To the Tune of Tim

I've lost that blogging mojo, and I want it back

2011-09-15T10:30:00.000-04:00

I've been writing here since December 2005 - almost 6 years! Initially this was just a journal for me, and I kept it semi-private. But the past few years, I've been writing more and more, both in publications like the Burnside Writers Collective, guest blogs or columns picked up by others, and in professional journals.

I have a voice on a variety of topics, but I lack the consistency to keep it moving, and to develop a committed audience. I want to branch out my writing into a professional topics of libraries and technology, but I'm struggling to balance all of the projects and committees and meetings that take up more than the time I have available. And frankly, I'm often too lazy to get up earlier in the morning.

But the time has come for me to get my blogging mojo back, and I have an excellent resource to help me. Bryan Allain has published an eBook called 31 Days to Finding your Blogging Mojo. It's clear and concise with suggested exercises that not only don't take a lot of time, but gives you immediate and critical feedback on your blog, your audience, and your concepts, and your perspective. My plan is to dedicate the month of October and follow through all 31 days in the month, but I've already read the book, and I know it will benefit me immensely. It will help you, too.

And it's really, really funny.

Guest Posting for Rachel Held Evans

2011-08-26T15:27:00.006-04:00

I was thrilled when Rachel Held Evans asked me to guest post for her. If you haven't read it yet, check it out here. If you are new here, drop a comment and say hi.

Changes are coming here, with hopefully more consistent posting. The site template has already started to change, but keep checking in...

Some thoughts on communal worship

2011-08-23T23:00:00.000-04:00

I've returned to reading Finding Our Way Again: The Return of the Ancient Practices by Brian McLaren not only because I owe Thomas Nelson Publishing a review, but because I'm yet again in a phase of transition within my faith journey. I'm on Chapter 12 ("Communal Practices") now, and I will get back to blogging my answers to the questions at the end of each chapter, but while reading this chapter, I immediately got out of bed to write through some of these thoughts. Later this week, I will be guest blogging for Rachel Held Evans on my visit to a faith community very different than ones I've belonged to, but for now, I want to work through some points and excerpts from this chapter that quickly engaged with my mind and spirit.

First off, I'm finding it difficult to engage in formal Christian community these days. These are my own problems and not the fault of my or any other church, but at least within my church there is an on-going seismic event that has had more subtle effects than ~~I think people~~ I expected. I am evaluating in what ways I need to participate within this, but McLaren discusses worship in a way that I find intriguing for, if not convicting of, my thought process:

Singing is so familiar in our churches that I fear we are missing what a miracle it is. First, singing involves our bodies.... Second, it involves our souls.... Third, it involves a text, sometimes (though too rarely) a beautiful poetic lyric. Fourth, it involves a score, sometimes (again, too rarely) a beautiful artistic score. Fifth, that score engages instruments.... Sixth, it often involves parts.... And finally, [singing] involves other people - many voices, one song. Think of it: bodies and souls, people and instruments, texts and notes, men and women and children, Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives somehow coming together in the miracle of a song or hymn. Figuratively as literally, songs harmonize us, which is why they are such important communal spiritual practices. (pp. 105-106)

No matter what I believe on a particular issue, no matter where I stand in a conflict of justice, worship - and in particular singing communally - is the opportunity to join in unity through expressing worship to God. Whether that is true unity, or not, is a different story, but it is certainly the opportunity, and the onus is on me to participate, or not.

But I fall short of this, yet my growing suspicions and discomfort of the typical American church is not a sufficient excuse to recluse myself of the community of faith, especially as I desire to participate in a more diverse community of faith within and beyond the local church I have chosen to participate. Along those lines, McLaren provides this insight:

As well, songs (like acts of romantic affection) simultaneously express and intensify emotion. Sadly, the singing in some of our churches expresses a range of emotion that runs from B to C (bored to complacent), but the Bible takes us from A (angry) to F (fervent) to J (joyful) to L (lamenting) to N (nostalgic) to R (restful) to X (er, exalted) to Z (zealous). I'm glad to report that people are beginning to notice the narrow range of songs used in so many of our churches, whether they be "traditional" or "contemporary" or "blended," and even better, they're starting to write new songs that more fully explore and express the spiritual life in both content and emotion. (p. 106)

Here's the moment of truth: do I really want a diverse worship experience that can or does go from anger to fervency to joy to lamentation to nostalgia to rest to exaltation to zealousness? At first blush that would be an emotionally exhausting experience, but what about over the range of a month or a liturgical season, or the entire liturgical year? Usually I want to rush to joy and nostalgia in worship, but is my soul nourished by ignoring the anger I am holding securely and privately? Can we be a diverse community of faith if we don't allow room to share our complaints to God around each other, or describe what drives our fervent energy, yet give room for those seeking people rest?

If I'm honest, I still want to be surrounded by like-minded, like-feeling, and like-expressing people if there is any chance I would put myself in a position of vulnerability. But that leaves little room for the miracle of the communal practice described above. So where does this discussion lead? Find a community attempting to approach communal practices by actively seeking this miracle or be an advocate of change within the community I am in now?

Am I sincerely willing to do either?

A deja vu beginning

2011-08-07T23:01:00.000-04:00

I've returned to a house I haven't been to in two years, and even then I only spent one week. It's odd how familiar something can be despite the brief time spent and the long time away.

But the differences already shine bright. My son is walking and talking, and he did neither two years ago. We walked on the beach together, chasing some baby seagulls, and then dipped our feet in the ocean. My daughter danced and leaped over waves with her cousin with the fullness of joy beaming in her face and smile. My wife and I shared the humbling awareness of how fast she will grow up.

I'm ready for this week, to learn and experience new things as a parent, husband, and relative to the others sharing this house. I can't wait to jump on our bikes and ride together, to explore this island on my own, and to drink in deep the view of our kids playing and laughing and living fully.

A couple weeks ago, I had time away with my wife that we both desperately needed. This week is definitely one for the family. Time for some fun.

Big Picture for Presbyterians

2011-06-13T16:00:00.001-04:00

This weekend my church held a Town Hall meeting to discuss the recent changes to the PC(USA) constitution and Book of Order on ordination and process of government. The majority of the comments were about the issue of ordaining open gay/lesbian ministers who are active outside of marriage, which was previously defined by PC(USA) as between one man and one woman. Some expanded their concern to a loosening of boundaries for all sexual behavior, in that technically speaking an unmarried, but sexually active, heterosexual could be ordained. While possible, I interpreted those comments mostly as wanting to stay away from seeming homophobic. But if we were really going to discuss that topic, we should open a bigger discussion on how poorly the church converses about relationships and sexuality in the first place.

I prepared some thoughts for the Town Hall that I believe there are three bigger issues that our local church should consider before we respond in word or action to this new situation. The following is what I submitted in writing for the record to the Clerk of Session.

I want to preface the "big picture" issues I mentioned at the Town Hall with this context. I see this decision by our denomination to be a larger opportunity and challenge than simply dealing with the changes of ordination and absence of guidelines and accountability for sexual behavior. Just as important, there are published studies and surveys by polling groups, such as Pew and Barna, that indicate my generation (Gex X) and the next generation (Millennials) are not willing to draw the same lines in the sand on issues of hot button issues, such as same-sex marriage, abortion, war, and others.* The trends indicate more neutral or central stances of what previous generations have battled for or against for the purpose of encouraging open discussion, transparency, and civil communication. Surveys have shown these generations are spiritually more comfortable with questions that have no easy answers, more open to expressing doubt, and more interested in communities that have a diverse points of view. I find these trends to be relatively true in my circle of friends, and as an independent, centralist-minded person, I myself concur.

In this context, I believe the challenges of this constitutional change are bigger than the change in ordination standards. The opportunity, then, is for us to examine these issues as we decide how to continue to participate in PC(USA). I hope that the leadership at FPC-Bethlehem will approach the future by examining these three areas:

Tradition vs Faith
Hierarchy vs Community
Self Survival vs Investment

Tradition vs Faith - By definition, tradition is humanly created, defined, and interpreted. It is created by someone and followed by others within the customs or beliefs passed down through generations. Traditions, however, do not define God nor our faith in God, but rather are derived by our fallible interpretations, senses, and beliefs in what has been held to be true in the past. Much of the foundations of our denomination are indeed built on tradition. The opportunity before us is to live out our faith in God, not in our traditions. We must identify specifically those things we hold closely or push aside as tradition and those things we live out in faith. We must declare that our God is great, is just, and loves overwhelmingly, and we will journey together toward our God.

Therefore, the question I raise to our leadership is this: Are the actions you propose for our future as a congregation lie in traditions you hope to preserve or in faith you hope to live in?

Hierarchy vs Community - One definition of hierarchy is "a system or organization in which people or groups are ranked one above the other according to status or authority." Much of what we read and interpret from the gospels is Jesus overthrowing the hierarchies the Jewish leaders created for themselves to separate both themselves and God from the common people. Jesus, as God himself, flattened this hierarchical separation and, moreover, turned the whole idea upside down. Jesus humbled himself and lifted everyone up over himself, the chief of the kingdom at the very bottom of the chain. He defined leadership not as authority over others but as servants under and within the community.

I commend our pastoral team for living this example out, consistently resisting the temptation to lead over us as a congregation, but instead living and serving within and alongside the congregation. I believe the greatest failure of the western Church is the CEO/Board-like nature pastors and elders have tried to lead churches, and I am thankful this has not been the case at FPC-Bethlehem. The process and setup of ordination does have the taste of elevating a person over a community, and, indeed, communities of believers often give in to the temptation to allow pastors to lead over them rather than participating with these leaders to invest in their community together. But we have wonderful examples of first-century communities who lived in community together, wholly dependent on each other. They had little-to-no knowledge of the New Testament, other than a letter actually addressed to them. But they invested in the community together and moved together, right or wrong. Sometimes they had to be corrected, and other times they were commended. I hope that we can live out community similarly.

The question I raise to our leadership is this: Are the actions you propose for our future as a congregation based on preserving the hierarchical requirements of authority of a few over many or through a vision of how we, as a congregation, can live within these new definitions as a community of FPC and within the larger community that is PC(USA)?

Self Survival vs Investment - I believe there is nothing more shocking in the gospel than Jesus declaring in order to save your life we have to lose it. There is little, if any, scripture that can be used to justify a position of self survival. Nearly everything in the gospels prescribes living beyond our definitions of generosity in money, love, service, and forgiveness while removing all traces of judgment, violence, hate, exclusivity, prejudice. And yet our American culture, politics, and economics pushes us into self-survival mode that contradicts the gospel. I fall terribly short in my attempts to be generous in these areas.

But in a time of uncertainty as this situation brings, it would be tempting as a church for us to focus on self survival rather than continuing to invest in our congregation, our communities in the Lehigh Valley, around the country, and the world. If we are to live out the gospel, living in our experience of God's overwhelming love for us, then we need to fight against this temptation to simply focus on self survival.

The question I raise to our leadership is this: Are the actions you propose for our future as a congregation focused simply on surviving as a church, neglecting our neighbors, our sister churches in the Lehigh Valley, our sister churches in PC(USA), or focused in continuing to invest in our communities, our sister churches, and the world around us? Are we running away from relationships that are now difficult, or are we becoming more generous in our love, service, forgiveness, and financial support? Are we taking positions of judgment, exclusivity, and prejudice or taking positions of openness, inclusiveness, and welcoming? Finally, are we stubbornly resisting conversation and discussion of difficult topics, or are we admitting our questions to which we have no answers, being transparent in our doubts to our community and denomination, and being open to discussion, disagreement, and commitment to continuing relationships?

I believe this situation is an opportunity for us to invest deeper in our congregation, our communities, and in the denomination. I believe it is a challenge worth embracing, a challenge to live within our faith in God to lead us closer to himself, and to show others just how great that love is.

*References

Generation X and Work/Life Issues, Sloan Work and Family Research Network, Boston College, Volume 7(2) February 2005 http://wfnetwork.bc.edu/The.../08/The_Network_News_Interview08.pdf
Sandfort, Melissa A. and Haworth, Jennifer G. "Whassup? A Glimpse Into the Attitudes and Beliefs of a Millenial Generation" Journal of College and Character 3(3): 2002
"Young Adults and Liberals Struggle with Morality" http://www.barna.org/teens-next-gen-articles/25-young-adults-and-liberals-struggle-with-morality August 25, 2008
"Americans Describe Their Moral and Social Concerns, Including Abortion and Homosexuality" http://www.barna.org/culture-articles/50-americans-describe-their-moral-and-social-concerns-including-abortion-and-homosexuality January 21, 2008
"The Millennials: Confident. Connected. Open to Change." http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1501/millennials-new-survey-generational-personality-upbeat-open-new-ideas-technology-bound February, 24, 2010
"The Millenials" http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1437/millennials-profile January 11, 2009
"The Progressive Politics of the Millennial Generation" http://www.newpolitics.net/node/360?full_report=1 June 20, 2007
"A New Generation Expresses its Skepticism and Frustration with Christianity" September 24, 2007 http://www.barna.org/barna-update/article/16-teensnext-gen/94-a-new-generation-expresses-its-skepticism-and-frustration-with-christianity?q=generation
The Pew Research on Millenials http://pewresearch.org/millennials/

Restore Unity

2011-05-02T14:00:00.000-04:00

So Rachel Held Evans has initiated a week-long online rally called "Restore Unity". I was re-tweeting her announcements and other people's reactions as much as I could, thinking about what in the world this might look like next week, and how I could help.

Since then, two major events have occurred that are personal to me. On Friday, the church I attend sent an email describing two major denominational votes that are trending toward passing local presbytery votes, and will, for all intents and purposes, divide the Presbyterian Church (USA) forever. My position on these votes isn't relevant to the future of the denomination, but I do feel the weight on how my voice and actions will be perceived by others during this process.

The second event was the announcement about Osama bin Laden being killed by a US military operation. The tragedies of 9/11 are personal to me because it directly affected people close to me, and many more I've had the privilege of becoming friends with. My initial reaction was simply shock, but my mind immediately went to what is the appropriate response, which I tweeted.

It was made clear through the next hour that not many had common reactions to bin Laden's death. I'm certain that while reactions to the PC(USA) decisions will have more commonalities, the nuances everyone affected will be coming from will be very diverse, yet easily (and inappropriately) generalized. I wonder how unity can prevail in either situation. I share much of Matthew Paul Turner's sentiments.

At this moment, however, I believe our diversity of thought, philosophy, and even reactions, can indeed make us stronger. And that strength is what we need to build unity. It does require being less individually so we can be strong collectively. Can we do it? I sure hope we can.

In the spirit of the Restore Unity Rally, here is my first sign slogan:

I don't THINK you THINK that we THINK the same things.
But I THINK that makes us even stronger. Don't you THINK?
#RestoreUnity

Finding Our Way Again, Chapter 4

2011-04-09T23:15:00.000-04:00

Spiritual Exercises from Chapter 4: "Practicing the Way of Jesus" from Finding Our Way Again by Brian McLaren.

1) To what degree would you describe yourself as a "Jesus-y" person? What is the story behind your answer?

I think it might be easier to talk about the story behind my answer rather than my answer. What a cop-out, and un-Jesus-y thing to do, eh? In truth, or reality, I am a Jesus-y person in ways that I do not care about being religious in my faith, yet I am not a Jesus-y person because I lack the discipline to be faithful. This is why I'm reading this book in the first place, yet failing to be consistent about it.

When I interact with people, I truly do care to listen to them, to not judge, to give them freedom and room to be themselves, to be hospitable, to be welcoming, neighborly, etc. Do I fail at this? Of course, but I honestly believe the majority of the time I live these out.

Within the religious parts of my faith, going to church services, etc, I more or less tolerate the process. It doesn't fill me, it doesn't sustain me, sometimes it drains me, and other times I'd rather be anywhere but there. Sometimes it does charge me, sometimes it does get me through another week, but not often enough that I don't dream of something new and different. My story has a lot to do with this. I grew up fundamentalist baptist, and I don't wish to dredge up memories. But as I warmly received this encouragement from the last chapter of Rob Bell's book Love Wins, I cannot count that history as false or not from God. It is part of my story, but only part.

2) Reflect of three important metaphors used by Jesus: kingdom, yoke, path. Talk about them in your own words. Explore what they evoke for you, what they challenge you to be and do, and how they speak to you in your life situation today.

Kingdom - This is a big deal for me because about 3 or so years ago, I made a conscious decision to register politically as independent, and sought a centrist/moderate position of most, if not all, policies. I did this not to be apathetic to the kingdom of the United States, but to remove any allegiances from the political parties that try to control that kingdom. I don't serve or align with this kingdom, and it is important for me to align solely in the Kingdom of God, which is not a kingdom of power over people, but a kingdom of love for people, all people. My responsibility within this Kingdom is to love all as God loves me, not seeking to persuade them to think or believe that I am right, but to show them love as purely as I can.

Yoke - this is not a big deal to me, though I suspect it should be. I do not feel burdened, either heavily or lightly, by my following of Jesus, nor to I feel a sense of urgency. I do not quite know what to do with this metaphor any more. I used to think of it as a rescuing from my life, but in fact, I find that I don't really need rescuing from it as much as I need to be more intentional within my life.

Path - I liken this to its synonym of journey, that following Jesus is a process, not a destination, and that little by little, I'll learn more about God's love and how to share it. I also think this is an earthly process, rather than simply a process to get to the afterlife. If it is really just for the afterlife, then what a waste of good amount of time to love now.

3) The author contrasts Christianity as an institution on the one hand with being disciples and being part of a movement on the other. How do you respond to this contrast? What do you think would happen if the institutions of Christianity became more focused on forming disciples and supporting a movement?

I am wholeheartedly against following or contributing to the institution of Christianity. I don't appreciate the business-like manner churches confine themselves as, nor do I think it reflects on the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. If our institutions became focused on forming disciples and supporting a movement, I think we would be seen as more dangerous initially, but much, much, much more productive in solving problems around the world. We would focus on need rather than power, love rather than theological position, person rather than identity.

4) As an experiment, try avoiding the words Christian and Christianity for the next week or month or year. Instead, use the terms follower (or disciple) of Christ and the movement Jesus started. How would this change in terminology affect you? What problems would it cause? What insights might it produce?

I think I use these terms mostly now. I generally use Christianity more as a term I don't really identify with, or at least try to distance myself from. I think being more intentional about it would separate me more. Would it really cause problems? Probably a little, especially if I were to be seen as anti-authority. It would also make things a little more complicated while trying to re-translate Sunday School lessons with my kids. As for insights, I honestly don't know.

5) Talk to God about Jesus, your feelings about him, your beliefs and questions, your commitment, your appreciation.

God, I'm thankful for Jesus, for how you and he are intertwined. I'm confused about how you work within the trinity, what is really the holy spirit and what is just my conscience. I believe you are true and truth, that your love is greater than any understanding of love I will ever have. I believe you love everyone in this world, and made us diverse to learn more about your love rather than how we use it to separate ourselves. I question the Bible often, how you seem to be so angry, murderous, inconsistent, and a segregationist within the OT, but how you are changed in the NT. I believe that the Bible is human, but your Word, which is greater than the Bible is not. I don't believe I need to figure out anything about how you work other than trying to love others as best as I can, and follow what I believe you are leading me in anything I do.

Review and Commentary of Love Wins

2011-04-02T14:30:00.004-04:00

I finished Love Wins by Rob Bell this week, and I will say right from the start that I give it 4.75 stars*. If that's going to turn you off from reading the rest of this review, so be it. For everyone else, here's what I think.

I think Rob Bell presented the various questions and perspectives of heaven, hell, and the gospel in a quite compelling and reachable way. The key word is various. It doesn't take long reading through Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John that Jesus invites people to follow him in extraordinary and diverse manners. That alone should tip us off that there's more than one way God finds us. Some people went seeking after Jesus; others Jesus came seeking them. I think Bell captures that in his many stories.

One major spiritual life question that I have been asking myself for a few years now is this:

If there is no heaven, would I still follow Jesus and invest in the kingdom of God?

For me, this is a checkpoint question when I come to any major, or even seemingly minor, crises of faith. If I can say yes, then I feel free to move forward. If I say no, then I know I need to figure out something more. But this question isn't meant to reduce the realities of heaven or minimize the faith journeys of those who have passed on before me, but rather a check that my priorities of following Jesus are for this life and not only for the life to come.

With this context, I resonated with Bell's discussion on heaven and hell, questioning the perspective of a God who many evangelicals say is Love but also say is Wrath if the right steps of faith aren't followed before we die. Bell doesn't buy this view as God's justness; our sin only promises us death, not eternal conscious torture for finite years of sin and unfaithfulness. And Bell calls the evangelical gospel what it is: an escape route of this world to the next. That doesn't jive with Jesus' insistence on touching the lives he encountered in the present.

What really hit me about this book was the radical unfair manner God loves presented in Bell's summary of the parable of the father with two sons (aka the Prodigal Son or the Forgiving Father). As I read it in Chapter 7, I immediately saw threads of Tim Keller's book The Prodigal God. But the twist that I've never seen before in that parable is how elements of heaven and hell co-exist in the same dimension, as well as the diametrically opposed sets of stories that existed. Let's take the latter one first.

The younger son shames his father in the ultimate manner, seeking his inheritance now, thus essentially saying "I wish you were dead." His father, without hesitation, gives him his portion. The younger son squanders it, comes to his senses that he can't continue this path, and comes back to his father ready to ask to be one of his father's slaves. His father meets him, instead, and restores the father-son relationship. Bell summarizes two stories here:

The younger son who believes he is unworthy to be a son and wants to earn his place back into his father's house.
The father who gives mercy and grace to his son and restores the relationship completely.

Bell asks which story will the younger son trust? The father's story is a restored kingdom. The younger son's story is hell.

The older son, meanwhile, calls out his father's acts of mercy and grace to his brother, complains that he has slaved for his father all of these years and calls his father cheap for not even giving him a measly young goat for a celebration with his friends. The father, again without hesitation, tells the older son that he has everything the father has, and it has always been his. Bell summarizes two stories in this interaction:

The older son who believes he has been a slave to his father and believe he is entitled to the kingdom, while at the same time seeks justice against his brother
The father who tells his older son that he already possesses everything the father has, so therefore come celebrate that their family has been restored.

Bell asks which story will the older son trust? The father's story is again restored kingdom, while the older brother's story is hell.

Heaven and hell together in the same place. Trusting the father's ability to restore the family is heaven. Not accepting how the father has restored the family is hell. The important piece of this parable is that it exists within the present, and it comes down to a choice: let yourself be loved by the father or say no. But in both cases, the father sought after each son and offered his love.

Bell speculates that all people will be sought after by God in similar ways, and not necessarily while we are in this life. He never dismisses the realities of hell, and gives example after example of how we already bring hell upon ourselves now. Yet with every one of those examples of hell, he presents moving stories of how God restores, glimpses of present heaven.

All in all, Bell presents a hopeful God, one that desires all people to be in a restored relationship with Him and each other. The each other part is what is most often missing in the evangelical gospel. It's an important piece of the parable of the two sons most often overlooked. The older son has no desire to seek to restore his relationship with his brother, no matter that the father has already done so himself.

Despite all of the above, what surprised me most about Love Wins is the final chapter. Having gone through many stages in my faith journey, particularly from strict, fundamentalist independent baptist rule follower to a wide-open, hopeful follower of Jesus, I often want to cast away all of my past steps of faith that I find to be coercive, rigid, and incomplete. But Bell encourages us in the final chapter to not do that at all. That no matter how much we far we have come in our faith journey, our past interactions with God were just what we needed them, at that time, in that place. We should not be ashamed of them nor despise them. Instead we should embrace how God works, and how God works in ways that are higher than our ways. It's a simple call to humility, and reverence that God is the one restoring, and we need not try to fix again what God has repaired.

* - my quarter star subtraction is based on the lack of end notes or citations in the book. While this somewhat fits Bell's writing style, citing where and how Bell uses other people's books, ideas, or concepts would have been helpful.

Excellent post on Codifying God

2011-04-01T12:00:00.001-04:00

I got to finally meet Rachel Held Evans this week while she was visiting Pennsylvania doing research for her next book. She has an excellent post today quoting from Madeleine L’Engle in Walking on Water.

My reaction was this simple prayer:

God help me to never lose my thirst for passion, my sensitivity toward anguish, my humility toward uncertainty, my openness to doubt, my empathy in despair.

What is your reaction?

Finding Our Way Again, Chapter 3

2011-03-30T22:00:00.000-04:00

Spiritual Exercises from Chapter 3: "The Genesis of Practice" from Finding Our Way Again by Brian McLaren.

1. Ponder the significance of Abraham as the patriarch of our planet's three great monotheistic faiths. Think of (or find) a friend of the other two Abrahamic faiths. Seek them out. Tell them about this chapter, and ask them about the role of significance of Abraham in their faith. Don't argue. Simply listen, learn, and seek to build common ground based on this shared source of inspiration.

This one is difficult for me because I don't have close friends anymore from the other two faiths. And to be quite honest, I don't find hold much significance to Abraham as maybe I should be based on this chapter. Without a doubt, though, I imagine that I would find some of that inspiration if I were able to have a meaningful conversation with a practice Muslim or Jew.

2. Go over the seven Abrahamic practices and notice how the author derives them from the biblical story. Then reflect of your experiences with each of these practices.

Pilgrimage - the closest thing I have to pilgrimage is my experiences going to chapter camp of InterVarsity when I was in college. This was an intensive week of community and inductive study, usually the gospel of Mark. It was raw, stretching, and that mountaintop experience with God we usually crave. As an post-college adult, I haven't had that pilgrimage experience in the same way. I went to a men's retreat once (coincidentally at the same location as college camp conference) but the entire weekend experience soured me to the core. I have never wanted to return to that experience, not really even giving it a second thought. The experience was the exact opposite I had in college, immature, irreverent, and insensitive, which is ironic because I would have expected that more in college.

