See Life Differently

Questioning Doubt

2008-06-24T14:55:00.003-07:00

Ok, so I know I'm on hiatus, but this is worth sharing.

In a recent interview with Christianity Today, Tim Keller, author of The Reason for God tackles a great question: If our faith is culturally conditioned, what about our doubts? And if our doubts are just as much a product of our society as our beliefs, then shouldn't we be skeptical of those too? Wouldn't they be equally worthy of critical self-examination?

It's your society that gives you the doubts. If you go to the Middle East and ask people what makes Christianity implausible, they're not going to say, "Because there can't be one true religion." They're going to say, "Because of how oppressive America has been as a Christian nation, and if you look at their culture, it's lascivious and debauched."
If you ask Americans, "What makes Christianity implausible to you?" they're not going to say, "Your popular culture is filled with sex and violence." They will say, "How could there be one true religion?"

You can read the whole thing here. This is a nice short introduction to Keller, who is a great touchstone for anyone who values thinking critically about our own culture assumptions.

If you like his responses here, you'll probably enjoy his book (whether or not you're a follower of Jesus). Thoughts? Comments?

Hibernation

2008-01-01T17:31:00.000-07:00

Seeing as it's the new year and all, I thought I might as well make official something that most of you probably figured out a while ago - this blog is hibernating.

Looking back over the last year or two, there's been less and less posting, mostly because all my time and energy is going into the Missoula Project.

Of course, this doesn't mean I won't start posting here again at some point in the future, but for now, my energy is going elsewhere. So feel free to browse the archives for past material, but don't expect much new on this site for the time being...

Johnny Cash - Hurt

2007-09-05T21:40:00.000-07:00

So this is a couple of years old, but it's really worth a listen. I like Johnny Cash more and more these days...

Are Mormon's Christian?

2007-07-06T10:55:00.000-07:00

Since we've talked about Mormonism here in the past, I thought I'd pass this along as well. Al Mohler is having an ongoing conversation (HT: JT) with Orson Scott Card on whether Mormons are right in calling themselves Christians, and he makes several good points, in my opinion:

When I asked, “Are Mormons ‘Christians’ as defined by traditional Christian orthodoxy?,” I was stating the question exactly as it was put to me. The words “as defined by traditional Christian orthodoxy” were part of my assignment, not my imposition.

...With the question structured that way, the answer is clear and unassailable – Mormonism is not Christianity. When the question is framed this way, Mr. Card and I actually agree, as his essay makes clear.

In his words, “I am also happy to agree with him that when one compares our understanding of the nature of God and Christ, we categorically disagree with almost every statement in the “historic creeds and doctrinal affirmations” he refers to.”

Mr. Card would prefer that the question be put differently. I understand his concern, and if I were a Mormon I would share that concern and would try to define Christianity in some way other than traditional Christian orthodoxy. The reason is simple – traditional Christian orthodoxy and Mormon theology are utterly incompatible.

Mr. Card is gracious, even when suggesting that I misinterpret the Book of Mormon. He even suggests that I have not read it. The fact is that I have, and I have even studied Mormon theology in the course of my graduate studies. Reading the Book of Mormon was a fascinating experience. Nevertheless, if I were a Mormon arguing that Mormonism is Christianity, I would be very reluctant to suggest that those I am seeking to persuade should read the Book of Mormon. Nothing will more quickly reveal the distance between Mormon theology and historic Christianity.

Mormonism uses the language of Christian theology and makes many references to Christ. Mr. Card wants to define Christianity in a most minimal way, theologically speaking. If I were arguing the other side of this question, I would attempt the same. But Christianity has never been defined in terms of merely thinking well of Jesus. Mormonism claims to affirm the New Testament teachings about Jesus, but actually presents a very different Jesus from the onset. A reading of Mormonism’s authoritative documents makes this clear.

(It's worth reading the whole thing.)

One additional thought - I really appreciate Mohler's tone: gracious and sincere, even when he disagrees. We need more conversation, not less, and that means we're going to have to learn to dialogue with people who think differently than we do. Mohler's a great example, IMHO, and kudos to him (and to anyone, for that matter), who can write/speak in this way.

Dreaming of Satan

2007-07-05T09:22:00.000-07:00

I saw Satan last night, but he was a woman and he looked even better than my wife. It was a little weird. And scary. Because I easily could have kissed him, especially when he cried. It's a good thing it was only a dream.

This was one of those really bizarre dreams, as far as dreams go - not the "whoa, God just spoke to me" kind of thing, but more along the lines of "whoa, where the heck did THAT come from?" I mean, I know I got up way too early (4:15 AM, to take the kids fishing), and then I stayed up way too late (1 AM, to watch the fireworks), but I had a nap in between and everything. Maybe it was the salmon that our new friend Mitt cooked us for dinner...

One of the stranger things about this dream was that it unfolded like a screen play, where I was both the author and the lead, and things kind of got rewound and rewritten without warning. Here's what I remember.

It's a dark and stormy night. Thunder flashes in the distance. Rain clouds loom ominously overhead. The small band of road-weary travelers makes their way along the narrow path, mountain on the one side, chasm on the other. The whole scene seems right out of the Hobbit. And suddenly, aaaahhhh - it's SATAN HIMSELF, ROARING LIKE A BALROG, "YOU CANNOT PASS!!!!" (I know, that's Gandalf's line, but its my dream, so cut me some slack). The point is, it's one of those freaky moments in the movie where we all recoil in terror. In this case, panic ensues as we all wet ourselves and then jump shrieking to our deaths. So much for a happy ending.

Then, suddenly - ziiiiiiiip! (stereotypical rewind sound) - the scene undoes itself and we are half-way up the cliff again, only this time we are met by the beautiful woman I mentioned earlier. She has voluptuous breasts, a low cut shirt, and she looks like like a frightened young woman who wants me to hold her.

I'd really like to kiss her now, to feel her lips on mine while I run my hand tenderly up her back. Instead I utter my lines stoically, "You must let us pass. We are on our way to see God."

"I can't." She starts to cry those little-daughter tears that just melt your heart. "I cannot let you go on, because God cannot be found. I know because I have tried. Only if you tell me how to find God, only then will I let you pass."

She speaks with such heartfelt empathy, God must not be there. I have no idea what to say, but since I'm a pastor, I feel like I have to say something. So I mutter something silly. Or stupid. Or maybe both. Details are fuzzy; the only part that is staggeringly clear is the realization that for me, God is far too abstract, far too far off. She, on the other hand, is way more convincing than we are - her tears are genuine; she knows that of which she speaks.

Clarity returns when a new voice beside me speaks, quiet yet confident: "I know where to find God, and I know what to do when you meet him - you kick his ass."

(I realize that doesn't quite seem to follow what she said - it's answering the 'what' not the 'where' - but that's what happened, and it made for a nice dramatic moment in the screenplay of my dreams, so let's just run with it, shall we?).

I turn to see the speaker, only to discover my fifteen year old son. I'm more than a little shocked to hear such language from him (perhaps I hear too much of myself in those words?) but I am pleased nonetheless. He is speaking with conviction, lovingly even, as a boy-becoming-a-man, little David staring down Goliath, oblivious to her breasts because he sees beyond them to something better.

There is a tear rolling down his face, and fear aplenty, but nevertheless, here is Samwise the Stout, staring down Shelob. And when he speaks of kicking God's ass, he says it as a loyal soldier, as a longing lover, as Jacob-renamed-Israel limping out of the sunrise, as someone who has encountered God face to face and lived to tell about it. He realizes the only way into the kingdom if to lay hold of it forcefully, throwing yourself into mortal combat with the King of Kings himself - we kick his ass only because he has already kicked it himself for us. The secret then, is to lay hold of the angel and to not let go until he blesses you, even if it means your own hind end is going to get kicked in the process.

Malachi too knows that of which he speaks, and this is his defining moment, the one where he alone stands up and defies the giant, saying, 'Oh yeah, well I'm with him!' as he points to the memory of the God of his fathers: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob. It makes his father proud, even if it is just a dream.

The reaction, of course, is immediate, volcanic. The camera zooms in close to the woman as her face explodes in wrath and rage, the balrog within unmasked again: "YOU. CANNOT. PASS! I will destroy you if you try!"

It's my turn to shout now, in the face of the maelstrom, freaked out and afraid: "Oh yes we can! IN THE NAME OF JESUS, GET OUT OF OUR WAY!"

Ziiiiiiiip! (stereotypical rewind sound).

"Oh yes, we can. In the name of Jesus, get out of our way."

Hmm. That was an interesting little change. I'm speaking in a much calmer voice now, quietly, matter of fact - I wonder why? Maybe it's so I will look better on screen: calm, cool, collected. But if that's the case, why didn't they fix my thinning hair and sagging midsection? Maybe we should just see where this goes.

"In the name of Jesus, you need to let us pass."

"Never!" shrieks the balrog.

"In the name of Jesus, you need to step aside. Repent. Stop opposing God. Maybe he will forgive you."

"Never, ever!" shrieks the balrog, whose breasts are looking decidedly less sexy with every passing moment.

"In the name of Jesus, you need to turn to God. Now!"

"Never, ever, ever!" shrieks the balrog. "God doesn't exist. He is nothing but a delusion. Besides, there would be no forgiveness for me." Her breasts are gone. She is an undead fire-corpse, Durin's Bane, threatening to engulf us all.

The repartee continues like this for several minutes. Back and forth, me-the-actor beginning every phrase with those same simple words, me-the-spectator puzzling over the way the conversation is unfolding. Back and forth we parry. Back and forth I ponder. Then suddenly, it is over, Satan is gone. Not because I argued, not because I won, certainly not because I listened sympathetically to his plausible arguments. He is simply wrong. And we are on a mission to find God. And he must repent or step aside. Not because we say so, but because Jesus does.

Satan leaves simply because we speak in the name of Jesus.

Maybe there is a reason Peter used those words when he speaks to the crippled beggar in the gate named Beautiful. Maybe I should use them more. Not in a shout-real-loud-cause-I'm-scared-of-the-freaking-demon sort of way, but simply, quietly, matter-of-factly, as a servant who knows who his orders. How would this change the way we talk with unbelievers, with one another? How would this change the way we plant this church here in Missoula?

There is no time to ponder, because the dream lurches onwards as dreams always do. For the first time, I realize that friend Mitt is also present in our little party, and now it's his turn on center stage.

First though, some background on Mitt. We haven't known him long, but already he seems like an old friend (perhaps because he lived with us for a couple of weeks). He reminds me a lot of myself-as-a-church-planter. I think this is because he's a journalist - an 'immersive journalist' at that - and he is fascinated by all sorts of people; he will talk to anyone, and he loves to climb into their lives and try to see the world through their eyes. Mitt is a great writer. But he is also a good friend, so their are some things he can't write about as freely - it's that whole conflict-of-interest thing: How could he write objectively about someone he really likes? How could he write an article about our church plant, if he himself is kind of interested in it?

Given all this, the next words out of my mouth shock me as much as him: "Mitt, God wants you to write an article and tell everyone what you just saw."

I feel like someone else is speaking through me; I am Merlin reborn in That Hideous Strength, uttering oracles in the midst of otherwise normal conversations. Everyone else just looks at me like I've gone loopy: Satan has vanished, and now Christian-who-would-be-Gandalf sounds demon possessed. This is one really trippy dream.

(Aside to Mitt: dude, if you are reading this, remember, it's a dream. I have no idea where this came from. I'm certainly not suggesting that God actually wants you to do this. Honest. What did you marinate that salmon in, anyway?)

"Christian, how can I do this? I'm you're friend. You are planting a church. How can I write about this journey you are on and make any claim to objectivity?" Mitt's response is completely understandable. But in my dream it's simply wrong and unacceptable.

"Mitt, in the name of Jesus, you need to tell people that this is what God is doing, and that they need to be a part of it."

"Christian, no one will believe me! We just ran into a really hot balrog-Satan-babe. People will think I am freaking insane!" (I told you he's a good journalist - very in touch with his audience, Mitt is).

"Mitt, in the name of Jesus, you must tell them that this is what God says."

"But what am I supposed to write? And what about the fact that whenever I write something I am always writing from my own perspective, my own interpretation of 'the facts'? What if I get something wrong? How will anyone know which parts are true?"

The wide-awake-me is nodding vigorously in agreement with Mitt right now; unfortunately, the mouthpiece-of-God-me isn't buying it.

"Mitt, in the name of Jesus, you need to write what you have seen. I will ensure that the parts which are true get said truly. And I will also ensure that the people who need to hear this truth recognize it when they hear it. Anything less is simply errancy."

