Fear and Trembling

Some reflections - 8 months later

2009-01-21T09:59:00.003-06:00

It has been 8 months since my last blog post. When I decided to stop blogging, I was afraid I would miss it. Truth be told, I can only think of once or twice when I think I have something "blogworthy" to say. This post isn't one of them, but I couldn't help myself.

Every few weeks I've been looking at what sort of traffic my blog generates. With the tracker I have, I can see not only where people are physically located when they surf to my blog, but also what they were looking for when they get here. I've noticed some interesting patterns.

Pattern #1: Students wanting to cheat
I use some book names in my posts, and the title of my blog - "Fear and Trembling" - is itself the title of a book. I get a number of Google searches for things like "summary of 'Fear and Trembling'", or "the theme of Ecclesiastes" or "psychology of 'Many Colored Days'". The most popular is "book report for 'Summer of the Monkeys'". I can just see a 6th grader needing to do a book report on "Summer of the Monkeys" and ending up on my blog. Bummer, dude. Oh, and how do I know these are students wanting to cheat? The overwhelming majority come in from a school computer lab. ;-)

Pattern #2: People love Giant Ichneumon Wasps
I get a lot of people searching for info on giant ichneumon wasps that end up on my blog. I didn't understand this until I googled it myself not too long ago, and realized that my post on the giant ichneumon was on the first page of search results. The really entertaining part is that the people who find that post visit it multiple times over the next few days. In any case, there are a couple of things I don't understand - first, how on God's green earth did that post get on the first page of google? If you have Google stock, you should probably seriously consider selling - the place is going to the dogs. Second, why do people come back to a post that is seriously not helpful to finding out anything about Ichneumon Wasps? I would say that it is funny, but I just read it again and it's not that funny. My guess is that they just love anything to do with Giant Ichneumon Wasps. That must be it.

Pattern #3: People love guns and ammo
My post called "Ammo for the War" from the Lessons from Sem series gets an insane amount of traffic from people looking guns or ammo. I have no idea why. I guess people just love bullets.

Pattern #4: Europeans and anti-sociality
The little comic image that I have plagiarized in the previous post gets a ton of traffic - almost exclusively from Europeans. I could make some reflective comment about why only Europeans care, but that feels too much like blogging. I would rather make fun of the word 'European'. I mean, if you're American when you go into the bathroom, and you're American when you come out of the bathroom...well, you know. And the one place I encourage anti-sociality is the bathroom. So, you can see the connection.

Pattern #5: Satirical Christmas Reflection
My post called "A Satirical Christmas Reflection" generated zero traffic until Christmas, when traffic suddenly went through the roof. I guess people are much more cynical at Christmas than I realized. If only they had a dog named Max and a village of Whos they could go burglarize.

Pattern #6: East-Coasters, Foreigners, and some Texans love Christian art
As much as was possible, I tried to use classical works of Christian art in my posts. Some Rembrandt, some Don Lorenze Monaco, and some others I don't remember right now. People from foreign countries, people on the east coast, and a couple of people from southern Texas really love that stuff. Other than that, they have nothing in common. Wait, didn't I read somewhere that a shared love of art overcomes all barriers? I'd love to see those Lebanese and Texans argue over art. Guns and Ammo, anyone?

Well, there you have it, the top reasons my blog still gets traffic to the tune of a couple of dozen hits a week. There are lots of other patterns, including some people who just keep coming back for no good reason. Bless those poor souls.

Bloggo ergo Cogito? (ergo sum?)

2008-04-22T12:44:00.009-05:00

Back when I started bloggging in March of 2006, I set up a series of blogging rules, with the idea that I would add more as they come to me.

So, here is another one
9.) When you run out of things to say, sit down and shut up.

I've always kept a list of things I wanted to blog about, and I always told myself that when that list was empty, I would stop blogging. The last post was the last thing in my list. It's time to close her down.

But let's be honest, the blog isn't quite as fresh and interesting as it used to be. The posts have gotten longer and more theoretical, and, not surprisingly, fewer people have read and commented. The blogging that I've done lately has spun off into irrelevancy. It's time to sit down and shut up.

After one last observation, that is.

Descarte thought that the only way he could know, without a doubt, that he was real and not being deceived by a powerful demon was that he was able to think. He reasoned that as long as he could think, he knew he existed - "cogito ergo sum" - I think, therefore I am.

I have some friends in Minneapolis who say that they cannot think unless they are also writing. They blog so they can think (bloggo ergo cogito). When we're having conversations, they say stuff like "I put a post on my blog about this", which makes me laugh because they would rather me read their blog than sit with me and talk about something. I suppose I should just go to their blog to see if they exist (ergo sum?). Who needs real-life when you have Web 2.0?

My point is that I don't want my friends to forget I exist because I've stopped blogging. I started this blog experiment with the hope it would help me keep in contact with old (and new) friends. I still want that.

On another note, I find myself thinking quite apart from my blog. One day, if I get a really good idea that is worth sharing, I'll try to put it on Jesus Manifesto, or some other such place.

Okay, NOW I've run out of things to say. I'm sitting down and shutting up. Thanks for listening.

Lessons from Sem 6: Christianity for Grown-ups

2008-04-16T11:23:00.009-05:00

This is my last post in the "Lessons from Sem" series. It might not seem like it, but I had all the topics outlined before I even started the series, it's just taken me a long time to get them fleshed out, and this post was the worst. Remember - I'm a tortoise, not a hare. This the longest post I've had by far, and I cut out a lot - what remains only scratches the surface. This topic is just too big - it might make a better book than blog post.

The stark reality for all kinds of churches in the western world is that 20 and 30 somethings (now creeping into 40-somethings) are conspicuously absent. Heck, I'm in my 30s, which is well into adult territory, and often feel like the young kid in my church - especially as I get more involved. Young adults - specifically young men - are absent in church. This is more true in conservative evangelical churches than other groups, but it holds true across the board.

As I look back on my later college years, and the years between college and seminary, I realize that I was in a place where I was struggling to make sense out of the God I was taught about in my childhood. You know, the God who is a little like Santa Claus, in that if you were really good and prayed right, you might get what you ask for. The God who peered down on us from above, simultaneously waiting to destroy us in wrath and save us in love. The God who created a world in seven days that also looks millions of years old. The God who (according to some) decreed everything from the beginning of time, yet is somehow not responsible for it.

During my later teenage years, I couldn't find a lot of good answers to my questions in church, so I looked for them outside of church - in scripture, history, philosophy, and even fiction books. The result is that I came to very different conclusions about God than what I was taught in church. Yet, in my conservative evangelical tradition, a difference of opinion was usually not very well tolerated. I heard "The Bible says it, I believe it, and that settles it." more often than I should have. I was insulted and demeaned for my questions from a deacon teaching one of my youth sunday school classes. So, I silently turned my questions inward. My self-confidence suffered. I did (and still do) often wonder if it's me, not them, that's the heretic in matters of faith. I often wonder if maybe I'm the one that's wrong.

But as life went on and I struggled with problems with my friends, problems with my job, problems with my wife, and problems with my faith, the god of my childhood didn't seem up to the task of making any sort of meaningful difference in my life. The faith of my youth was anemic, anti-intellectual, sickeningly ascetic, and over piously dogmatic. Deep, powerful questions and searching were incompatible with the tools I was given. Some personal experiences continued to fuel me, but I knew there had to be more life in it than there appeared to be.

During this time, a couple of things occurred to me. First, that when I was told as a youth "You just can't do it without God" was a lie. The reality is that people do it without God every day, all the time, all around the world. The reality is that when people leave the anesthesia of church life, they find all kinds of pleasures that make them feel good, and free, and alive. In some very tangible ways, these pleasures make them feel human. I wondered, is this all wrong? Furthermore, the reality is that when people go to college and learn the historical evidence of the earth's age, and of the findings of anthropology, of psychology, and of biology, that Christianity is too easily mistaken as magical nonsense. When you factor in hard issues of how the Bible came to be, historical issues with the Old Testament and ancient near east literature, why should a person privilege the Bible and the tenants of Christianity over scientific forms of knowing?

I'm not a fan of John Shelby Spong, but as he talks about the absence of young adults in the church, he has some very cogent words to say:

"So what happened to the God who was thought to live just above the sky, keeping record books, invading the world periodically to accomplish the divine will? The God who sent sickness and weather patterns to punish individuals? Because that's what we believed...The God they meet in church is simply not big enough for the world they inhabit."

The second thing that occurred to me is that the story of the Bible (with some exceptions) doesn't really include any kids. Instead, the stories are written about, for, and to adults. They are written about career fishermen, about murderous pharisees who have a miraculous conversion. They are written about old men who suddenly feel called by a strange God to move away from home. They are written about wealthy family men who tragically have everything taken away from them. They are written about an adult Jesus. Sure, the adult focus may be cultural, but I'm convinced there is something there.

Seminary opened my eyes to that something. Seminary opened my eyes to the fact that these questions that I've forcefully kept silent have an important place in the life of faith. Far from being a force to retard my faith, the questions are an expression of it - they are a way in which I show that my faith is alive - that, like Israel, I wrestle with God and won't let go until He blesses me. Seminary taught me that meaningful and deep questions mean that a person is serious about how deeply they want Christ to impact their life. Far from being apathy, the searching demonstrates commitment.

Seminary taught me that issues like personal transformation, and the use of the scripture, and concepts like forgiveness, love, and cosmology can't be properly understood by a set of rules - even rules written on two stone tablets. The reality is that Christianity is for grown-ups who are past the stage where rules and regulations are enough. Christianity is for people who can penetrate the evolutionary concept of power, and understand what it means when Christ asks us to be born again. As much a we try, no set of rules can encompass what it means to be a Christian - but instead the rules should give way to a relationship with God and with others that mediates the presence of Christ, through the Spirit, to people in the world.

Seminary confirmed my notions that the Christian conception of Spirit isn't a ghost that can be explained like some Scooby-Do cartoon, but is the all-encompassing origin and orienter of all creation. The Spirit isn't something that is in a different domain than science, but it is the origin of the universe, of matter, and of the creaturely questions that ask how the universe works. The Spirit is complex, wild, and unbounded, and it creates in us the very questions to which we seek answers as it creates in us the need to understand the truth of our situation. The Spirit is the condition in which we, as creatures, seek.

And the truth of the situation is that, for better or for worse, we are creatures bound to bodies. At least on earth, talk about "spirit" and "flesh" as if they can ever be separated is foolish. We are material beings, and if we are to believe the Bible, will be material beings for eternity. The pleasures of this life are meant to be enjoyed - we are designed so that experiences make us feel alive. It should tell us something that sensory deprivation is considered torture. The Christian message is that experiences don't give eternal life, but that salvation is found in the inversion of power, in giving all we have to the poor and following Christ in his self-sacrificial way of experiencing life in the world.

Christianity for grown-ups understands that salvation is not found in a book, or in a denomination, or even in saying and believing the right thing. A lot of people I interact with might say, "Duh! Of course Christianity is for grown-ups!", but my perspective is that most Christians don't treat it that way - they seem to treat it like something they believe because they have to. They treat it like something they do because they don't know any other way, and like it is something that unravels if too closely examined. Christianity for grown-ups is more robust than that. The Christian way is complex and nuanced - it is a relationship with the infinite God of creation that orients in unexpected ways, and that calls us to put aside childish things while at the same time forcing us to acknowledge that our understanding of God will always be child-like in its adequacy.

One of the lessons that seminary taught me is that, far from being a magical or ignorant religion, Christianity is for grown-ups.

Courage

2008-04-01T13:14:00.003-05:00

One of these days, I think I would like to get a doctorate. I would love to teach and do research and rub elbows with smart people who are at the top of their field.

Since I graduated from seminary, I've been thinking on and off about grad school. One of the things I've heard both professors and doctoral students say is that you need to have a pretty good idea of what you can contribute to the field before you go into it. My problem is that I'm not sure I have much to contribute - I don't have much to say that hasn't been said before.

In psychology, when a person has goals they can't give up on, yet have no idea how to influence their environment to achieve those results, they are said to use the virtue of courage.

When I think of courage, I'm reminded of these quotes by Thomas Merton, who famously said:
"Why should I desire anything that cannot give me God? Why should I fear anything that cannot take God from me?"

Problem is, I have little grasp on what it is that gives me God. How does anyone influence their environment to give them God? Is it even possible? Or do we instead simply grope around for truth and meaning and salvation, hoping that God, in response, will reach out and grip us?

"A life is either all spiritual or not spiritual at all. No man can serve two masters. Your life is shaped by the end you live for. You are made in the image of what you desire."

Sometimes I wonder, as I search around for God, if I really serve the right master. Am I more interested in making sure everyone agrees with my theology and my reading of the Bible than I am about the narrow way? Am I more concerned that I will get fired for trying to make sense out of God in our postmodern world than I am about trying follow God's work in the world? Am I more concerned about what my family might think than about making the gospel actually good news? Sometimes this tension between the spiritual and not-spiritual threatens to tear me apart.

I'm reminded of Jeremiah's prayer:
"If you have run with footmen and they have tired you out, then how can you compete with horses? If you fall down in a land of peace, how will you do in the thicket of the Jordan?"

This race with the footmen of our fears makes us over in the image of what we desire. We want to be liked, have stability, and have peace with our detractors. But the shape that life takes is one of complacency and impotency. I don't want alleviation of my fears to be the end I am shaped by. I want to be made in the image of the God who terrifies me, yet in whom I find delight.

"Just remaining quietly in the presence of God, listening to Him, being attentive to Him, requires a lot of courage and know-how."

How can someone be shaped by something they can't grasp or control? How can someone be made in the image of that which they grope after? Courage.

Putting aside the fears of life - of running with the footmen - and deciding that something is more important than the fears and anxieties we face is the epitome of courage. Courage is the virtue we use when all our other tools are stripped away and we simply grope after what we ultimately desire above all else.

I'm not sure what comes next is any easier - it seems to me that horses come after the footmen, but should I be any more afraid of them?

Courage.

Lesson from Sem 5: Ammo for the war

2008-03-25T12:14:00.007-05:00

Contradiction is the end result of any stereotype. I mean, sooner or later you'll find a smart blond, or a black guy that likes to swim, or an old person who likes to drive fast. You might even find a Baptist who is reflective, but that's a stretch. My college sociology textbook said we use stereotypes because they are convenient, not because they are universal. I haven't yet found a reason to disagree with that.

This lesson from sem will be a bit of a contradiction of Lesson from Sem 3: Classmate disappointment. Don't get me wrong, that post was accurate, but tends toward a stereotypical view of all my classmates as stupid and lazy. Reality, of course, is more complicated.

When I went to seminary, I was hoping to be taught things I didn't know. At the same time, I thought I had a pretty good grip on the things I did know. When I learned things that didn't mesh with what I thought I knew, it was a signal that I should look more closely into what I was holding on to. During this journey, I let many things go. It was a scary and uneasy time of purgation. And ultimately, I came to the conclusion that the Christian journey on the narrow way of salvation is one of fear and trembling. This realization, I believe, is the beginning of wisdom.

One of my favorite New Testament scholars is Scot McKnight. He runs a blog called "Jesus Creed" that I have linked on the left. He has jokingly referred to teaching at a seminary as "working at a 'Semitary'", but there are teeth behind the joke. A lot of students file into grad school with everything figured out. They know what they know, and no matter how many logical arguments, philosophical trends, or historical facts you throw at them, they will not be swayed. These kinds of students are like the living dead, petrified in their system of beliefs, unwilling and unable to take a fresh look at the Bible, or their church, or their theology.

I'm not entirely sure why people like this go to seminary, since they already have everything figured out, but I can tell you the result. Instead learning the importance of new ideas, these students learn how to defend against the new ideas. Seminary time becomes a place where battle skills are sharpened for the impending war with liberals, Roman Catholics, pagans, and atheists. Instead of learning the fascinating history behind sacramental theology (communion and baptism, to name a few), these students learn the history so that they can poke holes in it, dismantle it, and put their system in its place. Instead of exploring and being disturbed by the critique of postmodernism, these students build sturdy defenses around the holes and the gaps in their own system, they scour the Bible to gather scriptural support for their beliefs to defend against any attacks, and they develop preemptive rhetoric to belittle and stymie their opponents.

I can think of a couple of examples, most of which are too long to blog about, but in one of my classes, we were discussing what happened on the cross. Yes, Jesus died, but what did that accomplish? The Bible speaks of it in a couple of different ways, but probably the most dominant way the Bible speaks of it is the "penal substitutionary model". Essentially, the model means that some punishment was required for the sin of individuals and humanity as a whole, and that Jesus was our substitute for that punishment. Jesus took our place as God poured out the wrath He harbored for humanity. The penal substitutionary model was the primary one used by Luther and Calvin in the protestant reformation, which is probably the reason it is the only one most protestant Christians are familiar with. And, trust me when I tell you, there are lots of Christians that believe the penal substitutionary model is the ONLY valid way to think about the cross.

But the Bible has other models for Jesus' work on the cross. So, one of the students asked a very fair question: "Can a person be a true, Bible believing Christian and not use the penal substitutionary model as their primary way of thinking about the cross?" The reply from those who were dogmatic about penal substitution was disappointing, but predictable. "Sure, it is possible to read and believe the Bible, and then to contradict what it says." In essence, this preemptive statement shuts down the conversation in a pretty heinous way. We weren't just having a debate among Christians about the meaning of the cross, we were instead calling each other hypocrites and heretics.

The lesson I took from all this was that many Christian leaders don't go to seminary to learn about what they don't know. They don't go to gain wisdom and understanding that is rooted in knowledge. They go to gain ammo for the impending spiritual war, or "Battle for the Bible", or to defend against the "attack on the family".

I'm not saying those things are bad. On the contrary, I think both family and scripture are very important. But scripture indicates that wisdom is vindicated by her deeds, and is characterized by peacefulness, reasonableness, and mercy, none of which are compatible with a petrified theology or war-like behavior.

With that in mind, I fear real wisdom in our Christian leaders will be in short supply.

What do you think? Do Christian leaders seem more war-like than they should? Does wisdom seem to be in short supply?

Theosis and Love

2008-03-20T11:25:00.007-05:00

Maunday Thursday is the day Christians remember the command Jesus gave to the disciples at the last supper: "A new command I give to you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another."

There is a long tradition in Christianity of something called theosis - which means "making divine". Essentially, the idea is that participation within the love of Christ - of loving others as he loved us - causes us to become god-like.

Most of the Christians I know get uncomfortable when I talk about theosis - of becoming divine, but the earliest theologians of the church thought theosis is a very important part of understanding what Christianity is about. They said crazy stuff like:

"God became human so humans would become gods." (Athanasius, 4th Century)

"...the Word of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, who did, through his transcendent love, became what we are, that he might bring to us even what He is Himself." (Iranaeus, 2nd Century)

I suspect the discomfort with theosis is because the idea of human divinity seems like blasphemy. Humans instead should be relegated to distorted and corrupt creatures. But what would happen if we began to take the teachings of these early church fathers seriously - that Christ brought to us what He is Himself, and heals our wounds as part of the forgiveness we are offered?

No early church father seriously thought that we would become God. But they did believe we would become divine. St. John of the Cross puts it best, "[We become divine] not because the soul will come to have the capacity of God, for that is impossible; but because all that it is will become like to God, for which cause it will be called, and will be, God by participation." (16th Century)

Maunday Thursday reminds us that we are God by participation. That we love as Christ loved. That we sacrifice ourselves as Christ sacrificed. That we take up our Cross, being the vandalized images of God that we are, and look forward to our rebirth as divine creatures. We are called, with this command to love, to be God by participation.

Strange Participation

2008-03-18T13:38:00.004-05:00

My love of Christian holidays sometimes makes me think I should start attending a church that practices high liturgy. Participating in something like like Episcopal, Lutheran, or Catholic liturgy would work, but then I would run into other problems.

As Easter approaches, I find myself dwelling on the drama that led up to the cross. From the glorious entry on Palm Sunday, into the Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday Holy Days. The stress of Maunday Thursday in which Christ offered the last supper, was arrested and tried unjustly. The despair of Good Friday, as the one heralded as the messiah was killed by the Roman invaders, and the earth shook. The panic of Holy Saturday as Jesus' followers wondered what to do next, leaderless and abandoned. Then, the joy and confusion of Easter Sunday, when the women found the stone rolled away and Jesus returned to life.

This story should draw us in like the great drama that it is. We should, year after year, find ourselves part of the story, hoping for the impossible on Palm Sunday, being crushed on Good Friday, and being ignited anew on Easter Sunday. The story should be so close to us that we feel like we participate in it as if it was happening today. But instead the pattern in our protestant churches is that we participate in this cosmic drama as if it is ancient history and so incredibly distant from us that we struggle to find how it is relevant to our lives today.

It seems to me that Christians experience a detached sort of participation in the events surrounding Easter, or even the Lord's Supper, for that matter. In the tradition in which I was raised, the meaning of the Lord's Supper was "whatever it represent to you". Participation was some sort of personal reflection on remembering who Christ was. When you keep in mind the story that goes with Easter or the Lord's Supper, mere personal reflection is a weak participation.

The events of Easter, and the events of the Last Supper should draw us into the life of Christ. They should remind us of the love he showed, of the life he lived, of the commands he gave, and of the life we should therefore live. When we eat his body and drink his blood, we partake in his life. But this partaking is more than just eating the food - it is participating in his life (1 Cor 10:16). More than just some vague remembrance of things that happened a long time ago, Easter is about participation in the life of Christ through his body and his blood so that we take on the mantle of being good news to the world. Participation in Christ is active, remembrance is drawing the past into our way of acting and thinking today so that we can participate with God in creating the future. The beauty of it all is when we find strength to participate in Christ's work - his love, his sufferings, and his glorification - and gather together it do it, he is there, too, participating with us. To me, at least, this sort of strange participation is what the Easter season is all about.

A Brief Pondering About Time

2008-03-12T12:01:00.008-05:00

I love to think about concepts like time and space and their impact on things like theology and anthropology and sociology.

For instance, when Acts talks about Jesus ascending into the clouds to sit at the right hand of the father, I often find myself wondering how that worked. It seems to me that Jesus would have either exploded or suffocated as he rose in altitude, and even if by some supernatural intervention he did not, I wonder where he went. Our telescopes can see pretty far, and there is nothing around us resembling heaven for a long, long way. I guess he could have moved really, really fast, at speeds approaching the speed of light (or faster?), but then he would have experienced relativistic effects. Perhaps that is why Jesus can say he is coming back "soon" - from the standpoint of someone moving so fast, his return would not seem like a long time at all. But I digress.

A random phrase someone used in a meeting today triggered a thought I'd like to share, but to outline the thought I need to give a lesson in evolutionary epistemology. Don't worry - it won't hurt, and might actually be interesting.

As a sweeping generalization, evolutionary biologists tend to think that evolution has produced in higher lifeforms an accurate view of reality. Sure, we might be not be able to see into the infrared spectrum, or hear hypersonic frequencies, or feel the motion of the earth, but in general that information which our senses gives us and our consciousness determines is real is, in fact, an accurate reflection of reality. (Drugs, mental illness, and love not withstanding, of course.)

This seems reasonable, if I see a green field in front of me, there is every reason for me to believe that, in reality, there is a green field in front of me. Likewise, if I see a ferocious predator in front of me, there is every reason to believe there is a ferocious predator in front of me. My consciousness would then kick in and tell me to run away before I get eaten. Evolutionary biologists contend that the forces of evolution blindly select for those characteristics that accurately present reality, and therefore can be trusted.

Christian philosophers, like Alvin Plantinga, see a chink this logic, however. Dr. Plantinga contends that blind forces do not care whether or not reality is accurately represented. Lets use the example of the ferocious predator. All natural selection cares about is the survival of the individual, not the accuracy of perception. So, if I see a ferocious predator, and my consciousness kicks and tells me that if I run away, he will be my friend, then natural selection has achieved its goal. My perception is wrong (the predator will never be my friend), but the result it produces ensures survival. In other words, Plantinga believes that, if evolution is true, then our abilities are not necessarily designed to accurately describe reality, but instead to ensure survival.

Here's where time comes in. We all should perceive time as running one way. (If you don't, let me know. I have some questions.) No one to my knowledge has seen it run backwards. Yet there is no currently known reason in physics why it should run one way. (There's a lot of speculation involving stuff like entropy determining the arrow of time, but suffice it to say that there is a lot of disagreement about that.) Yet despite the fact that time doesn't seem to HAVE to run one way, we ALWAYS perceive it to run one way. What if it doesn't? What if the design of our faculties is such that we automatically ignore the hiccups that happen in time and see things always running one way? What if, at least in this pocket of space-time, survival is only dependent upon stuff that follows the arrow of time that we perceive, and all other information cannot be detected by our current equipment? What if?

The reason this captured me has to do with death. I'm not sure what happens to people between death and the judgment. Careful study shows that the Bible is at best ambiguous about it, and at worst in contradiction about where we go when we die. But if our perception of time is screwed up, then all the pieces can be made to fit. In fact, other things about how God might interact with us start to make sense, too. (See this post for some possibilities. Which, by the way, is my favorite of all the posts I have written.) We could very well close our eyes in death, and skip through time to the point of being resurrected. Everyone would enter eternity at the same "point", though their deaths are separated by large amount of "time".

In any case, I thought it was cool. So, the next time I'm around and you see my mind wander off somewhere, I'm probably thinking about something like this.

(Disclaimer: I realize the perception problem can be solved by denying evolution. I also realize you get on a slippery slope with saying our perception of time might be wrong. But ultimately I've been convinced by the arguments of Plantiga, Christian biologists (e.g., Collins, Miller), modern theologians (e.g., McGrath, Polkinghorn, Peacocke), and contemporary cosmology that the answer to evolution and reality is more complicated than taking Genesis 1&2 literally.)

Sourced

2008-03-11T13:08:00.009-05:00

I read an article a couple of months ago about open source vs closed source software. You can read the article here. I read a lot, and it is rare anymore that I am exposed to something new, but this article got me to thinking.

When I surf the internet or talk to my friends who are computer nerds, I hear a lot about open sourced platforms. Almost universally, open sourced things are considered a positive. From Wikipedia to Linux distros to Firefox to OpenOffice to GIMP to LAME and a whole lot more that I can't think of right now. There's certainly no denying their utility. I use Wikipedia almost daily, and really like Firefox.

Don't get me wrong, I like open sourced material, but the stark reality of open source is that it retards innovation. Let's think about it - have the most intriguing products of the past couple of years come out of open sourced labs, or closed source labs? Think about things like MP3s, the Wii, World of Warcraft, Photoshop, digital cameras, BluRay, the Roomba. These things are the product of a very closed development process. Even Apple, one of the most respected and innovative companies on the planet with products like the iPod, the iPhone, Macbook, etc is probably the most closed development lab around. You don't see stuff like this coming from the open source community.

Apple, and Microsoft, and Photoshop compete with free because they are willing to spend the time and money to make a product innovative. This doesn't seem to happen when open source developers simply invest their mindshare into a product and not their livelihood. Innovation happens when you can break with the past way of doing things and head in a new direction. That's true with hardware or software platforms, like the Smartcar or GarageBand, but is also true of other types of platforms. Products from closed companies compete with the "free" open stuff because they are better, and, arguably, worth the premium. Almost universally, open source is incremental, not innovative, and no matter how you slice it, open source will always be fatally dependent on what came before.

To me, this insight into the nature of Open Source material has interesting implications for the way Christians and churches operate. Do you think it relates? How?

Boys and Girls are Biologically Different

2008-03-06T12:28:00.005-06:00

In a stunning paper released this week by researchers at Northwest University and the University of Haifa, it was revealed that differences in language skills between girls and boys appears biological, rather than social, in nature. The full article can be found here.

For the first time, it seems, there is robust data to suggest that the brains of girls actually operate differently than the brains of boys. In the two groups, not only did different parts of the brain become active when using language skills, the level of activity in those parts of the brain differed drastically.

"Our data indicates that boys and girls are biologically different," said Dr. Obvious, one of the co-authors of the study. "This is exciting because it suggests that there might be other biological differences between boys and girls, perhaps even at the level of chromosomes. Who knows how these differences will manifest themselves in the phenotype? There may be actual physical differences between boys and girls due to their underlying biology."

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, the researchers performed tests measuring the brain activity of those doing spelling or writing language tasks. What they found was that the brain area associated with abstract thought worked the hardest in girls, and the area associated with sensory perception worked the hardest in boys.

"Dude, it was so boring," moaned Quintin, a 13 year old boy who took part in the study. "After about 30 minutes, all I could think about was a hot beef'n cheddar from Arby's. I wanted it so bad I could taste it, but I would have settled for some ding-dongs."

