It's kinda confusing right now

In which I learn from pee

2012-01-13T09:57:00.000-08:00

I have been a father for twelve days, twenty one hours, and three minutes as I type this. I haven’t really come to grips with the term “dad” yet. Partly because in his twelve days my son hasn’t learned to speak, and partly because I can be a little dense. Some things take time to settle.

The place I work has pretty liberal paternity leave, so I’ve spent the last few weeks hanging out with my son and my wife trying to figure out what normal looks like now that one of us can’t be left alone for any length of time.* In those short few days, I’ve learned a few things. That said, here’s the first thing my son taught me.

Lesson 1: Sometimes we make things harder on ourselves then they need to be.

My son does not like diaper changes. They make him cry. The running theory is that it’s because of the cold wipes or the cold air in the room on his nethers. Sometimes, while changing him, he’ll cry so hard that he starts peeing everywhere. Which means he has to be wiped down with cold wipes again, and his nethers have to spend more time outside the comfort of a fresh diaper.

I do that too. Not pee everywhere. I gave that up a while ago. Rather, I make things harder than they need to be. I’ll be in a meeting with an angry person, and I’ll get angry. That makes everything worse. Because two yelling people does not diffuse a situation faster than one yelling person. Or I’ll feel tired from sitting on the couch too long, and I’ll sit on the couch more. I know that exercise will make me feel better, but I don’t do it. Because, you know, exercise sounds tiring. Or I’ll be feeling spiritually detached, and I’ll stop reading my Bible because it didn’t seem to be helping. Which makes me more spiritually detached.

In short, I have a history of metaphorically peeing in my face. The pee, of course, is a metaphor for self-defeating actions. And I guess the diaper is the desired outcome. Which is odd, because I don’t really want to wear diapers. The analogy breaks down pretty quickly if you try to pick it apart like that.

Anyway, that’s my lesson for the day.

-Tom

*My son can’t. My wife is fine.

A new post, in which I quote Tozer

2011-11-08T15:30:00.000-08:00

"Religion, so far as it is genuine, is in essence the response of created personalities to the creating personality, God."
-A.W. Tozer

I have, in recent past, been struggling with a lack of something in my life. I have a beautiful wife, a loving family, good friends, a great church, a comfortable (if poorly insulated) old house, a friendly dog, a good job, and a kid on the way. If past me (say, just-graduated-from-college me) were to put together a list of things that he wanted out of life, I think I'd hit all of the major points.*

And yet there's something missing. Something that, in it's absence, makes all that I have in this moment seem... dimmer. That's an awkward way to say what I want to say, but it's the best I can come up with. All those good things in life are there. They're all real. But they're all a little less real to me than they should be.

I have come to the conclusion that the thing that's missing is my desire for God.** And the tragic part is, knowing what is missing is not the same has finding the missing thing. Anyone who's lost their car keys knows that.

I am guilty of a sin. I am guilty of taking my relationship with God for granted. I searched hard for Him, found a measure of Him, and then stopped. I said, "This is good enough." It was good, but good enough can be a dangerous thing. The relationship with God I had began to grow cold. Because I forgot a truth. A love that is not actively seeking, a love that is not, in some part, consuming, is a love that is dying.

Christ said that our walk with God is like a marriage with Him. And the same pitfalls that face marriages are the found in faith. Dating is a process of chasing and being chased. But often people get married and stop chasing each other. They stop trying to win the hearts of each other. And, lacking the chase, the marriage cools.

I don't want to make this more dramatic than it is. I don't want you to read this and think I'm having a crisis of faith. What I'm trying to say is that I recognize that I'm heading for a crisis of faith if I don't do something. And this, this typing, is me trying to start doing something.

-Tom

*Just-graduated-from-college me would have added successful novelist to that list. You can't win them all.

**Without passion for God, all the good things in life are less then they should be.

An update

2009-06-02T12:57:00.000-07:00

I broke my collar bone playing touch football. I tripped on the grass and landed wrong. I wonder if that means I'm like Mr. Glass from Unbrakeable. Beautiful says no, but I have my doubts.

That is all.

Grace in the Kingdom

2009-04-27T16:23:00.001-07:00

[The following is a sermon I gave to the youth group yesterday.]

The Beginning: Where We Talk About the End

How many of you go to service with the main congregation? It’s important that you do that because it becomes too easy to think about this group as church and to forget that we’re part of a larger family.

But that’s not the point. If you’ve gone to service with the main congregation in the last few weeks you’ve probably seen a video with a clock counting up that ends with a picture of a pair of hands held under an amazingly clean stream of water. But the video’s not the point either. What the video is about is the point. And that point is that the Colonel* will be talking about living right for a while. And since we’re one family, that means that you’ll be hearing about living right here as well.

I’m about to ask you a question that will seem completely unrelated to what I’ve just been talking about. Normally in a situation like this, there’d be about a paragraph of me talking that would allow your mind to transition smoothly from the last topic to the coming topic. There are two problems with that. First, when I was writing this down I didn’t feel like writing the transition. Second, I want you to jar a bit. I’d like very much for you to think about how the question is related to the topic of living right.

Ready?

What is the Kingdom of God?

A kingdom is an area under the domain of a ruler. So you can say that the kingdom of God is where God reigns. But what does that mean?

The Bible tells us that God reigns in heaven, but is that all of the kingdom?

No! What makes us think that this loving, jealous, caring, mighty, merciful God of ours would wait until the end of time to establish his kingdom? God started establishing his kingdom on earth when he sent Jesus here to live and die among us.

But I don’t want you taking my word for it, so we’ll see what Jesus had to say on the matter.

The Kingdom: As Defined by Christ

Jesus was talking to a group of people and they brought him a demon possessed man who was also blind and mute. Jesus, being Jesus, booted the demon out of the man. He also gave him his sight and the powers of speech just for good measures. The Pharisees who saw this said to themselves that he was removing demons by the power of Beezlebul. For the purposes of this sermon, you can think of Beezlebul as just another name for Satan.

This is what Jesus said in response:

Matthew 12:25-28
25 Jesus knew their thoughts and said to them, "Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and every city or household divided against itself will not stand. 26 If Satan drives out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then can his kingdom stand? 27 And if I drive out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your people drive them out? So then, they will be your judges. 28 But if it is by the Spirit of God that I drive out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.

Look at the way Jesus phrased that last sentence. “The kingdom of God has come upon you.” He asked a rhetorical question and used it to point out that he was not only the son of God, but that he was building a kingdom right in front of them.

It’s really easy to miss the full impact of what’s being said here, so allow me to translate for you.

The Pharisees said, “Jesus, you’re an agent of Satan. You’ve been doing the devil’s business, using his dark power, and we’re on to you. We see the mess you’ve been making of things, and we’re going to put an end to it. You’ll rue the day you crossed the Pharisees.”

But enough about them. Let’s talk about what Jesus said. “You and I both know that I’m not doing any of the things that I’m doing by the power of Satan. You can’t do good in Satan’s name. That’s a contradiction in terms. The work I’m doing is by the power of the Spirit of God. I’m building God’s kingdom on earth. Right here. Right in front of you. And there’s no power on earth that can stop me.”

Bam. Dominance established.

The ground was cleared for the first bricks of the kingdom by the prophets in the Old Testament. That job was finished by John the Baptist as he wandered the desert telling those who would listen to repent and make straight a path for the king. Then Jesus came on the scene and become the cornerstone of the kingdom, the part that all the rest is being built on. That last part is important.

The kingdom has not been built.

The kingdom will not be built in the future.

The kingdom is being built.

Brick by brick, soul by soul, the kingdom of God is being made ready for his return.

In another verse that we’ll see just as soon as we get to the next slide, we’ll see Jesus say the same thing.

Luke 13:18-21
18Then Jesus asked, "What is the kingdom of God like? What shall I compare it to? 19It is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his garden. It grew and became a tree, and the birds of the air perched in its branches."
20Again he asked, "What shall I compare the kingdom of God to? 21It is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into a large amount[a] of flour until it worked all through the dough."
In both cases, the kingdom was compared to something that was spreading. The tree grew and the yeast spread through the dough. The kingdom of God is like that. It grows, and it changes what it touches.

Being reasonably intelligent people, I’m pretty sure that if I asked you who the citizens of the kingdom of God are, you would tell me that they’re Christians. So I’m not going to ask. Instead, I’m going to tell you what kind of kingdom we’re a part of. And if you’re not a Christian, then you get to hear what kind of kingdom you could be a part of.

There are two things that separate the kingdom of God from any other kingdom of the world. Those two things are truth and grace.

Thing the first: Truth

The truth we’re talking about here is this: that all have fallen short of the glory of God and that it is through Jesus Christ that we find forgiveness of sins. It is only through his death and resurrection that we can approach the throne of God. It is only through his death and resurrection that we can call ourselves part of the kingdom of God.

This truth is what Jesus told us to go out into the world to preach. This is the gospel of salvation that can bring light to a dark world and warmth to frozen hearts. But it can also be used like an iron rod to beat people into submission. It can be, and has been, used to crush those who do not agree. There have been times in its history where the church of Christ has offered salvation in one hand and death in the other. Convert or die. Convert or be exiled. Convert or I will smite you until your self-worth looks like a quivering pile of jelly on the ground.

I could go on about this some more, but I really want to talk about the second thing. So I’m going to on the very next slide.

Thing the second: Grace

Brothers and sisters, the grace of God is at the core of our faith. It was by his grace that God sent Jesus to live and die among us as a sacrificial lamb for our sins. It was by God’s grace that Peter was forgiven for denying Christ three times on that dark night so long ago. It was by God’s grace that Saul was forgiven for holding the coats of those men as they stoned Saint Steven to death. It was on God’s grace that the kingdom of God was founded. And it is by God’s grace that we have assurance of our own salvation.

Truth destroys without Grace.
Grace is useless without Truth.

These two aspects of our faith are inseparable. Without grace the truth of our own sinfulness would only serve to crush us with guilt. Without truth there would be no need of grace because forgiveness is not required where there is no sin.

In the two thousand plus years of the kingdom of God, we’ve done a pretty good part with the truth end of things. We’re good at remembering sin, finding it in ourselves, finding it in others, and telling people that they need to be forgiven. What we’ve been less good at is the grace side of things.

I’m reading a book that has a story in it where a man is talking to a prostitute about her drug addiction. The man asked her if she ever considered getting help from a church. This is what she said:

“Church? Why would I go there? I already feel terrible about myself. They’d just make me feel worse.”

That, my friends, is truth without grace.

If you asked your friends who aren’t Christians what they think of when they think of Christians, do you think any of them would say we are a people who love deeply? Take a minute to think about that. If your non-Christian friends had to sum up Christianity in one world, what would it be?

It wasn’t always like that, you know. There was a time when the church saw people through the grace-filled eyes of Christ. In fact, there was a time that people were so excited about the good news being preached that they were forcing their way into the kingdom of God. They were beating down the doors, people. They were beating down the doors to get just a taste of God’s grace.

Luke 16:16 talks about it. The verse is from the Today’s New International Version.

Luke 16:16
16 "The Law and the Prophets were proclaimed until John. Since that time, the good news of the kingdom of God is being preached, and people are forcing their way into it.

The New Living translation talks about people being “eager” to enter the kingdom. That loses some of the impact for me. This isn’t just being eager. People are eager to get at fresh baked cookies. Kids are eager to get out of school early on a sunny day. But people were forcing their way into the kingdom of God.

Now keep that in mind and think about that conversation Jesus had with the Pharisees earlier. He told them the kingdom of God was upon them, and he knew exactly what the kingdom of God looked like. When I translated Jesus’ words earlier, I left off the last bit. As he was telling them that he was, in so many words, the man, he was also offering them the biggest helping of grace they could possibly imagine. He was telling them that should they ever decide that he wasn’t the spawn of Satan bent on charring the earth with his brimstone, then he would be more than willing to forgive them of their self-righteous pride and allow them something worthwhile to be proud of.

Who can tell me what John 3:16 says?

John 3:16
16 “For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.

That’s grace. Right there. Humanity was being beat to a pulp by the law. Not because the law was attacking us, mind you. But because the law is a brick wall that we kept trying to run through. I want to be clear on this point. God didn’t have to send Jesus to die for us. We had a deal with him, and we broke it. By rights, he could have just ended us. He could have wiped us off the face of the earth as a creation too stubborn, too obstinate to learn how to love. But he looked down at us with blood on our faces, and he saw that we didn’t know how to love. So he came to teach us.

Who knows what 1 John 3:16 says?

1 John 3:16
16 We know what real love is because Jesus gave up his life for us. So we also ought to give up our lives for our brothers and sisters.

We didn’t know how to love, so he came down to earth to show us.

There was this debate on Nightline a while back about whether or not Satan exists. During this debate, one of the people said that he didn’t need Satan or God to make him feel guilty.

I’ll say that again in case you missed it: he didn’t need Satan or God to make him feel guilty.

You see, in that man’s eyes, the church is a place for people to come and feel guilty about their failure to measure up to the impossible standards of the church. The Christianity he sees is a Christianity of regulations without grace.

The pastor he was debating responded by saying that he didn’t feel guilty because his sins were forgiven by Christ Jesus.

Grace.

The Statue of Liberty has a plaque with a poem on it that you may be familiar with. This is part of that poem.

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me

I’m not making a parallel between the US and the kingdom of God. Our citizenship in the kingdom of God must be put before our citizenship in the US. I read that poem to you because that’s what Christian grace should sound like. Jesus spent his time with the outcasts of society: the prostitutes, tax collectors, lepers, and degenerate sinners of his time. He touched the untouchables.

The Kingdom: as it Was

Let me describe for you the kingdom of God that people were forcing their way into. It was a kingdom made of people from every imaginable background. Poor and rich, old and young, well educated and poorly educated, Jew and gentile, slave and master, rulers and peasants. It was a kingdom that did not place money, title, or heritage above the value of a soul washed clean by the blood of Christ.

The kingdom of God in those early years was populated by people much like you and me. It was a bunch of sinners, people who tried to live right but failed as often as they succeeded. But what made these people special, what made that kingdom a place so strongly desired, is the grace that flowed from those people. These were people who loved each other more than they loved themselves. They gave without thought, loved without measure, and forgave without reservation.

The Kingdom: as it Is

Sometime between then and now, we’ve lost something. We’ve lost that love, that encompassing grace that made the kingdom such a desirable place. I’m not saying that all of Christianity has become graceless, but I am saying that the majority of Christianity either needs to remember the grace that’s been given to us or we need to get better at showing it.

I tell my wife that I love her all the time. I don’t tell her that because I think she’s forgotten. I tell her because there’s so much love there I can’t help but express it. And if I stopped telling her, I wouldn’t stop loving her, but we’d be missing something.

Love, without expression, is less than it should be. The same goes for grace. The kingdom of God needs to resonate with grace. It needs to be spoken. It needs to be made alive through words and actions. In the first few generations of Christians, it did. Back then the kingdom of God was a powerful, vibrant expression of God’s love for humanity.

Show of hands, who’d like to be a part of a kingdom of God like that?

I’m about to tell you something very exciting. I need you to prepare for it. Ready yourself, because I’m about to rock the foundations of your world.

Ready?

The Kingdom of God: as it Can Be

We can live in that kingdom. We don’t have to wait until we get to heaven. We don’t have to wait until next year or next month or next week or tomorrow. We can start today. Right now. Right here.

My friends, I’m excited. We stand at the door of something very beautiful. We stand at the door of a world filled with Christ’s love and grace. We are God’s kingdom here on earth, and I want us to live like it. A year from now, when you ask your friends what they think of Christians, I want them to think of unbelievable grace and love. Now I’m not a blind optimist. I know that even if the church were perfect in the eyes of God, the world would still reject us. People blind themselves to what they don’t want to see. But when people are looking, when people’s eyes are open, I want them to see something that will change the way they look at the world.

Ladies and gentlemen, we are the kingdom of God on earth. Imagine what would happen if we lived like it? Imagine if we forgave as Christ forgives? Imagine if we thought of others before we thought of ourselves. Imagine if we woke up thinking of what we could do for others instead of what we can get for ourselves.

Can you see it? Can you see the kingdom of God among you? Look at the people around you. Did you see the love of Christ in those eyes? Do you want to?

The End: Where We talk about the Beginning

I started by saying the Colonel will be talking about living right for awhile. I’m excited about that because I don’t think that most of us know how to do it. We mean well, but we get lost on the way. We forget the things we’ve been taught. We get lost, stumble off the path in the dark.

As you listen to the Colonel talk about living right, I want you to be thinking about grace. I want you to think about how Christ forgave you so that you can have eternal life. I want you to remember that there is no need for guilt and shame once you’ve been forgiven. That doesn’t mean you can go around sinning willfully and then asking for forgiveness later. That shows a blatant misunderstanding of the whole concept of grace. But if you mess up, when you mess up, know that you can always find forgiveness in Christ.

We are citizens of the kingdom of God. Let’s remind those around us how powerful our love is.

*My senior pastor is a colonel in the Air Force reserves, but even if he wasn't, the title "Colonel" would fit him. He has a... presence about him.

Prayer: It's Better With Practice

2009-04-14T13:00:00.000-07:00

[The following is a sermon I gave to my church's youth some weeks ago.]

I’m going to tell you a few things about prayer. I’m going to tell you that it’s important (that’s why we call it foundational). I’m going to tell you that it’s a learned skill. In other words, you get better at it the more you do it. With that in mind, I’ll tell you a bit about how to pray. And I’m going to tell you that while it might not feel like it, it’s one of the most powerful things you can do.

But before I tell you all that, I want to talk to you about rock climbing.

A story (told by me):

There’s this really big rock in Squamish that they call the Stawamus Chief. I’ve been told that it’s actually a 2000 foot tall granite monolith, but that’s just a more impressive way to say “really big rock.” The reason I bring up the Chief is because this story starts with me on it.

I was climbing with two other people. I can’t remember the name of the guy who was leading, so I’ll call him Leroy. A girl named Sarah was the other climber. I was belaying Leroy, and Sarah was sitting next to me waiting her turn. People can get philosophical when they’re 400 feet off the ground, and as Sarah looked down at the town below, she said something that struck me. She said,

“I like big walls. They make me feel so… small.”

I didn’t feel any smaller than normal, so I looked down to see if that would help. The rock sloped away beneath me, the water in Howe Sound glistened in the sun, and I felt pretty much the way I always feel. So I looked up, thinking that the remaining 1600 feet of granite would bring about the small feeling that Sarah was talking about. It didn’t.

Looking up or down, I felt like me. It took me a while to figure out why I didn’t feel tiny. After all, I was just a spec on that rock. A 5’7” man doesn’t leave much of a shadow on a 2000’ tall rock. But before I tell you why I didn’t feel what Sarah felt, I want you to do something for me.

I need everyone to close your eyes.

Okay, now imagine that you’re looking at yourself hundreds of feet off the ground on the Chief. Try to picture the scale more than the height. One person sitting on a giant rock. Now let your mental picture zoom out a bit. Imagine you can see all of Washington and British Columbia, and try to picture yourself still on that rock. Keep pulling back. Watch as the entire North American continent comes into view. Let your mental picture pull farther back until you can see earth like a spinning marble circling the sun. Don’t forget that you’re still sitting on that rock next to the water. Let the solar system shrink in front of you until you’re looking at the galaxy like a glowing top spinning in a dark room.

You can open your eyes now.

Did that make you feel small?

Now I want to put this in perspective. Remember that God, the King of all Kings and Lord of all Lords, made all of that. He holds the entire galaxy in the palm of his hand. He is awesome in the true sense of that word. That is, he inspires awe if you get even a glimpse of him in your mind. Knowing that, I want you to think about this: God loves you. He knows your name. He knows the number of hairs you have on your head. Try to hold that thought in your head at the same time you imagine the vastness of God. Now ask yourself how small you feel. Pretty cool, huh?

The reason Sarah felt small is that she didn’t understand that God loves her. She knew of him, but didn’t have that connection between him and her. Ultimately, she felt alone in the universe, and that made it a big, scary place.

The reason I didn’t feel small is that I wasn’t alone on that rock. God was with me. Now, I didn’t feel big either. I just felt like me. It was a good feeling, sitting on a rock way up high with God right there with me.

The reason I knew he was there is that I know him and trust him. One of the most important ways I got to know him is through prayer. Which brings us back to where we started.

Prayer: Talking to the Almighty

Christianity is, in part, a relationship with God. Praying is communicating with God. You can’t have a relationship with someone without communicating with them. You can’t communicate with God unless you pray. That said, you can’t have a relationship with God unless you pray.

I’ll repeat that because it’s important: You can’t have a relationship with God unless you pray.

You can read your Bible. You can go to church. You can listen to people pray. You can give all you have to the poor. But if you don’t pray, all that other stuff is just pretending to be a Christian. In the end, it’s not worth anything.

Some of you are probably thinking that this is all pretty obvious and that I should hurry up and get to something interesting. But before I move on, I want to ask you a question. The last time that something bad happened, who did you go to first? Did you go to your friends for consolation? Did you go to your parents? Did you pray? What about when something really cool happened? Did you text anyone? Did you run screaming down the street? Did you pray?

If God really is the most important person in your life, why don’t you go to him first? I’ll let you think about that for a bit.

Prayer: A Brief How to Guide.

Prayer is not instinctual. Humans are not born knowing how to pray. I know this because Jesus had to teach his disciples how to pray. You see, while the disciples weren’t perfect, we can hardly call them spiritually deficient. And if they needed instruction, it’s safe to say that we need some to. Which is good because everyone I know who’s tried this praying thing has needed help at one point or another. What Jesus said to his disciples can be found in Matthew 6:6-8.

Matthew 6:6-8
6But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. 7And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. 8Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

People have given very long sermons on these verses, and I don’t have the kind of time I’d need to tell you all I want to tell you about them. Instead, I want you to pay attention to two things.

Thing 1: Prayer is between you and God. Like I said earlier, listening to people pray doesn’t bring you much closer to God. True closeness begins when you start talking to him.

Thing 2: Forget about trying to make what you say pretty. Prayer is not performance art. God isn’t going to be impressed by your mastery of the English language. He also won’t be upset if you have trouble saying what you want to say. It’s okay to stutter and falter and walk over your own words when you’re praying. God knows what you need already. He just wants you to ask for it.

About a year after I graduated from college, I decided that I didn’t know how to pray well enough. So I talked to my dad about it. My dad is a retired preacher for the United Methodist Church. He’s done a lot of praying in his day. He still does a lot of praying. I expected my dad to sit me down and tell me deep mystic secrets. Instead, my dad gave me a work book on how to pray.

As I read through the book, I kept thinking that this would all be easier if my dad had simply told me the deep mystic secrets. But the book didn’t seem to have anything in the way of secrets. The information in it wasn’t really anything spectacular. But it kept asking me to pray, and I kept praying. I think partly I wanted to do all the steps so that when I wasn’t any better at praying by the end of it I could call the book stupid and get on with life. But a funny thing happened. By the end of the book, I figured out that it really wasn’t the author’s intent to bring to light ancient secrets. What the author wanted me to do was pray to get better at praying. My dad didn’t warn me that the author was a sneaky man. I think that’s because my dad is also a sneaky man.

You see, the best way to get good at praying is to pray. It can be awkward at times. Sometimes the words simply don’t come, but God understands. He doesn’t want perfection. He wants you.

I’m going to say this again because it’s important: the best way to get good at praying is to pray.

Set aside a time every day to spend some time alone with God. I don’t know how busy you are, but I know that you make time for this. If God is a priority in your life, then communicating with him is a priority in your life.

Prayer: Making the World a Better Place

If you pray long enough, and pay attention to what you’re praying for, you’ll notice something amazing. God answers prayer. It usually won’t be in the way you expect. God is smarter than you, and he rarely works within our narrow expectations. But he does work. Pay attention, and you’ll see beautiful things happen in response to your prayers.

James 5:13-16
13Is any one of you in trouble? He should pray. Is anyone happy? Let him sing songs of praise. 14Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. 15And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven. 16Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.

The first night of winter camp I talked to some of you about spiritual warfare. I talked about how real spiritual warfare isn’t glorious. We don’t get to walk around in shiny suits of armor and kill big red dragons. Real spiritual warfare is fought on our knees.

So not only is prayer our communication with God, but it’s also God’s gift to us. We hear on the news that the world is falling apart, and we want to help fix it. But it’s so big and so complicated and we’re just… you know… people. But God has given us a tool. God told us that if we want this place to get better, we need to ask him to change it. We need to pray.

A Recap: Because People Forget Things

1. Prayer is important. Without it, you can’t get close to God.
2. Prayer is a learned skill. It takes work, but it’s worth it.
3. Prayer is powerful. With God, you can change the world.

Homework: Because Some Things Take Practice

Practice praying this week. Make time to make it happen. Sometimes you’ll feel like it, sometimes you won’t. But it’s always worth it.

In which I learn something

2009-02-22T17:00:00.000-08:00

My understanding of love is far too narrow. My dad told me that. Except, he didn’t actually say those words. He’s classier than that. He listened to me complain, and then he showed me a better way. I’ll tell you what he said in a minute. First I need to tell you a short story.

When my grandma on my mother’s side died, her children drifted apart. Some families are held together by a single person. The family breaks apart when the person dies. My mom’s mom was one of those people. Time passed and my mom’s family became more of a memory than a reality.

Then, last year, my uncle found my mom again. He shattered decades of silence with a phone call. And just like that my family got bigger. My uncle (I’ll call him Colossus* on this site) brought with him a fianceé and her four year old daughter. I met him for the first time that I can remember at my wedding. I met him again over Christmas. Then, about a month ago, I got a call asking me to be his best man at his wedding. My brothers and I were asked to be groomsmen, and our significant others were asked to be bridesmaids.

As Beautiful and I drove to Idaho before the wedding, I couldn’t shake the feeling of being taken advantage of. I had a rented suit in the back seat, and I was driving over three hundred miles to participate in a wedding that would have no guests other than immediate family. But, most importantly, I didn’t really know the bride and groom.

When we got to Idaho, my dad was sitting in his office ruminating on the state of the universe while smoking a pipe and drawing. There are times when the world becomes very clear in that office. Hoping for one of those times, I sat down and shared my concerns with him. It was then that my dad looked at me and told me my definition of love was too narrow. He said the following with love in his voice, for them and for his son:

“They’re two lonely, hurting people looking for a family. And that’s why we’re doing this.”

My dad is a significantly wiser man than me. We saw two very different things when presented with the same situation. I saw myself being taken advantage of, and he saw an opportunity to show Christ’s love. Where my immediate response was to withdraw, his was to step forward. He opened his arms, his home, and his heart, and he treated them like the family they are. My dad has his faults, but his heart is the size of west Texas. And I hear west Texas is a pretty big place.

So the next day, I gathered my tux clad brothers, and we went to a wedding. The service was a small, beautiful affair. In the end, I lifted my glass of sparkling cider and welcomed Colossus and his wife into our family.

Like I said earlier, my understanding of love is far too narrow. But it’s getting better. If I can keep listening to people like my dad, if I can keep learning that I don’t have all the answers, maybe one day it’ll be as full as Christ wants it to be.

*Quite simply, the man in huge.

Fans, poo, and your conscience

2008-11-06T19:07:00.000-08:00

[Author's note: This is another sermon I gave.]

Introduction:

Hi.

My name is still Tom. Christina asked me to speak again today. So here I am.

Last week we talked about walls, both walls of brick and mortar and walls of love and hope. Now, I don’t know if any of you noticed last week, but I’m not a professional public speaker. I was a bit nervous and skipped through some bits faster than I intended. I also didn’t have time to cover some of the stuff I wanted to talk about. Which is cool, in a way, because now I get to talk about that stuff today.

I have three things I want to talk about today. The first two I talked about last week, but I want to be more specific as to how to do them. The last thing I want to talk about I hinted at, but didn’t get to say too much.

The three things are:
1. How to find the holes in your wall.
2. How to fix the holes you find.
3. How to deal with the fact that not everybody will be happy with the construction work.

Unfortunately, when I sat down to write this, I filled up a whole sermon with just the first one. So… that’s what I’m going to talk about today. Finding holes in your wall.

Finding the draft:

I moved into an apartment about four years ago. It was a little one bedroom place that seemed nice enough during the summer. It was newish, was reasonably quiet, and had covered parking. The problem with the apartment didn’t show up until winter. The apartment had a tiny wall mounted heater that was as effective at heating up the apartment as a BIC is at lighting up a dark gym. In other words, you could tell it was doing something, but whatever it was doing, it wasn’t doing it that well.

So it was with a sense of mild horror that one day, while reading a book on the couch in my living room, I felt a cold draft. The tiny wall heater was barely capable of heating the room up without a draft. It didn’t have near the BTUs it would take to overcome the chilling effect of new cold air constantly trickling into the apartment. I was not about to spend the entire winter wearing my snowboarding gear in my own apartment. So I went on a draft hunt. My high school chemistry teacher taught me that the most heat sensitive part of your body is your wrist. (Now, there are more heat sensitive parts of your body. Anybody who has walked into a cold lake knows that. Since the conversation in question revolved around seeing whether a ceramic dish was still scalding hot, he figured nobody would use those parts.)

Anyway, I went through the whole apartment holding my wrist up to all sorts of things. I ran it along window seams. I ran it under the vent for the oven. I went around the front door and the sliding door. And then I went to the fireplace. I didn’t start with the fireplace because I assumed that it had a flue and that said flue was closed. I was wrong on both counts. My apartment had a fireplace with no flue. Just a gaping hole that ran straight up to the wild outdoors. And by “wild” I mean cold and drafty. So I did what any bachelor would do. I closed the glass doors in front of the fireplace (you know, the accordion kind) and duct taped it shut. I duct taped it but good. Deana and Rachel were there. They saw it and can testify to its awesomeness. It’s a miracle I ever got married.

Some of you are probably wondering what drafty fireplaces have to do with Christ-injuring sins. The answer is simple. Absolutely nothing. Heat sensitive wrists, on the other hand, are related in a deeply meaningful way. You see, my heat sensitive wrists let me detect the draft. And since I’m supposed to be talking about finding out where we’re sinning, it would make sense for me to use my heat sensitive wrist story as an analogy for whatever it is that helps us find sins in our lives. So that’s exactly what I’m going to do. Ready?

Heat sensitive wrists are very similar to your conscience (or moral compass, if you prefer). The major difference here is that where heat sensitive wrists detect heat (or the lack thereof), your conscience detects sin (or the lack thereof). So just use your conscience and all will be well. After all, my heat sensitive wrists worked out okay for me.