This strikes the watching-this-as-drama-me as a fascinating way of thinking about inerrancy - not that every jot and tittle is 'true' in the abstract, historical, impersonal sense (is there even such a thing?), but that the real, true, ultimate meaning of every jot and tittle is preserved truly, irrepressibly, by an ultimate author who is infinitely capable, not just of speaking, but of communicating, of being heard by those he intends to hear. Anything less is simply errant - it may be true, in a factual sort of sense, but it is nevertheless wrong because it fails to say all that is meant to be said. Facts alone never get us to meaning, and yet life is clearly loaded with intent, and anything that hides that is ultimately false.

"What if they don't believe?" Mitt is Moses now, and I feel like the burning bush: on fire, in the middle of someone else's conversation, and completely unable to do anything about it.

"Mitt, in the name of Jesus, you need do what God is telling you, or you need to step aside and he will use another. Now!" Same quiet voice. Same quiet name. Same sense of urgency. Same demand to decide.

To my shock and horror, Mitt makes his decision, but in a way that completely surprises me. He turns aside. He steps away and disappears from the dream. Poof. Mitt is gone. Just like the balrog.

I find myself shaken, not by Mitt's failure, but by my own (remember, this is my dream, not his). My confidence is so easily misplaced. In friends. In my own ability. In how others think about me. There is so much 'me' in this journey, so much 'in my name', 'in my time', 'according to my plan'. Maybe it has nothing to do with me, and everything to do with someone else. Why do both friend and foe hear the same words - repent, believe, follow, all in his name? Behold, I tell you a mystery...

Just as I think this, there is one last... Ziiiiiiiip! (stereotypical rewind sound).

The scene vanishes and I am lying wide awake, listening to my alarm scream tidings of good news: Satan is gone, morning has come. Time to wake from my death and arise.

Business Time

2007-06-08T09:58:00.000-07:00

It's Friday. Time for something funny. It's "Business Time" (HT: Ryan).
WARNING: Contains sexual content that will thoroughly embarrass your teenage kids (or ours, anyway). But it's hilarious because it just nails so many of our idols when it comes to sex. Brilliant deconstruction. Spot on. And for those who are still unattached, this is what you have to look forward to. You've been warned...

This Makes No Sense

2007-05-31T21:00:00.001-07:00

So this makes no sense.

First, in case anyone's actually reading this on a regular basis (and according to Statcounter, there are about 10-15 of you 'returning visitors' every day), you may have noticed that it's been a LONG time since I've posted anything - nearly two months. So why on earth do you keep coming back? (please note, I'm not at all displeased that you do; I'm just surprised by it).

Second, back in the day (2005 and the early parts of 2006) when I was posting like a maniac, the best we ever averaged was about 40-50 visitors per day. Not bad. But now (again, according to Statcounter), we're averaging 96 a day (with a peak of nearly 140). Most of these folks are new, and I'm guessing they don't come back. So why on earth are new people coming to this site, when nothing new has been posted here in such a long time? (once again, I'm not complaining, just curious).

Add in to the mix that in spite of all this traffic, almost no one ever comments anymore. Hmm...

Part of me wonders if Statcounter is accurate (I think it probably is); so is it robots crawling the blogosphere, looking to harvest email addresses? Or is it real people?

[ATTENTION ALL REAL PEOPLE READING THIS - would you kindly leave a comment on this post and just say hi - just tell me where you're from (vaguely), how you found your way here, and what you were looking for (that you did or didn't find), and if you come back regularly or not. I'm not looking for biographies or anything like that - I'm just curious if there's really a pulse out there. Anyone?]

My guess is that very few people will comment. Gawkers? Strangers passing in the night? Or perhaps they just aren't real people at all. I just don't know...

Some of you (all three of you 'real people' who for some reason or other ARE in fact still reading) - I'd be curious for your input on a followup question. As you've probably noticed, I haven't been posting a lot. There are a number of reasons for this.

First, things are busy in a church plant (no surprise there, but they were busy in seminary too, and I found lots of time to post then).

Second, because blogger didn't support tags when I first started blogging, I split my content out into multiple sites - personal stuff on Granitepeaks, photos on my photoblog, rubber meets the road stuff here on SLD, theological musings on Wayfaring Pilgrim, and stuff about the church plant over on the Missoula Project site. And when you get busy, it becomes a whole lot harder to post to 5 different blogs, let alone one (that said, it's not like I've been overly busy posting on those other sites either).

Third, (and probably closer to the real reason for the slowdown), for the first time in my life I'm spending an awful lot of time talking to folks who share their stories and struggles, and because I'm a pastor planting a church, there's a chance they might tune in and find this blog. And so even though a huge number of blogworthy conversations have been happening, I've been reluctant to talk about what people are saying, lest they think I'm simply using them for blog fodder. I really want to respect the privacy of people who are wrestling. And so I haven't said a lot about all the interesting things that are going on, at least not publically on the blogosphere.

Given all that, I find myself wondering:

should I combine all my blogs into one (and just mix content, so there's at least more volume getting posted, even though that means people might have to sift a little more to determine what they're interested in)?
should I give up blogging altogether?
should I start a new blog, under a new name, and just not tell anyone about it - then I could write what's on my mind and not have to worry about someone who knows me in real life reading what I thought about their conversation?

I'm not sure, and I'd be interested in feedback (assuming there are any real, longtime readers, out there somewhere). Thoughts? Comments? Anyone?

Wondering

2007-04-10T20:02:00.000-07:00

I realize that I'm not exactly the most artistic tool in the shed - but last night, with Coldsmoke as my companion, I was truly inspired. This poem came out of a difficult evening of parenting. One of the hardest things about being a dad is coming to the dinner table, worn out after a long day, looking forward to some quality time with the family and having it ruined by an unruly 3 year-old. Not only is dinner ruined, but so are my hopes and dreams of playing with him after not seeing him all day. This poem was inspired by such a moment as this. Check it out here.

The Morning After

2007-04-02T09:53:00.000-07:00

So I ran across an article on New West this morning talking about what it's like to wake up on the other side of a one night stand:

Now, I know this isn’t an event one usually shares with a widespread and anonymous readership, but stick with me. Though the one-night stand is a fairly common occurrence, and I’ve been on the other side of the Morning After table listening to friends recount their own foggy exploits, this was my first go-around, as it were.

During a day built around eating a lot of toast and watching Law and Order reruns, I didn’t feel the somewhat sullied freedom most people I’d talked to about one-night stands express. I had a much different reaction, and when I figured out what it was, I kind of freaked out. I wanted to see Pajaro again. I, on some weird gut level, expected more out of it than just the one night.

This was not good. What I’d gleaned through vicarious experience was that this is how these things go; it happens, end of story. I knew I was supposed to be grateful for the lack of expectation. Except I wasn’t. I harbored a sense of connection, the implicit sense we’d shared something “special” and that it could manifest as something more. Not only did I feel it, I sort of wanted it. And so I became slightly, um, concerned with how things were being perceived on the other end of this thing. Maybe I wasn’t alone in this.

Go ahead, read the whole thing. Its funny. And sad. And it's the story of everyman.

What I like most about it is not that the guy is feeling this deep sense of guilt ("boy I shouldn't have done that") - on the contrary, he's gripped by a deep sense of wanting something more ("boy I wish it would have lasted").

At the end of the day, both of those emotions are relevant. Yet while we can learn to suppress our sense of guilt (after all, we're Americans - why can't I just do whatever I darn well please!?!?), we can never fulfill that sense of longing that tantalizes us in the first place.

Christ doesn't just say "Don't do that!" - instead, he adds, "You were destined for much better things." And then he goes on to say, "And you're only going to find what you're looking for in relationship with me."

That might sound a little 'out there' (spiritual?), but it's really quite down to earth. We ultimately want a relationship that lasts. We want someone else to want us. And to keep wanting us even when the see the 'real us' (most relationship consists of hiding that for as long as possible, at least until marriage or some kind of 'commitment').

Christ says, "You want someone who will love you as you are and not reject you no matter what you reveal? I'm the only one. And I will never leave you nor forsake you."

It's that last part of the promise that is really scary, because it means that Christ will not leave us where we are - a relationship with him is inevitably a transforming relationship. It changes us, and it also changes the nature of our relationship with others. Which brings us back to the subject at hand.

There was still a part of me that felt bruised by the fact that it was just “one of those things.” I didn’t really want to accept that Pajaro and I weren’t nothin’ but mammals, doin’ it like they do on the Discovery Channel. After six months alone I had latched pretty tightly onto this human connection, sexual and otherwise, and was having a hard time giving it up.

“Does that make me a sucker?” I asked my friend Don Julio over beers this week. “You know, that I was hoping for some kind of relationship?”

“Nah, it just makes you naïve,” Don Julio said. “And maybe a little bit femme.”
“But that’s cool,” he added, draining his glass. “Chicks dig that.”

Funny. But sad. What would it look like for a couple to really commit to one another?

Christ, however, says there's another way - that he can actually make a difference in people's lives, so much so that they can actually love one another the way he loves us. It's worth noting that he doesn't offer us a new technique or method or ethic - instead he offers us himself. And a real relationship with him somehow impacts our relationship with others.

We can't really love until we've really been loved. And that kind of love makes all the difference on the morning after...

[Note: there's a followup article to this on here]

What the Church is All About

2007-03-27T19:55:00.000-07:00

Reading through the comments on this post, I saw a stunning indictment: "Why is it that the church spends 95% of its time coddling insiders?" That may seem a bit harsh, but I think it might be true.

Just today I had a conversation with a nice young woman named Jenny - yeah, she's interested in the church plant; yes, she loves Missoula with all its beautiful pagans; but when are we going to start a Bible study? After all, what she really wants is to grow, to be around mature people, to become more spiritually mature herself. She wants fellowship with believers, with people who've got it together. But it's ok if we don't offer that yet - she's found another church that does, and she's making friends there, and she's thinking she'd like to get more involved there. I mean, don't you think I can just be involved in both?

What struck me is that Jenny is a consumer. How many times do we desire the fruit of our salvation - sanctification, holiness, calm in the face of trials, peace, love, joy - rather than the vinetender from whom all these things flow. And when we pursue the former, rather than the latter, we end up with neither.

I'm reminded of C. S. Lewis, who deeply desired joy. When he pursued joy, he failed to find it. When he pursued God alone, he also found joy.

The church, sadly, falls into the trap of marketing to felt needs. You desire community? Ah, we have some of that over here! Holiness? Hey, we have a twelve step program in stock!

The church coddles believers - insiders - because the church thinks it needs them (just like the believers think they need the various things the church offers). And yet what everyone needs is what Christ alone offers - himself.

Christ offers us himself (go read about the woman at the well in John 4, and look again at what Christ offers her). And he goes on to say that the call of one who would follow Christ is that of a servant, a follower, one who emulates Christ - not serving himself, but taking the form of a servant and dying that others, unbelievers, weaker brothers, might live.

Christ calls us not to be consumers, but servants. Of those inside the church, and also of those outside the church. The infidels. The unbelievers. The 'sinners' in this world. The cities and neighborhoods in which we live. Not for their own sake, but for his - to call them to join us in this self-denying service of Christ.

This is not a sexy call. It's mother Teresa, toiling away in the slums of Calcutta, never really being recognized or appreciated until after she was gone.

Seek holiness for the sake of holiness, and you will never find it. Seek Christ, and seek to serve those whom Christ loves - the poor, the needy, the afflicted, the oppressed, the lost - and you will not only gain Christ, but you will also find holiness. Only then will be ever really experience peace, joy, satisfaction, fulfillment - as we die to ourselves that others might live.

I'm not sure that's what Jenny wants in a church. But that's what the church is meant to be all about. And that's what it means to really know Christ.

Out of the Closet and Into the Church

2007-03-25T21:11:00.000-07:00

So sometime last week, I posted some perspectives on homosexuality, and one of my readers - I'll call her Dianne - left a comment in which she mentioned that she herself had come out of a homosexual lifestyle. Hmm... that's not something you hear about everyday!

Since I'm always interested in firsthand accounts, I asked her if she'd be willing to tell me more about her experiences, and the conversation that followed was fascinating. So much so that I asked if she'd be willing to let me post her reflections here. She agreed, so here it is, cast in the form of an interview...

Christian: Hi Dianne, I'd be very interested in just hearing more of your story - where you were, where you are now, and how you perceive yourself as having moved through this process (what was helpful? what wasn't?). Basically, I'd love to have you tell me about yourself and then just answer any questions that might pop into my head as a result.

Dianne: Ok, here's a basic summary.

