Wayfarer

"Extraordinary Means"

2011-09-07T15:20:00.000-07:00

"If we cannot get sinners to Jesus by ordinary means, we must use extraordinary ones. It seems ... that roof tiles had to be removed. That would create dust and cause a measure of danger to those below, but where the case is very urgent, we must be prepared to run some risks and shock some people." --Spurgeon's Morning and Evening, on the paralyzed man lowered from the roof to Jesus

Why is it we do not go to the "extraordinary means" to reach others with the gospel of grace? These friends of the paralyzed man cared so much about giving their friend the opportunity to be healed that they risked displeasing the owner of this house to be able to get the man to Jesus. They counted the cost of paying for a new roof, of upsetting the crowd inside, and decided that it was worth it if their friend could be healed.

What do we do? When we meet or interact with someone who may be lost, do we do whatever it takes to make sure they have heard the gospel? Or seen the love of Christ through our interactions with them? What ridiculously difficult thing are we willing to do to make sure our neighbor or coworker knows that we love them as Christ did. The man who was paralyzed knew the love of Christ before even seeing Him, through the love of his friends who took matters into their hands. What can we do to make that kind of whatever-it-takes love known to the people we interact with? Are we willing to go to the disagreeable neighbor for the fifth time to ask them to turn their music down, and oh, would you like a cookie we just pulled out of the oven? And would you like to come over for dinner? Or do we call the cops and walk by with our head down so we don't have to look them in the eye? (Guess which route I took.)

We are called to a radical, roof-demolishing love of our neighbors. God wishes us to chase down souls, to knock down walls with His love. I pray He fills me continually with the love I need to be able to do this.

Quake

2011-06-08T07:02:00.000-07:00

A sudden quake may strike:

Your innards quiver

Turmoil stirs

Your heart may beat

A little

Quicker

And breath may be

Short, shallow

And you - you are weak,

An unanchored mass

Of tectonic uncertainty

Who shifts with the slightest

Change in pressure

Hold: firm. There is One

Whose presence is like

Concrete. He knits

Together

That which shifts, and binds

That which shakes.

Let quaking cease. The One

Holds all.

Reflection

2011-06-08T07:00:00.000-07:00

Do not let the gentle

Waves break unheeded

On your heart's shore

Take the time to note

The wake they leave,

The swirling foam's impression

On the sand

And bits of broken

Shells, the detritus

Of eons of the sea's cycle

Washing warm, over your

Tender soul

Fit For Human Consumption

2011-05-06T08:03:00.000-07:00

These days I've been extra careful what I write on here.

I'm a judgmental person inwardly, even though that rarely (I hope) comes out outwardly. Next time you interact with me, just know that I'm secretly judging you.

I get angry that we're not all better people. I get angry at myself for not being better than I am, and I get angry at other people for not being better than they are.

Which is stupid. I'll readily admit that.

And my temptation, often, is to write scathing opinion pieces which slam judgment down on the world and the people in it for not being better than they, or to write some self-righteous BS piece that makes me feel good about being better than a lot of other people.

I can't tell you how many half-finished BS pieces of writing are sitting unfinished in my blog, because I wrote it, then read it, and realized that it came off as judgmental and self-righteous and know-it-all, and didn't publish it. It's rather shaming to admit that I contain such poison sometimes.

But until a few days ago, I didn't get what the problem was. I didn't understand that the reason everything I've been writing was coming off sounding like that was because my heart has been judgmental, self-righteous, and know-it-all.

Duh.

What's that verse? "Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks"? Yeah, makes sense.

I want to be different. (Don't we all?) I want to be able to speak with grace, not to shame people into agreeing with me, or push them away in resentment. And while I'd love to make my opinions known, I don't want to do it in a way that makes it seem that anyone who disagrees with me will be thought less of by me. Who among us wants that? I don't want to be thought less of by others for my beliefs or opinions; why, then, would I do that to others? "Whatever you wish others would do to you, do also to them."(ESV translation: I love the way they word this.)

I thank God I haven't posted some of the pieces I've written; that He gave me the discernment to keep from hitting that "publish" button. And may I be given fresh inspiration to encourage, uplift, and exhort in my future writings, rather than judge.

We're Dirty

2011-03-23T08:49:00.000-07:00

"There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him.”

(Mark 7:15 ESV)

With this one sentence Jesus dismisses the entirety of the ceremonial law. No longer, he says, is it necessary to refrain from eating certain meats or wearing certain clothes; bathing or refraining from bathing makes no difference; you cannot be defiled - made impure - by eating, drinking, washing, not washing. These are simply actions; actions have no bearing. It's the motivation behind the actions which defiles.

I don't think we, as non-Palestinian Jews, fully appreciate the revolutionary power of the statement Jesus makes here. For the Jew, ceremonial law is what kept them apart from the other nations. They defined themselves by it: circumcision and dietary restrictions were part and parcel of what it meant to be the chosen people. For Jesus to tell them that it made no difference what they ate was a slap to the face of their heritage and values.

And yet, what he said made it far more difficult for them: "The things that come out of a person are what defile him." In essence he says, "Do what you want - you are free; but know that if your actions are motivated by self-interest, by hate, by pride or envy or jealousy, then you are defiled, not from the outside, but from the content of your own heart."

He makes it harder, in essence, to keep the law. Rather than just "minding your p's and q's," making sure you stay away from bacon, shrimp, and clams and watch out for poly-blend shirts, you have to examine your heart. And, for those who have ever done such a thing, examining the heart is about as pleasant as cleaning out a sewer drain.

But the principle is true, and the freedom it grants is true. Do what you want - but you are accountable to your heart's attitude in doing it. But in this disposal of the ceremonial law, now suddenly the lines aren't clearly drawn. The most innocuous thing can become sin to you if it stirs your heart to pride or envy, and what before seemed off-limits can suddenly be a source of pure joy to you. For example, if I enjoy playing a computer game, but that game becomes an escape or an addiction, a way to avoid responsibilities or a distraction from spending time with my family, then it has crossed the line from permissible to impermissible. By the same token, I used to think alcohol was off limits, but have experienced some moments of deep fellowship and joy over a bottle of wine with friends.

What Jesus does here, besides obscuring the lines between the permissible and impermissible, is make a relationship with him a necessity. How do we, the easily deceived and swayed, know where our own heart stands? By being close to the Maker of our hearts. If we can't count on following a list of written rules, we have to continually look to him and ask him for wisdom and illumination along the way.

Let me add to this all, though, that the motivation for a relationship with Jesus goes beyond making sure we're following the moral law. Jesus frees us from all restraints, not just from the ceremonial law, but from the consequences of breaking the moral law, too. So even though, in his dismissal of the ceremonial law, he makes it harder for us to keep the moral law, he also frees us from having to keep it by keeping it for us. Whether or not we are able to "do right" is irrelevant. It really, truly, doesn't matter. One bit. If we believe Jesus wiped the slate, we believe He wiped the slate. Whatever failings we do or have, whether before or after we enter into relationship with him, won't affect our standing with him. He sees us and loves as pure, unsullied, lovely creations, without a stain on us.

While in some sense, we still suffer the consequences for our failings and "defilements," the consequences are temporal, limited to this earth. I can get drunk every night and it wouldn't change Jesus' love for me - but it might cause me to lose my job, my wife, and my friends. I can judge and insult others I come in contact with and be generally mean, and while Jesus would still love me, probably not too many people would want to be my friend. I can spend like a mad fool and fill my life with lots of toys, or hoard all my money and never give it to others, and while Jesus would still love me, I wouldn't have much of lasting value or real worth. I can treat my kids like dirt and lord it over my wife, and Jesus would love me, but my kids and wife would resent me and I'd be lonely.

I could go on, but I think I've made my point. Jesus' love doesn't change with our weaknesses and failings. He's paid for them, and he's not going to punish us. We'll reap the natural consequences of what we sow, but he has paid for it before God. His law is there to show us a happy life, and he's freed us to enjoy that life. But his love doesn't change. We are truly free - of both the ceremonial law and the moral law. May we revel in this freedom, and praise the One who gave his life that we could have it.

Northwest Snow Drivers

2011-02-24T15:30:00.000-08:00

In light of recent events, I give you the three types of Northwest snow drivers:

The speedster: This can be most easily defined as anyone who drives faster than you. The speedster immediately conjures rage in each driver they pass, the spray of ice and snow following in their wake the only rival to the spray of saliva from the mouths of their fellow travelers as they shout words we dare not repeat here. Of course, we all wish the speedsters ended up in the ditch, thus teaching them to no longer be speedsters, but rarely do we receive the satisfaction of seeing them spin out or crash and burn. Speedsters themselves can probably be broken into two subcategories: those who drive fast because they have a 4x4 and can get away with it, and those who are driving something sporty and don't know how to drive slow. Either one is equally annoying, though the reasons they're annoying are, perhaps, slightly different.
The creeper: This is the person who seems like the only reason they're driving instead of walking is so they can stay warm and dry, because they're not going any faster than they would if they were pedestrating (pedestrizing? Not sure if there's a verb form of pedestrian, but there should be. Leave a comment with any other suggestions of how to "verb" it). They're almost as maddening as the speedster, and heaven help you if you get behind them going up the hill, because they're bound to lose traction and start sliding backwards into you. These people are usually driving an older model car, often a 90s Pontiac Grand Am or Mercury Tempo, with bad tires. The best way to deal with these people is park your car, walk up to their window (which you can do without much effort, since they'll be driving slower than you on foot), and hand them money for bus fare. They'll get to their destination faster, and you'll have done all the other drivers on the road a huge favor by getting them off of it.
You: You are, of course, the quintessential perfect driver. You drive at the perfect rate of speed that the conditions require, neither too fast nor too slow, and leave just enough stopping distance between you and the car in front of you. You are flawless in every way, and while some may judge you as a creeper, you can obviously dismiss them as reckless speedsters, and others may count you as a speedster, their creeper ways of course color their viewpoint. Congratulations on achieving what all other snow drivers strive for: perfection.

Miracle on 34th Street

2010-12-10T16:11:00.000-08:00

I’m not generally a big fan of most Christmas movies. I could never get into the old claymation Rudolph; I don’t think I’ve even seen Frosty the Snowman or A Christmas Story; I’ve always despised White Christmas; and most of the less classic tales (Home Alone, Jingle All the Way, the Tim Allen Santa Claus movies, etc.) hold little appeal for me. It’s a Wonderful Life, is of course, an exception to the rule.

That’s why I’m a little surprised at my deep love for the 1994 version of Miracle on 34^th Street. Going in it already has two strikes against it: one, it’s a remake of an older movie I didn’t really like very much (though to be fair, I haven't seen the old one for a very long time), and two, it’s a newer Christmas movie, which almost unfailingly means that it’s going to be either cynical or shallow, its message focused on being nice and feeling connected to family and friends.

But it’s not either cynical or shallow. The characters are surprisingly deep, fleshed out, complex. Dory, Brian, Susan, and Kris Kringle are characters in their own rights, with their own actions and motivations for those actions. Dory Walker cynical, aloof, scarred from a failed marriage, now passing on that cynicism to her daughter in hopes of defending her from life’s disappointments. Brian Bedford is the faithful, caring neighbor who has taken an interest in Dory, and cares about her deeply despite her hesitation to commit to a relationship. He loves Susan and Dory faithfully, and is endlessly patient and optimistic about winning Dory over. Susan is the bright, intelligent young girl who, despite her mother’s attempts to make her an “atheist,” senses that there may be more to the world than what her mother has said.

And then there’s Kris. He’s essentially a theophany – an incarnation of Christ Himself into the story. He makes no pretense of hiding his identity as Santa; from the outset, when he’s seen by the judge and his grandson as he crosses the street before the parade, he tells the boy he is who the boy suspects – Santa Claus. And that claim doesn’t change as the story goes on. While Dory hires him to play “Santa” for the parade and for Cole’s Department Store, Kris agrees, because he’s basically being himself, to a greater degree than they realize. He follows the higher goal of Santa to serve people and share the joy of Christmas by sending customers elsewhere for cheaper gifts, even though his employment by Cole’s would dictate this as bad policy. He plays by a higher law, and influences the company to follow that higher law as well. And in as much as Cole’s puts their faith in Kris as Santa, they are blessed.

But then he is betrayed – by a counterfeit Santa. He willingly goes to trial, purposefully failing a mental competency exam, and is taken to trial for the claims he’s made to be someone that he can’t be – Santa Claus. And then, in a moment of triumph, he’s released through the affirmation of the law that claims he is who he is – the one and only Santa Claus, the genuine article.

The movie isn’t without flaws; there are two that come to mind immediately. One is the competitor storyline, Victor Landbergh and his attempts to ruin Cole’s Christmas. It’s overly hokey, and compared with the genuine feel of the rest of the movie, seems to cheapen the story. It could have been far better executed with a little more effort. The other is the one that nearly ruins the movie for me.

During the trial, Brian Bedford says in his closing argument to the judge something to the effect of, “You have to ask yourself which is better: a truth that draws a tear, or a lie that brings a smile?” This seems to erase the entire impact of the movie. Rather than make it a movie about having faith in the unseen, it seems to suggest that we all know it’s not true, but it makes us feel good, so why not believe it? It contradicts the message the rest of the movie seems to convey, and makes me cringe every time I come to that scene. I have to assess, then, what the rest of the movie means in light of this statement. It’s inconsistent, and saddens me that the writer felt like that was the message they were conveying.

But I can ignore the comment. It’s the one slip-up which seems to reveal more about the person who penned the screenplay than it does about the message of the movie. And there’s nothing like Judge Henry Harper’s impassioned speech at the end of the trial confirming that Kris is indeed Santa to bring a tear to one’s eye. And the rest of the movie is just pure bliss, as Santa, now come into his kingdom, grants the deepest longings of those who have put their trust in him.

The parallels should be glaringly obvious to anyone who watches this movie. It’s the story of Jesus – the one who came down and lived among us, making ridiculous claims of being God Himself until He eventually died for those claims, giving Himself up willingly. Yet He rose again, declaring once and for all that His claims were true. Then He proceeded to restore all that was broken in the fall. And it’s the beauty in which the story parallels this that moves me every time I watch it. I see the people around Kris slowly wake up to who he is, and I think about Jesus touching our lives and causing us to realize who He is. I see Kris fulfilling Susan’s deepest wishes – a home, a father, a brother – and think about how Jesus fulfills those for us, becoming our brother as God the Father adopts us into His family. I see Dory losing her cynicism in light of the genuine love that Kris shows to her and Susan, and think about how that unconditional love is what we all long for, what breaks down all our wall and draws us closer to Him.

So take the time to watch Miracle on 34^th Street this Advent season, and reflect on the ways that, like Kris Kringle in this movie, Jesus came and walked among us undisguised as well. If Santa can bring a family together, how much more can the Creator of the universe do?

Conversations EP

2010-10-04T13:31:00.000-07:00

Conversations EP is a recording just completed by Andrew Dempsen, my brother. (Although with 9 tracks averaging a length of 4 and a half minutes it seems like it might fit the LP definition.) The recording's not professional or polished, and the last song, while full of personal meaning, is the roughest recording of the bunch. But the songs themselves are brutal in their honesty, raw in their depiction of struggling with making sense of a friend's suicide and the day-to-day experiences of transitioning into adulthood and figuring out life. Andrew's vocals are slightly remiscent of Ben Kweller and Coner Oberst, though definitely not mimicking them in any way, and his musical style is understated, mostly unaccompanied acoustic guitar or a piano and guitar blend.

The piano-driven "Freeways" expresses a longing for satisfaction that can't be realized here on earth, that elusive search for something you won't probably get and certainly won't find a freeway to. "Is this the way to the freeway home?" the chorus asks, begging the question if there is a freeway home, or if home by its nature can only be reached through struggle.

"Missing Exits" is a simple unaccompanied acoustic-guitar melody dealing with the unavoidable repetitive nature of being human and making the same mistakes. "My reaction time's slow/ I keep missing my exits..." he says, echoing the thoughts of anyone who feels like they'll never get over the besetting sin they wish would just leave.

"Latte Rush" is my personal favorite on the album, more upbeat than any others on the CD and perhaps more hopeful than any others as well. It's a dose of nostalgia mixed with an effort to keep a pace of life that allows for enjoying it. The chorus begins with this:

"I got addicted to the wrong things

trying to be someone I thought I should be

but I lost sight of who was really me

I'll let you know when I find him again"

It strikes true each time I hear it. It's easy to forget who we're meant to be and let the details of life and outside pressures overwhelm us. Pursuing a call can be choked out easily by the cares of the world.

"Grasping" follows much the same theme as "Missing Exits," speaking of the difficulties of getting past issues that seem to plague us as humans. The guitar melody is haunting and doleful, picked slowly at the beginning then building to strumming at the chorus accompanied by piano. "What's it been, five years now?/ Am I still grasping at these straws?/ ... At the end of the day/ You're all that I have." Paul's thorn in the flesh comes to mind. It also features the word creation "conversative." If it wasn't a word before, it should be now.

On its surface "Hey Rockaway" is a tribute to the town of Rockaway Beach, Oregon, but beneath the surface is about the longing for a place to belong.

"You stood on the shore as the sun went down

nothing's felt more like home

your feet are like lead as you head for the door

'cause you're fifteen hours from being alone

... you weep for the day that has already come

and is forcing you now to leave..."

For Andrew, Rockaway Beach is in a real sense a place that feels like home. For me, I've had that sense every time I'm on the Rez. It's where I feel I belong; something about the place and the people there resonate with my soul in a way that makes me never want to leave. There's again, though, a cast of hopelessness to the song, of a dream that won't be realized, which leaves the song a bitter aftertaste.