Fasting - the only fasts I have ever done is for medical reasons. I don't have a spiritual concept or connection to fasting and God. Maybe I should take this one on somehow.

Sacred Meal - this one takes on a number of meanings to me. Within the framework of Communion at church, it is shaped more as a personal connecting time rather than a community meal, which I found odd. I think this is a breakdown of our western, individualized system of believing. But over the past two years, I've found that our small group meals on alternating Fridays has become the sacred meal for me. This time is sacred, and both Andrea and I protect it carefully. It's a chance for the 8 of us to dine together around one table and share in each others lives. It's open, it's not forced, it's community.

Common Prayer - this one is definitely one I want to explore more. Prayer for me is merely non-existent in the traditional sense. I lack any prayer discipline, and I've tired of the popcorn prayer scenario in groups. What I would like to do is pray through the psalms and common prayers to discover this discipline. I'll be interested in how McLaren describes this later in the book.

Giving - isn't this a sore subject for everyone? Despite that, we cheerfully give to two organizations outside of our church, though not at a percentage recognizable in the OT. Neither Andrea or I have a strong commitment to give our money to a wealth church without a strong direction. (Though this year we did feel a strong direction towards one particular project.) Instead, we decided to focus our giving to the poorest of the poor. Both are listed on the right side of this blog - Cross International and Blood:Water Mission.

Sabbath - if I need to return to any practice, Sabbath is the one. I take this so lightly, but I've seen over the past 6 plus months just how little rest I give myself. Whether suffering through migraines, overloaded by stress of work or raising two young children, or simply not following through with my creative interests (playing piano/guitar, writing music, writing words), I need to find a Sabbath ritual that brings me back to center.

Liturgical Year - this one especially intrigues me, though I should know more than I do given that I've attended a Presbyterian church for almost my entire life. As I seek to raise our children to live within the love of God that I so desire, being aware of the seasons of faith would be an excellent start.

3. Consider this: your life is improved and enriched by the fact that some people are practicing dimensions of the spiritual life that you don't practice, and their lives are enriched by your practices. For example, what benefit do you derive from people who are more dedicated to the Sabbath than you are? How might this be true of other practices?

Personally, I find it challenging when others are more dedicated to Sabbath than I am. Honestly, it wouldn't take much to be more dedicate, but seriously it is an accountability and reality check. How do I stop and rest and find focus on love, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control? It is motivating, no matter how small.

As for other practices, most of them I've never even considered, so they would help me on this stage of my journey.

4. Imagine the world in one thousand years, in the thirty-first century, following two scenarios: one in which the seven ancient spiritual practices have been forgotten for a thousand years, and one in which they have been revitalized and followed.

This is difficult for me because for my own 34 or so years, not many of the seven were even in my stream of consciousness. I can imagine more that they will have been forgotten than revitalized, but I have this twinge of hope for a revitalization. Yet at the same time that scares me because even know most times those who practice these seven faithfully are portrayed as fanatics, extremists, fundamentalists, on the fringe. It's unfair, and I have my own stereotypes I'm thinking about within the Jewish and Islamic faiths, as well. That saddens me. These ancient practices should do the opposite - make us more open, more peaceful, more loving.

5. Reflect on your previous four answers. Let each reflection turn into a prayer that you write or speak aloud.

God, make me more open, more peaceful, more loving through my learning and applying these ancient practices to my life journey. Give me wisdom, strength, and humility to love others through them, and find your peace to share.

Finding Our Way Again, Chapter 2

2011-03-16T22:00:00.001-04:00

Spiritual Exercises from Chapter 2: "Why Spiritual Practices Matter" from Finding Our Way Again by Brian McLaren.

Character
1. Think about who you were yesterday in terms of character, compared to who you are today. How would you fill in these blanks: "Today I'm more _____ and less ____ than yesterday"? Do the same regarding a year ago and ten years ago.

Today I am more humble, open to new ideas, and cautiously optimistic than I was yesterday. Yesterday (Tuesday) I was suffering from a migraine registering 9 out of 10 on the pain scale. I was deflated by yet another migraine (been averaging 10-15 per month), and just trying to get through the day without negatively impacting my family. Today I was returning to a chiropractor for his evaluation of my case to see if I could find an alternative process to gain relief for these migraines. The humility was genuine in that I knew I needed to submit to another form of treatment and expertise, checking any preconceived ideas at the door, yet I was cautiously optimistic that anything but the extreme medicinal measures I'm scheduled for in May would help.

Extending that beyond my condition, I was feeling more organized, more aware today than yesterday - organized to me more productive with my time at work, more aware of the expectations on me at home, and trying to be all in.

Last Year: It's difficult to think about where I was last year. At work, we would have been wrapping up a commitment to join a major project, so I was certainly trying to picture what the immediate and near-term future would hold for me and my family staying in Bethlehem. We had been struggling for the past few years about where we should live, or if we should move, and there was some clarity forming even though it wasn't as solid as we would like. I think that from a character point of view, I was trying to portray confidence despite the feelings of inadequacy I had inside, and trying to continue to invest in our excellent small group.

Ten Years Ago: I would have been 24 and inside of 3 months before our wedding day. I was treading water in my relatively new job, wondering if I had made the right decision. I was not nervous about our wedding, but definitely trying to learn and experience more depth in my relationship with Andrea. I am certainly more secure in who I am today than I was ten years ago. I am more aware of my strengths and definitely more aware of my weaknesses. I am much less naive, but also more jaded and skeptical when it comes to Christianity.

2. What will your character be like in ten years, given your current trajectory.
I'm expecting that I will be more accepting of others than I've ever been. I expect that I'll be a strong leader in my career, having had many more learning experiences of success and failure. I expect I will be more decisive than I am now, and I will gather opinions from others in ways that do not show an over-dependence on them. I expect that I will be find that my journey of faith has found more freedoms, and I hope that my wife and children will experience this similarly.

Aliveness
1. Are you awake? What have you missed - in terms of sights, sounds, feelings, smells, and so on - in the last five minutes?
I've been sitting here for the last five minutes. I hear quiet from those sleeping down the hall. I hear a faint coming and going of cars on a nearby road. I feel somewhat restless and my attention sways in and out of this writing.

In the last twenty-four hours? I have missed some of the joyful sights and sounds of my children last evening as I walked carefully around the yard during my migraine. I avoided sights that would hurt my eyes, and smells that would make me nauseous. During today, I missed a lot of things as I went from task to task and meeting to meeting.

2. Rate yourself on a scale of one to one hundred on how alive you feel at the present moment. About 50. I definitely don't feel as exuberant as I would like, but not nearly down and out.
When is the last time you felt below 30 and above 90? I think on my birthday I felt around 30. That's very sad, but I felt high enough around 30 because my family had done very special things for me. Without them, I would have been near 0 while I suffered with a migraine that really should have been treated at the ER. The last time I felt above 90 is harder to remember. It clearly has been longer than necessary.

3. What are advantages of sleepwalking through life? What are advantages of being alive and awake while your life happens? The only advantage I can think of for sleepwalking is that lows aren't as low and the highs aren't too high that the middle is too disappointing for you later. Being alive and awake means that true joy can be experience right then and there, often shared with those I love the most. Also that I can appreciate true beauty, art, creativity, and spirit as they happen, along with a balance that springs more life.

Experiencing God
1. If your relationship with God was a marriage, how would you describe things to a marriage counselor? What would a better, happier marriage look like? My friend, Susan Isaacs, already wrote this book... :) But my story is different, I know. I would probably say things like I still feel so distant from God, and I'm probably getting too comfortable with that distant feeling. I long for the emotional, spiritual refreshment that I used to have in an authentically-driven worshipful environment. I'd say that I long to know his love instead of the idea that he is so huge and "out there". And that he'd be more like Jesus within the community of people around me.

Hmmm... I don't think I expected that to come out that way...

What are young Christians disenfranchized?

2011-03-13T08:00:00.000-04:00

My online friend, and author of Evolving in Monkey Town, Rachel Held Evans, posed this question on Facebook on Saturday:

Lots of folks are talking about the future of young, disenfranchised evangelicals. I'd love your thoughts on this. What is driving them away? Where are they going? (Working on a post that explains the phenomenon from my own perspective - as a young, disenfranchised evangelical myself!) :-)

Below is what I responded. How would you respond?

I definitely feel disenfranchised by church, and I struggle daily with how I fit in. A large percentage of m...y church (75% ?) is enthralled with our Sr. pastor's sermons, and for them that's all they need. It's not nearly enough for me. I really enjoy and am challenged often by his sermons, but that won't sustain my faith or journey alone.

To be frank, I generally continue attending my church for one reason: so my kids have a peer network within the faith. I don't mind one bit their Sunday School lessons are more "fluff" than substance. All the better so I can share with them the real biblical stories at home when I can try to answer as many questions as they will have about why God seems so mean to everyone else by the Israelites...

I, on the other hand, don't find that peer connection on a Sunday morning, likely for the first statement I made about the preaching being all most people think they need. I don't find others, on Sunday mornings, looking for the same things I am: dialogue not monologue, discussion not answers, intentionally community not informal chatter.

So where are we going? Honestly, I don't think we are going very far at all, if anywhere. Most of us, I think, are trying to make do with the best we can. We are keeping quiet instead of speaking up, attending passively instead of volunteering for leadership positions. The hierarchical tradition of our church is killing our passion, and the intra-denominational battles over survival and control are killing our trust. Worship wars are burning us out. If worship doesn't turn into a pep rally for God (like a republican victory cry), it feels like a forced set of songs simply to apply the theme of the sermon as a not-so-subtle undertow.

If I was able to plan out a new model of church community, it would be this:

Weekly 60-75 minute worship-only gathering - a pure, straightforward emotional and spiritual connection with God. That vertically focused refresh that we all need. All types of music welcome, liturgy welcome, scripture reading welcome. But no sermons.

Weekly small group gathering - over a meal, focused on sharing each other's life-burdens, loving each other as we are. There is no need or expectation to be the biblical historian, the doctrinal challenger, or the context interpreter. Simply come as you are and live among each other. Discuss what's on your heart, open up to others about the faith challenges you experienced, pray for each other about the hurdles that lie before you.

Regular (probably monthly) larger gathering of small groups and worshipers over a large feast that allows the small groups to share with each other their experiences, connects the larger community together, and gives everyone a chance to be spiritual fed by a pastor. Here the sermon becomes dialogue and discussions at the tables, and small groups share how they've seen these faith themes existing in their life stories, or how applicable that is to a challenge they've been praying about.

For now, I sometimes go to a megachurch worship service and just be anonymous for that 75 minute worship refresh. They do worship excellently and without distraction, and I can merely focus on God, my relationship with him, and pour out my burdens to him. I love my small group, and we do work very similar to how I described above. But the third piece is still lacking.

Finding Our Way Again, Chapter One

2011-03-11T22:31:00.006-05:00

As part of the BookSneeze.com blogger reviewer program of Thomas Nelson publishing, I requested the book "Finding Our Way Again: The Return of the Ancient Practices" by Brian McLaren. Because I received the book in time, I decided to commit to reading this for Lent, a practice that I haven't really followed before. I also committed to taking two hours a week to play piano and write some music, hoping to re-create a creative discipline I've lost the past few years.

The end of each chapter of "Finding Our Way Again" has spiritual exercises. I am hoping to use write a post for each chapter. Here goes nothing...

1. Using the matrix below, plot your life in five-year increments. For example, when you were five years old, was your faith more a way of life or a system of belief, or was it low on both counts? How about fifteen? Twenty-five? Where would you like it to be for a five year increment in the future?

2. Imagine yourself in the cold war between science and religion described in this chapter. Which side have you been on? Or have you been caught in the crossfire? Describe your experience and how this war has affected you or people close to you?

Early on in my faith, I was very much on the side of religion in the cold war. I naively rejected much of science, and, in fact, I would describe my early education in these areas more along the lines of blind faith rather than honest inquiry. During high school and college, I said the right things to avoid getting into discussion of religion vs. science, and it wasn't until a few years after college that I really began an honest inquiry into any battle line topics.

Lately, I think I'm more caught in the crossfire than anything. I willingly admit I know less about religions or science than I believed I did before, and I'm much more comfortable with that. I don't need to know or understand anything, I need to focus on living out faith outside of both religion and science.

3. Reflect on the ideas of a "fusion between the sacred and the secular" and "everyday sacredness." Describe your experiences of this kind of fusion, and then describe your aspirations or hopes for it. What would it mean for you to learn how to live in this kind of fusion?

My experience with this fusion is lackluster at best. I've yet to really find this put forth in practice. There seems to be a pull to one side or the other, and in general I find a lack of openness of others to meet me in the middle. My aspiration is that I can indeed find community that desires to live in the middle, in an everyday sacredness that takes seriously the life of faith without taking the religion of faith too seriously. At the same time, embrace life, art, conflict, love in all areas of life, not just within a church, faith, or religious context.

4. Consider the three common religious alternatives described in this chapter: scientific secularism, "hot and pushy fundamentalism", and "warm, but mushy spirituality." Name strengths and weaknesses of each, and then imagine combining the strengths into a fourth alternative.

What I appreciate about scientific secularism is a process of testing and application. Fundamentalism, for the most part, shows courage to hold strong on a position, and spirituality embraces an individual journey. Merging these together seem like a good idea, but they don't always jive. Frankly I find it hard to find that fourth alternative, but probably because I haven't really seen it in action.

5. Looking over your answers above, write a prayer that expresses your hopes, desires, dreams, concerns, and decisions.

God, help me be open to be stretched and pulled in ways I've never experienced. Draw me to others who are on this similar journey, and give me the humility to respect and appreciate others who are not yet on this journey.

Are you living a great story?

2011-03-07T11:17:00.001-05:00

Are you living a great story with your life? from Donald Miller on Vimeo.

Get A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by Donald Miller.

talking with children about Love

2011-03-05T08:00:00.004-05:00

I found an interesting blog post through comments from a post by Rachel Held Evans, and it reminded me of similar conversations that I’ve had with Amelia. I’m in the same boat as the author, in many respects, though at one point in my life I thought I had all the answers. But that was from my head-knowledge-filled experience of growing up in a indy-fundy baptist church where I believe now I had more guilt-laden convictions than life-seeking ones.

I want my children to know that knowing and loving God/Jesus is a journey, not a destination; the same as loving their brother or sister or as I love my wife. Yes, there’s a moment where you realize in your head what you’ve been doing already and that you don’t want to or can’t love others the same way, but it doesn’t stop there, get any easier, or become automatic. It’s still a process, still a journey, and will still be hard to do at times.

And I want to tell them that the times it stops being about love are the times that will be the roughest. These are the times, as a parent, that I become selfish and think about how their behavior is affecting me thus becoming angry. These are times for them that they want to push the other rather than share. These are the times for all of us that we’d rather say something harsh about a friend who wronged us or ignored us or was not aware about something we wanted them to be rather than dig deeper with them. These are the times when we are simply out for ourselves.

And then I want to show them that the times that are best and glorious and magical are the times we are in it together, for each other, sharing in love. When we literally or metaphorically hold hands; when we help our friends in needs; when we hug a family member who is sad; when we grieve together when one of us has lost; when we celebrate together when one or all of us has gained; when we bring someone else into journey with us.

My square in the kingdom quilt

2011-03-04T16:00:00.003-05:00

Yesterday, Rachel Held Evans talked about a unique way of thinking about our faith-based worldview, particular as a patch-quilt maker focusing only on their own square, not the whole quilt. I tried to follow suit, and this is what I came up with:

* I care a lot about being in relationships with other people who aren't Christians
* I care about living and talking about my faith that is welcoming to others
* I care about giving freedom to those around me to be who they are, not a type of person they think I would want them to be
* I care about giving financially to the poorest in our world, even if that means not giving to my local church
* I care about my small group, living deeply together and building a strong community of support and openness.

I'm sure there are others, but this is where I started. Absent from this list is focus on family, but family is within the center of who I am. Without my wife and children, this worldview who crumble pretty quickly and be altered significantly. A bigger question for me is how this focus will change for me over time.

Remember this? part 1 of many (I hope)

2011-03-03T23:54:00.006-05:00

I read a book once or twice (and again now) by a really good author who told a story of a friend who wrote down every memory he had. I remember how that struck me as a really good and important thing to do. And then I forgot about it; or I just didn't do it; or both.

Then I went to an information session for a charter school A* and I are considering for Amelia, and during the presentation by the principal about the school's vision to produce leadership qualities in all of the students, I vividly remembered a significant experience during my elementary school years. I told myself that I should write it down, and better yet, it could be my first blog post to re-start this old thing. And then I forgot about it; or I just didn't do it; or both.

And then tonight A* and I watched The Social Network, and of course the movie is intertwined with memories and blogging, and despite my intense three-day long migraine that survived the stomach flu better than the rest of my body, my mind returned to this memory, and thus to urge to finally write it down.

I was either in 4th or 5th grade, and Fred was a grade below. We were both good soccer players for our youth Tri-City soccer league in western Pennsylvania. To say I was humble about how good I was would be an exaggeration. I was good, and I knew it. I used how good I was to use it as a subject for the essay portion of my entrance exam to Shady Side Academy. Somehow I still got in. I was usually on the worst teams in the league, but still managed to score 1 to N goals a game.* I probably had games where I didn't score, but I don't really remember NOT going to DQ after for a game performance award from my mom.

But one day during lunch recess, Fred and I thought it would be good for NKCA, our tiny Christian elementary school, to have a soccer team. Despite have recess in a gravel parking lot, and a tiny grass yard, we wrote out our proposal on a green steno pad detailing how we could coach NKCA's first soccer team. And we were quite specific: how we could coach the team, the days and times we were available, how we would utilize the small lot for drills, the equipment we needed (well, soccer balls and maybe a net), and the safety requirements every player needed for follow (shin guards and mouth guard, of course). We finished our multi-page proposal, and gave it to someone. It could have been our teacher (teachers often taught two grades during the same year) or maybe to the principal herself (Mrs. Hetrick). Regardless, I remember having a very long (for a 4th/5th grader) conversation in Mrs. Hetrick's office thanking us boys for such a wonderful idea, and how wonderful it was that we would like to share something we enjoy with the rest of the boys and girls. I don't remember how she let us know we couldn't do what we wanted, but I do know it was gentle, and I don't at all remember thinking or feeling it was because we were only 9 or 10 and thus couldn't really do this. No, I remember feeling that it was really a good idea, but it just wasn't possible for other reasons my inexperienced brain couldn't fathom. In short, it was just how an elementary school principal should discuss such an idea with aspiring young children, and that is it made me feel special and good.

This is a great memory, and a quarter century later I can feel great about it. It's just the kind of experience that I hope both of kids can have someday: have an idea they care so much about they write it down, share it to someone, and have that someone encourage them and their idea without crushing it through a dose of reality. In all honesty, it's what I hope I do everyday with them, though I know I fail more often than I'd like to admit. But more importantly, I want them to have this experience with someone outside of our family, like Mrs. Hetrick, because it will be that much more significant, and stick with them that much longer.

(photo credit: http://www.greenlightoffice.com)
* - wow, I really have been deep into systems engineering projects lately

Review: The Boy Who Changed the World

2011-01-06T22:30:00.002-05:00

I just loved "The Boy Who Changed the World" by Andy Andrews as I read it to my 4-year-old daughter. She might not quite be old enough to understand all of the values expressed in the mentoring relationships or the implications of passing on good values to others, but this will be a book I'll continue to read to my kids for years to come.

The story opens with a young Norman playing in his family's cornfields. One day, Norman would grow up and use his knowledge of agriculture to save the lives of two billion people. Two billion! Norman changed the world! Or did he have some help? Watch the ripple effect as you see just how Norman changed the world.

As some commentary, if nothing else, this book gives us parents an opportunity to look back at who has had an impact on us, and maybe find out from those mentors who had an impact on them, and so on. Then we can tell our collective story to our children so they can remember they can have the same type on the world. A well done story.

Couldn't finish "The Hole in Our Gospel"

2011-01-06T22:00:00.001-05:00

It has been rare that I have not finished a book, though admittedly my reading has slowed this past year. But as much hype I heard/read and as high as my anticipation of reading The Hole In Our Gospel by Richard Stearns, I couldn't finish it. Truly Stearns' faith story is compelling, but I could not move through the book as I wanted. The flow was burdened by a wordiness that betrays its marketed quote of St. Francis of Assisi of "preach the gospel always. Use words if necessary." I think the biggest difficulty for me was wrapping my mind around his thesis; I couldn't tell if he was indicting the Church as failing or individuals? Maybe that is as much my issue of doubting whether Christian faith really is solely individual rather than entirely communal.

I gave this a number of good tries, but it never held my attention. Regardless of my support for third-world NGOs, I can''t give this book a higher endorsement than 2 out of 5 stars.

Missing in Action

2011-01-06T12:00:00.001-05:00

I owe BookSneeze.com two reviews. You'll see them soon. But more importantly, I've been missing in action from this medium. The busy-ness of my job, and the time I desire to spend with my family, specifically time with my wife when the kids are asleep, has been a higher priority. But I miss my writing, and I want to get back to it. Soon...

I am now officially a cyclist

2010-08-18T15:40:00.005-04:00

Last fall, I had the opportunity to buy a barely-used road bicycle in between two of the four knee surgeries I've had in the last three and a half years. I took advantage of the opportunity, but for the most part of the fall and winter the bike rested in the garage while the doctor and I worked out the kinks still in my knee. This summer, I've started to begin a riding discipline, including starting to ride to work.

I've noticed a difference in my day when I ride to work. I leave a little earlier from home, take a shower at the gym, and start my day about the same time as I do when I drive. But the endorphins kick in and my day seems to go just a little bit better. One time last week while waiting at a traffic light, 2 other folks from Lehigh rode up, and I was able to ride in a little pack up Center Street for awhile.

Lately, I've been trying to get up to an average of 15mph on longer rides, mostly 12-15 miles, including tackling some major hills. I figure this will help my endurance on longer rides of 20-30 miles, and help me get faster to start riding in groups. I'd love to do a "race/ride" sometime just for the experience, not necessarily for the thrill of victory. Plus I'm always game for a cool shirt.

But despite all this, I never really thought of myself as a cyclist, yet. I knew I was getting hooked, and I was enjoying reading Bicycling Magazine, and I had the spandex bike shorts plus a couple TEK-like shirts, but I wasn't sure I was a cyclist yet. Until yesterday.

I had a very early meeting with HR that didn't allow me to bike in, shower, and get across campus without either a.) smelling of sweat from the too-short cool down period and trek across campus and b.) leaving my house so early that A* couldn't go for her morning run. So I planned to drive home at lunch, grab my bike, ride back to work, and do a slightly longer than commute ride back home. A* and the kids were heading to the pool, so it would be a longer afternoon. But I got stuck in a late meeting that went through lunchtime, and didn't have enough time to get home, eat, and bike back before my early afternoon meeting. So I altered my plans to leave early and go for a 12 mile ride after work.

Because A* and the kids got home the same time I did, I decided to alter my route so I could get back for dinner. But three miles into my ride, I hit a pothole that snuck up on me while I was on a descent, and I just knew it wasn't going to be OK. By the time I made it halfway up the next hill, the rear tire was flat. Time for me to see if I could patch my first blown tire.

Fortunately I had a nice grass area to sit in, got my bike off the rode and flipped over, and pedaled the gear as I remembered from a web video I watched. Got the wheel off and was surprised how easily the tire levers got the tire's one side out. Pulled out the tube, pumped it up to find the leak, which serendipitously was resting on my leg. While I was applying the rubber cement, a rider pulled up and asked if I had everything I needed. I said that I thought so, and thanked him for stopping. While I was waiting for the patch to seal, another rider stopped, and we had the same conversation. That was really cool of them, I thought.

I pumped up the tube again only to find another hole on the other side of the tube. Makes sense for a blowout. Patched that up and had an interaction with two more riders - one letting me use his cell phone (which I had stupidly forgotten to bring), plus a driver who asked if I needed a ride somewhere. I declined and thanked her, confident that my second patch was all I needed. I got the tube pumped up again, the tire back on, and before I flipped the bike, the tire was flat again: a third hole! Now I wished I had that ride home. Three more riders stopped by, and I was really feeling like I was part of the riding community.

I got the third hole patched, hand pumped to a decent amount of pressure and pedaled toward home. About 300 yards down the road it was flat again. Apparently my second patch did not seal properly, so I had to start over again, pulling off the third seal because it was apparently glued together with the second. So I got a large patch, covering both holes, and eventually was on my way. I had no idea of the time.

I got home and the house was vacant. A* and the kids were looking for me! Fortunately they knew the route I was taking home and passed me going the other direction. That was so thoughtful. All in all, it took 2 hours and 15 minutes for me to go 6 miles and do four patches. I'll get better at this, I know. But I did it, I know how to do it, and I felt like I really belonged as a cyclist. Despite not completely my ride, that was a very cool feeling.

Review of Picking Dandelions by Sarah Cunningham

2010-07-26T16:00:00.001-04:00

I am woefully, woefully late with this review! I could not apologize enough to Sarah Cunningham for how bad I feel that I have not gotten to this review before now. After all, I've been done with the book for a few weeks, but work and life, as usual get in the way of writing.

"Pushing Dandelions: A Search for Eden Among Life's Weeds" is a memoir of Sarah Cunningham, who has previously published a book called "Dear Church: Letters from a Disillusioned Generation." Ever since reading "Dear Church", I've wanted to read more from Sarah because I connected so much with her first book. And I guess I was hoping to find out more of the story behind that book.