Where I was...
In high school I started having thoughts, feelings about it. But I dated guys then and was generally okay with that. My parents really, really sheltered me growing up, so by the time I graduated HS, I felt like there was a sort of parallel universe happening, full of both excitement and fascination, as well as despair, poverty, suffering and darkness -- all of which I had just never experienced or encountered, but want to. At first, just to see 'how the other half lived' but then soon after found its allure too strong, and became committed to it myself.

So, when I moved out on my own and started experiencing the world, I was totally unprepared for what I would be facing - the partying and all of the accompanying revelry. It sucked me in fast, just like quicksand. Of course it would take many years before I could have any perspective at all on the darkness and sinfulness of it all .

Geographically, I was in Philly, Baltimore, New York, Wilmington, in the bar and club scene and going to parties and such. I was a successful manager by day, being promoted and moved into opportunities. However, as a sort of weekend warrior, I lived an exciting and daring life in a culture that was both taboo (from normal society) and the only place where I really felt like I "fit in" and was unconditionally 'loved' and accepted (of course my frame of reference was tainted and twisted by having been raised in a broken family by non-Christians).

"Moving thru this process"...
For me, it was a mire, a trap, an entire lifestyle and worldview that I bought into hook, line, and sinker - including binge drinking, which turned into alcholic/black out drinking. By the time I was 29, the fantasy had started caving in around me and I felt the crush.

I didn't want the life I had anymore, but it was all I knew.

It drove me to AA. I was scared, but found a bit of refuge in going to "gay AA". For the first year, I enjoyed fellowship that was soooooo much better than anything I had before that - people who shared their past, their shortcomings, their fears, and who were geniunely trying to be humble. We spoke of "God" generically, which made me completely aware of God's grace working in my life, but also inflamed my hunger to REALLY know God.

Then, I was invited to a Bible study by a couple of evangelical Christians I worked with. Studying the Bible in fellowship - that was the turning point.

Two particular evenings stand out as definitive:

The first night, when we studied Romans 8:1: "Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus."

What? I wanted to know what about all of the other religions. All of the EE Trained people in the room had a great time with me that night. Within a week, I realized that the "unnamed god" who had brought me out of the pit into AA and who had brought me to Bible study was in fact Jesus Himself. I prayed to accept Christ in November 1995 and continued to go to Bible Study.

Then a couple of months later, the second passage that was definitive in this "process" - John 3:19: "This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. 20 Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. 21 But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God."

(I still start to get teary-eyed over that one.)

Here I was sitting in a Bible study. And the conversation immediately went to homosexuality. Not by me though; by someone I didn't even know at that point. It was like someone had shined a halogen spotlight on me and turned up the furnace to 150 degrees, then took all my clothes off and put me in the middle of Times Square.

The Holy Spirit has never been so convincing to me. Before that, I had argued on internet discussion forums, in letters to editors of all sorts of magazines and papers, with people in all types of venues (including the PTL club, you name it!) all of the arguments about context, about texts speak of men not women, about the 'original Greek', about Sodom being unwelcoming, on and on.

But at that moment, I had nothing. Just deep sorrow. There were more than 30 people at Bible study that night, when I confessed, repented, and believed God's Word. (It was the begining of 1996)

Right after that happened, I found Romans 12. Instead of churning to know completely what all of God's Word meant on this subject and what He wanted from me - ie, to go out with guys, to get marrired, etc., the Holy Spirit led me to my battlecry - Romans 12:1-2 "Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will."

Those three encounters with our wonderful, amazing, triune God through scripture changed my life.

Where I am now...
Fast forward to now. Well, I love the Lord, I love His Word, and I love worshipping Him. If there was one thing that I could just do and do nothing else, it would be to studying His Word in fellowship with other believers and singing songs to Him. Someday, I would really like to attend seminary, but until then I stay plugged into the opportunities we have at GRPC (my church), outreach at work, through volleyball and other ways.

I admit that sometimes I still struggle with a few things. One is the idea of being a "Real Woman" (whatever that means :). The other thing I struggle with is every once in a while I find myself drawn to another woman emotionally and intellectually. It’s never a physical or sexual thing per se, but it is very overwhelming – consuming. I connect much better/ more naturally with men than I do women, so when I’m really connecting spiritually or emotionally with another woman, sometimes I don’t understand how to process it.

In summary, I still struggle, but not with knowing that my identity is NOT gay or homosexual. (That just sounds so foreign even just to write it.) My struggle is more about my identity in Christ and in relationship with His people. How to love? How to trust? How much to trust? How to serve? How to serve them? How to serve Him? These are all open ended questions that I'll just keep asking every day (Lord willing).

Christian: First and foremost, I really appreciate your willingness to respond. This is personal stuff, and you've been very open and forthright. I appreciate that. (I think we need more candor in the church).

Dianne: No problem! I need it too.

Christian: Ok, a couple of followup questions, starting with some simple ones for context. How old are you now? married? still single?

Dianne: 42, not married-yet.

Christian: Have you experienced any change in your sexual desires? (eg towards men rather than women? were the desires for women ever really sexual? or was it more a desire for acceptance / relationship / intimacy? what I'm really wondering about here is how you would quantify / describe the change that your Christ has worked in you)

Dianne: Yes. I really don't experience much nowadays in the way of sexual desires, but, yes, I have found that I have a general desire to be with a man.

Yes, I had life-dominating sexual desires for women for years. I would even go so far as to say that it was a serious addiction. I can't even count the number of women with whom I’ve had various encounters, not mention those I propositioned. (Sidenote: most women tend to be much more monogamous than I was, more like Melissa Etheridge or Ellen DeGeneres).

I believe the change Christ has worked in me is indescribably enormous. The emotions, intimacy, and acceptance issues I sometimes have today are blessings in comparison with the unbridled idolatry that characterized my past.

Christian: Ok, you sit down at a bar and order a beer - a woman sits down beside you: a) would you be able to tell whether or not she was a lesbian? b) what would you say to her if she was? what would you most want to convey?

Dianne: Okay, well, besides the fact that I don't drink alcohol anymore :) - I would have to say that this is an interesting and possibly illuminating analogy. I’ve often thought that sharing your faith is a lot like picking someone up in a bar. And I also think that you can have a sense of another gay/homosexual person in a way very similar to how Christians know that they are talking to other Christians. The kingdom of darkness is really sneaky like this.

a) Sometimes you can tell. But many lesbians look nothing like ‘lesbians’ and many straight women look a lot like ‘lesbians.’ It has more to do with the way they look at you, the way they talk to you, the way they relate to you. Then, you can tell sort of how they think of you.

b) What would I say? First and foremost, I must remember above all that I’m Christ’s ambassador, especially at that moment. Not to compromise the God’s Truth in anyway, but to come beside her, build a friendship, hope that she might open up about where she’s at and try to build a bridge or connection from that. Start with a neutral conversation but try to transition into where she is spiritually.

Build trust and then invite. (Actions speak louder than words). Our church has a lot of sports programs. I’d invite her to play volleyball or softball. Or if she is open to it, see if she would like to get together with friends from my small ‘house church’ and go to a museum or park or some kind of social outing: fellowship with others. Introduce her to other Christians and make sure our relationship is not exclusive in anyway. Build relationships that show her what godly men and godly women can look like when you actually get to know us (because most have only seen what the media shows them.)

Christian: If your church leaders came to you and said "We want to create a church culture that is welcoming to homosexuals, while at the same time being true to the Scriptures (eg. we're not going to stop calling it sin when asked)" - what would you tell them?

Dianne: Teach and preach the Gospel, because we need to hear it all of the time. Be different than the world in the ways that matter (love, openness, humility) by remembering the one Who makes us different. Worship that is engaging and heartfelt is also critical.

We need to confess our sin one to another, and stay vulnerable. If we give people the impression that we are ‘super-Christians’ – that we don’t struggle, we don’t hurt, we don’t sin, that we are on a higher level because of how long we’ve been going to church, or any other thing, then they will probably either run away or just try to polish the outside of the cup to try to fit in. But if we open our lives, they too may open theirs and find forgiveness, healing, & transformation. (for me, this is a MUST do).

Have stuff to invite them to. Do things that include both men and women: don’t separate all of the ‘programs’ into all of the men go do this, while all of the women go do that. There are a lot of gender identity issues and this would make it much more comfortable for people who are just coming in. Do stuff outside of the four walls of the church too, maybe within the communities that these people live in. Also, I would make sure married couples are involved in singles ministries.

Christian: Have you run across any books that would be particularly helpful (to people like you, or to people still struggling w/ homosexuality)? or would you just point people towards Scripture?

Dianne: I would have people come to a Bible study, in fellowship, rather than a plucking out verses. Sit together with the Bible, open it and read it together.

As far as books: “Coming out of Homosexuality” by Bob Davies and “Out of Egypt” by Jeannette Howard were both excellent for me. COH confirmed what I had been going thru. About 80% of that book was exactly what I had been experiencing, so when I read it, it was a huge relief to know that I was not the only person in the world who was leaving “the lifestyle.”

Two more books that I've found helpful recently: Addictions: A Banquet in the Grave and When People Are Big And God is Small, both by Ed Welch.

The Bob Davies book I mentioned before was really helpful early on, as he is writing from experience and has a way of being very practical and relevant. However, I would say the Ed Welch stuff is probably better theologically, depending on where the people are coming from.

Christian: Do you think there's any real difference between homosexual struggles and heterosexual struggles? do people struggling w/ chastity, fidelity, etc need to hear something different? or do they really need to hear the same thing?

Dianne: Great question. I do think there’s a real difference between the two struggles. Chastity and fidelity are certainly a huge part of both issues. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that in a culture that abounds in sexual impurity – the worship of created things, rather than the Creator (who is to be praised forever, amen!) -- the progression of God giving them over to ‘shameful lusts’ (Romans 1:26) seems almost inevitable. I believe that the further we get from Godly heterosexual, monogamous relationships, the more homosexual activity in that culture will increase.

But, in terms of the message – turn to God and worship Him, turn from idolatry. That message is the same.

With homosexual struggles, we often deal with excessive shame and guilt (ie, “shameful lusts" – Romans 1:26.), years of hurt, rejection and abandonment or trust issues that turned us away from trusting authority. I’m not as sure whether these deeper issues are as common for heterosexual strugglers, they might be, but I wouldn’t know about it.

Christian: Any final thoughts?

Dianne: Yeah, the one other thing which made a huge difference for me is prayer - I missed that. We had prayer meetings a lot back then. It's a weak area for me these days, but back then - it was huge!!

Also, have you checked out the Exodus Int'l website? They have a lot of info online. Harvest USA in Philly also has some stuff on their website.

So there you have it - a first hand account from someone who's been there and back again. And rather than say any more about what I think, I'd like to open it up to you, the readers (all three of you). Have any thoughts? Feedback? Additional questions? Feel free to fire away...

Palindromes

2007-03-17T20:37:00.000-07:00

So everybody knows what a palindrome is, right - a word or phrase, which is spelled exactly the same forwards or backwards. The first I ever heard was by Riders in the Sky - The Ballad of Palindrome - and it's brilliant. But then today, I ran across this - Wierd Al Yankovic remaking a Bob Dylan song in palindromes [HT: Mark T]. And it's pretty awesome too. Go ahead and listen to both, and I'll bet you find yourself smiling (both forwards and backwards) :-)

Perspectives on Homosexuality

2007-03-14T21:05:00.000-07:00

Lot's going on lately, which is why I haven't been blogging much - in a church plant, people can (and should) take precedence over "recreational" writing. And all the while my list of "blog fodder" bookmarks continues to grow.

One thing I've been getting asked a lot lately, by unbelievers, is "So what's your position on homosexuality?" The common consensus would seem to run something like this: "Since everyone with a brain KNOWS that homosexuality is just the way people ARE (eg. the way God MADE them), how can Scripture possibly be right in condeming it? I mean, you don't really think that, do you?"

There's lots to be said on this (and I'm not going to try and be exhuastive here - I'm more just trying to capture some thoughts and sketch out a trajectory). I want to start with some comments by Justin Taylor, quoting David Powlison that resonates with how I think about the matter. Evangelical Christiants often want to object strenuously to the notion of a biological component. I think that's the wrong tack.

In light of recent postings about the genetic causes of homosexuality, I received a helpful note from David Powlison. In the book, Psychology and Christianity: Four Views (IVP, 2000), one of the contributors to that volume, David Myers (professor of psychology at Hope College), advocates a genetic basis for homosexuality. Powlison addresses that issue in the course of his response to Myers's essay. With Powlison's permission I'll reprint below the section from his response, preceded by my restatement of some of the points in his correspondence.