Why all will not be well if you just use your conscience:

As many of you have probably noticed, we don’t live in a perfect world. There is a lot of stuff out there that is well and truly screwed up. Can I say “screwed up?” Do I need to say, “messed up?” Regardless, the metaphorical poo has hit the metaphorical fan and made a big metaphorical mess of everything. So, the question is, how do you separate the good from the poo when your own conscience is covered with poo… metaphorically speaking, of course.

Can someone read 1 Timothy 4:1-3?

Paul was a classy guy. When he wrote a letter to his friend Timothy, he didn’t use words like “poo.” The way Paul put it was that in the messed up latter days (those are today, by the way), people would be walking around with their consciences seared with hot irons. It’s a significantly cleaner metaphor that I would have used if the word “poo” weren’t so funny to me. But enough about poo, let’s talk about wrists again.

Wrists are sensitive to heat because there are a bunch of nerves in the wrist that are sensitive to heat. If I were to take a scalding hot iron and burn them but good, my wrists would no longer be heat sensitive. I would have killed the nerves, thus killing my ability to find drafts in fireplaces. Or, in the case of my conscience, I would have lost the ability to tell right from wrong.

If you spend enough time in the world without the love and support of Christians around you, your consciences slowly goes numb. It doesn’t feel like someone slapping a hot iron on your wrist. If it did, we’d realize something was wrong. Instead, it happens bit by bit. You conscience gets scarred over one tiny cut at a time.

You go to school and your friends are gossiping about someone. You know that’s wrong but you don’t say anything. You rationalize or ignore it. After a while, it just seems like the way things are done. Your conscience bleeds a little bit.

You flip on the TV at night and watch another sitcom about attractive people have sex with other attractive people. None of them are married, at least, not married to the people they’re having sex with. You watch, knowing what they’re doing is wrong. But, eventually, it doesn’t seem as wrong as it used to. It just seems like how things are done. Your conscience bleeds a bit more.

Every time your dad has a bad day at work, he comes home and yells at you. You know that it’s wrong at first. But, after years of it, you start to think that having a bad day gives you the right to be cruel. It would seem strange to be nice to people when you didn’t feel like it. Like you were faking niceness or something. Your conscience bleeds a bit more.

After years and years of cutting and scarring and cutting and scarring, you start to lose feeling in the places that matter. You start to feel numb all over. Sure, you don’t act like you’re feeling numb. You act angry or sad of super happy or a seemingly random combination of them all. But deep inside, there’s this numb spot that you have a faint memory of not always being numb. If someone were to come along and tell you to search yourself for your faults and give them to Christ so that you could be made whole, you wouldn’t know where to start. You wouldn’t see faults. You wouldn’t see merit either. You wouldn’t see much of anything.

I realize I’m talking to Accelerate Youth Ministries, so some of you won’t have any idea what I’m talking about when I talk about that numbness. But I also realize I’m talking to high school students in the twenty first century. If modern society is good at anything, it’s good at crushing a healthy conscience. So I’m pretty sure that on one level or another, some of you know exactly what I’m talking about. And for the people who don’t know, it’s likely that at some point or another in your life, you will. The world is a hard place. Good people get hurt. It happens.

So, if you’re so numb you have no idea what’s wrong inside, or if you’re so perfect that you’re pretty sure that nothing is wrong inside, allow me to offer some hope. Christ can heal you. He said so himself.

Can someone read Luke 4:16-21?

This is part of what I talked about last week. Jesus didn’t just come to save your souls. He came to set you free, to give you sight, and to release you from oppression. Which, I think you’ll agree, is pretty sweet.

Waking up: Unsticking your Moral Compass

As with all things in Christianity, if you don’t know where to start, you should pray. As a Christian, you should always be in a state of prayer. Paul said that we should pray continually. Which sounds good, and I hear it is good, but it’s also hard. So let’s start with praying regularly. Pray when you get up. Pray before you eat. Pray before class. Pray after class. Pray before sleeping. Pray and pray and pray. Those of you doing the 60/60 Challenge with your running partners are doing this or trying to do this. And, if your compass is broken, your heat sensitive wrist if burnt to a crisp, and your conscience is a scarred over mess, start by praying to get those things fixed.

Can someone read Romans 8:26-28?

As a side note, you may have noticed that we read past one of those section headings. Those things always make me stop, or pause, or change gears. When you’re reading through the Bible, it’s important to know that those section headings weren’t in the original text. They were added to make the books easier to handle by breaking things up into logical sections. It’s okay to ignore them sometimes.

But back to praying. Paul says that the Spirit (which is part of God) intercedes for us. God is really, really smart. So smart, in fact, that he knows what you need to pray for even if you don’t. He knows what’s right for you even if you don’t know that you don’t know… if that makes sense. What he’s looking for from you isn’t a well worded request, what he’s looking for is intent.

Let me put that another way. You commit sins by doing and thinking. That is, you commit sin by willfully opposing yourself to God (even if you don’t realize you’re opposing anything). Your actions, thoughts, and words are things that come from you but they aren’t you. Sound comes from a drum, but the sound isn’t the drum. Light comes from a light bulb, but the light isn’t the light bulb.

I need someone to read Mathew 12:33-34

God doesn’t just want your thoughts or words or actions. God wants the source. He wants your heart. So when you pray to God, it’s okay to groan some times. It’s okay to speak without words. It’s okay to just… emote. To feel toward God. Give him all you have, even if it’s just a series of grunts, sighs, and other strange noises.

He understands. Remember, he knows what you need to ask before you ask. He just wants you to make the first step. It’s not an easy step, but it’s an important one.

Not only does God understand, he does something else. He sends his Holy Spirit to live in you and act as something of a surrogate conscience. He recognized that yours is broken, and being a loving and caring God, will provide you one to use while you heal.

You see, the sad truth is that your conscience will not heal overnight. You will not wake up tomorrow with all your internal scars magically swept away. God could do this for you, but he probably won’t. There wouldn’t be so many verses in the Bible talking about how enduring hard times well helps to make you stronger if God went around and started magically making life easy for Christians. The people who wrote the Bible knew God didn’t do that. What’s more, they knew that God uses hard situations to make you stronger.

This surrogate, this Holy Spirit, speaks to you. The Spirit does not whisper in your ear, at least not audibly. The Holy Spirit speaks to the part of you that everything else flows from, your heart. It is the heart that is the root of your actions and thoughts, and it is the heart that needs to heal first.

To re-cap: the world is a poo-hit-the-fan scale mess, if you want to get closer to God you need to know what’s keeping you separated (which is sin), and if you want to know what sin is you need God’s help.

Getting to know God: from Heart to Head

Paul the Apostle says it’s good to know God with your heart, but it’s also good to know him with your head. I agree, and that’s not just because Paul’s an apostle and I’m not. I agree because he’s right. The apostles were wrong sometimes. Further proof that you and I have a shot at this Christianity thing.

The question is, how do we get to know God better? Well, we pray. But we talked about that earlier. We’re doing that, at least we’re trying to do that. We’ll just say that it’s in the works. Anyway, there’s something else we can do. It’s even something we should do.

This is complicated, so I want to make sure you’re ready for it. Ready? Okay. Here it is.

Read your Bible.

Didn’t see that one coming, did you?

The reason you want to read your Bible is simple. It’s about God, and it’s inspired by him. Since we’re trying to get to know God better, it makes sense to read a book inspired by him.

Some of you may be confused right now. First I was talking about seared consciences, and now all of a sudden I’m talking about getting to know God. I have an explanation. Your conscience is what tells you right from wrong. God, being perfect, has a perfect knowledge of right and wrong. Thus, getting to know God is getting to know what is right and wrong.

To put it differently, living in the world will blind you to the truth. Following Christ will open your eyes to the truth. There are a whole bunch of verses in the Bible that talk about how Christ coming into the world is like a giant light was turned on. Before Christ we were blind to the truth. With Christ, we can see the truth.

So, I’m going to say it again. Read your Bible. I’ve talked to people before who didn’t much care for the Bible. They wanted to know God in their heart, but they didn’t think the Bible would help them there. And the Bible by itself, and by that I mean without prayer and Christian fellowship, won’t. They had that part right. But reading the Bible is an important part of maturing as Christians. We have to start our journey with Christ down here, in the heart. But it can’t get very far unless we involve our heads as well.

By the way, because the act of maturing as Christians is a process of getting closer to God, you can replace the phrase “maturing as Christians” with “spiritually healing.” Remember that. Spiritual maturity is a process of spiritual healing.

Back to the Bible. The Bible was written by a bunch of different people over a really long time period. When you read it, you’ll notice something. Each author has a slightly different take on God. They use different analogies, and they emphasize different characteristics. Take the four Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. All four books are about the life and times of Jesus Christ. And while each book has some of the same events, they all include something different. They all have a slightly different take on who Christ was.

Has everyone heard the story about the four blind monks and the elephant? The four monks all ran into an elephant and each tried to explain the experience to the others. The first monk said it was a giant serpent. That monk was holding the elephant’s trunk. The second monk said the elephant was like a giant column. That monk was touching the elephant’s leg. The third monk said the elephant was a giant leathery wall. That monk was touching the elephant’s side. The fourth monk said the elephant was a huge four legged creature with big ears and a snake-like nose. At which point the other three monks realized that the fourth monk was lying about being blind.

The point is, the three blind monks were experiencing the same elephant. But they couldn’t experience the whole elephant all at once. The elephant was too big for their powers of perception. God is like that. He’s too big to see all at once. He’s too big to take in within one life time.

Which is where the Bible comes into play for us. You see, all those different books in the Bible written by all those different authors gives you access to life times of experience getting to know God. All those different people look at God differently. And comparing those different viewpoints gives you a bigger picture.

There’s this photo program out there called Photosynth. For all the nerds here today, you need to check it out. It’s amazingly cool. What it does is simple. It gathers together a whole bunch of pictures of the same object, say the Sistine Chapel or the Eiffel Tower. Well, all those photos are going to be taken from different angles and directions. Some are going to be taken from the east, some from the south, some from the middle looking straight up. The program takes all those pictures and combines them into a three dimensional environment you can move around in virtually. You see, the sum total of the information in all those pictures has enough information to digitally recreate the place in question.

That’s kind of what the Bible is doing. It’s giving you a whole bunch of different vantage points that you can use to get a bigger, better, more complete picture of who God is. And, by getting to know who God is, you get to know what right is and what wrong is.

Why We Care

Remember, the reason we care about knowing the difference between right and wrong is that sin keeps us from God. At least, sin keeps us from experiencing the love that God wants us to experience. In other words, sin keeps us from being whole.

We were designed for union with God. We were made in his image. He calls us his children. But we live in a world of crud. We’re surrounded by it. Sometimes it feels like we’re filled with it. So he sent his son to die on a cross. It is that sacrifice that will wash the crud from us if we ask. And more than that, more than brushing off the dirt, if we don’t stop there, Christ will do something beautiful. He’ll make us in his image again. He’s restore what was tainted. And then all sorts of cool stuff will happen. Then we’ll start truly living.

Patching Holes

2008-10-24T11:59:00.000-07:00

[Author's note: I preached for the high school youth group last Sunday. Here's about what I said. More appropriately, here's what I intended to say. I was nervous, so it didn't all come out perfect. That's life, I suppose.]

Introduction:

Hi. My name is Tom. The Amazing* asked me to talk to you today. She said I could talk about anything I wanted to. While I was trying to figure out what I wanted to talk about, Fearless** suggested I talk about how awesome she (Fearless) is. And while I’m inclined to believe she is actually pretty awesome, I’m not going to spend too much time talking about that. Sorry Fearless**.

Here’s what I want to talk about: Fixing walls.

Can someone read Nehemiah 2:11 through the end?

Now, I don’t know about you guys, but that was riveting. You can keep your modern literature. I’ll stick to reading about Nehemiah riding around looking at broken walls. Okay, so maybe that’s not the kind of thing you’d read for entertainment, but it’s important. Before I tell you why it’s important, we need to talk about walls for a bit.

Walls: Keeping bad people from doing bad things since 2012 BC
(Date made up due to laziness)

Back in the day (in this case about 450ish BC) major cities needed walls. The obvious reason they needed walls is to keep people from stealing stuff. Major cities had all sorts of valuable stuff, and the people who had that stuff didn’t want other people walking off with it. People back then are pretty similar to people now in that regard. If there is a large amount of money lying around with nothing to stop people from taking it, eventually a dishonest enough person will come along and steal everything not bolted down.

The second reason that walls are important will sound similar to the first one. The second reason is security. I’m not talking about security in regards to material goods. That was point number one. I’m talking about the good old fashioned “nobody is going to kill me” kind of security. It’s pretty obvious that you’re not going to have a very happy city if everyone is looking over their shoulders wondering when the next round of people-killing raiders will sweep through.

The final reason walls are important, at least in the case of Jerusalem, is worship. The temple had just been rebuilt, and people were worshiping there. But it was worship under threat. They were surrounded by people who wanted the gold in the temple, didn’t like the Jews or their God, and wouldn’t much mind if the Jews died. All of this made it hard to worship well. Imagine standing up and signing praise songs when, out of nowhere, a gang of people rush into the room screaming something about death to the Bremertonians. The next thing you know, half the people in the room are kidnapped, recovering from being bashed repeatedly with clubs, or wondering where their wallets went. I assure you, entering in to worship would feel like a whole new level of vulnerable.

Why you care about walls:

Okay, so that was then. But we live in a different place and a different time. We don’t need walls around our cities to keep us safe from roving bandits and hordes of evil doers. And we certainly don’t need walls around our cities to allow us to worship. That’s one of those Constitutional rights people keep talking about.

All that is true. We don’t need walls in the literal sense. What we need is the third reason walls are important. We need enough security to allow us freedom in worship.

The world Nehemiah lived in is very different than the world we live in, but it was still populated with people. Their names may sound funny, but they experienced the same emotions we do. They laughed, joked with their friends, and fell in love. And they made the same mistakes we make. They lusted, lied, envied, and hated just like us. Always remember when you’re reading about stuff that happened to people thousands of years ago that they are like you. The fact that you know what a cell phone is and drive in a car in no way morally separates you from them. Because, no matter how cool our technology gets, it’s still being used by people.

This room you’re sitting in is a place of worship. This is the modern equivalent of the temple in Jerusalem. When you walk into this room, you are stepping into a room with defensive walls around it. Except the walls of this place aren’t made out of stone to keep bad people out. The important walls aren’t even made out of wood and plaster. The walls that keep this place safe are made out of love and respect. You should be able to let your guard down in this place because you are surrounded by brothers and sisters in Christ. It is the love of Christ that keeps you safe here. He is your wall.

Allow me to get a little more personal. You are a place of worship. Those of you listening who have asked Christ to be your Lord and Savior have declared your body a temple, a place reserved for worship. And just like this room, it is the love of Christ that keeps you safe. He is your wall.

That is, he’s your wall as far as you’ll let him be. And if you’re anything like me, there are holes in your wall. There are places in you that you keep to yourself. Little spots (they always seem little) that you don’t want Christ to have. For some it’s envy. You want what those people over there want, and you won’t let Christ take the wanting from you. For others it’s pride. You will fix things your way in your time by your strength because you don’t need anyone doing anything for you. For others it’s stealing. Or lust. Or any other sin under the sun.

Each sin is a hole in the wall. Each part that you keep away from Christ is another place for all the bad stuff in this world to sneak in.

Okay, now imagine that you want to fix these problems. I say imagine because I know that some of you do not actually want to plug those holes in your wall. I am not an optimist. I don’t believe that the world is a shiny happy place full of shiny happy people all doing shiny happy things. I’ve seen enough of this world to know this: all the problems of the world are not caused by people not knowing any better. Some are, sure. But there are many, many problems in this world that are caused by otherwise good people choosing to be selfish, cruel, dishonest, and immoral because they want to. Good people, church people, sometimes choose what they want over what God wants.

If that’s you right now. If you’re sitting here out of obligation, and not because you want to worship Christ and come to know Him more, then what I’m about to say won’t help you much. There is no one that can make you want to live well. You have to make that choice for yourself. What I can tell you is that you can still choose Christ. Just because you’ve made a wrong choice or two doesn’t mean you can’t do things right now.

For the rest of you, the people who want to fix those holes in your wall, let’s talk about how to start doing that.

Fixing walls (because being made dead isn’t fun):

Step 1: Pray

Can someone read Nehemiah 1:1-4?

So, after he Nehemiah cried, the first thing he did was pray. This is not a coincidence. This is a good life practice. Ladies and gentlemen, do not overlook the importance of prayer. I know that it can feel awkward, but talking to someone you don’t know that well is awkward. The more you pray, the more you get to know the God you’re praying to, the less awkward the whole experience gets.

As a side note, guys, it’s okay to cry sometimes. Not all the time, mind you. Like, not watching a Lassie movie or anything like that. But if you’re mourning deeply, crying does not make you less of a man. It’ll probably make you feel a little silly, but real mean feel silly sometimes. That’s just life.

Back to what I was talking about.

Step 2: Get the King’s permission.

Can someone else read Nehemiah 2:1-8?

Before he set off to make Jerusalem a safe place to live and worship, Nehemiah asked the king if doing that was okay. Why? Because the king owned the city. And as I’m sure you all know, you don’t go around fixing other people’s cities without their permission. It’s simply not polite.

In our case, we don’t have a king who sits on a golden throne and kills people who annoy him. The king we’re talking about is the King of kings. As servants of Christ, your body, your soul, your good bits, and your faults all belong to him. It wouldn’t be polite (and wouldn’t be very effective) if you tried to fix yourself without asking his permission.

Think about it this way. Every part of you that you hold back from Christ is a part that you don’t trust him with.

Imagine telling him this: “Jesus, you can have me from 10 AM to noon on Sunday mornings, but you can’t have me on Friday nights because that’s when I drink with my friends. And, quite frankly, I think you’d spoil the party .”

If that seems too extreme, what if it was more like this, “Jesus, I know you want me to listen to my parents, but sometimes they ask me to do stuff that’s inconvenient. Like clean my room. Or take out the trash. I’m a busy person, Jesus, and I think it’s time my parents stop infringing on my right to not be annoyed by them.”

Every hole in your wall, every part you hold back, is a sin. And you don’t just sin against a rule book. There is no victimless sin. When you choose yourself over Christ, you do harm to him. To put it another way, the holes in you are injuries to him. Before you can fix the holes, you need to make sure that he is okay with you fiddling with his wounds.

The way you do this is simple. You ask for forgiveness. You tell him that you know you’ve messed up, that you’ve held back the parts of yourself that are valuable to him, and that you want to start making things right.

Step 3: Figuring out what’s wrong.

Nehemiah knew that having broken walls was stopping the Jewish people from worshipping God properly. It also left them in constant threat of being made dead. Something obviously needed to be done. We learned last week how Nehemiah got the king’s permission to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. The scripture we read this week showed us what Nehemiah did before he started building.

Nehemiah did a survey. He didn’t just assume he knew where the wall was weakest, he didn’t just send out the repair crew to the first section of damaged wall he saw, and he certainly didn’t jump off his horse and start stacking bricks by himself. Nope. Nehemiah was a smart guy. He knew that the best way to fix a wall when you’re surrounded by people who don’t want you to fix it is to start at the weakest point and work from there.

It’s a safe bet that everyone in this room has holes in their walls that they don’t even know exist. We’re walking around with our defenses compromised. And, because the defenses we’re talking about are made from the love of Christ, we’re walking around with our ability to love our neighbors, our families, our enemies, and ourselves impaired. Everything in our lives is affected by this whether we recognize it or not.

Sometimes the flaws are hidden. They can be as subtle as having bad motives for doing good things. It’s like giving a bunch of money to charity so that you can see your name in the papers. Sure, the charity gets the money and they’ll do charitable things with it, but what did you benefit from it? Not much. A little fame, a few pats on the back, and maybe a commemorative plaque.

On a smaller scale, it’s like giving a buck to a bum standing on a street corner not because you love him, but because you want to be able to tell people that you help the homeless. You haven’t given the bum much, and you’ve only gained low-grade bragging rights.

But if you give in either of those cases because you love Christ and that love makes you want to love the people around you, then what you’ve done is worship. As a side note, you’re better off giving to local homeless shelters that try to help homeless people better themselves and get jobs than you are giving cash to people standing on street corners.

Sometimes the flaws are obvious. I’ve always had a problem with pride. I have a tendency to assume I’m right regardless of what the facts say. I’m better at this now, but back in high school I was pretty bad. I was convinced I was right about everything and the rest of the world hadn’t figured it out yet. After all, I’m Tom Stamey. And, as we all know, Tom Stamey is simply not wrong when he says something. Obviously.

Imagine how hard that made it for God to do anything with me. How can God teach me anything if I think I’m right about everything? Looking back, it’s pretty funny. There was so much that I didn’t know. I’m not just talking about knowing in the head, but knowing in the heart. I didn’t know how to love people properly. I couldn’t look past myself to look at what they wanted and needed. And what possible use is a know-it-all who doesn’t know how to love?

Now, I’m not saying that I’ve overcome the pride thing. I still struggle with it. But it’s better now. The construction has started, and we’ve made some progress. I’m just not finished yet. And that’s okay. That’s part of being Christian. We’re all works in progress.

The trick to this surveying is not to get discouraged. It’s easy to look at all the little faults in your life, get overwhelmed, throw your hands up in the air, and give the whole thing up as a lost cause. I mean, you can’t fix the whole wall all at once, so why bother, right?

The purpose behind surveying is exactly the opposite. Examine yourself. Know your faults. Find the fault that’s most likely to get you in trouble, and start there. Don’t try to fix everything at once. You can’t. I don’t care who you are, you aren’t that good. But that’s okay. Remember, Christians are works in progress. Nobody said getting to be like Christ would be easy.

Step 4: Actually starting to fix the wall.

Okay, so you’ve prayed, asked Christ for permission to start on this journey, and figured out what you want to fix. Now the question is: how do you fix it?

The answer is simple: You can’t. Not by yourself anyway. You need to start, but you need other people to help you finish.

Start by praying. It’s a running theme in Christianity. You won’t get to know God better by not talking to him. It doesn’t work that way. Ask for forgiveness for choosing yourself over him. Don’t promise never to do it again. It’s not nice to lie to God. Ask for his strength so you won’t do it again. Our hope for sanctification (which is a fancy way to say being made better) is found in Christ alone. It is his strength, not yours, that will form you and make this whole journey possible.

Then talk to a friend. A close friend you can trust. Maybe an elder, maybe just a more mature peer, doesn’t matter. It’s important that they’re a Christian because they won’t understand what you’re doing if they aren’t, and it’s important you see them semi-regularly because they won’t be able to help unless you do. Tell them what you’re trying to fix and ask them to help keep you accountable. Some people call these people accountability partners. I call them close friends. You can call them running partners, bad-thing-stoppers, or good-thing-helpers if you like. A rose by any other name will still poke your finger if you grab its thorns.

And then, and only then, do you try to start doing things better. The exact how depends on what you’re trying to fix. If you’re trying to stop lusting, I recommend avoiding TV shows that feature scantily clad people. Nude beaches are right out. If your problem is pride, try to remember that all your talents are really gifts from God. You didn’t do anything to deserve them. Treat them like gifts rather than proof that you’re better the other people .

Regardless of what you’re trying to do, don’t beat yourself up if you slip up. Everybody messes up. The trick is getting back up again. Remember to pray, and remember to talk to your accountability partner (or good-thing-helper, if you prefer). Talking to God and the people God put around you will help you keep everything clear in your head.

Fortresses of Love

All that sounds easy enough, but it’s usually not. Most people find the process of becoming more like Christ hard to do. After all, he was perfect and we’re… not perfect. And, anyway, what’s the point? We can still go to heaven if we’re not perfect. Why do we want to waste our time with “improvement” if what we have is good enough?

It’s true that you can go to heaven without ever having to become a mature Christian. The Bible makes it very clear that Jesus will save those that believe in him. But why stop there? Why accept only the bare minimum of Christ’s love?

Christ didn’t come into this world just save you from hell. Christ came into this world that you might have life, not only in eternity, but right now. And I’m not talking about just an “I get by day to day” kind of life. I’m talking about a life so full of love that it radiates from you. The kind of love that gives hope to the hopeless, gives joy even in horrible circumstances, and changes the very fabric of the world that you live in. It’s a kind of love that infectious. Once you start feeling this kind of love, it makes you want to do crazy things. It makes you want to share it. You won’t be able to keep it in.

Imagine if you were surrounded by people that full of Christ’s love. We wouldn’t be talking about building walls of love. We’d be building fortresses. Great, soaring towers of love that can be seen from miles away. And that’s exactly what Christ wants. That’s the good news that he told his disciples to spread. That Christ was born again and living in his followers.

But you don’t just go from shattered walls and a creaky gate to soaring fortresses in a single day. You have to start somewhere. So we start small. And we keep going. One small piece, one brick, one thought at a time. And, eventually, we get to step back and see that, even though it didn’t feel like we were getting anywhere, we were really doing something beautiful.

I don’t know how your wall looks right now. I don’t know if its rubble or shining towers. Only you know that. But if you’re like me, with holes that need patching, my prayer is that you might start here and now. Let’s start rebuilding together.

*This is, of course, not her real name. But it's close enough.

**The woman in question is dating Wolverine. If that doesn't qualify as fearless, I don't know what does.

Part 2 of the Practical Fallout of Nonstandard Life Values: Humility in Action

2008-09-26T13:43:00.000-07:00

[Note from the author] I’d like to start with a disclaimer. I’m really not that good at this part, so if I say something that makes you roll your eyes and say to yourself “no way does he do that,” you’re probably right. But I’m trying to. Even in the presence of Christ himself, people took time to change. That is, the people who wanted to change did, eventually. The people who wanted Christ to change them left disappointed. [End note from the author]

There comes a point in every man’s career where he has to make a choice between work and family. Sometimes the choice is made for you. Those are the cases where if you don’t choose work your family starves while living in a cardboard box. The sacrifices you have to make to keep your family fed, clothed, and housed are between you, your spouse, and God. But those are not the choices I want to talk about today.

The choices that concern me right now are the ones where you’re living reasonably comfortably (not driving a Lexus but not walking barefoot to work) and have the opportunity to make more money at a nominal cost. The trouble is that the “nominal cost” is an extra ten or twenty hours away from your family each week. Time is the unspoken cost for every step taken up the ladder of corporate America.

I was recently offered a promotion which I politely declined. I ran the numbers in my head. Compared the money to the time commitment, spent some time praying, and decided that the promotion was too costly. The time lost with my wife, friends, and church would have been too much to justify. Frankly, I was scared I’d end up divorced and alone. That sounds a bit extreme coming from a man who is newly and happily married, but the only rational outcome of sacrificing the relationships in my life for money is that I will one day have money but no relationships. It might take twenty years, but the result is pretty well locked in.

So I didn’t take the job. Now I have a new boss who wants me to do things his way. That’s his right. He is, after all, the boss. But that doesn’t mean I like it. There’s a part of me that views us (my boss and me) as equals. You see, he has the job I once turned down. Unfortunately for that confused part of me, we’re not actually equals. He really is the boss. I really am his employee.

So there’s the first hurdle for my quest to make the world a better place. Because I’ve decided that Christ, family, and friends must come before work (with the stipulation I can support my family in that order) I have to deal with being an underling at work. That means that even if I don’t agree with my boss, I get to do what he wants me to do anyway. Not only that, I have to do it with a humble, generous attitude.

That’s real sticker for me. That attitude. Following orders is one thing. Following those orders with humility and a smile is something else entire. And that’s the important part. It’s not enough to go through the motions. If I really want to make the world a better place, I need to start with work: my attitude and my performance.

Which brings me to the end of this post and the start of the next one. Stay tuned for Part 3 of the Practical Fallout of Non-standard Life Values: Revolutionary Evangelism

Part 1 of The Practical Fallout of Non-Standard Life Values: A Strong Foundation.

2008-09-19T15:48:00.000-07:00

[Note: The picture to the left is of a fountain just outside Pike's Place Market in Seattle. It has nothing to do with the post below, but I think it looks cool. You've been informed.]

Since I got married, I’ve been thinking a lot about what I want out of life. I guess that’s natural because, prior to being married, the biggest thing I wanted out of life was to be married to a beautiful, intelligent, caring, Christian woman. I realize that seems a bit shallow, but it’s the truth. Sometimes the truth is shallow. There’s really nothing I can do about that. Now that I’m married to that woman (feel free to groan in disgust, but it’s my humble opinion that I’ve married the greatest woman to ever walk the earth), I’ve been searching for what it is I want to search for… if that makes any sense.

I’ve come to the following conclusions: I don’t want to be rich. I don’t want to be famous (well, sometimes I do, but not when I’m thinking clearly). I don’t want to be important in most of the ways the world thinks I should. What I want is simple. I want to make the world a better place.

I haven’t quite nailed down all the specifics of exactly how I’m going to make the world a better place yet, but I do have a place to start. In order to make a good start, I need a good foundation. That foundation is as follows:

1. Never lose sight of my Savior. It is Christ, not me, that will provide the motive force for any good I can work in this world. The New Testament states repeatedly that it is the power of God, not the power of man, that changes lives. On a practical level, this means that I have to get over myself. It takes a humble man* to attribute God’s good works to God instead of trying to take credit for them.

2. Be a good husband. I haven’t been married very long, so I can’t claim to have this whole thing figured out. But I do know one thing, if my wife feels unappreciated, unloved, and unsafe in her home when all things are said and done, I have failed as a husband and a Christian. I could bring about world peace, but if I do so at the cost of my wife, then all that good is tainted. I know that sounds a bit extreme, but marriage is a pretty extreme commitment.

3. Be a good friend.** A brief skimming of the Bible will reveal the fact that God’s people do not live alone. The idea of a hermit living in the mountains and finding God is not endorsed by God’s word. Instead, you’ll find that God is quite concerned with us living well with the people around us. One of the things my dad taught me growing up is that you appreciate the people God puts in your life. In other words, don’t take the compassion of your friends lightly or you won’t have friends for very long. At least, you won’t have very good friends.

So that’s it. That’s the foundation I plan on using to make the world a better place. The discerning reader will notice that I haven’t actually laid out a coherent plan for this grand world-making-better expedition. All in good time, my dear reader. I’ll let you know my plan just as soon as I know what my plan is.

Tune in next week*** for Part 2 of the practical fallout of non-standard life values: Humility in Practice (or: Why telling your boss he’s a raging moron in un-Christian).

