NFL gospel plan

I saw this gospel plan lead in on nfl.com yesterday.



I didn’t feel the gospel was presented very clearly. It was basically a chart, but what do you expect nowadays?

I did see that the Chiefs will be justified by works, if at all.

Happy December!

Hard to believe we're round to December again. Everybody talks about how fast time flies, but I have to chip in my affirmation.

Evadel is now one year old. She will not stop walking until she falls on the floor on her back with her arms outstretched.

I know all parents probably think their child is a genius. Theory: We have such low expectations of our little poop machines that when they start doing something uniquely human, we exclaim, "Omigosh, she's brilliant!" Granted, it is fun to see rudimentary cognition and refining motor skills, but I'm trying to change my perspective. I think I should expect geniusly human behavior in order to encourage her blossoming humanity, and I should delight in her progress. (Don't get me wrong; human babies are always human babies. I'm talking about features that make us unique from other species.) But I should not try to make Evadel be a Bible quiz bowl maven just to relive my glory days.

December brings me to four classes left in my Master's. Medication has helped me catch up at work to the point that I see a more human existence approaching on the horizon. Between school and work, I have precious little free time, so I savor the moments away from the busyness. But I'm very excited about the beginning of next summer when I will graduate and be totally caught up at work. It's going to be such a foreign experience to live a motivated life without terapascals of pressure.

I have a hunch that without all the craziness, daily/weekly observation of time will slow, and I may enjoy life more. It goes without saying that the pace of a monthly/annual/decadal observation of time seems to continue increasing with age.

Ignorance

You know how you listen to great music, the kind of song you have heard 38 times before, and then you hear a lyric that smacks you between the eyes? (That's a strange mixing of metaphor, I know.)

I've been paying attention to ignorance lately, particularly intentional ignorance. I listened to a great podcast on the topic today: Maxie Burch from rhinocrash.org. In iTunes, the date is 8/17/09 (and followup on 8/23/09, titled Tensions weeks 3 and 4). Maxie's theme is elephants in the room. He notes the very real spiritual aspect of them and how damaging ignorance is when we avoid issues/problems out of fear, anger, or pain. I highly recommend you listen to them.

So the song. I'm listening to Ben Folds, hoping some driving piano will help me feel motivated to work on my final papers for Amos and Hosea. In the song "Bastard," the relevant ignorance lines play:

Close your eyes, close your ears, young man;
You've seen and heard all an old man can;
Spread the facts on the floor like a fan;
Throw away the ones that make you feel bad.

That's a fascinating insight. While I think age brings valuable observation and experience, I believe it's true that most of us ignore the stuff that makes us feel bad. There are a lot of old men out there who could have become wise, solid characters through facing pain and processing reality. Instead, they anesthetized themselves by any number of means. Intentional ignorance. Ignoring the elephant in the room. So, young man, face the facts as they present themselves. Struggle through the pain, and you will grow into great character that can change the world, or at least the worlds of those around you.

One other line from the song that is helpful is, "It's okay if you don't know everything." That's an interesting juxtaposition with the idea of intentional ignorance. But if we process knowledge and life as they come, the passage of time will yield wisdom. And one of the keys to wisdom is recognizing that we will never know everything, or anything close to that. Know-it-alls (of whom I try my hardest not to be) tend to try to control knowledge. And another theme of life I've been contemplating is how destructive the impulse to control can be.

It's best to hold knowledge loosely, but it's destructive to hold your hands up saying, "No thanks."

Animals and the new creation

In the last 24 hours, I've become much more aware of the coming concord of the animal kingdom. We've been reading Isaiah, and the last quarter of the book treats the topic of the new creation quite extensively. The most famous reference occurs early in Isaiah and at the very end: the wolf and the lamb will lie down together without any chewing on the other, and the lion and the calf will be cool.

So the awareness I mentioned is odd. It comes from popular culture. I saw a commercial yesterday during K-State's sweet win over UCLA that had all sorts of "natural" enemies drinking from a watering hole together. It's a beautiful image. (The commercial was a failure in that I don't remember the advertiser, but at least I'm looking to find out who it was.) The other reference is in Cake's "Frank Sinatra," where they sing "the flies and spiders get along together." It's an odd choice of animals, but brilliant in its freestyle on the Isainic theme.

