All Things Dimly Beautiful

Help getting a helping hand -- from Hamburger. . .

2007-09-14T19:23:00.000-07:00

Getting the word out about a good cause.

I'm the chaplain of the First Aid Squad of Peapack-Gladstone. The squad really needs some new cots for the ambulances. The cots are basically the beds inside the ambulances that patients ride on. The cots we currently have are at the end of their lifespan -- literally. The batteries in them go dead without any rhyme or reason and they often leave EMTs in the lurch holding patients up in the air trying to get them in the ambulance. That's not good for the patient or the EMT.

The problem is that we simply don't have the money to buy new cots. They are actually pretty complicated pieces of machinery that are really expensive. The folks at Hamburger Helper are giving out grants to help local communities, and we have put up a proposal for enough money to replace the cot.

If you guys can take just a couple minutes of your time, go to http://www.myhometownhelper.com/ViewProject.aspx?tell=1&id=31140 and leave a comment about how we should love and support our EMTs that give up so much of their time and energy to help ensure the health and safety of the town. Even if you don't live in the area, if you could just leave a comment about how it's a good idea I know all the folks here at the squad would appreciate it. We're an all volunteer squad independent of the townso we have to do stuff like this to get by and every comment makes it that much more of a chance to get some money and help us out.

So What if it Means I have to Burn?

2007-09-05T11:51:00.000-07:00

It's been ages. I'm sure my whole 1 or 2 fans out there have been in an uproar. The angry letters demanding more witticisms have been cluttering up my imagination. They really pile up in there. It has just been a while since I have had anything to really say beyond the normal prattle -- then I got a song stuck in my head and it got me thinking.

It's not a whole lot of praise music that I enjoy in my spare time outside of an actual worship service. There is one band that I really enjoy and they just came out with a new CD. One of the songs that is on said CD is about The Daniel Gang (aka Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego). The song brings up the element of that story that seems the most remarkable to me, but is often looked over. It is not the fact that the three men refused to bow down to the golden statue out of their service to God. This is an admirable act, but an act that is duplicated all over Scripture. It is not the miraculous way the Lord preserved them in the furnace they were thrown into. Again, awesome, but all over the Bible. It was one line, if you would allow me to paraphrase, that the men said. "We know that God can save us from this. However, even if he doesn't, that doesn't make him any less capable or any less the God that we worship." I always thought that was the greatest part of the story.

It is easy to follow God when he's doing everything you want him to, when he provides everything that you ask him to, or brings about the miraculous. What about the times when he doesn't? Is the fact that God doesn't bring something together the way you want it to make him any less God? Does the fact that he didn't orchestrate everything to come out great or the fact that he allowed something to happen that, to use the vernacular, just straight up sucked mean that he suddenly lost the ability to stop it?

What if, at times, we are supposed to burn? It is the hardest thing I could ever think about really. It does not leave the realm of the understandable, it's just hard because I do not want to think about it. If we burn, hell if I burn, I want to be able to sit back and understand that it still is all part of his sovereign will. I may not do so with a smile on my face, but I hope and pray to God that I do it anyway.

Let them laugh one last time

2007-06-24T19:50:00.000-07:00

This is a random one.

So I'm just sitting here enjoying myself this evening. I have spent most of the day in a sort of daze. I preached this morning, and it usually takes a chunk out of me to do so. I've been tired, but not enough to actually go to sleep. In this state I find myself watching movies on cable because TV just disappoints me lately. I find myself watching Elizabethtown, a movie I find surprisingly entertaining. Anyway, at one point in the movie there's a funeral. When the widow walks up to say something at the funeral, she tells a story about her neighbor and while I won't go into the joke, it's hilarious and inappropriate and everybody ends up eventually laughing.

So why do I bring it up? I just find myself thinking about how that is how I hope to be remembered. If something strange and bizarre took me out and there were people gathering to remember me -- I would want there to be laughter. I would want there to be somebody telling stories about cringing when I was a participant in the infamous DTS christmas caroling incident. I want stories about the time I sang "You Lost that Lovin' Feeling" to a random friend of mine in the cafeteria in college complete with microphone and doo-wop back up singers, Dunkin' Donut runs, Wee-ing down Old Chester, and going to our least favorite diner just to mess with people. I want to hear about stories that haven't happened yet but I'm sure will be so funny that I'll be embarassed, but will always tell the tales for the rest of my days. I want people to know that other than a past of rocky roads, personality quirks and downright stupidity, I have enjoyed this life immensely, and it's only getting better from here. I want people laughing and telling stories about how they'd see me sitting with Christ making silly faces and doing the now infamous hamster voice.

In short, there will always be times for quiet contemplation -- for feeling bad that someone or something has left and won't be back. Those times have the ability to pile up on you if you let them, but you let those slip while you hold on to the good stuff. There just comes a time when we all need to sit down together and share our good stuff with each other.

Why is it?

2007-06-19T11:04:00.000-07:00

Why is it that the vocal minority are considered the typical even though it never matches reality?

Why is it that people find themselves having to defend themselves from outrageous accusations simply because one or more folks claiming the same words acted in a foolish or cruel manner?

Why is it that we so often slam people as idiots and fools for doing or thinking something because it doesn't seem to fit, but think it is wrong when people do it to us?

Why is it that having an opinion that someone is wrong is equated to hate?

Why is it that people are terrified by learning in an open forum just for the sake of learning?

Why is it that questions really only come up with more questions before they come up with real answers?

The Passing

2007-05-17T14:12:00.000-07:00

I let a couple days pass by from when I heard of Jerry Falwell's death. I did this because I have very few positive things to say about this man. That's right. The conservative Christian gentleman never really had any penchant towards liking Jerry Falwell, but this is not a hate blog. It is not my desire nor my place to spout a tirade about the man. What I do say, however, is that his death reminds me of some things.

I had to acnknowledge something about Falwell in his death. See, in life he was an enigma. He was a guy I could point to and say, "That's the image you know, but that's not who I am." He was the stigma that I had, and continue to have, to fight against. It is the notion that Christian faith, practice, and religion are about hating those who do not do and think like we do. That we who are leaders amongst the faithful spout rhetoric, while the sheep of the congregation blindly follow. It seems like Falwell's name came up more often than it did not concerning what's wrong with the church in modern day America. His death, however, reminded me that he is just as much a believer as I am. Right now he is with the Father in heaven, and there is little in what I know of the man that would point me to anything different. I had this image, when I found out he died, of Christ welcoming him at the gates. I could see Him put His arm around the man and whisper, "Jerry, we need to have a talk about what it's really all about." I could sense the ambivalence in his face when he realized that he was right. The God he served is a God of justice and righteousness, but also realizing that he was so wrong. That every time he spoke out with the voice of God saying horrible things about condemnation he was missing a very important part of what God was doing in the world. I believe at the core of the man was a good and decent man, passionate about serving the Lord. I just think his passion was misdirected. I had to admit to myself that this man whose quotes I laugh at and mock as idiocy when I am trying to be kind was in the same boat as I am. Would that I could disassociate myself with what he said, but I cannot. He is part of the community of faith, and we all must take responsibility for what others do, even and especially when we do not want to.

I also had to remember that I am not the end all and be all of theology, philosophy, or anything else for that matter. No matter how much time, energy, and work I put into mastering something, there will always be that which is not understood, and even when I think I understand it, I may one day find out that everything I thought was true isn't particularly right. You see, the greatest tragedy of thought is to think that you can never be wrong. Once you establish your thought as perfect you disallow for any and all error, and you establish yourself as God. Not only is that wrong, you deny yourself the ability to grow when you do so.

I once came up with a mock theology. I called it the Theology of the Great Big Duh. It was my way of saying that there will be a moment when you enter into the presence of God, fully glorified, and God says to you, "Alright, now I will let you know what it is really all about, because now you can actually kinda understand what I was doing." It is only when we are no longer tainted by sin and we hear the voice of God saying how it truly is that we'll be able to respond with a smack on the forehead, like we should have known it all along but did not get it until that moment. Anyone who thinks they will not be surprised when that moment comes as things they thought were right end up being wrong or incomplete, well, they need to evaluate how well they can know something, and what might happen if someone ever proved something else were true.

Me? I am thankful that a man who loved the Lord enough to fight for Him got to meet him. I am thankful that a voice that did a lot of damage for the cause of Christ was silenced. I am waiting for a time when God will tell me what I got right, what I got wrong, and what I cannot get 'til glory. I am waiting for the great big duh.

If You are Looking to Buy Me Something Pretty . . .

2007-05-10T14:41:00.000-07:00

I never thought I would ever type this -- in fact, I feel a little dirty as I prepare to do so -- So I was on myspace.com earlier and found an amazing and thought-provoking book that I would love to own.

::give me a moment. I just used myspace, thought-provoking, and book all in the same sentence. My world needs to settle after being thrown on its ear.:::

The name of the book is Blasphemy: Art That Offends by S. Brent Plate. When I first heard the title I could already identify a handful of the pieces that would be mentioned. The "Piss Christ," a crucifix in a jar full of urine, the cartoons of Muhammad from the dutch newspapers that led to multi-national discussions of freedom of the press, and even a number of older, more classical works. However, this coffee table book of controversial artworks is not simply a slide-show of all that ruffles feathers. The author combines images of many works of art that angered people on political, religious, and personal levels, with commentary regarding how much artistic license is to be balanced with common decency and personal responsibility.

This issue has always been an interesting one for me. It is particularly poignant when I wrestle with one side or the other as the devil's advocate for the opposing side. I try to explain that there is a place for artistic nudes in the grander world of art that does not go to pornographic lengths or how art is supposed to make people think and feel truth, which is not always appealing to people in conservative Christian circles. I try to say to the most liberal and open minded folks that just because you CAN do something does not mean that it should be done or that just because someone tags something as art does not mean that he has the ability to do whatever he wants. It is hard not to have these sorts of discussions without looking at ALL the angles. I was able to skim through this book in a local Borders the other day and I have to say it provides interesting commentary about the interplay between religion, politics, artistic expression, freedom of speech, and social responsibility.

In short, I recommend that you check it out. Don't let the big price tag get in the way.

A Speech You Simply Need to Hear

2007-04-26T14:53:00.000-07:00

I find myself to be rather political, yet I have never been happy with a political party because I've never found one that encompassed all angles of my life and my values. On paper and in practice I am an independent. One thing that has always been an issue with me is how the candidates handle their faith. Do not translate this into a "Brother gotta go to church" demand for the person to share my faith. Faith and religious practice just seems to be the way that folks manipulate people in their candidacy. When I see a lily white candidate who does not have faith in God stand before an African-American southern baptist church and proclaim that he is one of them and he fights the good fight with them -- I'm sorry, but my skepticism takes a grip on that.

In short, I've rarely heard a candidate speak on religion, faith, and politics and have it not bring up a well of skepticism if not plain contempt because they are manipulating the faith of those they are speaking to and anyone who might see it later. Yup, that includes Republicans. Few people can use church to manipulate a vote like a republican conservative. This is why I was so shocked when I heard about a speech made by democratic candidate Barack Obama. On his web page there is a video of this speech. I was riveted to his words and heard many of my own statements and values in his words.

I'm not sure if I'd vote for him yet, as I'm still researching all the candidates. I still hope against hope that he beats Hilary Clinton if anything else. But whether I vote for him, you vote for him, or he doesn't even make it out of the primaries, everybody should hear this speech:

http://www.barackobama.com/issues/faith/

It's 40 minutes long, so carve out some time, but it is a great understanding of how folks like me who are conservative, yet have views that often get them labeled as liberal. After I heard this speech, I may not vote for this guy, but I certainly like him.

Dignity

2007-04-23T11:09:00.000-07:00

Have you ever noticed that sometimes the world makes a bigger 'thing' out of something that happened then the people actually going through it?

After the Virginia Tech shootings I was amazed that here we are week later and schools here in Texas are planning prayer meetings and counseling sessions for students. SMU was having days where they shut down in respect for students of Virginia Tech that lost their lives. Now granted, I don't know all that many students at SMU, but it seems to me that the people I have talked to and the people they interview on the local news do not actually know people there, let alone people that have actually been affected by the loss of one of those who were killed. While students here in Texas are taking personal days and trying to feel safe again, there are kids at Virginia Tech who are going back to class and taking their finals because they refused to have their lives destroyed by that madman.

After Don Imus spoke those now infamous words over the radio, rallies have been put on about how the talk show host needed to be fired, and celebrations when the pink slip was actually handed down. Yesterday I watched a news broadcast talking about protests that were going on about Don Imus and all the affiliate corporations that were his employers. However, the Rutgers basketball women -- they made a public statement shortly after he said it, they met with him afterwards, and every statement they themselves have made is that they feel sorry for his statements and are seeking to forgive the man. Not a one of them have been to any of the rallies I've seen on the news.

A friend of mine back in the Northeast reassures me that both stories have died down in the local news broadcasts there. Perhaps there are other places in the country that aren't trying to keep the pain of these events going as long as they can. All I know is that every day the stories get rehashed, redone, and reworked and those people who actually have been affected by it have to keep reliving it over and over again because of it. I simply applaud every student at Virginia Tech who mourned the loss of their friends and fellow students, but refused to let the tragedy destroy their lives. I applaud the girls of the Rutgers basketball team who stood their ground, but did not let anger make them the flipside of the same coin that everyone else seems to protest.

I am pleased to see that quiet dignity is still practiced in this day of over-activism and self-serving social consciousness. Thank you, all of you.

Everybody's Talking . . .

2007-04-17T11:35:00.000-07:00

Everyone is talking about it, so I'll keep my words short. I join with people who ask questions like,

"Why was this allowed to keep going long after the initial shots were fired before 8:00 in the morning?"

"Why wasn't the school put on lock down the very moment that people found out about the first shootings?"

and

"Why didn't anybody see the warning signs that something like this was going to happen?"

All these questions are valid, and I trust they will be addressed.

What I keep coming back to, though, is the pure depiction of depravity. I heard today that some papers in South Korea, where the shooter was from originally, were saying that people who knew him said what might have set him off was the fact that he had recently broken up with his girlfriend. If this is true, 33 people, including the gunman, lost their lives because this guy got a touch of heartbreak. Even if that is not the case, one only needs to go through the history of the country and even the world's mass shootings like this and see how many of them are set off by events that are so small and insignificant in the grander scheme of things. It was not too long ago that a school in Colorado felt this kind of tragedy because two kids got picked on too much.

Now that the gunman has been identified and theories of why he did it are starting to fly, it will not be long until people start blaming one person, one faith, one idea, one psychological lynch-pin, one SOMETHING. All I see in this is my own sin, as well as everyone elses. Some will tell you that what is considered "good" and "decent" are sociological norms, that these things are bounded by societal and governmental restriction and that there is no overarching governance. I say that anyone who ever tries to tell me that this world is not corrupted by sin and darkness needs to step back and look at 33 people buried for trying to get an education on a Monday morning in Virginia.

Speechless

2007-04-05T17:04:00.000-07:00

Yup, it doesn't happen often, but even the grand word-smith Cyrano cannot come up words that fit right. At best I get something like puzzle pieces that almost fit. If you grab a big book and squish it down on the piece it will fit in the hole, but that doesn't make it the right piece.

Anyway, I'm supposed to write a more personal blog post. So I thought about something personal that I can write about and something that would work without turning into squished puzzle pieces. (That's right, I can continue a metaphor.) As I type this, my instant messenger keeps blinking at me with new messages from half way across the country. As I read these messages and find myself laughing at the witticisms and smiley faces that greet me every time I click back there -- I miss her.

I watched an episode of Full Metal Alchemist, a show that I only started watching because she liked it, and I saw her in the character Winry. It was in the time that she spun around and cocked her head to the side with, "hm, nevermind" and it was in the time when someone made a crack about the auto-mail and she responded with "Edward, you better beat him or I'll kick your ass," though I'd giggle if I ever heard her actually say ass. It was the look in her eyes during both of those situations that I saw her face, her strength, her joy. I enjoyed the episode, but I found myself just wishing she was there watching it with me.

So I'm supposed to write a personal blog post. I can't think of anything else to write. I may only have one reader, but that's fine. While my wallet doesn't allow me to make the trip, I hope she knows that doesn't mean I don't want to go.

What Are We Leaving Behind?

2007-04-05T09:15:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I was sick for most of the day. In that state of confusion and medication, I got an opportunity to do quite a bit of something I haven't been able to do for quite a while. I watched TV. Most of the time I was okay with what I was seeing. I wasn't impressed by many of the "hot new shows" that were put out before me, but they were an easy way to spend my time between naps.

Continuously flipping between stations, I stumbled upon a show that is apparently really popular called "America's Next Top Model." Following right behind it was another program that I couldn't tell you the title of but the premise is that they are trying to find a new member of the girl-group the Pussycat Dolls. I will not use this means of expression to go off on the evils of modern media and hyper-idealism that leads to tragic degrees of self hatred amongst people of all ages, genders, and social status. There are enough people championing that cause without me adding my voice to it. What I want to talk about is the question found in the very title of this blog post. What are we leaving behind and what are the examples and guides that we are providing for future generations?

I could find myself writing a book with all the words I found myself collecting in the borderline anger that filled me as I watched these shows, but I'll boil it down to two instances within these shows that lead me to ask the aforementioned questions. The first, in America's Next Top Model, aside from the constant acts of self-centeredness and "back-stabbing bitch" behavior I thought was limited only to bad soap operas, was when all the girls went crazy when Paris Hilton and Nichole Richie came to a party and they got to meet them. The girls basically put the two of them up as heroes in their field, 'it was so cool to actually meet them,' etc. Have we seriously degraded to the point where women whose only contribution to society has been going in and out of rehab, prostituting themselves repeatedly, and looking hot qualifies a person for praise? I'll allow for the fact that people get misunderstood when under the spotlight, and I welcome anyone to point to anything positive these two have actually brought to society, but I am at a loss.

I'm not the only one who thinks this is crazy, and I was happy to see the boys at South Park chiming in on this. I love a good satire, and these guys usually do a pretty good job of pointing out how ridiculous things are. I got a chance to see an episode a while back where Paris Hilton opened up a chain of stores designed to sell things for girls that are stupid, spoiled, sluts. Good Lord they hit the nail on the head! Need another example? Paris Hilton too extreme on the sociological scale for you to think this is a trend? Let's turn to the other show, and the second example I want to point out.

If you don't know anything about the group The Pussycat Dolls (whose very name probably made feminists the world over shudder), they are a group of women whose major claim to fame right now is a song whose hook is "Don't you wish your girlfriend was hot like me." The song basically glorifies the exact same persona that I criticized above. The whole song is proclaiming that these girls are hotter, sexier, and more promiscuous than other girls so they are, therefore, better. It may just be a song, but the next time your daughter is singing the words to it, listen to what she is saying, and see if it does not make you a bit uncomfortable then.

Going back to the TV show version of this, on one of my roaming ventures across the channels I actually heard the lead singer of the group say, "The one thing that the Pussycat Dolls is is sexy. We're going to teach you how to be sexy." Not singing, not even dancing, the main thing is being sexy. Alright, stop the tape. I am sick of this. I used to mumble and write bad journal entries about how American music was going down the toilet and that pop stars were more about good looks than solid composition and actual talent -- now I have people on record saying that the most important thing is that they are sexy. Then I get to listen to one of the girls on the show say, "Everybody calls me a diva, but ya know, sometimes being a diva can be considered a bad thing," and I wanted to ask her when it is ever considered a good thing? Unless you are talking about the technical term given to a foremost female operatic voice, there is never a time when that is a positive comment.

