that God is up to something. Genesis 12 should be at the very front of our minds when we read the rest of Genesis and the Bible so we can understand what the point of all this is. God is redeeming creation and invites us to participate in the redemption of all creation. Remember this when Joseph is hired to feed the nations. Remember it when Jacob is obsessed with being blessed. Remember it when Abraham goes to sacrifice Isaac. Remember it beyond Genesis too; when God frees Israel, and remember it when Israel goes to war. Remember it when Israel wants a king and remember it when Israel uses forced slavery. Remember it in the New Testament also when Jesus says he is the fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets. Remember it when Jesus says to love our neighbours and enemies and during the sermon on the mount. Remember it now in light of our mandate to make disciples and to live in the Kingdom of God.

I think every once in a while I'm going to post a picture. I contemplated starting a photo blog but it's just another thing to commit to, so I may as well do it all under the same domain. So I'll keep a category at the side, but I just got a new camera and hopefully I can try to capture some of the life here downtown Sarnia.

Today our sign got put up. Thanks to Geoplast Signs in Sarnia for the amazing work. No more awkward stares through the front window wondering what in the world we are doing.

Two of my friends and respected bloggers have decided that blogging isn't for them, or they are tired of it or whatever other reason they came out with. I write this because I think they will both come back one day but they are trying to go against the grain and make a stand and say NO MORE BLOGGING. My friends are strong. And now that I have written this post they will really have to suck up their pride when the revive their blogs (because we all know they will) because here is solid evidence that they took it off. So Pernell and Joe, Rest in Peace for the short time that you will be offline. I see Joe every day, so I guess Pernell you'll have to call me once a week to update me on your life. Sometimes I feel like this blog is done with how much I get to post, but I have my up and down moments, I'm sure some more up moments will come soon.

Nov 1 we signed the papers and got a new space for theStory. We got it right downtown where we wanted to be. It's been completely renovated from floors to ceilings to fire code and we couldn't be happier. It's two storefronts side by side. You can see the picture below. We have a sign on order and should be up before Christmas and that will go on the big grey wall there.

The space on the left is where we hold our main Sunday gatherings. It's 3200 square feet. Right now it's full of freshly gathered thrift store couches and a small sound system for our gatherings. I also do all my office work out of the front of this space for Storyboard Solutions too. This way it guarentees that someone is always around and gives us a face with the building downtown. We have a lot of ideas for this space, they are currently being developed. The back area is going to be turned into a massive kitchen for our potlucks and parties. We're hoping to set up a wall to block off the office space and make it a little more secure. Our hope for this side is to give it as much of a living room feel as possible. Making people feel like at home, so they can use it like their home is a big priority for us.

The left side is where the children meet on Sunday mornings. It's 2200 square feet with a nice long strip of carpet down the middle. We are holding our first local concert here on December 14th so we are excited to get into that scene also. We are still debating what to do with this side. Part of us wants to make it the more commercial side of theStory where it would stay a profit venture so we could sublet/rent it out to bands, yoga instructors, artists, recording studios and whoever else to use at any times.

We pay $1375 a month for both space plus GST, tax and utilities which equals about $2000 a month. It's a great space to have and will really serve us well in this community to connect with this side of Sarnia. Joe and I are already loving being able to be here during the day as people walk by and we get to just strike up conversations with people we never would have met if we weren't here. So here is our space, and we are excited and feel blessed beyond anything to be here.