I eagerly anticipate the new creation, and it's fun that pop culture brings my spirit back to the idea in a moment when I'm not particularly paying attention to it.

Campaign flyer

For whatever reason, people think it's time to waste money and start trying to garner votes for November. I mean, yes, campaign season is warming up, but I hate it so much.

Campaign flyers come to our mailbox, and I think they follow a template. I'm sure both parties have the same template; it doesn't matter who.

They read something like this (always accompanied by a shot of the family, and especially grandchildren if possible):
Proven results!
Effective leadership!

Then for the Republican flyers, they proceed to say, "Down with big government! Lower taxes!" Since it's primary season, the Democrats aren't paying attention to these flyers. If they were, they'd say, "What the f*** are they talking about!" But they would still talk about their proven leadership or something.

If these people think that platitudes gain votes, it makes me shiver. Doesn't anyone see there's nothing substantive going on here? Cake's wacky morning DJ deservers more credit than I ever gave him for saying "Democracy's a joke."

I guess what I'm reacting to is that we don't have real options. The more shrill the parties get, the more I realize what distinguishes them is how loud they shout catchphrases. When it comes down to votes, the only thing that matters to most is money. I have to give it to them though, they do seem committed about the abortion debate. You could take a vote on something abortion related every week, and you'd get actual opinions coming out. But when it comes time to vote on spending, everyone has to protect their constituency regardless of whether they hate ballooning spending.

Okay, I'm done. I need to study.

G8 summit

I was just talking with a co-worker about the Netherlands–Brazil match, clarifying whether it was in the quarterfinals or semifinals. He said, "Well, it's the group of eight, so yes, quarterfinals." To which I commented, "So the World Cup is like the G8 Summit for Third World countries."

Insensitive, maybe, but the World Cup is truly a place where a nation can invest merely millions of dollars and gain a high profile on the world stage. The other G8, your GDP has to be in the hundreds of billions or trillions.

Cash

If you're promised some money, is it called a financée?

Destiny

I've not posted in an inordinately long while. I'll write about that in another post.

It seemed appropriate to talk about destiny in my 200th post.

I'm discussing historic America with a co-worker, and I discovered that the best question to ask our fervent founding fathers would be "Can I see the shipping manifest to find out where your destiny came from?"

To be reconciled

The cross for Christians is often a symbol of atonement. It’s the means whereby people are reconciled with God through the shedding of blood. It’s a beautiful event full of implications for today and the age to come. But honestly, it can be a bit hard to grasp why it had to happen and how it worked.

Thao and Sue are young and bright. They need a bit of direction, but otherwise they are on their way to good lives. However, they live in a gang-ridden neighborhood, which almost guarantees they won’t arrive at the good life in one piece.

Don Miller—a foremost advocate of story and how we each need to be a part of one—offers this succinct definition of story: “A Character that wants something and overcomes conflict to get it.”

Gran Torino points toward the future and “getting it” for Thao and Sue. But the key character in the story, Walt, is seeking his own atonement: reconciliation with himself and peace in his soul from the demons of war. In the process of connecting with his new Hmong neighbors, the trenchant racist Walt finds his elusive peace and helps them overcome the conflict, almost against their wishes. It is obvious that they won’t be able to do so themselves. This variation on classic story resonates well with the Christian message: We all need help to overcome conflict to get that something.

Crosses and blood are ubiquitous symbols in Gran Torino. At times they are mocked by characters; other times they are employed quite reverently by unlikely characters. These lead to one of the most beautiful stories of reconciliation I’ve seen—one that helpfully illustrates an answer to the questions of atonement above.

When the movie began, I feared I was in for a long two hours. Walt is such a crotchety, foul character, but as the story progressed, I felt a certain fondness for him. Clint Eastwood worked a fine masterpiece producing, directing, and acting this film. His Walt is a strong character whose development we see in fine detail. The plot is not as intricate as the characterization, but there is a strong one. Sometimes the music felt a bit obvious, but it was certainly a foreshadowing cue.