Remember that my question at the top of this entry was What are WE leaving behind? I use the collective pronoun here because we need to start bearing the responsibility of being a part of this society. We need to stop pushing aside the blame onto other people just because we do not actively participate in an act ourselves. We need to start asking when Paris Hilton became a role model instead of our teachers, our doctors, our mothers. We need to ask when the highest achievement of mankind became being hot, horny, and self-absorbed. We need to start asking ourselves what each one of us can do to leave behind good examples of people that are actually a help to society instead of just parasitic eye-candy.

And we need to start being people who push others to that standard as well.

The Slam

2007-03-30T19:04:00.000-07:00

This year's slam was a much more low-key environment. I think losing out on all the dorm guys that once lived in Lincoln Hall took a chunk out of the folks who felt like coming. It might have been smaller, but it was still a lot of fun and some great pieces were read. I thought I should post up the piece that I read tonight because I know somebody who would ask me to if I didn't.

It was a piece I literally wrote this afternoon after my class. It was designed to be a commnentary on the stereotypical poet in contrast to myself.

I Want to be a Poet

When I first saw a poet slam,
His down beat plucked the bass chord
With the boom boom boom boom boom.
And I thought, “Man, this guy is cool!”

“I want to be a poet – smoke
Whisping up beside my words
And curling through my fingers.
I wear my sunglasses at night.”

I want to be a poet, so
I sport turtle-necks and leather,
Save my words for pens and mics,
And even then you won’t get me.

You will never get me because
You are not POET like me,
So I scream my words away
From the stand to give them more weight.

I am better than you because
I am a poet on a
Higher level of conscience.
I stoop to show you what truth is.

The truth of politic circus,
The truth of God and her lies,
Truth of Pure Philosophy,
Truth of – you know what? Truth is

I don’t believe a word of this.
My voice whispers below that
Smoke and speaks true poetry.
It is mine – making pleas to you.

I am no higher than you –
A punk with a thesaurus
And a heart set in pencil
Brought out at parties to impress.

My poetry is denim clad
And backwards ball cap spoken.
For that is where my voice lives
And all I want to be -- is heard.

What You Thought You Knew Was Wrong

2007-03-22T09:28:00.000-07:00

I have been suffering, it seems, with a tremendous bought of writer's block. Not only has it been evidenced by the fact that several months have gone by without a blog entry, but it has been seen violating both my works of fiction and poetry, as well as even making papers difficult to write. However, I think I can at least come out of it momentarily as I find myself completing an article in the most recent edition of Newsweek that my coworker had brought down to the desk.

The cover shows the inner workings of a monkey's brain and states that DNA science is revolutionizing evolutionary studies. I was intrigued. I jokingly wondered what animal they told me I was spawned from now. The article was interesting in that it started to chart how recent studies are showing branches of human evolution instead of the "old school" understanding of a linear progression. One of the many facets that struck me as intriguing is the notion that Homo Erectus, long considered to be the step in the chain before humanity, is actually a dead end in the chain. Erectus, they say, did not go on to evolve into other species, but that it died out. I found all of this to be part scholarly pursuit and part theatrical anomaly. Why the latter? Because it seems to me that the role of the educated, scientific liberal is getting a rewrite, or at least the ones that are actually doing the studying are anyway.

In case you are curious by this point and do not know anything about me, I am a creationist and a born again Christian, but please do not be so closed minded as to call me an idiot simply because of that fact; else the rest of this blog will have little for you, and you should probably just click your mouse to other venues on the internet. I do believe in evolution -- micro-evolution. I believe that species change over time due to environmental affectations and genetic "oopsies." Humanity is not the same today as when we started. However, I think that there is not enough out there to prove to me that one species gives rise to something completely different and foreign to itself.

Anyway, now that I have had the statement of my own understanding, I wanted to return to the notion at hand, the changing of scientific understanding. Oddly enough, the general feeling of the statement I wanted to make about science and discovery was put forth clearly in the unlikely venue of an episode of Friends. Normally I find that show to be entertaining, but not really inspiring. I never really got the phenomenon. However, there was one episode where Phoebe makes the statement that she did not believe in evolution, and a sub-plot of the entire episode arose with Ross trying to convince her that it is scientific fact. At the end of the episode Ross makes some comment about how science has proven evolution and that they know it is what happened and Phoebe responds with something to the tune of, "And a long time ago you thought the world was flat and that the sun went around the earth." I was floored. It was brilliant in its simplicity. Science, back in the day, proved that the sun went around the earth. Now some would argue with me that the church lead scientists down a certain path for fear of persecution (i.e. Galileo), but if you think that there has ever been a scientist born that is absolutely objective and never makes a number mean what he or she wants it to mean then you are kidding yourself. Science is not conducted by a couple guys in a garage saying, "Hmm, I wonder if we add this to this what will happen?" Youtube videos are made that way, not science. Scientists have an idea of what they are looking for before they go looking for it.

My basic premise here is not to downplay evolutionary science. There is a lot of pursuits worth studying, and that is just as valid as any other. In fact, one day I would allow for evolutionary scientists to prove to me that we came from another species. Creationism is not anywhere close to a belief that I would die for, and I do not believe it to be a linchpin of my faith. However, ask yourself this question when you say something is fact before it is -- how passionately and how vigorously do you think men said the world was flat, and anyone who thought otherwise was a fool?

Cuz it's all about Football -- right?

2007-02-04T14:09:00.001-08:00

It's been quite a while since I'd written anything. As one little birdie keeps chirping in my ear, people tend to like to check in with me every once in a while as to what I'm thinking about. I simply haven't had anything really to say. Life goes on as it does and I really haven't had any profound observations that I felt needed to be pointed out or commented on. Then I come across something that is both so inane and yet such a big deal that I had to say something about it.

For what seems like generations since the Super Bowl has been televised to households all over the country, churches have seen this as a ministry opportunity and have opened their doors to watch the game on big screens, often even within their sanctuaries. It seems, however, that the NFL has told several churches that they are prepared to sue if they continue to broadcast the game in their buildings. Churches all over the country are finding new things to do with the food they ordered and canceling orders. Their doors have or are going to shut when the services are over. They are afraid that the NFL in all its power and glory has deemed them flagrant transgressors of the law.

Apparently written in amongst the myriad of angles of copyright law ( an area so full of loopholes and confused wording that lawyers and law offices specialize in nothing but copyright law to address it all) are two laws regarding the broadcast of NFL football games. These two rules are simply that non-household viewing sites are breaking the law if they 1) charge money specifically for the ability to watch the game, or 2) if the screen they are viewing is larger than 55".

In one of the many articles you can read if you were to jump onto a search engine and type in "NFL sue church", a spokesman for the NFL states that copyright law is what it is and they are firm to the point of suing churches and any other private organization that shows the game on anything bigger than the required 55" maximum. The more I read about this whole incident, the more I realized how crazy it all seems. Say the following out loud, "The NFL is going to sue churches if they show the Super Bowl game on a screen that excedes 55"." Felt a bit silly when you heard it didn't it?

I understand why churches and other organizations all over the country have decided to shut down their party plans. In today's legal climate it's hard for some churches not to get sued simply by stating their beliefs, let alone all the scandals that are popping up, both legitimate and those trying to make a buck on the church. I understand also the spiritual angle of submitting oneself to the authority of law. (Romans 13 for those of you playing our home game.)

What I don't understand is why the NFL is going through so much trouble as to threaten individual churches with legal action over a party. Some will argue that churches that broadcast the game cannot be observed by the nielson rating system, and that rating system determines advertising revenues for the event. Given. Here's my rebuttal -- IT'S THE FREAKIN' SUPERBOWL! Has the fact that churches have been showing the games in their halls for decades stopped the NFL and the networks that it broadcasts through from charging hundreds of millions of dollars for one 30 second commercial, only to have companies trip over each other for their chance to pay it not just once, but multiple times? No. What it says to me is that the people over at the NFL all of a sudden were convicted by the fact that all over the country people were breaking this law out of ignorance and they had to be the divine retribution to show them the way like a spanking on the bottoms of the American private organization, or they're just trying to squeeze every last nickel out of this and somebody thought that this was hurting them from charging beer companies twice as much next year to come up with a new way for Clydesdale horses to play football.

While this is not an issue I'd die for, for those churches and private organizations that the almighty NFL have not contacted individually: I say -- GAME ON!

Viva La Vie Bohem

2006-11-27T10:34:00.000-08:00

It was in a theology class with one of my favorite teachers here at the school that I started making connections. In particular was my class on Sanctification and Ecclesiology. On several different occasions he started the class with clips from the television show Cheers, and I was always glad for it. The first time he showed the clip he told us the reason he did it was because the idea of the bar in cheers, as is the case with many bars, is the idea of what the Church should look like. It's a place where everybody knows your name, and they're always glad you came. Pointing out the lyrics to the theme song, he expounded about how the reason folks hang out at local bars like that is because the folks there -- the regulars -- get to be like a family. They welcome you, and are excited to see you. They don't care what happens outside of the bar, when you're there, you are part of it.

I loved that idea. The idea of a church that accepted people for who they are, instead of what people expect them to be. Where people are welcomed and loved regardless of situation. Seemed to me that it fit soundly with the idea that we're all sinners, that it is by grace alone that any of us have the ability to worship God at all. That we are all just trying to get closer to who God wants us to be.

This past weekend I had to go and get some milk and some silverware on my way home from work because I was cooking and because I was sick of my roommate complaining about how there were never enough clean forks and spoons. I walked into the local Target and it was a veritable zoo -- standing room only down some of the aisles. I figured that since I was having to endure the crowd anyway, I might as well check out some of the outstanding sales that I normally don't bother with. There was one particular display that caught my eye. "Select DVDs for $4." Not being a huge fan of the Harry Potter movies, I didn't see much to go for, however, on the bottom shelf was the movie version of the play RENT. I had heard the songs from the play and thought they were great. When the movie first came out I was a bit leary. It's hard to make a good adaptation of a stageplay into a movie, but I figured for $4, why not? I love this show. I love the characters. I love the music. I've watched it probably three times already since I got it.

I bring this up because there was one scene in particular, which also happens to be my favorite song/scene in the whole show, which reminded me a lot of that discussion about a bar being the image of how the church should be. The song, for those of you reaching to your CD collection for the sound track, is La Vie Bohem. Taking place in the Life Cafe, which I think is an actual cafe in New York City, every table in the place is brought together and they all sit down. Confronted with their former friend, and now yuppie foil, conducting business with two older gentlemen in suits at the other table, he tells them that the bohemian ideal is dead. The song they sing is one of celebration of the bohemian ideal and about why they come together. As one of the lines points out in an ode, It's "to being an us for once, instead of a them."

It seems to me that the Church in general has come to the point of expecting people to be at the end of the race while having just begun it, or even contemplating beginning it. Hell, sometimes we even demand it of people who are watching the race from the sidelines. We want our doors open, but only so far. We like our sinners clean and presentable. You can't be gay, smoke pot, have sex, or use bad language and still come to our church. What the hell do you think you're doing?

I'm all for instruction. Not a one of us has reached a point where we don't need the occasional confrontation or simply being told when we're being an idiot. All of us can do better according to the standards and commands of God. But can we show folks what love is without jumping downt their throats about what they're doing? Can people not look to a congregation of Christians and say, "this is a place where I can feel safe and loved?" Telling people about the Gospel, walking with them as they grow in their faith, instructing on the truths of Scripture, these are all incredibly important things. It just seems to me that we cannot be a voice with which to share any of that if people feel they cannot come into the doors.

I still maintain my self-appointed title of bohemian theologian. As opposed to many who call themselves bohemians, I do believe in absolutes. I believe in God and I believe in right and wrong. But I also believe that I care about people whether they're with me in that or not, and hopefully they'll see the truth of God in what I am doing.

The Straw that Broke the Camel

2006-10-29T12:02:00.000-08:00

I'm sure you've heard of it. "That's the straw that broke the camel's back." It's that one little bit that pushes everything from the manageable to the intollerable. It's been one of those mornings.

So I woke up after having only minimal sleep from goofing off instead of playing catch-up. It was much needed for my psyche last night, but I'm definitely paying for it now. Anyway, I get up and I go to teach. It was okay, not my best job of teaching as I ran out of material about 10 minutes earlier than I needed to, but overall I think it went well. I got the kids thinking big about what we were talking about instead of just talking about some random Bible story, so in my opinion the job was done well. I talked to Matthew and he gave me what I've come to determine as a pre-lecture. I've been MIA because of being sick, and apparently I'm going to have a sit down. I was prepared for that, but it's still not the best way to spend your morning, no matter how many times Matthew smiles at you and tells you its for your benefit.

So I had to leave church today so that I could grab some lunch before driving an hour in the other direction to come here to work at the other church doing security. I've had no sleep, got a pre-lecture, I'm feeling generally "off my game" so to speak, and I have a lot of stuff that needs to get done with little time and/or energy to do it. However, I'm balancing the best I can. I might be trying and failing at times, but I'm trying. Then I come into work. I get the keys for the church and head to the desk so I can get the day's schedule. A little girl buzzes by the desk and calls out as she's smiling and giggling past me, "Your FAT!" I swear, I almost lost it. I wanted to put the hand up and say, "Look, Kid, not today!"

This isn't a rant about my day. It's just I was thinking about what brings about a last-straw kind of moment? What is it about that one thing that pushes you over the edge? What is it about that one inexplicable "thing" that makes you go from okay to postal? After I did my first round I started talking to friends and family online. It's a great distraction. It made me forget about the initial crap of everything, but I'm finding I'm becoming very contemplative about it all, which is a tendancy of mine these days rather than just getting depressed, I do a lot of thinking about stuff. I wondered if I was just a camel that had been broken too many times; that one stray bit of straw had crossed the path too many times and I'll just start convulsing and muttering to myself if I see a bail of hay. I think in metaphore and I take it to extremes, what can I say? haha

I've come to the conclusion that it's got to be God that picks us up after last straws, heals us up to take another load, and move on with our days. However, God and I haven't seemed to be on the same page lately. It's not that I don't think He's there, or that I don't think He's saying anything to me. I just have no freakin' idea how to read it. One day I feel like I've got nothing left after putting everything I've got into something and it's just not enough, but then Tina comes up and tells me that kids who can't stand Sunday School won't shut up about how much they like my class, and the kids come in being able to remember little details about lessons we talked about a month or two ago and it lets me know they're getting it. The next day will come around and I think, "Yeah, I'm on the right track. Sure, it's bumpy as all get out, but it's still the right road." Then something'll cross the road like my preaching professor saying my last sermon, that I was particularly proud of and worked really hard on, was "theological blasphemy," meaning my interpretation of the text didn't match up with his. There are others of these moments too, but I don't want to bother typing them and reliving them. Bad enough dealing with them when they came up.

So what do you do when you know God's the only one who can help you through something, but the two of you haven't seemed to be on the same page lately? I don't know. I honestly have no idea. Will I become a statistic of guys who graduate DTS and end up cleaning pools the rest of their days? Will I go off and have a Spirit blessed uber-ministry with sermons you can buy on DVD for $19.95? I have no idea.

I know that one thing is true. Right now I just feel like a broken camel. Watch out, they spit.

Neither side is flawless

2006-10-06T10:41:00.000-07:00

Documentaries are fun, as long as you realize that every documentary comes with a bias. No one just presents information because the minute you put an assumption to that information, you have a bias. These are not always wrong, but it is a bias.

A new documentary is apparently coming out. I saw a trailer for it at apple.com/trailers. It's called "...So goes the nation." It's the story of all the volunteers that went to Ohio during the last election because the statement was made however Ohio goes, so goes the nation. I give this movie the benefit of the doubt. It's easy to construe things in a certain way in a preview, but basically this is a 'Bush is an ignorant idiotic fascist' sort of movie. You know what, I don't mind those movies / books / articles being made. There's something to be said for not undercutting the nation's leaders as we find ourselves in this global community, but one of the things I love about this country is the ability to say what you want without fear of the government coming down on you.

There was one bit, though, that was said in the preview that got me. It's when they had one person from the republican party saying something about how it was about strategy and how people didn't have to like Bush, they just had to vote for him. Team that up with the fact that there was a Kerry supporter saying, "it's not about right or wrong it's about strategy."

Okay, stop the tape.

Who didn't have a strategy to win? Even if you paint a picture of John Kerry that puts him up for sainthood, I hate to tell ya, kids, he had just as much scheming and strategy involved trying to get him elected as anyone else. The movie mentions how we've not had that many democratic presidents. They said it was becuse the Republicans do all that they can to keep a Republican in the White House. I'm not feeling up to witty retorts right now, so I'll use the vernacular . . . Friggin' Duh! Of course they want the president to be on their side. So do the Democrats. So does the Green Party or any host of other party types that try to win the position, because, yes, it is a competition, and the winner gets to keep doing things the way they want them done. There is already strategizing going on, on both sides.

I'm just tired of people claiming one side to sainthood while the other is the evil empire. I believe that HAD Kerry won the election, movies would be made about how crappy his presidency would be as well. John Stewart would be spoofing his latest antics on the Daily Show. There would be people waiting in the wings hoping to oust him next election. Neither party is perfect, neither one is composed of sinless perfection. Neither one has the ability to never make a mistake. A lot of this just seems like it's sore losers pointing and saying, "See, if you'd only listen to us."

Don't tell me you're not biased. Because everybody is. It's all a matter of whether you know it or not.

They fired her for what?

2006-10-02T08:58:00.000-07:00

Okay, kids, I know I haven't written anything in a while, it's because I've been half conscious with what the doctor told me is a fairly severe respiratory infection. I've been able to do very little without getting dizzy and hacking up a lung. Even now, I'd like to apologize if I mess up with grammar or start spouting giberish as I am HIGHLY medicated right now. However, if nothing else, this'll be my place holder for later on when I am lucid, because I need to write about this.

I heard about it, in all things, in a web comic that I read. The guy who does the comic lives here in Dallas and I've met him. He's a cool guy. He mentioned something in yesterday's comic about a teacher getting fired for taking her children to the Dallas Museum of Art. I'm in no place to fact check, but I just had to verify. I went to the Dallas Morning News online and looked up "Dallas Museum of Art Teacher." Other than some article about a harp teacher that had passed away, the top article was one about a teacher in Frisco, Texas who was fired after taking her 5th grade class on a field trip to the Dallas Museum of Art because a parent complained about their child seeing a nude sculpture.

In the whole paragraph or two of this article, it talks about how the Frisco ISD (independant school district) says that there were other issues involved in this 28 year veteran of the classroom being fired, but it just seems crazy to fire someone who has been a teacher that long without some major problem. I can understand the parent complaining. I have had a number of conversations about the appropriateness of nude paintings and sculptures in museums, and I always walk away seeing the validity to some of their arguments. However, I also feel that a teacher has a right to take her kids to a museum. I've taught a fifth grade Sunday school class now for just over a year. No, I'm not saying it's the same as seeing them every day in a classroom, but I still love my kids and want to teach them and enrich their lives. I'm also big on critical thinking, developing boundaries, and exposing people to the arts. This is not avante-guard crazy stuff, where even I sometimes scratch my head and call foul, unless the DMA has suddenly put up a new exhibit that I don't know about, these are classic pieces of art.

I wish I lived that close to a museum when I was a kid. I wish someone had, in fifth grade, shown me more about the arts. I wish that more schools would value their teachers enough to fight for them, instead of against them. I wish that this teacher who actually might have tried to teach the kids something wasn't fired because of a school board who was trying to avoid a scandal. I wish people would start having discussions rather than enacting judgment.

I also wish the room would stop spinning right now, so I'm going to stop writting.

Form Blazing Sword!

2006-09-11T12:58:00.000-07:00

From days of long ago, from uncharted regions of the universe, comes a legend. The legend of

Voltron: Defender of the Universe!

Voltron is coming to DVD friends. I am downright giddy about this. Perhaps it's due to the fact that so many of my childhood cartoons are coming back in fully remastered digital brilliance and I've been waiting for them to do Voltron. Someday I'll kick back and watch all of them, but for now, if there's one set of DVDs I'm going to have to find the money to buy, it's these!