"I loved the words and phrases," bubbled Patty, an 11 year old girl who also took part in the testing. "They made me think of a pasture in Ireland or maybe Wisconsin where there is a girl who lives on a farm and is in love with a boy who looks like Zac Efron. He really likes her, too, but they don't know it and end up asking other people to the dance. They spend the whole night ignoring each other until both of their dates get sick, and they have to dance together for the final song. During that dance, they look into each other's eyes, and realize how deeply they care for each other. But just before they kiss, someone runs in and says that the Jones' barn is on fire and the guy who looks like Zac gets called off to help put it out," Patty sighed. "You know, sorta like Anne of Green Gables, but with the guy from High School Musical. He is sooo hot."

"What's really amazing about these results is that they held true even though we controlled for things like age, gender, and performance accuracy," said Dr. Bozzo, lead researcher and director of the center for language science. When asked if the study controlled for the crazy thoughts that zip through the head of a child at an alarming frequency, Dr. Bozzo replied that they had not yet proven such a thing even exists.

"The results of this study do not in any way undermine the hard work we have done to prove we are just as capable as men on any and every level," said Sarah Paxson, junior political science major and president of the Feminine Equality League at Northwest University, when asked about the implications of the study. "If anything it shows that we bring needed insight into a world dominated by the confused thinking of men."

When also asked about the implication of the study, Brian Landman, a sophomore biology major shouted, "Eat it, you PC hippies!" as he waved a copy of the study over his head. "Eat it and then iron my shirt. Wooooo! Sigma Phi!"

Postmodern Devotion

2008-03-03T15:57:00.011-06:00

I consider myself postmodern. Kinda. Maybe postmodern with a squirt of empiricism and sympathy for foundationalism. And a good healthy dose of global skepticism. That is, I consider myself all those things if I thought labels could describe me; I hate labels.

In other words, I consider myself postmodern.

For me, postmodern leanings are a constant battle to figure out the truth of a thing - to figure out how to make it subjective and meaningful to me as a single individual. The postmodern battle for truth is complicated.

As I daily embark upon the narrow way, I've recently come to reflect on what it means to be devoted to something. In the Christian faith, it is not uncommon to hear calls to "simple", "pure", "undivided", or "sincere" devotion. To be honest, I have no idea what that means.

Devotion, it seems, is anything but simple. If devotion were as easy as just saying you were devoted, then the word wouldn't have any meaning. We could all be devoted to whatever we wanted to be, by merely speaking the words. But that's not devotion. Even a casual observer would realize I'm not devoted to my wife if I cheat on her, even if I say with the loudest voice that I am devoted. It seems that devotion is more than wearing a label, or pledging allegiance. It seems that devotion must be a more extensive act.

So is devotion where your mind and effort dwells to the exclusion of other things? Can a person be devoted to clinical depression, or to substance addiction? Should a person who is ensnared by that which they hate, be called "devoted" to their misery? Returning, over and over again, to things you hate is a sign of a split mind. That seems more like addiction than devotion. On the other hand, being single-mindedly devoted to things you enjoy, to the exclusion of other things, like your friends, or your family, or your personal identity feels more like obsession than devotion. It seems that devotion is a more balanced act than that.

Is devotion doing what it takes to accomplish the good things you desire? After all, when you love someone, wouldn't you do whatever it takes to make them happy? But the ugly side of this is that happiness can be a fake - a manufactured reality based on false promises. Anyone can tell a sincere lie to further a cause. Devotion must be more substantial than that. It must be courageous enough to speak the truth in love, but also realistic enough to realize that devotion is much deeper than words alone. Devotion, it seems, must come from within and spread, in a certain way, to what is outside yourself.

What if real devotion is complicated in its origin and multi-layered in its approach? What if it is more than words spoken and actions taken, since any of these, on their own, can be a lie?

Devotion, it seems to me, is not a prospective act, in which I say I'm devoted and then prove it to you later. Instead, it is a retrospective act in which I look back and see unmistakable trail of devotion. Devotion isn't words spoken or actions taken. Devotion is a life lived, colored by the complicated past that drives a person to unite heart, mind, and strength. Devotion can only be seen in the rear view mirror. Perhaps that's why a person is said to be "devoted"- which is a past-tense word.

So as I wake up each morning, and wonder what a person devoted to the narrow way does today, I know that future devotion can only be approached with fear and trembling. This, it seems, is our daily postmodern devotion.

Happilana

2008-02-26T09:20:00.012-06:00

My uncle and friend died a week ago today.

He was more than a mere uncle, though. He was a world-class pianist, a vintage VW mechanic, a whiz at electronics, an explorer, a thinker, a man of God, and a good friend.

When I was in college, Uncle Steve and Aunt Beth lived about an hour away. I would come to visit them to get my clothes washed, have a meal, and participate in whatever crazy scheme Uncle Steve had going on at the time. And there was always something going on - working on an old car, rehabbing an old pinball machine, grilling 100 chicken quarters, helping someone move - something. There always seemed to be things he got himself into that were simultaneously hilarious and awful. People had a lot of memories of Uncle Steve.

I went through some hard times in college, and even though he was busy with his own interests and his own family, he took time to visit with me and make sure I was okay. At the time, I didn't appreciate that enough.

As I look back at Uncle Steve, it occurs to me that his exploring spirit was an effort in knowing. He didn't just look at a map and say he "knew" a place. He didn't read notes on a page and say he "knew" the music. And he didn't just talk with a person and say he "knew" them. He explored. He was interested in the side roads, the hole-in-the-wall places that only the locals knew about. He was interested in getting off the beaten trail and exploring the tops of mountains. He was interested in making music musical, of having it express emotion and devotion. He didn't just know how to play piano - he knew the piano. He didn't just lead the music, he developed a connection between the music and the hearer. In the same way, it seems to me, he wanted to know people in a way that was deep and meaningful, and worked to make that happen. He wanted connection.

At his wake, people poured in for hours. I've never seen anything like it. And at his funeral, the theme of connection was evident. So many people were touched by him, and will remember him fondly. I know I will.

I despise platitudes, if for no other reason than they try to soothe the act of mourning. Ecclesiastes teaches differently:

"It is better to go to a house of mourning
than to go to a house of feasting,
for death is the destiny of every man;
the living should take this to heart.

Sorrow is better than laughter,
because a sad face is good for the heart.

The mind of the wise is in the house of mourning,
but the mind of fools is in the house of pleasure."

I'm frequently guilty of knowing about things and people rather than knowing things and people. As my heart goes through this time of mourning, I pray that my mind will be drawn back, time and time again, to what it means to reach for connection.

Sleep in peace, my dear uncle.

Consummation

2008-02-15T10:37:00.006-06:00

Back when I lived in North Carolina, I used to drive on the Blue Ridge Parkway at least a couple of times a month. My memory is a little foggy from that time, but my recollection is that there is an overlook on the parkway called the Black Mountain overlook, which is pictured here.

According to the plaque that is at the overlook, the forest around the Black Mountains was in very poor health in the late 1800's. Many non-native species had invaded the forest, fungal diseases and insect infestations had run rampant, and the soil was eroding at a startling rate. The government agency taking care of the forest didn't know what to do. Nothing they tried seem to work. So, one day in the early 1900's they set the whole thing on fire and let it burn to the ground. Then, in a bold move, they decided to leave it alone for 30 years to see what happens.

Their gutsy move payed off, because it is now, as you can see, it is a beautiful, healthy forest.

Sometimes I think about this story of the forest on the Black Mountains when I read the Old Testament, and God is spoken of as a wrathful and jealous fire that consumes everything in His path, leaving behind something better. Sometimes this fire is spoken of in more positive terms, as being a "refiners fire", but it still seems to conjure up images of things being forcefully burned away. This stream of thought is quite prominent in the Old Testament - consummation means burning away bad things.

But as I've pondered Luke 9:51-56, I've become less convinced we think about consummation the right way. In this passage, Jesus was headed towards Jerusalem, and visiting villages along the way. One village - a Samaritan one - refused to let him enter. In response, James and John said,
"Lord, do you want us to command fire down from heaven and consume them?"
to which Jesus scolded them and replied,
"You do not know what kind of spirit you are of; for the Son of Man did not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them."

Starting with the Old Testament prophets and continuing into the New Testament, the subtle theme of mother-child or, more prominently, husband-wife relationship has started to dominate over the "fire" images used to describe our relationship to God. This theme gets slipped quietly into the prophets, slowly rising in crescendo through the New Testament until the final image is of the Church as the bride of Christ. (Feel free to inject "eewws" here as you realize that Christ is also your brother.)

Here is my point. Perhaps consummation and fire are not so much about "burning" things away, as if we can enter heaven by burning away all the bad things in us. Perhaps instead consummation and fire are about intensification in relationship.

People who fall in love don't just force themselves to love the other person. Instead, they become infatuated with each other, which leads to stages of intensification. Flirting becomes dating. Holding hands ensures. Private stories are shared. Kissing happens. A conversation occurs to determine "where this relationship is going". Somewhere in there a major fight happens, but you don't leave each other because your life just isn't the same without the other. Love blossoms. Blah, blah, blah. And, if we follow this story to its normal end, a true act of consummation occurs. Not because the parts that didn't love you were burned away - that would be more like rape. But, in the ideal case, because one was consumed with the other to the point they wanted to share intimate things.

That's not to say that things are always rosy - sometimes intensification is more like a crucible than a joy-ride. I could go on for pages and pages about what it means to intensify in relationship, but, at least for me, the story of God's consuming action is so much more about the silver than about the dross.

Inside the fire

2008-02-12T16:37:00.010-06:00

I'm a mystic mudblood. I come from a family, a faith tradition, and a career that, at best, frowns upon mystical talk. Yet, I remain convinced that there lays a way of knowing beyond what is apparent to the senses or the intellect.

Some time ago, I was thinking about Moses' encounter with the burning bush. This bush burned, but was not consumed. Moses found this strange, and ventured over to this thing to see what was going on. In the process, he experienced something life-shifting.

As I thought more about this story, the idea of the "holy ground" around the bush began to intrigue me. Pretty much every day of the week, this ground around the bush was normal earth - nothing special. But in the Moses story, the presence of the bush and the ground were superseded by the presence of God in that place, making the land Holy Ground. And, as Moses approached this Holy Ground, he encountered God in a way that put his checkered past into perspective, and defined his trajectory into the future. Being in the very presence of the fire changed Moses.

Yet despite the fire, the bush was not consumed. Even though the fire and the presence of God superseded the presence of the bush, the bush still remained. The union of the bush and God left the bush still bush-like, and God still divine.

It might not seem like much, but this was a bit of a breakthrough for me. Let me explain.

Very often I struggle with how to describe the way in which God, through the Holy Spirit, changes those who encounter him. The tradition in which I was raised seemed to focus on a more demanding or crushing action. God demands submission, and if he doesn't get submission, he punishes and crushes the resistance by sending the Holy Spirit to "convict" people. This action on the part of God drives those fearful of Him into behaviors that purge whatever they feel is evil, not worthy, or unholy. This purging takes many forms - from throwing away "secular" music, to prohibiting kids from reading or watching "magical" material, to general withdrawal from culture. Sometimes the end result of this type of purging is legalism, in which the way we avoid God's crushing activity is by doing things tied directly to the Bible. Sometimes the end result of this type of purging is self-loathing that stems from never being able to be "right" before a Holy God.

But the image of the burning bush seems to shift this view of God. Instead of crushing us, as He could have done with that bush, God woos us- He calls us and encounters us. Normal as we are -normal as the bush was - His presence on us in the Holy Spirit, through faith in Christ, changes our normalness, our unworthiness, and our unholiness into Holy Ground. In the process, it shifts us - it ignites us, just as it seems to have ignited something in Moses.

So, God's presence brings me fire, yet does not consume and crush me. Yet for those who find their center in the One Who Is True, the presence and thoughts of God fill their every breath. In this manner (here comes the mystical part) "I" am consumed, but I am not consumed. My thoughts and anxieties shift from selfishness and self-preservation - the "I" - to something outside of myself. As the reality of being found in God - of being a brother of Christ, of realizing that true power gives itself away - begins to sink in, "I" is no longer the focal point of my interaction in the world. Instead, I become consumed with the work of God, which gives itself sacrificially in love towards others. My thoughts are still my own, but no longer focused on me.

This way of thinking has led Paul to make a lot more sense to me:
"I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me."

Paul, it seems, speaks of himself as not living, yet living. It seems these are the peculiar thoughts of those who find themselves inside the fire of God's work, but not consumed. In a mystical way, we become the burning bush.

Being consumed with the work of God in the world leads to what appears to be some strange behaviors. But just as the bizarre behavior of the bush attracted attention, and led to an encounter with God that changed the trajectory of those who approached, I find myself wondering if the bizarre consummation of Christians should accomplish the same thing.

I also wonder how often we, as Christians, choose to find ourselves outside the fire, looking from a great distance at those bushes that burn, but are not consumed.

Giant Ichneumon Wasp

2008-02-04T16:37:00.000-06:00

See that guy? He's called a Giant Ichneumon Wasp. He wants to bite your head off and lay babies in your stomach.

He also loves to scare you. Especially when you are cutting down a tree in your back yard during the summer and he suddenly appears without warning, crawling towards you as if unafraid, sure that your feeble attempts at personal defense will fail. He knows that his corn-dog-like size and wasp-like appearance will paralyze you with fright. He also knows he is vaguely tiger-colored, which means he is one bad dude. You will be unable to run away. You will be his.

You eye what appears to be a 3-inch stinger, knowing that if you run, you will expose your back, allowing him to sting you in the spinal cord, resulting in instant full-body paralysis. But if you stand there, he will probably gouge out your eyes right before kicking you in the genitals. Your mind races. You've never seen any insect like this, but you know his wasp-like appearance and vague scorpion rear-end mean danger. You also know that he knows this. You sink in despair as you realize he is winning the psychological battle.

Then, you remember that you have this in your hand. You remember that you have opposable thumbs, and have harnessed the power of electricity. You realize that you are not in some Pleistocene time where giant insects rule the world, but that you are in the 'burbs. You realize that you are wearing the worn-out t-shirt and faded levi's of the weekend warrior.

You take your formidable suburban scimitar and strike down the giant ichneumon wasp with all your might, destroying a small portion of a birch tree in the process. The wily insect is quick, but not quick enough, for he is torn asunder by the multiple whirling knives of your blade. As for the tree - it is no matter. You were cutting it down anyway.

You bask in the radiant glory of defeating the giant ichneumon wasp, saving yourself and your family from their terrible paralyzing sting, and being made into incubators for their young. You are the Bobby Fisher to their Russian chess match of corn-dogged sized fear and tiger-stripped intimidation.

Then, you find out that "he" was really a "she", and that she is quite harmless and really sorta cool.

Then you realize that you are a giant tool.

Look dude, all I know is the sky turned purple. After that I don't ask questions. Just...make myself a salad and move on.

2008-01-31T09:28:00.000-06:00

Let's face it, I grew up watching television, specifically science fiction and fantasy. Things like Star Trek, The X-Files, Batman, Spiderman, Hercules, Twilight Zone, Buck Rogers, The Greatest American Hero, My Favorite Martian, Buffy, Tales from the Crypt, and a whole bunch more I can't think of right now. I simply love episodic fantasy.

Right now, Lost is my favorite. For the last couple of weeks, Mel and I have been watch every episode in preparation for the season premier, which just so happens to be tonight (on ABC, 7:00 ct). To say that I've been looking forward to this would be an understatement. To quote a friend, "I'm chuffed".

“Dude, I know how this works. This is gonna end with you and me running through the jungle, screaming and crying. He catches me first because I'm heavy and I get cramps.”

I don't exactly know what I like about Lost. What's not to like? The writing is great, the acting is good, the storylines are appropriately credible, and you grow to generally like each and every character - even the bad ones.

Something else I like is the humor. Peppered into this gritty story about plane-crash survivors living on a genuinely freaky island who's previous inhabitants seem to have it out for them are jokes that are legitimately funny. And at the same time, oh so true.

“No, John, unfortunately we don't have a code for "There's a man in my closet with a gun to my daughter's head". Although...we obviously should.”

Lost also seems to take itself seriously in just the right amounts. Characters aren't afraid of telling each other how stupid their decisions were. The characters are fallible, gritty, and in search of something. Being on the island turns their wandering into a journey.

“Two days after I found out I had a fatal tumor on my spine...a spinal surgeon fell out of the sky. And if that's not proof of God, I don't know what is.”

Something else I like is that the story is metaphysical. While even the causal watcher can see the "man of science vs man of faith" motif being played out, the more subtle overtones of the debate are also present. The answer between science and faith in real life is tricky and complex; neither is wrong, and neither is right. Lost, at least in my view, plays to this subtlety well. The right questions are always asked at the right time, and the answer is always murky. Sometimes this murkiness leads to violence and anger, sometimes it leads to peace - sometimes it leads to both.

A satirical Christmas reflection

2008-01-28T09:20:00.001-06:00

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. It was with God in the beginning.

Through it all things were made; without it nothing was made that has been made. In it was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.

There came a man who was sent from God; his name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning the light, so that through it all men might believe. He himself was not the light; he only came as a witness to the light. The true light that gives light to every man was about to be printed.

It was in the world, and though the world was made through it, the world did not recognize it. It came to that which was its own, but its own did not receive it. Yet to all who received it, to those who believed what they read, it gave the right to become children of God - children not born of natural descent, nor of human decision nor a husbands will, but born of God.

The Word was written on paper, and could be bought in top-grain leather. We have seen it's glory, the glory of its remarkable translation, which came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

John testifies about it. He cries out saying, "This is that of whom I said, 'This that comes after me has surpassed me because of its remarkable cross-referencing system.'" From the fullness of it's text we have received one blessing after another. For the law was written down by Moses; grace and truth came through the King James Version only. No one has ever seen God, but we don't need to because we have this awesome book, which sat on the Father's nightstand, and has made Him known.

Now this was John's testimony when the Jews of Jerusalem sent priests and Levites to ask who he was. He did not fail to confess, but confessed freely, "I am not the Christ".

They asked him, "Then who are you? Are you a rep from Zondervan?"
He said, "I am not."
"Are you a Gideon?"
He answered, "No".

Finally they said, "Who are you? Give us an answer to take back to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?"

John replied in the worlds of Isaiah the prophet, "I am the voice of the one calling the desert, 'Make straight the way for the Lord'"

Now some of the pharisees who had been sent questioned him, "Why then do you baptize if you are not the Christ, nor a rep from Zondervan, nor a Gideon?"

"I baptize with water," John replied, "but among you stands one you do not know how to read. It is the one that comes after me, the pages of which I am not worthy to thumb through."

This all happened at Bethany on the other side of the Jordan, where John was baptizing...

A poem of Hope

2008-01-23T10:27:00.000-06:00

Below is a poem written by Dietrich Bonhoeffer while he was imprisoned by the Nazis. Starting from my teenage years, I've resonated with this poem in many ways. Lately, it has been on my mind more than usual.

Who Am I?

Who am I? They often tell me

I stepped from my cell’s confinement

Calmly, cheerfully, firmly,

Like a squire from his country-house.

Who am I? They often tell me

I used to speak to my warders

Freely and friendly and clearly,

As though it were mine to command.

Who am I? They also tell me

I bore the days of misfortune

Equally, smilingly, proudly,

Like one accustomed to win.

Am I then really all that which other men tell of?

Or am I only what I myself know of myself?

Restless and longing and sick, like a bird in a cage,

Struggling for breath, as though hands were

compressing my throat,

Yearning for colors, for flowers, for the voices of birds,

Thirsting for words of kindness, for neighborliness,

Tossing in expectation of great events,

Powerlessly trembling for friends at an infinite distance,

Weary and empty at praying, at thinking, at making,

Faint, and ready to say farewell to it all?

Who am I? This or the other?

Am I one person today and tomorrow another?

Am I both at once? A hypocrite before others,

And before myself a contemptibly woebegone weakling?

Or is something within me still like a beaten army,

Fleeing in disorder from victory already achieved?

Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions of mine.

Whoever I am, Thou knowest, 0 God, I am Thine!

March 4,1946

Mixtape Lives

2008-01-09T20:50:00.000-06:00

After the train wreck that was the last post, I think I need to offer a bit of a corrective and (hopefully) clarification. This post is a bit hastily baked, so be kind. Remember, I'm more of a tortoise than a hare.

I don't think anyone can seriously argue that humans aren't creatures who integrate. By our very nature, we emerge from the pressures of our environment - of our family, community, and culture. We are creatures who define ourselves through relationship with that which is other.

In practical terms, this means that I don't know who I am without the sum of my experiences. I don't know who I am without everything that has happened in my life up until now, including my relationship with you. And, like it or not, you don't know who you are without me. We inform each other, and in so doing make each other who we are. This shouldn't be news to anyone.

These lives that we create with each other are mixtapes, made up of our experiences, relationships, beliefs, hopes, and dreams. Each of our mixtapes are as unique as our faces or our fingerprints, and might even be connected to them. Yet our mixtape never stands alone. No matter how hard I try, songs on my mixtape are your songs, taken from your mixtape, though they are made over in my image. Or, to put it another way, the threads in my life tapestry are lifted from my interaction with others, and arranged as I see fit. And, in turn, others lift songs and threads from me. This is simply the reality of being human.

Which brings me to a quote from Darrell Jadock in 1990:
"The problem here is not that one's worldview or experience influences one's reading of the text, because that is inescapable. The problem is instead that the text is made to conform to the world view or codified experience and thereby loses its integrity and its ability to challenge and confront our present priorities, including even our most noble aspirations."

My argument in Mixtape Letters is that we must strive to uphold the integrity of the thing we are approaching, in order to truly hear what it has to say - to find it's "point".

But once we have the point what should we do?

It seems to me that our inevitable response to the challenge and confrontation the point brings is to enter into a dance of integrating experiences and relationships and points into our own mixtape lives. The dance is not bad, on the contrary. It's just that we need to allow room for someone or something to teach us a new dance, or to correct the dance we're currently dancing. Sometimes we have to listen to another mixtape, as hard as we can, while turning down our own. (In other words, we start with as close to the original point as we can get, and then integrate that point into our own context.)

Sometimes, as I enter the dance of integrating, I find things that are simply incompatible with who I am and what I hold dear. In that case, I might reject the point. In most cases, though, I just reject the parts I don't like, and keep the stuff I do like. There's nothing wrong with that, but it seems to me that I have to be honest with myself about the fact that I just did something to alter the original point as I form it over in my own image.

I believe that God has invited all of creation into this dance since the beginning of time. It is a dance that occurs in the very atoms that make up the universe, and a dance that God, as trinity, dances as well. In fact, His very being is what allows the dance to exist. As time passes away and this universe runs out of the energy to dance, it is also my belief that God will remember my unique but transient mixtape life, and invite me into a different dance - one in which I will get the chance to learn an infinite number of new steps as I dance with the Trinity for eternity.

Mixtape Letters

2008-01-08T08:32:00.000-06:00

This summer, one of the toys I got was a Zune MP3 player. Like all Microsoft products, it has some problems, but all in all, I really like it. Plus, I got it for cheap, and that makes me happy.

With my Zune came a free two-week subscription to Zune Marketplace, which is basically like all-you-can-eat iTunes. Any songs I downloaded from Zune Marketplace would play as long as I was still subscribed, which after 2 weeks became no-longer-free.

Being the music lover that I am, I started furiously downloading whatever I wanted. A little Billy Joel here, a little Kanye West there. A smidge of Mercy Me, a bunch of Moby. A sample of Fergie, a plateful of Pink. A scoop of U2, a handful of Linkin Park. You get the idea.

But I noticed something interesting. At the end of my time on Zune Pass, I had only downloaded one album intact. For the rest of the material I downloaded, I only had a smattering of individual songs, which I had combined into finely tuned playlists. Basically, I had a bunch of mixtapes that I had cobbled together to satisfy my particular tastes. Screw the artist and the concept of an "album", I want track #4 only, and then I want to put it with track #10 of something completely different. Because, you know, it's all about me.

Some artists, like Radiohead, won't let you download individual tracks, because they view their albums as a cohesive whole. They won't submit to the demands of consumers, which take only what they want, when they want it, and discard the rest. With Radiohead you have to submit to the tapestry they create, rather than the tapestry you, as the consumer, want to create for yourself.

Unfortunately, this same consumeristic mindset invades our faith. All too often we, as Christians, don't read books like Genesis or Matthew as if they are a tapestry of their own, demanding to be read as a cohesive, stand alone whole. Instead, we take particular chapters and verses out, and use them as we please. We read only chapter 3:23-24, or 17:24-28 rather than wrestling with the fact that the whole book means something larger than those verses. We mix them together into playlists that make us feel predictable ways about ourselves, or about God.

All too often, we blur together bible stories until they have no distinctive context. This is especially true at Christmas. The story about Joseph being told to marry Mary? Only in Matthew. The story about Mary being told she would give birth as a virgin? Only in Luke. The story about the Magi following the star and bringing gifts? Only in Matthew. The story about the shepherds seeing angels and coming to worship Jesus? Only in Luke. The idea that the word became flesh and dwelt among us? Only in John. Most Christmas stories, though, are the ultimate mixtape of all these stories crammed together. In fact, I would bet most of us can't even conceive of the Christmas story without the mixtape. We have, in fact, designed our own tapestry.

I recently saw this happening with Genesis as well. Instead of reading Genesis as it's own tapestry, threads and verses from other tapestries were pulled out by preference and applied to particular verses of Genesis. What results is a tapestry of our own making, apart from what a book is actually trying to say. We, in fact, become more interested in our own mixtape letter than an actual Biblical letter. And in so doing, we get caught, once again, in the curse of folk theology.

I wonder, as I interact with christians in my church and at my work, what would happen if we let the confusing parts of Genesis, or of the prophets, or of Matthew actually confuse and disturb us through the unique tapestry they weave, rather than calming ourselves with a well constructed security blanket? What would happen if we looked at the Bible more as an art gallery about God and humanity - with each painting standing alone, yet somehow related to its neighbor- rather than a single smeared image?

What would happen if we ditched the mixtape letters? Can we? Should we?

Auld Lang Syne

2007-12-30T16:23:00.001-06:00

For all my old BSU friends, I've been meaning to get this digitized for years, but didn't have the means to get it from VHS to DVD until recently. Enjoy, and Happy New Year!

Forgiveness and the Inversion of Power - Part II

2007-12-19T10:28:00.000-06:00

What do I mean when I say an "inversion of power'?

A brief survey of history reveals that the structures humans have produced (sometimes in God’s name) tend to serve self-satisfaction through oppression, abuse, and privilege. Such an exercise in power inevitably leads towards the oppressed rising up and demanding justice through the very means once used against them. I could go on and on about the natural urge for dominance and fulfillment, and the cycle of violence that creates, but ultimately Gandhi was right when he said an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind. And, I might add, still angry.

In contrast to human structures, Jesus’ way of thinking about power, love, freedom, and humanity was so radical to those around him that he said one had to be "born again" to understand it. In fact, being born again is a prerequisite for entering into the "kingdom of God".

In earthly kingdoms, people sacrifice freedom to make the king rich and powerful in exchange for protection and provision. But, by and large, the kingdom of God is an inversion of this. In an earthly kingdom, commoners are often forced to give their lives to protect the king’s son. In the kingdom of God, the king’s son willingly gives up his life to protect the people. In earthly kingdoms, people pay taxes so that the king can have more power. In the kingdom of God, the king gives of his infinite excess so that the people can become rich.

This biblical intuition of the inversion of power can be seen throughout the old testament (how often was the rule of primogeniture reversed?), culminating in the beatitudes, the apostles, and the very life of Jesus given for us all.

Here is my point - the inversion of power isn’t just about the weak become powerful, though it is about that, too. The inversion of power is also about giving away power out of a desire for something better than primal self-satisfaction. Power tends to seek more power so that the powerful can get good things. The inversion of power seeks to give power away for the benefit of everyone.

So, how does this relate to forgiveness, especially when the flow of forgiveness seems to be one-way?

I don't want to speak for others, but there have been times in my life when I was not able to forgive until I realized the turmoil within those who harmed me. And, as time passed and my days were colored by God, I realized that He had made me powerful. Not some worldly power that derives its strength from taking things from others, or some physical show of force that commands attention, but a divine power that is able to give itself away out of excess. For me, this kind of power has become emotional stability, spiritual purpose, and hope for the future to the point where I could risk my very well-being because I am so blessed. I don’t want to take back what people, in their weakness, felt compelled to steal from me. Instead, forgiveness for me has become a time of mercy in which I mourn over the depths of weakness and confusion that lead to others taking things from me under the guise of power, but which I could now forgive out of my excess. However, this process takes time.