"Say You Know" features perhaps my favorite lines on the CD, and I think is overall one of the two lyrically strongest songs on the CD as well. "I've got more friends than I know what to do with sometimes / and I've got more skeletons than I've got closet space to hide." The title refers to, I believe, being known and accepted by God, despite His knowledge of who we truly are in the secret places. The song features a folksy melody and the beautiful harmony of some uncredited female singer whom I suspect is Amanda from The Perennials, but I might be wrong. (The Perennials, incidentally, are pretty darn good. Pete's vocals are reminiscent of Johnny Cash and Amanda's of Feist - very interesting blend.)

"Storm Clouds and Sirens" is about the struggle to repent. "I've sold out completely and I know that I don't deserve you / and now I come crawling back, now that I know that I hurt you / but Ii'm not so good at this, at times I'm worse than the faithless / I've severed my nerve endings and all that is good is now tasteless / ... if ever I needed you Jesus it's now I don't want you..." Nothing more, really, to add to that. If you're a believer, you've been there yourself more than once, I'm sure.

"All the King's Horses" is a gut-punch of a song. Completely raw, honest dealings with something that we all knee-jerkedly want to wrap up neatly so we don't have to deal with it. A friend of Andrew's committed suicide two or three months ago, and he wrote this song in the weeks after. The melody and lyrics are paired perfectly, and the tone set by the melody both highlights the theme and slightly softens the blow, and emotions below the surface of the vocals can clearly be perceived. It's a one-sided conversation with his friend of all the things he wished he could say and didn't get a chance to. The chorus line, "If I had the faith of Abraham I don't think I could understand it better /And if I had God's healing hand I don't think I could piece this back together," hits the nail on the head of my own reactions when I hear about suicide, and takes my breath away every time I hear it.

The last song, "Dying For," was written for the friend's memorial service. While it's good, it feels forced in some ways, and while pain-filled and reflective, the honesty of "All the King's Horses" makes it pale by comparison. The recording also feels rushed, the piano melody often out of sync with the guitar, and with a little more polish it could be a stronger way to finish out the CD.

Overall, the CD's a strong effort with a lot of promise of good things to come. I am blessed to be able to claim this artist as my brother. Now, he needs to find a way for all you good folks to get your hands on his music!

Sunday Reflections

2010-09-05T18:28:00.000-07:00

I'm still as much of an unrealistic and hotheaded idealist as ever, but I've come to see that as less of a positive thing than I've previously been convinced it was.

Grace is both a life-giving force and source of utter devastation all at once.

Waiting is about the hardest work a person can do. It requires you to know that you're not in charge.

Being aware of God's covenant faithfulness to His children takes the fear out of parenting.

Listening to Andrew Peterson's Counting Stars with my wife on a Sunday morning and skipping church is sometimes far more refreshing than attending church. (But only sometimes.)

It's easy to lose grace when we start pointing out all the people we don't think God's forgiven.

Why do we in the church like to make laws out of peripheral issues? It takes all the fun out being part of the "holy catholic church" when we're constantly tearing down our brothers and sisters.

The longer I'm alive, the more I realize life wouldn't be worth living if I wasn't convinced of the gospel. The meaning it gives to everything I do and everything that happens to me would, if lost, reduce this life to nothing.

I need Jesus more than ever.

Repentance Avoidance

2010-08-05T07:36:00.000-07:00

Sometimes it's like

An open wound - you can hear

It spraying blood, feel the pain - but

If you can find the right size

Bullet to bite

Maybe you can

Wait it out; it will heal

Before you bleed to death.

What the heck: "Living a Better Story"

2010-07-20T20:31:00.000-07:00

This is just a whim.

I preface it this way because I fear that my story is "worth" nothing to most people. I mask this fear in derision at contests, and an attitude that says I don't really care about winning, nor do I think winning will mean anything to me anyway. Really, can a conference with Don Miller add anything to my life that I don't already have? These are the things my cynical, scoffing heart says.

But here I am, despite it all, entering his stupid contest.

Hear that, Don? I think your contest is stupid.

---

It began nearly three years ago, in church.

Of course, beginnings are relative, especially to Calvinists. I could just as easily say like Jeremiah that it began at my conception, or that it began before the dawn of creation. But it's just as easy to say it began three years ago. That's when I became aware of the call.

My story up until that point was mostly defined by a sense of aimlessness. I had just finished college (a process that should have taken four to five years, but due to that aimlessness from beginning to end was about seven, a la Tommy Boy), just finished student teaching, and was substitute teaching as I sought a full-time position as an English teacher. I was newly married, just a little over a year, and felt lost.

My chosen profession was not appealing to me. I'd had a murderous experience in student teaching, and came out of feeling completely disillusioned and drained of any desire to enter the field. It wasn't the kids that I'd had a problem with - it was the system. Trying to manage classes of 35 eighth-graders discovering their individuality and get them to to retain information at any sort of decent level's a challenge for even the most skilled of teachers, let alone a rookie. And all due respect to my master teacher, I would spend long hours at school lesson-planning and grading, often until seven in the evening, then felt like my best-laid plans were poked full of holes when I brought them to her, which shattered my confidence day after day. I eventually felt like I couldn't hack it, like I lacked what it took, and by the end just felt like I was a prisoner looking forward to my release date.

Now there were other contributing factors involved in the experience, but the point's not to analyze that right now. This is all just set-up for the main storyline.

When it began, I was in a long-term substitute position at an alternative high school. I was teaching a couple English classes and monitoring an in-school suspension program for a school in its first year of existence. But I had applied and interviewed for a full-time position there, and they gave it to a teacher already working at another high school in the district. Another blow to my confidence. Even so, I continued in the long-term position there, hoping it might at least lead to some good references.

Then it happened. A fateful November night in 2007. We attended a missions conference at our church, and heard Chris Granberry speak about his ministry, Sacred Road, working with the Yakama Indians in Central Washington. He talked about the need, statistics I can now easily quote from memory: a 65% dropout rate from sixth to twelfth grade, a 70% homelessness rate among teenagers, 100% of families affected by substance abuse, a life expectancy of 39 years, and only 2% of Native Americans nationwide espousing faith in Jesus.

And it wasn't just the statistics. It was the pictures. Kids at the kids' clubs with dirty faces and big grins as the "church people" blow bubbles and jump rope with them, adults moved to tears as their houses are roofed and repaired, and the Christians working among the people overwhelmed with the need to share the love of Christ with a group largely forgotten.

One image sticks with me even now. I don't even know if I remember it correctly, but I know the association I have with it. It was a tree-lined hillside, the sun shining behind the branches, silhouetting them against the sky. You wouldn't think that, among all the images of children and adults responding to the love of Christ, it would be the shot of a tree-lined hill that would be the one that sticks with me. But the reason this one was so powerful to me was because I immediately connected it with an image I'd woken up with every morning of my childhood: a tree-covered hill, right out my bedroom window on Mt. Spokane, Washington.

I was moved to tears. How could such need exist, right outside my bedroom window? Why had I not known before? Why wasn't the church doing more?

Chris talked about the vision Sacred Road had for a school, beginning as an after-school program, and eventually, as time and resources allowed, to build that into a residential school that would give kids not only exposure and immersion in the gospel, but a loving, stable place to live and grow up - a rarity on the Rez. I caught that vision immediately, and my wife next to me, too. "Maybe you should teach there," she said. I don't know if she knew then how powerfully I wanted to.

So we talked to Chris after the conference. "We want to find out more about your ministry," we said. "We think God might want us to join you."

"Come on out for a weekend," he said. "We'll show you around and you can consider it more fully then."

So we did, after the holidays the following January. We'd never felt more comfortable about anything than we did about the way they approached ministry and the gospel. The Granberrys felt like kindred spirits; they clearly loved the people and the community, and understood the need to walk gently as Christians, given the history between Native America and the church. We left only further convinced that we were being called to join them.

So we went through the process laid out to apply, going through a cross-cultural missions training and evaluation, and in February 2009 were accepted to start raising support to join Sacred Road. And now, after serious support-raising for over a year, we're at 50% of our monthly goal.

That's the story so far. Where we hope to be in the next few years is "on the field," as they say - living on the Yakama Reservation, having a home there that we can use to host guests who want to, like us, come and see the work God's doing to bring hope and light to the Rez. I want to see a place where kids can come have a quiet, safe place to study, with adults who love them, accept them, and help them learn how to grow up. I want to work teaching youth skills like woodworking and gardening, things I enjoy and give me a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment that I hope would give them the same. I want my story to be defined by God's will and work through me, and by the way that He uses me to give others stories to live.

I said at the beginning that my cynical self thinks a conference won't help me in this. In truth, though, I could see it helping immensely. The story's already begun, but in order for it to reach beyond the exposition at the beginning, we need to raise the rest of our support. And support comes from relationships with people who are committed to giving and praying for you. A conference, even if it's populated with poor idealists who don't have money and have their own dreams they need to fund (my cynical side speaking again), could be vastly useful in helping to build a stronger network of people who care about and share a passion for the Yakama people being given the hope of the gospel.

---

So there you go, Don. There's the story I hope to live.

Living a Better Story Seminar from All Things Converge Podcast on Vimeo.

The Happy Sovereign

2010-07-07T10:52:00.000-07:00

I like to think of thunder

as the laughter

of God Almighty -- a hearty,

exultant peal from His belly

escaping His throat with a shout

and rolling through the valley --

as if He can't hold in

Joy

over His creation

When we look at creation, too often we see the brokenness, especially as Christians who are so acquainted with the way things are supposed to be. And it's true - things are very broken, evil, and sorrowful. But that is not all there is! We are surrounded by beauty and grace and wonder. While we cannot ignore the darkness, we can allow it to enhance our enjoyment of the light, for how much sweeter does light appear when you're in the pitch black?

God does not let the darkness dampen His joy. God - while deeply sorrowed over sin - is a happy God. Throughout Scripture we find this to be true. Passages like Zephaniah 3:17, describing God as singing over His people with great rejoicing. Reading through the Psalms we see the fullness of God's emotions, both the depths of His rage against evil and the exultant joy over righteousness and goodness, and His delight in doing good to those He loves. Our God is a happy God. May this truth comfort us.

Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress and Christian Freedom

2010-06-02T13:38:00.000-07:00

While I've been a fan of science fiction and fantasy - speculative fiction, as they say - I've neglected many of the classic authors in the genre, Heinlein being among them. But I picked up this volume with the intriguing title a couple months back in Half-Price Books, and decided it was time to tackle it.

Now understand, the only thing I really knew about Robert Heinlein is his name, and that he wrote some book called Starship Troopers, which from what I heard was made into a pretty mediocre movie. And that he's well respected in the genre. That's the extent of my knowledge, and now the only thing I can add to it is that I read this book of his. So I can't really comment on whether this book is representative of his body of work, or where it might rank in terms of its worth in said body. This is really just my reflection on a book I enjoyed from an author with a solid reputation.

TMIAHM (as I'll now refer to it) is an homage to the American Revolution in many ways: it's the tale of the Lunar colony's fight for independence from the Lunar Authority. The parallels are many and overt: Lunar Authority holds the exclusive rights to demand what the colony produces and the price at which it will be bought, and when unrest begins, they send troops to keep the peace. The citizens treat the troops belligerently, with tensions rising until they boil over into the death of a woman. Woman, being rare in Lunar colony, which began as a penal colony, are held in extremely high regard in Lunar society, and when this woman is killed by the Lunar Authority troops, all-out conflict breaks out. A Boston Massacre, of sorts.

The parallels don't stop there. Professor de la Paz is a sort of Thomas Jefferson/Ben Franklin combination, going to Earth as an ambassador suing for independence, writing a declaration of independence and becoming a sort of unwilling leader whose main goal is to create a government defined more by what it is prevented from doing rather than what it is allowed to do. Manuel O'Kelly Davis is a sort of George Washington figure in that he becomes an unwitting commander of the ragtag defense forces of the lunar colony. And there's Mike, the self-aware computer whom Manny befriends and recruits into helping them win their freedom from the Lunar Authority.

There were about two paragraphs within the book which kicked my thoughts into action, mulling over the idea of government and authority, the legitimacy of the "right to rule" and and what makes certain powers legitimate and others illegitimate. In terms of the Christian's call to submit to their governing authorities, if a revolution occurs, to which authority is a Christian to submit? How do we determine this?

The gist of what was said to trigger this thought was this: "In terms of morality there is no state, only individuals." Ultimately when it comes down to the choices we make, there is no "just following orders" excuse. As the Prof says:

I will accept the rules that you feel necessary to your freedom. I am free, no
matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I
find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am
morally responsible for everything I do.

"Live as people who are free," the apostle Peter admonishes us as he tells us to "be subject to the ruling authorities." How do we reconcile this? By realizing that government is a means of common grace, a restraint for evil that God instituted so that humanity, in bondage to sin, wouldn't be as bad as it could be without it. But we who have the Spirit of God and the law written upon our hearts should not need the restraints of government in order to do what is right and good. So the command remains, even though to us who are free in Christ the subjection is a mere outward function. The government's authority, while from God, is a flawed and conditional authority - conditional upon its adherence to the law of God. And when our conscience is informed by the Word and the Spirit, we have not only the right but the duty to defy the authority of government.

I think far too often we assume submission equals obedience. I don't think this is the case, not wholly. I think submission means obedience plus a willingness to accept the consequences handed down for disobedience. So when I adhere to the speed limits they set or pay the taxes that they order me to pay, then I am submitting, yes. But if I decline to pay my taxes because I don't want to contribute to immorality that I believe the government is funding, then I also ought to be willing to accept the consequences that they give me for that action. I should not flee or try to hide my disobedience. If I enlisted in the military, then was convicted against the cause I swore to fight for, I ought to refuse to fight, but I also ought to be willing to accept whatever consequences for that decision.

My freedom isn't something I gain, or something that can be taken away. My freedom is unconditional, no matter where I live, no matter if I am in prison or if I am in the wilderness. And freedom carries within it responsibility - for if I am free, I then have no excuses for myself for not doing what I ought to do, or for doing what I ought not to do. And while this is the state of every human being (for there is no excuse for sin), this is especially the condition of Christians, because our will has been set free from bondage to sin.

So why then are we commanded to be subject to authority? It's as simple as setting an example for others. We cannot overlook that government is God's system for restraining evil, that He put it in place and gave it the job of keeping things from getting out of hand. Of course it's flawed, and often it doesn't do its job, and instead does the exact opposite, but that doesn't change the fact that it is a God-instituted authority over us, and while we may disobey when the occasion calls for it, we are still responsible to accept the punishment given to us for our disobedience.

We see this in the example given to us by the early church. In the face of open persecution, they willingly went to their deaths, suffering beatings, mistreatments, and the removal of their property. The apostles went often to prison, defying the commands to stop preaching, yet willing to accept the penalties for their actions. This is what it means to be subject to our authorities: recognizing their legitimacy, yet questioning their execution; obeying and disobeying when appropriate, yet always affirming their right to rule.

Musical goodness

2010-05-21T08:20:00.000-07:00

Here's a sampling of some music I've discovered over the last year or so:

His voice might take some getting used to, but Lovedrug is really good music.

Passion Pit's another relatively recent discovery I've fallen in love with. This is probably my favorite of their songs off of Manners.

Timber Timbre's pretty amazing stuff, too. Very reminiscent of Dylan.

"Pull yourself up by your bootstraps"

2010-05-20T08:13:00.000-07:00

I'd be hard-pressed to find a phrase I hate more than this one. Its meaning is simple: you have the power to improve your situation if you just man up and do it. On the surface, this appears to be good advice. But:

It implies that the person to whom the phrase is directed is at fault for being downtrodden.
It implies that we are completely in charge of our destiny. As James tells us, though, "You do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? It is a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes" (4:13). And Proverbs, in many places, warns us about the plans of men versus the plans of God.
It fails to understand the complexities of the causes of poverty and the power of growing up in a poverty culture. Just as those who use the phrase usually have grown up in WASP culture with its emphasis on work ethic and merit, those to whom they usually direct this phrase have grown up with a completely different set of values that needs to be overcome or changed before they can even begin to find their bootstraps.
It fails to understand grace or give credit to God for their own situation. God "owns the cattle on a thousand hills," meaning He owns our bank accounts, jobs, and all our possessions. And just as quickly (or slowly) as they are granted to us, He can take them away. So while in one sense, by working hard one gets certain benefits, in reality, it's God's grace that enables us to work, and God's grace that gives us possessions as a result of that hard work. No amount of bootstrap pulling will advance us in material goods and stature without the will of God to grant that we advance.
It fails to see that our world is sinful, and the world's systems and societies are sinful, and often the wrong or undeserving people are rewarded. Sometimes it doesn't matter how hard one yanks on the bootstraps, because somebody keeps pushing you down as soon as you start to get up.
It fails to see that advancement in this world is not necessarily a good goal to have.

We don't live in a meritocracy, as much as we like to think we do. People are rewarded or punished based on who they know, how much money they have, what neighborhood they live in or school they go to. Yes, we like to think of our country as the "land of opportunity," and maybe it is more than others. But that doesn't change the fact that some people have longer bootstraps and others have shorter ones. And it certainly doesn't change the fact that it's God who directs the paths of every life, and it's by His grace that we possess anything. So let's please kill this phrase, because to a Christian it really has no meaning.

On reflection

2010-05-20T07:50:00.000-07:00

There's something worth writing about every day.

I fancy myself a writer, even though I don't have anything finished, let alone published. I suppose you could say that I have several stories finished, though until I see them published, I still consider them to be in revision. And it's probably because I consider them to still be in revision that I have made no attempts to get them published.