But that isn't what I found in reading "Picking Dandelions." Instead I found a story, still similar to mine, but divergent enough to keep me interested without throwing myself completely into a "yup, that's me, too"' type of self-help mindset that I've done with other people's memoirs. This is a very good thing, in case that isn't clear, because it requires me not to check out of my own story while taking in someone else's.

For some reason the intro and first chapter were very slow for me, but after that, the pace picked up very quickly. Where I really homed in are the chapters on Sarah's assisting efforts at Ground Zero after 9-11. Part of this is because I had just watched the movie "Reign Over Me" and part because it is such a seminal moment in our generation's history, but I was gripped by this section of Sarah's story. What I appreciated most is the comparison of the recovery and support effort to be an incarnation of real community and church: loving neighbor over ourselves. I tire so easily with church being our own patting ourselves on the back at church or being inward focused that I long for a more permanent outward focus like that, though not necessarily needing to be that extreme.

And other examples exist in other stories Sarah tells, about teaching experiences, her chance to lead in ministry at a church, or making up a blues diddy at a homeless shelter. Sarah maintains an easiness about her story that pulls you in, yet disarms your own storied conceptions to listen intently to her's.

I definitely recommend Picking Dandelions, and hope Sarah has another book project coming soon.

Picking Dandelions Review delayed

2010-07-09T22:57:00.000-04:00

I was supposed to have a review of Picking Dandelions, by Sarah Cunningham, published on Saturday, but I'm running behind schedule. Check back for it on Monday.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPod Touch

Q & A with Rachel Held Evans

2010-07-06T12:00:00.000-04:00

Because I related so much (see: review) to Evolving in Monkey Town, I asked Rachel Held Evans if she would be interested in answer some questions for this column. I'm thrilled she agreed.

TM: How has your doubt and skepticism affected or changed your view of the role of church and church services?

RHE: Well I guess I’m no longer inclined to think of church as a place we gather to congratulate ourselves about how right we are. Doubt has a humbling effect like that! These days I think of the Church as a community called to sacrifice, serve, and join in God’s work of reconciling all things to himself. So I’m more willing to embrace diversity—theological, political, cultural—in my own little faith community and around the world. We’ve got more important things to do than systematize the Bible or agree on worship or build a political platform. I’m drawn to communities of faith that seem to recognize that.

TM: Do you worship differently now? Do you find yourself doubting lyrics to songs or questioning their meaning or even limiting your participation in congregational singing?

RHE: On the one hand, I’ve learned to accept the fact that there are just going to be days when I feel disconnected from worship because of my doubt. I can’t expect worship leaders or pastors to cater to that. On the other, I’ve really come to appreciate the richness of liturgical prayers and the stability of following the rhythms of the church calendar, so I’d love to see more evangelical churches adopt those practices. There’s something so unpretentious about a traditional liturgical service. No one’s trying to be hip or cool or relevant, as if Christianity is something that needs to be sold to consumers. But I understand that this is not everyone’s cup of tea. At my current church, we try to mix it up a bit, and that’s fine by me.

TM: A pastor emeritus of the church I attend used to say "Christianity is merely one generation from extinction." Would you agree with that sentiment and/or how would you change that in a more accepted pluralism?

RHE: The Church is a resilient and stubborn little creature that has managed to survive 2,000 years of change, so I’m not particularly concerned about its survival. Like a living organism, it seems to be equipped with a remarkable ability to adapt to new environments. Rather than going extinct in the face of change, Christianity tends to evolve. I suspect it will continue to do that until the return of Christ.

TM: One of my favorite lines in the book is "To experience the knowledge of Jesus Christ, we didn't need to be born again; we simply needed to be born." (p. 78) I've often struggled with the idea that if God made the whole world, and he made all humans out in "their image", then why is the rest of the world's reflection of God's image rejected as untrue? While there are those in other cultures that have embraced evangelical or orthodox Christianity, why is their native culture any less an image of God?

RHE: I agree. I think we have to approach all people with the assumption that God is already at work in their lives. The apostle Paul told the Athenians that God determined when and where people would live, “so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him,though he is not far from each one of us.” Paul didn’t seem to consider geography or culture or religion as impediments to God’s work among people. Still, those of us who have experienced the gospel should certainly share it, as we believe Jesus is the incarnation of that God so many people are seeking.

TM: What do your daily or weekly spiritual journey activities or discipline look like compared to your youth? Is community more or less important to your journey or look different than you anticipated?

RHE: The biggest difference is that I no longer approach the Bible as an answer book to be read and interpreted in isolation. For most of my life, my “daily quiet time” was all about me and my interaction with Scripture. When I started wrestling with some of those troubling passages of Scripture that seem to condone genocide and misogyny and when I became more aware of how my cultural assumptions affect my interpretation, I began to realize that the Bible is meant to be celebrated and struggled with in community. It’s meant to start conversations, not end them. So community has definitely become more important to me. It’s helping me break the habit of always turning inward to find and experience God.

TM: Thank you for taking the time to answer some questions for me.

RHE: Thank you so much for the opportunity.

Rachel Held Evans is a writer, skeptic, and Christ-follower from Dayton, Tennessee—home of the famous Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925. My first book, a spiritual memoir entitled Evolving in Monkey Town, will be released by Zondervan in July of 2010. Rachel enjoys speaking, blogging, traveling, playing poker, and talking theology over coffee. You can find more information about Rachel at http://www.rachelheldevans.com/

Review: Evolving in Monkey Town

2010-07-01T15:30:00.001-04:00

I don't remember how I got to Rachel Held Evans' blog, but once I got there, I was hooked. I connected immediately to Rachel's provocative, yet disarming manner of taking on certain traditional statements, stances, or interpretations of evangelicalism. Asking questions of her readers in a way that provides room for discussion without judgment, Rachel provides a venue like I've rarely experienced on the Web. So when Rachel asked for readers to review her book Evolving in Monkey Town, I jumped at the opportunity.

Honestly, I have not read a more relatable book than Evolving in Monkey Town, from growing up with a fundamentalist Christian background to AWANA to winning Best Christian Attitude awards, I wondered if Rachel might have been going to my church and school in my hometown. But the book really began to hit me where Rachel starts asking her questions. What happens to the Muslim woman she just watched get executed for allegedly killing her husband, despite signs of known abuse against her? Did Rachel simply win a "cosmic lottery" by being born in the US and a Christian culture? What about all of the acceptable tactics of genocide rampant in the Old Testament that is allowed, if not ordered, by God? As a woman, and one who was complimented for her leadership gifts, where is her place in the church in spite of St. Paul's direct and opposing statements on women? What really is the kingdom of God? Is it really all, and only, about heaven?

Where Donald Miller gave the our generation of Christians an alternative voice and position to evangelical Christianity, Rachel Held Evans is giving us a voice to ask questions about Christianity that we've never dared, or maybe even been allowed, to ask. Through a mixture of personal reflections of the evolution of her own faith journey and vignettes of people that have influenced her journey, Rachel takes on her doubts and questions with a sincerity and honesty that cannot be easily turned away or dismissed as naivete or immature faith. Using the Scope's Monkey Trials of her hometown Dayton, TN as an example of the need for intellectual honesty to the beliefs we have carried or inherited, Rachel takes us through three phases of her journey: habitat, challenge, and change. Just as a Christian embracing an evolutionary Creationism position by digging into the available information themselves, through Evolving in Monkey Town we have the chance to re-examine our own habitat and question are our positions - a healthy check that might just reveal places where the love of God might fill us out a little better. For myself, the beginning of examination began at Rachel's summary of the social context of young evangelicals: "To experience the knowledge of Jesus Christ, we didn't need to be born again; we simply needed to be born." (p. 78) What better place to start asking questions about my own faith than examining what faith elements I experienced for myself rather than inheriting it from my family and surrounding culture.

Because I related so much to Evolving in Monkey Town, I asked Rachel Held Evans if she would be interested in answer some questions for this column. I'm thrilled she agreed. When it is published, you'll be able to read more at the Burnside Writers Collective... (I'll post the exact link when the BWC has published it.)

Consistency in our message

2010-06-15T16:48:00.001-04:00

There are a lot of times I wonder how consistent I am in what I say and do. My lack of consistency is often revealed in my parenting. I fear that the same inconsistency of my faith and actions gets revealed far too often. What message am I sending about myself, as a man, as a husband, as a father?

The past three weeks, I've seen two examples of mixed messages that made me really go hmmm:

1.) Two bumper stickers on a car I was behind:
"God loves you" and "That Obama sticker you have might as well say ' i'm stupid. ' "

2.) A billboard on Rt 158 just inside the NC border that read:
"Honk if you love Jesus. Text will driving if you want to meet him."

Neither of these is what I consider consistent, especially in how they evoke God or Jesus. I wonder about the thinking going in either of these examples. Is it that hard not to accurately reflect God's grace or love, or are we just that dense?

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPod Touch

200 and going (strong?)

2010-06-04T13:13:00.004-04:00

I was going to write a short little post as a way of starting off a new wave for the summer, but when I logged in just now I saw this is my 200th blog post. That was actually kind of deflating because a.) 200 should have occurred a while ago, and b.) this post isn't going to be milestone worthy. But I'm going to take back the positive and say 200 is a turning of a new leaf. I'm going to write more here, and get back to contributing to the Burnside Writers Collective!

So here's what I have coming:

book reviews - one of the things that has sacked my writing is a steady flow of reading and adding to my "to-read" list. Just look at my goodreads.com list, which isn't even up-to-date because even I can't keep up with adding to my to-read list. But I have found that wanting or having to write about a book after I've finished motivates me to write more. So expect at least 4-6 reviews this summer, and books that I'm totally stoked about reading!
shorter blog posts with provocative questions - honestly, I don't really worry about how many people or if people, at all, read this blog. It's really my journal that I've opened up. So the questions are relevant to me at the very least.
I've been doing most of my writing on other people's blogs in the comment section. So I'm going to point to those writers more. They deserve it!
A Burnside column or two. I had good momentum in 2009, despite the hectic, yet miraculous birth of our second child. That momentum got squashed, and I'm determined to get it back!

So there we go, 200; what do you think of that? Maybe 300 can tell us when it gets here if I held up to my plan.

Me too; playing hide and seek with God and community

2010-05-10T08:00:00.001-04:00

As I mentioned in my review, some chapters of Pete Wilson's "Plan B" will grab you more than others, mostly based on what you may be going through or your current filter of faith and God. As I moved through the book, chapter 9 called "Me Too" hit me right between the eyes. Community is something I've been struggling with for the past 4-5 years, maybe even more. It's just been in the last year that I feel even somewhat confident of the community we have since graduating from college over 10 years ago.

But even the recent positive feelings are not enough. It requires an effort to put yourself out there with other people, and to have a level of faith to know God is present within that community. As my church goes through a sermon series of praying through the Psalms, and reading all 150 Psalms together through Thanksgiving, today's sermon was from Psalm 139, and the theme of being known by God. While Psalm 139 is written by one man, the communal aspect of knowing God and being known by God should not be missed.

Pete Wilson writes on page 125:

I've watched so many people totally miss God's gift of community in the midst of a Plan B situation because they assumed God wasn't with them. They assumed nothing good could come out of their pain. They failed to appreciate or even recognize the "me too" people who appeared in their lives, offering comfort and strength in the midst of darkness.... Don't allow your pain, as deep as it might be, to keep you from fully embracing the gift of community.

The "me too" scenario feels so unknown; surely no one can relate to what I'm going through, we think to ourselves. Or we expect community to become harder to grasp if people really knew how I am feeling, what I'm going through, or what I think or believe about X, Y, and Z. As Pastor Alf spoke this morning, this is just another way we hide from God, like Adam and Eve hiding in the bushes fearing the revelation of their nakedness. But if we step out, chances are good we will not only find acceptance in community despite the pain, anger, doubt, struggle or disappointment we are dealing with, but we aren't the only ones naked in that way.

When God feels so distant because of our plan b situation or struggles and disappointments, community is what we desperately need. In no uncertainly terms, community is the way God seeks us out. It seems so counter intuitive, especially to those of us who grew up feeling the pressure of being responsible for our own closeness with God by our spiritual disciplines. It takes effort for me to let community reveal God, or to believe that. I have to break down the habit of thinking that I'm the one who needs to live up to a certain standard of faith to even belong to a community. But in reality I need to be me so someone else can say "me too."

I love how it was explained this morning that God is constantly seeking us and there is no where we can go that God isn't present. We might seek God, but God first seeks us, and one way he does that is through community, by putting the people we need around us, more importantly other people who are broken, too. Wilson discusses this on page 127:

We're a lot more likely to encounter community in the circle of people who have been broken. But unless we can get the idea out of our heads that winning is the goal of life or the only thing that counts, we're apt to miss the community it offers. Unless we can admit to ourselves that we, too, haven't made it, we're apt to miss the community.

Missing that community is, without a doubt, hiding also from God. Consciously or not, we are all hiding. We all put masks on, we all tell only part of our current story. It requires an authenticity that is constantly challenging to the most intimate fears within our bones. Why is that? Wilson continues on page 127 and into 128,

The culture we live in today sets up so many expectations for what success looks like. Our Christian communities institute standards that no human being could live up to consistently. So what do we do?

All to often, we hide.
We pretend to be something we're not.
We immerse ourselves in a false reality.

We may "fake it until we make it" - pretending to be a winner even though we suspect we're not. We may cover up our hurt and pain by escaping into addictive behavior. Or we may just get in the habit of not letting anyone - including ourselves - know who we really are or what we're struggling with.

Why is this? Probably because we've been burned before, and Wilson admits this on page 135:

There is no doubt that sometimes Christian community can be a dangerous place when your dreams shatter. Christians (like other sinners) can be guilty of cliched answers, untruthful promises, and false expectations. Christians (like other sinners) have been known to be judgmental or simply oblivious. Christians (like other sinners) often neglect to say "me too" or even to acknowledge that it's possible.

So if you're tempted to run away from church or just cover up your hurt while you're with other people, I can understand. But I hope you won't do that. I'd like to encourage you to fight the temptation to hide. Take the risk of sharing your authentic self whenever you can possibly manage it. Trust that God will eventually provide you with a community that will circle around you even if this comes form the most unlikely of places. (In the process, you may be a true godsend for someone else who is hurting and in need of hearing "me too.")

That is why it's so hard - it takes a risk, it takes faith - in both God and other people, and it requires a whole lot of emotional energy. It takes stepping out from our hiding places and, as Alf said this morning, let ourselves be found. I want to be found, I want that "me too" community, and I want to believe I can as open as I need to be to have it again. My hope is the community around me want the same thing, too.

Plan B, by Pete Wilson

2010-05-03T13:58:00.000-04:00

Pete Wilson takes us through various plan B type situations, and, as the sub-title suggests, asks what we do when God doesn’t know up the way we thought he would. The clear and overall message of this book is everyone goes through plan b situations, and Wilson adds that if you haven’t yet, you will. It’s a harsh truth of the world, and Wilson is hoping to meet that truth head on with comforting, inspiration, or restorative truth that God is still there.

As someone who has struggled with churchianity, I was trying to be careful to read this book without a skeptical filter. There were a few times in the book that I could imagine a skeptic of Christianity, or simply someone who has been hurt by a church, think “That’s easy for your to say, Pete. You’re a pastor and have to say it.” But then I read a new chapter and felt Wilson was talking directly to me, very real, and as if he knew my exact situation. This is where Pete Wilson’s experience as a face-to-face pastor shines because the authenticity is clear and evident.

This is not a fast read because you will want to ponder and digest some chapters over others. I still have more to re-read digest myself.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from Thomas Nelson Publishers as part of their BookSneeze.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

Control or lack thereof

2010-04-21T23:10:00.000-04:00

I am reading through "Plan B: What do you do when God doesn't show up the way you thought he would?" by Pete Wilson, pastor of Cross Point Church in Nashville. I'm reviewing it for Thomas Nelson Publishing's BookSneeze.com. So far it is a good read, a voice that feels familiar, even though I barely know anything about Pete Wilson, and down to earth while still ultimately pointing toward God.

The third chapter is about control, or really the illusion of control. I know I struggle with the mightily. On p.34 Wilson writes:

[T]he truth is, you never had control in the first place. The only thing you do control is how you respond to your disappointments and your unexpected obstacles. And here you have some options.
You can allow the river of fear, anger, and disappointment to just rage. But you need to know that rage will affect every relationship you touch, every job you have, every plan you dream.
It's just the way things work. The fear, the anger, the disappointment you picked up in college, you carry into your marriage. The fear, the anger, the disappointment you picked up in your marriage, you carry into your career. The fear, the anger, the disappointment you picked up in your career, you carry into your parenting.

That is so true with me. The bigger problem is how unaware I am of the fear, the anger, the disappointment I'm carrying around. I don't take enough time to stop and think about it or meditate on how to resolve it.

Wilson goes on to give the other two options of trying harder which ends up in exhaustion and still losing your dreams. The final option is to give up control and let God's will be God's will. Most times that's really the hardest option. How often do I feel that I have no idea not only how to give up control but what is God's will? Almost all the time.

Practicality dictates you do things for yourself or they will never get done. The next question is where is the balance between what I do (living my life) and what is done despite that life (God's will)? I so want to feel that balance. I miss it. I think there was certainly a time when I had it. Or maybe I thought I did. But at this point I'm open to just about anything to get to that place. Control is now making my heart feel good. Just now how do in give it up - as a husband, a father, a provider, a man.

-- Post From My iPhone

The Voice New Testament

2010-04-08T14:50:00.003-04:00

The Voice is a project by the Ecclesia Bible Society, directed by Chris Seay, to assist readers “rediscover the story of the Bible.” The uniqueness of this translation is the pairing of biblical scholars for translation with artists, writers, and musicians for commentary. It uses everyday language in a very natural manner, and specifically places conversation in screenwriting style, making the reading flow much better than being chopped up verse by verse as traditional translations.The introductions to the books give the reader an excellent overview of the known or historically-assumed author, as well as the context and audience for which the author was writing.

This is the best Bible I have ever used, and I am very much looking forward to reading the Old Testament translations and commentary, especially the Psalms. I appreciated that the commentary was reachable and related, and the fact many of the authors are not scholars enhances this. The gospels read smoothly and I felt I could read the Bible as a novel, sometimes not wanting to put it down, rather than as a source of instantaneous inspiration. I think this is exactly what the original writings wanted, and therefore it seems the Ecclesia Society is successful in its mission.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from Thomas Nelson Publishers as part of their BookSneeze.com http://BookSneeze.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_03/16cfr255_03.html : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

random, haunted thoughts finally written down

2010-03-14T23:48:00.004-04:00

I have been haunted lately about my lack of writing. That's putting it quite mildly. The absence of writing. It's as if a black hole has sucked in all traces of life from me, for that's what writing was/is/used to be: the processing of life. Even my column for the BWC has been absent, though I've contributed a short piece here and there, it's not been to the level I committed. I have ideas, quite a few actually, but time has been a premium to work through them between the job and the family, so I put that aside. And this here is as afterthought, which is sad because this has been mostly my one and only journal.

So it takes another night of sleeplessness to get my here to writing, which is because I napped in the afternoon, I suppose, but still, I'm writing, so I'll let the reason well enough alone. One time does not make a habit, nor do I wish for insomnia, so I need to find a will and a way to make this progress. And maybe a spark, too. But while I'm here, some random thoughts.

A* and went to the Ingrid Michaelson/Mat Kearney concert on Friday night and Ingrid is so freaking talented, enthusiastic, and has a personality that really puts people at ease and lets you have fun. The energy was so high, and I would have loved to have soaked up another hour or two of her music. A couple of times I compared the concert to what I wish could happen regularly in a worship service to A*. She thought that was odd, though I said, it's not entirely odd, if you get to the heart of Ingrid's lyrics, it's about unconditional love and there's an energy here we've rarely found in a church, save for maybe LCBC, which is too far for us to drive. As a trained musician, but also a lover of music, and a worshiper at heart, there's little that kills my soul faster than a dull worship service. I'm really starting to become convinced that I'm becoming post-church, definitely post-evangelical, but that's another blog for another day. I love our small group, and I wish we could meet with them every week or even more so. That's real church. As for worship - I just want a place I can get lost in the experience, in the emotion, somewhat anonymously, but with focused attention to musical quality and detail.

The other thoughts swirling around my brain are the transition that I've been in through the last year or so. Both career and family, I feel like I've taken a step up each respective wrung or level, but I'm not necessarily confident I making progress where I should be. It's tricky because I don't really have the guidance I want, the mentoring. I've lost some disciplines I was used to, removed some that were in my way, but some newer ones just haven't taken over. I was walking around our church halls holding onto my 16-month old son's hand and talking to a post-college roommate who was visiting and just sort of asked in jest "when did I become 33?" It's not really a crisis type question, but a reality check. Yes, I'm not 25 anymore. Keep stepping up. It's ok to leave the things of youth in the past.

Unfortunately some of the things of youth seemed so simpler, and what I feel or believe or think now seem so much more complicated, or have deeper levels, or have more people depending on me. That's life, I know. Just taking stock. And checking to be sure the stock is in the right investments.

confidence is a tricky thing

2010-01-16T23:02:00.003-05:00

I've been wanting to write about this topic for a couple of months, maybe more. Heck, I've been wanting to write PERIOD for a couple of months. This blog started four years ago last month and has been inconsistent at best. But that is life, isn't it? Some periods of time were more dedicated than others, and this past 18 months has been mixed with commitment to writing for the Burnside Writers Collective and the technical writing of my work. I find joy in both, but I've fallen behind in the former, too. But I have some column ideas ready to get back to work there.

And I'm already getting off track. It's been easy for my mind to wander the past few days, and one of the reasons is a creeping of doubt we all get when we are trying to become settled on important matters of business, life, or the heart. But I don't really want to call it doubt, but I think sometimes it's more deeper than that. I think it has more to do with confidence than a battle between doubt and faith. And this becomes tricky because the source of confidence, or lack thereof, is laid much earlier than when put into play in any particular situation.

I am really only thinking through my own levels of confidence, and I have a few particular examples that differ in the level of confidence I have and how I came to have that confidence. Maybe I am over analyzing, but I am also thinking about this now as a parent of a child who has a tendency to the timid, at least initially, in certain situations, so I am wondering how to instill confidence in her early on so that she can lean on them later in life.

As a young child, I was a really good soccer player. I have no problem admitting this, no ego in it whatsoever now. I even remember writing what was, then, an ego-laden essay as a 5th-grader about my soccer achievements on my entrance exams for a prep school. I got in, but the essay was graded as a D+. But I was a very good soccer player - always the best on my team. I always scored at least one goal a game. I know this because my mom upped the ante for the Dairy Queen reward for what I got after the game based on what I scored. But I also played on rather bad teams, except for one year. I never knew what it was it was like to play on a team, or even field, with even competition. I even remember going to a soccer camp one summer and being the only player able to go 9-for-9 hitting each of the tic-tac-toe squares of the goal.

But when I got into the prep school, I went out for the varsity soccer team, every one was pretty good and in shape, and in better shape than me. If I didn't have skills, and if it wasn't for that tic-tac-toe at will ability to shoot to make up for not being in the type of shape to run for 60 straight minutes as Mr. B wanted us to run, I don't think I would have made the team. But I made the team. I made the team and I lettered, but I was average. And I knew I was average, or at least I thought I was average, or at least no one told me any different. At that point, I was on my own, I had no one behind me giving me the verbal confidence that I still was as good as a player as I was the year before. I scored a couple goals, but mostly played as a role player, shrunk into the background, and became intimidated by all of the other great players around me, which was everyone. I didn't score a single goal in eighth grade, even though I started every game as a center mid-fielder. I remember specifically playing the team role once again because I clashed with another center mid-fielder, a seventh grader who refused to play the defensive role, so I would fall back and make up for his selfishness and taking one for the team.

By the time ninth grade came around, I decided I was burned out from soccer and switched fall sports to golf. But the truth was I didn't believe I was as good as the other players, and I didn't believe I could cut it anymore. And I had no one pushing me saying that I could do it. Note, I don't blame anyone for not pushing me, but I do believe it is part of the reason, just as I believe I will affect my daughter a son in that way, whether I know it consciously or not.

Just after college, I had stayed around to work with a new and unique worship ministry in a role that hadn't really been defined very well. After a snafu of communication between the leaders, I was told in a roundabout way that I should seek some counseling for the confidence issues I have that were evident through my performance. I had a shaky performance of a piano accompaniment which I had been given only days before. Piano was not my strongest instrument and I had really been brought on for arrangement and composition first, not piano. I had been doing instrumental performances since I was 8 years old, and honestly I hated them, but I could perform fine. From violin to viola, I really didn't like it very much. I wasn't very good. I knew it. But I had a good teacher and conductor who would encourage me to do the best I could. So my confidence was tempered. I learned piano on my own mostly by ear and for the purpose of composing. And then in college I started playing keyboards for the college worship team. My senior year I learned guitar because we needed another guitar and the Thursday it was my turn to lead, I would be sick to my stomach the entire afternoon. I couldn't eat a thing after noon. But if I wasn't leading, I would be fine. To the credit of one of the other leaders, he didn't buy it and instead came to me to get to know me personally and find out for himself exactly what my expectations were from my role here. He discovered for himself how to lead me through the transition of this fallout and into friendship and other opportunities and we have been friends, very very good friends, every since.