Our day . . .

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

I read a brief essay/article written by a young woman about what happened to her on 9/11 and the country's various reactions to it. It was well written and it said one thing quite clearly. Do we need all this to remember what happend?

I was not alive for the moon landing, the day Kennedy or Martin Luther King Jr. was shot, I don't remember D-day. This, I think, is my generation's day. The day that they remember and wish they could forget.

I remember that morning in strange blips of vivid detail. I remember waking up late. That particular day was an occurance of what my roommate and I had come to call "Lazy Day." It was a day when neither of us had class or work to go to, so we could do whatever we wanted. Usually that meant going to bed late the night before, waking up late, and then playing video games or watching movies. I was the first to wake up and I turned on the television. I had on a pair of sweatpants and a sleevless shirt, and I tuned in as the tower was burning. It was moments before the second plane hit when my roommate shuffled out of the bedroom and asked what was going on. I was sitting on the arm of the couch and could only point. It didn't seem real, it couldn't have been reel. Then the tower fell.

My friends and I gathered on the stoop of my dorm. It was myself, Steph, Tim, Micah, and Johanna. I was on the phone calling home. Planes were in the air unnacounted for still, and one of the sights they listed for potential attacks was AT&T's East coast hub not too far from my house. My brothers weren't answering their phones. Mom and Dad were home. I thought about Rob who lives in the City, and I wondered if he was okay. I remember a lot of crying mixed with long silences. We met in the chapel and prayed for those that were missing. There were lots of stories about how God kept people from work that day due to odd traffic or faulty alarm clocks. But then again, there were a lot of stories about people unheard from, and others already known to be dead.

I came home and talked with my kids. The youth group had a weird feeling about it that week. How was I going to tell them that God was still sovereign? How could I tell them that all of this was part of His plan? I couldn't, so I found myself saying "I don't know" an awful lot that night, but that I knew He is still who He says He is, and He's who I looked to for comfort. I thought of how many people didn't realize they were going to meet God that morning. I thought about how many of them weren't ready for it. I stopped thinking about it, and started talking to more people about Christ.

A week or so went by and all the flags went up. We even put ours up after we figured out where we had left it. I couldn't help but wonder how long that would last. People were being kind to each other, truly kind. I knew it would fade out with the shock, but I kept hoping that people might see each other differently now. My family told stories about all the people that did not come back to work the next day. They had been in the City that day.

I don't want to see TV specials about 9/11. I don't want to see Oliver Stone make a feel-good movie for the ages. I don't want to hear the 911 tapes on the news in the moments right before people died. I want to sit with my friends and remember quietly. I want to pray for the families of those that were lost, and for those who gave their lives trying to save who they could. I don't want to remember the day that I looked from that spot on a hill in my town where miles away on the horizon I looked and didn't see the towers there, that day when thousands of voices were silenced.

Let me remember in peace by telling the people I care about that I love them and how much they have meant to me.

Jesus Camp and my Journey of Faith

2006-09-01T14:34:00.000-07:00

I had several conversations with my dad after coming to faith in Christ about the fact that it really was a new thing to me. I think it was hard for him to believe that I didn't believe in God before I was seventeen, and I know it was hard for me to think that he and I were really together in our faith since I thought what I believed in was so radically different than him. As the years have gone by, it'll be ten years ago this coming May, I think we've pretty much worked out most of that, and now both of us pray for the rest of our family.

There was one time in particular that Dad and I were talking that, while I couldn't tell you what day it was or what spawned the conversation, I remembered something he said and it stuck with me. It was early on after I became a believer and I was still neck deep in my jack-ass phase of early Christianity when Dad and I argued about it more than we actually talked. He told me that he never forced us into anything when it came to faith and religion other than going to Sunday school and going through all of the sacraments. He told me that he wanted my brothers and I to figure out our faiths on our own.

It's even hard to type this bit as I never really told Dad this stuff, but he more than likely will come on to read my blog. Early on I think I resented him for that. I felt it sometimes when I would see families where God was an active part of what they did as a family, where the parents would take everyday moments and use them to show their kids about the Bible and about how much God loves them. I wondered about how things might have been different if that were the case in my house. I wondered if I would have believed in God a lot earlier than I did, or if my brothers would take God more seriously than they do. I wondered a lot and my idealized version of what that looked like made me angry.

Then I got to college and met all these kids who had stories I was jealous of, like "I don't know, I was about 6 years old and my dad sat me on my bed and we talked about God and he asked me if I believed in Jesus and we prayed right there." What I found, however, was that when they heard my story about how a terrible tragedy when I was 17 made me toss out what I thought God was so that I could find out who He really is, they were jealous of me. They were jealous of me because I was a testimony of God's life changing work and I had a great story. I could not, and still can't for the life of me, understand why someone who really knew God so young could be jealous of me. I realized that nothing is as clean as you make it out to be.

***

I was looking at a website that shows movie trailers. It is where I find out what indie flicks are coming out because the independant films tend to be solid stories instead of blockbuster fluff. I'm keen on a good story. On the list of new trailers I had not seen before was a documentary entitled Jesus Camp. I clicked on the trailer and watched scenes that have become both commonplace and scary to me at the same time. They are scenes of Christian camps where good little evangelical families send their kids for weeks on end. There are good Christian camps out there. I worked at one while I was in college. However, this is not a documentary on what I would call good ones.

I watched footage they had collected from camps they visited and interviews with the counselors. I watched as they weren't running a camp for kids, but training kids to lead a revolution across America. I watched as kids young enough that they should spend their summers swimming and playing baseball or something like that are spitting Christianese and leading revivals. All I could think about was not how they were encouraging kids to love God and love others, but having kids chant the words "Righteous Judge." While that's a fitting title for God, there's something that chills me to the bone watching a group of kids that looked like they were no older than 10 chanting it and pumping their fists in the air.

Maybe it is just me, but I long for the days when kids got to be kids. I know that generations prior to me would say that very same thing of us, but I remember being a kid and playing. I remember when my highest aspiration in life was to be a carnival barker so I could travel around with cool people in side-shows. Kids are growing up way too fast and sometimes it feels like it is only getting worse.

The more I see things like this the more I realize that the method my dad took on things maybe is not as bad as I thought 8-9 years ago. Maybe the fact that he gave us instruction where he thought he could and let us fill in our faith for ourselves allowed me to be a kid when I was a kid and figure out the rest as I went along. Maybe that's just one more thing to add to the long list of ways I hope to be a man just like my father.

Dumb-struck

2006-08-28T07:42:00.000-07:00

Somebody once asked me how to understand the meaning of a piece of art. I told them that I approach any piece in much the same manner as I approach my study of the Bible. You don't just look at what's there. You look at what isn't there. You look at what was going on around what's there. You look at the intricacies and the nuances that make this particular thing different from any similar thing you might have seen before. You do this because, just like the biblical texts, this thing did not happen in a vaccuum. It was done with a purpose. Something was being communicated there, and a lot of times you get a clearer picture of what is trying to be said when you see the story that developes around it as well as in it.

I was browsing through Deviant Art this morning, as is my tendancy on slow mornings at work when no one needs assisting. I came across a well taken photograph called Walk on By and thought I'd take a closer look at it. It was a picture of a man lying face-first on the sidewalk in a city, which I later found out was Philadelphia, and another man walking by not even seeming to notice him.

One thing I love about DA is that it not only gives amateurs like me a place to display art for the masses, it also gives artists a place to, if they so choose, describe what's going on. As I looked through the description, a story of how the photographer was doing a series of street shots in which he'd just take pictures of people as they passed him on the street. He thought that catching this man walking past the fellow on the ground would make a great shot, so he took the picture and then went to see if the man was alright. It turns out that the man was dead.

The photographer continues to say that he called 911 saying that there was a dead man lying on the street and that they needed to send an ambulance or something. For fifteen minutes he stood there and for fifteen minutes he watched as people passed the dead man on the street without doing or saying anything, like he was invisible.

You can see in the picture that it is not as if the man was tucked away in a doorway or something where those who are of a more timid pursuastion might back away, unsure of what the man might do. Even I had to say that were that the case, I might not have thought to do something besides walk by. This man, however, is face-first in the middle of a busy sidewalk, and I am hard pressed to think of any time where that would mean anything other than he needs help. Unless, of course, he were already dead. And then I wondered how long he had been there before he actually died. Was it an instant thing, or did he just lay there as the world watched him die, or rather ignored him?

There's part of me that has truly been given over to cynicism. It's seen too much sin and depravity, not only outside of myself, but inside as well, not to think the worst sometimes. I still, however, was shocked as the bigger part of me that still knows what hope looks like almost teared up right here at work as I thought about this story. I could not believe that no one would do something for fifteen minutes, and there's no way of knowing how long he might have been there before the picture had been taken.

Woodrow Wilson once said, "There is no higher religion than human service. To work for the common good is the greatest creed." The Bible says that true religion is taking care of widows and orphans. It says this because in the culture it was written in, widows and orphans literally had no means of taking care of themselves and it was physically impossible for them to really pay you back for what you've done. You may not believe the same things I do, but all of us have some sense of understanding that it is simple common decency to care for others. At least I thought it was.

Perception, Image, and Who Gave You the Right to Judge

2006-08-21T00:33:00.000-07:00

I bit my tongue today.

I'll start by telling you that if I leave out a name, a place, a situation or a circumstance, let it go, because I'm leaving it blank for a purpose. This is partly to protect people who do not need to be talked about, as well as to protect those who do. This is not a blog to point fingers at individuals. It is to point fingers at the ideas they propagate.

Today I met my new Sunday school class. They seem like a great bunch of kids. I knew a handful of them before class started. Their brother or sister may have been in another class I taught, I might know their parents, or some other connection like that. I have new assistants that help me. A great young couple that have literally been married just for a couple weeks now. It was Friday when I started hearing about e-mails. E-mails from parents saying that certain things in the young woman's past should prove she is unfit to teach.

Now I am usually one to voice my mind, but some times discretion really is the better part of valor and I held my tongue. I then found out that the parent who wrote the most e-mails, raised the most fuss, and cast the harshest judgments was a parent whose child was not even in my class. In an e-mail she said that she was glad her son would not be "exposed" to such things. I know this family, and it is because I know them that such things hurt me to hear about.

I was asked what I was looking for in an assistant this year. When I was asked this I demanded only two things: That they are solid believers and that they love kids. Everything else seemed a negotiable issue to me. I don't know if this couple will do well or not. This is the first week. But there is one thing that I will say for certain. The actions of our past do not negate our futures, and there is not a man or woman born who does not have something they'd like to do over again.

******

Last night I receive a message. "Do you know that ((friend's name)) modeled for a nude photograph? What do you think of that?" I could tell that the person on the other side of the message was less than happy when I said, "I don't know. I haven't seen the picture." This was not to be perverse. This was not to be silly and making a joke of it. It simply was the fact that I reserved the right to make a personal judgment until after I had seen it. I have often had long conversations with people in Christian circles about art. Woefully inexperienced as I am, I still tend to have more knowledge about what makes "good" art than a lot of people.

I saw the picture, and while it was a little weird seeing a friend of mine in such a photograph, it was not nearly as graphic as the message I received had lead me to think it might have been. It may be interesting, as this individual might come across this very blog, and see that I think it is a beautiful picture. While I probably wouldn't hang it on my wall, it's a fascinating blend of color with white backgrounds and a well taken shot, and when I see the friend that modeled for it, I will probably congratulate my friend for being part of something that beautiful and intriguing.

*********

In both these situations, I wanted to defend the accused people, who never were actually making it into our conversations. I wanted to write e-mails demanding the proof of their accusers own perfection and spotless past 5, 8, 10 years ago. A perfection, perhaps, going back to when they were in elementary school, junior high, high school, college. I wanted to remind people that it is through grace and grace alone that ANY ONE OF US might find the forgiveness of a holy God.

I wanted to bear my scars and say that I am no more qualified to teach than anyone. Hell, I'm not qualified to be standing. It is God working through me on a daily basis that even gives me an ounce of credibility, and nothing more. It is knowing the kind of love that stands before me and forgives me as I spit in His face, even before I do so. It is the notion that we are all tragically and horribly flawed, but that is exactly how we are supposed to come.

There is a time and a place for correction and disapproval. However, I wonder sometimes if these have not become our default options, rather than trying to understand the circumstances. I wonder if we have not ascribed our own interpretations of what we think should and should not be as universal truth, and I wonder why we think we have the right to do so.

I bite my tongue..

Um, uh, What the . . . ?

2006-08-10T13:42:00.000-07:00

So I was in my car listening to the radio when I did a double take because of what I heard.

Anything I add to this will only trivialize the ridiculous of it, so I will let you bask in the ambivalence of feeling both horrified that somebody did that, yet humored by the fact.

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, I give you Whiplash the Cowboy Monkey!

By the way, this isn't a joke. Turn on Google Video and watch footage of the, what shall I call it, performance.

Don't Say You've got it Tough

2006-08-08T07:21:00.000-07:00

One of the missionaries that my church supports is a missionary in Haiti. He and his family have been on an extended furlough here in the states. One Sunday afternoon, as I was sitting with my friend Dave in the Youth Ministry office, he came to the door to say hi. We ended up talking to him for quite a while about lots of different things because, well, while we'd heard his name bantered about the church for quite a while, neither of us had ever actually met him.

One of the things that we talked about was the fact that so many people are being kidnapped for ransom money there. In fact, there are some groups that are strictly targeting American missionaries due to the fact that while the missionaries themselves are poor, there are organizations and supporters back home that aren't and will pay. One of the people that we had heard about getting kidnapped was the worship pastor at the church this missionary served at. As far as I know, they haven't found him yet.

As we talked with this man, Dave and I were on our way to grab some lunch and our stomachs were growling. Our missionary friend stopped for a minute and said, "It's been weird living back in the States again. When my family and I go out to eat the only thing we worry about is where we want to go. We don't have to worry about always staying together, where the exits are to the building, who knows we'll be eating there, and things like that. We can just eat." With that, the rest of his family came around the corner and we said good-bye.

Ghost Hunters

2006-07-29T08:35:00.000-07:00

I've been fascinated with ghost stories and legends as far back as I can remember. I would read them in books, watch them on movies and TV, and listen to them around campfires. Even when I was terrified of them, my sick fascination kept at me.

When I was a kid, my friends and I would always go looking for the ghost in the Bernardsville Library, a lady who lived in the building in the Civil War, long before it was turned into a library and still waits for her husband to return to her. I went down Ravine Lake Road looking for the ghosts that supposedly haunted it, ghostly kids jumping off of waterfalls and the dead mobsters that slept with the fishes. Great stuff. I read every copy of Weird New Jersey I could get my hands on (a link to them is always on my blog's sidebar) and any time I, or my friends, would find the location of one of those things, we went looking. I even have a bit of a scary story from my own life that not many people have heard.

What inspired all this nostalgia? I recently found out about a show that has apparently been on the Sci/fi channel for quite some time now. It's called Ghost Hunters and it follows a non-profit organization known as TAPS (The Atlantic Paranormal Society) as they investigate ghost stories all over the country. These, my friends, are my heroes. These guys have worked up enough rep to get their own show and can get invited into places that normally I would have to sit outside saying "Wow, I wish I could go in there at night and really check it out."

What I love so much about this show and these guys is that they are not, as I call it, "pro-ghost." There are lots of people to call when you think you have a haunting. Psychics, mediums, and paranormal 'experts' of all shapes and sizes love to do chase these stories. Only thing is that they often charge for their services and don't really provide any real tangible proof of what they find. The best of these I saw was on a different show regarding ghosts when two psychics teamed up to search a house and one said, "I feel like there's something here, a presence -- There in the corner, do you see it?" at which point he turned to the other psychic and she said, "Oh yes, right there in the corner. I defiinitely see it." I felt like I was watching Abbott and Costello meet the Haunted House. TAPS isn't like this because 1) they are non-profit and don't charge a dime for what they do, and 2) They go into any situation skeptical and have on more than one occasion told the people they're investigating that there is nothing out of the ordinary happening there.

I haven't had cable for a long time, so I don't know about these things, but now that I've found out about it, the DVD budget might just have to go into picking up a season or two of this. If you go onto the scifi channel's web page, they have one whole episode you can watch by streaming video. In this episode, the folks at TAPS get to do what I've always wanted to do. They get invited to investigate a haunted abandoned hospital. I've wanted to see something like this since I read stories about an abandoned mental asylum in Menlo Park out of Weird New Jersey. It's definitely worth watching.

It is by this point that you might be asking whether I have taken my blog, a bastion for all things insight from the life of yours truly, and turned it into a place to pimp television shows. To you I answer, "here's where things get interesting."

I was talking about this show over lunch on Thursday. I had literally just found out about it moments ago and was sharing what I had found with the friend I had mentioned earlier. Others overheard this discussion, and, as good little seminarians often do, asked me how my theology impacts what I think about ghosts and hauntings. Here's where I return to my mission about combining theology and philosophy with what happens to me on a daily basis, so all you ravenous SoC (That's Shadow of Cyrano for the tragically uncool who haven't realized everything is better in initials) fans out there can relax.

I will tell you exactly what I told this fine fellow at the table. Honestly, there's lot that I don't understand about how the two work together. My theology dictates that when you die, your soul doesn't float around looking for a place to hang out. I believe it when scripture says that when you are absent from the body you go into the presence of the Lord (2 Corinthians 5:8). Good, bad, or indifferent, I don't think it's dead relatives or cursed souls.

On the other hand, I am very much aware of the spiritual and do, much to the disappointment of some of my more scholarly friends, believe in angels and demons. Along with that, I also believe that they don't just spend their days poking the damned in hell with pitchforks or struming wistfully on lyres on big puffy clouds. Were that the case, I doubt that a roomful of kids in Amman, Jordan would have asked me how to deal with spiritual warfare.

It is quite possible that such could be the explanation for hauntings. However, when all is said and done you also have to contend with the fact that we can debate Bible passages, scientific data, and philosophical ideals 'til the cows come home, but there's no way to know exactly what happens after you die because anyone that's had it happen is, obviously, dead.

What I can tell you is this, there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy. Strange stuff happens that cannot be explained and there has been enough legitimate evidence that you at the very least have to acknowledge that something is going on.

People have asked me if I've ever been afraid on one of my ghost trips. I've made a little over a dozen different little trips looking for ghosts, and at no time during any of them was I ever really afraid. I'll admit that I've been creeped out on occasion, but that's just because some of these places are just naturally creepy. My past two or three trips have all been with people that have never been on a ghost hunting trip before, and before all of them I'll say what I said then. 1) 99% of the time we'll see absolutely nothing out of the ordinary. I have yet to see anything that has convinced me that there is anything going on at the places I've been to. 2) A lot of what people think they see is what they make themselves see from being so worked up about ghosts. Finally, I end with 3) Unless you see me run, you'll have nothing to worry about.

[I say this just because if I ever decide to tag and bag a ghost run, it would be because either other people are there and I don't trust the situation (nothing says fun times like running into a group of satanists getting freaky at a ghost sight) or something really isn't right in an unholy evil kind of way.]

Ghost's fascinate me to no end. I might never understand exactly what happens at places that are truly haunted. I might never make it to a place that is ACTUALLY haunted. But, I'm not scared because I have a mind that can wrap itself around the reality of a situation and a God who protects me from that which my mind can't wrap itself around.

Clean Cup, Clean Cup, Move Down

2006-07-24T20:17:00.000-07:00

I have strange literary heroes. Cyrano de Bergerac, Willy Wonka, Don Quixote, and others make up a menagerie of misfits and fools that are my little dream world. One of my favorite scenes in all of literature involves a group of insane fools gathered around a ridiculously long tea table with exponentially more chairs than was necessary. For those of you playing our home game, the title is Alice in Wonderland, the characters are the Doormouse, the March Hare, and, my hero and all around role model in life, the Mad Hatter.