*Please note that humility is not, as so many people believe, self deprecation. Woody Allen (at least the characters he plays is movies), for all his self debasing talk, is not a humble man. The fact that his speech so often centers on himself is evidence of that. True humility is forgetting about yourself enough to see the wants and needs of others. It is clearly and powerfully looking outward rather than inward.

**You could read that as good neighbor. I didn’t use “neighbor” because the connotations of the word are a bit too small. You can have friends all over the world, but too often we only think of our neighbors as the people living next to us.

***The management of IKCRN makes no claims as to the timeliness of the next post. Since marriage, the author has been more apt to spend long hours mooning over his wife rather than writing. All attempts at reprimanding him have been met with long monologues on the wonders of marriage. It’s all rather nauseating.

A post in which nobody dies

2008-08-19T17:44:00.000-07:00

[Author's note: That's me on the left there. I feel like that sometimes.]

Hi, my name’s Tom, and I’m a Christian.

That’s a funny way to start a post on a website that’s dedicated (at least in theory) to my personal thoughts on Christianity, but I thought I’d put it out there. You know, clear the air a bit. After all, you don’t really need to be a Christian to write about Christianity. There are enough sources out there (books, TV shows, radio broadcasts, etc.) that you could figure enough out to make conversation without having to bother with all the “living like a Christian” bits.

So, there it is. I’m a Christian. That’s admission number one. Admission number two is this: sometimes I’m ashamed that I’m a Christian.

I remember reading this verse in the Bible when I was a teenager that didn’t make any sense to me. Paul wrote that he was not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus the Christ.* To teenage me, that seemed like a silly thing to say. Of course he wasn’t ashamed of the gospel. Who would be ashamed of the gospel of Christ? After all, if you’re right and you know you’re right, why hide it? The world should know about your rightness so that the world can bask in it.

I thought like that when I was a teenager. I was a cocky kid who didn’t know much but thought he did. Which, I guess, is just saying that I was a teenager using more words.

Years went by and failures and personal faults slowly eroded my cockiness into a sort of forced humility. It’s hard to be too cocky when you have concrete proof of your own limitations. And as that cockiness subsided, I slowly came to realized that Paul wasn’t so silly after all. That real Christians in a world that is obviously not Christian** sometimes feel ashamed of the faith they have in this man who lived 2000 years ago. That same faith that separates them from the people around them.

It’s awkward, sometimes, talking to people who have no idea where you’re coming from. I can’t count the number of times I’ve been shocked by what some of the people I work with view as “the right way to do things.” In those conversations when I’m surrounded by people who all agree with each other, it would be easier to just go along with them than to disagree.

As a Christian, it’s not always my place to point out when other people are wrong. That’s one of the things that I’ve learned as I’ve grown older. However, there have been times when that’s not why I was silent. I was silent because I was ashamed of the difference between me and them. I was ashamed of this separation, this gulf between us.

So I didn’t say anything. Which is, in a circular way, a public admission of shame.

When I was alone again, I felt dirty and ashamed. You see, I wasn’t just ashamed of an idea. That would be more understandable. I was ashamed of something much bigger than ideology or philosophy. I was ashamed Jesus: the living and loving son of God. The Christ. What kind of silly man would be ashamed of him?

Well… me. Sometimes.

We’ve reached the point of the post where I’m supposed to wrap this all up into a neat bundle so you can lean back and say, “Oh, so that’s what he was getting at,” and then forget about the whole unpleasant ordeal. But I don’t have a neat bundle prepared for you today. What I have is a flaw that I’m working on and that I decided to share with you. Why? Because I like sharing the fact that Christianity is a journey rather than a decision. Every exhortation and admonition in the Bible was given to people who were really doing these things. Some of the people doing bad things were very good people. But they weren’t perfect, so they needed to be reminded.

You become a Christian when you start on the path, but you don’t finish until you’re standing before him in heaven.

*Contrary to popular belief, “Christ” is a job title, not a last name. The word, for all intents and purposes, means savior. Which is, not too surprisingly, exactly what he did.

**While we call ourselves a Christian nation, America is not a nation composed of Christians. It is a nation of people who call themselves Christians. There is a difference.

A letter to someone who will never read it

2008-07-29T19:43:00.000-07:00

To my friend,

Sorry it’s taken me so long to write this letter. You know how life gets. There always seems to be more stuff to do than I have time to do it, and lately it feels like I haven’t actually done anything but be busy. But that’s really just an excuse. When things are important, you make time. That’s partly what this letter is: me making time to send you off properly. I didn’t write it before you left, but hopefully it will be there when you arrive.

So this is it, I guess. You’re off to parts unknown. I wish I would have had a chance to say goodbye in person. Maybe this is better. It would have been awkward face to face. After all, what do you say at a time like this? It was nice knowing you? I hope your new neighbors will be nice? I wish you Godspeed on your journey? Nothing fits properly.

You’ll be missed around here. It’s important to me that you know that. When I first started working with you, I didn’t know the first thing about working as an engineer in a machine shop. But I watched, and I learned. I learned more than just repair techniques and manufacturing methods. I learned how to slow down long enough to see the whole problem, that the person doing the work is often more important than what the work is, that the smart engineers know when to ask for help, and that just because it hasn’t been done before doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. After all, we get paid to make miracles happen.

If that were the extent of it, if all you were was a teacher, then your leaving would be a loss for the company. But you were more than just a co-worker. You were a friend and a mentor. You told stories with such energy and passion that it was hard not to be interested. You always had a different way of looking at things. Sometimes it was good. Sometimes it wasn’t. But it was always interesting. The office was a more dynamic place with you storming around it.

You see? I told you this would be awkward if we did this in person. This way you don’t have to mumble about how I’m making too big a deal about things. You just have to sit there and read the letter. Feel free to disagree as much as you like. You won’t hurt my feelings.

With that, I’ve said what I wanted to say. It was nice knowing you. I hope your new neighbors are nice. I wish you Godspeed on your journey.

[Author's note: My friend died at 10:30 this morning from lung cancer. May he find the gates of heaven open to welcome him home. May the love and good wishes of his friends and family meet him there. He will be missed.]

All this time and I go and write about a sunrise

2008-07-25T17:35:00.000-07:00

There’s so much I could write about today. I could write about the fact that I’m now married to a beautiful, intelligent, loving woman (I call her Beautiful on this site, keeping to the practice of pretending that this is all anonymous). Or I could write about our honeymoon and how Alaska is breathtaking and intimidating at the same time. Or I could write about how a good friend of mine, my mentor at work for over three years, was just diagnosed with terminal lung cancer and given six months to a year to live.

But I’m not going to write about any of that.

Today, I want to write about a sunrise.

I walked to work today. I do that off and on in an attempt to stay in shape. It’s a three mile walk, and that’s enough to warm me up for the day without leaving me too exhausted to work. The company I work for has ridiculous hours.* The reason that fact is important is that during a good portion of the year, my walk to work is done in the half-light of street lights.** During the summer months, I get to walk to work in real, honest-to-goodness sunlight.

As I walked out of my apartment this morning, I flipped on my iPod and then watched the glass shroud of the porch light fall to its untimely death for no apparent reason. Feeling unjustly imposed upon by the universe, I grabbed my broom and cleaned up the mess. After putting the broom away, I paused at the doorway to see if anything else felt like falling to a death, timely or otherwise. Nothing did, so I started walking.

There are times when walking to work feels like work, and times when it’s relaxing. Surprisingly enough, today was one of the latter times. Each step was effortless. The sidewalk seemed to be flowing underneath me. At 5:30 in the morning, I consider anything feeling effortless to be a miracle.

About a third of the way through the trip, I realized that I forgot to pray that morning. So I flipped off my iPod and started to pray. I prayed for my wife, for my friends who are out of town for work, for my co-worker who’s dying of cancer, for my father and his struggles, and for a unity to it all. And by unity I mean a meaning or rhyme or reason or… I don’t know. I guess I want to someday look back at the whole mess, all the good parts and all the bad parts, and see a pattern. I want to see a grand scheme, a great plan, the work of a master’s hand.

And then I was done. Praying, not walking. I was still doing the walking thing, and that walking thing was carrying me over a trestle bridge. The bridge runs east-west over a small portion of the Puget Sound. As I walked over the bridge, I looked to the right and saw the Olympic mountains wearing their customary crown of clouds. There is a small pier on the left hand side of the bridge, and on one of the pilings of the pier was the bald eagle who sits there most mornings for sunrise. Behind me, the sun was rising.

When I started this post, I said I wanted to talk about a sunrise. That wasn’t completely true. What I really wanted to talk about was the moment that happened while the sun was rising. Have you ever seen a kite lying on the grass get lifted by the wind? It shakes a little, wobbles around, and if the right gust comes along, it lifts into the sky. That’s what it felt like, emotionally anyway. One second I was just walking along, trying to figure out how the whole world works, and the next I was smiling uncontrollable, overwhelmed by the beauty around me.

This is what I saw in that moment: jagged mountains piercing clouds, a bald eagle taking flight, waves dancing in the morning light, a burning orange sky announcing the coming of the sun, the cool air filling my lungs, and the steady rhythm of my stride as I let miles of sidewalk slide beneath me. All of it hit me all at once… and I was undone.

I wanted to see what it all meant. I wanted to see the whole picture. I didn’t get to see it. What I got instead was a moment, a glimpse at something beautiful. It was the comforting hug of a parent for a hurting child, the supporting smile of a loving spouse, the firm handshake of a good friend saying, “I’ll be there for you.”

I’m beginning to think that I won’t ever understand it all. I’m beginning to think that, all things considered, that’s okay.

*My theory is that the person setting up the standard work schedule for my place of employment is an insomniac who wants everyone else to suffer too.

**This fact makes me dislike daylight savings time with a passion. Just when my commute starts to get pleasant, that whole “spring forward” thing leaves me in the dark again. Please, don’t cry for my suffering.

An introduction to the author

2008-05-06T11:46:00.000-07:00

There are times when I post on this site that I feel like a complete fraud. I feel like a hypocrite: an actor on a stage delivering lines that sound good but are ultimately useless. If my blog were about sports or politics or any topic other than what it’s about, I wouldn’t have that problem. But it’s not. What I’m writing about is God, Christ, salvation… walking that narrow path called Christianity in a world that stands opposed to all that Christ stands for.

I am, in short, sharing with you what I feel my Christian walk should be.

Please note the “should” in the preceding sentence. “Should” is as big a word as “if.” It carries with it potential for greatness (he should be the best quarterback in 20 years) and potential for guilt (he should have done so much better). Guilt, my friends, is a hammer. You can make things with a hammer. You can also bludgeon them out of existence, break them down until they are unrecognizable.

Today I feel like I’m on the bludgeoning end of the hammer because there is so much I should be and am not.

Ladies and gentlemen, I am not a very good Christian. I do not measure up to my own standards, I do not measure up to Christ’s standards, and it is only by the unthinkable grace of Christ that I know that I have the hope of eternal salvation.

Ladies and gentlemen, I am not like Christ.

There is a man that I walk by on my way to work every day. He sits on a concrete block next to the sidewalk and plays his harmonica with a topless milk jug at his feet for spare change. He says, “Hi, Motorcycle,” as I pass on some days.* I say, “Good morning.” I do not know his name. Not one cent in that milk jug is from me. I wonder if Christ would stop to talk to him.

On my way home from work, there is an elderly gentleman who hands out fliers. The words of Christ are printed on the fliers so close together that they become one, unintelligible block of text. I wonder why he stands there, day after day handing out the same fliers to the same people filing through the same gate. I do not know his name. The only words I say to him are, “No thank you” as I waive aside another flier for another day. I wonder if Christ would stop to talk to him.

There is an intersection in my town where there is always a homeless person standing with a hat asking for money. It’s a different homeless person every day, but my reaction is the same when I drive by. Instead of feeling the love of Christ for those people, I wonder if there’s some sort of sign-up sheet for that corner. “Larry, you get it over other Thursday, but Monica gets it weeknights through Lent.” I can be a horrible cynic. To my knowledge, Christ was not.

I could go on, but I guess I’ve made my point. I, Tom, the author of this site, am not a very good Christian. I am not asking for sympathy. I am not asking for comforting words. I want neither. What I am doing here is baring my soul for a moment so that I share what Christ means to me on this site without feeling like a complete fraud and, through sharing, maybe I can become more like Christ in the long run. Like I said, I’m not a very good Christian, but I’d sure like to be.

-Tom

*I ride my motorcycle to work. I don’t have saddlebags on my bike, so I wear my leather jacket and chaps on the walk to my office. I pass the man on that walk.

[A note from the author: For those curious, the picture is my dad's shadow. I thought it fit for reasons I'm not able to verbalize right now. Just thought you might like to know.]

Take off your cape and step away from the spandex

2008-05-03T21:56:00.000-07:00

When I was a kid, I wanted to be a superhero. I realize that this is a fairly common dream for children. After all, what eight-year-old child doesn’t want to be able to shoot laser beams from their eyes, bend steel with their bare hands, and bring evil to its knees with the force of sheer awesomeness? But, like Paul* said, when I became a man, I put away childish things.

As a grown man, I still want to be a superhero. Those of you who’ve been paying attention will probably notice that I just got done saying that I put away childish things. And you’re right. I told you I put away childish things, but I didn’t say I no longer want to be a superhero. What I no longer want to do is bend steel with my bare hands or shoot laser beams out of my eyes. I want to be a new kind of superhero.

I want to be able to make people happy.

Bending steel, flying, and burning holes in things at great distances just by looking at them makes for good comic books, but it makes for crappy real life. After all, if I’m saving people from the clutches of evil, that means that people have to actually be in the clutches of evil first. There has to be a steady stream of evildoers doing evil to otherwise gainfully occupied people. Without the evildoers, a dude with laser beam eyes isn’t really good for much.**

So I’m done with that kid's superhero stuff. I’ve upgraded to adult superhero stuff. This new breed of happy-making superhero doesn’t need a cape, spandex, or evildoers. All that I need to fulfill my superhero-ly duties (provided that I attain the superpower in question) is everyday people doing everyday stuff. The world is big and complicated enough that there are plenty of unhappy people wandering around.

But not after that Happy Man gets a hold of them. Okay, so the name needs work, but you get the point.

Little Johnny is sad because his favorite comic is lost, but all that changes when Happy Man shows up. Bam. Little Johnny is happy. Does he have his comic? No, Happy Man isn’t a galactic lost-and-found. But, by gum, Little Johnny is happy now because Happy Man makes people happy. That’s what he does.

Larry is sad because he's overweight in a world where people are judged by what they look like instead of who they are. But Happy Man can put a smile on that face. He won't help Larry lose weight because Happy Man is not a physical trainer. But, boy-howdy, Happy Man will make Larry happy. Hold your chin high, Larry, Happy Man is on the way.

Edmund from accounting is sad because her marriage is in trouble… that is, until Happy Man shows up. Kazzam. Is Edmund's marriage fixed? No. Happy Man doesn't do counselling. But Edmund from accounting is now happy despite his failing marriage. Another job well done.

I guess at this point it’s pretty obvious that Happy Man isn’t a very useful superhero. After all, he can’t really fix anything. That wasn’t part of the gig. He can’t find lost comics, can't help people lose weight, can't change the world from judging people who don't look like the world says they should look, can’t fix broken marriages... in short, Happy Man can't do much of anything. Happy Man, the remover of unpleasantness from all things unpleasant, is as lame as his name.

[An aside from the author] There are two different ways I can take this post right now. Option 1 is to tell you that God is smart enough to know that Happy Man is a bad idea, and so he won’t play that role in your life. He’ll give you joy in hard circumstances, but that’s different than the desperate happiness that people have when they try to ignore what’s going wrong. And that’s exactly the sort of happiness Happy Man is likely to offer. Option two is to compare Happy Man to recreational drug use and to remind you that ignoring your problems doesn’t make them go away. It often makes them worse.

But I’ve talked about Option 1 before, and Option 2 sounds too much like a sermon for my liking this evening. So, instead of talking about either option, I’ll leave you with one final thought. [End aside from author]

Spandex is a dangerous material and is best left to professionals. You’ve been warned.

[A note from the management] If you asked yourself, "What kind lame end for a post is that?" rest assured that you're not the only one. The quality control group of IKCRN is currently heavily sedated by Nyquil due to a dehabilitating head cold. Seizing the opportunity, the author penned the tasteless ending above. He has been severely flogged and will issue a formal appology when he regains the use of his arms. [End note from the management]

*The Paul in question is Paul the Apostle. He wrote a fair bit of the New Testament. There’s some good stuff about love in there, some confusing stuff about hair styles, and some controversial stuff about cutting off… uh… bits from bits… that is…. You’ll just have to read it yourself.

**This is not in any way saying that good requires evil to exist. What it is saying is that laser beam eyes don’t really have any commercial value outside of the ability to bore eye-sized holes in bad people to keep them from doing bad things to people who’d rather not have bad things done to them.

A shameless plug of a man I deeply respect

2008-04-13T18:48:00.001-07:00

The readership for this blog isn’t what it used to be (and it was never very large). That’s mainly because I haven’t written consistently for quite some time. That said, I hope that the few people who do visit this site from time to time read this post and follow the link below.

The aforementioned link is for my dad's blog. He knows more than me, expresses it better than me, and has a bigger heart that I can ever hope to achieve. So, without further preamble, I give you:

All Things are Possible

A link is also available on the sidebar under the witty and thoughtful title of, "Dad's blog." If you like what you read, please leave him a kind comment.

Christianity: Gateway to riches or asking for a beating?

2008-04-11T09:41:00.000-07:00

[Note from the management: This post is a bit of a step away from the norm for this site. In it, I list several Bible verses (without typing out the full content of the verse) and ask questions about the verses assuming you’ve read them. Reading the Bible verses is not required, but it makes the whole thing make more sense. That said, the staff here at IKCRN* humbly requests you play along and dust off your Bible.]

I’ve always been interested in what people expect from Christianity. I’m not asking why people believe what they believe, that’s a related, yet distinctly different, issue. What I’m asking is, now that you believe, what do you expect from your newly found (or long held) Christian life to be like? In other words, what do you expect Christ to do for you?

Thus far, I’ve found two extreme options. In option number one, the person in question believes that Christians will lead a blessed life. They believe that Christianity is the key to living life the way it should be lived, and that Christians will excel in all areas of life: love, wealth, ease of living, etc. Option two is the polar opposite. The people who hold to option two believe that true Christianity is lived in poverty, persecution, and general crappiness tempered only by the unfailing and uplifting love of Christ.

Option One: Gold, Girls, and God

Biblical support (with questions because that makes it more fun):

[Matthew 7:9-11] Jesus said that God wants to give us good things. What do you think he meant by that? (Are fast cars good? Is love good? Is getting promoted good? etc.)

[Proverbs 14:14] What kind of reward do you think that God will give the good man in this verse? Is that a monetary thing? Is it a love thing? Companionship? Think concrete. Don’t just say “blessed” because that’s a cop-out and not an answer.

[Proverbs 28:25] This verse says that if I turn to the Lord, I’ll prosper. How?

[Job 42:12-13] If you said that the blessings or prosperity mentioned in the verses that preceded this one were more spiritual or emotional than financial, is Job an exception to that rule?

Option Two: Blood, Sweat, and Toil (All this can be yours, and more!)

Biblical support (because God’s opinion matters more than mine):

[Philippians 3:10-14] Is Paul a masochist? What sane man wants to suffer? Explain.

[Romans 8:17-18] Christ was glorified in his resurrection from the dead. He was further glorified when he ascended to Heaven. He will be eternally glorified when he returns to earth leading the armies of Heaven. Question: does Christianity only benefit you when you die or when Christ returns?

[Matthew 7:13-14] If Christianity is an easy road that leads to riches (which would be one way to interpret the end of Job), how does this verse work into it?

[Matthew 5:11-12] Is this verse promising persecution or providing comfort for when you’re persecuted?

Conclusion:

Raise your hand if you think that the Bible seems a bit contradictory about the fiduciary pros and cons of Christianity.** Making it all work together requires so much legalistic chicanery that my head hurts trying to keep it all in view at once. I led a Bible study once using the above outline. As the study progressed, I was struck by the focus of the discussion. It was a series of personal pronouns, a string of “I”s and “me”s. The group I was in was not a group of new Christians. These were men (it was a men’s Bible study) whose opinions I respected. And yet, as the minutes slipped into hours, I couldn’t help but notice that our focus was not on Christ but on what Christ would or would not give us. We were a group of Christian men trying to study Christ, and we couldn’t take our eyes off what was in His hand long enough to look Him in the face.

I realize that statement it seems a bit unfair. After all, the focus of the evening was what we expect from Christ as Christians. But, as with all things in our Christian walk, the focus must be on Christ and becoming more like Him. The moment we take our eyes off Him and start debating minutia that is only distantly related to Him, we stop discussing Christianity and begin studying a religion of rules. That’s the legalistic chicanery I mentioned earlier.

That said, what do you believe? Are you option one or option two? Are you something else? I’ll tell you what I believe. I expect Christ to bless me. I praise Him when He does. I expect life to be hard: full of pain, blood, sweat, and general unpleasantness. I praise Christ when He sits by my side in those times, provides the comfort necessary to go on. But joy or sorrow, blessing or suffering, living or dying, my focus is on Christ. This Christian walk of ours isn’t about what we get out of it. Never has been.

*It’s really just me. But it sounds more official if I say, “the staff,” instead of, “the dude typing this.”
**You don’t actually have to raise your hand.

On art students and God

2008-03-29T14:16:00.001-07:00

I went to the Seattle Art Museum (the “SAM” for those fond of abbreviations) with Beautiful yesterday. While there, we did all the things that one does when at museums of art. We oohed and awed over the Roman sculptures on loan from the Louvre*, were struck by how a simple portrait of a woman can carry so much emotion, stared blankly at modern art wondering what meaning a multicolored toilet could have, and made fun of art students.**

You see, the tragically funny thing about art students is that they are so passionate about something that most people don’t really care much about beyond the initial “ooh, pretty” or “holy cow, what were they thinking” reactions. But art students (easily recognized by their unkempt hair, clothing just frayed enough to be hip, and the startling ability to stare at a blank canvas for hours searching for meaning) never simply see a painting. They see essays in acrylic.

And now, for you reading pleasure, an example exchange between two art students staring at a net hanging on a wall, in reference to the informational placard mounted to the wall next to the net:

Student 1: You can’t just read the card, man.

Student 2: [Blank stare.]

Student 1: People walk up to this, and they read the card.

Student 2: [Slightly glossed blank stare.]

Student 1: I mean, the art isn’t the card. You can’t just read the card, say, “That’s nice,” and move on. That’s not what the artist wants.

Student 2: [Fully glossed blank stare, drooling slightly.]

Student 1: You can’t get it by reading the card. You have to question it, study it, observe the art. It takes, you know, time and passion and commitment and… I don’t know… living to get the art. But… man… it’s the cards.

Student 2: [Wipes away drool.] Yeah man. Totally.

[Off to the side]

Me (to Beautiful): I bet it’s for catching fish.

Beautiful (to me): [Disapproving stare.]

To me, standing on the sidelines and looking at the net hanging on the wall, the earnest art students looked pretentious. It looked (and still looks) like they’re trying to make a mountain out of a speck of dust. Like they’re so intent on making meaning in every brushstroke (or knot, in the case of the net) that they create meaning where there is none. It makes me wonder how much of art commentary is real, and how much is smoke and mirrors to distract you from the fact that underneath all the academic verbiage, there’s really nothing but a puddle of ink.

And then, because mocking art students always puts me in an introspective mood, I wondered if that’s what people see when they look at Christians. I wonder if they see all the theological machinations, or tradition-forged holy rites, as so much hand waving and metaphorical slight-of-hand to hide from ourselves that we’re really just biological machines bound to wear out and die.*** I can remember trying to explain my faith to a coworker, and I can’t help but think I sounded much like those art students: earnest and at least superficially honest, but, at least to the listener, doing nothing but blowing smoke. After all, don’t most people just look at God and say “ooh, pretty” or “holy cow, what were they thinking”?

Now, I’m not saying we shouldn’t share the Gospel. I’m not saying that Christianity is smoke and mirrors. What I’m doing is wondering out loud if people see us how we think we’re being seen. And, while I’m being honest, I guess I feel a little guilty for making fun of the art students. Just a little though.

*It’s my sad duty to report that “Louvre” is not pronounced “loo-ver.” It should be though.

** To be completely accurate about that, I made fun of the art students, and Beautiful looked at me with mild reproach.

***If you haven’t read this site in the past, please know that I don’t believe we’re simple biological machines.

In which I talk about the Bible

2008-02-10T21:23:00.001-08:00

The Bible is called the immutable, unchangeable, infallible word of God. Can I say that this is true and not true at the same time? What if I said it was human accounts of divine events, human hands scribbling down the words and actions of the Savior of mankind? Would you call me a heretic?

The battle cry of the Evangelical movement is that the Bible is perfect. Is it? Did Jesus cast Legion, that unholy group of demons, out of one man or two in the region of Decopolis? Did Jesus ride into Jerusalem on a colt or a donkey and a colt?

Does it matter?

Looking at the gospels, the part of the New Testament with the majority of Jesus’s quotes in it (which makes sense because it’s the portion of the New Testament dedicated to retelling his life), you’ll find a series of minor inconsistencies of the type I described above. Does that mean that we can throw out the Gospels as so much conflicting trash? After all, it’s not 100%, unequivocally consistent from book to book to book. If you’ve read this site at all before, I’m sure you know that my answer to that question is no. I believe the Bible is the Word of God handed down to men so that we can know him better and by knowing him, become more like him.

So how can I say that I believe the Bible if it’s not absolutely perfect? I’m glad you asked.* If you look hard enough, you’ll find inconsistencies in the background to Christ’s stories. What you won’t find is any inconsistency in Jesus’s character. What happens around him varies slightly from gospel to gospel, but what he says and who he is doesn’t change at all. That’s consistent with real eye witness testimony and, given the time passed between the life of Christ and when it was written down, the consistency between the different gospels is nothing less than miraculous. The small differences in the Gospels aren’t a reason to doubt that the accounts are accurate. Rather these differences highlight the fact that the majority of the text tells the same, amazing story.

By ignoring the fact that the New Testament was written down by men, we artificially make it a Holy Artifact, make it like Joseph Smith’s gold tablets. But the New Testament was written by men, men who saw God work in this world. This is not myth. This is history, full of all these little inconsistencies that real historical texts have.

I am eternally grateful to God for using men, real, flawed, imperfect but willing men to do his work in this world. I thank him for this because I am one, am imperfect. It’s the imperfections of his servants that make me think that I could be one.

*If you didn’t ask, then I’m glad I asked. It gave me a much smoother transition. Rhetorical questions are great for that.

A distortion in the fabric of space-time

2007-12-24T20:59:00.000-08:00

[The following post was written last Tuesday at the tale end of a long day at work. It was sent via email to a few of my friends, but I like it enough that I thought I'd share it with you.]

I'm not in the habit of writing posts telling the world that I'm bored out of my mind, but I decided to make an exception today for reasons which will become apparent in a paragraph or so.

Today is Tuesday [12/17/07]. You knew that already. What you didn't know is that by all accounts, today should actually be Friday, or, at the very least, after dinner on Thursday. I showed up to work this Tuesday morning at 6:20 AM. Looking at my clock shows that it's now 3:46 PM. Basic arithmetic (along with a knowledge of the tricky AM to PM conversion on the twelve hour clock) tells me that I've been at work today for 9 hours and 26 minutes.

Here's where it gets interesting: My finely tuned, precision calibrated body clock tells me that I've actually been at work for 96 hours. Which, as I'm sure you've calculated, is a wee bit longer than 9 hours and 26 minutes. Now, being intelligent folks, you'll probably jump to the conclusion that I'm simply bored, and that said boredom is distorting my perception of time. Which only proves that you don't know exactly how finely tuned and precision calibrated my body clock really is. The atomic clock is a scratched Timex calculator watch compared to the sparkling Rolex of my body clock.

The obvious solution to the disparity between my body clock and my computer's clock is simple: God has distorted space-time in honor of the birth of his Son. You see, it's almost Christmas and historically this time of year blazes by in a haze of tinsel, pine trees, shopping mall fist fights, and drunken renditions of silent night. It is my hypothesis that God has stretched the human perception of time to allow us the opportunity to reflect on the history changing, eternity affecting birth of his Son while still having enough time to arm wrestle the overweight lady in the paisley dress for the last Barbra Streisand CD.

On a philosophical level, I'm all for this newly slowed pace of time. It's the practical level that gets me. You see, were I at home with my family and friends, drinking hot chocolate, eating too much, and generally having a good time, I would revel in the 86 hour and 34 minute time difference I'm currently experiencing. But, sadly, I was caught at work when space-time took on the consistency of silly putty on a hot August day.

I am writing this email to inform you, [insert name of friend here], that should you experience this stretchy, inconsistent, slightly goopy state of time, don't be alarmed. All is still well. Enjoy your 96 hours of work tomorrow knowing that those extra 86 hours and 34 minutes will allow you the time you need to truly appreciate the gifts that have been given to us.

Things change, I suppose

2007-11-22T17:45:00.000-08:00

I’m sitting in my parent’s living room in Idaho with my fiancée at my side, and I’m struck by the juxtaposition of that which is familiar with that which is new, constant side by side with change.

It’s Thanksgiving day, and that usually means the house is full of my immediate family (six people in a double wide manufactured home qualifies as full). Not today though. No, today my little sister is in California with her husband, my little brother is eating turkey and stuffing with his girlfriend’s family, and my fiancée (a woman who existed last year but did not exist with that title) is, as I mentioned earlier, sitting at my side.

Things change.

It’s Thanksgiving day, that usually means that the house is full of the sounds and smells of a feast being prepared, my dad has retired to his office to smoke his pipe and write, and the rest of us are lounging around the house staying out of the way and enjoying the fact that we’re inside and not outside (it’s cold out there people, my parents don’t live in Hawaii).* As luck would have it, that much is true.

Things stay the same.

There is nothing innately good or bad about change. It is neither a constant bane nor constant boon. It simply exists. It is. It’s part of this whole getting-up-in-the-morning-and-enjoying-each-day-that-comes-at-you** thing that we call life. Sometimes I like it, and sometimes I don’t. The only constant seems to be that change doesn’t much care what I like.