Where I have the most confidence is in public speaking, which blows me away. I just listened to an introduction I gave to a piece I made to a piece I arrange my junior year in high school, and I was terrible. I was clearly nervous. I took a public speaking class my senior year for an English elective because I knew it would be good for me. It was GREAT for me. I took another my senior year in college as a refresher. I probably should still take another, even though I gave 7 presentations last year alone. I rarely rehearse a presentation. I do much better speaking off-the-cuff. I spend much more time preparing my slides or images that the audience will see and then days, or even one day, before the presentation I'll do a brain dump of notes going through the slides as if I were speaking. Very similar to how I'm writing this blog write now. And then depending on how long the talk is or how comfortable I am with the talk (i.e. how many times I've done it before) I'll go through those paragraphs and pull out the major points of each paragraph and box them and use that as my notes for the talk itself. But it's important for me for my words to be natural and free flowing streams of thoughts when I'm at the podium. That allows me to be rhythmic and myself, conversational and relaxed. Otherwise I tensed up and get nervous and wonder what I need to say next. Now this area is where I can get the most feedback or verbal push of confidence. It's also obviously where you could get crushed the most, too, so it is risky. But if you are able to feed off of the praise and criticism appropriately, then you can gain confidence very well.

Where I struggle the most is the decision point of the not-so-obvious choice. You have choice A and choice B. Both can be good, both can have some negatives, neither are bad. What do you choose? These are also the decisions that aren't overtly spiritual, and especially if your not coming out of a particularly peak spiritual year, the typical "which path is God leading you" question doesn't really hold much water. How do you gain confidence with these types of dilemmas? These are the situations where you don't really know if you made the right decisions until years later, or if there really is a right answer because maybe there is no wrong one, maybe just a better one, depending on your theology. And really, it's 12:20am and I'm not going to get starting on that type of subject.

So as the title said, confidence is a tricky thing. A lot of times we talk about needing faith to see us through things, but what we really mean is that we need confidence, and that may bring up a lot more from our past than we really want to have to deal with or can deal with at a particular point in time. Maybe we need to deal with it and it's good. Maybe we should leave it in the past. Or learn from it and be better parents than we are now because of it.

Beauty at 35000 Feet

2009-11-18T18:00:00.000-05:00

I'm flying between San Antonio and Atlanta right now and I have the window seat facing south. I just happened to look up from my book and see the beauty that is the sunset, a scene that spreads miles across the sky. The prism of darkness of blue in the east into the blood orange sky in the west amazes me. A perfect separation of light and dark.

I don't know if I've ever really looked at a sunset horizontally, but it is one of the coolest things I've ever seen. And as I keep trying the look back behind the plane from my window, the darkness overcomes the light, though a flicker of orange fights through. But in a moment it is gone, and the peacefulness of the night sky reveals the illuminations of our own invention below as active cities, a fork in the road, or a cluster of homes to come home to.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iTouch

cycling haiku

2009-11-02T10:03:00.002-05:00

Last week, a new friend of mine posted a rather philosophical haiku he made up while he was cycling. I made a snarky reply that if we ever rode together, I don't think I could be philosophical or even do haiku. But then we were talking Friday night in person, and he said that he does haiku a lot to help him focus his thoughts through the ride. My focus comes from my iPod, which I keep low enough to hear traffic.

But the route I chose was especially difficult for me yesterday, the out route was a net climb of a grade I didn't expect. And despite the iPod, I started thinking in haiku. I'm blame Jack, though only in jest. Here are the various haiku I came up with.

My lungs are burning
Legs will fall off very soon
Should have gone golfing!

The wind in my face
Downhill is so much better
Does that car see me?

iPod shuffle fail
Fifth Kelly Clarkson song now
Need my sexy back

Dead squirrel again
Such a bloody mess to see
Who gets his nut stash?

All downhill to home
Which is good, my back is sore
Golf would have hurt, too.

An Evening with Susan and Don

2009-10-24T23:30:00.002-04:00

This past Friday, I had the excellent opportunity to go hear Susan Isaacs and Donald Miller at Living Word Community Church in Red Lion, PA, who hosted the Million Miles Tour. I've been giving up the top real estate of this blog since the tour was announced, so if there are stops near you, definitely go see them. You won't regret it. Susan killed the stage with humor and grace and a fantastic British-accented God voice. Don was inspirational; his narrative lecture was just what I needed with a mix of wit, humor, and poignant revelations. I can look at conflict a whole new way, never really giving much thought that negative feelings and conflict actually existed before the Fall in Eden. It gives me a new perspective that I shouldn't try to avoid conflict all of the time, maybe not even most of the time, but rather live into it, through it, and when necessary actually force myself to jump into it.

Listening to Don talk about just how closely story and narrative that we see played out in film and TV daily actually could apply to our lives if we just recognized that that's how we really tick, not in the 5-steps to a happier life way that we are commercially sold. Even more important, there is no biblical promise to us that our life will be any better with Jesus. Our promise in Jesus is for after life, not in this life. Our conflict is promised in Jesus: loving God/loving neighbor - both against our Fallen nature.

So that struck me in two ways:

I've been living life recently by rote or mechanics. I can't say everything has been random and meaningless because coming home to play with my kids and love my wife in the best ways that I can are not meaningless. But I haven't necessarily lived through each moment or day. It's somewhere between mailing-it-in and capturing each scene in the daily or weekly story.
Lately, I've been living as if it doesn't matter whether there is really a heaven. I should be content and looking to living in the Kingdom here on earth regardless of any promises beyond.

Now #1 will happen again and again, and it's something I'll have to break out of. I need to re-initialize my habit of writing here, and for Burnside (I'm soooo overdue). But I want to do even more writing as I'm finding more opportunities to write for my job, which also excites me. It's just hard to keep switching between creative, commentary, and technical writing. But #2 was something I thought was relatively noble or particularly relevant to being Kingdom focused. And while I still think I should be focused "Your Kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven", I shouldn't forget about heaven, or the new heaven and new earth that are someday joined and restored. Honestly, I don't know what to do with that yet.

I'm disgusted with much in this world, yet I want to be a part of God's story for the world. I want my story to be Kingdom-focused, Love-focused in a way that my wife and children both live through that with me and know God's love as fully as it can be known from one human to another. My current work is noble and I am really enjoying it again, despite the added stress, but I am not placing that over time and focus on my family. I'm still evaluating how to add the focus within and without the Church. So now it is time for me to start living into the story, embracing the conflict, and examining where in each act of the life play I'm in, and how that might start over or begin a new.

The personal side of the evening was that I got to meet and hang out with Susan and Don before the show and in the tour bus afterward. That was awesome, and I'm so glad to have had a chance to connect personally with both of them. I've appreciated so much getting to know Susan from her book and being able to write a few reviews for it, and discussing life over email. And being connected with the Burnside Writers Collective is a privilege, and getting a chance to meet and hang out with the writer who founded it and support us in our writing is even more of a privilege. He really is as down-to-earth and normal as you expect when you read his books. And that is great to find out up close.

Story ... at 1AM

2009-10-15T01:01:00.004-04:00

It's 1AM and I just finished catching up on about 20% of the back logged emails I have on work-related lists that I should be staying up on top of. In fact, it is my job, but so is managing a team of technologists, speaking and writing to advance my organization, and be the key member of a multi-million dollar project seeking a lot of money in a grant. That project will both increase my team and take up 50% or more of my time by the new year, which will make keeping up on this backlog of emails that much harder. At the same time, it will make it that much more important because that project will make history in our niche of technology, and I need to be aware of what else is making history.

So that's my story of the past 2 months. I've been writing like crazy, reading even more, and preparing for 4 presentations in the next 4 months. What I haven't been doing is anything here on this blog, or even for my supposed-monthly column for the Burnside Writers, which has a new website that you should check out. I promise, I will get back to writing monthly for BWC.

So I mentioned story, and I'm just flabbergasted just how much the notion of story is all around us in more than a subversive way. Donald Miller has a new book out that has become a best seller and is touring with Susan Isaacs, who wrote a great book that I've reviewed a few times. I know that I should be reading Robert McKee's Story very soon, but have you seen my list of book to-read at Good Reads? It's getting too long, and it isn't even that long.

But back to story - remember it's after 1AM - it's almost everywhere I look, listen, or read these days. And that's AWESOME! For me, it's awesome because I can live into that. There's so much conflict, but it doesn't feel threatening in the way that I feel attacked. It's saddening sometimes because there are days that I just go through routine of waking up, helping A* with the kids, go to work, come home, do stuff with the kids and A*, watch some TV and then go to bed. Then there are days like today where I stayed home because A* was sick, I got some max time with the kids, went into the office when a friend came over to watch the kids, did some important work, came home, had a wonderful, though short, play time with Amelia, good interaction with Tayte, and then treated the family to a DQ night of pumpkin pie blizzard. The DQ element was spontaneous, something in my gut that I felt was good for us. And it was. And just as importantly, it was our story tonight as a family. And that is cool.

My story has been a lot of work: good work, hard work, busy work, but it has taken away a lot of attention I need to be giving to my spirit. The family story, I hope, hasn't been affected too much. I try to keep work at work except for nights I can catch up like tonight when everyone else is asleep. But tomorrow I'll pay for that. We'll see I guess. The point is that I recognize the story, and as long as I try to live through the story rather than watching it go by passively, I think I'm going the right way.

I see an orange battery light flashing at me, which means I need sleep, I think...

It is good to be less certain

2009-08-23T22:39:00.004-04:00

In an email to a new writer friend from the BWC, whom I've ony ever conversed via email, we were discussing the downside of humanness in past prejudices our families had or were affected by. My reply was something to the effect that humanness makes me sad and that's why I like tv, movies, and books. I like these escapes because they tell stories often unseen in reality, stories which complete the cycle of redemption and restoration while preserving the fraility or humanness of the characters. (i.e. everyone is flawed)

It is that last point that I think keeps us, me especially, from contributing to the completeness of the redemptive cycle. We are so sure of ourselves (in general) that we have so much difficulty letting down our guard enough for compromise, grace, or the possibility we could actually be wrong. Again, I'm saying this generally, but I know enough of the truth in my own heart to say it.

On the flip side, sometimes even within my strengths, I lack appropriate confidence in my abilities, outcomes, and decisions. It both a self-worth issue and a genuine check and balancing habit I've developed, specifically in areas that I've only recently taken on, like writing. I would love to write more: technical, spiritual, commentary, or even fiction.

But I was the kid whose best verbal SAT score was 470. I said my BEST score! So I connect with author John Leax who struggled as a student but has given his life to teach and write. As I get older, I find that I love more of what I didn't like as a kid, and don't enjoy as much what I used. I need to constantly read, yet I am tiring of actively engaging in computer work. Complete opposite as a teen. I enjoy leading and managing now, taking some risks and putting my name out on some research or ideas, while as a teen I prefered to be less noticed lest I fail publicly.

But I was also very sure of myself in a few areas, specifically of faith, and in all of them within a narrow set of experiences and no respect for my lack of them. I connect with Leax in this writing:

Though my style has perhaps over the years grown a bit more complex, I think it has not changed much. I still like to grow plain statements out of personal stories. My voice remains simple and direct, closely connected to speech. Bu as the years have passed, my tentativeness has grown, and I find prose harder and harder to write. I am less and less sure of what I have to say. This uncertainty has nothing to do with any lack of faith or conviction. It is rather to do with three shifts in my thinking. First, I have an increasing respect for the wondrous mystery of my life. Second, I am more aware of the limitations of language. And third, I am dumbfounded by my finiteness before the infiniteness of truth. ("Truth by Moonlight" in Grace is Where I Live, p.85)

The first and third I am connecting with daily, struggling even. But they are not bad by any stretch of my imagination. If anything, it helps me find something to look forward to in the revealing of my life moving forward. What will my kids do next? How can A* and I connect more deeply with each other and others in true community? What will this new project bring in the next step of my job/career? Some of these bring frustration, but I am so trying to be positive, hopeful, and faithful in each.

Thoughts on the last day of vacation

2009-08-07T15:21:00.001-04:00

I am spending my last hour on the beach, at least bathing suit time on the beach. Tonight we'll likely be out to take some family pictures and maybe flying kites. I wanted to get one more time in the ocean a little deeper out than Amelia can go and some time to myself to decrompress my head. And by deeper I mean no deeper than my waist. I have a serious issue with deep water.

I knew going into this week that it wouldn't be relaxing in the ways vacations have been in the past. And I surprised what has been relaxing, like staying behind to take care of Tayte, who did not like the beach one bit, or pushing the double stroller down the boardwalk 4 miles through the massive crowds. At the same time, balancing the relationships all crammed into one house has been very difficult.

There is a certain exposure that comes with close proximity. It's hard to escape and if you don't check your own expectations at the door, then your disappointment will be magnified times ten. I think I was able to do that fairly well until last night when I was so excited to take Amelia out for fun. It just didn't work out like I had wanted or expected, and while Amelia still had a blast I was left saddened by what didn't get to happen, specifically A* getting to be there to experience Amelia's joy, too.

It was during those moments that I wondered heavily about just how hard it is to simultaneously be a father and husband. I've never expected to be "easy", but as our children are growing and becoming more actively dependent on us, I fear being divided by the various situations that leave out one parent from experiencing the joy, and each other from being connected in that experience. I have not yet determined what is worse: staying behind and missing the joyful experience or missing A* while that joyful experience is happening. At this point it is missing A* that is harder, I think, but I can't quite measure it right now.

My time alone is almost up. The vacation is almost over. Tonight and tomorrow morning will be transition back to "normal". Sigh. Normal is mostly fine, but can I carry a little of this beach calm back with me like the inevitable sand we'll take home with us?

A Sense of Unity

2009-07-27T23:10:00.001-04:00

This past Sunday our senior pastor preached from John 17, which is Jesus' prayer in the garden. Since Easter, they have been preaching through the gospel of John through conversations Jesus had with various characters. John 17 is a conversation with God, naturally as a prayer. The pastor emphasized the repeated theme of unity - Jesus' repeated recognition of unity with God and a prayer for us to be united with each other and united with Jesus/God. It is quite powerful and beautiful, and in many ways overwhelmingly unrecognizable.

But I've been reading through The Shack, I'm not finished yet, but immediately on Sunday I recognized the beauty of the picture of unity painted in the book. As I was reading the book, I struggled with the notion of God, Jesus, and the HS being anything more than an abstract concept I "believe" and will one day in the next life "understand". But the story really drives home the simplicity of life together, united through 100% authentic love for no one else but another, joy fulfilled with companionship and conversation, and beauty completed from the messiness of life by grace and mercy. Where we see a mess, God sees a fractal, so the story goes.

Through the book and this prayer in John, you cannot help but feel the magnitude of this unity discussed, but isn't it so easy to be skeptical based on the reality of how united we are as people with each other, and how much we resist true, authentic community? The book has a theme that our human rules get in the way all the time, which is true. Rules represent justice and/or fairness, not grace and mercy. Our actions are inherently selfish in nature, despite our best efforts to be anything but selfish. In short, we fall short of the glory, the beauty, the unity of God.

But I have been wondering and realizing just how un-united I am with myself. I battle within myself between the creative, thoughtful, and introspective side and the logical, engineering, take-action side. I think it is why I am so interested in finding balance and centeredness in the bigger perspective. Too often one side wins over the other in a way that isn't fulfilling. I don't generally see it coming, though when I do, it's hard to get out of my own way and step back to save myself. I, instead, play by the selfish rules of life we have laid out for ourselves, mostly that of self-preservation. And that just leads to isolation, loneliness, and absence of love.

When I let go of myself I can be united, within myself and with others. That is what I sense Jesus was saying at the center of his prayer. That is what I'm trying to believe now that I can live out.

Witness of the Truth

2009-07-21T22:29:00.000-04:00

In his essay entitled "Stewardship and Witness", John Leax writes:

As a poet I am involved in a complex of relationships. I am at once united with the world and the Creator of the world and alienated from the world and the Creator of the world. I live halfway, neither lost nor perfected. I am not, at any time in this life, in full possession of Truth. All I have to witness to is the truth of my experience, the erratic process of my becoming a new creation. Another way of putting this is to say that I am involved in discovering my place in an ecology that involves the physical and the spiritual worlds. (It is important to note how intensely personal this process is. I can discover and speak only my own relationships, not the relationships of all humanity.) The only tool I have been given to make it discoveries and then articulate them is language. Without language I can know nothing; it is the foundation of it knowing and of my being known.

I see everyday how language can define the truth and meaning of a single moment. It can cause polar opposite emotional reactions; it can create elation or deflation in a person; it can reward or punish. The "complex of relationships" is continual, a realization that completely frustrates me.

In my previous creative outlet of composing music (to which I will return someday), the language of notes and phrases, chords and progressions, and harmonies have the very same effect. But it has been so long since I've thought of either genre of truth speaking and defining my place. In spoken language, it just happens so effortlessly that I gloss over the meaningfulness and instead react to its effect. In music, it is a repetetive process that requires constant listening and rewriting, much similar I assume to creative writing. In journaling like this it is much more the process of realization and a hope that the truth made aware will be truth made
known through my words and actions of my immediate life experiences. More often than not I fail. But if continue to spend these moments witnessing the truth of our Creator through this experience, hopefully I can witness the truth in love with the others in my life.

Finding Grace Where I Live

2009-07-20T22:33:00.000-04:00

The past number of weeks and months have been some the most tense and unsettled weeks I have ever had since I first took the leap of faith to stay in Bethlehem after graduation without a job. A lot of decisions got put on hold while we waited for an answer beyond our control. Even before that we had a false start of another possible life-changing move. Essetially for all of Tayte's life we've not known where we would be in the next couple of months. Well now we know and we have to live in that reality with simultaneous relief and disappoinment replacing what would have been hope and fear. Honestly I am still going back and forth on what is better. The answer is really neither, or so it head tells me.

But I can actually say this week that God is good even though for the past 8 weeks I couldn't answer the question "Where do you think God is leading you?". But he put before me in my variois readings I've been doing (see sidebar) an essay by John Leax in the book A Syllable of Water: twenty authors of faith reflect on their art. I'd never heard of Leax before, but his essay of writing and place could not have been more relevant to my angst. I have been unsettled in the land I choose to stay in 10 years ago and the past 8 with A* and now our two children. We together have struggled finding community, and I have become weary of certain elements of my vocation, realistically some discovered strengths that I am unable to focus on vs. some clear weaknesses I cannot unload onto someone better. So to focus on place was an eye opener for me; writing was just peachy as writing is a craft I am trying to continue to develop.

I found Leax's essay so perfect for my situation (again, God) that I requested Leax's book Grace is Where I Live. I'm working through it now and there is a section I want to work through in his essay "Holiness and Craft".

[Earlier] I said I discover what I have to say as I write. This is crucial to my thinking. It is also crucial to my becoming. But it is not what I am speaking of now. The discovery of what I have to say, of what my poem or essay means, is, like the poem or essay itself, the product of my work. It is not my work.

As I write, the poem I am writing is always in the future. When I have finished writing, it is behind me. It is in the past. Only as I am writing it, as it is in the process of becoming, is it in the present. And only as it is in the present, is it my concern. Compare this to salvation. Salvation is a process occurring in all three tenses. It is future because it will not be complete until Christ returns. It is past because Christ accomplished it on the cross. It is present as I give myself to Christ. Here, as in the writing of a poem, my concern is with my present action. What is past is related to the present only as the present brings its meaning into being. What is future is related to the present only as it is imagined and desired in the present - that is, as it is part of the present.

Holiness and craft come together at this point: the moment of the poem is also the moment of salvation. Both occur in the present. I make my way as a poet and as a Christian by giving my attention to being in Christ and in doing in him the work before me. Quoting Thomas Merton, "It is in the ordinary duties and labors of life that the Christian can and should develop his spiritual union with God."

Now I have the chance to develop more fully my spiritual union because the ordinary is staying around for near future.

Validation

2009-07-09T23:08:00.001-04:00

How much of our day do we spend looking for validation? Half? Two thirds?The entire day? What exactly do we hope for? What exactly us it that burns inside when we don't get the validation we hope/want/need?

I've been slowly and carefully reading A Syllable of Water which is a collection of writers of faith writing about writing. The essay I read tonight was about journal keeping, which is something I want to do more disciplined. In many ways, journaling is a manner of validation in recording the thoughts, experiences, emotions, actions, etc that we do each day. So often - actually daily - I neglect to hold onto to much of what I should in order to validate what that day is, was, and could be. The times I do take the time to write, like tonight, serve not only the immediate purpose of recording and processing thoughts in real time, but serve the holistic purpose of growth and learning how to live and love.

So this begs the question why I am so poor at journaling, and more importantly how much more fulfilling my life could be if I did journal? The answer can only be known by taking action. It will never reveal itself without the effort. And in that way, it makes complete sense how much validation we really need to go from day to day.

"The Way I Am" Rap Remix

2009-07-08T15:43:00.001-04:00

I stumbled on this today. Crazy talent, crazy cool. I'm becoming much more into independent music. maybe because I still get caught in my own music day dreams.

A good paper on why it is so hard to be good

2009-06-19T16:42:00.004-04:00

This is a recent article published in the main Burnside Writers Collective site, as opposed to the blog. I think it hits home both the importance of small groups that do more than (or instead of) intellectual study, but also why we fail so often at changing bad patterns or removing bad actions from our lives. it's worth reading.

Getting back on track

2009-06-15T23:44:00.002-04:00

Regret is one of the hardest things I deal with in my life. Daily I might regret something I said to A* or how I yelled at Amelia instead of disciplining her more patiently. Longer term I regret how much I neglect my faith and writing, especially since I have this cool tool called an iPod
Touch that has a blog app, through which I'm writing now in the comfort of my bed. It really is no excuse for me not to take advantage. I can even read a book on it!

Another regret came to me at work while I was cleaning my desk and found my folder from my interview of a job I gotnbut had to turn down for reasons seemingly outside of our control. The regret comes from wondering if those reasons were really as great as the experts told us. I have to believe they were or else i'll go crazy. Or worse I'll not take another chance, which is what I wonder I might be falling into.

Sometime last week I became dissatisfied (finally) with my lack of Bible reading. While chatting with a friend, he keeps asking me where I see God leading me/us and I can't really answer him anymore because I don't really know. I'm not really looking as much as I should be.

So I decided I would start reading scrtipture regularly again, but the first hurdle is always where to start? Something led my head to Psalm 119. I have had verse 11 memorized since I was a kid, so I thought maybe I should start there, after all the first part is about studying God's word so we don't sin against him and if we aren't sinning against him then we are likely on his path.

So I started tonight with verses 1-20. I want go to through this slowly and with meditation. Reading in the Message version, verses 5-6 ring clearly:

"oh, that my steps might be steady, keeping to the course you set;
then I'd never have any regrets in comparing my life to your counsel."

It is a mighty high desire, but a pure desire that I wish I could have daily. Sadly I know how truly little I ask for God's counsel. But in the coming weeks and months if I don't seek God's counsel, I will have regrets no matter what decisions are made. That is somethingI don't want anymore.

Community

2009-05-22T00:27:00.003-04:00

Want to know what is most important to me, my life, and my sense of spirituality? It only takes a look at this word cloud analysis from the posts of this blog.

I really am hoping to get back to writing here more regularly.

Lost joy

2009-05-13T23:07:00.001-04:00

Why is it that you never can see that you've passed the tipping point of losing joy? By the time that you recognize that joy has slipped from your daily life, or that activity that always lifted you up, or even the place of solace and peace.

It's killing me inside right now to realize just how much joy I've lost. And it's entirely my fault. I had re surgery that put me on crutches, made me helpless for too long, and created a burden greater than expected, greater than is reasonable.

I haven't been able to be the doer I was and still want to be. I haven't been able to be the father I need to be. I haven't been the lover and husband I've always desired to be. In the midst of all this, I've stopped writing, I've stopped dreaming, I've stopped hoping.

This was supposed to be the best time for this "inconvenience"; it couldn't have been worse. This was supposed to be 4-6 weeks; it will be 8+. This supposed to heal me; instead it had wounded the ones I love most. And I can't even contemplate how long that recovery will take.

In the midst of all this is another life decision. At this point I don't know that we could ever make such a decision. Good things might just be too hard to come by right now.

Last week I watched Michael J Fox's special on optimism based on his latest book. I was/am intrigued by his investigations of other people and other cultures and other life-changing decisions that people have made optimistically or have brought a renewed or simply new sense of optimism to their life. I'm setting out to write about this for my BWC column, but I was struck by the clear absense of any religious faith. That isn't to say the people in the documentary don't have a faith, because some clearly did, but none of them expressed that as the foundation of their optimism. Instead: community. More to think on in that; in general and for me specifically where i'm at.

sad endings kill me

2009-04-03T22:35:00.004-04:00

A* and I watched Marley and Me tonight. (Cannarf rating: +3) It is a good movie with a tough ending. I won't ruin it for anyone, but even I should have known (yet didn't think about it until halfway through) that a movie about a dog likely ends a certain way. It killed me. Two nights in a row that I've just sobbed - ok, bawled my eyes out on this very couch I'm also writing. I think the long recovery of my knee surgery is adding more emotional energy to everything else going on.

Ok, I might ruin the ending for you so if you don't want to know anything, don't read any further. Seriously. Stop. Alright, I warned you. As John Grogan was dealing with saying goodbye to Marley, I was immediately transported in my mind's eye to January 2, 2007: the day we said goodbye to Luigi. Exactly like the movie in that A* stayed home with Amelia and I took Luigi, but unlike the movie where Luigi wasn't ending his life, just starting a new chapter with a new family.

All of the memories of Marley that flash through the next scenes flashed for me memories of Luigi, a dog that sometimes we thought could have been the worst dog in the world - a title Marley got a number of times. Peeing on the piano leg, humping on the stranger's leg, escaping from the yard and then magically reappearing hours later, taking off after a squirrel across streets, jumping on Amelia as a baby - all of these frustrated us.

