Wonderstuff

Moving Day

2008-04-28T13:26:00.000-07:00

I've moved, and the new Wonderstuff blog site is up and running over on Wordpress.com. If you are the frequent or occasional visitor to this site, I hope you'll change what needs to be changed which will allow you to shift your wanderings to my new address:

www.wonderstuff.wordpress.com

And, while you're saving new websites, why not add the new blog site created by my wife and I, dedicated to our new appointment as missionaries in Germany? The address:

www.stagesandpages.wordpress.com

We're already blogging away on both, so don't dilly-dally...

Much peace,

Vernon

List

2008-04-01T13:05:00.000-07:00

I keep encountering lists lately ... and not simply lists of things to do and tasks at hand, but lists of all kinds. Lately, one of my favorite ways to procrastinate at work is to get onto EW.com and click through their ridiculous assortment of pop culture lists (50 Greatest Movie Villains, 20 Scariest Movies, 30 Television Shows You Wish Someone Would Bring Back, etc.). It has taken me a while, but it is strange how many lists sit around my desk. There's a church movie night list, and next to that a two page legal tablet scribbling of the dates of all the Biblical kings and political upheavels, and then there's a post-it with a bunch of names of different Holocaust and World War II historians. Tacked on the bulliten board wall of my desk is a list I compiled in green ink during my last lay-committee meeting with some of the wonderful people at DaySpring Baptist Church in which they imparted to me the kind of things they like to see in a pastor. Not far from this is pinned a list of members of the UBA Student Work Team, and now that I look at it more closely, I see it is from 2006, which means I probably should get an updated version at the next meeting this Thursday...

So, as an ode to all these lists, and because no blog would be complete without a blatant ripoff of another blog, I've decided to compile my own random list, much like the one a friend of mine compiled not long ago on his own blog, which I recently found myself surfing back to in my mid-afternoon boredom.

50 Things...

1) The fingernail on my right index finger cracked over a year ago and still hasn't healed. It's pretty gross.
2) Calvin and Hobbes comic strips constituted around 67% of the comedy I indulged in during my middle school years.
3) I have been yelled at and threatened by a member of Border Patrol.
4) I think I could be friends with Jonathan Papelbon, the Red Sox closer, if given the chance.
5) It often takes me several fluffing cycles before I get around to taking out a load of laundry.
6) I have a black belt in Kung Jung Mu Sul martial arts.
7) I am not a fan of big cities, which makes my current dwelling place a difficult experience.
8) There exists within the American Airlines company a security file on me, and I was once banned from flying with them for six months.
9) In my four and a half years of college, I had four different BSM directors.
10) My oldest friend, who I still keep in touch with, is Lisa (Davis) Snow from 9th grade.
11) I have lived in three different cities in Massachusetts.
12) I was once frisked in front of police officers with hands on holsters, but I have never been arrested.
13) The worst movie I have ever seen is Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey.
14) The greatest beer in the world is Guinness.
15) I am a state champion German Folk Dancer.
16) I once pretended to be stalked by a lunatic to impress a girlfriend.
17) I have never had stitches.
18) I named by boy dog after Huckleberry Finn and my girl dog after the name on the pound's adoption sheet.
19) I am currently reading the Harry Potter series and am ensorcelled by it.
20) I have more than 15 Christian music singing tracks in my possession, and have sung to many of them in public.
21) I learned the difference between the word "cynical" and the word "sardonic" from a stubborn roommate with a dictionary.
22) I have never - NEVER - walked out on a movie in the theater.
23) Three of the best books I have ever read are Gilead, The Brothers K, and The Oath.
24) If I had not met my wife, I would have seriously considered becoming a monk.
25) I had a Michael Jordan/Bugs Bunny poster in my room when I was a teenager. Next to it was a Bartman poster.
26) My sister died while on a Christmas-caroling hayride when I was 8 years old.
27) On my desk stands a troll doll that has been in my possession for over 15 years.
28) My greatest Christmas memory is when I was five and received the entire Voltron robot set. There is a video of my awe-struck reaction.
29) I have never seen the movies Chicago, Casablanca, Pulp Fiction, or It's a Wonderful Life.
30) I am fascinated by The Food Network.
31) I think Field of Dreams, Dead Poet's Society, and The Village are three of the most spiritual films ever made.
32) I loathe going to malls.
33) I once pulled a fire alarm in 8th grade.
34) I've ordered black pudding in Ireland thinking I was getting chocolate Jell-O.
35) My first kiss was on a school bus in that little seat in the rear.
36) The best piece of fruit is a pear.
37) My guilty pleasure is watching South Park and laughing hysterically.
38) Three movies I could watch over and over again are: Anchorman, Wonder Boys, and The Insider.
39) I've had Shingles.
40) I've sipped coffee and people-watched outside a cafe in Paris.
41) I was a member of a state champion Polka Band.
42) I have been a two-time award winner in the category of "Dance."
43) My first kiss with my wife was on the Brooklyn Bridge.
43) I think, in a few years, the term "theology" will be considered a subversive term in some denominations.
44) My two most outlandish goals are to hike the Appalachian Trail in its entirety, and win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
45) My best friend, Stevie, is a pharmacist, and I feel guilty when I call him for medicine advice.
46) I can't remember the last time I vomited.
47) My mother has out-read me in books by at least 10-1, and this is just in the last five years.
48) I get extremely self-conscious when I try to dance with someone.
49) I have to go to the bathroom.
50) I hate iceburg lettuce.

Good Words I Didn't Write

2008-02-19T13:07:00.000-08:00

My intention for this blog is to remind myself and its readers of the wonder of God, and the issues that might determine our awareness of God's will in our lives and the lives of others. Therefore, many of the things I write, I hope, are understood to be the musings of a man who is turning truth over and over in his hands, inspecting it, pondering it, trying to get a better feel for it. If some of my posts persuade, I hope that they do so with all gentleness.

Yet it is not my intention to persuade you so much with this post, but rather to remind you of the importance of a spiritual awareness, and how this can affect our present lives as well as the country in which we live. You may have your mind made up on who to vote for in the upcoming presidential elections, and it is not my desire to debate the merit of your choice. Mine is merely a desire to challenge - to remember, if you are a person of faith, what is important in such a time as this. After much personal consideration, below is both the candidate I am currently resolved to vote for, as well as the speech that persuaded me. I encourage you to watch it, not that you might be drawn into a specific political camp, but rather to be reminded of the role of faith and religion in this country. It is about 40 minutes long, but I do hope you will view it, even if you have to return to it a couple of times to hear it all. Even if you are already not interested in this candidate, please know that there is no mention of the current campaign, but only the issue of faith and politics. Whoever you choose to vote for, this speech is definitely worth hearing.

The Maker of Dust

2008-02-06T13:30:00.000-08:00

In celebration of Ash Wednesday...

In the quiet dark of the chapel, he reaches to unfold the kneeler and his tired legs bend, weary bones popping. His elbows find the back of the pew. His worn, wrinkled hands clasp. His crumpled frame genuflects in prayer. Were he able to pick himself up from such a position, he would have chosen to prostrate himself, right there in the aisle - to melt away into the thin, dusty carpet, become nothing more than that. And this is what he prays as he kneels. That he is dust, and to dust he shall return.

His hands hold a tremor, and his shoulders shiver from the awkward position while his parched lips speak in silence, confessions of sins long forgotten by all but him and the One to which he prays. Pleading in penitence. Vowing repentance, then stilling his soundless words when he remembers not to be hasty before God with a vow. So, slowly, in few words, he changes his vow to a desperate hope. This, after all, is the nature of his prayers.

There is a depth to the little room that he has not noticed before. A spaciousness in it that the quiet has brought out. He feels small. There in the chapel, he feels he is shrinking. Eroding. Dissipating dust. Let me retain only that which is essential, he prays. Only that which is pure and vital ... and if there is nothing, let me cease to be. Let me disintegrate to dust, and let me be captured up in you.

Not even dust escapes through Your fingers. He is comforted by this thought, and a thin smile, hardly noticeable behind the penitent grimace, curves his mouth. He looks down at his clasped hands, sees the dirt and grime of the world upon them, the blood and the death. He sees these things there behind the skin, where soap and water does not reach. He sees them there, corruption soaked into dust, and squeezing his eyes tighter, he prays all the more.

He hears the minister speak, but does not move. The voice echoes in the room that has grown so large. Still, he wonders if it is large enough to hold his sins. Yet even as the quiet wraps around him, shrinking him into nothing, the words find his hungry ears. "In returning and rest you shall be saved. In quietness and confidence shall be your strength."

And it happens that he realizes the cavern-like chapel, gaping larger than he has ever known it, is not to serve as a storehouse for sin, but a palace of peace. The yawning space around him is not empty, but has stretched and grown to accommodate something much grander. He opens his eyes again to view his hands, and there, perched before him, elbows on the pew, they suddenly appear clean, even beneath the skin.

He understands now that he is not shrinking, not dissipating away, but changing, becoming something new, something still composed of dust, but possessing a wind-like strength that comforts his weary knees and stills his trembling hands. He now feels a spaciousness within, filled with a billowing, peaceful whisper, words he cannot fully recognize, but residing inside, repeating encouragement he will carry with him like a blanket. And the largeness of the room, like a gaping mouth, is most certainly filled with something like a breath, gentle and sweet, capturing him, the minister, and all other mendicants up in a rest that floods over them like true love in the heart.

Again, he prays that he is dust, and to dust he shall return. Yet he takes joy in this, for within the quiet about him, and the whisper within, he feels the presence of the Maker of dust.

January Notes

2008-01-31T13:40:00.000-08:00

I have been internally debating returning to this blog for about a month now. It isn't that I don't like posting my thoughts. It isn't because my readership is minimal (I write for myself before I write for anyone else). It isn't even because I don't normally have the time handy that it takes to sit down, brood, and write. That is a continual problem, but one that can be overcome with a little bit of planning and awareness. The reasons for avoiding this blog are actually beyond me. Sometimes it feels like a child's toy that's been played with until the thought of picking it up again and entering that wonderful, imaginary world, for some reason, doesn't possess the same compelling feeling. Or like a movie you know you love no matter how many times you have viewed it, and yet, even on your greatest day of boredom, you can't bring yourself to pop it in the player again.

I suppose healing to such avoidance-behavior can only be found by picking that ol' action figure up again, popping that dusty videotape back into the VCR, and forgetting about yourself long enough to allow something to bless you, even if you believe it is a foregone possibility. Hence this, my first post in several months, which finds the structure in the telling of a couple of good experiences had over the past month.

Rejuvenation
I began my year by attending a week-long retreat in Kerrville, sponsored by the Truett Seminary Center for Effective Preaching. Technically an "I-term" seminary class, I was glad to find that I was not the only graduate in the group. I reunited with several friends from my days at DaySpring in Waco, and we joined with several current students for what was entitled "Imaginative Reading for Creative Preaching."

The week was a true blessing. As 2007 drew to an end, I felt like I was running on fumes, as rickety and unsure upon the journey as my old, rapidly-deteriorating Jeep (which, thankfully, carried me to Kerrville and back safely nonetheless). But this retreat/class was like pulling up to the pumps and topping off the tank. I was rejuvenated in both my reading and my writing, so much so that even during the free afternoons, while the current students were cramming and reviewing their notes (ah, the joy of not having to worry about grades anymore), I sat out on the spacious backside of our cabin, softly rocking back and forth in an old, wooden porch chair, and tapped away on my novel, feeling as if something had been restarted within me. I was the Energizer Bunny who had finally - finally - run out of juice, only to be saddled with a brand new charge. I left the retreat with a sad heart, having been reminded how wonderful seeking deep, challenging truth in community could be. It was a long, quiet, reflective drive back to Houston.

Healing
The other piece of devotion that was kick-started, both by the retreat as well as simply by the obligatory resolutions that come with the start of a new year, was a return to a time of contemplation, quietness, and prayer. Not only have Leigh and I begun to meet together one morning a week to pray both for our future - on the mission field - and the current issues filling our lives, but I have taken back up with renewed fervor the keeping of the daily office. The Book of Common Prayer has become even more invaluable to me than it was when I first purchased it our of sheer curiosity a few years ago. I am currently attempting to keep the 9:00, noon, and 5:00 hours of prayer, and I have found that the more I fashion this time as a mini-retreat, the greater sense of importance it inhabits within me. At the office or at home, I shut all the window blinds, clear my desk, light candles, and read the selected psalms, readings, and collects out loud. I've even been incorporating some different styles of chant. So, I guess I'm still perpetuating my wannabe Catholic-ness. Then again, it would be more accurate to call it a wannabe Episcopalian-ness.

The best apart about all of this, is that I have not returned to these things (writing, meditation, prayer) out of guilt, but out of a real desire to revisit the intimate, mysterious connection these things afforded me with God. Growing up, I was always guilted into "quiet times" and Scripture memorization ... and then guilted all the more when I "backslid" from such things. It has surprised me how a prolonged separation of genuine seeking and centering can cause a person to make the effort all by him - or her - self. I guess we're never completely lost, no matter who may tell us so. After all, the writer of Hebrews reminds us that, "when we are faithless, he will remain faithful, for he cannot deny himself." It is this saving reality that produces hope when it seems all hope is lost. No matter how far I fall, no matter how rebellious my actions, no matter how impure my thoughts, no matter how destructive my words - there is one I cannot shake from my shoulders no matter how violently I may writhe for freedom.

Jacob wrestled with the angel, but even in his strength and persistence, he did not walk away a winner. He did, however, walk away a new man with a new name.

I suppose there are more bold, italicized topics I could include in here. I could write more about the progression of the novel, about the wonderful books I have been reading, the contemplative prayer service I am going to be leading every week of Lent, or my plans for Ash Wednesday (which includes catching an evening concert by the rarely-outside-of-Ohio duo, Over the Rhine). I could talk about my scary addiction to FIFA Soccer on Xbox, or the new car my wife bought me for Christmas that finally arrived a week ago.

I could talk about a lot of things, but none would be more wonderful and wonder-filled to me than the two mentioned. I am rejuvenated, even in the face of a new calendar year and a lot of new responsibilities. And I am healed, even while the lingering smell of running on fumes still returns to my nose from time to time. But it's a continuous thing, these blessings, and win or lose, no one ever said wrestling was easy.

Rock On! - A Concert-Going Memoir

2007-10-31T13:31:00.000-07:00

Despite the fact that it has been awhile since I have posted anything, and the fact that right now I have a hundred different thoughts all doing a rain dance inside my head, I want to go in a different direct on this post. Besides, most of my thoughts right now are so muddled and jumbled and un-fleshed out that to spill them onto the blog would just be one big, wonderful mess. We'll save that for later...

Last weekend, I attended the Appetite for Construction Concert Tour, which featured Switchfoot and Relient K. All in all, I had a very good time, even if I had purchased 12 tickets in plans of taking a group of youth only to find myself there with my wife, sister-in-law, and her friend, and no youth. But it got me thinking: What are the best concerts I have ever attended? ... and What have been the worst? Join me as we take a stroll down Vernon's Memory Lane...

The Best

#5 - Pierce Pettis (Eric Peters)

A very good, very laid-back, stripped-down concert in the basement of a church in Dallas, TX. I was only newly introduced to Pierce by my friend, Josh (who, you'll find, is an influence in a few of these selections), and I was not disappointed by Pierce's deep, soulful folk voice that blends so finely with his stark yet beautiful guitar playing. Eric Peters opened, and did a great job by himself as well, even when his guitar string snapped halfway through one of his best songs - he took about five minutes to change and tune it, then returned to the song as if he had never stopped. I got a chance to talk to Pierce for a moment during the intermission in which he told me a great story about how he came to write one of his songs. And it was his playing of "Song of Songs" that has stayed with me so long, and why I sang it to Leigh at our wedding reception.

#4 - Behold the Lamb of God with Andrew Peterson & guests

Saw this one in Clear Lake, TX with my buddy, Grayson. An amazing concert. You'll notice that I like a lot of folk music, and like it even better in concert when it is laid-back and showcases just an artist and his or her guitar. The first half was just Peterson and his friends (Sandra McCracken, Derek Webb, Jill Phillips, Andy Gullahorn, Andrew Osenga, and Randall Goodgame) all playing a couple of their own songs. After intermission, they all came back out and collaborated, playing through Peterson's entire Christmas concert. Phenomenal talent and beautiful music, and even though Jill and Sandra are married (as well as me, I might add), all rolled up, this was one of the few concerts I felt privileged to be at, like I was in on a secret.
***I got my tickets for this year's show in Sugarland - Nov. 30th - the evening of my birthday -
along with a few extras, in case anyone is interested.***

#3 - dc Talk w/ Christafari and Grits

Not that I could forget the (then very new) group, Grits', audience-participation "Let Me See Your Head Bob" song, or the strange woman who came out of nowhere and started dancing some African/islander-inspired dance during Christafari's reggae-rock, but the most memorable thing about #3 is the energy and craziness incited by dc Talk's set. This concert was pre-Jesus Freak album, post-Jesus Freak single, so their image was still transforming from goofy rap hooks to a melding of grunge and alternative pop ... I don't know if this was the recipe for awesome, but it sure did the trick. For the first time in my life, I moshed, crowd-surfed, pushed and shoved my way to the front of the stage, and left with my entire T-shirt soaked through with sweat. Now, some of you might chuckle at the lameness of said moshing, crowd-surfing, and such that might have been at a dc Talk concert, but you must remember that I was an innocent sixteen year old kid in a youth group, and the sweat-soaked shirt was one of those ridiculous Christian tees (the only one I miss wearing, I might add). But, c'mon, when Toby climbed up the twelve foot speaker, pointed at us, and then jumped off, how could this gig not make the list?

#2 - David Wilcox

What can I say about this one? It's not like me to become a huge fan of an artist just by going to hear him play live. Normally, I'm more of a studio album fan - I've been bored at many a concert because the music just doesn't sound as good live as it does on the album, or it doesn't move me the way the album version does. Certainly not the case with Wilcox. I've seen him three times in the same place (McDavid Studio in Ft. Worth, TX), one year after the other. It was the first song (and subsequent story) that sold me on every ticket and album I later purchased. I still remember the little girl in the front with her parents who, after she requested one of his hit songs right at the beginning, received his answer, "What? Okay, sure. I was gonna save that one for the end, but you might be asleep." At the end of the show, before he could walk out, she ran up and gave a him a big hug. And why wouldn't she? Wilcox is an amazing guitar player and songwriter, but it is his stories that keep you coming back to his concerts. In explaining a metaphor around which he crafts a song, Wilcox will go into wonderful and whimsical detail before playing many of them, all while strumming and tuning. His metaphor on theodicy using golf was extraordinary. Once again, I must give props to my friend, Josh, for inviting me to that first concert and turning me on to this amazing artist. The concert atmosphere is best captured on Wilcox's two live albums, East Asheville Hardware and Live Songs and Stories, and, I promise, unless you despise folk music in its entirety, you'll never feel more alive than when you listen and laugh at his work. If you do hate folk music, I'm pretty sure that is proof you are already dead anyway.

#1 - Rick Elias Remembers Rich Mullins

The Celebrate Freedom concert at Southfork Ranch in Dallas, TX, back in the summer of 1998, shows up several more times on this list, but mostly in the "bad" section. However, there was one shining moment that redeemed the whole experience for me that hot-rainy-hot-rainy July day. Several artists passing through Dallas who were not on the bill showed up at Southfork that afternoon. One was Ragamuffin Band member, Rick Elias. Despite continual warnings all afternoon about lightning, and a sky that was threatening, and soon unleashed, a downpour of rain during his brief set, Rick Elias squeezed into the schedule and stepped out onto the stage. He plugged in his acoustic guitar and said, "As many of you are aware, my friend Rich tragically passed away last September. This was a song he really liked." He proceeded to play "Man of No Reputation," a song, it has been told, Rich wanted to record on the album he was working on at the time of his death, but had not yet been able to get through his cover of it without breaking down crying. It seemed Rick was almost as choked up when he transitioned into his only other song, "My Deliverer," which was out on the radio at that time. As he played and we all began to sing along, the rain began to pour from the gray-green sky, and as stagehands began motioning for him to pack it up because of lightning, Rick stopped singing after repeating the last refrain, stood listening to us continue on for a few moments, and then quietly unplugged his guitar and walked off stage. Never has a concert experience equaled the power of those two, simple songs.

Honorable Mentions

Switchfoot / Relient K - Houston, TX (last weekend)

Third Day Worship Concert - Worcester, MA

Burlap to Cashmere - Celebrate Freedom 1998 (while still unknown)

Reba McEntire - Austin, TX 1996

Funky Brass Factory - Austin, TX - Halloween Concert @ The Oasis 2001

That's my buddy, Michael, in the non-black shirt. Check out his music at www.myspace.com/justmike88

That's all for this post. Check back soon for part two, in which I list the five worst concerts I have ever been to, as well as the three artists/bands I must see before I die.

In the meantime, what are your top five concerts? Comment and let me know ... I'm always looking for a good show.

A Life Preserver Better Thrown

2007-09-30T20:42:00.000-07:00

For Kelsey

If life is a story and faith is a journey, like I tell the students in my church, then there are moments of tragedy and speedbumps in the road that greatly affect our lives and our faith. Most of these times come without much, if any, warning. Others can be plainly seen crouching in wait on the far horizon, practically inevitable, either because of our progressing situations or simply our stubbornness against changing course. All these times can be our teachers. I believe they can lead us into a deeper understanding of who we are, at our core. They can shed more light on the face of our soul.

Right now, a beautiful song by the great poet, Rich Mullins, has begun to play on my iTunes. "Hold Me Jesus." In this song, which I have listened to at least a hundred times, the chorus whispers, "Hold me, Jesus, because I'm shaking like a leaf. You have been King of my glory - won't you be my Prince of peace?" And in a world where so many of us see and condemn this "my...my...my" cultural Christianity, I'm struck tonight by Mullins' aching request. Glory can seem an elusive thing, but all in all, I believe it's pretty easy to come by. But peace...

Peace is tougher.

My glory. My peace. There's no selfishness in this song. Only need. There's no rejection of God's sovereignty or worth. Only the recognition that, now, in this moment, in the midst of this time of pain, there is a desperate desire for my identity to be wrapped up in the One who bestows both glory and peace, strength and hope.

Perhaps one of the most overused little verses of Scripture is the twenty-eighth verse of Romans, chapter eight. "We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose." Most of the time this verse is butchered, not in misquoting, but in blind-to-the-situation spewing. It is normally handed out by a person who has not truly attempted to identify with another's pain, and is instead throwing this verse at it like a tiny life preserver into a churning sea. Whether or not they believe the truth in this verse, they really haven't stopped to consider the connection between the truth and the pain.

Growing up, when I experienced the breakup of a relationship, I heard this truth quoted plenty... and despite good intentions, I was extremely irritated by people who tried to comfort me by telling me that everyone goes through these kind of things. In other words, my pain is nothing unique, so... I shouldn't be so upset? I should stop moping around? I should get over it because it's embarrassing otherwise? I was never quite sure why anyone would try to make common my pain - how does that help? I suppose some were merely trying to identify with me, and to be sure, it can be quite difficult to bestow comfort if we feel we can't bridge the gap to someone's pain. However, making common that person's pain normally only comes across as insulting.

Whether or not my friends and family have experienced a similar, or the same, painful situation as the one I may currently be going through, that does not make common my pain. It does not detract from the anguish, it does not remove the sour discontent in my gut, and it does not dam the tears from spilling down my cheeks. While the painful situation may be a common one, my pain is unique. It is real. And it is all I can think of right now.

There's something to be said for distraction and reasoning. Job's friends had good intentions, that's for sure. But the saying rings with truth, "The road to hell is paved with good intentions." Sometimes, I think embracing the pain - wrestling with it and showering it with our tears - might be the better way to deal with our pain. For sure, 8:28 is no remedy nor is it advice on how to escape pain. It's simply a word of assurance. Good will come. "Hold on," God says, "because I'm here. I know you. I created all things, so I'm well-acquainted with human emotion and thoughts of regret and bitterness and confusion. Just hold on - good is coming."

And so, may you know peace, and may you experience it in fullness. May you know its calm, and may you find healing from the grace in which it wraps you up, and may you understand that though it will be long in coming, it will indeed arrive. Just hold on.

At Vacation's End

2007-09-23T20:26:00.000-07:00

One hundred posts deserved a vacation - an escape from the blog. And that's exactly what I took - a blog vacation. Since the inception of this thing, hardly a day would go by when I wouldn't feel an idea seize me. I would be in my car, sitting in traffic and listening to some song ... or leaning back in my chair at my desk trying to decide what item on my to-do list to tackle next ... or simply lying in bed, unable yet to sleep, staring up into the darkness, ideas spinning in my mind like the blades of the ceiling fan.

I'm happy for the ideas - the way they blindside me. Growing up, it was made clear to me by my parents and my own experience that "nothing is free in this world." But the ideas are ... and maybe that's a picture of grace.

More than a picture. Maybe that grace.

Nevertheless, August and September, when you work for a traditional church, are oftentimes hectic months. The last eight weeks have been spent writing Sunday School curriculum for the whole church, creating, planning, and establishing three new Sunday morning Bible study classes for the Student Ministry, putting together a fall calendar, and coping with the return of 800 grade school kids to the church school, which includes a lot more activity in the new building where my office is located thanks to a brand new dining service. Seriously, these kids are eating grilled salmon, wild mushroom soup, organic fruit, and a whole load of other healthy, expensive foods that make the corndogs and nasty, slimy burritos from my high school cafeteria seem like the nutritional equivalent of child abuse.

Around Wednesday, the new amount of work can begin to weigh me down, but, strangely enough, by Sunday I'm ready for a new week, if only in anticipation of scratching more things off my to-do list. The problem has not been the busyness, but my response to the busyness. A few days ago, in one of those recurring reflective moments, I began to ponder how my life has (it seems almost involuntarily) reordered itself. I thought back to my days in New England, and even before that during college, when I would seek out quiet places and carve out hours of time to sit and read the Bible and Brennan Manning or Phillip Yancey books. I realize now much of my motivation to do so came from the false understanding that in some way I was earning my sanctification like a student earns a degree. But it occured to me that despite the motivation, these times were sacred for me, and no matter my level of understanding, I was communing with the Holy - I was participating in a beloved relationship.

And then came seminary ... and a shift in understanding ... and the struggle to authenticate my relationship, my times of communion. I would not trade anything for this time, even though I've discovered a bit of a nuerosis in how I approach - or fail to approach God - these days. But, hence, a reordering of my life. A new city, a new job, and a new marraige doesn't always help such a situation either. However, I sit here tonight on my couch in my living room, in one of these reflective moments, and I see that it doesn't hinder the situation either. It only changes it.

The correct response would be to change with it.

And so, a vacation from pouring out the reflections in my head has, if anything, freed me up to better embrace the busyness, and, ironically, it has brought me back into touch with the spirit of this thing, this blog. That is, to quiet myself. To get in touch with the wonder of life and report on it, not really for others so much as for me.

The relationship continues unabated ... and for now, so will the writing.

Summer in the City

2007-08-09T12:24:00.000-07:00

It is a disconcerting thing to wake up, morning after morning, in a big city. Especially one like Houston. It is not that this sprawling megatropolis has not grown on me in some respects, but it is so big, spread wide as far as the eye can see from the vantage points of highway overpasses, hectic with little slow down, and sweltering hot. Instead of a peaceful backyard, I wake and unfold the blinds to view painters and lawn workers moving back and forth along the apartment community sidewalks between my porch and other units less than a stone's throw away. I grab the dog's leashes and lament every morning that I cannot let them simply run wild, which is what I'm sure they long to do, but instead must hold them back so that, in their desperate pull on the leashes, they look like sled dogs trudging through snow.

Except that there is no snow ... no countryside at all, really. Concrete mostly, and little spreads of grass.

It's not that I'm unhappy with where we live - our apartment and area of town - or with Houston in general. There are pros and cons to every city, every town. What I miss is the quiet. I miss long expanses of grass. Choruses of birds singing and not drowned out by weed-eaters, generators, and cars blasting by on the highway. I miss slowness. I miss calm.

The rigors of apartment life in a big city are nothing to complain about, really, so don't take this entry as proof of discontentment. It is a hope for adjustment as much as change. I want to live now, and not mourn the things I don't have. And yet...

This is my one hundredth post on this blog. One hundred entries. One hundred posts ago, I was living in Waco, attending seminary, searching for belonging in that place, living alone, feeling strangely part of a city and a small town all at once (Waco is strange in that way). I created this blog then to encourage myself not to shy away from expression, and to be mindful of all the little wisps of wonder that meander into our lives.

Sometimes I feel like that desire has been squelched by lost time and the big city. But it has not. It's still there, under the surface, and even my discouragement is proof of it.

Such a wish for slowness and rural country is helping me with my writing of late. The piece I'm currently at work on finds the protagonist debating his existence in a large city, and weighing the merits of retreating to a quieter, more homely place. But, of course, on the page I work now, he's still in the city, still searching, still struggling to find purpose in the midst of a thousand distractions, things that seem to lie in wait overnight and seize our attention as soon as our heads lift off the pillow and we swing our weary feet to the floor.

Leigh and her sister are visiting a friend in Wisconsin this week, and with mountains of work to do at the church in preparation for a new season of worship and activity, I'm stuck here in Houston. Driving her to the airport this morning along Beltway 8, my eyes fell sadly on rows of towering power line structures disappearing into the distance, and the way the scorching August sun glared off of them and created liquid-like waves of heat upon the asphalt. In that moment, the giant, metal towers could have been prison bars.

I realize wonder is an elusive thing, but sometimes I think I am just too lazy to seek it out. It's going to take some initiative, living here in the big city. For my sake, I hope I've got it in me.

No More Hiding Places

2007-08-01T12:54:00.000-07:00

Several years ago, one random summer evening, I was participating in perhaps one of the greatest young evangelical past times: a hide 'n' seek game in the church. Now, unfortunately, the location was actually known as the "Family Life Center," which was separate from the old, creepy sanctuary with the rows of musty-smelling pews that so often draws hiders during an intense game. However, the large, two-story center contained plenty of challenges for the seeker, with nook-searching hiders able to choose from classrooms, choir robe cabinets, bathroom stalls, and even the elevator. I remember it being a great game...