It’s Thanksgiving day, and whether things are changing or not, we all have something to be thankful for. [I’m about to take an inexplicable spiritual turn. You’ve been warned] A long time ago, the Son of God came down to earth, died, and then rose again. He did all this so that we could be with God even though we don’t deserve to be. Despite any pain you may feel, despite how much change is sweeping away the foundations of your life, that much is constant, that much is good. With that in mind, I’d like to say this to you:

Happy Thanksgiving. May the love of Christ surround you and yours.

*Those who are especially fond of grammar will note that the sentence marked with an asterisk is a run-on sentence. I’m sure that you’ve come to expect better grammar than that from this site, but I offer this run-on sentence to you unapologetically. Why? Because I like it, that’s why. Sometimes grammar has to bend to style. Please send any grammatical complaints to the management so that they can be properly filed.

**This is not a run-on sentence. I’m not actually sure what it is, but I’m fairly certain that it qualifies as a grammatical error. Once again, I am unapologetic.

The Inevitable Return of Consumerism Day

2007-11-11T13:20:00.000-08:00

It’s mid-November, and I believe you all know what that means. That’s right, it’s time for stores to start selling Christmas joy. I’ve written in the past on how I don’t really like the fact that Christmas has become a secular holiday dedicated to the promotion of a strong economy through the masses spending money beyond their means. Knowing that, you might assume that I’m about to write about that topic again.

Well, you’re right. Please join me for my 2nd annual “why-can’t-people-just-call-it-Spend-Too-Much-Money- to Celebrate-a-Holiday-With-Vaguely-Religious-Ties-Day” rant.

I was in Starbucks today (I live in the Seattle area, and I like to support my home-grown multi-national heartless corporation) when I saw an Advent Tree. For those of you unfamiliar with Advent, it’s an old Christian tradition starting about four weeks before Christmas. The details of the tradition vary (different regions, denominations, and families have their own ways to celebrate Advent), but the purpose is the same. The purpose of Advent is to prepare the hearts of the church to celebrate the birth of Christ.

Now that we all know what I mean when I say “Advent,” allow me to say again: I was in Starbucks today when I saw an Advent Tree. My first reaction was to smile. I thought to myself, “Self, it’s good to see a soulless, multi-national corporation provide people a way to prepare their hearts so that they can celebrate the birth of Christ properly.”

Then I thought to myself, “Self, doesn’t it strike you as odd that a soulless, multi-national corporation is selling anything that blatantly refers to one religion? After all, Muslims drink coffee too. And if Muslims can afford $5 for a cup of coffee, it stands to reason that Starbucks would want those $5.”

It was then, while in the midst of a bordering-on-multiple-personality-disorder conversation with myself, that I noticed something about the Advent Tree. The tree has twenty four boxes, each with a piece of chocolate inside. As you eat each piece of chocolate, you flip the box around, revealing a portion of a picture. While the number of boxes is a bit unorthodox (advent is a minimum of 28 days long), it was the scene that you reveal that made me stop smiling.

You see, the scene revealed through chocolate eating has nothing to do with Christmas (in the Christ Mass sense). It’s a picture of a little boy riding a polar bear. Cute, but not really applicable to a true Advent.

What bothers me is not that Starbucks is selling a winter themed excuse to eat candy and count down to secular Christmas. What bothers me is that they’re stealing Christian words to do it. Advent, in the context that Starbucks is using it, is a very specific word. It’s a very Christian word relating to a Christian holiday. (If you think I’m taking the word out of context, please look it up. Merriam-Webster’s number one definition for the word is essentially identical to the one I gave above.) It has absolutely nothing to do with adorable little boys riding adorable polar bears in an adorable wintery scene.

And now we’ve reached the part of my rant where I beg futilely for the world to change it’s ways (please imagine me on my knees with my hands up turned and a tear in my eye as you read this next paragraph).

To all those people out there who aren’t Christian and don’t care about Christians traditions but want to make some money off them anyway: Please stick to generic winter themes. When you misuse words, you make it harder for me to communicate because I constantly have to define words that had specific meanings before you started using them for your next profit-making venture. Please, please, please have compassion on a man who wants to be able to communicate clearly and concisely. I’ll even buy some of your winter themed count down to Consumerism Day products if you’ll leave my words alone.

Underwear, parachutes, and the laws of physics

2007-10-10T22:04:00.000-07:00

I wanted to write something deeply philosophical today, but I'm not in the mood to philosophize. Instead, I give you, my faithful readers, 10 things about me that I feel like writing right now:

1. I grin every time I accelerate from a stop light on my motorcycle.

2. If I try really hard, I can suppress that grin into a wry smirk.

3. I smile (a flat-out, ear-to-ear, goofy-looking smile) during take-offs on airplanes. It’s the push-you-into-your-seat acceleration and the in-your-face-gravity-I’ll-fly-if-I-want-to defiance of natural law that makes me smile.

4. If I try really hard not to smile, I still smile like a moron during take-off. The people sitting next to me rarely share my enthusiasm.

5. When I was a small child, I was under the impression that Batman underwear would make me fly. It wasn’t until later that I realized that Batman doesn’t fly. I was heartbroken for many, many seconds.

6. I recovered quickly from the discovery that the greatest super hero ever wasn’t, strictly speaking, “super” because I also learned that he used the coolest gadgets ever devised by human minds. Thus my “jump from the carport roof with a blanket as a parachute” plan was born. Batman underwear may or may not have been an integral part of that plan.

7. I can’t remember if I actually ended up jumping off the carport roof with a blanket as a parachute. I can say with certainty that the laws of aerodynamics predict that said operation would have ended poorly.

8. I frown when I walk around by myself. I’m rarely upset, but I look like it.

9. I hate shopping. Just the thought of shopping makes me unhappy. This does not mean that I live a Spartan lifestyle. It just means that I’m unhappy while filling my house with junk that’s supposed to make me happy. Such is life in America.

10. I’ve never been greeted by a Wal-Mart greeter when shopping by myself. My theory is that this phenomenon is related to points 8 and 9.

The world is upside down right now

2007-10-03T08:10:00.000-07:00

My more discerning readers have probably noticed that I’m not posting as often as I used to. I am, in fact, barely posting at all. There is a very simple reason for this.

Having just read that last sentence, I’m sure you’re expecting to get to read that simple reason and thus know why it is that I’m not doing what I used to do so often. I’d love to help you out there. But, while the reason I’m not posting that often is pretty simple, the world is not a simple place. It is due to the world’s inherent complexity that the following sentence is so very vague:

My world is upside down right now.

There are times and seasons in life when all that was held as standard, all that was held as common, is flipped on its head. It’s during times like this that left becomes right, up becomes down, and old becomes new. If my life can be viewed as a deck of cards, then currently that deck is being used to play a game of 52 card pick up*.

That sounds very unpleasant, but I assure you that it’s not. My life has never been better. I hope one day to be able to tell you all about it, but, with the complexity of the world at large, that might take some time.

In the mean time, posting on this site may be sporadic. Please check back every month or so to see if I’ve written anything new. I don’t recommend daily checks as I have no intention of posting that often.

Sincerely,

Tom

*For those not familiar with the game, 52 card pick up is very easy to play. Walk up to someone with a deck of cards, and ask them if they want to play. If they say yes, take their deck and hold in between your thumb and middle finger, using your index finger to apply pressure to the underside of the cards. Then, push with your index finger and pull with your thumb and middle finger. This will cause the cards to shoot wildly out of your fingers. Finally, request the owner of the cards pick them up. There are only two rules to 52 card pick up: 1. Never play with your own deck. 2. Never play with someone you can’t outrun.

A note from the author

2007-09-14T08:10:00.000-07:00

Some of you have probably wondered where I’ve run off to this summer. I haven’t posted near as regularly as I used to, which has limited the amount of my writing you have at your disposal for open ridicule. Sorry about that.

I didn’t get much writing or reading done this summer because I was spending my time with Beautiful, my aptly named girlfriend. As much as I enjoy writing, I enjoy spending time with her more. But she’s gone back to college now, so I have more time available to sit at my computer, grumble about missing my girlfriend, and maybe, just maybe, write a little.

And with that, I’ll leave you with a picture of Wolverine’s boots. Why? Because I like the picture, that’s why.

Guaranteed to make you more attractive, smell better, and live longer

2007-09-14T07:18:00.000-07:00

This post will not make you rich. It will not make you better in bed. It will not get you out of traffic, allow you to levitate, or give you pectorals large enough to open a beer bottle. In fact, this particular post is not even guaranteed to be entertaining. That’s right, I make no promises of jocularity or originality (although, I have to admit that just using the word “jocularity” is funny to me on a very adolescent level).

Now, after saying all that, I have a question. Why are you still reading this? I think it’s pretty clear that I’m not about to make your life any better in the long run. As discerning humans in a world full of places offering to make your life easier, why would you spend time reading this?

Since I don’t know the answer to that, I’ll ask another question.

Why do you go to church?

Is it to get rich? I keep reading about pastors advertising how to receive God’s blessings. And that’s all well and good. But if you read closer, what they’re normally selling is more of a financial scheme. Here’s the theory:

1. Give God $$$ ($$$ can be replaced with time, prayer, or just about anything else).
2. Something mystical happens.
3. You get truckloads of cash.

You can replace “get truckloads of cash” with “becoming instantly happy,” “have all your troubles removed,” or “get pectorals large enough to open beer bottles to impress girls at parties.”*

In a perfect world, I wouldn’t have to say this. But the world isn’t perfect. Those of us with pecs too small to open beer bottles know that. So, in light of the world’s imperfection, allow me to dispel a rumor:

God is not a cash machine.

That’s right, the Creator of Heaven and Earth, the King of all kings, the Lord of all lords, the Beginning and the End, the Almighty God… is not here to provide you with quick profit.

Because there are seminary trained pastors running around disagreeing with me, I can’t blame you if you’re inclined to doubt me. As a general rule, I’m more apt to point you toward the Biblical counsel of a trained pastor than my layman’s opinion. If fact, I’m going to tell you flat out that you shouldn’t just listen to my opinion. You should check for yourself. Pick that Bible of yours off the shelf and read through the New Testament. Look at how easy God made the life of Jesus. Read in awe the carefree, luxurious life that was provided to the apostles of Christ. Read Acts and marvel over the wondrous riches that await you.

Man oh man does the New Testament make Christianity sound like a whiz-bang way to get the fun-filled, easy going, carefree life that you really want.

[Note from the management: For those of you that haven’t read the New Testament, the preceding paragraph was sarcastic. The paragraph that follows is not sarcastic.]

The fact is, Christ offers humanity peace and joy in the face of persecution, not a lack of persecution. He offers strength in your trials, not a lack of trials. He offers forgiveness of sins, not a license to continue living in your sinful lifestyle. A life in Christ is a real life lived well, not a fantasy life of endless ease.

The god that offers quick cash is a lesser god. He pretends to be the Almighty, but he’s really just an illusion, a smoke-and-mirrors trick designed to part you from your money as you speed to hell. Children of this lesser god, listen closely. God, the real God, will not be used as a cheap trick to get you money. He will not assist you while you worship money. God, the real God, loves you more than that.

Back to the original question:

Why do you go to church?

If it’s to get rich, I humbly suggest that you’re in the wrong place.

*Author’s note: I in no way endorse the use of pectorals to open beer bottles. I’m fairly certain that said act of primal manliness would repulse, rather than attract, a woman at a party. Not that I’ve tried.

And now I feel dirty

2007-08-28T16:43:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted anything in quite some time, and, sadly, the last post was really a self-indulgent "this is what I did last summer" kind of post. With that in mind, you might expect this post to be one of the following:

1. An apology from me for not posting in what seems like three decades.
2. A deep post on some theological problem that's been hounding me.
or
3. A note from the management stating that I'm either imprisoned or dead and not to worry about checking back for some time.

If you picked option 1, 2, or 3, you're wrong. I'm sorry. It just can't be helped.

I wrote this post to tell you that someone actually found my website by Googling the phrase "men in loin cloths fighting." Being curious as to where I show up on the Google list of fighting men in loin cloths, I ran the search myself. My site shows up second on that list.

I'm not sure whether I should be happy that I rank high on something or slightly disturbed that said something is loin cloth clad men engaged in violence.

That is all.

Acts of Manliness

2007-08-08T13:16:00.000-07:00

I climbed the South Sister in Oregon this last weekend with Wolverine, his dad, and a few other people I didn't know until this weekend. We started at the Green Lakes trail head, hiked past Moraine lake, summited, then followed the trail past Green Lakes to the car. We started hiking at six in the morning. We finished about 11:30 at night. Wolverine and I both blame the fact that it took so long on his father, who is a fifty-year-old diabetic. And the sun was in our eyes. Otherwise we totally would have been up and down in a matter of minutes. Below you'll find photographic proof of this epic, up and down in a day, feat of manliness.

To see the pictures full size, just click them. And then, blamm-o, you'll get to see Wolverine's awesomeness that much bigger. You can thank me later.

The trail head. From left to right, the hikers are Wolverine, me, Mark the Sargent, Tom the Corrections Officer, and James the teenager. Wolverine's dad took the picture. The peak is visible in the distance as a reddish, "holy crap that's really far away" blur.

This is the saddle just before heading up Misery Ridge. This is as high up as Wolverine's dad made it. Please note Wolverine's massively defined forearm. Ladies, feel free to gaze wistfully.

The summit. The peak on the left is Middle Sister, the peak on the right is North Sister. I'm the guy on the right. And no, I don't have any idea what I was doing or why I was doing it.

The way we came. The blue line is a rough approximation of the route we took up the mountain. The red bit is Misery Ridge. The blue/white lake is where the picture of Wolverine's forearm was taken. On the way down, we took a left there and down the other side of the ridge.

[Note from the management: In an effort to maintain the level of journalistic veracity on this site, the following information is important to keep in mind when the author claims the manliness of his feats. Among the large number of people who passed him were: an eight year old boy, a middle aged woman carrying a poodle, and an octogenarian. All of them made it up and down in a day as well. They all looked less tired than him too.]

I'm afraid of dying

2007-08-08T12:40:00.000-07:00

It took me a few minutes to convince myself to open my Bible this morning. I thought about all the other stuff I could be doing: reading the paper (okay, reading the comics in the paper), washing the dishes, vacuuming the carpet, buying a cat to vacuum, or staring blankly at a wall until I fall asleep.

For those of you who read this site regularly (or as regularly as my irregular posting has allowed as of late), this may come as a surprise because I have a history on this site of highly encouraging Bible reading and other questionable activities like praying, worshipping, and helping old ladies cross the street. Actually, I've never brought up the "old ladies across the street" one. Shame on you if you don't, though. I mean, if they get run over, it's your fault. At least a little your fault. It's also partly the guy-who-ran-her-over's fault too.

The entire second paragraph is really me putting off saying this: I took my time opening my Bible this morning because I'm afraid of dying. There. I said it. You may now judge me as the coward that I am.

Now that you're done judging me (if you're not, take your time, the rest of the post will still be here when you're done), I'd like to explain myself a little. You see, the Bible is a dangerous thing. Lethal, even. I have a life that I like. It's pretty simple. I have a good job, good friends, a great girlfriend (waaaay to good for me, but don't tell her I told you that), a loving family, and my health. The Bible, read in the Word-of-the-Living-God sense, can be lethal to the kind of life I've established.

I tend to get stuck in ruts of me. It's natural for people to look at the world in terms of how it affects them. I'll judge things good or bad based on whether they benefit or hurt me, my well being, or my general good mood. Please take this time to note that all the things I listed that were good about my life were listed as possessions, as things that I have. There's a sense of entitlement to what I listed, not that I'm blessed to have these gifts (friends, family, and health are gifts), but that I deserve to have them.

That's the kind of utter and complete crap that you can't really believe for very long when you read the Bible or pray in earnest. But it's also a bunch of utter and complete crap that I'm very fond of. I like feeling that somehow I've earned my friends, my girlfriend, my family, my job, my health, and my salvation.

And so, feeling very "look at the great stuff I've earned, aren't I flippin' cool" this morning, I didn't much feel like cracking open the Bible to read how Christ bled and died on the cross so that I could really live. But I did it anyway. And then I died a little. I died to that part of me that claims everything, that wants to own everything. I was humbled and shamed for my pride. And then I started to live again.

Truly living involves knowing that friends, family, health, jobs, security, love, even life itself, are all gifts from God. I don't deserve any of it. I don't get to keep any of it longer than God wants me to. When Jesus said that His followers need to pick up their crosses and follow him, He didn't mean that it was a one time choice. It's a decision that needs to be made constantly, an attitude that you have to live in.

I'm afraid of dying. Maybe that means I'm afraid of truly living.

A child of the sun

2007-08-07T19:29:00.000-07:00

There's an old man who hands out flyers outside my place of employment. He's not always there, just on summer days when the sun is shining brightly and the wind is blowing. Sometimes I wonder in the insane way that tired, stressed, and over-heated people wonder, if he's really created by the heat. Maybe, just maybe, his frail arms, wrinkled skin, and wide brimmed sun hat are formed by the sun, brought into existence for a few hours in the afternoon to hand out flyers. He makes me think of a newsie that never retired or moved on.

I took a flyer from him the first time I saw him. When I took the flyer, he smiled. It was a smile formed on paper thin skin. Then he said, "The words of Christ." He didn't say anything more. He was already busy handing a flyer to the next person filing out of the gate on his way home. The flyers are 1/3 sheets of copy paper covered on both sides with Bible verses. As advertised, the words of Christ are printed on the flyers. The words are printed so tightly on those sheets that it's hard to make out one verse from the next. They run together, a river of words spilling over the page.

That little sheet of paper made me wonder. I thought about Jesus, whether he intended people to hand out flyers to the anonymous masses when he said to preach the good news. I wondered if any one of the thousands of people who were going home would even read the flyers. I imagined the flyers littering the streets around the gate, the words of Christ coating the ground like snow in August.

What, I wonder, is the motivation behind the flyers. Is the elderly gentleman simply sharing Jesus in the only way he knows how? Is he trying to pay for sins long past, trying to get in good with God before the hour glass runs empty? Or is he acting in good faith on a command from his Lord and Savior, a dutiful servant doing his duty without asking why? I don't know. I wish I did. But how do you ask that question?

And just what did the old newsie think of me? Did he see a razor thin man, shorn head glinting in the sun, scowling at the world? Or did he see just another faceless could-be-convert, another open hand to take a flyer? Did he see a fellow Christian or a broken heart in need of saving?

I'm not saying the elderly man did anything wrong. I'm not saying he did anything right. I'm asking questions, thinking about Jesus, flyers, children of the sun, and children of the Son.

A new post!

2007-08-01T12:22:00.000-07:00

I finished the last post.

That is all.

Spinning down the hole

2007-07-27T12:05:00.000-07:00

"We gave away the word and sacraments wholesale, we baptized, confirmed, and absolved a whole nation unasked and without condition."

-Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Sometimes I wonder if we're trying too hard to make Christianity easy. We offer Christ's grace as a sort of panacea, a cure all for the problems that afflict the world. But it's really not. Read what He said, the red text in that Bible on the shelf over there. He promised persecution for those that follow Him, not an easy road. Christ offered a better life, but He did not offer an easier life.

But persecution and ostracism don't sell well these days. I wonder if they ever did. So we spin the gospel a bit. We talk about the good things, the beautiful stuff like Christ's peace (a true statement), His love (another true statement), financial security (an iffy statement), physical well being (another iffy statement), and somewhere in there we mix in the impression that things are happy-spiffy-fun-tastic when walking the Christian life (and that's a statement that just doesn't make sense).

... and I was going to write a lot more but my parents just showed up from out of state and I need to go hang out with them.

More later. Seriously.

[Continued... finally. I'm going to try to pick up where I left off. Please bear with me if the transition is rough.]

I want to be clear that the spinning of the gospel I'm talking about isn't the slicked-back-hair-leasure-suit-wearing-smooth-talking-promising-the-world-to-get-your-money type of spin. What I'm talking about is the well meaning attempt to bring more people into church by letting everyone know that they're already forgiven, Jesus loves them, and life is really just moments away from becoming pretty darned spiffy. The theory behind it, this soft-serve gospel (all the forgiveness, none of the responsibility), is that God is in the church, and if people are in the church, well... the two will eventually meet up and start talking. Who knows, there might be some chemistry and then... whammo! You've got yourself a new Christian. It's low-key matchmaking done protestant style.

I guess that sounds a little cynical. After all, Jesus really does love everyone. And people really can be forgiven. But what the soft-serve philosophy never mentions is that Jesus hates sin (and I don't use the word "hate" lightly). Plus, saying that people can be forgiven is not at all the same as saying that they are forgiven.

In the gospel of John, it says that anyone who believes that Christ came to die so that they might have forgiveness for their sins will have eternal life. That's a popular verse, but I think often misused. You see, believing that Christ died for your sins, really getting the idea down deep where you can't use words but just know, involves really not liking sin. After all, it was sin that shed Christ's blood, sin that pierced his hands, sin that killed our savior. So believing that Christ died for your sins is believing that Christ died for you and because of you.

It's really important to know that sin is revolting to Christ before you go accepting His forgiveness of sins. And I think that's the step that we miss when we make the Christian walk into a 12-step program to a better life. We find that people get uncomfortable when we mention sin, so we don't mention it. We talk about other things, prettier things. We think we're saving people because they're following these 12 steps to a Christian life, but we're really just providing a guilt free road to hell. If we really believed that Christ died for our sins, we could not live our lives knowing that we were wilfulling sinning. It would hurt too much.

Christ said that those that love Him will follow his commandments. He didn't expect them to do it perfectly. Everyone falls short. Just look at Peter the night of the crucifiction. When we fall, we get back up, dust ourselves off, and try not to make the same mistake again. But, in order to get back up, we have to acknowledge that we've fallen. We have to acknowledge that it's possible to fall.

No, really, that's the best that I can do

2007-07-16T11:52:00.000-07:00

I really don't have anything to say today, but it's been awhile since I've posted. I'm starting to feel a little guilty for neglecting my blog. So, I'm posting something.

Here's what you get today:

According to Bonhoeffer, there is no faith without obedience and no obedience without faith.

Feel free to discuss among yourselves.

A brief update

2007-07-10T11:47:00.000-07:00

I'm back from my climbing trip and am still alive.

You may now breathe easy.

More to follow.

In search of desperation

2007-07-03T21:38:00.000-07:00

I'm heading out tomorrow on a five day rock climbing trip with Wolverine*, Stone King**, and Beautiful***. It should be a fun time of hanging out with all the tom-foolery that comes with camping like fires, Frisbees, beer, and good conversation. And all that's good. I like everyone on the trip. But that's really not what I'm looking forward to. Do you want to know why I'm excited about this trip?

Desperation.

That's easier to explain in context, so let me give you an example. Imagine you're clinging to a rock wall roughly eighty feet off the ground. Your hands are so sweaty from exertion, fear, and heat that it feels like every hand hold is a small pool of water. Your forearms are so engorged with blood from the effort of holding you on the wall that they start to choke themselves a little. The existing blood blocks the new blood from pumping up to the muscles with that much needed oxygen. In other words, it feels like giant rubber bands have been wrapped around your forearms, and your fingers are getting weaker by the second. You don't look down because you know what you'll see down there. You'll see your rope hanging freely for fifteen feet before it reaches the first piece of protection below you. That's a minimum of a thirty foot fall if you do what your body is telling you that you have to do. It's telling you, has been telling you, that you must let go. There's nothing left. No more power to give. That's thirty feet to think about all the things you could have done differently before the rope pulls taut.

[Click the picture. It gets much bigger.]

That's desperation.

That moment, that "do I" or "don't I" decision on the wall, is what I love. Sometimes I fall. But sometimes, sometimes I find energy I didn't think I had, and force myself to the top on will power and stupid determination alone. I love those times. I'm not going to attempt to make a spiritual connection to that. Frankly, it's just one of those things.

If you'll excuse me, I'm off in search of desperation.

Talk to you in a week or so.

*Please forgive the X-Man reference. I picked this name for my friend because of his resilience. He's lead a hard life, and he's still trucking along, still following Christ despite how easy it would be to blame Him for everything and jump ship. He's a little rough on the outside, but he's a good guy underneath everything.

**This friend and I know each other primarily through rock climbing. It's what we do together. I think he would have preferred "the Sultan of Ascension." But it's my blog, and I get to pick the names.

***That's my girlfriend. When I call her that, I'm not just talking about physical appearance (although the word applies), but to her spirit and character as well. She is beautiful to the core. And that sounds incredibly sappy... so I'll just stop typing now.

Writer's block

2007-06-28T16:59:00.000-07:00

I'm having a Porky Pig moment. You know, one of those times when you're trying to say something eloquently and just can't do it, so you just spurt out the crude equivalent.

I've been trying for the last few days to write a post about identity. Specifically, I wanted to write about how we can't define ourselves just by our name, but have to add a whole list of what we do and who we know and what political/social/religious group we affiliate ourselves with. I was trying (vainly) to come up with a well written thesis about how the only entity in creation that can simply say, "I am" and have that be enough, is God. As created beings, we're incomplete in and of ourselves, so we steal a little bit of our identity from a hundred different places, cobble it together, and say, "This is who I am."

But, sadly, I can't seem to come up with a decent way to say all that. (The paragraph above isn't really a decent way to say it at all. It's all... clumsy.)

So, in a Porky Pig moment, I'll just post two pictures of me and call that me and be done with the whole debacle.

This one is me in a cowboy hat. I don't actually own a cowboy hat. But someone once said I look like Kenny Chesney, and this is my way of trying to disprove her. You be the judge. Incidently, the person who took this picture said the hat made me look like Billy Bob Thorton.

This one is pretty much how I usually look.

And that, my friends, is my thesis on identity.

A brief thank you

2007-06-26T13:23:00.000-07:00

I've been doing this blogging thing for a little over a year now, and I just wanted to take the time to thank the people who read what I write. I use this site as a sounding board, sort of a way to work through the rough spots on what I believe. Writing has always helped me think, and the comments I get from you people (in person and via the site) help motivate me to keep writing.

So, thanks. You guys (and I mean that in a non-gender specific way) are great.

-Tom

P.S. I haven't been posting much lately because my internet connection has been iffy at best. I have plenty of stuff to say (I think), but no consistent way to say it. My computer taunts me because it knows I need it. What's a guy to do?

Intercourse, excrement, and the Savior of Mankind

2007-06-20T12:33:00.000-07:00

[A note from management: After reading this post and being severely offended, the management at It’s Kinda Confusing Right Now (IKCRN) deemed it prudent to censor the profanity contained in the following post. The offending words have been removed and replaced with a non-offensive equivalent. Brackets have been added around the non-offensive replacement words to avoid confusion. May God have mercy on the author’s soul for attempting to corrupt the youth of the world with such filth.]

One of the favorite expressions where I work is “Jesus Christ.” Now, your initial reaction to that may be to think, “How nice for you, Tom, that you work in such a caring Christian environment.” Sadly, when the name Jesus Christ is spoken at my work, the speaker is rarely talking about the savior of mankind. What the speaker really wants to express is frustration or anger. Why they don’t just say, “I am well and truly frustrated,” is obvious. It just sounds stupid. Honestly, “well and truly”? Who talks like that?

Putting aside the blaspheming of the Alpha and Omega for just a moment, I can’t help but wonder why we* use any of the swear words we use. I’m a fan of examples, so, rather than talk vaguely about the problem in general, I thought I’d give you some specifics.

Example 1: [excrement]
Literal meaning: (verb) to defecate; (noun) what’s left after you (or your dog) defecates
Common usage:
-I disagree; example: “That’s [excrement].”
-I find that distasteful; example: “That’s [excrement].”
-The item in question is of low quality; example: “That’s [excrement].
-This is going to be unpleasant/painful; example: “Oh [excrement]!”
-That person is quite adept at his occupation; example: “He’s the [excrement].”

Example 2: [intercourse]
Literal meaning: (verb) to copulate. It infers the act of sex with no emotional involvement. In other words, [intercourse] is copulation without love.
Common usage:
-I disagree forcefully with your statement; example: “[intercourse] you.”
-I find that distasteful; example: “That’s [intercourse] up.”
-The item in question is of very low quality; example: “That’s an [intercourse] piece of [excrement].”
-This is going to be very unpleasant/painful; example: “Oh [intercourse]!”
-That person is supremely adept at his occupation; example: “He’s the [intercourse] [excrement]. I mean, [intercourse], that man is [intercourse] good.”

Please note that in the examples above, the word used has little, if anything, to do with the meaning trying to be expressed. What the speaker is trying to do in the examples used is provide extra (one might say excessive) emphasis to whatever was being said. To do that, the speaker adds an offensive word. The logical question is, why do offensive words express stronger meaning than their non-offensive counterparts?

Personally, I think it’s the taboo related to the word. Using words that you would rarely use shocks your listener. It’s a way of letting them know that you’re especially serious about whatever it is you’re talking about. Before you decide that this means that swearing is a bang-up way to provide that much needed pop to your oration, I have a word or two of caution. You’d be better off just sticking to saying what you mean to say. After all, if we only said what we meant to say, we really wouldn’t need to convince our listener that we’re serious. Furthermore, if we always swear, than there’s nothing taboo about our word selection and we lose all the emphasis we were trying to gain by swearing in the first place.

As a side note: The use of Jesus Christ as a swear word works for the same reason that [intercourse] and [excrement] do. That is, it’s being said by someone who would not generally say it, thus making it taboo and bringing attention to the speaker.

In short, swearing to add emphasis is a fairly ineffective way of adding any real depth to your conversation. It would be better if we just spoke plainly and let the fact that we said we were displeased be enough to announce our displeasure. But, failing in that, it would be better to say a string of profanities than to use the name of the savior of mankind as a makeshift swear word. He’s said that He doesn’t much care for it.

*When I use the first person plural in this post, I’m obviously not referring to myself or my readers. Neither you nor I ever actually swear. But the rest of humanity does it, and we (that’s you and I) are human. So, for the purposes of altruism and community, I included the verbally sinless with the rest of the verbally sinful humanity.

Just below the surface

2007-06-15T12:18:00.000-07:00

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about living. That’s not quite right. What I’ve been thinking about is how we perceive our lives and what we find important when we look back on what we’ve experienced. I think we have a tendency to miss what really makes up the whole of the experience.

For example, when you tell stories about your past, what do you talk about? Most likely, you mention who was there and what happened. And that’s usually enough. But it’s really not the whole story. It’s just the most obvious piece of the story.

I’ll use the same example I used on my post on cynicism: Coming back from my parent’s house a few weeks ago, I rode my motorcycle through the rain and into the sun. In a purely clinical sense, that’s all that happened. I was cold and wet, and then I was warm and dry.