But then there was those big brown eyes as he lay his snout between his front paws, completely stretched out on the floor or bed, or curling up to one of us when we were sad - especially Andrea, or sleeping at our feet in bed, or on his back in full glory with his teeth showing a silly, gravity-induced grin while snoring - all of these enriched our joy of him. He would never fetch, rarely sit on command, and never stopped peeing in that one spot. He would bark incessantly at the neighbors, he would bark agressively at other dogs; he would love you the moment you came in the door.

Though we gave him up for the right reason (mostly Amelia and our future as parents) and we have said over and over again that we are glad we made that decision, all though the movie, and especially at the end, I miss him so much. The raw emotions I had on that last day are still (despite my best efforts) fresh inside of me. Those seeds of doubt crop up every time they are refreshed by something like this movie. But as I re-read that post from over two years ago, I was reminded that Tayte is just a little older than what Amelia was then. And he is giving us those same toothless grins that she did that day to me. With that, I am reminded that while Marley and Me is titled and seemingly centered around a dog, it is really about the life of a family, and the real frustrations and joys that comes with family. And that doesn't kill me at all, but strengthens me and gives me more life.

Proud

2009-04-03T00:35:00.001-04:00

Tonight while at small group, sitting at the kitchen table, I watched my daughter walk past into the living room of our hosts. She walked right up to the piano, climbed onto the bench, flipped through the music book on the console and started to play the piano. She'd play a few notes, stop, and then flip to another song and start playing again. It made me smile so much that this was her own interest, her own motivation.

Later I watched as she lounged on a kids couch with her friend Zoe watching Little Einsteins doing motions together ( pat, clap, pat, clap ) and saying along with the TV "Blastoff!". She was so adorable, so growing up.

As a few tears slide down my right cheek, I had to write, as I told her before tucking her in bed, that I am so proud of her - and I'm so blessed to be her daddy.

Wasting good writing time

2009-03-28T11:46:00.001-04:00

I am home on the couch for at least two weeks recovering from major knee surgery. I have been saying to A* for a number of weeks (months?) that I need to get back to writing regularly. I'm literally limited to the couch to keep my leg elevated and even have possible inspiration of percocet. So this post is meant to be a catalyst, hopefully, to encourage me to restart a regular writing discipline.

Community

2009-02-26T22:19:00.001-05:00

"The gift of community is that each one of us is absolved of the burden of completeness. In and of ourselves at every moment we can lean on one another for the elements we lack." - Rev. Keyes, Everwood Season 1 Episode 8

I don't think I've ever heard a more fitting definition of community than this statement as I was watching episodes of Everwood on my laptop while traveling home on the train from Rhode Island. It epitomizes many of the emotions I felt this week while away from home. It is true whether the community is as small as two or as large as can be imagined. It is heightened within our faith organization, as we few families attempt to come together in a regular and organized manner.

But the heightened sense does not make the building of community easier. And in fact, it is likely only heightened in the ones who have carried the burden of completeness for so long. I wonder now if one can get to the place of belief that such burden will never be lifted from our shoulders; that completeness will never be restored.

I don't wonder that blindly, in all honesty, I wonder that in the midst of experience that gave me a glimpse as powerful as alcohol poured directly on a wound. And I process this with the knowledge that within my only true community, a different and heavier burden is being carried. There is no absolution for either of us alone, and even together we must carefully address each other's burdens without adding to it from our own.

That takes a commitment with such demand that we often don't risk taking the chance, instead convincing ourselves that there is little to no hope can be gained and only more burden will result. If I take 20 figurative steps back, I hope that, like Doctor Andrew Brown in Everwoof, I, too, can look up to the sky and admit that I just have nothing left. I have nothing left of my own sense of how to become complete, and often my ignorance as evidence of the need to lean harder on the one I love. At the very same moment I must also be able to support the lean from my love, and I think it is precisely this moment we must be very careful to allow the other that leaning post.

This is the reality of community. This is the sadness of lack of community I identify with right this very moment and have been feeling longer that i've wanted to admit.

Blogging on the run

2009-02-16T00:20:00.001-05:00

It's been nearly two months since I've journaled or blogged, and it definitely shows in my day to day life. Having a new baby stretches everyone thin. I agree with those that say adjusting to two is harder than the first. It's non- stop and I know it is exponentially harder on A*. Anything that we want to accomplish as adults either has to be done alone or when they go to bed. And with my new job, writing during the day is reserved for writing on work-related things, as that is part of my job, too.

Last I wrote I was deciding on two offers. Long story short, we decided on the move and then had the economy problems pull it right out from under us. But I still have a new job, sort of, and it is busier, too. Out of it I got an iTouch and so I'm writing on that from bed. It's not as faar as using my computer, but it gives me a chance to write - that and my neighbor's wireless.... Yes I'll get my own soon, but I do have their permission.

It's nice to be able to take just a couple of minutes to let some words find their way out of my head. When it seems that we are always running, playing, holding, painting, feeding - did I say playing? - this is relaxing my brain so I can actually fall asleep instead of thinking about what I need to be doing in the morning. So we'll see how this way of blogging works (or doesn't)...

Goognight.

decision time

2008-12-22T23:11:00.002-05:00

The last 6 weeks have been nothing that I would have ever expected. I got an awesome job offer in a somewhat-distant state, but then we had our son 7-weeks premature through a scary ordeal. We then have been working through that decision process slowly, carefully, and emotionally. What may be a no-brainer professionally is anything but based on what may be best for the family. In the eleventh hour, I got a counter offer that, while not a match, is enough to make this decision less than obvious. Do I take the ideal job offer and move the family and risk their unhappiness, or do I take the counter and risk my potential career path? With the transition we've had with Tayte coming so early, do we add more transition by planning and moving and settling in during the next three months?

I have never been more unsettled than I have been now. I have never been so emotionally, mentally, and physically spent as I feel now. And I have no idea what spiritually this really means. I just have no idea.

Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week

2008-11-12T10:25:00.004-05:00

I'm wearing a specially-designed, long-sleeved green t-shirt today as part of Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week here at Lehigh University. It's honestly not something that I think about enough, and in the midst of a very major decision that my family is making this week, it is giving me pause to realize just how much we have.

Here are some facts on the back of our t-shirts:

100,000,000,000
pounds of edible food are thrown away in the US per year

3,500,000
US residents experience homelessness in a given year

800,000
Americans are homeless in any given night

21,000
Dollars per year is the poverty line for a family of four

6,300
People worldwide die each day from hunger-related causes

950
Children a year are housed in a shelter in the Lehigh Valley

97
Hours a week must be worked at minimum wage to afford rent

3
Dollars a day are given to people relying on food stamps

1
Person needed to start a hunger revolution

Purpose-driven centrist

2008-11-09T14:42:00.003-05:00

My first article for a monthly column that I'll be writing for the Burnside Writers Collective blog was published on Saturday. I hope that you enjoy.

i'm just a sap for good stories

2008-10-18T23:14:00.002-04:00

Thank God for my wife. We just finished watching Definitely, Maybe, and after she said that she was tired (it was 11:10pm), I said "me too [sigh]." And she asked what the sigh was for and I said "I need to write. I need to stop working so much and write. I'm a sucker for a great story, and I have such an emotional response to both the story last night and tonight, and I just wish I could write more." So she said "Write. Now. 10 minutes." But I got up. "Where are you going?" she asked. "I have to go to the bathroom," I replied. "Run. Go. Now. Then write. 10 minutes," she suggested with a smile.

Ok, that wasn't as good a story as either Definitely, Maybe or Fireproof. The acting wasn't necessarily that great in Fireproof, but the story was compelling, and I'm very glad we went to see it. Both the acting and the story are great in Definitely, Maybe. And I think that both movies put a deep pain inside my chest because I long to live out a story as compelling as either of them. I don't want to follow either story exactly, and it isn't the plots of the stories that are getting to me. It is simply how compelling the stories are, and ironically, how real they seem. More real that my day-to-day. For the past I don't know how many months, I have been feeling trapped in a pile of routine and stress at work, and mostly routine at home. The inconsistencies of my posts here show the evidence of it, because when I make the time to write and process, that is actually when I am living out my story in a better way. Maybe not compelling, but at least making progress on my journey.

I think what is most heavy on my chest about Definitely, Maybe is the wondering if when my daughter turns 10 or 11 if I'll be able to be as open and honest about the story of my wife and me, or if it will even be interesting to her. Yes, I realize that this is a work of fiction, but it didn't feel that way. It felt like it could happen. And I certainly don't have any desire to be in the same place in life as they were. I just saw the intimacy of a father and daughter that cannot be faked. And it wasn't scary at all (right? because men are supposed to be afraid of intimacy) but rather attractive to my soul.

And now I'm blank. Maybe it is just the self-deprecating reaction that I'm just not that compelling and right now I'm in a rather large rut. More realistically, it is because we are likely weeks away from having to make one of the most important decisions of our lives, and I am just scared out of my mind that either I'll choose the wrong option, or make no decision because I'll give in to the fear that it would be the wrong decision. (In reality, making no decision will be the wrong way, and I'm writing this now because I need to admit it here and now.) This is life, isn't it? A daily struggle against routine, fear, and screwing up mixed in with moments of love, joy, and escape in someone else's story. I'd really like to know that our story is worth escaping to...

My pro-life manifesto

2008-10-08T12:03:00.004-04:00

I don't usually talk politics here at all, but this particular topic has a spiritual component like almost no other political topic. Over the last month or so, I've been participating in conversations about the election. There are a lot of Christians in my generation (20/30-somethings) that are supporting Barack Obama, and as I wrote here on the Burnside Writer's Blog, I have been more undecided this time around than ever before. And yes, I did actually go independent in my party affiliation.

Because I have been undecided, I have had no problem stepping into conversations where one-issue voters sharply criticize Christian Obama supporters because he is is not "pro-life". And 99/100 times, they mean pro-life to be soley in the abortion debate. But I'm tired of that terrible and inaccurate depiction of pro-life. Why is pro-life only about unborn babies? If it continues to be that way for Christians in general, than we are failing this world in a major way by neglecting the gospel of Jesus.

Before I go any further, let's have a reality check: Roe v. Wade is never going to be overturned, and even if it is, abortions will continue. If Roe v. Wade is overturned, it will go back to a state's-rights issue and there will be 50 separate, and probably different, laws enacted where there aren't local laws already in place. So let's stop kidding ourselves that we will ever end abortions through the law. Instead, let's start talking about supporting life.

In this regard, neither major political party has a monopoly on supporting life, but as I go through my own pro-life manifesto, it might become clear that one candidate is better at supporting this than another. So here is my pro-life manifesto:

Pro-life means that I support the life of all people, and I desire to see a world with violence minimized at all costs. Supporting the life of all people includes:

1.) Our enemies - I will support actions to avoid war at all costs. Violence does not bring peace. Violence simply displays our sinful arrogance that we are right and someone else is wrong.

2.) Prisoners - No matter the crime, I do not believe criminals should be put to death. For those taking life, they should be given life sentences, losing the privileges they had as fellow citizens, but having opportunity to seek forgiveness and mercy until God decides their life is over.

3.) Mothers - When a medical situation arises and a choice needs to be made over a mother's survival or a baby's survival, that is perhaps the deepest and most personal decision a family or husband/wife will ever have to make. But I will support the choice of the indepent, living mother by not supporting taking away abortion procedures for mothers.

4.) Unborn Babies - Every unborn baby should have the chance to survive and live. As a society, we should rise up and support any mother who cannot afford the healthcare to carry her baby to full-term. We should support and promote more adoption services to mothers who choose to give up their babies.

Rallying against abortion rights or protesting outside abortion clinics does not help reduce abortions. It merely continues violent verbal and emotional attacks. If I am pro-life, and if you are pro-life, then we should work hard to promote life and help reduce abortions. We should be willing to give more in charity or taxes to provide healthcare to women who would otherwise have an abortion because they cannot afford healthcare. Or we should be willing to give more in charity or taxes to provide adoption services to women who cannot afford or do not want to raise a baby and would otherwise have an abortion.

These are all opportunities to spread the gospel. To love our neighbors as ourselves. To bless our enemies when they curse us. To care for the poor and imprisoned. The gospel is pro-life, and more specifically, pro-soul. To be pro-life is to want to promote love, and to give opportunities for people who need love to receive love.

I used to believe war was ok. I was in favor of going to war in Iraq. Had I had the opportunity, I previously would have marched in anti-abortion protests. I used to believe a murderer or rapist deserved to die. I don't believe any other these things anymore. All of these previously-held positions conflict with the gospel of Jesus, and I cannot continue to try to follow Jesus and support the killing of anyone. Even if I lived in a country taken over by another, I have many examples in scripture about how faith in God can overcome any societal infliction. And simply wanting to overturn the abortion law does not show any love to the many women who believe they have no other choice. I should instead help give them the choice and opportunity to carry their baby fully.

You can call me anti-war or anti-capital punishment if you want. Maybe some will even call me pro-choice. But none of those labels would be accurate. I am pro-life - for everyone and in everything.

------------------------
added on Thursday 10/9:

For whatever reason, I neglected to discuss the most controversial part of my pro-life manifesto, and that is embryonic stem cell medical research. This is a very sensitive subject that I think needs a delicate touch. I read Michael J. Fox's book Lucky Man a number of years ago, and his position is that what is more pro-life than funding research that could help find cures for currently incurable diseases? Honestly, that is a valid opinion worth respect. The contrary opinion is that when one states embryos are indeed life, then that research is taking one life for another. Very, very sensitive.

As I am moving in many of my political and spiritual positions, I am in the middle. I like the compromise President Bush made early in his presidency that said embryos which would otherwise be destroyed could be used for research. Maybe this is a cop-out because the options for those embryos was destruction or destruction. But I think it was a fair and balanced decision that was sensitive to both sides of the argument.

Personally I cannot simple say life begins at conception or in the embryonic stage, but I also cannot say that it is wise or good or ethical to simply create embryos for the sake of research. But I do agree with Michael J. Fox - there is nothing more pro-life than doing all we can to help find cures for incurable diseases. That includes not neglecting adult stem cell research, or umbilical cord research, and even embryonic stem cell research from stem cells slated for destruction. We have a responsibility to each other to promote life, and as long as researchers maintain a responsibility to explore everything available to them and not simply create embryos for research sake, then I can stand behind that as promoting life.

best friends and stories

2008-09-18T23:18:00.003-04:00

This past week, A* and I took the opportunity to travel and visit our very best friends. That description is completely accurate based solely on the fact that no matter how much time has past since our last visit with them (10 months), everything picked up exactly where we left off: the comfort level with each other; the family atmosphere; the ability to actually know that their house was our house for those few days; the tears mixed in with goodbye. It could easily be written into a novel or movie. There was humor, embarrassment, frustration, play, seriousness, hilarity (especially when playing Cranium!), and most importantly love. And what started as simple friendship between two married couples over 8 years ago now includes our growing families with children who are becoming friends, too.

As wonderful as those days were, the void of missing them the moment we returned home was as large as always. It is a friendship that cannot really be replaced, but we do desire to add onto that type of friendship with another. It is part of the story of our life together, though we rarely think of it in that way. But last night after catching up on two of television shows that we enjoy, I started thinking of it in just that way. The second show, One Tree Hill, began over five years ago as a typical and new teeny soap opera-like show. A mix between Dawson's Creek and 90210, there was a seriousness in the editorial narrative that introduced and ended each episode, yet plenty of all of the stuff that makes a teenage show popular - scandal, sex, drama. It began that way, and in some ways I was slightly ashamed of taking delight in such a show, but as time wore on it was clear there was a subversive, yet real foundation pervading the story greater than those popularity plot lines.

That foundation is building community - real relationships, choosing good over evil, and most of all, love. We've heard it all before - good vs. evil is what makes a story a story. It's everywhere we turn: the news, the movies, the books, and even the Bible. And yet despite the need for conflict to continue the story for a successful television series to continue, the writers and producers of One Tree Hill keep coming back to the truth that real love of one another is how we make it in this world. The past episode even went so bold as to give a character the stage to declare Jesus Christ as the foundation of her life, and in that particular instance her grief. No dispute of that declaration was made, no clarification, no disclaimer. It was just out there. And personally allowed my long suspicions to continue that there are some pretty cool and subversive followers of Jesus involved in that show despite some story lines that tempt religious pundits to claim otherwise. It's a bit similar to this story of missionaries-to-be being snubbed from funding support because of support for Obama for president. The simple moral is that we have to be prepared to dig deeper to find the truth than just the surface. (Note: as I published here, I have not made up my mind so don't take this as any endorsement.)

Getting back to stories, I also recently decided to re-read The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis. It is probably the one book I've ever read that has challenged me the most, and continues to challenge me as I'm working through it now. The main character gets to eaves drop in this moral tale of interactions between Ghosts and Solid People, who have journeyed back from their journey into heaven to convert the Ghosts and help them begin their journey to the Light - which is Jesus. The Solid People know the Ghosts intimately, having spent life with them and passed on before them. But in the stories I've had a chance to eavesdrop on with the main character, all of the Ghosts find reasons to remain focused on their life as it were, not Life as it could be. What is becoming clear halfway through the book is that the story of our life on earth is very much defining the story of our Life beyond the earth. Even more strongly worded by one of the Solid People talking to the main fellow is that life on earth is very much Heaven or Hell based on the perspective of our life story.

C.S. Lewis is throwing out a challenge - the same challenge we see week after week on television and in movies. Our lives are stories that weave in and out of people lives; lives that depend on each other; stories that influence each other. It can ebb and flow like a great novel; it will have conflict. It can be heavenly at times and hellish the next. But does the story lead to the source of life itself? Is there a subversive foundation that brings the life story back to love? It is easy for me to lose track of that. Over and over again I get swept up in the mundane and repetitive schedule of the days. Days turn into weeks that turn into months. Frustrations and migraines result from my job which provides the financial source to pay the bills and support our family structure. There are days that I just want to get over with, days that I barely have energy to play with my daughter and talk briefly to my wife. There are others days that I am overcome with fear that influences my every thought and action.

And there are days, like today, that I embrace the love that fuels my life story. Today, when the migraine was averted at work by changing what I was doing and where I was located; when I arrived home to the passionate hug of my soon-to-be two-year-old daughter; to the kiss of my wife cut short by the tugging of my arm to play outside with my daughter. To sharing with A* the cute visions of Amelia watching the bunnies in our garden eat a fallen tomato and sharing the ice cream cone together at the Promenade.

All that is left is for my head to hit the pillow and drift into a deep and refreshing sleep. At least that is my hope. But before I did that, I need to take some time to reflect on best friends and stories - especially the story that I'm living out right now.

not enough time in a day

2008-09-02T15:24:00.004-04:00

How many times does that average person say or think this? I have no idea, but I'm saying it way too much. And I can say it for a least three or four different perspectives of a day in my life, whether I'm at work or home, or wanting to read or write. I have lists of priorities in each of those four perspectives, and others, too, like email that friend, or call my brother, or finish application for worship team "just in case..."

I don't know how much I complained to A* about writing and re-writing and re-writing my technical book chapter, but after all was said and done, I found it quite fulfilling. It was a PITA during the whole process, but as I wrote before, I can see why people want to do this full time and need to do it full time. For example, I've been asked to contribute regularly to the Burnside Writers Collective, both it regularly published journal and the BWC blog. And to start off, my first blog post was published there this weekend.

It's been fun getting to know the other writers virtually through email and Facebook, including learning that one of the regular contributors lives near me, and is the same age as me, and also has a family and stuff. I have three articles planned, but finding the time to balance family life, work, sleep, and anything extra-curricular is getting really hard. Stress carried over from one to another doesn't help that at all, and prioritizing it all is sometimes a no-win situation. Something, or sometimes someone, has to give, and that is hard.

Notice what is missing from that list? Community! The first three are necessities, and honestly, both A* and I know and struggle with the realization that community has to be in that necessity list, too. But it is so frustrating when that seems to have to get pushed aside time and time again. Again, something has to give, including maybe how I hold on to some of the ideals I want in my life. Or maybe just some selfish stubborness. Either way, something's gotta give.

reading, writing, and that other thing

2008-08-15T14:01:00.005-04:00

I've spent this last week revising a paper that is to become a chapter in a multi-author book due out this spring. It's a technical paper based on my research in the library industry that I work. I've learned two things this week during the revision process: 1.) I know why people want to be writers and 2.) Why writers really need to do it full-time. Even though this week was very stressful and draining, I didn't have migraines this week like I did last week when I was working on my other projects. For full disclosure, I was also sick with a cold, so that could also be a reason for no migraines.

At the end of last week I finished a book by John Shelby Spong called Why Christianity Must Change or Die. It was incredibly challenging because Spong pushes the edges of the Christian faith with a mix of science, rational thinking, modernity and post-modernity, and an interpretation of an ancient text in the midst of the understandings we have gained over millennia. There are many who try to push Spong further out past the edges, but I'm just as happy to allow him the freedom to explore the faith. Maybe the greatest thing I've learned since college about our scriptures is that the Bible was not written as a scientific or logical text, but as a narrative story about people living life trying to relate to God and God constantly relating to people in new and grace-filled way.

So in that, one of the challenges that Spong laid out to me in his book that I am trying to process through is what if God isn't an external deity that lives in a remote heavenly location that acts as the eternal parent, but rather a spiritual force from which all of being has its source? It's a question that I've been talking with A* about especially in the context of our relationships with our fathers. The biggest topic that made the connection for me was Spong's idea is on prayer, which I have struggled with my entire life. In a nutshell, Spong wonders if prayer is really how we live our life and love; that prayer is not words which we say to an external deity to or with other people, but rather how we live in community in that love.

I'm going to leave it at that for now. It's still a question muddling through my soul, and hopefully I can flush it out soon here.

caught up in Cast Away

2008-08-02T23:23:00.004-04:00

The movie Cast Away was on tonight. Though every time I see it advertised I think to myself how difficult that movie is to watch, when I catch it on unexpectedly I can never seem to stop watching it. There are two clear reasons that I realized tonight:

It's an excellent story
The theme of the musical score

Both touch me in my core, then grabs me and won't release me until I complete the emotional journey of the castaway. The musical theme is simple, yet heart-wrenching. There are waves to it, like the tide keeping him from getting off the island, yet an airiness that, when it climaxes, carries him to freedom, or really more waves, this time in a metaphorical sense. As a musician, this is what I know and love about composing and listening to music. I can identify just as easily, sometimes more so, with a theme and counter theme, than with dialog. And Cast Away is a perfect movie for that with so little dialog.

I can claim at a certain level of being a writer, but I'm not a storyteller. Not yet, I'd like to be, but in a different way that you would think of a storyteller, like how the writer of this movie is a storyteller. But I think this may be the best movie story next to Stranger Than Fiction in the sense of touching me to my core. There are so many abstract levels that I could probably try to analyze and agonize over for hours, but there were a couple levels that hit me square in the chest tonight that I know I needed to write about.

On the last day of the church camp we went to, I agreed to go on the blob with a teenager in the church who has babysat for us. The blob is about 25 yards off the dock, connected to a large trampoline, in the deeper water of the lake. I can't swim, but knowing that I would be required to wear a life-jacket, I agreed to do it. As we were walking to the dock, the teen said to me "You just have to jump in the water so you aren't shocked by the cold." Made sense to me, like ripping off a band-aid quickly to minimize the total pain. But I should have thought about it more carefully, especially in light of a near-drowning incident I had in the ocean last year. Even with the life-jacket, it took a lot longer for me to come out of the water than I expected, and when I did, I was in total panic mode, reliving all too clearly the panic I had in that sand bar in the North Carolina coast.

There is the scene in Cast Away after Chuck Noland has gotten through the waves and past his first storm on the deep seas looking for a way to be rescued that "Wilson", his volleyball companion for the past 1500 days, had fallen off the raft. For a myriad of reasons, for sure, Noland jumps in the water to try to rescue and recover "Wilson". Realizing he needs his raft more, he grabs the rope for which he tied the plastic sail and tries to swim out to "Wilson" with the rope extended so he can get back to the raft. The rope's end eventually slips out of his hand and his is struggling to grab it. At the moment, and for the next couple of minutes until Noland was safely back on the raft, my heart was pounding with panic and I was sweating with fear and I was breathing of desperation. My mind and emotion were back in the lake, panicking yet again, struggling to get back to dry land. As the scene ended, two things came mind:

that I have neglected to find and sign up for swim classes to learn how to swim so that I could have the ability to save myself or my family, if necessary
that there really is no use in trying to learn because I will never be able to get over that fear and be able to relax in water in which I cannot touch solid ground.

It frightens me that I feel number two so strongly. It is more than just a lazy or defeatist attitude. It is deeper than that, and one that I am even more aware of now as we prepare to go down to the beach in a couple of days. It all but rules out that I'll be anywhere in the ocean past knee depth.

The other level that hit me tonight as I watched Cast Away was the irony throughout the second half of the movie. After 1500 days of learning how to live within the reality Noland found himself, with no tools but a pair of ice skates, a dress, a deflated raft, and a dead flashlight, the story displays irony in every corner once Noland is rescued and is coming back "home". He receives a Dr. Pepper and two glasses of ice on the plane. They serve fancy sushi and lobster for his welcome home party, as if he had been living on chicken for the 1500 days as a castaway. (Personally, beyond irony, I think this also shows a certain and realistic level of how insensitive we can be to others who need to be "saved".) He picked up a lighter and wearily laughed at how easy it was to make fire. He laid on the floor of his hotel room unable to sleep, I assume because his body was not used to a bed, and turned on and off the light switch of the lamp. When his fiancee gives him the keys to "their car" that she had saved all this time, even though she had to move on as if he were dead, the key chain included a swiss army pocket toolkit. All of these conveniences and delicacies of life he spent 1500 days away from were now at his disposal. The irony drips every 5 seconds it seems.

