Wednesday, August 30, 2006

Welcome

Welcome to my blog! Most of you probably know me—Matt Burden, a rather ordinary fellow from the woods of northern Maine, recently married to Rachel, the love of my life, and now a student at Denver Seminary.

I’m starting this blog on something of a whim, which is how I do most of the innovative things in my life. Part of the reason is that I love to write, to filter my thoughts and experiences into words and stories (and, in all candor, my life comes out sounding a lot more interesting in the end). But beyond the goal of aggrandizing my life story, I’ve found that some people have enjoyed and profited from things I’ve written in the past. So this is an effort to keep in touch, to make my friends smile and perhaps to think.

I’m full of ideas that I find fascinating, and this blog might end up being an outlet for that drive. If you find them fascinating too, feel free to read on and to comment. If not, you have my permission to use this blog to bore yourself to sleep at night. Most of the thoughts here will be theological, and my hope is that they will touch everyday life in practical and powerful ways. Some will be speculative, some devotional, and some a bit silly. And hopefully somewhere, in the midst of it all, they will be able to sound out the anthem of the glory of Christ.

I’ve called my blog “The Peace and the Passion” because this is how I would describe my own walk with the Lord. These words are the shape of my life (or at least how I would like it to be)—the way that simple holiness intersects with the breathtaking joy of living adventurously. These reflections are not necessarily about the shape and nature of Christianity as a whole; they are about the vision of Christianity that has been made real in the life of one ordinary man. This is a testimony of my life as it is, broken and glorious through the touch of Christ, and this is a hope and a vision for life as it could be. May you be blessed as you walk these roads with me.