For those individuals who have been raped or molested, or for those peoples who are systematically oppressed, I wonder how long the process of forgiveness might take. How long until a woman can feel powerful enough to forgive the debt that the rapist incurred? Again, not power rooted in taking from others, but power rooted in being filled to excess. How long until those who have been oppressed for many generations can find the internal fortitude to forgive their oppressors?

I don’t have good answers to these questions. Maybe, on some tangible level, restitution makes sense in the process of forgiveness. Maybe counseling makes sense. Maybe being separated from the actual person and place forever is the only way to regain a permanent sense of well-being out of which forgiveness can spring. I don’t know how long is too long to wait for true forgiveness. But I’ve become convinced that the healing embrace that will cure the world happens when people come to grips with the inversion of power demonstrated to us by Christ, and instead of using their resources to take, use their resources to love.

"Hatred stirs up dissension, but love covers over all wrongs."
"So let us consider how we may spur one another on towards love..."

Ye Olde Journale - Creatione & Destructione

2007-12-12T11:33:00.001-06:00

Part II of the forgiveness post is taking me longer to articulate than I expected. Sometimes getting things from head and heart to paper (or blog) is like giving birth. Things tear and bleed and hurt.

In any case, while I get an epidural, here is a blast from the very distant past. I journaled a bit when I was a teenager, and I believe the following snippet was written when I was 17 or so. My actual thoughts have shifted quite a bit since writing this (I'm almost twice as old!), so don't go commenting as if this something I accept today. Since a lot of the conversation I've been hearing lately has been about the journey of faith, I thought I would look into mine a bit more. As far as I remember, this is my first written attempt at articulating the relation of God to creation, and the beginning of my rejection of creation ex nihilo for creation ex dei.

Does anyone see any glaring problems in the following framework?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

...which does bring up another good point to pursue. Why is Satan still here? Why is it that God can destroy the entirety of civilization with Noah with the justification that they are evil and have turned from Him, yet not destroy Satan himself? I think that we have to look at the way the universe is set up to explain.

Physics tells us that all things are constant in the universe. Nothing is either created or destroyed. Matter is always conserved in a reaction; energy is always conserved in a process; momentum is always conserved in a collision. Granted, there are times when matter can be converted to energy and vise versa, but the rule is that all things are conserved. No exceptions. When we die, our bodies decay and rot and become life again while our souls soar towards the heavens and eternity. Everything is conserved. Almost as if God is not willing to destroy anything that He as created.

Which makes sense to me. God created the universe, and after each step said “It is good,”. Why would he destroy something that He Himself has deemed good? He may destroy, like He did Sodom and Gomorrah, but isn’t that just the destruction of something man made? Don’t those atoms still exist, just in a different form? And don’t the souls of those who died still exist? You see, God didn’t really destroy, He just changed the things that he had created. And it seems that changing and creating is the only thing God ever does. Lack of destruction on the part of God gives a new meaning of sacredness to the things He has created.

Satan, however, is a different story. Satan has a spirit of destruction within him. Satan destroyed the bond between God and Adam in the Garden of Eden. Satan destroyed the bond between brothers when Cain killed Abel. Satan destroyed the connection between man and woman with lust and perversion. And Satan destroys the bond between me and God. The times I feel furthest from God, have the craving and desire to destroy. Not only to destroy, but to obliterate from existence, so that nothing remains of the object of my anger. Satan is a destroyer.

Which may, in fact, be the definition of sin to God. The act of destruction. God could no longer be with Adam because Adam had taken part in the destruction of something God had created. And this continues. God cannot be with man because man has destroyed something that He as created, and that is an abomination to Him. And God despises Satan because Satan is the Destroyer. Probably, that is what separated God and Lucifer in the first place. God created Something, and Lucifer thought that the Something would be best destroyed. God refused to destroy the Something, so Lucifer tried to go behind God’s back and destroy it. Hence the separation of God and Lucifer. Other angels thought that Lucifer had the right idea, that destruction of the Something was the way to go, so they were cast out of heaven also.

Whether or not Lucifer succeeded in destroying the Something is irrelevant, and whether or not Satan has the ability to create is fairly irrelevant also. The fact is that Satan destroyed, if not the Something, then the relationship he had with God. And the destruction of what God had created was reprehensible.

God still refuses to destroy, which is fine by me. Even in the End there will be no destruction. Except for the destruction of evil, which is something that God never created anyway. All of our souls will live eternally, either with God or in the Lake of Fire, and Satan and his henchmen will burn in the Lake of Fire as well. And what an amazing end for them. They will be conserved, these spirits that burn but are never consumed, yet the evil that caused them to destroy will be burned away forever, leaving only the glorious things that God has created.

Forgiveness and the Inversion of Power - Part I

2007-12-06T12:37:00.001-06:00

I'm intrigued by the concept of forgiveness.

Upon occasion, I get to teach various groups at my church, which is astounding if you really think about it. A couple of weeks ago, I was asked to teach in a class about some of the examples Jesus gave for good relationships.

Jesus taught many things, and one of them was forgiveness. He taught that people will be forgiven to the extent that they forgive, which encompasses both quality (from your heart), and quanity (seventy times seven). I won't go into all of it here, but the the divine call to forgive is powerful and vast.

Indubitably, Christians are called to forgive. This often translates into a Christian imperative that a Christian must forgive no matter what, or they aren't being a good Christian. This leads to all sorts of strange behaviors that parade under the guise of "forgiveness", but are really nothing more than faking it. Sometimes, it leads to a sort of forced servitude in which the forgiver submits to the forgiven in an attempt to follow Christ's example. This is cheap forgiveness.

This sort of forgiveness enables those who are powerful to abuse those who are less powerful. With the kind of forgiveness that must be applied no matter what, those who are beaten, shamed, and violated (emtionally, physically, spiritually, or otherwise) by those who are more powerful are prevented from taking action against those who are stronger. Such a system enables oppression, and ignores the Biblical mandate to fight against injustice - to protect the downtrodden and weak, and to pursue justice for all people. One could even argue that such a view of forgiveness erodes the legal system, since forgiveness must be applied seventy-times-seven no matter the crime. Should our call to forgive really supersede our call to justice, and protection of the oppressed?

As I've groped for a better understanding of the complex beast that is forgiveness, Matthew 18:21-35 continues to stick in my mind. In this passage, Jesus is asked about forgiveness, and he responds with telling a story about a man who wanted to settle his accounts with his servants. One servant owed the king more than he could ever pay, and so the king, in his mercy, let the servant go. This first servant, in turn, went to a servant coworker that owed him just a few dollars and had him thrown in jail for not paying the debt. When the king found that his servant had done such a thing, he was livid, and had the first servant thrown in jail and tortured until he could pay the unpayable debt. The story ends with an admonition from Jesus:
"This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart."

It seems to me that something is happening in this parable that we often don't think about. In every instance of forgiveness in this parable, forgiveness flows from one more powerful to one less powerful. The king, who is the ultimate authority, forgives his servant. The servant, who has legal power over his debtors, is in turn supposed to forgive his debtors. There is no speaking of the debtor, who is the one in danger of being oppressed, doing any forgiving.

But if only the powerful do the forgiving, then what do we make out of Jesus being crucified, or of Stephen being stoned, or of the beatings suffered by Paul, or of the persecution of the church? Doesn't it seem that these were beaten and oppressed by ones more powerful, and yet forgave anyway?

As I reflect upon the power tactics of Jesus, I'm not so sure he was killed by those more powerful. Those who are the greatest in Jesus' kingdom are those who are the least, those who come to him as a child, those who give up their life to save it. Jesus' example is that real power is the inversion of power. Power occurs not when you find satisfaction on the intoxication of being above others, but instead satisfaction is found in the healing embrace of God, who welcomes us into a new way of living no matter our previous offense.

So, who was greater - the Son of God who could call a host of angels, or those who thought nailing him to a tree was the best way to get rid of him? Who was greater - Stephen, who looked into heaven and saw the Son of God smiling back at him, or those who picked up sticks and rocks in a blind rage? Who was greater - Paul, who found the worth of his being in the affirmations of Christ, or those who hated him for the message he preached?

Biblically, the direction of flow is a heavy theme of forgiveness. In every case I've ever come across, the more powerful one always forgives the less powerful. In every case, the oppressed cry out, and the powerful forgive. Never to do the oppressed, violated, or abused forgive the powerful unless the powerful are first humbled and the oppressed gain power over them. The flow seems to be only one-way.

I've realized that most people find this view of forgiveness radical and strange - the Sunday School class I taught sure thought it was strange. What do you think about it? Can you think of a Biblical example of forgiveness that does not come from the one who is more powerful? What is the Biblical intuition of power?

Lesson from Sem 4: Professors under pressure

2007-11-15T17:20:00.000-06:00

While I wasn't as enthralled with the students as I hoped, I enjoyed almost every one of my professors. Some where touchy-feely, some were analytical, some were funny, and some were as serious as a heart attack. Although some were not very good teachers, they were all well trained and really seemed to know their stuff when pressed, with more than one being what I call 'stone-cold brilliant' - a designation I don't use lightly.

As I went through my classes, I found myself consistently wondering why I had never heard the gospel presented in the ways it was in Seminary. One professor (one of my favorites) walked in on the first day of class and said, "I have good news and I have bad news. The bad news is that the god you were taught about as you grew up doesn't exist. He's a myth. The good news is that the God of the Bible does exist."

He was right. As I went through seminary, learned about the formation of the biblical canon, learned about textual criticism, learned about church history, and psychology, and hermeneutics, and theology through the ages, it was like scales were falling from my eyes. The journey can't really be described, but it was life-shifting. For me, this shift was in a good direction, for some others, the shift knocked them off their moorings.

The question I kept asking myself, again and again, is why this altered understanding of the Christian faith and of God doesn't filter down to congregations. The answer has to do with what that professor told us on the first day of class.

People don't like it when the god of their childhood is in danger of being altered. People don't like it when they find the very faith that they have clung to - the foundation of their thinking - is actually balanced precariously on the edge of a cliff. People don't like it when they have to realize that our scientific understanding of the world actually should change the ways in which we think about God, reality, and the Bible. People get scared when they are taught about the real nature of truth, or about the real history of the Christian scriptures.

Here's an example - one of the best New Testament textual critics in the world, Michael Holmes, works at Bethel University. (Textual criticism refers to reconstructing the original scripture, which no longer exists, from the many variant scripture documents that still exist.) He was a guest lecturer in one of my Greek classes, and walked us through several text critical issues in rapid fire succession. For someone like me, who saw the Bible as a bulletproof document with no problems whatsoever, these examples were devastating. I felt my world starting to shift. Others in the class must have felt the same way because at least a few, men and women alike, walked out during the middle of class, sobbing. Perhaps theirs wasn't a shift as much as a collapse.

Now, Dr. Holmes is a very strong Christian, very loving and kind, and very good at his job. This scenario is not entirely his fault. But the reality is that Biblical inerrancy like I was taught in church is problematic. The type and extent of these problems aren't well understood (if at all) by most laypeople, yet these issues cannot be historically disputed by any reasonable individual. Can you imagine the response of a congregation to teaching that drives seminary students from class with tears streaming down their face? Would their response be fear and trembling and renewed interest in the God they are so convicted is real, or would they respond in fear and anger towards the messenger out of a wish to preserve their beliefs? What does that then say about their beliefs?

Just imagine the turmoil that would occur if a professor decided to speculate on something that was disputable. What about the implications of the theory of relativity for the second coming of Jesus Christ? What about the implications of quantum mechanics on our understanding of truth and knowledge? What about testing the Biblical claims for prayer and right living against the claims of other belief systems?

Seminary professors are accused of living in Ivory Towers, but as I see it our Christian congregations have put them there. Greg Boyd (who is controversial in his own right) was run off from his professorship because he dared to proposed a theory that, at least to him, made more sense out of scriptures than other widely known theories. I don't agree with Dr. Boyd on spritual warfare theodicy or open theism, but it does take seriously some passages of scripture that often aren't taken seriously enough. Another professor (who has requested to remain nameless) was fired from his professorship for writing a paper speculating that "abstacta" may be co-eternal with God. Essentially, what this means is that abstract concepts, like mathematical truths and logic are not "things" that need to be created, and therefore *could* be co-eternal with God. Again, I don't agree with this view, but it does take seriously the nature of certain truths. This paper had been published for over a year when he finally explained to one of his classes what the paper was really about. A student took issue with the concepts in the paper, and had the professor sacked for "not maintaining orthodoxy".

Incidences like these are not uncommon. So, instead of professors making their work accessible to all, in the hopes that their work might be an aid to the very church-goers who fund them, professors make their work as inaccessible as possible; they enter the ivory tower. They adopt jargon that takes much effort to decode. They use ambiguous language that makes the unsophisticated reader unaware of what they are really saying. They use an abundance of footnotes to intimidate others from criticizing their work. They make their argument philosophical, so that the implications to actual church practice (where the congregation resides) are hard to determine. They refuse to speak up in church to correct misunderstandings or misinterpretations of theology, or the Bible, or of history.

Professors often find themselves between the pressures to affirm the "orthodoxy" that congregations and students demand, and the call they feel God has given them to do profound and scholarly work to further the kingdom of God on earth.

I wonder what would happen if professors practiced church discipleship, teaching ways of interpreting the Bible, of thinking about God and science, and of the history of Christian thought. I wonder how most of the people in our churches would respond. How would you respond?

What would happen if we decided that loving God doesn't mean demanding the exact same formulations generation after generation, as if our ways of thinking about God are perfect and divine, but instead realize that loving God means going on the journey to grope after God, though He is not far from each of us? What would happen if the scholarship we, as Christians, fund actually makes its way into the life of our churches?

If it shouldn't impact us as the Church, then why on earth do we fund Christian scholarship?

The healing embrace

2007-11-12T17:14:00.000-06:00

The concept of forgiveness intrigues me.

I was in a Bible study many years ago where we were talking about forgiveness. A single woman was talking about her yet-to-be-found future husband. She said that if her future husband ever cheated on her, she thought she could forgive him, but she didn't think she could ever trust him again. She said she would always have trouble trusting him, or wonder where he was when coming home late from work, or wonder who he was emailing. I don't remember what we said to her in the Bible study, but that story stuck in my head, because that is a story of forgiveness in which no one is actually forgiven. (It's actually more like the wrong kind of forgiveness.)

On the surface, forgiveness doesn't make a whole lot of sense. It seems to me that if you don't want a person to do something, like cheat on their husband, or steal, or kill, then you make the penalty so severe that it serves as sufficient deterrent. Plus, it has the added benefit of removing certain offending individuals from normal societal circulation so that their influence is minimized, if not eliminated all together as in the case of capital punishment.

Unforgiveness seems to make the most sense, because to forgive seems to mean that you open yourself up to being victimized again. Forgiveness seems like an invitation to a worrisome life, where you constantly have to cast a wary eye on the previous offenders, in fear of them offending again. Forgiveness seems to be an undesirable situation in which you have to adopt strange new actions that keep you from being hurt over and over and over by people who want to take advantage of your forgiveness. How does forgiveness ever really make sense?

As I've groped for a better understanding of the complex beast that is forgiveness, two Bible passages have shaped my thinking more than anything else, though the book "Faces of Forgiveness" comes close. One is Matthew 9:1-8, and the other is Matthew 18:21-35. (These passages are just 2 of many examples, but they tell the story in ways that really grip me.)

The Matthew 9 passage is a story about Jesus and the paralytic. When the paralytic's friends brought him to Jesus, Jesus told him that he was forgiven of his sins. After a bit of a scuffle with the teachers of the law, Jesus said:
Which is easier: to say, 'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, 'Get up and walk'? But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins...." Then he said to the paralytic, "Get up, take your mat and go home." And the man got up and went home.

It seems to me that Jesus here is linking forgiveness to healing in a way that we frequently don't think about. At least in this passage, they are synonymous. Forgiveness and healing go together to the extent that "Your sins are forgiven" is the same as saying "Get up and walk".

Using this lens of forgiveness and healing, other passages start to make more sense to me. The parable of the prodigal son, for instance, isn't just about the depth of the love the father has for the wayward son, but it is also about the extent of healing extended to the prodigal. The prodigal wasn't accepted back into family life as the black sheep who would always be viewed with suspicion. Instead, he was restored, re-clothed, and loved in a way that doesn't quite make sense. It was the other son, the good son, who showed the kind of forgiveness that seems to make sense - the kind of forgiveness that merely tolerates the presence of those who are wayward, but never really trusts or accepts them back into right relationship. The "good" son rejects the healing embrace of forgiveness. The father knows better.

Paul exhorts us to remember to debt of love we owe to one another. Viewed through the lens of the healing embrace, if the prodigal son were to re-offend he would not be deterred by the violence of punishment, but rather by the crushing reality of life without the radical love of his father. The debt of love doesn't make make the prodigal fear the punishment heaped on him by others, but instead makes him fear thee punishment he heaps on himself through a life without the healing embrace. Perhaps that is also why Christians should visit the prisoners - to help them understand the healing embrace that they may have never had, and to welcome them into a community they never want to leave. Without such love and forgiveness, it's no wonder they re-offend.

Here's my point. If we are truly forgiven to the measure that we forgive, then perhaps some measure of our (my?) spiritual dryness is because we haven't learned how to give the healing embrace. Maybe sometimes the distance there seems to be between God and me (us?) isn't some inexplicable dark night of the soul, but rather a symptom of my own inability to forgive.

Perhaps the strangeness we feel at our family gatherings, or with our spouses, or in our Sunday School classes happens because we are constantly surrounded by people who don't know how to give the healing embrace, and are constantly wary of a relationship in which they might get hurt. Or, maybe it is us who can't give the embrace. Perhaps a portion of the animosity the secular world has for the church is because we have all failed in our ability to forgive in ways that mend, correct, and welcome.

I wonder how often what we call forgiveness is really no more than saying "that's okay". Instead, I wonder what would happen if we, instead of dismissing the moment of forgiveness, remembered Matthew 9 and extended forgiveness and healing as if they could never exist apart from one another.

Perhaps the true Kingdom of God happens when the true healing embrace of forgiveness is offered freely, even to those who want to see us dead. Maybe we, as Christians, need to be reminded a little more often of what a true healing embrace looks like.

But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.

Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.

The new dirty word: Introvert

2007-11-07T16:40:00.000-06:00

I'm an introvert - a strong one at that. I need time alone and apart to recharge. I need time to process the things that have happened to me. I need time alone to sort through the emotions and situations and words and arrive at some semblance of an answer. I need time to reflect. I need time to figure out who I am in light of everything I have experienced, and everything I believe.

If I recall, approximately 30% of the population in the United States are introverts. By the way, that percentage goes up as IQ increases. Make of that what you will.

Since the majority of the American population are on the extrovert side of the fence, introverts tend to be misunderstood. I read a pretty good article a couple of months ago entitled "Top 5 Things Every Extrovert Should Know About Introverts". You should check it out - it's an easy read. To reiterate the article, introverts are not shy, arrogant, or socially inept, as they tend to be labeled. Instead, introverts are simply not group focused, intolerant of shallow conversation, and socially reserved.

In a society that values the quick satisfaction that can be given by a Google search, or by a cheap laugh from watching an episode of The Office, or by that energized feeling you get when you hang out with that ultra-extrovert who "brings the party", that misunderstanding cuts deep. Images of spontaneous interaction capture our minds and our hearts - whether it kissing a stranger in the street during a fit of joy, dancing with that strange girl in the club, or meeting the perfect guy in the baking goods aisle of the grocery store. These things capture us because, as extroverts see it, interaction is what runs the world. Things get done when people rub elbows, when they party together and get to know one another. People only get energized when they are around other people and can feel the closeness of human presence. The person who brings the party is the person who brings the life and energy to the world; the human dance is what gives motion to our being. In such a world, introvert is a dirty word.

And so, as I've done more often than I should, introverts make nice and act like extroverts in order to be accepted, even when they would rather find new friends at Borders Bookstore than at Williams Uptown Pub and Peanut Bar. Yet as I've considered the real hopes and fears and struggles of the people I've talked to, I've realized something important - everybody needs to know an introvert who acts like an introvert. And, everybody needs to know an extrovert who acts like an extrovert.

With too many of the extroverts I know, communication can't get past the surface. Sure, there's a lot of talking going on, but not much actual communication that makes a difference. Sometimes lack of communication manifests itself as problems with family, sometimes as problems with getting into bad relationships, and sometimes as problems with thinking about God.

Sometimes it takes an extrovert discussing their broken relationships with an introvert to figure out how to get past all the years of hurt and misunderstanding in order to actually communicate the depths of their feelings to someone else. Sometimes it takes having a deep conversation with someone familiar with the deep to help you figure out what you don't even know about yourself. Introverts help us to go deep.

With too many introverts that I know, their thoughts are more important than the thing they are thinking about. I'm frequently guilty of this myself. Sure, there's a lot of thinking going on, but not much that makes a difference to what is being thought about. Sometimes this manifests itself as questionable statements like, "It's the thought that counts" or "Do what I say, not what I do." Sometimes, it manifests itself as being unapproachable, or unloving, or unrealistic about how the world actually works.

Sometimes it takes an introvert working alongside an extrovert to figure out how the thoughts and ideas and theories actually apply to reality. Sometimes it takes rubbing elbows with those who are outward focused to realize what a difference saying the little things actually makes. Sometimes it takes a quick conversation with someone who makes the world come alive to figure out what you don't realize about others. Extroverts help us meet with the real.

The reality is that we need one another. I can't help but wonder if the cosmic balance of human introverts to extroverts is on purpose. Maybe we need more doers in the world than thinkers. Maybe we need more people in the world to be the Mother Theresas, rubbing elbows, starting the party, and showing how to act in beautiful ways out of passion for action. At the end of the day, though, we need the Aquinas', too, thinking about the deep, churning up the dirt, and helping us to develop an internal dialog from which beauty may emerge.

But even in such a world as this, introvert is still a dirty word, because the deep is rarely pretty. Cover me, then, that I may have special honor.

...those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty...If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.

Lessons from Sem 3: Classmate disappointment

2007-10-29T12:41:00.000-05:00

I went to a secular, state run University for my undergrad. I really didn't know what to expect, what with the drinking, drugs, and partying displayed by the media, but in college, I met many wonderful, Godly students. These friends were wonderful, and I've blogged about them before. They were sharp, they were committed to Christ, and constantly seemed to want to go deeper - to see how deep the spiritual well of Christianity goes. Well, as much as girl or boy crazy college students could. They challenged me and I challenged them. We weren't perfect by far, but when I think about what Christian community should look like, I often think of this group of college friends, struggling with God in their quest to find Him. At least, on the days I remember them favorably. I'm flighty that way.

A couple of years after college, when I entered Seminary, I expected to be greeted by students who reminded me of the Christian friends I had made at my secular university. I expected to find students who were sharp, well thought, interested in piercing the depths of what they didn't know, and excited by the new things they learned. I expected to find good students who read the assigned material and came prepared to discuss it, students who knew how to use the stacks and write good research papers, and who worked to integrate their reading and research into their Christian context. I, as a modestly read Engineer who had been away from college life for a few years, was prepared to be intimidated by my classmates.

Now, before I go any further, let's be clear: I'm more like the tortoise than the hare. I'm not quick and sharp and perspicuous, but I'm not dull, either. I am a hard worker, and continue to work things over until I get most of the wrinkles smoothed out. For some reason, I expected most of my classmates to be hard workers, too. (Or at least naturally gifted.)

I was disappointed. Just to give you an idea of the average student with which I interacted, here are some of the titles I thought about using but rejected because they were too harsh, even though they are intended to be a little tongue-in-cheek:
Matriculated Maladroit
Students are Stupid
My Kidney are Uncalculating

In general, I found that seminary students tend to be on the bad end of the bell curve. I was disappointed in how easily confused most of my classmates were, how fearful they were of new ideas, and how poor their own sense of self was. I was also regularly disappointed as to how well these students did in class. Frequently, they neither read the material, nor turned their assignments in on time, nor knew how to use the library resources.

There were exceptions, of course. In my 7 years in seminary, during which time I should have seen 2 full groups of students graduate, I can only remember maybe 10 people who seemed to be able to intellectually function at a graduate level, and half of those were elitist. I would call those elitist "In the club" to Melissa, because evidently you had to know the secret handshake to qualify for meaningful interaction with them. But I digress.

A couple of years ago, I was listening to a speech by Stanley Hauerwas (a well-known professor at Duke who holds chairs in both theology and law) on the ethics of death and dying for Christians. Hauerwas casually peppered into his talk that seminary students these days tend to be people who have failed at their secular vocation, and think that God must be calling them into ministry. And, being the good Christian folk most professors are, these students tend to get softened requirements for making the grade.

I wish it weren't so, but Hauerwas' observation seems to be accurate. During classroom interaction, many student's couldn't reason through their own thoughts and would assert things that led to logical contradictions, conflicts of interest, or worse. Those who actually read the assigned material frequently couldn't find the real meaning of the reading and would be baffled about the themes we were discussing, or would find the bogeyman in everything and be afraid of the ideas being presented. Those who didn't read the material would surf the internet during class.

In any case, seminary taught me something important about grad school: dull people get master's degrees, too. This has led to a sad realization about the pastors our seminaries are churning out: they seem to be incapable of doing the intellectual work of the church.

In the early church, pastors were the ones who defended the faith against those who would undermine it with ideas that were logical contradictions, or conflicts of interest, or worse. People like Iraeneaus, Athanasius, the Cappodocians, or Augustine were defenders of the faith because being a pastor meant running a church and thinking about THE Church. But, I wonder, would our modern pastors be up to the task of refuting the heresy of the gnostics, or of Arius, or the the Pelagians? Are our modern pastors up to the task of redefining our ancient Christian ideas so that they can communicate the good news of Christ? Instead, will our pastors sit confused and baffled while heresy grows, or perhaps be fearful reactionaries to any ideas that are new?

I'm partially comforted by the fact that Jesus' disciples seemed to be a bunch of dimwits, but turned out to be powerful agents of Christ in the world. That comfort is tempered, however, by the general decline of the American church.

What do you think? Are there ways in which you feel church leadership has been a disappointment?

Lessons from Sem 2: Languages are Important

2007-10-23T10:12:00.000-05:00

Dovetailing with the lesson that hermeneutics matter, Seminary also taught me that languages are important.

Even before I went to Seminary, I knew that languages were a big deal. The Christian tradition in which I was raised holds that scripture is inerrant in it's original form, which includes the original language in which it was communicated. For most of scripture, these languages are Greek and Hebrew.

The more I learn about other languages, the more I appreciate how distinctive they are from each other. I spent some time in Merida, Mexico when I was in college. I had learned the word "simpatico" in my spanish classes, and it meant something like "nice", or perhaps "friendly". When I got to talking with my Mexican hosts, I realized that there is no English word that captures the meaning behind "simpatico". Simpatico, properly translated into English, would mean something more like "friendship between people that is so profound that these people fit together as if they were designed to be in relationship with each other". Best friends are simpatico. But, as I was taught by my Mexican friends, simply calling a person "simpatico" because they are friendly or nice is a misuse of the term. Simpatico is much more intimate than friendliness, and it could be seen as offensive if you call someone simpatico when you only casually know them.

Another example is with the English word "predicament". I saw a video interview with Paul Tillich (a prominent 20th century German theologian) once, and he mentioned that there is no equivalent word for "predicament" in the German language. Predicament, he said, was a wonderful English word that described so much about humans and their relationships. Using a concept like "predicament" in German, he continued, required much unpacking.

Even though we have excellent English translations of the Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic, seminary gave me a better appreciation of what is lost when translators try to cram complex foreign words into simple English equivalents (or vice versa). On top of that, word plays and poetry lose much of their power when translated.

For instance, one of the first passages I translated from Greek was John 3:16. In English, it goes something like "God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life." Now, what does it mean to say that "God so loved the world"? Most people who speak english thinks it means "God loved the world sooo much that he sent his only son....". That's what I thought it meant before I was taught Greek. But it's wrong. In fact, the word "So" is the greek word "houtos", which means "thusly; in this manner". The translation then becomes, "God THUSLY loved the world..." -or- "God IN THIS MANNER loved the world..." At least in this case, the Bible doesn't teach that God loves us sooo much, as if the gospel message is similar to Romeo and Juliette. Instead, it teaches us HOW God loved us, and how we should therefore love others.

Makes a difference, doesn't it?

Wordplays make a difference in Genesis 1:1. In the Hebrew, this verse is highly unusual in its structure, and there also seems to be a word play. The word for "In the beginning" seems to be carefully chosen (and slightly mispelled) to simultaneously mean "begining" (reshit), and "create" (bara). Many people think that Genesis 1:1 is meant to be historical fact about the ordering of creation. The fact that the first verse (and many others) in Genesis is a tricky, artfully crafted sentence that has defied precise translation lets me know I shouldn't be so sure this was meant to be a story of historical fact.

Languages, as viewed from the standpoint of translations, are important.