But that’s really not the whole story. What really happened was that the cold and wet forced me inside myself, forced me to concentrate so much on my own discomfort that the world faded a little for me, became slightly less real. Then, when the sun broke through, when my wheels were rolling over dry pavement instead of spraying gray water, I got to open up. It wasn’t just that I was dry and warm again, it was a strong emotive reaction at the contrast.

Would you think I was strange if I told you that the experience was also spiritual? That the raising of my spirits caused me to pray? Not formally, not with “thee"s and “thou”s but with an up-turned spirit, with my heart, with the simple word “wow” formed on my lips.

In a purely clinical sense, the second part of my experience, the spiritual and emotive part, could be discounted as a simple reaction to being warm again. It could be argued that my reaction was just so many chemicals flooding my system in response to external stimuli. But to do that, to strip away the “other” from the experience until it’s nothing more than a quantifiable input on my five senses with a predictable emotional (that is, chemical) output, to reduce life to science, is to remove something very real from the experience.

Life is full of moments that go beyond the bounds of simple physical experience. The way time slows a little when you look at the person you love, the despair caused by loss, the indescribable peace that can be found in heartfelt prayer: all of these are more than just physical. To really describe them, to really share them, you can’t just describe actions. Take my first example. The action is simple. “I looked at her.” Big whoop. I look at people all the time. The real story isn’t the looking. The real story is years of emotions and shared experiences all bottled up into one glance. The real story reads more like, “I looked at her, and my heart soared.”

I guess I really just want to say that what happened isn’t the whole story. This world we live in is composed of so many levels that to limit your living just to the surface, just to the physical, is to do yourself a grave injustice.

A brief description

2007-06-13T15:37:00.000-07:00

The following is a brief description of how it feels to spend the last hour at work on a sunny day with nothing more productive to do than stare at my desk and spin in my chair as the seconds tick off the clock with glacial slowness and the unease that comes with inaction while in a paid status slowly drives me insane.

It’s a little boring.

This has been your update on the state of Tom. Thank you for your time.

Distractions

2007-06-12T12:05:00.001-07:00

I've been busy lately, so I haven't had a chance to sit down and write anything of any value. Actually, busy isn't the right word. Distracted or "otherwise occupied" are better descriptions. I don't really want to talk about the source of my distraction right now. I only bring it up because I wanted to explain why I haven't posted anything and why this post is going to be so short. Well, it was going to be really short until I got distracted writing about the fact that I've been distracted. And then, to top it off, I started writing about being distracted writing about my distraction. This is quickly spiraling downhill.

Time is short. Moving on.

What I wanted to say was that while my last post may have seemed like I was in the midst of a deep spiritual crisis, I really wasn't. I was just trying to work through what I felt about this God I serve. Well, what I felt about one particular aspect of Him. What I don't think came through all that clearly in the previous post is that you can ask those sorts of questions without feeling like you're toeing the line of atheism (which has always felt like standing at the edge of a really tall cliff to me). It is possible to question aspects of your faith and still maintain that faith.

I believe that questions, hard questions, are part of a healthy Christianity. I also believe that trying to handle hard questions on your own isn't the smartest idea in the world. Sure, try to figure it out, but don't forget your back up. An example:

The majority of that post was written before my trip to San Francisco with the youth group from my church. God's protection was obviously immediately important to me. So I sat down, read my Bible, and said to myself, "Huh, that doesn't make sense." So I sat and thought about it. Then I prayed about it. Then I thought about it some more. And then (and this is the part I don't want anyone to skip when they're struggling) I asked people about it. Good people. People whose relationship with Christ I respect. I asked my dad (a retired pastor), and I asked my spiritual mentor (a pastor at my church). Having people you can talk to in person about this stuff is crucial.

I'm officially out of time, so I hope this makes sense 'cuz I don't have time to proof it.

Tear stained words and battle hardened faith

2007-06-08T13:23:00.000-07:00

Christianity is a faith full of hard questions and harder answers. It is not a faith that can be taken in one hour chunks on Sunday mornings. In all honesty, it's a faith I struggle with. I want to share one particular struggle with you, one enigma that, in the past, has kept me awake at night searching for answers. Before I share that with you, I just want to say that it's okay to struggle. It's okay to wrestle with this amazing faith. Not only that, it's necessary. We grow through struggle. We grow through asking question after question. We grow through pain. If you don't push your body, you'll grow weak. If you don't challenge your mind, you'll grow simple. If you don't challenge your faith, it will die.

My struggle:

Psalm 91 says, "If you make the Most High your dwelling... then no harm will befall you." I have trouble believing that. There's a running theme of bad things happening to good people in this world. Look at Stephen (from the book of Acts). He was a saint. Not the "we're all saints" kind of saint, but the "walked with God" kind. And he got pummelled to death with stones while the Apostle Paul (called Saul back then) held the coats of the people throwing the rocks. I believe that qualifies as harm.

I can think of two logical responses to this:

1. The tried-and-true "free will" response. This is the one that says that evil happens in the world because God gave us all free will and some of us use it for less than noble purposes. The problem here is that it only explains the presence of evil and how it could happen to good people if God didn't intervene. But He said He would. So I don't like that answer.

2. "It's part of God's plan." Great. God says He'll protect me, but only if it fits His plan. If that's true, shouldn't the verse read, "no harm will befall you... unless God wants it to"?

People are apt to use the verse, "God uses all things for good." That doesn't apply here at all because we're talking about promised protection not explanations for pain.

Is God's definition of "harm" so different than mine? Can that be it? Is my blood a small thing in the long run? Maybe. It would mean that the blood of the saints was a small thing, that their sacrifice did not cause them harm.

Do you want to know something? I want to believe that last one. I want to believe that the sacrifice of the saints didn't harm them. But it's so very, very hard. You know what it would mean to believe that, don't you? It would mean being able to see your wife, husband, brother, or sister lying bleeding in a ditch and, with tears running down your face, being able to tell them, "You are under God's protection." It would mean believing that as the words left your lips.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, I do not know the answer to the question I have posed, but I do know this. I know that our lives are not our own once we become Christians. Our lives belong to Christ in a deeper manner than a son belongs to a father or a wife to a husband. I know that He loved us enough to die for us. And so I have faith that no matter what harm comes to this body of mine, the Great Redeemer will never let me go, never let me slip into oblivion.

Questions and questions and so rarely an answer. As I said before, Christianity is a hard faith. Hard, but so very worth it.

Journal Entry for August 15, 2006

2007-06-06T12:06:00.000-07:00

The following is a journal entry I made on 8/15/06 while on a missions trip to the Tenderloin District of San Francisco with the youth from my church. It's typed below just as I wrote it then (with a spelling correction here and there). I'm posting it because I want to be reminded that there will always be hope in the darkness. And maybe someone else out there needs reminding too.

I have looked into the eyes of despair and have found it to be horribly human.

We've been doing street ministry the last couple of days. What we did: We took these "questionnaires" with us to use as a means of starting a conversation with people. What amazed me was that people really just wanted to talk. They wanted to hear and be heard.

-The face of despair is loneliness.

-The face of despair is the realization that two strong arms aren't enough.

-The face of despair is the acknowledgement that something once done for entertainment now owns you.

In all that, in the face of all that pain, I saw hope. I saw smiles because we took the time to talk to people who no one talks to. The statement, "You are human," is incredibly powerful. It touches those who have long since began to doubt it.

I had a conversation with a guy named Everett. He just got out of prison and is living with a woman who buys him alcohol. Everett struck me in two ways. First, I knew that if he were drunk or high and thought he could, he would rob me for the money in my pocket and the clothes on my back.* Nice, huh?

Second, Everett was a man looking for acceptance, looking for a life. He kept repeating that he didn't smoke crack. He drank alcohol, but he didn't smoke crack. Over and over.

What I heard: "I made some mistakes, but I'm human."

Everyone in the Tenderloin District says, "I'm human," with some temerity... some doubt.

Jesus, I pray that your love and hope might fill this district. That you might wash this place clean. May Your salvation allow these people to rise above the struggles of the flesh and join You.

You don't need to go to the slums of San Francisco to find despair. You can find it in your own town, your own church, maybe in your own home. To all those with despair weighing them down like so many bricks, I have this to say: You are human, and you are loved by Christ. Won't you come home?

*So that you don't think I'm being too harsh on poor Everett, I should probably mention that he went to prison for pulling a knife on a man while high on crack.

A sense of wonder

2007-06-05T12:55:00.000-07:00

Cynicism is unchristian.

[Yet another author’s note] How’s that for a cheery opening? I’ve been having trouble lately coming up with decent ways to broach topics, so I’ve decided that I’m going to take the direct approach until I regain what little tack I had. [End of yet another author’s note]

The reason that cynicism is unchristian is simple: true cynics are completely incapable of a sense of wonder, a sense of awe. After all, there must be some sort of trick to it, some simple explanation behind the grandeur. My mental image of cynics is best visualized as a well dressed man sneering at the world with smug superiority.

Have I offended any cynics yet? Before you (and I’m talking to any cynics who read this) stop reading and start writing me hate mail, I have this to say:

Hello, my name is Tom, and I used to be a cynic.

Don’t believe me? When I was in high school, my two best friends were asked to describe me in one word. They picked “cynic” without the decency of pausing to think about it. Padre and Ice Man* could have at least lied and said something nice. But I wouldn’t have believed them. I was a cynic, you know.

That cynicism of mine directly hindered my relationship with Christ for most of my life. Because I was cynical, I couldn’t look at anything and go, “Man, that’s absolutely amazing.” And, for most of life, I didn’t need to. But you cannot, absolutely cannot, approach the Divine Creator of heaven and earth with the attitude that He can’t impress you.

A quick clarification before I go on: It is my firm belief that my cynicism did not affect my salvation. I believed then as I do now that Jesus died on the cross as a sacrifice for my sins so that I might not die but have eternal life. But salvation isn’t the be all end all of Christianity. Salvation is the beginning. There’s so very much more life to be lived afterward. And that’s the part that I was killing with my cynicism.

In the last post, I said that the great Christian writers always wrote from a position of humility. They also always wrote with a sense of awe, a sense of wonder at the divine. To read the Bible is, in part, to read a collection of stories of people absolutely amazed by God. Not a single one of them approached God with the attitude that they knew it all, or knew enough of it to see behind the smoke and mirrors.

I know there are plenty of reasons to be jaded in this world. There’s death, violence, and pain. There’s so much cruelty that it seems sometimes like the world is made of nothing but injustice. But to end there, to refuse to look beyond the tattered landscape of humanity, is to do yourself a grave injustice. It is to allow hope to die.

If we truly hope in Christ, than we’ll be able to look past all that’s wrong and see all that’s beautiful, all that’s inspiring, all that’s Good.

This post is in serious danger of becoming muddled, so I have one example I want to share, and then I’m done.

My roommate and I rode our motorcycles back from Idaho a few weeks ago. We rolled across the Idaho-Washington boarder under black, rainy skies. It was in the low fifties, and we were traveling slightly above the posted freeway speed limit of 70 MPH. Hunched over my handlebars, rain streaking off the visor of my helmet, I had trouble concentrating on just about anything other than speed and direction. I don’t know how many of you ride motorcycles, but riding in the cold at high speeds chills you to your core. Your fingers go numb. Then the feeling slinks its way up your arms and legs until it wraps around your chest. It’s a miserable experience that only the insane would do for fun.

As we rode west, the clouds began to break in the distance. The black sky gave way to gray which gave way to small patches of blue. Miles and miles slipped beneath our wheels as those patches of blue opened up and streaks of gold cut through the air. Rolling farmland filled the horizon, but we were surrounded by a forest of light. And then the clouds broke entirely. We rode out from beneath that gray-black ceiling and into a world of crystal blue skies.

The rain dried on my jacket. The feeling came back to my fingers. I felt lighter, more alive. In short, my spirit soared. That feeling is close to what it felt like when I gave up my cynicism. A cynic would have seen the rain, would have felt the sun, but wouldn't have felt awe at the contrast between the two.

* I just decided that my friend who lives in Virginia will be referred to as Ice Man on this site. That has nothing to do with his personality (he’s actually a very friendly guy). Mainly, he wants to be a pilot and, with blond hair and blue eyes, looks kinda sorta almost a little bit like Ice Man from Top Gun. That's my dated reference for the day.

Bodily functions and enduring love

2007-06-02T15:38:00.000-07:00

[Author's note] My hiatus didn't work. For reasons both complex and mystifying, not blogging hasn't provided me with any more time to read. That said, I'm ending my hiatus early. Please feel free to mourn or rejoice as you feel appropriate. [End author's note]

Christians fart. I know, I know, that sounds like a horrible way to start. That's because it is a horrible way to start. But I've been going around and around trying to figure out how to broach this topic, and that's the best I could come up with. So I'll say it again.

Christians fart.

This post is not about bodily functions. This post is about real life. This post is about wrinkled clothes, tangled hair, five o'clock shadows, drinking, smoking, swearing, lying, cheating, gossiping, hurting, fornicating, committing adultery, bleeding, dying, and living. This post is about Christians.

There's a misconception out there that's been grating on me as of late. Somewhere along the line, society at large decided that Christians should be perfect. After all, aren't we transformed into the image of Christ when we're born again? And thus transformed, aren't we supposed to be freed from all sins? If so, man, oh man, did I join the wrong religion, wrong faith, wrong love for a God who demands all that.

Did Christ really say that the world will know we are Christians because of our perfection?

I'm going to tell you a secret, but you'll have to promise to keep it to yourself. Who knows what damage would be done to our reputations as Christians if this ever got out. Are you ready? The secret is this: Christians aren't perfect.

I'm going to pause a moment to give you time to pick your jaw off the floor (or to finish typing your angry rebuttal of my obvious heresy).

Oh, we pretend to be perfect. We go to church with our freshly pressed clothes, we say the right things, and talk to the right people. We dance to the tune the world thinks we should dance to. But it's all a lie. We're not perfect. We lie. We cheat. We gossip. We commit adultery. And we hide it all under a thin veneer of "Christian perfection."

Why is it that we're so shocked when we find that our leaders sin? Is it because we didn't think them capable of sin, or is it because seeing them sin so humiliatingly publicly makes it that much harder to believe our own lies?

Christ said that the world will know we are Christians by our love, not our perfection. Christians sin. But we also forgive. True Christianity is a faith based on forgiveness drenched in an incomprehensible love. Read any quality Christian author and you'll find words written not from the pulpit but from the dirt.* There is a profound sense of humility that flows from the words of our saints. Living with the full knowledge that they are not perfect, that they are saved from their sins by the love of Christ, how could they write with anything other than humility?

Does all this mean that the transforming power of Christ is really just so much talk? Does this mean that we're doomed to live as we lived before Christ? No. The love of Christ transforms you. It stretches the bounds of your soul. There's a cliche that says that forgiveness is divine. I agree with that. The act of forgiveness takes the touch of the divine in you, takes the Christ in you. Could you forgive before you were a Christian as you do now? Would your love stretch wide enough?

Because it was a bad way to start, I want to end the same way.

Christians fart. Will you love us anyway?

*A note on Christian authors: Please do yourself a favor and avoid any Christian author who claims to be perfect and wants to share his/her secret for perfection with you. If you want to read a book like that, go to the secular self-help section. At least then you won't have to deal with the hypocrisy.

The well runs dry

2007-05-30T12:24:00.000-07:00

First, I’d like to go on the record by saying that the word “hiatus” sounds and looks stupid. It’s an affront to the English language.

Second, I’m going to take a brief hiatus from this blogging thing for a few weeks. I have some studying I need to do. It’s not school studying. It’s just general, “I want to know more about God,” studying. I have a stack of books that I haven’t touched and am now starting to feel guilty about separating them from their brethren at the book store. What kind of unloving home have I given them?

So, there you have it. That’s why I’m taking a break. You could argue that taking a break from posting once every four weeks or so won’t save me much time, but I’m prone to ignoring logical arguments like that when they don’t support my decision. That probably isn’t a good thing, but it’s mostly true nonetheless.

In the interim, please feel free to browse the site’s archives. There is probably plenty of stuff you haven’t read yet. Some of it might even be worth reading.

And while you’re reading, you should leave comments because they make me happy. Comments need not be intellectually deep or overly entertaining. They just need to exist. Some example comments are listed below if you get writer’s block:

“Nice.”
“That didn’t suck.”
“Interesting.”
“I’ve read better writing on the back of a box of cereal.”
“Sweet fancy Moses was that amazing.”
“Reading your post has lowered the quality of my life. I want my five minutes back.”

Also, random lyrics to songs may be used when in dire need of something to say. I recommend anything by STP or Sound Garden as I’m pretty sure that they picked their lyrics randomly from the dictionary.

Fun with the English Language (or: I’d love to love you, Love, but I don’t know what love to love with)

2007-05-24T12:27:00.000-07:00

The Greek language has five separate words for love. They describe everything from romantic love to brotherly love to the love of God Almighty for us. The English language has one word. We use it to describe everything from the epic love of romantic tragedies to our preference in vegetables. Obviously, this can cause problems.

Example (in which two people are walking through a grocery store together):
Tricia: I love you Ben.
Ben: And I love you, Tricia.
Ben (internal monologue): She loves me. She really loves me. There is no greater feeling on earth than this.
Tricia (after walking into the produce section): Oooh! Apples! I love apples!
Ben (internal monologue): Apples? What the #$%^!

Fortunately for you, me, and the rest of the world’s population that speaks English (I assume you speak it if you can read this), the modern trend in English is to make up new words. I propose using this modern trend to help minimize confusion concerning the most confusing of words: love.

I initially thought that some sort of numeric system would be best. You know, Love 1 would be the love between a man and wife, Love 2 would be the love between brothers, Love 4.521 would be the love of overweight Caucasian men for poodles name Buffy, and so forth. This idea didn’t last long because anything involving numbers eventually degrades into math. I envisioned some twenty year old math major doing multivariable differential equations to determine why Kelly from second period wouldn’t go to coffee with him. For the sake of him, and all those like him, I cannot in good conscience recommend a numeric love-naming convention.

The following is the official, Tom endorsed, new love-naming convention:

Flove (long O): to be used to describe the love of a parent for a child or a sibling for another. Usage: “Billy, tell your brother you flove him.”

Romove (row-ove): to be used to describe the love of a man for a woman in a romantic sense and visa versa. Usage: “Billy, I romove you more than Juliet romoviefied Romeo.”

Grep: to be used to describe the affection one has for one’s pet. Usage: “I used to think I just liked Fido. But now I know that I truly grep him. He’s grepificated by me like no other dog.”

Foodove: to be used to describe affection for food products. Usage: “Oooh! Apples! I foodove apples!” (Think of the pain this simple word could have saved Ben.)

Confusificationifiedicate: to be used to describe the feeling associated with liking someone more than a friend but maybe not as much as “more than a friend” usually means because, you know, things are complicated and sometimes if feels like… but other times it feels so totally… you know? Usage: “Wanda, I so confisificationifiedicate you that I don’t know which way up is anymore.”

This is only a partial list, but I believe it’s obvious the kind of simplification that it would bring to the world.

Questions that I don’t have answers to

2007-05-22T12:16:00.000-07:00

I don’t really have much time to write today, so I thought I’d ask questions that I couldn’t answer well if I had the time. Feel free to let me know if you have answers. I'm a big fan of answers.

-Is it right for me, as a Christian, to accumulate wealth while others starve?

-Does driving by a beggar on a street corner without stopping make me a bad person?

-If I cannot be separated from Christ by height, depth, angels, demons, or anything else in creation, what does it take to lose salvation?

-Why don’t we hear about more miracles today? Is it because they don’t happen or we just don’t hear about them?

-If we really believe in heaven, why do Christians mourn the death of other Christians? If the reason is we mourn our personal loss, why don’t we mourn as hard when a person moves far away?

-If the American dream really is just a large house, family, and white picket fence, why do Christians embrace it so readily? Where does Christ fall into that picture?

On motive

2007-05-21T12:22:00.000-07:00

I’ve been thinking lately on why we do what we do. This post will probably sound a little similar to some others I’ve written recently. I seem to be stuck in a bit of a mental loop. A lot of what I write here I write so that I’ll understand it better. I learn a lot by trying to support an opinion in writing. So if I get a little repetitive now and then, it just means I’m confused.

Anyway, a few friends and I were having a conversation the other day on motive. The details of said conversation aren’t important. What is important, at least within the confines of this post, is that we decided that if you’re motivated by love, you’re not doing half bad. I’ve been thinking about that, and I think it’s on the right track but not really a complete answer.

You see, it’s possible to do very bad things in the name of love. The love of money and power have cost many good people their lives through wars and petty squabbles. But that might be too easy an example. Your knee jerk reaction to that might be to say, “Nobody goes around praising the love of money and power.” Have you watched TV lately? Or walked through the self-help aisle in your local bookstore? Our media is practically brimming over with how to get rich and stay rich, how to empower yourself, how to lead your multi-billion dollar corporation, and how to feel good while doing all of that.

But you’re probably right. It’s not a terribly moving example, so I’ll pick one a bit more controversial. How about romantic love? Eros in the Greek, lauded by poets, sung about by countless musicians, and praised in literature from soft cover romance novels to the Bible itself. This, then, must be a love that a man can get behind. This, then, must be a love that can motivate you in only good ways.

Except, of course, that it can’t. Everyone knows about Romeo and Juliet. They were a couple of hormonal teenagers who destroyed their whole families based on their powerful, unyielding, selfish love for each other. You see, romantic love is inherently selfish. There is an undeniable aspect of “mine” to the whole concept. There’s nothing wrong with that. The problems start when a man forsakes his family, his community, and his faith out of single minded devotion to his wife or girlfriend. Men and women run rough-shod over people they’ve loved for years because of this love. There’s a reason that romantic love is a favorite motivation for people who write tragedies.

Love of friends, family, country, and the like all have similar problems. What we need, then, is a love that encompasses them all, that stretches out great arms and embraces the world. We need a love that cares for the murderer as much as the murdered, the rich as much as the poor, the weak as much as the strong. We need a love without fetters, without conditions, without bounds. The Greek name for this insane, incomprehensible love is Agape (ah-gah-pay). When the Bible talks about God loving his children (that’s us, by the way), it uses that word for love.

If we want proper motivation, if we want to act as we really should act in a perfect world, that’s the kind of love that should motivate us. Sadly, this isn’t a perfect world, and we’re not perfect people. I’m no more capable of loving with this boundless love that I am of flying.

So what’s a guy to do?

Here’s my theory: we love God first and the rest follows. We are transformed by those we love. They change, in a very real way, how we view ourselves and the world around us. By loving God, we become more like Him, and, by extension, live and love better.

But, like I said, it’s only a theory.

A return to form

2007-05-15T22:32:00.000-07:00

As anyone who’s ever met me will attest, I’m not perfect. I am, much like the rest of you out there, an imperfect person trying to do my best in a world that’s, to steal a phrase from C.S. Lewis, enemy occupied territory. I bring this up because I’m about to say that for the last few years I’ve read my Bible and prayed daily (or nearly daily). I don’t want you to jump to conclusions about the content of this post when you read that. You see, it’d be easy to read that line, say to yourself, “Another post by another self-righteous know-it-all Christian trying to force his opinion of God down the throats of anyone who will listen,” and then stop reading.

That’s really not what I want to say at all.

So, now that you’ve been properly prepared, I can say this: I’ve read my Bible and prayed daily (or nearly daily) for the last few years. So, when I say that in the last month or so, I haven’t done either regularly, you can see that it counts as a fairly large change of routine. The why behind the routine change is fairly long and would completely overshadow what I want to say with this post, so it’ll have to suffice to say that I did not become a hard-drinking, womanizing heathen bent on my own self-destruction in that month. I just didn’t pray much or read much.

Last Thursday, after I went through my morning routine, I sat down on my couch and looked at my Bible sitting there on the shelf, gathering dust. I looked at it, but didn’t read it. Later in the day, I was walking around the ferry terminal at lunch, enjoying the sunlight and the way it danced over the small waves of the bay. There’s something hypnotizing about the water on a sunny day, something that unwinds me and lets my thoughts roam free. In the midst of all those free roaming thoughts was this one: I wonder if I should go back to God.

The thought struck me because I didn’t remember consciously leaving. Surely leaving someone like the Almighty Creator of all that is would require some sort of choice on my part. It shouldn’t be the sort of thing that just happens. Wasn’t I still a Christian?

Let me put it another way. Despite all my talk about the amazing grace that Christ offers, despite my convictions that why you do what you do is more important than what you do, that living a good life is meaningless without being born anew in Christ… in the face of all that, did I really believe that I could earn my way to heaven, earn my way into Christ’s good graces, by jumping through hoops?

That, my friends, is a theological/spiritual/personal dilemma. You see, it put me in the unpleasant predicament of having my stated beliefs in direct contradiction to my actual beliefs. And, the best part is, there was no easy way out. If I really believe what I say I believe (which is what I want to believe) than I shouldn’t have been so horribly uneasy about my salvation. After all, my salvation, my real life, was based on my faith in Christ, not whether I logged enough reading and praying time recently. But the fact was that I was horribly uneasy about my salvation. I wanted to run back home right then, crack open my Bible, and start reading frantically to avoid the lightning from heaven I knew was only moments away. I wanted to put my faith in my actions rather than put my faith in my faith… if that makes sense.

I didn’t run home. Not for any deeply spiritual reasons, mind you, but because I was on my lunch break at work and I had stuff I needed to get done after lunch. It’s funny how easy it is to push questions of eternal salvation aside for things like work and food.

I went camping with some friends this weekend. I brought my Bible but didn’t read it. We went on motorcycle rides (I even did a wheelie… don’t tell my mom), and we hiked on a five mile long spit to see a lighthouse. We burned wood, threw Frisbees, and generally had a good time. Through all of that, that same thought kept coming back to me: I wonder if I should go back to God.

Somewhere in that weekend, in one of those moments where everything seems right, I came to a realization.

I never left Him.

What makes me a Christian is not how often I read my Bible. What makes me a Christian is not how often I pray or how many times I go to church each week. It’s not any of those things. What makes me a Christian is this: It is the belief that Jesus Christ the Son of God came to earth, was crucified for the sins of mankind, and rose three days later. It is the knowledge that this sacrifice is a free gift to all who accept it, that Jesus came to save us all, the whole, imperfect, bruised, bleeding lot of us. It is accepting this gift as such, a free gift that I cannot earn, cannot repay, cannot begin to understand.

The Apostle Paul said that all things are permissible to Christians. That includes not reading your Bible, not praying, and not going to church. He also said that not all things are beneficial.

Let me put it a different way. If you’re married, you don’t have to talk to your spouse to stay married. You don’t have to interact with them in any way shape or form. During that not-interaction, you are still technically married. But what kind of marriage would that be? What kind of marriage could it be? Why would you pick the former over the latter?

I don’t have to pray. I don’t have to read my Bible. I don’t have to go to church. But, oh, what am I giving up if I don’t? What opportunities to grow am I passing by, what chances to learn, to love, to truly live am I missing simply because I’ve already “got it in the bag?” Therein lies the real motivation for all these things that Christians do. Not that we might be saved, but that we might truly live after we’ve been saved.

This morning, after I went through my morning routine, I sat down on my couch and looked at my Bible sitting on the shelf. I pulled it down and began to read. Not because I had to, not because I felt that if I didn’t I would go to Hell for eternity, but because I wanted to. I read. Then I prayed.

Have you ever run into a good friend you haven’t seen for a few years and started talking to them like nothing had happened, like you were always right next to them? It felt like that.

To those like me, to those that have faith and doubt that faith, to those that long to fly but feel crushed by the weight of this world, I have this to say: there is hope. There is always hope in Christ.

Because I’m supposed to be doing something else.

2007-05-11T09:44:00.000-07:00

I work nine hour days so I can get every other Friday off. I made this deal with myself a while back that I was going to spend my Fridays off (those that I was in town anyway) working on my novel. I’ve found that if I take the time to post something thoughtful here, I don’t have enough left of whatever I use to write to add anything useful to my novel.

With that in mind, I give you three unrelated random things:

1. On shopping carts:

I think it’s a shame that people treat shopping carts like their only use is carrying food around. Shopping carts are highly engineered devices that can be used to carry food but are really intended to be ridden. Did you think that one wheel was wobbly on accident? That’s an ingenious speed limiting device so that amateur riders don’t run over Aunt Ruth.

If you see a guy in his mid-twenties flying through the aisles screaming, “MARIO ANDRETTI AIN’T GOT NOTHIN’ ON ME!” while you’re plodding through the super market dropping food in your shopping cart, that’s probably me.

2. On IKEA:

If you don’t know, IKEA is a huge store owned by the Swiss or the Swedes (I can never remember which) in which you can purchase all manner of ugly things to furnish your house. They have everything from furniture that looks like it was designed by a cubist to rugs that look like they had a run in with an angry child trying to vent his frustrations through finger paint. In my humble opinion, IKEA only has two redeeming factors.

First, you can buy some pretty wicked meatballs there.

Second, they have the almost too-good-to-believe combination of flatbed shopping carts that you can ride like a skate board and a huge warehouse in which to ride them. I may or may not be officially barred from IKEAs due to “reckless shopping cart operation.”

3. I have weird friends:

Padre took the above pictures of me while hiking last weekend. He made an animated GIF of the two pictures that I was going to post because I said I would, but it didn't work. So, instead, I posted the pictures next to each other. If you scroll up and down really quickly, you'll get the general idea. If anyone knows why the GIF isn't working, please let me know so I can fix it. The picture will still look stupid, but it won't look stupid and incompetent.

A Brief Anecdote

2007-05-06T21:15:00.001-07:00

I went hiking along the coastline of the Olympic Peninsula this weekend with Padre, Glenda the Destroyer, and Padre's parents. Padre and I had the following conversation after seeing several trees growing vertically out of a single, downed tree. The downed tree was supported on both ends by other logs like a 2x4 on a sawhorse.

Padre: It's kind of pretentious.

Me: What?

Padre: Trees growing out of other trees. Like they're saying, "Look at me, I'm better than the other tree."

Me: Oh.

Padre: The trees just don't know their place.

Me (after a brief pause): I know their place. Their place is keeping me warm with their burning corpses.

Note from the management: Quotes from the author are the opinion of the author and not necessarily the opinion of It's Kinda Confusing Right Now (IKCRN) or its affiliates. The management of IKCRN would like to apologize in advance for any offense the author may have caused by heartlessly mentioning the barbaric practice of burning tree corpses (commonly called logs by the vulgar and uneducated). The management of IKCRN believes that trees are our noble brethren and should be treated with respect and honor. The author has been issued a severe written reprimand. The offending post has been allowed to remain to allow you, our valued reader, the opportunity to see the offensive material and our firm response to it.