That is, until, about an hour and a half in, my friend, Stevie, found the perfect hiding place. The place no seeker would ever look, unless they were a die hard investigator of every tiny crack and crevice in the building. It was also a place no other hider would have dared venture into, simply because of how unsafe the spot was, not to mention how soiled anyone who squeezed into the spot would most certainly get. But into this space Stevie squirmed, and sure enough, after every other hider was located, and everyone was prepared for yet another round, and they and the seeker patrolled the building again and again calling out for him, we heard Stevie shout in reply.

"I'm here!"

"Where are you?!" we all yelled, amazed yet also annoyed that we hadn't found him.

"Right up here."

"Where?!"

"Above you."

His voice was muffled, and it sounded as if he was on a different floor, but there were only two floors. For a moment we suspected he had somehow gotten on top of the elevator, but a quick inspection proved this was impossible without removing barriers that were bolted down.

We finally found him only because he tired of toying with us. He had stolen away to a small closet space, and had spied a hole in the ceiling tile. Though it was hardly larger than a dinner plate, Stevie had wriggled through and balanced himself precariously on the rafters above the second-floor ceiling. As long as he stayed quiet and still, no one ever would have found him. Had he not finally decided to show himself, not even the greatest seeker among us would have discovered him.

It occurs to me that despite the impressive measure Stevie went to to conceal himself (he eventually emerged from the hole covered in ceiling dust and grime), he ruined the game. No hiding place was good enough anymore, and no one would be able to top him. Not only so, but now every subsequent seeker would be suspicious enough to grab his or her flashlight and inspect the hole to make sure no one had stolen his idea. But this was not the biggest problem.

The goal of a traditional game of hide 'n' seek is to be found ... eventually. For the hider, it is to be the last found - to prove yourself the best at staying out of sight. For the seeker, it is to find everyone, no matter how well they conceal themselves. Stevie introduced a fatal flaw into the game, and while impressive, he made it impossible for either goal to be achieved. He would never be found, nor would any seeker eventually search him out - at least not without help from the fire department.

I think of this experience when I consider the weight of authenticity and honesty when it comes to life with God, specifically in worship. We know we are living the opposite of honest when we are hiding things from our friends, our family, the people in our churches, even our own memory. Whether this involves things we have done, doubts we are afraid to make known, or questions that challenge our very core beliefs and understandings, I think any one of us can, without much pause, think of several things we are currently hiding.

Why are we hiding? Because we don't want to be found out by anyone, someone, everyone. We're afraid of the judgment, or the confrontation, or the fallout.

If Jesus came to seek and to save, then hiding seems to be of no use. I really don't think we're going to find that perfect hiding place that we can squeeze our dark parts into so that they may never be found. In reality, no matter how much I've hidden from other people, I have succeeded in hiding absolutely nothing from God, and if it is him who I am seeking to worship and follow and live for, than I'm just making it harder on myself by trying to conceal even the smallest of things from him.

Authenticity in worship is coming to God with open hands, so that he may see all the weapons of selfishness you've been clutching. Authenticity in worship is coming to God with open minds, so that he may search you and know all the doubts and fears and hopes and prejudices and biases and judgments and longings that have been swirling around in there. He's already aware of it all anyway. Authenticity in worship is coming to God without pretension, with speech that, while respectful and honoring, is not masked by flowery words toward him if flowery words are not what's currently overflowing from your heart.

Worship is not found in music, hymns, prayers, or even a wonderful, contemplative silence. These are merely expressions of a present state of worship. Worship is being real with God, whether individually or corporately. It is found in connecting with God in a way that is free of pretension and the worry that something - some part of you - doesn't belong.

No matter what most of the plastic, me-first Christians in our world today may believe, the actual safest place for the darkest parts of our lives is lying exposed before the feet of our God. It is only there that we may truly touch home and cry out, "Free!"

Compelled to Dance

2007-07-25T15:16:00.000-07:00

It seems that for a person seeking after God, the worship of God has something to do with love and service. I've read enough about both to see a kind of chicken-or-egg relationship between the two, but the sum of - or, maybe more illustratively, the relationship between - the two is where worship happens. My love for God compels me into service unto him. My desire to serve teaches me more about love, namely its tendency to consume a life from every angle.

I believe this works the same with things other than God. We worship that which we love and serve, but, of course, these two terms are corrupted to a certain extent depending on what is the object of our worship. If I am consumed by a desire for a certain person (as I recall myself being in college for a certain girl), my thoughts are blessed/plagued by said person, my actions adjust to that which will please/impress that person, and my speech is measured, to the best of my ability, to interest/attract that person. The same behavior, only slightly altered to specifics, goes for anything really. A certain job, a particular status, a large savings account, a new car, an iPhone.

That which affects are level of love (the devotion we feel) and service (the things we do) for something is what we worship. And if this is so, then not only can loving and serving become corrupted, but our target of worship can be become skewed by confusion. Thus, we can think we're worshipping God, when in reality, we're worshipping our limited, selfish construct of him. The same goes for a person. Pornography owes a lot of its popularity to this concept.

So how does one avoid corruption of love and service, and keep from confusing that which is worshipped?

I really don't have an answer for that, at least not at this point in my life. However, I have begun to understand that what we choose to worship - and how we love and serve - seems to be directly related to our environment, the trappings and cosmetics that fashion our physical, social world. For example, I worship a certain status/lifestyle because pretty much everything around me validates that lifestyle. In essence, I'm tempted to love and serve something that really doesn't deserve to be loved and served at all. I've been duped. I suppose this is partly what idolatry is all about.

What is interesting is how easily our love and service can become confused, and our worship corrupted. My assumption is that there are churches all across this country that unknowingly specialize in corrupting our worship, feeding us an edited image of God for us to worship. And, at the same time, there are people coming to participate in "worship services" with the baggage of a selfish, manipulated image of God.

I'm not advocating the deconstruction of religion or doctrine or anything of the sort. What I'm searching for is worship that has been simplified. Love and service that flows directly out of relationship, rather than the rules or common practices of a particular environment. We should be compelled to worship, not tempted. Within such a distinction is a life change that I believe God desires for us all. That which draws us into a dance with him. Religion is the dance hall, and doctrine is the music, but the dance is all our own. Anyone who has ever shared a dance with someone they truly love can tell you that other than maybe remembering the name or chorus of the tune, nothing else really mattered at the time than the person whom they were holding and sweeping and twirling across the floor.

True worship, therefore, is authentic. We must be transparent - honest in full. No one wants to dance with someone who pretends to know the moves when they really don't have a clue. I think God would much rather dance with someone who isn't afraid to admit they need him to lead.

A Voice of One Crying from a Dead Church

2007-07-17T12:50:00.000-07:00

For a long time now, I have been reading a lot of blogs that contrast good churches vs. bad churches, and/or address the symptoms and evidence of what constitutes a dead or dying church. There is so much written in cyberspace about this subject it would not surprise me if I found out the subject dwelt within its own sort of cyber-subculture ... and I would place money that such a network would be pessimistic in tone and outlook.

To be a part of a church or mega-church that is more concerned with image or status quo safety, or to look around and see the many churches and "Christian organizations" that seem to have this following-Jesus thing all wrong, is indeed a frustrating thing. We want to see change. Some of us want to incite that change. Many others want to discuss that change. Unfortunately, few of us actually desire to work toward that change, and to dig into the work so completely that we shut up about the problem long enough to involve ourselves in the fix.

I realize by writing this entry, I immediately align myself with one of the former groups. However, I've decided that if I'm going to write about this subject, I might as well be as honest as I can...

The thing that frustrates me even more than dead or dying churches are the many people who label such churches this way. Call them cynical, or pessimistic, or just judgmentally sardonic, but rarely are these people apt to give a particular struggling church or mega-church a chance if an alternative congregation/community is, in their opinion, getting it right where the others are getting it so wrong. Whether the alternative community is emergent, relevant, innovative, or all of the above, to a person who has learned how to judge the Church, it is simply one thing: greener pastures. In essence, it is the congregational equivalent of a white flight. A neighborhood changes in outlook or becomes too crowded, invaded by people different from me, and I look to the suburbs outside of town where it is safer and I like the look of the landscape a lot better, where people think like me and don't mind my condemnation of the old neighborhood because, instead of staying there to enact change, they escaped to the greener pastures as well. The more I apply this metaphor, the more I see the new, hip, alternative congregations as the greener pastures, and the old model churches (or, even sometimes, the mega-churches) as the old neighborhood many of us are leaving behind for the cause of returning Jesus, and true Christianity, to the Church.

How do we justify planting new congregations if we abandon old ones to do so? If there is a place with a "need," fine. But if the need is just to plant a church that isn't as frustrating or backward, I'm not as quick to appreciate the plant. Did anyone try to affect change in the old community first? Or were they just too close-minded, too set in their ways?

I realize some of what I'm writing here is biting into my own thoughts and behavior, but I read so much subtle (and sometimes non-subtle) condemnation of the mega-church Christian subculture, and rarely, if ever, read of the dangers of escaping these churches that might have some things - if not many things - wrong with it.

My church is one that many of the blogs I read would label as dead or dying. Our attendance is down, as many people are leaving as are visiting, we are consolidating bible studies and Sunday classes because we don't have enough of any one age or station in life to meet on their own. There are people in our church that see missions as nothing more than giving money, and we are involved in very few direct outreach programs to the community. All in all, for many people in my church, life on Sunday morning is lived much different than life during the week. Such criteria is the fodder for these blogs, and it screams, "Abandon this church and find yourself a relevant community that is making an impact!" And a part of me would love to, but then, whether like a loyal captain or Lot's wife, I look back and think, "What will become of them if I, too, leave them behind?" Do I just cut and run and leave them to die? Do I do nothing ... when I certainly could do something ... anything ... EVERYTHING I can to try and save the church?

Maybe this entry is simply the squeaking voice of a person too scared to abandon a sinking Titanic unaware of the certain death that awaits ... or maybe it is of a person who is not ready to give up on a community of people who might have a lot of it wrong, but is still a community with blood running through its veins, with a life that can still be seized and lived toward impact. I do not agree that a dying church is not worth saving. I do not even believe that a dead church (containing whatever criteria makes them that in your opinion) is not worth saving. My church may not be relevant right now, but we're working on it. Who knows whether we'll get there, but there's more to serving God than simply correcting our motivations.

The Steaming Cup

2007-07-02T14:28:00.000-07:00

It seems the attitude of the day is denial...

This morning, during a much needed time of quiet, I read over these words Thomas Merton wrote 67 years ago. "What (besides making lists of the vices of our age) are some of the greatest vices of our age? To begin with, people began to get self-conscious about the fact that their misconducted lives were going to pieces, so instead of ceasing to do the things that made them ashamed and unhappy, they made it a new rule that they must never be ashamed of the things they did. There was to be only one capital sin: to be ashamed. That was how they thought they could solve the problem of sin, by abolishing the term."

And then, in the Liturgy of the Hours for today, I read the story of Peter, following the arresting party of Jesus at a somewhat safe distance, and warming himself by a fire just a stone's throw from Jesus' travesty of a trial. He's fingered three times, and each time, to preserve himself, he denies his relationship to Jesus. And so it is with us, one way or another.

Denial is the easy way out, and I think it drives more of our thoughts and actions than we realize. Denial can separate us from guilt, and it can draw us closer to another person by casting a shadow over truth. Merton's words hit home this morning, not because I knowingly avoid shame by denying the wages of my mistakes, but because, at times, I find myself denying the stark reality of the gospel - of a God who is both love and wrath, mercy and justice. Forgetting this makes it a bit easier to forget the troubling consequences of my mistakes and misdeeds.

Denial works for most of us, until the shame we successfully elude finally does catch up to us. Denial worked for Peter, until that rooster crowed and the Gospel of Luke reads, "Jesus turned and looked directly at him." In those eyes was the simple, unflinching truth that denying who you are only works in one certain way, and it isn't for hope of self-preservation and avoidance of guilt.

This same Jesus who finds us and looks directly at us when we seek to conceal ourselves by denying the kind of people we are - the kind of person our thoughts and actions naturally reveal us to be - is the one who says quite plainly, "If someone wants to walk in my way, they must deny themselves, take up their cross, and follow me." Yes, those who deny themselves in this way are, as Jesus promised, saved. But this denial is an embracing of shame and guilt rather than an avoidance of it, hence the "take up their cross" clause. C.S. Lewis explained such a concept as if it were a steaming beverage that we have to gulp down, finding out only afterward that we are able to handle it.

So, may the wonder of denying who I am and all I seek to protect myself from work to cleanse me of the dirty shadows of this world. Perhaps, on the other side of this denial, I'll find the strength to see completely past my shame, and that of others.

The Man Who Knocked On My Open Door

2007-06-26T15:00:00.001-07:00

Yesterday, a man came into the building of the church where I work and knocked on my open door. He spoke in rapid phrases that never quite formed into complete sentences. He immediately took to calling me "Bowen," I suppose because he spied my last name on the nameplate next to the door. He sat down without being asked (not that I wouldn't have offered) and proceeded to tell me about his prison time, how he did not deserve the manslaughter rap or sentence, and many more things that all came out garbled and rushed despite his friendly, talkative demeanor. For the life of me, I cannot remember what he said his name was.

I think it is depressing that I knew almost immediately why he was there - money. He told me several times that he had talked to the pastor, whom he called "the rev." However, a few times before he could get in to see anybody, security had escorted him off the premises (please remember, this is also a school). I think it is even more depressing that often while he spoke, I was thinking about how I was going to get out of giving him money. Now, this was not necessarily because I did not want to give him money. In reality, I had no money on me (unless you count the forty or so euro I have leftover from the honeymoon in a envelope in my desk). Also, since the main church offices have been relocated during a remodeling project, I had no idea where the safe is even if that was the procedure when people come asking for money.

He circled the point several times, that he was asking me to place my trust in him and give him something so he could go get some food. He smelled distinctly of alcohol - at first I thought I was imagining it, but there was no mistaking the odor as he talked on and on. Finally, after bouncing back and forth between his incarceration, receiving some sort of help from Jeff Bagwell and Ken Caminiti (before he died), and the stingy ways of people in River Oaks, he finally laid it all out and asked for money. I shrugged regretfully (only halfway an act) and told him I had no money to give and that, when the pastor returned from the trip he is currently on, he might come back and speak with him. However, I mentioned that I did have some snack food, being a youth minister and all, and I led him out of my office and to the youth room refrigerator, where I gave him a root beer, and then to a closet where I found - it's lame, I know - an unopened jar of peanut butter. I apologized to him that I had no bread or crackers, but, though he seemed annoyed, he thanked me nonetheless, and I followed him to the door. After noticing some of the Hispanic remodeling workers, he made some crack about immigration and how he needs a job too, then left.

I returned to my office and to the e-mail I had been composing, and I felt like a failure. For several reasons, I guess. I know, obviously, what I could have done and what I couldn't have, but I work in a place that, simultaneously, people try to take advantage of (inside and out), and people look to for help when no one else wants to provide.

What do you do when you can't tell the difference for sure? How far do you reach out? How close can someone come to actually doing the things Jesus did?

A Standard Easy to Break

2007-06-19T13:03:00.000-07:00

Last Wednesday evening, during the discussion time with the youth at my church, I wrote the simple sentences on the dry-erase board. "I am individual. I am community. I am a Christian."
Then I spoke about the difference between community and conformity, and explained that much of the "community" expressed in Christian circles and churches is not true community at all, but conformity.

I have read a lot of blogs lately that have been calling out the American Church on everything from its exclusivity to its politics to its legalism. There are people, Christian and non-Christian, who are fed up with the cliques, the seemingly close-minded acceptance of policy, and the hypocritical standards, to name a few things. Regarding all these issues, I wonder if our view of sin and mercy is deeply skewed, so that the above things are natural outputs from our churches today.

In my youth group (and more broadly, in my church as a whole) growing up, there were several things that could open a chasm between you and other people. The first, and most obvious, was sin, especially committing a sin that was popularly spoken against and avoided. To associate with someone who tripped and fell below the standard became much more difficult - it was almost impossible to view them in the same holy light as you had before. Another way to drive a wedge between yourself and others was to question things - anything from the existence and/or actions of God, to the historicity of Jesus and the science behind his resurrection, to the certain code of morality supposedly upheld in Scripture. To question such things meant you were doubting something, and doubting something meant lack of faith, and wavering faith, in any arena, was yet another way to plummet beneath the standard. Therefore, association with those struggling to accept carte blanche was just as difficult. A third way to divide yourself was to simply be a part of a family that held an overall different political, social, or denominational outlook. The size of this division varied depending on how radically different you family was from the standard, but woe to you if you were on the extreme - you might as well have been living in a leper colony.

The fourth fool-proof way to drive a wedge was to suggest the offering be taken up at a different time or that the pulpit might not be necessary.

I explained to my youth that part of being a Christian - of following Jesus - means that you have come to a place where your individuality should perfectly meet with a community. Hence, becoming part of a church should never challenge who you are as an individual, but you should be able to bring all of who you are - talents, ignorance, resources, questions, skills, fears - to the group without worry that you will be forced to change the way you are and how you think about one thing or another. After all, Jesus never seemed to demand a change of individuality in a person, but simply how they act and associate with others. A friend of mine said it best once: "God glories in diversity." And, I believe, the church is at its healthiest and most loving when it has learned to accept everyone as different - people who are at different places in their journey, struggling with different issues and situations, seeking the best way to personally connect with the God in whom they have placed their trust.

Conformity, on the other hand, is losing your individuality for the sake of the group. Shaving off the parts of you that don't gel with the group so that there are no hiccups, no speed bumps as you cruise to where you're going (even if you're actually going nowhere in particular). Unfortunately, there was a lot of conformity in some of the churches I grew up attending, and it is a deep-rooted problem that pervades many churches today. That is why it is so easy for me to think up the things that would be certain to drive a wedge between a person and the rest of the group.

That is not to say that, growing up, there were not people who lived above such things, who cherished community and did everything they could to preserve it. And I'm sure there are people that are the same way in your church communities as well. But, I wonder, how often do you find yourself working and living toward conformity rather than true community, whether because it is easier, less stressful, or is less likely to cause problems of a foreign nature.

Don't read me wrong - I am not arguing against behavioral, moral change. Salvation does spark change within every part of us, but my understanding of individuality goes much deeper than this. We are the persons God made us, with personalities all our own. The last thing we want to do is bring all of who we are to a group only to have them squint at us as if they are gazing at us from an insurmountable distance, confused or shocked and peering back at us from the other side of their road to eternity.

In third grade we made fun of a kid because he spoke different, had a bit of a mean streak, smelled funny, and didn't socialize in the normal way. He grew up right alongside me and some of my friends, and to this day I struggle to see him for who he is rather than who I once determined him to be.

Return of the Writer

2007-06-04T13:27:00.000-07:00

The following confession and resolved resolution can most closely be considered the blog equivalent of a long, deep sigh...

Over the weekend, I became more familiar with a writer that I had known about for some time - had even passed several times in the narrow corridors of Flowers Hall, the English building back at Southwest Texas State. As I finished what is arguably his greatest work to date, I felt a bit guilty.

The writer, Tim O'Brien, had become a guest instructor in the graduate-level creative writing program back at SWT, and though I did not end up applying for the program (which was one of the reasons I enrolled there as an undergrad) and therefore never sat in one of Mr. O'Brien's classes, it was hard to avoid his literary work. Besides giving many public readings, back in 2000 he was a celebrated, yet still burgeoning, writer producing some wonderful pieces of contemporary literature and my professors spoke well of his skill in crafting stories and novels. His most famous short story, "The Things They Carried," (which is also the title of his Pulitzer Prize-nominated novel and the lead chapter within it), was quoted and/or assigned in many a literature or writing class.

Did I read The Things They Carried? No, not at the time. It wasn't because it was a daunting, thick-bound book heavy to carry and even heavier to read. Actually, O'Brien's books are quite succinct, and astonishingly gripping and readable given his choice of themes and subject matter. And it wasn't because The Things They Carried was about Vietnam and was heavily autobiographical. As much as I was not interested in that war-before-my-time, it turns out that I avoided O'Brien's work simply because I was already overwhelmed with a host of writers and titles newly-introduced to me. It was around the same time that my jaw dropped, as if weighted with an anvil, when I read E. Annie Proulx's "Brokeback Mountain" for an assignment, and I realized I was a long way from the neat n' tidy, PG, Christian-genre literature of my middle school and high school days. In short, I was already taken aback by this strange new literary genre - which I was discovering was no actual "genre " at all, but real, real fiction - that swirled around me throughout my pursuit for an English degree.

It took me years to fall in love with the real stuff, but I'm so glad that I have, and the times when, in talking about other genre fiction, I seem like a snob, it is only because this real fiction has become my Juliet, and those genres that came before were merely my Rosalyn's. I am now completely smitten by another.

This past weekend, I read The Things They Carried. I embraced the book, knowing hardly anything about Vietnam, and coming away feeling as if, while still not understanding the reasons or strategies of that war, I have come face-to-face with the heartbeat of the 'Nam soldier, and the angst of all that went before his tour and pummeled him after he returned.

In the same vein, I have been reminded of my own passion to write. On my computer both here at work as well as on my personal laptop, there sits fragments of stories, and chapters of two different novels. Beside me now, in my filing cabinet, there is a whole drawer full of stories, novel excerpts, and vignettes from my college years up until now. In two different cardboard boxes at home, there are stacks of older writing pages, from second grade (when I first found my life's dream) through high school.

Moving, marrying, and making a home has kept me quite busy, but today, I hear those pages calling. I cannot avoid them, and I will not ignore them any longer.

Let the stories return to me, and let them roll on...

Good Neighbors?

2007-05-30T12:49:00.000-07:00

Good fences make good neighbors...

In the opinion of Robert Frost, this was not true. However, lately I wonder if such a statement might actually be true for the Church. There are those in America who think so. There are also a large number of Christians who do not agree, who think the existing fences should be torn down and kept down if we are to achieve a safe, free, moral country. I am referring, of course, to the debate-inspiring issue of separation of Church and state. While not necessarily a hot-button issue (except in some organizations and in some churches), it is one that always rests under the surface of political and religious disputations, and normally works its way to the center of the argument eventually in everything from abortion, school prayer, stem-cell research, gay marriage, and other fiery discussions.

A spirited debate has been taking place on my friend, John's, blog. The entries and comments, including my own, has gotten me to thinking a bit more about this issue. Hence my proverbial hat tossed into the ring, my two cents being spent.

Growing up, what little I knew about the establishment and point of the separation of Church and state led me to think it an unfortunate thing. I grew up in a predominantly Republican, predominantly Christian world (and the truth as to whether or not it was actually this way never would have made it passed my naivety). I understood the central struggle of Church and government to be that the government thought the Church irrelevant and its morality worthless. Therefore, if the Church could affect the government in such a way that it would change such a view, respect the institution ordained by God, and go ahead and start upholding the Church's standard of morality, so much the better. Today, I realize there's really nothing wrong with the first part, or even the second (though Christians shouldn't determine their worth by what their government thinks of them). However, the third part is backwards, at least as far as I understand Scripture and the teachings of Christianity's central figure, Jesus the Christ.

There are two problems with the separation of Church and state, one falling on either side of the issue. For those who are against it, the problem becomes that, to marry the two, you come to two scary outcomes. Scary outcome number one, the government relegates the Church. Even scarier outcome number two, the Church relegates the government. We have pictures in history of both things happening in different countries, and the lines are so blurry between the two it is hard to tell how anyone got any kind of worshiping, humility, or missions work done. It could not have been easy.

For those that are for Church and state being separated (as it is now, as broadly addressed in the First Amendment), the outcome is not quite as scary, but it is dangerous. What is bred from such strong support of the separation, both in the Christian and non-Christian, is an us vs. them mentality. Now, there are a lot of things in our society that can spark such a disparaging outlook upon the world, and this issue, unfortunately, is one of them. It is easy for the proponent of the separation to maintain a relieved joy in the respective autonomy of the Church and the state, but, if not held in check, the proponent can eventually pull back from any kind of involvement in the other. "I have no business affecting change within the government," says the Christian. "After all, I'm a Christian. My allegiance lies only with the kingdom of God." "I'm not going to church," mutters the statesman. "It has nothing to do with who I am and what I do."

The Book of Romans addresses both problems quite pointedly - though in a slightly indirect way - in the thirteenth chapter. "Everyone must submit himself or herself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established ... Consequently, he or she who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted..." Anti-separation people - this means, like it or believe it or not, God has some purpose for whatever government you want to be assimilated into (or, rather, let's be honest, whatever government you want to assimilate). Pro-separation people - this text flies in the face of your us vs. them mentality as well. Did you notice the word "submit?"

"Submit." Serve. Affect. Work with. Get involved.

But what about Nazi Germany, Apartheid South Africa, even the Roman Empire during it's persecution of Jews and Christians and other third-class religions of the time? How can we possibly subject ourselves to such authority and still maintain a clear conscience?

This is why the text does not use the phrase "bend over and take it." Here in the verse, "submit" is not a state of being, just as it is not in Ephesians 5 (speaking of hot-button issues in the Church). It is a word of action. It means to get involved, to desire what is best for both parties, to see another's desire as just as valid as - if not more than - your own, and to work toward such ends to the best of your ability.

Maybe I'm reading into the text. Some might accuse me of this. Others might call me out on the text itself, saying it is not exactly relevant to the issue. Still others might take offense that I used the phrase, "bend over and take it."

But I think of Robert Frost. I think of the phrase, "Good fences make good neighbors..." and I wonder if maybe it is possible to build a fence and still know your neighbor to be good. Perhaps, instead of insisting on the fence, or seeking to tear it down, we should invite our neighbor to join us between the posts. Maybe, together, we can work on it, repairing it, and in doing so, learn more about each other, what makes each other tick. Maybe I can show my neighbor where the gate is, simply so, if he were ever so inclined, he might take an innocent stroll in my lawn and take notice how I tend my garden, how I maintain my home. Maybe I can stroll in his as well.

Hey, it beats standing judgmentally at my window, peering out across the razor wire through binoculars.

Faith in the Mystery: Part Three of a Response

2007-05-14T14:17:00.000-07:00

Only a week since I ranted on trilogies, and I now post the third installment of my own monster blog epic. *Sigh* We are our own dissenter...

What makes a person a Christian, and by this I mean a true Christian? In my previous entry, I attempted to describe the stunted, culture-driven Christianity in which so many Christians become entangled and the majority of Christianity's critics point at as obvious reason that the Christian faith causes more problems than it solves. So, now, removing all the excess baggage - all the bias judgment and fundamental misguidance and loss of original purpose - from Christianity as we so often encounter it today, what, truly, makes a person a Christian?

Perhaps the following will serve as the remainder of my response to both the anonymous poster (mentioned in part one) and Kuvachim (the Xanga blogger I addressed in part two).

There are two "first-of-all" points that must be taken into account. Number one, anyone whose Christian faith crumbles into nothing if you were to remove their cultural identity from it has not discovered what it means to be a true Christian. Secondly, because of the personal nature of faith, one cannot claim said person is not still a Christian, because the Christian faith is something much greater - and much simpler - than cultural identity, and, for example, while it is not at odds with me being an American, it is not defined anymore by this reality than by the fact that I am right-handed or have freckled skin.

With that in place, it is obvious that determining whether a person is a Christian shapes up to be a difficult task (as far as certainty is concerned) for anyone other than God Himself. There is, however, a couple of things that allow for discernment.

According to Scripture, Christians did not come up with their name. It was rather a label; early followers of Christ as the Messiah were name-called "Christians." Why? Because the term basically meant something to the effect of "little Christs." It was a slightly derogatory, toss-off term that, strangely enough, summed up what Christ-followers appeared to be in the eyes of non-followers as well as what they considered themselves to be in their own eyes. Little Christs. A version of Christ drawn with slightly less drama. A "Christian" was easy to define..

Belief: A person whose priorities have shifted (mentally, spiritually, religiously, theologically, etc.) so that they now consider the followship of God to be most deeply marked by devotion unto Jesus of Nazareth, a crucified enemy of the Jewish Temple as well as Rome, who they claim resurrected from the dead and ascended to heaven, and has bestowed - upon those who follow him as the true Messiah - his Spirit, that which serves as a deposit of his continual presence, as a promise of his guidance, and as that which empowers and leads his followers in their faith.
Lifestyle: A person who, affected by their shifted priorities, now understand the call to humble themselves in the same way the Messiah humbled himself (to the point of death and beyond), and to worship the God of the Jews (Yahweh) as one in the same with Jesus (His Son), and to consider nothing in the present life, including political or religious allegiance, as important as this truth in which they have place their faith.

Beyond this, the term "Christian" did not really apply , thus making it a successful label, as any good name-caller knows not to make a slur too complicated (and, to be honest, the above definition contains a creed-like clarity and attention to detail that rings of someone who views the early Christian across a centuries-old distance). Ultimately, the followers of Christ adopted the label as their own. Indeed, it is a strange faith that finds its followers adopting a slur as its name and a ghastly Roman device of execution as one of its main symbols.

In seeking to answer the question, "What makes a person a true Christian?," one cannot go about adding anything more than what is collected above. A true Christian, in essence, means somebody that is marked by Christ both in belief and lifestyle. Not someone who is marked by Christ and cultural definitions of "Christian" morality (distributed by evangelists, books, politicians, or even the Church). Whether or not such definitions would hold up with how Jesus lived and what he taught, they still have nothing to do with being a Christian.

Then why do so many Christians insist on specific moral obedience? Because, at its core, this is part of the lifestyle of a Christian - refraining from sin and humbly seeking purity is at the core of being marked by Christ. But being marked by Christ is not driven by morality or even purity. It is driven by Christ and Christ alone.