Powlison's perspective both broadens and nuances the discussion. For example, he discusses biological predisposition to homosexuality in the context of biological predispositions that we all have. He also digs a bit deeper into the motivational patterns for lesbianism.

He also speculates as to what sort of genetic ratio we might see if an "H-gene" is every discovered behind homosexuality (though the ratio, he says in personal correspondence, is probably stronger than anything that will be discovered). But genetic findings won't be determinative--they will only slide a bell curve one direction or the other.

Powlison often talks about his three children, and that within 10 minutes of their birth he and his wife could see instinctive qualities that showed a continuity with what would prove to be their characteristic gifts and typical tendencies.

The point is that our various "tendencies" are part of a complex picture of the way in which all of us--not just homosexuals--work.

Here's the relevant section from Powlison's essay:
...

It is no surprise that people being redeemed out of homosexual lust still battle with temptations – and that some fall back. This is true of every pattern of sexual lust, not only homosexuality: a woman whose romantic-erotic fantasies are energized by reading romance novels and watching Tom Cruise in Top Gun; a man whose eyes rove for a voyeuristic glimpse down a blouse; a woman aroused by sadomasochistic activities and implements; a man obsessed with young girls. In each of these cases, lust has been patterned around a characteristic object; love will learn a different pattern in Christ’s lifelong school for reorienting the disoriented.

But there is no reason that an energetic, ideologically committed researcher could not find some data that might suggest that each of these sexual disorientations might arise from some biological predisposition. What if future research suggests that a particular personality characteristic, brain structure, hormone level, and perceptual style correlates to adult-to-child homosexuality? To bestiality? To heterosexual promiscuity?

The last mentioned might even prove the strong case for the style of argument Myers makes. Would his argument generalize to these cases? He would have to say Yes, if the statistics seemed to tilt that way. If any of the above persons continue to struggle, or at some point slid back into old patterns, then it might mean that their particular morph of sexuality is innate and valid.

I’m not familiar with the studies of female homosexuality, but let me offer an “unscientific” observation arising from pastoral experience. I’ve known many lesbians driven more by “intimacy lusts” than by the unvarnished eroticism of many heterosexual or homosexual males. In fact, most of them had once been actively heterosexual, unsuccessfully looking for love from a man or men. They eventually found that other women were similarly wired to intimacy and companionship as the context for erotic feelings. An emotional closeness initially developed that was progressively sexualized during the process of redefining oneself as a lesbian.

Such a process makes lucid sense on the Faith’s analysis of the outworking and inworking of sin. And I’ve seen the fiercely tender grace of God break in, progressively rewiring some of these women. Statistics might give definition to words such as “most,” “many,” and “some.” But statistics could neither confirm nor disconfirm the point of view whose plausibility is established theologically, anecdotally, and pastorally.

Myers’s biological data on homosexuality was admittedly rather dim light, not something that could drag a researcher along who was not otherwise willing. But let me offer another “unscientific” comment about data that might yet be discovered. When or if the “homosexuality gene” is discovered, I predict that the facts will be of the following kind. Among people without the H-gene, say 1.5% are oriented towards homosexuality, while among people with the H-gene, say 15% are oriented towards homosexuality.

That would be a very significant statistical difference. But what would it prove? Only that characteristic temptations differ, that our bodies are one locus of temptation, that nothing is deterministic either way. It will be analogous to finding any other “gene for sin.” Those with the “worry gene,” the “anger gene,” the “addictive pleasure gene,” or the “kleptomania gene” will be prone to the respective sins.

Such findings cause no problem for the Faith. They do trouble a Pelagian view that defines sin only as conscious “choice.” But sin is an unsearchable morass of disposition, drift, willful choice, unwitting impulse, obsession, compulsion, seeming happenstance, the devil’s appetite for souls, the world’s shaping influence, and God’s hardening of hard hearts. Of course biological factors are at work: we are embodied sinners and saints. That some people may be more prone to homosexuality is no more significant that that some may be more prone to worry.

Grace is similarly personalized. Some of God’s children find Phillipians 4:4-9 breathes particular comfort amid their besetting temptation to anxiety. Others find the Spirit pacifying their fierce temper and writing James 3:1-4:12 on their hearts. Still others find Proverbs 23:29-35 clobbers them about the madness of their heavy drinking, and that they grow wiser as they quit hanging out with old drinking buddies and spend time with new, wiser companions (Prov. 13:20). Still others experience a keen-edged joy in earning a pay check, paying for things they once stole, and sharing money with people in need (Eph 4:28). Others find that Christ’s comprehensive vision for rearranging everyone’s sexuality – in the whole Bible, not just “a half dozen verses” – reaches into their particular form of disorientation, teaching them to love people, not lust after them. One and all, former neurotics, rageaholics, drunks, thieves, and gays find that truth rings true and rings with hope.

Each of us deals with what Richard Lovelace termed “characteristic flesh” (Lovelace, Dynamics of Spiritual Life, p. 110). Repeat temptations and instances of recidivism do not change the rules. Strugglers with indwelling sin genuinely grow in grace, but often the generic issue remains on stage in some manner throughout a person’s lifetime. Abiding struggles are no reason to throw over the Christian life which is defined as growth amid struggle unto a future perfection (1 John 3:1-3). Those being redeemed out of homosexualized lust are examples of the rule, not exceptions granted license to give up the fight and rationalize their sin.

We live in a culture which accepts as "given" the idea that homosexuality is "just the way I am" (and therefore ok). Want to see just how prevalent this idea is - check out a recent blog post by Anderson Cooper, called Can People Change From Gay To Straight? and then read all the comments.

Of the 50+ responses listed, all but 4 (when last I checked) basically read something like this (in you're best Napolean Dynamite voice): "Well of COURSE NOT, DUMBASS! Science has proven it beyond a shadow of a doubt! Only homophobes and bigots think this way. What kind of idiot are you, anyway, for even asking that question? Jeez..."

Wow. I had no idea it was so definite. So I spent a couple of hours researching on the web, and whaddya know, I couldn't find any scientific "proof" at all that it's purely biological. In fact, quite to the contrary, almost every expert I could locate insisted that it's much more complex - there may indeed be a biological component, but it's also influenced by enviornment and upbringing.

In other words, the "cause" of homosexuality is far from clear. What's particularly troubling is how few people care - I am continually amazed how many people quote "scientists have shown" with a flourish of their hands, and then proceed to pronounce sweeping dogmas (which themselves go well beyond any scientific "consensus").

Even worse, what about the fact that I have a good friend who spent close to 20 years in a gay lifestyle - by his own admission, that was his identity. And yet Christ changed that - he's now happily heterosexual, married, and has a beautiful young daughter. He would certainly not describe this transformation as "coerced" or "fake" - rather, he would describe it as "authentic" and "freeing".

What do scientists and skeptics say in light of such "data" as this? Well, they reject it, of course! Because it can't possibly be right! Why not? Because they know that homosexuality is just "they way people ARE... it can't be changed! That's what all the data shows!"

Hmm. Perhaps we are skeptical of data which doesn't fit our "theory". Perhaps we are not quite so "neutral" as we'd like to believe.

Powlison's point, of course, stands even if there is a "biological component" to homosexuality - he rightly suggests that if someone wants to find it, they might well be able to locate a "biological component" for lots of things. And that still will not excuse them in the eyes of God.

Rom 5:12-14 actually argues something very similar - not about homosexuality, per se, but about sin - we all die, because we are all sinners; we are all sinners, because we all share in Adam's first sin; we stand guilty because we are implicated along with him - we are his heirs (biological component).

Having said all that (probably thoroughly offending any unchurched friends who might happen to read this blog), now I'll try and tick off any remaining friends on the other side of the aisle.

I don't think homosexuality will keep someone out of heaven. I don't think someone is automatically "not a Christian" because of what they think about homosexuality. I don't think any sin is big enough to separate us from the love of God, if we are in Christ (Rom 8:31+).

And it's that last little phrase that makes all the difference, because if we are in Christ, we cannot help but be transformed - because that's the nature of Christ, the gospel, and biblical change. Being connected to Christ transforms the way God treats us - we are reconciled to him, we become his friends, rather than his enemies (Rom 5:10) - but it also transforms us (Rom 6:4). That is the nature of Christ's death and his life.

So homosexuals are welcome in our church - we're not going to try to change them (after all, I can't change anyone - only God can change a heart).

At the same time, they will hear us say that homosexuality is wrong (and before you *gasp*, ask yourselves WHY we think it is wrong - is it because we are homophobes and bigots and we want to look down on them because of this? If so, may God rightly condemn us! Or is it perhaps because we believe that this is what God's Word teaches, and we are simply trying to be obedient to it, rather than being hypocrites? If so, then you should probably condemn God rather than us). We say this not because we hate them, but because we love them.

They will also hear us say that change is possible, and that is something very distinct from anything the world is saying. Think about this for a moment. How many times do you hear of homosexuals who say "I LONG for change, I WISH I was normal, I WANT to be straight, but I just can't make it happen"?

For those who think it's simply biological, the best they can say is "get over it, that's just the way you are." Christians, however, have a different message - change is possible for those who desire it, but that change only comes as we confess ourselves to be "in the wrong" and cling to Christ that we might be transformed.

Change is possible, no matter what your sin, no matter what your disposition (whether biological, environmental, chemical, or whatever). I can point you to examples in Scripture, and I can point you to examples in real life. I myself am a case in point - a work in process, who is being transformed slowly but surely into someone who is different from what I once was.

Ok, that's probably enough for now...

[PS - re-reading through this, I notice that I've used the term 'homosexuality' throughout. I think some Christians want to differentiate between 'homosexuality' (as ontology, the way the ARE) and 'homosexual practice' (behavior, what we DO, acting upon the impulse) - and they typically say the former is ok, only the latter is sin.

It doesn't particularly bother me if someone wants to think this way, but I don't think it's particularly biblical either - Scripture never really draws a distinction between who we are and what we do - what we do flows out of who we ARE (Mk 7), and it also helps define who we are - someone who murders IS a murderer; someone who steals IS a thief (but in each of these cases, our actions originate in the desires of our heart - God is never, ever to blame).

So I'm not particularly inclined to try and soften the blow - "Yeah, homosexuality is fine, as long as you don't act on it" - I'd rather just be honest and say, "Look, any desire of our heart that is contrary to God's Word is wrong, simply because he says so - but there is always hope for change, if we are willing to repent and believe." And I realize that's a harder sell. But I think it's more honest to Scripture, and more fair to the people we interact with.

We need to remember that Christ should constantly challenge us. If I am not feeling the challenge of the gospel, I am probably not seeing Christ clearly - I have probably made him in my own image. So we need to constantly be submitting ourselves to both the challenge and the comfort of Scripture. This is still just as true for me (a Christian for 30+ years) as it is for the worst "sinner" out there.

Ok, I'll stop now. If you agree w/ this post, please don't say anything. If you disagree, I'd love to hear from you.]

The Memory Keeper's Daughter

2007-03-01T14:19:00.000-07:00

I picked up a book last night called The Memory Keeper's Daughter, by Kim Edwards - it was terrible, not because it was bad, but because it was so good: I couldn't put it down until I finished the final pages at 3 in the morning. Argh! Not a good thing, when your alarm goes off at 5:50 AM.

What fascinates me about this book is what it has to say about "secrets." Here's the basic premise (hopefully without giving too much away) - a doctor is forced to deliver his wife's child in the middle of a raging snowstorm. The only complication is that she's actually carrying twins - the first, a healthy beautiful baby boy; the second, a Downs Syndrome baby girl. The year is 1964, when such children are regularly institutionalized - after all, babies like this rarely survive long anyway, and even if they do, their quality of life is marginal at best.

As a doctor, David Henry knows his daughters prognosis full well, and rather than force his young wife Norah to deal with such a tragedy, he makes a snap decision to try and protect her from a lifetime of unspeakable grief. His solution: hand the "defective" daughter to his nurse to deliver to an institution, while he informs his wife of the tragedy - she delivered twins, but her daughter did not survive childbirth. She is dead. Gone.

With that simple little secret, the future is inescapably changed, his doom is sealed - unbeknownst to anyone, the nurse flees into hiding to raise the child as her own.

The rest of the book is riveting, because we get to see firsthand the effects of his fall - on his relationship with his wife, his son, and eventually everyone else around him. It's a tragic book (I'm not sure I could read it again), because it's not Hollywood - it's brutally true to the lives that many of us have experienced ourselves.

The one ray of hope comes unexpectedly, as David Henry confesses everything - no more secrets - to a young woman with child.