Through all of that I wonder just how much of what I have I need and how much of what I know is real? More so the latter examination of my spiritual journey. What do I take for granted? What elements of my faith do I need to cast away in order that I must re-learn for survival and not to maintain comfort? What truly are the the reasons to breathe, live, survive, and hope. How can I share my story of those reasons through how I live that story out? Will it make sense to anyone, or will I be a foreigner who feels out of place because I have lived without the comforts that made me take my life and faith for granted in the first place?

These are HUGE questions, and ones that I had to get down out of my head even so I could sleep tonight. They are questions that I will even forget asking myself if I don't re-read them later, which another reason I want to write them down. And they are questions I will ask myself again whenever I see this movie playing or am reminded of it in conversation. Before I go to bed, I'm going to listen to "Keep Breathing" by Ingrid Michaelson. Ironic how I can return to the same music for similar situations, huh?

i pledge allegiance to... ?

2008-07-23T20:24:00.003-04:00

Not only is it time for me to find consistency in writing again, but it's time to get my focus back on my spiritual journey. That is so hard for us isn't it? Especially in the comforts of America. I vividly remember reading about a pastor who met with a group of other pastors from all over the world in Jamaica one summer and how he was taken back that pastors in Africa said that they prayed for American Christians daily. He wondered what they prayed for, and they replied quite quickly that they knew it was harder to be a Christian in America than in Africa because when you have everything you need and can fix the common cold with cheap medicine, you don't need God. Interesting thought...

And that thought is continued in a book that I'm reading now by Peter J. Gomes called The Scandalous Gospel of Jesus. Speaking on Paul's commentary in Philippians 3 about "our citizenship is in heaven", Gomes has this to say.

If, as Paul says, our citizenship, the place where we really live, is in heaven and not elsewhere, then that is where our loyalties are meant to be placed, first and last. Taking Paul seriously here works when Christian believers are a barely tolerated minority caught up in the persecutions and deprivations of a secular world; when Jews, Greeks, and Romans all regard Christians as not belong to the, then it is both wonderful and plausible to have a place to which one does belong. It is, however, far more difficult to claim heaven as one's primary citizenship when Christians are running the world in which the Christian happens to be here and now. In this case, heaven becomes a metaphor, but as such it really cannot compete with what is going on on earth.

Perhaps all of this means that Christians who take biblical points of view seriously are not meant to enjoy power or influence in this world. Clearly, the New Testament authors never contemplated a time when the world would take its cues from the Christian sensibility; and when Christians start to run things in this world, they usually do so at a cost to their own integrity. It almost seems that Christians are not meant for worldly power, for whenever they hold it, the claims of a heavenly citizenship seem compromised; there is always the temptation to translate that heavenly citizenship into an earthly domain. (pp. 75-76)

The first thing one may get out of this excerpt is maybe Christians shouldn't be running in politics or that we should be leery of the integrity of the faith statements of our current presidential candidates, but I find a more personal examination is in order. While I'm already belong to a majority group of people, and not being oppressed or told I don't belong, how much more am I forgetting or not focusing on the allegiance of heaven in my life? Specifically to power, am I looking to gain worldly power that is compromising my desire to follow Jesus? Am I usurping power over my wife? Do I silently flaunt my role as the primary moneymaker? Do I lord over her, continuing the sin of male domination rather than faithful serving and equal partnership?

In the midst of all this, it is easy to lose sight of the values of our faith: to love God and love neighbor. That is meant to be unique in this world. But the successes of life take over so easily - and our allegiance is pulled.

It is an uneasy tension, and an understandable one in the days of early Christianity, when Christian values and those of the world were at conspicuous odds. The task of sustaining a unique Christian identity becomes increasingly difficult, however, as Christian culture melds with the prevailing culture and therefore seems to have more, rather than less, interest in making a success of life in this world. (p. 76)

So where to go from here? How do we invest in the identity we need to be investing in versus the success we are offered and have already obtained here? I'm hoping that by admitting this struggle, like many other addictions, is the first step to recovery. The subtitle of Peter Gomes' book hits this hard: "What's so good about the good news?" Compared to the good we can gain in the world, sometimes it is very hard to honestly pursue the good offered out of it.

feels like winter in the summer

2008-07-22T15:59:00.003-04:00

The way I've been feeling recently is typical of winter blues that I tend to get around late January or early February. Days get longer, activities get mundane and scheduled (and indoors), and the promise of warm weather activities is still far off. I feel gridlocked at work as I look back and forth from the stack of notes on my desk indicated what projects need to be done and my whiteboard, which is half blank because it's waiting to be used for the next project. The days feel long and when I don't accomplish as much as I set out, I feel more overwhelmed when I leave then I did when I arrived.

To make things worse, I made my second attempt to return to playing basketball at lunch time yesterday, and it was just down right painful; as painful as my last game pre-surgery. It has been since February 2007 since I played regularly, nearly 18 months and two surgeries ago! I played a couple weeks ago, despite still having a swollen knee, I was determined that I was going to "go back to normal" in my previous athletic activities: basketball and golf.

The first attempt went well. I ran fairly well, I knew my limitations, and the soreness was evidence that I still have more re-shaping to do in my legs. But no serious pain. I was encouraged. So the next week I ran one kilometer on the treadmill (one kilometer sounds farther than 0.6 miles) and only had slight pain, which was my cue to stop. Then I played golf a week later, riding in a cart, and felt great doing that, with only slight pain and a lot of soreness afterwards. It was going well - maybe I could return to consistent semi-athletic competition regularly.

But yesterday killed that for me. I tried to fight through the early pain. "It's just stiff, it will loosen up," I told myself. The middle of the time I was realizing that maybe it wasn't just stiff, and by the end, I was just ready to throw in the towel. After showering and hobbling back to my office, I just felt a wave of internal anger fill me. I just don't understand why my knee won't heal like I was told it would. Twice told this. I'm 31 years old and I can barely climb a flight of stairs. My 21-month-old daughter can walk stairs better and faster than me.

The emotions yesterday were just as overwhelming as my seemingly endless projects. And it just re-iterated just how much I need to be in community focusing on Jesus and other people but myself. But it's pretty damn hard to sometimes, but I knew that already. I think Jesus said it was as hard as a camel going through the eye of a needle. Despite that realization, I am fighting myself about how to handle this issue. It's a real physical ailment that causes pain daily, restricts my abilities, and fluctuates my emotions. What is the realistic expectation that I need to have? That I will never be able to play competitive sports any longer? That I'll need to have a more serious surgery, like a knee replacement? That I'll live with a swollen knee the rest of my life? I just want an answer, and I'm afraid I'll never get one. And I'm just as afraid that every season will become like winter... long, boring, repetitive, sad.

effects of the mountaintop back in the valley

2008-07-01T16:22:00.002-04:00

I have to confess, when I went into our camp week, I was still skeptical that I would return with a mountaintop high. But the week was very good, and I do feel that I came back with a renewed purpose and outlook on a number of things. After all of us slept 12+ hours on Saturday night, I felt it was important to make it to church even though we missed the first service. I was hoping to continue, at least for another hour, the mountaintop effect.

But it was more than I was expecting. We saw people we had just broke bread with all week, people that we had never really seen before as we walked in and out of the church building on a given Sunday. It was a whole new experience of worship - a deeper experience, indeed a communal experience! Then later that day as we went to a graduation party of a guy I mentored a few years back, we saw people again from our camp week. I am amazed at this new found community that is springing up before us. All we had to do was go and be.

And go and be who we were is all that we did. We didn't put on a happy face, and we didn't keep ourselves hidden from others either. We just went as ourselves and found a whole bunch of other people who were being themselves and saw that we weren't all that different from them; our feelings weren't much different; our problems weren't much different. We found that a lot of other people were looking for community just like us! Seriously? Yes!

I enjoyed worship so much more deeply, even a little tearfully, than I have in the past. I know that both our pastor and worship leader were at camp, and neither had the same quality of time to prepare for Sunday as they would on a normal week, but the spirit of God was clearly alive and present in words, music, and song. Even in the valley, both literally and figuratively, the effects of the mountaintop were present.

Now as I am finishing the second day back at work, the routine of old is creeping back in. The stress levels are rising, and my headaches returning. But one thing that is still high is motivation to invest in community, to get us invested in community, and to keep our hopes high that going and being will be good for me, for A*, for us. I am praying now that God will keep that fire kindling inside us to hold onto that desire through the busy summer.

starting a week of camp

2008-06-26T21:53:00.001-04:00

written June 23...

So it’s been a long time, again, since I’ve journaled. Honestly it makes me disappointment because I know how many opportunities I have wasted when I could have been processing my thoughts and experiences. In most of those cases, I would have been much better off writing. But this week I’m given the opportunity to process my thoughts and experiences, as we are at a week of camp with our church. It’s a new experience for A* and I. We came mostly on a whim and a hope that this opportunity would help us to re-connect to people in the church, and find some new community that can be the foundation of something greater.

We have ended the first full day, though we arrived yesterday evening before dinner. I did not sleep well last night, so I thought that maybe I should stay awake longer, do some reading and writing, and hopefully tire both my body and mid to be able to fall asleep more easily.

Thus far the weather has been stormy, which doesn’t allow for as much relaxation or opportunities to be outside, which would help Amelia run around and find new discoveries. There are so many times that she can run around the dining room lodge or play on the bed before it gets old for both parents and child. But the storms stopped enough to allow an hour at the lake beach, which Amelia thoroughly enjoyed playing with other children’s toys and wading in the water. Tomorrow I told her that I’d wear my swim trunks and we would go out further. That should be interesting.

I also brought my guitar and practice with the worship leader and regular vocalist, along with another volunteer to help lead worship this week. It’s the first time I’ve played with a group in 7 years. That time gap is only significant in that it is how long A* and I have been married and I stopped playing on a worship team when it was clear that A* and I had no opportunity to just worship together. It’s a decision that I would absolutely make again.

But that said, I enjoyed myself more than I expected, and while I wish I still had my calluses on my fingertips, it is well worth it. I’ve wondered if the title of this blog has lost some significance since music has taken a hiatus in my life, but then again the tune of my life need not be set to actually music – or even in a certain key or defined by individual notes. Ok, that is too deep for my brain right now.

Our first activity for the topic of the week (which is journey) was to split up our life in 3 equal parts and define the significant moments that might or could define our faith journey. This journal blog highlights well the last triad of my life, even though I’ve only been journaling for a couple years. Not much has significantly changed in that time, at least in the journey of my faith. It may have shifted or changed lanes at times, but I’m waiting (hoping?) for the next exit to take me to the next significant path. I wonder if I’ll even be aware when that occurs. Yet the more I read and more I process what faith means to me, I do get a sense that it will be a road less traveled.

I started reading a book that I expect to be really challenging to me. It is Why Christianity Must Change or Die by John Shelby Sprong, who is a fairly controversial Anglican bishop in New Jersey. (Those curious can Google him.) I don’t mind controversy; in fact I relish it because it makes me think. I have no problem disagreeing, but I also want to be sure I know why I am disagreeing. The first chapter is about saying the Christian creed with honesty based on the modern revelations of science and reality. For the most part I think that Sprong is taking almost every argument to the extreme, but the beginning of the chapter totally hooks me in:

“We believe in God…”

Beginning with these words, the corporate faith of the Christian Church finds expression in the phrases of what it calls the Apostles’ Creed. That “we” who “believe in God” is made up of many individuals. I am one of them.

I define myself above all things as a believer. I am indeed a passionate believer. God is the ultimate reality in my life. I live in a constant and almost mystical awareness of the divine presence. I sometimes think of myself as one who breathes the very air of God or, to borrow an image from the East, as one who swims in the infinite depths of the sea of God. Like the psalmist of old, I have the sense of God’s inescapableness. I am what I would call a God-intoxicated human being. Yet, when I seek to put my understanding of this God into human words, my certainty all but disappears. Human words always contract and diminish my God awareness. They never expand it.

The God I know is not concrete or specific. This God is rather shrouded in mystery, wonder, and awe. The deeper I journey into this divine presence, the less any literalized phrases, including the phrases of the Christian creed, seem relevant. The God I know can only be pointed to; this God can never be enclosed by propositional statements.

The more I journey into this faith we call Christianity, or the Way as the very first followers of Jesus called it, the deeper, the less concrete, the more vast, and yes, more mystical, it all becomes. It is like, as Donald Miller spoke in an interview of his appreciation G.K. Chesterton’s viewpoint, like swimming in the infinite. I kind of like it, even though I know that I don’t really know a darned thing.

lemon blend

2008-06-06T12:23:00.005-04:00

The past month has been a blur filled with an incredibly overwhelming month of work, physical therapy, and late nights of work, and oh yah, hockey. Through all that, as I have said many times here before, journaling here would have helped me get through the stressful month so much better, but unfortunately, I did not put that into my priorities. [sigh]

But that isn't to say that I wasn't writing. I wrote a lot, for a book chapter on my thesis research that became a journal article a year and half ago, and within the next 6-9 months will become a new book chapter. I can certainly be proud of that, but I would much rather be here writing about life, spirituality, and processing my thoughts better so that when I go home each day from a packed day in the office I am focusing completely on my wife and daughter, and not about what I need to do tomorrow or even later that night when they go to bed. Spending 2 hours three days a week with PT and the commute to PT did not help my ability to be productive, or really less stressed. Productivity seems relative these days.

Speaking of relatives, a couple of weeks ago A* and I have my cousin P* over for dinner. He's hitting that quarter-life time in his life (a time that was huge for A* and I - definitely recommend reading Quarterlife Crisis) and we wanted to hang out with him. We haven't had a chance to interact with him much since my aunt and uncle moved out of the area. I was curious how Amelia would take to him because most times she takes a while to warm up to people. But she took to him fast and wouldn't let him have a moment to himself. She was leading him around the house, bringing him books to read, and toys over to play with him. It was great to see how comfortable she was with him, and good to have my cousin over to hang out with us.

During our conversations, P* brought up a specific memory of his, that I knew perfectly for myself. He said that it was a constant that he could go into Grandma and Granddad's house, go into the fridge, and pour yourself a glass of lemon blend, a drink made from some lemon concentrate mixture my grandparents had in a gallon container. It was a popular choice of us grandkids for our beverage choice for dinner times, unless our parents pre-empted that with milk. No matter when we had, we all drank it, including the adults, who would sometimes have it as "half-and-half" which was half lemon blend and half unsweetened ice tea.

Since we had P* over for dinner a couple weeks ago, the phrase "lemon blend" has been going through my mind a lot, helping my thoughts return to a happy place of my childhood. Sometimes, as all of the stress of balancing the physical and emotional requirements of working, and being a husband and father, it is good for me to think back to my grandparents and picture the foundations of who I am. For it is surely their love that laid the foundation of my life and any ability I have to be a husband and father.

I know that A* has "lemon blends" stories of her own, and I'm hoping that we can pass on these types of stories to Amelia, and hopefully she'll develop her own stories to hold onto.

faith re-affirmed through infant baptism

2008-05-03T22:30:00.003-04:00

Next Sunday, Mother's Day or Pentecost (depending on which is a more important label for you), A* and I will be having Amelia baptized. She'll probably be the oldest child baptized, but that's ok. It took awhile for us to determine whether we would have Amelia baptized or not, in the church or with a small group of family and friends, or whether we'd be sticking around Bethlehem and First Pre s long enough to be worth it. But for various reasons we decided to do it. The requirement of infant baptism at First Pres is that the parents go through a Saturday morning seminar. They do them quarterly for the baptisms scheduled over the coming months, and we went to ours today.

I wasn't really sure what to expect. The membership process wasn't all that thrilling for us given that most of it was introduction to what is general about the Christian faith and specific to being Presbyterian. I expected much of the same for this, but I was quite surprised and uplifted that it was more when it wasn't. What I expected was a list of logistics for the service in question, the theological list of reasons we do infant baptism, and a brief "tell us why you are wanting your child baptized" Q & A. We sat at tables of 6, usually 3 couples, and the pastor of children's ministries discussed of few things and then posed questions for us to discuss at our table and then with the group at large. What surprised me was that the discussion and questions were helpful for us to be reminded of God's initiation into our lives (not our initiation to Him), God's promises to us (not our promises to Him), and the role of the church community in support of us as parents (not the role of the church to teach our children in lieu of us). The distinctions are important, and the reminder is grace to my soul.

The first question we discussed was what value we want to be sure we have taught our child by the time they leave home. At first that seemed so odd given that Amelia is only 19 months. But the pastor made a great point after our discussion that if you don't know where you are going on this journey of parenthood, you'll never get there and especially know how to find out when you are lost and where you should be going. She had a great point - I never thought of it that way. So it made me think hard about what has been most important to me since I left home, and that is worship. Worship has been that center that I can return to, in highs and lows, to help me to re-focus on Jesus. I definitely want to pass that on to Amelia.

The bulk of the discussion for the rest of the seminar was about the three questions asked during the baptism sacrament, which are do you profess your faith in Jesus, do you promise to live out that faith, and does the church promise to support the parents of those bringing their children to baptism. The first two questions were important for us to process, and what was great about the focus is that there is a strong recognition that no one in the room was expected to be at a certain stage of the journey of faith. The faith journey is layered, and everyone is surely going to be at a different layer, even within couples. Even to the point of what faith in Jesus means tangibly to one may mean something completely different to another. The key to this process again was a reminder that it is God who starts this process, not us, and we bring our children to baptism to affirm God's promises and be a witness that we have responded to God's initiation of faith. The key separation of infant versus believer's baptism which I found so comforting was that we are bringing our children into the community held by God's promises because we are in God's family. Those promises are held for them now, not just when they are able to respond to God's initiation in their lives. This baptism puts the focus completely on God and His promises, and not on the person baptized. That's pretty cool, I think.

What I also received from this time was a sense of freedom in our faith to be in the place where we are. It was a chance to evaluate what I gleaned from my childhood about faith, specifically the faith of my parents, and how that was positive or negative to my journey. I felt comforted in my uneasiness about not wanting to teach Amelia in the same ways I was taught, which was more about obligation than relationship. I received confirmation that our decision to cease the pretense of saying grace for the sake and obligation of saying grace was not selfish, but a meaningful and respectful decision.

And the discussion about reading the children's Bible with Amelia was especially uplifting because I learned more about how the children's Bible, at least the one our church provides, is written, which is in a way so that the child learns that they, too, can be part of the stories God is telling us. It is written to be relational, not just a list of rules and obligations that we can so easily find, but rather a way for them to participate in God's story at their developmental level. It's also an opportunity for us to re-learn some of the truths in those stories we may have forgotten or skewed based on our past experiences. But by relating as parents to our children with and through these biblical stories, we are participating in the relationship God has initiated with us, even when we don't even know it, and showing them that God is already in relationship with them, too.

Quite frankly, it is the faith reaffirmation that I needed; it was the safe faith reexamination I needed, as well. And I hope that Amelia reaps the blessings of mercy and grace from A* and I to hold onto when someday she leaves our house to venture on her own faith journey.

when was the last time I truly worshiped God?

2008-04-29T14:17:00.005-04:00

I'm trying to re-add to my daily routine some of blogs I used to keep up with. My goal in that, while not work-related, is that it will keep me fresh during the work day so that I can be more productive. Because of the large numbers of projects on my desk I often get gridlocked between 2, 3, or 10 of them that seem to have the same priority. Sometimes, taking a step back and reflecting on something more meaningful, at least spiritually, to me. There is an interesting video here about worship.

The video makes me wonder about when was the last time I truly worshiped God? The video implies that it doesn't have to be in church, and I would tend to agree. More often than not, I think I worship least at church, if I really thought about when I truly worship. As I think about this for a moment, I can picture in my mind the praises A* and I make about the blessing of our daughter to our lives. I think about the dinner we shared with friends Sunday night, and receiving the videos taken of Amelia reacting to a balloon deflating and flying around her. But when was the last time I have I really poured my heart out in worship of God?

Honestly, I just don't know.

I feel more grown up, or is life just passing me by?

2008-04-24T15:16:00.005-04:00

Over the last couple of months, and specifically the last couple of weeks since my last post, I'm realizing that I am starting to feel a bit more grown up, yet it feels more neutral than anything. In some ways, I've been taking life more seriously in that I know that I have a lot of projects at work to do so I want to work hard in the hours I'm in the office so that I don't bring work home. I'm taking my physical therapy more seriously so I can get back to some recreation, even if it isn't what I was doing before I turned 30. Wow - I just realized that since I turned 30 sixteen months ago that I've only played basketball for 6 weeks (got hurt), and I haven't played golf at all! (because I got hurt. Yahoo even killed off my golf handicap! I'm also taking home life more seriously, trying to be more conscious of what I'm doing at home, like NOT sitting on couch watching PTI, but rather trying to have as much of a conversation with A* as I can before Amelia is overly eager for me to read her a book or take her outside or color at her table.

These are positive in a lot of ways, but at the same time, I am having a very difficult keeping up with everything going on around me. So it makes sense that my neutrality towards feeling more grown up is that I wonder if I'm just getting into routine and losing opportunities to renew my passions, my interests, and enhance the emotional elements that make me glad to be alive and thus make each of the three areas above, specifically being home, more fruitful.

For example, last fall I started to subscribe to RSS feeds of blogs that I wanted to try to keep track of. It comes right to my email program. Generally I get about 100-200 emails a day, mostly from various community listservs and log files and then, of course, real business and some personal emails. So it started to become common for me to let the RSS feeds stay put for a day, or two, or a week. Now I have back logs of 119, 39, 2, 17, 8, 4, 20, 7, 159, 43, and 55 different posts from feeds. Some of the lower quantities are weekly feeds rather than based on when a post was made, but that is 473 posts that I used to read regularly that fueled my interest levels or push my spiritual thinking in different ways that I'm losing traction on.

For someone who never liked to read as a child or teenager, I soak up just about anything I get my hands on that keeps my interest - and all of these blogs generally do just that. So in some way the person that I have become, the person who has been changing spiritually and emotionally through reading, thinking, journaling (blogging), and living has basically be slumping with just trying to do the last part of living. A lot of people know that we just can't try to live but rather something has to be a spark, the fuel to our fire, or we're just going through the motions. I'm not quite there yet, but I know I'm close, especially since I just had to return one of the best books I ever started reading back to the library (more than a week overdue) and I didn't finish it.

The problem I see now in front of me is that I don't know if it can change. That blog posts aren't going to read themselves, my job projects won't complete themselves, and my book chapter due in 3 weeks certainly isn't going to research and write itself. Something has to give because right now I feel like a lot of things are passing me by. I cannot keep up with this pace, and I want something to change. The question now is does that change need to be small or drastic? Because now again, like the previous two months during my accidental sabbatical, there are possible opportunities in front of me and my family that could be either small or drastic. What to choose - at least what possibilities to commit to investigating - is no easier. Just as importantly what is God saying to me/us through all of these experiences?

My friend and I had an interesting discussion about that yesterday at lunch. He talked about how often he has discover God's leading and directing him not just by present opportunities, but in hindsight of the experiences leading up to a difficult situation. And mostly it is by hindsight that he has seen even decision that don't seem to be spiritual in nature being led by God. That encourages me that God won't let me screw life up royally for me and my family, but really is leading me/us through the experiences we are having.

One of those areas is still community. After many frustrating attempts at investing in some of the community opportunities in our church culture, we are still in the same place as before. We see this as either an opportunity/challenge to start completely over somewhere without anything to lean back on (i.e. church we keep coming back to) or to take control of our community building by starting our own group. The latter option we've tried in the past, had some success, and then failure. The former is a bigger risk and we haven't really tried it yet.

The same is true for my in my job. I know that I cannot keep this pace up much longer, and I'm doubting if I can really even keep it up for the next year. I've taken as much control as I can in trying to initiate change, but the gridlock of my job extends not just in my projects vs. time, but also in how relief can be obtained. So is a fresh start somewhere without anything to lean back on the only option?

As a child, I just wanted to grow up; stop eating at the kids table, and play games with the adults. In high school, I enjoyed conversation with my teachers outside of the classroom - finding it more meaningful than the locker-room talk during gym or sports. But now as an adult, I want things to slow down, take their time, and find some respite from the constant decisions. At least within the time it took me to write this post, I have had a few minutes to catch my breath (physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually).

unintentional blog sabbatical during the most crucial decision of our lives (so far)

2008-04-08T17:19:00.004-04:00

It's been about two months since my last meaningful blog post and, sadly, the last two months may have been completely different - or at least somewhat less stressful - had I taken time to blog. The beginning of the unintentional sabbatical was a trip to New England for a job interview. It was a job interview that I hadn't expected to get because I hadn't heard anything for a period of time after I submitted my resume. The interview went very well; I had good feelings about their response, and I had solid information and reactions to take under consideration of my interest. Another interview at another university was snowed out; a business trip followed the next week; a phone interview after that; and the aforementioned snowed-out interview was subsequently canceled by me.

After a couple more weeks, I got an unofficial offer. It was exciting - yet we had to wait for the official offer. I expected to get it by mail within a week or two. It took nearly 4. That made plans to go up to New England with A* more difficult to make because we didn't want to invest in a trip without knowing the terms of the offer. In the middle of my waiting, my second knee surgery occurred, from which the recovering is going fine, but slow. A couple days before my knee surgery, though, I received another offer, not for a job but for a national research project for the library industry led by one of the top universities in the country that will include other top universities. I'm in the library industry, with ambitions for career growth in that same industry, and now I've been offered to a chance to work on a major project with some of the top decision markers and researchers in libraries.