Kuvachim wrote of leaving behind Christianity because it has become watered-down and because Jesus' divinity is questionable. I smile at his decision, not because I agree with it, but because he has at least sought to determine the right way to God, instead of swallowing what cultural Christianity feeds him. Me? Well, I seek to leave cultural Christianity behind every day, but I also strive daily to retain my faith in Christ, which is inseparable from my faith in God. And it is indeed faith, because I have been marked by Christ, and therefore my beliefs are constructed by my faith in the resurrected Jesus, even though there is no perfect proof for such an event. After all, that is why they call it faith.

The tag-line of my blog is, "Holding on to God for dear life," which comes from a song by Bill Mallonee called "Songwriter (Numb)." I think it is a beautiful picture of active faith - of belief and lifestyle marked by Christ. The final verse...

"In spite of all my ties I was drifting
Now the kids, they are full grown
And just because you've got an address doesn't mean you've got a home
And they say that it's a cruel world
Some cite it as a sad fact
They say God, He must not give a damn, and God says, 'Well I don't know about that'
'Cause I keep hearing whispers
Telling me everything is gonna be all right
You put some goodness back in and you take your stand and you hold on to Him for dear life..."

This all sprang from faith vs. proof. I don't believe God is provable. I do believe in God, and I have faith in Him. Faith is our way of holding on to Him, and I believe that Christ is the handle by which we cling.

Faith in the Mystery: Part Two of a Response

2007-05-08T14:58:00.000-07:00

During the first week of March, around the time that pop-and-fizzle bottle rocket of a documentary, The Lost Tomb of Jesus, was making waves in the media and creating an annoying (although short-lived) buzz in the ears of archaeologists, biblical scholars, Catholics, and evangelicals alike, I sat down and wrote a blog article entitled, "Leaving the Runway." Click here to read it. In it, I struggled to separate what it looks like to live the Christian life by proof, and what it looks like to live the Christian life by faith. I received some varied comments, and in a subsequent post, I responded to one side of the argument, addressing the concerns of an anonymous commenter who challenged that there cannot be a separation between faith and proof. Click here to read that response.

But there was another side to the argument, one put forth by a Xanga blogger named Kuvachim. His point of view was - and I will do my best to summarize in a sentence or two (forgive me, Kuvachim) - that "Christianity" has become much too worldly and saturated by cultural and societal desires and impulses. Furthermore, Jesus, being a physical man, will not ultimately provide a strong enough leap for faith, because it takes very little faith these days to believe Jesus walked this earth. "However," as Kuvachim writes, "it takes total faith to acknowledge that there is a God, therefore I left Christianity, because God is where the faith is at."

There are several things to consider regarding this young man's view (click here to read his comments in their entirety). Let's start with the intimation that Christianity has become "watered-down." This is what Kuvachim writes, referring to the documentary: "I can see how this can be upsetting to the older Christian community, but to be honest, I doubt the younger generation will do much about this. Most likely, they will let it be, as Christianity gets further watered down by rationalism, proof and science. Is this good or bad, I do not know. In my personal opinion, Christianity is watered down to the point where it is unsalvagable without reversing time, or entering into some 'dark age' once more."

Kuvachim - and I hope he will forgive any assumptions that betray his true thoughts - is writing out of a specific understanding of Christianity - the mainstream, popular one. The Christianity he is referring to is the Christianity that most Christians - at least in the Western Church - live in on a weekly basis, and what most non-Christians consider to be what that particular faith system is all about, what it upholds and purports. This Christianity is a faith system that, despite recognizing and existing by its lawful separation from government, still adopts governmentally-charged societal issues (race, abortion, homosexuality, definition of a family, etc.) as plumb lines for its followers. It is a faith system that concerns itself with specific definitions of morality, and fuses to this question the anxious thought of whether this or that definition is consistent with the will of God (and, sometimes, vice versa). And, by these things, it is a faith system that is ultimately concerned with self, both individual and, where two or more are gathered, the worth of the group. As a result, that which goes against the accepted practices and beliefs (which are chained, of course, to that hammered-down stake of moralism) of this brand of Christianity immediately finds itself the enemy of the system, the outsider denied access to the "joy" within.

The Christianity Kuvachim writes about is worldly Christianity, and, ironically, it is most zealously defended by people desperate to escape the world. It is not faith in God, but faith in obedience to morality so that God will not hate us. And, alluding to Kuvachim's other point, the person of Jesus (not to mention the divinity of Jesus) gets all wrapped up in this system. The scariest thing about worldly Christianity is how viral it is, and how effectively it has engulfed true Christianity, true faith. Even now, in attempting to write an unbiased and balanced response, I am battling opinions and biases within myself indoctrinated in me by the worldly Christianity influence in my religious upbringing. Indeed, such a system settles around us daily, and can be quite hard to shake away from our thoughts and actions. The Apostle Paul called it our "nature," and I do believe the equation to worldly Christianity is simply "human nature + Christian belief." It's the inverse of what C.S. Lewis calls "Christianity-and-water."

So, if true Christianity were "worldly Christianity," Kuvachim's view would certainly be a valid one, and few would argue his reasoning for leaving such a faith and disregarding Jesus. After all, the tricky thing about that faith system is that it holds out Jesus Christ as the perfect example - the very heartbeat - of its principles and direction, just like true Christianity.

Unfortunately, what I have described above (however poorly or confusingly) is not true Christianity. I am quite unworthy and unlearned to try to unpack what is "true Christianity," but, then again, I don't think there's much unpacking needed here. Simply put, true Christianity involves a growing understanding that, as humans, we are to empty ourselves. Of what? Of everything that comes between us and God: our love of material things, our worship of other people, even our hard-and-fast doctrines and rules on how to follow Him.

That last part is the rub. Most Christians rarely achieve that. I know I haven't.

Kuvachim writes that he has left Christianity, but still seems to maintain faith in God. If it is worldly Christianity he has left, wonderful. I'd love some tips. The problem is, from his comments, I have gathered that he has left more than the worldly corruption of Christianity, but also part of what makes marks a life as truly Christian. He mentions leaving behind the person of Jesus, because, by becoming a man, there has come a whole mess of problems associated with following Jesus. As the documentary reveals, there is a lot of science (whether or not it is "good" science) and history that can challenge our accepted evidence that Jesus was resurrected, the core, foundational belief of a Christian.

And this is where faith vs. proof comes back into play...

...To be continued ... for the sake of length...

The Hitching Post

2007-04-27T14:54:00.000-07:00

The first few days of life after getting married (not counting the honeymoon, because life certainly isn't running in the normality gear during those whirlwind days) are strange ones. The equilibrium, while intact and maintainable, is certainly confused. In other words, you feel as if you should feel strange, but, strangely, you don't feel strange.

Right now, I'm sitting in my office at the church, and the iTunes playlist from my wedding reception is playing (and Yellowcard's "Only One" has just come on, and while the sentiment seems to fit, I'm wondering why Leigh thought it was a tune appropriate to our laid-back, soft time of dancing), and I'm looking at this blog screen for the first time in almost a month, and I don't feel all that different, but I know that I am different. For one thing, I'm still aware of this ring around my finger. I've never really been a ring-wearing kind of guys, unless you count that ugly, gold pinkie ring sporting my initials that I bought when I was a desperate-to-seem-cool teenager at Six Flags Fiesta Texas (which I thankfully lost soon after), or that silver James Avery promise ring I wore up until college when I gave it to a girlfriend (who, whether I should have taken it as a convenient omen or not, subsequently lost it).

But this ring around my finger is a peculiar thing. It's plain white gold, already becoming scratched, and certainly isn't an attention-drawing accessory, but I do remember that it stands for something sacred, something sacramental (yes, yes, I would be a Catholic if I were only a bit braver and more tolerant). I'm wondering how hard it is going to get to remember what this ring stands for ... or to even maintain the ability to notice this little silver thing at all. I suspect that is one of the things that happens in so many marriages - he or she loses sight of the sacramental - or, for a more ecumenical word, holy - factor of it all. The memory of the vows, the ceremony, the promise, the worship of that day kind of fades away.

Leigh was telling me the other day, while on our way to the airport for our honeymoon, that it is important to recollect out loud to each other all our memories from our wedding: the rehearsal, rehearsal dinner, ceremony, and reception - all of it. She explained to me that two of our friends, who I like to call Jenny Squared (I have to write out "squared" because Blogger doesn't offer superscript), had told her that if you don't continually share your memories of the wedding with each other, soon it will fade from memory, and the loss will hurt. They assured her that it goes by so fast for the bride and the groom that calling moments back to mind, again and again, is imperative. I'm less than two weeks removed from that day, and I could not agree more. It did go by awfully fast.

There's a small, deep anxiety within me that I will not be able to maintain my recognition of both the vows and the beauty of my union with Leigh as time goes on. I look around me at different couples that are struggling, that have called it quits... I watch movie after movie and show after show about fizzled marriages... I read about them, I hear about them, I sometimes can even watch them crumble right in front of me... and I wonder how in the world I will ever be able to succeed where so many others have failed.

But then I remember two things. Number one, it is not about "I," but "we." I cannot succeed, but we just might have a chance. After all, isn't that what bearing with one another and submitting to one another is all about? Number two, we serve a good, loving God, who, as I was reading just yesterday, invites us not only into a relationship with Him, but one marked by providence and provision. Not the popular name-it-and-claim-it, God-wants-me-to-be-successful-and-realize-my-potential crap religion, but a faith that calls me into humility, to realize it is not by any special deed or flowery incantation that God will notice and condescend to me, but simply because I come before Him, admitting that I don't really get it, and can't really do it, but - and, of course, this is the key that even fewer of us turn - I will blindly trust in both His power and desire to do it in my stead.

Yesterday morning, the Liturgy of the Hours (there's me being Catholic-ish again) brought me to Psalm 37. "Commit your way to the Lord, trust also in Him, and He will do it. He will bring forth your righteousness as the light and your judgment as the noonday. Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him..." (v. 5-7a). A selfish person would fixate on being made righteous in the eyes of everyone else, especially his or her selected enemies. On the contrary, I suppose a humble person would simply take comfort in being made righteous before God. And, in the end, that is what I want for Leigh and I, and what I believe this centuries-old, prayerful song is promising.

So, let it be. Let it be.

___________________

Here are some of my favorite pictures from the wedding. You can view a lot more by going to www.chasingfeathers.smugmug.com. I've got to quickly plug Rachel, our photographer. She did an amazing job, and if you're in the central Texas area, you should definitely hire her for whatever, weddings, parties, grocery store trips, lynch mobs, whatever... Oh, and Sabrina, my buddy, you did a great job, too.

It was a good day...

A Good Friday Re-Post: Extinguished

2007-04-06T18:14:00.000-07:00

The last few months have found me stretched close my limit. Continual stresses, plan after plan to form, schedule after schedule to make. One would think such business in planning a wedding would be more of a hindrance for people marrying again and again, but I cannot say there is not joy in the planning, as hard to find as it sometimes is.

With all these distractions, it has been near impossible to post regularly, and I fear I will not be able to write much more until the end of April (if then!) as I am coming down to the last week (what was I thinking to attempt a two-part response post - though I do intend to finish, it will have to wait a little longer). But arguably more important than next week is the week we are presently in. I sit now in my office after participating in my church's Good Friday service, and I am struck once again by the sadness, overcome as in years past with the melancholy. To mark this occasion, one I feel to be the most poignant moment in the Church Year, if not the most important (many would argue the coming celebration of Easter holds a smidge more sway), I offer again to my readers the reflection on Good Friday I wrote last year. What follows is a reprint of the entry, "Extinguished."
___________

It is finished.

Jesus is captured. He is rejected. He is despised. He is mocked.

The Lord, the Christ, has taken upon himself the sins of the world. As man, he is the only one who stands outside the arena of guilt and rebellion in which we all are gathered. As God, he puts aside all that it means to be God (power, glory, justice, reign, sovereignty) and steps silently into this savage arena. With only whispered words, fragments of a holy conversation lost on the ears of all who surround him, he subjects himself to our brutal, impatient violence. We pour out upon him all our misguided wrath, and as it was foreshadowed by prophets, such undeserved punishment pleases the Creator, who in misery and sorrowful acceptance, stays his hand from turning back upon us the wrath we gleefully pour out.

It is finished.

Jesus is stricken. He is wounded. He is bruised. He is pierced.

The Lord, the Christ, bows his head and enters a place no god would dare trod. He gives himself over to those who could never foresee, do not comprehend, and perhaps still will never understand who he is, and what he has done. Saturated with our spit, soggy with his own blood, torn and flayed, no one in this dark arena sees the mystery. Before our eyes, manifested, incarnated, is the Mystery of Grace. It is a mystery he dies. It is a mystery he allows a single blow to land upon him, allows but one hand to arrest him, yoke him. It is a mystery he enters this arena in the first place.

It is finished.

Jesus is dead. The Christ is dead. The Lord is dead. Our God is dead.

The Lord, the Christ, is laid in a tomb. The sky over the arena is black. A peal of thunder, and we who inhabit the arena could swear we hear the anguished roar of the Creator. Our tumult settles. The din falls silent. We witness a stone heaved over the tomb and sealed. The choked, dying words descends upon the arena floor: "It ... is ... finished." We answer with whispers choked with our shock. What have we done? And yet, this day is Good. This is Good Friday. The Mystery of Grace is dead, yet lingers. Like a fog refusing to dissipate, we are surrounded by tragedy mixed with wonder, grief mixed with reverence, guilt mixed with awe.

It is finished.

The lights fade and go out. The candles are extinguished. All is dark.

What Thou, my Lord, hast suffered, was all for sinners’ gain;
Mine, mine was the transgression, but Thine the deadly pain.
Lo, here I fall, my Savior! ’Tis I deserve Thy place;
Look on me with Thy favor, vouchsafe to me Thy grace.

- Bernard of Clairvaux

Faith in the Mystery: Part One of a Response

2007-03-13T12:50:00.000-07:00

Last week, I sat down and wrote the previous blog entry, "Leaving the Runway," in an effort to express the anxiety that I believe every Christian carries to some extent - that anxiety being the opposing forces of proof vs. faith. I was surprised to receive so many comments from people I did not know. Most of the people I know that read this blog rarely leave comments, so it is always a treat to be able to converse further over my thoughts and the feelings of others.

However, these comments were so varied in their critiques of what I wrote that, in one respect, I feel as if I am standing upon the crux of two see-sawing polar opposites when it comes to religious understanding. I hesitated at first to address these comments, but realizing they all came from thoughtful, intelligent people bringing, in their views, their own unique life experience, I feel now that to not address them would be a cop out. So, let me begin with the anonymous commenter on this, my Blogspot blog.

In order to conserve space and prevent this entry from stretching on too long, I will not include the entirety of "Anonymous'" quote, so if you would like to read it all, simply go to the entry just before this one and read the comments.

Anonymous (and even though there were two, I'm assuming it is the same person writing twice - even if I am mistaken, the sentiment in both is the same) came to my blog entry and was seemingly affected by a wishy-washiness he or she perceived in my reflection. What is more, Anonymous expressed concern that such an inability to cast away my anxiety and uneasiness of faith vs. proof might "infect" the youth group that I lead. Anonymous seemed upset that I would refer to the gospels as ambiguous, though, in reality, no matter how tightly one clings to the truth of the Gospels, only the naive would insist that there is no lack of information, that everything holds up perfectly and there is no reason to question anything. Unfortunately, many people cannot bring themselves to question the perspectives given to us in the gospels, let alone the validity of some of the details, even when one gospel differs slightly from other accounts. They simply cough out the "camera-angle" explanation, and bring into question the faith of the person calling parts of the gospels ambiguous.

Unfortunately for these people (and I'm not labeling Anonymous as one, though his sentiment reminded me of such people), the gospels, let alone the entire canon of Scripture, is ambiguous. It does not give us all the facts, and it does not answer every question and erase every doubt. For example, Genesis does not provide us with hard and fast proof of when and even how the earth was created. The Creation account is not a scientific dissertation. It is a narrative - a story - that delves beyond mere physical reasoning to the heart of the problem, that of human rebellion. In the same way, as I've told so many students in the youth group who have asked similar questions, Genesis is not an account of how the world began; it is an account of how God's relationship with man began, and that doesn't really start until chapter twelve with Abram.

The second thing that bothered Anonymous about my last entry was my closing metaphor, in which I try to paint a picture of what a life lived by faith is like, as opposed to a life lived solely by proof. Proof and certainty do not necessarily have to go together, as Hebrews 11:1 reminds us (and Anonymous attempted to remind me). However, faith and proof cannot go together, at least for a Christian. I was simply trying to illustrate that eventually, faith must stretch beyond proof. Anonymous wrote, referring to my metaphor, "I don’t believe that boarding the plane and leaving the runway is leaving something grounded, solid, or sure – if it was, no one would fly. In the same way, based on God’s promises, His real, historical, physical, incarnational provision of Christ, and His daily working in, through, and around us, we are convinced, sure, confident – full of faith, that what we hope for will happen. It isn’t a wishy-washy hope of uncertainty."

Quite true, and perhaps my use of the word "uncertainty" was a poor choice, but there are indeed two kinds of certainty. There is the certainty of proof, and there is the certainty of faith. These are not the same, as much as some of the "faithful" would like to insist they are. The certainty of proof is certain because it is "grounded," "sure," and scientifically provable. But faith has its own certainty, and it is not based on what is grounded or sure, no matter how true you believe the Bible to be (and I believe it to be quite true indeed despite it's ambiguous moments). The certainty of faith is found in our ability to hold to what we hope for no matter what goes on around us, what wars against our faith, and what challenges or shakes us to our core. Faith is a struggle, and as Paul Tillich intimated, it is not the opposite of doubt. Rather, doubt is one of the things that faith wraps itself around and redeems. Frederick Buechner writes of faith that it is "a journey without maps." So, ultimately, to those who dwell merely in the certainty of proof, the certainty of faith is not certainty at all, but uncertainty. However, for the faithful, as Anonymous is indeed one, faith is certainty. However, what we must all remember is that it is not the same as the world's view of what is and is not certain.

I am indebted to Anonymous for his or her comments, even if my metaphor was taken to some serious extremes to which no metaphor should ever be taken, and my ability to properly direct the youth under my charge was called into question. What Anonymous has helped me do is rethink my words and move even farther along this shadowy path we call earthly life.

There is still another pole which I need to address - a comment on my Xanga counterpart from a young man named Eric - before I can be finished with my response, but I will do this in another entry to come very soon. I think what I have written above is enough for us all - including me - to chew on.

The fundamental fact of existence is that this trust in God, this faith, is the firm foundation under everything that makes life worth living. It's our handle on what we can't see. The act of faith is what distinguished our ancestors, set them above the crowd. By faith, we see the world called into existence by God's word, what we see created by what we don't see. - Eugene Peterson's "The Message" translation of Hebrews 11:1-3

Leaving the Runway

2007-03-08T13:00:00.000-08:00

Last night, I spoke with some of the youth at the church about "The Lost Tomb of Jesus," the docu-drama that has created an incessantly annoying buzz in the worlds between the media and academia, especially archaeological, scriptural, and theological studies. To read more about this ridiculous documentary, go here, or here, or, for more scholarly information and links, go here.

What was interesting to me is what has been going on inside me, in my mind and my spirit, while I debate and refute this documentary and the claims it makes. I explained last night to the youth that when stuff like this pops up in the news and culture, Christians will normally react in three different ways. 1) They will spiral into a pissed-off realm of reactivity and begin lambasting Hollywood, Jews, skeptics, science, and whatever and whomever else they feel has done the cultural and media equivalent of stalking down the aisles of our churches and slapping our pastor in the face. 2) They will become increasingly paranoid, whether because they worry that something discovered might shatter their faith, or that their weak faith won't be able to stand up to the pressure that some discovery, valid or not, will do when it invokes its own defendants hungry for a debate of the facts. 3) They will embrace the dialogue, excited for the chance that some people will take themselves and their religious interest serious enough for a while in which a calm, collected Christian might be able to persuade them to tweak their worldview to include faith in a mystery.

Inside, while I'm explaining all this, I feel uneasy, because I suspect I am undulating somewhat between the latter two. I feel as if I am bouncing back and forth sometimes. It is hard not to be paranoid. Belief built on faith and not proof has a tendency, at times, to cause trepidation in a person if someone claims to have proof to the contrary. As much as I believe this whole "discovery" is, in reality, completely incorrect in what its proponents are claiming it is, I still cannot shake some of the residual paranoia that finds its way into my bones, and, uniting with my love of dialogue and debate, threatens to make me like the first kind of Christians mentioned above.

Why is it so difficult to leave behind this desire for proof? Why does faith in the mystery sometimes feel like a burden rather than a blessing? The ambiguity of the gospels, the selectivity of the New Testament writers, the odd faith of it all, can be hard to maintain at times, and even harder to live convincingly before those who feel that they need more, who feel that they need proof.

As I spoke with some of the confused youth last night (that seems to be a pattern most Wednesdays, that I leave some of them more confused than when they came in), I tried to illustrate the purpose of faith beyond proof to them, as it is central to the Christian life. "It's like a plane taxiing down a runway," I explained. "The runway is proof. It's grounded. It's solid. It's sure. You're almost certainly safe on the runway. But, if you're going to get from here to your true destination- if your faith in God is going to fly - then, eventually, you have to take off. You have to leave the solidity of the ground for the freedom, and hopeful uncertainty, of the wide open sky. Otherwise, you'll just taxi around in circles and never get anywhere."

If we are to fly, the proof must fade into hope. In both is faith, but the goal of faith is found somewhere on the other side of the horizon.

You Will Search For Me, But You Will Not Find Me

2007-02-26T08:46:00.000-08:00

It was hard enough for me to believe there could possibly have been such a ridiculous pairing of star-crossed lovers on the ill-fated voyage of the Titanic, but now James Cameron is just reaching. Click here for an article about the filmmaker's upcoming documentary about finding the bones of Jesus in some back-alley neighborhood on the south side of Jerusalem. Intriguing? Sure, until you start to listen to all the archaeologists and (of course) clergymen who are disputing the find, which, by the way, isn't even new.

It is interesting, however, the similarities between many Christians and many skeptics today. Both kinds of people jump at the slightest morsel of information or revelation that validates their belief (or disbelief). For Christians of weak faith who embrace any little affirmation of mystery or scientific validation of a biblical claim, it seems they find comfort in the opinions of others, even though faith is not about that at all. When such things are completely stripped away, I wonder if such a weak faith would still remain. If something does remain, then that is true faith. Grow in that.

The same is true, however, for skeptics, which, I know, would make many of them shudder at the thought of having such a deep-rooted personality trait in common with the very people they do not - perhaps cannot - be like. Any long-shot discovery that, however pathetically, might poke holes in the traditionally-held belief of the religious, they pounce upon and expound on it as if it were world-shaking, faith-shattering FACT. There have been several in recent years. To name a few, the sacred feminine claims of The Da Vinci Code, or more specifically the one in a million chance that Jesus played Romeo to Mary Magdalene's Juliet; the Gospel of Judas and its purported real true story behind Jesus' death and purpose, nevermind the writing was more fragmented than readable, and it joins hundreds of other Gnostic gospels and first century writings; and now this documentary rumbling its almost laughably academic way toward its March 4th airing on The Discovery Channel.

We are the same. You, a skeptic, and me, a man of little faith, who still feels that surge of pious excitement when some obscure archaeologist reports finding a petrified piece of cypress log on Mt. Ararat, or a day missing from some ancient calendar record dated around the time of Joshua.

When will we both heed the words that were spoken first to the disciples and the temple police in their confusion and doubt, and then to us in our zealous yet futile search for proof? - "You will search for me, but you will not find me."

An Unveiling

2007-02-22T13:08:00.000-08:00

I have started up a new blog address in addition to this one. It is called Wonderstuff: Pop Goes the Culture. For some time I have been trying to decide if I should separate some of my blog entries that concern pop culture, politics, and/or entertainment from those that are centered more on biblical, spiritual, and/or missional matters. Because this blog has gotten large enough (this will be the 85th post) and does not appear to be tapering off (despite when I'm laid up with either the flu or wedding plans), I've decided a spin-off blog might be interesting. Will it be a Frasier, or a Joey? I suppose only time will tell.

I do hope you will make an effort to visit this new blog while still maintaining your perusal of this one as well. You will begin to notice that the sidebar of this blog will contain both a link to Wonderstuff: Pop Goes the Culture as well as a notice when a new entry appears on it.

Please also remember that this blog, Wonderstuff, has a Xanga counterpart if you are more of a Xanga reader than a Blogger. A link will soon be posted in the sidebar for that site as well.

Okay, enough shameless plugging. Now that everything is getting more organized, I can get back to the original spirit of this blog. And now it has a friend!

You can read Wonderstuff: Pop Goes the Culture, including the inaugural post, by going to this address:
www.wonderstuffreviews.blogspot.com

Grace and peace to you, my readers.

Observations from the Couch

2007-02-16T10:36:00.000-08:00

It appears that I am down for the count this weekend. My throat is raw, scratchy, sore, and, to use the appropriate medical term, "just plain icky." My olfactory is filled with all manner of things it should not normally house. I'm drinking orange juice and putting my faith in the not-so-miraculous powers of Sudafed, Benadryl, and Ricola. I need to sleep, but I find it hard to sleep in the middle of the day no matter how exhausted I am, unless it is Sunday (for some reason, I can sack out on Sunday after church like a grizzly bear beginning its hibernation).

So, in the meantime, I am posting the response from the Focus on the Family offices to my - how shall I describe it? - letter of complaint. I wasn't sure if they would respond, and the fact that they did rather promptly brings me to a bit more respect for them than I had of late. However, I'm not so sure that the basic point of my letter was received, because the woman's defense seems like a standard one - almost a faxed in response. After reading so many of these magazines, something I have realized is that my concept of what can motivate "godly behavior" does not have to be something devoid of darkness, pain, or angst, whereas their opinion is that something in pop culture cannot serve as a godliness motivator if it doesn't almost explicitly proclaim black and white biblical truth. I've written on this dilemma before - to read more, go here.

Still, it is encouraging to know we are both seeking to help students, even if we completely disagree on how it should be done.
___________

Letter of response:

Thank you, Bo, for contacting Plugged In.

We appreciate your taking the time to share your concerns regarding the reviews in our publication. In response, it’s important to understand that Plugged In is not written for teens, pre-teens, or young adults, but rather for *parents* who need help sorting out their kids’ entertainment choices. You might be surprised at the number of Christian parents who haven’t a clue as to what their children are encountering “out there” on a daily basis. Plugged In seeks to lay it all out for them as dispassionately as possible. This is why our writers go to great lengths to identify every aspect of a film, television show, or CD, even down to the smallest detail, that might possibly constitute a problem for concerned moms and dads. Once parents have the facts, they can make wise, discerning decisions of their own with regard to their families’ entertainment options.

In addition, it would be impossible to discern whether movies, TV shows, or music are positive or negative – helpful or harmful – without making value-based decisions, or judgments. In fact, a large part of “learning to discern” is evaluating whether the actions portrayed or the words presented motivate us toward godly behavior, or toward actions that are sinful. As our statement of faith and guiding principles explain, Focus on the Family’s values regarding family life, sexual morality, music, movies, and other issues are grounded in the teachings of the Bible rather than the changing opinions of contemporary society. Please be assured that we do not wish to condemn or alienate those who disagree with biblical principles. However, in our efforts to reach out and minister, we cannot compromise our beliefs or change the direction of our ministry simply to accommodate differing views.

Again, thank you for expressing your opinions so honestly. God’s grace and peace to you in the days ahead.

Amy Campbell
PluggedInOnline.com

The Tale of the Wearied Defense Attorney

2007-02-08T20:28:00.000-08:00

As a few of you have noticed (if you still check this blog, which has been stagnant for a month), I took a leave of absence from blogging. Wedding plans kicked in at high gear and have not slowed down, and that, along with coordinating the next six months of student ministry at the church, have kept my fingers from the keys and my mouse cursor from the PUBLISH button. However, I do find some time to get some thoughts down, and I figured I would share some of that until I can get back to my normal routine on here.

The following is an e-mail letter I wrote to a magazine called Plugged In, which is published monthly by Focus on the Family as a resource for parents, ministers, and teens. It claims to review pop culture in a "Christian" light. The more I peruse the publication, the more I loathe their close-minded reviews. Perhaps I am just cynical, but in case you would like to get a taste for yourself, visit their online version here. The reviews of Aaron Sorkin's work did not necessarily push me over the edge into writing a letter, but I did choose to use the reviews as an example, since their opinions of The West Wing and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip I could not have found less objective.

Dear Plugged In:

As the student minister at my church, working with middle school, high school, and college students, I am growing extremely weary of standing between two opposing sides who are becoming, whether they claim to be or not, increasingly hostile toward each other. It is getting more and more difficult to serve solely as an ambassador of Christ, as Scripture calls all Christians to do. Lately I feel instead like a defense attorney for American conservative Christianity. The backbiting, name-calling, and exclusivist attitudes of our "Christian culture" are creating rifts between the Church and young people of this country and it is only getting worse. This magazine is a prime example. How? Because you uphold only that which is white-washed and pristine, and any piece of pop culture that contains a noticeable shred of darkness, disagreement, confusion, or angst, you lambaste as being that which is leading the youth of America astray. Take, for instance, your Nov. 2006 review of the engagingly intelligent and entertaining NBC show, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. You may argue a fairness of writing style, but the article's tone is most certainly biased against the show. Anyone who closely watches Studio 60 (as all reviewers should) will recognize that the Christian character, Harriet Hayes, is never humiliated for the values she upholds, nor do the characters who disagree with her find their views and ideologies triumphing hers. The show is simply not about jabbing back at evangelical America. Quite the contrary, it is a picture of how different views clash and function together in a very real entertainment environment - an environment that plays before the eyes of people, young and old, day after day. Why must everything that does not wave a Christian flag proudly and claim allegiance to the "morals" of Scripture be written off as inappropriate for viewers - even teenage viewers? Do we actually believe that we are helping our young people adapt to this ever-changing society by shielding them from every little piece of rebellion and unchristian view? We are so afraid any kind of exposure might shatter them as if they are made of glass.