As an American, I love the English language. Not only is it flexible, being both precise and beautiful, but it is also spoken almost everywhere. But when I hear English-speakers insult other languages, or declare that everyone in their community needs to speak English, I become concerned. The way I see it, the last time too many people got together and all spoke the same language, they tried to glorify themselves by building the biggest structure they could. For some reason the Bible doesn't make clear, God found this group of people speaking the same language lacking, and chose to confuse their language. Whether or not this story is symbolic, it does tell me something important - languages are a tool used by God.

What if, I wonder, that Latino who lives down the street and speaks bad English actually teaches me about simpatico in a way that draws me into a new way of thinking of Christian community? What if, as that Bavarian with whom I work describes his understanding of predicament, I realize how profoundly different from God I really am? Speaking English makes me feel proud and accomplished, as if I can make a name for myself that everyone can read and understand. Realizing the nuance of language tempers my pride.

Languages, as it comes to understanding our place in creation, are important.

I find it immensely wonderful that Christ sent me a Spirit that intercedes for me in ways that are beyond words. The language of my prayers are insufficient to capture the core of what I am trying to say to God. As much as I might be proud of my education and command of the English language, it is still a flimsy tool that I use to describe reality. The coming of the Spirit takes my attempts at articulation and translates them into a language beyond the inadequacies of creaturely language. The Spirit says for me what I am incapable of saying myself. The language it speaks get to a deeper reality than words ever can. It is amazing and humbling that God finds my finite being - my needs and my praises - to be beyond the very means I use to describe it.

Yet the Bible also teaches that the Spirit plumbs the depths of God, and reveals those depths to me. If my finite nature is beyond words, how much more complicated is the language the Spirit uses to reveal God to me? The language I am being taught, day after day, as I strain towards the mark, is the language of the divine.

Language, as it comes to understanding the infinite God, is important.

My prayer is that the words of our spoken language are continually colored by the unspeakable language of the Spirit. By that language which is beyond words may we find what is truly important.

Lessons from Sem 1 - Hermeneutics Matter

2007-10-16T13:55:00.001-05:00

Probably the single most important lesson I learned in Seminary was the role of hermeneutics.

I thought I knew something about interpretation and cultural embeddedness when I entered school. I was wrong. The depth of the chasm between our modern day way of living, thinking, and writing and the Biblical contexts is huge, and has changed much of how I conceive of God, Jesus, Christianity, the Church, and scripture.

In my Christian upbringing, the Bible was considered something not tainted by cultural or historical forces, that stood on its own apart from any serious interpretation issues. In short, the Bible was this thing that was clear and plain for anyone to read. Disagreement about interpretation of the scriptures meant that you were wrong, and needed a little more submission to the "clear and plain" commands of God.

As I've rubbed elbows with Africans, African Americans, Hispanics, and Chinese Christians, I've come to realize how heavily interpretation depends on the place we come from. For me, it comes from a white, middle-class background in which education is a given, democracy is given, and individualism is highly valued; my hermeneutic is borne out of the legacy of freedom. For the older African Americans I worship with, their framework of understanding scripture is borne out of the legacy of oppression. Based on these legacies, the differences in understanding what scripture is saying can be stark and harsh.

I've come to realize that this cultural and temporal experiment in which God has placed all of us is valuable in understanding the many aspects of God, but horrible for understanding this a-cultural scripture I was taught about.

The lessons of hermeneutics, though, tells me that the authors of scripture were part of the same grand experiment that we are. I can't just jettision middle-class america and think I can interpret scripture as if it is "plain and clear". Instead, I must slowly and painstakingly transform my understanding to be a first-century Jew, the remnant of the Chosen People of God, oppressed by Rome, and witness to this Messiah who ripped to shreds every notion of what I thought a messiah should be. I must transform my understanding to be like the ancient Hebrew who thought that gods were things particular to a geography, or to be like the Israelite who is part of the kingdom of David. The distance between me and them gets greater the more I work to understand the Biblical authors, and the more disturbing and radical scripture becomes as I understand what those Biblical authors may have really been talking about.

Clear and plain, I have learned, is a myth prescribed by those who don't understand the true gulf between the modern "us" and the ancient "them".

One of the places I have come to appreciate the New Testament better is through the image of Kingdom. The overwhelming majority of scripture speaks of Jesus coming to set up the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth. Not to save me, as if His only goal was to take me from hell to heaven. Instead, His goal was broader than my individualistic culture - it was a kingdom, a people, an extended community - the problem Jesus was trying to solve wasn't answered by me getting "saved", it was answered through a kingdom!

What on earth can this possibly mean for the way I (we?) do Christianity?

Does this gown make me look fat?

2007-10-09T14:20:00.000-05:00

This June, after seven years in Seminary, I finally graduated with my M.Div. Now, before you snicker at how long it took me to graduate with a degree that can be done in 3 years, is billed as a 4 year master's, but usually takes students 5 years, keep in mind that I also worked 40+ hours a week during my seminary tenure. Seminary was my part-time love.

Many seminary grads I have talked with over the years didn't feel like they learned much in seminary, but I feel like I learned a lot. Over the next few weeks I'll be talking about some of the lessons that I learned in Seminary. Some are great academic lessons, and some are more stark realizations about the nature of things. Both were valuable.

As I mentioned in my last post, the overwhelming majority of my life has been spent in school. Even though I was a part-time student, I spent the majority of my "free time" these last 7 years reading, researching, and writing. These, as is common knowledge, are very manly activities.

Let's face it, I'm not the manliest man there's ever been. At least, not in the whole "I spend all Sunday afternoon watching sports" or "I rode my Harley from here to Mexico City without taking a shower or using the bathroom" sort of way. But, I still enjoy manly fare. Occasionally smoke a cigar? Check. Work on my own car? Check. Chop a whole bunch of wood because it's there? Check. Shoot firearms because of the loud bang? Check. Mow the yard in a wifebeater? Check, sorta.

Reading, writing, and research doesn't really fit on that list. Does it make you feel intelligent, accomplished, and superior? Check. Does it make you feel like a hunter/gatherer with cunning and skillz? UnCheck. And you know, I think I could be okay with that - this emasculating they call "higher education" - if only the whole thing would end in a really big bang. I don't know - with a ropes course followed by explosions or celebratory gunfire or something, followed by roasting a pig over a fire we made with our bare hands. Just something.

But instead, how does it all end? They make you put on a hat shaped like a pizza box, a silky see-through gown, and then they make you kneel on stage while they put a shawl (a.k.a., a "hood") on you. Oh, and if you did really good at reading, writing, and research, you get special "accessories", like a golden ribbon to tie around your neck. I thought it would be cool to do some face paint or something to show how pumped I was about this whole thing, but I was told in no uncertain terms that face painting was not allowed. Though, I could swear some of the women painted their faces...

Now, don't get me wrong, I really appreciate my seminary journey more than you can know. But at the end of the day, I wonder if some of the problems the church has communicating with 20 and 30-something men has something to do with the way in which our church leaders are taught. I have a hard time understanding how reading Iraneaus, Tertullian, Augustine, Anselm, Descartes, and Tillich helps anyone penetrate the modern masculine psyche.

But I did get my party. Many wonderful old friends and family came to celebrate with me. We ate meat - lots of meat. With barbecue sauce and baked beans. Which led to another manly activity that shall not be spoken of out of politeness.

I love Ecclesiastes 7, though Ecclesiastes is often grossly misunderstood. This seminary chapter of my life closes, and I can honestly say, "The end of a matter is better than its beginning, and patience better than pride...wisdom, like an inheritance, is a good thing and befits those who see the sun."

Here's to leaving the reading chair empty a little more often, and going out to see the sun.

My Summer of the Monkeys

2007-09-27T16:50:00.000-05:00

In the book Summer of the Monkeys, a country boy in the late 1800s or early 1900s, named (if I remember correctly) Jay Berry Lee, spends his summer on a quest to earn enough money to buy himself a pony and a gun. Along the way, he finds out that a large group of circus monkeys escapes near the woods where he lives, and that there is a large reward for the person who finds them - a large enough reward to buy his horse and gun outright.

Capturing the monkeys proves to be a challenge. They're a wily folk, those monkeys. They trick Jay many times, they get him drunk (I bet that's not in the Disney version!), they get him in trouble, and generally prove hard to control. But, in the end, they're also fragile, and when a giant rainstorm blows through and the weather turns cold, they willingly surrender themselves to Jay to be taken care of, and Jay gets his reward when he gives the monkeys back to the circus.

'Course, being a children's book, Jay learns some lessons along the way about the evils of liquor, about compassion, about using his time wisely, and about how to make hard decisions. In the end, the real reward for Jay isn't the money, but is the summer he spent trying to wrangle a group of circus monkeys. (He got another reward too, but I'll let you read the book to figure that one out.)

I think about this book sometimes when I think of carefree summer days, spending time on whatever strikes your fancy, or when I think about what it must feel like to not worry about what comes next.

This summer was my summer of the monkeys. Melissa and I were talking the other day, and it occurred to me that this fall is only the 8th summer of my life where I didn't have to prepare for school. I've literally been in school for 23 years of my life. If you don't count those first 5 years of life before kindergarten, then this is only the 3rd summer in which my summer isn't rudely interrupted by school.

My circus monkeys just showed up out of nowhere. They're a wily bunch, hard to control and conniving, but they're also fragile and lovable. Ultimately, the real reward isn't the stuff I got this summer (and I got some cool stuff), but is the summer I spent trying to wrangle a couple of circus monkeys.

I also got to spend some much needed time off, thinking about things outside of my property line only when I needed to, which ended up not being very often. For an introvert like me, taking time to recharge is the way I learn about compassion, and how to make the hard decisions, and, uh ... the evils of liquor. Hmm, I guess the analogy breaks down at some point, doesn't it?

Oh, well. It was fun while it lasted.

I'm a lostie

2007-05-14T15:19:00.001-05:00

What can I say? I'm totally addicted to Lost. My VCR is set up to record it every week, but instead of waiting for it to finish recording so I can fast-forward through the commercials, I watch the show while it is being recorded. I just can't stand for my Lost fix to happen even one hour later.

The series has had it's ups and downs, and to be honest, the current season hasn't been quite up to par. But the last three episodes have been fantastic. Last week's episode had me thinking about it for days. Truth be told, I'm still thinking about it. I have tons of questions, like

- Is Ben crazy? (Ben is a character in the show. For the record, I AM
crazy. Hehehehehehe.)
- Is Locke crazy? (Or dead?)
- What was that grey substance on the ground around Jacob's cabin?
- Who are the hostiles and where did they come from?
- Why doesn't Richard Alpert appear to age?
- Is Juliette really defecting to the beach dwellers, or is she a triple agent?
- Is Jack getting played by Juliette, or is he in on the whole thing, too?

The only real fatal flaw in Lost is that it is highly serialized. You can't just jump into Lost and get into the swing of it. Oh, no. That would not only be frustrating, but would also do enough violence to the story that has come before that it would be almost criminal. You can't just jump into the middle of a novel or a movie, now can you? 'Course not. And Lost is no different.

But, like I was saying, this is the fatal flaw of the series. You won't have a clue what is going on until you've seen what came before, and to see what came before, you have to go all the way back to Season 1 of the series. I think this is why I can't find many people who watch the show, because if you tried to start with Season 2, you would be totally lost. (No pun intended.) I think that's why I can't find any kindred spirits that are into Lost. I mean, someone other than me has to be watching the show, right?

So, I'm thinking about renting the series on DVD and have some Lost parties at my house in preparation for Season 4, which will start in January of next year. We'll all sit around in my basement, get a fire going in the fireplace, eat some popcorn and sugarbabies, and watch 2 episodes of Lost a week until Season 4 starts. Or something like that.

Who's with me?

Why Passover?

2007-04-23T11:20:00.000-05:00

Wow - it's hard to believe that Easter was over two weeks ago. Where does the time go?

The Christian holidays surrounding Easter are very underrated in my evangelical tradition. There is Maunday Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter, followed by Ascension 6 weeks after Easter, and Pentecost 50 days after Easter. It has always seemed bizarre to me that these days are not more prominent in church life. Is it perhaps because we don't give candy to our kids (as in Easter), or give each other presents (as in Christmas) that the command given to the disciples on Maunday Thursday, or the atonement on Good Friday, or the Ascension of Christ into heaven, or the coming of the Spirit on the apostles at Pentecost fades away as unimportant? Maybe adults are afraid to take seriously these more somber holidays because that would mean that Christianity itself would have to be taken more seriously?

I've been thinking this year specifically about Good Friday. Good Friday is the day when Jesus was crucified. Biblically, there were several things leading up to this day, but one thing really sticks out to me: Good Friday happened during the Passover festival.

It seems to me that most Christians believe that our sins were forgiven when Jesus died on the cross - that his death was an atonement for our sins. I don't disagree with this. But, the Jews already had a festival for atonement called Yom Kippur (which means "Day of Atonement" in Hebrew). Biblically, this is considered the day of repentance, where people are reconciled to each other and to God. This Jewish holiday is fascinating to study, but one of the most interesting parts is when the High Priest lays his hands on a goat and confesses the entire sins of Israel. While he does this, the people in the crowd were supposed to confess their sins, too. Then, the goat is sent out into the wilderness never to be seen again. The symbol here is that the sins of Israel - including the sins of individuals - were put onto an innocent animal, which was then separated from the people. Their sins were literally carried away and lost in the vastness of the wilderness.

It seems to me that the symbolism of Yom Kippur might fit the atonement that happened at the crucifixion. Yet, Jesus chose to be crucified on the holiday of Passover. Why Passover?

Passover, if you remember the story in Exodus, was when the Israelites smeared the blood of a lamb on their door frame so that the angel of death would not kill their firstborn. This event marked the last in a line of plagues brought against Egypt because they held God's people captive. When the Pharaoh woke up and his firstborn son was dead, he finally relented and let the people of Israel go free. Passover was a time of liberation from bondage.

Why Passover? Maybe Jesus was making a point by going into Jerusalem during the Passover feast. Maybe Jesus was choosing to symbolize his death as liberation from bondage - as freedom from slavery and oppression. Maybe he is choosing to say that his body and blood - given to the disciples on Thursday - deflect the wrath of the angel of death. Maybe he is choosing to tell the story that the awful events of Good Friday were the end of the plagues, and the beginning of freedom. Maybe Jesus chose passover because he is choosing a story that signifies the beginning of life.

Certainly, themes of atonement have a place in Jesus' crucifixion. As I reflect on Easter week, however, I find that the story of freedom makes sense, too. Not just liberation from sin and death, but freedom to LIVE.

"I have come that they might have life, and have it to the full." John 10:10b

Future Thoughts, part II

2007-04-06T11:24:00.000-05:00

I like to think about history. Some history is easy, such as the history of my friends - how they got from point A to point B in their lives. Some history is hard, such as how the entire country of Germany could become so arrogant that they tried to take over the world in World War II.

I suppose I'm not too interested in dates and places - I can't really remember many dates at all. I'm more interested in the event and how the event affected what came after. How did the events in the lives of my friends get them to where they are today? How did the events in the history of Germany lead them to warmongering and genocide? I'm interested in the trajectory of things.

And so I spend time thinking about the future, how the things that happened yesterday or today will play out in the future. I think about my own trajectory, the trajectory of my kids, of my friends, of my church, of the Church. I think a lot about the future. Not because I'm worried about it, but because I want my vision of the future to effect how I live life today.

When I think about the future, the ULTIMATE future, I am convinced that I will be consummated with Christ. But what does that mean for how I act today?

To answer this, I think a little more about history. The Biblical authors seemed to think that this consummation with Christ would happen within their lifetime. It didn't. Neither did it happen within the lifetime of the next generation of Christians, nor the next, nor the next. The ultimate future that we, as Christians, expect to come hasn't come for 2,000 years. And it might not come for 2,000 more.

Yet the Biblical authors were filled with a certain sense of urgency concerning Christ's return. They didn't think that because Christ was coming soon that they weren't going to get much accomplished. Instead, they devoted their lives to the fellowship, to preaching and teaching the good news of Christ. They built communities of faith who took care of each other - they strained towards the goal that Christ taught while on earth. Their belief in the coming of Christ spurred them to action.

So, when I hear Christians say things like, "I just hope Christ comes back before that," I'm chilled to the core. James Watt, the secretary of the interior during Ronald Regan's presidency is well known for saying, "We don't have to protect the environment, the Second Coming is at hand." In the conversations I've had, many Christians seem to believe something similar to Mr Watt. Or, when I hear preachers saying that Sodom and Gomorrah need an apology if Hollywood or LasVegas or *name any city here* isn't judged harshly by God, I become severely troubled in my spirit.

Since when is the immanent coming of Christ an excuse for judgmental or lackadaisical attitudes? It seems to me that the Biblical example is that the immanent coming of Christ should motivate us to action - to build strong communities of faith, to start missions to those pagan cities who need Christ more than they need God's judgment. It also seems to me that the perspective God has given us as 21st century Christians is that the ultimate consummation with Christ might also be far-off, so our Christian stewardship on every level should show to those who come behind us how faithful we really were. Instead, I see many Christians behaving as if the work of Christ will have to wait until Christ returns.

Here's my point - our ultimate consummation with Christ isn't just about some future event. Consummation with Christ happens now - today - as I let myself become consumed with the very thoughts and actions of Christ to the point where I want to act out his mission in the world. Consummation with Christ is a future thought that affects me today as I am led by the same Spirit that led Christ to rebuke the false religious teachings of the day, to offer forgiveness and healing to the tax collector, the prostitute, and the blind.

Being consumed with Christ means I have an urgency to do his work - to proclaim the good news. But knowing that his return could be another 10,000 years also sheds new light on Jesus' phrase "The kingdom of God is in your midst" (Luke 17:21), indeed, all the other passages about the Kingdom of God indicate something similar. The Kingdom of God isn't just some far-off place that we'll get to in the future - a significant part of the Kingdom of God is now, in those who gather together with the same Spirit as the Apostles, to be consumed with Christ.

This is my favorite future thought - that the coming of Christ (whenever it may be) consumes me so that I live today as if it already occurred. Not that I don't struggle with things, but that my trajectory is determined by events that haven't yet occurred. This lends new meaning to the saying, "Forgetting what is behind, and straining toward what is ahead, I press on towards the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus." (Philippians 3:13)

Greasing the Skids

2007-04-03T13:19:00.000-05:00

It's time I tried my hand at greasing the skids. I'm tired of having old, rusty skids that don't run smoothly. So, you know what I'm going to do?

No, random blog reader, not that. Frankly, I'm a little disgusted and disturbed that you would bring that up.

What do you mean you know I tried it? Who have you been talking to? Have you been going through my trash? Whatever you found, it wasn't mine. I get all kinds of mail from the previous resident of my house. I would try to forward the new mail to him, but he's dead. It's not a crime to open a dead man's mail, is it?

Oh, it is. Well, it wasn't me that opened it, anyway. I was going to write "recipient deceased" on the mail and send it back, but my kids got into it before I could do that. And, being illiterate children, they opened it. I don't think you can prosecute a 2 year old for opening a dead man's mail, can you? Yeah, I didn't think so.

Back to who you've been talking to - very clever trying to change the subject to me opening mail illegally, you almost had me. But I've got a mind like a steel trap. Who have you been talking to again? Oh, her. Yeah, well, you see I only tried it that once and I didn't enjoy it at all. And, uh, it was an accident, really. I was just going along, trying to figure out if you could play tennis with a racquetball, when...

What's that you say? You talked to her in a bar? Well, obviously she was drunk. You can't trust the drunken ramblings of a drunk woman, now can you? Surely not. Especially when I have it on good authority that she is a conniving drunk. Plus, I hear she likes the hard stuff, which, you know, gets you drunk a lot faster. At least, that is what I was told in DARE in junior high. I've personally never even been tipsy - it's not the ninja way.

I don't care if she was the designated driver - even the smell of liquor is enough for some. Oh, you were in a piano bar. Well, that makes it even worse, because music is intoxicating on its own. Piano rock is the new crack cocaine. I think I read that in Rolling Stones magazine. Don't bother looking that up, my mind is like a steel trap. So, clearly, you can't trust some fluzy you met in a piano bar who is smoking crack, now can you?

What's that you say? She's your sister? *Wheeze* Uh, who is this girl again? Yeah, now that you mention it, I'm not sure I know who that is. I meet so many people, you know, being as extroverted as I am. I just don't remember if I ever knew her or not, you know, it's been so long...

Well, sure, I said my mind is like a steel trap, but that's just a saying, it doesn't mean anything. Sorta like "a stitch in time saves nine" or "talk is cheap" or "blow chunks" or "greasing the skids". It doesn't really mean anything, its just something you say to keep the conversation going.

Now, where was I again?

Intertwined, Part 3

2007-02-17T12:43:00.000-06:00

When I woke again, it was light outside, and the storm had passed. The bed was empty, save me, so I got up to eat breakfast and look for him. I made my way into the kitchen and made some toast, then wondered out onto the porch to sit and enjoy the crisp air and beautiful scenery brought on by the morning. The air was damp, from the rains the night before, and cool. The ground was damp, too, and the rocks glistened with a slippery grin. The bark on the trees was dark, making the contrast between the brown of the trunk and the green of the canopy even more picturesque. A slight fog seemed to rise over the forest in the opposing side of the valley, and it seemed to tumble lazily into the valley below as if it was on a stroll to greet me good morning before the sun stepped out from behind the mountain and burned it away.

I had sat on the porch for maybe five minutes when I heard a familiar voice urgently calling my name. I casually walked down the narrow road, following the sound of his voice, and found him high up on the embankment. He was obviously excited about something, and as soon as he caught sight of me, he started saying something rather quickly that I couldn’t quite make out. Staying on the road below him, I walked over to where he stood so that we could talk, and as I did so the steep incline of the embankment and the narrowness of the road forced him to step closer to the edge to maintain eye contact with me. When I finally stopped walking and could concentrate on listening I could tell, despite his rushed speech, that he was talking about the waterfall, that the storm the night before had caused it to swell, and he wanted to know if I wanted to hike back with him to see it. Waiting for my reply, he stepped a little closer to the edge. I paused for a moment, trying to decide if I should go back and change clothes first, and in that brief second the ledge up on the embankment collapsed. My companion toppled, almost twenty feet straight down, and landed on his back in the rocks with an audible thud.

I am certain that my heart skipped a beat in the instant panic that seized me, and I rushed over to him as fast as I could. He was lying precariously off of the edge of the rocky cliff, with his right arm and leg dangling, and his left leg millimeters from slipping off. He was trying to pull himself back onto the road when I reached him, but something was wrong. He wasn’t moving right, and he couldn’t make his arms work to pull himself back onto the cliff. I grabbed his left arm with one hand and put the other under his shoulders to try to lift him back onto the road, but I was weak with fright, and his body was limp, like dead weight. I simply couldn’t do it. I decided instead to hold him there for a moment and stabilize him until I could run back into the cabin and call for help on the radio. I stopped and looked at him, and gazed into those eyes that were this time a flinty grey. He was bleeding from his ears and nose, and his breathing was hoarse and ragged. He blinked his eyes once or twice slowly, and each time he opened them, they were more glazed and flinty. I started to cry. “I’m going to the radio to call for help,” I told him. “I’ll be back as soon as I know someone is coming.” I tried to get up to leave, but his left arm held me tight, and I couldn’t pull myself free. I struggled and pulled and cried and begged him to let me go for help, but he would neither let go, nor could I pull him off of the ledge. I sat back down, drained, and held him in my arms. His breathing stopped and started, and then he caught my eye and attempted a weak smile. “I wanted you to have this,” he whispered, and he pushed his clenched right hand into my chest. I let go of his left arm and held his hand there. “I love you,” I murmured. He gave me a weak smile that I could barely make out through my tear filled eyes. He exhaled, and his eyes glazed over and lost their focus.

His body went limp and he started to slip off of the edge of the cliff. I moved to catch him, and as I did so I let go of his right hand that I had clutched to my chest. His arm swung downward, off the edge of the cliff, and his grip released, and all I saw was a brief glimpse of gold and a glitter before the contents of his hand spilled into the valley below. Somehow, I pulled most of his body back onto the ledge, my tears raining drops of sorrow onto his body all the while. I went to the radio and called for help, and after what seemed like an eternity a helicopter and a small truck arrived on the scene. They asked me questions and shined lights in my eyes and took my pulse and blood pressure. I was cold, shivering as a matter of fact, and they gave me a blanket and put me on the helicopter. As we were leaving I caught sight of them loading a stretcher blanketed with a shroud onto the truck.

I cried for days after that. Nothing seemed to fill my loneliness or ease my grief. I would sit in the rain and cry, and for those few minutes it seemed as if the whole world was mourning with me. I wondered in and out of our café, almost feeling like I was looking for something, but I could never bring myself to sit or to buy anything. Everything seemed so bland and grey and.....pointless.

I called and talked to the people who came up the mountain to help me, looking for some answers. They said that the rain from the night before must have loosened the rocks on the embankment. That is probably why it collapsed. Also, the doctors told me that he had sustained severe blunt trauma to the head, and had shattered several vertebra, so he was more than likely paralyzed for the last few minutes of his life. The trauma to his head was so severe, they said, that there was a large amount of bleeding into the brain, and that even if they could have gotten him to a hospital in five minutes, they still couldn’t have saved him. But even the answers to my questions didn’t quiet my grief, or help bridge the giant chasm ripped in my heart. Nothing but time did that.

It took a lot of time. Time to learn how to get out of bed every morning. Time to learn how to interact with people in public. Time to stand on my own without waves of grief striking me down. Time to learn how to be happy just with who I am. It took time to learn how to do all of this with a gorge through the softest part of me. But time wears down the sharp peaks and smoothes out the jagged edges until, eventually, the land is flat again. Different, but flat. And as I learned to be a whole person again, I realized that I kept a part of him with me. The parts that were subtle and rule bending and spontaneous and adventurous are part of me now; his enduring presents to me. I get to wear them, and while I may not be able to wear them as well as he did, they are mine, and they are all that is left of what he had.

Sometimes, now and again, I think that it is about time to start over. To begin again. To share some of these new things that I wear with someone else, in the same selfless way that he shared so many things with me. But I’m scared. My pain hasn’t killed me, but I’m not sure that it has made me stronger, either. I’m different than I was before. I enjoy my solitude, because I know that no one can hurt me that way. But what kind of life is that? What kind of life is it to sit here on a park bench with the pigeons on a gorgeous Sunday afternoon? One that I’m content to lead alone, I suppose. Maybe it is time to start over, to learn how to become intertwined again. Things will be different this time, as each time always has been, but the journey is part of the gift. Maybe it’s time to sit down in a café again and discuss coffee beans with someone, and find out just how far this human heart can go.

The End

Intertwined, Part 2

2007-02-15T10:32:00.001-06:00

I'm not sure much changed between us after that first kiss. I already spent every moment that I possibly could with him, and the topics we discussed had already spanned the spectrum: from sex to God to pharmaceuticals to international politics and how they inflated the price of coffee beans for the common laborer. Only now, however, I had access to his lips almost any time I wanted, and I partook of them liberally. Many an evening he let me venture close enough to those lips to touch them to mine, and more than a couple of times we fogged the windows of his car with our passion. Somewhere in this time something inside of me changed, and I no longer wanted the seclusion of my own life, but instead what I wanted was to pull close to him and lay in the security of his arms forever.

One Wednesday morning after a set particularly hot days, we were sitting in the café eating breakfast. I was having a muffin and a cup of coffee, and he was drinking a concoction of hot raspberry tea and munching on slices he cut off of a green apple with a paring knife. We were reading the newspaper, passing the sections to each other across the table, when, as he passed me the entertainment section, he asked me if I would like to go up to a cabin in the mountains for the weekend. I was rather stunned, because we had never done anything that was planned and non-spontaneous, and I am sure that I looked at him over the entertainment section with a blank stare and my mouth hanging open. I don't even remember what I said in response to his inquiry, but I know that it must have been somewhere in the ballpark of yes because on Friday I found myself sitting in an aisle seat of a jet liner, eagerly anticipating our flight into the mountains.

We had stayed up late the night before packing and laughing and watching old movies, and both of us were rather tired, so just after lift-off he leaned his head back against his chair in an effort to get some rest. The man beside him, however, had something different in mind, and I was fortunate enough to have a front-row seat to the event.