But that's beside the point. What I'm trying to say is that I'm convinced the discipline of writing is important, not simply because I like to writer and aspire to be a writer, but because it's through writing that my thoughts solidify and change me.

Writing is my means of reflection. When I hear a good sermon, read a good book, watch a good movie, read the Word, I am far more likely to retain the truths within each of those if I write about them. The same goes for experiences: the choices I make and the events I witness, the places I go and the people I meet and interact with, I ought to be just as reflective about.

For what is sanctification about, if not reflecting on one's relationship and need for God and then making the changes necessary to become more like Him? If I live without stopping to think, without considering carefully all the things God has put in my path to make me more like Him, then what good am I, and what good are they doing me?

So I fully support the discipline of reflection: whether that be through writing, or through thinking aloud, or through prayer, or any combination of those things. I believe it's an essential part of our growing in maturity in our faith - can we really become more like Jesus if we don't spend time thinking about the life He's given us to do just that? Each day the goal is to become more like Him. If we go through each day without some thought as to how we can better represent Him, how we can give more of ourselves over to Him, then what good are we? We are not living as we ought.

My encouragement then to you, and perhaps more importantly to myself, is to make reflection a key component to your walk of faith. Let yourself be changed and shaped through deep consideration of what God is doing in your life. Don't allow yourself to get busy with the cares of the world so much that you miss the whole point of why we're here in the first place.

New layout

2010-05-06T17:47:00.000-07:00

It's come time to change.

Why? I don't really know. I'm not one for changing my blog layout like an outfit - as anyone knows, I've kept the last design for at least 4 years, and before that, my old blog which I accidentally deleted had the same general template for years as well.

But with the prevalence now of blog templates being offered online for free - and their increasing attractiveness over the old Blogger stand-bys, I really couldn't see a reason to hold on to the old one for sentimental reasons.

And I like this one a lot. I think it fits in well with the "Wayfarer" theme.

So welcome to my new home.

The Poisonwood Bible

2010-04-23T07:20:00.000-07:00

Barbara Kingsolver's a talented writer, that much is clear. And while my thoughts on the book are somewhat conflicted, the fact that I liked it is not.

Here's the premise: a Baptist missionary "heeds the call" of God and takes his wife and four daughters into the Congo jungle in the early 1960s. The novel recounts, in first person from the point of view of the daughters and wife, the details of their time there, and the changes that Africa undergoes in that time period and up to the turn of the century.

This is a hard book for a white Christian to read, for several reasons. The first is the depiction of Nathan Price, the missionary. He's the model of what a cross-cultural missionary should not be, and probably an accurate portrayal of a too-oft-repeated scenario in past attempts at ministering across cultural boudaries. Nathan carries with him the assumption that the culture he is entering is primitive, backwards, and inherently sinful. He confuses the gospel with his culture, blending the two as he attempts to minister to the people, trampling their values and knowledge in his arrogance. They are to him Heathen, and therefore cannot possess any knowledge that could be valuable. He, as minister of the gospel, is the one who must dispense the knowledge, ridding them of what they thought they knew and replacing it with what he teaches. Rather than attempting to bridge the gap between their knowledge and the truth (because every culture contains within it elements of the truth), he alternately dismisses or abuses their culture by playing off their superstitions one moment ("if you repent, Jesus will send rain") and accusing them of superstition the next ("Jesus didn't promise your child wouldn't die if you went to church").

The second reason I found this book hard is that it is yet another example of Western culture's abuses of an entire continent through colonialism/imperialism. The book is set at the beginning of African independence, when the Congo gained its freedom from Belgium. Apparently overnight, Congo became a free nation after generations of control by a foreign power. Suddenly they were expected to run an infrastructure and maintain government control without any prior experience. To make matters worse, the CIA worked to assassinate the freely-elected leader of the now-independent state, supporting a dictator in his place who oversaw the transformation of Congo into Zaire - violent, poor, and bloody. The meddling of Western power in sovereign governments, not to mention the motivation for doing so (being able to take the resources from these nations without profiting the citizens of the nation), should be heartbreaking to those of us who profit from it, either directly or indirectly.

But I think the thing that made this book the most difficult for me is the absence of Jesus. The name of Jesus is present frequently, at the lips of the good Reverend Price constantly, but Jesus - the King of Kings- doesn't show up once. "Tata Jesus is bangala!" Price tells his African congregants time and again, a phrase which his daughter Adah points out could have two meanings: either "Jesus is precious," or "Jesus is poisonwood (poisonwood being a particularly nasty poisonous tree)." We do not get the precious gospel - we get the poisonwood gospel.

Kingsolver is not a believer, and the redemption she attempts to weave into the ending of her book leaves me wanting more. She seems to end it with the idea that one should simply try to do a little good - the problems of the world are much too vast to be able to solve, so do what good you can: love your children, love your fellow man, and live honorably and generously. And maybe farm.

All good things, which I fully support (especially the farming bit - power to agrarians!). But this isn't enough for the Christian. Africa (and the world) needs the knowledge that all things are being redeemed to the way they were supposed to be, that Jesus is working all things into submission to Himself, that creation was made good, and is now in the process of being made into what it should be. Africa needs Jesus, more desperately than they need anything else. Kingsolver writes from the presumption that Nathan offered the only Jesus available and He wasn't enough - Jesus might work for Nathan but in Africa He doesn't make sense. What Kingsolver misses is that Nathan's Jesus and the real Jesus have very little in common. The real Jesus has exactly the remedy for Africa: salvation, shalom, the righting of wrongs.

Believe Big

2010-04-21T11:24:00.000-07:00

I don't think any year would be complete without some post regarding my near-obsession (okay, it's not a near-obsession, it's an obsession) with the Seattle Mariners. And with the season underway and the M's with a winning record, I feel the need to share with all of you the deep, deep love I have for this team and this sport.

It began in '95 and steadily caught fire, rising to a crescendo in the magical 2001 season where the M's just couldn't be beat. I remember being amazed by the underestimated team full of respected names, but not necessarily any established superstars, taking on the entirety of baseball and winning 116 games - something only done by one other team in all of baseball's long history. We'd lost Griffey, the guy who put Seattle on the map, and A-Rod, and Randy Johnson was gone, too. Nobody thought we could do it. It was Ichiro's first year in the MLB, and no one knew what to make of the guy who won not only rookie of the year that year, but also was the American League MVP. We had Bret Boone, who up until that year wasn't really regarded as a top offensive player, but had a sudden breakout year (probably thanks to 'roids, but we didn't know that then). We played solid defense and won by executing on the small things. It was a wonderful year that ended too soon when we lost out in the playoffs.

The fervor died a little in the Bavasi years, where season after season we had high hopes which would be dashed time and again when the team collapsed and fell out of contention. The laundry list of bad contracts, or guys who didn't deliver on the expectations, or mismanagement of prospects was almost too long to keep track of: Carlos Silva, Jeff Weaver, Horacio Ramirez, Miguel Batista, Richie Sexson, Carl Everett, Brad Wilkerson, the Bedard-Jones trade, the handling of Brandon Morrow, to name a few. They were dark days for M's fans, ending in 2008's disastrous, 101-loss season that no one really saw coming.

And now the light shines again. 2009 saw a complete turnaround in both management and on-the-flied performance for the M's. We went from a 61-win season to an 85-win season, a massive improvement and a nearly-complete roster changeover built around defense and drive. Smart people were in charge of the Mariners again, and it showed. The club went from being at each other's throats to a cohesive unit that actually liked playing together. They went from a team that was horrible at offense and defense, to a team that was horrible at offense but incredible at defense, with the best center-fielder in the game putting up unreal numbers with his range and ability to read fly balls, and the always-incredible, ageless Ichiro, and the new addition of Jack Wilson at shortstop replacing the unfortunately lazy, unteachable, underperforming Yuniesky Betancourt. Add to that the fabulous defensive workhorse Adrian Beltre, and you've got some skilled guys out there who know how to get guys out and help out the pitchers. And then the Cy Young runner-up performance by Felix Hernandez, and Ichiro ninth-straight 200+ hit-season ... one of those legendary seasons.

But 2010! It looks this truly might be THE year, if not the year before THE year. With an almost entirely new club (the only holdovers from the doomed '08 and the Bavasi years being Jose Lopez, Ichiro, Bedard, and Felix), the Mariners go into this season as the talk of the MLB. With an unmatch off-season that saw the acquisition of Cy Young-winner Cliff Lee for a handful of middling prospects, the signing of Chone Figgins, baserunner extraordinaire, and the signing of Felix to a 5-year extension, along with ridding the books of the overweight, overvocal, overpaid, albatross Carlos Silva, the M's gave everyone something to talk about. Was this really the same club that just a few short years ago traded away an All-Star, gold-glove center fielder for a pitcher who can't stay healthy, or traded a grade-A closer for a starter who got shelled every outing? The absolute transformation from laughingstock to shrewd, savvy wheelers-and-dealers has not just Seattle buzzing, but all of baseball. It's a good time to be an M's fan again.

So here's to you, Seattle Mariners: may this season hold many beer showers and a pennant at the end! Felix, may you win your first of many Cy Youngs, and Ichiro, may you take one more step in taking away Pete Rose's record. Guti, may you win your first of many Gold Gloves.

I am, as ever, a devoted fan.

Wendell Berry on Modern Education

2010-04-14T09:48:00.000-07:00

I. Educated people are more valuable than other people because education is a value-adding industry.

II. Educated people are better than other people because education improves people and makes them good.

III. The purpose of education is to make people able to earn more and more money.

IV. The place where education is to be used is called "your career."

V. Anything that cannot be weighed, measured, or counted does not exist.

VI. The so-called humanities probably do not exist. But if they do, they are useless. But whether they exist or not or are useful or not, they can sometimes be made to support a career.

VII Literacy does not involve knowing the meanings of words, or learning grammar, or reading books.

VIII The sign of exceptionally smart people is that they speak a language that is intelligible only to other people in their "field" or only to themselves. This is very impressive and is known as "professionalism."

IX. The smartest and most educated people are the scientists, for they have already found solutions to all our problems and will soon find solutions to all the problems resulting from their solutions to all the problems we used to have.

X. The mark of a good teacher is that he or she spends most of his or her time doing research and writes many books and articles.

XI The mark of a good researcher is the same as that of a good teacher.

XII. A great university has many computers, a lot of government and corporation research contracts, a winning team, and more administrators than teachers.

XIII. Computers make people even better and smarter than they were made by previous thingamabobs Or if some people prove incorrigibly wicked or stupid or both, computers will at least speed them up.

XIV. The main thing is, don't let education get in the way of being nice to children. Children are our Future. Spend plenty of money on them but don't stay home with them and get in their way. Don't give them work to do; they are smart and can think up things to do on their own. Don't teach them any of that awful, stultifying, repressive, old-fashioned morality. Provide plenty of TV, microwave dinners, day care, computers, computer games, cars. For all this, they will love and respect us and be glad to grow up and pay our debts.

XV. A good school is a big school.

XVI. Disarm the children before you let them in.

--From "The Joy of Sales Resistance"

The Hunger Games

2010-04-03T15:47:00.000-07:00

There is something about young adult fiction and the way in which it is generally written that often grips me far more than anything the "adult" world offers. I don't know exactly what it is - could be that my imagination is arrested as a fifteen-year-old kid who still wishes that magic and spaceships and dystopian societies begging to be overthrown by unlikely heroes were real. I could theorize that young adult fiction simplifies things into clear choices between good and evil, but I think in the book I'll be talking about here, there's anything but that going on. So that's not it. It could also be that they're often about a character who becomes more than they were - they learn what it means to be a man or a woman and learn to make hard choices in the face of impossible odds. I think that's a large part of why I like young adult fiction. Whether it's Harry Potter or Ender's Game (not technically "young adult" in the sense that that's not its target audience, but nonetheless fits all other distinctions of the genre) or The Hunger Games, the characters are facing life-altering, impossible situations and coming through them stronger, less naive, and more aware of themselves and the complexities of their world.

So enough of that. The Hunger Games. By Suzanne Collins. Good. Book.

I read this in a manner of hours. Couldn't put it down, really. The premise is that a young girl, fifteen or sixteen if my memory serves me correctly, by the name of Katniss Everdeen, lives in the post-apocalyptic Panem, the remnants of North America, nowed ruled by the ruthless Capitol who keeps the rest of the country, divided into 12 (previously 13) districts, completely subservient. The Capitol, as penance for old "treason" committed by the districts (instigated by the now-destroyed 13th district, which was wiped out for their role in the rebellion), requires each district to send two "tributes," a boy and a girl, to the Capitol every year for the Hunger Games - which is basically a free-for-all slaughterfest broadcast on TV in which the last man standing wins. As you might guess, Katniss becomes one of these tributes, and the book focuses on her struggle to survive the Hunger Games and deal with the idea that in order to win, she has to kill or be killed.

But all the coming-of-age storyline I'd like to put aside for now, and talk about the brilliant way in which Collins draws the world she creates in the story. It's really an allegory - though the allegory is secondary to the plot and characters. Capitol represents, I think, a version of today's developed nations. It's a resource-sucking monster at the center of Panem, it citizens growing fat on the resources thay glean from the subservient districts in their sway. In Capitol, every citizen can have their every whim granted. Surgical procedures keep people looking young and healthy, food comes at the touch of a button, even hygiene is automated so that one can select fragrances and lotions added to one's shower to keep one smelling fresh and looking young.

And - they think nothing of spending the lives of those who make their way of life possible for some cheap entertainment.

I can't help but consider the correlations between Capitol and our own nation. The relatively recent ascendancy of reality television is in some ways a smaller-scale version of the Hunger Games, using the lives of ordinary people, affecting change for better or worse through the way the producers choose to depict them. Shows like the Bachelor, American Idol (which I incidentally love despite perhaps my better judgment), Survivor, etc., all take "ordinary" people and exploit them in some way. They take hours and hours of footage, then edit to shape each person into a stereotype - hero, villain, clown, seductress, country bumpkin, or whatever fits the profile in order to entertain. The people are fictionalized so that the audience assumes this is how they truly are, and this, I'm sure, affects all of them to some extent in their real lives. I suppose one could argue that these people knowingly enter into agreements with the television shows they appear upon, and do reap benefits from these appearances, but at what cost?

Secondly, the correlation between Capitol as fattening itself on the fruits of the labor of others and the destruction of the resources of the other districts also seems to point its finger at the way in which developed nations like the US, and now, developing nations like India and China, build themselves up on the backs of the labor and resources of those less economically equipped and powerful. There's something powerful about the way literature is able to draw those comparisons in a way that makes the concepts clear to us. As Collins causes us to follow Katniss from her hardscrabble life in District 12, where she must hunt daily for food or the family goes hungry, to her adventure to the Capitol, where she need only hit a button and get as much as she wants, we are able to see how our lives as rich Americans must seem to those in third world countries and conditions.

But like I mentioned, these are mere undercurrents to the can't-take-a-breath pace of the story, which followed Katniss through wrestling with having to kill, even a boy from her own hometown who one time saved her life through an unsought kindness, in order to preserve her own life. The emotional intensity of the story and the growth of the characters truly makes this a great read. I look forward to reading the rest of the series, and seeing what conclusion these characters reach. The book in some way reminds me of another of my favorite books, Ender's Game, in that both feature high-stakes games with life-altering consequences. This book is an example of what I hope to be able to write someday.

Glenn Beck and Social Justice

2010-03-17T21:29:00.000-07:00

You may not have time to watch this whole video, but at least watch the first couple minutes. It's within those that Beck states his thesis, and then the rest is simply his defense of his thesis.

Several things (and I'm trying very hard to be fair here):

The first thing that comes to mind when I heard about this is, "Who cares what Glenn Beck thinks about social justice?" And immediately following that thought was, "A great number of people, many of them Christians, care what Glenn Beck thinks about social justice." This man has quite the following among conservative evangelicals, for reasons mysterious to me. What he says has more sway than he has a right to, so when he tells people to not just consider leaving their churches, but to actually leave their churches if the leadership espouses any bent towards promoting social justice, that's a serious thing for him to say.

Beck's basic argument is that "social justice" is a code word for an agenda aimed at government control and forced socialism/communism. And while some who wield the phrase might use it in that way, it's by no means a universally defined term. To encourage people to abandon it, to run from it, as if it were a swastika or some form of heresy, is both ludicrous and dangerously uninformed. And given his pull within the Christian community, the idea that he would use this to get people to leave the bodies to which they belong strikes me as a complete abuse of power.

For one, Beck is no theologian -he's a political commentator whose only credentials are that he has a good radio voice and can formulate his opinions in an entertaining way. For him to speak so very authoritatively on a matter of faith ought to set off so many red flags in a Christian's head that they can't see anything but red. And not only is he speaking authoritatively on an issue that he shouldn't be, but he's just plain wrong.

This video is even more disturbing to me - his use of his cutesy signs is chilling:

Social justice is nowhere NEAR to being a code word for Nazism or Communism. The fact that such groups might use the phrase is as incidental as the Chinese communsit regime coopting the use of the word "republic" in the name "The People's Republic of China." Just because those groups use the words doesn't mean they mean the same thing, or have any understanding of the true meaning behind it. The Nazis' take on "social justice" is quite different from what the Presbyterian Church X means by social justice: one is informed by a Biblical understanding of what justice is, and the other is informed by a nationalistic desire for the advancement of their race. (I'll let you guess which one is which.) To reduce it to a simplistic argument - "These groups use this phrase, therefore everyone who uses this phrase must share an agenda with these groups" - allows Beck to dismiss the idea of social justice without really dealing with the issue itself.