Unwelcome reminders

2007-05-02T12:19:00.000-07:00

[Background.] Before I start this post, I need to give you a quick background on me. For the last four years I’ve gone rock climbing at least twice a week (usually at the local gym because real rocks are too far away). I love the sport. It’s a passion of mine. The weekend before Easter, I strained one of my fingers by climbing something too hard before warming up. (Remember, kids, proper stretching and warm-up is key for any athletic activity.) I took the month off because I didn’t want to hurt myself further. [End background.]

I went climbing yesterday. It was the second outing since I took a month off to heal. Because I’m trying to avoid hurting myself again, I climbed for less time than normal and on considerably easier climbs. After about an hour of climbing, my previously hurt finger began to throb when I pulled on it wrong. There are two reasonable solutions to that sort of tendon pain: (1) Climb easier runs. (2) Take more time off climbing.

I ended up picking option (1), but I had to talk myself into it. My initial reaction to feeling that familiar throbbing in my finger was a desire to climb harder, to use the finger more, to push, tweak, yank or otherwise mistreat my finger because it shouldn’t be hurting. In a bout of unimaginable stupidity, I wanted to punish my finger for being hurt. Please don’t think that I somehow mentally separated the pain that my finger was going to experience during this punishment from me. I knew that it was going to hurt me, and I was okay with that.

That, my friends, is self-destructive behavior. Well, self-destructive thought patterns anyway. As I said earlier, I ended up climbing easier runs. My finger quit bugging me when I gave it a break. But the thought, the desire to hurt because I wasn’t adequate, was there. Who thinks like that? Who looks at someone struggling and hates them for not achieving fast enough?

Moments like that remind me that no matter how much theology I learn, no matter what I say on this site, in person, or in prayer, no matter what clothes I wear or job I work, I am still the worst kind of sinner. This is hard to write without it sounding like I walk around most of the time thinking that I’m some sort of super-good Christian man. That’s not the case at all. Most of the time I walk around thinking I’m just a kinda alright guy. But moments like the one I described above remind me that I have the potential to become someone I really wouldn’t like.

It’s incredibly unpleasant, looking inward and seeing not only the potential to be what Christ wants me to be but the potential to be something infinitely darker. It makes a guy appreciate the grace that’s been given.

Smile when you say that

2007-04-29T19:23:00.001-07:00

Yesterday morning I woke up in a bad mood. Bad isn't quite right. I woke up and everything felt wrong, off in some way or another. I felt like a petty, mean-spirited person living in a petty, mean-spirited world, and I dreaded having to go outside because I didn't know what kind of petty, mean-spirited people I was going to run into. Also, I had a slight runny nose.

[Author's note: All this whining has a point. Please bear with me.]

The only reason I left my house yesterday was because I agreed to go shopping with a friend. She wanted my help picking out a leather jacket. (The jacket was for the purpose of riding motorcycles. Only people without fashion sense ask me for fashion advice.) Also, her car isn't big enough for the dresser-thing she was buying. Had she asked me yesterday, I wouldn't have agreed to go. Such was my mood. But, fortunately for both of us, I already agreed to go on this outing days before.

[Another author's note: These next few paragraphs are the bit you were bearing with me for. Thanks for your patience.]

On the way to my friend's place, I stopped by a coffee shop, ordered my coffee, and stared menacingly at the wall while I waited for my coffee to be brewed. I'm fairly certain the wall didn't care. Coffee in hand, I was about to leave when I heard this:

"Hey, dude, can I see your shirt?"

So I turned and showed him my shirt. It's a vintage 1980-something Stryper shirt (they were a Christian metal band back in the day). I'm particularly fond of that shirt because it's actually old, not faked to look old. I know it's old for two reasons. (1) I was there when my brother bought it at a concert. (2) There really isn't a viable commercial market for falsified Stryper paraphernalia what with nobody knowing who they are.

The guy who asked, who was also getting his coffee, said, "Sweet. That shirt is awesome."

That was enough to break my bad mood. The world was no longer full of evil people bent on doing evil things in evil ways. The world was what it really is, a broken place full of broken people trying to do the best with what they have. That's a world I can live in.

I'm consistently struck by how small niceties can have large affects on the quality of people's days. Because lives are made of days, that impact ripples outward into the quality of their life. I know that seems a little weird. After all, the incident in question was just some guy complimenting my shirt. In the vast scheme of things, what does that matter? I'm arguing that it matters a lot. You see, lives are made of small things. We look back at life and say it was formed by these big moments, these big turning points. But is it? Isn't it really the thousands upon thousands of small things that make up a life? You can't skip the hard work of college just to get a diploma. And you can't skip the hard work of living well either. You don't get a diploma if you live well, you don't get to go to heaven if you live well (Christ paid that price, which is good, because none of us could pay it if he hadn't). What you get is this: you get to make the world a better place.

I knew a youth pastor once who always had a compliment for everyone. I know what you're thinking. A guy who compliments everyone might as well not compliment anyone at all. After all, what meaning could it have? But he didn't come off as disingenuous because his compliments were based on knowing you. He could find out what you did right, what took real effort on your part, and let you know that he thought that work had merit. He once said to me that his goal in life was to make the world a better place.

I think he's off to a good start.

Fun with vocab

2007-04-25T11:42:00.000-07:00

As a change of pace, I've decided to provide for your reading pleasure the proper definition of a common word. Most people use the dictionary definition of the word which is horribly, horribly wrong. So, as a service to humanity, I've decided to shed some light on what the word in question really means.

The wrong definition (provided by Merriam Webster's on-line dictionary):
Welding: to unite (metallic parts) by heating and allowing the metals to flow together.

The right definition (provided by me):
Welding: A magical procedure that joins two separate metallic parts while creating cracks, distorting both parts, and generally rendering both parts completely $%&*! useless.

And now you know.

If I was stronger, I’d be a mountain range

2007-04-23T17:51:00.000-07:00

I keep fighting this natural inclination to be a Christian by the books. You know, read your Bible daily, pray, fast, tithe, be nice to stupid people, and hop on one foot while reciting scripture backwards in Yiddish. The standard stuff of everyday Christian living. The problem is, none of that will make me a better Christian.

One the most annoying (or great, depending on your view point) aspects of Christianity is that the why is more important than the what. Our motives will kill us all in the end.

Why are we supposed to read our Bibles and pray daily? The Sunday school answer is that it helps us get to know God. Excellent. But why do we really do it? Why do we do any of the “spiritual” things that we do?

I think the majority of us fall into one of three categories.

Category A: Appeasing a Vengeful God

People in this category do anything and everything to try to buy their way out of hell and make life on earth as pleasant as possible. The theory is that, while Jesus said that his sacrifice on the cross was a free gift for all mankind, he didn’t really mean it. How could he? Nothing good is free. So we read the Bible to log hours, pray to let the Big Guy see we care, fast to show how amazingly holy we can be, tithe to make sure God knows we’ll put our money where our mouth is, and be nice to stupid people because God might strike us dead if we aren’t. And we very much don’t want to be dead.

The single thread that runs through this category is fear. We’re terrified of God. We’re afraid that He lied when He said He loves us and that perfect love casts out fear.

Category B: Just call me Super Christian.

People in this category want to be super heroes like the ones you read about in the Bible. They want to call down fire from heaven, walk on water, raise the dead, outrun chariots, destroy legions of enemies with nothing but a donkey’s jaw bone, and pretty much kick @$$... in a totally holy and pious manner. These people aren’t afraid of God. Rather, they view him as a means to an end. The Bible is full of amazing people doing amazing things, and following all those spiritual disciplines seems like a good way to get in on that action.

Category C: R-E-S-P-E-C-T

This isn’t about keeping up with the Jones’. This is about making the Jones’ feel like the filthy heathen sinners that they are. The kind of people in the category strive not for God’s attention, but for man’s. Mother Teresa ain’t got nothing on them. No sir. These people walk the Christian life perfectly, never taking a step out of bounds, always meekly following the words of the Bible in a surprisingly public fashion. They’d start their own fan club if they weren’t so humble.

What’s important, really, really important, is that all three categories look the same on the outside. These are good people living good lives. Sadly, that isn't enough. Category A is riddled with guilt, afraid they’ll never be able to appease their terrible God. Category B is eternally frustrated, sadly incapable of making mountains move or dead men breathe. Category C invests so much in how others see them that a tainted image is tantamount to death.

It’s the why that’s wrong, not the what. Why do we do anything we do? What drives us? What moves us forward? If it’s fear, if it’s the lust of power, if it’s pride, than we’ve strayed. The thing that should motivate us is love.

You see, you’re not good enough to warrant salvation. You’re not good enough for Jesus to die for. You never will be. No matter what you do, you’ll never earn salvation. It can’t be bought at any price. But you can receive it because, while you don’t deserve it, Jesus wants you to have it. If you read your Bible, do so to know Him more. If you pray, do so to talk to this wonderful Savior who laid down his life for people who hated him. Do all that you do with the startling knowledge that you’re loved beyond reason.

Well… that turned out way preachier than I intended. I’ll have to come up with something about motorcycles or rock climbing for next time. As a side note, the title for this post comes from the Stone Temple Pilots song “Where the River Goes” off the album Core. Which, in retrospect, seems like an odd choice for this particular post. Fortunately for me, I’m far too lazy to change that now.

Laymen, pastors, and the great unwashed masses

2007-04-20T12:21:00.000-07:00

A recent comment from a friendly reader referred to me as “Pastor Tom.” The comment was made as a compliment and was taken as such, but it did get my thinking about the whole layman/pastor/priesthood thing.

My little sister goes to a church that has decided that there really isn’t any difference between pastors and laymen*. They use the verse that says that we’re all part of the priesthood. I’d quote the verse, but I’m typing this during my lunch break at work so I don’t have a Bible handy. You’ll just have to live with vague paraphrases. Anyway, armed with said verse, they go about their merry way with a congregation full of pastors that aren’t really, at least by training or profession, pastors.

There are two things I really don’t like about this. First, it undercuts the actual pastors’ (and by that I mean the people who preach and lead the church) authority. The shepherd of the church needs to be able to actually herd the sheep. I know that analogy is a bit overused, and even a bit antiquated, but it works so I’m using it. Herding involves leading and leading involves correcting those that aren’t following. This may be a surprise to some people, but not only will a good pastor confront members of his church who are sinning, he’s morally and ethically obligated to. But if everyone in your church is a pastor, who’s responsible for who? As a member of a church, do you instantly become responsible for all the other people around you? Well, yeah, but not to the same extent that a preacher is.

Which brings me to my second complaint. It (this whole-church-pastorship thing) forces a large responsibility on a bunch of people who don’t know about it, aren’t willing to accept it, or aren’t capable of living up to it. Pastors are held to higher moral standards than their congregations. They’re to be blameless and above reproach. And while Jesus doesn’t expect anyone to be perfect, He does expect his pastors to do better than the lot they lead. Of course, you could argue that all Christians are called to be perfected in Christ and so arguing about who’s required to lead a better life is a bit silly. So we’ll leave that point and move on.

Pastors are responsible for their congregations. That’s in the Bible in a few places, but, once again, you’ll have to take my vague paraphrase for it. And while their congregation is supposed to be perfect in Christ, their congregation is also very human. And they sin. It’s what humans do best, even good humans. Who in their right minds would willing take up the mantle of pastorship in order to be responsible for a bunch of willful, sinful, obstinate people? In other words, who would lead a church made of people like me?

Not me, of that you can be certain.

So there you have it. That’s why I’m happy to be a layman and why I respect those who are pastors or priests or ministers.

Oh, I almost forgot to add that the verse about how we’re all priests is really referring to our unlimited access to God, which used to be something reserved for the Levites (Old Testament priests). The Levites were the intercessors between sinful men and perfect God. But now we have Jesus the Christ, the perfect intercessor, so we don’t need the Levites for that. At least, that’s what I figure that verse means. Especially when taken in context. Let me know if I’m way off base.

*I use layman or laymen to refer to people who are in the church but are not the pastor/priest/what-have-you. It’s a gender specific term that, in today’s world of political correctness, has the possibility of making the female portion of my readership (does 10 or so people qualify as readership?) feel a bit excluded. To those that feel excluded I have this to say: the term applies to you too. Frankly, I just think the word layperson sounds stupid.

** If you want to make a preacher’s day, ask them a few theological questions so that they can talk about Jesus. Generally, their faces will light up like a little kid on Christmas. These people get fired up about Him. Seriously, it’s kind of scary.

A fly in the universe's soup (re-posted)

2007-04-17T12:16:00.000-07:00

This is the first post I wrote. I'm re-posting it today for two reasons. First, nobody really reads archives and nobody read my blog when I started, so this'll be new to you. Second, this is how I feel today. The universe is vast and beautiful above me, life is beating through my veins with each contraction of my heart, and God is, must be, smiling at the works of His hands. With that, I give you God as I see Him:

I was climbing once, well, at the time I was hanging from my harness about four hundred feet or so off the ground. Anyway, my partner turned to me and said, “I love climbing. Being here on the wall always makes me feel so small.” She paused before she said that last word; I think to let me know that it wasn’t just a size thing. This was a metaphysical small, a small that went past height and weight and really pinned you down in the scope of the universe. There we were: two tiny specs on a two-thousand foot granite rock face. It would be hard for a sane person not to feel small in that situation. Small and relatively helpless. But I didn’t feel small. I felt like me. Hanging from a wall hundreds of feet off the ground didn’t change that.

I’ve heard the same statement from people who were looking up at the stars. I’m not talking about city stars. Those don’t count because you can’t see enough of them to get a sense of depth. City stars are just pin holes in the black sheet that municipalities pay to cover their cities at night. I’m talking about back country stars. Countless flickering points of light arrayed en masse with a staggering sense of the infinite hanging between them. The kind where you can see the Milky Way cut through them, splitting the night sky like some sort of celestial felt rope. Those are the stars that make the night sky so impressive that people lean back and, with a sense of vertigo, say, “It makes me feel so small.” Looking at those stars with my friends, feeling the wondrous sense that the ground might slip out from beneath me, I don’t feel small. I feel like me.

I think the problem lies in perspective. We go through our lives concentrating so intensely on ourselves, our needs, our jobs, our universe of tin foil and construction paper, that we forget that we aren’t everything. I use the first person plural pronoun “we” because I’m just as guilty of unwitting self absorption as anyone else. We live in small worlds by necessity, limited geographically and mentally by the thousands of tasks that are required to make sure we’re warm, dry, fed, and entertained. And then, without warning, something happens that sends us spinning, shrinks us and our world until we’re staring up at everything else and wondering how it all got so big. The stars do that for some. Being strapped to a rock wall, hanging out in the air hundreds of feet off the ground, does it for others. Whatever it is, it forces a perspective shift. And then we feel small.

I don’t think this feeling small is a good thing. People associate size with worth. It’s okay for babies to be small, and it’s okay for computer chips to be small, but adults are not supposed to be small. There’s something distasteful about it. Just look at how we use the word. People are “small minded.” A “small man” is a man who lacks vision. Driving a small car makes you look European… well, you get my point.

Do you know why I didn’t feel small when I was on that rock wall or when I was looking at the tapestry called the night sky? I didn’t feel small because everything else was so amazingly, mind bogglingly big. That’ll make sense if you give me a minute. You see, in the midst of all that big stuff - those galaxies that stretch beyond my imagination, the trees that tower over me, the mountains that rise like titans from the ground - in the midst of all of that, I’m me. I am unique, there is no one quite like me, and I am loved by God. That sounds trite, I know, but I mean it. And, if you think about it for a minute, you might see where I’m coming from. You are you. There was no one, is no one, and will be no one else quite like you, and God loves that person.

So now you’re thinking about you. Expand that thought. Hold the image of yourself in your mind as you let the rest of creation seep into your mental picture. See the redwoods, the Rockies, the Chicago Bulls, heck, see Chicago, but always hold yourself in that picture. See earth, one planet amongst billions, see the Milky Way, one galaxy amongst countless others, but see yourself too. You probably seem awfully small in that picture, not even a spec really. Then add this one more element, this one key piece to your picture: God loves you. God, the creator of everything that you’ve pictured and plenty of things you’ve never heard of, loves you. He knows how you like your coffee, what your favorite color is, if you really floss nightly (despite what you tell the dentist). He knows you, made you, and loves you for you. That last statement never really meant all that much to me until I put it into context. You see, when I look at the width and breadth of creation, all the big impressive stuff along with all the little, less impressive stuff, and say to myself “God loves me,” I don’t really feel all that small. I don’t feel very big either. I just feel like… me.

I'd paint you a picture, but it wouldn't do any good

2007-04-13T11:04:00.000-07:00

I read an article in a local periodical (the free kind on cheap newspaper stock) about a painter. What struck me about her is that she’s painting these things she calls Elementals, which are apparently beings that live on the same plane as the elements, and which are visible in her crystals at dusk. Don’t worry, none of that made any sense to me either. For those fond of labels, I believe this means she falls into the new age/hippie/spiritualist/possibly Wicken category. But her label really isn’t important. If it was, I’m sure we’d all get signs we could wear telling the world which stereotype we fall into.

Since the sign thing hasn’t been passed into law yet, I’d like to look at why she was painting what she was painting. She said that the Elementals were active, that is, they communicated with her in some way, shape, or form. Assuming for the moment that the crystals really aren’t filled with Elementals which call to her (and you can feel free to argue that assumption if you like), what I saw when I read that was a woman who was searching for a way to contact the spiritual, to contact, in one way or another, God. She was displaying one of the most basic human urges, the urge to know something, Someone, above and beyond the world we live in.

In the modern world of science, one could argue that such desires aren’t really basic at all, but are relegated to the fringes of polite society: the hippies and crystal-worshipers and Buddhists and Christians. But those who argue that have never talked to a small child. The belief in the supernatural has to be trained out of a child. You have to work hard, very hard sometimes, to truly convince a child that there is nothing more than what’s at the tips of his or her fingers. There’s something in humanity since birth that knows or wants to know about what lies beyond the bounds of modern science.

The article reminded me of the time Jesus met the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well. Once the woman was convinced he was a prophet, she asked him where the right place to worship is. The Jews worshipped in one place, and the Samaritans worshipped in another. Jesus didn’t exactly answer her. What he said was that the Samaritans didn’t know what they were worshipping. Note that he didn’t say that they weren’t worshipping. He said they didn’t know what it was that they worshipped. That’s what I think about when I meet people like the Elemental artist. Not that she’s a wacko (as many people who fill Christian churches would say), but that she’s trying to worship God, she just doesn’t know how.

The other thing that struck me was the need to make the spiritual visible. She painted these Elementals, made a corporeal representation of an ethereal form. She made her gods into images. This is where that basic human need for the spiritual always seems to take a wrong turn. This is where we take the unknowable, give it a friendly shape, put it on the shelf, and forget about it. And this is by no means a problem specific to the non-Christians.

Walk into any Christian book store and you’ll see paintings of angels, recreations of classic Biblical scenes, even paintings of Christ. To my knowledge, Christ never commissioned a painting of himself while he was on the earth. The man looking at you from those paintings is not Christ. Those angels with their great glowing wings and flaming swords are not really what angels look like.

Am I trying to say that all Christian art is idol worship and that we should destroy it all and live in blank houses, stare at blank walls, and lead blank lives? Nope. I’m just trying to remind people that the images aren’t the real thing. You couldn’t understand the real thing. When Jesus was talking to a leader of the Jewish community when he was in Jerusalem, he said that the leader didn’t understand the things of this world. How could Jesus tell him about the spiritual world? Rest assured, he didn’t try to paint him a picture.

I’m trying to say in a very round-about fashion that you can’t get to know the spiritual by trying to make it earthly. You have to meet the spiritual in spirit. Jesus said that, by the way. He said that God is spirit and that the only way you can really worship Him is through the Spirit. You have to pray to Him, mediate on Him, search Him out. That is, I think, why He hates idols so much. They’re an easy way out. They let you look at that trinket on your shelf, say, “Hi, God,” and move on with life without ever moving closer to Him.

The special effects were great, but the plot sucked

2007-04-10T17:33:00.000-07:00

I heard a commercial for an Easter service last week. Actually, I didn’t know that it was a commercial for an Easter service until the last sentence or two. Until then, it sounded a bit like a stage production. They talked about their contemporary music, their great speaker, and even a guest appearance from a professional athlete (I forget who or what sport, but I’m sure you’d be impressed if I could remember). They even mentioned that the price of admission was free.

The commercial reminded me of a church that a friend of mine and I visited back when we were in college. When we left, he had this to say:

“If that was any more choreographed, they’d have to roll credits at the end.”

A casual reader might, at this point, assume that I’m about to lambast the modern church for such frivolities as electric guitars, bass guitars, drums, and songs not written 100 years ago. I can assure you, that’s not the case. But, to really clear the air, I’ll list a few things I’m not opposed to.

Things I’m not opposed to (when found in a church):
-contemporary music
-a casual atmosphere
-new-fangled power point presentations
-a preacher who refers to people as “dudes”
-professional athletes speaking (provided they have something to say)

What I’m opposed to is this: Churches billing themselves as places of entertainment. The church is many things, but it shouldn’t be a place to get light entertainment. The church has three primary functions*, they are:

1. To provide a place to worship God.
2. To education His (God’s) people about Him (God).
3. To equip said people to go out and tell other people about Him.

Is the music at your church rocking? Great. Everyone loves a good beat. Does it glorify God? If not, then it doesn’t really have a place inside the church. Does your preacher tell jokes, show movie clips, or do magic tricks? Fantastic. Do the jokes, movie clips, or rabbits jerked rudely from hats help clarify some aspect of God, our relationship with Him, or how we should behave as Christians? Do they clarify the content of his sermon? Or are they there so that you’ll come back next week to hear the one about the rabbi, the priest, and the inebriated rabbit?

Somewhere along the line, the church started competing for the attention of people more concerned with themselves than with the world around them. To get people in the pews (or padded interlocking chairs as the current trend seems to be), we stooped to parlor tricks and flashy presentations. Why? I think we thought that if we could just get them in, get those butts in the seats, that they’d see eventually. It was a war of attrition. And I’ve seen it work. I’ve seen people spend years sitting in a pew only to one day realize why they were sitting in that pew. But it doesn’t always work that way. I think the wrong side is in danger of getting ground down. I think we’re perilously close to losing the Message to the tools we’ve used to get people to hear the message. We’re in danger of becoming all fluff and no substance.

This concerns me for one very important reason. It’s possible to go to church every Sunday for your entire life and still go to Hell.

But man, oh man, was the music rockin’.

*For the purposes of this list, “church” is the building and all the activities that take place inside it. It’s analogous to the Temple of the Old Testament. The proper definition of “church” is the whole of Christendom (that is, all the people who are Christians form the church), but that’s not the common usage. Show of hands, who thought of the church as the people vice the building when I started my list? I thought so. That’s why I left out humanitarian efforts like feeding the poor and clothing the naked. Those are things that Christians should be doing, but not necessarily the purpose of the building-church.

A change of plans

2007-04-06T14:57:00.000-07:00

I was going to post on how people view church as an entertaining social gathering rather than an opportunity to worship the almighty God, but it's 72° F and sunny. It's way too nice out to rant about our entertainment based society. Instead of typing, I'm going to jump on my motorcycle and try to get myself lost on some back roads.

There's some irony there. I'm pretty sure of it.

On why the world will always be more interesting than need be.

2007-04-03T17:53:00.000-07:00

I’ve never really understood debates. Don’t get me wrong, I understand the concept behind them. You know, the theory that people can actually be persuaded by logic. But I’ve never really seen that work. Which brings me to one of my life theses.

Life Thesis #52: People, despite all other appearances, aren’t logical.

Sure, we pretend we are. We talk about cause and effect, deduction, induction, and all sorts of other –uctions, but nobody really acts on any of that. We act on emotion, gut feelings, personal preference, or simple randomness. Not only that, but the end decision can be wildly affected by something as innocuous as the digestive health of the person in question.

I recently had to convince someone that they were wrong. This happens on occasion at work, and it never ends well. I tried to convince him using logic. We’re both engineers, so you think that logic would be a natural tool to use. I was wrong. Even though I had a whole slew of logical reasons why he was wrong with a bunch of references (engineers also argue in references) backing up my slew of reasons, I couldn’t convince him of a darn thing. Why? Because I said he was wrong, and he felt like being peevish. Because his wife insulted his hair cut earlier in the day so he was in a bad mood. Because his hemorrhoids were flaring up again. Pick a reason, but it all boils down to Life Thesis #52.

I bring this up because there are probably other people like me out there, people who think that because someone says they’re logical it actually means that they are. If you’re one of those people who think that logic will work despite the emotional state of the listener, please take a moment to read my Life Lesson #451 and don’t make my mistake.

Life Lesson #451: No matter how valid your argument is, people won’t listen to you if you start the argument by insulting their mom, their hair cut, their attire, and their bodily odor.

Entertaining, but probably not edifying

2007-03-29T11:37:00.000-07:00

I’ve been riding a motorcycle for almost a year now, and while that doesn’t make me an expert by any stretch of the imagination, it has taught me many things both about riding and people in general. Since I’m bored at work right now, I thought I’d take the time to share some of those things.

1. The motorcycle will do pretty much anything it thinks you want it to. For example, if you’re sitting at a stop with the bike fully upright, it’ll stay upright knowing that you want it to do so. If you’re sitting at a stop and lean the bike slightly to the side, it’ll do it’s best to take on the fully horizontal position that it knows you want. Which brings me to lesson number two.

2. The motorcycle does not always know what you actually want it to do.

3. Picking your bike up from the ground is embarrassing not only for you but for your bike because it is, in essence, you telling your bike that it was wrong. Because your motorcycle is an emotionally sensitive machine, it will respond by being sullen.

4. Sullen motorcycles do not start when you want them to, especially when you’re sitting in traffic with cars piling up behind you. If there is an attractive woman within a mile radius, a sullen motorcycle will not start at all. Not even if you talk nicely to it and compliment it on its chrome.

5. Waterproofed chaps only protect the parts of you they cover from water.

6. Chaps do not cover your crotch-ular region.

7. A light drizzle will cause enough traffic to take a five minute commute and turn it into a twenty minute commute. This is true even if you live in an area that gets rain 360 days a year (not counting leap years).

8. A light drizzle will always turn into heavy rain if you’re on a motorcycle sitting in traffic.

9. Wet cotton is cold. Wet cotton is colder when subjected to 40 mph winds.

10. Taking lessons 5 thru 9 in combination, it can safely be said that if you leave work in a light drizzle wearing chaps but not rain pants, you will arrive at home with the crotch-ular region of your anatomy far more sodden and cold then you had previously thought physically possible. But your thighs will be dry. You can always take comfort in that.

Facing the Giants: Easy Living through Christianity

2007-03-25T10:39:00.000-07:00

I watched “Facing the Giants” the other night. If you don’t know, it’s a Christian movie (in the sense that it’s made by Christians, about Christians, and ostensibly for Christians) about football. It was a pretty entertaining movie, and, if you consider the budget they had to work with, it’s surprisingly well made.

So am I writing this to tell you to go out immediately and rent/buy the movie? Nope. I want to talk about the ending. With that in mind, if you haven’t seen the movie and want to be surprised by the ending, you probably should stop reading now.

First, the plot: A football coach for a small Christian high school in Georgia is having trouble putting together a winning season, is having trouble having a kid with his wife, and his car is a piece of junk. Around about the middle of the movie, the coach decides that coaching football is more about building the character of his players than winning. Then he starts winning. By the end of the movie, the following has happened: someone gave him a new truck, his wife is pregnant, his school had a spiritual revival, and his team won state. All because of his dedication to Christ.

And now I get to sound like a curmudgeon: I wanted him to lose, or for his wife not to get pregnant, or for his car to continue to be a piece of junk. I didn’t want any of those things to happen because I enjoy seeing people suffer. I’m actually opposed to most forms of suffering on the grounds that I don’t much like to suffer myself. The reason I wanted him left with some pain is that then I’d be able to connect with him on some level. You’ll be hard pressed to find that many miracles concentrated on one person in one place at one time. You won’t even find that in the Bible. People are raised from the dead only to face a life of hardship, saints are blessed with the presence of God but are stoned to death, Paul was bitten by a viper that didn’t harm him but only after he went through a shipwreck on a journey to be tried for a crime he didn’t commit, Elisha and Elijah saw God perform amazing miracles but they spent most of their time running for their lives, Job lived a good life and suffered in what can only be called Biblical proportions, and the very Son of God had to die on a cross before he could be resurrected in glory.

If the Bible shows me anything, it’s that the Christian walk is not easy. All roads do not become straight and wide when you accept Christ as your savior. Mountains are not leveled in front of you to allow you easy passage. In short, Christ will not make the rest of your days on earth effortless and enjoyable. What He will do is make them possible. He won’t level the mountain, but He’ll walk with you up it. And yes He can heal you, and yes He can make barren wombs give life, and yes He can even help football teams win state championships (though why He would is beyond me), but no, He won’t make your life easy. He won’t do that because if your life was easy, you wouldn’t be challenged, wouldn’t grow, wouldn’t become the person that He wants you to be. You’d be that over-protected brat of a kid you didn’t like when you were in grade school. Christ loves you enough to let you hurt sometimes.

“Facing the Giants” could have been a relatable movie about a miracle in modern society. Instead, it became a fairy tale with the standard “and they lived happily ever after” all but thrown in your face in the last few scenes.

Not as open as advertised

2007-03-20T20:47:00.000-07:00

I was thinking about my dad today. He’s the kind of guy who would make a great lead in a novel. It couldn’t be pulp fiction though. No, my dad’s novel would have to be a literary one, the kind of novel more about people, feelings, and life shared, than about dramatic plot twists, suspense, and explosions.

Then I thought that if my dad would make a great lead in a novel, maybe my family and friends would too. And they would, each and every one of them. There’s depth to all of them, layers of good and bad, love and hate, the classic conflicts that make stories that span centuries. As I sat there, thinking up turns of phrase that would capture their uniqueness, that would make them live and breathe on page, I felt the strangest thing. I felt naked.

That’s a little odd, if you think about it objectively. After all, while I’ve tried to avoid it, I’ve talked about myself quite a bit on this site. After all, this page is open to the entire world should the world choose to take a look. I’ve shared my mistakes (more than once, even), struggles with death, inadequacies, broken heart, how I see my family, and how I see God. Shouldn’t that make me feel naked?

