I don't remember when I started loving Cincinnati. I think maybe it was the evening Lori, Bryan and I drove around Mount Adams listening to the Glory soundtrack. Or maybe it was the architecture I started noticing as I grew older. Maybe it's the forgotten, beautiful buildings of Over-the-Rhine or the beauty of the unsuspected. Whatever it was, it began, somehow, loving the city no one else loves. But I never thought much of it, never thought of being part of a Story.

I now believe I am part of a Story.

I am convinced that something is happening in Cincinnati. People are showing up here without meaning to, like bugs caught in God's butterfly net. Some people are even coming because they feel called. Something is building.

As for me and several dear friends, we're starting a revolution. We're hoping to start a nonprofit to fund our artistic endeavors, both musical and literary, and serve a city starving for community. We want to point toward Hope, toward Love, and toward Excellence.

It would be impossible to tell you all of the good things about these days, or all the times I’ve said to myself, “This is exactly where I want to be.” I am doing exactly what I thought and hoped I would be doing after college, which is spending evenings in beautiful surroundings with wonderful people, planning how to actively change our city.

It is mind-boggling to be part of something like this, to feel as though I have a place. Every day at work I feel there is no place for me. But with these people and in this city, I feel at home. I am here for a reason. There is a reason I couldn’t leave. I used to be afraid to be stuck here my whole life, but now I can't imagine being somewhere else.

Something Big is about to happen, and we are part of it. Cincinnati is about to turn around, and I feel the Church here will be a big part of that. Our hope is to exhort the Church, to spur it into action and into wrestling with our local context, specifically by moving back into neighborhoods and being a presence there.

Revolution is all we speak of. At night there is fire in our eyes, we speak with the hushed tones of an amazed lover. Our Lord is doing something grand. We have dreams, and we’re learning to live them and we’re learning to listen. We are preparing for something intense and life-giving in this neglected, starving city.

I wish I could show you what my life is like. I wish I could take you to my home, to nights spent cooking, cleaning without even minding, listening to music drift in from our library, talking on the porch, reading, and hanging with a sweet cat. Moving was one of the wisest things I ever did. Come over!

I wish I could take you to church with me, in whatever incarnation, whether it’s Sunday at St. Elizabeth’s cathedral or Tuesdays at the Klinefelters’ house singing Taize songs and wrestling with what Jesus followers are supposed to be about ( As Liz said, "What is normative for a group of followers of Jesus? Are there norms? If there are norms then where do they come from, how do we discern them, and how do we enact them?"). And sometimes we have church accidentally, like our Monday dinner meeting to start our literary journal—there’s nothing better than seeing everything come together over lasagna and realizing that you have nothing to do with how perfectly suited for the task our editorial group is. And everywhere you go, you meet someone else who’s been drawn into this Story.

I wish I could take you to Midpoint, where I saw the poor, the partiers, the scenesters, and the artists mingle. I wish I could show you these buildings, this neighborhood called Over-the-Rhine, the courtyard where we ate dinner Saturday night. For three days last weekend, downtown was alive and vibrant, music tucked into bars and people braving the rain to see it. This city has the worst of inferiority complexes, and has real problems with a slow government that is hesitant to take risks. But it doesn't have to be that way. So we gather not only for music, but to take a stand. This city will not be about or known for our homicide rate, or our impoverished neighborhoods, or our reputation of being politically conservative. Living here is about finding the good in a place you don’t expect, and those who choose to live here are among the best people you could ever want to meet. As for those who don't choose to live here, perhaps they are the hungriest of all--perhaps they are the most vulnerable to beauty. We will write and sing for them also.

It's all happening. Just you wait.