mosaic

Goodie,

This is Bruce Harkins, husband to Terri, father to three adult children, whom you have met 5 or 6 times on Saturday night at Knob Hill. Without a doubt, I have enjoyed our short exchanges. We would need to have some serious time together to have a comfortable knowledge of who each is at our core, but until that happens, I have some ideas to run past you.

I think Terri and I have some special skills and natural proclivities to brace the younger in age as to what to pay attention to - and what dividends - what will come if they are diligent in the day to day engagements as a married couple. Some of what we can offer are life experiences, many are spiritual maturity, to a degree it is the intuitive understanding of marriage and family that would make us a resource for the generation behind us - which attend Knob Hill. Now you might think, just get involved and all that stuff will come. Well that is a good boiler plate response but I don't think there is time for me to go this circuitous, and for many, a random route. My story is that I have done this a number of times in the route that God has put me on as to what is to be discarded and to what is to be embraced. I would, if it were possible, like to hurry up this process. In the end, the will of God will be fulfilled in how you digest this idea. Really, you are a man whom God has placed his imprimatur. You count - and have an accountability to God Himself. Therefore I proceed at this conceptual point and tact.

There is such a dire need for mentoring of older couples to be a help to younger ones, not from a clinical viewpoint but from two entwined souls who have worked through many issues already. 35 years for the record. To be candid in this idea; it is to be able to share the 50,000 ft. aerial view of what the future will look like for a couple under 5 or ten years of marriage. For, what I am thinking is, that monthly casual connection. For each to share where they are. We have worked very hard over the years in our Christian life. Some of the results are prudence, apologetic skills, listening abilities, savvy at what legalism is, what the will of God is, time management, how busyness can harm intimacy, and so many other aspects.

What would be covered, potentially? We can talk of politics, history, Greek philosophy, environmental geo-science, real estate, reformation theology, American exceptionalism, Natural Theology, Pauline epistemology, women in ministry, music, hymns, syllogisms, constitutional law, rational ethics, the autographs, movies, contemporary art, Hamlet or Macbeth, Kant and Aquinas, the law of non-contradiction, irreducible complexity, child rearing, happiness, original sin, Moby Dick the best American novel, hermeneutics, Biola, Fuller, Westminster, Wheaton, Ligonier, sex, child rearing, North Korea, the Presidents, and so forth.

Now, how would I desire a response from you? Well, either: 1) that won't work around here, 2) we already have enough smart couples who want to spend time with other couples, 3) that would be lovely and I want to talk this over with you in detail, 4) their are rigid requirements that you must fulfill, first, to be able to do this sort of thing at Mosaic. In so many words, you must take your own sweet time, Please go slowly. Don't you see the yellow cones to your left and right or finally, 5) you two are too dawgone smart and wise and this would bring too much beauty of Spirit to the body of Christ.

Where could this be transacted and made perfectl? Hmmm, well, we have a backyard that has chairs and a rustic fireplace: hummingbirds, fescue and sagebrush; a mall, a coffee house, the pier, our business on PCH, the cove, the Whale Center, you get my drift, where one is comfortable.

I could of spent 3x the space developing this idea but wanted to make it as brief as possible, so I hope you get the breadth and depth of this,

Thanks for you consideration, and the logic that must proceed it, ...see you Saturday..., and I know you must be thinking this by now: who would send me this kind of letter... well, I would,

Bruce Harkins