It took me awhile, but I think I came up with an answer. You see, all those things above, all that insight into me, really isn’t me. It’s how I see myself. It would be foolish of me to think that I have a clear view of who I really am. But if I described my family and friends, if I took their past actions and used them to predict their future actions, that wouldn’t tell you much about them. What it would do is show you (and them) a disturbingly clear picture of me. You see, how I perceive those closest to me, how I judge their actions and inactions, their victories and failures, is really a better picture of me than them. To a certain extent, their positive attributes would be those I wish I had, their negative attributes those I wish I didn’t. A man could write a thousand page autobiography and not tell so much about himself as he could with a few pages dedicated to those he loved.

So I won’t put my dad into a novel. I won’t put any of my friends of family into any fictional work. Why? First, because it would be a violation of their privacy. Second, because I’m afraid of seeing who I really am.

Life lessons

2007-03-20T12:08:00.000-07:00

During the past week, two lessons I learned some time ago have been reinforced. I share them with you for two reasons: it gives me something to write about, and I feel that my dedicated readers should have access to this valuable information. Mostly reason one though.

Lesson 1: A simple headache will make me pretty mostly useless. Combine that headache with a cold and a cough and I’m a 150 lb paperweight.

I wander around most days feeling somewhere between normal (which means I don’t really think about myself) and feeling ten feet tall and bullet proof. Actually, I rarely feel bullet proof. But it captures the idea of feeling strong, which is really what I was getting at. “Strong” should probably be accompanied by a whole slew of conditionals such as “for my size,” “for an engineer,” and “for a man whose sole feats of strength involve opening stubborn bottles.” I left off those conditionals for the sake of my fragile male ego. The point here is that I normally feel pretty healthy. A sane person would think that a person who normally feels healthy would only feel a little bad when they got a little sick. That’s why sane people will never run the world.

When I get sick, the loss of my feeling-pretty-healthy-ness is so shocking and dramatic to me that I feel like death is sitting nearby sharpening his scythe. I start practicing things that I’d say at my eulogy, which proves that minor colds make me delusional because the dead rarely speak at their own funerals. Even though my body is physically capable of doing things like vacuuming, sweeping the floor, or shaving, I don’t do any of those for fear that the massive exertion required would tax my already feeble reserves of strength. Plus, stubble combined with my patented grimace of pain lets people know that I’m suffering and that they should feel appropriate amounts of sympathy for me. Strangely, they never do.

End lesson 1.

Lesson 2: Old people have no shame.

There’s some sort of unwritten law out there that says the closer one gets to retirement, the more one must talk about all the changes in bodily functions that happen with increased age.

I work with a fair quantity of old people. I think the average age in the company I work for is north of forty with a heavy lean toward fifty. Working here I’ve heard about colonoscopies, prostate exams, gall stones, kidney stones, heart bypasses, ED (why, oh why, did I have to hear about that one?), Viagra’s greatness, hernias (thankfully unrelated to the last two problems), constipation, high blood pressure, and diarrhea. And that’s just what I can think of off the top of my head. And I haven’t heard about any of these things from anyone under thirty. You could argue that most of the problems are related to aging, but young people get constipated and have diarrhea as well. We just don’t talk about it. And we certainly don’t talk about it in detail.

In short, working with old people has broadened my understanding of the human body’s amazing ability to be disgusting.

End lesson 2.

Death and coffee tables

2007-03-14T17:20:00.000-07:00

The coffee table in my living room was, at one point, my grandmother’s. It’s no longer hers for the very simple reason that you can’t take it with you. And if you could, most people wouldn’t bother with a coffee table. When people come over for the first time, I introduce them to the furniture because I feel it’s important to know what you’re sitting on. So I tell them about my five dollar drug couch, my roommate’s $20 dollar couch that cost $40, and my dead grandmother’s coffee table. The last one strikes many people as unnaturally cold, and I guess maybe it is. People, normal people anyway, don’t describe furniture by listing their deceased owners.

I’ve always handled death a little strangely. I guess I’m writing this to clear the air around that a little. I don’t like people walking around thinking I’m that cold or that heartless. I’m just a little different, that’s all.

I was in high school when my grandma died. I can still remember the morning that my parents told me and my siblings. It was a pretty normal morning, all told. I woke up, stumbled into the shower, and then stumbled into the kitchen for breakfast. My parents were standing there looking like someone had died, which, in this instance, was appropriate.

I can’t remember which one said it, but one of them said, “Grandma’s dead.” There was no need to specify which grandma as my mother’s mother died before my memory started to keep a firm track on the years. I think my little sister cried. My little brother didn’t say much. But he’s a pretty quiet kid.

I said, “What’s for breakfast?”

How’s that for cold? There I was, surrounded by grief, and I couldn’t even bring myself to fake being sad for the sake of my mourning family. In my defense, my Grandma lived in the faraway land of Seattle, and we only visited infrequently. But that defense is weak at best. I knew her, can still remember that she smelled like I imagined the 1950s smelled. I can even remember the way her voice had that cracked timbre that made her sound a little like a beat poet.

I loved her as much as I could given our time spent together. I loved her, and she died. So why wasn’t I sad, why wasn’t I crying like the rest of them? They felt grief. I was hungry.

Days slipped by in the way that days do. My dad left for the funeral. He left alone. At the time, I didn’t understand that. But looking back, I guess there are things that a man has to do by himself. There are times when even family can’t help you. I can only imagine that burying your mother is one of those times. When he came back, life slipped back into its normal routine. In the end, routines will kill us all.

My family finished mourning. I never started. I looked at them and didn’t understand. Was I really so different? Was I really missing the part of myself that made me human? After all, humans mourn. Humans feel pain when loved ones die.

I was taking a ceramics class at the time. After finishing a collection of pots that can only be called hideous, we were given the opportunity make a sculpture of whatever caught out fancy. It was the freedom of expression that all high school students desire but don’t know what to do with once they have it.

I don’t know if I ever consciously decided what I was going to make. I think it just happened. Have you ever randomly started drawing lines on a piece of paper only to discover that, unbeknownst to you, you were making a recognizable shape the entire time, that there was nothing really random about your lines after all? It was like that with my clay.

Eventually I realized that I was making a bust of a man. As I shaped his bust, I imagined a picture of him to help me along. In my mind, the image that drove the creation of the bust was this: A young man on his knees in a puddle. His arms were thrown back, upturned palms collecting rain. His face was turned toward heaven with eyes rimmed red with grief. I could see that his vocal cords were drawn piano wire taut. You see, he was yelling, screaming with agony, screaming until I thought his throat would start to bleed. He was a man in unimaginable pain.

It was in that image that I made my bust.

I put a white glaze on it because poets tell me there’s a purity to white and a purity to grief. I’m not a poet, so who am I to argue? Then I took it home. My parent’s said it was nice and put it on a shelf. What else can you do when your son brings home pain in ceramic form? For all I know, the bust is still there, tucked back in some corner somewhere, screaming at God in solitude.

In a weird way, that screaming man did my mourning for me. He did what I couldn’t do. He’s still doing it.

So if you come over to my place and I tell you to use a coaster when you’re setting your drink down on my dead grandmother’s coffee table, please don’t think I’m taking her passing lightly. I just mourn a little differently than most people.

The Not-Meaning of Life Part 1: Better Living Through Distraction

2007-03-13T17:14:00.000-07:00

Okay, forget what I said before. I’ve discovered the meaning of life. I’m going to tell you what it is before I forget. Feel free to sell it to your friends. The meaning of life is this: entertainment.

The Greeks got it right all those years ago, at least, the hedonistic Greeks did. I’ve always been a little impressed by the hedonists. I know that sounds strange coming from a Christian (a group of people not usually associated with wanton hedonism), but it’s true nonetheless. What impresses me about them is this: they found something good, in this case pleasure, and decided to build an entire philosophy around it. You can’t help but respect a group of people who went to the trouble of constructing a philosophy so they could not only feel good having fun, but feel justified in doing so while avoiding other, less entertaining pursuits. That’s genius. There’s no other word for it.

Before I start getting concerned emails telling me that hedonism isn’t really all that swell of a philosophy, I guess I should say that I’m being a bit sarcastic here. I don’t really believe that hedonism is the best way to live life, nor do I think that a life spent solely in pursuit of pleasure is valuable. But I do think there’s more confusion over that particular point than people would like to admit.

It’s fairly easy to say that hedonism is flawed as a theory, quite another to convince anyone that you don’t really hold to it. I spent the weekend white water rafting with Padre and Glenda the Destroyer (who, thankfully, liked her pseudonym). The weekend was thoroughly enjoyable. Work on Monday wasn't. So, while I was slugging my way through the minute that can make my job more taxing than rewarding, I thought about how much more fun life would be if I could skip the work bit and just have one long weekend. If I were independently wealthy, I could whittle away my days rock climbing and snowboarding in exotic locations, riding expensive custom motorcycles, and white water rafting the greatest rivers in the world. Isn’t that the kind of dream that the United States is founded on? It’s in our Declaration of Independence, people. We’re entitled to the pursuit of happiness.

But that kind of dream is horribly, horribly selfish. I only have so many days on this earth, and if I spend them, or the majority of them, trying to entertain myself, I’m saying one of two things:

1. I’m more valuable than those around me, so I can devote all my time to me.
2. There’s nothing after this life so I have to squeeze everything out of the one I have right now.

I only know a few people who’d be comfortable making both those statements. For those of you who aren’t, who think those statements are beneath your contempt, ask yourself this: If you suddenly became wealthy, what would you do with the money? Go with your gut instinct, not what you think you should say. Was your first thought for the poor of this world, or was it more along the lines of a sleek car or a huge mansion?

But I don’t really need something as farfetched as becoming rich as an example. I can use something far more mundane. When I get home from work, do I drop off my stuff, change, and then go volunteer at a shelter? Or do I put in a movie, grab a book, or jump on line? In short, do I give more than I take?

If the meaning of life isn’t self entertainment, why do we live like it is?

Today’s disclaimer: I’m not arguing that entertainment is bad. I’m also not saying we should spend every free second feeding the homeless or standing on street corners preaching. I’m just trying to point out that the way we live reflects our values better than what we say. If Christ is more important to us than everything else, than why do we spend so much time on everything else and so little doing what He told us to do?

Broken threads

2007-03-08T12:21:00.000-08:00

Have you ever had one of those moments where you knew, just knew that you were seeing the world clearly for the first time? It’s a slightly off-balance feeling, like standing on solid ground after being bounced around by the waves, that horrible disorientation as the world finally goes level and true in front of you, if only for a moment. It’s during moments like that, when the puzzle pieces that compose the universe seem to slide together to reveal their true whole, when the dark places are flooded by the light, that I’m probably farthest from the truth. I’ve come to believe that those moments are frauds: fools dreams and mindless wishes. Because the mysteries of the universe are ineffable, and those moments claim to capture them in words.

It was during one of those moments that I thought, just for a fraction of a second, that I had it all figured out. I saw in front of me the meaning of life, the purpose behind all our seemingly pointless toil, and it was beautiful. Fortunately for me, I can’t remember what it was, can’t remember the complicated lines of logic that wove it into being. I do remember the feeling as it all came crashing down. I can’t really describe the feeling as feelings are meant to be described, can’t do it with words solely meant for verbalizing emotion, but I’ll see if I can’t paint you a picture.

Imagine a picture of paradise. It doesn’t have to be my paradise; it can be whatever you want it to be. Regardless of what it is, you’re standing on the edge of it. As you’re standing there, you notice something odd, something artificial in that perfect natural wonder. There are thousands of almost invisibly thin lines criss-crossing the scene. These monofilaments, these fishing line thin wires, are the arguments that hold your paradise together. They are the superstructure on which paradise hangs. Then it begins to unravel. An airtight argument gives way to logical flaws – a filament snaps. Slowly at first, then growing faster and faster, they begin to break. Paradise sags like a deflated balloon, wobbles and crashes down on itself with less grace than a destroyed house of cards.

That’s how it felt to watch what I imaged was the meaning of life vanish before my eyes.

I bring this up to say that should I ever be able to start writing about what I want to write about (what the meaning of life isn’t), should I start down that path, it’s not a journey lightly undertaken. We hold many misconceptions about what this life is all about. The farther they are from true, the closer we hold them to our hearts. We live by them. They shape our lives in ways subtle and dramatic. They provide motive, meaning, help us drive away the mental demons that keep us up at night. But are they right? Is the reason behind why we do what we do valuable enough to warrant examination? Or is it better not to know, to blindly carry on?

It’s questions like that that have kept me from writing what I said I’d write in my last post. You see, while I’m not vain enough to think that what I write here will have any lasting impact on the people who read it, I know that writing may force me into finding answers that I didn’t want to find. I think there may be a reason most people don’t give why we do what we do more than a passing thought. I think that some things are better left unchallenged, some questions better left unanswered.

I also think that reading too much makes me melodramatic.

A misnomer or two

2007-03-06T12:20:00.000-08:00

I spent the last weekend at the Oregon coast with Padre and his wife. I don’t really have a nifty name for her like Padre, so I’ll just call her Padre’s wife. Actually, that sounds a tad impersonal, as if her only point of interest is that she’s married to Padre. I guess I could call her Glenda the Destroyer. Her name’s not Glenda, and I’ve never seen her destroy anything, but it does alleviate the whole just being called a wife thing.

Anyway, Padre, Glenda the Destroyer, and I spent a fair bit of time walking around on sandy beaches and watching waves roll in. Why? Because that’s what you do when you go to a cabin on the beach… well, near the beach.

There are these sandstone cliffs that jut straight out of the ocean near where we were staying. Standing there in the sand, looking at that rock, I couldn’t help but be impressed by how solid it was. It made a great comparison, the solid rock juxtaposed with the rolling, changing ocean. I don’t know if it’s the sound, or the scale, or really what it is, but being around the ocean makes me think. I kept thinking that the rock over there was like how life should be. It should be solid, defined in some tangible way. I should be able to map it out, draw it, and compress it into so many numbers and symbols.

Because I was with Padre, and because Padre rarely walks by anything taller than him without wanting to climb to the top (he’s like a cat that way), we ended up on the top of the cliffs looking down at the water. It was then that I discovered something interesting. The “solid” rock wasn’t so much solid as glorified mud. I could scrape a fairly deep line in it with my toe. As we wandered the cliff line, I could see where the trail had been and simply wasn’t any more. Whole sections of the rock had slid away, forced into the swells by the steady pounding of the ocean and the slow erosion of the rain.

So, in the end, the rock really was like life. It was messy, changing, and unstable. In short, it was a scary, beautiful place.

I spend a good deal of time wanting things I don’t have. I want a better job. I want a wife. I want some sort of purpose to my life. I want the rock to be solid. What I have is glorified mud. The question is, is there anything wrong with that? Is life really supposed to be so defined, so clear cut? Are we really supposed to have some sort of driving purpose behind us?

With that in mind, I think my next couple of posts will be about the “not-meaning of life.” I don’t claim to be smart enough to tell anyone what the meaning of life is, but I’d like to try to see if I can’t find a couple of things that it isn’t.

Oh, and I’m going river rafting with Padre and Glenda the Destroyer this weekend. I know that Padre reads this site, so hopefully Glenda the Destroyer isn’t too upset about the name I’ve given her.

Sure, and you're normal

2007-03-01T11:41:00.000-08:00

I wear chaps when I ride my motorcycle. That's more of a practical choice than a fashion statement, but why I wear chaps isn't really important. What is important is this:

I always feel naked when I'm putting on my chaps to go home after work.

That doesn't make any sense to me. I'm fully dressed and just adding another layer. Regardless, I've been tempted on numerous occasions to yell at my coworkers, "Don't look at me! Can't you see I'm changing here? What's wrong with you people?"

Random, but true.

A farewell of sorts

2007-02-26T12:05:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I said goodbye to an old friend of mine. We first met in college and promptly began to spend hours and hours together. It was as if we were made for each other (in a totally platonic way, of course). We stayed up late into the night writing reports, playing games, and generally just burning time.

My friend followed me out west after college, but I could tell the relationship was beginning to strain. Gone were the days where we did whatever I wanted. Now, we did what I wanted on occasion, but mostly we just did what my friend wanted. And that was usually nothing. So many time I came up to my friend and said, “Do you want to…,” and I’d have to stop because I knew that my friend didn’t want to do anything. My friend just wanted to sit and sulk.

I think it had something to do with my work schedule. After all, forty hours of work a week, rock climbing, snowboarding, and general grown-up life responsibilities didn’t leave me the free time to hang out like we did when my friend helped me plow through homework.

The last few weeks, this friend of mine decided that enough was enough. We were through, over, done. No longer would this ex-friend come out and play. No, the metaphorical ball was picked up and taken home.

I was shocked, saddened, and a little ashamed. After all, I’m sure it was partly my fault. I must have done something wrong, but I don’t see how I could do anything differently should I have the opportunity. So I did the only thing I could do. I looked at that error message my friend, my old tan computer, kept showing me, I leaned over, and I pushed the power button. Without a farewell, without signing off like it always had before, my monitor went black, and I knew my friend was gone.

For many, many seconds I mourned the loss of my friend.

And then I bought a new friend. A shiny black one with dual cores, gigs of ram, and more doo-dads, whos-its, and whatsits than I will ever use. I pulled my new friend out of the box, set it by my monitor, and told it, “We’re going to have some fun together, you and I. But I hope you’re not too emotionally needy because I have a lot of other stuff in my life. We may go weeks without seeing each other. Before I start this relationship, I need to know if you’re okay with that. I don’t think I can take having my heart broken again like that.”

My shiny new friend just sat quietly.

I took its silence for an affirmative.

Life lessons from a three legged dog

2007-02-20T16:32:00.000-08:00

I saw a three legged dog this weekend. Her right hind leg was removed a few days ago, so it didn’t have any fur to hide the post surgery wound. The ten inch seam was there in all its stapled glory. When I first saw her, Bailey (the three legged dog) stood uncertainly on three of the four legs that God had given her and looked at me with the amazingly innocent eyes that all golden retrievers have. Except, I didn’t see her eyes. What I saw was the wound, the bandage around her tail (the car tire that destroyed her leg crushed her tail as well), and the bandage on her good hind leg where the IVs were inserted for the surgery. When I first saw Bailey, I didn’t see a dog, I saw pain.

The house I was staying at this weekend is owned by a vet who happens to be the sister of a friend of mine. She brought Bailey home so she could keep an eye on her while she recovered. After spending the weekend with Bailey, I didn’t really see the scar anymore. What I saw was a two year old golden retriever that was friendly and good natured. Had I seen Bailey on the street, had we just met in passing, all I would have seen of her was her pain. My first impression would have been all that I knew about her.

We do that with people, too. We see their scars and use them to assign their value. I know a man who is an alcoholic. That much about him is obvious. You can see it in his dress, his mannerisms, and his eyes. And if you passed him on the street, that’s all you’d know about him. Just another drunk. What you wouldn’t know was the love he has for his family, the gift he has for telling stories, or the way he can hypnotize you with his guitar for hours. The man has scars, physical and emotional, but he has gifts as well.

What I didn’t tell you about Bailey was that her owner, the one who ran over her leg, wanted to put her down. It was a matter of simple economics. You see, Bailey was supposed to be a breeding dog, and it would have cost more to fix her leg than it would cost to simply buy a new dog. Cost versus benefit. Simple economics.

And what about my drunken friend? Who here hasn’t thought to themselves how much nicer the world would be without the alcoholics, the poor, without all the broken and hopeless? It’d be easier to sweep them under the rug and start over then try to fix them. It would certainly be cheaper. Isn’t that just simple economics?

I’m happy to report that Christ is not an economist. He does not look at you and weigh the cost of your scars. He does not evaluate you based on what you can provide for Him. He will not reject you simply because you’ll cost too much time or money to fix. What He’ll do is love you, but not with the useless love of acquaintances, that love that says I love you just how you are because I really don’t care about you. Nope. He’ll love you with a love that will make you a better person, a love that will change you from the inside out. And sometimes that change hurts. Sometimes that change leaves scars. But it’s always worth it.

And that’s what I learned from a three legged dog.

An update of sorts

2007-02-16T13:48:00.000-08:00

The staff of “It’s Kinda Confusing Right Now” will be on a little needed but much desired vacation over the next five days or so. For those of you who expect timely posts of a humorous or thought provoking nature, I’m afraid that you’ll be disappointed for a bit.

Actually, come to think of it, the posts here at IKCRN have never been timely and only rarely succeed at humor. To my knowledge, the only thoughts this site have generated tend to be along the lines of:

“This is why real authors get published on paper.”

“Martha, look at this site. This guy writes like little Billy. I told you that an IQ of 60 wouldn’t keep our little Billy down.”

“English obviously isn’t the author’s first language.”

or (my personal favorite)

“This site is proof positive that the world would be a better place if some people were censored.”

So, I guess, if you’re expecting timely humorous posts that make you think, you’ve really come to the wrong place anyway.

In the words of a wise man who once offered me his condolences in a time of grief, “Get used to disappointment.”

Sincerely,

The Management

Things you didn't need to know

2007-02-14T11:57:00.000-08:00

Apparently, Saint Valentine may or may not have existed. If he existed, he might have been a Roman priest, a bishop, or a dude in Africa. Regardless of who he was or wasn't, it's fairly certain that he may or may not have been martyred late in the third century.

He didn't have a thing for hearts. That, along with the whole association with romantic love, was apparently made up by Chaucer in the fourteenth century. That's a full 1,100 years after Valentine possibly, might have, coulda-woulda-been existed.

I read about that here.

So, to recap, we have a reasonably large commercial holiday based on the fact that a fourteenth century English author made up stuff about a third century Roman priest who may or may not have died for his devotion to Christ.

And yes, this is exactly the sort of thing that people who don't have dates on a holiday dedicated to dates write about. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to spend a quiet evening reading a book alone in my dark, cold, empty apartment... because I want to. Really.

It’s the end of the world as we know it (or: Preaching without follow through)

2007-02-12T19:12:00.000-08:00

Eschatology is a popular topic these days. It’s not a popular word, probably due to the fact that it rolls of the tongue like muddy gravel, but it (the study of what the Bible says about the end of the world) is a popular topic regardless. I bring up eschatology, its awkward pronunciation, and its popularity because I just listened to a sermon (via an MP3 burned on a CD, which is like hooking a flash drive to a typewriter) about it.

There are two things that really bug me about eschatology. First, the timing is debatable. All the arguments and insights seem to revolve around Israel becoming an independent nation. We are assured that this is a major sign that the approach of the end of the world is “accelerating.” Because Israel is pivotal in numerous prophesies, this makes sense. But Israel has been a sovereign nation since 1948. That’s almost sixty years of being a nation. In the Biblical timescale, sixty years isn’t much. But if you’re going to bandy about words like “accelerating,” you’ll find more disappointed people than anxiously awaiting people in another sixty years should Christ not return triumphant between now and then. Anyway, according to Daniel, the Abomination that Causes Desolation needs to stand in the temple before the showdown begins. Antichrist gets all sorts of nifty names designed to impress you. The temple, by the way, isn’t rebuilt yet… what with there being another building over the historical site.

Second, and more important than the first, is motivation. By that I mean the motivation for studying, preaching, and pronouncing eschatology. Why do we do it? If we only do it in order to scare people, to light a fire under them, than I don’t think we’re doing it for the right reasons. You see, scare tactics provide wonderful motivation. The problem is, the motivation is short term and limited. If someone accepts Christ merely as a way to get out of hell, they’re likely to be highly motivated for a short period of time before they go back to life as usually. Not that scaring people into salvation is wholly bad. It worked for Jonathan Edwards. It’s the “and then” that’s important. If someone accepts Christ as a way to get out of hell and then falls in love with Him, that person likely to actually do this walk we call faith. Without the “and then” of love, that same person is likely to go back to life as usual in a few weeks, months, or years. Fear motivates urgently but only for a short while; motivation brought on by love is lasting.

What’s almost as bad as faulty motivation (scaring someone without offering Christ’s unconditional love), is lack of motivation. It’s far too common to hear someone preach about how the world is going to end and… well, there’s no “and.” The follow up that you expect, that “the world’s going to end so you should…” is missing. What good does proving that the end of the world is upon us doing anyone if we don’t follow it up with ways to actually prepare for it?

So there you have it, my two problems with eschatology as preached commonly today. Does that mean I’m opposed to the study of the end times? Nope. I’m for it, actually. Jesus talked about it. I know that because the end of the world is talked about in those red lettered bits of the New Testament. If Jesus thought it was important enough to talk about, I figure it has to have some merit. My theory on the end of the world is thus: know the signs so that when you see them, you’ll know that big things are afoot. In the mean time, live life like Jesus told you to.

Eschatology. Try saying it. Really, it feels like muddy gravel rolling off your tongue. No kidding.

The Sojourner

2007-02-09T12:29:00.000-08:00

I have trouble understanding people who grew up in one town their entire lives. There’s this motivation there to stay, to throw down roots, that I’m not sure I have in me.

Some background on me: My dad was a preacher for the United Methodist Church. The great UMC has an itinerate preacher philosophy. For those unfamiliar with that particular philosophy, it boils down to rotating pastors through different churches so that one man doesn’t have an undue influence on the congregation. I guess they figure that they can share what they need to share in a few years and then move on. I bring this up because it’s due to this itinerate philosophy that I’ve never lived in one town for longer than 4 years (and that was an exceptionally long stay).

When you move around a lot, you tend not to define home as a place but rather as who you know. Family is home, regardless of what house you’re in, what town you’re in, or what state you’re in. And, to a lesser degree, friends are home too.

This view of home as a who and not a what has some strange ways of showing up.

For instance, I have little to no desire to decorate my home. In fact, it always feels wrong when I do. My friends make fun of me for how blank my walls are, how my shelves really only hold dust, and how my apartment doesn’t really reflect my personality at all. I usually shrug that off. It’s easier than explaining to them that a large part of me doesn’t view the walls around me as permanent at all, and that my apartment really can’t be all that empty if they’re there.

When I look at decorations, I see one more thing I’ll have to pack into a box and move. I might even have to move them up a flight of stairs next time. I never buy heavy decorations.

Another weird way my wandering childhood (that’s not really fair, we’ll call it a wandering life) shows up is a sort of wanderlust. It sits there, skimming below the surface of my conscious thoughts, telling me that I should be, could be, want to be elsewhere. The longer I live in one place, the stronger the feeling gets. Driving on road trips, walking places, just moving, feels right somehow. I’ve put nearly 6 thousand miles on my motorcycle since buying it last summer. I put 40 thousand miles on my car in two years. There’s something placating about watching the road skim beneath my wheels, something freeing about it. I wonder, sometimes, if I’m running from something or running to something.

The road trips are really just Band-Aids, ways of suppressing something that gets stronger as the days pass.

I started this post by saying that I didn’t understand people who grew up in one place. What I didn’t add was that I envy them. I want that feeling of solid ground beneath my feet, the ability to think about buying a house without feeling chains wrap around my wrists and ankles, that breadth of community that one only obtains after years spent living with people. I want all that, and all of it terrifies me.

My dad calls me a sojourner. I wonder if sojourners ever get to settle down.

Life long theories and high school poetry

2007-02-07T19:09:00.000-08:00

Through the process of backing up files on my computer because I was afraid it was going to die (it didn't, but it was touch and go), I found some stuff I wrote a while back. I thought I'd post this because, while not great as poetry goes, it does talk about one of my long running theories: that it's the moments, the small things added up, that make us who we are. It's so easy to blow off little decisions as inconsequential, but if we make too many of those decisions, we'll eventually find out that we're not the people we thought we were.

Ripples of a Moment

In the spirit of the moment,
I cast my life away.
The consequence of this,
I’ll take another day.

In the spirit of the moment,
I throw Your gift away.
You’re a little bit confusing,
I’ll find another way.

It can be said, and so it has,
That I have been a cad.
I have stabbed You in the back,
The friend I’ve always had.

In the spirit of the moment,
I turned my back to You.
Turned my heels to the dust,
Grew leather wings and flew.

And now my heart is leaden,
And now my soul is torn.
I have burnt the gates to heaven,
I have cursed the Holy One.

In Your spirit, not the moment,
I give my all to You.
I turn and shun the masses,
To join the blessed few.

In Your spirit, not the moment,
I beat my breast and weep.
I start upon a journey,
A path I cannot keep.

And so I look to You,
To guide me on my way.
The victor of Golgotha,
To hold me everyday.

In the spirit of the moment,
Saints and sinners fall.
The passing of a second,
Can cleave into us all.

On writing

2007-02-06T12:11:00.000-08:00

I wrote another short story the other week. I forget the last time I did that, but it must be in the months to almost a year range. Looking back on it, and comparing it to this (that is, blogging), I’m struck by how different the two genres are, how differently I approach them.

The majority of the content of my blog is not intensely personal. I keep it more or less that way because I don’t find my life terribly interesting. What I really started this for was to have a place to express my thoughts on God and life and how the whole shebang is confusing. But, despite all that, what I write is personal in that it comes from me. I can’t really say anything on this site that I wouldn’t say to people in person because, frankly, I’ll have conversations with people in person if I do.

In contrast, when writing a short story, I can have the main character do or say all manner of things, and I don’t have to deal with people trying to link me to my main character. Well, I don’t have to worry too much. That gives me the freedom to ask questions that are difficult to ask otherwise.

For example, the new story I wrote is about a guy by the name of Ben who suddenly gains the ability to see and feel exactly how people feel about him. He gets a visual and emotive look at himself from other people’s eyes. I wrote the story because I’m never really sure how people view me. That’s not an admission of low self-esteem. Many people who know me will tell you that if my self-esteem has a problem, being too low isn’t it. I think, in general, people take how other people see them for granted.

If you’re thinking to yourself that my example really doesn’t make my point at all, then you’re getting ahead of me. Look at what I had to do as soon as I gave my motivation for the short story’s plot. I had to back pedal a little bit because I knew that you’d be thinking more about how I saw myself than what I really wanted you to think about, which is how you see yourself and how others see you. But when you read the short story, I’m not there talking in the first person, so you don’t have someone else to concentrate on. You can’t use me and my problems as a scapegoat for not thinking about your own. That’s the advantage.

The disadvantage, obviously, is that the point I want to make has to fall within the bounds of something that will make an interesting story. Of course, most of the stuff I write on this site doesn’t fit nicely in story format. For example, it’d be difficult to make a good story out of comparing the Old and New Testament; at least, it’d be hard without sounding like a textbook.