In reality, pop culture does not have to be the enemy, even when pieces of it might contain lostness and rebellion. Scripture is certainly not without darkness, sin, and confusion. You knock The West Wing's President Bartlett for wrestling with God to the point of cursing him, but would praise many of the psalms that do pretty much the same thing. I would rather show that particular West Wing episode to my youth group than any number of Christianized films with cookie-cutter storylines and lame moments of conversion devoid of any real human pain and struggle. Why? Because the former is real! It is tangible; an image that does not make living the Christian life, or believing in God, or seeking to do the right thing, seem like an easy option.

Still, our Christian culture piles up more and more sterilized alternatives that are declared uplifting and edifying for followers of Christ, and those who do not buy into this candy-coated fluff are seen as desensitized compromisers, rather than what they are, believers who are unafraid of the culture, and ready to walk confidently into the buzzing mainstream. Christians who can locate Truth even in dark places, places not empty of all crudeness and pain. Christians who wholeheartedly agree with the words of Madeleine L'Engle, that "there is nothing so secular that it cannot be made sacred, and that is one of the deepest messages of the Incarnation." At first, I thought this is what Plugged In was about, but over the years I see little in your magazine that does not uphold this cultural Christian battle-line.

And so I feel like a wearied defense attorney. Constantly wishing my client would just settle down and shut up, I struggle to save Christianity from so many of its close-minded followers, while I seek to present its deep Truth, that of fallenness, pain, confusion, mercy, grace, beauty, laughter, and an ultimate redemption.

Please don't be so quick to neatly divide light and darkness, the good from the bad. Look deeper. For the sake of this culture and the young people who will inherit it, look deeper.

The Engagement Story

2007-01-11T10:04:00.001-08:00

On December 23, 2006, Leigh Ann Wright agreed to be wife. The following is the story of the proposal and the most nerve-racking twenty minutes of my life...

I picked the evening before Christmas Eve as the time to propose to Leigh, seeing as how the following evening was traditionally a time for her family to enjoy each other's company, sitting by the fire and opening a Christmas present or two, and Leigh was excited that I would be able to join them this year. So, I shared my proposal date and idea with her sisters, and later with her mother and father over lunch out the Fountain View Cafe in which I also asked for permission (yes, Truett girls, I still asked for permission even though you all taught me that you are your own woman and a request for your hand should be addressed only to you and no one else).

On the 22nd, unbeknownst to Leigh, I drove to Waco to pick up the ring from a fine craftswoman who had taken my mother's stone and placed it on a vintage-style, white gold band. The following day, after a few hours at the office, I set to work preparing the night. While getting clothes and necessary materials together and putting the finishing touches on a special slideshow DVD, everything was going fine. It wasn't until I left my apartment that things seemed to go to hell. First of all, Houston's Restaurant, the place I had planned to take Leigh to dinner after the engagement (one of her favorites), informed me that they could not accommodate eight people anywhere in their establishment. This seemed ridiculous to me, but they showed me the puny table sizes and were very apologetic. So, with only about three hours before Leigh was to get off work (and there was a chance she may have been allowed to leave early), I frantically battled the heady west Houston traffic, searching for a nice enough restaurant that would not be crowded out that evening and unable to seat eight (the high number is explained farther down).

While Leigh's parents and my own parents (yes, they were secretly in town) made calls to several restaurants, I finally fought my way to Pappadeaux Seafood Restaurant off of I-10. The manager was very gracious, to my weary relief, and not only promised to seat an incomplete party of six when they showed up, but even made a reservation for the eight of us even though the time was only a few hours away.

Able to breathe again, I took my filthy Jeep through a car wash despite the rainy weather, and then vacuumed it out. Though I was almost an hour behind schedule (and had not eaten anything all day), I had given myself a buffer in case Leigh should get off early. I arrived at Leigh's parent's house, unloaded my materials, and then parked my car around the block where she would not pass it. My parents and Leigh's parents were waiting for me, and I was able to talk with them and calm my racing pulse and breath. Shirley, Leigh's mother, informed me that she had convinced Leigh to swing by the house on her way home from work, even though Leigh believed I was coming to her apartment to pick her up for a Christmas date. Shirley had made up some suspiciously elaborate ruse regarding the need for Leigh's opinion on a Christmas present for her twin sister that her parent's had purchased but about which they now had doubts. Leigh had called me earlier, frustrated at her mother's insistence, but I assured her we were in no rush, so she should go by their house after work. Unfortunately, in an attempt to fortify the ruse, I unwisely told her to call me when she was leaving her parent's house, not when she got off work as was her usual routine.

While preparing little clue cards that I planned to place at either entry door of the house, with a trail of Dublin Dr Pepper bottles I acquired from Waco (the significance of these comes from the first gift I gave her the day I first drove down to meet her in person), I made sure everyone was on the same page regarding the restaurant. Her parents, two sisters, and my parents would arrive first, be seated, order appetizers, and await our arrival, ready to surprise Leigh as celebratory guests to our engagement dinner. As I finished the cards that would lead her from either the front or back door - whichever one she chose - to the living room coffee table note, I glanced at the clock. It was only 6:50, which meant Leigh should only now be giving her reports in the Labor & Delivery ward at St. Joseph's Hospital downtown, and was still a good half hour away at the earliest. I decided to use the guest bathroom and clean-up a bit, washing my face, styling my hair, brushing my teeth, etc.

And the the phone call came...

Shirley answered the phone, and we assumed it was Leigh calling to tell her mother that she was getting off work and would be there in about thirty minutes. Shirley spoke quickly and then told her to come on, that she was waiting for her. Then she frantically hung up the phone and called out, "She's at Dairy Ashford and I-10 people! We gotta go!"

My parents leaped from their comfortable seats, and I yelled from upstairs, "Go, go, go!" Thinking quickly, they reversed the plan and my parents, instead of hiding their car, volunteered to drive to Leigh's older sister, Stephanie's, house, since she would never be able to make it over to us in time to drive everyone to the restaurant, as was the original plan. My mother quickly placed the Dr Pepper bottles outside for me, then they wished me luck and sped away.

Realizing Leigh was only about seven minutes away and getting closer by the second, in a blur I dried my face, crammed on my shoes, and flew around the house, checking to make sure the DVD was cued-up, that the outside notes were in place and the electric candles (it was drizzling outside) were on, the bottles were correctly in place, the coffee table arranged, and the lights turned strangely low. Knowing Leigh might pull up any minute, I peered out through the blinds of the front window, watching the street, my heart jumping at any headlights that appeared and then passed on.

I had not been stressed or rushed all day, save the frantic hour spent changing restaurants, but now sweat was pouring off me, and I was trembling. I had put so much work into this, for her to show up even a little too soon might blow everything. My thoughts swirled within me. What if she recognized my parent's car turning across Dairy Ashford into Stephanie's neighborhood? What if she grew too suspicious when Shirley began to sound surprised she was calling so close to home? What if she doesn't do what the notes say and searches the house?

Straining to breathe, I turned from the window and surveyed the living room, if only to gather some reassurance that everything was set up. It wasn't.

The central candle, by which sat a note instructing Leigh to play the DVD, was unlit. And I had no idea where Shirley kept the matches! Knowing Leigh would pull up any second, I ninja-leaped into the kitchen and tore through the drawers, digging for matches. Thankfully, I spied an old book of restaurant matches, half-used, and scurried into the living room. The match took five scrapes to light, but I managed to light the candle, extinguish the match, throw it away, hide the matchbook, and dive back to the window just in time to see Leigh's Honda CRV park out front. Diving to the floor, I Vietnam-crawled my way back to her parents' bathroom, and hid behind the counter where, hopefully, Leigh would not hear my labored breathing.

"Hello?" I eventually heard her call out from the back door (leave it to her not to see the candles and bottles right in front of her on the front walk, but go all the way around to the back door). "Mom? Dad?"

Play the DVD, Leigh. Just sit down and play the DVD. Don't search the house. Don't be stubborn - just do what the note says.

Finally, I heard the music begin on the DVD, which was a slideshow of pictures of the two of us in chronological order, telling our story, sandwiched between the quote about love that first moved her to comment on my blog back in April of 2005. Once again, I could breathe easier, and slowly I stood up, ready to walk out into the living room once the song ended and the words, "I love you, Leigh," came up on the screen backed by soft acoustic music.

But, as I stood up, suddenly, and to my horror, the song ended abruptly. I heard Leigh call out in a wavering voice, "Bo, are you in here?"

Cursing under my breath, I retreated back to my hiding place behind the counter as she called my name again. Just watch the darn slideshow, Leigh!

To my relief, the song continued then, and came to its end. I slowly stepped out from the bedroom and found my Leigh sitting on the couch quietly, staring at the words on the screen. I gently touched her shoulder and rounded the couch, kneeling before her. The ring box was literally up my sleeve.

To my best recollection, this is what I said, but I cannot be sure, because during it she began to cry and I was a mess of stress and emotion: "Merry Christmas, Leigh. I love you. I want to be with you for the rest of my life. I want to love you for the rest of my life." I then pulled out the box, choosing, for once in my life, not to keep talking, and opened it in front of her. "Leigh Ann Wright, will you marry me?"

"Sweetie," she exclaimed, "yes!" Giving a big hug, she then allowed me to place the ring on her finger. Of course, being the dunce that I am and the wreck of serenity I was right then, I misjudged which was her left hand, and the ring ended up on her right hand. We realized this and changed it a few minutes later.

We remained there for a little while, me explaining to her all my secretive procedures of the past few weeks, my trips to Waco, who made the ring, where the stone had come from, how many lies I had told as well as her sisters and parents, then me asking why she didn't come in the front and her admitting she had not even seen the bottles and candles that had been right in front of her. I was glad, then, that I had set a few up in the back as well. We toasted the moment with a couple of Dublin's, then I told her that her sister had brought over a choice of clothes for her to change into for our dinner date, which we were still going to keep.

She happily went and dressed while I walked around the block, to retrieve my car. Making my way through the chilled, wet evening air, I breathed calmly again, and would be able to do so the rest of the night. As I strolled contentedly to my car, I sighed a deep, brief prayer of thanks to God that somehow, even in his greatness and glory, somehow condescended to be in those frantic and beautiful moments that had just taken place. I hoped he would remain in all our moments from that time on.

Later, at the restaurant, we approached our reserved table and Leigh was taken aback by the excited, silly faces of her family half-hiding behind their menus. It was a wonderful evening, with good food, a wonderful family soon to be joined, and a radiantly beautiful girl sitting next to me, a diamond ring on her finger, a joyous grin on her face.

Merry Christmas, Leigh. I love you.

The Hopeless Romantic Who Will Change the World

2007-01-09T12:46:00.000-08:00

My friend, Meg, shared this link on her blog, and, rarely being one to pass up a goofy Internet quiz, I thought I would take a crack at it and share the results with you. Regarding the first test result, I had no idea I am so romantic. Regarding the second, I had every idea that I am steeped in greatness...

What Classic Movie Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

What Famous Leader Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

Yes, my dear readers, now you know me even better.

My next post is coming very soon, in which I will retell the story of how I got engaged to my wonderful girlfriend (now fiance'), Leigh, over the Christmas holiday. There will be pictures, too.

Far As The Curse Is Found

2006-12-28T10:25:00.000-08:00

Last night I had a dream that I was fighting for freedom. My freedom. The theme was unequivocal, but the form in which it took was somewhat strange. I was preparing to go to battle (more like a street fight a la Gangs of New York) with a few friends in the middle of a church sanctuary, which, when we finally marched down the center aisle toward the front right pews, our faces grim and our white knuckles clenched, I discovered to be some strange blend of the First Baptist Church of Buda sanctuary of my childhood as well as the sanctuary of my current home, River Oaks Baptist here in Houston. Standing against us was another motley crew, and despite worshippers scattered throughout the sanctuary, it was obvious that this was our hour, our time to fight, our one chance to determine supremacy.

I awoke just before my cohorts and I came to blows with our adversaries ... My alarm was buzzing incessantly.

We are three days removed from one of the greatest feasts of the year (yes, it is actually a Feast Day, and not simply because our families cook ridiculously-sized meals for us to gorge ourselves upon): the feast of Christmas. It is a time of celebration, a joyous triumph in newness and hope. Though the Christian year officially begins anew at the beginning of Advent, Christmas Day seems the best day to point to as a day to start over. The world has its revelry on New Year's Eve and its hopeful resolutions established on New Year's Day, but is there a better day for a new beginning than the day we celebrate the Incarnation, hope defined with ethereal clarity by the presence of a tiny, newborn child placed in a feeding trough?

It is in this moment, and not on January 1st, when the hope of redemption, the desire to try-yet-again, the desperation to be made new, the anticipation to live right where we have lived so wrong, is found. The reverberations of the Incarnation fall upon us like silent waves, washing us clean without us even knowing it. It is there for us. It gives us courage to begin again... and again... and again. It instills in us a Truth that no matter how lowly are our lives, the Incarnation comes to the lowest of places. As the carol proclaims, "far as the curse is found," the Incarnation reaches that depth.

Inside me is the desire to battle myself, to muster my courage and my passion to a strong enough level that I might do away with my own shortcomings, my own gullibility, my own rebellions, my own dark, dark sins. And it is a losing fight. Had the alarm clock not saved me and had I come to blows in my dream, I believe it would have turned into a nightmare, and I would have found myself weary, bloodied, with nothing solved, no resolution made.

Blessed Incarnate One, come and make me whole. Forgive my waywardness, my craving for deception, and my appetite for darkness. Cleanse me throughout, as far as the curse is found.

Merry Christmas to all my readers...

Voice in the Wilderness

2006-12-13T06:48:00.000-08:00

They will come when they realize it. They will come because they need release from it. They will come for this, but it is not release I offer so much as the hard gift of preparation, of expectancy. I stand on the outskirts, the natural wilderness just beyond the concrete one. My feet are ankle-deep in the brown water, my throat is sore from the shouting, and my skin is pricked by the midnight cold. Though I am accustomed to all of this, I do not relish the feelings, but I relinquished my feelings and my comforts and my pride and my shame and my misguided "better" ideas some time ago. It is the only way I can do what I do.

Perhaps they will come tomorrow. Perhaps tomorrow they will realize who they are and where they are - what they are - and they will hear my commotion or hear of it, and they will wander down to this dirty water, to the hoarse shouting man standing in it, and they will listen and ponder and suspect their need for release, and they will gently and timidly touch a toe into the water as if it were white fire, and then step in and wade out, and stand next to me ... and then I tell them I cannot give them release, but only the hard gift of preparation, of expectancy.

But this is what they need. If it is release they seek, they must first step into this water for preparation. They must first understand their need for expectancy. They will desire release - yearn for it - but too many comfortable, prideful others are hocking release in their faces everyday, and such sales pitches are wearing thin. Those vendors have no tremble in their voice, no hoarseness, no bare feet in brown water, nothing but better ideas, and if I know anything, I know there is no better idea than the Idea itself.

Perhaps they will come tomorrow. When they realize it, they will come. And until then, I will continue to cry out, for as much as I am the preparer, I must also be prepared. I also wait with expectancy, for it is this same release I, too, am seeking.

Blessing

2006-11-30T08:22:00.000-08:00

May peace rain down from heaven
like little pieces of the sky
little keepers of the Promise
on these souls the drought has dried
In his blood and in his body
in this bread and in this wine
Peace to you
Peace of Christ to you.
- Rich Mullins

A few years ago, my friend Amy took several of us out for dinner. To celebrate her birthday, we drove all the way from Worcester to Providence to dine at The Cheesecake Factory. Once we sat down and ordered, she announced to us that she would be the one to foot the bill. We objected - it was her birthday after all - but she insisted. She explained that, while working in Thailand, she was introduced to the tradition of hosting and serving friends on one's birthday rather than being served. Despite the fact that, as college minister/missionaries, we all brought in meager earnings, we finally ceased our objections and later watched as Amy happily relinquished a chunk of her income for the large meal. Maybe I shouldn't have ordered that Dulche de Leche slice on top of my Crusted Chicken Romano...

Today on my birthday, I think of this and I realize that my friends make up a diaspora, scattered from Austin, San Marcos, Waco, Dallas, Boston, and beyond, and as much as it will save me some money, I am saddened I cannot offer such a gesture of blessing and thankfulness to those I love, those I have missed and am missing as I live here in Houston. Perhaps I am the one scattered.

So, above is a blessing written by Rich Mullins. I trust in ex opera operandi as I, a sinful not-so-young-anymore man, bestow this blessing upon all of you, my friends. May the words of this blessing find their way into the core of all your lives, changing you from the inside out, granting you peace, patience, and infusing your minds and hearts with unending grace and love. It's the best thing I can give. It's no free Crusted Chicken Romano, but may this blessing find all of you -

Stevie, Shane, Jenny, Kyle, Jason Z., Carl, Jill, Nathan, Austin, Sara, Lois, Kevin, Lauren, Sabrina, Lisa S., Josh, Chad, Chris M., Natalie, Kristen R., Ryan R., Meagan, Lisa W., Grayson, Drew, Matt, Maggie, John Y., Dave, Emily, Katie, Baxter, Janalee, Myles, Amy B., Jason H., Martha Kate, Cliff, Ken, Dr. Gloer, Burt, Bro. Terry, Paul, Taylor, Abe, Stephen, Jeff, Kelly, Amy G., Aaron, John R., Anna, Mark, Geoff, Stacey, Ryan S., Stephanie, Bonnie, Shirley, Jimmy, Kristen K., Seth, Charles, Katherine, Phil, Hazel, Martus, Jeanie, Amy S., Christopher, Gloria, Janice, my wonderful Leigh, and my mom and dad (and everyone else I forgot)-

and may it be my way of honoring you.

Wow, there's no way I could have footed that bill.

Pa Rum Pum Pum Pum

2006-11-28T09:45:00.000-08:00

Come, they told me, pa rum pum pum pum
A newborn king to see, pa rum pum pum pum
You work so busily, pa rum pum pum pum
To-Do Lists aren't for kings, pa rum pum pum pum
rum pum pum pum, rum pum pum pum

How to honor him, pa rum pum pum pum,
When I come?

Little baby, pa rum pum pum pum
I've work so hard for you, pa rum pum pum pum
I've forgot my gift to bring, pa rum pum pum pum
Church work makes me so busy, pa rum pum pum pum
rum pum pum pum, rum pum pum pum

Shall I throw out my lists, pa rum pum pum pum
'Till there're none...

Advent begins this week, Sunday marking the first new Sunday of the Christian year, and I am captured in dozens of little lists. I've got youth activities planned, volunteer meetings scheduled, mail-outs to make, and a dramatic Hanging of the Green service which looms over this week (I've still got to learn my lines! ... I've got to check if that girl can play Angel 1! ... Will everyone be able to make it to our one rehearsal?! ... Will everyone know their lines?!).

During this season of the year, stress can consume us before we even have a chance to remind ourselves (or be reminded) of the focus of season. Christ is coming! Christ is born! We begin the year again anew, and the mystery of the Incarnation is what must captivate us, not the hectic schedules and flurry of programs and events. But how do I practice such reflection while I sit here at my desk, surrounded by an army of to-do lists and little reminder Post-Its, besieged by calendars and staff meeting notes?

I suppose blogging is a bit of a release, and in these brief moments of typing I am able to reflect on this power struggle of the mind and heart. On one side, the requirements of a community plunging into the busiest time of year for services and events. On the other side, a tiny, shivering baby lain in a feeding trough in the darkness of a cramped barn.

Which will prevail? I sit at my desk, wondering and waiting with baited breath.

It Takes All Kinds

2006-11-20T09:21:00.000-08:00

Thank you all for responding to the questions I posed in the previous entry. Please keep commenting if you would like, either on this entry or the one underneath. Every once in a while on this blog, I veer into an area of introspection or analysis that might run some people the wrong way, but I feel it's important to the greater theme of this, the search and continual discovery of the stuff of wonder, that we all take time to consider those things that detract from true faith or make an outright mockery of it.

To that end, before I give my (certainly misguided) two cents regarding the subject of the last post, I wanted to share something that initially seems funny but in reality is quite offensive and tragic, at least in my opinion. Yesterday I was driving down (or up, depending on where you are on it) San Felipe with Leigh on our way to an evening church activity when my eyes wandered to the right to read the latest marquee message of another church that I pass at least twice a day. In the past, this church has posted cutesy, mostly shallow messages, such as "What's missing from this ch ch?" However, on this week, the church sprinted past cutesy to downright offense. The latest marquee read:

Try Jesus. If you don't like him, the devil will always take you back.

My mouth fell agape immediately. In one simple statement, this church was purporting, to hundreds who would pass, a galling statement that is both poor theology and a perpetuation of an "us vs. them" mindset. I felt like calling the church and asking if they would tell all the insulted people that might call in to come to my church instead, where it seems we are slightly more careful in how we refer to those who have not professed a relationship with Christ.

I suspect that an us vs. them mindset pervades a majority of our thinking in churches today. This is not surprising, because, on the surface, Scripture itself often seems to read this way, whereas a deeper, more patient reading of Scripture gives us a more compassionate and gracious understanding of those "outside of Christ." I do not claim to always succeed in the latter kind of reading. However, I do think such a mindset affects many church decisions, from evangelistic strategies, to membership requirements, to church discipline.

I do not think this girl (introduced in the previous entry) is outside of Christ. Some may look at her lifestyle and suspect a Christian would not live the way she has, but then again, such an ideal Christian certainly wouldn't live the way I have either. The truth is, we all stand in need of great grace. And this is the one kink in my understanding that keeps me from agreeing whole-heartedly with those of you who commented in affirmation on the process of discipline described in the previous entry. I'm with Grayson in this respect. Where, then, is grace? It seems expulsion upholds a limited love, and though there is much Scripture that lays out somewhat specific disciplinary rules, I have trouble reconciling expulsion with being the body of Christ, which simply means to love as the Savior loves, unconditionally, unceasing...

If such a thing were to take place in my own church, I suspect I would find myself between a rock and a hard place, and therefore would have to make a decision, because, sadly, the above paragraph seems to be no real decision at all. But expulsion? I like Chris' and Natalie's comments (on this blog's Xanga doppelganger) regarding why this girl and her new husband should not be allowed to continue to attend regular worship and weekly bible studies, as long as they are no longer counted on to teach. We wouldn't keep out others with acute problems with sin, so why them? Is not separation of leadership enough?

I suppose bad company corrupts good character, but if there is any community that should remain unafraid of this, I think it should be the Church, of which Jesus once said, "the gates of Hades will not prevail against it." (Matthew 16:18)

Disciplinarians

2006-11-16T08:48:00.000-08:00

Last night, I was catching up on life and all its beautiful absurdity with my friend back home. In the midst of informing me of all the new engagements, marriages, pregnancies, etc., he shared with me the story of a young woman whom I know and have been privy to some of her headstrong mistakes and misjudgments. For privacy sake, I won't divulge any names.

It seems that this girl (several years younger than me) has been struggling with issues of purity and relationships since she hastily married in her early college years and was divorced soon afterwards. Following this, she returned to her hometown and commenced to serial dating. Added to her dating outlook was the practice of sleeping with the guys she was dating. This was not merely for the enjoyment of it, but, she insisted then and still does today, a necessary act to make sure the guy was right for her.

After several relationships lived out by this standard (a few that emotionally hurt some friends of mine when she grew tired of being with them), she has finally settled down with another guy (who seems quite nice), and is now pregnant with his child. They have lived together for some time, but only recently got married. She is in her third trimester with the child.

The question I would like to raise on this blog is not about her, but about what has transpired in my home church since all of this came to light (and it was not all at once, as many people knew of her outlook and her activity for quite a while). Unashamed of her promiscuous ways while dating and living with a man she was not yet married to, she has shared many times with many girls that none of this is a sin or against Scripture. Recently, it came to a point where, after several conversations with her alone as well as with her and her new husband, the leaders of the Singles/Young Couples group at the church (a long-time married couple) have asked them to leave the church. The leaders are taking quite seriously the statutes of 1st Corinthians 5 and Matthew 18:15-20, which lead them to expel the young woman and her husband.

My question is this: Do you feel this is the right move, as much as it matches with Scripture? Do you think the leaders and the church are right in expelling them from fellowship? My concern is that church discipline isn't what it used to be, when only one church existed in every city. Separation from fellowship might have worked well back in the early church, but today it seems that this couple could simply church hop and eventually find a community that looks the other way to any and every little thing they've done. And would that be so bad to look the other way?

Let me know what you think...

Flight

2006-11-07T08:50:00.000-08:00

I stand upon the precipice, leaning at the edge. There is a strong updraft gusting; it tries to keep me from leaning too far. But for the familiar fear residing in my mind, my whole being desires to separate from the ground under my feet and soar into the wild, boundless sky. It is an unknown, frightening blue sea, but no more dangerous than the dusty dirt beneath my feet in which I have placed far too many footprints.

I know I cannot simply jump. My mind won't allow it, nor will the updraft. I am held fast in place, flirting with the edge, unable to free myself. Unable to fly. I have done all that I feel I can - I have stepped to the edge and peered out into the sky. My heart is filled with a desire for so many possibilities that do not exist upon land, but are rumored to lie somewhere within the wild blue stretching out endlessly before me. To get there, however, will take more power than I possess on my own. Strength to overcome my own hesitation and the guarding, gusting wind here at the edge.

I do not need merely a holy nudge, but a holy shove. A confident push that will separate me. Perhaps I will only plummet to the rocks far, far below, but even in such a crash there is more wonder and excitement than when I fall here on land. Falling here is but a pathetic scrape of the knee. Falling out there is a glorious destruction. Everything out there is better, is truer, is wild and unpredictable.

Deep down, beyond my present fear, I believe a real life is one lived in flight. I need this wildness. I need the unknown.

But first, I need a holy shove.

Politicians

2006-11-01T14:05:00.000-08:00

Whatever happened to, "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all?" Whatever happened to being the "bigger man" and responding nobly to idiotic statements and verbal attacks by simply saying nothing at all? It's that whole turn-the-other-cheek thing - I don't think it ever really caught on.

It is interesting how John Kerry is trying to sound nobler by insisting he was attempting to make a joke about the president, not the troops, as if this would make him less childish. It is interesting how the White House has jumped upon Kerry's idiocy like a starving man on the last doughnut in the box. It is interesting how each political person's criticism or support of the statement sounds manufactured and condemnatory rather than honest - sounds focused on polls rather than human dignity and troop conditions.

It is bitterly amusing how much I act like these pathetic, rival bullies. I misspeak, then defend, then misspeak again even worse. I rail against others, other people and other churches, for having a completely skewed idea of the kingdom of God, and later I get the feeling I am no closer to understanding it than they are. No matter what, I rarely know when to shut up, stop grappling for leverage, and simply be still.

Woe is me, a politician of the faith.

"I pledge allegiance to a country without borders,
without politicians,
watching for my sky to get torn apart.
We are broken, we are bitter, we're the problem,
we're the politicians,
watching for our sky to get torn apart."
- Jon Foreman (Switchfoot)

The Day the Originality Died

2006-10-23T09:50:00.000-07:00

HowManyOfMe.com

There are:
49
people with my name
in the U.S.A.

How many have your name?

I wonder how many of these Vernon's have the middle name "Woodrow" and the Roman numeral "III" tacked on at the end? Here's hoping that I'm still somewhat unique (I never thought anything could be "somewhat" unique ... before this morning).

Maybe my parents should have named me "Leroy" after all ...

There's Racism, and Then There's Absurdity

2006-10-19T07:09:00.000-07:00

The following is a bit lengthy, but I think it is quite interesting...

I'm diverting from my normal, journal-like post structure to report a grave injustice. I normally do not choose to call people out very often on my blog (though I notice I am doing so more lately - maybe I'm the one with issues), but such a despicable act has been committed that I couldn't keep from making the conflict known.

Comedian Chris Rock's mother, Rose, who lives in South Carolina, is planning to sue Cracker Barrel restaurants (based in Lebanon, TN) for racial discrimination after she and her daughter were seated for a meal but service was then neglected. Ms. Rock claims everyone else in the Georgetown, SC restaurant was being served, but no one even came to check on them. (Not even to bring over some of that delicious cornbread, Ms. Rock? My, what a travesty!) Surely this is an injustice ... but on the part of Ms. Rock (and her legal financier, the incorrigible "Rev." Al Sharpton, who jumps on racial discrimination suits like Paris Hilton on diet pills).

First of all, if you check the above link, make sure you watch the video excerpt from Larry King Live. Now, it is quite possible that racial discrimination did find Ms. Rock (you mean someone in South Carolina might be prejudice?! That's crazy!). However, part of living graciously is to give people the benefit of the doubt. Ms. Rock and her daughter went for a meal at 4:00-ish in the afternoon, neither considered to be the lunch hour or dinner hour, and traditionally the time when wait-staff shifts change. Ms. Rock admits she did not try to summon any of the wait-staff's attention. Apparently she just sat and brooded and immediately drew the conclusion that the staff must hate black people. (Then why did they seat you in the first place, Ms. Rock?) Instead, after about a half hour of keeping to herself, she sought out the manager, already incensed at the way she had been treated (or "not treated" might be a better way to put it). She recounts how the manager apologized and asked her if she would have a seat and he would make sure their order was expedited and their meal be on the house. Ms. Rock claims by then she and her daughter had lost their appetite at the injustice of it all. (One bite of that cornbread could probably cure that, you know.)

She sought out the South Carolina Human Affairs Commission, filed a report, and now complains they never did anything. The HAC claims they get thousands of such complaints (in South Carolina?! No!) each year, and it takes a while to mobilize an investigation. They have since finalized the request and have begun an investigation as of early August. Before this time, Cracker Barrel sent a formal apology, a care basket, and vouchers for two free meals to Ms. Rock. When asked about this, she and her hero, Sharpton, scoff at the gesture of supplication. They want to file suit, in the name of all minorities everywhere.