The man nudged my companion and asked if he would like to play a fun game. My companion looked up suddenly with a startled look and simply raised his eyebrows to the man, who I think was some kind of computer programmer, judging from the laptop computer and other paraphernalia he was toting. The man continued and explained: "I ask you a question, and if you don't know the answer, you pay me $5. Then you ask me a question, and if I don't know the answer, I'll pay you $5." My companion politely declined and tried to get to sleep. The Programmer, who was getting somewhat agitated, then said, "OK, if you don't know the answer you pay me $5, and if I don't know the answer, I'll pay you $50!" This catches his attention, and wearing a smile that was so faint I barely recognized it, he blinked twice, and agreed to the game. The Programmer asked the first question. "What's the distance from the earth to the moon?" My companion didn't say a word, but reached into his wallet, pulled out a five-dollar bill and handed it to the Programmer. Then, it was my companion’s turn. He asked the Programmer a riddle, which I regretfully I cannot remember. I think that it had to do with going up a hill with a certain number of legs and coming down the hill on another number, but it was not the same riddle as the sphinx gave Oedipus. This riddle, however it was phrased, was completely unique. The Programmer looked at him with a puzzled look. He took out his laptop computer and spent over an hour on it, frantically searching all of his sources and talking to co-workers over the chat lines, but all to no avail. After an hour, he woke my companion and handed him $50. My companion politely took the $50 and turned away to try to get back to sleep. The Programmer, however, was upset, and shook my companion and asked "Well, so what's the answer?" Without a word, he reached into his wallet, handed the Programmer $5, and turned to give me a wink before he went back to sleep. It was then that I knew I was with the sharpest man on the face of the earth.

A couple of hours later, the plane landed, and we rented a car for our half-hour road trek into the mountains. The drive up the mountain was rather narrow and treacherous, with many unpredictable twists, and a wrong turn, if ever one was made, would decidedly be the last one a person would ever make as they toppled off the mountain into the valley below. The most treacherous portion of the road was just as we approached the cabin. It narrowed drastically, with one side being a rocky embankment, going up perhaps twenty feet, and the other side being a sheer drop into nothingness. Despite the insidious drive, however, the cabin was wonderful, nestled into the side of the mountain with a breathtaking overlook of the deep green valley below. Inside the cabin were all of the things one would need for a stay in the mountains: a bathroom, two bedrooms, a fully furnished living area, a rather large two-way radio, and a kitchen, fully stocked. It was a little dusty when we got there, but after I swept away all of the cobwebs and opened the blinds, the light of the sun echoed off of the bright pine paneling, giving the cabin a cheerful and cozy air. I was glad to be there.

There were trails that laced all through the terrain surrounding that cabin, and with the invigorating air, gorgeous scenery, and engaging conversation I must have hiked twenty miles in that first day. My favorite trail was one that went up that rocky embankment, and then curved around the side of the mountain for about two miles until it arrived at a giant sheet of rock that jutted out from the side of the mountain. This point was a fantastic overlook of the dark valley below, and in sharp contrast, the brilliant white of an immense waterfall. We stayed up there almost all day on Saturday, talking and soaking up the peacefulness of our surroundings. The echo up there was also remarkable. We would yell things off of the side of the mountain, and listen to it bounce around us for what seemed like an hour. He would go off and pick me wildflower bouquets and bring me handfuls of wild berries, and he told me stories of ancient Indian folklore about these mountains until it was dusk, when we walked that rocky path back to the cabin. That night he tucked me in, and kissed my forehead, and told me to have sweet dreams about him. It was one of the most wonderful days of my life.

I woke to the sound of a thunderbolt so loud that the iron headboard on my bed hummed like a tuning fork that had just been thumped. Lighting lit up the night like a flickering street lamp, and the sound of the howling wind was made even eerier by the creeks and groans of the house as the squall exerted its mighty force upon the little cabin. From my window, and in between flashes of lightning, I could see the trees bend to an almost impossible degree, as if even the force of my breath would cause them to shatter into splinters. And then the rain came, splattering against my window in waves, streaking the glass, contorting my view of what was going on outside, and the bent trees suddenly became wraiths that danced in the tempest, lunging toward me then away again, taunting me.

Suddenly, I felt a hand slip around my waist. I jumped, and tried to twist away, but the grip was too tight. I craned my neck around to see who, or what, was holding me, and in the erratic bursts of lightning I saw that well-known, crisp jaw line and sandy brow hair. I stopped struggling, my heart pounding and my breathing heavy, and he pulled me close and whispered soothing words in my ear, and then took me to his bed, and wrapped his arms around me until I fell asleep.

Intertwined, Part 1

2007-02-12T09:20:00.000-06:00

How is it that people fall into your life and you have no idea how they got there? It seems as if you wake up one morning and realize that they are in your life and you like them there. At least, that is the way it has occasioned to me.

Sitting on this park bench, I think of him, and for no particular reason. I haven’t thought about him for quite some time, not nearly as often as one should imagine. Pigeons randomly come and sit beside me and ask for breadcrumbs, some asking nicely and some not-so-nicely, but it doesn’t matter because I have no bread crumbs to give. Instead I focus on him: that guy across the park who is walking his dog. I have actually watched him for quite some time as he makes lap after lap around the winding sidewalks of the park. One lap he actually passed by my bench, and I got a good look at him. His features seemed familiar, and perhaps that is why I am remembering things.

His hair was sandy brown and curly, but smooth. Of the seemingly thousands of times I ran my fingers through that hair I never found a tangle, despite all the twists and turns and loops it took on its voyage to his neck. My hand rested there, too, on his neck. His jaw was much too triangular and sharp to touch, especially when it was clenched. That crisp jaw line bled upward into narrow cheekbones that were offset by his large, lavish eyes. His eyes are what took me the most. They were perfectly almond-shaped with long eyelashes and covered by full eyebrows that were golden brown. His eyes were always clear; never once do I remember a single red streak arcing across that ocean of white before it collided with the dynamic color of his iris. They changed color for any reason, his eyes, from the weather to his clothing to the mood he wore at the minute, and anywhere from a brilliant sea foam green to a brown so deep I would have drowned in its depths, if he would have let me.

He fell into my life when I had just come from an ugly place and bore more of its wounds than I did its scars. I have heard it said that you find your soul mate when you can finally live with yourself and be alone in the solitude of who you are. A nice thing to say, I suppose, provided you wish to live alone in the solitude of who you are. He fell into my life and I used him as a bandage until I healed, and in that time we grew together and became intertwined, he and I. Then one rainy day we were sitting in a café, and he was telling me about some cabin in the mountains that his parents owned. I remember blinking, watching him over a cup of coffee, trying to figure out how he made his way into my life, and ultimately realizing that I liked him there. Six months later all I could remember was him.

We spent hours together. Most of my waking hours and, come to think of it, most of my non-waking hours I sought him out. I didn’t spend time with him because he was endowed with good looks or money or anything so material. As a matter of fact he was not a particularly handsome or rich man, as some might call handsome and rich, but every day his traits wove a tapestry for me that was unimaginably gorgeous. I spent time with him because I enjoyed who I was when I was with him. I’m not quite sure why he spent time with me.

He taught me things that were amazing to me. Things about God and people and relationships and life in general. He saw things that no one else did, and he shared them selflessly. He was daring and subtle and knew how to break the rules without getting caught. (Now that I look back, though, he never really broke any rules, but just kind of bent them.) He knew how to be fun and crazy and wild, and walk away with no regrets because he had done nothing regrettable. He was mysterious that way, to be able to do so much and know so much without a hint of intimidation, and to be able to be almost animal in his passions while maintaining unblemished purity, and his dotty decisions were almost always proceeded by two blinks and the wrinkling of his brow. I grew to expect those two blinks just after his eyes changed color, or at certain times of the day, or when the crisp line of his jaw became even sharper.

The nature of our relationship was always something of an enigma to me. We spent a great deal of time together, and I grew to have a great infatuation with him. Indeed, more than a great infatuation, instead more of a quiet resolve to always have him around me. The time I spent with him was wonderful. We would go on long walks in the park, finding trails that no foot had trod in years, following them to the end before we would dare think about coming back again. We would sit on a bench in the pouring rain with limp cigarettes hanging out of our mouths, talking about the weather and complaining about the government; or we would lay on our backs in a field at night and count stars and talk about any topic that could possibly be dreamt up until the sun trumpeted its arrival at the horizon and scared all of our stars away. And when all of our fun was finished, and I could no longer keep my sagging eyelids apart, he would tuck me in, and kiss my forehead, and tell me to have sweet dreams about him. I loved him deeply.

In fact, I told him that I loved him. One day in the park, while the clouds were brimming with rain, we were walking briskly toward our café so as to avoid the deluge waiting to be unleashed from above, and talking about the stages normal relationships go through. Suddenly the urge welled up within me and I stopped him by the arm and pulled him close to me. I gently put my finger over his lips and told him softly, “I love you, you know.” He blinked his eyes several times slowly, and I watched as those eyes turned from grass green to a deep brown. He lightly brushed aside my finger that lay across his mouth, and then kissed me, full on the lips. It was the first time in all those hundreds of hours we had spent together that he had given me a real kiss. It was warm and wet and gentle, and his lips were soft and supple. One of his arms snaked around my waist, holding me close, while the other hand gently caressed my face. I never knew how long we stood there, or how long the clouds had loosed their torrent upon us, but rain had saturated us completely before our embrace was broken, when we walked slowly toward that café, hand in hand.

In an alternate reality....

2007-02-09T09:05:00.000-06:00

In an alternate reality, I think I would be some sort of artist. I don't think I would be a painter because, quite frankly, I stink at painting. My Ritz painting is probably the limit of my skill.

I think instead I would maybe be an actor. I really love acting, and have even taken some acting classes at The Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis. For those of you who don't know, The Guthrie is the largest regional theater in the world. It's well-known in the acting community.

But the fact is that acting is a shifty business. In this reality, I'm not all that into shifty. Plus, I'm not good looking enough to be a motion-picture star. In an alternate reality, I would be Tom Hanks - good looking enough to be on film, talented enough to get almost any job he wants.

In this reality, writing is more my style of artistic outlet. I've written a couple of things over the years, most of which sits unfinished on my hard drive somewhere. Most of what I have actually completed is for grad school. The last completed piece I wrote for pleasure was in 1998. But in the last several months, I've been thinking more and more about writing again, with a determination I've never really felt before. This has caused me to dig up some of my older stuff to see if it was any good.

In the next few posts, I'll be putting up the short-story I wrote in 1998. It's called "Intertwined", and is a story I wrote for Melissa before we got married. Now, keep in mind that the story was written almost 10 years ago by an engineer with little writing experience, so the writing might seem a little pretentious, but the story-telling is good. Let me know what you think.

Enjoy.

Imaginary Friends

2007-02-03T20:59:00.000-06:00

Not too long ago, one of my rapidly aging friends, Jessica, posted about a girl with a crush. Before reading more, you should go see her post here.

Jessica's post got me to thinking about a couple of things. Not the least of which is why people have such meaningful imaginary relationships that real relationships pale in comparison. What is it that makes the girl in Jessica's blog cling to this "distant acquaintance"? What is it that makes so many of us (including me) have imaginary friends that we turn to when we are lonely or hurt or tired or angry? Why do we look to a fantasy world for relationships that can sustain us and give us meaning instead of looking to real people and real relationships for encouragement? Why is flesh-and-blood less real to us than our imaginary friends?

Deep down, I think we all long for a face that will never turn away. We long for a face that will love us and accept us. We long for a face that will kiss our scars and hug us as we cry. We long for a face that will be crazy when we need some spontaneity. A face that will think we are beautiful, brilliant, and worth having around. We long for a face that intrigues us and stimulates us, and that face in turn is intrigued by us. We long to know, and be known.

But in our consumer-driven culture, friends like that seem impossible to find. I know I've never found one. Instead, friends seem like disposable cups - you use the same one until it's time to leave the party, and then you leave it on the coffee table for the host to sweep away with the rest of the garbage. Or, to put it a less depressing way, we become consumers shopping for the perfect friend just like we are shopping for the perfect pair of jeans. If they don't fit after they've been through the wash a few times, go find another pair.

Some single people think that marriage will solve this friend problem. Some married people think a different spouse will solve the friend problem. They're both wrong, because what they are really looking for are imaginary friends - instant gratification without the effort.

And this is where I think the imaginary friend problem comes from: We're scared. Because of something that has happened in our past, or something we saw on TV, or something we read in a book somewhere, we're afraid of what will happen if we let flesh-and-blood people face us in ways that mean they really know us. We fear being rejected and hurt by flesh-and-blood people whom are outside our control. We fear the work it will take to actually get to know someone else - warts and all. We fear being vulnerable because we are afraid that some how, some way it will come around and bite us.

So we chose our safe imaginary friends. They're no work - they don't disagree with us or disappoint us or challenge us. It is impossible for them to hurt us, so there is no risk. These imaginary friends are perfectly harmless, perfectly lovable, and maintenance-free. They are completely under our control at all times, with a 100% moneyback guarantee. We know that without a doubt that they will fit.

Real relationships are scary and hard and time-consuming. Of course they are - that's what makes them worth it! In the past couple of years since I have grown tired enough of my imaginary friends to actually risk getting hurt, I've noticed something interesting. This issue with imaginary friends isn't just a personal issue, it's also a spiritual one. The more I've been willing to risk myself for the sake of making meaningful relationships, the more I've realized how I treat my relationship with Jesus just like He is an imaginary friend - harmless and controllable. (Instead, I've realized Jesus is far more disturbing than we give him credit.)

Does anyone besides me wonder how on earth we ended up with such retarded relationship skills?

I don't like New Year's Resolutions (but have one anyway)

2007-01-19T11:13:00.001-06:00

I don't like New Year's resolutions. I'm not entirely sure why. It seems to me that if something is a good idea at New Year's, it is a good idea before New Year's, so why not start now?

I suppose if it was a birthday resolution, I would feel better about the concept. I mean, turning 25 or 30 or 40? THAT'S a milestone that might make a difference to someone. But the dawn of the year 2007? That's just another day. Good ideas are good any day.

The title of my post is a bit misleading, because I don't really have a New Year's resolution, it just happened to be something I resolved around the time of New Year's. To be honest, I think I made this resolution sometime before Christmas.

I don't want to go into too much historical detail about why I'm like this, but my internal spiritual life is much, much more radical than my external spiritual life.

So, for most of my life I've lived two lives. I live this life that people see - I show it at Church and at work. I show it when I go back and visit my family, or when I'm at a party. Everyone who has actually met me has seen this life. This is my outside life.

But inside, there lives another life. There lives a life that questions and struggles. There is a life that has slowly, over my meager 30 years, pieced together a way of thinking and living that seems to be foreign and radical to those who know my outside life. This is my inside life. It is a life that is hidden away.

I don't want to seem like a whiner, but because of several bad experiences I've had expressing the formulations of my internal life, it has been kept carefully locked away for fear of being rejected, misunderstood, reprimanded, or worse. To live in constant fear of rejection by the very Church who's task is to sharpen me, exhort me, and love me (and I, them) is no way to live.

So, this is my resolution. I resolve take the risk of being radical in front of my church and my Christian friends. I resolve to put myself out there - exposing my secret and fleshy parts in the hopes that I can teach others, if only by example, some of the powerful and life-changing lessons God has taught me. I resolve to not act like it is okay that supposed "Christians" are totally complacent in their spirituality, but instead work to provoke them into the kind of life Christ lived by either disturbing them, or energizing them. I resolve to be the change I wish to see.

I have no idea what will happen. My church might run me off. My provocative comments might get me into trouble. Or, I might find a group - a very small group - who, like me, want to go deeper than "church" can take us. It's time to take the risk.

Why Jesus was special.

2007-01-08T11:33:00.000-06:00

I like to reflect on religious holidays. In the western Christian tradition, there is Epiphany, Lent, Easter, Ascension, Pentecost, Advent, and Christmas. There are some others in the eastern tradition, but I'm not as familiar with them.

Unfortunately, in the evangelical church we don't pay as much attention to these "Christian Holy-days" as we should. Most of the churches I've been a part of celebrate Christmas, Easter and 4th of July. What a shame.

In any case, I like to reflect on our Christian holidays. And, as most of you know, Christmas just occurred. The story of Christmas usually goes like this: An angel told the virgin Mary she was going to have a child who would save the world. Joseph was going to divorce her, but an angel told him not to, so he didn't. They went to Bethlehem for a census and ended up having a child in a stable. Angels told Shepherds and wise men about the birth, and they came to worship baby Jesus (who didn't cry, it seems) in the manger after following a really bright star.

Now, let's make sure we understand the absurdity of all this. First, we contend that Jesus was concieved by a virgin. (Riiiiight.) Next, angels did a whole bunch of footwork to make sure Joseph didn't divorce Mary and Shepherds knew about the birth, but they didn't convince a shopkeeper to save a nice room for Mary. (Sounds like someone dropped the ball.) Finally, wise men came to worship, bringing fine gifts to the smelly stable, and they followed a bright star to get there. Evidentally, this bright star "stopped" over a stable, which is how they knew where Jesus was. (A stopping star, huh? Sounds to me like someone had too much egg nog.)

I say all this not because I don't believe it. I say it instead to highlight how preposterous the whole thing is. A quick check of history (and psychiatric wards) reveals that people have claimed to be born of a virgin all the time. We don't believe these "virginal births" because stuff like that just doesn't happen. Plus, let's consider the first century (and possibly second century) Christians. The New Testament was not yet formed at that time, and most likely people only had access to one Gospel. Let's say that gospel was Mark or John - neither of which mention a virgin birth, or stables, or wise men. Is their faith somehow less since they don't beleive in a virgin birth?

Here is my point. We believe the story of the virgin birth and the stable and the wise men because of what happened AFTER the birth and the stable and the wise men. We believe Jesus is the Christ not because he was born (everyone is born), nor because he healed people (others in the Bible healed people, as do modern physicians), nor because he died (everyone dies). Instead, we believe that Jesus is the Christ because he was raised from the dead, because he taught that he himself is the way, the truth, and the light. We believe Jesus is the Christ because of the power of the Spirit in the lives of the apostles. We aren't convinced that Jesus is the savior of the world because he is born of a virgin, but instead, we believe he was born of a virgin because he is savior of the world.

At Christmas we celebrate the birth of Jesus, who is God with us. But being born doesn't make Jesus special. His radical obedience to God, his liberating grace, the forgiveness of sins, his rise from the dead, and his bringing of the Spirit make him special. His unique birth is only icing on the proverbial birthday cake.

So as I reflect upon Christmas, I'm not so concerned about the biology of Jesus's birth or the quality of his visitors. Instead, my reflection leads me to praise God that Jesus came into to world to be God-with-us, not baby-in-manger. He came to be more than born-of-a-virgin, he came to be God-as-man. And that's what makes Jesus special.

Stood up at the PeGe

2006-12-18T14:05:00.000-06:00

The sharp crack of Alethia's whip woke me from my blogmatic slumbers. Has it really been over a month since I last posted? Yup, I guess it has.

Well, those of you whom I care about should be getting a Christmas card from me sometime soon. If you don't, then I've probably forgotten about you. Or don't have your home address.

Anywhooo....

I went to Louisiana for Thanksgiving. I always like going back to Louisiana and seeing my relatives and friends. I like eating the Thanksgiving food and seeing a Sonic on every corner. I like the smell of pine trees and the way I can actually see the starts at night.

For the first time, my immediate family (with in-laws) was too big to stay in someone else's house. So, we rented a cabin in Lake D'Arbonne State park. The cabins were really nice, and the view off of the pier into Lake D'Abonne was beatiful.

Aside from spending time with both my Father's side and my Mother's side of the family (which I see not nearly often enough), I visited my old college stomping grounds. Ruston, as a whole hasn't changed that much, though it does seem like Ruston is getting a bit more comercial. There are lots of new hotels, a Chili's and other chain restaurants, a new movie theater is going in, etc, etc.

Some of the best things about Ruston haven't changed, though, and every time I go back to visit Tech, I'm reminded of how wonderful a place it was to go to college. Good education, good friends, good times. "O Tech thy halls so beatiful, thy spacious hall, thy noble trees..."

But as I wondered around the campus, and gawked at some of the new buildings, I noticed a gaping hole where Kidd used to be.

You'll have to click on the picture to see the blow-up, but that gravel parking lot used to be an 8-story women's dorm. In fact, if memory serves, that SUV is parked just about where Amy and Alethia's balcony used to be. After all the good memories I have from in and around that dorm, it was sad and shocking to see it gone. I think I remember a picture of a bunch of my BSU friends standing outside that dorm, all dolled up and ready to go to some "function". Does anyone have a copy of that picture they can scan for me?

Not to seem too sappy, but after all the nostalgia of seeing the old campus again, I was looking forward to seeing a couple of college friends in Monroe. We were going to meet at the PeGe, which has some of the best greasy-spoon type food on the planet. Sure, it's a bit of a dive, but there is just something about the PeGe that keeps me coming back. I keep telling myself it's the ice cream, but I suspect deep down that it's how cool the sign is.

Now, I don't want to name any names, but I was supposed to meet two good friends at the PeGe. Well, at least two people whom I thought were my good friends. Keep in mind that I flew all the way from Minnesota, drove from Dallas into Ruston, then instead of staying warm and snug at Lake D'arbonne, I drove out to Monroe just to see these two people. My math is fuzzy, but I think I ended up traveling somewhere in the neighborhood of 20,000 miles just to make it to our meeting at the PeGe.

Come to find out, only one shining face showed up. From what I understand, the other one didn't want to drive the 30 miles to see me. (Guess which one is getting a Christmas card this year?). In my gratitude, I let her hold my only son, whom had also traveled light-years to visit the PeGe.

Now, one might be tempted to think that my eyes are half-closed because a.) I'm really tired from life with a newborn, b.) I'm being blinded by the flash from the camera, or c.) I'm on crack (a little inside joke between myself and Stacy).

In fact, it's merely that I'm overcome by grief due to the lack of love shown me by a certain redhead.

Not that seeing Stacy didn't rock, 'cuz it did. My eyes were open almost the entire time. And we didn't talk about theology once, which is quite a feat for me. To be honest, I wasn't sure what to talk about, so I wasn't much of a conversationalist (am I ever?). But Stacy kept me entertained by stories of life as an MD, and stories of her family over Thanksgiving. She also told me how to pronounce DeSha's name, which I had TOTALLY wrong.

So, there you have it, my Thanksgiving Vacation. How was yours?

Future Thoughts / Son Sounds

2006-11-07T23:26:00.000-06:00

On Halloween (of all days!), Melissa and I welcomed Greyson Alan into the world.

He was nine days overdue. An induction was scheduled, and we deliberately scheduled the induction for a day that was NOT Halloween because we thought that was just too creepy.

Wouldn't you know it, the little twirp decided to come that day anyway. Sigh - kids are rebelling younger and younger these days.

Or, maybe he just really wanted to see his big sister's costume. Here is a pic of her at the day care Halloween party. She's a hula girl. We really wanted her to be a princess, but she wouldn't wear the costume. I guess something about an orange cellophane skirt appeals to her Halloween fashion sense. I just get a kick out of the way she's wearing it like a middle-aged man wears his trousers. (BTW, you can click on any of these pictures to make them bigger.)

In any case, Mom and baby are doing just fine. Madelyn has adjusted to the new addition very well so far. We, of course, have taken way too many pictures to post. Below is one of my favorites. Everytime I see it, I put a different caption on it - like, "I swear, that fish was this big." -or- "Next time, let's make the canal a little bigger." I'm thinking of putting this picture in my cube at work, but I need a better caption than my tired mind can come up with. Any ideas?

On another note, I'm consistently surprised how loud newborns are. Sure, there's the crying, but that's to be expected. But the grunting, the groaning, the smacking, the constanst rustle of limbs flailing is totally out of control. In my experience, parents exhaustion isn't so much from the baby crying as it is from the parents waking up every 15 mins when the baby makes a giant, house-shaking lip-smack.

But the other day as I looked at him sleeping, I got to thinking about the future. What will my children look like when they're adults? What will they look like when they're old? What will their children or grandchildren look like? In the future, what will they know that we don't know now? What will a Christian worldview look like in three generations?

It is with that last question that I camped out for a while. Ultimately, as evangelicals, we believe in a cataclysmic end things as we know them, followed by consumation with Christ. But it seems to me that the Biblical authors thought it would come in their lifetime. It didn't. Neither did it happen in their children's life time, nor their grandchildren's lifetime. It hasn't happened for 2000 years.

Nevertheless, all my life I've heard people say, "I just hope Jesus come back before that happens." or "I hope Jesus comes back soon." People have been saying that for 2000 years. What if it is another 2000 years before his return? What if it is 10,000, or a million, or a billion years? What if our sun is burned out and our solar system destroyed by the ravages of time before Christ returns? What then?

Does such a thought change the way that we, as Christians, live our life and approach the world? Should it?

The curse of Folk Theology

2006-10-19T22:02:00.000-05:00

I almost entitled this post "Surviving the Church", but that wouldn't have been entirely accurate. I also thought about entitling it "Christianity for Grown-ups", but that's a title I want to save for another time.

Over the past 6 years, and especially over the past year, I've felt more and more strongly about getting people to actually think about their Christian lives. To actually think through what they believe and why. To be honest with themselves about how silly sounding some of our sayings as Christians are. To be more thoughtful and reflective about things like Love, and Forgiveness, and Grace. When things get confusing or tough I want people to not throw up their hands and say "The Bible says it, so it must be true", and instead say "What exactly is the Bible saying here? Somehow, this has to make sense."

So, over the past year I've been trying things in my church to get people started. To put it mildly, it hasn't gone too well. And, quite frankly, I feel pretty beat up about it.

The problem is something I (and others) call Folk Theology. Folk theology is the kind of theology practiced by people who think that 'real' theology is anti-spiritual, that theology muddies the clear water of Christian truth, that it is a purely philosophical pusuit that has nothing to do with reality. Folk theology is what happens when people reject loving God with their minds, and instead blindly believe because they think that's what faith is. Folk theology is what happens when people love their stories about Christianity more than they love God.

Here's an example. Last week, I was talking to a group of Christians about some stuff, and as part of this conversation, I gave an example of something that Christians frequently believe, but that isn't in the Bible. They didn't believe me, so we looked at scripture, and I walked them through the issue. At the end, of of them said, "Yeah, yeah, but my old way of thinking about it COULD be true, right? Well, there you go."

This is the curse of Folk Theology. Instead of having scripture form how we should think about a certain thing, those who practice Folk Theology let how they think about things form scripture. And when that happens, people can find justification for everything. They can find justification for slavery, for domestic abuse, for the lower status of women, for hate and anger under the guise of "justice". If people chose their own stories and THEN go to Christian scripture, they can find anything they want. The Bible COULD be saying anything. (But it isn't.)

The curse of Folk Theology goes deeper, though. It's one thing to be caught in the curse of Folk Theology and not know it. That's the fault of the teachers, pastors, and leaders within the church. It's quite another thing to have the error of your Folk Theology pointed out to you, and to choose it anyway. When that happens, people are choosing to believe whatever they want. They're not choosing to follow the story of God's activity through human history, they're instead choosing a story of their own and calling it Christianity. And when they cling to these so-called "Christian" stories, even though they're wrong, they're showing that they love their stories about Christianity more than they love God's story about humanity.

Whatever happened to the scriptural encouragement to love God with all of your mind?
Whatever happened to the proverb, "As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another"?
Whatever happend to "Come, let us reason together"?
Whatever happened to the Christian intuition that we should do everything for the glory of God?
Where are the people who pant for God the same way the deer pants for water?

My fear, week after week, is that there is no one like this in our churches anymore - that they've all drown under the sea of Folk Theology.

The Greatest Story Ever Told

2006-10-12T12:29:00.000-05:00

Some people might call me an idealist or a fool, others might call me misguided or brainwashed, but I believe the Christian story is the greatest story ever told.

I mean, think about it. The revelation of God throughout history is a wonderful story. God didn't just wind up creation like a giant clock and then let it tick away. Instead, he participated in it. He didn't just let humanity wallow in its violence and hate, but He has worked throughout history to break the cycle. God doesn't lord over us the fact that we need forgiveness, but instead we are forgiven in such a way that we are freed to participate in God's work of redemption. We deserved karma, but got Grace. As Christians, this is the story we find ourselves in - God's story.

But, like any story, its effectiveness is directly related to its ability to have psychological impact. No one sits around a campfire and tells a scary story by saying:
"This guy one time had a hook for a hand and killed people. No one knows what happened to him. The End."
Instead, they say:
"It was a night, much like tonight. After eating smores and singing songs around the campfire, everyone went off to sleep. Two minutes before midnight, a boy named John woke up and needed to use the bathroom. He wondered out into the bushes to relieve himself when he heard a sound off in the woods. A sound like cold sharp metal scraping against the bark of trees..."

Somehow as Christians we've forgotten how to tell a good story. We've forgotten how to tell a story about the God we serve in a way that viscerally connects with people. We've forgotten how to paint a picture through words and actions that capture the minds of people looking for a place to belong - a story to find themselves in. In short, we've allowed the Greatest Story Ever Told to become worn out and boring.