In the silence David started talking again, trying to explain at first about the snow and the shock and the scalpel flashing in the harsh light. How he has stood outside himself and watched himself moving in the world. How he had woken up every morning of his life for eithteen years thinking maybe today, maybe this was the day he would put things right. But Phoebe was gone and he couldn't find her, so how could he possibly tell Norah?

The secret had worked its way through their marriage, an insidious vine, twisting; she drank too much, and then she began having affairs, that sleazy realtor at the beach, and then the others; he's tried not to notice, to forgive her, for he knew that in some real sense the fault was his. Photo after photo, as if he could stop time or make an image powerful enough to obscure the moment when he had turned and handed his daughter to Caroline Gill. ...

He had handed his daughter to Caroline Gill and that act had led him here, years later, to this girl in motion of her own, this girl who had decided yes, a brief moment of release in the back of a car or in the room of a silent house, this girl who had stood up later, adjusting her clothes, with no knowledge of how that moment was already shaping her life.

She cut [paper] and listened. Her silence made him free. He talked like a river, like a storm, words rushing through the old house with a force and life he could not stop. At some point he began to weep again, and he could not stop that either. Rosemary made no comment whatsoever. He talked until the words slowed, ebbed, finally ceased.

Silence welled. She did not speak. ...

"All right," she said [at last]. "You're free."

And this single act of honesty produces the deepest intimacy he has ever experienced - it's not sexual, but relational - with a human being who knows the very worst about him and yet who does not reject him for it.

He'd poured out his story to her in such a rush, the first and last time he had ever told it, and she had listened without judging him. There was freedom in that; David could be completely himself with Rosemary, who had listened to what he'd done without rejection him and without telling anyone, either....

He confesses. She accepts him as he his. And he finally finds freedom.

What if the church could be like this - a place where you could lay all your garbage on the table, all the deepest darkest secrets that you've never told anyone, and still find acceptance, forgiveness, love. There is something deeply freeing about honesty and real love - it never minimizes the wrongs we have done; it embraces us in spite of them; and it refuses to leave us in our place of desparate isolation.

I think the church must be like this, because God is like this. And this is the kind of church we desire to be, because this is the only way to experience the freedom of the gospel.

Getting Offensive

2007-02-28T14:51:00.000-07:00

So I posted a job description recently over on Wayfaring Pilgrim: "Wanted: ORFWB (Outgoing. Reformed. Female. With a Brain)." And that last little phrase has been drawing some fire.

Typically, complaints run something like this: "Hey, what's with this 'with a brain' part? Do you think most women are stupid? Don't you know how offensive that sounds?"

Which is, of course, not at all what we mean to convey. I've known many people (of both genders) who are smart, nice, good, and very competant at what they do, etc. But I've also worked with a handful of people in my life (again, of both genders) who are exceptional - in terms of their intellect, their ability to communicate, and in this case their understanding of the gospel and their love for the lost. What I'm trying to get at here is that we don't want just anyone for this position - we want a woman who is really sharp, intellectually (and theologically). So how are we supposed to convey that?

It's been interesting how many women have no problem with this language at all. Yet of those who did, most understand our intent, but still find the verbiage offensive. And that got me thinking about the nature of 'offense'.

Offense is a powerful force in our society - it's like approval in reverse. Many times, we use it as a weapon, to coerce people into changing their behavior, to justify rejecting them when they don't. As such, we often go to great lengths to avoid offending people.

We need to be careful in what we say here. Paul talks about being all things to all people in order that he might win some for the sake of the gospel (1 Cor 9:22). He seeks to avoid offending people - not simply because 'offense' is something bad to be avoided at all cost, but rather because the gospel itself is fundamentally offensive, a stone which causes people to stumble (Rom 9:33, etc). And that's important to recognize. There are times when offensiveness is vitally important.

Christianity is a bloody, offensive thing. And that offensiveness is there by divine design, because it requires us to get over ourselves in order to embrace it.

The very nature of 'offense' is that I look down on others (and smile upon myself) because I simply can't believe how right I am and how wrong they are. I am putting my confidence in my rightness, and rejecting others because of their wrongness. The gospel, however, stands this on its head: "You are in the wrong, my friend, so much so that there is no hope for you, at least not in you. Your only hope lies in another (Christ)." And that is very offensive to those of us who are constantly looking for reasons to take pride in ourselves.

One of the things I am finding in church planting is that unbelievers are extremely offensive in many ways - they regularly denigrate God, faith, virtue, and truth. Believers are often just as bad - the regularly take pride in their morality, their spirituality. And both sides often find real Christian faith quite offensive - "Who do you think you are, saying your way is the only way to be saved?", "Who do you think you are, hanging out with those sorts of people?"

Yet if I am to minister to people like these, I must excel at not taking offense. I must have thick skin. I must be able to turn the other cheek. I must love my enemies. I must choose to overlook the offense. I must be willing to bear all sorts of mistreatment - false accusations, misinterpretations, slander, jeering - all for the sake of God's message, that they might hear Christ, and stumble over him perhaps, but never over me.

In light of all this, perhaps it's best to just leave in the "With a Brain" part in our ad. We mean no ill by it (it's a complement, not an insult), and even if we took it out, there would be other things people could be offended by (the fact that we are complementarian, the fact that we are PCA, the fact that we want to hire a woman at all). Ultimately, those who desire to find offense will inevitably be able to find some reason for it if they simply look long enough and hard enough (after all, I really AM a sinner).

At the end of the day, it seems the real question is whether someone can overlook offense for the sake of the kingdom.

Humble Pie

2007-02-28T10:50:00.000-07:00

I was humbled yesterday. We visited a church on Sunday, and it was one of the worst sermons I've heard in a long time - we talked about it on the way home in the car, I complained about it to Ryan, I lamented the miserable quality of preaching in the world today, etc. Woe woe woe. If only it had been me preaching...

Then yesterday afternoon, I sat with a young woman who had also been in that same church on Sunday. And the first thing she asked (gushingly), was: "What did you think of that sermon on Sunday? Wasn't that great???" I simply responded (lamely), "Well tell me what you liked about it..."

And she did. And it was good. She heard the gospel, perhaps in spite of the preacher. God met her on Sunday, in spite of the inadequacies of the medium, or even the messenger. And that was both encouraging and convicting to me.

Convicting, because far too often I put my confidence in my own ability - if I preach well enough, God will use it. And that's simply not the case. God uses who he darn well feels like using. In his timeframe, not ours.

But this was encouraging too, because it means that even here in Missoula where there's not a whole lot of good preaching, I am reminded that God is still alive and well and working - HE is the real shepherd of his sheep, and I have a feeling there are a lot more of them around than we sometimes think. Yeah, they're scattered across the countryside, out in all sorts of dangerous places where they really shouldn't be, and a lot of them have sheep crap smeared all over them... but they're alive, and they're not alone. God is caring for them. And he won't let them go.

At the end of the day, our effectiveness in ministry never rests on us (no matter how gifted, prepared, or excellent we happen to be) - it always depends on God. And that's a good thing, even if it is humbling.

You're So Vain

2007-02-27T11:38:00.000-07:00

Well whaddya know - Vanity is on the rise among college students. On the one hand, this isn't particularly surprising - I've been noticing for a while now that many late teens and early twenty somethings seem to have a remarkable sense of entitlement. So there's part of me that's inclined to say, "look, that's just the way these young kids are..." (and then wonders, "Was I like that?")

But the story seems to suggest that what we're seeing now is not simply a continuation of past trends - the numbers actually seem to be increasing...

"We need to stop endlessly repeating 'You're special' and having children repeat that back," said the study's lead author, Professor Jean Twenge of San Diego State University. "Kids are self-centered enough already."

This gives a hint at what the researchers view as the cause:

The researchers traced the phenomenon back to what they called the "self-esteem movement" that emerged in the 1980s, asserting that the effort to build self-confidence had gone too far.

And that's a little surprising to hear coming from someone in the professional sciences (of course, my parents have been saying that for years). As do the calls for remedies:

Campbell said the narcissism upsurge seemed so pronounced that he was unsure if there were obvious remedies. "Permissiveness seems to be a component," he said. "A potential antidote would be more authoritative parenting. Less indulgence might be called for."

Wow. I'm shocked. And this leads to some interesting questions.

For instance, what does this say about a younger generation often characterized as "postmodern" - postmoderns supposedly love and value authenticity more than anything else, and yet vanity is decidely inauthentic; it's seeing oneself as better than we really are.

It's also worth pondering how they measure this stuff. The test measures narcissim by asking "for responses to such statements as 'If I ruled the world, it would be a better place,' 'I think I am a special person' and 'I can live my life any way I want to.'

Ask yourself how you'd respond. Are these really simple yes/no questions? On the one hand, I want to say, "No, I'm not a particularly special person. If I really want to be honest, I actually suck in a lot of ways - my motives are often very impure, even when I'm doing very good things. (And what about those times when I'm actually doing bad things?)" At the same time, that answer doesn't really cover it.

You see I AM a very special person - not because of me, per se, but because God loves me. Scripture says that if we are "in Christ", if we are "part of the family" so to speak, Christ actually does something special for us - he intercedes with God on our behalf, he takes the blame for what is wrong with me, he covers me with what is right with him. So there is a very real sense where God looks at me in the here and now and sees me as glorius, perfected, holy.

16th century reformers had a term for this - they said we are simultaneously saints and sinners, and if we do not somehow account for BOTH of those realities, we will fail to do justice to the human situation. If we don't acknowledge human sin, we'll fall into narcisism - we'll think we're better than we really are. But if we don't acknowledge the saintliness that is presently ours in Christ, we'll never really be able to live with one another, because we won't be able to stand the imperfections in others (and they won't be able to stand the inperfections in us).

Bonhoeffer talks about this in his Life Together - as Christians, we must always look at one another through the lens of Christ, not through our own eyes. Fail to do this, and community is over, dead, kaput even before it gets started. This is the only possible way we can really be honest and authentic about just how messed up we really are.

It's not vanity, because we see ourselves as we really are, but it's not despairing either, because we deal with one another on the basis of what we will someday fully become in Christ. Ultimately, I'm not sure how a scientific survey is ever going to capture that full spectrum of understanding.

Applause Please

2007-02-22T14:58:00.000-07:00

I'd actually like to applaud this guy - not because he made a stupid mistake, but because he did something, he acted, he tried to do the right thing and intervene to help someone. How many of us would do the same? As someone who has listened through the walls of my Philly rowhouse as my neighbors fought like cats and dogs (ever wake to the sound of a lamp crashing into the wall next to your head?) I've found myself wondering 'Should I call the cops? Should I do something?' And most of time, I don't. I sit there and worry about making a mistake, and so I don't do anything at all. This guy didn't, and I think he should feel good about that (even if he does feel a little embarrassed for being wrong). I sure hope some of the cops patted him on the back privately...

Fifth-Columnist in the Soul

2007-02-20T20:39:00.000-07:00

Marilyn dropped this on my desk a few minutes ago; it's a great quote from C.S. Lewis about misgivings and faith:

Just as the Christian has his moments when the clamour of this visible and audible world is so persistent and the whisper of the spiritual world so faint that faith and reason can hardly stick to their guns, so, as I well remember, the atheist too has his moments of shuddering misgivings, of an all but irresistible suspician that the old tales may after all be true, that something or someone from outside may at any moment break into his neat, explicable, mechanical universe.

Believe in God and you will have to face hours when it seems obvious that this material world is the only reality: disbelieve in Him and you must face hours when this material world seems to shout at you that it is not all.

No conviction, relistion or irreligious, will, of itself, end once and for all this fifth-columnist in the soul. Only the practice of Faith resulting in the habit of Faith will gradually do that.

- from Religion: Reality or Substitute?' in Christian Reflections

Faith as a practice, a habit, a place to dwell. I like that...

Coping With Grief

2007-02-19T22:40:00.000-07:00

I have a dear friend, a seminary professor, who died recently, leaving behind a wife and kids who are struggling with grief.

I have a dear brother whose wife left him for another man just last week. He too is struggling with grief right now.

The death of a husband, the death of a marriage. There are a lot of similarities between the two.

And yet when I read things like this - Libbie's reflections on life after Al - I am hopeful, because there is life after death - God is a God of resurrections. He raises the dead. Dead people. Dead marriages. And those two things - hope in the face of death, and the reality of resurrection - are very, very foreign to this world in which we live.

Libbie is a great example of what that hope looks like in there here and now, and so I find myself wondering (and hoping) whether God might not somehow miraculously save my brother's marriage, or at least grant him the grace to walk through that death the way Libbie has walked through Al's.

I am not sure whether he has any such hope right now, so I am hoping for him, looking forward to seeing what God will do.

