Contemplative Comics day 128

Shipwrecked 1/4

HAPPY CHRISTMAS! (day 127)

Peace & love,

-joshua.

Contemplative Comics day 126

This is the final word on getting fired.

I hope I have done well in exploring the inner pain and questioning myself while being gracious as well.

While I don’t have a real relationship with nearly anyone from Brick City, I do believe we have made amends. There are some wonderful people at that church doing some cool things.

This comic gets at the heart of my beliefs on the matter. It’s a good period to that sentence.

Contemplative Comics day 125

Advent Week 4

Contemplative Comics day 124

It is interesting that not long after I was fired, my dad was uncharacteristically working nearby at the yard. He was getting ready for the next big job out of state by himself. He was prepping a storage trailer for the new job site. Knowing that I was at home and that my last check from Brick City had come through with no new job in sight, he asked me to help him.

I worked for my dad here and there in high school and part-time throughout college. Doing construction work and going home to write papers and read was pretty rough. My mom was there on the jobs as well. Looking back on it, I can see that I had a really unique relationship with my parents because of this work. Just the other day we were hanging out and sharing stories of injuries, tasks that seemed impossible to overcome, and all the crazy things that happen on job sites.

I treasure those moments I had with him. I don’t think I will ever really have moments like that with Jules and Davy. He loved his work, and he loves me, and I got to be a part of his work with him.

This experience two years ago was the last time I will get to work with my dad. If I hadn’t been fired, and if he hadn’t been in such a weird transition space, it wouldn’t have happened.

I don’t know that I believe it was by design or that it justifies my experiences.

But I am grateful that it happened.

-joshua.

Contemplative Comics day 121

I hate job interviews more than anything. But I have gotten pretty good at them.

Contemplative Comics day 118

Advent 2018; Week 3.

Contemplative Comics day 117

End of Week 2.

Contemplative Comics day 115

Luke 3: 1-6 (NRSV)

“In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah,

‘The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
‘Prepare the way of the Lord,
    make his paths straight.
Every valley shall be filled,
    and every mountain and hill shall be made low,
and the crooked shall be made straight,
    and the rough ways made smooth;
and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’”

Contemplative Comics day 114

Philippians 1: 3-11 (NRSV)

I thank my God every time I remember you, constantly praying with joy in every one of my prayers for all of you, because of your sharing in the gospel from the first day until now. I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ. It is right for me to think this way about all of you, because you hold me in your heart, for all of you share in God’s grace with me, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel. For God is my witness, how I long for all of you with the compassion of Christ Jesus. And this is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight to help you to determine what is best, so that in the day of Christ you may be pure and blameless, having produced the harvest of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God.

Contemplative Comics day 113

Malachi 3: 1-4 (NRSV)

See, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple. The messenger of the covenant in whom you delight—indeed, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts. But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears?

For he is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap; he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the descendants of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, until they present offerings to the Lord in righteousness. Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord as in the days of old and as in former years.