Beck says that he wants people to talk to the church leadership about the use of the phrase before leaving, in order to explore whether the term is used out of "ignorance," or out of an agenda that truly pursues "social justice." This is good: I'm glad he isn't telling people to run in blind panic, and pursue some answers and ask questions. All that is good. But he does this not in order to explore whether the church's vision for social justice is valid, but rather so that the church member can discover whether the leadership is willing to move away from the idea of social justice. And, Beck says, if the leadership refuses to budge on the issue, he tells them to run. So the assumption is, from beginning to end, that social justice is bad, and any church that uses the phrase is also bad.

I have to confess, it's very difficult for me to think about right-wing ideas and ideals without becoming angry. In all honesty, it wasn't that long ago that I counted myself among their faithful - really about five or six years ago I was still calling myself a "moderate Republican." Before that, I used to faithfully listen to Rush and Sean Hannity and even occasionally Glenn Beck himself. But gradually over the years I was unable to even identify with conservatives at all. I didn't get their adherence to immigration issues, their stance on the death penalty, their hyper-militaristic ideals, their constant demonization of their opponents and their reduction to simplicity of issues that seemed far more complex and nuanced than they cared to make them. I found myself only siding with them on abortion and on their belief in small government, and that didn't seem like enough common ground to really call myself one of their number anymore. So when I address Beck's opinions, I do it as someone who used to share his values and now finds them repugnant. And as any convert to a new worldview, I have a hard time thinking objectively about views I used to hold, and may tend to be harsher on them than I would be on other viewpoints to which I've never subscribed.

So when it comes to the importance of social justice and Beck's demonization of those who use the term, I'm tempted to just "go off." But here, in my most restrained language, is what I think:

Beck probably genuinely believes what he's saying. That's the worst part of all this. He probably truly thinks that churches who say they support and promote issues of social justice are in danger of falling prey to a communist/fascist agenda. But at the root of that fear of the term is a fear of the changing of the order of things. It's a fear of admitting that maybe things aren't as great as they should be, and that conservatives share a responsibility for that just as much as liberals do. So it's far easier for Beck to say that social justice is just a code word for a liberal agenda than to look at the issues raised by those who promote it. What would happen if he looked at immigration policy through the lens of social justice, and saw not just criminals crossing a border illegally, but individuals - real people - who see vast opportunities on one side of a fence, and starvation on the other, and choose to thrive illegally than struggle to survive legally? What would happen if he examined the reasons why these people can't make it in their home country and discovered it wasn't a lack of industriousness on their part (since to cross the border and find a job as an illegal immigrant takes vast amounts of ambition and drive), but because the policies that his country and corporations have adopted (namely, free trade) have made liveable wages hardly possible for other countries and have taken resources from those countries at hugely disproportionate rates? Well, Beck doesn't have to look at those issues, because those issues are raised by people who believe in social justice, and social justice is code for communist. And Beck doesn't want you to look at social justice, either, because if we began to admit that something is wrong with the issues that conservatives and Republicans hold near and dear, then we would of course flee to the other side and become liberal and Democrat.

I understand the temptation to draw the lines the way he does. It's far easier to believe in the rightness of something than to exaimine it carefully and work to change it, especially when that something is your benefactor. I understand wanting to keep things simple and be able to say, "right is right and wrong is wrong." Right IS right, and wrong IS wrong, but the two still interact quite a bit, since we humans are both made in God's image yet corrupt at our core as descendants of Adam. It's only logical that the interplay between good and evil would be constantly present in the actions of humans, and that it would be difficult sometimes to find where one ends and the other begins. Especially when one considers the possibility to do right things for the wrong reasons, or wrong things for the right reasons, the concept of complex moral issues becomes far easier to buy.

Social justice, therefore, is not only a term that ought be explored, but really ought to be embraced by Christians. The pursuit of a just society ought to be our goal. And I beg of you, if you're a fan of Glenn Beck's, please tell him you're not cool with him demonizing your church's pursuit of justice for all.

(Oh, and Jim Wallis? I'm sick of you being the go-to guy for every counterpoint to the evangelical right. Isn't there anyone else who can be a little more reliable spokesman for non-conservative evangelicals? You're a sellout to the Dems.)

My favorite books growing up ...

2010-02-16T14:24:00.000-08:00

I just unearthed this list I put together for a juvenile literature class I took in college, and enjoyed the memories it recalled of the books it lists. I loved these books fiercely, and believe they have shaped me significantly into the writer and person I am today.

Lloyd Alexandar’s The First Two Lives of Lukas-Kasha: This has always been my favorite Alexandar book, although I enjoyed the Westmark Trilogy immensely as well. This book tells a tale of a lazy, good-for-nothing teenage boy who magically becomes a king in a far-off land. He is forced to accept the responsibilities this role forces him into, and it changes him forever.
Jean George’s My Side of the Mountain: This book is like a watered-down Hatchet. I’ve always loved this book; the boy who chooses to leave civilization and make his own way in the world for a time has always appealed to me.
J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings: These books have been my hands-down favorite for years. I used to read them over and over again. Their epic tales and unwitting heroes held me spellbound.
William Golding’s Lord of the Flies: This book deepened, perhaps birthed, my appreciation for dark literature. I could so vividly picture the events happening in real life, which thrilled and terrified me.
Gean Stratton-Porter’s Freckles: I identified very closely with Freckles in this book of an orphaned, crippled boy who falls in love with a well-to-do, beautiful young maiden. Very much a “Hunchback of Notre-Dame”-esque tale, but with a happy ending.
Brian Jacques’ Martin the Warrior: This was the first of the “Redwall” books that I read, and it remained my favorite. In hindsight, I think that this is because once you read one of the Redwall books, you’ve read all of them. But this book introduced me to the series, and I enjoyed these books for several more years before tiring of their formula of feasts, badgers, quests, unlikely heroes, and evil ferrets.
Wilson Rawls’ Summer of the Monkeys: Let Where the Red Fern Grows be damned. This is/was my favorite Rawls book. Nobody dies, and a little girls gets surgery to restore her ability to walk.
Ellen Raskin’s The Westing Game: This book is just plain fun. It was in constant rotation on my rereading list. There was so much depth to it. Even now I can’t sort it all out.
Harold Keith’s Rifles for Watie: Another one is constant rotation. I absolutely loved this book. It has wars and battles and honor and love and espionage and moral dilemmas. Lucy Washbourne was my dream girl.

And in some ways, perhaps, Lucy Washbourne is still my dreamgirl. :) Feel free to share your own lists of memorable books from your childhood and teenage years.

On Work and Leisure, part II

2010-02-06T09:37:00.000-08:00

What kinds of work do we find ourselves doing?

There are all sorts of work we do. We do the work, as I discussed in my previous entry, of creation - works of art. We do "good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them." We do housework: dishes, laundry, cleaning, etc. We go to work - we perform assigned tasks for monetary reward.

But by and large, what is the sum of the work we do? Will the majority of what we do add value to our lives and the lives of others? And if we say no to this question, why do we persist in it?

When we consider work, the first thing that comes to mind for most of us is our jobs: the 9 to 5 employment for which we receive a paycheck that pays our bills and expenses. This is life for almost everyone we know. We go to high school, maybe college, then graduate and get a decent-paying job in some industry or profession or another and do assigned tasks in order to buy a house, a car or two, and raise a family. Nothing wrong with that. That's normal life. Right?

Maybe.

I would say that it depends on the work you do. It depends on the tasks assigned to you, and the way your employer does business. The impact that they have on the community around you, and the world at large. Do you work for a defense corporation, programming computers used to target missiles? Do you consider the implications of how those could be used, or do justify it by saying that if you weren't doing it, somebody else would be?

Or maybe you work for a bank. Do you consider the millions who lost their jobs and homes because of decisions made by financial corporations to build illusory wealth? Do you continue to work for them because you as an individual weren't a part of "all that," or do you think about what it means to work for them and how that might make you in some way culpable for the fallout of their actions?

Or perhaps you work for a school. Do you observe what institutionalized "learning" does to students who participate in it? Do you see what effect it has on their innate curiosity about life?Or do you accept it as "the way we do it" and slog along in blissful apathy?

Just to clarify at this point: I am not advocating a mass exodus from traditional jobs - I am asking that we count the cost of doing what we do and working where we work. I am asking that we ask ourselves if we're comfortable being associate with our workplace and what it stands for. Can we perform our jobs with a clean conscience, or do we go home laden with unease that we try to stifle? Do we keep from thinking too hard about the ramifications of the actions of our employers, and subsequently ourselves, in order to keep at bay the nagging doubts about what we do?

The reason I put all these questions to us is this: we as a culture are marked by exploitation of people and resources at alarming levels. Corporations by and large only operate in terms of exploitation, both of their employees and their customers, as well as nature itself. Institutions - government, education, industry - almost without exception survive through exploiting, and any benefits received by the exploited are incidental, as much as the institutions claim to have the intention of serving.

Now before you dismiss this as conjecture, consider this: we all have heard of or know someone who has spent "their best years" with a single company, but one day he's laid off because another company took over and is restructuring. Those who work for these institutions are subject to the whim or mercy of commerce and profit. If the corporation can see an opportunity for profit that would require them to jettison a long-term employee, they wouldn't hesitate in most circumstances. "It's just business," we hear repeated. Since when does something done in the name of "business" make it justifiable and moral?

Or consider a school: How does a school exploit its students? Because the main reason that the public school system is in place is to create employees for the workforce, where they will be exploited and used for the rest of their lives. As many lofted stated goals as educators claim to have, the system is set up to create people who can "go out and get good jobs." It's what teachers and parents are always telling children as the justification for doing what they're told in school. "Work hard in school so you can get a good job." "Nobody will want to hire you if you don't have good grades." Never mind that they'll be used and exploited by their companies until their employers decide they're through with them. We lie to them and encourage them to fit into a system that is strangling our culture, and punish them if they don't fit in.

And I'm sure I don't need to discuss government's exploitation of its citizens. Rather than being the servant it is Biblically intended to be, government draws from the livelihoods of its citizenry to expand itself and its powers in the name of even more "services," and uses the sons and daughters as weapons to exploit other nations for their resources in the name of "spreading democracy" or "defending our borders."

Wendell Berry describes our current system like this:

"Commodities will be produced wherever they can be produced at the lowest cost
and consumed wherever they will bring the highest price.To make too cheap and
sell too high has always been the program of industrial capitalism. The global
'free market' is merely capitalism's so far successful attempt to enlarge the
geographic scope of its greed, and moreover to give its greed the status of a
'right' within its presumptive territory. The global 'free market' is free to
the corporations precisely because it dissolves the boundaries of the old
national colonialisms, and replaces them with a new colonialism without
restraints or boundaries. It is pretty much as if all the rabbits have now been
forbidden to have holes, thereby 'freeing' the hounds." ("The Total Economy,"
2000.)

We have accepted as an unavoidable reality an economy of mutual exploitation, even in some instances seeing it as good. Meaning, even as we are exploited, we tend to exploit in return, in both intentional and unintentional ways. We buy products that come at the hands of those who are forced to live in conditions worse than we would ever dream or imagine, but often we do this in ignorance or because we believe we have no choice. We strive to "climb the corporate ladder" by competing with our fellow workers and politicking to get raises and promotions. We vote for leaders who support policies that allow corporations to continue in their evil ways because to do anything about it would be "bad for the economy." The question is, do we participate in these things because we believe we have no choice, or because we have calculated the cost of not participating and decided we don't want to pay that price?

But is this our inevitable end, to be cogs in the machine of an exploitive economy that assigns us tasks that churn out profits for some at the expense of poverty for many, not to mention the irresponsible uses of our God-given natural resources? Or are we meant for something better? Even as I speak to all people, I speak even more to Christians, who ought to even more closely examine our interactions with our world. We who are salt and light to the world ought not participate in the world as our fellows do. Often we boil down this principle to mere piety - we don't swear or sleep with our neighbor's wife. But we stop too short, and forget that it should be our entire life that reflects Christ and His principles, not simply our adherence to some of the more obvious angles of morality. We are a people who should be infected by the Holy Spirit's influence in every angle of our lives, including how we use our time, our labor, and our money.

So we return to the original question: What is the sum of our work? We ought to give this careful thought. Our culture tends to define people by their career paths and occupations, perhaps more so than other cultures. Therefore it seems even more relevant for us to consider what our work is and decide if this is something that, in fact, we could say is a "kingdom" work.

And one final note: I do not wish to say I think it is wrong for a believer to work in a bank or school. But I do think that it is wrong for a believer to work in a bank or a school without examining the systems in existence in those places and making sure that his conscience allows him to still do the job, and work to subvert the ungodly systems set up there in any way he can. My final word on the subject: Don't hesitate to listen to your conscience. Often I believe we silence its voice because it tells us the hard things that we don't want to face. But a conscience ignored is a conscience dulled. So may we all sharpen our consciences as we consider our employment.

"Guilty of consumerism in the pews"

2010-01-29T14:01:00.001-08:00

Part II of "Work and Leisure" is still coming, but in the meantime...

The title of this post is a quote from someone on a message board (in which I used to be a regular participator) that jumped out at me when I read it.

As someone who has done a lot of thinking lately about our consumer culture, and has felt disillusioned about how our country seems welcome to turn back to consumption as a way out of our economic mess (and subsequently setting itself up for yet another collapse), the way this attitude has crept into our thinking about church came off the screen at me in a way I hadn't thought of it before.

It's not as if I have been unaware of the tendency of American Christians to "church-shop." Even within the name itself is an implied consumerist attitude, and with it all the same attitudes that come with, say, shopping for a car. If it doesn't meet your exact specs, you'll keep looking until you find something that does.

Once again, there's something to be said for finding a church that you feel like is a good fit for you - it lines up with your beliefs about the Bible, it is a place that welcomes children, it's outward-focused and driven by missions, it has a healthy worship service with a style you enjoy, etc. That's completely acceptable. However, finding a church ought to be more like your search for a spouse than your search for a car. And once you make a commitment to a church, leaving it ought to be as serious to you as considering leaving your spouse.

But I'm less concerned in this post, really, with the trend of church-shopping, but rather the source of where this attitude comes from and what it tells us about ourselves. If we can boil down our selection of our spiritual community to a shopping decision, like whether we buy an F-150 or a Tundra, or go to Church A with the rockin' worship band or Church B with the phenomenal preacher, what does that tell us about our perception of what church is?

At least one thing it tells us is that we view church as a product like any other, that we believe it will make our lives better or happier when we buy it. And while this may be very true, to base the entire concept of church attendance on whether it meets your standards and makes you happy is flimsy and unbiblical, going against the very reason church exists. Church was meant to be a body - not a filling station or a fast-food joint. Church wasn't meant to be something you "attend," but something you belong to and live in and are a part of. The church is the body of Christ, His hands and feet on earth, and the idea that church is something we "go to" on Sundays is wrong-headed.

So we begin from the wrong starting point: rather than looking at the Church as the whole and us simply a part of it trying to find where we fit, we look at ourselves as the whole, and the Church as the sustenance for our singular body. This in turn leads us to see ourselves as far more important than we are. Church becomes a thing upon which we make demands it can't meet. Since we think, or at least act like, it exists solely to give us food and nourishment (which it does exist to do, don't mistake what I say here), we then approach it like we approach anything else in our lives that feed us. Church becomes an extension of our consumption: another product we buy to keep us fat and happy, just like Safeway or Red Robin or Blockbuster. And if it stops serving our favorite burger or we find a better deal on potatoes somewhere else, what's to stop us from leaving? Brand loyalty?

And while it's hard to tell which came first - "attendees" viewing the church as a product or churches viewing themselves as competitors with the world for members - the current response by churches has been to accept themselves as products and then act accordingly. They market themselves with advertisement and programs, trying to create essentially a brand image that will appeal to target demographics - just like any "good" corporation. They feed into the willingness of Christians to treat them like a product to be consumed by reducing themselves to just that.

Until we see Christians willing to believe that the Church is not something one optionally participates in, but is a part of by nature of their salvation and participation in the universal Body of Christ, we will continue in this unhealthy trend of "church-shoppers."

The church cannot function in this way. If indeed Paul knew what he was saying when he talked about Christians as "members of one body," the Body of Christ, who worked together and suffered together and lived life together, can a person truly experience being a part of the Body if he jumps from church to church, or just "attends" on Sundays? Paul made no mention of the "pew-filling" part of the body, only active, participating, valuable members who each have a unique function. There is no separation between the leadership, members, and attendees, but rather equally important roles with differing responsibilities. Christians must realize that in fully participating in the body, there is inifinitely more satisfaction found in church. Christians who are invested in their local body are Christians who love their local body and the people who belong to it.

On Work and Leisure, part I

2010-01-23T09:33:00.000-08:00

I've been (too) slowly coming to the realization that work is unavoidable, and even good.

One of the problems with the way Christianity relates to work, I think, is that it looks at it as a consequence of the Fall. Christians assume that labor is a result of sin, based on God telling Adam that he would have to struggle to raise food from the ground. While the Fall did affect the harmony between man and nature, bringing in blight, disease, and pests, it did not introduce work. Work predates the Fall; Adam was given tasks by God - to tend the Garden, to name the animals, etc. God Himself works, doing the work of creation, the work of salvation, the work of maintaining our existence. He commissions us to "do good..." what? Good works. We are, Paul says, "created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them."

There is nothing wrong with the act of work, just as there is nothing wrong with the act of leisure. The problem arises with the type of work or leisure one does, or the priority one places on either one over the other.

In the process of writing about this I've realized that it would be best to split this piece into two parts. I'd like to examine in this piece what kinds of work and leisure we involve ourselves in, and in the second look a little further into why it is that we've adopted as a culture a negative attitude to (certain types of) work.