Now, there's racism, and then there's plain absurdity. Ms. Rock, I know your son has built a career on racially-motivated comedy, but that doesn't mean every inconvenient thing that happens to you is a devious act by some close-minded, prejudice jerk. If this is about money, why do you need it if your son is a star? If this is about principle, why don't you find a more blatant discrimination instead of following the country's bandwagon of blaming all insulting instances on oppression? I got lousy service in a burger joint the other day, and my order was botched, but I didn't chalk that up to the waiter hating me because I'm a Christian (though, if I did, I'm sure I could get Falwell or some other jump-the-gun religious personalities to take up my cause). Ms. Rock, don't be one of those people. Nobody intelligent respects Al Sharpton. If Martin Luther King Jr. were still alive, he'd probably have to contain himself from punching the guy in the nose.

Aren't we all getting a little too touchy. I'm not saying racism doesn't exist, Ms. Rock, nor do I claim to know what it feels like to be on the short end of that stick. But I do know how to forgive and forget once in a while, and, if I can squeeze some advice in past Sharpton's husky, hulking, protective frame, I'd say this instance is definitely a time for doing so.

If You Want to Catch the Squirrel...

2006-10-18T07:14:00.000-07:00

This morning, I preached/spoke/taught (what's the difference anymore?) in the church school's lower chapel, which consists of Kindergarten through fourth grade. It was strange to stand up and see my church's sanctuary filled to the back with little munchkins, stranger still to find myself speaking to them, and even stranger to see most of them engaged in the message. However, what was most surreal about the entire experience is that the message which, I admit, I threw together in a couple of days, somehow morphed into the story of my life, unbeknown to the crowd of rug-rats and their teachers.

The theme of the chapels for this year is "the fruits of the Spirit," and I spoke about patience and self-control using my parents' two dogs, Gracie and Molly, and their continual epic struggle against a devious wild squirrel as a means to communicate the importance of stepping back and learning to wait on things rather than rushing right in.

I explained that the consequences to rushing in and not thinking things through can oftentimes be painful, much like Gracie, when she somehow manages to scrape her way up onto the lowest nook of the tree, sprains her paw almost every time when she has to hop back down. And I am not much different...

It is extremely difficult to be patient, to wait on things. When I get a bright idea, I normally take off after it and decide that, if I'm going to think it through I'm going to do so only in the time allotted on the way and if not then screw thinking anything through at all. I feel like this sometimes happens to Leigh and I, as well as with my work in the youth group, but lately I realize that my entire psyche is geared this way, to chase before I know the prey, to shoot before I even see the target.

It occurs to me (as I'm sure it occurs to other people a lot earlier in life) that impatience is at the root of much of our division and animosity. It could be argued that the mishandling of the War in Iraq (no matter how much you may think it was or was not mishandled) came from mere impatience on the part of those who knew we needed to do something about Hussein's regime (and I have just realized, as a complete side note, that Hussein sorta rhymes with "insane"). The same could be considered for many of the problems in the denominational splits, specifically Baptists, over the past several years. Impatience leads us away from an amicable solution - it does not lead us there faster.

And, in my mind, this all spirals back to me, and my inability to wait on the good things and to control myself from chasing after the bad things. And even if I do decide to seek after the good things with more vigor, I transition from battling impatience to battling procrastination, which I suppose, is just impatience in another form.

Life is not easy. Simple, yes. But never easy, at least not for someone who truly wants to embrace it. In doing so, there comes the subtlest of struggles, from the need to tweak relationships, overcome disagreements and misunderstandings, reassess ideas and accept failure, and learning each day how to walk a straighter, narrower line in regard to all the hundred million buzzing flies of distraction that play incessantly before our eyes. To be impatient in any or all of these circumstances is to turn our backs on the goodness and worth of the world. To embrace the world and seek its goodness - to embrace life - is to overcome our desire to have everything immediately.

It is a truth I hope at least the children caught, if not me as well. There's no need to leap into the tree. Just let the squirrel be, because, if we remain patient, eventually it'll have to come down, right?

I believe that I shall see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord! - Psalm 27:13-14

A Contemporary Psalter

2006-10-12T10:17:00.000-07:00

I've found it cathartic that the Psalms for at least the first half of this week's Daily Office have been of the "Song of Ascents" variety, and most have dealt with the psalmists deep, heartfelt cries to God out of the depths of despair, confusion, pain, and complacency. Here are some statements that mark several of the psalms so far this week:

"In my distress I cry to the Lord, that he may answer me..."
"I lift my eyes to the hills - from where will my help come?"
"Look on my misery and rescue me, for I do not forget your law. Plead my cause and redeem me; give me life according to your promise."

Indeed, the problems of many of these psalmists (and the people several of them surely represent) are different from what I go through today. However, this week these psalms have served as both a salve and a reminder of present frustrations. Leigh and I are both frustrated with the lack of close friends we have here in Houston. It is understandably depressing when I lament my lack of confidants, as I am brand new to this town. However, Leigh has grown up here and even she finds it difficult to name people near our own age that we can spend time with, discuss relevant issues, and experience the benefits of community together.

Stepping out of seminary and back into the real world can be quite depressing. You find quickly that most of the issues and subjects you cared about with great passion - many times with tears and sweat and feelings not unlike the passions of the psalmists - the real world you are reentering doesn't really care about at all. There aren't a lot of people around me - even in the church - that would enjoy discussing the Trinity, or even something lighter like the relationship between Scripture and theology, the value of art as an expression of faith, etc.

Mainly, Leigh and I both miss having like-minded friends. Community is shaped by many people, and I do not deny this. I would not want my community of believers - a.k.a. the church - to be solely made up of people near the same age (as many mega-churches are doing these days by breaking up their congregation into sub-groups with their own pastors and worship areas). However, there is something to be said for spending time with people who are facing the same concerns and ponderings as your own. There is not much I hold in common with the middle-aged father of three who makes six figures and lives in an upscale suburb. To assume a relationship with this person is going to meet all of my needs - and his - is ridiculous.

There are gaps in my church community, and I'm not referring merely to the floundering youth group, which averages one student on Wednesday nights and three on Sunday morning. There are no college students, only one or two occasional attenders who qualify as "college-age students," and very few "singles" (I hate the term as well, but this is the title most churches attribute to unattached men and women between the ages of 23-34).

It is difficult, because I look at nearby communities like First Baptist, Second Baptist, and Lakewood, and I see them getting bigger and bigger. Second Baptist is perfecting the splintered congregation, going so far now as to buy out an upscale shopping center near their church that will become their new "Singles" class hub. Not unlike the psalmists, I battle feelings of bitterness and jealousy all day long. I don't want River Oaks Baptist to splinter, but I do wish we could grow and become a more cohesive community, representing all groups and allowing for growth both across age-group lines as well as within.

These are the present frustrations - these are the things that perpetuate the tightness in my chest and the sorrowfulness that visits me in the late evenings when I pray tight-fistedly for growth (yes, even numerical growth) in my community, if only to have a strong home to which I can run and be completely, gracefully understood.

I punctuate this post with the words of an occasional modern-day psalmist:

"Will you comfort me in my time of need?
Can you take away the pain of hurtful deeds?
'Cause when we need it most there's no rain at all
and the dust just settles right there on the feed.
Will you say to me, 'A little rains gonna come,'
when the sky can't offer none to me.
'Cause I will comfort you when my days are through,
and I'll let your smile just off and carry me."
- Ryan Adams, from the song "In My Time of Need"

But the Meek Don't Want It

2006-10-09T10:25:00.000-07:00

"What's the matter?"

"Nothing," he said, shrugging his shoulders. "It's nothing."

"You cannot expect me to believe that it is nothing," said his friend.

He sighed heavily, a weariness under his breath. "It's just that, I was hoping to escape this place, not receive it back. I never actually thought it would be my inheritance."

"What did you think?"

"It's a nice gesture. Don't get me wrong. It's just..."

"Tell me."

"I never wanted it," he said quickly, shyly, throwing him a nervous look out of the corner of his eye. He spoke again, slower and more mindfully, as if in confession. "I could never bring myself to want it. I mean, I did my best to enjoy it - the place itself - while I was there, but even that was difficult. Every day it was something else, but never anything new, never anything genuine. They were all taking up side after side, raising issue after issue. They were practically salivating over the fights that came!"

"I know it was hard for you. It was the same for me."

He looked at his friend and saw the deep truth of that statement etched in the lines of his face. Hesitating, he softly spoke again. "It simply got to a point where I just assumed the place belonged to the others, the ones who battled over it so viciously. They're the ones who seemed to have all the zeal, all the passion for the place."

"It was contrived zeal. It was misdirected passion. Such confusion can eventually consume a person, until that which is fake seems real and justified and necessary. But..."

He watched his friend trail off and look away. "But what?"

"But love ... genuine love ... is pushed away."

He shrugged again. "I just assumed it would not ever become mine. I thought, because I didn't join the fight - or, what they called 'protection' - I had no right to inherit the place. I mean, shouldn't they be the ones to finally sort out all the mess?"

"It doesn't belong to them. It is your inheritance, not theirs."

"No offense, really, but it's not much of an inheritance," he said.

"Tell me about it," said his friend. "I had a front row seat all this time, watching so many lose their hearts and minds, and everything that I did became nothing more than some vague recognition brought up only to fuel arguments and talking points."

Another heavy sigh escape his lips. "So, what do you expect me to do?"

"What you did for your own life, you must do for this place. Give me back to them - to all of them."

He shook his head and said, "They're not going to like that very much - the ones that fight so hard for you." He watched as his friend's face fell sorrowfully, and both of them stepped forward and looked out upon the place, upon the inheritance.

"They're not fighting for me," said his friend. "They're fighting for themselves."

Frozen

2006-10-05T12:03:00.000-07:00

"We touched down on the sound at the top of the world in the land of the midnight sun, where the frozen river melts away and breaks into a run into the sea, into the mighty waves that waited just to see it. From a long way off that river thawed and the tide ran out to meet it. "Welcome home, unfrozen river, welcome home!" - from the song "All Shall Be Well" by Andrew Peterson

My deep desire is to move, to actively seek the Kingdom until one grand morning when I find myself stumbling down that last stretch of road, the weariness melting off me in the final, staggering steps that, as they wobble and fall, one after another, they become the last testament of the paradox of this life, that it is quite simple but also quite difficult.

I often feel frozen in this life, locked into a way of thinking, a selfishness, an apathy that, even in my most inspired moments, I perpetuate instead of humbling myself. To retain this self-centeredness is to be frozen, unmoving. To humble oneself (or to be humbled) is to be thawed, to begin to flow. A river moves where it desires, but only because the destination it desires is what the landscape around it bends toward as well. In other words, as much as a river destines its own flow, it is as much predestined at the same time. I desire to move, and my life is contoured to flow toward the Kingdom, but I often find myself remaining frozen, unable to break free even though the desire exists.

The wayward son "came to his senses" one afternoon while he stood ankle-deep in mud, excrement, and pig slop. Finding himself stalled, frozen if you will, in the consequence of his selfishness, he somehow found a way to break free, even if it was with a rehearsed excuse on his lips. He thawed. He flowed. And he found the sea waiting for him, even surging forward to meet him. The excuse ended up not being necessary.

Oh, that I also would thaw and break free into a rapid run for my true home, the destination I am bent toward, the only place I really belong.

The Margaritas (for Mother Superior)

2006-10-02T09:53:00.000-07:00

Cliff had it right on his blog when, for tribute to Dr. Ruth Ann Foster, he simply posted a photograph he knew she would have found quite amusing. I will attempt to do the same with an infamous story ...

Brian Van Holt, a former seminary student at Truett, told me not far into my first semester that I should ask Dr. Foster about "the margaritas" ...

For those of you who read this and do not know Dr. Foster, she is one of the founding professors at Truett Seminary, where I only recently finished graduate study. I took four classes under Dr. Foster (whom we often called RAF or Mother Superior), and she is responsible for pretty much all of my New Testament seminary education, as she taught me Intro to Scriptures, then two classes spanning Matthew-Revelation, as well as a whole semester spent on the book of her expertise, John. About a year ago she was diagnosed with lung and liver cancer. She passed away last week.

So, the margaritas. I proceeded to walk into Intro to Scriptures class and propose, in front of everyone, that Dr. Foster explain this cryptic reference. She gave me a knowing, lighthearted glare, and finished taking roll before beginning the story.

It seems that, back in the early days of Truett Seminary, before the beautiful campus building and the strong collection of faculty, the founding and senior professors used to go to lunch quite often at the same few places. Waco was still a few years off from exploding into the bustling metropolis that it is now, and so El Chico Mexican Restaurant was one of the few tasty places that could accommodate a moderate-sized, moderate-thinking group.

Well, on one particular day, RAF sat at her table with a few students she was working with on a book, when what should be served to her but a margarita. It was purchased for her as a joke by some other students who were also having lunch in the restaurant. Now, it obviously isn't couth for a seminary professor to be seen drinking a margarita in the middle of the day in a restaurant frequented by many a Baylor professor. But RAF would soon become mortified that she let the undrunk drink remain at her table when one of her students, spying the door, saw the seminary dean (and former professor under whom she studied in her own seminary student days), Dr. Robert Sloan, walk through the door with several suited men, obviously either respected ministers and/or potential donors, and head for a table very close to her own.

The story is still told by some of those prankster students how they watched in utter hysterics as Dr. Sloan approached RAF's table to introduce her and her party to the suits. In recounting the story, she was never clear if, in her students' scramble to hide the booze under the table, the suits caught sight of it. However, Dr. Sloan did, but graciously withheld himself from commenting on it.

Eventually, Dr. Foster made sure of two things: that Dr. Sloan understood she had not ordered the drink for herself, nor had she consumed it, and that the offending students be repaid for their prank in the silly-yet-frightening way only RAF knew how to do. After all, she did indeed own a bull whip, given to her by another former student as a fitting tool for her efforts in class discipline. After all, she would say, in her favorite book of the Bible, the Book of John, Jesus himself used a whip to get people to fall in line. Why should seminarians be treated any differently?

You may ask, what was the fallout of this event in Dr. Foster's life? Well, from that time on, every semester, she would find herself having to answer some ignorant new student's ignorant question about "the margaritas." And, every once in a while, a can or pouch of margarita mix could be found awaiting her in her office mailbox or under her office door.

A more gracious and loving woman there never was, nor was there ever someone who taught with such honesty and openness from her own painful past.

Now you are finally reunited with your brother, and with your great partner, Chip Conyers. Nevertheless, know we down here shall miss you greatly. You cannot be replaced. I hope that every time I hear the cracking of a whip, I remember you. Farewell, my teacher, my mother, my friend.

Dr. Ruth Ann Foster with seminary student, Courtney Lyons

Of Jesus Camps, Dixie Chicks, Jerry Falwell, and the Pope

2006-09-25T10:30:00.000-07:00

Lately, I have been stopped by the observation of how often Christians (and sometimes it is more accurate to place that title in quotation marks) misspeak, and cause mild to massive uproars. If it is not Pat Robertson and his misguided, bigotry-is-the-new-devotion attitude, then it is Pope Benedict XVI reading a point-of-view that probably could as well have been foregone. It is wearying that much of "mainstream Christianity" expression (which, sadly, is what most of what the secular world views as what Christianity is all cracked up to be) is spent either inserting or attempting to extract the proverbial foot from the mouth.

The latest, besides the Pope's pseudo-innocent blunder which enraged Muslims around the world, includes Jerry Falwell stating, in so many words, at a "Voter Value Summit" prayer breakfast, that Hillary Clinton would be worse for the U.S. as a president than Lucifer himself. Nice one, Jerry. Chalk up yet another point to your illustrious foot-in-mouth record.

As much as these incidents make me want to write, in bold letters, STOP SPEAKING FOR CHRISTIANS EVERYWHERE, YOU CLOSE-MINDED MORONS, AND LEARN TO SHUT UP AND SERVE PEOPLE, I have realized something even further: misspeaking is not reserved to media-friendly Christians, and looking like an idiot can come in a variety of ways. Take the Dixie Chicks, who are still trying to ride the wave of publicity that came from their anti-Bush, anti-Republican, anti-war comments in Great Britain some time ago (there is more I could write here, but a good friend has dealt with their lunacy already, and his thoughts are quite good). Or Bill O'Reilly, who makes idiotic statements just about every night. And Howard Dean doesn't fair much better. Mel Gibson, Danish cartoonists, Germaine Greer, Tom Cruise ... the list goes on and on and on.

But it seems "Christians" have a talent all our own when it comes to hating and claiming the things of this world. A new documentary is heading to theaters (it might even achieve a wide release) called Jesus Camp. Get ready for a storm of protests and praises, most of which will be misguided, I suspect. And then there is The Nativity Story, almost certain to be an assault on the mystery and innocent beauty of Advent, yet will probably become evangelicals' next lovechild (especially now that the high from The Passion of the Christ has worn off and Mel Gibson has moved from savior to bigot according to the media). Where and when will it end? And where do we, as Christians who are even afraid to claim that title anymore, run for refuge in a world that has forgotten humble, loving service of others for mass media proclamation and proselytization?

I have but one hope. It is that somewhere beneath all the noise and misspeak and bigotry and the claiming and pillaging of loyalties, there is a thread of peace and compassion and selflessness that runs steady through it all. In a world where too many churches have become dens of robbers, there might still be a community, however disjointed and disconnected, that seeks to be a "house of prayer." Amidst the chaos, there is a quiet hope that only a few of us might hear.

"Here on the New Jersey shoreline, in the greed and the glitter of those hi-tech casinos, some mendicants wander off to a cathedral, and they stoop in the silence and there their prayers are still whispered..." - Rich Mullins

"Enter through the narrow gate, for broad is the gate and wide is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it, but small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it." - Matthew 7:13-14

The Substance of Things Hoped For

2006-09-21T12:44:00.000-07:00

When did confidence become synonymous with faith? At what point did a a person's belief in God hinge on how much he or she took at face value, and how little was questioned? Such a question has become almost like a riddle to me these days, as if the answer might come like a punchline, and I would have to nod, scratch my head, and mumble, "Ohhh..." when falls the answer.

As I have shared in earlier posts regarding my own journey in and through faith, I was once taught that Hebrews 11:1, "Now faith is being sure of what he hope for and certain of what we do not see," could be translated by injecting the word "certain" in place of "hope," thus rendering the verse, "Now faith is being certain of what we are certain of and certain of what we do not see." In other words, with faith there are no questions, because if one is certain, one needs not seek clarification.

As is often the case, the NIV sits somewhere between a good translation and a bad one. The NASB works well, especially in the use of the word "conviction." And, as is often the case, the Contemporary English and Holman Christian Standard versions fail miserably in capturing the mystic nature and weight of this single verse. To test most of the translations, go here and have a ball.

It is the King James Version that wins the gold ribbon in my opinion. It reads, "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Many who read this might shrug and mutter, "What's the difference?" Perhaps I am nit-picking diction, but this version of the verse frees me rather than binds me. I do not mean to imply that I'm trying to manipulate Scripture so that I might have it read the way I want it to. On the contrary, I mean only to rescue Scripture from a Western thought-process that seeks facts over story, definition over mystery.

In our society, in our culture, we desire answers. We want results. We need proof. We bank on reasons. This is a remarkably different mindset than the days of the Old Testament, and even the days of Jesus, where Hellenistic (Greek) culture was already washing across much of the civilized world. Mystery was accepted in OT time. Not all things needed proof. The facts of a story were not nearly as important as the story itself. This is why there is so much vengeance, lament, doubt, and challenging of God in the Psalms and the Prophets. People were not expected to shut up and take everything with no questions, no concerns, no emotion exhaled. Apologists will point to the reason for the forbidden tree in Eden being that God did not want humans to be puppets and therefore blessed us with free choice, but then they will try to boil the movement and existence of God down to provable facts. What kind of freedom of belief is that? I've got news for them (and all of us): it does not, and will never, work that way.

God dwells in mystery, and he does not condemn us when we do not understand, when we doubt, and when we question. He wants us to wrestle with him - why else would he stalk Jacob in the wilderness? He boomed at Job, not for his questions, but because his questions had left the realm of doubt and moved on into despair. And, in the end, that is what the opposite of faith is - despair. Not doubt.

So, let me wrestle with my God. Let me collide with him. Let me question his ways, and seek to understand the sobering truth: that I will never fully understand him. On the other side of these things lies the substance of things hoped for, true faith.

Barefoot Before the Cross

2006-09-14T09:52:00.000-07:00

Today is quite a meaningful day in the Church Year, though, unfortunately, I fear the weight of it will pass most of us ignorant evangelicals by. It is a feast day in the liturgical calendar, and considered to be one of the greatest. Today is known as "The Feast of The Exaltation of the Holy Cross." It is a day of both solemn and joyous remembrance of the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, exemplified by the symbol of the cross of crucifixion.

The following is copied from the Monastery of Christ in the Desert's website:

This feast, known as "The Triumph of the Holy Cross" or "the Exaltation of the Holy Cross" originated in the Western Church about the year 629. According to tradition, it was on this date that the Emperor Heraclius recovered the relics of the cross of Christ from the Persians who had taken them off in 614.

The story is told of the emperor carrying the Cross in procession, but when he reached the Holy Places in Jerusalem, he was unable to proceed further. The Patriarch Zachary, who was by his side, suggested that his imperial finery was not in agreement with the humbleness of Christ when he bore this cross to Calvary. The emperor is said to have changed to simple clothing, and going barefoot continued in procession and placed the Cross where it had been originally. The clergy and people venerated this cross and many miracles of healing were said to have occurred at that time...

This feast ... calls to us to participate in [Christ's] resurrection through the acceptance of the crosses of daily life.

It is a humbling image, that of Heraclius' lessening himself, striving to place himself on the same level of the obedient Lord. It is certainly something to remember, this humility of Jesus, and his "obedience to death, even death on a cross." I work only blocks away from several churches that seem to exalt themselves and their image higher than they even exalt God. The names of their ministries are fixed in sleek logo signs to their towering buildings, or flashed in catchy electronic images across their digital marquees. But rarely is there the image of a cross, or a holding out of Jesus, who is our perfect picture of humility first, exaltation second.

May you and I glory in the cross today, and its exaltation, which is such a strange thing to ascribe to an instrument of death. Even if you hesitate to believe in Jesus as a Savior, take joy nonetheless in the story of a humble man who became exalted, which goes against everything this world (and many of its churches) stands for. Quite a remarkable wonder indeed.

An Equilibrium of Dunces

2006-09-13T13:45:00.000-07:00

With a move to a new city, assuming a new job, making new acquaintances/friends, and unloading oneself into a new living space, there is always the desire to mark this relocation with some level of lifechange. A change of behavior, a change of conduct, a change of mindset ... this, at least, is what I often seek to accomplish. In my never-ending quest to be genuine yet new in every season of life, I often find myself disappointed with how much my new position begins to immediately look very much like my old ones.

Why can't I change? A friend of mine, Myles, recently wrestled with the concept of transformation on his blog, and indeed, this is what I truly desire, I believe, at the heart of relocation. To transform and in so doing transcend my current surroundings - to stand above them, unfazed, yet pour this new, noble, genuine self into all that is around me.

A forced transformation is no transformation at all, but an indignantly-worn disguise of who I really am. Such a disguise is stressful, on one extreme, and on the other, the lows of realizing how little I have changed brings with it a much more melancholy stress.

It's dumb - plain ol' dumb - to try to force anything, mainly because we have been created a certain way, to be a certain kind of person, and the task is not to overcome who we are, but learn how to compromise who we are (even the rough, unpopular, unpristine edges of ourselves) with the world around us, no matter where we end up for however long. To attempt anything else is to be off-balance, off-kilter.

So let me be dumb if I am dumb, but not in the way that tries to pretend I'm not. Even as I grow and mature, let me be a bit of a dunce always nonetheless. Let me accept who I am and be taught that if who I am is good enough for God, it should certainly be good enough for me.

Faith Journey: Part Four

2006-09-11T10:04:00.000-07:00

I appreciate those of you who have weathered the length and withstood the pretentiousness of the last three parts of this, the story of my journey through faith up to this point. There is both excitement and weariness within me as I realize how little of my life this story recounts, and how much may still be yet to come. There is no doubt, this life is hard, despite what Osteen and all his brethren may assure us. But there is indeed wonder glimmering through the cracks, potholes, and sharp edges of this road we shuffle down.

I promise to return to a more consistent blogging sense of mind following this final part of my story...

It was not until after I graduated from college and began serving as a missionary in New England that I reclaimed a measure of equilibrium. It was during a cold winter in Northboro, Massachusetts when I experienced the most poignant of subtle revelations (for there has never been an audible voice from Heaven as I once desperately desired, but only the subtle nudges of the God who does not adhere to our daily planners and formulaic self-help schedules). Still I feared I was years away from figuring out the structure of my life, from being pure and confident like those members of my childhood church standing up and singing with certainty. How could I preach salvation if I was not even confident of my own? I was conflicted about the wisdom of the mobilization board sending me out. I certainly did not feel like a capable missionary, and I wondered if my sponsors suspected this self-doubt. However, it was only while accepting the task to serve in student ministry programs that I finally found release from the tensions of my youth.

The answer to this agonizing question – the profound discovery of truth – settled before my eyes in the gentlest of ways. While clicking across the Internet one afternoon, bored and carrying around the normal, back-of-my-mind despondency, I came across a webpage that contained all the concert transcripts by one of my favorite musicians, the late Rich Mullins, a songwriter also hailed as a poet and a missionary. I began lazily reading through some of the stories and statements from his concerts, knowing that Mullins was notorious for being controversially honest, no matter the fallout. Then I read an anecdote Mullins told at one of his last concerts, a few weeks before his death, about the time a producer from a Christian cable television station called to investigate him because her show was considering inviting him as a guest. The woman proceeded to question him about when he “accepted Jesus Christ as his Savior.” Mullins replied that he was around three years of age, and the woman incredulously asked how this could have taken place. “Well, I was in Sunday School and we prayed, ‘Into my heart, into my heart, come into my heart, Lord Jesus. Come in today. Come in to stay. Come into my heart, Lord Jesus,’” Mullins sang. The woman told him that wasn’t what she meant, and asked him to clarify when he “knowingly” accepted Christ. When he told her he was probably a third grader at the time, she once again questioned him in disbelief, arguing that he couldn’t have possibly known then what he was praying. It was Mullin’s answer that shook the very foundations of the world I had fashioned around myself. He told the producer, “Lady, we never understand what we’re praying, and God, in his mercy, does not answer our prayers according to our understanding, but according to his wisdom.”

Over the next few months, my moralistic and decisionistic view of God and salvation began to melt away from me like an ice sculpture set out beneath the blazing sun. Of course! Never have God’s movements or his emotional qualities hinged on my actions or my prayers. In the reality of God, no one on earth has complete understanding, and therefore, no one can truly know all the ramifications of their prayerful requests. If God is truly transcendent then nothing can deter him from his chosen purposes, not even the sheer tonnage of human sin and ignorance. And if God is truly immanent, then he “knows me better than I know myself,” as St. Augustine would agree, and I should not fear that God might be duped by prayers possibly derailed by a misguided emotion or desire.

I found confidence, finally, in letting go, rather than desperately trying to keep hold of every loose end of my life. Realizing that God communes with me solely according to his love and wisdom, rather than my vain strivings, I live in freedom. The stress of maintaining a well-checked gauge of moral compliance has vanished. I believe mercy is an integral characteristic of God, and is daily shown to me. To honor him, I resist temptation and sin, but even in my failure, I have faith that my behavior does not alter his love for me. This faith is not false, for it is grounded in God and not myself. It is certain, yes, but certain like a man who, though walking in the dark, whistles all the while. My literary hero, Frederick Buechner, writes in his book, Wishful Thinking, “Faith is better understood as a verb than as a noun, as a process than as a possession. … Faith is not being sure where you’re going, but going anyway. A journey without maps.”

I recognize that there is struggle in this life. I have first hand experience that in life there are significant moments of confusion, of doubt, and separation. I suspect I will experience such times again and again. Nevertheless, I do not despair of my life. I believe that through even the difficult times, God brings laughter. He brings joy. I do not find my legs trembling to stand anymore, and no longer do I have to fake a smile.

Faith Journey: Part Three

2006-09-05T18:39:00.000-07:00

The journey of faith goes on...

One of the first moments of illumination through the dusty murk of this crisis came halfway through my time in college. While working a part-time job at a Christian bookstore, on a whim I picked up a book entitled The Ragamuffin Gospel, a work by Brennan Manning, a former Catholic priest. The odd title inspired me to turn its pages. I credit this book as one of the most influential works I have read in my life up to this present time. Manning not only communicated the unconditional, endless nature of God’s love, but how his grace, impossible to earn, should revolutionize our entire life, not just prompt our moral obedience. God was not only to be recognized as Lord over my spiritual activities, but every aspect of my life, from the mundane to the magnificent. In words that have stayed with me since first reading the book, Manning expounds on Rabbi Abraham Heschel’s famous prayer:

Dear Lord, grant me the grace of wonder. Surprise me, amaze me, awe me in every crevice of your universe. Delight me to see how your Christ plays in ten thousand places, lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his, to the Father through the features of men’s faces. Each day enrapture me with your marvelous things without number. I do not ask to see the reason for it all; I ask only to share the wonder of it all.

My spiritual wounds found a salve in these words, and I began to try to take delight in a life of religious simplicity. God was no longer furrowing his eyebrows as he studied my every good and bad act, but was joyfully supplying my life and breath. Most importantly, my self-centered view of God began to fade, though slowly. He grew larger than merely an immanent god – he became transcendent. He was the God of the Universe. The God of mighty deeds, yet still desiring relationship with those he created.

However, with this shift in theology came a new struggle. As I learned to embrace the grace of God – that he loves me as I am and not as I should be – I found it hard to reconcile God’s justice and forgiveness, especially concerning how, as a forgiven Christian, I was to avoid taking advantage of the grace given to me. My Christology was central; the death and resurrection of Jesus was the source of the salvation I claimed. But having prayed to God for ultimate forgiveness and having accepted this salvation, I felt as if I were treating God like a weak friend who cannot help but continually forgive his fair-weather pals no matter how many times they reject his friendship. My lack of confidence metamorphosed into a burden of guilt, heavy as a millstone, bending my entire body into weariness. Day after day, I recognized a desperate need for God’s grace mainly because I believed I was treating it as a license to lie, or to explode in anger, or to indulge in lust, or to put off praying. Surely, if I truly understood the gift of grace, I would not need it to the extent that I did. And so, as in my days as a teenager, I doubted my salvation. Surely a real Christian in my situation would have come to an understanding about how to live both obediently and effectively, growing beyond a need for so much grace. This road of life was as spastically up and down as an EKG, where from each mountaintop experience of grace I would plummet into valleys of guilt.