I love the randomness of the scene, and at the forefront has to be the times where the Hatter would yell across the empty table, "Clean cup, clean cup, move down," demanding that everyone there move down the table to another cup. Now there was nothing wrong with the cups they had. In fact, on some occasions the tea had literally just been poured into the cup and the Hatter's calling for a new one.

I'm sitting here at the computer that is one of the few things left in this dorm room left to be packed. Tomorrow morning I'll be inspecting my new apartment before they deliver every box and assorted knik knak that resides here over there while I'm at work. I'll start my day as a dorm resident, and end it living in an apartment downtown. I've spent the past two days going through the accumulation of 4 years of living here. For all its faults (like a leaky roof, bug infestations, and exploding toilets), part of me will feel really weird not coming back to this place after work. I closed my eyes and missed the shift. I thought I saw it coming, but it's here now.

Clean cup. Move down.

This morning, as I sat in my class, I began to understand that a friend of mine has left for Florida. She's going for an interview to work in a school media center there, and I think the chances are slim to none that she'll ever be coming back. The last time I saw her before she left she said, "Be sure to keep me up to speed with calls and e-mails. You're not getting rid of me that easy." While I'm sure we'll keep in touch, it won't ever be the same. It just won't be. One weekend I spent the day with her, appreciating our relationship and chatting lightly about how much fun we have together. I closed my eyes and now we'll have to plan visits that may or may not ever happen.

Clean cup. Move down.

There's an old quote that says you can never step into the same river twice. By the time you step into it again, it has flown and is another river all together.

Clean cup. Clean cup. Move down.

Take a sip of new tea in a clean cup.

Greatness

2006-07-20T09:17:00.000-07:00

My father went to high school with Meryl Streep. She was a couple years ahead of him, but he knew who she was and used to see her in the halls. I thought he was only kidding. There was no way that this well known Hollywood actress went to school in podunk nowhere New Jersey. Then when I became a freshman at that very same high school and looked at the class pictures of years past, I went to the year he told me to and there she was. She obviously looked different, but you could tell it was definitely her. I thought to myself, "Wow. It must be weird to have gone to high school with somebody famous."

Last night I was watching an episode of CSI: New York, witch is a regular wednesday night activity if I'm at home. I had the show on in the background as I was taking care of some things when I happened to look up and see a familiar face. Looking at me through my television was Deanna Russo. She and I went to high school together, even had acting classes together for two or three years. Yet, there she was, the prime suspect in that particular episode's drama of deception and murder. I did a double take and said to myself, "Huh, good for her." On a whim I decided to google her name and found she has a web page and even is listed in the Internet Movie Database. Overall I have to say it was a strange and funny experience.

I don't bring this up to say "oooooh, oooooh, I know her." I bring it up because it got me thinking about how strange a thing greatness really is. If you approached the class-clown uber-geek I was in high school and told me that Deanna would grow up and star in short films and TV shows. That probably wouldn't have been hard for me to believe. There are certain people that just have that certain presence of greatness and you know that they will be bigger than life in whatever field they choose. I've known several people where, upon parting ways, I cannot avoid the notion that someday I'd hear about them and be just like my father. "Yeah, I went to high school with that person," or "Yeah, so-and-so used to live down the street from me."

The strangeness I mentioned is that there are a lot of times where this feeling is very blatantly wrong. Have you ever thought the world of someone, thought that they would conquer the world, only to find them flipping burgers? Have you ever looked at someone and thought they were nothing 'back in the day' and would never amount to anything and then hear about how they are the president of a multi-national corporation? While I cannot say I've seen these particular extremes, I've been surprised by people, both positively and negatively, quite a bit.

In my immediate sphere of influence that is seminary, I have countless examples of this. I'll sum it up by mentioning two fellows, both of whom started at the same time I did. The first came into the school with drive and determination that few could match. I came into the dorm a week earlier than was necessary just to get myself situated, but he had already been there for a little over a month taking a summer class or two to get ahead of the game. He wasn't necessarily going for a degree but took classes that he thought would make him better prepared for the ministry he was destined to have. This man did not even graduate. He eventually left the school saying that he'd come back later to finish his degree, but is now working at a barbeque restaraunt. While there's nothing wrong with his employment, it was hardly what anyone thought would happen to him.

The second man also started the same year that I did. While I am a far cry from an academic, this guy made me look good. Were it not for the fact that he had an incredible gift for Scripture memory, we'd all wonder if he was taking ANYTHING seriously. He was socially awkward and quirky, at best, and was beginning to have a bit of a reputation for being creepy when it came to the ladies on campus. At times we wondered what sort of ministry this man would have, and there were few of us that could ocme up with an answer. As the years have progressed, this man has become an important figure here at the school. He has matured by leaps and bounds and, while he's still quirky, there are few of us that have known him since he started here that cannot imagine great things for him now.

There's an old quote that says something along the lines of "Some men are born great, some have greatness thrust upon them." This is the strangeness of greatness, and you cannot always tell what it is doing or how it will develop. All I can say is that when you see it in a person, draw close and enjoy what moments you can have alongside them. You never know, someday there may be someone talking about you, and some friend or acquaintance might turn to them and say, "Yeah, I used to know them."

A Plea for Open-Mindedness

2006-06-21T12:17:00.000-07:00

First off, let me acknowledge that I have no concept at all whether "mindedness" open or otherwise, is actually a word. Just work with me on this one.

That said, I was putzing around the internet today at work because one can only read and study so much at work before you just want to relieve the boredom with something trivial and silly. I went to a website I go to for intriguing bits of video, just to see what the compiler has found out in the vast reaches of stuff that is the internet. At first I was amused by Seth McFarlan (creater and voice actor for Family Guy) addressing Harvard as Stewie, the megalomaniacle baby on the show. Hilarious. However, I then noticed a video clip of this woman who has been on Fox News and other assorted bastions of conservative news broadcasting going off about why her church and organization protest funerals and how the world is all going to hell because of our horrible sinful ways. That's right. They PROTEST funerals.

I didn't watch the whole video clip because 1) this woman misquotes Scripture with such bravado and reckless abandon that it makes me ill, 2) The groups whole purpose of their group is just plain silly, and 3) Neither side of the argument lets the other get a word in edgewise. Now, some might make comment that this barely intelligible slugfest is the way most Fox News interviews go, but I would never say something against the great and powerful Fox. I don't know though, I just get tired of it.

Why is it so hard for people to let opposing sides voice their opinions in an open forum? Are they so scared of their foundation being shaken that they won't let another side talk, let alone give credence that their argument has at least some form of value? If that is in fact the case, my recomendation is to shore up your own foundation before you go trying to chip away someone elses. I've just found myself being bombarded by people on TV, in articles and books, and in person coming to me with their opinions on things, that go about denouncing all who hold to anything even slightly different than their own understanding of things as idiots that must be educated or eliminated. This comes to the front particularly in religious discussions.

In my lifetime I have had people come up to me saying I'm a fool for believing in God, thus deeming me unfit for polite human conversation, but needing to be scolded like a little child and corrected from my obvious stupidity. I have also heard people assume that just because someone is not a Christian their perspective is tainted by sin to the point that whatever conclusions they draw or objects they create are not worthwile.

I recently spoke with a fellow student about something a professor of mine said in a class my second year. We were talking about all the different church councils and the heresies that they were dealing with. He stood before the class and said, "Remember, as we discuss these heresies that you find so outrageous, asking how someone could ever think such things that are so obviously wrong, that they were reading the same Bible that you are. We all have the potential for heresy." There was something about that concept that stuck with me. We all have the potential to be horribly, horribly wrong in our readings, our thoughts, our interpretations, our philosophies. We work hard to be right, but if you hold your view so tightly that you cannot acknowledge even the possibility that you are wrong, then you are placing yourself in a place of infalability. All one needs to do is talk to your family to know that there is not a man born that is infallable.

I'm not saying that that I don't have convictions. There are some things that I hold to as truth that I will not be shaken from. I'm not saying that you have to compromise your position on any issue. I'm just saying that I'm sick and tired of people spouting off their views like they were handed down from the heavens on golden parchments while a chorus of angels sang to their glory and smiting all those who do not agree. I'm just saying maybe instead of doing all this talking, maybe we should start listening to each other. We might just find out that both sides have value and can add to the other.

Perhaps I'm just too idealistic.

Artistic Perspective and the Myspace Rabbit Trail.

2006-06-17T09:35:00.000-07:00

Every once in a while my brain decides it wants to think deeply about something, and I come up with interesting little fragments of thought and sound that stick in my head. Sometimes these become poems, sometimes little phrases I stick up on my wall for a time, sometimes they just float off and are never seen or heard from again. In any case, it's usually random. For example, let me tell you about this particular train of thought my mind when on this morning that had me internally waxing philosophically and brought me to writing this blog entry.

Before I get to this morning, let me tell you that I had a meeting Thursday morning with an artist I hope will come to my church and do a performance for us. He creates amazing paintings in 20 minutes set to music. He and I discussed the business and practical elements of him coming to the church, but then we talked about a lot of different things. Among them was how it is being an artist in Christian circles. That conversation got me thinking about art, culture, and beauty, and I think it set the tone for my mental wandering this morning.

I went on my Myspace earlier today because somebody sent me a message on it, and while trying to stave off the boredom of working in a campus library on a summer Saturday morning, I filled out a stupid little survey that an old friend had put up. The very first question on the thing was something along the lines of "What do you think about sex without love?"

"Well," I thought to myself, "that's quite an interesting way to open up a random survey." My basic answers hovered around the area of no, but whatever part of my head likes to go deeper started thinking as to the whys of how I came to that answer. Obviously, my belief in God's Word as, well, God's Word, demanded that answer, but also I started thinking about it on other levels. If there is no love there, who the other person is doesn't matter. They become the functional piece of the puzzle for your own pleasure. If neither party has any real love for the other, the only reason they are together is because each wants to increase their own self-gratification. Not only is this concept objectification by both parties, they become frivolous objects. They are toys to be played with and then neglected, if not discarded and despised.

After that, my mind went to the follow-up concept of sex with love. I'm a poet, a romantic, and a counselor of sorts. I hear about love all the time. At least, I hear the word used a lot. When people speak of love, it is often the flowery beginning times stuff that they talk about. You want to know when I saw love for what it is? My mother sat and wept, years ago, after having a shouting match with my father. He had been in bed with what we would later find out was an almost fatal and paralyzing spinal infection and my father is too stubborn and hard working for extended bed rest. He felt angry, useless, and irritable. I saw love when she went back to their room and took care of him. That's love. My mom has said she doesn't even believe in a heaven, let alone much about God, yet I still use my parents' marriage as one of the best examples of what a godly marriage is supposed to look like. They are committed to each other heart and soul, and when life gets dirty, they are in it together. A lot of the time, people just think of love as the way the person makes them feel, but that's missing the best of it.

Remember how I mentioned at the beginning that I get little phrases in my head? The philosophical nugget that popped into my head at that point was "Sex without love is masturbation. Love without commitment is frivolous." It seemed deep and profound enough to make note of, though it also sounds a lot like what a straight-edge punker would write on a bathroom wall in a bar.

One would think that such profundity would end a rabbit trail, but oh no, my friend, I had only just begun. Oddly enough, it was another myspace bulletin that brought it to the next level. It was a story about a young girl who was told by someone she loved deeply that he would not go out with her because she was ugly. So as to not retell the whole story, it ends with this young girl having cut herself all over her face and killed herself. She had written on the bathroom mirror, 'am I beautiful enough now?' The story ended with a short paragraph about how no one wants to hear someone they love tell them they are ugly, and my mind started to wander again.

I had someone once tell me that no one ever called her beautiful before I had. Sad to say, she hasn't been alone.

I think a lot about beauty. What is it? Is there a universal standard or is it strictly subjective? How does it reveal itself? These are the sort of things I ask of beauty. When I entered what most sociologists would consider adulthood, I figured certain terminologies I used in my youth were done with, that I would converse in a tone that befit my stature as a man grown. Then I entered grad school and found that even here I get asked the all important question when refering to someone: "Is she hot?"

I've come to the conclusion that this elusive "hot" label is a sub-set of beauty. The term is used to describe some superior level of physical perfection. Going off of my previous snipit of profound thought, what did both of the elements of my statement lack? They were both empty and / or missing something critical to how it should be. See, when you say someone is beautiful, 'hot' is the first thing people think about, but it's missing something. I find that there is no shortage of hot people in this world, but there is an ever growing shortage of beautiful people. I cannot come up with a better example of this than Paris Hilton. While huddled groups of men all over the country will debate whether she's good looking or not (I have sadly witnessed one of these), let us say for argument's sake that she falls into the hot category. She's nice to look at and the world over knows her because she gets on TV for being rich and looking good. Have you ever heard her speak? Being kind I would say she is selfish and uninteresting, being me, I'll say she is self-obsessed and vapid. I can't say she's beautiful.

At least for me, when I say that someone is beautiful (or whatever suitable equivalent there is for guys who think it's incredibly weird to be called beautiful), I avoid the reverse gnosticism that says the personality and inner parts of the person do not matter as long as they look good. I try and take people for the whole complexity that is them. When I see a painting, hear music or verse, the image itself is only part of it. What is being said? what image is being used to portray that thought? why was something put in or left out, and how does that affect the meaning? All these are things that make a painting truly beautiful. Mona Lisa isn't much to look at, but her face is considered one of the most beautiful artistic expressions to date. Beauty is everything and it shines so bright you dare not miss it.

Why did I take you down this trail? Why have we gone from myspace bulletins to philosophical treatises on sex, love, and beauty? Because, my friends, I think all of us are screwed up in these areas, myself included if not the forerunner, and as such I need to think about these things more often. Thelonius Monk gave a name to truths you need to hear but sound hard when you get them. Ugly beauty, he called it. I guess I'm trying to say that I hope that if we take more rabbit trails to think about these things, we might just wind up beautiful.

The Issue You Never Thought was an Issue

2006-06-10T13:20:00.000-07:00

While I consider myself to be a lesser peon in the fiefdom of all things technology, I tend to spend time reading articles and talking to people much more in-tune with the issues at hand. What I'm finding is that there are certain issues that most folks really don't know about that a collection of computer geeks talk about like mad. What's really intrigued me is that people simply don't understand the ramifications of these concepts, or they just write it off as technological hoodoo they don't care anything about.

The first of these little phantom issues I heard about was plans by Sony to put a little bugger of a program into the audio CDs it sells that installs itself into your computer and basically monitors what you listen to, buy, etc. Not only is this an annoying and stealthy way of getting to target your money with advertising, the program comes with a sort of Stealth feature in which you don't know it's running unless you follow a convoluted trail of code that you can find on the internet, and that doesn't tell you how to get rid of it, that just tells you how you can SEE it. You can see articles about how people have tried to get rid of the little bastard program and have ended up having to format their hard drives.

What's the big deal? Getting farmed for information not enough for you? Think of it this way, what happens if someone else were to get a hold on this interesting little bit of code that hides a program from showing up on your computer. It's still running, but you have no idea and there's no way to detect it. Say this person places a virus in your computer that runs your credit card numbers and feeds them to people. NOW do you see how not knowing a program is there and its ability to hide from scanners and debuggers is a bad thing?

The latest of these that I've heard some things about is the concept of net neutrality. Geek forums, computer magazines, blogs, and even internet comic strips are all talking about the issue of net neutrality and how legislation has to be made to maintain it. What I'm finding through conversations I've had with people is that if you don't live in the world of computers, you probably haven't even heard of it.

Here's the lowdown from the dumbed down version I worked myself through in order to understand the concept. Your internet service provider's job is to get you to the internet. That's the heart of the matter. Now, philosophically, this is a simple undertaking in that these providers are supposed to give you the same quality service towards each and every web site that is out there, allowing for the people who access them to choose which one they like to use based off of how user-friendly and /or how effective they are.

Now, say that one of these companies, let's call our example Engine A, decides they are not getting enough people to use their search engine. When a lot of people use a certain search engine, the company that provides that search engine can receive more in advertising revenue, so the number of people that use a given engine becomes important. Now, say Engine A would like to lessen the competition out there, so they begin to pay money to Local Telephone Company to degrade the connection speed to the web pages for Engine B, C, and D. Thus, making sure that the only engine that really works with any speed and clarity Engine A, and thus more people start using it.

If local shops find they are not getting business because too many people are going to the store down the street and they decide to fix the problem by putting bear traps by the front door and road spikes in the parking lot, this of course would be absolutely insane. Well, if internet service providers put up firewalls that block sites from being accessed or degrade the connection so that people will go to the site they want them too instead, that's pretty much what's being done.

I'm not saying we have an epidemic on our hands or society as we know it is collapsing at the hand of big business. I'm not even saying this sort of issue takes precidence over obviously more important issues that seem equally out of the public eye such as the genecides in Darfur. I just know that these are issues that could, at some point, become major issues affecting free speech and economics and thus thought more people should at least be told that it's out there. It'd be a shame if people never heard of it and then someday have to wonder why there being price gouged by the only remaining corporation for phone service left because it was able to buyout all the bandwidth and become the only company people could get to.

If you want to read more than what I've mentioned, go to Save the Internet and you can find out more about it by reading articles and hearing about what the government is doing and what could be done.

Bread and Circuses

2006-06-07T11:09:00.001-07:00

Hello all my adoring fans. It has been a while. I've worked over 30 hours at both of my part time jobs recently, so I haven't had much time to do, well, much of anything, and the lack of sleep from overnight shifts pretty much put me into a pretty nasty stretch of fever and bad times this weekend. I'm happy to report that I am well, I am back, and I am not going to do that ever again if it can be helped.

When people tell me that they have decided to leave a church in order to go to another one, my first response is always to ask them the reason for their departure. I understand that there are definitely valid reasons for leaving a church. I have had to leave a couple myself. They range from the philosophical (example: they have become a "seeker sensitive" church and you are opposed to that church model), the doctrinal (example: They believe that Christ is not God, but a man empowered by God), or perhaps the practical (example: your job has you working Sunday mornings so you have to go to a church that has an evening service). However, most of the time the responses I get back are something along the lines of "I'm just not being fulfilled," "I don't like the worship style," or "This other church has (insert group / facility / etc) that I like."

There will be some who think I am too hard on people when I say I do not believe these latter reasons are good enough to justify leaving a church. They will ask who am I to say what's a good reason or not, and you know what? those people would be absolutely right. I have no authority to dictate another person's preferences when it comes to church. I have no authority to mandate someone go to a certain type or denomination of church over another. However, as a student of the Bible and a self-proclaimed philosopher I feel I have enough authority to ask a couple questions: 1) Have you made an effort to understand the reasons why your current church does what it does and see if you can't possibly start to implement similar things that you like about this other church, and 2) When did church ever become about what you need?

Have you ever thought about why Christians all over the globe gather together once or twice a week? Have you ever sat down to contemplate what the purpose of church is? If you are a fan of the Westminster Catechism of Faith, or have even scanned the document, what I say next will not be unfamiliar to you. "The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever." That's right kids. The reason we go to church is not so that we can get something out of it. It is not to do social outreach or become a community center. It is not even so that we can receive some form of spiritual "recharge" to make it through the week. The purpose of church is to glorify God, and everything that the church does and/or should be doing flows from this.

The reason we have services is so that once a week we might come and, with one voice, praise God together. Church, my friends, is never about us. It's all about Him.

While, no, I am not saying that you have to stay in a certain local body if you hate every waking moment of it because that's the one you chose and you're stuck with it. I do not think that the Good Lord wants us to view worshipping him as something horrific and taxing. What I am saying, though, is that sometimes I have noticed a commercialism when it comes to churches. This attitude stems from the general way in which we live our lives. Think about it. If you go to a restaurant to eat with your family, and the food is not to your liking, you simply do not go to that restaurant again, but rather go to the one down the street that is more to your taste. What I have begun to see is this notion going into church. "I want church to be a certain way. If this church is not providing me with the type of experience I want, then I will go to the next one until I find one that fits my desires."