I'll say right now, I'm a product of the first generation to really grow up with personal computers in nearly every home and a video game console in every entertainment center, and as a result, I enjoy time playing computer/video games about as much as anyone else. I've never been a "hardcore" gamer, and I've never been one to rush out and buy a game the first day it hits the shelves, either. In fact, this past month is the first time I've ever owned a brand new gaming console, the Wii. But given all that, I still manage to find games I like - and subsequently become addicted to. Civilization (II and III), Baseball Mogul, the Sims, Alpha Centauri, Need for Speed (Underground and Most Wanted), to name a few. I can play these for hour after lost hour, always seeking to get to that next level - acheive cultural dominance, win that fifth World Series in a row, get that promotion, defeat the Hive, trick out the WRX, etc. This is my preferred method of spending my leisure time.

But at the end of the day, there's nothing tangible to show for all that time spent. I can't take my World Series rings to the pawn shop and get cash for them, I can't really command anyone to nuke London into submission, I can't drive my pimped out Mustang to the grocery store to pick up milk. I have spent hours refining skills and setting goals and breaking records for a fantasy world that has no lasting impact on this world. I have, in essence, done nothing but wasted time and electricity.

I'm not trying to argue that all video and computer games are bad - I'm not convinced they are all horrible. But I do think it is bad to spend unlimited, or even significant (more than a couple consecutive hours), time on them, especially when there are other, more "productive" things to do. There ought to be something to show for our time. And I'm not just talking about games. As Christians, our lives aren't our own, and to be using the time here on earth that we've been given to master video games or sate ourselves on TV shows – or, for that matter, go out fishing for hours every weekend or spend hour after hour researching baseball stats and trades (guilty of that one, too) -- doesn't make sense from that perspective. We ought to be using our time to create things that will have an impact on the kingdom - that will produce a lasting, positive result.

I have two passions in life that I hope to replace my more base leisure activities with: my writing and woodworking. Both will, I hope, produce things of lasting value that others can enjoy - far more than attaining any skill level at a game. But they require work.

It is excruciating work to write - it sometimes comes naturally and easily, but most times, in order to keep forward progress, it requires a diligent slogging forward through sometimes ill-constructed sentences and poorly-worded thoughts written down only to maintain momentum. And while this can be painful, there's joy in it, and the end result is something that will last and (perhaps) enrich the lives of others.

And I suppose that's reallly the lesson I've been learning: that true joy comes only with pain, and that to work at something that will last costs something, but ultimately leaves you with much more than the cheap and easy way. The difference I feel between hours spent writing versus hours spent vegging out in some form or another is incomparable. To play games leaves me afterwards feeling stressed about time lost, guilty that I was not doing other, more important, things. To write, or to work on a wood project, leaves me with a sense of satisfaction at the end, that I have done good work and it has made me a better man in the process of doing it.

That's really the sum of it: do we continue in a trend towards pointless leisure that leaves us stressed rather relaxed afterwards, or do we involve ourselves in activities that may be work, but will ultimately leave ourselves and others far more satisfied?

I think back to other eras - our practice of using technology as leisure is one that is relatively new - and consider the ways that they relaxed. Of course, every era is susceptible to its own irresponsibilities, but a) the increase in leisure time and b) the sheer volume of options we have for entertainment make our current environment unique. How did people entertain themselves before the advent of TVs and computers? And are we better people and a better society because of their existence, or has it made us worse: lazy, uneducated, apathetic, because we can sate ourselves on something generally mindless and indulgent?

I resolve, therefore, to fight the harder against the temptation to pacify myself with computer/video games, and other forms of technology, and to sharpen my mind with reading and writing, and to hone my skills at woodworking, so that I can be a man at peace with himself and his God. I urge others to examine their own convictions on the matter and do likewise.

What's missing in the movement

2009-11-23T13:59:00.000-08:00

There's a movement within American Christianity towards a kind of greater social awareness and promotion of social justice. It's made up of people who embrace typically "liberal" ideals and support typically "liberal" causes: homelessness, racial equality, fair wages, child labor, sustainable use of resources, etc. I'd find myself in most cases aligning myself with them with their beliefs and priorities, but when I read the things they write or listen to what they have to say, I find myself wanting to rip my hair out.

For several reasons:

1) They appear more concerned with image and perception than the hard realities and doctrines of Scripture. I come across a lot of issue-dodging, especially when it comes to doctrines like hell and homosexuality, where straight (pardon the unintended pun) questions are often deferred and stances are not taken. They'll say things like, "Well, many people who follow Jesus disagree about what Scripture says on this issue," or "I don't like to argue about that, especially when so many people are dying of starvation every day." Maybe so, pal, but answering the question straight won't be stealing food out of anyone's mouth. Their avoidance of these questions makes it seem as if they're afraid that saying outright what they believe Christianity and Scripture teaches will then alienate them from the people they've worked so hard to be accepted by. (Which, truthfully, it pobably would.)

2) They like to bash the fringe elements in Christianity. They don't always do this in a straightforward manner. It's more of a name-dropping, aren't-you-glad-we're-not-like-so-and-so sort of a thing. Again, it's understandable, and I've engaged in the same behavior on a few occassions. But it's wasted energy and pointless back-patting. Sure, be glad you're not a Creflo Dollar Christian, or a Fred Phelps disciple, or a Pat Robertson junkie (Not that some of these fellows could even be considered being part of the fold, but still...). But aren't you wasting your breath discrediting them when people are dying of starvation? And who listens to these nuts anyway?

3) They appear to have a commitment to their causes that supercedes their commitment to Christ. The line becomes blurred between the Gospel and their immediate political cause. To them, Jesus came to end poverty, rather than coming to redeem sinners to Himself.

It's this third item that I think makes what they say often impalatable to me. There's a distinct lack of the Spirit of Christ in their attitudes and their communication. Their intentions are good, but they're not driven by a deep desire to see the Gospel spread. Their ends appear more humanitarian than for God to be glorified and the Kingdom to be spread. So while I often find what they say to be praiseworthy, and they put many issues on my radar which I generally wouldn't know about, I ultimately cannot align myself with them. I wish I could, because in many ways I find that what they have to say about social justice makes much more sense than anything most of the rest of the church is saying. But I am solidly Reformed in my thinking, and cannot shake the deep understanding of what the Gospel is, and why Christ truly came. We can say that ultimately He did come to end poverty, and He did call us to love all people equally and not show favoritism. But these are the fruit of the Spirit's work in our lives, and we can't separate the fruit from the Spirit any more than you can buy a pair of Nikes not made by a starving, exploited child.

And it's for these reasons that I find what people in this camp (sometimes called "emergent," although that buzzword appears to be fading into the distance) have to say so bittersweet. I'm glad they say it, but I wish that what they said came with more of a commitment to the truth of Scripture and to the spread of the glorious name of Jesus. I look desperately for those voices who do both. There's a balance to be found, I'm sure of it.

A little bit on baptism

2009-08-09T09:30:00.000-07:00

I began this post awhile ago, but didn't finish it. I returned to it this morning:

___________________________________________________________________________

A baby was baptized at my church this week. This was not the first time I have witnessed such an event, but it is the first time I have seen it since I knew that I have a child soon to arrive in this world. It made me think just a bit more about the significance of baptism, and how I have changed so drastically in my approach to it.

I grew up under the assumption that it was only the theologically liberal churches who baptized babies, because they didn't believe in salvation anyway and were almost as bad as Catholics so why not. (Well...I may exaggerate. A little.) I believed that baptism ought to be a profession of faith, an acknowledgement that you were tossing your lot in with Jesus for good. A symbol of your death to sin and resurrection into newness of life in Christ. Et cetera, et cetera.

None of which is invalid. It simply dismisses another very large element to baptism, and that is God's promise to covenant with families.

When I first learned that baptism of babies wasn't just for liberals and Catholics, that there was a very significant percentage of theologically conservative Presbyterians and Methodists who likewise sprinkled their offspring, I was not necessarily dismayed, but something akin to it. It didn't make sense to me. It seemed so obvious that the examples of baptism in the Bible all favored the dunk-tank over the spritzer. But since so many people that I had come to hold in some semblance of high regard (Sproul, for one) seemed to believe in this nonsense, I didn't dismiss it immediately.

And it's true that we don't have any stated examples in the Bible of babies being baptized, but there are a couple of examples of entire households being baptized when the head of household becomes a Christian. The argument there seemed a little weak to me at the time, since it was very possible that everyone made a profession of faith before being baptized. And it seemed so clear that the new covenant dealt with individuals rather than nations and families like the old covenant. Like Jeremiah said:

“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord.

"But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” (Jer 31:31-34)

Clear, right? The old covenant isn't like the new one - it can't be broken because the law's on the inside and everyone within it knows the Lord, "from the least to the greatest." So how can we baptize those who have not made a profession of faith in the Lord, thus stating their membership into this new covenant? Wouldn't this go against the nature of the new covenant?

Well, let's define what the old and new covenants are, exactly. The old covenant is that of the law: those who are sealed into it by circumcision are to keep the law and all it requires, including making sacrifices for their sins when they fail it. They are sealed into it not of their own accord, but by nature of the family and nation they were born into. So when they grow up, they can choose to keep the covenant and incur the blessings God promises for those who obey Him, or break it, and incur the curses God promises for those who disobey.

The new covenant is similar: those who are sealed into it by baptism are to believe in Jesus' fulfillment of the old covenant commands on their behalf, and to continue in relationship with Him through faith. If you believe in what is called "believer's baptism," or "credobaptism," then you believe that when you decide to keep this covenant, you make the decision to take the seal upon yourself as well. But both essentially require the one who is sealed to pledge obedience at some point. In the old covenant, the one sealed didn't have the choice to enter covenant - it was done by the will of his parents. In the new covenant, the idea is debated - does God now call individuals to covenant with Him, or does He still work through families?

To get to the point where I could accept that maybe baptism wasn't as cut-and-dried as I once supposed, I had to fist admit that even within those who get baptized after some profession of faith, many probably have not been genuinely saved. So what does that do but make them breakers of the new covenant? They made a promise to God to believe in His work of salvation on their behalf, and they didn't keep it. They violated the seal placed on them. Just as with the old covenant, not every man circumcised continued in fellowship with God, so not everyone baptized does the same.

So if this is true, where does that leave us in relation to who should be baptized? It's still a bit of a step to admit that even those who are baptized as "believers" can be disobedient, to then say that since that's true, you might as well baptize those who haven't made any sort of profession of faith.

So I started looking at other covenants in the Bible, to see how in the entirety of what we Christians call "redemptive history," God deals with people through these covenants. From the very beginning, He seems to cut out the importance of people agreeing to enter covenant with Him. Adam He set up as the representative head of all mankind, and when Adam broke that covenant of obedience, all of His offspring were credited with his unrighteousness, even though they were not yet born and had nothing to do with Adam's sin. Thus we are all born inheriting the disobedience of Adam.

Then God made His covenant with Abraham, telling him that "all the nations of the earth will be blessed through your seed." And He told him to pass down this promise by circumcising all his male descendants. They inherited the blessings God promised Abraham, not through their own virtue, but by virtue of God's promise. If they rejected those blessings through their disobedience, then God would judge them, but it didn't change the fact that they were born under the covenant.

It appeared to me then (as it does now) that God believes in continuity in the covenants He makes, even in David's (One of David's offspring will sit on the throne forever). It seems incongruous to me then to assume that when it comes to the new covenant, God does not carry it through to the offspring of those who enter covenant with Him. If He has dealt all through history through families and blessing the children of those who love Him, why would He not pass on the blessings of the new covenant to its members' children? And as a further aside, the historical evidence also indicates that infant baptism was extremely common in the early church as well.

So I look forward with eager anticipation to baptizing my daughter while yet she can make a decision to follow Christ or not. I will claim on her behalf the blessings of being born into the covenant community. There is a beauty and peace in believing that for love of me, God will love and be faithful to my children as well; and there's a beauty and peace in being able to treat my child as part of the family of God even before she is old enough to make some profession of faith.

PS: I could cite far more Scriptural support for the practice of infant baptism, but I want to keep this brief. If anyone wishes for more information, we can continue the discussion in the comments section.

Blog Pimpin'

2009-04-22T18:44:00.000-07:00

Yet another blog. This one Sarah and I are using to chronicle our journey towards our ultimate goal of working with the Yakama people by next year. Please check it out.

Localities: an introduction to Wendell Berry

2009-04-04T12:06:00.000-07:00

I'm quickly becoming a disciple of Wendell Berry. He's one of those men of whom I believe every one - especially every Christian - ought to be familiar with. Even if you're not one to read fiction, especially of the more literary genre, you can skip that and go straight to his essays. He writes frankly, practically, and in a way that makes it impossible to argue with him because he is so obviously right. He's in a way more conservative than anyone I've ever heard of in his absolute disdain for big government and his distrust of it to answer any problems, yet his ideas are at the same time more completely anti-corporate than any liberal I have ever heard of. He is, in other words, a free thinker.

I recently finished his book of essays entitled "Sex, Economy, Freedom, and Community," a collection of eight essays centering around the themes of ... well... you can probably guess. Berry's philosophy largely revolves around the importance of community as a counter against the unrelenting tide of globalism and unlimited growth. He's a farmer, making a living off his land in Kentucky, and preaches that the "new" (relatively speaking) global economy, which has replaced local economies to the point where one buys nearly everything they have from somewhere else and rarely ever knows the history of how it got to them, is slowly destroying the world through its disconnection of product from origin. This disconnection feeds into first, an apathy towards what we buy, since we have no way of knowing the story of how it came to us without exhaustive research, and second, a dependency on globalism to provide what we have forgotten how to produce ourselves. Such a gap between producer and consumer causes the human aspect to be lost, Berry says, and the consumer no longer cares what the cost of human life or environmental damage is for him to get the product he wants. And when corporations must think on a global scale and sever ties to any specific location, they also lose the accountability and restraint that "place" puts on them, thus making it justifiable to ship jobs out to locations where labor is cheaper, effectively killing communities in the process. This especially shows its ugliness in the agricultural market, since the globalization of food has killed farms all over the world, making formerly self-sufficient third-world farmers into global sharecroppers.

The answer Berry proposes, and one that makes utter sense, is this: reduce the distance between producer and consumer. Create local, sustainable economies that are as far as possible self-sufficient. Reject the idea of unlimited growth (for such a thing cannot exist when resources are limited) and move toward sustainable growth. Cities and urban centers ought to be able to support themselves with the countryside around them.

Of course such an idea would require massive change to pull off. First it would require an utter reversal of the American ideal of immediate gratification (not an easy accomplishment, since I think this almost more than any other principle is what America was built on). It would require an effort on the part of all who want to see the tide stemmed to buy locally, and produce themselves, whatever they can.

I already see steps being taken towards these ideals now. The upswing of CSAs - community-supported agriculture - farmers who sell shares to city dwellers who then get dividends paid in produce, is another sign that there may be a trend away from the current structure. With a little more effort, I think we could see a vast shift, especially in the current economic climate, away from what is an unstable, unsustainable system.

I'd encourage you to check out some of his essays here if you have never read him before.

A calling

2009-02-11T10:05:00.000-08:00

I regret to say that because readership is down, I can only afford to post every four months now as a means of cutting costs in these dire times.

Ha Ha.

The truth is, I haven't really known what to write about in the past few months. The part of my life that I have wanted most to share with all of you I have not felt free to put up for public perusal yet.

But I do so now.

This is something I began writing some time ago, but found my words failing every time I tried to write about it. Even now it seems weak to truly describe my thoughts, but I offer it up anyhow as the best I can do:

It always shines brighter in the dark places.

White Swan, The Yakama Nation, Washington. Sixty-five degrees in early April. Overcast.

The landscape seems to reflect the lives of the people of this place in its starkness, its desolation. I look to the bare hills that horseshoe around this valley of scrub brush and stolen farmland and wonder at the sense of bringing the gospel here. History would say these people ought to slam doors on faces of anyone who brings the name of Jesus. Christianity has not been kind to Native America.

Sarah and I came here as an experiment. Somehow God led us here, we firmly believe, and He wants us to see the work being done, to see if perhaps we can become a part of it. Can we be ambassadors of reconciliation to a people who were betrayed by our forerunners? Can we begin to heal deep wounds as old as Columbus?

The wounds of Christendom against Native America are indeed great, and as a nation and a church we have largely forgotten they exist. They're often spoken about in the past tense, as if we assume the genocide unleashed against them succeeded, or perhaps we wish it had. They rest at the bottom in our country in school dropouts, in mortality rates, in alocholism and addiction rates, in poverty. They are a defeated people, whose lives and culture were stolen from them, and they still stagger from the suddenness of it.

All this information, these unhinged ideas, seem to take form here in the landscape surrounding me. I see in each dilapidated house with roof falling in the force of history; I see in the faces of defiant little boys the impact of what befell these people. I see sin; I see need for restoration, for justice -- for Jesus.

Rain falls on the hills to the west, but does not move into the valley, seeming to disdain it, choosing instead to stay just out of reach. Even in April the ground is dry, and dust swirls in a breeze. Everything I see seems thirsty, crying out for drink. If only the rain would come down out of the hills, I think. This land would accept it gladly, soak it up, beg for more.

The people here are beautiful, shining brighter, I think, because of the darkness. I see Jesus everywhere I look: in each child who runs the field in Totus Park, in the lady we picked up on Fort Road and gave a ride into White Swan, in those who take home food from the Tuesday night Bible study and dinner at the longhouse. I feel Jesus among them, His great love for them, His overwhelming tenderness towards them, and I can't help but be moved to serve them.