At first, it seemed like a no-brainer. With the delay in the official offer becoming longer, I had an opportunity to pursue fixing one of the reasons I looking to move on with this project. And it worked, but I was still unsettled. And then the real offer came - and then I was REALLY unsettled. I was sick with the stress, the agony, and the compression of having to make this decision over a weekend - sight-unseen of the location for the job offer. We were back and forth, 50/50, trying at all costs to not make non-decision by letting the opportunity pass us by.

What I knew all through my lack of blogging is that the spirituality of my blogging was evident in my poor handling of the stress and my lack of confidence of a decision. I mean that had I been blogging I would have been more in touch spiritually with how to handle this process and make a process more confidently. I need this - in a spiritual sense this is like breathing for me, for my mind, for my spirit.

In the same way, I'm learning this weekend while at this users vendor conference that maybe I should being doing a similar thing for my professional spirit. I've already recognized that I'm at the point where I need to prepare for career growth, more leadership, and a shift from the gridlock pattern I'm in now. Maybe if I spending more time reading and thinking and writing about the things that are interesting in the library systems industry, the things that can push the industry into future, then maybe I won't be so down about the gridlock pattern in which I find myself.

At this conference, I gave two presentations on an open-source application that can be a huge deal for libraries, specifically academic libraries like the one that I work for. Important executives and staff from the vendor who participates in this conference attended my presentations. This application is directly a competitive application to one that the vendor is pushing to the users, so I was expected a little backlash, or a least a coolness, in the conversations with these executives. Instead it was excitement and note-taking - that we were doing things either they can't do or realized they need to do. The CTO was especially warm and said that he felt in partnership we could streamline the custom programming my team has been doing with the vendor-related part of the project. That's just awesome.

The conference ended this afternoon with a high-level, somewhat-motivational, talk by the VP of Innovation. These talks tend to be the head in the clouds type of talk, one that you can say "Yes, that sounds good, but you can never do it." The vendor, at least in the last couple of years, seemed to have their head in the sand more than their head in the clouds. But the balance between this VPs innovative thinking and what is realistically deliverable is finally starting to show, and maybe, just maybe, progress will be made. The talk, at least, motivated me to get on here while I wait for the party to start - a party for which I'll only get to be at for 20 minutes until I have to get my shuttle to the airport. But that's enough for my 1 beer and a few bites of food.

The CTO of the vendor conference I'm at right now just made a point to stop to say goodbye. That's awesome. But it's time for me to go home, get out of the clouds myself, and give my family lots of kisses and hugs.

middle class America

2008-02-18T10:37:00.003-05:00

I found this movie to be very interesting. Does Drew Carey have a point? Or are we doomed? Or do we just need to stop over-indulging on material things to feel more confident economically?

Starting to read The Good Book

2008-02-09T10:40:00.000-05:00

I started a new book the other day. I have been feeling like I need to be challenged more in how I read the Bible, or more precisely to read the Bible. While having an email conversation with my aunt about some difficult elements of our faith, she recommended that I read The Good Book by Peter J. Gomes. Reverend Gomes has since 1974 been the minister of the Memorial Church of Harvard University. You can find some of his biography on Wikipedia. I think his background is quite fascinating and diverse in its own right.

Opening to the table of contents, I could already tell this book could be just what I need. It is divided into three parts:

Opening the Bible

What's It All About
A Matter of Interpretation
The Bible in America

The Use and Abuse of the Bible

Hard Texts and Changing Times
The Bible and Race: The Moral Imagination
The Bible and Anti-Semitism: Christianity's Original SIn
The Bible and Women: The Conflicts of Inclusion
The Bible and Homosexuality: The Last Prejudice

The True and Living Word

The Bible and the Good Life
The Bible and Suffering
The Bible and Joy
The Bible and Evil
The Bible and Temptation
The Bible and Wealth
The Bible and Science
The Bible and Mystery

This is exactly the kind of evaluation I want to go through in my view of the Bible, for my faith in God, and for my life period. While I can't wait to dive into the book, I realize that there is a lot of depth to the book so I must take my time. And hopefully my journaling here through the book will make it more alive in my heart, tilling the soil so that it can be good soil that bears fruit.

In lieu of a foreword to the book, Rev. Gomes uses an Apologia. He captures my attention quickly, though with some hesitation, by stating this book is not unlike the apologetics written by the fathers of our faith past. But my hope is solidified when he defines his apologia this way:

My apologia is an argument in favor of taking the Bible seriously, and it is addressed in part at least to those who either trivialize it or idolize it, and who thereby miss its dynamic, living, and transforming quality. It is an argument addressed as well to those who are in search of spiritual and moral grounding in their chaotic lives, and who may have heard of the Bible but know littler and want to know more. It is also an argument that condemns the lazy, simpleminded approach that many are tempted to take when considering the serious matter of Bible study and interpretation. Finally, it is also an invitation to enter into the Bible and let it enter into us, all of us, and most particularly into those who have been excluded from the faith of the Bible by the use of the Bible. (p. xi)

That is exactly what I desire. What I especially like is that there is no shying away from the inevitable confrontation that occurs when reading, studying, and interpreting the Bible - at least if you are not being lazy about your approach.

More quotes that hit home to me:

In my view, to be a Christian is by definition to be an apologist, for not only are you obliged to present your view to a world that is no longer, if it ever was, Christian, but people want to know why, in such a world, you would continue to hold allegiance to something so out of harmony with it. (p. xii)

One offers one's own life as the immediate and ultimate "explanation," remembering that Christian truth is advanced not by postulates and formulas, the bone-crushing logic of arguments point and counterpoint, but in the living flesh of human beings. (p. xii)

Jesus Christ remains the ultimate apologist for the faith not because of the sublime logic of his teaching but by the undaunted example of his life. (p. xii)

This task (writing this book on the conviction that intelligent people seemed to know less and less about the Bible) is further complicated by the fact that the Bible has become an American cultural icon with enormous influence, both symbolic and substantial. Thus, for me, the Bible and the social and moral consequences that derive from its interpretation are too important to be left in the hands of the pious or the the experts, and too significant to be ignored and trivialized by the uninformed and indifferent. (p. xii-xiii)

The last line of the last quote is a zing if I've ever read one, as well as statement of commitment required by the reader. It reminds me somewhat of the parable of the sheep and the goats (Matthew 25). Not quite as harsh a tone as Jesus, but I think the urgency of Rev. Gomes's conviction is clear and well founded.

I've already completed the first chapter, but I do need to read it again before journaling on it. I really hope this will have a lasting impression on me.

suspending logic and reason; being guided by the story

2008-01-31T23:50:00.000-05:00

We watched The Lake House tonight. This is the third time I've seen it. It might be more of a chick flick, but I'm man enough to say I like it. Because, really, it is more than that. The plot defies time, requires you to suspend your sense of logic and reason, and let the story guide you through the plot. That is exactly what I need right now. After losing our friend to leukemia last week and preparing to go to his memorial service on Saturday to being sick all week with the flu, it's a nice release from reality to be taken for a ride on an impossible story, especially one of life and love.

Sometimes I think that I need to do the same spiritually. I think that when I start to process in my mind what is happening in and around me, I need to suspend logic and reason and try to allow God's story guide me through the plot. And quite honestly, I need more of that. Thinking of my friend who passed and his wife who was one of my best friends in college brings me lots of memories when I tapped in the Light that needed so logic or reason of mine. It told the story itself, through my own experiences and those around me. It was reality, one that I wonder if I would even recognize anymore. Reality now seems more and more trivial; more and more planned; more and more set in a pattern. But I desire so much more out of life - out of this spiritual journey.

The sad thing I realize at this moment is that while escaping in a movie is nice, it is only temporary. What I want is for that suspension, that guidance to be part of my story, my family's story, and reality. There is a great dialogue in the middle of the movie between Christopher Plummer and Keanu Reeves, playing father and son respectively. The father is an arrogant and famous architect recovering in the hospital from a heart attack. He is showing his son, also an architect who left for years to forget and/or forgive his father, a new design for an art museum or something like that. The father sees his son's appreciation for the inspiration of the design, for recognizing the style, and seeing something in the lighting. I'm paraphrasing, but the father says to the son something like: "It is always about the light. When we design something, we also have to check with Nature, to tap into the light. Always follow the light. Let the light show you the design." I wonder now if I can let our Light show me the design of my life - the story that I need to be guided by.

the difficulty with prayer; wordless sighs and aching groans

2008-01-18T09:19:00.000-05:00

This morning A* logged in to check for an update of our friend who is battling leukemia. As she read, she quickly asked me if I had seen the update. When I said no she told me that he hasn't responded to his last treatment (a stem-cell transplant and brand-new chemotherapy) and they are stopping treatment; there is nothing left they can do for him. We both teared up. I am still tearing up.

Our friend, J*, is 29 years old. He has a subtype form of leukemia that is diagnosed predominantly in children under 3 and adults older than 60. I've written a little about his battle before, and I just saw him on Sunday. He was a stand-out college athletic; strong and imposing. When I saw him last weekend, he looked very frail and fragile. I got to spend about 20 minutes with him before he tired out. He's been battling so hard. He asked about the team, the new coach, what I thought of some of the players. We talked about his stem-cell transplant; I asked what that white stuff was in his IV (nutrition), and how well he was able to eat (very little). I had hope when I left his room - I had seen that he was still fighting, and I could hear in his voice the humor he still had and that his spirits were up.

I met his dad that day, too. I talked with him for about 10 minutes in the waiting room because he had given J* and I some time to talk alone. It was good to meet his dad, to tell him how I knew J* and share stories of our friendship. We talked about the difficulty with prayer. His dad shared that he struggled with how to pray because he just knew too much of the medical issues; it would take an absolute miracle to save J* and that maybe he should be praying for peace and comfort instead. He commented on how hard his son had been fighting, and that no 29- year old should have to think about his life ending; as a 65-year-old himself, he said that it should be him evaluating those things.

I have a lot of difficulty with prayer even if I wasn't feeling broken over my friend's battle. Prayer has never come naturally to me; liturgical prayers feel too scripted and spontaneous prayers feel too much like BS. I often feel a challenge that my faith just isn't present enough or that I don't really believe period. I imagine that is a mixture of reality and temptation. But I find some peace in a middle area between the two types of prayer in Romans 8, specifically in the leading lines to the oft-quoted Romans 8:28:

Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God's Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don't know how or what to pray, it doesn't matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. (The Message translation)

I cannot count how many times I sigh or groan. It is so comforting to know that God's spirit really is alongside me helping and praying in and for us. Not only does it take the pressure off, but I really believe it allows me to have a more authentic relationship with God knowing that the sighs and groans of my soul as I struggle in the day-to-day are known prayers. That eliminates the need or temptation to impress the people around me with an elaborate prayer during a small group or gathering. And most importantly there is an intimacy there.

What is touching me right now as I pray through these words of scripture is that these two verses give me a bit of comfort in context with the next verse: That's why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good. I have to believe that in the lives of J*, his wife, and their two small boys. And really, I can only believe that through holding onto the two verses before it - that their groans, their sighs, their moments of tiredness in the waiting are being answered with God's spirit alongside them. J*'s wife has said as much on the website that shares their battle, and I hope they feel our spirits alongside them as well.

In my present brokenness, God help me to pray; with or without words. [sigh]

not to toot my own horn, but...

2008-01-08T11:18:00.000-05:00

I had a commentary published by the Burnside Writers Collective.

when at first you doubt, stop thinking...

2008-01-06T23:42:00.000-05:00

The title of this blog may incite one to think this is going to be a very deep post. Maybe it will be. I fear it won't, but I think that line is a good summary of the general and specific events of the last couple of weeks for me and how I should be handling and processing them. Indeed I think I need to stop thinking... and listen. Simply listen. Simply.

My mind gets cluttered with a lot of things; my hearts gets overwhelmed; when both of those happen at the same time, what comes out is pretty much a mess. A mess for me to understand, a disaster for those around me, and a complete inability for me to communicate clearly.

In general I try to keep things to myself despite my internal-ticking desire for justice and truth. It's a dangerous combination. When I see a unemotional injustice (especially against me), I have no problem speaking up, often with some force. Unfortunately many a customer service person has experience that. When I experience an injustice that hits me emotionally, I general will keep it inside because I fear that often the resulting conflict of my bringing it up will be worse than what I feel at the time. Anyone reading this is thinking, "You can only do that for so long." Yup.

When that timer goes off, the clutter spills out between my mind and heart. My intention is usually to look where I caused or assisted the hurt I feel, and I try to disarm the conversation by starting with my own confession. (I'm wondering now if that isn't just passive manipulation.) It certainly didn't work with a colleague from another department a year or so back when we ended up in a shouting match. And with more personal relationships when much is at stake, tenderness is so key, yet so quickly lost when everyone involved has been hurt in some way or another.

There was a specific time in my life, over half my lifetime ago now, when I believed that only a small number of people loved me, and none of them lived in my house. I spent some time walking alone, crying, praying, shouting, wondering (doubting) why God, ironically whose love I wasn't doubting, would put me in a place where I wasn't loved. I was a young teenager who was in conflict with himself, his parents, and his faith. But as painful as that time was I remember the peace that I felt walking alone for those hours without thinking simply singing a chorus over and over in my heart and mind. It was a chant for me, something to keep me focused on God. I remember vividly singing the lines of Place in this World by Michael W. Smith.

The questions and wondering are larger for me now; there is so much more involved. There is an aura of weightiness around what I'm feeling and what I am thinking. There is a significance that is giving me pause to realize that I must be intentional with my decisions and my actions because there is a greater effect now. It all makes me doubt early and doubt often. That builds up the clutter. I'm done with clutter. I hate it. I'm so, so tired of it. Clutter of materials, clutter of my mind, clutter of my heart. My sis-in-law wrote a good post about this coincidentally. But I want and need to stop thinking when I get into this clustered intersection of heart and mind.

In worship this morning, I was given a new chant, one that has been running through my heart and mind all day. We sang a hymn, Jesus Paid It All modernized and added to by Kristian Stanfill. The hymn speaks for itself (google it), but it is the added bridge that cleared out some breathing room for my spirit:

Oh praise the One who paid my debt
And raised this life up from the dead.

These two short lines have made it easier to not think but dwell in the vastness of their meaning. They are lines of encouragement, re-assurance, forgiveness, victory, motivation, remembrance, faithfulness, rescue, and hope. With a driving bass drumbeat and a repetitive guitar strum, I can raise my hands, listen to the words shower over my soul, let my spirit fall into His arms as He wipes my tears, holds me close and whispers simply that He knows. He knows. Simply.

resolving to live in the purest place

2008-01-03T16:06:00.000-05:00

As A* and I were watching the primetime portion of Dick Clark's Rockin Eve 2007, she asked me if I had any New Year's resolutions, and honestly I did not. This past month has been such a blur, even Christmas didn't really feel like Christmas up through the day itself. Obviously, I didn't write much here, which I find sad because that shows me just how unintentional I was through the last month. I want that to change; I want to live more intentionally.

The other day I plugged my new 3rd generation iPod nano video (that I won at my work's holiday party) into the my speakers at home and the song The Purest Place came on by Watermark. I was in a place emotionally to be moved by music (thankfully) and I was very moved by this song. I must be getting soft as I start getting comfortable being 30+ because I can't stop listening to Watermark, despite my penchant for rock, because of the depth of the words and the emotional connection of the music. As I shared some of my early thoughts with A* about why I chose this song for the new year, she commented that it is really a life resolution than just one for the new year, and I couldn't agree more. But I really can't think of a better place to start on it than the new year.

I've found a place that you can listen the song that I embedded at the bottom.* The lyrics of the song are:

Paint me with Your purity
That I'd attract majesty
When others boast in fame and gold
The purest place is where I'll go

The purest place I will draw near
Do what it takes to keep me here
In the center of Your heart
The purest place is where You are

It's not with masses, not with kings
Not in these songs or offerings
Not in this life or what it brings
The purest place is You my King

The purest place I will draw near
Do what it takes to keep me here
In the center of Your heart
The purest place is where You are

If there's such a thing as too beautiful
If there's such a thing as too wonderful
If there's such a thing as too marvelous
Jesus it's You, Jesus it's You

It's You my King, it's You my King
The purest place, is You my King ...

My favorite part of the song are the lyrics The purest place I will draw near, Do what it takes to keep me here in the center of Your heart because it shows the relationship between what I want or what I do, and what I need from Jesus. I think it is key that they are not saying "do what it takes to stay here" which would be determined by my actions, but rather "do what it takes to keep me here" which is a prayer, a request, maybe even a stronger than a request. It mirrors some psalms, doesn't it?

But there is a very clear intentionality to this song. There is an identification of what is the purest place which is nothing but the center of the heart of Jesus. There is an identification of what the allegiance is to which is nothing but Jesus our King. Over the last year, or actually since Amelia has been born, there has been a movement in my heart to the simple, to the desire of being selfless (at which I fail a lot), to the desire to be less materialistic (which I think I am making progress), and to focus more on giving away than taking in. But beyond all that, it has been a renewed journey within my soul about what is really true in my faith. I haven't always been intentional in that, but this song has definitely identified that I do indeed desire that.

Finally, as I was reading up some more about Watermark, I really liked one of the meanings of the word watermark that they use as a basis for their band name (which is really a husband/wife duo): An impression only visible when held up to the light. This is what I pray that I can indeed make an impression when I am held up to the Light and only the Light. Living intentionally for the purest place - the center of the heart of Jesus. Jesus, do what it takes to keep me here.

* - linking to this player in now way indicates association, support, or agreement with the site or user for which this player is credited.

am I living out my story? do I live in the Story?

2007-12-11T10:54:00.000-05:00

It's been so long since I've had a chance to write, and since I worked late last night, I decided I needed a break this afternoon to write now. Last week I downloaded a sermon/talk that Donald Miller gave at Mars Hill in Michigan back in November. He talked about Story, re-enforced how the Bible is really a narrative, yes - a story, about God and God's love. He compared the Biblical narrative to elements of Story that people teach, specifically he used a famous movie writer whose seminar class Miller and a friend took.

Miller was making some good points while using the story of Joseph from Genesis about how God uses story effectively much in the same way the entertainment we watch on TV or in movies does today. There is conflict, this is a hero, there is a turn of events from good to bad to good. There is suspense, climax, resolution (or sometimes not), and not least important a human interest. If a story is not interesting, it isn't going to last for the reader or viewer.

Miller also discussed how when he tries to write a story that sometimes the characters take a path of their own despite what he sets out to write. Even though he wants the story to go one direction with a certain character doing this, often when he gets into the writing pattern the characters go a whole different direction, the plot changes, and he has to work harder or differently to get them to the place he wants them to go. He wondered aloud in his talk that this must be how God sometimes feels. He wants to take people someplace and they keep choosing not to follow what he says, so he steers them a different way or makes them wander for awhile until they follow him again, but then they turn away again. That situation plays out over and over again in the Bible. And if we are all honest with ourselves, it continues to play out in our own lives.*

And that's what I think is so interesting about his talk - we are really part of the Story, or even a story within the Story. But maybe most of us don't realize we are part of the Story? Maybe we think that we are just trying to find the five things that will make us happy; the three things we need to accomplish in our lives to be complete; the one thing that will answer that most longing question in our soul. Maybe we think we are insignificant and there is no Story we are part of. Maybe we don't think there is anything interesting in our lives. Donald Miller says to all of those that yes, we are part of a Story - a grand Story - and following Jesus will let us be a more exciting part of the story.

You can listen to the talk yourself, but one example he gives about someone's story is a friend of his who is an integral member of the Blood:Water Mission organization. This example in his talk is a great connection to us. A* and I give to Blood:Water Mission monthly; they raise money to build freshwater wells in Africa because it is well documented that many, many of the diseases that plague the people of Africa can be staved off or even removed from them with just having access to fresh water.

This friend of Miller's works really hard to keep this organization running. Donald Miller said that she has a great story. She has worked herself so hard for this cause that she has been hospitalized due to stress. Miller says that maybe he should tell her this isn't worth it to go to these lengths - that her life is too valuable. But the Story needs her. If she were to die suddently, get hit by a bus or something, Miller says, literally hundreds of thousands of people would die because she is dead. Maybe someone could step into her place someday, but people will have died in the transition. She is a big part of the story. Someone could tell her that her hospitalization is God closing a door, but she would say that the Story requires her to break through the door and keep going. That is commitment to the Story.

The connection to us is that Blood:Water Mission sent those who support them a CD of Christmas music performed by recording artists who also support Blood:Water Mission. Inside the CD cover there is a small summary of the impact Blood:Water Mission has had in 2007:

256,100 people benefited
244 total US supporting campaigns and events
4000 total individual donors

We are one of those 4000 people. I don't take pride in that statistic to say look at us - we are giving. Honestly, we don't yet give a full tithe. But I do feel honored to be part of that number who have decided that something like fresh water is good for everyone, especially those that have the least. I am glad that I am a part, even a small part, of that story. And actually, I want to be an even bigger part knowing that.

Which leads me to this somewhat ordinary and regular day in my life. There doesn't seem to be much story in it. I got up this morning, with a little extra sleep-in time granted by Amelia not awaking as early. I showered, I ate breakfast, I kiss my ladies goodbye, and I went to work. I had a meeting, I accomplished a couple daily goals, made some important phone calls, discovered a hidden problem, fixed it, added a new feature for one team in my organization, and started to set the parameters of a new project. Hidden within those boring elements are commercials of story - a conversation here and there, an analysis of possible conflict, a joke, and a loud re-playing of the worst rendition of O Holy Night anyone has ever heard that I got (again) in an email. But is it enough to keep my attention focused on the Story? Not always. Maybe rarely. Because it seems I'm not really living out my story, nor living in the Story.

I ordinarily don't find mystical or emotional motivation from Christmas songs, but this version of Silent Night by Christopher Williams from the CD we got from Blood:Water Mission is having that impact. The words are Silent Night - almost everyone knows the words. The music is Christ The Lord Is Risen Today, an Easter hymn. Within the Story, these two songs should be connected like Christopher Williams has. The Story should motivate me not to separate the birth from the resurrection, for Jesus came to do that very thing. So maybe I should be making those same connection in my story, in my life within the Story.

* - For an interesting conversation about how God/Story in today in reaction to tragedies, take a look at this post by Nick.

I am thankful for best friends

2007-11-21T23:54:00.001-05:00

About 18 months ago or so, our best friends moved away. They had talked about this possible move for awhile, and we understood (in our heads) that it made sense for them while not-so-secretly hoping (in our hearts) that they wouldn't move. Shortly before they made the final decision to move, we spent a wonderful weekend trek to New Hampshire and Boston, racing the first snow storm of the season to our destination (the snow storm won), and tasting lots and lots of cookies. Little did we know that weekends like that would be how our times together would continue.

Our best friends stayed with us for a couple of days before heading up north to his old homestead. The two A&T's back together, with an addition each, picking up like we still live in the same town. I'm glad that our friend T* made that comment. It made our hearts feel good. Thankful. We talked of the future, how this could become another tradition for us, like maybe a vacation again together every other year like we did this past summer. That would definitely be nice, to see them twice a year at least, hopefully each time picking up again like we still live in the same town.

As we watched them leave, I was shaken about just how quickly the loneliness set in. The loneliness we felt on the long drive back from NC this summer, and the loneliness we feel when weeks go by without talking on the phone to them. The loneliness we are getting used to - that we will never like. But that just reminds me even more that I am thankful for best friends. Even though I miss them so, so much.

Lafayette Sucks!

2007-11-16T10:11:00.000-05:00

Yah, that's right! Lafayette sucks! Today is the eve of the most played football rivalry in Division I. Lehigh hosts the 143rd playing of this great football rivalry tomorrow. Lafayette has won the last 3 and 4 of the last 5. When I was a student, we were the first class in a long stretch to have won all 4 Lehigh-Lafayette games played, the first of those 4 ending with a one-handed catch in the back of the end zone in OT with only dusk lighting. If Lehigh loses tomorrow, it will be the first time since 1950 that Lehigh has lost 4 Lehigh-Lafayette games in a row (thanks to LehighFootballNation for this fact).

The Lehigh Marching 97 marched and played in Linderman for the first time since I've been here as staff. The acoustics in the Reading Room were awesome. My ears were ringing during and after their playing.

While we won't be attending because there's no way Amelia would survive 3 and a half hours in 42 degrees and strong winds, we'll be tailgating with our friends and watching the game in the comfort of our living room. But it will be fun when Amelia is old enough to go to the game, if she wants to.

PBS did a wonderful documentary on this great rivalry, and there is a good book about it, as well.

Go Lehigh! Lafayette sucks!

seriously, I'm going to write... it's just sometimes hard to think

2007-11-15T23:19:00.000-05:00

No, I haven't joined the picket lines of the screen writers. That isn't the reason for my failure to write. The biggest reason is that I've had a really big idea for an article to write, hopefully suitable for the Burnside Writers Collective. I'll definitely write about it here, too, but if it comes to words properly, I'm hoping the BWC will use it. Twenty-two years ago this month, a cousin of mine was murdered on a college campus. My aunt and uncle had to traveled many, many miles to the parole hearing of his killer, and the email that my aunt sent reporting on the news has struck me in a way that has fostered some new thoughts inside of me. I've barely been able to talk about it because my thoughts are so scattered, but I do need to put thoughts down in words soon.

My aunt started a sentence off with "Please know that while we are relieved and grateful to be given 3 full years of freedom from dealing with this life sentence we have been handed..." (italics mine). "dealing with this life sentence we have been handed." I've never realized that while they have been the victims, and my cousin's killer was given a life sentence in prison, they, too, have been given a life sentence. That single line provoked a myriad of thoughts and questions in my head and heart, and my aunt has been gracious to read them and respond, and more questions have come from that. I know more about my aunt's faith through the email conversations we've had about this and I really do think this could be a good article if I am able to get it out right.