It was not until after I graduated from college and began serving as a missionary in New England that I reclaimed a measure of equilibrium. It was during a cold winter in Northboro, Massachusetts when I experienced the most poignant of subtle revelations ...

To be concluded...

One Book

2006-09-01T09:42:00.000-07:00

I have been tagged by Myles Werntz, whom I respect greatly and whose blog is one of my favorites (see sidebar links to visit it), so without further adieu ...

One Book ...

... that changed my life: The Ragamuffin Gospel by Brennan Manning. Say what you want to about this book, and scoff at the bandwagon following that has grown with it (though I prefer to think of it as a grassroots movement of sorts), this book is extraordinary. I first read it my sophomore year in college, and then again right before I graduated. The message of God's relentless grace and love struck so deep a chord within my hollow soul that now, in recounting my faith journey, I almost always mention this book.

... that you'd want on a desert island: The Complete Stories by Flannery O'Connor. Like Myles, I feel I would need a good anthology of sorts, and none would be better than O'Connor. I've loved her writing since first reading "A Good Man is Hard to Find," "Good Country People," and "Parker's Back," and just about every story I read of hers, I marvel at it's simple wonder and bone-crushing truth. I feel it wuld do well in keeping me occupied. Also, O'Connor once reinterpreted a famous Scripture verse that always assuages any self-consciousness I might feel: "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you odd."

... that made you laugh: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. I have never attempted to quote another book so much, or annoy people by reading them so many passages. And I have never, ever, ever burst into boisterous laughter on an airplane, but for the time I was reading some of Douglas' passages lampooning theology and the existence of God.

... that made you cry: A tie between Peace Like a River by Leif Enger and A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving. I'm not much of a crier, and honestly, I wasn't blubbering at the end of Enger's delicately moving, astonishingly good story, but my eyes were misty, and I was full of sorrow that this book had a last page. The same is true for Irving's work. I was devastated to part with the character of Owen Meany, and the incomparable gusto with which he clung to faith in God.

... that you wish had been written: Barefoot Poet: An Autobiography by Rich Mullins. There is no other person other than Jesus himself whom I wish I could know the full story of their life. The biography/hagiography by James Bryan Smith is a phenomenal work, and filled with Mullin's wit and musings and brave, get-under-your-skin statements, but if only Rich himself had had the time to sit down and write about his life, from childhood in Indiana to ministry with the Navajo people in New Mexico, pouring out reflections with the same vigor and beauty with which he crafted his songs ... I believe such a book could have changed the world, if not at least the Church, if not at least me ...

... that you wish was never written: Left Behind by Jerry B. Jenkins and Tim Lahaye (as well as all its brethren sequels). I read seven of the series before I finally wised up, and from book three or four on I was almost gagging at the massacre of literary craft these books are. Terribly written. Terrible story. Terrible theology. Flat characters. Predictable action. Stereotypical villains. The reader is beat over the head so much by genre fiction archetypes that he or she begins to lose brain cells. These books are, perhaps, one of the worst assaults on contemporary fiction, not to mention the Christian literary market (which was never very trustworthy in the fiction arena save a few talents). Beware the horrors of these works!

... that I wish I'd written: Gilead by Marilynne Robinson. There truly are no words to describe this book, simply because each sentence is composed of the most perfect ones. To describe it would be to lessen it. To even write but a shadow of the way Robinson wrote her Pulitzer prize winner is to acheive a greater understanding of the craft as I will probably never know ... and I won't even attempt to discuss how magnificantly she captures small town religion and pastoral ministry.

... that you are currently reading: The Brothers K by David James Duncan. I'm only into the second or third chapter, so the jury is still very much out. However, I have a feeling this is going to be a very, very good one ...

... that you want to read: Thoughts in Solitude by Thomas Merton. I just finished his autobiography, The Seven Storey Mountain which was my initial foray into Merton, and I loved it. So, now I'm hooked - I suppose I'll become a Mertonite like Dr. Talbert, Burt Burleson, and so many others who have quoted him to me. C'est la vie.

It occurs to me that at no point in these answers have I offered a book by my literary hero, Frederick Buechner. It must be noted that of all the books I have read by Mr. Buechner, I can substitue one of his for almost every category's answer. His expressions and stories are matchless.

So now I must tag, and I tag I shall:

Chris Moore
Janalee Shadburn
My beautiful girlfriend, Leigh (ha ha, you have to post again)
Josh Brewer (because he now has an active blog)
Grayson Goodman

Farewell, dear and loyal readers.

Superstitions, or, Welcome to Houston, Sucker: Part Two

2006-08-31T13:59:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I had the passing thought, If I believed in and followed God in a much more superstitious way, I would be fleeing from Houston right now rather than desperately trying to maintain my bearings.

It seems the "signs" were piling up, the "bad omens" were weighing upon me like millstones. My shoulders are still weary today, under the stress, under the bewilderment, under the inconvenience of all that moving to Houston has entailed.

Family arguments, ongoing financial disagreements, misbudgeting, the breaking and entereing of my Jeep, inability to procure a moving truck, problems with the finally-procured moving truck, a left-behind wallet, still more financial misunderstandings, a mishandled order with the automobile glass-repair place, and to top it all off ... yesterday my Jeep was towed right out of my apartment complex. I had to fork over $186 at the impound yard, which took an hour and a half to find.

Leigh's mother remarked to me that it is a good thing I am in love, or all of this simply wouldn't be worth it. I hate to agree, but she is right.

But, yesterday, as I sat in my only recently-rescued Jeep, dejected and utterly defeated, after this thought flashed in my mind, I suddenly realized what a prideful ponderance it was. After all, while I believe that much of Christianity is becoming seized in a prision of humanistic superstition, I could not help but admit that I have some level of superstition in me when it comes to the things of God. We all do.

We all believe in God with some level of superstition. This is the humanity - the stuff of earth - that we cannot seem to shake when we seek after Him. Ideally, there is nothing superstitious to the work and lordship of God. He blesses, He curses. He gives, He takes.

It is our phony superstitions that contribute to our stumbling, our misunderstandings, and our rebellious ways. If we feel even the least off-kilter in what we are doing or where we are going, the slightest misfortune becomes so much more than it is - it morphs into a "bad omen." Now, I don't believe that all the mishaps and problems I have encountered are "slight" misfortunes, but I also don't chalk them up to God, which, if I did, would make Him a sneaky prankster who would rather deviously manipulate my circumstances than communicate with me honestly. And I don't blame them on the devil, either. I think evil is a lot more subtle than tow trucks and petty car theives.

I once watched a Joel Osteen message in which he recounted a story about trying to go out and enjoy a Friday night with his wife, only to be made late to an engagement by a slow-moving train. He resolved to not give into frustration, he said, because he suddenly recognized "that this was just a test sent directly from God," and having to wait on this train was part of a divine lesson. Such a story confused me - I think Joel was just one of the thousands of marginally unlucky people who found the inconvience of having to wait on slow-moving trains that day. Since when does God have to be so intimately involved with the railroad conditions in Houston, Texas?

Please, dear reader, don't get me wrong. I believe deeply in the reality that God works in and through a million little things a day. I believe we can find direction from Him in dozens of circumstances throughout the day. However, there's a difference between His being in them, and His manipulating of them.

I am weary, and colliding with feelings of despair. I don't believe that there are "signs" telling me to pack up and flee Houston, but this doesn't ease the stress that has me teetering as if on the precipice of a cliff. However, I suppose the best thing to do is to pray for awareness of those million little things of wonder, and all the more, to pray, pray, pray.

Welcome to Houston, Sucker

2006-08-25T12:42:00.000-07:00

"Rescue me, O Lord, from evil men; protect me from men of violence, who devise evil plans in their hearts ... Let burning coals fall upon them; may they be thrown into the fire, into miry pits, never to rise." - Psalm 140:1, 2, 10

It was a bit surprising to read such a wrath-filled lament in the psalm selections for the morning hour today, but who am I to argue with the Book of Common Prayer's determinations. Indeed, the above psalm and its partner, # 142, fit quite nicely into my tumultuous morning. Perhaps "tumultuous" is took strong a word. Let's call it inconvenient.

Rich Mullins once said in a concert, "The Bible is okay until you start reading the psalms, and then it really wigs out. All that vengeance and stuff. Of course, that's the part I especially like. I know 'Vengeance is mine, thus saith the Lord,' but I just want to be about the Lord's business."

Today, I was woken up by my girlfriend's father (the Wrights have been very generous to let me stay with them until I can move in to my new apartment) who informed me that it appeared my Jeep had been broken into during the night. Indeed, he was right. The left backseat passenger window had been smashed and some theif's (or theives') grubby little hands had rustled through all of my belongings. This normally would not have been that dire of a problem, except that, as I am in the last few days of moving, my Jeep is currently packed to the roof with boxes, pictures, paintings, clothes, bags, and a dining room table. Not to mention the treasure claimed by the theif - a carrying case containing my Xbox and all its accessories, including my three favorite games. Didn't this guy (or girl, because you ladies are just as suspect) realize I was a youth minister and that I needed that thing to trick kids into coming to church so that I can proslityze them? Surely the c.d. case containing lame (in his mind) Christian albums mixed with socially-reflective folk albums would have given him a clue.

In reality, he or she was the worst theif ever. If he had really looked, he would have found a lot more valuables, like my iPod cradle, my c.d.'s (yes, they're worth something), some picture frames worth quite a lot, and, of course, my car c.d. player. Now, not taking the music is insulting. Not taking an expensive music player is just plain stupidity. I feel like I want to coach this person on the importance of being thorough in his theivery.

So, in light of this new injustice perpetrated against me, I will be opening up a Sympathy Fund for myself, so that all you faithful readers can send your donation, that I may soon be able to replace my Xbox. E-mail me at ragamuffin_vagabond@hotmail.com for information on where to send your cash or check.
And please, if you don't do it for me, do it for the good people of Aberdeen, Scotland, who, now that my Xbox and Fifa Soccer 2005 game have been swiped, are without a coach as their up-and-coming team was the only one left in the Scottish Premier yet to lose a game as the new season opened.

Oh, the humanity! I'm with the Psalmist. Shower the evil ones with burning coals and toss them into the fire. How inhospitable can you get? Welcome to Houston, sucker.
___

The third part of my journey of faith will be posted soon. Please stop by again for another visit.

Faith Journey: Part Two

2006-08-17T10:30:00.002-07:00

The journey continues...

If life is a road, then eventually my journey down it wound away from First Baptist of Buda. It was a forced change of direction, for the church split. At age seventeen, I did not seek, nor did I care, to know the real reason for the ailment that cast out my pastor and youth minister. I was content merely to complain about the injustice of it all. Years later, I found out it was a parishioner’s entrepreneurial business deal, in which he sought investors from within the church, that divided the congregation, and those I followed out of First Baptist, the pastor, youth minister, and a small group of parents, were the ones mistakenly mixed up in the sour boondoggle. Nevertheless, my parents, who had become less than satisfied with the church and, having been duped, lost money in the investment, decided to move their membership to another Baptist church across town. It was there I finished my last year as a “youth.” On one of the first Sundays I began attending this new church, the youth minister resigned and left within the week. To this day I do not know the reason. This rapid succession of change – these potholes in my life road – wrapped me in uneasiness. I was certain of nothing. Just as, at age eight, I lost all confidence in the certainty of a long life, so did my cozy home environment crumble as I began college at Southwest Texas State University.

The only thing left to fall would be self-confidence, both spiritually and physically, and the wrecking ball would come midway through my first year of college, from a Bible study in which Hebrews 11:1 was expounded. “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” I was taught that the word “hope” denoted certainty rather than unsure expectation. It was tight-fisted assurance rather than a wringing of the hands. Therefore, the verse could be read, “Now faith is being certain of what we are certain for and certain of what we do not see.” I was taught that this was the essence of being a Christian – to know you were saved and to completely rest in that fact. And because nothing in my life was certain – especially my own salvation, which I agonized over silently year after year, my constant sins of dishonesty, laziness, and adolescent lust jack-hammering my mind with doubt – I feared I did not possess true faith. In those years, full of confused prayers and dozens of “rededications,” I continually recalled a heavy-as-brick statement by Rick, a speaker at one of the youth camps I had once attended. With dark, certain eyes and an intensely fixating glare, Rick had looked us all over and said concerning salvation, “If you’re 95% sure you’re saved, you are 100% wrong!” This quote pounded in my head for years.

Hebrews 11:1, if it commanded me to be certain, was a verse to which I knew I could never live up. In high school a pattern of “rededicating my life to the Lord” had begun, taking place at almost every event I attended; I believed salvation was all about my individual decision, and I had prayed for salvation enough times to save a small country. This cycle only grew more intense in college. After all, I imagined I was so young that night years before under the covers that I most likely did not get the prayer right. I hadn’t fully understood the weight of sin or the weight of glory at that age, so obviously that cry to Jesus was of dubious validity. There was no joy in my journey of my faith. Was I even traveling the right road? As each year passed, I would come face to face again with the euangelion, and each year the need for salvation would gain more weight, become much direr a situation. So, kneeling again, I would grapple for grace, beg for eternal safety.

My struggle centered not only on spiritual uncertainty. My daily behavior while in college was shaped by a pervading sense that I was not – could not be – anyone of importance. With my friends I would welcome, sometimes even instigate, humorous but degrading jabs directed at me, mainly because I did not feel worthy of nobler words. In the occasional relationship with a girl, time and again she would mention my lack of confidence, how disconcerting it was to her that I saw myself able to influence no one. The few periods in which I took on a leadership role within a campus ministry or church group, I was plagued internally by constant doubts that I was doing any real, lasting good. I believed that once I stopped sinning and perfected a daily practice of reading the Bible, praying, and, as a result, experiencing daily revelation from God, only then would I feel the love of Christ that so many other Christians gushed about. God would not be silent to someone who was truly faithful, truly saved.

One of the first moments of illumination through the dusty murk of this crisis came halfway through my time in college ...

To be continued...

Faith Journey

2006-08-11T15:39:00.000-07:00

In light of the good news that I have finally been offered a job, I am currently reflecting on my "testimony," which is the evangelical word for the story of how one comes to faith in Christ. Thankfully, I have written and rewritten, told and retold, my own story many times, so I am not starting from scratch. However, it is a weighty thing to describe to a congregation the intricacies of how you have encountered the living God. I find that to give this account is never a regurgitation of a previously-told tale, but an all new expression of an always-new story. It is a story that is shaped continually, every day, in both our waking and our sleeping. This Sunday, in what I expect will be my new local church home, I will express my story anew.
I have realized that I have never done this via the blog, so I found a recently written version of my story that I thought I would share ... in forth-coming parts ... in case anyone was curious about my faith journey. If anything, perhaps it will inspire you to consider more deeply your own journeys, either to faith, or fleeing from it.

___

“It was on a Monday somebody touched me …”

On a Sunday night sometime within my tenth or eleventh year, in a celebratory, hymn sing-a-long service at a small Baptist church in Buda, Texas, where I attended with my parents for the majority of my youth, I summoned enough courage to profess a faith I was not even sure I possessed. This was quite a change in activity for a boy who usually passed most of the time in the traditional services with a tired head reclining on his mother’s shoulder and the slightest of snores in his nose. The music minister led the congregation in “Somebody Touched Me,” a chorus that always seemed to me as depicting Almighty God as no more affectionate than a golf buddy encouragingly patting his friend on the back. Still, to stand up during this song was to announce the day in which one accepted Christ as Savior, and to me this felt like the equivalent of Peter stepping out onto the tumultuous waves. As the simple chorus repeatedly bounced about the little sanctuary, and as members of the congregation stood to declare which day of the week it was they had prayed for Jesus Christ to save them, I prepared myself to respond, despite the childishly narcissistic fear that all eyes would immediately focus on me when I did indeed rise from my pew. The chorus rolled on, “It was on a Thursday somebody touched me … It was on a Friday somebody touched me …” and the members continued to stand, some clapping, most beaming, and all appearing to me both pure and confident. No such assurance could I feel inhabiting me. But as the final day of the song was sounded, with knocking knees and trembling legs I pulled myself up from where I sat and contorted my face into the most satisfied and joyous grin I could fake. “It was on a Sunday somebody touched me …” Looking over my shoulder, I caught the eye of my mother, who had recently sat back down after her day’s verse ended. I’m not sure if she stared back in surprised happiness or startled confusion, but in that moment I realized that this decision I had made was not meant only for me personally; instead, it affirmed a connection to all these other people, whether I knew them or not. It would be a long while before I found myself comfortable with that radically communal reality.

Mine was not the most convincing of new births. Around three years earlier, it was another Sunday night service at First Baptist of Buda – a choir concert followed by a simple Gospel presentation – that carried me to the brink of the decision to pray for salvation as I then understood it. Months earlier, my only sibling, Katy, had died suddenly in a freak accident during a Christmas caroling hayride with the church youth group. My parents were still coping with the initial devastation of her loss, but as I was still a child, I know longer suffered the shock of separation, and in its place I was experiencing a morbid fixation on the inevitability of death. This concern kept my ears piqued during any time the church pastor would mention heaven or salvation. That particular night, following the concert, he spoke of the grave importance of making a “decision” for Christ so that we might one day be with him in Heaven rather than separated from him “and those we love” in Hell. Later that evening, I lay huddled beneath my covers, a nervous eight year old normally frightened of whatever shadowy terror my imagination could conjure. Only this night, what struck the greatest level of fear within me was the thought of Hell – that dank, cavernous wasteland where red-eyed, razor-toothed demons prowled on orders from their dark master, the Devil. I was terrified of ending up in such a place and, even at such an early age, I was weary of dreading death and of fearing that my end could come without warning, as had Katy’s. Praying to Jesus to save me meant I could avoid a hellish destination at my imminent death (which is a plausible possibility to an eight year old afraid of the dark); there was no debate. Under the covers, I mumbled to Jesus that I was a sinner and I needed him to take my sins away. The early formation of my theology was thus concerned with little more than a “Get Out of Hell Free” card; I became a Christian to avoid Hell and gain Heaven.

In those transitional years from childhood to adolescence, Christianity and the Church always went hand in hand, by default. I never considered their separation, mainly because one did not make sense without the other. This is perhaps the one theological ideal that has remained constant throughout my life. However, the thrust of Christianity to me as a young teenager all boiled down to the matter of moral obedience. Am I obeying my parents? Am I respecting my teachers? Am I treating my friends hospitably? Am I a “good” person? Therefore, church was not a center for worship or, as it has been famously described, “a hospital for sinners,” but a command post for the enforcement of morals. When I thought of myself as a Christian, the roots of such an understanding were shallow, concerned only with the cosmetic. Nowhere was this thin belief inculcated more than at church. There, in that quaint, small-town gathering, I grew up within a community of people who considered themselves as genuinely loving to one another, but, in actuality, were concerned chiefly with keeping up appearances and offering allegiance to conventional moral standards. This small-minded faith became not only the plumb line for determining whether or not I was being “good,” but if I was worthy of God’s love. Though it was preached with good intentions, the message of the church was a gospel of moralism. The salvation that I sought years before under the covers became to me akin to a loan that must be paid back by daily deposits of moral obedience. And I did my best. We all did our best.

If life is a road, then eventually my journey down it wound away from First Baptist of Buda. It was a forced change of direction, for the church split ...

To be continued soon ...

An Open Letter to the World

2006-08-01T14:22:00.000-07:00

Dear World:

I owe you a long overdue apology, and one of significant penitence and supplication.

I apologize for the mistaken Christianity that has plagued all my actions. It burdens the depths of me, like a disease. And for what it is worth, I sincerely apologize for all the rampant mistaken Christianity all around me and within you. I am sorry that I have made no true attempt to do something about it. What is more, I am sorry that most of the time the whole problem remains completely outside my thoughts. It must be so frustrating when I elude blame by claiming I am "not of you."

I am sorry for judging you so harshly, yet neglecting to take a serious, self-determining look at my own self. I am familiar with the argument that I am what you have made me, but the reciprocal of that argument is just as true, and there seems to be much more evidence backing it. I confess to you that I have confused what it means to "despise the world," which is the phrase written in the Scriptures (you know the Scriptures - they are the ancient, inspired writings I claim to believe but fail to follow). In attempting to despise you, I have attacked you with cynicism and hypocritical close-mindedness. Forgive me, World, because I so often know not what I do.

I am sorry for pouring as much hate into you as I have poured love. I don't believe the two cancel each other out, but the sides are much more even than they probably should be. I apologize for confusing the act of love with the practice of intellectualizing and the display of pity. I have intellectualized your history, your sciences, your politics and laws, your wars and your reasons behind them. Oh World, I have pitied your gays, your minorities, your poor, your handicapped, your unemployed and your laid-off, your criminals, your unwed mothers, your divorced and deranged, your diseased and dying. And in the midst of all this lack of love, my judgment of you has been more narrow than the eye of a needle.

Of these things I repent, oh World.

I repent from loving the things that do not help and will not last. I repent from caring about the things that matter so much less than the things I refrain from considering. I repent from sometimes confusing the laws of man for the Law of God, and for blurring the lines between the two all other times. You deserve something better than this.
I repent from replacing the life-changing grace of God with obtuse, burdensome rules and commands that I unsoundly pass off as the precepts and wishes of God. You deserve someone truer than me.

Forgive me, World, for feasting on your garbage and casting aside your beauty, so that you are no longer sure what is worthwhile for a human soul and what is detrimental.

Soon I will be free from your troubles, O World, but I am so sorry that I enacted so many of them in the first place. It was never my intention.
Have mercy on me, O World. I was so caught up in myself and my theology and my beliefs and my morals, that I didn't notice you dying right in front of me.

Is it too late to save you? Is it too late to save myself?

Signed,

one who dwells upon you

Dreamworld Repentance

2006-07-25T11:55:00.000-07:00

Over the past week, almost every night during my deep sleep, my head has become a performing stage for the most outlandish, tender, frightening, and improbable stories to play before my mind's eye. In less than a week's time, I have become the father of two children that, strangely enough, are not actually mine (nor did I bother to attend the birth), battled slow-stalking zombies in the middle of a cornfield somewhere in Indiana, berated my former boss, Grear Howard, for not taking the responsibility to cage a pesky, skull-faced demon that enjoys wreaking havoc on a Houston gas station, confronted a high school bully, and been framed and imprisoned by terrorist Colin Farrell in a large Coast Guard ship while the rest of my crew is led to believe that I am actually the one who wants to kill them all. And these are just a few of the more memorable nocturnal narratives ...

It is interesting to me that the metaphor for both repentance and eternity is the physical, yin yang-like understanding of life and death, slumber and waking. Both Scripture and the Church maintain the metaphor of "coming to life" when someone repents of their condition - imprisonment - to sin. The metaphor is often paired with someone who is asleep (no doubt sleeping the sleep of death) and suddenly comes awake. This is a fresh view that has no equal, no comparison. You were asleep, lost in a confusing, vague dreamworld. Now you are awake; there is clarity, light, understanding.

You were dead. Inanimate. Meaningless. Non-existent. Without purpose.

You come alive. You move, you breathe, you think. You have purpose.

The apostle Paul, and those other commendable members of the Christian "cloud" (see Hebrews 11 and 12) who wrote the letters and treatises that make up much of our New Testament, employed this metaphor for repentance as well as for eternity. The Pauline letters are filled with this imagery. Why?

Perhaps because it is as meaningful as it is simple. You were dead, now you live forever. You were asleep, unable to partake in true goodness and love. Now you are awake, free to do so forever.

It is a striking thing to follow this metaphor even farther, and, the more you do, it becomes evident that perhaps this is not simply a metaphor, but the very underlying reality of all things created. If clarity is found in the new person, the redeemed person ... If true life comes after physical death ... then all that we experience here, in our humanness and our unenlightened states, is as cluttered as our dreams. While physical life may seem vivid and framed by some sort of narrative, it is as chaotic and unpredictable as any haunting nightmare. In such a dream state - the state of non-repentance and self-centeredness - you can trust no one, you can rely on nothing. Everything is constantly changing. There is no true equilibrium.

I love to be entertained, and because of this, I appreciate the dreams I have almost every night. However, I would never want to live in such a confusing world. I wouldn't last very long in a place where the more evil the pursuer the slower I am forced to run, where guns don't fire right, friends change identities on a whim, and clothes seem to disappear at the most embarrassingly awkward moments.

I suppose all this musing depends on how loyally one accepts the metaphor, but lately I have been reminded of how blessed it is to escape the dreamworld that is this life.

Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. I Cor. 13:12a
Wake up, O sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you." Eph. 5:14b

______

And so, let me wake once again ...

Once again, I repent of this dreamworld, O God.
I repent of the confusion I have ignorantly tried to figure out.
I repent of the false hopes I have clung to in a world that offers no hope.
I repent of indulging in the pleasures that are as beneficial as a lie and as lasting as vapor.
I repent of wanting to stay asleep. I repent of returning so quickly to my slumber.

I repent of disregarding the blessing of the breath, mind, strength, clarity, and purpose to which you continually call me.
I repent of this dreamworld, my God.
Guard my heart and mind, lest I return again to such a tempting nightmare.

Eating My Tail

2006-07-17T13:24:00.000-07:00

I want to revisit the second topic of consternation from my last post. Cynicism. Truth be known, I'm starting to realize that much of my exploration into the cynical side of me somehow flows out of just that, my cynicism, rather than a pure conscience. Such a pietic, prideful bias on things not only feeds the sometimes necessary yet often unnecessary critique of life and worship, but also the desire to pick and scratch and brush at the very base attitudes from which such observations spring. It's like that Asian iconic image of a serpentine dragon cast in a circle, eating its own tail, a perfectly destructive cycle.

I am beginning to recognize that there is little that my critique, alone, can accomplish, especially regarding my own worship life or the mission and purpose of the Church. The frustrating thing about all this is that critique is pretty much all I can give these days, especially since I am still jobless. But even if I was serving on a church staff somewhere, I doubt I would have much more to offer than simply criticism. I often find it hard to move past recognizing what should be done, and actually doing what should be done. I think most of us do. What is more, those that can find a way past words and into action often do so stumbling, their efforts misguided by their resolve. One of the most extreme examples is Communism, which is the tragically misguided result of what might have very originally been a good-hearted seed of critique.

Thomas Merton writes - struggles - with this concept in the pages of his autobiography, The Seven Storey Mountain. He is lost somewhere between wanting to enact a change, and figuring out just how to do it. And in that hazy middle are the listless people that do nothing, and the zealous people who do everything ... wrong.

I have been accused of being quite cynical at times when I am not trying to be. (Sometimes I am merely trying to be funny, as was the case yesterday in church when, following the service, I tried to joke with my friend that the frivolous tune "Mercy is Falling" sounds silly rather than worshipful when the entire congregation sings the meaningless words "Hey-Oh" several times during the chorus. "You might as well replace 'Hey-Oh' with 'Boo-Yah!'," I remarked, getting few laughs but several mildly-offended expressions.) Other times I have spoken quite cynically and illicited no response. And there are the few and far between times when I have made a judgment, whether spoken graciously or not, and received an agreement that carried the conversation deeper. However, in all three scenarios, I can later lament that nothing significant - certainly no change - was achieved.

There is only one thing I continue to return to (and sadly, I continually reject) that seems the only thing worthwhile to effect change in both the sad state of things as well as my cynicism. Perhaps the reason I reject it so often is because it seems so intangible. So syrupy. So Care Bear-ish.

Love.

The love of one person that beckons his or her neighbors into a deeper relationship, and, inevitably, a change. The love of a boy for his girlfriend. The love of a parent for his or her son or daughter. The love of God that transforms us all.

It seems invariably true that cynicism pervades more of me than I realize. It is not limited to my worship life and my thoughts and feelings about the Church and ministry. I find my overgrown pride contaminating many things, often times in surprising, backdoor ways. My relationships with friends, parents, my girlfriend; it is even in my thoughts when I am in solitude. Like the dragon, I am indeed eating myself.

And then there is Scripture, and once again, this love, this glorious, sacramental concept of Love, seems the only cure.

Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly Loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on Love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. Colossians 3:12-14

The metaphor is simply that of dressing. Put on Love. It does not seem like doing so is initiating much action, but I am starting see that there is a difference between taking action and taking reaction. The latter can become more problematic than the original problem.

Put on Love. There really is not much more that can be said.

As a matter of fact, there isn't anything at all.

Three Short Tales of Consternation

2006-06-09T07:44:00.000-07:00

It has been a long, long time since I have posted. Rest assured, faithful readers (all three of you), I am not giving up on the activity of blogging. On the contrary, here on this blog is where I find the freedom to express, even if just to myself, the deepest wonderings of my mind. Unfortunately, the frequent movement and relocation in my life of late has made it nearly impossible to sit down and do just that, express. Thankfully, I sit now in a coffee shop in West Houston, with simply a few moments to sit, think, and share but a few glimpses of my life over the past few months, and the ponderings that such experiences summon forth.
________

Consternation #1: The Job Search

Simply stated, it has not gone well. I struggle to find the place, but have been afforded fewer interviews than fingers on my right hand. Such failure dredges up a desire in me to want to react against the American church, Baptists and other specific denominations, and Truett Seminary itself. Many churches that I feel very qualified for reject me without so much as a phone call or a questionairre via e-mail, leaving me to wonder if it is because I am affiliated with Truett and the CBF, or because I am not yet ordained (though I hope to be eventually, when I find the right community in which to undergo the process). Other churches flatly turn me down for even an initial interview based on the flimsy excuse that I have no larger church experience. When I inquire how one obtains larger church experience, they all say I must work on a larger church staff. They have no real answer to my subsequent question: how do I work on a larger church staff when no larger church staff will hire me because I have not yet worked on a larger church staff?