My lunch break is over, so I guess that’s it. I just thought it was interesting how different short stories and blog posts are. Looking back on that, I guess that makes me a nerd.

Party on.

Scar tissue (or: Fun with compound fractures)

2007-01-31T20:38:00.000-08:00

I learn funny things at funny times. I’m using “funny” in the “this milk smells funny” sense instead of the more common “that guy just got hit in the gonads, hahahahaaaa man that’s rich” sense. That is, it’s peculiar when and where I learn things.

Take emotional pain. I’ve just recently learned that emotional pain, much like physical pain, doesn’t go away just because you don’t feel like recognizing it. I’m not sure if anyone else has this misconception, but I was under the impression that it did, go away that is.

I received this particularly obvious epiphany while trying to work today. I say trying because I wasn’t doing a very good job at it. I was distracted. Exactly why I was distracted is beyond the scope of this post.* Suffice to say I was experiencing the side effects of emotional pain. I couldn’t shake it, couldn’t ignore it, couldn’t make it go away by diving deeper and deeper into work. The fact is, the pain was real, and ignoring real things tends to be counterproductive.

I often wonder what life would be like if we applied the logic we use on our emotions to the rest of our lives. I figure it’d go something like this:

Concerned friend: Uh, Bob?
Bob: Yeah?
Concerned friend: It looks like you have a bone sticking out of your leg.
Bob: What? No, I’m fine. Really. Watch.
(Here Bob proceeds to try to hop on his leg, the one with the compound fracture, and collapses into a sobbing heap.
Bob (between sobs): See, told you I was fine.
Concerned friend: Oh. Well, glad to see you’re doing alright.

My example seems asinine, but how often do we do that with our emotions? I do it a fair bit. I usually regret it later. Hopping on a compound fracture is, simply put, a dumb idea.

So, the question is, if you can’t make emotional pain go away by ignoring it, how do you make it go away? From the depths of my wisdom, I give you this answer: I have absolutely no idea. If pressed, I’d say that it takes time, and that you can’t rush it, but that you can probably function admirably well with a fair deal of emotional scars if push really came to shove. I’d say all that if pressed, but I’d probably add that you should ice it, keep it elevated, and possibly put a splint on it. I tend to give poor quality answers when pressed.

So, to summarize: 1. Emotions are real. 2. So is emotional pain. 3. Ignoring real things is stupid.

* “Beyond the scope of this (insert document here)” is a pretty common phrase in technical documents. It means, roughly translated, “you’re probably curious about this, but if you don’t already know, I ain’t telling ya, so pfffttt!” So, the next time you’re waist deep in a technical manual and you read that phrase, just know that the author is really giving you the raspberry.

We care, and we can help

2007-01-29T20:03:00.000-08:00

I wrote this a while ago, back when I hurt my finger and was going through withdrawals from rock climbing. I friend of mine reminded me of it the other day, and I still think it's funny. It may be an inside climber joke though. The important thing to remember is that I get to copy and paste rather than write, and that makes me happy when I don't have much to say.

To whom it may concern,

Jimmy woke up one day and realized that he was an addict. The signs were all around him, but he simply hadn't noticed before. His room was full of paraphernalia: dozens of shoes, boxes of white powder, and a pervasive scent of sweat and dirt. But worse, his life was suffering from it. He had no social life because his addiction took all his free time. His job suffered because he spent all day thinking about his addiction. In short, Jimmy's life was in a downward spiral, and he simply couldn't see a way to break the cycle. Does this story sound familiar? Are you, like Jimmy, addicted to climbing?

Let me be the first to say that there is hope! Follow these simple steps and you, too, can be free of this horrible malady.

1. Change your daily routine. Addictions thrive on routines. Do you normally climb after working? Stop working, or work later. Do you get urges to climb when it's sunny out? Move to Seattle to avoid the sun.

2. Rid yourself of things that remind you of climbing. Keeping old climbing gear is the number one source of relapse. Keeping those Camalots is asking to slip back into the destructive patterns of addiction. Our trained technicians will properly dispose of your old gear, making sure that it doesn't fall into innocent hands.

3. Find new hobbies. Sitting at home trying not to think about climbing simply will not work. Fill the void! Take up intellectually stimulating activities like basket weaving or knitting. If that fails, simply numb yourself on a steady diet of cheetos and daytime TV. Soon you'll be so grossly overweight and brain-dead that you'll be incapable of climbing.

Follow these simple steps and you, too, can be free of climbing. But don't take our word for it, listen to these satisfied customers.

Joan: "Quitting climbing was the best thing that ever happened to me. I've put on weight and feel fantastic. Stiff winds don't blow me over any more."

Chuck: "RED POINT! I MUST RED POINT! I mean... I don't need to climb anymore. I don't need it to fulfill me. RED POINT!"

Jimmy: "I used to think about climbing all the time. It was sick. But I'm free now to pursue my true love of scrap booking. Soon, I'll have my whole life recorded... and then I'll get to make a scrapbook of my adventures scrap booking... and then I'll make a scrapbook of my adventure making a scrapbook of me scrap booking... and then... and then I'll HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAaaaaaa!!!!!"

Remember, we care, and we can help.

Sincerely,

Climbers Anonymous

Another worldly post

2007-01-27T21:29:00.000-08:00

A comment was left on my last post that insinuated that my comparing one’s relationship with God to a card game may be the result of me being too worldly. Regardless of whether the comment was in jest or not (and given the written word’s poor ability to communicate sarcasm, I really don’t know if it was in jest), it brings up two good questions.

Question number 1: Why don’t I talk about God without using analogies?

Short answer: Because I can’t. That’s not an admission of the limits of my skills with the written word. I’ll readily admit that the world is full of people who spin language better than I. Instead, that’s me admitting the limits of language in general.

To describe God in plain terms to someone who’s never experienced Him is impossible. Imagine trying to describe a smell to someone who doesn’t have that sense, or a sunset to a blind person. You can’t do it for the simple reason that the person you’re trying to explain it to has no personal frame of reference for what you’re trying to describe. God’s like that. A lot of people don’t have any experience with God. You can only accurately relate God inspired moments to those that have had similar moments. Which is all well and good if you want to preach to the choir, but absolutely useless if you’re trying to talk to someone not wearing a robe and bursting into song. And it’s certainly a waste of your breath if you’re trying to convey something new, or even a new perspective on an old truth. This same limit applies to anything beyond the actual experience of your audience.

That’s why I use analogies. They let me compare facets of God with something that both my reader and I are familiar with. All of a sudden, I can get points across left and right. A whole new world has opened up. Well, it would have been a new world opening up if the Bible weren’t already full of analogies. Kinda makes my whole “need analogies to describe anything spiritual” epiphany more of a rerun than anything else.

Which brings me to my second question.

Question number 2: Is it okay to use analogies that border on distasteful?

There are those that think cards in general are evil, the spawn of Satan, put on this earth solely to corrupt the souls of the unwary. I’ll admit that certain card games are not really beneficial to people. For example, you’ll never catch me playing Go Fish. It’s a well known fact that Go Fish today leads to debauchery tomorrow. So is it okay for me to use a card game analogy, or does it mean I’m doomed to Hell?

To answer that question, I’ll go to the Bible. More specifically, I’ll go to a minor prophet called Hosea. God told Hosea to marry a prostitute. You read that right. The Creator of heaven and earth told His voice to the people to marry a prostitute. Why? God wanted to make a point. His point was simple: His chosen nation was acting like a whore. When they ran after other gods, they were acting like a married woman sleeping around with other men.

The discerning reader will note that prostitution is a sin, and that God Himself used a sinful act to make a point that He felt people needed to hear. Now, I’m not God, nor am I His voice on earth. That said, I am a Christian who likes talking about God. If I have to use an activity that can be deemed sinful in an analogy so that I can make a point, I’ll do it. By using it in an analogy, I’m not endorsing the act itself. God didn’t endorse prostitution when he used poor Hosea as an example. And I’m certainly not endorsing anyone play card games. Who knows what kind of trouble you’d get yourself in if you started down the slippery slope that is Go Fish.

As a side note, please note that I don’t ever once argue the assumption that I’m too worldly. I may very well be. Nobody’s perfect, and I’m certainly not content with my relationship with Christ as it stands (don’t think I’ll ever be). If anyone out there sees a serious theological flaw in this or any other post I make, please feel free to point it out. You’ll be doing me a favor.

If I were taller, I’d need to buy new pants

2007-01-25T19:46:00.000-08:00

The phrase “if only I were” is one of the worst phrases in the English language. It’s up there with classic bad phrases such as, “Dude, I can totally clear that gap,” “Give me your wallet” (delivered at gunpoint), and “I just want to be friends” (which should be delivered at gun point).

The phrase is almost always followed by one of a laundry list of physical, psychological, or spiritual ailments that the speaker had thrust upon them at birth.

“If only I were taller, girls would flock to me like moths to a flame.”

“If only I were more beautiful, men would worship the ground I walk on… or at least give me the time of day.”

“If only I were smarter, I wouldn’t have to work at (insert name of fast food chain here).”

“If only I were a prophet, God would speak to me more clearly.”

The running theme here isn’t a list of things that people can change. You can’t make yourself taller, can’t fix the size of your nose (without plastic surgery, which is really cheating), and can’t add forty points to your IQ. And, for the love of all that’s holy, sitting on your self-righteous rear wishing you could hear the audible voice of the Creator won’t bring you any closer to the Great I Am.

Ah, but if you could change all those horrible things, just think how un-you you could make yourself.

The next obvious thing for me to say is that you should be happy with yourself, embrace all that you are, and go skipping through the daisies of life. Because, as we all know, the only thing standing between you and eternal bliss is self-acceptance, self-actualization, and self-intoxication. I may have made that last hyphenated word up. Regardless, they’re all wrong.

I will now unfold for you, my valued and anonymous reader, the secret of life. I do so for free because I don’t have big enough hair to be a televangelist and ask for your money. The secret is: Don’t whine about the hand you were dealt, but don’t try to play it either. Make God play it.

There are examples all through the Bible about people being dealt the worst that life has to offer and making it through without that seething bitterness that grips the modern world. The way they did this is simple. They didn’t wake up in the morning, tell themselves how special they were, lie to themselves about their faults really being strengths, and then proceed to kick @$$ and take names. Nope. They looked square at God, well as square as you can look at the Almighty, and said, “I can’t do what You asked me too. Just plain can’t do it. But I’m going to try anyway. Because You told me to. So if You could help me out with this, that’d be great.”

Saying, “If I were only,” is admitting defeat before starting the game, laying down arms before the Germans even get close to your borders, flat out saying that God didn’t make you good enough to do what He wants you to do. That, my friends, is bunk.

After all, who really wants to tell God that the you that you are is really just a decent prototype and that you’re sure that the next you He makes will be better… you hope?

Because I don't much feel like writing

2007-01-22T20:26:00.000-08:00

I haven't posted much lately. Haven't really had much to say. So, I'll show pretty pictures instead.

My bike, in all it's shiny, chrome-plated glory.

My bike's slash-cut exhaust. Not mufflers, mind you. Just exhaust.

I've been told that this is Tom, the leather edition. Not sure how to take that one, really.

And, to completely mess with the running theme, this is a picture of me, my buddy, and our parting gifts from some of the youth type people. I post it only because I said I would. Frankly, it makes me look like a gomer. At least I look like a happy gomer.

Snowboarding: the sport of discerning philosophers

2007-01-12T16:51:00.000-08:00

I’m really not a fan of sports analogies. I’m not saying that in an attempt to be hip by not liking something that’s grossly overused. I believe I’ve already firmly established that I’m decidedly unhip. No, I’m not a fan of sports analogies because they’re horribly limited. A really good analogy works on multiple levels, that is, the most obvious parallel isn’t the only parallel. Calling the Christian faith a journey is an example of a good analogy. But sports analogies only work on the most superficial levels.

And so, having established that sports analogies are superficial and not to be taken any farther than the most mind-numbingly obvious level, I give you a list of things I’ve learned from snowboarding.

1. Fear distorts your perceptions.

On your first day snowboarding, they strap this board on your feet, help you stand up, and tell you to point yourself down what looks like a vertical drop. In actuality, the hill you’re on is like your basement: so close to level that you can only tell it’s not level by the fact that the water from the overflowing washer always seems to end up in a puddle in the corner on the opposite side of the room. Your gross exaggeration of the hill’s declination can be attributed to the fact that even level-headed people tend to freak out when heading into the unknown.

2. Most things worth doing are scary.

Once you get over the fact that the hill you’re standing on really isn’t as steep as you thought it was, you’ve stopped swearing profusely at that jerk of a friend who conned you into doing this horrible sport, and you actually point your board down the hill, you get to feel the absolute rush that is snowboarding. It doesn’t take a genius to see how this simple principle can apply to the rest of life. Which is good because I don’t have a genius on my payroll. Asking a girl out, sharing the gospel, interviewing for a job, and taking that first high speed turn on your motorcycle are all examples of things that are scary but worth doing.

3. Most things worth doing are painful.

What I didn’t tell you about that first day of snowboarding is the bit where you fall over and over and over and over again until you feel like a gang of street toughs beat you with icy baseball bats about the head, neck, and bum. You see, snowboarding is really a learn-by-falling sort of sport. Strapping a wooden plank to your feet and flinging yourself down a snow covered slope is not natural. You need to find your balance, and no one can tell you how to do that or do that for you. All those good things I listed under point 2 can, and probably will, be painful until you find your balance, as it were (except the motorcycle bit, one would hope you would avoid taking turns at high speeds until you know what you were doing).

4. Commitment is absolutely essential.

In the snowboard park on my local mountain, the typical jump is composed of an entry ramp followed by a five or so foot vertical drop to a flat stretch of snow about five to ten feet long which rolls into the exit ramp. You can’t see the drop or the flat bit when you’re speeding toward the jump. What you see is a huge, colossal, enormous, titanic vertical wall of snow that, for reasons unknown to you, you’re heading toward. At this point, with your heart trying to recreate a drum solo from a Metallica song, you have three options. Option one is to swerve sharply to the side, avoiding the jump altogether, and ensuring weeks of taunting by your friends. Option two is to slow abruptly and take the jump at a reasonable speed. This option is inevitably painful. If you don’t have enough momentum to clear the flat stretch before the exit ramp, you’ll land on that flat bit. If you’re lucky enough to land on your board, the five plus foot fall to a flat surface will merely hurt (and probably give you a nasty headache). If you don’t land on your board, you’ll probably end up with a nasty bruise or two. As sort of a consolation prize, you can then use that bruise to get sympathy from members of the opposite gender. Option three is simple: point your board straight down the hill, think happy thoughts about not dying, hit the ramp fast, and then proceed to fly. Life is full of things that people screw up by trying to do them half-way. You can’t be half a Christian. You can’t have half a marriage. Taking the conservative, distant approach will often end in far more pain than engaging fully.

And the grand final point is…

5. You can’t actually fly.

So you did it. You took that jump with enough speed to send you off terra firma and into the heavens. You’re an eagle, at least that’s what if feels like until you look down and see good old terra firma rushing up at you like some long lost friend come to give you a hug. The descent is natural. Gravity demands it. The biggest mistake people make here is trying to fight it, trying to stay airborne by swinging their arms and braking with their board. Sadly, air doesn’t respect the finely honed edges of a snowboard the way snow does. If you hit the ground that way, arms flapping like an epileptic chicken and board held 90 degrees to the hill, you’ll crash hard, probably flip a few times, and may or may know who you are when you finally slide to a stop. But if you point your board down the hill, not across it, and watch your landing, you’ll land smoothly and board away like you actually know what you’re doing. Life has its ups and downs. You can’t always have ups, not even if you bribe God. If you fight the downs, pretend they’re not there, then you’ll flip head over heals in the board park of life. But if you watch the downs coming and trust in the only One worth trusting, you’ll be all right. God never promised that you’d be perpetually happy, but he did promise that he won’t let anything hit you that you can’t handle.

And that, as they say, is that.

An apology from an idiot

2007-01-08T22:15:00.000-08:00

The astute reader will note that the two posts concerning my status as a youth leader at my church have been removed. The reason I did this is simple: their presence on a web site read by members of that youth group and members of my church was inappropriate. I posted them thinking, dumbly, that my blog was reasonably anonymous. The people that go to my church that I know read this blog were among the people I discussed the issues with personally. Except… I forgot that I gave my blog address to some members of my youth group.

That said, I want to make a few points clear.

1. The youth pastor in question in no way asked me to leave or required anything of me that caused me to leave. He was, and is, sad to see me go. My discussions with him have shown him to be a reasonable, God-fearing man with the best interests of the youth in mind. He’s earned my respect since coming here, and I look forward to seeing his vision for the youth group unfold. The youth of my church are blessed to have him.

2. The reason I left is sad and simple: I don’t feel I can offer the youth of my church the time they deserve. The youth of my church are amazing and deserve someone who can offer them reliability that I simply can’t. I know the timing looks suspicious, but all the youth pastor did was ask me to seriously think about my commitments. The choice was mine and mine alone.

3. I’m the reason I chose to leave. I know I just said that, but it’s important enough that it bears repeating. It has nothing to do with the new leadership. Once again, all the youth pastor did was ask me to think.

4. If you’re one of the people who reads my blog and knows me in person, please, please ask me if you have any questions. I don’t want miscommunication to cause any rift in the youth group.

I really can’t make up for the error I’ve made, but I’d like to offer an apology to all affected. To the youth pastor, I had no right to discuss internal issues in a public venue, even one I dumbly thought was anonymous. To the youth, you deserved to hear about my decision personally, not through a blog.

To those that took the time to provide insight when I asked a question, thank you. I’m sorry that your thoughts can’t be displayed here any longer. I hope you understand.

And now, I think I’m going to go hide in a hole for awhile. Hopefully, the next post will have nothing to do with any of this. It might even be funny. That’d be nice.

Trade Secrets

2007-01-04T16:49:00.000-08:00

This will probably only be entertaining to engineers, but a friend of mine sent it to me. I thought it described my profession perfectly.

Engineering is the art of modeling materials we do not wholly understand, into shapes we cannot precisely analyze, so as to withstand forces we cannot properly assess, in such a way that the public has no reason to suspect the extent of our ignorance.

A. R. Dykes, British Institute Of Structural Engineers, 1976

A letter to someone who will never read it.

2006-12-29T12:04:00.000-08:00

Author's note: This post is neither funny nor spiritually edifying. It is, rather, an uncharacteristically personal post that I wrote because I felt writing would be better than beating my head against a wall. As it turns out, writing was only marginally better.

To my chipped diamond,

It’s like driving on black ice. This relationship, I mean. One moment I think I know what’s going on. I’m sitting behind the wheel, and the road stretches before me, known and knowable, each curve, each straightaway leading toward a destination, taking me where I want to go. And then, without warning, that familiar pavement is gone and all four wheels are slipping and sliding on mirror polished ice. All that remains is that sickening spinning, that almost weightless, mostly hollow feeling of powerlessness.

Do you know what the trouble with black ice is? You can’t see it coming, and you can’t do anything about it once you’re on it. No longer the master of my destiny, I slide along, all four wheels spinning uselessly, my destination controlled by momentum and dumb luck.

I wonder, sometimes, whether I’ll ever hit dry pavement again. Maybe this is it, this you and I, maybe I’ll never feel grounded around you, never feel in control of anything when you’re in the room or in my thoughts. A man has plenty of time to think when he’s spinning out of control, time to think and nothing else.

I can see that same look in your eyes, the far away gaze of someone without traction, without direction, and I think that’s the only reason I can do this. I wonder, can you see solid ground from your perspective? Can you see an end to this freefall?

Do you know how I do it, how I live with the question of friend or something else hanging unanswerable above our heads? I ignore the question entirely. I shut off the part of me that needs to know, that part of me that analyzes, that thinks. When I’m around you, I don’t give you a title, don’t place you into one of the columns labeled “friend,” “acquaintance,” or… well, you get the picture. Instead, I let go of the wheel, take my foot off the brake, and enjoy the ride.

Because that’s all a guy can do when he’s spinning on black ice.

On the outside, looking in

2006-12-27T14:13:00.000-08:00

I live about three hundred miles away from my family. A job took me from the heart of beautiful, boring North Idaho* and deposited me on the far western side of Washington. There are two important things to note about my location.

One: living next to Seattle, a city that supposed to be fairly exciting (I’m told that by people who don’t live there) has not made me any more exciting as a person. This is solid evidence against the commonly held theory that anyone who lives in or near Seattle instantly turns into a urban-psuedo-hippie-hipster-granola-nature-freak who subsists on tofu and that stuff that grows in the back of your fridge. The sad truth is that even after three years living where I live, I can’t fit into any hipster crowds due to my lack of trendy clothes, trendy political views, and trendy religious convictions. I’m a twenty-something year old curmudgeon, and curmudgeons aren’t hip.

Two: living three hundred miles away from my family puts me in the strange position of being on the outside, looking in. You see, everyone else lives here (I’m typing this in North Idaho), which means that everyone else sees each other on a weekly or monthly basis. This close proximity gives my family plenty of time to develop all sorts of nifty grudges, hurt feels, and general unhappiness. As it turns out, people, even good people like my family, don’t always get along.

I ask you, dear reader, what does that make me in this quagmire? It makes me a mediator, a middle man, and, most importantly, an open ear. There are times when I wish that I could get everyone in one room for a WWF style battle royal complete with thrown chairs, clotheslines, and flying elbows. Then we could sit down together and drink eggnog while we get our gaping wounds stitched up and casts put on our broken limbs. That’d be a family Christmas to remember.

But we don’t have battle royals (even though I’m pretty sure the pay-per-view money would offset the medical bills). Instead we have awkward silences, strained greetings, and far too many questions not asked and not answered. As an outsider, as someone who is both part of and removed from the drama, I get a better picture of the whole thing. The problems are, when seen from outside the trenches, small and petty. Most of them are caused by people not saying what they really think and by people hiding what they really feel. I guess that’s what kills me the most.

I’m not writing this to complain about my family. I love each and every one of them. I’m writing this because I don’t think my family is any different than most. I’m writing this to say that letting small problems fester until they take on a life of their own is an easy way to start dying, an easy way to start killing yourself and those you love.

So this is my plea to anyone who reads this blog: don’t let stupid problems and old grudges kill your relationship with your family. They’re your flesh and blood. You’re stuck with them if you like it or not.

Have a Happy New Year. Congratulations on surviving another one.

*As a side note, it’s my firmly held belief that North Idaho should be its own state so that I won’t have to answer stupid questions about potatoes that are grown hundreds of miles south… stupid potatoes and stupid license plates talking about stupid potatoes.

Pity: Like a swift kick to the groin

2006-12-22T12:16:00.000-08:00

I’ve decided that one of the worst words in the English language is this: pity. It’s a sick, twisted word that was forged in the very fires of Hell itself. Actually, that might be a little severe. The point with less hyperbole is this: I don’t much care for it.

Do you know what the problem with pity is? The problem is that it makes the one who pities feel superior, and leaves the one pitied feeling even worse then before the pitier (not a word, don’t care) came waltzing up to do some pitying. In other words, it’s not only useless, it’s detrimental.

Since points are really best backed up with examples, I’ve provided a few below.

Example 1: Feeding the poor with pity.

It sounds something like this: “Oh you poor, huddled masses. I look down upon you from the heights of my ivory tower, from the warmth of my hearth, and my heart moves for you. Oh, you sad, almost human dirt monkeys, how I yearn to provide to you some small sliver of the contentment that I surround myself with daily. I know that I don’t have to, that all that I have was gained by my brilliance in business. And your lack, your wretched state of being, is a direct result of your stupidity, ineptitude, and sloth. Yet even so, I shall provide to you out of my bounty, out of all that I have earned. I bequeath unto thee this… can of refried beans.”

Example 2: Feeding the poor with sympathy.

It sounds something like this: “I can see that you’re hungry. I’ve been hungry before myself. I don’t have much, but I’ll share with you what I have.”

Example 3: Feeding the poor with empathy.

It sounds something like this: “I can see that you’re hungry. I can’t imagine what that must be like, but it isn’t right that a fellow human should suffer like that. Not when I can help. I don’t know why I have what I need and you don’t, but I’ll share with you what I have.”

Okay, so I made the last two sound a bit like saints and the first one sound like a megalomaniac, but that’s what you sound like when you give food, money, or time out of pity rather than sympathy, empathy, or just plain human kindness. I remember a Thanksgiving years ago where we didn’t have enough money to buy a Thanksgiving meal. My Dad just lost his job, we moved to a new town so my Mom could be closer to her job, and we were toeing the line of being able to pay the endless parade of bills. So our church provided us with a Thanksgiving meal. Just the year before we were helping prepare those meals, the meals for the poor people in our congregation, God bless the little dirt monkeys. And then, just like that, I was poor, was one of them. The sensation was surprisingly similar to a swift kick in the groin: entirely unpleasant.

What made it hurt was pride, my pride at having felt superior to the poor. My pride saying that even as I teenager I should be able to do something, anything, to keep us off that list of poor, needy people. My pride at an imaginary line between “us” and “them.” That’s why I detest pity, why I cringe when I see well meaning people talking about the poor, needy, and downtrodden as if they were discussing a hurt animal. It’s because pity is just pride gussied up as something noble. Pity isn’t noble. It’s looking down on someone else and saying, ever so quietly, that you feel bad because they’re just not as good as you.

End sermon.

It’s really weird just how cool that was

2006-12-21T16:03:00.000-08:00

A mechanic I work with got promoted this week. She’ll be doing office work elsewhere in the shipyard, which means she gets more pay and gets to stay clean. As it turns out, simply being female has no dirt repelling benefits when you’re turning wrenches. She’s pretty happy about the whole deal.

I bring up this nameless mechanic because today she brought me a plate of cookies. She said that it was for all the time I spent answering questions and generally helping her out with her stuff. She knows, and I know, that I get paid for doing just that. Most of my job consists of being direct support for the mechanics on the shop floor. But she made me cookies anyway. That was possibly one of the coolest things anyone inside the shipyard has done for me.

I get so used to people being selfish, focusing on what they want and what they need and then moving on when they get it, that I forget that people can sometimes be thoughtful and kind. In the vast scheme of things, a plateful of cookies doesn’t amount to much. Not much at all. But it was enough to make my day because it wasn’t just a bunch of cookies thrown on my coffee table. It was her taking the time to say that she appreciated the work I do, appreciated the help.

To the nameless newly promoted mechanic, and to everyone else who’s taken the time recently to let someone near them know that they matter and are appreciated, I have this to say: Thank you.

And, to everyone who reads this blog every once in a while, merry Christmas.

Christmas done bachelor style

2006-12-21T15:37:00.000-08:00

Behold, my Christmas decorations.

Now, to the untrained eye it may look like I've just slapped some Christmas lights on my home climbing wall. This couldn't be further from the truth. The truly trained professional will note that there is also the tip of a Christmas tree stapled to the far right upright. You read that right. I said stapled. That was my roommate's addition.

I'm not sure if this all means we get the true meaning of Christmas, or, more probably, shouldn't be allowed to use staple guns. Either way, what you see is what you get.

Helping people stay not-dead

2006-12-08T10:10:00.000-08:00

It’s now time for everyone’s favorite feature, this week’s installment of “Motorcycle Vocab!”*

Today’s phrase:

Target Fixation (as defined by me): The tendency of your motorcycle to head directly for the one obstacle in the road that you really, really don’t want to hit but for some reason you can’t take your eyes off and that, if you don’t magically happen to miss it, will send you on a trip to the emergency room.

For those of you who drive cars or horse drawn carriages, I’ll explain how this works. You see, your car, having four wheels, is controlled by turning the steering wheel while you, the driver, sit happily in your seat. Should you choose to stick one foot out the window, use the other to kick your passenger, and plant your free hand on the seat for a handstand, your car won’t care so long as you don’t twist the steering wheel.

Motorcycles are controlled largely by balance. When a motorcycle rider turns at speeds higher than 10 or 15 mph, he or she does so not by turning the handlebar but by leaning in the desired direction. One of the reasons motorcycles are so fun is that riding them feels fairly effortless. When you know what you’re doing, it seems like all you have to do is think about a turn and the motorcycle will turn. To anthropomorphize (you have no idea how long I’ve waited to use that word) the motorcycle, you could say that it senses where you want to go and goes there. You know, like some sort of hokey man-to-machine psychic link.

The problem here is that the motorcycle, being mostly steel (but shiny, chrome plated steel), is stupid. When you see something in the road that you don’t want to hit, your natural response is to look at it. You have now told your idiotic machine via your imaginary and mostly hokey psychic link that you are deeply, deeply interested in that two foot deep pothole. Wanting to make you happy, your motorcycle will do everything it can to take you there.

You may have noticed that motorcycles do not routinely run over potholes, squirrels, trees in the fall, and attractive women at the side of the road. This is because smart people long ago came up with a solution to the problem: Look at something else. That’s deep, so you may want to take a moment to take that in. You know, just let it simmer on the surface a bit before you try to digest.

Author's note: This is the part of the post where I use a witty transition and, before you know it, we’re not talking about motorcycles anymore but about Jesus and you and me. Then I go on to tell you how whatever it was about motorcycles I was talking about applies to whatever it is that’s bugging me in my relationship with Christ. So, I suppose we should get on with that. End Author's note.

Hey, look over there! (My witty transitions have been weak as of late.)

We (even those of us who don’t ride motorcycles) tend to fixate on all the wrong stuff. And then we get surprised when, before we know it, we’re doing all that stuff we were fixating on. You can call it a devious plan of the Dark One if you must, but I don’t think it’s that diabolical. Mainly, we look at, concentrate on, and otherwise obsess over what we find interesting. If we’re more interested in the sins of this world - in the trashy women, scummy men, shiny cars, and mind-numbing drugs the people use to replace God - than we are in God Himself, it shouldn’t surprise us when we end up in the midst of what we were trying to avoid in the first place.

Two final points, and then I’m done.

1. Setting your eyes on your sins, really staring them down hard, will run you head first into them.

2. Trying not to look doesn’t do any good. You have to look at something. Look at something worthwhile.

*Right, so as you may have guessed, I really don’t have weekly installments of anything. But calling it the weekly “Motorcycle Vocab” sounded marginally cooler than saying, “Dude, duuude, I just remembered this word I learned awhile back in this class I took involving not dying on my motorcycle, and I thought it just totally, I mean totally dude, applied to so much more. ‘Kay?” That’s right, I lied to make myself not sound like a stoned valley girl. I stand by my decision.