In a world that has seen The Purpose Driven Church model explode across the country, pulling people into the church has become of crucial importance. Churches feel they are somehow going against the will of God if they do not have hundreds of thousands of people coming through the doors. This had lead to marketing the church like it's a new movie or amusement park, emphasizing new programs, new buildings, new everything. I am currently working a part time summer job at a church not too far from here. I have nothing particularly against this church doctrinally. However, I just get a little frustrated with the fact that the very atmosphere they are cultivating there is not an atmosphere of worship and the holiness of God so much as a feeling of a shopping mall for Jesus, complete with a coffee house inside the church building.

I had a conversation with another DTS student. He is a friend of mine I've known for years and he attends this particular church. I asked him what he feels about the whole scenario and he says he often has mixed feelings about it too. The laid back, open feeling of the church is nice, and the fact that they do so much to reach out to the community by providing things like a giant tube-like structure much like a McDonalds "Play Place" in the main hall outside the sanctuary provides families a good, safe place to bring their kids and perhaps opens some doors for ministry. However, the question I asked him, and he agreed is a good thing to be constantly asking oneself is that at what point does it stop being about reaching out to a community that they might hear the gospel and grow in faith so that they might grow closer to God and praise His name, and more about pandering to what people want to get people into the church? I'm not sure I have any definitive answer to this, but it's something I have been thinking about lately since I started working there.

I could expand this into a theological and philosophical debate concerning the new "emergant church" movement and its pros and cons, but I've gone on long enough. I just wanted to write something and encourage all who read it to really contemplate what the purpose of church is, and if they are not happy with church, to think about whether it is really worth leaving, or if maybe God is simply trying to stretch your understanding of what is really important.

The Da Vinci Who Gives a Crap

2006-05-23T10:07:00.000-07:00

I didn't become a fan of Blues Traveler until I heard "Run Around," a song off their Four album, neglecting Blues Traveler, Travelers and Thieves, and Save His Soul. I didn't know anything about P.O.D. until The Fundamental Elements of Southtown, though they had put out two albums before then. The list of bands that do not become famous until they have been putting stuff out there for a long time is an interesting phenomenon. Wonder if it happens with anything else?

****

In my life, as in the life of most, I have a good number of "spheres of influence" wherein I am interacting with people and they place some form of value on what I say. It seems that each and every one of those spheres lately has had at least one person asking me about the DaVinci Code movie / book. Anyone who has asked me about this in the past knows my opinion on the whole thing.

Simply put: Why do we care so much about a work of fiction?

Now, I appreciate the need to deal with it. The moment people started taking it as fact, as one who calls himself a student of literature, history, and theology, I have to say the book has to be clarified as a load of dung. He takes bits and pieces of truth and twists them. There's just enough reality in them that people think that it's real, but there's no historical evidence whatsoever of the events as he describes them. We allow this only when it is understood to be fiction.

Now is this a blog to refute the book? No. Unless directly asked my opinion on it, I really try to avoid that topic. However, in my ongoing theme for this blog of taking events in my life and putting them out here for public consumption so that people might take the time to think them through as I have, I need to tell you a story about my Sunday afternoon.

I spent the morning helping with the Sunday school class, as I do almost every Sunday morning. I was tired and my head was pounding from a tremendous sinus headache, so I decided I would head back home to take some medication and get some rest rather than going to the main service. Since I live in a dorm situation where food service is not available on Sundays and I have no means to prepare food, Sunday lunch is usually a stop off at the Panda Express fast-food chinese place that sits on my way home from church. I got there, however, and because of my leaving early from church, they hadn't opened yet. I had two options: head back to the dorm and have to take a second trip out to get food later, or wait the 15 minutes and come back when they opened. Around the corner from the Panda is a Borders Books, and as my head pounded I really had no desire to have to make a second trip, so I decided to pop into Borders for a bit and see all the books I don't have the money to buy.

I get into the door and check all the little tables of books Borders has. New Fiction, New Biography, Local History, and of course my favorite, Bargain books. Among these standards for the store, a new little table had sprung up. The little placard over top of it said DaVinci Code. I was intrigued by the notion of one book taking up so much room on shelves, even one as popular as this one, so I chose to investigate. What I found were a host of different books of various titles. As I read the back covers of these books to get a synopsis of the plot, they all seemed to have the same basic story. I saw one book, whose title was recently the topic of a lawsuit against Dan Brown, Holy Blood, Holy Grail. This book is much older than Brown's book, and it too says that Jesus had married and had a family. I looked at several other books that had issues about Christ's marital status and supposed children as their main plot. They had titles like The Secret Supper and other assorted titles just plain dripping with controversy and secrecy. I started looking at the various books and got to thinking. Which came first? While a few of these books seemed to be simply piggy-backing the success of Brown's book, put out by competing publishing houses so as to cash in on the craze, there were several that were put out before the DaVinci Code had been written. Why is it that it is all of a sudden such a huge thing, when clearly the idea had been suggested previous to Brown's book?

Honestly, I don't know the intricacies involved in marketing. Having only partly read the DaVinci Code and never having read any of the others, I cannot say whether one of these is better or worse, or whether or not they should have been written at all. It just seems interesting to me that the idea itself was put out there long before Dan Brown said that all of the stuff in his book is factual, yet nobody even cared. People had been suggesting that Jesus might have married Mary Magdalen and they had a family for quite some time. Students of history might know a thing or two about the Grail Knights, or whatever they called themselves, who claimed divine ancestry.

Why now? Why the fuss? It's just an idea. My faith is not challenged by this, even if the whole situation "pulls an O.J." as I like to call it and all the evidence that points towards it being a certain way is wrong and Dan Brown is correct. That doesn't change anything. I want those who aren't Christians to look at the situation and say, "Maybe I should look into this and see for myself if there's any validity to what he's saying." I want Christians to look at this whole situation and say, "Maybe if we didn't make such a big deal and protest about it, but address it quietly and use it as an opportunity to simply talk about the doctrine of the deity of Christ, people wouldn't get so crazy about all of this."

I just want to wade through the mountain of crap that this little mystery novel has created and come out on the other side . . . where it passes into forgotten memory.

Humility in leadership

2006-05-19T06:54:00.000-07:00

I met with the pastor of my church yesterday for an early lunch. We'll be meeting pretty much every week like this because I've been his intern now since April of last year, but the internship is really just getting started in the eyes of the school and since classes are over, there is more flexibility to meet regularly.

Throughout the course of the meeting, dancing was mentioned. As I bantered back and forth with him about how he needed to take his wife out on a Saturday night with us, lessons included, I shared with him a conversation I had with my friend Chris about the lessons we had learned about leadership through learning how to lead a dance partner out on the floor. I mentioned this idea in a prior blog entry (called "a three penny blog post") , and the more I've thought it through, the more the idea is a good picture about what it is all about. When I shared with him the part about how a good leader is not there to show off his own moves, but that he is in fact there to make his follow look good and to present her to the world, he paused and said, "That's it. You need to make sure you keep that thought, because that's what it's all about." I got a bit of a kick out of the fact that he spent a couple minutes repeating the idea to himself and saying "I need to remember that one." One thing that came about in my discussion with the pastor was the fact that what is most important in truly effective leading is what is often lacking in the leader. Humility.

The reason I bring this up is because of a prior conversation I had with a man that works, of all places, in the cafeteria here at the school. I have gotten to know a little bit about this man through passing conversations. I have had a couple classes with him and I see him whenever he is working. He is from Kenya, and hopes that once he finishes his degree here to go back and minister. On Wednesday I engaged him in a bit of small talk that is a mandatory part of campus life at this time of the year, "So are you going to get to go home this summer?" His eyes lit up and he said that he will be able to go home to Kenya for an entire month. I know this is a big thing for him.

Coming over to this country for school, he left his two children with family back home so that they might not have to re-organize their lives for his schooling. So one of the things he told me about was being happy that he and his wife can spend an entire month with the kids. The other thing he mentioned about his trip home was that he was going to visit all the churches that he used to be in charge of when he was home. I noted the use of the plural 'churches,' but I know from friends who are from several different African countries that a lack of pastors often makes the pastors that are there serve at least a couple different churches. I asked this man how many churches he was in charge of and he told me five. While I had heard other people give me similar numbers before, for some reason this time it really struck me how much of a humble spirit it takes to come away from that.

When I was home performing a memorial service for my grandmother last weekend, my cousin asked me about the guys you see on TV doing services. He said that so many of them seem to be shady at best and downright con-artists at the worst, and he asked my opinion on the whole thing. I told him that there are a couple of them out there that are very good and are on TV simply because lots of people have wanted to hear them. But I also told him that going in with the idea that the guys on TV are indeed a bit shady is not such a bad thing, seeing as most of them seem more into self-glorification and pandering than actually teaching and equipping people to do God's work.

Placing pastors and ministers on pedestals is not limited to TV preachers either. I know people who travel the 40+ minutes every Sunday morning from downtown Dallas to Fresno, Texas, passing untold numbers of closer churches, just so that they can go to Chuck Swindoll's church. I do not fault Chuck for the fame he has garnered as a preacher. If you have ever heard him, you know why people would go out of their way to hear him, and I think that one of the reason why he is considered to be such a great pastor and preacher is because he teams that up with a humble spirit. I also think, however, that he is becoming more and more the rarity.

We live in a culture that makes leaders into celebrities, that accredits all success to the power and skill of one individual. In this culture, the thought of a man in charge of five churches coming here and working in the cafeteria would be unacceptable. We foster the idea that would have this man demand the respect and authority of leading a church here, almost to the point where anything lower than a pastorate would be considered an insult. This brother from Kenya, however, is happy. He views what he does as a service to his brothers and sisters at the school. This man stepped away from a position of authority in power over five congregations to come to this country, learn more about the Scriptures and about leadership, and then to return home enriched and better prepared to serve the people. He will be doing so as the guy behind the counter serving school food.

One of the greatest things I have ever been able to do at school, both here and in college, is to sit with people who are from worlds completely different than your own and share life with them. Thus, my life is enriched as well as theirs. We learn from each other what it really means to be godly. I learned a lesson that day, from a man who served me a burger, the head of five churches in Kenya.

Clearing the Temple of Me-ism

2006-05-06T11:55:00.000-07:00

I haven't written anything in weeks, though it seems like longer. I know it has been difficult for my cult following of rabid fans and assorted well-wishers, but don't worry yourself. I have come to shed light in the darkness. I have returned.

Now that all all the overdramatic, over-stated hooha is out of the way . . .

Trust me when I tell you that I have wanted to write about a lot of different things that have been going on lately. I've wanted to stand on buildings and shout curses and frustrations to the four winds until I have lost my breath and pass out. So you may be asking why, if I had so much to say, I did not put it on here and allow any would be internet browser to hear what wanted to spew forth from my soul.

The simple answer is . . . I was full of crap.

Had I stopped to type in the things that I wanted to, you would have had to endure a wave of self-depricating yet self-absorbed bull that may be unprecedented in your reading of blogs, and if you've spent time reading blogs in one of the seemingly thousands of blog sites, you would have quite the precedent to work with. I was once counted amongst that throng, so today I wish to bring you my interpretation of things in hopes that you might learn from my past mistakes and not have to get the kick in the pants that I had to in order to come to some of the conclusions I have come to.

For starters, Pride is the sneakiest bastard on the planet. I realized this after several, and yes, it took several, conversations I had with my friend Ben. When I would just get sucked into my own little world of self-pitty and would ask others to join me in the dance of how sad I am, all I was doing was attempting to shift the focus of everything around me towards, well, me. I was demanding that people around me pay attention to me and fulfill me as I sat back and wallowed in my own pitty. You do not think of it as an issue of pride because all you can think about is how terrible a person you are, especially when compared to friends A, B, and C, who are clearly better people than you are at almost everything and get all the breaks in life. This, my friends is the trap.

I have had the blessing of having amazing and wonderful people in my life. What I can say with utmost certainty is that the ones that have been the greatest in my life have been the ones unafraid to tell me I'm full of crap when the whole world knows that I am. It was Matthew that told me that I was not showing the leadership I would need to ever dream of doing what I feel I am supposed to be doing. It was Ben that told me that every time I withdrew from life I was spitting in the faces of everyone that cared about me. It was Micah and Tim that would tell people to give me space, but if I abused that and sulked too much would beat the crap out of me. The list goes on, but if I said it all I'd have to pay for more space on the internet.

At some point, and believe me when I tell you that this is a realization that has come to some fruition probably within the past two or three months, I came to understand that if I was to be respected as a man, I would have to learn to just say to hell with it, because that's petty much where it's coming from anyway. I would have to stand up, take the hit, and press on regardless of what was happening or how much it hurt. But here's the really hard part, I'd have to do it head up and without complaining. That's the part about it that had been so hard for me for so long. It's easy to press on if you still get to complain about how hard your life is and "oh, if only things would be better."

The reason I had not written anything was because it would have been my temptation to just let the internet be my grounds for complaining. As it is, one of the things that I would have been complaining about has practically righted itself to the point where it now becomes more of a large annoyance than the cataclysmic destroyer of worlds that I thought it was going to be. With the rest of it, just dig in and run forward, all the while knowing that God and all these people that have become an irreplaceable part of my life and history run with me.

A Frustrated Sense of Suspsended Disbelief

2006-04-17T06:44:00.000-07:00

Now as yesterday was Easter, and I have never hidden the fact that I'm one of those folks that really loves Jesus, you'd imagine I'd have something to say about the whole day in which we celebrate the fact that He rose from the dead on the third day. Easter, however, rolled on as Easter does. It was a great service at church, packed to the gills with people I had never met before, I went to a friend's place for a good meal and generally more food than I knew what to do with, and then I came back and enjoyed a relaxing evening.

I could go off on how this time of the year is when you really start to take stock in how much your life does or does not match up with Christ-like living, but I'm sure there are plenty of blogs in the world that will be doing that for me, so I'll politely direct you to them.

What I will talk about, however, is something that started with a movie, and continued on throughout the evening. Instead of talking about the holiday and belief, I want to talk about the ability to suspend disbelief.

In the off chance you are reading this and have no concept of the suspension of disbelief, pretty much any movie that is not a documentary of some kind will have asked you to take part in that activity. Didn't you know that armies of ninjas will only attack a person one at a time despite the fact that they have that person surrounded? Don't you understand that when trained marksmen are shooting at each other they will unload clips of ammunition at each other and neither of them nor the people they may be next to are hurt, and the shooting will stop long enough for them to have the dramatic dialogue? See, if you really think about it, there are a lot of great movie moments that simply can't happen. We enjoy them tremendously because of the fact that we can understand that this is just a movie, reality isn't like this, but I'm enjoying it too much to care about that. Chuck Norris can't take down an army by himself as much as we want him to, but dang it if it isn't fun to watch him do it every now and then.

The movie I had a hard time suspending my own private disbelief for was not some blockbuster action flick. I actually think those are the easiest to do. The movie I attempted to watch yesterday an have had a hard time with was Hitch. I acknowledge that almost all of the people I know who have seen it say it is one of the funniest movies ever made, and from what parts of the movie I've seen, I can see how they can come to that conclusion. Yet as a person who has had at least two different opportunities to watch the movie and have walked away from it both those times about 15-20 minutes in, I just can't do it.

I simply could not stop my inability to believe what I was seeing. Within the first seconds of the film I'm watching guys who are goofy and awkward "scoring," as some would so eloquently put it, with very attractive women like it's going out of style and all because they just listen. The scene that has been rendered as legend among guys I live with is the scene right at the beginning when Will Smith's character gets the woman's attention by giving her his drink order and having her follow him in anger, just so he can later turn to her and smile saying, "I knew you weren't a waitress, but how else was I supposed to get you away from all those other guys?" You see, she smiles, and in some way, this part I believe. But at the same time, only Will Smith could get away with something like that and not get smacked or blown off. Finally, it's the fact that Kevin James, who plays the chubby, awkward guy with glasses winds up with the wealthy, gorgeous hottie. How do I know he does without seeing the end? Because this is a comedy, and a comedy could end no other way.

The long and the short of it is, my personal experience screams the contradiction so loudly that my ability to quiet it is negated. I try to stay away from venting blog entries, because that is not what this is intended for, but this one just seemed like something I had to write. Last night, in an attempt to impress a young lady as well as to encourage her because she had had a really bad day, I listened to what she had to say and responded in kind, and as we walked up to her door I told her how amazing she is and that there was no one else I wanted to spend my time with that evening but her . . . I was thanked for being a good friend. And that, my friends, is how the story of the chubby guy with glasses actually ends.

So what can I say about Jordan

2006-04-03T07:58:00.000-07:00

Several of our group atop Mt. Nebo

I have returned.

Well, technically I had returned Saturday, but a 12 hour sleeping binge and a lot of just relaxing to return to normalcy later, I've finally decided to write out a blog about it.

The difficulty I find is how to write out something about an experience so intense and crazy as this past week had been and do it any justice. I'm going to try in a nutshell to describe everything that happened, but I don't really know if I have the words for it. Anyone who has asked me about how the trip went so far has gotten a lot of pauses, the occaisional wow, and finally just an, "It was amazing."

I had been out of the country before, but I had never even been to a middle eastern country, let alone Jordan, up to this point. So, like any good scholarly type, I did some asking around, read some things, and sat for long talks with some people who had spent significant amounts of time in the Middle East. I went in with several important cultural do's and don'ts and a knowledge that I was going to be sharing Christ in a culture that was not accepting of the Gospel.

Then we arrived.

The first day or so we were there, many of us were slightly nervous about things. Here we were, a group of Americans on a missions trip, and a lot of people knew about it. However, we found out that we were received very well. I have never spent time in a country where the people were as gracious and polite as the Jordanians were to us. We found out that other than a few pockets of hardcore conservatives, by and large a lot of the old cultural things we had picked up and worked so hard to put into practice didn't matter. The people just didn't care that much, as we often found Jordanians doing things that we thought they would find insulting. This was tremendously freeing for us, and we were able to focus more on talking with the people we met, as opposed to worrying about whether the bottoms of our feet were showing.

In many cases, I felt safer walking the streets of Amman than I do when I'm walking around Dallas. There is apparently a lot less crime in a place where the police are carrying semi-automatic rifles and are placed strategically in the city (which was quite unnerving that first day let me tell you).

The first couple days of the trip was when we got all the touristy stuff in. The conference that the ladies were helping with hadn't started yet and the guys didn't get started until about Tuesday night, so that's when we started seeing some of the beautiful and historically significant stuff that was in Jordan. For starters, we went to Mt. Nebo, the mountain upon which God let Moses look into the promised land that he would never set foot on. Standing there, it was amazing. We could point to sites that we had all only read about in the Bible. We could see the Dead Sea, and in the distance we could see, with the help of a handy plaque, where several other areas would be. I stood there and realized that this was where Moses stood. He saw the land that his disobediance kept him from. I thought a lot about holiness as I stood there.

We saw Petra, which only Bible nerds like us knew about as Petra, but most everybody else knows as the big temple-looking building at the end of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. The buildings there were literally carved from the side of the rock. Nothing was added, no additional construction was done. They even carved stairways and riggings into the rock to help them get to the higher places to finish it. It was absolutely beautiful.

On Tuesday, the women's conference had started, but the guys went out to the Dead Sea and to a place where some believe as where Jesus was baptized. The most interesting part of that outing was when we saw the Jordan River. Where we were it was only about 20ft across. On one shore stood a guard from the Jordanian army. On the other, two men stood with guns bigger than they were. They were from the Israeli army. We were told quite bluntly not to go too far in, because if it looked like we were trying to cross there's a good chance we'd be shot. A couple of us waded up to their ankles, several of us just reached in to say we were in the Jordan, and we moved on.