Worse Than Iraq

2007-02-14T09:38:00.000-07:00

This article on CNN caught my attention this morning - these two statements in particular jumped out at me:

We're fighting a war that is inflicting even greater casualties than the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and, incredibly, costing even more money. We're losing the War on Drugs, and we've been in retreat for three decades.
...
How can anyone rationalize the fact that the United States, with only 4 percent of the world's population, consumes two-thirds of the world's illegal drugs?

Worth reading the whole thing...

The Truth About Married Sex

2007-02-06T11:44:00.000-07:00

Justin Taylor has a great little post called The Truth About Married Sex that is well worth reading - he begins with Lauren Winner's latest comments, and concludes with some fine reflections by David Powlison. I couldn't say it any better than he's already done, so I won't try. Go read it.

Moving On

2007-02-06T10:46:00.000-07:00

For those of you who might be interested, I just wanted to mention that friend and professor Al Groves passed away last night after a long struggle with cancer.

For those of you who are struggling with sickness, or who can't imagine how you'd manage in such a struggle - or even for those who wonder what makes Christians different - I'd highly encourage you to click on over to Al's blog, where his wife Libbie has done a fine job of sharing both the struggles and the joys that they have experienced through this process.

You can also read my own past reflections on Al, and his cancer. In a nutshell, I think Al and Libbie exemplify what it looks like to suffer as Christians - not pointlessly, not painlessly, but suffering eschatologically, suffering with a purpose and a direction.

As for me, it was sitting in Al's Old Testament History and Theology class where I first really grasped the significance of the indicative and the imperative.

And as for Al, those two are now finally one and the same. Welcome home, brother...

Thoughts on Hotel Rwanda

2007-02-03T00:22:00.000-07:00

I just finished watching Hotel Rwanda, and I found myself pretty much overwhelmed by the experience. This was a very, very difficult movie to watch, especially since we're not talking about a distant holocaust some sixty years past - we're talking about a million people slaughtered 13 years ago, while the world stood by. And I wonder how many of us really care, even now, even after seeing the movie.

When the credits scrolled, I found myself weeping (and believe me, I'm not a cry-er), asking God for justice and mercy. Some people say tragedies like this demonstrate that God does not exist (after all, how could he let this happen?). My mind moves in the opposite direction - to me, it demonstrates that all of humanity is twisted and bent - ultimately, at the end of the day, most of us act in our own self interest. We hate and we kill (if we can get away with it) because we cannot forgive.

Forgiveness is an ultimate act of faith, because in it we say that we trust God to be just, to make things right in the end. It takes faith to forgive your enemies. Tragedies like this demonstrate that we are lost without God, for if there is no God, then there is no hope for ultimate justice - it's all up to us, and frankly, our track record sucks.

Not just the Republicans, not just the Democrats, not just the wealthy, noth just the poor, not just the Americans, not just the Hutus and the Tutsis and the Sunnis and the Shiites - all of us. At one point or another, all of us do evil, or overlook the evil done to others. There is no one righteous, not even one.

All of this raises several questions. I would welcome thoughtful answers from either side of the aisle.

I suspect most of us look at the situation in Rwanda (and now Darfur) and think, "We should have done something." Civil war is a heinous thing. But what if pulling out of Iraq means civil war? What if it ends up being another Rwanda? I'm not talking about oil, or Saddam, or why we went in the first place. I'm just asking, "What is the correlation between the two? How is it that we should have intervened in Rwanda, but that we should not stay in Iraq to try and prevent civil war?" I know we talk about American lives lost. But how many Iraqi lives have been saved by us being there? And how many more will be lost if we just pull out?

Are we all for pulling out on principle (and if so, what principle would have us pull OUT of Iraq yet go IN to Darfur?)? Or do we want to get out simply because George Bush got us in?

Similarly, I know global warming is front page news right now. While it is certainly a huge potential problem, it is still just that - potential. We don't know for sure if its caused by us, we're not sure if we can actually do anything about it even if it is, we certainly don't see much indication that anyone is willing to radically re-orient their lives to the extremes that would probably be required, and the whole bill doesn't come due for 50-100 years (at the earliest). And yet we have much bigger problems right here and now.

How do we justify the way we prioritize our crises? Why have we decided that global warming is the most important issue, more important than things like ethnic cleansing, the sex trades?

I doubt there are easy answers here, but I find myself wondering why I don't hear many folks asking these questions. Why do we avoid the specific, the local, the immediate, and wring our hands instead over the past (Hitler - boy, we would have handled THAT differently), and the future (New York starlets lamenting the fact that their condo might be underwater in a hundred years), and the potential problems (gosh darn it, one of these days an ateroid is going to get us - what are we going to do about THAT?). Why are we so slow to really tackle the hard questions in the hear and now? So quick to point the finger at those who try and say they got it all wrong?

I'm rambling, and at the end of the day, I think I must return to where I started, asking God for justice, for mercy, and also for faith, to walk day by day through this very scary world, even though we cannot see how it can all possibly work out.

Come quickly Lord Jesus!

Even in Missoula

2007-02-01T17:41:00.000-07:00

Interesting experience in Bernice's today...

News From Iraq (w/ subtitles)

2007-01-31T21:25:00.000-07:00

I'm sorry, I don't care which side of the aisle you find yourself on when it comes to the issue of Iraq, but this is just WAY to funny not to pass along [HT: Jollyblogger]

How People Get Here

2007-01-30T16:56:00.000-07:00

It's always interesting to look at what Google search queries bring people here. Here's an example from the past day or two...

is it lust to desire a wife - ../2005/07/dealing-with-lust-rest-of-story.html
i crave his attention advice sexual fantasies - ../2005/07/dealing-with-lust.html
community buzz words - ../2006/01/postmodern-buzz-word-community.html
favourite bridget jones quotes - ../2005/03/favorite-movie-quotes_28.html
do christians need to give up everything - ../2006/03/how-not-to-do-youth-ministry.html
bonhoeffer quotes life together - ../2005/11/thinking-about-life-together.html
favourite movie quotes - ../2005/03/favorite-movie-quotes_28.html
dimples of venus - ../2006/03/dimples-of-venus.html
you don't eat no meat? ok i'll make lamb - ../2005/03/favorite-movie-quotes_28.html
dimples of venus - ../2006/03/dimples-of-venus.html
favorite movie quotes - ../2005/03/favorite-movie-quotes_28.html
finding fulfillment in relationships - ../2005/10/finding-fulfillment.html
sitting in a 3.8 metre sea kayak - ../2006/02/one-of-those-days.html
sexologist - ../2005/12/susana-sexologist.html
luther covetousness - ../2005/04/sanctification-by-faith-2-of-3.html
how to overcome lust - ../2005/07/dealing-with-lust-rest-of-story.html
mormons and being god - ../2005/05/mormon-christology-q1-being-of-god.html
ktisis - ../2006/02/kaine-ktisis-new-creation.html
christian men deal with lust - ../2005/07/dealing-with-lust.html
dealing with lust young people - ../2005/07/dealing-with-lust.html
favorite movie quotes - ../2005/03/favorite-movie-quotes_28.html
lust for wife too far - ../2005/07/dealing-with-lust-rest-of-story.html
dimples of venus - ../2006/03/dimples-of-venus.html
sexologist - ../2005/12/susana-sexologist.html
drsimrak - ../2005/02/evangelism-sucks.html
spanglish movie quotes - ../2005/03/favorite-movie-quotes_28.html
men dealing with lust - ../2005/07/dealing-with-lust.html
gnomey - ../2006/09/adventures-of-gnomey.html
what do sexologists do - ../2005/12/susana-sexologist.html
grace point church missoula - ../2005/04/what-church-is-all-about.html

So there you have it - lust, sex, movie quotes, and those darn "Dimples of Venus" (that one's a regular recurrance). Interesting. What does that say about our readers? And what does it say about me? Hmm...

It's also interesting (and a little puzzling) to note that even though we have a fair amount of traffic - 30-50 unique readers a day - hardly anyone leaves comments. Which makes you wonder, are these real people? Do they just say "What the heck is this?!?!" and move on, or do they actually read it and consider? Not sure I have any answers here, but it's interesting to consider...

Dreams of Seeing

2007-01-30T09:18:00.000-07:00

I am not sure of the precise moment I died, but I remember well the shock that followed. There was none of this "fade-to-black-followed-by-nothingness"; on the contrary, I could still see.

That in itself might seem quite surprising - after all, how can you see when your eyelids close? When the lifeblood stops flowing? When neurons stop firing? When riggamortus sets in? Just like that, a lifetime of sinister hints and ominous foreclosure notices ("oh, my aching back!", "oh, my balding head!", "I'm not as young as I used to be...") suddenly come due with a vengeance. Decay and Decomposition show up for dinner uninvited, and they will not leave until you're finished.

Of course it probably should be surprising. How can you possibly "see" when your eyes cease to function, when your body gives up the ghost and finally expires? Yet for some reason, the scientific incongruities did not trouble me in the least.

(Ok, I admit it - I've never lost a lot of sleep over unsolved math problems or inexplicable phenomonological events. But I suspect I'm not alone. I mean, we know they're important, theoretically speaking, but most of our scientific facts are so sufficiently detached from "real life" that it doesn't really bother us that much to suddenly discover they were wrong. After all, how many of us really care about global warming? When it's hot, we worry and fret; when it's cold, we laugh it all off; and if only our favorite politician would get elected, things would work out in the end. Now if I could just afford one of those new HDTV flat panels! Damn the price of gas these days - it makes it impossible for a guy to get ahead...)

We are people of the moment, and truths which cost us little are easily discarded. So it was with me - I realized I was dead; I realized I could still see. Neither of those surprised me in the least. No, what actually surprised me was the quality of my sight. Not only could I still see - but I could see as I never had seen before.

Now, I have had terrible vision ever since I came down with scarlet fever as a child; remove my glasses and I was blind as a bat (no wonder I got stitches playing baseball in 3rd grade - I couldn't see the ball until it was less than ten feet away). It was quite obvious now, though, that I no longer needed glasses - they were still laying on my prostrate from, sprawled over there upon the ground; and I, standing over here, could see like I've never seen before.

It wasn't simply a matter of improved clarity or definition. True, I could see a whole new array of details, like when I first got glasses in the 4th grade: "Holy cow!!! I had no idea people could see like this! Whoa..." This was certainly like that, only much stronger and with no headache an hour later. In fact, I felt like I had just gotten over a headache, a nasty migraine, and I could finally see clearly again.

It was rather like awaking from a spell of color blindness to discover whole range of colors, hues and tones which I had never before known to exist. The Indian Paintbrush beside the trail was simply screaming - vibrant, stunning, glory! The mountain grass surrounding it, pulsating like moss beneath the water - drowning, breathing, alive! The granite backdrops, bleeding ochre and rust, mixed with flecks of gold and diamonds, sparkling in the afternoon sun - once a molten river, now frozen stiff, impassible.

The whole scene looked like a watercolor canvas, before it dries, that mystical moment when the colors come to life and go dancing of their own accord across the paper. This is what the artist yearns to capture, and yet it never lasts, it always dries and fades; and there I stood: not gazing at a painting, but standing within it, the source, the inspiration for all paintings, the place only the best of artists ever sees, and even then only in his mind's eye - colors swirling, beauty unleashed, creation mesmerizing. (No, I did not pass away while nibbling hallucinogenic mushrooms, for those who are wondering).

My other senses were similarly affected. I suddenly realized what it would have been like to be born a dog, to be able to read scents like the pages of a book - earth and bark, grass and loam, deer and elk; over that way, the hint of mountain grouse; over this way, the smell of bear, blood, crushed berries. All this in multicolor, like I had never smelled it before.

The same was true of sounds - I could hear the winds in the pines and the grass; the timeless drip of water on stone; the rustling of willows; the whines of frightened cubs. Of course, I could have heard all those things even when I lived. Now, however, I could hear much, much more - pine needles stretching, greening, falling, drying; sunlight drenching rocks, laughing as it jumped of water to dancing nimbly on aspen leaves. I could even hear lichens growing (If ever you die, be sure to listen for it).

All told, a caucophany of input, yet with no hint of sensory overload. But even this seemed surprisingly unsurprising. I remember thinking (how does one think without a brain, anyway?) that it was not so much as if my senses had been infused with some new capacity, but rather as if some sort of blinders had been removed. It was not so much as if my physical eyes had allowed me to see, rather, they had actually prevented me from truly seeing all along. And now that they were gone, I could finally see as one was really meant to see.