As a Christian, I'm appalled by this; I'm ashamed by this. And I'm genuinely surprised that the majority of evangelical Christianity isn't outraged by it as well. Instead, what I hear increasingly is that evangelical Christianity needs to have a renewed focus on its Biblical roots, and on its old theology. As if those stories are any different or more effective than the ones we've been using.

Why, I wonder, is there such resistance to change? Why is there such resitance to finding stories about our infinite God that can grip us, that can hold us in their sway, mesmerized by the very thought of a God who encompasses more than creation? Why is there such a tendancy to cling to static formulations of God when, as one of my good friends recently remarked, the most stable things in creation are things that move? Things like electrons, planets, galaxies, seasons, a kid on a bicycle, the ocean. These things are dynamic - they are moving, just like our God. Our God is constantly doing a "new thing" (Isaiah 42-43), constantly revealing himself to us through the Spirit. He is constantly bringing into contact with His infinity and revealing to us the harmonious ways in which He holds together wonderful contradictions - such as losing our lives to save it. Contradictions that tell us the first have to be last. That God became man not to BE served, but TO serve.

Yet our stories are no longer able to convey this in such a way that our culture gets it. We are no longer able to tell this story and have it be good news. We've lost our ability to be salt and light, not because we stopped believing, but because we've stopped understanding what it takes to be healing agents.

This is my quest. My quest is to understand the hurts and frustrations of postmodern life, and meet people there. My quest is to learn how to become salt and light, not by repeating the same old tired stories, but by finding new stories that speak of God in exciting ways. Stories that paint forgiveness as something that frees us for right living, not just something that gets us off the hook. I'm looking for stories that invite us in to explore the infinite God in such a way that we meet with the need for salvation within the very core of our being. This is my quest.

But it takes bravery to do it. Bravery to to teach stories in Sunday School people have never heard before. Bravery enough to be labeled a liberal because of it. It takes the courage to say that some things about the Bible only make sense after you become a Christian. It takes a willingness to talk to people about Christ without *gasp* only quoting scripture. It takes enough maturity to see God as someone who doesn't need us to run to His defense every time someone feels God has mistreated them or not lived up to the hype.

So, as I think about whether or not it matters where you come from, I've come to the conclusion that it does matter. Not because I've come from somewhere (e.g., from point B to C to D in my Christian walk), but it matters because I'm coming from a place where I will do just about anything to make the evangelion - the good news - actually good news. It doesn't matter that I came from a particular church, or came from a particular school of thought - that's old news. It matters that my actions today come from the place God has put me today.

To me, this realization has made the words "Give us this day our daily bread" all the more meaningful and special. No one wants stale bread.

What we want and what we need is to have the greatest story ever, told.

Marathon Runner

2006-10-04T16:45:00.000-05:00

On Sunday of last week we had the Twin Cities Marathon. Somewhere around 10,000 people ran in the marathon. It was a huge event.

My coworker and friend, Joe, came in 89th place overall with a time of 2:50:52. He came in 70th in the mens. Not bad for a 26.2 mile run. I was reading about the results in the paper, and looking for Joe's name when I came across an article about this nut:

His name is Dean Karnazes, and he has committed to running 50 marathons in 50 states in 50 days. Yup, you heard me right, a marathon a day for 50 days.

Why would he do such a thing? you might ask. According to the paper, it is to "promote fitness among children".

Dude, did that guy just say he was doing it to get kids to exercise more? Cuz, I gotta be honest with you, just thinking about running a marathon every day makes we want to sit on the couch and eat a pack of candy bars. You know, for energy.

This makes me glad I'm an engineer. I'm pleasantly plump, reasonably intellegent, and sorta healthy. I have no delusions that doing what I do is going to inspire kids get into shape.

Plus, after he runs his 50, then what? Me, I'll still be able to sit here and make fun of him for a looooong time.

In any case, congrats, Joe.

Does it matter where you come from?

2006-10-03T20:24:00.000-05:00

I've been wrestling with some theological stuff lately, and I would like to get some feedback on it. The stuff I've been wrestling with isn't the content of my theological thought, but is instead how to teach said theological thought, if it should be taught at all.

At some point in recent memory, my friend Amy - you can see her blog here - commented on the ways her fellow BSU-ers theology has changed over the years. I said something about how it would have been better if we would have known then what we know now. She replied by saying that that spiritual stage was good for us.

I'm torn on this. Was it really good for us to be borderline legalistic? Was it really good for us to be so foundationalist that we thought we grasped all the truth? Was it really good for us to be ignorant of the very complicated issues surrounding Biblical inerrancy?

Now, there were good things, too, about our faith back then. It was incorrigible in the sense that we would not abandon it despite the ambiguity life threw at us. It kept us safe and sane. It made us respectable. And it delivered us to the place we are today. It wasn't all bad.

But as I teach people in my church, especially the youth, I wonder how far to go. When they ask questions about the origin and interpretation of scripture, I wonder how far to go into textual criticism and hermeneutics. When they ask about the character of God, I wonder how far to go into theological concepts like Futurity, robust infinity, and God's relationship to evil. When they ask about Satan, I wonder if I should tell them that the Bible doesn't ever tell us that Satan is a fallen angel and that we really don't know what the heck he is or where he came from.

In short, I wonder if I tell them all the things I've learned through hard research and soul-searching if it would make them better Christians. In the Christian life, does it make a difference how you get to where you are? Does it matter where you come from?

In the now defunct Bonhoeffer book study, I came across an idea that stuck with me. Bonhoeffer says that a professor can assert after many years of work that knowledge is meaningless, but a freshman in college cannot make the same assertion. Is the same true for Christian spiritual maturity? If it is, why can't discipleship just be a workbook?

I don't know. I just don't know. On the one hand, part of me wants to teach all of the things that make me excited about Christianity. The scary part is that what makes me excited is seeing a new way of thinking about God that was different from what I was taught as a youth. On the other hand, another part of me wants to teach the same things I was taught - even though those things are borderline wrong and unscriptural - because that's where I came from.

So here's the question I wrestle with: Does it matter that I went from fundamentalist to post-conservative, or (with the proper teacher) could I have gone directly to post-conservative and saved myself 15 years?

What do you think?

Blogging in Beta - somehow I expected more

2006-09-25T14:40:00.000-05:00

Well, I took the plunge and transferred my blog from Blogger to Blogger Beta. I figured that everyone would have to do it eventually, so I decided I would take the plunge and be one of the early adopters. Plus, one of the features they touted was being able to put labels on the posts. This is one of the features I've lusted after ever since I saw it on Wordpress.

After making the switch, though, I'm not actually that impressed. Or, maybe I should say I'm impressed beta.

The reality is that not much seems to have changed that I'm interested in. For instance, they changed how the sidebar is handled. No longer do you have to modify the (non-standard) HTML to add links and stuff to the sidebar, nor do you have to copy and paste blocks of code to arrange everything on the blog. Instead, there is a pretty cool interface that allow you to drag and drop elements of the blog around:

The problem is you can't do anything truly interesting. Sure, now you can have an archive that is actually easy to navigate, but what about adding in picture-streaming content from things like flickr or webshots? In that case, you're out of luck unless you want to import HTML code from another site.

Something else I'm less than enthused about is the way they still force you to use the standard dozen or so templates they have in Blogger. That's right, no new templates. I would have been okay with that if they would have provided tools to build your own templates from scratch, but they leave you to futz with the same old HTML code you had in Blogger. It would be truly phenominal if they allowed you to upload pictures to use as backgrounds, rather than making you host them in a place other than Blogger.

For instance, I really want to have a template that evokes a little more feel of fear and trembling than the pastel dots Blogger selected. So, I messed with the HTML code for hours, trying to get everything to look right while hosting all of the images off-site. Ultimately what I ended up with looked more like "Calm and Comfort" than "Fear and Trembling". It's not Blogger's fault I can't pick good enough backgrouds, but it is their fault that I couldn't try out my ideas in 3 minutes rather than 3 hours. (Though you can change fonts and font colors VERY easily.) I guess for now I'm stuck with my pastel dots evoking spiritual Fear and Trembling in my readers.

All in all, I suppose I'm not truly disappointed, because there are a couple of new features that I like, such as being able to label posts, and having a useful archiving tool, but I felt Blogger Beta could have been so much more. Course, it is still in Beta, so I'm waiting to be wow'd.

Oh, by the way, the other day I was cleaning out some old stuff, and I found a video tape of a BSU Chapel Service that included Joe and Amy's Family group playing "Welcome Back Cotter". I wonder what I should do with it?

Hi. My name is Ben, and I love music.

2006-09-21T10:41:00.000-05:00

"Let me whisper things
You've never heard before"

Sometimes I feel like I need to go to a support group for people who love music. In my daydreams, this group wouldn't try to encourage me to quit music, but would encourage me to get more and more into it. Someone would bring a new album every week, and we would listen to it, groove to it, and deeply contemplate the lyrics. And we would be so good at it that we could make money. That way my title would be: Benjamin Rhodes, Music Lover.

"I read bad poetry
into your machine.
I save your messages
just to hear your voice.
You always listen carefully
to awkward rhymes.
You always say your name
like I wouldn't know its you..."

Melissa and I were talking the other day, and I mentioned that I love music for the lyrics - I love the message of the song. The music simply give the lyrics motion. Unless, of course it is classical music (think Bach), or an overpowering guitar solo, then it's all about the music. (Sigh...where is the philosphical-conceptual space for music?)

"But every now and then I'd swear I'd see
you standing
On a sidewalk,
In a restaurant,
From a taxi passing by."

Music to me whispers message about people I've met. It whispers things about places long in my past that I want to keep connected to. It reminds me of situations that made me laugh or cry or feel alive. Music speaks to me of God, and his connection to me. It speaks to me of myself, and my connection to God. Certain music becomes a soundtrack for a place and time. This doesn't happen because I sit down and listen to the song, it happens because my soul sings these lyrics to me - it whispers them when I think of people and places from long ago. Truth is, I sing about almost every person I have a meaningful relationship with in words that aren't mine, but have become mine. Sometimes I feel bad that I think most Christian music is technically and lyrically inferior to secular music. Then, I just pop in a new CD and all my worries fade as the music sweeps me away.

"He used to do surgeries
On girls in the eighties,
But gravity always wins."

Sometimes, lyrics frame how I think about things. When people analyze where they are in life, how they've fallen into particular patterns and situations, I think of music. I think of the way lyrics turn a certain phrase. I think of how creatively and descriptively and subjectively these lyrics describe life. They hold me hostage to ways of thinking about the world. Hostage in a good way.

"I stood on the edge
Tied to a noose
But you came along
and you cut me loose"

Music releases my inner muse. Music makes me more creative than I would otherwise be. I live in the lyrics. I find my space between the notes and words. I create whole worlds there and derive stories out of those worlds. I find meaning and purpose there. When everything about my bourgeoisie life seems droll and dull, music reminds me that there are ways of thinking about things that are full excitement and life. Music pulls me from crisis to creative.

Here are some of my favorite lyric snippets. (Can anyone identify where they come from?)

What are some of yours?

"Tears Stream
Down your face
When you lose something you cannot replace"

"Oh Simple thing
Where have you gone?
I'm getting old
I need something to rely on."

"Are the streets you're walking on
A thousand houses long?
Well that's where I belong
And you belong with me,
Not swallowed in the sea."

"Sundays were made for this..."

"On a platform I'm gonna stand and say,
That I'm nothing on my own..."

"The more skin you shared
The more that the air in your thoat would linger
when you'd call him your friend."

"I was waiting as you drove away.
The sunlight was falling
you were writing backwards
on a dusty window pane."

I'm not dead

2006-09-18T21:32:00.000-05:00

Despite the break I've taken from blogging, I'm not dead. I've simply been busy.

Busy with what? you might ask. Well, for one, I've been trying out this new blogger beta thing, so there are some changes to my blog. I'll post on how I like Blogger Beta sometime soon, but not today.

For another, I've been working on my house. Mel and I bought a bit of a fixer-upper last year, and I've been furiously working on that while the weather is nice. That way my southern and northern friends (that's you, Alethia!) can come and visit anytime they like and not be grossed out by the 40 year old carpet in the kitchen. Or the grand canyon plastered across our dining room wall. Or the black-and-pink bathroom.

I know, I know, the post is useless without pics. So, here they are.

First, the kitchen. Here is before:
Notice, if you will, the grand canyon in the background. Notice the carpet in the kitchen. Notice the cooktop that is literally 50 years old and ready to burst into a white-hot grease fire at any moment. Notice the knobs on the cabinet doors that went out of style with the Apollo project.

Here is the middle of the kitchen remodel. This picture was taken from the opposite direction.

Notice, if you will, the exposed studs, the wiring hanging from the ceiling. Notice me doubled-over because I've probably just dropped something heavy and/or sharp on my foot for the 100th time.

And, here is the finale:

Now, it's not entirely done, but for the most part it is. Just a little touch-up here and there and I'll be done. Notice the tile floor, the modern cooking surface. Notice the track lighting for the pantry. Notice the plastic purple shoes on the floor. This kitchen really has it all.

But wait, that's not all! We also prepped Madelyn's room and promoted her to a big-girl bed!

Before:

After:

Madelyn's Grandmomma made the acoutriments, which have little fairies all over them. This picture doesn't do it justice. The room really looks nice.

To my delightful surprise, Madelyn has made the transition from crib to bed without any real problems. Good breeding and all.

And, not that anyone cares, but I also painted all the walls in the upstairs. I mention this because it I learned something important: use oil-based primer when covering old paint. I know, I know, they tell you that the latex based stuff is just as good, but I'm living proof that it isn't. If the paint you wish to cover looks like the chalky white paint in your grandmother's hall, use oil-based primer on it. For the love of God, use oil-based primer. That's all I'm gonna say about that.

But, after learning that hard lesson, I was able to finally work on the living room.

Before:

Notice, if you will the people having a good time even though the place is a mess. That could be you.

Also notice the chalky white paint that crawled out of the deepest pits of Hell.

After:

And, while I think that the place looks nice, it takes it's toll.

Here is me before:

After:

Yes, the fumes from oil-based primer are so strong they willl knock out your teeth and turn you into an old chinese man.

But it is soooo worth it.

Everybody likes change.

2006-09-12T21:17:00.000-05:00

I'm taking the plunge and switching to the new Blogger Beta to see what I think. You'll see some changes to the site, and after I get everything worked out, I'll put some posts up.

They might even be interesting.

That's what I've been saying!

2006-07-20T09:05:00.000-05:00

To quote Doug Padgitt, "That's what I've been saying!"

Except the way I say it is not as funny, and more confusing. This isn't for the easily offended, but it's not too bad.

http://www.jhuger.com/kisshankbutt.php

The other side of the narrow way

2006-07-19T11:46:00.000-05:00

After I got to thinking about my last post on the narrow way, I got to thinking that it was incomplete. Without a doubt, I believe that finding the narrow way is more about finding the path that, for you, leads to balance, though not in the yin-yang sense. But the Christian life isn't just about a single individual finding the narrow way. The Christian life is also about communities of hope, healing, and salvation.

As I think about the interaction between the two - being a single individual and being in community - I find myself thinking a lot about the writings of Soren Kierkegaard. Kierkegaard lived in the mid 1800's and said (among lots of other things) that truth is only helpful if it is internalized in such a way that it becomes an integral part of the living and thinking of the single individual. In this way, truth is subjectivity. Truth must be turned inward and made your own.

This has special implications for the narrow way, and it's other side. The narrow way is what happens when the truth of the infinite God starts to color our days and become internalized into the single individual. The narrow way happens when we try to figure out how to make truth mean something to us, rather than it just being something we are taught, or something "Baptists believe" (instead of "I believe"). But the other side of the narrow way has to do with the teleological purpose of embarking upon the narrow way. (Teleological means end goal or end purpose. It's a cool word - you should look it up if you don't already know what it means.)

We don't just travel the narrow way for our own benefit, as single individuals who are searching
for truth. That might be why we start on the narrow way, but at some point we look around and realize that we need support through the ambiguity and pain we experience as we internalize truth. We look around and realize that other people are on a journey, too, and that our experience might be able to help them on their way.

At some point, we gather together to take care of each other. We come together, realizing that we have all been wounded as we've walked upon this razor's edge called the narrow way, and want to help each other. We want to reach out to those who have fallen off of the path, on one side or the other. We do it because we understand the hardships of the narrow way - we know how easy it is to get off track and end up in a place where you don't want to be. And even though some of us are in a place we hate, we aren't able to admit it, but instead desperately wish someone would break in with a message of hope to guide us onto the path of real life.

Some of us have never been on that path before. Others of us have been on the path before, but have forgotten how to get back on it. The other side of the narrow way is something I can't describe. It's not community - that's actually part of the narrow way. The other side of the narrow way is not a "way" at all. The other side of the narrow way is what happens when people go anywhere and everywhere precisely because they're not really going anywhere at all. It's what happens when people try things just to feel alive, or try to fit in, or try to be something that we're not all for the sake of finally becoming something. But the more people follow this road to nowhere, the more we realize how far into despair we are, the more we realize that everwhere we go we are a visitor, in search of a home. We realize that we might never reach a place where we're satisified, never reach a place where we are loved in such a way that we don't constantly have to seek out more love, never reach a place where we can let go and be ourselves in our pursuit of good things because the truth of the infinite God has never started to become OURS, a part of us.

Teleologically, we, as Christians, embark upon this narrow way so that we can offer up some hope against the other side of the narrow way. We come together and form communities of believers in order to help each other on the journey, and in order to show others how to let the journey begin. These communities are sacrimental - they are something that brings others to a point where they are willing to start internalizing truth in such a way that it can actually make a difference in their life. As outsiders look upon the sacrimental community they should see the difference the narrow way has made in our lives - how internalizing truth has changed everything, and as a result want to try it for themselves. They're not going anywhere anyway. And as the truth hits them, as it becomes their own, one piece at a time, they begin to understand the value of the narrow way.

Why do we do it? Why do I do it? I do it because it was done for me. I do it because there was a dark time in my life - not so long ago - when I found myself in a place I couldn't get out of, a place that I didn't want to be. No one was there to help me - no one was there to discover the pain I kept hidden. But instead as I screamed at God in bitterness I realized that there was someone who came to show me how to get out of the quagmire. He came and gave everything he had - he allowed himself to be crushed for my "transgressions" - for the way I've wondered off the path. And as he hung on a tree as the reward for showing us all the narrow way, he screamed out in despair to his God, too. I do it because somewhere inside me I think I understand part of the pain he experienced while traveling the narrow way. I do it because I want to reach out and help that savior of the world as he cries out in despair. I do it because as I have internalized the truth of the infinite God, I have come to understand he wants me to look into the face of people at church, at work, at school, in the mall, and see the face of despair looking for a savior. They're not looking for the exact same path that I am on, but each and every one of them is looking to leave the the other side of the narrow way. They're looking to find the same truths that I've found, and embark upon the narrow way of making those truths their own.

The Narrow Way

2006-07-14T09:08:00.000-05:00

About once a year, my church asks me to preach because the pastor is gone. This week is my week. While I usually feel like I have something worthwhile to say (does that make me arrogant?), I'm also stressed out about it. I'm a much better writer than I am speaker, and if I must speak, I do much better if I can interact with people and ask questions while I'm teaching. Maybe I'll give an update on how it went on Monday or something.

In any case, as I've been working on my message the past week, I realized the exact way in which I think of the narrow way. If anyone has been a close reader of my blog, they'll realize I refer to Christianity as the narrow way a lot, and truthfully, as I live each day looking for the face of God, I consciously think about the path I take as the narrow way. To me, following the narrow way and being a Christian are synonymous.

But, what do I mean when I talk about the narrow way?

When most people I have met think of the narrow way, they think of something that is a path through the woods. The entrance to the narrow way is hidden - you have to look and look and look for it, but once you find the trailhead, the path is faint but clear, and it winds through the mountains and valleys of life all the way to God. The path never splits or disappears completely, though sometimes it might be hard to see, but if you are diligent and pay attention, you'll never have a problem staying on the path. Sure, trials will come and sometimes the route the path takes will be difficult and full of stress and pain, but the path itself is clear.

But what if the narrow way isn't like this at all? What if the narrow way isn't a path that someone else has blazed that you get to follow, but is instead a path that you blaze yourself as you try to navigate life? Or, what if the narrow way has nothing to do with paths at all?

Real Christians know that the Christian life is full of ambiguity as we approach a world full of sin, and we all know that the Christian life is full of pain as we slowly learn to take up our cross daily and follow the example of Christ. But the fact of the matter is that every step each one of us takes as single individuals is unique. No one has ever taken the path I've taken before, having my same experiences with ambiguity and pain. The path I take is mine alone, as I try to integrate the experiences I've had with a God who constantly touches me and colors my days. My path (and yours) is unique because I am (and you are) unique.

So if I am to really take full advantage of what God is trying to teach me, I can't just follow someone else's path - I must follow the unique trajectory God creates for me. But this is scary, because as I blaze this trail I could get it wrong and hurt myself or someone else. It's scary because I could easily fall into the trap of just going through the motions that someone else has done, and thereby lose the unique message God has for me.

So, I walk on a razor's edge. On the one hand, I don't want to grieve the Spirit of God as I simply follow the motions of people who've gone before me and ignore the unique opportunities meant entirely for me. And on the other hand, I don't want to descend into chaos as I pursue every heresy in creation looking for something new and cool. It's like I'm walking a fine line on the top of a mountain. There is no path. The going is treacherous and fraught with peril. Falling off the one side means I sell out and take the easy way, which is to simply do the same things people before me did. If I fall off the other side it means that I've descended into chaos and heresy as I blaze a trail that has nothing to do with where God wants me to go.

This is probably why I also think that individuals work out their salvation in fear and trembling. Christians walk this tightrope - this narrow way, and in fear and trembling take each and every step as they navigate the ambiguity and pain of following Christ's example. This is also probably why I find so much meaning when the apostle Paul says in Acts 17:

26From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps grope for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.

God sets us up uniquely in time and place, and did it that we might perhaps grope for him. Not find him as if we started walking upon a path and stumbled upon his cottage, but grope for him.

Interestingly, this means that we lose control of our ability to find God on our own, but we become more and more dependent on Him to reveal Himself to us through Christ, and through the Spirit which indwells us. And it is precisely with this loss of control, in finding our true identity in the uniqueness of our path as we relate to God that we find hope and freedom and life.

I don't know about you, but to me the source of this hope and life seems so strange, so counterintuitive that I can't help but ask as I navigate the narrow way, "What kind of God is this?"

What kind of God is this?

2006-07-05T11:22:00.001-05:00

I was going through some old clothes the other day, and I found some t-shirts I had as a teenager. A good number of the shirts were just your ordinary t-shirts that said "Hard Rock Cafe" or something on them. Then, there was another kind of shirt in the pile. I'll call this group the Jesus shirts.

As their name indicates, they had something to do with Jesus. Some of them were from my BSU days, and aside from words like "thang" printed on them, most were pretty innocuous. Others, however, made me borderline angry with both myself for buying the shirts, and with marketers of Christian clothing who produced them.

Most of the shirts with any sort of depiction of Jesus or spiritual things showed monster trucks, or a ripped, muscular Jesus wielding a sword. One showed Jesus riding the four horses of the apocalypse in such a way that he was "breaking" them.

As I looked over these Jesus shirts, and I thought of some other ones I had seen recently, I realized that this is the kind of God and Jesus that we want to serve. We want to serve a God who punishes the guilty with everlasting torment. We want to serve a God who seems totally in control at all times, who has all the answers for us. We want a Jesus who is a buff, kung-fu man of combat, who is waging an all-out war against Satan.

We want a God who tears through town like James Dean, driving a pimped-out ride and wearing sunglasses and a faded bomber jacket. We want a God like Neo in The Matrix who bends all the rules of reality in order to destroy the adversary and save those who are good. He's smooth, good looking, cool, and can't be outdone. And when God leaves town in a cloud of dust as his Monster Truck leaves rubber on the pavement, we want the kids to stand around in awe and say, "What kind of God IS that?". And we want to say, "Our God, kid. That's OUR God."

On some level, I know this mentality is true because the names on the tags of some of these shirts are things like "Christian Apparel with an Attitude". Cuz, you know, Jesus can't compete if he's not as cool as Avril Lavigne or Tony Hawk. Anyone who is going to make it big has to have an attitude. I mean, Jesus dying and coming back to life? That was totally rad. I love how he faked out Satan with than one! He was all like, "I'm dead. NOT!" Man, the devil never saw that one coming! That was SO kewl. Kinda like the time Rambo blew up the entire US Army with only a bow and arrow. THAT's how strong OUR God is! He's like Rambo-Jesus, with body piercings.

When I take a step back and try to get the picture of Jesus that non-Christians might get from such portrayals, I see that they ask the question a different way. They see a God who aims to judge people and send them to Hell for eternity. They see a God who seems full of anger at humanity, who can't stand sin, and wishes to demand conformity. They see a Father who sent his Son to be abused by humanity, and is therefore guilty himself. They see a coy Son who says he wants to save them, but never really tells them what they need to be saved from. And at the end of the day, non-Christians reject Christ by saying, "What kind of God is THIS? If this is what the one true God is like, I don't want to serve him."

But real Christians know that God the Father and God the Son are not like that. When the people of Israel went astray, He sent them prophets who acted bizarre (really, really bizarre, if you ask me) and wandered naked through the streets of Jerusalem proclaiming a message of repentance. God the Father is not a person like James Dean who always leaves the women swooning, but instead who finds himself constantly married to a humanity who whores herself to others. But he doesn't leave her or forsake her, but he continues to pursue her and woo her. He gives up dignity in order to do anything to get her back.

And when the Jews looked for a messiah who would rush into the city on the back of a war-horse, clear the temple, and drive the Romans out of Jerusalem in a spectacular coup, they instead found a humble man who entered the city on the back of a donkey, who preached a message of love, and who was crucified, naked and bleeding, for all the public to see. They wanted a shining hero, and instead got a suffering servant.

I believe the narrow way begins when we finally take on the challenge of understanding this tension, and pursue an answer from the God we serve.

We want a savior who will obliterate the things that cause us to sin, but instead get a Jesus who teaches us how to love even though sin exists. We want a healer who will heal all our wounds, but instead find a Jesus who commiserates with us because he suffered, too.

What kind of God is this?

Coming up to reality

2006-06-29T09:55:00.000-05:00

After my descent into talking jibberish on the last post, I thought I would come up to reality.

And what better way to talk about reality than to talk about TV?
Lost is by far my favorite show on TV right now. It has it all - action, intrigue, mystery, spirituality. It's sorta like Lord of the Flies without the kids, and without the flies. Oh, and with women.

While it is in the off-season right now, I look forward to watching it every week. Grade A TV, this one.

I suppose if I could be one character in the cast, I would choose to be Mr. Eko. Yeah, he's a fraud, a murderer, and he's black (all of things I'm not...I don't think), but he's also mystical, enigmatic, and in search of redemption for his past. Even though he seems crazy sometimes, he has clarity of focus. At the end of the season, though, it seems that he might be dead. I guess time will tell.

I also like Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis. Yeah, you can say it - I'm a dork. But really, it is pretty mindless and fun television. The charactes are funny, the situations are preposterous, and the humans always win with guns and grenades even though their enemies have force fields and beam weapons. I guess all that military spending during the cold war paid off after all.

It's not award-winning drama, but it is lighthearted and fun. It takes my mind off of things. Isn't that what TV should be all about?

Speaking of award-winning drama, the new Battlestar Galactica series rocks. You might think you're justified in calling me a double-dork for liking SG-1 AND Battlestar, but you would be wrong. Battlestar Galactica is the West Wing of sci-fi.

The acting is incredible, the special effects are realistic and totally believable, the situations are always credible, and the response of the characters to those situations always make sense. There is no solving the problem with fake technology in this series - the solution is always hard and gritty.

The only thing I don't like about this series is the religious overtones. While almost every character in the series adheres to some form of religion, the way in which the religion is practiced is either apathetic, or radical. I find the presentations of the two extremes to be too polar. Real religion is more subtle.

And last, but not least, is MI-5. This show is produced by the BBC, and is about the British version of the FBI. While the series starts out slow (it picks up after a few episodes) and is rather low budget, I think that it ulitmately satisfies.

The characters are mostly believable, terrorists are caught via good spy work rather than through phone taps and imaging satellites, and the types of issues they address are real and relevant to the current political landscape.

Plus, they're British. Who doesn't like a British spy? The only thing I don't like is that the main character, Tom Quinn, and his boss, Harry Something-or-other, act like they have a case of either piles or heartburn, I can't tell which. But after watching a couple of episodes, you figure out why - the job is high stress. But c'mon, take a Tums (or a bran muffin), why don't you?

What shows do you like?