Gran Torino is not a movie for the faint of heart. I know some who would not be able to sit through the language and racism that suffuses this film. But if you can stomach these, there is a rich payoff as you let yourself live in this story of reconciliation and redemption for two hours.

Jonah

So here it is, a month since my last post. I never wanted to be like this, but my life tipped into unsustainability. It's not getting better anytime soon, so I'd better post.

I wonder what tone of voice Jonah spoke in when he said, "I'm angry enough to die." This is actually quite an important question. It reveals his character, just as getting to know his character through the story reveals how he would speak this sentence. My two main thoughts for how he sounded are that he screamed this line or he deadpanned it.

If Jonah screamed, "I'm angry enough to die," I see two options. He was a petulant little girl. Or he was genuinely, utterly enraged.

If Jonah said matter-of-factly, "I'm angry enough to die," I see another three options. He was being melodramatic. He was being ironic. Or he grew up a manipulative shrew who was used to getting his own way if he spoke out of line. The latter would probably mean his mother was a hand-wringing pushover.

Whichever way we slice it, God wouldn't have it. I think God told Jonah, "You're on Candid Camera!" Or maybe he merely said, "There you are, an object lesson for all future generations. You happy now?"

In my opinion, Jonah was a whiny brat (see "melodramatic" above). I imagine the people in his hometown of Gath Hepher would have been relieved if Jonah had remained former, now digesting, fish bait. But somehow, God used this petty chump to draw repentance from an incredibly evil, powerful empire.

I truly hope that I am available for God's work, if for no other reason than to avoid being swallowed by a fish. I'm not a seafood guy.

Dragon!

My wife and I went to see "How to Train Your Dragon" today. My suspicion from my previous post was barely confirmed. This movie was not made merely to make us treat "terrorists" better. But you can sure take that away from it if you want to.

I highly recommend this movie. It's cute and fun, a little tense at moments (noted for kiddos' sake), and teaches a number of great life themes. If you're predisposed to feel preachiness, it'll feel preachy, but I got caught up in the story. Some of the themes include being who you are, humility, reconciliation, and perseverance.

I HOPE I'M NOT GIVING TOO MUCH AWAY ALERT:
While the most striking part of the movie for my wife was how relationships were reconciled, the key point for me has to do with fear. The main character, Hiccup, was a nerdy waif of a Viking. He wanted more than anything else to be the best stereotypical Viking dragon fighter. However, with a bit of sensitivity and some dumb fearlessness, he discovers a way to befriend dragons. He is able to end the dragon scourge in an unconventional, yet quite fitting to his person, way. If he had kept trying to kill dragons the conventional way, he would have been a colossal failure. But because he intuitively followed fate's path for him, he became an even bigger hero than he could have imagined. And it might have been mistitled. Much more faithful to the story would have been "How to Befriend a Dragon," but I think "train" fit better for marketing purposes.

Yeah, the movie's a little moralistic, but with the good animation and storyline, it's totally worth it.

Nerdy poetry I wrote today

Chi(li)asm

The millennium
Is it a thousand years long?
Or a metaphor?

It will probably
involve the wedding supper
of the ewe’s Offspring.

What’s all this besides
the consummation of the
kingdom to come?

A place of justice,
mercy, and love abounding;
fullest creation.

Bible images
telling of restoration,
reign of true human.

Spicy foods. Fitting
for a reception? Chili
makes me say, “Mmm-hmmmm.”

If it’s a thousand
or a thousand million years,
it will not matter.

How to Train Your . . .

Today's blog post brought to you by blind assertions. Why not? Everyone else is doing it. [blind assertion]

Okay, so my wife and I are planning a time to go see a movie. First time to a theater since the baby was born. A little bit of a big deal. As she was scrolling through the local showings, she came across film after film we will NOT see. "She's Out Of My League" Nope. Sounds like a movie predicated on cheap sex jokes about a hot girl a dude really wants. I've lived that description, including the occasional season of life featuring the indiscreet sex joke. Yeah, there was a season change ten days ago, so? "Hot Tub Time Machine" [chirp chirp chirp]

The first movie she noted (and the one we will likely see) was "How to Train Your Dragon." She asked what it was about. I've only seen trailers for it about three times when I wasn't really paying attention (I was breathing through a paper bag during a TV timeout), which uniquely qualifies me to summarize a movie for a picky potential viewer and decide the fate of twelve bucks (um, yeah, we're going to a matinee) relative to a movie studio bean counter.