Of course work always seems to get in the way, but it has been good to feel productive. I just wish that I was sometimes as productive writing here as I am at work. But I should be not just be writing about the tough and serious stuff, I do need to write joyful and fun things, too. Like this news I almost missed today while surfing CNN.com. Paige Davis is coming back to Trading Spaces! It makes this picture (right) relevant again! Seriously. We pretty much stopped watching Trading Spaces after TLC didn't renew Paige's contract. It just wasn't the same. But I bet it rebounds - I hear the ratings have sunk. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to be all like "I love Paige Davis" about this. It's just that she seems so friendly and made the show good. And she was so nice to pose for pictures. These were taken May 2004 while Trading Spaces was doing a show near Quakertown, PA of two families getting their first home through Habitat for Humanity. It was so cool! Anyone living near Bethlehem want to apply to be the show with us?

we should all be this uncertain

2007-11-01T09:29:00.000-04:00

I wanted to write about this yesterday, but I got on a roll while I was catching up on my work last night; since that doesn't happen often, I wanted to let it be and let it roll. On Tuesday, I got to go to a intimate "concert" and Q&A session with Susan Werner, a singer-songwriter who is known for her jazzy, folksy music (fantastic musician) and her sharp, witted, and often satirical lyrics. The news article Lehigh published internally (because this wasn't offered to the public) was that Susan "will present selections from her socially conscious, contemporary gospel album “The Gospel Truth". Fortunately for my expectations, I did my homework and listened to the samples of the album on her website. While the music is definitely in the gospel style, I discovered quickly that Susan calls herself "an evangelical agnostic" "dedicated to sharing the gospel of uncertainty." The dripping irony in her words, and especially the tone of her voice, as she talks about in person literally brought a smile on my face.

Werner explained to the students, for whom the presentation was really for, and the rest of us who were just fortunate to be given the opportunity to listen and talk that she has one foot in and one foot out of the church. She was raised in a large Catholic family, struggled with effects of that (more on that later), spent time as a "whiskopalian - a combination of whiskey and episcopalian", moved on to be a "crystal methodist" which was very difficult (said with tongue-in-cheek), and finally came out to be an agnostic. She described her life of uncertain beliefs as being actually a very happy place, being able to live in the here and now and not worrying about what is to come.

She started out the performance with a song called "(Why is Your) Heaven So Small" which uses Appalachian-style gospel singing it seems to the proselytizer who is condemning everyone to hell. But the question throughout the song is "why is your heaven so small?" (italics mine), answering her own question with:

you say you know you say you've read
that holy bible up on your shelf
do you recall when jesus said
judge not, lest ye be judged yourself

for i know you'd damn me if you could
but my friend, that's simply not your call

Quite a challenge, and brings up questions to me similar to what I asked in my last post after I watched the Tibetan Buddhist mandala ritual and ceremony. Clearly this song was derived, at least in part, by the perception that Christians are mainly judgmental rather than loving. But the most interesting part of this song to me is how much the word "your" screams with emphasis. It's not about God's heaven, to the man shouting, it's about his own heaven-view.

From the song "Sunday Mornings" which described the scene of getting a family ready for church, piling into the car, and walking down the aisle late (!) is maybe one of the most common and identifiable memories of many people who grew up in the church. Even deeper in the song, Werner explained to a student question, is the struggle her brother had growing up being "different" and even more struggles her parents had when the church offered no help or guidance on how to love their son who was so "different" essentially (and maybe clearly?) telling them there was no place for him within their walls.

There are plenty of questions asked, situations described, and mostly statements of uncertainty that should pose a challenge to us, especially ones who are following Jesus. While Werner calls herself an agnostic, for me there is a level of humility modeled in her songs that I want to grab as my own. And yes, even uncertainty is something I think is good to grab onto, as well. Because isn't that what faith is about? If there wasn't any uncertainty involved, it would be called rationalization, or even stronger a logical proof. The latter is what pushes out the judgment of our hearts onto the others who are uncertain and looking. The former should pull us to love as Jesus loved. Just as Werner writes to the man shouting that people are going to hell, "well i know you'd damn me if you could, but my friend, that's simply not your call," it is good for me to realize that we aren't the judges of another's fate. The song speaks the truth that Jesus did warn us of such tactics, and even more strongly called us to love.

I was thoroughly able to enjoy this music, these words, even if some of the ideas were foreign to me. Foreign because I've lived with this stuff all of my life, yet strangely comforting because I know that over the last 12 years I've been discovering that there is usually someone behind the curtain pulling certain strings within the church structure that is trying to promote a certain level of commitment. It isn't anywhere close to as easy as it once appeared. I realize now that I don't know anything about scripture despite memorizing gobs and gobs of verses as a kid. I am more uncertain than ever about why things happen the way they do, more skeptical about the organization we call the church, yet more desiring of the faith I can hold onto within my uncertainty, and more desiring of a community that should be the church. I want to call this humility, but even that, in this context, might sound too spiritual. Really, it is uncertainty, and a willingness to be ok with that. It just makes me desire faith more.

I'm going to end this with my favorite song, or at least the one that touched me the most, that Susan Werner sang called "Did Trouble Me". Werner admitted during the Q&A that she had no idea how much was in thing song as she wrote it, but everyone - regardless of their background or beliefs - has connected with that song all over the country. It certainly connected with me.

When I closed my eyes so I would not see
My Lord did trouble me
When I let things stand that should not be
My Lord did trouble me
When I held my head too high too proud
My Lord did trouble me
When I raised my voice too little too loud
My Lord did trouble me

Did trouble me
With a word or a sign
With the ringing of the bell in the back of my mind
Did trouble me
Did stir my soul
For to make me human, to make me whole

When I slept too long, slept too deep
My Lord did trouble me
Put a worrisome vision into my sleep
My Lord did trouble me
When I held myself away and apart
My Lord did trouble me
And the tears of my brother did move my heart
My Lord did trouble me

And of this I'm sure, of this I know
My Lord will trouble me
Whatever I do and wherever I go
My Lord will trouble me
In the whisper of the wind, in the rhythm of a song
My Lord will trouble me
To keep me on the path where I belong
My Lord will trouble me

Will trouble me...
("Did Trouble Me" from The Gospel Truth album by Susan Werner, 2007)

church celebration service - blended worship, kick in the pants sermon

2007-10-28T22:58:00.000-04:00

This morning our church had a celebration service, combining both the contemporary and traditional services into one (well, actually two - 9am and 10:30am identical services). Blended services tend to be awkward, but this was surprisingly smooth. A singing liturgical call to worship, a traditional hymn followed by another hymn set to contemporary music, and then a moving choral piece that was a trilogy of the Kyrie from the 16th-century Missa de Angelis, two south african spirituals: Haleluya! Pelo tsa rona & Siyahamba, and Amazing Grace, arranged together and called The Freedom Trilogy by Paul Halley.

And if the music was moving to the congregation, then trembling and motivating should be the descriptions for the sermon. Our new Senior Pastor gave a strong Pauline-esque kick in the pants to the church over the semi-tacit rift between the contemporary and traditional services. Rev. Halvorson preached from the beginning of Isaiah 6. He cited Isaiah's entire set of actions and responses in this passage as our model for worship, regardless of the style in which we worship.

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Master sitting on a throne—high, exalted!—and the train of his robes filled the Temple. Angel-seraphs hovered above him, each with six wings. With two wings they covered their faces, with two their feet, and with two they flew. And they called back and forth one to the other,

Holy, Holy, Holy is God-of-the-Angel-Armies.
His bright glory fills the whole earth.
The foundations trembled at the sound of the angel voices, and then the whole house filled with smoke. I said,
"Doom! It's Doomsday!
I'm as good as dead!
Every word I've ever spoken is tainted—
blasphemous even!
And the people I live with talk the same way,
using words that corrupt and desecrate.
And here I've looked God in the face!
The King! God-of-the-Angel-Armies!"
Then one of the angel-seraphs flew to me. He held a live coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. He touched my mouth with the coal and said,
"Look. This coal has touched your lips.
Gone your guilt,
your sins wiped out."
And then I heard the voice of the Master:
"Whom shall I send?
Who will go for us?"
I spoke up,
"I'll go.
Send me! (Isaiah 6:1-8, the Message)

He compared the death of King Uzziah to great historical or traumatic events in our culture, like the assassination of JFK or the terrorist attacks on September 11th. We should come to the the house of worship seeking God, but even if we don't come with that in our hearts, even if we come from a fight with our spouse in the car, or we come battered by a stormy week, or for whatever events that are happening, we need to come. And when we come, our worship needs to be authentic - God needs to be shown in His glory by those leading so that our response is confession and repentance. Our worship needs to be authentic - God needs to be shown in His mercy in that His response is forgiveness. Our worship needs to be authentic - God needs to be shown in His calling in that our worship becomes our response to His call to go to His people.

He continued that regardless of the style in which we worship, our critical comments about the other style needs to stop. These comments are divisive, they are elitist, they are unbiblical, they are untrue. What is uniting, what it humbling, what is biblical, and what is true is the way in which Isaiah shows us how to worship, not just at 9 or 10:30 on Sunday mornings, but beyond the temple walls.

Rev. Halverson's passion was clear and unmistakable. It was the first time in a long time that I remember hearing or participating in applause after a sermon, at least a sermon in a church service. I wonder if anyone disagreed with him. I hope that if anyone did, for who knows what reason, that they would stay anyway, for Rev. Halverson never once gave an ultimatum that if someone didn't like it then this isn't the place for them. Rather I heard a call to participate in the unity, I heard a desire for change, I heard a heart for the lives of the entire congregation.

For the first time in such a long time, I am having trust in the words of the person called to be the pastor. And I am desiring to return to hear more.

creation and destruction: art, faith, cancer

2007-10-26T12:36:00.000-04:00

An email from my sister-in-law yesterday kindly asked me what has happened to my writing the last two weeks. It was good to be prodded about it, especially from someone who is trying to be committed to writing more and more. The short answer is that life gets in the way, which is a little ironic because I honestly wonder how much life I can take in and appreciate without writing. Honestly, I think I am sometimes a zombie with just wandering thoughts going through the day. It is really the chance I get to write, which requires actual thinking of substance, that I can really appreciate life.

Within that appreciation of life, a friend of mine is having a bone marrow transplant today. It could even be happening at this very moment as I write. Every few minutes as I have various reminders of what is happening, I have been able to offer up a silent prayer. He has a journal that he has been writing in nearly daily since his diagnosis. It has been truly gripping to see his faith through words as he is told of his life-threatening cancer, his pondering of the statistics of survival various doctors and transplant centers gave him, and the facts from loads of research he has read. To be healed of the cancer and give him new life, there are parts of him that has to be destroyed first. To receive a transplant of bone marrow from another person, his bone marrow must be gone so that his body can take on the transplanted marrow. The cycle of destruction and creation baffles me about just how the body works and how our backwards that seems in this fallen world.

Simultaneously I witnessed this week the creation and destruction of art, specifically as a representation of faith. In the library building that I work in Tibetan Buddhist monks from the Namgyal Monastery Institute of Buddhist Studies have been creating a sand mandala. They began Monday morning and finished yesterday afternoon. It would appear to be one of the most complex pieces are art created if it were a painting, but this is creating by millions of pieces of brightly colored sand. From what little I understand of the whole process, the mandala (mahn-DAH-la) is a faith ritual that requires the strictness of discipline, and the steadiest of focus. A mandala is characterized with layers of meaning and beauty. It represents a Buddha's divine place of residence, and it's dismantling once completed signifies the temporary nature of life. These monks were invited to Lehigh because next summer the Dalai Lama himself will be a speaking and teaching for six days. And if you've followed the news recently, you'll know that China is not very happy with the United States giving the Dalai Lama a congressional medal of honor. Throughout this year there will be other events, like this one, in preparation of the Dalai Lama's event.

This morning the monks held a presentation ceremony explaining the meaning of this mandala and allowed us all to watch their dismantling process and ritual. They made a short presentation to the president of the university and some distinguished staff who played a part in their visit. They then explained that this particular mandala they created was the representation of the foundation of compassion or loving kindness. Without that, they explained, nothing further can be achieved or gained in life. They explained more about the various sections and elements within the mandala, about the each Buddha represented, about the gardens of life that encompass the walls of the divine residence, and each section of the center, shown as a flower, to represent the various characteristics of the Buddhist faith.

I was struck by the choice of this mandala to represent compassion. It seems to me that in general our culture lacks compassion in so many ways, especially within our country. Within this political year that has started, I doubt any compassion will be found in the speeches, on the TV, within the debates. Our so-called Christian leaders are seen on TV spewing words of disdain and sometimes worse, hatred, for those that they don't agree with. I think about how little compassion we can have towards each other until something terrible happens like a natural disaster. But it seems consistent with the gospel, with Jesus' own words, and more importantly his actions, that compassion is indeed the foundation that is needed for anything good to happen, for any life to spring up, for any faith to take root.

I stood and watched another person's faith be represented in art, in song and chant, in prayer. All of those elements I did not understand, yet it was beautiful and peaceful. I could not help but wonder about why these elements are lacking in my own faith, and collectively in our churches. I wonder how the evangelism I was taught in my past would fit in any way in talking with these men. I wonder how I would love these men in the compassion I am trying to learn from Jesus, and whether it would support their faith as truth or display my faith in God. I wonder if it is arrogant for me to think thoughts like "this is beautiful and wonderful, but what is the ultimate point?"

But as my own faith ebbs and flows like the ocean that covers the sand in which this artistic and faithful creation came from, and as it measures between the faith of my friend, whose body is literally going through the battle for his life, and the faith in their gods shown by the discipline and focus of these monks, I can lean on the word compassion because regardless of anything else that happens, I know that cannot know the love of God without compassion for another, I cannot gain intimacy in prayer without compassion, and I will not have true life without compassion.

in the pits with prayer

2007-10-14T21:24:00.000-04:00

This week I finished the book In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day, though it was somewhat difficult to wrap it up. It was difficult because, though we received the book from A*'s sister who suggested we read it, it was used as the basis of the final sermon series of the church we had been going to for the last year. It wasn't a great sermon series. I discovered that they had bought the sermon series to give their pastors a break for the summer of the preparation of making up his own sermons. It seemed to me that they didn't even read the book and completely missed the point. So as if mailing it in wasn't bad enough, they barely skimmed the surface of the spirituality the author of the book had intended. And they nearly ruined it for me.

But then I read this in Chapter 7: "One of our greatest spiritual shortcomings is low expectations.... Low expectations are a byproduct of prayerlessness." (p. 133, italics his) The author, Mark Batterson, is building this from Psalm 5:3 where Davids reveals "In the morning, O LORD, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait in expectation." Batterson is pointing out that David had expectations of God, and those expectations were based on his prayers to God. He expected God to hear him. He expected God to respond, hence his waiting. The next sentence after the ... in my quote above is "We don't expect much from God because we aren't asking for much."

This is very true for me. I have not been expecting much from God, and I can see why now because I don't really pray, sans right now and the times that I sit here and type in this journal. But I think there is a different type of prayer that David wrote than the prayer that I'm writing presently. I'm processing, trying to discern what is going on in my head and heart and sometimes deep within my soul. I'm not in "prayer mode" as Batterson describes David, but rather in "survival mode", which Batterson defines as "simply reacting to the circumstances around you." Prayer mode, on the other hand, is "devot[ing] yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful."

Being watchful, he explains, is a throwback to the city guards who sat at the top of the city walls to watch, scanning the horizon, looking for armies and merchant traders. Being in prayer mode likewise is seeing opportunities that are coming our way, things that God has for us, and being aware of what is coming. Batterson continues that being in prayer mode makes us proactive, knowing the God has things in store for us, and helps us to recognize the difference between human accidents or coincidences and divine providences and God-directed events. Batterson gives a number of examples of these, but I know, with my head, that those all make sense, from my own previous prayerful experiences.

But my heart and soul have been chewing on this for a few days now, fighting with the almost ironic low expectations I have that I could either be a prayer person or that God would become more real to me in prayer mode. Just as importantly, my heart is nearly desperate to get out of the mode I'm currently living, which is go to work, complain internally, and often externally, about the inefficiencies of our organization that makes it nearly impossible to accomplish anything tangible, fight through support issues that distract me from the projects that I find are my strength and enjoyment. My time at home is fruitful with my wife and daughter, but then as bedtime approaches my mind begins to seize, yet wander, due to the stresses that it knows are coming. Some nights are sleepless, or nearly so. That is not prayer mode; can't possibly be prayer mode.

I'm thinking back to our small group reading Reaching Out by Henri Nouwen and finding the prayer of my heart. I want to expect great things from God. I want to expect great opportunities that God sets up. I want to expect great family relationships. I want to search again and more fervently for the prayer of my heart. I'm thinking that taking another look through the gospels might be good; looking at what people expect from Jesus and what Jesus gives them in return. I'm waiting for a book on Matthew's gospel to come to the library that might even help me out there.... hmmm, maybe God is setting things up despite my low expectations.

I admit it was a mistake...

2007-10-12T23:19:00.000-04:00

We made a mistake, A* and I. We gave up when we should have pressed on. We folded when the situation got difficult. We lost faith. That is our conclusion about our decision to leave our small group and church nearly three years ago based on our experience back at our church this past Sunday. I've had all week to chew on this, and it has been a mistake not to write about it on Monday and move on to other things the rest of the week. But I can't sleep because of a migraine and general restlessness of my mind, so I'm writing about it now.

The church is not perfect. Not even close. There are some bad decisions being made and some good ones. There are political power plays in the shadows, some misguided, but well-intentioned motives and proposals being offered, and there is a lot of opportunity for community. There is inevitable transition with the installment of the new senior pastor on-going, too. But this past Sunday we chose to go to the early service; my motivation was to encounter our old small group friends.

We were nervous; I suspect A* was more than I, but I was nervous, too. I didn't want to show hesitation in waving or acknowledging when they saw us. I didn't want to lay back and wait for them to come to us after the service. I wanted to hit this head on and see what happens. They literally welcomed us with open arms. Both A* and I got the tightest hug from one of the women like I've never been hugged by her before. To me it was a "we missed you" hug. That type from an old friend that is so glad to see you. I hope that I'm not reading into it too much because I like that idea in my head, and my heart. One couple was missing that we expected to see. We saw them between services last week as we were coming in for the later. Turns out we flipped services this time as the same thing happened only with them coming in later this week.

We started a small group with these people by mailing out a letter to 10 couples. Three responded, two stuck with it, and another couple whom we stalked at Wegmans until I finally got the nerve to talk to them and invite them. The group clicked with the first study, a book called The Seven Conflicts by Tim and Joy Downs. Honestly, it is the best marriage book I've ever read. It's not really about conflict at all, but rather understand what it is about us that leads us into conflict, such as our presuppositions of situations based on our upbringing or our values. Any more explanation from me wouldn't do it justice. It turned out that the book helped each of us get to know each other in an open manner, allowing the safe topics like Dreams, Security, Loyalty, Responsibility, Order to be a way to share with each other who we are and in some cases how we came to be and do things the way we do. It didn't require any measure of spiritual maturity. There was no need to have a biblical background or have knowledge of how to use a concordance. It was life and sharing it with each other in community. A perfect foundation.

And that foundation is what we missed and don't really have in our current small group from the church we had been attending. I was with the kids tonight, but A* commented that she just doesn't have the connection with people in our group the way she did in our old group and was surprised to have that revealed to her on Sunday which made her feel so welcomed back. My response to her was that our friends from Sunday "got it", that this faith process is about community and doing it together and not about benchmarks of how many people you try to convert or how many days you read the Bible this week, as is pressed by our Friday group. I continued that it was why I liked the So You Don't Want to Go to Church Anymore book so much because it describes how living life together as a community is more spiritually wholesome and uplifting than a meeting that only rewards spiritual accomplishments. It goes back to Jesus not asking anyone for accomplishments; he asked them to live life with him. As A* and I discussed this further, I said that the community really needs to find that living life together is what God calls us to do. It isn't about furthering our knowledge of scripture, but living life together so that hopefully we can continue and grow in faith of a God that loves us infinitely more than we can love him.

I've been feeling for a number of weeks since I went to the nominated pastor's sermon in August that I needed to admit this mistake, as if I needed to make this a confession. It was certainly confirmed on Sunday and I think the Spirit has been nagging me throughout the week on it. The irony is that to fully embrace our re-entered community, we'll need to leave the other group. I have no problem finishing out the semester - well, I do have a problem with the study material, but that is a whole different issue. The commitment is important, but our honesty with that community about our transition will be more important. Even tonight in the brief time I spent upstairs before I went to take my turn watching the kids, one of the men asked me how going back to the church was. I was honest and said that it was good to reconnect with our old small group and it was clear that it was a mistake to leave them when we did. He seemed to accept that, which I was glad, because I was expected something along an antagonistic response which he tends to have with some of our study topics. I continued that I think it was more to do with that we didn't have the maturity or understanding of how important it was for us to struggle through what we were feeling, to hold onto what was good and work on the issues we saw, and most importantly dig in and be the community we believed it could have been.

As I write about this now, one thought is brought to the forefront of my mind that I owe one guy in our previous group an apology or confession. I don't know where is at now regards to faith, but at the time of our decision to leave he was unsure and noncommittal about following Jesus, but he was completely committed to living life in community with our group. It was the meeting elements, the study, the praying, the talking about our faith that he both felt left out of and unsure of what he believed. Within the overall mistake of leaving, I wonder if we didn't wrong him, or at the very least showed him unlove in disbanding the group at that time. I know now what I didn't before which is that small group communities are supposed to be about community: living life together where you are at. He was honest to us about where he was at, and our expectations about how community should look demanded more than he could offer. We should have been hospitable to his needs, to reference Henri Nouwen's Reaching Out. To God's credit, he still comes to church with his wife, and seems to relish being there. I don't know where he is at now, but I want to find out. I want to rekindle any chance of community with him and the others that we can have. It doesn't have to be formal. But I would like to have those friendships back in some way.

I don't know what is next or how this path will continue. I hope that it is fruitful for honestly this may be my last chance. At least this time I have no strong expectations for our church to be perfect, to meet all of our needs. But we have to find community to plug into to take what little mustard seed of faith we have left and grow into into something greater than our hopes and desires.

stuck in my head

2007-10-02T16:05:00.000-04:00

This past Sunday morning we went back to our old home church. It is ironic that we always seem to end up visiting or returning to a church from a long absence on the week that they preach about giving back to the church. It is always "the more you give, the more we can do in missions and ministry." I find it interesting how the translation gets lost from "it's all God's money anyhow" to "we can do more ourselves." But that isn't what I really want to write about.

We sang a simple song that had this repeating chorus:

Love the Lord Your God with all your heart
With all your soul, With all your mind and with all your strength

It was catchy, and I'd guess to some it might have become a little annoying. It turns out the song is Love the Lord by Lincoln Brewster (here's a sample which is a little more rockin' than we sang in church). I didn't think much of the song during or after the service, but so far yesterday and today, that line has been running through my head over and over. At first today I was getting a little frustrated that I couldn't get it out of my head, but then I remembered what I had said to A* last night at dinner when we were talking about prayer.

I have been really struggling with prayer, specifically sitting down and praying through a list of people and things. it just seems like motions to me, and that isn't what I want. I want it to be real, to be authentic, to be from my heart. I mentioned that I've tried to use the prayer Henri Nouwen suggested in the Reaching Out book:

Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner.

I haven't quite gotten it down to a repeating chant, but it does help me focus me back on Jesus regardless of the situation that I'm in. So in my remembering of my short conversation last night, I realized that this chorus repeating in my head is really the foundation of God's desire for our relationship with Him. It is part one of the greatest commandment, without which the second part (love your neighbor as yourself) is really difficult. So why should I be annoyed at this being stuck in my head. It should be my mantra, the foundation of my spiritual life. It should be in my head competing with my negative attitudes, my selfishness, my tendency to be spiritually and emotionally lazy.

So now I want to pray that I hold onto this prayer along with Nouwen's suggestion. Over and over.

I need to scream...

2007-09-20T23:33:00.000-04:00

A mistake here, another set back there, an innocent criticism one day, a confusing situation the next, a fault of mine is that I let little pieces of things like this build up inside. It's classically the thing one should not do, especially when things aren't necessarily going my way. But tonight as we were going to bed, I just felt like I needed to scream, at no one in particular, in fact I wouldn't want to scream at anyone.

I quickly knew why I got to this point, and that is in the past I was able to play out my emotional buildup on the basketball court, the golf course, or the softball field. I'd play a little more physical, run a little harder, push myself that much further and get my adrenaline pumping to release the potential toxins inside. But I haven't been able to do that because my knee hasn't been healing in the way that was expected, or at least I expected.

I am running out of therapy visits and another doctors appointment lurks ahead. Lubricating injections is apparently what is next, but I am not very optimistic that it will help. I want to hope it does. I keep pressing on with my stretching and exercises daily because I don't want there to be any doubt that I'm doing what I should be doing. And while I'm not always frustrating I'm missing another pickup game at the gym, when I grimace at the grocery store pushing the shopping cart or when I feel the sharp pinch as I'm climbing the stairs to put Amelia to bed or my knee slightly locks when I get down on the floor to play with her, that's when the real frustration sets in.

The longer I hold onto these emotions, the more toxic they will become. I'm already apathetic to our fall small group study book, I'm a little more edgy in my attitudes on some of my work projects, and I'm less patient with people than I should be. I don't like that. So while this isn't really screaming, it is getting it out there, a chance to try to release some of what is inside.