Evil and the Problem of Good, cnt'd

2006-06-26T09:14:00.000-05:00

About 2 months ago, I posted on the problem of evil in a post I called "Evil and the Problem of Good" . As a result of that post, my good friend Alethia put up the comment:

don't you think though that the reason we feel bad when we hear about someone dying of cancer or getting killed in an accident truly is selfish? i don't think it is consciously that way, but if i had to be honest the real reason that makes me sad is i think, wow what if that was my husband who was killed in that accident or my mom who died of cancer and those are really the thoughts that make me sad. what do you think?

What do I think? I think she's right. But this creates a problem if you follow my argument that anything "good" we do is because God breaks into our lives and causes us to care. If I'm doing justice to Alethia's comment, she is pointing out that, within my framework, it might not be the call of God that breaks our selfish tendencies, but that it might very well be that when humans do "good" they're really just being selfish. In their selfishness they hope that if they help someone in their time of need, someone will help them when they need it.

In this view, it wouldn't really be God who causes the problem of good, but rather what we percieve as "good" is only a by-product of our evolution. In essence, Alethia is pointing out that Richard Dawkins' "Selfish Gene" is more complicated (and at times, altruistic) than I give it credit. As a result, I'm in need of repairing (or reframing) my argument.

For secular evolutionists, like Dawkins, things in the universe evolved by chance. The establishments of physical constants, like the strong nuclear force, gravitational force, speed of light, etc were the product of chance, and all of the self-organization of the universe since the beginning were the product of chance as well. From this vantage point, the characteristics of humans to be altruistic is simply a chance development as a result of natural selection. In the secular view, compassion is an instinct brought about by humanity's desire to survive. Compassion is therefore neither good nor evil - it just a neutral characteristic brought about by random chance.

As a gross generalization, secularists believe like Dawkins, that everything in creation is morally neutral. They believe this because they adhere to a philosophy called reductionism, also known as Methodological Naturalism. Essentially, reductionism means that everything is ultimately explainable by scientific principles. But what makes this true? On what basis can one say that everything is explainable by scientific principles? Can a belief in reductionism then be explained via scientific principles? Or, is reductionism perhaps something people take on faith?

Now let me pause here and say two things. First, fleshing all this out involves getting into a lot of philosophy of science stuff, which is WAY to boring to blog about. That means that I'll leave out chunks of the explanation so as to not bore the 4 people kind enough to read my blog. If you want to know more about philosophy of science and where I come up with these ideas, read a book on it. Second, I personally tend to be quite reductionist, though it is a position I take on faith as much as a non-reductionist takes his (or her) position on faith. I believe that things can be explained through scientific principles, and I believe this because that is what time has taught humanity. For almost everything a person can think of, science has found a mechanism to explain it. It only takes a brief glance through history to find examples of how activity previously assigned to God alone is now readily explained through science.

Yet I also believe that some things are beyond our capability to explain. For instance, why are the physical constants in the universe fine-tuned for the development of life? What is the ultimate purpose (or goal) of creation? Why do I feel this continuous need to grope towards an understanding that is just beyond my grasp? Can scientific principles explain this? Currently, at least, they can't. And scientists who are a lot smarter than me (Hawking among them) believe that we will never be able to answer a good chunk of the "why" questions. Some things are just unknowable.

At least, unknowable in the scientific sense.

Which leads me to the real explanation of evil and the problem of good. Whereas the secularist takes reductionism on faith (I'm oversimplifying my point here), I take on faith the idea that the ultimate origin and goal of the universe comes from God. Within that universe I believe a great many things are explainable scientifically, but I also believe things are that way because God has a goal of drawing all creation to him. All of creation is said to "live and move and exist" (Acts 17:28) in God, and creation finds its meaning (which is something unanswerable via reductionism) as we "grope for Him" (Acts 17:27).

So, going back to Alethia's comment, how do we know that altuism isn't just a byproduct of natural selection? We don't. But I would contend that what we, as Christians, do know is that God created in such a way that creation would grope after Him and find Him. And as I look upon the startling complexity of the universe, and how it has gotten more complex over time, I realize that maybe creation actually is groping towards something. Maybe creation has a goal and a purpose that it is organizing towards. Evolution creates and destroys and turns things into chaos, but I see the face of God as things self-organize out of the chaos, as if creation is reaching towards God. THIS is the good that breaks into the evil of chaos. The default state of things is chaos and anarchy, but strangely all of creation doesn't fall into this, but it organizes steadily into something rational and stable - it organizes into something that can call on God and seek Him. The problem isn't that things want to be chaotic - that's their default state. The problem is that good breaks in and organizes out of the chaos, directing us as we live and move and exist towards our ultimate goal, which is an infinitely good God. Sure, altruism might be a result of evolution, but that doesn't mean it isn't a good thing that occured in humanity as creation groped towards God.

Intestestingly enough, all of this has a connection to free will, or the lack thereof. What if, in humans, creation no longer has to blindly and randomly grope towards God, but it can finally reach towards God in a new way - a way in which humans alone, despite all the other things in creation, are said to be in God's image.

What do you think?

Why I have free will. (Or, why free will doesn't exist.)

2006-06-20T09:05:00.000-05:00

For some unknown reason, my church lets me teach the youth on Sunday morning about twice a month. This is a little bit of a surprise for me, because, if you've ever read my blog, I border on being really bizarre, and a bit off the beaten path as far as my thoughts about church, the Bible, and spirituality. Still, someone has seen fit to let me teach, and the youth and I generally have a good time.

We happen to be going through Genesis right now, and not too long ago, when we read through chapter 3, which is the Fall, someone asked how mankind can be condemned for sinning if God a.) knew that mankind would sin, b.) created them with the particular nature that would be succeptible to a talking snake, and c.) set them loose, knowing full well what would happen, but d.) chose to do nothing about it. This kid's argument, such as it was, is that there really isn't such a thing as free will, but rather God ordains the ways things are, and there isn't much that can be done about it. If there was something we could do about it, then God's view of the future would be wrong, and he wouldn't be God.

Based on that, here's the question he asked: How can we be said to have free will?

Before I go too much further, let me just make the disclaimer that most of the stuff I'll say is off-the-shelf theology. I didn't come up with this on my own. But, as I've been thinking about the question of free will (especially as it relates to evil and the problem of good), I've come to a better appreciation of this stuff.

How would you answer this youth's question?

The answer I was always taught is that God gave us the ability to make decisions because he didn't want robots. He wanted people who could choose to worship him. It's just a bummer people chose something else. It's not God's fault - he created us perfect. The problem is that humans took what was perfect and perverted it.

But isn't a being who will pervert what is perfect not, in fact, perfect? (Unless, of course, it is perfect in that it is a perfect perverter. Then, you have to wonder what kind of God would create a perfect perverter.) The fact of the matter is that looking at humans as having free will is problematic in almost every way. Note that this will be a gross oversimplification, but either man has free will (the Arminian position), in which case God just sits back and allows things outside His will to happen yet remains blameless, or God is completely sovereign (the Calvinist position), in which case everything that happens is part of God's plan and man should not be held responsible. Isn't there a way to think about free will, or the lack thereof, other than these two options?

Why do we even think of things in terms of free will? I mean, I can't levitate, or walk on the ceiling, or drive my car over the ocean. I can't choose to cure cancer or fly like Superman. Aristotle (I think it was Aristotle) said, "A man is free to throw a stone, but not to recall it." How true that is. Even if I will the stone to stop flying through the air, it won't stop. Even if I will to fly like Superman or drive my car over the ocean, or cure cancer, my will is unable to make that happen. My will is not free to do these things.

So, why do we even think we have free will? I think, personally, we think this because we don't know any better. If push comes to shove, we could come up with a hundred times more things we CAN'T do than things we CAN do. Yet, because we get so used to operating in the arena of stuff we CAN do, we think we have free will because we forget about the stuff we CAN'T do.

So, because there are so many things I can think of that I can't will to do, I don't think we have free will. Our will is definately not free to do whatever we want, instead we are constrained to a very small portion of what is possible. On top of all this, the Bible doesn't even talk about people having free will. It's simply not a topic the Bible addresses. Free will, at least the way most people think about it, is a myth. Free will doesn't exist.

What the Bible does talk about are decisions. One decision can open up the option for more decisions. For instance, making straight A's in school opens up a ton of options for the future. On the other hand, taking drugs (or getting a felony) closes options for the future. The further you travel down either of these paths, the more options the good student has, and the fewer options the addict has. What the Bible teaches is that good decisions breed options for a better future.

The story of the Bible is that people couldn't learn this lesson. So, God called Abraham out of paganism, and created a chosen people and nation to help the world understand how good decisions (good stewardship of resources, the land, taking care of each other, and worshipping God) leads to a better future for everyone. But even the Jews couldn't get this message straight. So, God sent Jesus to show us an example of exactly how to live a life full of good decisions. But humanity couldn't tolerate such a person, so we killed him.

Nevertheless, Christ came to show us how to be free. Ever since Adam and Eve, we've been so mired in selfishness and greed, envy and malice, violence and indifference that we can't make good enough decisions on our own to secure a good future. We are a slave to sin, a slave to the limited options that are the result of our bad decisions. We are the addict who's options are constrained by his choices. But Christ came to break the cycle. He came to show us how to make good decisions, and to choose the things that give us options for the future. He came to show us how to be the good student, and open up a future full of options and hope. Christ came to show us how to gain freedom from what otherwise binds us. Christ came to show us how to be free.

This is why I have free will. I have free will because Christ is showing me every day how to make good decisions that open up my future to have better options. My will is continually becoming free to chose more and more options because the decisions I make are guided by an understanding of what God has revealed in Christ. It's not that I have "free will", but that suddenly my will is free to chose options that were not available before. And even after I die, my choice to follow Christ on the narrow way means that my options become infinite as I get to spend eternity with the God of infinite choices. Now THAT is good news, news that cures people of despair; news that gives hope and a future to those who are slaves to their choices.

This excites me beyond belief. So, why do we never teach this in our Sunday School?

Rubber meets the road

2006-06-15T22:07:00.000-05:00

Having gotten that last silly post out of my system, I've been thinking about being a Christian where the rubber meets the road.

You see, deep down, I'm a mystic. In a Christian context, some people might think that I am more of a theologian, but the reality is that me spouting theology is the way I cope with my mystical encounters with God. Theological musings are the way I communicate to others the mystical lessons I learn as God invades my personal space and shows me himself. (For those wondering, the definition of mystic is: "having an import not apparent to the senses nor obvious to the intelligence; beyond ordinary understanding". It's not magic. It's a delving into something beyond normal understanding.)

Interestingly enough, my desire for theological insight started with an intense mystical experience that happened when I was a teenager. Imagine my surprise when I found the opposite was often true - great theologians (Aquinas among them) stopped doing theology in response to a mystical experience. Thomas said that his incredibly influential work, "Suma Theologica", was "mere straw" compared to the reality of God he experienced during a mystical encounter one day during mass. He left his work unfinished, and never wrote again.

Similarly, I wonder how much of my theolgical wanderings (and wonderings) are mere straw. I mean, since when has my post on my Many Colored Days fed the poor? When have my musings on the wrong kind of forgiveness changed lives? Has the fact that I consider myself post-conservative ever caused anyone to feel welcomed in love? I doubt it.

So where does the rubber meet the road? Where does my personal quest to know God lead me to a place where I follow in Christ's footsteps? When does my love of God lead me to a place where I serve in such a capacity that an encounter with me also means an encounter with the very face of God? Not that I would be God, but that I want what He wants so much that I give all I have to be the person who makes God real to others. In my most mystical times with God, I want to bankrupt myself, I literally want to rupture myself to get what God wants. I don't want it so that I can give it to God as a gift, but I want to get what God wants because I want it to. I don't want it selfishly, as if I'm trying to steal from God, but I want precisely because it is the best possible thing to want.

Is it possible for me, a mere man, to convey the presence of the real God? Is it possible for me to follow in the footsteps of my savior, and in the process become a person who is able to point to the infinte God of love? Is it possible for me to ever have my personal experience with salvation meet with the needs of others in such a way that it changes their lives, too? Can the rubber ever meet the road? Can where I've gotten ever get anyone else anywhere?

I look at people, I hear and understand their fears. I watch them as they get happy and sad. I know that if they could just understand what I understand, things would be different. But I don't know how to do it. In all of my inward groaning to show others the narrow way, I struggle with how to make what I know and feel and exerience mean anything to someone else. I look at the prophets and Christ, and the disciples, and I come to the conclusion that even if you have a message directly from God, or are even God himself, people will misunderstand the message. They'll choose to stay who they are and where they are. They'll reject the message to live in the same place they've always been. Instead of seizing the opportunity to start over, they'll choose to stay paralyzed in the despair of their life, hoping something else will heal their wounds.

People go through life, wonder what could have been, wondering why their heart got broken, hoping that if certain things would happen just a certain way, then they'll be saved from the groping after meaning they experience every day. I know this feeling. I've lived this feeling. I know where they are. I've experienced dark times. I'm intimately familiar. But I also know that hoping in chances that will never come is a life of despair. It is the sickness unto death. Real hope comes from another place. I've lived that hope, too. But I don't know how to bring people to understand it. I don't know how to make discples, either under my own power, or with the power of the spirit. Even Christ didn't alter the world. Despair still looks us all in the face even though He was the ultimate answer to despair.

One life at a time. That's what I tell myself. One life at a time. People are driven into despair one life at a time. They kill the part of themselves that make them feel, because it hurts too bad. It happens not because the world reached out and crushed them, but because a person wounded them so deeply they don't think they'll ever feel right again. It happens one life at a time. Just like finding salvation. It happens one life at a time. One life at a time, people discover how having Many Colored Days changes everything. It happens not because Christ came once and for all, but because he comes to each one of us, and hopes we'll give him a chance. It happens one life at a time.

I suppose, even being the Christian mystic that I am, I'm still a man in need of a savior. I'm still a person in need of hope. Hope that I don't get crushed with despair over the task of showing the narrow way. Hope that my life is not only better for me, but makes a difference to others. Hope that the rubber will meet the road.

My Favorite Misspelled Word of All Time

2006-06-15T14:28:00.000-05:00

What I think is incredibly fascinating about the world of computers is that misspellings become different animals than hand-written misspellings.

For instance, a person who doesn't know the difference might want to spell "their", but instead spell "there". Or, the might want to spell "pneumonia", and instead spell "newmoanya". Handwritten misspellings, while usually phonetically accurate, are usually not funny because they are the product of ignorance. I mean, who among us hasn't wondered if they are using "effect" and "affect" properly? It's not funny when you use them wrong - it's just that your stoopid.

Typed misspellings, on the other hand, are funny. Spelling 'teh' instead of 'the'? That's funny. I don't know why. It just is. Try pronouncing 'teh'. There's nothing phonetically helpful about it. It's just an absurd word. It's funny that way.

All this leads me to My Favorite Misspelled Word of All Time. Are you ready for this? Here it is:
borken

I'm not going to tell you what it's supposed to spell, though I'm sure you can figure it out. But borken is great, I just love it. I mean, it is simultaneously titillating and exotic-sounding. It sounds mildly authoritative, yet playfully juvenile. It rolls off the tongue easily, but has no meaning whatsoever. It can be sexy or aggressive. And since it has no definition, it can mean whatever you want it to. Borken.

They say in space no one can hear you scream. Well, the same is true in the blogsphere, so I guess I'm safe if no one finds My Favorite Misspelled Word funny. Some of you might be nonplussed enough to want to show me this picture:
For those who would show me that picture, I have one word for you: Borken.

Petit Jean and more.

2006-06-07T08:37:00.000-05:00

For the last 23 or so years, my father's parents, his siblings, and all their kids have met for 3 days on top of a "mountain" in Arkasas for a little family reunion. I know that for some people family reunions aren't exactly synonomous with fun, but this one definitely is. This is one of the highlights of my year.

You wouldn't think there would be a whole lot to do on top of a mountain in Arkansas, but in fact, there is. Every year, we hike down to the 'falls', which is about a mile hike down the mountain. Although they tell me it is only a mile hike back up the mountain (since we use the same trail), I think spacetime somehow gets warped and turns the trail into 10 miles. If only that power could be harnessed for good...

There are also lots of other trails, but none of them are quite as interesting to the untrained eye. We also play a lot of games, such as frisby golf, real golf, Monopoly, Risk, and dominos. Here is where it gets interesting. You see, my Dad's side of the family is big into games, such as dominos, but they don't like the traditional stuff. So, every year someone comes to Petit Jean with a new way of playing dominos. Now, I have a big book of domino games, and am familiar with quite a few, and know enough others to be dangerous, and I swear that these new domino games are completely made up. Most of them don't even make any sense. Here is a typical conversation around one of these "new" domino games:
"Okay, Ben just put down a double four. You can now put down anything that adds to that double four to make 12."
"I thought you said earlier that it always had to sum to multiples of 5."
"Yeah, but that's only unless someone puts down the double four, and then the rules change."
"Oh, so after I play the rule goes back to multiples of 5?"
"Uh...yeah."
"What if someone plays on the other side of the double four?"
Long Pause
"Uh...then it is...uh...then it has to sum to 13."

You get the picture. But on games where you can't fudge the rules, like Risk, there is more yelling and shouting than is usually present when Southern Baptist Preachers watch Dallas football. It's unbelievable.

But the really fun part is getting to know family again. It is here that I really begin to understand the tribe mentality - you all belong to each other. Sometimes that's frustrating, but it keeps you honest. You can't hide your history from your family - they've been there all along and know it all. They might not understand it all, and at times they think they know better than you, but I love them anyway. Long after my blog disappears and all my other friends die, that blood will be the thing that takes care of me until I, too, bite it.

And then when we're all resurrected at the end of time, and my uncle comes up with a "new" game of dominos, I'll be there, smiling to myself as the absurdity of it all unfolds.

Why I call myself Post-Conservative

2006-05-31T13:44:00.000-05:00

This is hard post for me to write, because I can't do it justice without writing pages and pages. I've already written and then deleted somewhere in the neighborhood of 800 words trying to get this thing right. The reason wording is so important in this case is that I don't want to misrepresent my younger self as being too legalistic and unloving. Likewise, I don't want to represent my current self as if I have either a.) arrived (I haven't), or b.) have completely rejected all evangelical ideals (I haven't). I guess I'll just take a stab at it and sort it all out later.

The short version of my younger Christian story is that while I wanted to be as loving and compassionate as the Christ I read about in the gospels, I just wasn't. Being raised in a conservative and reformed tradition, I believed in the classical definitions of inerrency of scripture, of the incarnation, of the immutable nature of God, of salvation only through Christ, of utter corruption of man. I believed that loving God meant you did this certain thing and didn't do that certain thing. When I encountered non-christians or "liberal" christians, I didn't find myself hating them for disagreeing with me, but rather I found myself secretly looking forward to the punishment they would recieve for being such blasphemers.

But, as I mentioned before, I was conflicted about this. I wanted to feel love and not the longing for revenge, but I just didn't. And with this realization, my real Christian journey began.

The ups and downs of the journey I'll skip for now, but one day not too long ago I was talking to a non-christian about life, death, and spirituality. We disagreed strongly, but when we walked away from each other, I mourned for him. Instead of being indifferent as to his direction in life, I felt the pangs of despair like Christ did when he looked down over Jerusalem and said,
"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing." (Matt 23:37)

Though upon reflection I had felt this way many times before, it wasn't until this particular time when I realized my faith had created a change in me that was so Christlike that his very words of mourning were my words. And truth be know, at that point in time, when the mourning was the freshest, I would have paid any price to have that non-christian understand the real point of life, death, and spirituality - I would have even given my life.

After this realization, as I looked back on my Christian journey it occurred to me that I couldn't have experienced this Christlike change without partially abandoning my hyperconserative tradition. Instead, as I asked hard, hard, questions about my faith, about the bible, about theology, and about God, I realized I had to get far off the beaten path to find answers that satisfy. This does NOT mean answers that foward some personal agenda or deep seated need to feel good about myself. It means answers that truly satisfy - answers that are living water to my soul, that cause me to live a life of love because I'm full of love that springs from within; answers that cause me to become more Christlike without even knowing it.

All this would take thousands of words to unpack, but fundamentally this journey through hard questions and hard times caused me to become more centered in the Spirit. My evangelical heritage is so burdened by the fear of the unknown that it replaced the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit with the Father, Son, and Holy Scripture. But the fact of the matter is that scripture testifies about Christ (John 5:39-40), who gave us a Spirit to teach us all things (John 14:26). When I finally moved my Bible over six inches, and gave more room for the Spirit, I finally found the narrow way. It is a way that's full of ambiguity and uncertainty and hard questions. It's a way that tears you down, and makes you humble and contrite. It's a way that makes you angry and want to kick over tables when the Church gets it wrong, but also makes you compassionate and loving when the downtrodden are in need. It's a way of messiness and tension, but also a way of hope and life.

When conservatives approach real life in the Spirit, it freaks them out. They think that as Christians they should have the answers about life, but the Spirit teaches them that life is messy and ambiguous. They think that life in the Spirit leads to anarchy and heresy, so they cling to the Bible as if it is a book has any power to save on its own. But the Spirit teaches otherwise - that individuals work out their salvation not through the Roman road, but through fear and trembling. So, conservatives insulate themselves, they cling to theological categories that are no longer relevant, and they worry their lives away about how to protect themselves from Hollywood, or political agendas, or liberal theologians.

It is because of this life in the Spirit that I call myself post-conservative. Because I would rather have a conversation about full life with the dirtiest politician in America, or the most salatious porn star, or the most relativistic philosopher than spend time in a church with its gleaming walls and squeeky clean people. I call myself post-conservative because I would rather risk being a heretic by throwing out all our old theology and making new stuff than let more of my generation get caught in the mire of despair. I call myself post-conservative because I would rather get my hands dirty helping the poor than argue with anyone over whether or not scripture is inerrant. I call myself post-conservative because I believe what the Spirit has revealed is that real life is found outside the bounds of Church and the Bible, and is found instead as we look into the face of the suffering in love, and see not the face of a man or woman, but the face of Christ.

So, as my friend Jessica blogs about what authentic biblical community looks like, I find myself formulating it more as I live in the Spirit, and not as much as I read my Bible, and even less as I look at my tradition. Maybe the key for us evangelicals to create authentic biblical community is, ironically, to move the Bible over six inches, and let in a little more of the Spirit.

Work is work

2006-05-22T17:01:00.000-05:00

For the entire population of 4 people who read my blog, I should apologize for not blogging lately. As the title of this post suggests, I've been working.

About once a year at work something urgent comes up. And, like a jungle cat, I spring into action, designing stuff, and eating a lot of potatoe chips. I've spent many an hour the past week and a half or so staring at my computer screen. I'm not really doing anything, I'm just staring at the screen until the wee hours of the morning. I figure that will look good to the higher-ups. Too bad I don't get paid for overtime.

Despite all my sarcasm, I really like what I do. Plus, I actually use calculus in my job, which simultaneously makes me feel cool and look like a dork. I don't think you really ever know that feeling until you solve an incredible Taylor Series on a dry erase board while standing in the hall of a Dilbert-esque cube world. Dang, I rock! (And suck!)

Speaking of how people look and feel, I got a chuckle out of my MD friend's last blog, which can be found here. I especially liked the way she contrasted "TV" attendings and "real-life" attendings. It made me think of the engineering world. Except the difference between the engineering world and TV world is the opposite. For instance, here is the TV version of an engineer:
Reality Engineer:

Now, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "Hey, that's not an engineer, that's Bono, and he seems to be in some sort of pain." To which I will respond, "You're right, but I can't find a picture of myself at work." Make of that what you will.

On another note, I'm hoping to get back into the swing of blogging, and terrorizing the blog of others with my comments. See you around.

(Let me know if I get TOO obnoxious...)

Evil and the problem of good.

2006-05-02T09:44:00.000-05:00

Lately, I've been thinking and reading a lot about the classic question of God and the problem of evil. In essence, the question goes, "How can a good God allow evil and suffering to exist?" Attempts to answer this question result in what is called a 'theodicy'. (That's my seminary training paying off, right there!)

There are lost of answers spanning the centuries, falling into categories such as solution by universal order, solution by autonomous freedom, solution by dialectical reasoning, and on and on. I find them all to be unsatisfying, however, because they all just don't seem develop a robust enough way of justifying God in the face of evil. As a result, my mind has been working overtime to bend around this issue and come up with better way of thinking about it.

As I've been mulling it over, it occurs to me that my default state is selfish. My default state is to eat the last donut, or zip through the yellow light even though I know it is going to turn red before I get through. My default state is to despise people who hurt me, punish people who wrong me. My default state is to be lazy and just do whatever the heck I want. And if that bothers you, well, that's just your problem.

Here is where evolution can help us. While I have no intent to debate evolution on my blog (and truthfully, I don't care about it one way or the other), it seems to get us out of a jam in this case. In evolution, there is no good or evil, just, as Richard Dawkins puts it, "blind, pitiless indifference." So, when a cat eats a mouse, it's not that the cat is evil, it's just being a cat; it's indifferent to the suffering of the mouse. Or, when a new alpha male gorilla takes over a harem and kills all of the nursing offspring of the previous alpha male, it's not that the gorilla is evil, it's just being a gorilla; it's indifferent to the suffering of the baby and mother gorillas. Ultimately, evolution says that nature is selfish and indifferent. Just like my default mode.

If we follow my proposal here, it seems that humans should be selfish, pitiless, and indifferent. Our motto should be "if it feels good, do it." We shouldn't feel bad when we cut people off in traffic or people we aren't related to die of cancer. That's not our problem because it doesn't affect us. Here's the kicker, though. Humans, for the most part, are NOT that way. Humans, for the most part, break from the cycle of selfishness and pitiless indifference. In this way, it isn't evil that's a problem, because evil is easily explained as inherited indifference; instead, the problem is why good keeps breaking in on our selfishness. How can we explain good?

For those who believe, God is the explanation for good. Despite our selfish attitutes and tendancies, the goodness of God keeps breaking into our lives and causing us to care, to take pity, to not turn a blind eye, but look and listen and change in response to the suffering of others. When God breaks in, the selfish gene no longer holds the sway it logically should, but instead our capacity to love is invoked. And if we follow "God with us" all the way to the cross, we find that the good life happens when so many of our selfish tendancies get turned on their head. Good breaks in, it interrupts our pitiless indifference, it convicts us to care by way of the pangs of guilt that defy selfish logic.

For me, this is the way God seduces me. He whispers the good that could be in my ear when I want to be selfish, or I want to ignore the pain of others. He causes me to have a bold vision of the future in which people put aside selfish behaviors of petty things like singleness vs couplehood, or rich vs poor, or evolution vs creation and instead engage each other as equal partners in pursuit of a common vision of good. Wouldn't such a future essentially be the kingdom of God, in which people love each other, take care of each other, and get their needs fulfilled not because they selfishly take what they need, but because others see their need and want to fulfill that need in love, by freely giving of themselves. In such a place, God's will would constantly be done not by decree, but by desire.

Call me crazy, or idealistic, or naive, or even selfish, but if the problem of good can make a future like that, then I want to be seduced.

Dreamland: OTC

2006-05-01T17:29:00.000-05:00

I don't know about most of you, but I have really intense, bizzare dreams. I dream about stuff like cosmology and God. I sometimes dream about getting stuck in a video game. I dreamt once about piloting the space shuttle and having to do an emergency landing on one of the main streets in my home town. Strange stuff.

I also dream about the people I care about that I've lost contact with. I dream about friends from college, about people who have broken my heart, about people from high school that I haven't seen in years. Once, I had a dream about a girl from high school that was so real, so tangible that I can still feel the texture of her hair as I hugged her goodbye, and the feel of the sand beneath my feet as I walked away. I wasn't quite the same for several days after that dream. I felt like I was in mourning for a person I hadn't seen, talked to, or thought about for at least 10 years.

Many of my dreams are that way - so real, tangible, and visceral that they affect me in my waking life. Occasionally, they make me happy, but most of the time they make me sad, and keep me from sleeping for weeks on end.

It gets worse when I take drugs, though, even over the counter stuff. Being that it is spring, and being that I get allergies, I end up taking stuff like Claritin or Suphedrine or whatever in order to be functional. They don't come without side effects, though, and lately, my dreams have been doozies.

I had one the other night about a friend that recently got married. She told me that her husband had been working a lot of overtime, and she decided he was cheating on her, so she had an affair to get back at him. Turns out, he wasn't cheating, but now they're getting a divorce. Now, this might not seem like something to ruin your week, but for me, dreams like this are earth shattering. I knew the dream wasn't true, but I was disturbed for many sleepless nights afterwards, talking through with God this irrational feeling about my dream.