My summary started thus: "I think it's about a somewhat medieval culture where most of the people are averagely stupid and they are plagued by dragons, so everyone lives in fear, and there are some tough guys who make a name for themselves by fighting off the dragons, and then some smart kids come along and say . . ." With each passing clause I became more and more afflicted with present-time-narrative-telling-déjà vu. It actually caused me to ask whether the screen writers were presenting a blatantly moralistic tale about what we should do with terrorists.

This movie looks entertaining. I'm excited to see it, if only because we get to go to a movie. Well, actually, now I'm curious to see if my blind assertion that this movie should be titled "How to Train Your Terrorist" (only if you're an American, not Osama bin Laden, silly) can be upgraded to "assertion with slightly advanced glaucoma." Please share your non-spoiler insights if you've seen the movie.

Words

I wrote in my very first post on this blog that I like to get the meaning of words right. I like to quibble a bit to make sure that people are using the same lexicon. This ensures that misunderstandings are kept to a minimum.

However, I read through 1 and 2 Timothy today, and toward the end of each letter, Paul says not to quarrel over words. I understand that there were some sh'nanigans going on with false teachers trying to get believers to follow certain practices that didn't have a place in the assembly of Jesus. But I wonder what these quarrels over words were.

From 1 Timothy: "They have an unhealthy interest in controversies and quarrels about words that result in envy, strife, malicious talk, evil suspicions and constant friction between people of corrupt mind, who have been robbed of the truth and who think that godliness is a means to financial gain" (all references TNIV).

From 2 Timothy: "Warn them before God against quarreling about words; it is of no value, and only ruins those who listen."

Again I ask: What are these words? Surely we need to be able to define our terms, especially when we're trying to figure out what a third party is saying.

A prophet or dreamer

As we were reading in Deuteronomy tonight, the Pharisees reaction to Jesus that we commemorate this week came into sharp relief. And it made sense.

These days, we have the benefit of never having watched an animal larger than a squirrel be killed (by a car, for instance), let alone killing the animal ourselves. We lead a very sanitized existence, and we're not trying to fit our unruly selves into a community with rather strict, and very serious standards. To the Hebrews, taking the life of an animal meant something. The Law meant something. And I only use the sacrifice picture to illustrate the bigger idea of the Law. The Sabbath was important. Somehow Jubilee seems to have been edited out of the larger consciousness of the Jewish nation, but let's be reasonable. So when Jesus came along and said people didn't need to keep the Sabbath the way they always did, the Pharisees flipped. Were they overreacting? I don't think so.

From Deuteronomy, about 1/3 of the way through:
"If a prophet, or one who foretells by dreams, appears among you and announces to you a sign or wonder, and if the sign or wonder spoken of takes place, and the prophet says, “Let us follow other gods” (gods you have not known) “and let us worship them,” you must not listen to the words of that prophet or dreamer. The LORD your God is testing you to find out whether you love him with all your heart and with all your soul. It is the LORD your God you must follow, and him you must revere. Keep his commands and obey him; serve him and hold fast to him. That prophet or dreamer must be put to death for inciting rebellion against the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt and redeemed you from the land of slavery. That prophet or dreamer tried to turn you from the way the LORD your God commanded you to follow. You must purge the evil from among you" (TNIV).

Granted, Jesus didn't say, "Worship this idol." But he might as well have. He was performing signs and telling the people to not follow the religion they had been taught. I now have a bit more sympathy for the Pharisees. Despite the wrong way they went about it (asking the Romans to execute justice, saying "We have no king but Caesar," thereby running as far from their God as possible), they were trying to purge the evil from among them.

This is another instance where the spotlight is turned right back on my heart. How often do I think I see things perfectly clearly, only to be shown that I only know about 58 percent of what's going on? I see the action that's necessary, and I run after it, never stopping to ask if God's trying to do something different. Yep, I'm the Pharisee. God forgive me.

Life verses

For a few years now, my life verse part has been Numbers 21:16a: "From there they continued on to Beer" (all references TNIV).

