I've been thinking about how the root of responsible is ''response'' (and in Spanish also, responsable y responder)--to fulfill an obligation, to come through, to act on or respond to the information or knowledge you've been given, entrusted with. Not to be indifferent or unresponsive, pretending or living like you never heard.

Looking at my notes from Ash Wednesday at St. Paul's, I've been thinking how our purpose as ambassadors for Christ is the slow sanctification of the whole world, beginning with ourselves. Acting as ambassadors of blessing and joy: to make Jesus famous in the earth. Representing the Way over a cup of coffee or glass of wine.

To add to that, something I was reading in Radix that Eugene Peterson writes, our work as followers of the Way is, ''living as a colony of heaven in the country of death.''

I know colony is a word fraught with problematic paradigms and ugly historical events, but in this case, I think I like it. That connotation it carries of moving in, moving in to stay (not, ''The earth's going to burn up, so fuck it'') , but actually chemically and aesthetically and completely changing a place.

And Heaven meaning Life, Peace, Freedom--to proclaim the green good news that we can be healed and made whole, even in a country of death. And it is not empty positivity or mindless happiness, but it is Jesus, who enters the mess.

Oh, that his story would be stitched into us! That we would respond, and not be left unchanged.