While the ladies helped with the conference, we were there for teaching, preaching, and generally just to encourage the churches and pastors in the city. Several churches opened up their pulpits for guys to preach in evening services. I had the opportunity to lead a devotional and teach a chapel time for the Amman Baptist School, which is considered the number 1 school in the country as far as accademics were concerned. That is quite the accomplishment that the number 1 school in a very Islamic country is a Baptist school. I was amazed at the depth of the kids that I talked to there. In the chapel I had with about 20 of the 7th graders, I just opened it up to them asking questions. They asked basic get to know you questions, but the two major areas they wanted to talk about were fasting and spiritual warfare. It was just a completely different world from teaching kids here in America.

Another school we visited was a school set up by a missions organization to teach Iraqi refugee kids. These kids were unable to attend school before this school opened up because they weren't citizens. This place was perhaps the most heart-wrenching of the whole trip. All we would do was kneel down and 20 kids would be on our backs looking to get pictures with us. I can't wait to get the picture off my friend's camera of me with all those kids. They played in a basement during recess, because that's all they had to play in. It was hard, but man did those kids love us.

Once a month, all the pastors in the nothern part of Jordan gather together to pray and to talk about things. This month, we happened to be in town, so we met with them too. This was on Friday, so by this point we had met several of them already from prior nights and were happy to see them again before we left. Sitting and talking to these men throughout the week, I began to get a picture as to how hard it really is to lead a congregation there. Several pastors told stories about how they had lost members of their flocks because they had been killed for becoming Christians. While, as I said before, we felt safer than we thought we would have, this made us realize that while it is safer, it is far from safe. While it is not illegal to be a Christian in Jordan, it is illegal to convert to Christianity from Islam. In a country where honor killing (a man killing his wife/daughter/sister to preserve his family honor) is still legal and declaring yourself a Christian means you lose everything, it really means a lot more to wear a cross around your neck than any of us could ever imagine.

I hope to go back to Jordan at some point. I love that place and that people. As we stood and prayed on a hillside looking over the city, the call to prayer was echoing out from the more than 20 mosques that we could see from there. Earlier that week, Christians in the city of Zarqa began their worship service, and the call to prayer was heard in the background. It was a haunting reminder of the situation they live in every day.

I could say more, but I've already said a lot. I could talk for days about this. If you want, just ask me.

A Three Penny Blog Posting

2006-03-23T22:22:00.000-08:00

To use the words of my friend Aaron, 10 bonus points if you can get the veiled reference in the title.

Anyway, I have about 6,000 things to say right now. I've got potential blog posts coming out of, well, let's just say it wouldn't be pretty. I've got the pressure of getting at least two assignments done before tomorrow morning to be handed in before I get on a plane, and I both thrive on and hate that kind of pressure. It's quite annoying actually, but I digress.

In such a state I wanted to write, but what do I write about? Truly it was a quandry for the ages. I narrowed my many choices of varying importances and values into three topics of concern that might actually be worthwhile reading for people other than me, but couldn't narrow it any farther for the life of me. So, I figured I had two options: Writing three different blogs about these three varied topics who share the loose affiliation of coming from me and that's about it, or condensing those three things into short blurbs and just shoving them all together into one. Due to the fact that I don't have a big enough reader base to be so presumptuous as to have you endure such an abundance of postings, I chose the latter.

Headed to Jordan

Tomorrow I get on a plane headed to Frankfurt, Germany on my way to Amman, Jordan. I'm going with a group of people from my church to help some people we support there. There will be plenty of times to help them out with conferences, to teach, and to encourage them. I'm definitely looking forward to it, I have been since January when my fund raising came in and it was fairly clear that I was supposed to go. I'll be there for a week. It'll be an awful lot of work, but it'll be the kind of work that you end your day tired but really blessed by what you've been doing all day.

The hardest part of this whole thing was the call I made several hours ago to my parents. My dad has known about this trip for a while now, but Mom has been kept in the dark, mostly by Dad's advice. My mother worries about me constantly while I'm living here in Texas, and now she hears that I am going to a place that in recent years similar trips have been cancelled due to political instability. She spent so much time crying that she couldn't talk to me and handed the phone over to Dad. Part of me thinks that maybe Dad was right. Maybe I should have told her only after I had come back. Maybe I should have kept her in the dark. Who knows.

Taking the Lead

The new movie coming out that stars Antonio Banderas has got me thinking about dancing a lot. That, and the fact that my friend Chris just got back from a weekend of Lindy Hopping all over Houston. When he came back, Chris and I spent a lot of time talking about dancing. Chris is better than me, but usually when we go out, the two of us are considered the dancers of our little pack of miscreants, so we talk about dancing quite a bit. At this particular instance we were talking about what it really means to be a Lead and a Follow. He was talking about how much he enjoyed dancing with ladies that really knew how to follow. If they know what they're doing they don't anticipate the next move, they don't try to do their own thing, they wait to be led and then act accordingly.

I was thinking about being a follow. Learning to follow is something I think is important. I feel that anybody who thinks they should be a leader should learn to follow first. They should spend some time learning what it means to follow in the footsteps of someone else's vision. If they can't do that, then they will never be able to work with those who disagree with them. They will cast aside people who aren't in the same camp they are. They will miss out on learning what they might have to teach them.

On the flipside, I thought a lot about leading. I get a lot of comments from the ladies we dance with that I am really easy to dance with. In my attempt to be witty and charming, I usually say, "Well, it's the lead's job to make sure the woman is presented like a beautiful work of art, and in this case my job is particularly easy." It's an attempt at charm, but there's truth behind it. If a woman has spent any time dancing, she'll reallize that some guys are better to dance with than others. A common theme with those guys is that they are either creepy (and oh boy are there some creepy guys that come out to a dance hall), or that they are just hard to dance with. These guys go against the job of the lead and instead try to show off that they are wonderful dancers. I thought about this in leadership too. See, a leader needs to be able to gently direct those he is leading to get them to go in a certain direction. Rather than show-boating his own agenda, the leader shows the congregation where they should go and watches as they open up into a beautiful maneuver they previously thought they couldn't do.

It's amazing what dancing can teach you.

Guarding Myself

I've never had a good track record with the opposite sex. I can be witty and charming, but that'll only get a guy so far. I've developed a lot of scar tissue from hearing how good a friend I am, but how I'm just not the dating type. Because of this, I've really begun to understand the concept of needing to guard your heart. However, at which point do you need to stop guarding yourself and just be open to something else? Last time I opened myself up to the potential for something, I found rampant indifference awaiting me on the other side. While it was short lived, for about two or three weeks there I was just horribly burned out and bitter. I recently took out a young lady just casually, however, I had such a great time. I was asked if I would ask her out again and I said certainly, but at the same point I'm terrified. See, I've been here before. I'll ask a young lady out, we'll have a lovely time as a couple of friends hanging out. I'll do this a couple more times and something starts to be worth mentioning. I say, "Hey, have you ever thought about something happening between the two of us?" And that's when I get told about how great a friend I am.

I don't know if there's ever going to be anything between the two of us, but I just get frustrated by the fact that I am scared that one day I'm going to start feeling like there might be something, only to find out that I'm being reassured about how great a person I am. I have to start workin' out the balancing act between guarding my heart and letting somebody into it. I don't think I'm alone in that.

Technical difficulties

2006-03-21T15:30:00.000-08:00

Well, I sign on today and find out that everything's gone all crazy. I'm gonna let it ride for a while and see if the good people at blogger fix it, seeing as my code still looks good.

Hang with us for a while.

This is an awful lot of crap just to sell milk

2006-03-15T13:49:00.000-08:00

I've been here at work since 9:30 this morning. Other than my 30 minute lunch break and 3 people asking me to take passport pictures, I've had nothing to do but sit on my rump and browse the internet. Oh, the thrilling life of the Media Assistant.

In my pursuit of assorted timekillers and amusements, I went to one of my daily entertainment staples, PvP online. For those of you who have not ventured into the world of webcomics before, PvP is a hilarious little comic updated daily by Scott Kurtz. While I was enjoying today's comic, I happened to see a banner add talking about aliens considering cows the greatest of all lifeforms and that they needed my help. Naturally, in my bored and otherwise unoccupied state, aliens and cow abductions caught my eye. I went to the website that the banner add linked to, and was interested by the spinning planetscape that lay before me. As the leader of this planet in peril began to speak to me of his ailing populace, I was suddenly cast face to face against the notion that this was all a big marketing ploy to get people to drink milk! Each provence on this planet called, as inane as it sounds, Brittleactica, has their prime minister speaking about how this magical white tonic from the holy being Da Iry (what the aliens think cows are) can help their particular people. The names of the countries are equally as silly, going by names like Insomniastan, Cavitopia, and my personal favorite, PMStonia. I found myself in what I like to call a "train wreck" situation. Where every fragment of your being wants to look away, but you can't help but look at the horror.

I started to think about all that went into this web page, the animators, the actors, the people who actually sat down to write this schlock! Oh, those poor unfortunate souls. I can hear it now:

"So Bob, tell me a little of the work you've done in the past."

"Well, sir, I once played the Prime Minister of Papau Hairthinny for a web page on the benefits of drinking milk."

"Well. Isn't that . . . interesting."

Who thought this was a good use of resources? Who thought this was a good way to get people to drink milk? I love milk, and try to drink it as often as a dorm student living off cafeteria food can actually consume it, but I may be forced to give up milk for a time in protest of this terrible add. I must, lest they be encouraged to make more of this silliness.

I've heard it said that there is no such thing as bad publicity. Well, I AM mentioning this web page on the internet and even providing a link to its insanity. Am I not doing exactly what the national dairy board or whatever there called wants me to do? Maybe, but my goodness! It's not even for a particular company. At least then I could say, well, that's stupid but it gets the company's name out there. This is just for milk and dairy products in general. No name is getting put out there. Just the simple message of, "Hey, dairy is good for you. Consume it!"

I will give them this. I've never seen anything quite like this or on quite this large a scale. As the guy who touts the merits of creative and original thinking, I must applaud them. However, I do so with great pain because this just hurts. However, for future reference, you don't need to make elaborate Star Wars-esque web pages to convince people to drink milk and eat cheese. The best advertisement these people have ever had is a plain black background with white letters asking if we've got milk. Why do we have to get this overblown crap thrown at us to drink something that most of the non-lactose intollerant world is drinking already?

It's all just so downright silly. I thought somebody needed to call them on that.

Reflections of a Libertine

2006-03-11T11:32:00.000-08:00

I recently watched the movie, The Libertine starring Johnny Depp. While there may be people that may read this that would hasten to the next Depp masterwork, take heart, this is a very rough movie. Were this a critique of said movie, I would continue on about the films intriguing cinematography, its interesting use of symbolism, and the intriguing philosophical and religious frustrations and explorations of the main character, and I would not hesitant to caution the average movie-goer regarding its graphic content. However, that’s not what this is about at all.

I could not help but look up the definition of the word ‘libertine’ when I got back from the theater. The wordsmith in me cried out for answers as I only slightly grasped the concept. So I looked it up and found that libertine has two primary definitions. The first is “one who acts without moral restraint; a dissolute person.” If one were to watch the movie or research the life of John Wilmot, clearly this seems to be the definition that fits the man. The second definition is “one who defies established religious precepts; a freethinker.” It was at this second definition that I paused for a moment and reflected.

It is at this point, if not from the very moment this article’s title is read, that any good poet or student of language might begin deciphering the use of prepositions in it. You see, using the preposition ‘of’ instead of ‘on’ makes all the difference in the world. Poets don’t play frivolously with words, you see. We know exactly what we are doing with them. I would be so bold as to tell you that, while I would not have considered myself as such before attending this institution, I would dare say that I am a libertine of the second definition.

Never was this so clearly made evident than when I sat with a few friends discussing epistemology, and how much we as sinful humanity can know truth. Watching the argument between a person who held to a strict view of black and white answers to all questions and another who favored a view that involved more shades of gray amongst the black and white, I did not want to go around the circle of their logic, so I just watched. When one of them tried to coax me into their side of the argument, the other chimed in with, “Of course he’ll agree with you. He’s the artsy liberal guy.” All I could do was remain silent and wonder how such a moniker befell me.

What is it about me that would garner such titles? Is it the fact that above all things I think that grace demands we view people not as what we want them to be, but to interact with them where they are? Is it because I can find truth in the dirty and foul elements of life with the same regularity as I find them in that which is sanctified? Is it because I question the merits of the burgeoning Christian sub-culture? Is it because I cuss when I think it is merited and would often rather sit in a bar than at a sing-along? Perhaps its because I’m just so tired of my Bible being my textbook that has to be dissected to within an inch of its life before I’m supposed to be able to interact with it? I don’t know.

I do defy religious precepts that scream at me to be defied. I push boundaries and see if they hold. If they stand against the push, I move on and say to myself and others, “Now this is something worth following.” If it moves, then I push it until it stops. Scripture is my touchstone, philosophy my guide, history my teacher, and love by my side. I speak what I think needs be spoken, and I remain silent when it does not. I’m sorry if either borders on too much for you. I will say at the conclusion, you may not like me, but I’m okay with that.

Slam poems

2006-03-06T13:47:00.000-08:00

There's been a public outcry to have the text of my poems out there. For future reference, by public outcry I mean that four or five people have asked me, "Hey, why don't you put the poems you did on your blog?" It wasn't until after I had performed them that I realized I had inadvertantly gone with a "city" theme. To answer the public outcry . . . here they are:

City Lights

The streets teem
With hopes and dreams
Crushed under neon beams
That illuminate some
Huddled blankets
That used to be
A man,
A woman,
A child,
You.

Lifting up a well-lined
Arm to reach for
Some forgotten wisdom.

Hope

Looking skyward, seeing
Less than daylight.
Only shadows hung
Atop the streaming
Mass of gleaming
Glass and heat.

Never seeing
Any other reason
For proceeding, he
Seeks another
Dragon to chase.
At least that
Is a race
He can win.

He only finds
His smile after
Crossing all the lines
There at the finish.
For a while
He forgets.

Falling in a
Sidewalk crack.
Light then fading
Into something
More than darkness.

The city never sleeps.
It passes out in the alley
And gets beaten
For its shoes.

Gray City Sunday

Houses dot a lonely highway,
Rolling plains of deadened grass,
Rich and wide against the skyline,
Sturdy fences stand off-white.

Dust piles molded, shifting rafters,
Painted beige with dirty brush.
Blistered hands—sore—repairing,
Painting over faded gray.

Gray city in its Sunday best,
A lighter shade of striking bland
Corrupted by some remnant taint
Passing as exotic beauty.

When the noontime housework settles,
Colors, seen in full resolve, cast
Winnowed shades across the fields
And call the painters to return.

Gray city Sunday winding down
Again—Dusty suit coat worn away,
Thrown to rest on iron fences.
The weary get no rest today.

Redefinition

2006-03-06T07:17:00.000-08:00

Last night we had a moment of silence for our fallen brother. On saturday March the 4th, 2006, our dear friend Greg dropped off the face of our earth to join the realm of the happily married. We'll miss him, though we take comfort that he's in a better place.

I've had the same running joke ever since college. When a guy gets married or he's in a relationship that is headed in that direction, he becomes 'one of the fallen.' This isn't a statement of bitterness or my distaste for relationships. It is simply because once someone crosses that threshold, we just don't see him much anymore. He's in a completely different world from our own. What has to happen in these situations is that you find yourself redefining your friendship with that person. You can't hang out with that person the way you used to, simply due to the fact that said person would, and should, rather hang out with his wife when he can scrape together a couple free moments. Your friendship changes because it can no longer be mediated by the time that you spend together. It either has to step up into the realm of the eternal and unconditional, or it fades into nothing.

When I was early on in my college years I had a really hard time with such redefinition. Friends would start dating or they'd up and get married and I felt terrible about the fact that I did not get to see them except for the occasional dinner invitation or maybe he and I would go out to a movie or hang out at a coffee shop and talk 'old times.' I would mourn the fact that things simply weren't the same as they were before, because I really enjoyed what that before looked like. However, what I soon realized was that change is inevitable. It happens. Circles of influence change, relationships change, physical location changes, and sometimes these things change before you can even recognize it.

The reason I've been thinking about this is that I've found myself doing an awful lot of redefining lately. Several friends have, or will soon, get married, and that always brings about changes. I have a good number of friends who will be graduating from this fine institution soon and will be scattered all over God's green earth. I've found that because of the way my schedule works, some people I would spend a significant chunk of almost every day with when I first got here now are only seen on random occasions and very intentional events. And yet, they still remain some of the best friends I have.

The clearest example is my friend Dave. Dave and I started this adventure called seminary together. It seems we're right on track to end it at the same time too. We used to live across the hall from each other, and did so for a couple years. Even though we work at the same church, it seems like I just don't see Dave all that much anymore. At the church I'm usually either working with the pastors or with the elementary school kids, and Dave finds himself either with the high school or college kids. Dave moved off campus with our other good friend Ben (who I see only slightly more often than I see Dave), so no longer living across the hall was a significant change in our relationship. Dave is also seeing a very lovely young woman who is significantly cuter than I am.

It was sometime last semester that he and I made plans to sit down and have lunch, right about the time we started taking note of the fact that he and I don't see each other unless we are intentional about making such plans now and then. At some point in our conversation we began to put words to the fact that our worlds had just completely changed. The people we hung out with, the places we spent most of our time, and the things that we had to do just changed through the course of time. Dave then said something downright profound. He said, "We've been through a handful of these 'cricle changes' since we've been here, but one thing has always remained the same -- Dave and Perna."

Change happens. It's just the way of things. In May I hope to attend the wedding of my dear friend Micah from college. I can't recall the last time we actually SAW each other. Not only that, but Lord willing there'll be a grand reunion of our crazy mixed up social experiment we called "B Basement" that was our dorm situation in college. A collection of crazy miscreants who now seem to be all over the place. Some of us have gotten married, traveled, gone to seminary, had kids, and a host of other assorted silliness. At the moment we currently reside in Jersey, Texas, Virginia and Washington, but on that day, we'll all be back together. We redefined our friendships to match our surroundings, but the core of it doesn't change. Real friends, the ones worth having, roll with a redefinition and come out beyond space and time.

That borders on the profound. Perhaps I'll write a book someday.

If I cared about winning -- that would change everything

2006-03-04T11:47:00.000-08:00

We had the first ever poetry slam that Dallas Theological Seminary has ever had last night. To get the formalities of the 'how it went's' out of the way, it went really really well. It was well attended, the participants were great, and people are already volunteering for next year's slam.

Right, now on to what I really want to write about.

I've been to a bunch of these things before. Because of that, I made predictions based off of who I knew was going to be there. If you consider my caveat that there were several poets I didn't know at all and didn't know what they were going to bring, I was exactly right. One lady I didn't know inched ahead of me and stole third from me, but I'd have given it to her in a heartbeat. See, the thing is, I don't write stuff that'll win slams.

Mellow, laid back, thought provoking pieces don't win slams. They do well enough, but they don't win. Certain topics can also swing the scores, but I usually don't write about them either. The one bad point about a slam that I'm sure many a poet has thought about but I actually heard one of my favorites, Saul Williams, speak about, is that if you make it a competition, there's always the temptation to throw out what you think should be said for what an audience will like.

A friend of mine who's only been writing poetry for a little while presented what I thought was probably the best poem he'd ever written. As he walked off the stage I gave him a hug and asked, "Now where did THAT come from?" As I approached the mic to read off the scores I was surprised to see that the highest score he got was around an 8. I kinda shrugged it off and moved on to the next poet. Later on he came into my room and said, "Hey, how were the judges picked?" I had picked a buddy of mine from the crowd because I knew he would not give a score away just for showing up. The other two I let other poets pick random people. After I told him that he said, "Well it seemed that some of them didn't know anything about poetry." I immediately asked what he meant, and he continued. "It seems like a lot of the stuff that was scoring high was not really slam poetry." I had to correct him there, because I know he had a very one dimensional vision of what slam poetry is.