As I was reading Torah at our baby's bedtime feeding tonight, I found a verse that means almost as much to me. Deuteronomy 12:20: "When the LORD your God has enlarged your territory as he promised you, and you crave meat and say, 'I would like some meat,' then you may eat as much of it as you want." AMEN!

I see my life like this. I say to a friend or a relative, "I would like some meat." We eat as much as we want. Then we continue on to beer. And my territory has been enlarged, to boot.

*DISCLAIMER*
Of course, I don't encourage misusing God's word this way. I think my three readers know this. But if you're just happening by, I encourage more and better Bible reading. Read large portions, such as whole books. Understand the historical context. Find yourself in God's great, big story of creation, uncreation, and recreation. And try my favorite beer, New Belgium's 1554. Wow, it's good.

Red Lobster

My wife and I both detest seafood. I mean, look in Leviticus; it seems that most of it is detestable to God too. Well, her parents came to visit and generously offered to take us to lunch today. The options were Olive Garden or Red Lobster. We both adore Olive Garden, but we both know that Red Lobster has options for people such as we. The geniuses there know that they select out a portion of their clientele if they don't provide decent food for those with good taste.

We selected the Cajun Chicken Linguine Alfredo and Baked Potato Soup. The soup was incredible. We ordered the full portion of the former, which comes with almost a pound of pasta. I was a bit hungry, but I didn't realize they had those awesome cheesy biscuits. So I ate a bunch of the biscuits, and we had a quite a bit of the pasta left over. The cajun spice was just the right amount of spicy (I do like spicy). Here's the thing: There was almost as much chicken as there was pasta. We all marveled at the exceedingly generous portion of chicken. It was a wonderful meal.

I can't believe I'm saying this, but if we had money to eat out, I would actually go back to Red Lobster. But only for the meal we had; not for the stuff they specialize in.

Moderation

Our favorite breakfast on the weekends is to fetch drinks from Starbucks and donuts from the grocery store. This morning was one of the times that this worked out. As we were perusing the donut selection, a mom and her four-year-old son stepped up to select their donuts.

The boy asked, "Are these good for us to eat?"

Mom replied, "In moderation, they're okay."

"Are the chocolate ones moderation?"

The End

I'm having an immensely productive afternoon (for a Friday, no less!) listening to Eef Barzelay, formerly of Clem Snide. My friend Paul will tell you that both artists/groups are incredibly depressing, and that you should have at least three means of slitting your wrists handy so that after you bleed out, you can continue the process. The music is that depressing. (I'm sorry; I do know how serious both depression and suicide are, and I don't intend to make light of them. Rhetorical point.)

Oddly, if I'm really in a funk, I put this most depressing of music on, and I am energized in a way that almost nothing else provides.

In Barzelay's "Songs for Batya" he says, "Death is just the moment when the dying ends." In a real sense, this is true. The inexorable process of decay (whether of the telomeres or other systems) meets a point when there is no longer sensation of decay. Then the corpse really begins to decay.

Theologically, however, I believe the dying continues. Death, as in the moment, isn't a digital 1 or 0. After the Fall, death = 1. It's always on. It suffuses the creation, and even for the disembodied spirit resting, waiting in the presence of God, death is a very present reality. The spirit has no body for [not] God's sake!

But if there is any hope whatsoever, it is looking forward to the time when death = 0. The zero point is the resurrection. When all things become new, death is off. It can no longer impact God's good, new creation. We do see that for Jesus, death = 0, and through the Spirit, we can begin to experience a sort of brownout of death. But it's obviously still present, arcing across the circuit gate so 1 > death > 0. But for the fullness of creation to be present, death must die completely.

A better line, and perhaps one to poke into your consciousness as Holy Week approaches, is "Resurrection is the moment when the dying ends!" Thanks be to God.

Prophetic

I had a conversation with a co-worker today about the cultural situations into which prophecy is spoken. I often think of it being shouted to evil, arrogant folk who must repent or be destroyed. While that certainly happened from time to time in the First Testament, there is an equal opposite. Isaiah says,
Comfort, comfort my people,
says your God.

Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
and proclaim to her

that her hard service has been completed,
that her sin has been paid for,

that she has received from the LORD’s hand
double for all her sins. (TNIV)

That set me to thinking about physics. Or, more specifically, the fact that I've seen a picture of a sine wave before.


What if, simplistically, the red line above the middle dotted line shows the portions of culture that are arrogant and judgmental? And the red line below shows those who feel guilty all the time and show it on the outside? Maybe these are the ones Jesus called poor in spirit.

What if the prophet is always calling people to that dotted line? I would call people around this axis self-reflective, humble, and pliable. I like to think of myself as those three things, so maybe I'm poisoning the well by creating this mythical culture in my own projected image. But bear with me.

We see in Israel's history the times when they were pretty self-confident, and God needed to bring them down a notch. Then they were way too down on themselves, and he had to say what I quoted above. But if they hadn't gotten too arrogant, they wouldn't have needed to be brought down to begin with.

A healthy self-concept where God is God, and we are his servants/stewards/image, is a good place to start. The role of prophet in a culture that lives this way would end up being more priestly; indeed, the writer to the Hebrews says Jesus's followers are a kingdom of priests. But in the meantime, prophets will always be necessary to help people tread the middle line of balance.

While I like to see myself treading this middle axis, the truth is every person and community balances around an infinite number of axes. We are not capable of keeping track of all the axes. Therefore, we humans are more susceptible to modeling ourselves after heros (or anti-heros) in stories. We can look to how YHWH and Jesus and the prophets behaved in their movements of the big story, and perhaps that will help us to learn to truly live.

Thanks to Omegatron and Wikipedia for the sine wave.

Weltschmerz

I discovered a great word the other day that seemed to sum up my worldview. Of late, I've felt more and more saddened by what I see going on in the world (Iraq, Washington, Haiti, Tiger Woods—doesn't matter). I pray for peace, shalom-style. But I still feel sad.

That's when I discovered Weltschmerz: "Sadness over the evils of the world . . . " (American Heritage Dictionary). I told my co-workers about it, and we all resonated with it.

Later I wasn't near my AHD (online), so I looked the word up in the dictionary.com app on my iPod. I was shocked by the different definition. "Sorrow that one feels and accepts as one's necessary portion in life; sentimental pessimism." Next chance I got, I looked again at the AHD definition. It continued, "especially as an expression of romantic pessimism." So there is a similarity between the two definitions, but I was able to allocate the first half of AHD's to something I resonated with.

Weltschmerz is a German word meaning "world pain." In my mind, it's too bad it took on such Eeyoreism. A Christian worldview sees the pain in the world and feels genuine sadness. But there's always hope in the present, based on God's faithfulness in the past, looking expectantly toward the future redemption, resurrection, and restoration. According to the dictionary, Weltschmerz places its hope squarely in the past, if indeed there is any hope at all.

I propose a Christian Weltschmerz that motivates us to action as we work toward and wait for our final redemption.

Syncretism

I have a difficult relationship with syncretism. I first heard the word regarding "those Catholics" in Latin America who mix the Catholic religion with animism. I also heard that it is a danger for Evangelical missionaries if they let the people they're reaching mix their old life in with their new life. I fear, though, that the "new life" is becoming like the missionary. (By the way, Emmanuel Kolini, outgoing archbishop of Rwanda, has just released a book called Rethinking Life which talks about how missionaries who performed a culture transplant on Africa—without anesthesia—killed it. He offers genuine appreciation for bringing the gospel, but he wishes it wasn't so corrupted by foreign culture.)

My next step in observing syncretism was in conservative, Evangelical culture. Syncretism is most insidious when you are the one living it. We each make decisions that we are comfortable enough with, and soon we're far from our roots. It's a slippery slope! (I hate how people use that sentence.) To me, "far from our roots" means that we have abandoned the foundational worldview that our faith was built on. We started becoming Greek/Gnostic in our thinking, and with the maturation of Modernism, we became the ultimate consumers. Those are the two key damnable features in Evangelical syncretism.

