Seanne and Daniel were with some friends and colleagues at a conference for students and young professionals on the North Sea over New Year. The director of the community that runs the center wrote me an email (original in German) that deeply encouraged my heart (we haven’t met personally yet):

Dear Clark,
During our conference “Workshop for the Future”
at the Dünenhof, I got to briefly meet your
daughter Seanne. A wonderful young woman!
She told me about your plans for Berlin and today
I took a look at your homepage. ‘Took a look’ is not
the right term: I believe that I not only understood
the words but the heart! You all have started a
great project. ‘Great’, not only because it offers
highly interesting, life-affirming and socially relevant opportunities, but because with it you are following
God’s impulses. This makes me feel very connected
with you. We’re giving our life in the same way here
on the North Sea coast – in a different context –
and experience how others and we ourselves
are blessed! I wish for you in this exciting starting
phase sufficient strength to find a quiet place to
just seek God for Himself, as Gerhard Tersteegen
expressed it a couple of hundred years ago:
‘ Prayer is to look upon God, the Omnipresent,
and to gaze upon Him; not just glance up at Him,
but to stay and linger before Him so that He may
really look upon us and heal us.’
Warmest greetings, in Jesus,
Manfred”

My heart was really moved to seek God for His own sake, not for anything else.

The Psalmist prayed:

One thing I ask of the Lord, this is what I seek;
that I may dwell in the house of the Lord
all the days of my life,
to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord
and to seek him in his temple.” (Psalm 27:4)

I tend to be such an activist. I may glance at the Lord; I want to learn to really gaze at Him. You too?