A couple of nights later I had a dream that a little dog bit my face and wouldn't let go. So, I went about my daily tasks with a dog on my face. When the dog finally let go, he hadn't punctured the skin, but had left teeth marks all up and down my face. This one didn't really keep me up at night.

The larger problem with dreams is that they are my addiction. I don't take any drugs to make them happen more often (I rarely take any drugs at all), but they are the thing I simultaneously love and hate. When I can finally go to sleep at night, I long for one to come. Sometimes it takes months. But after I've had one, I'm disturbed in my spirit, lost in thought for days trying to think through my dream. After many sleepless nights, I'm exhausted, and I finally enjoy the dreamless sleep of the, uh, dreamless. (What has good, dreamless, sleep? I have no idea. Idiots, maybe?)

So, in my existential weirdness, I wonder about my dreams. Why do I have them? What do they tell me about myself or about God? How do they affect me?

Mostly, I think they make me more reflective. They make me think harder and longer than I otherwise would. They make me pensive and a little withdrawn. Sadly, I think that my disturbing dreams make me, me.

Sometimes I think everyone should have disturbing dreams, so that we can understand the haunted looks in each others' eyes. Other days, I envy those who can sleep soundly and focus their mind on the day.

I suppose in the grand scheme of things, having disturbing dreams and sleepless nights isn't too bad. It even makes me wonder what other things we're afflicted with aren't really afflictions at all, but simply conditions of who we are.

Who are you? Take a test and find out!

2006-04-27T12:03:00.000-05:00

I recently stumbled across a couple of websites that do some sort of personality tests. I decided to take them, and see what the result was. I'm not going to tell you if I agee with them or not, but I'll let you tell me if you think they're accurate. Being myself, I'm biased.

The first one was 5 (count'em - 5) questions long. The results had something to do with my eye type. Whatever that means. Here are the results:

Take the quiz:
What kind of eyes do you have? (with pictures)

Green
You have green eyes. Green is the color of balance. Your eyes symbolize your ever need to learn. Green brings peace and harmony into our lives, as you may be a very optimistic person. At times you may be placid, lethargic, lazy, and slow, to the point of becoming moody and depressed. You may also be apathetic and have a fear rejection. Do not feel bad though, for what you may lack, you can in your ability to heal and bring hope to people. Some words to describe you: growth, fertility, harmony, healing, refreshing, peaceful, contentment, satisfaction, confidence, prosperous, hopeful, lucky, and beautiful.

Not really trying to be trite, but what does it mean when you describe someone as having "fertility"? Whatever it means, I'm surprised they could tell after 5 questions. That's some strong fertility right there.

The next one had 36 questions, and the results categorize you as one of 9 types. I came out as a tie between type 1 and type 5. Here are their descriptions. Which one do you think is more like me? (You can take this test here)

The principled, idealistic type. Ones are conscientious and ethical, with a strong sense of right and wrong. They are teachers, crusaders, and advocates for change: always striving to improve things, but afraid of making a mistake. Well-organized, orderly, and fastidious, they try to maintain high standards, but can slip into being critical and perfectionistic. They typically have problems with resentment and impatience. At their Best: wise, discerning, realistic, and noble. Can be morally heroic.

-or-

The perceptive, cerebral type. Fives are alert, insightful, and curious. They are able to concentrate and focus on developing complex ideas and skills. Independent, innovative, and inventive, they can also become preoccupied with their thoughts and imaginary constructs. They become detached, yet high-strung and intense. They typically have problems with eccentricity, nihilism, and isolation. At their Best: visionary pioneers, often ahead of their time, and able to see the world in an entirely new way.

I'm interested in your feedback, but to be honest, I'm more concerned about the way God is interacting with me in my many colored days. I understand who I am more as God opens up space for me to understand my actions an motivations. In many ways, I hope who I am today won't be the same as who I am in the future. Except for having fertility. That's a constant that will never change. I'm just astounded they understand such a complex, nuanced thing about me after only five questions!

So, who are you?

The truth about anti-persperant and deodorant

2006-04-24T16:07:00.000-05:00

From what I understand, some people think that wearing deodorant or anti-persperant is unhealthy, since blocking all those sweat glands in your armpit must mean that the sweat can't get out. Others think that your skin absorbs the anitpersperant chemicals (often containing aluminum), which in turn causes breast cancer, armpit cancer, or alzheimers.

I don't know about any of that - in fact, no study has linked deodorant use to any health related issue. Except maybe the people around you being able to breathe easier. So what's the truth about deodorant?

I don't seem to need it. There, I said it. That's my secret. I don't seem to need deodorant. Or antipersperant. I know this mind boggling, but I tell you, it's true. It's an underarm miracle!

For many, many moons I wore deodorant - every day from the time I was in early adolescence until about early Febuary 2006. Due to a mixup involving sunscreen and the beach, I ended up with pretty tender skin. So, while I healed, I didn't wear any deodorant, because it kind of hurt to put it on. I expected to be driven out of the office because of my offensive odor and profuse sweating, but in fact, I haven't smelled or sweated at all.

It's been getting close to 3 months now, and I've only used it twice - both for times I didn't think I could affort to smell and/or perspire in an unattractive manner.

Now, I know what you're thinking - you're thinking that I must be mistaken, because no virile specimen of manhood like myself can possibly not need deodorant. Or maybe your thinking that I'm one of those people who really do smell, but don't seem to notice it. All I can say on both counts is "Maybe", but I dare you to come smell my armpit and say it doesn't smell like tulips on an April morning. Alright, then.

(Some of you may be thinking I'm gross. Yet you've read this far in a post about someone else's underarms. Who's the gross one?)

Now I've just got to figure out what other toiletries I can get rid of. Toothpaste? Uh, I don't think so. Shaving cream? Ouch! Soap? Maybe, but I'm in the shower anyway, so I might as well use some. Hair goop? I saw the first afro in a long time on a real-life white man when I didn't use hair goop the other day. I know the truth about getting rid of hair goop, and it's not pretty.

So, there you have it. The truth about anti-persperant and deodorant. For me, at least.

We all live on Saturday

2006-04-21T09:21:00.000-05:00

Since Easter was last Sunday, I've been thinking about the point of the resurrection, and what it really means to me.

Some people would say that Easter, Sunday, means our sins are forgiven, but if you look at it carefully, you would have to say that our sins were forgiven during the crucifixion, on Friday. Or, if you believe people like Renee Girard, our sins were never forensically forgiven, but instead our attitudes and actions were changed as we watched so much senseless violence be inflicted on this innocent man. In any case, it was on Friday that our sins were taken care of.

Some people would say that Sunday means a victory over death, and eternal relationship with God. But as far as I, or anyone else can tell, people still die, and have yet to be resurrected. Maybe my MD friends know more about this than me, but truly dead people tend to stay dead. Since no one I know has physically met, or has met anyone who has physically met, someone who came back to life, we have no idea what really happens when we die. Anything we say happens after death is all speculation. Some people call their speculation faith. Others call faith foolish or escapist, which is only speculation as well. For me, at least, I find plenty of reason to doubt any speculation about what happens after we die.

So, the reality is that we all live on Saturday. People die around us all the time. And just like the disciples did on Saturday before Easter, we all mourn people's death, with the expectation that they will stay dead. Some of us might hold out hope that our loved ones will come back to life, but in the meantime we sit and wait. In this way, we all live on Saturday, awaiting the resurrection that comes on Sunday. But for 2000 years, Sunday has never come.

So, why do we still find hope in Sunday? Maybe Sunday is less about life after death, and more about life. I mean, the gospels don't spend much time on the resurrection. Mark spends no time on what happened after Jesus' death. Matthew and Luke spend around one chapter apiece. John spends the most time, but still only a little less than three chapters. Compared to the amount of time the gospel writers spend on the life of Jesus, the resurrection gets virtually no time.

To me, this means that the first recievers of the good news found the most hope in life, not in death, and not even life after death. Hope was in life. Ultimately, Jesus came not to raise us from the dead, but to give us life. Jesus came to show us how to live a life that displays love towards God and love towards others no matter how abusive those others get towards us. Jesus showed us what real life looks like, even to the point where people crucify you.

So, as I live life today, not worrying about tomorrow (for tomorrow has worries of its own), I find myself not thinking too much about Sunday, but instead living my life on Saturday as I follow Christ's example. This is real life, life like the kind of life Christ lived. Life that is abundant. We don't sit around and wait for Sunday. Instead, we all live on Saturday, because Christ showed us how.

Worth a thousand words (pt 2)

2006-04-19T14:44:00.000-05:00

After recovering from family and friends being in town for Easter, I'm finally able to sit down and blog a little bit. Instead of coming up with a deep and profound topic (that'll be tomorrow), I'll show some more pictures. Some of them will be from this weekend, some will be old.

Unfortunately, I don't have a scanner anymore, so I can't scan a lot of my favorite old pictures. For instance, one of my favorites is Alethia sitting on the hood of my wrecked car. (Alethia, do you remember that?) Another is of Mel and I looking goofy on our wedding day. Ah, too many pictures, too little scanner.

But for now, on to the pictures:
James and Sarah (the couple on the left) came in from out of town. They have a little boy a couple of months younger than Madelyn. It was really good to see them and hang out with them. They were even kind enough to eat my and Mel's first attempt at roasting a turkey. I'm not saying it was bad, just that it's not like mom used to make. (If y'knowutimsayin.)

The next day was Easter, and Madelyn got dressed up in her brand new Easter dress with sandals, and went out to see what the Easter bunny left her. Who knew her favorite thing would be the water bucket? Personally, my money was on the candy, but she wasn't really interested. Either than, or she didn't know it was candy...

Melissa's sister, Elizabeth, came into town to spend time with us for Easter. It was nice to be able to see her.

Okay, now for some old pictures.

I'm not sure what I love about this picture, but I find it to be fascinating. Joni and Tara were acquaintances of mine in college. I happened to be in their dorm room once, saw this picture on a desk, and essentially just took it with me. Cool pic huh? I wonder what happened to them after college.

In college I had a bad habit of using up the remaining shots on a roll of film I wanted to develop with pictures of myself. What a narcissistic habit. Anyway, this picture was taken my junior year as I was experimenting with growing a goatee. You can't quite tell from the pic, but goatees aren't for everyone, and after a friend told me that I looked like a catfish, I shaved it off. One of my close friends, Kimberly, was nice enough to overlook my facial scruff and take this picture with me. This is one of my favorite pictures because I think it is a great picture of Kimberly. Kim, how on earth did you get your teeth so white? You look like the girl off the Orbitz gum commercial.

So, there you have it. A little new, a little old.

How was everyone else's Easter?

The wrong kind of Forgiveness

2006-04-12T20:14:00.000-05:00

I'm sorta stressed out about my blog. I want to be funny and charming, and a little more 'me' in my blog, but every time I sit down to write only serious stuff comes out. I've started and deleted probably 5 entries the last couple of days because I begin light and airy, and end in a very somber place. This is not what I want all my blogs to be about, and it's stressing me out.

But for now, I can't stop myself. I don't think I'm quite so somber in person, am I? But, if I'm not a downer in person, why do I create the kind of blog entries I do?

Somehow, I think its about forgiveness. More specifically, the wrong kind of forgiveness.

Christians are called by God to forgive, and we are taught by other Christians to forgive. But the problem is that some violations are so hurtful, so egregious that we can't just turn on a dime and forgive. I don't want to speak for others, but when that happens to me I feel even worse, like I'm not being a good person or good Christian because I can't forgive. So I put on a mask of forgiveness, and act like events haven't hurt me, like I've let go of the hurtful thing. But in reality, I have not; I'm working hard on forgiveness, but I just haven't gotten there yet. In the mean time, the unforgiveness festers and grows. It drives me to adopt certain behaviors so that I can't be hurt that way again. It drives me to act happy when in fact I'm torn apart inside because I don't want my Christian friends to see me in the throws of unforgiveness. I become light and airy because that's what it takes to be welcomed into relationships where I am loved.

Over time, however, the hurt subsides, and I stop working on forgiveness. But my behavior doesn't change. I make the same moves over and over again because they work, they make people like me, and they keep me from being hurt. In my opinion, this is the type of forgiveness that a lot of people practice. The wrong kind of forgiveness.

You see, what I've just described is forgetting but not forgiving, which is really no forgiveness at all. And so I go about life, thinking I've forgiven, when in reality, all I've done is forgotten. Yet underneath my amnesia, I carry wounds that affect my behavior, and I constantly make maneuvers in relationships to avoid getting hurt the same way again.

But as I allow God to color my days, I've become more aware of the maneuvers I make that aren't really me. As God travels in time to my past, he seeks out the places where I've changed my behavior to avoid more pain, and he shows me how to heal the hurts that underlie the behavior. And as I realize that I am actually in a place where I am greater than the person who hurt me - greater than the hurtful action and hurtful intent, I'm finally able to forgive. And if I'm deliberate about it, truly deliberate, I can change my behavior, too, so that I'm no longer living life to avoid getting hurt, but living life in which I can risk myself in authentic relationship.

So when I look in the mirror and see a man trying too hard, I wonder how well I'm grasping this concept of forgiveness. And when I encounter a Christian who doesn't act like one, I wonder if they really understand what forgiveness looks like. And when I encounter a non-Christian hiding behind the motions of self-preservation, I wonder how interested they'd be in the transforming power of real forgiveness.

So, why do I blog the way that I do? Maybe it's because only here I let go of enough inauthentic behavior to really express what's going on in my life. Maybe because in real life I'm still trying to get you to like me.

But it can't be this way forever - because I know there's an entertaining story in me somewhere, just waiting to get out.

The consequences, interrupted

2006-04-07T10:52:00.000-05:00

The other day I watched "My Name is Earl" for the first time. From what I could tell from the show (and later, NBC's website), this guy is trying to get good karma for all the hurtful things he's done in his past.

What exactly he thinks he's going to accomplish, besides be funny, I have no idea. Good karma only makes you even - it doesn't get you ahead, because all you have to do is really screw up once, and all your good karma is flushed down the crapper. One of those "guaranteed not to clog" types. I don't really understand what anyone is trying to reach towards with good karma. It seems to me that good karma is only the thing that is against bad karma, and not an end in itself.

I'm glad I'm not forced to live under the rule of karma. Karma means that the consequences of my bad actions must be made right by me. But even if I work to undo the wrong of my bad actions, the poisonous seed has been planted. The toxic fruit is inevitable. And no matter how I try to do other things to undo the wrong, that poison tree still exists - waiting undo all my good deeds. I can never get out from underneath the pressure of my bad karma. The consequences always follow me into the future, demanding their toll, making the future into purgatory.

What I need is something to interrupt the consequences. Something to free me to begin again. What I need is a new rule to guide my path - one that gets me somewhere, and that isn't me fighting bad, but instead being good.

What I need is grace. Grace interrupts the consequences. Grace allows me to begin anew. Grace allows my past to be formative, but also calls me to be like it, like the grace-giver. Grace allows me to love because I'm not stuck hating and acting out against my past.

So time and again when I sit down to blog, and ask myself what I have to write about, my message always comes back to love. It comes back to grace that calls me into the future and allows me to break free of self-loathing and actually love. Love is the message I'm driving home.

"My song is love, is love unknown, and I've got to get that message home."

The Beauty of (non-sexual) affection

2006-04-06T08:55:00.000-05:00

Let's face it - I'm not a touchy guy. I like my space. I don't even like standing close to people, which is why you'll usually find me a good distance away from the crowd at a party - or going to the state fair on a day the least number of people will be there.

But space isn't really an option with a toddler. You have to touch them and hold them - they invade your space because they want you to read them a book, or play pat-a-cake, or sing "Row, Row, Row Your Boat." Evidentally, my rendition of "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" is unsurpassed. As is my rendition of "Itsy-Bitsy Spider."

My toddler also likes to give hugs and kisses. Where she got that from, I have no idea. (To the left is her planting one on my chin.) And I don't know if it's true or not, but I like to think she gives hugs and kisses for me. Not for her, as if she's taking a piece of me for herself, but instead giving a piece of herself to me. (I have a really smart toddler, to be that self-differentiated. ;-)

This idea of affection is a shift in thinking for me. Most of my life I've considered that people were trying to take pieces of me when they were trying to give me affection - they were making themselves feel better, or trying to fulfull some sexual urge for touch. At a relatively young age, I decided that is what affection is - getting what you need through touch. I just wasn't interested because I neither wanted to allow a person to steal from me, nor did I want to steal.

But affection, I've found, is about giving. It's not about stealing what you need, but about giving yourself away. The beauty that can occur with non-sexual affection is that it can give peace to those who need to be consoled, it can express gentleness and kindness. It can express joy and patience. The beauty of affection is that it can mediate love. Not the sexual/eros love so many adults immediately think of, but real love that heals and restores, that gives peace and expresses fondness.

So, I've become much more open to giving myself away through affection. I actually initiate hugs now. Upon occasion, I've been known to give a holy kiss or two. Not because I want something from a person, but because I want them to understand how welcome they are in my presence. I want them to feel the fondness I wish to show. I want to give them a message of love mediated by affection.

But you know what I've found? I get something in return - better memories. I remember the person better, and can empathize and pray for them better. For instance, I remember so much more about the last people I gave holy kisses to than I would have otherwise. I remember how I caught one on the edge of the eyebrow rather than on the forehead, I remember how one turned their head away and I ended up kissing the top of their head, I remember the smell of one, and the skin texture of another.

Sound creepy? You bet. That's why holy kisses should be used judiciously and sparingly. But guess what - I remember those to whom I've shown affection (not just holy kisses) so much more vividly in my prayers. I feel connected with them, empathetic towards them. Not because I stole a piece of them or forced myself to care, but because I gave a piece of myself away. I'm able to love them as myself because they have a piece of me.

Strange how that works, huh? Strange how you give yourself way, expecting and wanting nothing in return, but instead get back a life more colorful and beautiful than you expected.

Now, since all this affection talk is over, I'd appreciate it if you take a step back. I like my space.

Worth a Thousand words (pt 1)

2006-04-02T16:36:00.000-05:00

Okay, in light of my flagrant violation of Blogging Rule #8 on my last entry: "Many Colored Days", I've decided to keep my commentary on this entry to a minimum. Instead of posting something deep, spiritual, and intense, I'll just post a smattering of my favorite pictures. With commentary. (Sorry, I can't not do commentary.)

For some reason, I really like this picture. It was taken at the end of my freshman year of college. Chad and I were moving out of the dorm, when I decided to take a self-portrait to commemorate the completion of my first year of "higher learning". Chad happened to walk in behind me and make a goofy face in the camera. Imagine my surprise when, weeks later, I had the film developed and saw Chad's mug looming eerily in the background. It made me laugh out loud. Still does.

This easily ranks among my top 5 favorite pictures of all time. The first couple of years of college I was in a sketch drama troop called Parable. At the end of the year, we all piled on each other and took this photograph in black and white. It reminds me how good looking we all were "back in college." Especially that 'Ben' guy.

Melissa and I went to San Franciso on our honeymoon, and stayed on one of the top floors of a highrise hotel. Late one night, I took this shot of downtown San Francisco from our hotel window. The view was stunning, and I think this picture turned out really nice.

What group of pictures is complete without a one of my daughter? This is definitely one of my favorites of her, despite the fact that she is over a year older now. Capturing a good picture of a toddler is kinda like capturing a picture of an earthquake in progress. I suspect it'll be another year or so until a picture does her as much justice as this one.

What on earth am I doing in this picture? I include it not because it is one of my favorites, but because in this picture I embarrass myself and everyone else in the shot with me.
To all of the memebers of the '96-97 Believer's Harmony, my sincerest apologies.

Many Colored Days

2006-03-31T14:03:00.001-06:00

Having a toddler, I get the pleasure and pain of reading lots of toddler books. Most of them are mundane and repetitive, but one of them recently got my attention.

Though I've probably read it close to a hundred times now, recently one phrase from My Many Colored Days keeps repeating over and over again in my mind: "You'd be surprised how many ways I change on different colored days."

I can see the point of the phrase. I mean, when someone reads my blog, some days I'm happy, other days are sad, and that comes out not only in what I write, but how I write it.

But I wonder about my many colored days. Every day I'm both happy and sad, sassy and pensive, reflective and brash. Every moment of every day these things are swirling around inside me, looking for a trigger to get out. But how can that be? How can I be both happy and sad?

The reality, I think, is that every happy time in my life is at least partially colored by a sad time, and likewise every sad time is colored by a happy time. My previous experience colors how I understand each and every moment, and my actions in response to that understanding color how you know me. When you get to know me, you travel in time and visit my past in each every moment that I respond to you. Likewise, you cause me to travel in time as you face my actions and respond to them.

As I reflect even more on my life, I realize that the parts that hurt make me who I am more than the parts that don't. Not only do the parts that hurt cause me to be more reserved, more cautious, they also remind me of my failures, of things lost and broken. Even during the happy times, the parts that hurt dig deep, they pinch and cut, and they drive me into the future to find the thing that can heal the wounds.

I wonder about the future. Am I more than the sum of my past? Is there redemption for the painful experiences that remain forever fixed in time, integrated into who I am becoming? Does heaven mean that God erases the painful parts of who I am, and in the process erase the very thing that makes me unique - the very thing that causes me to search after Him?

Somehow, I don't think so. Somehow I think that God leaves the parts that hurt - the things that make me, me. But how can a just God leave the pain just sitting there? How can a just God allow the events of Auschwitz to remain hanging in time? How can a healing Father allow the events surrounding my Dark Time in college to still swirl around inside me, coloring all I see? How can the infinite beauty of heaven coexist with the painful events that make us who we are - the very things that cause us to grope after the divine?

Maybe it's all about color. Maybe the beautiful, colorful God interacts with us in as we grope for goodness. Maybe when He touches us, he travels in time to our past, and sees our hurts and pain, sees how they color our lives and make us who we are. Maybe when we touch Him, we travel deep into the past, being colored as the infinte God interacts with us, and shows us His presence, making us new. Not new because our past is erased, but new because as we travel into the past, our perspective is shifted. No longer is each and every moment of hurt colored by pain, but in each and every painful frame of our lives our interaction with God shows Him there, interacting with us, being hurt with us. God's presence in the horrors of the past heals our painful memories and dissolves the repressions we use to keep painful memories from hurting us more. God colors my Dark Time, he colors Auschwitz by breaking down the barriers that keep full healing from taking place, then the God of all creation shows us what true healing looks like. In this way we are both the same, and made new.

So as I stretch towards the future, in search of healing and wholeness, I realize that God is slowly changing my perspective, slowing coloring me to see Him in every one of my many days - he literally changes my days to a different color. So, to me, the meaning becomes much more profound:
"You'd be surprised how many ways I change on different colored days"

Blogging Rules

2006-03-30T10:50:00.000-06:00

After reading over the first two posts in my blog, I’ve realized that the one with pictures is much more interesting. This has caused me to think pictures should be much more used in my blog than I would otherwise be inclined to do.

No one probably knows about it, but I used to have a blog many, many moons ago. Way back when the net was new and 56k dialup was considered as fast as you would ever want to go. Problem was you had to be rich to get a 56k modem, provided you could even find a provider that would allow for dialup that fast. Occasionally, I’ll speak of the (re)creation of my blog, which is a reference to the earlier blog. In fact, "Entering the Blogsphere" is a slightly reworked version of the first entry in my old blog.

In any case, I still have a lot of those entries from way back then. Upon occasion, I’ll dig them up and “pontificate” (a little nod to Stacy the Con here) on whether I was right or wrong. Pics, while not possible in ancient times, will of course now be included where possible.

All of this has led me to think that I need to have blog rules. So, here is my stab at how any reader should approach my blog. Some of them I’ll try to do, some of them the reader needs to keep in mind:

1.) The entry is useless without pics! (I mean, it worked for Postsecret, right?)

2.) Be yourself. Sometimes that means I will be funny – other times I’ll be pensive. Or nonsensical. Sometimes I’ll think I’m more important than I actually am – at other times you’ll get tired of my self-abasiveness. Welcome to my blog.

3.) Some things will forever be off limits, though I’ll tangentially refer to them. That way I’ll seem more mysterious and interesting.

4.) The entry is useless without comments! Comments are highly encouraged. I mean, if I didn’t want comments, then I would simply journal. Useful comments, that is. Bad comments will be promptly deleted. But only after they are shamed. Or beaten, I can’t decide which.

5.) My theme will be the past and the future, rarely the present. I’m all about things that are formative rather than forming. Whatever that means.

6.) Sometimes I’ll make things up. Deal with it.

7.) No more than a week should go by without an update. Ideally, I’ll have 3 entries or so per week. Unless I’m dead. Please send flowers.

8.) KISS – keep it short and sweet. No one wants a thousand words on each entry.

Okay, now I’m bored with making rules. I might make more later.

But right now, I want to add a picture of something funny. I visit an internet forum called Head-fi, which is all about headphones. (I know, I’m a dork.) Anyway, one guy posted a thread called “What you DON’T want to see over your house!”, and he posted a pic of a black police helicopter flying over his house. Then hilarity ensued. By the time I stopped reading the thread, it had morphed into this:

Who says dorks don’t have a sense of humor?

Contact

2006-03-29T10:02:00.000-06:00

For the first time in years, I had contact with some people from college.

I suppose that’s a bit of an exaggeration, since I have had extremely sporadic and limited communication with a couple of them over the eight years since I graduated college. But by sporadic, I mean less than 10 emails.

Alethia got married!

I didn’t get to take as many pictures as I wanted, but even if I would have tried, they probably wouldn’t have turned out. The lighting wasn’t conducive to photography during the wedding.

As I sat in the sanctuary, looking at the back of Alethia’s head, I remembered my life when I knew her. In fact, I journaled back then (the real journaling, where no one reads what you’ve journaled but you), and I recently looked up some of my thoughts from way back then. What a mystical place that portion of my past is! The most painful hurts, and the most joyous realizations happened to me during the time I knew Alethia. Back then, we cried on each other’s shoulder, we laughed at and with each other. She was a good friend – imperfect, human, and raw. I loved her for it.

But as I sat on that bench in the sanctuary, watching the back of her head, I realized that I don’t know her anymore. Not that it is a bad thing, since life sometimes takes people away from you, but I mourned the years I’ve been disconnected from this person.

Then I realized that behind me sat three other people that I spent time with in college. Jessica, Stacy, and Amy. What amazing, beautiful people. I mourned the time I spent disconnected from them, too.

But it wasn’t the first time I mourned. When I was younger I was a self-righteous fool. I thought that leaving behind people you loved, cared for, and who (at least seemingly) cared for you was a sign of strength. It was a sign of internal fortitude and spiritual reliance on God. I thought it made me more healthy to dispense with relationships – even good ones.

I was wrong. And as life and God taught me the real importance of relationships, I learned I could grieve over the loss of my friends - over the complete and total divorce from my past that I had inflicted upon myself. When I could find time and room to feel safe, I cried over the bridges I had let rot. I cried the deep cry of the despondent, and I felt for the first time the kind of loss so many of the Psalms convey. A lot of my personal theology was forged during this time.

After the wedding, we all went to the reception. I got to sit with Stacy, Amy, and Jessica. I felt like I was sitting at the cool kids’ table. I got to see Amy’s beautiful daughter Sadie, and catch up on the path their life is taking as they surrender to being full-time ministers. I got to catch up with Jessica, her thoughts about education, and her long-term goals to teach. I got to hear about Stacy’s path after college, her time in Lake Charles and the move to Monroe. It was all positively riveting. Every moment was healing as I got the chance of a lifetime to build new bridges.

My guess is that it will be at least a decade before I see any of them again. But this time I got contact information, and said goodbye in such a way that I can still relate to them. The (re)creation of my blog is an attempt to stay in contact with their world.

So, to Alethia, Amy, Jessica, and Stacy – this entry is for you. Here’s to the memories, both old ones, current ones, and ones yet to come.

Entering the Blogsphere

2006-03-28T11:50:00.000-06:00

And so I write this. I don’t even know why. Do I have anything important to say? Anything funny, or sad, or thought provoking? Or am I just another face swimming in the sea of faces? What makes me unique?

Maybe I’m writing this because I’m not unique. I mean, blogging is the new thing. Everybody has a blog.

Why is this, I wonder? People don’t journal, at least not in the same numbers as the people who blog. To me, this means that people aren’t blogging out of some sense of personal existential exploration. If people were, then journaling would have been much more common right up until the point where blogging became available. Instead, it seems people blog not because they want to record something about themselves for themselves, but they want to record something about themselves for others. They want people to see their experiences, comment on them, interact with them. And ultimately, I think, they want to see other people’s experiences too.

But is blogging more about voyeurism or relationality?

And so I write this.

Maybe one of these days one of my old friends will find this, and we can be reunited, virtually, at least. Or maybe one of these days I'll find them and tell them about my blog.

In any case, here I go, entering the blogsphere.