I have fallen into some brief spells of depression, anger, and tearful sorrow, as it seems the search is wearing very thin, time is running out, and it appears I may have to do the one thing I do not want to do - teach high school. But I always assumed there would be a church, there would be a position. I suppose there is still much naivity in me.

Some people incredulously rebuke me for my frustration because they say I am not being open to God's leading. They tell me that looking only in the greater Houston area is limiting God's providence. I am not sure how I feel about that. I believe that God has led me to Leigh, the love of my life, and that he has a plan for me in the Houston area. Calvinism and Armenianism notwithstanding, I don't believe I can thwart the plans of God. However, my present circumstances seem more in favor of those who tell me that I can.

_______

Consternation #2: Negative, Cynical Me

I am a cynical person. I do not blame Truett for making me this, but I do recognize that it was not until I came through seminary that I began examining the Church in a much more serious, careful light. This has caused me to reject a lot of shallowness that I see in the Church, especially in evangelical circles, specifically in the area of worship. I can become very negative about some churches and their services, but I am even more negative toward myself. I hate how cynical I am, and how much humility I lack.

This past Sunday, I attended Grace Bible Church in Houston with Leigh and her sister. This is a two-year old church that presently gathers in a large movie theater downtown (a stone's throw from Lakewood); it is an "off-shoot" of Second Baptist Church in Houston. I could not worship in this place ... and I promise that I tried. I simply could not. All the songs were led by a band in typical (almost "traditional" these days) praise and worship style. All the songs were popular ones: God of Wonders, Here is Our King, Beautiful One, King Eternal, Unchanging, etc. Now, there is nothing inherently wrong with these songs. In fact, they are all good, and I have sung whole-heartedly to each one in the past, but when they are played the exact same way, back to back to back, and separated by quick prayers (all similar), a quick offering and then a sermon (another long one, timing out at around 40 minutes, which is better than last Tuesday's Austin Metro service, where the speaker preached five sermons in one over the course of an hour and fifteen minutes), forgive me, but I think something is missing.
Is this the future of the American evangelical church? Have we shredded eras of worship heritage, and created a much more succinct patchwork of liturgy, free of anything resembling ritual, meditation, beauty? As I said to Leigh, "I need more." I do not want to change Grace Bible Church, but I certainly would not want to worship there. For some people, P&W songs and a long, conversational sermon is all they need. For some people, that is worship. Not for me. I must have more.

There is no right way.

And one of the curses of going to seminary is that, whenever you share your opinion on such things, you are immediately (if not before the question) seen as either a snob or a cynical jerk. "Oh, you just say that because you went to seminary and you think you know everything about how it should be." I thought studying such things in seminary would help me speak to the condition of the church, but, ironically, because I studied such things my opinion is not desired. We fear change, I suppose. I fear change.

The long and the short of it is, I am wrong. I am cynical. I am not humble. Grace Bible Church is more right than I am. But even this understanding does not help the restlessness I feel with the present state of worship in the modern Church, and it doesn't keep me from despising myself for my attitude.

-----

Consternation #3: The Subtle Drift

Last night, Leigh, her sister, and I went to see Superman Returns (see farther below on sidebar for my grade). At one point, Lois (Kate Bosworth) and the Man of Steel (Brandon Routh) lift off into the sky on a romantic flight high over Metropolis. It is a tender moment, and whether or not it is a bit boring to watch means nothing regarding this observation. Lois, remembering her earlier days of gliding through the atmosphere with Superman, remarks as she draws closer to him, "I forgot how warm you are."

Almost the entire audience snickered. It was a suppressed, devious laugh exactly like the way one laughs at a sexual innuendo or misspoken euphemism. Granted, the line can indeed be taken two ways, but why does every one these days take the statement as "dirty." Why do our minds immediately call up something "naughty" rather than the memory of a comfortable, warm embrace. I believe that is what the line was originally meant to accomplish. I guess it should have been placed in a movie twenty years ago or so. Such a line is only crass comedy today, amidst America's subtle drift into perversion. Hmm, I sound like a fundamentalist ... Maybe I am.

But, if so, why aren't more churches interested in hiring me?

____

Images From the Last Two Months

May Truett grads who did it in three years!

Leigh and I at the Houston Astros vs. Texas Rangers game

My dogs, Gracie and Molly, sleeping where they're not supposed to be...

My mother with her Kindergarten class. She retired this past May after over 20 years teaching...

Being Happy

Love and Wonder

2006-04-28T11:51:00.000-07:00

I don't remember exactly what my attitude was the morning of April 28, 2005. I do know that whatever little annoyance I was dealing with on that particular day, I was trying to suppress it quickly. So many days gust by us year after year, never to be revisited or recalled, and it is only a select few that remain with us, stored somewhere within for whatever reason. On that day, my mind was focused on one main thing, my scheduled interview for a position as an associate director of recruitment in the Truett Recruiting office. Nothing else was important; I wanted a job.

With only a few minutes before my interview, as I waited in the office at one of the computer desks, lazily making my normal rounds across the Internet, I came across something that indeed would, in hindsight, supersede any job interview, as well as any occupational event I might experience in my life. From the comment section under one of the posts in a blog I had only recently established, there sat, as innocent - and suspicious - as a dove, a short comment by someone identified only as "simchah."

"'...that whatever you love (writing, music, a certain someone, God) continue to fall, and may it never find a bottom.'"
wow that is good. did you write that?
fun to find a Texan on xanga! :)"

Now, a less pessimistic person would view this message, in which the last line of that post is quoted back to me, as a polite praise and a friendly greeting. I only saw the weird name, a tiny profile picture I could not make out, and read the comment as questioning whether I had written what I personally believed to be a great line ("That's gold! Gold, Jerry!"), or had plagiarized it from someone else. With seconds ticking away before my interview, I clicked on simchah's link, prepared to do cyber-battle, armed with my powerful, unplagiarized rhetoric ... and I looked upon a much larger display of her profile picture. Oh, I thought, she looks nice.

The next few months were as quickly moving and disorienting (once again in hindsight) as a whirlwind. Noticing that though she was presently located in New York, she had attended the University of Mary-Hardin Baylor and was from Houston, I commented back. She returned the sentiment. Then I, as innocent as a fox, e-mailed her. She replied again. Most endearing was how long her e-mails were. While they did not rival my epic-length e-mails (few can), they were quite large; she was not shy about professing and confessing her views. I do not mean to romanticize this to the point of syruppy sickness, but throughout May, June, and July, we had a bit of a You've Got Mail-thing going on.

The subsequent relationship that began (though it all seemed to happen in stages, the comments, the e-mails, the first phone call at the end of July, the first date at the end of August, the first kiss on the Brooklyn Bridge at the end of September ...) is made up of a host of golden days that rest somewhere deep within me. They continue to form me, changing me and reminding me of the very truth I was waking up to when I wrote that blog post over a year ago. Love ... and wonder. To be aware of these is to be in communion with the matchless grace of God.

Edit from my Xanga post of April 10, 2005 (two and a half weeks before the comment that changed my life):
Keep seeking those hidden depths - the chasm to which love and wonder can plummet just keeps opening. May my wish for me be for you as well, that whatever you love and whatever fills you with wonder (writing, music, a certain someone, God) continue to fall, and may it never find a bottom.

I love you forever, Leigh.

Extinguished

2006-04-14T19:32:00.000-07:00

It is finished.

Jesus is captured. He is rejected. He is despised. He is mocked.

The Lord, the Christ, has taken upon himself the sins of the world. As man, he is the only one who stands outside the arena of guilt and rebellion in which we all are gathered. As God, he puts aside all that it means to be God (power, glory, justice, reign, sovereignty) and steps silently into this savage arena. With only whispered words, fragments of a holy conversation lost on the ears of all who surround him, he subjects himself to our brutal, impatient violence. We pour out upon him all our misguided wrath, and as it was foreshadowed by prophets, such undeserved punishment pleases the Creator, who in misery and sorrowful acceptance, stays his hand from turning back upon us the wrath we gleefully pour out.

It is finished.

Jesus is stricken. He is wounded. He is bruised. He is pierced.

The Lord, the Christ, bows his head and enters a place no god would dare trod. He gives himself over to those who could never foresee, do not comprehend, and perhaps still will never understand who he is, and what he has done. Saturated with our spit, soggy with his own blood, torn and flayed, no one in this dark arena sees the mystery. Before our eyes, manifested, incarnated, is the Mystery of Grace. It is a mystery he dies. It is a mystery he allows a single blow to land upon him, allows but one hand to arrest him, yoke him. It is a mystery he enters this arena in the first place.

It is finished.

Jesus is dead. The Christ is dead. The Lord is dead. Our God is dead.

The Lord, the Christ, is laid in a tomb. The sky over the arena is black. A peal of thunder, and we who inhabit the arena could swear we hear the anguished roar of the Creator. Our tumult settles. The din falls silent. We witness a stone heaved over the tomb and sealed. The choked, dying words descends upon the arena floor: "It ... is ... finished." We answer with whispers choked with our shock. What have we done? And yet, this day is Good. This is Good Friday. The Mystery of Grace is dead, yet lingers. Like a fog refusing to dissipate, we are surrounded by tragedy mixed with wonder, grief mixed with reverence, guilt mixed with awe.

It is finished.

The lights fade and go out. The candles are extinguished. All is dark.

What Thou, my Lord, hast suffered, was all for sinners’ gain;
Mine, mine was the transgression, but Thine the deadly pain.
Lo, here I fall, my Savior! ’Tis I deserve Thy place;
Look on me with Thy favor, vouchsafe to me Thy grace.

- Bernard of Clairvaux

This Difficult Sacrament

2006-03-31T14:53:00.000-08:00

In the daunting task of understanding the Christian life, most, if not all, of the Desert Fathers would agree that while the goal of life is simple, getting there is certainly not. If there is one truth that the Desert Fathers, the ragtag disciples, grappling clergy, Christian bookstore customers, Benedictine monks, missionaries, and even the Christ himself all recognize, it is that living life can be quite hard.

Why does God make life hard ... or, to stretch the question across more theological perspectives, why does God allow life to be hard?

If someone were to massage my neck or rub my ear, the pleasant feeling would eventually put me to sleep. The sense of a gentle touch is so pleasing, it would not take much to usher me into semi-consciousness and eventually slumber. However, in the same area, if someone were instead to squeeze or pinch, the exact opposite would happen; I would wake up. I would become more alert. My eyelids would open wider rather than become heavier.

When life is hard, we are more apt to realize our need for God. I do not mean to imply that God is codependent and therefore administers hardship in life so that we might place our trust in him. In reality, the identity crisis is ours, not God's. When life seems manageable, we relax in our own good fortune. Then, when struggles come, we have no other course of action but to wallow in our misfortune. If we do call out to God during these times, it is normally for relief, not understanding.

The purpose of the sacraments is to change our perspective, to draw us out of our deep-rooted selfish tendencies and into the honor of God. When someone is baptized, they are putting under the water everything that was their old self, and emerging as one redeemed and cleansed by a holy God. When we partake of the Eucharist, we are taking into our finite selves the selfless sacrifice of our Savior. Perhaps this is why the Catholic church observes seven sacraments instead of the Protestant two. As Frederick Buechner writes, "A sacrament is when something holy happens." Indeed there is a glimpse of the holy and the Holy One when a child is confirmed in the Church, or when a broken sinner scrapes in confession for forgiveness, or when two lovers are joined in mutual devotion to one another in marriage.

Buechner continues, "Church isn't the only place where the holy happens ... If we weren't blind as bats, we might see that life itself is sacramental."

We must learn to live present to the day to day ebb and flow of life; sometimes it is soothing, oftentimes it is churning violently. And through our recognition of the wondrous difficulty of life - the hardships, the worries, the unknowns, the separations - we would take joy that the goal for which we strive is relief and rest.

The end is simple. Getting there is certainly not. But getting there is not devoid of holy glimpses, open windows between high heaven and lowly earth. I have heard it taught that we must learn to live Sunday to Sunday, seamlessly seeking the next moment where we might return to worship our God. While this is a noble strategy, it can cause us to dread the days in between, or at least disregard them.

Live each day. Hear every atom of all that surrounds as they cry out for us to break our allegiance to ourselves and place our allegiance in a wildly loving, passionate God. A God who is unafraid of our frustration, undaunted by our ignorance. A God who will continue to pour himself out like water upon this life, that we might feel the drops through these open windows, this sacramental life. Can you feel it? It is raining even now.

____________________________________

Glimpses of late ...

A Call to Be Quiet

2006-03-10T13:44:00.000-08:00

At my church's lectionary breakfast today, choral director Kurt Kaiser analogized the shallowness of many a church-goer's faith with music (a metaphor he is apt to employ with any number of issues). He called them "praise & worship Christians," and by this he was referring to what he views as one of the most significant problems (even dangers) of praise & worship music - it lacks depth. Depth of theology, depth of spirituality, depth of devotion, depth of purpose. Why not? Well, there has not been any significant demand for anything deeper from the majority of the Christian sub-culture. While this lack of depth does not include every praise & worship song or artist, the point is that too many people today sing "I'm coming back to the heart of worship, and it's all about you, it's all about you, Jesus..." when, deep down (or should I write "shallow down"), their hearts are actually singing, "I'm coming back to the heart of worship, and it's all about me, it's all about me, Jesus..."

In truth, I believe more and more Christians lack depth in their walk. I have often heard the assumption that most Christians live in the faith according to their "spiritual age" in the same way humans naturally live this life by their physical age. In other words, if I became a Christian at age eight, I am technically an eighteen year old in my faith. A late teenager, rebellious, yet seeking more depth - perhaps that is the core reason for this post.

There are two problems with this view. First, it plays against the recognition of salvation as continual and ongoing, something John Wesley alluded to as a understanding of "was saved, am being saved, shall be saved," which I believe is a much more healthy way of viewing such a weighty concept as eternal salvation. Secondly, it pigeonholes Christians into one simple, developmental structure, and anyone who pays attention to their growth (or stagnation) in the faith can tell you they don't mature at the same rate or in the same way as everyone else. We are snowflakes marked by Christ.

The truth is, if one were to hold to the age assumption, most Christians might adhere to it for a while, but by spiritual-age fifteen, they would most likely stop changing. Why? Because Christians tend to plateau, to stagnate. When it comes time to go deeper, we clutch the life-preserver and tread water rather than take the plunge. The writer of the first letter to the Corinthians mentioned such a problem when he wrote that the congregation was not ready for the deeper mysteries of the faith, that they were still in need of "spiritual milk."

For a very long time, I was secretly frustrated with the whole pop-Christian game that so many people, I truly believe, are caught up in. It is a lifestyle with a low ceiling, and while it does not discourage growth, it certainly doesn't encourage it either. In place of seeking deeper truth, it cranks the volume of the worship set a few decibels louder. I used to sing and sing for a deeper connection with God. I tried to pray longer and more white-knuckled, squinched-eye prayers to him. I watched people raise their hands freely in worship services, and others fall to their knees seemingly involuntarily, and I thought, If I could just be that free, that open, that unashamed, I would get to that deeper relationship. I was always told the answer was being faithful to the same old "quiet time" day after day. Nothing worked for me. And I became disillusioned, then self-berating, then more disillusioned.

It is only lately, in the past year of life, that I have begun to suspect a better way - perhaps the best way - to journey deeper in the faith. It is in the quiet - the contemplative. The things to which monks, missionaries, and all the Desert Fathers gave themselves. And the greatest truths we have in our rich heritage of devotional history have come not from epiphanies achieved in energetic, deafening worship services with Media Shout flickering and amped guitars squealing, but from mendicants who waited in silence and meditation for God to speak. For many to even begin to understand the mysteries of God, it took years upon years. But he spoke. When they finally quieted themselves, God spoke.

Suddenly, it seems, texts that call for clanging symbols and blaring trumpets become outnumbered by those texts we rarely take as seriously, such as "Be still and know that I am God..." and "In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and confidence is your strength." When Elijah hid in the mountain, Yahweh's presence came not in a resounding crash or blaze, but only in "a sound of sheer silence."

As many evenings as possible this semester, I have been taking time to drive out to the Waco dam, sit on the concrete wall looking west, and enjoy the sunset. It is quiet. It is glorious. And often I am more awed by its forming than anything I read or sing all week.

Contemplation. Quiet. The absence of noise - even harmonious, catchy noise. If you find yourself as unfulfilled as I was, you might give it a try, and join me at this greater depth. I don't often involuntarily raise my hands, but I'm finding my head is bowed much more often.

Silence is a given, quiet a gift. Silence is the absence of sound and quiet the stilling of sound. Silence can't be anything but silent. Quiet chooses to be silent. It holds its breath to listen. It waits and is still. - Frederick Buechner

Life Isn't Fair

2006-03-01T08:40:00.000-08:00

When I was a child and would protest to my parents regarding any number of disagreements, I would often receive a simple statement dropped with such finality in tone and definitiveness that it would frustrate me to no end. "Well, Vernon, life isn't fair."

I hated this statement, not just because it held a lot of truth, but because I refused to believe such a sweeping, general statement could be relevant anti-explanation to my every objection, from the largest offense to the most minute. Life had to be kind of fair, didn't it?

In reality, life is quite fair, quite just, despite all the examples we see of injustice ... from wars springing from sordid reasons, criminals acquitted thanks to the power of their money, innocent men and women convicted because of poor defense, misleading politicians, the trampling of the poor, the neglect of the sick and dying ... Despite all of this, life is more fair than we realize. The majority of people still get what they deserve, mainly because this is the way most of humanity functions. Karma reigns in many places throughout Asia, and in the West, our churches close the doors on homosexuals, liberals, homeless, and any poorly dressed people we think made their own bed and should therefore, quite fairly, lie in it.

The past few posts have taken me on a voyage of thought I have never truly felt comfortable with, and that not because I couldn't formulate a clear answer, but because I feared if I did formulate a clear answer it would subsequently contort me into a person who, to some group of people or another, turned a cold shoulder ... in the name of what is "true" and "just."

Today is Ash Wednesday, and the beginning of the season of Lent. Both are marked by repentance, penitence, and supplication. During this time, Christians scrape and strive to make sense of the ramifications of what it took for Christ to achieve atonement for all humanity, past and present. And gradually, I come to realize just how offensive, just how unfair, is the lot of the Savior. A good man - a man who experienced every chief emotion, temptation, and challenge we experience, yet resisted rebellion, remained untouched by the nature of Sin. When we come down to it, we find the most unjust of events taking place to accomplish the justice of God.

But still we make it our place to determine who will be with Christ in Heaven and who will "burn in Hell." Some Christians incorrectly defend their judgmentalness by quoting obscure verses in Scripture about the saints judging the nations. These are the same people who clutch their Bibles like a gavel. However, I think we might be surprised just who are revealed to be the true saints mentioned in Scripture. In a comment on my last post, my friend Meg quoted Richard John Neuhaus: "Jesus is not very fastidious about the company he keeps. A serious question is raised about whether we will be happy with those who are with us in paradise."

I believe that one day all our opinions and biases and misguided loyalties will be swallowed up in the stark image of the unjustly nail-scarred hands of a God who became a baby, who became a prophet, who became a Savior, who became a King. Today I think of a head pierced deep by thorns, blood pouring ... of splintered hands pinned to a tree ... of a ravaged side run through with a spear ... of dusty feet caked with blood.

It seems my parents were indeed right - perhaps more right than even they knew. Life ... true life ... isn't fair.

Great Souls

2006-02-14T11:34:00.001-08:00

In Lord Richard Attenborough's film, Gandhi, there is a remarkable scene that takes place toward the end of the Great Soul's days, as terrorists responsible for the violence in Calcutta and other regions of India come to him to lay down their weapons at his bed, determined not to continue their violent ways and so cause Gandhi to perish by fasting unto death. An angry Hindu man rushes to the bedside and shoves bread into the Mahatma's face, demanding he eat. The man refuses to have Gandhi's death on his conscience. He confesses he is damned and tells of recently killing a Muslim child. Still very weak from his fast, Gandhi says to the distraught man, "I know a way out of hell." He tells the man to go, find an orphaned Muslim child, and adopt him as his own son. "But," Gandhi tells the man, "you must be careful to raise him as a Muslim." The man is shocked - so would any of us be who translated this scene into our own lives. All my Western Christian brain could think at that moment was, "But the child would be Muslim. And the man is still Hindu. They're both going to hell."

Why do great souls like Gandhi, Buddha, and Rabbi Abraham Heschel go to hell, after all they have done to direct humanity away from selfishness and into the recognition of the transcendent, transforming love of God? The obvious answer - the answer I grew up with - is that this has nothing to do with what they did in life. What they did was highly commendable, but Ephesians 2:8-9 blares out the truth all the same, "For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast." As Christians, especially as Protestants, we hold to this truth with an iron fist. We clarify it as meaning one thing: there is nothing we can do to earn salvation. However, what is remarkably absent from this true and wonderful statement is the "way" that we can find salvation. Christians today inject a doctrine after this verse, and it normally takes the form of praying for the forgiveness of all your sins and accepting Jesus' death on the cross as the atoning sacrifice that covers us from the consequence of sin, which is death. I am not denying this doctrine. I am questioning its placement and its form.

Ephesians 2:8-9 rejects the idea of earning salvation by living in such a way as to impress God. In reality, salvation comes only as a free gift, bestowed upon all whom he chooses to save, no strings attached, no prerequisites required. However, the Church has established a prerequisite of its own - the salvation prayer. Though the original form of this prayer was of complete supplication, complete rejection of all worth and merit, it has become a "work" of its own. If you don't "do" it, you don't get in to Heaven. It has become the initial hurdle to leap over as you "run the race" (1st Cor. 9:24).

What is the salvation prayer supposed to be? Is it only poignant words prayed that hold sway over your life throughout all your days? Or is it the expression of a change of heart that takes place allowing us to expel the things of this world in eager expectation of the things to come? Is it vainly seeking rescue from Hell (as it was with me at the fearful age of 8)? Or is it praying the theme of a life given over in humility to a great and gracious God?

I look at the life of Gandhi and Rabbi Heschel and other great figures whom we assume never "acquired the faith" and therefore shall spend eternity in torment. Maybe so. But if the way a life is lived is to be any proof of the desires of one's heart and the passion of one's soul, Gandhi is truly redeemed, whether he mumbled a sinner's prayer or not. And we ... we are damned. I worry about whether or not I will find a job in Houston once I graduate? Gandhi worried about the masses of Untouchable's littering the streets of the cities of India. Much of the quiet moments of thinking during my day is focused on my future with Leigh, where we might live, what the future holds for us. Gandhi's quiet moments were spent considering new ways to unite all the people of his country in love and mutual respect, across even violent religious lines. I sweat over how I might prove myself a talented writer and an innovative minister. Gandhi calmly spent his time praying and weaving his own clothes. I occasionally erupt into anger when I want to be recognized as right. Gandhi softly said, "An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind."

Who is truly humbled before God? Who is truly saved?

Thank you, God, that there is never-ending grace. I cannot earn it, and nothing I offer can ever affect it, even the most soul-stirring of prayers.

Dry-Erase Board Salvation

2006-02-07T11:25:00.000-08:00

When considering the questions I posed in my previous entry, a flood of poignant quotes have leapt to my mind, but none so timely as a short passage from Peter De Vries book, The Blood of the Lamb. I find myself not so much questioning the specifics of salvation as much as I am reacting against the presumption of who meets the criteria and who doesn't - that it is so black and white. In his novel, De Vries' main character, Don Wanderhope, wrestles with the ever-present question of theodicy (why does God allow evil/tragedy?). At one point, Don seeks the council of his doctor after the sudden death of a woman he loved dearly:

I set my brandy down and said: "Dr. Simpson, do you believe in God?"
He just perceptibly raised his eyes, as if in entreaty to Heaven to spare him at least this. It took me some years to attain his mood and understand my blunder. He resented such questions as people do who have thought a great deal about them. The superficial and the slipshod have ready answers, but those lookng this complex life straight in the eye acquire a wealth of perception so composed of delicately balanced contradictions that they dread, or resent, the call to couch any part of it in a bland generalization.

I think of this passage often now, while considering salvation.

It certainly seemed like an easy answer when I was young. My first encounter with the traditional, evangelical "plan" of salvation occurred midway through Vacation Bible School at the small Baptist church of my youth. In what became somewhat of a ritual to be revisited every year, the pastor would lug out an easel and a dry-erase board and with his four colored markers, he would crudely draw the earth suspended above a void of black with the word "HELL" written within in, and stretched above the planet would be written "HEAVEN," nestled in bubbly clouds. A stick figure would stand upon the earth, and the pastor would explain to the older VBS'ers (normally Kindergarten through sixth grade, those who were deemed able to comprehend this weighty concept) that there existed a separation between Heaven and those on earth. He would shade in this demilitarized zone of separation with the black marker and write "SIN" within it. He would then go on to explain how Jesus' death on the cross bridged this gap. Arrows shooting from the stick figure toward Hell were reversed, pointing to Heaven, and the black span of sin was pierced with a red cross stretched between earth and eternity.

Cut and dried; tried and true. The basic foundation of Christianity.

The one vaguery that I did not recognize at the time (and perhaps this was the blessing of having a child-like faith - I was not yet cursed to dwell within reason's cold realm) was the belief issue. What did it take to navigate through this black void of sin upon the blessing of the red cross? The answer: belief in Jesus, specifically illustrated in a personal prayer that he forgive me of my sins. Which sins? All of them? Was it belief that he could forgive me, or would forgive me? Was it more than belief regarding supplication to him, but belief in his life-changing power? And what did such a changed life look like?

The question I struggle with now is, what form does this prayer for forgiveness take in people's individual lives. Many believe it must be as black and white as it was presented me as a child, but these are often the same people who care nothing for discipleship - really learning to live like Jesus - and would rather check off as many names on their outreach lists as possible; if they've prayed the prayer, God has got to let them in. After all, through the grace of the cross, we have a deal ...

The second problem with viewing salvation as obtainable only by means of a prayer for forgiveness is that the actual concept to which Christ called us becomes an afterthought. The gospel accounts are replete with instances of Christ commanding his followers to do just that, follow him. And his description of what this actually looks like, use of hyperbole notwithstanding, rarely includes the saying of a prayer. Instead, it involves people feeding the hungry, giving to the poor, selling their possessions, forgetting their family for the sake of followship.

This is enough for now, but in a few days I will be returning to these two problems, especially in examining the lives of people most Christians today do not consider to be Christians, such as Gandhi and Rabbi Abraham Heschel. The question I will pose is: why are such people as them bound for HELL, and people like Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, and the despicable Vernon Bowen soaring to HEAVEN?

I Wonder as I Wander

2006-02-04T21:42:00.000-08:00

Right now on channel 45 there is a portly, well-dressed preacher pacing behind an expensive glass podium in a church building that is more of a Ryman Auditorium than a sanctuary. Stretched behind him is a massive mural with vivid images and words under each: "marriage Covenant", "Salt Covenant", "Blood Covenant" and "Israel Covenant." He tells the congregation (or is it just an audience?) that these are the subjects of the sermons he will be preaching over the next few weeks. He wears a bright yellow tie with an elegantly matching handkerchief, and as he speaks he gestures forcefully with his arms. From what I've listened to before deciding I've heard enough, this preacher is proclaiming that America was also founded on a covenant, and he mentions the Mayflower and the founders of America who he no doubt believes were all "good Christian men." He tells his hearers that God has blessed America more than any nation in the world and, as the Bible reads, God promises to continue doing so if America abides within the laws of this covenant. Unfortunately, the preacher goes on to lament that America is rejecting this covenant. His first example is that America has thrown out the Ten Commandments from the schools. He describes the breakdown in families. He mentions climbing divorce rates and something about Britney Spears which I think is meant to be well-placed humorous jab in the sermon ...

He, and I'm sure many people in the pews before him, are so very, very sure they are Christians. They are certain that they are heavenbound.
_______

It is a wonder we are alive at all, let alone have a God who loves us no matter who we are, what we do, or what we say.

Over this next week, I am going to be writing reflectively about salvation. Specifically, I am going to be mulling over the question of just who is saved, and how exactly does one become saved. Is it by simply saying (or reading or repeating) a prayer? Is there another way besides praying? Do "works" really have nothing to do with it? Do only the Christians get in?

I've wrestled with whether or not this is a subject I want to introduce to my blog - I'd much rather dwell on the lighter side of life, and leave controversy on the sidelines. However, I remember that I started this blog as a personal exercise to reflect on the wonders of God and the joy of life. I wanted to have a place where I could offer my meager comments on this beautiful story of redemption we all exist in, whether we have realized it or not. And I cannot imagine anything more integral to this story than the very rhythm of salvation itself. If it is a grand redemption we are meant to find, how then do we find it, and what does one have to do, essentially, to experience it?

I hope you who read this blog - there cannot be many of you - will be merciful with my wanderings. I also hope you will offer as many comments as possible. I don't plan to stumble upon any clear-cut answers, but reading what others think is one way for us all to sharpen our eyes and strengthen our limbs for the journey.

So, what do you think is essential for a person to find salvation - for a person to go to heaven? Or what have you always learned regarding such a question? This will be the first thought on which I'll post in a few days ...

Good News, Bad News

2006-01-23T13:10:00.000-08:00

Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth."
- Matthew 28:18

The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God ...
Now after John had been taken into custody, Jesus came into Galilee preaching the gospel of God, and saying, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel."
- Mark 1:1, 14-15

Gerard Manley Hopkins famously wrote, "The earth is charged with the grandeur of God." Indeed, there is an amazing paradox in the world, that to sit back and ponder its delicate intricacies and fascinating phenomena, one begins to see both the simplicity and grand scope on which it is crafted. It is complex, yet it is anything but complicated. It is powerful, but it is also beautiful. To steal a line from C.S. Lewis, it is not definitely not safe, but it is good.

One would hope the message that is meant to revolutionize the world would be the very same way, both wonderfully simple and splendidly fulfilling.