I told him, "You wrote a poem about musical composition. It was well done, but the judges didn't connect with it. That's all." I then had to explain that by his definition of what slam poetry should look like, my stuff doesn't qualify either. It was never meant to. While my stuff is heavily influenced by the "common speech" sort of meter that is attributed to slam and poets like William Carlos Williams and Billy Collins, I'm also influenced by the meter of the romance languages. I bring my stuff because I want to read it, not because I think it'd win or that it's a 'slam piece'.

What really mattered to me was after the slam was over. As I was mingling amongst the dispersing crowd congratulating the poets and thanking the others for coming, I happened upon the lady who won. Before I even got up to her and gave her a hug she shouted, "And here is the poet." As she and another friend of mine were talking back and forth to each other, indirectly talking to me, she said, "His stuff is so true!" That was it. I was already on about cloud 8, maybe 8 and 1/2, but that pushed me up to cloud 9.

Poetry isn't about winning. It is about sharing what you've learned and what you want to say. There's competition, there's the occasional prize or distinction, but what really matters is that you bring what you bring and do so with the best of your ability. When it reaches somebody, that's when you've done it right.

I once knew a man with a wooden leg named Smith . . .

2006-02-27T19:49:00.000-08:00

"What was the name of his other leg?"
To this day that song in the movie Mary Poppins makes me smile. That joke, being one of the stupidest things ever uttered by man, still makes me laugh every time I hear it. You see, I have a great fondness for laughing. So much, in fact, that apparently my laugh has become a bit of a trademark. I often walk into a place being regaled with "I heard you before you even got in the building."

I had a long conversation the other night with some friends of mine in the dorm regarding the possible underground publication of a satirical equivalent to the Dallas Seminary newspaper. From the moment they mentioned it and asked if I would be interested my mind filled with possible story ideas. Interviews with successful people in ministry with quotes like, "I entered seminary with an ample bank account, a spring in my step, and a twinkle in my eye. DTS showed me how wrong that was and NOW I'm truly a godly person." One particular thought that stuck with me, and may become the first article under my once and future pseudonym Cyrano D, was a glowing review of the work of Thomas Kincaid. If you know anything about me, you know that it will assuredly be dripping with sarcasm and satirical wit.

In the conversation that followed all this banter back and forth about how fun it would be and that we might actually be able to craft sarcasm and satire towards a godly purpose, several times it was brought up that DTS and the greater Christian community as a whole needs to remove the stick from up its collective butt and learn to laugh at ourselves. While I think we are capable of such things, it seems that more often than not we need to be spoonfed when it is acceptable to laugh at stuff like this.

Here's a practical example of what I'm talking about: At the talent show a man sang a song about life at DTS. It was pretty much making fun of things like the amount of work we have to do, the lack of financial aid for all but the most fortunate souls, and the ever popular topic of dating and relationships, or, more appopriately, the lack there of. At the talent show people were rolling in the aisles and this jovial minstrel won himself a prize for the most entertaining act of the the evening. However, a friend of mine put a sign up on our gate joking with the campus police to please not put any more tickets on our cars. That friend then spent some time in the office of the dean of students explaining the situation and how it was all just for fun. This, is what some would call a joke.

There are a lot of quotes out there concerning laughter and laughing. One of my personal favorites calls it "the best medicine." Maybe it's just because I'm a guy from the Northeast still trying to come to grips with people from the South / Southwest, but I'm tired of explaining jokes. Why must I explain that when I call you a freak with a smile on my face and a laugh in my voice it's because I like your unique style and find you humorous, not that I think you are a terrible person? Why when I speak with sarcasm do some to this day still believe me to be insulting them?

It is to these people I say do not dare set foot in my house, especially on a holiday. You will feel like you've been chewed up and spit out, though we're just trying to be friendly.

The State of Romance

2006-02-22T13:31:00.000-08:00

My schedule has consisted mostly of back to back 12-14 hour days lately where I get to sit down and do nothing for perhaps 10 minutes throughout the course of the day and occasionally get to eat food. It is in this kind of state that I say the following: last night I had the TV on in the background and an episode of reruns of the once pop-culture icon known as Sex and the City came on. Normally my response to this situation is to turn the channel, turn off my tv or pop in a movie. I have better things to do with my time than to sit around watching four archetypes walking drinking coffee and/or booze and talking about their love lives or lack there of. However, I was so mentally and physically fried at the end of another really long day that I just kinda sat there and let it happen.

I certainly will not say that I can see myself ever liking this show. However, this particular episode had some rather interesting things to say about romance, a topic that is near and dear to my heart. It appears that the main character (for future reference, I didn't catch any of the characters names, so I'll try my best to describe them)was apparently dating some Russian musician who composes music for her, reads her poetry, takes her to the opera, and so on and so forth. This woman then spends most of the episode complaining about this with her friends, all of whom also think he's quite mad for doing these things, and talking about how over the top it is. One of the sub-plots of this episode also has a woman I like to call the cynical satirical red-head (my personal favorite for obvious reasons if you know anything about me) getting married to some guy and looking for a place that is nice but not too pretty and sugary nice, all the while complaining about weddings and saying that the only reason she is even having a ceremony at all is because she wants to say the vows out loud to him in front of others (which I gotta say is kinda nice).

I wanted to write something concerning the state of romance. Is romance something that is over the top and ridiculous, worthy of scorn and ridicule? Is it truly cheesy to make romantic gestures outside of holidays and special occasions? At one point the main character of the show turns to her Russian musician boyfriend and said, "Stop, it's too much. I'm an American. We don't work that way." Then instead of going to the opera and having a nice meal they go to McDonalds for a taste of "normal." Have we truly gotten to that point?

I'll be the first to admit that I sometimes feel myself going to ridiculous levels. I have a friend where our relationship is confusing at best. It would probably utterly less confusing were we ever to occupy the same space and time at one point in our lives. I joke with her that she is the best friend I've never met. In several conversations I've had with her either on the phone or over instant messenger, I've found myself either apologizing for going too ridiculous with my compliments and flirtatious speech, or putting a disclaimer about how I'm speaking in hyperbole, but it's taking truths and making them grandiose. When I get into that kind of mode, I can appreciate how that would get old fast. However, I worry that romance truly is dead. That flashy shows of romance have become cheesy just by definition if not by practice. I worry that we have become such a pragmatic and cynical people that we cannot appreciate things like poetry, music, art, and photography as a reflection of love. I feel that one red rose will and candle lit dinners will lose their sting and be replaced with a high five and a trip to McDonalds.

May it never be, and I promise you it won't for me.

The Power of Ink and Paper

2006-02-20T09:55:00.000-08:00

We must never forget that art is not a form of propaganda; it is a form of truth."
--J.F.K.

I was wandering my way through Daryl Cagle's web page today and there is an entire section devoted to the reaction to the cartoonists who drew the cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad. As a web page devoted to political and editorial cartoons, it is not at all surprising that particular attention would be paid to this turn of events.

If you were to click on the link there for his blog, you would see him make reference to an article that details a state government official in India making claims that he would pay "$10 million plus the weight of the killer in gold" to anybody who could kill one of the Danish cartoonists who made the aforementioned cartoons.

When I started reading his blog entry and the article that spawned it, there were several thoughts that ran through my head. Nothing protests a picture of a man with a bomb for a turban like blowing up an embasy. I wonder if Pat Robertson has those cartoons tacked up in his office like Dilbert cartoons? I wonder how crazed people would be if people made editorial cartoons about Jesus? All these and more went zipping through my mind as I realized that there are 43 people dead due to acts attributed to the drawing of pictures.

Look a couple posts back and you can read about my view on the Freedom of Speech, so I will not belabor you with that. I have just been pondering off and on now for the past hour or so the power of artistic expression. Particularly I have seen it in the realm of art that depicts a religious subject. I remember hearing about an art exhibit that a gallery in New York was showing. One of the pieces among the exhibit was a picture of the Virigin Mary covered in elephant dung. The outcry was amazing. People were calling for the closing of the exhibit, they hurled obscenities towards the artist, and protested outside the gallery night and day. What was interesting was that the painting in question was just one piece in an exhibit that was designed to shock people, where every piece in it was designed to go to the core of people and shock their sensibilities. Apparently the other disturbing images were okay?

Pieces like the Muhammad cartoons for Islam and the piece now infamous in the art world as "The Piss Christ"(a bowl of urine with a crucifix in the center of it) for Christianity are designed to make a statement. In their very creation the artist is often trying to get a terrible and vitriolic response from people. Apparently they are succeeding.

When discussing images and art as a force in the lives of everyday people, I sight times like this and am in awe of the power of it all. These people are not art aficionados, they do not ponder the impact of an artists use of color and texture to convey a given message. They saw pictures and it stirred within them such abject hatred that they would kill or offer to reward the killing of those who created it. I am still juggling my views on the whole thing. On the one hand, I value expression and would be hard pressed to condemn someone for speaking their mind. On the other I have know about the power of art to move both positively and negatively, and that power must be weilded responsibly. I'm far from sure what I think about all this, but I continue to pray for the artists' safety and pray that someday we can discuss art rather than scream and kill each other over it.

A Vision of Thunder

2006-02-18T09:45:00.000-08:00

I realized that I have not yet put up any poetry. I wrote this poem for the pastor at my church. It is a piece that is meant to encourage those who make hard decisions in leadership for the benefit of those they are trying to lead.

A Vision of Thunder

The flash was so fast we were blind.
We heard the roll on the horizon
Whispering the coming storm.
We leaned in to listen to the rumble
But it was wrapped in a mystery
We could not explain but had to touch.

We went looking for the storm.
Tried to chase the air and found it
Had a substance only breath could hold.
Carried with it spit and warmth
And gave more of each as necessary.
It was heavy, but it helped us lift itself.

When the storm came we listened
For the whisper of the coming clear.
It was the same that called the rain.
Told us stories of a place of
Hope, a golden city in the sun,
A beautiful realized fantasy.

We tugged pant legs like children.
Asked what one must do to reach it.
The thunder lay silenced for a moment.
The flash came so fast that we were blind
And it hurt so we closed our eyes.
But the thunder whispered once again.

Close your eyes and the road is lost.
You will only crash against a lie.
Lies are softer than truth but still
Cause greater accidents.
The flash came fast and held our eyes open.
We saw with the thunder’s eyes and wept.

Apparently it's the simple things in life

2006-02-15T07:34:00.000-08:00

I called home yesterday to ensure that I called my mother on Valentines Day. While I was talking to my mom and enduring her lovably annoying questions like "So what have you got planned for the night" and the ever popular "So do you have anybody special," I asked her what she and my dad were doing for Valentines Day. When she told me that they weren't doing anything special for that blessed plague of a holiday, I wasn't surprised. Mom hates going out and getting dressed up, so the fact that they were going to stay at home was natural. I kept pressing though and said that I know my father better than to think he didn't do something for Valentines. She then revealed to me that earlier that morning he had presented her with a gift. It was a puzzle taken from a picture of all of the Perna boys by the Christmas tree. After 30+ years of marriage to my mom, Dad certainly seems to have got her pegged. My mom is a puzzle fanatic, so much so that she was recently asked to put a puzzle together so that another member of our family could hang it on their wall. The fact that she was given a puzzle, with her sons on it, from a scene at Christmas, and she spent the day not having to worry about things like making dinner later that night, made it the greatest thing Dad could have possibly done.

So why do I write about this today, other than the fact that my dad occasionally stumbles onto my blog and I want to show him that 1) I'm proud of him, and 2) that I remembered to call Mom on Valentines? It was that I spent yesterday realizing that things don't have to be big and flashy to be powerful and meaningful.

Yesterday I enacted a tradition that has been a staple of my Valentines tradition going on 4 or 5 years. I started doing it my last year of college. Every year for Valentines Day I buy a dozen roses and proceed to hand them out to women. I only have two rules for who the lucky people are. The first is that I have to have at least met them before that moment (basically because it may be a little on the weird side to receive a single red rose from a complete stranger and weird is not what I'm going for with this), and the second rule is that they cannot be currently in a relationship (because I don't want angry boyfriends at my door).

I walked into the cafeteria here at the school and began handing out roses. One by one they vanished into the hands of lovely and deserving young ladies and every time it was a similar reaction. Their eyes lit up, their mouths dropped, and they made some comment about how sweet it was. To say the least I was having the time of my life.

Now there are some people who would say that presenting a dozen people with a single red rose on Valentines day is a big deal, going against my main point of saying that it's the simple things that make a difference. Well, those people are looking at the bigger picture. Yes, my tradition of giving a dozen roses out would be leaning on the big side. But if you are looking at each individual act, all I did was present the lady with a rose and say Happy Valentines Day, and if you think THAT is a big deal, then you need to re-evaluate your view of a big deal.

One rose and a smile and 12 people walked away feeling special. All it cost was $3 a rose. I'd say that's worth it.

Freedom

2006-02-11T12:00:00.000-08:00

If you want to see a person who hates his job, talk to a cop while he's guarding a KKK rally.

I remember there was once supposed to be this rally in Morristown, NJ, not but maybe 10 or 15 minutes from my house. They were trying to convince the town that the white race is superior. For starters, why is it that at these rallies it always seems like the big, fat, goofy looking guy is the one saying he's genetically superior? But I digress.

If you've never been to one of these rallies, it's quite the experience. It's a varitable circus of screaming. The group usually has a megaphone that they pass from member to member as they take turns spewing hate speech. There's usually a crowd surrounding them cursing back at the Klan members and telling them to leave. It's a riot of noise, and when it's all over both sides make their last menacing gestures and leave.

As an artist, a Christian, and an American, I have a high view of the first amendment to the constitution. I think the fact that we are allowed to speak our minds without worrying about spending time in a jail cell somewhere for speaking against the government is a wonderful thing, and it makes me feel very blessed to live here and be a citizen of a country that allows me that freedom.

Basically what I wanted to say here is that I will honor your right to say whatever it is you want to say. If you want to stand in a park somewhere and say that anyone other than white, anglo-saxon protestants are spawn of the Devil, I'll let you say it. If you want to stand up and say that Christianity is a vile group of hatemongers that fleece the populace by giving them false hope as the proverbial "opiate for the masses," I'll let you say that. If you want to say George W. Bush is the anti-Christ and that he's a baby-killing, war profiteering sociopath, you go right ahead. If you would like to say the same thing, only for the democratic candidate of your choice, feel free. If you want to talk about capitalism, state's rights, Islam, Judaism, artistic license, roe v wade, stem cell research, or any other fun topic you might want to attack or defend with absolute vehemency, I will honor your ability to do so.

I realize that the moment I tell somebody they no longer have the right to say what they want to say, that gives them every right to turn it back on me and tell me I can't say what I feel needs to be said.

All that I ask in return is that you let other people speak their minds with the same sort of unabashed freedom, and if they choose to stop listening to you, let them exercise their right to do that too.

A Response by a Dispensationalist DTS Student Scofield Intern

2006-02-09T11:07:00.000-08:00

So I get to the church today a little early due to the fact that my meeting with my pastor was at 10:30 and it seemed silly to take the 20 minutes back to campus just to turn around moments later and come back for my normal office time. When I check my mailbox I find two things from the other pastor in the church. One was a short piece of creative writing he had written a long time ago that he felt I should look at, and the other was an article from the Dallas Observer, a free publication picked up in happy little newspaper recepticles on roadsides and small businesses all over the place.

I asked my friend Ben Killerlain what it was about and he just said, "You need to read it." I found out that it's an article, oddly enough, talking about he "heated debate" between classical and progressive dispensationalism. For his places of reference he went heavily to Dallas Theological Seminary and Scofield Memorial Church. Naturally, I was intrigued. Here I am, a holder to the dispensational method of Bible interpretation, a current student at DTS, and an intern at Scofield Memorial Church, so certainly I'm intrigued.

I kept going back and forth on this article, not back and forth on whether I liked it or not, but whether or not I should be insulted or laugh. It's so poorly written that anybody with an ounce of sense won't know what to make of it either. He jumps from topic to topic with no transition or semblance of a wholistic-overarching thought. He interjects random thoughts that have nothing to do with each other and think that by putting a tiny little line in between them it gives him the right to make a 180 degree turn in the point he was making. I can deal with the stuff he says, but I can't deal with this kind of stuff getting published while good journalists are struggling to get published.

Now, speaking on the content, it's laughable. It's core is inflamatory at best. I've spoken to a couple of the people that are quoted in it and they all say that they were misquoted for at least one of the comments they made and in one case a quote was attributed to one man when another one of the men quoted in the article actually said it. In his defense, I will say that some of the critques of dispensationalism are worth mentioning. As a theological system, we have had a lot of black eyes in the realm of social justice, environmental concerns, and other things that are, and should be, major concerns, and this is brougt up in the article. However, I would just like to say that DTS is not a "bring on the war and destruction for Jesus" kind of institution, unlike how the writer wishes to paint us. The cover of the Oberver is a man in a suit that looks straight out of the 20s saying "THE END IS NEAR" and a tagline that reads, "Famine, pestilence, war, death--at Dallas Theological Seminary, the Apocalypse is the horse to bet on." I don't know about you, but other than the fact that students going for their masters here are required to take a course on eschatology (the doctrine of 'end times') and we do believe in things like the rapture of the church and the second coming of Christ, there really isn't all that much talk about it here at the school.

From the questions he asked the professors here you can tell he was looking to stir up some grand hornets nest of a controversy, but every prof he talked to said there really wasn't a hot debate. The way the profs spoke showed more of a discussion between peers, friends, and colleagues having different opinions. In order to find somebody who thought it was a big deal they had to speak to someone have way across the country, and even then only one or two people I spoke with had even HEARD of him let alone know anything about him and we are at least considered by some to be scholars in the field.

Perhaps the greatest silliness in the article was the way they portrayed the people in our church that they interviewed. Most of the quotes came from our associate pastor Neil. I work with Neil. I've been bouncing stuff off Neil since he got here and even met with him to talk about some personal stuff in my life for almost two or three months. He came into the office and I asked him about the article. He then said that he was one of the folks that was misquoted, a quote that he made was said to have come from another person, and a major section of the article that the writer put towards the conversation about end times and dispensationalism was really just a conversation about his time as a minister in New Orleans. We laughed for a good 5 or 6 minutes about the article, bouncing jokes back and forth. It was a great time.

In short, there are a couple nuggets of truth that the article nailed us as dispensationalist that we needed to get nailed on, but most of it is just silliness. While the Dallas Observer is far from a distinguished and reputable publication, I just wanted to comment on it since it basically was addressing a lot of key places and philosophies in my life. If you are in Dallas and pick it up, feel free to drop a comment and ask me about some of the specific stuff it talks about.

Entering the pits of Slamnation

2006-02-08T07:09:00.000-08:00

"I don't carry change around in my back pocket.
I don't wear it around my neck on a chain in some locket.
I keep change on the tip of my tongue
so I can climb the rung of the ladder to a better place
I forgot about saving face
Grandma told me, "Save your grace."
--Shane Koyczan
Picture taken from his web page

The picture I put here is of Shane Koyczan, a former National Slam champion and an all around amazing poet. I put the link to his web page with the quote so that I don't get nailed for copyright infringement, but also so that you guys can go there and hear some of his stuff. He's got audio files on the page that you can listen to. The quote is from a poem he actually won the national slam with in 2000. If you want to see that one on video go to the Slam America web page to see it. He's the first clip they have on there.