That was April. It's February now, and looking back at all the times since that first week that we've spent among the Yakamas, the love has done nothing but deepen. Sarah and I have pursued that calling we believe God's place on our heart, and it seems that God would have us go. He would have us continue the mending – to become Jesus to the Yakama people. May He work in us mightily to this end.

I interrupt this broadcast...

2008-11-12T17:32:00.001-08:00

...if you can call it an interruption, I've been so absent lately.

But I did want to chime in here about my thoughts on this past election cycle, and the current economic situation. And I know with that phrase I have an immediate rapt audience, because no one has tired of seeing campaign ads, getting campaign mailings, watching pre- and post-election coverage, etc. Right? No one's sick of that. Everybody is dying to get as much as they can, because we get fed so much pertinent, honest info that every piece makes us hungry for more!

Can I make a confession? I am hoping things get worse in this country. I look at the stock market reports daily, praying that they keep dropping. I hear about jobs being lost, and know many friends whose jobs may be in jeopardy or have already been eliminated, and I feel joy and anticipation.

Let me be clear. I empathize with those who worry about stability and loss of income and how to pay bills. God knows I've been there, and it's a horrible feeling. I get that financial difficulties are not fun for anyone, and that they can be a terrific strain on families and marriages. But while I understand the stress and desperation that financial hard times can bring, I still can't help my heart leaping when I see another corporation crash. I can't help but hope just a little that another Great Depression could come upon us.

Why, you ask? Because I love the church. And when I see this crisis, I see nothing but a situation that God may use to remind the church of what's truly important.

In the opulence and overabundance of stuff in the consumer culture of America, the church has by and large lost its way, throwing in its lot solidly with the American Dream. She has not needed God, has forgotten God, and has replaced His Gospel with a business model of church growth, emphasizing marketing strategies over loving truth and people. She fills out huge, well-decorated facilities and immense campuses with parking garages and coffee stands. She buys corporate jets and sets its ministers up in huge mansions. She talks about how to "increase attendance" and be "seeker-sensitive" in contexts where the words "increase sales" and "expand market share" could easily replace the monikers. The church has become a brand. She has forgotten why she was redeemed: to love God, and to love people, things which business models and marketing schemes are powerless to do. She is His bride, and has taken on wealth and popular appeal for lovers rather than her Husband.

Here, in the current climate, is a prime opportunity to see the collapse of this system. We, the church, will be forced again to cling to God and trust in His provision in this great time of need. Not only that, but we have the opportunity to show God's care and provision to those around us through sacrificial love and giving. This economic crisis could make us like the churches in Macedonia that Paul talks about in Second Corinthians, who "in a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part" (2 Cor. 8:2, ESV). We could, as the Macedonians did, give according to and beyond our means to meet the needs of those suffering around us.

I would like for it not to take something as drastic as an economic collapse. I would like for the church to remember again what its purpose is, and to divorce itself from materialism and nationalism without the horrible suffering. But I think it's clear that's not how God works. It's through sufferings and hardships that He refines us, and He commands us to rejoice when we suffer, because we know that He is working to shape us more into the people - the church, His body - that we are supposed to be.

So I rejoice, and encourage you to do the same - not just because I say so, but also because we're commanded to delight and rejoice in suffering. I encourage you take delight in the situation we are in, to welcome it with open arms, to revel in it - not because we ought to be callous to the sufferings of those around us, but because we know that God will use it to His glory, and that through this time He will shape His church.

So I pray that the suffering does not stop until His work is complete. I do not fear any party's control of the government; I do not tremble or worry that our way of life or policies and laws we hold dear may change. This is God's work. He brings it; He guides; He will complete it. And may we rejoice in the work He will do.

Beatitudes: Hungering and Thirsting

2008-09-17T11:40:00.000-07:00

A deep-felt need presides
It grows, takes me over

And I have no
Hope
of ever sating it, quenching it

For I am poor, and sad, and humbled

Jesus - your righteousness
is all that can
satisfy

Beatitudes: Meekness

2008-09-09T17:32:00.000-07:00

Meekness steps aside and waits
He opens doors, he clears the plates
He tips the waitress extra when
She forgot him when her mom dropped in.

He helps his neighbor fix his car
And taught his boy to play guitar
And stayed up all night praying for
The homeless guy outside the bar.

Meekness forfeits all his dues,
For Jesus did so first.
Meekness walks in Jesus' shoes,
Inheriting the earth.

Beatitudes: Mourning

2008-09-09T17:29:00.001-07:00

Guilt slinks, cowers from
Blows that don't ever come.
But Mournings come, and guilt transforms;
Weeping, I am newly born -
Born again in righteousness,
yet still I sin, and still transgress
by leaps and bounds the holy law.
I hate my sin: the fatal flaw
I share with all humanity.
My weeping swells - why can't I flee
When given opportunity?

So here I weep, my Jesus comes
And wipes my tears, and takes me home.

Beatitudes: Poverty

2008-09-09T17:23:00.000-07:00

A preface: in the Bible study I lead, we're going through the Sermon on the Mount, that seminal teaching of Jesus at the beginning of his ministry in Matthew 5-7. Sort of to commemorate the occasion, I thought I'd return to the poetry series I began several years ago themed around the Beatitudes. I think I made it almost through "hunger and thirst for righteousness," but didn't quite finish it. I'll try to plug through this time and get them all done. And maybe continue on through the rest of the sermon, who knows?

Anyway, without further ado,

Poverty

How am I poor?
Do not make me count the ways
Mercy, at your door
This beggar pleads his helpless case.

Choked on my sin,
From trying hard to gorge myself with its
Empty deceit,
And greed, and lust, and lies, and laziness.

I spew it up
And ask for sweet exchange
A holy cup
Of Jesus' blood arranged.

Separation of Spheres

2008-08-20T09:06:00.000-07:00

I've stated my beliefs here about the involvement of Christians in civil government. I'm against it, generally speaking, believing that when Christ says "no man can serve two masters," that includes the established governmental authorities. The accusation that often gets leveled at such a statement is that this creates a "separation of spheres," that the life of a follower and lover of Christ is delineated from the life of a citizen of a nation.

Before I get into the bulk of my argument I want to make sure I do justice to the opposite side. I think that this is one of the foremost issues the American church faces today. I think the choice between allegiance to earthly systems and allegiance to Christ is a choice that more often than not has been one on which we've been wrong time and again.

But I return to my representation of those who believe a Christian can rightly, and has a responsibility to, participate in civil government. These would say that it is the duty
of every Christian to see to it that right is done in ever aspect of society, including government, that we must protect the innocent and punish the guilty and see to it that society remains a place where the gospel can be freely spread. They wish to preserve the rights of the defenseless, the unborn, children, the poor, etc. They wish to make our country a place that reflects the things important to God.

Let me begin by saying I admire their goals. I want our country to be a place that looks out for the defenseless and the disadvantaged, that celebrates freedom and reflects things that are important to God, too. I don't disagree at all with their aims. What I disagree with is the idea that these things can be achieved at a civil level with any sort of success, and that they ought to be pursued at that level.

I give you the civil rights movement. We have laws in place now which have in many ways created opportunities for black Americans that did not exist before, and on many levels we see success stories that before would not have been possible. And yet, by and large, what are the issues within the black culture? Gang violence, poverty, and fatherlessness. While the civil rights movement led to great opportunities for success legislatively, culturally it did very little.

I give you the death penalty. This seems more about retribution than about reducing crime. The death penalty is not a deterrent for one who makes a decision to take another human life. If one is at the point where they would consider that an option, chances are that they've already counted the cost and determined that it's worth the risk, or they think they'll get away with it, or they're just so furious they don't care. Killing them does nothing but feed our lust for revenge, although we tout it as justice and as a warning for others who might be considering murder.

These are only two examples of the shortcomings of legislation. Let me emulate the apostle Paul in Romans and answer my detractors now. Some will say to me, What? Should we just stop trying and let the world deteriorate around us? By no means! I do not ask for a separation of spheres, an us-versus-them, a Christian bubble that doesn't venture out into the world. I ask for a union of spheres, and a consistency in how we approach life as a believer. Let me give some examples of what I mean.

We say, "Jesus is the only one who offers hope." Then we ought to stop hoping in anything else to give any hope to the world, not presidents, governors, mayors, senators, or city council. They may have good ideas, maybe good legislation, and they may change a few things for the better, but they won't give hope.

We say, "In Christ, we are free." Then we ought to stop being afraid of repercussions for living in freedom and believing that a government can give us more freedoms. When Christ frees us, that freedom isn't just freedom from something, namely sin, but it's freedom to something, namely, obedience. We ought to live in complete obedience to the way He called us without fear of losing jobs, house, livelihood, family, security, or life! "If God is for us, who can be against us?...Who can separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, sword?...No, in all things we are more than conquerors through Him Who loved us." (Rom. 8) We can obey Christ completely to the point of risking utter loss of everything on earth and still have more than any other person. Whether the government gives us this freedom is irrelevant. We have it from a higher power.

We say, "We're called to be in the world but not of it." Yet we involve ourselves so fully in the world's systems, buying health insurance that supports abortions, buying clothing that supports slavery, buying cars and fuel and food that supports starvation, excusing it because the alternatives are just too difficult, or would slow down our pace of life, or would create more uncertainty than we're comfortable with. We are called to be salt and light to our world, but when we're so tied up in the world's systems, how can they listen to us when we tell them what's wrong?

It comes down to this: We have indeed created a separation of spheres. We separate our belief in the all-sufficiency of Christ from our practice in the world. We create a sphere of spiritual belief and of material practice. We say one thing and do another.

We need to join our spheres under the leadership of the Lord Jesus. If we believe that He is the one hope, then why do we look to the world to give people hope? If we believe He is the one source of freedom, then why do we look to political and military systems to "promote freedom"? If we believe ourselves called to be salt and light, then why do we allow our light to be doused and our salt to lose flavor by allying ourselves with the world? We need to unite faith and practice, and allow our belief in the promises of God and the example of Jesus to permeate our actions. It makes no sense for one who claims to know the Almighty God to worry that if he stands up for what is right, he'll lose something. It makes no sense for someone who believes in a Christ who gives hope to offer hope through legislation or a government program. It makes no sense for one who follows a man, who though He had all authority, sought to separate Himself from the world's systems of authority, to involve ourselves in the systems our Lord avoided and condemned.

I recently watched a documentary on Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and the depiction of the German church's reaction towards the Nazis and Hitler reminded me greatly of the American church's approach to patriotism/nationalism. Their utter devotion to the cause of the German nation caused many to turn a blind eye to the horrible wrongs Hitler committed. They thought he would restore their nation. They neglected to examine that the nation has no bearing on the kingdom.

I think we made the wrong choice by throwing our hope on George W. Bush, believing he would be the one to usher in a society more friendly to evangelical Christian goals. If anything the opposite has occurred, and we seem to be learning nothing from it. While I'm not trying to develop a comparison between Bush and Hitler by any stretch of the imagination, the correlations between the American church's blind acceptance of Bush and the German church's blind acceptance of Hitler raise some startling concerns about how far we let our loyalty to earthly kingdoms infect our devotion to the kingdom of heaven, our one and only allegiance.

"And now I show you a more excellent way." The alternative is this: we think critically about the calling we receive, and think critically about the systems in which we involve ourselves. There are ways out, if we're willing to pay the price. I truly say this as much to myself as to anyone else, since I also look for ways out of the systems in which I involve myself. We ought to strive to live like Jesus: attached to no earthly thing, in constant communion with God, and our whole lives devoted to loving those around us.

Worthless Crap

2008-08-05T10:19:00.001-07:00

Another great witticism from Wondermark.

WWJD Christian Radio

2008-08-05T09:47:00.000-07:00

A hilarious video. It reminds me so much of the radio station I grew up listening to: KTSL, Spirit 101.9.in Spokane, especially the commercial bits.

Enjoy!

The Dark Knight

2008-07-21T14:50:00.001-07:00

Of course, I must review this movie. I am morally obligated.

Ever since I knew who Batman was, I was enamored. The idea of a man, haunted by misguided guilt over his parents' deaths, donning the guise of the thing he feared most in order to strike fear in the hearts of his enemies, a fragile hero armed only with martial arts and an inventive mind, captivated my imagination like no other comic book hero has ever done. It's the psyche of Bruce Wayne that attracts me. He's a man obsessed; he's tortured, tormented by his own weaknesses, his inabilities. But in spite of that he presses on in his cause: relentless in his struggle against the madness of the criminals who assault him and his city.

This Batman has until 2005 not been the one portrayed in the movies. Tim Burton's movie gave a small taste of that man, but they paid more homage to the villains than to the man behind the mask, and they made his world into a clownish, cartooney, sort of Willie Wonka-esque fairyland rather than a gritty noire setting. Then with Forever and & Robin, both fell short of giving the Caped Crusader his due, and made his villains into fun-loving jokesters rather than demented amoral madmen.

And let it be known that I have never - never - been a fan of Jack Nicholson as the Joker. The only thing I saw when I watched him in that role was Jack Nicholson with make-up on. I didn't see him as the utterly anarchic madman portrayed in the comics, the brutal, ruthless killer who operates without rules or motivation, who acts on whim without rhyme or reason. Nicholson was too polished, too svelt for the role, and far, far too calm.

That being said, I loved Batman Begins. I felt that at last, here was a movie that did justice to the Batman I had come to love. Here was a movie that delved into his psyche, that established what it was that would make a man take up a cape and fight crime in a lost, corrupt city. And when it was revealed at the end that the next installment would deal with the Joker, I was ecstatic. I knew that Nolan and co. would treat the character with the seriousness he deserved.

The Dark Knight is everything that Batman Begins promised it would be. It treats the characters with the same gravity as any serious crime drama does, delving into their motivations and relationships and beliefs, dealing with the problem of chaos and order and the fragility of the systems we all buy into.

I don't want to say too much about the storyline of the movie, since there are hundreds of reviews out there you could go to and find out the main points. But I do think it is a fabulous commentary on heroics and heroism, human nature, and sacrifice. The ending is powerful, and as achingly bittersweet as any I have seen in cinema. Christian Bale only gets better as we see Batman/Bruce Wayne's character deepen, and Heath Ledger - well, it would be hard to be better in the role. And Maggie Gyllenhaal is far better than Katie Holmes as Rachel Dawes. I've also been a fan of Aaron Eckhart for some time, and he does a smashing job as the tragic character of Harvey Dent.

There's a discussion I'd love to have here about some of the implications of the themese of the movie, but at the risk of giving anything away for those who haven't seen it, I'll wait a few weeks. I'll simply end by saying that it made me think quite a bit about what we put faith in, and the responsibility of those in leadership to protect those in their care from certain kinds of knowledge. More on that later.

Formidable

2008-06-30T12:19:00.000-07:00

We touch the formidable thing
whose harness only exists when
we dream it, otherwise it
runs uncontrollable, pulling us along
as we grip its cords

I can no more tame it
than I can tame myself
it drags me into obscurity
perhaps infamy, who knows -

Perhaps taming's never the thing
to do with it; maybe it's not
meant to be a struggle
and maybe you were never meant
to steer it

Maybe you never looked to see
there's someone at the reins already
and He seems to know what he's doing,
and the thing is like a colt
turning at His touch

And maybe you're just supposed to hold on
let the fellow with the reins steer
and quit trying to take them
out of His hands

Writing/artist's community

2008-06-25T10:57:00.000-07:00

I've had an idea brewing in my head for a few years now about beginning a writing community in the spirit of the Inklings - C.S. Lewis's and Tolkien's group. I've recently been inspired as well by Andrew Peterson's Rabbit Room, which appears to be a kind of community exactly like I envision. It's a conglomeration of singer/songwriters, pastors, and writers who have teamed up to create the site, and use it to post updates about their work and comments about other artists they wish to highlight.

I have a mental shortlist of those who might be interested, most of whom I am related to. I'd love to hear from those of you out there who might wish to join this sort of community where we could share work, get feedback, let each other know about potential venues for our work, and encourage each other in our efforts. Would anyone be interested in such an effort?

Sacred Road - Summer 2008

2008-06-14T12:38:00.000-07:00

Where my heart lies...

Love Your Enemies

2008-05-03T13:14:00.000-07:00

I am weeping uncontrollably as I write this, as I listen to "Mockingbird" by Derek Webb.

For some reason, today, as I listen to this CD that I already know by heart, every word pierces me deeply, and I weep for how far the church in America has sold its soul to American ideals and principles at the cost of the principles of the gospel.

Don’t teach me about moderation and liberty
I prefer a shot of grape juice
Don’t teach me about loving my enemies
Don’t teach me how to listen to the Spirit
Just give me a new law

"How can I kill the ones i’m supposed to love/ My enemies are men like me..."

"My first allegiance is not to a flag, a country, or a man/ My first allegiance is not to democracy or blood/ It's to a king & a kingdom"

I have never experienced something this overwhelming before. I have never grieved like this before: for a church which has forgotten how to love its enemies, which has sought earthly power rather building a heavenly kingdom, which has little regard for the poor.

We have swallowed, hook, line and sinker, the myth of the Christian nation. We believe that wars can be just, and that American ideals are Christian ideals, and that our lives are worth giving to protect this earthly empire. We "support the troops," but not the ones the troops fight against. We place American flags in our churches, include patriotic songs in our hymnals, equating them with songs of worship to our Creator. And we think there's nothing wrong with this.

We have idolized our nation. We have made it as important as our God. And we demonize those who cry out against this.

We are called to be separate, to live by different ideals and different standards. We have allegiance to one only: our Lord Jesus Christ, and none comes second to Him. We cannot believe in the government's legitimacy or ability to legislate morality. We cannot waste our precious breath trying to change earthly power structures. We cannot believe that it is possible for Christians to serve as presidents or soldiers without betraying their allegiance to the gospel.