That word 'meant' is important, for here was the part that was truly surprising. I suddenly discovered that not only could I see the details as never before, but now I could see the meaning of things as well. I'm not sure of the 'how' or the 'why' (more of those questions that don't bother you once you're dead) - I just knew: I knew what things meant, and I knew that I knew. Meaning was everywhere - not just in death, but in every inch of my life as well. I was surrounded by meaning, and had been all along - I had just been utterly blind to it.

Actually, blind is not quite the right word here - even as I thought it, I realized the term to be ultimately inappropriate. No, the problem was not my eyes, as if they were somehow defective. On the contrary, the problem was me. My eyes were simply following orders, showing me what I wanted to see, suppressing what I didn't. I had not been blind in my living - it was much worse than that; I had been willfully self-deceptive, and now in retrospect it was clear that I had known it all along, even in spite of my best attempts to convince myself that I was neither. That was the part of death which I found so surprising. And terrifying, because of what it meant.

With that realization, I awoke to find myself lying in that same mountain meadow, stunningly beautiful, yet strangely faded in comparison to what I had just experienced.

It is not often that one dreams of seeing.

Week 12

2007-01-27T09:23:00.000-07:00

Jeremy Huggins is writing again, this time to his unborn child:

I read today that you can now open and close your fists, like miniature hearts budding on your arms. You will certainly hear things that will make you close those fists, make you want to strike out, but do not confuse your enemies. As with your heart, keep your hands open, your ears, and you will hear this: what angers you is not, finally, your neighbor, but the very thing that angers that neighbor, that the world is deformed, infected with shame.

The whole thing is short, beautiful, and very much well worth reading. I wish I could write like this. Go read it. And then let us all think about what we are saying to our own children...

Casual Sex is a Con

2007-01-18T13:52:00.000-07:00

Ran across another very interesting article (amazing what happens when you catch up on blogs), this one called Casual Sex is a Con, by Dawn Eden. Here's a snippet:

But in a wider sense, losing my virginity, far from being the demarcation between past and future, was just a blip on the continuum of my sexual degradation. The decline had begun when I first sought sexual pleasure for its own sake.

Our culture — both in the media via programmes such as Sex and the City and in everyday interactions — relentlessly puts forth the idea that lust is a way station on the road to love. It isn’t. It left me with a brittle facade incapable of real intimacy. Occasionally a man would tell me I appeared hard, which surprised me as I thought I was so vulnerable. In truth, underneath my attempts to appear bubbly, I was hard — it was the only way I could cope with what I was doing to my self and my body.

The misguided, hedonistic philosophy which urges young women into this kind of behaviour harms both men and women; but it is particularly damaging to women, as it pressures them to subvert their deepest emotional desires. The champions of the sexual revolution are cynical. They know in their tin hearts that casual sex doesn’t make women happy. That’s why they feel the need continually to promote it.

(click here to read the whole thing)

Reminds me a lot of some of the things Lauren Winner has been saying (quick links).

It also raises a question I'd like to sincerely ask any gays/lesbians who might stumble across this blog - is it just me, or is the gay community obsessed with sex? I ask this because I want to better understand the homosexual community here in Missoula - what are there hopes and dreams, fears and desires, what it might look like for a church to actually serve them well? And so I've been reading their newspapers, seeking to talk w/ folks who know that scene, etc. And it just seems to be much more prominent than in non-gay publications, conversations, etc.

This might simply be my own naivete; these same elements are certainly present in the heterosexual scene (albeit in a more under-the-surface, taken-for-granted kind of way) - so please don't mistake this for a homophobic slam. I'm just curious if this is indeed a contour of the gay culture, or whether its merely a reflection something indemic to western civilization as a whole. Would be interested in your thoughts on this...

Another Perspective on Illegal Immigration

2007-01-18T13:31:00.000-07:00

NewWest has become one of my favorite blogs of late - it's all about stuff that's happening in the west, up and down the Rocky Mountain Range. This article here provides an interesting perspective on illegal immigration, along with some very nice photos. Worth checking out...

[Addendum: speaking of NewWest and photos, here's another article with some great photos, both by Marion Dickinson]

Extremists

2007-01-16T21:36:00.000-07:00

"So the question is not whether we will be extremists,
but what kind of extremists we will be"

- Martin Luther King, Jr., Letters From a Birmingham Jail
(Do yourself a favor and go read the full quote here)

Hollywood Beauty

2007-01-12T13:02:00.000-07:00

All those Hollywood stars must have been blessed with natural beauty, right? Actually, it's not nearly as natural as you might think - evidently many stars and starlets get all kinds of "help" from tape, airbrushes, and a whole lot of other stuff, all just to look the part. Wow. Interesting stuff.

Community as a Privilege, Mission as a Call

2007-01-10T22:35:00.000-07:00

From Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Life Together (p 17-18):

It is not simply to be taken for granted that the Christian has the priviledge of living among other Christians. Jesus Christ lived in the midst of his enemies. At the end all his disciples deserted him. On the Cross he was utterly alone, surrounded by evildoers and mockers. For this cause he had come, to bring peace to the enemies of God.

So the Christian, too, belongs not in the seclusion of a cloistered life but in the thick of foes. There is his commission, his work.

"The Kingdom is to be in the midst of your enemies. And he who will not suffer this does not want to be of the Kingdom of Christ; he wants to be among friends, to sit among roses and lilies, not with the bad people but the devout people. O you blasphemers and betrayers of Christ! If Christ had done what you are doing who would ever have been spared?" (Luther)

...

So between the death of Christ and the Last Day, it is only by a gracious anticipation of the last things that Christians are privileged to live in visible fellowship with other Christians. It is by the grace of God that a congregation is permitted to gather visibly in this world to share God's Word and sacrament...

Maybe we should all bitch a little less about the church, and thank God a little more for those delightful sinners whom God graciously places alongside us, naming them saints and calling them his children. This whole church thing - with all it's warts and prickers - is actually a privilege.

Likewise, we must also consider more seriously our calling as Christians to live in the midst of the world. I sometimes wish the Reformers would have gone on to identify a 4th mark of the church - true churches should be characterized by believers going out of the church into the world, and by unbelievers coming out of the world and into the church. This whole church thing - for all its holy piety - is fundamentally a call to be missional, to engage the world, just like Christ.

Today At The Mission

2007-01-09T13:59:00.000-07:00

I already mentioned this over on the Missoula Project site (along with some additional thoughts on why its so hard to describe what kind of church we'd like to plant), but I thought I'd link to it over here as well.

What does it mean to really be a Christian? From the 'Following Jesus' Manifesto from Today At The Mission (written by someone who lives / works in a homeless shelter) [HT: Ryan K]

Stop talking about Jesus. Just stop. If we loved the people around us half as much as we say we love Jesus the rest of this manifesto would be entirely redundant.
Live a secret life. Invest the time, effort and vulnerability necessary to delve deeply into the scripture and prayer. Spend long periods of time in stillness. There is no shortcut to this, there is no other way. Without a deep and secret life we soon find ourselves talking about Jesus instead of being like Jesus.
Stop pretending. I'm a Christian, and I suck. So do you. Let's get that out of the way, shall we?
Give more than you get. There will always be more than enough.
Be present for those around you. Following Jesus has nothing to do with your work, your resume or your income. In fact, nothing that matters does.
Treasure broken-ness. Our broken places are sacred spaces in our heart. Honour them. Value them. In doing so you love the unlovely, publicly declaring the beauty of God's image in everyone. Greet the broken with comfort and cool water.
Throw a party.
Know Jesus well enough to recognize him on the street. This is rather important, because he can always be found on the street - and he usually looks more like a pan-handler than a preacher.
Accept ingratitude and abuse as a fixed cost. Embrace them, and then go the extra mile.
If you follow Jesus, you will anger religious people. This is how you will know.

Strong words. Yet this is a snapshot of the Christian life that resonates with me. I might not agree with all of these points, or put them quite this way; Imight want to add a few more or nuance them slightly - but on the whole, this is the kind of Christian I'd like to be here in Missoula, and this is the kind of church we hope to plant.

space debris over denver

2007-01-04T09:42:00.000-07:00

this is breaking news and you are reading and seeing it first on see life differently. my dad actually saw this on his way to work this morning racing over denver:

watch video

[csc addendum: turns out it was a spent Russian rocket booster. Cool...]

C. S. Lewis on Knowledge of Ourselves

2007-01-04T09:04:00.000-07:00

I come back to St. John: 'if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart'. And equally, 'if our heart flatter us, God is greater than our heart'. I sometimes pray not for self-knowledge in general but for just so much self-knowledge at the moment as I can bear and use at the moment; the little daily dose.

Have we any reason to suppose that total self-knowledge, if it were given us, would be for our good? Children and fools, we are told, should never look at half-done work; and we are not yet, I trust, even half-done. You and I wouldn't, at all stages, think it wise to tell a pupil exactly what we thought of his quality. It is much more important that he should know what to do next.

- from Letters to Malcom: Chiefly on Prayer

hand over the animals!

2007-01-03T13:31:00.000-07:00

i came across some pretty amazing art today. this guy is an italian artist named guido daniele who specializes in body painting. he was commissioned to do a bunch of animal art and he ended up choosing human hands as his canvas. they are very cool - check them out when you get a chance, but beware that there are nude body paintings on his website as well - he is painting in europe, after all.

this one is my favorite.

Psalm 57

2007-01-02T08:39:00.000-07:00

Thinking about the opening verses of Psalm 57, penned nearly three millenia ago:

Be merciful to me, O God, be merciful to me,
for in you my soul takes refuge;
in the shadow of your wings I will take refuge,
till the storms of destruction pass by.

I cry out to God Most High,
to God who fulfills his purpose for me.
He will send from heaven and save me...

Here is David, crouching in a cave, fearing for his life; and here am I, sitting in a coffee shop, working on my second cup of joe.

We seem so far apart, he and I, and yet somehow, miraculously perhaps, our lives are still connected, intertwined. The sons of men are fiery beasts (v 4) - they were then, they are still today. David's story is my story. His foes are my foes.

This is encouraging yet terrifying, both at the same time, for if God was willing to comfort the Man-Who-Stole-His-Heart by smiting him, by making him walk through the valley of the death shadow, what might lie in store for me?

It's interesting to note that David doesn't ask this question. He doesn't focus on the "why's"? He doesn't pull a Job and go looking for reasons. Maybe that's because someone in his shoes needs help more than he needs explanations. His response is interesting in several ways.

First, David knows he needs mercy: don't give me what I deserve, God! Why not? Because I am making you my refuge. I am clinging to you. Hiding in you. Counting on you. I am making you my cave. Don't let me down!

David stakes his claim not in what he has (or hasn't) done, but rather in who he is - a simple man making God his refuge.

At the same time, David knows that it's not all about him: God has a purpose, a plan. He lifts some up, he puts others down - the Lord gives, the Lord takes away. He is in control. He does what he pleases. He answers to no one. David is but dust.

And yet, and yet... God has also promised. He has promised David a throne; he promises us a kingdom, with hearts like David's. He has bound himself, by himself. That's where David's hope lies: a) I'm trusting you, b) you promised... c) now come down here and save me!

That's the good news of the gospel, isn't it? That the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is for us, that he is not far away. That he is a refuge for those who seek him. That he HAS come down to rescue us, that he is alive and well and working among us, working to fulfill all his promises to us.

This is why Paul can say that all the promises of God find their yes in Christ Jesus (2 Cor 1:20). Because he is the answer to David's prayer. He is the one sent from heaven to rescue him, and to rescue us.

Just as God has answered specifically, so too we must respond specifically - a generic hope in some generic goodness of God is no longer enough. We need a specific response (both personal and corporate), to a specific God (the God of the Bible), in regards to a specific answer (the crucified-and-resurrected God-man, Jesus Christ).

Nothing less will suffice.

Boise State Bucks Sooners

2007-01-02T08:23:00.000-07:00

Just in case you missed it (and IF you missed it, you missed one of the best bowl games ever played - yes, it really was that good) - here's a link to highlights from the Boise State win over the Oklahoma Sooners last night. Do yourself a favor and watch it. Better yet, find a friend who taped the game and watch the whole thing. Over and over again. This is what college football is all about, and Boise State is the real deal. Wow. Hat's off to the boys in spudland on this one...

[Addendum: here's a link to the final 3:30 of this game... HT: Jimmy Traina]

Marjorie

2006-12-14T09:00:00.000-07:00

So last night, my daughter Rebekah hands me a copy of a another poem she wrote in school (her first one was Girl Who Loves Horses) - this one is about her great-grandmother, Marjorie Lauson. And I thought it was cool enough to share with all of you.

