Welcome!

Hello, SCG leaders!

If you're reading this, it means you've gotten my email about using this site as a place where we can discuss, grow, and come together as a team--both over the summer and maybe even once school starts.

For summer, I thought we could use this as a space to reflect, comment, and discuss Blue Like Jazz. There's won't really be any specific reading assignment--I think it's one of those books that's best savored at your own pace--but as you feel led, please post up your reflections about Miller's book. Good, bad, or indifferent... I'd just like to know what you think and why you think it.

In addition to reflections about BLJ, feel free to post about your summer adventures, add some pictures, whatever. Let's just use this as a space to bond and have fun, even though we're scattered all over the country for the next couple of months.

For me, the first time I read the first two chapters of Blue Like Jazz, I was struck by how honest and vulnerable Miller was. And how much I could relate to the things he said. In particular, his confession that, "I talk about love, forgiveness, social justice... but have I even controlled my own heart? The overwhelming majority of time I spend thinking about myself, pleasing myself, reassuring myself, and when I am done there is nothing to spare for the needy. Six billion people in the world, and I can only muster thoughts for one. Me." (21-22) really hit me. In the margins, I wrote, almost resignedly, "pretty much." But deep inside this confession, there's the idea that there has got to be something more, right? And the rest of the book is a great exploration of what that more could be--for all six billion of us. Mmm. Keep reading. :)

See? It doesn't have to be a lot... or it can be. This is going to be whatever we make of it.