We must remember the early church, who firmly believed in the necessity for Christians to divorce themselves from the earthly powers, who called into question the ability for a person to be both soldier and Christian, who believed it impossible for an emperor to serve Christ and execute his job, who did not resist when their enemies threatened them. We must remember men like Tertullian and Origen, who made statements like these:

Now inquiry is made about the point whether a believer may enter into military service. The question is also asked whether those in the military may be admitted into the faith - even the rank and file (or any inferior grade), who are not required to take part in sacrifices or capital punishments…A man cannot give his allegiance to two masters - God and Caesar…How will a Christian man participate in war? In fact, how will he serve even in peace without a sword? For the Lord has taken the sword away. It is also true that soldiers came to John [the Baptist] and received the instructions for their conduct. It is also true that a centurion believed. Nevertheless, the Lord afterward, in disarming Peter, disarmed every soldier.
--Tertullian

I think we must first inquire whether warfare is proper at all for Christians ... Do we believe it is lawful for a human oath to be added to one that is divine? Is it lawful for a man to come to be pledged to another master after Christ has become his Master? Is it lawful to renounce father, mother, and all nearest kinsfolk, whom even the Law has commanded us to honor and love next to God himself?…Is it lawful to make an occupation of the sword, when the Lord proclaims that he who uses the sword will perish by the sword? Will the son of peace take part in the battle when it does not become him even to sue at law? Will he who is not the avenger even of his own wrongs, apply the chain, the prison, the torture, and the punishment?
--Tertullian

Christians were taught not to avenge themselves upon their enemies…They would not have made war (although capable) even if they had received authority to do so. For they have obtained this reward from God: that he has always warred on their behalf. On certain occasions, he has restrained those who rose up against them and desired to destroy them…On special occasions, some have endured death for the sake of Christianity, and those individuals can be easily numbered. However, God has not permitted the whole nation [of Christians] to be exterminated.

--Origen

How is it that we have forgotten these early Christians, these ones responsible for the rapid expansion of Christianity through their example of peace and non-violence and radical generosity? How can we now think that the gospel will be served by electing "Christian" leaders and "defending American ideals" in the world? The gospel, as history has witnessed time and again, spreads the farthest when it is the most different from the world. That's why it is exploding in China and Sudan and other places where it is persecuted: because the radical difference between the world and the church can be clearly seen.

We as a church have legitimized ourselves in America. In order to see revival and renewal, we must de-legitimize ourselves, divorce ourselves from our marriage to the United States and marry once again our Bridegroom. We must come out of the military and the government, those earthly powers, and establish ourselves once more as those who love: both each other and their neighbors. We must cease to pledge allegiance to a flag and pledge allegiance to our Savior alone. If we're married to an earthly power, we cannot freely serve God.

Why did the Puritan movement that began the United States die out? For all its focus on the Scriptures and its understanding of what the Word taught, they tried to create an earthly power structure to enforce its practice. It created, as Constantine did when he made Christianity the official religion of Rome, a group of those who claimed faith as a way of gaining power and control. But it was the Puritans who, with their "Christian" government, began the genocide against their neighbors the Indians, (Only Roger Williams, the man who purchased Rhode Island from the Indians and made it a place of religious freedom and community, got it right.) And it was the popes - pseudo-religious emperors - who began the Crusades against their Muslim neighbors. And now, it is a "Christian" president who has begun a war on terror (as if killing those willing to give their lives for their cause will somehow deter them from contuing to kill). Since Constantine, the seduction of seeking influence through worldly means has strangled the church's power in the world. This is not the way of Jesus. This is not how He meant to have us live. By buying into the world's system, we have compromised ourselves mightily.

Christianity is the way of upside-down thinking: to gain our lives, we must lose them. To become the greatest, we must become the least. And in order to gain influence in the world, we must give it up. Our duty is to love God and our neighbors. Our duty is to sell all our possessions, give to the poor, and follow Jesus. If we do these things, we will see an unprecedented revival.

One of the most beautiful sights ....

2008-03-22T12:42:00.001-07:00

There they are....in all their glory...

This will be the best season ever.

The Boys in Blue (and Teal)

2008-03-16T23:15:00.000-07:00

Spring is coming, and to me that means baseball season is fast approaching. And I am ... well, I'd like to say I'm more excited than ever about the upcoming season for the Mariners, but really my excitement is probably comparable to other years. What can I say? I maintain a lofty level of passion about Mariners baseball. But my anticipation is, I think, fed by the fact that I got an early birthday present from my wife last week: a 16-game plan to ... well ... 16 home games for the Mariners.

I do, however, have no small amount of trepidation. Last season I had very high hopes for this year's outfield. With Ichiro in center, Jose Guillen in right and maybe Adam Jones in left, (with Raul Ibanez DH'ing) it would have been a fantastic trifecta of blazingly powerful arms in the outfield. Now with the departure of both Adam and Jose, our outfield looks rather bleak. I am not at all impressed with the addition of Brad Wilkerson, and would far rather see Mike Morse (who's having a very hot spring, for whatever that's worth) playing right than Wilkerson. Morse has paid his dues, I think, and am sure he's every bit as good, if not far better, than Mr. Wilkerson.

That being said, I'm very excited about their starting lineup. Last year it was dismal; this year it looks to be amazing. And, thanks to my loving wife who got me the best birthday present ever, I'll have a chance to see the two A-listers pitching back-to-back on March 31st and April 1st - the two first games of the season. Erik Bedard and Felix Hernandez. The ol' one-two combo. Lights out. Shut 'er down. Etc. I'm pumped.

And you heard it here first (or maybe not, who knows): Richie Sexson - .265, 45, 130. That's right.

And Beltre (who, by the way, has quickly become my favorite player who currently wears the blue-and-teal) will get the Gold Glove again this year.

And we'll win the West, and get to the AL Championship Series.

(And I'm more than willing to eat my words. I do every year, and I'm starting to enjoy the taste. Eternal optimism tastes a lot like chicken, actually.)

Grind

2008-03-14T10:58:00.000-07:00

It's repetitive - constant friction,
pressure that wears,
corrodes your surfaces, scrapes away
skin, tissue with little discretion
through nothing more than
unpenitent tenacity.

My skin cracks, chafed by
the shaving , screeding - am I
honed, or hewed? There's
differences, and I have
A right to know. Don't I?

Christians and the Military

2008-02-05T14:04:00.000-08:00

After a lot of consideration of the nature of the military and the Christian's responsibility to the government, I've become convinced that Christians should not serve in the military. This decision, although perhaps influence by, does not necessarily have anything to do with my pacifist sentiments, but rather has more to do with what the military demands of a person.

To serve in the armed forces, you must sign away rights and swear to follow orders. You must agree to do whatever you are told whenever you are told to do it. This seems a direct contradiction to what we as Christians are called to be and do. We are called to be in submission to the will of God, not man, and to sign away conscience and offer blind submission to the will of a man-made authority is utterly opposed to this. What does a Christian do if faced with the very possible scenario of being ordered to do something that would violate conscience, yet if not done, would cost lives of comrades? It's an impossible situation, one which could and probably has been faced before. What would a Christian do at Abu Ghraib, or Guantanamo, if asked to torture a detainee? What if they are ordered to target civilians? The list of possible situations in which a Christian would be asked to violate conscience could continue endlessly.

It's true that we live in a country that, by the grace of God, follows military procedures that are far more humane and decent than many of the enemies they face, but that doesn't mean it's perfect, or even close to flawless, as this current war has exemplified. The examples of torture and other human rights violations that have been committed by U.S. troops serve as a warning to any Christian who would consider giving over their lives to this organization.

I don't want to dishonor the very godly men who have in the past served in the military, my grandfather included, and I certainly don't want to imply that they sinned in volunteering their lives in such a way. But part of me wonders why a person would feel more deeply called to serve their country in that way rather than to commit their lives with the same kind of dedication to the furthering of the gospel.

And I don't say that to imply that a person commited to service in the military has no thought to the gospel, and I am sure there are many stories of men and women who have served in the armed forces and gone on to commit their lives to missions. But it seems to me a tragic mistake to feel so called to defend man-made geographical boundaries and laws when one has been called to something far greater, when one is a citizen of a far better, eternal kingdom that we should be devoted to building. Why would you then submit your life and conscience to the violent defense of these borders and laws, when the gospel - of love, of peace, of justice - calls us to defend the poor and the widows among us? If only those Christians who feel so convicted of the need for their service in the military felt the same kind of conviction to devoting their lives to furthering the gospel.

Although I hate to call myself a pacifist, I'd have to say it's true - I think it's wrong to take lives. Any lives. I think it's not our place. And I can't pretend to have the application of that conviction figured out, because I don't know how a government would work out the principle of turning the other cheek, nor am I entirely sure it should. But I do have to wonder what would happen if it did - if a government were to stop trying to repay evil for evil, and instead turn to doing good. What would happen if instead of invading Iraq and Afghanistan, we tried building schools and hospitals and sending missionaries instead? There would have been a very different response to us, I guarantee. The problem would be to get people to see the sense in such a non-violent approach. But have we learned nothing from Gandhi, King, the early church? Non-violence and turning the other cheek works. Peace won't be spread through military might.

The Story

2007-12-30T17:27:00.000-08:00

O belly up to the bar my son
And I'll tell you a tale of wars unwon,
Of battles unfought, of heroes unsung,
And peace unshaken, and hatred undone,

Where peace is a warcry, where love is a blade,
Where refusal of violence sways the unswayed,
where compliance is force and theft is a gift,
where vengeance is taking yet one more fist.

My story's an old one, my story is new
My story is earth and it's rain and it's dew
It's Jesus alive and it's Jesus who died
It's Jesus who stamps out self-righteousness, pride
It's Jesus who lifts up the humble, the weak,
It's Jesus' embraces for all those who seek.

It's barriers broken and swords melted down,
It's weeping with those who would see you cast down,
It's being a brother and sister to all
It's selling possessions and chasing a call

O son, tell the story to all who have ears;
The story's been growing for two thousand years
And it will keep growing, son, if you take ahold
of it and live it, like the endlessly bold
Saints who've walked out the story through time,
Who've sung out its lyrics, who've marched to its rhyme.

Oh let the story roll on like a song;
Let it rasp out of throats, let it clash like a gong,
Let it swell like an ocean and sway like a tree,
Let it stand like a beacon and draw all who see.

Son, make it a mission, the story I tell:
Make it your orchard, and make it your well,
Where you eat when you're hungry and drink when you're dry.
Make love your blade, and peace your warcry.

Magorium

2007-12-06T16:55:00.000-08:00

I've come to the conclusion in recent years that there's no one snobbier than film reviewers. They seem to have as an agenda converting audiences into cynics and naysayers.

Evidenced by the horrible reviews of Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium, a movie that I thoroughly enjoyed, and as the second big release written by Zach Helm (the other being Stranger than Fiction), solidified the screenwriter is his position on my internal List of People in Hollywood Whose Careers I Follow Faithfully on IMDB.

The movie stars the always-lovely Natalie Portman and the always-quirky Dustin Hoffman as Mr. Magorium, 200+ year old toystore owner and inventor extraordinaire. The story is about Magorium's willing demise: he's decided he's lived a long enough life, and is now turning the store over to his young, self-doubting assistant, Molly Mahoney(Portman). The movie deals with Mahoney's acceptance of her beloved employer's mortality, and her own decision to believe in the power she had over her own destiny.

I'm a huge fan of movies that operate on a level where any age group can enjoy it. I enjoyed this movie mainly because of the themes - and great performances from Hoffman, Portman, and Jason Bateman - an actor who is quickly becoming one of my favorites - as the "counting mutant," or accountant, that Magorium hires to put his books in order before he dies. Kids will love the magical store that recalls Wonka's Chocolate Factory in some ways, while adults can relate to the situation of coming to grips that someone you care about is no longer going to be with you. The movie handles this issue in a way that's both weighty enough for the elders, yet still not too heavy for kids. I think it was brilliant of Helm to put such grave (no pun intended; I really tried to think of a different word) themes into such a light-hearted and whimsical environment. I think this softens in some respects the gravity of the issue, while at the same time making it more prominent. How can death enter into such a playful setting?

While the movie's not, ultimately, as good as Stranger than Fiction, it's still a movie much worth seeing, and one that could prompt a lot of discussion with kids about the subject of loss and death.

To return to my comment about reviewers. I want to shake people who tear apart a fun-yet-substantive movie like this. I went on rottentomatoes.com to see what reviewers were saying, and was surprised by the vitriol poured on what I thought was a high-quality film. These are the same people who shred Shyamalan for every movie he makes not being Sixth Sense. They don't seem to get it. They need to learn to watch a movie how it was intended to be watched, and enjoy it how it was intended to be enjoyed. Not every movie will or should be avant-garde or edgy.

One last note: According to IMDB, Zach Helm is working on another film due to come out in 2010 about a man who begins receiving postcards from God. I can't wait.

What Having a Cat Has Taught Me About Grace

2007-11-17T07:51:00.000-08:00

We have a little brown and black tabby cat named Amos. Amos is probably the worst behaved cat I know. If cats were susceptible to ADHD, our cat Amos would be the definition of the symptoms. He bites when you touch him. He attacks feet, hands, anything that moves in his presence. He ruins curtains and carpets; he leaves scars with his attempts at displaying affection. And more than once, I've said to Sarah, "Why do we keep him? He's far more trouble than he's worth." To which she always replies, "He makes us happy."

Happy? Does Amos make me happy? I guess he does, in a way. He's a very cute little guy, and when he's playing with one of his little jingly balls, batting it across the kitchen floor and juggling it between his feet, or carrying around my stuffed monkey in his mouth (the one he claimed as his own and proceeded to demolish with tooth and claw), or balancing his back feet on a tennis ball, I have to concede she's right: he does.

And more than just making me happy, Amos gives me a daily reminder of God's relationship to us. Part of my complaint against the critter is that we rescued him from the jaws of death at the animal shelter, and he repays us by destroying all of our stuff and by biting and scratching us constantly. Malicious or not, it's never terribly pleasant to be a recipient of a cat's playful arsenal. But just as we rescued Amos from euthanization at the animal shelter, so God also snatched us from gaping mouth of hell. And just as Amos repays us by shredding our carpet to bits, or pulling threads out of our couch, or scratching our arms when we try to pet him, so we treat God with our constant failure to live up to His standards for us. He takes us in and asks us not to lie, not to lust, not to hate; we don't even go a full day without doing those things. Yet God promises above all that He'll never leave us or forsake us, and that He'll complete the work He began in us.

So I think I'll stop whining about Amos. I think I'll let him live with us, and instead of yelling about wanting to get rid of him next time he puts claw marks in the curtains, I think I'll thank God for this little reminder of His so very longsuffering patience He has for us.

A Review in Review

2007-10-23T17:23:00.000-07:00

A smattering of sorts, really.

Dan in Real Life: We saw this this weekend at a sneak preview, and I have to say, it's one of those that became one of my instant favorites, up there with movies like Garden State, Children of Men, and Crash. Steve Carrell is, I think, perhaps the most gifted actor of the present day. He has an ability to convey extreme depth of character and emotion through facial expressions, and to make you forget you're watching Steve Carrell and get lost in the character he plays. Which is something rare, I think, among actors, and only present in those most talented. The story also is genuine, painful, and ultimately beautiful, and the family is the most real and positive portrayal of extended family relationships that I think I've ever seen. I highly recommend it. giving Four Seals of Approval, a couple of Enthusiastic Plaudits, with a healthy dose of Unabashed Praise.

A side note: I've heard it said that it's far easier to find negative things to say about something than positive, and it makes one sound smarter to do so. I read movie reviews with this in mind, and I think I'm becoming more and more adept at those reviewers who take the critic's easy road by trashing a movie with cheap shots. It's the critics who praise movies that should more often be listened to (although oftentimes only certain movies with the right political agendas are praised as "daring" or "cutting edge", when in fact it's quite the opposite) than those who pick apart a movie's weaknesses instead of acknowledging its strengths. As such, I endeavor to enter movies with a positive outlook. Which is something my wife might scoff at to hear, since I'm far pickier in my movie taste than she, but it's nonetheless true.

The Abortionist's Daughter: a book by Elizabeth Hyde, brief in length but rich in character. It's a murder mystery of sorts - a prominent abortion doctor is murdered, and there are multiple suspects for detectives to sort through. The book is less about the mystery, however, and more about the interactions of the characters in the wake of this woman's murder. It's an interesting book in that I think it fairly represents both sides of the abortion issue, creating characters on either side whose motivations are understandable and consistent. That's unique, I think it's fair to say. It's not often one comes across someone who even-handedly talks about such a volatile, emotional issue.

The Road: a book by Cormac McCarthy. It's a novel, but it reads like poetry. I picked this up in anticipation of the upcoming movie directed by the Coen Bros. based McCarthy's book No Country for Old Men. I am a little leery of reading books right before watching the movie version of them, simply because I usually end up disliking the movie because of the inadequacy of the adaptation. So I chose another book by the same author, and I was instantly hooked by his amazing sensory descriptions, unique word choice, and rich vocabulary. Blown away. It's a heart-rending story, too, about a man and his son trying to survive in a post-apocalyptic world where the human race has turned to consuming itself for lack of other food. Hard to believe that with such subject material this book can be as beautiful as it is.

That's all I got.