My latest observation of syncretism is Phil Jackson. His pop Zen Buddhism has been extremely effective for him and the Lakers. I refuse to denigrate his religious observation, and it'll be up to the Creator God of the Hebrews to judge him. But I did find his syncretism funny. Commenting on the "curse of the Clippers" brought by owner Donald Sterling, he said, "I'm of that generation that believed in karma. If you do a good mitzvah, maybe you can eliminate some of those things." Somehow his practice includes the Hebrew word for commandment. I'm sure he's not the only one to mix karma and mitzvah. But it shows how religious practice often picks up random tidbits from other cultures. And in the case of consumerism, I should clarify that religious practice is deeply held and undergirds how we live our lives, no matter what we say.

Security

Next time you're at an airport, you'll get through the line easier if you tell the TSA folks you're wearing security breeches.

Or maybe not.

The New Reformation

I walked by a dumpster this morning and cracked up at the Spanish for "trash only." Slightly modified, I think it could catch on as the watchword of a new reformation.



The only people who are allowed in the church are the ones that, relatively speaking, are about as good as trash. More to the point, they're the ones who know this to be true. No more condescending people looking down on you because you're not perfect. Because they're not either.

Also, violators should be fined.

Sola basura!

Yet another Haiti post

I can't believe how bad it sucks. And that's an understatement beyond any before. Haiti has been pointed at as one of two (if I remember correctly) fourth world countries. Poverty is so awful as to be inhuman, and while infrastructure per se is not necessary to be human, Haiti's attempts at infrastructure seem to have worsened the poverty. Now with the devastation of the earthquake and aftershocks, it's impossibler to describe. (I have to make up words because I can't find expression?)

I don't have a great plea to make, but merely an observation on how this impacted me. I'm so far removed from what's happening, and I guess I don't have the ability to process it, that I can only turn inward and see what God may do in my heart.

This happened as I listened to All Things Considered on NPR. They interviewed a gentleman named Pierre Brisson. He very articulately set out what happened and the current situation. He admitted that his composure stemmed from the fact that he is still in shock from the devastation and from losing so many friends, and indeed the entire country is in shock.

I hadn't had a strong emotional reaction I think because of the enormity of the situation. Any emotions are inadequate to do justice to the grief that should be had. But the last comment from Mr. Brisson brought tears to my eyes because of the plea from one human: "Please ask everyone you know to pray for us. Pray for this country. We have suffered too much. Enough is enough now."

He started with the common plea, and yet the only thing most of us can do in these moments: pray. But his voice rose as he cried out against the injustice of it all. His last sentence calls to mind the evils of self-serving bureaucrats pillaging their nation, the resulting poverty, and the complete inability to deal with this disaster. The steely emotion in Mr. Brisson's voice as he was supposed to be saying, "And you have a nice day as well, Michelle," was fitting of an ancient psalmist crying out to YHWH, "How long will this go on? Do you even care?"

My heartfelt prayer is that the good Creator will bring his re-creating power to this people he dearly loves as an advance sign of the age to come and justice for people who have suffered for way too long. All our hands will accomplish this as our prayers and God's power work together for the glory of the Creator.

Agenda item

As I walked by the checkout magazines (not the tabloids, but close), I laughed out loud. As a result of a difficult and truly admirable decision by the Palin family, the headline emerges: "We're Glad We Chose Life." Of course now they're even more the pro-life darlings. It's an amazing political move to use "choose life" on that public stage. I'm unquestionably pro-life and more so than most. (No killing old people, unborn babies, poor people in Africa, prisoners, terrorists, etc.) But I can't stand the unsubtle positioning statement. I would have liked the Palins if they would have said, "We like our new baby." It would be a self-conscious nod to a precious life and not a dehumanizing political statement at the expense of the poor child.

Leadership

I think it is possible to take a ragtag bunch of lame people and build a thriving enterprise, be it a business or some other organization.

I only say this because of the example of Jesus. You may have the immediate GODman thought (rather than the more theologically appropriate manGod or Godman perspective). "Of course Jesus could take lame dudes and turn them into awesomeness. He was God." But that's just magical thinking. Do you notice how hard Jesus worked with his disciples to help them become like him? There certainly was no wandwaving. Jesus did the very human work of patient, forgiving, merciful leadership.

I'm afraid I don't have the courage today to lead the way Jesus did. May I have the humility to let God prepare me if that is his calling for me.