I got a call the other night saying, "Hey, Mike, we want to interview you for the Jot and Tittle about the upcoming poetry slam you guys have coming up." So other than the fact that my head was stuffed up beyond all comprehension and my day was just plain bad, I ended it by having a beautiful young lady asking me questions about poetry for about an hour and a half. Any day that ends like that can't be all bad.

All kidding aside, it was really fun talking about slams and poetry and the Church. I'm sad to say that the simple fact that I've actually attended a slam before makes me one of the resident experts on the subject. In fact, the very first question I was asked involved, "So what is a slam and why did you want to do one here?" Honestly, I believe that out of the countless people that I've talked to regarding slams, perhaps 1 out of every 10 knows what one even is, let alone has actually attended one, let alone participated in one. I do have to tip my hat to the grand master of the marketing circus that is Russell Simmons. Def Poetry is single handedly, it seems, bringing the reading of poetry out of the esoteric little coffee houses and into the mainstream.

I basically talked about how slams first started, talked about the Nuyorican in New York (which I still have to visit next time I'm back in the great Northeast) and the Green Mill in Chicago, talked about how poetry can speak in a way that regular speech just can't and why it makes sense that so much of the Bible is written in poetry. I also talked about our little venue, obviously, and how excited I was. This is the first time the seminary would even think about holding such an event and we've got some power poets getting ready to read. One of our finest is a woman named Donna Renee Anderson. This woman is the kind of wonderful older lady with more drive and energy than most folks in their 20s and everyone should sit down with over a long cup of coffee. She is just an amazing poet. She and I are the only ones that have participated in slams before, as far as I know, but she actually has performed at the slam in a place called the Art Bar down here in Dallas and took 2nd place on a Friday night slam.

I'm really excited about this event. Were it not for all the stuff that needs to get done before hand and that I am hoping to get even more poets signed up getting ready to go on stage, I wish tomorrow were March 3rd and I'd be able to see what God might do in the voices of poets who are able to say what they want to an audience that has no idea what it's in for.

The Blind Men and the Elephant

2006-02-07T14:58:00.000-08:00

There was an American poet in the early 1800s whose name was John Godfrey Saxe who wrote a poem based off of a Hindu story. You may have heard a version of it. In the poem he speaks of 6 different men who saught to understand what an elephant was. The only problem was that they were all blind. To make the story short and keep me from having another uber-narrative-super-blog, each man takes a part of the elephant in hand and comes to a conclusion as to what an elephant is based on what he feels. For example, one man grabs the tusks and thinks it a spear. One man sees the legs thinks them trees. Still another man finds the trunk and thinks surely an elephant must be just like a snake.

So why do I bring up this little story? I was driving back to my dorm room from working at the church all afternoon. I had written a message to a friend of mine who was wondering about God and death and why He decides to heal some and not others. I had very few answers but I knew how to encourage. I was talking to my friend and fellow intern about how simple things can be the most profound observations when studying a passage you've seen hundreds of times before in Scripture. I came to the conclusion that resting to kill the cold that's plagued me since Sunday night rather than going to my class and giving it room to fester up again was probably a good idea because not sleeping is why it's still around anyway. It was in this state of mind that I passed the same oddly shaped building I pass almost every time I head home. The Unity Church of Christ. Like churches all over the country and especially around the greater Dallas Metroplex, they have a little marquee where they put service times and some witty little saying. Today, this is what it said:

"God does not forgive
Because God has never condemned."

The Unity Church of Christ is a blind man trying to describe an elephant. In their view on God's acceptance of all people, I do have to give them the fact that they have a better view of God's love and grace than a lot of other churches have. They, unlike my current church, would probably never have to deal with a Sunday morning greeter turning a man away because of the tattoos that covered his arms. However I have to say that they are only looking at one part of God's character. The god they serve might go by the name of Christ, but the Godman Jesus Christ of Christianity he's not.

God is not one dimensional. He never was and never will be. Never was this concept made more clear to me than in a class I recently took on a Christian view of art. It was in this class that we talked about the basic composition of what makes something beautiful. While the details of beauty seem to be subjective, some things are universally accepted: symmetry, balance, proportion. We looked at the character of God and saw that God's characteristics are perfectly balanced. He is just, but He is merciful. He is holy, but He is gracious. He is perfect in wrath, but He is also perfect in peace and joy. As the center of all things, the creator of all things, it makes sense that He is the definition of what beauty is. God's character is more than grace, it is justice. It is more than condemnation for wrong it is the imputation of righteousness. Neither, by itself, is anything close to what God is. In order to see them, you must see them both.

To say that God does not condemn is to say that His holiness is easily compromised, that God is just a homeboy hanging out on a street corner somewhere that happened to do right and make something of himself. To quote one of my favorite profs here at school, you can call that something, but you can't call it Christian.

The pendulum swings . . .

To say that God hates sinners and that only those people that follow a set of laws and regulations are considered good enough to be considered by God as righteous, this too is looking at only part of who He is.

The problem with the blind men was that they didn't talk to each other. They just took their opinions of what they thought was there, and they thought that was it. To get an image of who God is, we gotta talk about Him, with Him, and through His working in our lives. Otherwise, we're just blind men playing with an elephant.

Obligatory long-winded Super Bowl Post

2006-02-06T06:54:00.000-08:00

And so it comes that bloggers all across this great nation of ours are going to be writing blogs about last night's game, if they didn't do so last night immediately following it. As a person who was cheering for the now champion Pittsburgh Steelers, I can take some satisfaction in the fact that my team won. While my Jets had been playing golf instead of playing football since apparently sometime in October and probably couldn't even score TICKETS to the Super Bowl, when the teams in the play-offs had finally been decided I started my cheering for the black and yellow.

In short, I'm not a just a fair weather fan for a couple of reasons. For starters, I hate fair-weather fans. Before I saw the light and became a Jets fan, I was a fair-weather fan of the then uber-franchise San Francisco 49ers following the Montana-Rice connection like a little groupie. Because I have tasted the power of the darkside, I know its inherent evil, and thus avoid it like the plague now and sport my Jets gear proudly, even during seasons like this previous debacle.

Second, everyone has at least one other team they cheer for in the off chance their screaming at the TV on Sunday afternoons and Monday nights does not get their team sufficiently pumped to win games. Since I started officially declaring my allegiance to the Jets back in high school, I've had two such teams. They have been the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Tamba Bay Bucanneers. (I know, even my back-ups have been disappointing more years than not)

The third reason is that getting excited and cheering for a team that you may not have even watched one game of the rest of the season is acceptable for the Super Bowl. Why, might you ask? IT'S THE FREAKING SUPER BOWL THAT'S WHY!

Thus being said, I come to the part in my Super Bowl blog that sets mine aside from the throng of identical ones. I'm not here to talk about the game itself. I'm here to talk about the reactions I noticed amongst the students here at Dallas Theological Seminary at our party as we were watching the game.

For those of you who either just stumbled onto this blog because you hit the "next blog" button or have just never had the joy of experiencing a Lincoln Hall Super Bowl party, let me explain the basic breakdown of how the party is set up so you can understand my references later on: The party consists of the three main rooms in the common areas of Lincoln Hall. The one room consists of a small army of couches and chairs and a big screen TV, thus is affectionately known as 'the TV room.' The TV room is always the focal point of the party. In the lobby we have a second viewing area with a not-quite-so-big screen TV moved into a position that more people can watch the game without having to jam a million people in the same room. Finally, my least favorite of the three areas is ironically the 'game room.' On Super Bowl Sunday, this becomes the room where people who just showed up to enjoy a party but don't give a rip about football hang out.

What I noticed were two things that either distressed or confused me regarding the event. The first was the overwhelming apathy towards all things Super Bowl. Had I owned anything yellow, I would have been sporting the colors of the Steelers. I yelled at the top of my lungs both when they made a stupid play, dropped a ball, or made some spectacular play. I even danced in the lobby when Randel-El made his pass off a reverse for a touchdown. This behavior caused several people to look at me very strangely and often ask the question, "Perna, are you a Steelers fan?" My response was "I like 'em alright," and then explained that as loud and obnoxious as I was last night, if my Jets were playing in the Super Bowl I'd have been wearing my John Abraham jersey and possibly green facepaint, I'd be sitting directly in front of the television and God help the poor soul that would even speak to me. Apparently this seemed odd to the majority of the people in the lobby. They sat and watched the game in utter silence and a glassy expression on their faces. For most of the game I was the only noise in there.

I come from a family that demands you pick a team to cheer for before they'll let you in the house. I've watched even the most passive people in the world do victory dances when the team they didn't even know existed before they picked them for the pretty colors they wear does well. That's how you are supposed to watch the Super Bowl. As my brother Anthony put it when I called home at halftime, "You gotta have a dog in the show."

The second thing, and the one that dismayed me the most, was the way the Seattle fans in our little brood reacted to the game. Now, granted, a little bitterness and frustration is expected when your team gets beat. However, even before the game was over all I heard about was how the refs won that game for the Steelers, that there were cheap calls, and even a couple guys were working out elaborate conspiracy theories about how the NFL needed to have the Steelers win as a PR gimmic to get the Bus a ring in his hometown in his last game. While I'm not saying that every call made by the refs was top notch, the Steelers just played a great game of football, the Seahawks DID make a lot of mistakes, and that's just the way of it.

What even showed up in the card games we played following the game was that there was an idea that if things aren't going your way it must be do to either cheating or the fact that something is unfair. The moment that stuck out the most for me in this regard was when one of the 'conspiracy theory' boys said, "Every call the refs make is against the Seahawks." My buddy Nate and I (both being very avid secondary Steelers fans) looked at him and said in unison, "That's because they keep screwing up."

What my main problem with this is that these are men of God called to the ministry and their competitive nature goes beyond simply wanting to win or to excel, but almost a feeling of entitlement. We played two games of a card game called Citadels after the Super Bowl was over and people started to leave. I won the first game and got utterly destroyed the second game. There were a couple of guys that we played with that are infamous for being really bad losers, and it showed. When they lost, they complained about it. One of them threatened to leave the table if things didn't start going well for him. I saw the same attitude and bitterness at losing that I had during the Super Bowl itself.

I just wanted to wrap this up by saying a game is just a game, but it's amazing how much a game can show about our character. Imagine what it would have been like if it was something more serious?

Nanny McPhee and the return of magic

2006-02-05T22:56:00.000-08:00

I just watched Nanny McPhee with a few friends the other night. I adore this movie. I wanted to see it because I saw a preview that looked funny and when the critics started calling it a modern day Mary Poppins that sealed the deal.

In case anyone is curious, if you want to be in a theater almost completely by yourself, go to a movie that is being sold as a whimsical kids movie that starts at 10:10 on a saturday night. The four of us made up over half the audience.

But I digress.

Everything about this movie was great. While the tag line on the advertising made it seem like a rip-off of Mary Poppins, it would be the same idea that said Dead Poets Society, Emperor's Club, and Mona Lisa Smile were the same movie. Other than the fact that it's main character is a magical nanny, that's pretty much where the comparison ends.

The use of color was incredible. Everything is bright and happy in the house, almost like the house was colored by the small children; lots of purple, blue, green and red, but it worked really well. The only time the color scheme was not some blending of bright but not glaring base colors was when the evil would-be stepmother came on the scene (her colors being all bright glaring colors that clashed against each other and everything else as well so that even the color schemes were telling the audience that this woman did not fit). Another time the colors were not mixtures of bright but subtle blues, yellows, and reds was when the oldest boy goes to visit Nanny McPhee in her room. All the colors leave the attic scene and are replaced for tans, greys, and blacks. I'd say the third time the colors change, but that would be giving away the ending and this movie is still far too new for me to feel comfortable doing that. In short, this was a really well put together movie.

I was thinking, as the movie closed, I really enjoy the whimsical magic of such a fairy tale story. There are members of the Christian community that get all bent out of shape whenever magic is involved in a story. I don't see what the big deal is as long as it remains fantastical, mythic, and just plain fun. This movie was tremendously imaginitive, funny, and witty. I think a lot of that had to do with a return to something lighthearted and really whimsical. A lot of modern family style movies are just so ridiculous that it falls into stupid humor. While I occasionally enjoy stupid humor as much as the next man, it gets old really quickly. This however adds just that extra bit to an otherwise realistic situation to take it into an amazing trip.

A Theology of Satire

2006-02-04T09:06:00.000-08:00

I have often said that anyone who could create a duck billed platypus had to have a sense of humor. When I really started to think about it, the Bible is filled to the brim with God the Father, God the Son, the prophets and apostles all weilded sarcasm and satire like a finely honed sword.

There are a good number of places that I can point to for this, but it is rather late in the day (or early depending on your point of view) and so I will only focus on one, a personal favorite of mine.

The scene is set on top of Mount Carmel.* The prophet Elijah has told King Ahab that it would not rain until he and the people turn back to God and stop worshipping the false god Baal. The king, frustrated with the state of things, has called together all the people, all the prophets of Baal (number 450 in all) and Elijah on top of the Mount. Elijah asks the people, "How long will you falter between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow Him; but if Baal, follow him." He then offers them a challenge. There are 450 prophets of Baal there, and standing for the God of Israel is only the lone prophet Elijah. Elijah suggests they make two altars and sacrifice a bull on each for a burnt offering. He says, however, that there will be no actual fire put under it, but that whichever diety is truly lord would set the sacrifice on fire as a sign that it is an acceptable sacrifice and that He is who He says He is. The prophets of Baal agree and they set to work. They construct the two identical altars and fetch two bulls for sacrifice. They sacrifice the bull and prepare it on the altar, but nothing happens. They begin to ritually strike themselves and cut themselves, crying out as loud as they could for Baal to hear their prayers. Nothing happens.

After hours of trying, Elijah starts taunting the 450 prophets of Baal. Yelling out to them, "Cry aloud, for he IS a god; either he is meditating, or he is busy, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he's sleeping and must be awakened." More hours pass by, the prophets of Baal, covered in cuts and horse from crying for so many hours. No one had answered.

Elijah then sets to work on his altar. He offers the bull set aside for him as a sacrifice unto God. Whereas the prophets of Baal simply offered up the bull on a regular altar, Elijah creates a moat of water surrounding the altar and soaks both meat and altar in water as well, he douses the well in such a way three different times. Then he offers a simple prayer to God declaring His majesty and the altar is immediately set ablaze by fire from heaven. Though completely drenched in water, it lights as though it were a torch soaked in oil.

I love this story. I can easily imagine my friends and family back home pulling some of this crap off in taunting someone else. As the prophets of Baal are struggling and having a miserable time, basically being humiliated at every turn as the eyes of the entirety of Israel are on them and nothing is happening and the lone prophet of God stands there mocking them and their god. You can hear the snide tone that I bet Elijah was taking. A modern equivilent would be something along the linds of "Dude, so what's goin' on? I was hoping to have this bull cooked by now but there doesn't seem to be even the slightest wiff of BBQ out here. There sure are a lot of you guys. You'd think one of you might be able to fix this" or maybe something as simple as, "Your mom worships Baal."

Not only does he verbally bash them, when they have proven to have failed, Elijah shows the power of God by basically telling the Baal prophets, "My God is so cool that I'll even up the stakes."

I love it. Sarcasm, insults, and after they're proven wrong, each of the 450 prophets are put to death.

There have been a good number of people that think my sense of humor (often dry and sarcastic with a hint of jovial wit) is far from godly. I often pick at silly little things about the person and use good manored jabs to send the point home. One thing that I would say is that, yes, my certain type of humor is not always the best thing to be used in a given situation, but nor is it the worst. It is in passages like this one (1 Kings 18: 20-40) where you understand that God as a humorist understands the ins and outs of a good joke. Again, in the book of Exodus, we see the 10 plagues of Egypt. The funniest thing about these plagues is that each one is God basically slapping an Egyptian god in the face and kicking it out of His kindgom. Every god that the Egyptians worshipped like Ra and his cohorts.

"You have a god in charge of the Nile? I'll turn it to blood. You have a god that's in charge of fields and farming, I'll take care of that too." Each plague rings out as a joking insult to the Egyptian gods proclaiming how little strenght and authority they actually have.

I could go on, but you get the point. God loves sarcasm. If He didn't love it, he sure does a great job of hiding it.

Confession

2006-02-01T12:11:00.000-08:00

I don't know why I felt like doing this at this particular time, but I've just had this nagging feeling like I should, so I'm going to. God's done great things through my nagging feelings, so I'm starting to be convinced that's how he likes to talk to me.

A book I read not too long ago was entitled Blue Like Jazz by a man named Donald Miller. If you wanted to hunt through past blogs I know I've mentioned it and another book of his too. Well, in Blue Like Jazz there is a part where he and his friends set up a confession booth in the center of this party at the college they were attending known for such reckless abandon that even the cops refused to do anything about it. The confession booth, however, was not to hear confession, but to give it.

I just wanted to say I'm sorry. While I'm not dressed in monks robes in some box somewhere like they were, I wanted to confess. I wanted to say I'm sorry for all the things the the Church has done in the name of God that goes against everything He stands for. I'm sorry for those times when we have spoken God's Word out of anything but love, usually spouting off judgment and anger. I'm sorry for the crusades, the KKK, and any time a person has been killed with a bloodlust that only self-righteous idignation can create. I'm sorry for every protest that looked more like a hate march than a discussion about why we believe something is wrong. I'm sorry for our inability to balance between being in a modern context and staying true to what's actually found in Scripture. I'm sorry for every sermon that's been watered down to get people in the seats because that robs you of the deep knowledge of what a relationship with God really looks like. I'm sorry not just for our poor actions, but also our inaction concerning slavery and the civil rights movement or taking care of the poor and the sick. I'm sorry for every time we harassed someone who was acting for the good in those situations because they weren't doing it in the way we wanted them to.

I apologize for those corporate things because I am part of the Body of Christ, also called the Church. While there are times when I want to say, "No, I'm not with them," I have come to realize that I am with them as I am with Christ, and cannot separate from them and still be called a believer. I share the blame, so I should share the apology.

I'm sorry for every time I didn't speak up for my belief because I was worried about how someone would think of me afterwards. I'm sorry for those times back when I first got saved where I did share my belief but it came out as condemnation as a Bible-thumping jackass. I'm sorry for the people I hurt because of that; mostly because I probably just became another jackass Christian in a long line of fools giving God a bad name. I'm sorry for not loving people enough to talk to them about the gospel. I know there have been many a time when I should have, but just didn't for one reason or another. My constant prayer is that I would speak when I should and that I thank God that he is faithful to send another opportunity or another person when I screw up. I'm sorry for when I've spoken against someone's sin and not revealed to them that I sin in the exact same way. While I'm not confessing all my sin over the internet, there'd be a great deal of it to tell. I'm sorry for those times that I have not modeled Christ-likeness. That is both a goal and a responsibility that I take seriously, and I don't always act like it.

When Christ was asked what the greatest of the commandments was, He said, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. The second is this: Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these." (Matthew 12:27-31) I am sorry that I have not loved either well enough to do what I should and be the man that I should be.

A new adventure

2006-02-01T10:59:00.000-08:00

"night making all things dimly beautiful, One veil over us both--You only see the darkness of a long cloak in the gloom, and I the whiteness of a summer gown--You are all light--I am all shadow!" --Cyrano de Bergerac Act III, scene vi

I've often related to Cyrano de Bergerac. For a while I even wrote poetry under the pseudonym Cyrano D. The epitome was in high school when I wrote a poem for a friend of mine to give to his girlfriend. He paid me well, but not well enough. I felt dirty when he claimed my words were his, much to the joy of his girlfriend.

It is because of this that I value having a place to speak my mind with my own words. Ranging from common frustrations and thoughts about everyday life, to poetry, to lofty dreams, this will hopefully be a place to get insight into the mixture of philosopher, poet, theologian, teacher, and comedian that makes up a lot of who I am.

Thus begins what may be an interesting ride.