Divine Encounter

2007-10-08T19:17:00.000-07:00

Jesus, you make me feel so damned guilty when you
sit there like that, grinning, rattling your can, blowing through that
windless, tuneless harmonica

I tell you, “you know you’ll only spend it drugs, maybe booze,
if I’m lucky”

but you only blow “O Susannah” and smile
and I hear the coins rattle in your cup: dimes, nickels, they hit
the bottom: clink, clank

“In good conscience, I can’t,” I tell you: are you listening?
is it really so hard to understand, Jesus, that
I have to be a good steward, I mean

you gave me this money in the first place; and surely
you wouldn’t want me to let you buy drugs with it –
would you?

come on, Jesus be reasonable

Meditation on Ezekiel 16

2007-09-25T11:42:00.000-07:00

And when I passed by you and saw you wallowing in your blood, I said to you in your blood, "Live!" I said to you in your blood, "Live!" I made you flourish like a plant of the field...

Ezekiel 16:6-7a

This is to me one of the most beautiful passages of Scripture. The image of us as an unwanted child, cast into an open field to die, rejected by parents who wanted nothing to do with us, is at once heartbreaking. Then to see God as the one who walks by, sees us wallowing in our blood, about to die - to see Him stop and speak words of life and love to us, to care for us and make us His bride, is breathtaking. The rejected orphan becomes royalty. The one who possessed nothing possesses everything.

Then Ezekiel turns the world on its head. This chosen one, this orphan who was taken from the pool of blood she lay in and raised up to become the Bride of God, becomes a whore.

But you trusted in your beauty and played the whore because of your renown and lavished your whorings on any passer-by: your beauty became his. (16:15)

How lovesick is your heart, declares the Lord GOD, because you did all these things, the deeds of a brazen prostitute, building your vaulted chamber at the head of every street, and making your lofty place in every square. Yet you were not like a prostitute, because you scorned payment. Adulterous wife, who receives strangers instead of her husband! (16:30-32)

I read this and feel sick. I see this woman, who owes God her very life -- who, without Him would not even have breath, let alone beauty -- take that life and beauty and spend it on everything but Him. She becomes worse than a prostitute, giving away her body and refusing payment. She spurns His love and wastes herself on cheap replacements. And to think that this passage refers to God's Bride, the church, His chosen people! This should not now nor ever be. It makes me feel low, for I know I am guilty of the same things.

God takes action:

Therefore, behold, I will gather all your lovers with whom you took pleasure, and those you loved and all those you hated. I will gather them against you from every side and will uncover your nakedness to them, that they may see all your nakedness. And I will judge you as women who commit adultery and shed blood are judged, and bring upon you the blood of wrath and jealousy.(16: 36-38)

This seems fair and right. What punishment could be too much for the travesties such a Bride committed? Her debt is far too much to pay back. She owes her husband all - her life, and certainly her faithfulness. And she has done nothing but sin against Him, breaking the covenant they entered. He raised her up from nothing; does He not have the right to return her to nothing in the face of this ingratitude and rebelliousness?

But the story doesn't end there, and this is what is so mind-blowing to me:

Yet will I remember my covenant with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish for you an everlasting covenant...I will establish my convenant with you, and you shall know that I am the LORD, that you may remember and be confounded, and never open your mouth again because of your shame, when I atone for all you have done, declares the Lord GOD. (16:60,62-63)

Atone? God will atone for all that this whore has done to Him? He will make an everlasting covenant with her? How dare He! If she has proved to be so recklessly unfaithful in the past, how can He dare to make an everlasting covenant, one that shall never be broken? How can He dare to pay for the sins she's committed? He is a fool, we are led to believe. Were this a story about a human couple, we would be wanting the man to find a woman far more worthy of his love; we would be advising him to stay out of the relationship with this woman, for she is abusive and self-destructive. We would wish him to end up with the girl he's always been friends with, but never really thought of romantically, and go off happily ever after, forgetting he was ever once married to the cheating scum that was his first wife. But God is not like this. While He is a jealous God who demands that we acknowledge His grace and mercy and love, He is also a God who delights in lavishing grace and mercy and love on those who are not even close to deserving it.

Ezekiel 16 is a love story beyond all love stories. It goes beyond the typical happily-ever-after to paint a picture of a love that forgives the utterly unforgiveable. It paints a picture of love that transcends all known class distinctions: instead of the nobleman and the peasant's daughter, this is the Sovereign of the Universe and his outcast bride. And while all love stories have their calamities before their happy endings, none have such calamitous occurances as this. The bride who sleeps with anyone who wishes to? The bride, a whore who pays her lovers, rather than the other way around? The bride, who spends her husband's riches on sex with other men? This nobody, this girl thrown out from society at birth, who gets it all and doesn't even see how very blessed she is - she is the one on whom His affections lie! And yes, while He for a time allows her to go her own way, removing her from His house, he takes her back, forgives her, and pays off her debts again. And the thing is, we get no indication that she necessarily becomes a better-behaved bride when she reenters God's household.

How are we any different: we, purchased by God out of our nothingness, raised up by Him to heights of glory we couldn't otherwise imagine, yet never satisfied, always searching, using God's grace not to honor God, but to purchase for ourselves other lovers? We are so easily distracted. We forget to whom it is we owe our very lives. We take for granted that God will be there to receive us back when we grow tired of wasting ourselves on pleasures. I waste time on meaningless things, like playing on the computer or watching TV, when I could be in the Word, or serving my neighbors in some capacity. I complain about traffic. I complain about my job, or lack of one. I seek to persuade myself that I'm better than others by pointing out their flaws. And at the end of all these things, I become no better than the whore-bride, who takes the beauty and riches of God and spends them on filth.

And this, I believe, is why there is so much suffering in life. Just as God hands His bride over to her enemies in the story, He also hands us over to trials in life, to remind us who it is who delivers us, who it is who purchased us from death. We are spiritual amnesiacs, in constant need of reminder of God's faithful love through the suffering He allows in our lives. By our suffering, we are reminded of the fact that we need God.

God's love is vast; it must be, for His wife is such a whore. May the difficulties and trials we face constantly remind of His faithfulness to us in the midst of our unmeasurable unfaithfulness to Him, and may we love Him more deeply as a result.

A Reflection on the "W"

2007-09-23T09:22:00.001-07:00

I hate the "w". Probably too passionately.

On the one hand, I get the feeling that having strong feelings of this sort for a letter - an abstract concept with a randomly-assigned speech value - is rather silly, but I have to say, I can't help it. The "w" is, without question, my least-favorite letter. (My favorite letter is "T", but that's a whole other story.)

I have several theories about the source of my hatred for this letter. I think that it stems mainly from the pronunciation of the letter when spelled. Double-you. Doubleyoudoubleyoudoubleyou. What other letter takes so much time to say? A?B?C?D?E?F? etc, etc, ad nauseum. Each and every other letter is one short, easily pronounced syllable. They roll off the tongue easily. They practically leap from the mouth. Not the "w". The "W" fits awkwardly in the mouth; the tongue must twist itself several times for this one, simple, rebel letter.

My question is: why? When the Powers That Be were assigning names to the letters, why call this one the "double-you"? For one thing, if we want to get really technical, we'd call it the "double-vee," which is even harder to pronounce than "double-you."

"What should we call this letter, fellas?"

"Well, it kind of looks like two v's stuck together, doesn't it?"

"That's it! The double-vee!"

Mumbling: "Doubleveedoubleveedoubleveedubblebeedammit! This isn't working!"

"Well, so double-vee's out. What are some other options?

Mumbling and muttering. Finally: "Well, if it weren't so pointy it would kind of look like two u's..."

"Hmmm....double-you?"

"Doubleyoudoubleyoudoubleyoudoubleyou.... Well, it's still a mouthful but since nobody has any better ideas, we'll go with it."

Had I been there that day, I would have not-so-gently reminded the Powers That Be (PTB) that they typically, up until that point, had named all the letters for the sounds they made. A? Whaddyaknow, the letter "A" sounds a helluva lot like the sound it makes! B? Makes a "buh" sound! V? Sounds an awful lot like "vuh"!

Why break the pattern? What, for crying out loud, would have been wrong with calling it "wee"? Or "wah"? Or at least -and here's a novel thought - INCLUDE SOMEWHERE IN THE NAME THE SOUND THAT THE LETTER MAKES!!!!! By that logic, they should have call the the J, "hooked-I". Or the V, "inverted-A-without-the-horizontal-line."

Barring the H, W is the one letter whose name cannot be immediately associated with the sound it signifies. Great thinking, PTB.

I think my vitriol towards this letter is exacerbated by the fact that I am from Washington state. Every acronym this state has that freaking three-syllable word in it. Washington State University, University of Washington, Washington State Department of Transportation, etc.

This makes it that so, often, it takes more syllables to say the acronym for something than it does to say the actual name of the thing itself. This strikes me as a travesty.

Plus, it reduces us to coming up with ridiculous alternatives to saying the acronyms. Take the state universities: University of Washington. UW. Now, no one calls it "You-Doubleyou," at least not if they're from Washington. They call it "You-Dub." Which, if you're from somewhere, and you heard someone say "you-dub," you would never immediately associate "dub" with the letter "w". You would think this person was stupid.

Or Washington State University. WSU. Not called "Doubleyou-ess-you." No; this one becomes "wazzu." Which frequently is also a reference to the buttocks. Not necessarily a name you wish to associate with a place of higher education.

My alma mater, to my knowledge, has not found a way to avoid its unfortunate acronym: WWU. Western Washington University. Known in the state as "Western." Never, ever, known to ANYONE as "Doubleyou-doubleyou-you." Trying saying that even once, at the same speed as you usually say acronyms. That last "U" is a killer, isn't it? No wonder it's either called "Western," or "Western Washington University." The acronym's too hard to say, and would just confuse people.

Here's my proposal, and I think it's a relatively simple one: Replace the pronuciation of "Doubleyou" with "wah". It's easy to say, takes no effort, and creates an immediate association
with the letter's sound, and makes things so vastly easier for Washingtonians. No longer will WSU be associated with the hindquarters; no longer will UW sound like a command from Tarzan to one of the three men in a tub, and while WWU might then sound like something a speech-impeded cheerleader might say, at least it would be pronounceable. Even George W. Bush would no longer be referred to as "Dubya."

See? Everyone would be happy.

So, join me in the "W" revolution! (Cue "The Times They Are A'Changing")

The Mariners

2007-09-12T09:05:00.000-07:00

It's no secret that a large part of my heart is devoted to this, once again, hapless baseball team.

I'm one of those fans who fell in love with the Boys of '95, and hasn't looked back since. And I've been faithful to them ever since, laughing with them, crying with them, screaming at the umpires with Sweet Lou, enjoying the incredible ride that was 2001, writhing in misery over the slow decay that overcame them after Lou's departure. I believed beyond reason in Richie Sexson, wanted so badly for Gil Meche to come into his own, despised the flop that was Jeff Cirillo, and hoped highly in the rise of King Felix.

And this year - this year, I so firmly believed that it could be The Year, the year they'd take it all. They believed in themselves, they were strong in character and in confidence. They were a unit. They had the chemistry. And they stayed in the race the whole way.

Until now.

All of a sudden, as it has so very often in the past, the bottom has dropped out of this team's barrel of playoff dreams. They've lost 15 out of their last 18 games, fallen out of a wildcard lead to trailing it by 7 games in third place. They're reeling in the blows they've suffered. They are, for all intents and purposes, done for the year.

And it saddens me to no end. I feel a little bit like a lover who blindly returns to the partner who cheats time and again, knowing that I'll take her back in the end, that there will be no repercussions. There may be a screaming session or two ("How could you to this to me!?! Again!?!") But in the end, nothing will change. I'll go on believing that next year will be The Year, that it'll be 2001 all over again but with a World Series victory at the end, that all Seattle will stand up and embrace the team that I have loved so desperately, and that they'll forgo the general cynicism that most Mariners fans seem to suffer from.

So here's to next year: this time, I swear, it'll be The Year. Mark my words. I mean, it's not like I say that about every year.

Paradise Now

2007-09-10T08:16:00.000-07:00

Paradise Now is an Arabic film that details the journey of two Palestinian suicide bombers who must decide whether or not they truly wish to die for the cause. I've been looking forward to watching it; Sarah and I picked it up at the store awhile ago at "Buy 4 for $25" sale as the fourth movie, and just last night we had a chance and were both in an emotional frame of mind to watch a movie about suicide bombers.

Generally speaking, I find myself to be much more identified with the Israeli side of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, even more so that I have been reading The Haj by Leon Uris, which is rich with detail about the history and development of that conflict. When the Jews first started arriving in Palestine, it was because the Palestinian Arab leaders were selling off land that they thought was useless. There was no invasion of Jews, and the division the country experiences now is due not to Jewish/Israeli hatred of Arabs/Muslims, but the other way around. The two sides never made peace when the Jews began to buy and build on the land, and when the conflict escalated into violence and the Arabs lost, they still would not acknowledge the right for the state of Israel to exist. And now, with the land in partition, the Palestinians have only themselves to blame. Israel does not seek their destruction; it seeks its own preservation.

Paradise Now follows two friends who have previously made the decision that they wish to commit a suicide attack together. They are finally called on to do so, and one agrees eagerly, but the other is hesitant, contemplative. As they cross the fence between Palestinian and Israeli territory to meet their accomplice, a guard drives up, and they are forced back across, getting separated.

One makes it back to the headquarters of the terrorist organization, but the other - the seemingly hesitant one - does not. With a bomb still strapped to his chest, he makes an effort to get back in contact with his handlers. But when he returns to headquarters, they have left, fearing that he has betrayed their location.

His friend goes out in search for him, and in the process they both reevaluate their decision about giving their lives for the cause in this way. The friend who at the beginning was so eager to give his life has a conversation with a girl which convinces him violence will only beget more violence. The other, however, only ends up far more solidified in his resolve to die. He soliliquizes at one point that life as a Palestinian is like serving a life imprisonment: always behind bars and wires; that there is no point to living when one lives as a slave.

I can understand that sentiment. I certainly can, and it saddens me to think that many Palestinians are suffering for the sins of a few. But it cannot be argued that this imprisonment suffered by the Palestinians is anyone's fault but their own. Israelis are not a terribly narrow-minded people; I am quite certain that were the Palestinians to choose to integrate into Israeli society peaceably, that they would be welcomed. But collectively they do not choose to do so. They decry a lost homeland, but in truth that homeland is only lost because they would not allow the Jews to come and live there peacefully. They chose to fight them when they arrived.

So, I am sorry for the Palestinians, trapped in their own homes. But to accuse Israel as responsible for that imprisonment is faulty. They should use that feeling of imprisonment to motivate their own people to lay down arms, and live side by side as neighbors with the Israelis. It's natural to wish to lash out at the prison guard, but when it's your own actions that sentenced you to prison in the first place, what good does striking the guard do? It just lengthens your sentence.

"Simple Man"

2007-09-05T23:19:00.000-07:00

I didn't write it, but I probably should have for how well I think it encapsulates the philosophy I try to have on life. A fella by the name of Jonah Werner wrote and sang it, and he does a pretty darn good job at both. Would that we could all be "simple men" (oh ok, simple people.... sheesh, you PC police are everywhere...).

Some say strangers are the strangest ones you meet
I bet a few good folks would say the same of me
It's the same old song with a different beat
I've got a homegrown soul, and homeless feet
I've got a black-beard face and dirt-stained hands
I've got a carpenter's build and a farmboy's tan
I didn't come with much, and I'll leave the same
And I live just for today, 'cause I'm a simple man

Lalalala lalalala

Some say good comes from livin' it up
But better than good is just having enough
And saving the rest for those in need
'Cause when you go you know you gotta leave it
You shoot the stars, you better shoot the moon,
You better seize the day, it'll be gone soon
You can call me crazy, you can call me sane
but not a whole lot's going to change 'cause I'm a simple man

lalalala lalalalala
Oh I don't know too much about anything
What I know is enough for now, and it's enough to make me sing

You've got to look at the morning as a brand new day
Pray for the babies and amazing grace
Sing halellujah for the river running and look for glory coming home again
Use love as your legs not love as your cane
Shout for the bread and dance for the rain
Do with what you got, with all you can
That's what I do and that's why I'm a simple man

lalalala lalalalala

Simple's not just enough for the road
Simple is faith and a little kid's hope
It's love that lasts and a life that's free
Without that simple'd be a complex thing
So put down your pack and come follow me
On this sojourn called simplicity
And I'll walk with you, and I'll give you a hand,
'Cause that's what makes me me, I'm a simple man

The Saddest of Days

2007-09-05T09:54:00.000-07:00

Today I committed a fatal error, one from which there was no recovery.

I accidentally deleted my blog.

I lost years and years of posts, and many poems and journals that I had no backups to.

I nearly cried.

But I didn't end up crying; I forged ahead - recreating from the ashes what you now see before you. And I do have to say that the new features now available on Blogger do make it much easier to customize.

Still, the sadness that dwells in my bosom over what has been lost has not yet fully sunk in, and I'm sure when it does there will be a few tears shed. (Ha. I just said "bosom.")

I say this tongue in cheek, but in all seriousness, this blog has been such a creative outlet for me that this is really no small loss. I wish that there was some way to recover them, but I can see none. Perhaps some tech-savvy wizard will happen upon this site and tell me the miraculous process for resurrecting dead posts, but I do not pin any hopes on this. I'll accept what has happened as the Hand of the Almighty, and will press ahead, no looking back.

And in an attempt to do so, allow me to point out a few new features, most notably the "Jesse Recommends..." sections you'll see to your left. These are lists of some of my favorite books and movies of all time, in descending order, typically, although in what order they fall often changes according to my mood. I should add a "Current Recommendations" list as well, in which I list books and movies I've recently read or watched that I can recommend.

So, welcome to "The Cleverness of Me" remix edition, and please join me in a moment of silence for a blog that met its fate before its time.