Our English translations of Scripture use the words "gospel" or "good news" for the original Greek term euangelion. This word was almost always reserved for political reference to Caesar as the supreme, inspired power. Those who sang the praises of Rome often referred to "the euangelion of Caesar, chosen one of God." The writer of Mark subversively supplies a marvelous reconsideration of just what constitutes the "good news." In his and the early Christians' opinions, the good news was of "Jesus Christ, the son of God." It was an outlandish, dangerous belief, that in fact it was not Caesar who was divine but a lowly carpenter from Nazareth who, as far as most people were concerned if they ever heard about him, was nothing more than a two-bit agitator who died a criminal's death. But, to early Christians, this good news was the greatest of truths. It was everything. It was life. It was reality in its simplest, most certain form.

Unfortunately, the good news of Jesus Christ is slowly being abandoned for a more manageable message - our message. If I were to attempt to include all the recent decisions and restrictions incorporated into the Church - and that just in America - in regards to both the message proclaimed as well as its proclaimers, I suspect this blog entry would swell to a size through which no one would be interested in plodding. However, as an example, I mention one of the most recent - and baffling - decisions. The Southern Baptist Convention, which has undergone one stumbling after another in regards to the who, what, and how of the Church and the gospel of Christ, has recently taken another step in replacing the good news with its own bad news. The board of trustees for the International Mission Board, the SBC's foreign missions sending agency, have restricted its approved missionaries beyond the requirement of signing the "new" Baptist Faith and Message document. Now, no one can serve as an IMB missionary if they were not baptized (or re-baptized) in a Southern Baptist Church; this is in keeping with their belief that true baptism can come only from a denomination that holds to "believer's baptism." What is more, also newly restricted are missionaries who claim to have a "private prayer language," which is another way of stating that they speak in tongues while they are in solitary, personal prayer. Though "tongues" has been a divisive issue for years, newly rejected missionaries have no intention of incorporating this private gift in their public proclamation of the gospel. However, the very fact that a person believes the gift of tongues is just that, a gift (and not a tool of the devil), still doesn't qualify them to be fit for missional service in the kingdom of God, according to the Southern Baptist Convention.

I mean not to pick solely on the SBC; there are a thousand more examples of "church leaders" asserting false teachings and requirements across denominational lines, both to local congregations and out on the vast, vast mission field. Not only have we fallen short of the glory of God, we have fallen short of the very meaning and intention of his gospel. His simple and wonderful gospel.

It is a gospel over which he has all authority, in keeping with the Scripture that begins what we refer to as "the Great Commission." We have instead begun to arrogantly brandish our authority over this message. "Will a person rob God?" (Mal. 3:8). We do it intricately with our own complicated theologies. We do it on a grand scale when we stack up rule after rule about who can preach and who can't, who can serve and who can't. We contort the gospel into an agenda-bowing, human construction. It is complicated, oppressive, and safe; it is no longer the wondrous, good news of Christ.

Where is the wonder? Where is the mystery? Where is the beauty? Where is the freedom of the message that once solely defined the Church? It is the only thing that will give us lasting hope. It is the only thing that will give us life.

Peace, Be Still

2006-01-12T13:11:00.000-08:00

"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; all who follow his precepts have good understanding. To him belongs eternal praise." - Psalm 111:10

I am amazed that I did not develop a massive ulcer while I was in college, and not because of my academic schedule. That I did without much effort. Papers were written the morning before and still garnered superior grades. Classes and tests about which I cared little I studied only enough to grab a passing grade and nary another thought was paid it. All in all, I did not struggle to obtain my degree. No, the stress and frustration came from my striving to attain the felt presence of God. At this, I considered myself a colossal failure.

What perpetuates both our frustration with, and our coming back to, personal worship times with God is the spiritual payoff we fill must be attained before we close our bibles and unfold our hands. So often it does not come, there is no feeling like we have been filled with some great new movement of the Spirit, and therefore we suspect perhaps we are seeking God incorrectly or half-heartedly. And so we nervously reach for new devotionals, new Bible studies, Christian living books, many of which are marketed as assurances that they contain the secret of truly bringing the reader to an encounter with the presence of God. And as far as the prayer aspect (for strangely, the contemporary view of what a personal time with God constitutes is normally a short devotional study coupled with a segment of prayer wherein is begged both inspiration and intercession for others), it is often the desire to hear God "speak" to us concerning his will. Absurdly, most of this desire is communicated not by our falling silent to heed God by slowing ourselves down, but instead by making our prayers grandiose and lengthy - after all, the longer the prayer, obviously the more faith is being displayed.

Today in a staff meeting, someone commented that the praise chorus, "The Heart of Worship" should perhaps be sung differently by many people - if they are being real with themselves and what they are wanting to gain from worship - as "I'm coming back to the heart of worship, and it's all about me, it's all about me, Jesus." In other words, we judge the genuity of our times with God on how much we get out of it, how inspired we feel after we have finished. We are self-centered and sorely mistaken people.

My pastor included a quote in our afternoon prayer guide yesterday. "You are a child of God ... in union. There is nothing to prove. Nothing to attain. Everything is already there. It is simply a matter of recognizing and honoring and trusting" (Richard Rohr). Likewise, during our time of prayer, instead of expounding relentlessly on the physical and spiritual condition of each and every person we interceded for, we simply spoke their name quietly and the group prayed in unison, "Peace. Be still." Could we want any more for a person, spiritually speaking, than that?

Perhaps it is this simple truth that all of us who strive and scrape for an epiphanal experience with God need to remember. Instead of gaining some grand, inspirational word from our Savior and Redeemer, we should instead hear him inaudibly whisper to our souls, "Peace, be still. Where is your faith? Peace, be still. Do not be afraid."

The Secret of The Barn

2005-12-26T12:07:00.000-08:00

There is a church on a hill just outside of my hometown neighborhood that, year after year, sets up a small, wooden barn at the front of their lawn. They fill the floor with hay, but aside from the night in which they use it for a live nativity, this makeshift lean-to of a barn sits empty and dark. However, for the past three seasons of Christmas, I have pulled up into the parking lot late on Christmas Eve night or Christmas night, walked out to this wooden shed, and knelt in the silence of the night. It has become something of a tradition - a ritual if you will - for me at Christmastime. Though seminary has taught me that our traditional religious concepts are slightly incorrect in recognizing what exactly was the poor shelter for the travel-weary Joseph and Mary so many years ago, this small barn that the people of this church have erected serves me well, if not in a scripturally accurate manner, but a metaphorical manner.

This barn has served as a kind of confession booth for me. I kneel - or, when my knees and ankles begin to shudder in discomfort, sit - before this empty space and I speak with God. It is a two-sided conversation, but not in an audible way. God replies with quiet; his reply is in his gracious silence. I poor out my heart, however reluctantly, and describe the tumultuous and joyful emotions that have filled my heart and mind over the past year. Sometimes I am quietly rejoicing when I come to the barn, other times I am wracked with the guilt of familiar sin. I am beginning to understand I am most often, in my day to day life, a measure of both. At the threshold of the barn I rest, with my hands dug into my pockets for warmth and the sounds of the night becoming a non-intrusive cacophony around me - nocturnal birds rustle and occasionally chirp, nearby coyotes bark at each other and the stars, domestic dogs respond in their own words, insects click and go about their own business in the grass. It is a noisy scene that would have terrified me when I was younger; in those years I would have been certain some ghastly creature was slowly slinking toward me in the shadows, intent on devouring me. But, now older, the peacefulness of the empty barn calms me, even when my childhood fears echo in my head as I ponder and pray.

I believe that there has been so very much attached to this "holiday season" that is despicable to God, in the talking points of the Religious Right as they rant and rage about the commercialism of Christmas vs. the complete disregard of the season, nor is it in the recovery fire of their opponents as they growl about the loss of deep tradition and sarcastically attack those who have made Christmas, and what is more, Christianity, into an empty shell of a religion, devoid now of any life-altering significance. (Oh how I so often side with the latter.)

In the quiet of the barn I begin to notice, even as I find peace in my personal confession and request for blessing and direction, that God is revealing his very nature to me, his nature that stands unchanging and unblemished by all of this holiday confusion. He is silent. He is quiet. He is both desperately concerned and transcendently uncommitted with the hub-bub both Christians and non-Christians are making out of this season. His Church is both deeper and grander than such things, and I feel that it is his only desire that we all forget "Christmas" and remember the Savior. That we would do as I feel the very throne room of God does: fall silent before the reality of the Incarnation. It is new every year, yet is historically from of old, and such a truth, when really pondered, silences even the most righteous tongue.

The angels may indeed break into a heavenly chorus, and the coyotes howl back and the insects chatter and the birds warble, but God Most High sits quietly and blesses the Incarnation and communes in powerful silence with all those who would stop and rest with him.
__________

Here are some photos from my holiday break, in which I have helped Leigh move back to Houston, spent some time with her and her family as well as my own, and enjoyed a good, replenishing rest.

Procrastination and Love

2005-12-17T08:23:00.000-08:00

Life is procrastination until death.

That was not meant to be melancholic or morose. It is simply a funny truth I am starting to discover as yet another semester of seminary comes to a close. Granted, I consider myself an expert in procrastination, if only by my large amount of experience, and I have found that some of the greatest acheivements come while delaying and then finally starting an activity (though these acheivements are often coupled with a significant amount of stress).

Right now I sit in a comfortable chair on the second floor of my girlfriend's house, procrastinating. The task at present is to somehow make good on this love of writing that I have and fashion a meaningful framework of a toast for Leigh's best friend, who is getting married this afternoon. Leigh only recently found out she would be expected to give a toast (she is the maid of honor), and with all the other responsibilities she has before her today, mulling over a short toast is not high on the list. She does indeed want it to be good, but is afraid she will not have time to come up with something poignant for the occasion. This is where I come in, and thus, this is where procrastination seizes me and instead of thinking pointedly to the happy couple and, though I hardly know them, considering how to describe and praise their love for each other, I blog, spinning off like an awkward paper airplane into considering the meaning of Love itself. Well, that and the art of procrastination.

What follows will be the strings of some ambitious musings on the nature of Love ...

Love is laughing and finding that someone is already laughing with you, and crying and finding someone already has their hand around your shoulders ...

Love is better construed silently through the five senses than through words. The eyes gaze with wonder upon the one loved. The ears open to everything that person has to say. The nose recognizes the aroma, beyond any perfume or cologne, of that person. The tongue knows immediately and distinctly who it is kissing. The feel of that person, close to you, hand in yours, is not recognized because of any measure of softness or roughness, but how well that person seems to fit with you, arms around each other, heads bowed together, a perfect embrace ...

Love is saying you are sorry, finding out that deep down this could never be necessary, but saying it and meaning it anyway ...

Love is not replacing a best friend for a more intimate one, but discovering that everything your best friends have taught you - loyalty, affection, humor, closeness, devotion, compromise - is finding new depths of truth in this wonderful person beside you ...

Love is not merely "practice for eternity," but finding that eternity has spilled into this present life ...
____

We shall see where these take me. Procrastination, be a friend - we have work to do.

Dunking and Being Dunked

2005-11-18T12:16:00.000-08:00

"Going under symbolizes the end of everything about your life that is less-than-human. Coming up again symbolizes the beginning in you of something strange and new and hopeful. You can breathe again."
- Frederick Buechner on "Baptism"

There we were, a bunch of white-gowned seminary students, sandled or bare-footed, loitering at the main steps of the Student Life Center pool. Our professor, Dr. Price, also clad in the traditional baptizing gown, was preparing to take us carefully through the process of performing what is certainly the strangest sacrament of the Church, though not at all meaningless. In the SLC, the pool is an odd conglomeration of tile and cement. It is no discernable shape, but instead made up of different areas, including a few slightly-less-than-olympic-sized lap lanes, an open area next to a water basketball goal, a higher-set hot tub, a lazy river, and a large, spiraling water slide. As I entered the pool area, I joked that the use of a water slide in baptism might just be what the "church of tomorrow" needs. I could see it all right then: Extreme Baptism: Take the Plunge ... into Jesus! Youth ministers would suddenly have no problem getting kids to join the church. At age fourteen I was baptized, and I definitely would have been open to water-sliding into the sacrament. After all, there is not much else you can do to make Baptism more silly than it already is, at least as it appears on the surface.

It was the oddest of feelings, standing there in the three-foot high water, taking turns dunking my fellow students. We could not help but laugh as we were again and again welcomed into the Church. For the two or three lap swimmers across the pool area, there couldn't have been anything more absurd to behold as they surfaced from the water and removed their goggles. Yet, even as we laughed and made light of this practice, it was inspiring. Most of the students from this class will one day find themselves standing in a baptistry - or a creek or river - reaching out their hand, welcoming a brother or sister into the water. They will watch them tense at the first sensation at the temperature, shrug their shoulders as they descend into the pool as if they need to keep the water from soaking their torso too quickly, nervously fold their arms and hold their nose, and then these fellow students will guide the people under the water. They will raise them up, dripping and wiping their faces, and there is something wonderful in this act for both the baptized and the baptizer - a cleansing of both minister and congregant.

What is the appearance of this act, but the strange, ritualistic dunking of a person underwater? Sometimes they struggle to regain footing, sometimes the water splashes over the side onto the choir, sometimes there is sputtering and coughing - it is the most comic scene the Church regularly enacts. If you, in witnessing a baptism, are not at least quietly chuckling, just a little bit, you're missing something of the wonderful absurdity of the sacraments.

What is the meaning of this act? As Frederick Buechner wrote, that which is less-than-human within us is symbolically being put to death - buried; drowned if you will. When a person rises from the waters, they are, as the pastor in the home church of my childhood used to say, "raised to walk in newness of life." I have taught others the cute phrase that baptism is "an outward expression of an inward decision" and that is true, but there is much more to this. There is something very human and very holy in the practice of it. If it is only a declaration to a church body of the repentance you have professed, it is no more meaningful than if you set up a flannel board in front of the altar and walked the congregation through the steps you took to become a Christian. "First I knelt beside my bed, as you can see here ... then I folded my hands ... then I bowed my head and said, O God ..."
The sacrament of Baptism is a metaphor, and the most meaningful teachings and practices of the Church are done in metaphor. The understanding of God as father, of Christ as king, of the solemnity of the bread as flesh and the wine as blood, of the front of the stage as the "altar" at which to kneel and pray ... It is all wrapped up in metaphor. It is something that holds meaning beyond what our five senses report to us. The life of a Christian is a mess of failings and praisings, of penitence and patience. It is the story of a creature sick with humanity finding rehabilitation in that which is holy. It is as absurd a condition as what we gaze upon when a person is dunked under the water of a baptistry. That does not render it any less true - any less necessary. Baptism is the moment out of our lives when we can, in our limited human minds, recognize in a single, wonderful act this extended experience of redemption.

That old life left behind, you come up sputtering, sniffing, maybe even choking a little bit, but the air is fresh and you can fill your lungs anew and wipe your eyes and see clearly, and there are smiling faces and applause and those gathered before you begin singing a song that, even as your ears unclog, still sounds like touchable grace. There is that inkling that you have never been more home than you are at that moment. You take the loving hand offered you and step out of the water to walk in newness of life.

A Good Death

2005-11-03T15:38:00.000-08:00

There is most certainly the stuff of wonder intricately woven within the stuff of astonishing tragedy. Never has this truth been more clear to me than in this past week.

On Sunday, October 30, 2005, Kyle Lake died a good death. Kyle, who is pastor of University Baptist Church in Waco and a burgeoning author, was considered by hundreds to be an inspiring preacher, a loving husband and father, an energetic athlete and friend, a mentor, counselor, and wonderful example of someone who knew how to live life well.

I would have become Kyle's friend next year. We had spent an hour or so one afternoon talking about the possibility of me going into a mentorship under him - this is part of the degree plan I follow at Truett. I am interested in college ministry as it relates to the local church, and felt Kyle would be a great choice for a guide in such things. Over coffee one afternoon in late June, we shared with one another our views on ministry and the calling of a Christian - I found him to be insightful and intelligent and very, very fun. I looked forward to getting to know him better.

As I sat in the funeral service last Tuesday and listened to friends and family recount humorous and poignant stories of his life, I lamented that I did not have the chance to get to know Kyle better. Some might offer that this is a good thing, because I don't have to go through as severe a devastation at the loss. My response to that would be, Never exchange a relationship for an escape from experiencing pain - that is a tragic trade.

Kyle died a good death. He was electrocuted while preparing to perform the sacrament of baptism. It was terrible and heartrending, and it came at the most devastating time (he was only 33!), but it was a good death. There is no better way for him to have left his church than in the act of bringing someone into the Church. Seeing it one way, his life indeed came full circle. He is a testimony to us all, an example of a true minister of God.

Perhaps the most astonishing thing was not Kyle's sudden death, but what was shared at his funeral - the conclusion to what would be the last sermon Kyle would ever write. It is a closing statement like no other. In the word of my friend, Janalee, it is truly "divine." I humbly use this blog now as an opportunity to share Kyle's last words with all of you.

Live. And Live Well.
BREATHE. Breathe in and Breathe deeply. Be PRESENT. Do not be past. Do not be future. Be now.
On a crystal clear, breezy 70 degree day, roll down the windows and FEEL the wind against your skin. Feel the warmth of the sun.
If you run, then allow those first few breaths on a cool Autumn day to FREEZE your lungs and do not just be alarmed, be ALIVE.
Get knee-deep in a novel and LOSE track of time.
If you bike, pedal HARD ... and if you crash then crash well.
Feel the SATISFACTION of a job well done ... a paper well-written, a project thoroughly completed, a play well-performed.
If you must wipe the snot from your 3-year old’s nose, don’t be disgusted if the Kleenex didn’t catch it all ... because soon he’ll be wiping his own.
If you'’ve recently experienced loss, then GRIEVE. And Grieve well.
At the table with friends and family, LAUGH. If you're eating and laughing at the same time, then might as well laugh until you puke. And if you eat, then SMELL. The aromas are not impediments to your day. Steak on the grill, coffee beans freshly ground, cookies in the oven. And TASTE. Taste every ounce of flavor. Taste every ounce of friendship. Taste every ounce of Life. Because-it-is-most-definitely-a-Gift.

I will miss you, Kyle. Someday soon I will indeed become your friend.

The Calling

2005-10-20T15:45:00.000-07:00

This past Sunday, the call to worship in the church that I attended was a responsive reading.

God of all creation, forgive us for our lack of wonder.

We take so much for granted.

God of mercy, forgive us our plotting and punishing.

We are adept at manipulation.

God who knows each of us intimately, forgive us for showing you our masks.

We have been dishonest before you.

God of everlasting love, hear our longing for your grace.

We lift up our hearts to you.

In looking at these words again, I have begun to realize that they paint a very truthful portrait of my weeks, both in the past and as of late. The three mistakes within this text are very much my own, and the final prayer, in the theme of the Sursum Chorda, is the desperate prayer I often find dwelling upon my lips at the close of day.

I take so much for granted ...

Throughout my days I forget the real purpose for being where I am, and this does not mean simply seminary. The call of God comes in many more places than this in my life, but in all, I seem to forget it, or let it fall by the wayside as if I were shedding a sweater for which the weather does not ask. Because of this, when struggles surface, I ransack God's grace for benefits rather than healing, for exhortation rather than comfort. And with each misguided thought and deed that is captive to my own worries instead of God, I become so much more robotic and less free, and my God-given sense of wonder deteriorates like an old abandoned house.

I am adept at manipulation ...

One of my most infuriating pet peeves about myself is when I find I am living by formulas, or making extensive plans to things which support no such structured treatment. I despise such living, because a life of faith, as I understand it and Frederick Buechner describes it, "is a journey without maps." You can no better figure out your exact destination as you can backtrack and change the past. It is constant motion - you cannot slow down, and you cannot skip ahead. Such a truth is a curse and a blessing. But for some strange reason, I default to an attitude of manipulation regarding my life. My mind spins, gently but uncontrollably most times, with how to perfectly set up my future. I assure myself I am simply being careful about things, but this carefulness ultimately begins to eradicate the simple beauty of life; before I know it I find I have laid a gaudy concrete path straight through a landscape that was never intended to be crossed so directly and with so much certainty. If only I would trust ... let go ... forget the need for a clear path ...

I have been dishonest before Him ...

If the sin of omission is to neglect to perform those things that a follower of Christ does to glorify God, then every absence of a God-glorifying act is, in essence, dishonesty. It is a sobering reality, but to be swept up in despair over it is to commit yet another sin of omission, that of forgetting the all-sufficient love and forgiveness of God. It may not be a straight road we walk, but it is a fine line.

I lift up my heart to You ...

What more can I do, even when weighed down by the guilt of these failures? I suppose confession is the best course of action. In guilt there is a sinking feeling, as our hearts seem to hang with the weight of a hundred different shortcomings. In confession, there is a lifting up, an expanding, like a sagging sail that suddenly is filled with a guiding gust. And on the wind can be heard, to those who really listen, these words:

Lift up your hearts ... We lift them to the Lord ... It is right to give Him thanks and praise.

We do not know our destination. But on this journey, fueled by a longing for grace, every so often we can hear, not too far off beyond the horizon, a Savior calling us to worship, and we begin to understand that in every step there is something sacramental.

Listing My Life

2005-10-14T09:06:00.000-07:00

This is a bit of a departure from what I normally post on this blog, but I was requested to by a friend. I think these questions are quite pointed, and I even added a few of my own. For those that read this blog, perhaps these answers will paint a more detailed picture of who I am, not that any one really asked.

5 Things I Plan to Do Before I Die:
fall in love
publish a novel (one that I have written)
visit Ireland
meet Frederick Buechner
hike the Appalachian Trail

5 Things I Can Do:
talk too much
write stories
drive long distances
martial arts
quote any Seinfeld episode

5 Things I Can't Do:
speak briefly
mathematics and all its brethren
enjoy vegetables
express my exact feelings for Leigh
go on a trip where something doesn't go wrong

5 Things that Attract Me to the Opposite Sex:
desire for God's glory
her eyes
her hair
a love for the arts
ability to be patient with me

5 Things I Say Most Often:
"I'm sorry."
"That sucks."
"What's up?" - always rhetorically
"The point is ..."
"Where are y'all going?"

5 Movies I Can Watch Over and Over
Wonder Boys
The Insider
Anchorman
Black Hawk Down
Brian Regan: I Walked on the Moon

5 Movies I Still Want to Watch All the Way Through
Pulp Fiction
Chicago
Magnolia
Pieces of April
Life of Brian

5 Celebrity Crushes
Bryce Dallas Howard (of The Village)
Natalie Portman
Rachel Leigh Cook
The woman who played the last girlfiend Jerry ever had on Seinfeld
Scarlett Johannson

5 Books I Want to Read Soon
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Rabbit Angstrom: The Four Novels by John Updike
The Story of Christian Theology by Roger Olsen
The Prophets by Rabbi Abraham Heschel
The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis

5 People I Want to Do This
my Leigh
Josh Brewer (though he refuses to do anything with his blog)
Lindsey Carter
Grayson Goodman
Scott Shaw
___

Perhaps someone learned something about me. I know I did.

A Girl Named Leigh

2005-10-12T22:16:00.000-07:00

The pictures below are where some of my greatest joy on earth is coming from these days ...

Leigh and me on the Staten Island Ferry

Leigh and me on the Brooklyn Bridge

Leigh and me at Bear Mountain

My Leigh

Finding the Savior

2005-09-12T20:27:00.000-07:00

I have been grasping - struggling - for words on how to respond to the tragedy that has befallen the Gulf coast. I have wanted to write something, anything, that we may not be hasty in considering this great trouble and then quickly drop it without learning anything. Without experiencing some form of revelation from the One who, throughout the unfolding of the storm and its severe aftermath, has been called upon and cursed, blamed and bullied, incorrectly invoked, desperately defended, piously purposed ... So much of us, so little of God. Where is He in all this sadness, this chaos, this anger, this hopelessness? Where is our Savior?

Beyond that question, I had no words. But today, while at work, thinking about a dozen different things completely unrelated to Katrina and her devastation, I reheard the words from a favorite song of mine as it softly played from my computer's speakers. They reminded of the plight of so many, even beyond our own shaken borders to the depressively torn regions across this globe. I share them with you now.

Under Bridges by Reese Roper

Yesterday while walking beneath an overpass
I saw the figure of Jesus
standing barefoot on broken glass
His beard was graying
Smell of urine filled the air
Asking if I had some change
Anything that I could spare

Emaciated, his shaking fist balled up
Influenza and pneumonia
Begging God to take his cup
So different from his pictures
Breathing air through yellowed tubes
Jesus Christ, dying of AIDS
can look right through you

And all have hated
Crucified and walked away
Savior of the prostitutes, drunkards, rapists
and the gays

Under bridges with hands raised
From the ghettos they praise his name
Broken, crippled, in the dark of night
Raise your voices to Jesus Christ
Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah

"The King will answer and say to them, 'Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers and sisters of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.'" - Matthew 25:40

When the whirlwind passes, the wicked is no more, but the righteous has an everlasting foundation." - Proverbs 10:25

May we never think that we ourselves can never be included in the "least of these." May we never assume that the ground beneath our feet is everlasting simply because it has yet to be shaken. May we pray for forgiveness that we show so little compassion compared to that of Christ, and beg him to lead us confidently into the fray. Only there, deep amidst this despairing world, is found the grandest of wonders; only there is the true Savior.

Somebody Stopped Me

2005-09-10T10:14:00.000-07:00

Stating the obvious: I have not written anything on this blog for a while. The reason: somebody stopped me - somebody stopped me from thinking solely about myself, in having any driving concern for my own thoughts. I've been lost in the joy and the wonder of another person, and sometimes there are no words when you are lost like that. Besides, most people are not normally interested in hearing very much about a person's new-found feelings for someone else. You know what I mean.

"How are you, Vernon?"
"Not bad, actually. I met someone." (After all, many times you cannot stop the excitement of this from overflowing into speech.)
"Really?"
"Yeah, she's great."
"Where's she from? What's her name?"
"She's from Houston and goes to school in New York. Her name's Leigh."
"Great, good for you."

Conversation over for the one who asked. Conversation just begun for the one who met Leigh. It is somewhere around that moment where the two of you begin to separate. Why are we not more overjoyed with someone when they are overjoyed? Is it jealousy, carelessness, or just a growing pervasion of cynicism?

Needless to mention, however, such lack of concern from some does not trouble me. My close friends care, and that is nice. What better way to shirk off the self-centeredness of the world than by showing interest in the details of another's life? We should all be so selfless. I suppose this is the way you find out who are your true friends. Will I be so concerned when it is not me - when someone I know has big news?

But somebody has stopped me. Though, of course, when you meet someone you think of yourself in relation to that person, it is refreshing that my thoughts are no longer consumed with myself, my future, my call, my day-to-day activities, my purpose ... Instead, a significant amount of time is passed every day thinking about someone else, concerning myself with her. And this is fine with me - Leigh is much more captivating to me than I am to myself.

I am glad she stopped me. It is good to be halted. May I forever be stopped.

Wonderstuff

Moving Day

List

Good Words I Didn't Write

The Maker of Dust

January Notes

Rock On! - A Concert-Going Memoir

A Life Preserver Better Thrown

For Kelsey

At Vacation's End

Summer in the City

No More Hiding Places

Compelled to Dance

A Voice of One Crying from a Dead Church

The Steaming Cup

The Man Who Knocked On My Open Door

A Standard Easy to Break

Return of the Writer

Good Neighbors?

Faith in the Mystery: Part Three of a Response

Faith in the Mystery: Part Two of a Response

The Hitching Post

A Good Friday Re-Post: Extinguished

What Thou, my Lord, hast suffered, was all for sinners’ gain;Mine, mine was the transgression, but Thine the deadly pain.Lo, here I fall, my Savior! ’Tis I deserve Thy place;Look on me with Thy favor, vouchsafe to me Thy grace.

Faith in the Mystery: Part One of a Response

Leaving the Runway

You Will Search For Me, But You Will Not Find Me

An Unveiling

Observations from the Couch

The Tale of the Wearied Defense Attorney

The Engagement Story

The Hopeless Romantic Who Will Change the World

Far As The Curse Is Found

Voice in the Wilderness

Blessing

Pa Rum Pum Pum Pum

It Takes All Kinds

Disciplinarians

Flight

Politicians

The Day the Originality Died

There's Racism, and Then There's Absurdity

If You Want to Catch the Squirrel...

A Contemporary Psalter

But the Meek Don't Want It

Frozen

The Margaritas (for Mother Superior)

Of Jesus Camps, Dixie Chicks, Jerry Falwell, and the Pope

The Substance of Things Hoped For

Barefoot Before the Cross

An Equilibrium of Dunces

Faith Journey: Part Four

Faith Journey: Part Three

The journey of faith goes on...

To be concluded...

One Book

Superstitions, or, Welcome to Houston, Sucker: Part Two

Welcome to Houston, Sucker

Faith Journey: Part Two

The journey continues...

To be continued...

Faith Journey

To be continued soon ...

An Open Letter to the World

Dreamworld Repentance

Eating My Tail

Three Short Tales of Consternation

Love and Wonder

Extinguished

What Thou, my Lord, hast suffered, was all for sinners’ gain;Mine, mine was the transgression, but Thine the deadly pain.Lo, here I fall, my Savior! ’Tis I deserve Thy place;Look on me with Thy favor, vouchsafe to me Thy grace.

This Difficult Sacrament

A Call to Be Quiet

Life Isn't Fair

Great Souls

Dry-Erase Board Salvation

I Wonder as I Wander

Good News, Bad News

Peace, Be Still

The Secret of The Barn

Procrastination and Love

What Thou, my Lord, hast suffered, was all for sinners’ gain;
Mine, mine was the transgression, but Thine the deadly pain.
Lo, here I fall, my Savior! ’Tis I deserve Thy place;
Look on me with Thy favor, vouchsafe to me Thy grace.

What Thou, my Lord, hast suffered, was all for sinners’ gain;
Mine, mine was the transgression, but Thine the deadly pain.
Lo, here I fall, my Savior! ’Tis I deserve Thy place;
Look on me with Thy favor, vouchsafe to me Thy grace.