Marjorie (Portrait poem for school)

I remember your frail hands
they held me tight on Christmas day
I remember the joy in your eyes
I hugged the little doll tight
she was beautiful
with a red suit, blue eyes, and blond hair

I can see the little bird in your hat
your green shawl wrapped tightly around your shoulders

I hugged you tight
but not tight enough
why did you ever leave me?
why didn't you wait to say good bye?
Did you even love me?

If I could have one wish granted
I would wish you back

I can still see your smile as you held the purple boguet
As I look back on the few years we spent together
I wish that there had been more.

Well done, sweet daughter!

Fletcher Capstan Tables

2006-12-10T00:40:00.000-07:00

Wow. This is simply amazing - a circular table for 6 that expands into a table for 12 with a simply twist. Do yourself a favor and watch the video. This is artwork, engineering, and functionality, all rolled into one. Now I wonder what one of these suckers would cost (I'll bet it ain't cheap, seeing as how they are all indivually designed!). [HT: Boing boing]

The Price of Your Soul

2006-12-09T23:24:00.000-07:00

So tonight we watched Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest for a second time, and this go round pretty much confirmed everything I thought the first time - I really like this movie.

One scene in particular struck me as memorable - when Beckett of the East India Company tries to buy Governor Swan's loyalty by hinting that he might be able to rescue his daughter.

Beckett: "Shall I remove these shackles?"

Governor Swan: "Do what ever you can for my daughter."

Beckett (unlocking Swan): "So you see, every man has a price he will willingly accept, even for what he never hopes to sell."

Wow. That last line struck me like a ton of bricks, because it's the essence of what this movie is all about - everyone is a pirate at heart, and the only real question (as Jack Sparrow so eloquently puts it Davy Jones) "is just a matter of price."

What's Jack's price? What's Will's? Elizabeth's? Better yet, what's yours and mine?

A week or two ago, a friend asked me that very question, although not quite in those words. "What are you celebrating in Christ?" he said.

Seeing that I didn't really get what he was after, he put it another way, one that was much more blunt and to the point - "What's your price? What would you sell everything for? Is it porn? Is it sex with another woman? What would cause you to walk away from the ministry and give it all up? What is it that really tempts you?"

And that, my friends, is a terrifying question - first, because I had never really asked it of myself; second, because I instantly knew the answer. There is something that tempts me. Just like there's something that tempts you.

Neither of us should be surprised, because there is always something that tempts everyone. After all, every man has a price he will willingly accept, even for what he never hopes to sell.

In many cases, it's probably not that obvious, because the stakes are not that high. Most of us are boringly inconsequential. But when you put your hand to the plow of ministry, everything changes, the ante gets upped - not because we're suddenly more important, but because we publicly raise our hand and say "I'm going to be good, do what's just and right and noble - I'm going to serve God rather than myself."

You see, the stakes never get raised until we take a stand. An action is never tempting until I try and resolve not to do it. And then I suddenly find myself gripped by it - allured, enticed, and surprisingly weak and vulnerable.

Go ahead - make a resolution: "I hereby resolve not to think lustfully about a woman's breasts. To be content with my job (even if my salary sucks). To be patient. To be kind. To love my enemies."

Not so easy, is it?

That's why it's so important to actually ask the question - What IS my temptation? What would I sell my soul to the devil for? If I never bother to ask, no wonder I am shocked when it finally rears its ugly head and eats my lunch - not so much because it is unconquerable, but mostly because I never saw it coming.

But what do we do once we have asked that question, once we DO recognize the price of our soul? That bring's us back to that first question - what are we celebrating in Christ?

You see, the reason temptation grips us in the first place is because we find sin attractive. And sin is most attractive when we are not seeing Christ, the gospel, clearly.

Let me speak plainly - when Christ meets with the woman at the well (John 4), he looks at her and says "You are thirsting for something in sex, in marriage, in relationships (that's why you've had 5 husbands, and the guy you're with now isn't your husband). Even worse, you're not getting what you are craving (that's why you've had 5 husbands, and the guy you're with now isn't your husband)."

And then Jesus goes on to make the most amazing claim - "If you really knew who you were talking to, you'd ask him (me) for living water, the kind that always satisfies, that never lets you down." Jesus can offer this, because he is the way, the truth, the life. What he is offering is himself.

We are no different than this woman in what we crave - we sin because we are thirsty, because we crave something, and because we think something other than Christ can satisfy it (and it never does). So we sell our souls for a lie, a false hope. Sure, some really go through with it, others just dream about it in their hearts. But all of us have wandering eyes when it comes to God.

Similarly, we are no different than this woman in what we need - the secret to dealing with temptation begins by seeing our temptation clearly, by realizing there's a pirate in all of us, that we really do want things we shouldn't. And the secret to overcoming temptation is to see in Christ the fullness of what we are really looking for elsewhere.

Thomas Chalmers puts it like this - we are torn between two affections: love of God and love of the world, not merely in a state of rivalry, but opposed to one another in irreconcilable enmity. And so he concludes, "The only way to disposses the heart of an old affection is by the expulsive power of a new affection."

That is a brilliant observation. Only as I see my sinful temptations will I learn where I am weak and needy. And only as I see Christ - only as I see his love for me and love him more in return - only then will I ever experience freedom from the temptations that so easily entice me.

That's why I need to learn to celebrate Christ - not only what he has done for me (bearing my sins, the punishment I deserve), but also what he presently offers me (the fullness of all I desire, encapsulated in himself).

I do not need something - I need Christ, and he is mine through faith. He - the real, live, flesh-and-blood god-man who lived and breathed and walked and pooped and loved - this Jesus, the one from Nazareth, he alone of all men was not a pirate, but rather a servant of the most high God, and he has given himself for me, for my sake, as a ransom.

This Christ has himself paid the price for my soul. He was my price, my ransom. That is a great honor - it means I was worth dying for. But it is also quite sobering - it means I deserved death. But now God has raised him up, and seated him at his right hand in heaven. And all that is mine is his, and all that is his is mine. My own life is inescapably connected to his, all through faith alone.

That's really quite a treasure when we see it for what it is...

Under the Mistletoe

2006-12-01T11:13:00.000-07:00

Since Christmas is fast approaching, and we all could use a little humor on Friday's, I thought I'd pass along this romantic Holiday cheer. I saw this and thought "Oh. So. Very. True." :-)

[HT: Lil Brudder Nicholas, who found it here]

The Value of Religion

2006-11-30T22:36:00.000-07:00

Jay over at 4and20blackbirds made an interesting comment the other day in dismissing both religion in general and Christianity in particular. Quoting from John Derbyshire he describes the effect of religion on a community:

I have now come to think that it really makes no difference, net-net. You can point to people who were improved by faith, but you can also see people made worse by it. Anyone want to argue that, say, Mohammed Atta was made a better person by his faith? All right, when Americans say “religion” they mean Christianity 99 percent of the time. So: Can Christianity make you a worse person? I’m sure it can. If you’re a person with, for example, a self-righteous conviction of your own moral superiority, well, getting religion is just going to inflame that conviction. Again, I know cases, and I’m sure you do too. The exhortations to humility that you find in all religions seem to be the most difficult teaching for people to take on board. Mostly, I think it makes no difference.

I suspect many would share his sentiment - all religions seem pretty much the same, as do all people whether they have religion or not (eg. the divorce rate is pretty much the same for Christians as non-Christians). So religion is a wash, right?

Not so fast.

On the one hand, I agree with part of his assessment - religion can be used to build yourself up (look how great I am because I keep all the commandments, tithe on my mint and dill; look how lousy you are because you don't). We see this all the time, and it's one of the reasons we can't stand self-righteous, self-centered people (and lest we only heap blame on the evangelical fundamentalists here, I'd like to suggest that agnostics / atheists can be just as guilty in this regard).

But it doesn't follow that religion is to blame for this behavior. It's the people who do it who are liable, for co-opting a faith and trying to use it to their own advantage. Jesus was fully aware that some would try to do this, and he reserved some of his harshest criticism for them - he called them hypocrites, twice the sons of hell as those who were just blatantly bad. But he didn't write off faith, simply because some people would twist it.

And that brings me to a second thing about this comment, which I disagree with altogether - it's an assumption, really, one that says "The basic purpose of religion (and the criteria by which it should be evaluated) is to make people better." In other words, the primary function of religion is simply to provide an ethic, to tell people what to do, how to live. It's very man-centric. And I would challenge that strongly.

Other religions may indeed be primarily interested in ethics; the Jesus of Christianity most decidely is not. Jesus does not come offering people a way of life - he comes claiming to be the life. Jesus sees himself in a markedly different way than any other religious leader - he claims to be the thing people need, he claims to be the only way, he claims that it is necessary for him to die in order that others might live.

Any time someone claims that all religions are the same, what it really tells you is that they aren't particularly interested in any religion, or else they are interested in every religion to whatever extent they can use it to justify a lifestyle they have already chosen. That's not fair to Allah, to Budda, or to Jesus.

At the end of the day, Christianity is not merely about us (about what we're supposed to do in order to get to heaven) - no, Christianity is decidely about him, Christ the God-Man, the one who has risen from the dead and is worthy of all honor and worship. At the end of the day, Christianity - the real, biblical, New Testament kind of Christianity - is very focused on calling people everywhere to repent, to believe, and to worship. Ethics, while important, is always secondary to that.

If religion is really about worship - worshipping the one true God, in Spirit and truth, as HE sees fit - then faith becomes vitally important (and the difference between religions becomes crucial). At the end of the day, Derbyshire's quote doesn't say as much about religion (whether its true or false), as it does about the unbeliever - he is really interested only in himself. I wonder if he'd be willing to admit it?

A Picture of Grace?

2006-11-29T07:12:00.000-07:00

So in case you haven't heard, a local church here in Missoula made headlines last week when they responded to three kids (ages 18 and 19) caught vandalizing the church property by "giving them Xboxes instead of exile."

Reaction has been rather mixed overall - some positive, but much negative (or at least 'puzzled'). If my kids' experience is any indication, the buzz on the playgrounds at school is largely to the effect of "Hey! Now I know how to get ahold of one of those cool new Xboxes that I've been wanting for Christmas!"

Hmm... So what do we make of this?

Looking at things as charitably as possible, I think we can at least appreciate SHEC's desire to respond differently rather than in typical knee-jerk, throw-the-book-at-'em fashion. Of course, those who are a bit cynical might call this a publicity stunt, but I doubt it - I'm willing to assume that their intentions were noble, that they really desired to respond in a biblical, gracious manner, in a way that actually helps the kids that did this.

Of course, that raises some key questions.

Is this really a helpful response? (I'm not convinced that what these kids need is an Xbox).

And is it really loving? (It's easy to pass the plate and toss in a couple hundred bucks to make us all feel like we've done something significant - like putting off our Christmas shopping till the last minute, and then simply dropping a big wad of money on a gift to cover up for the fact that we really didn't put a lot of thought, or love, into the whole endeavor).

I have a feeling that the really loving response would be a whole lot cheaper (in terms of dollars), but a whole lot more costly (in terms of time and personal sacrifice) - what would it look like to actually invest in these kids lives, on a personal, individual basis? What would it look like to show up at their trial? To follow up in person? To talk to their parents? To take time and get to know them as people? To understand why they would do something like this? To learn what makes them tick? Of course a response like this probably isn't going to generate headlines...

[As an aside, the author of 4&20 Blackbirds astutely observes a difference in how SHEC responded to these guys, vs. prostitute J.C. Nouveaux. What would it look like to respond the same way to both, by reaching out personally to both? I for one would love to sit down and just talk with someone like J.C, or these guys, in both cases to get to know them as they are, where they are...]

All of this leads to perhaps the biggest question of all - is SHEC's response really a picture of 'grace' at all? I'm not sure that it is.

For starters, 'grace' is not simply "a second chance" (because after all, if we're all really damn messes deep down, chances are we're going to blow our second - and third, and fourth - chances as well).

'Grace' is also not simply "unconditional love" or "blithe acceptance"(because after all, God's love is not simply unconditional either) - no, real grace cares so much about people that it is not content to simply leave them where they are, wallowing in the consequences of their bad decisions. Real grace cares. Real grace rescues. (And let's be honest - how many of us really give a rats ass about these kids, anyway? How many of us actually care whether or not they make bad decisions and screw up their lives? I suspect it's very few of us do...)

No, grace actually brings something to the table - something necessary, valuable, essential, lifegiving. I'm not sure an Xbox qualifies in that regard (maybe I'm just old fashioned, but I have a feeling most 18 year olds would benefit more from hard work and a father worth respecting than from more time in front of a TV screen).

Real grace is also costly. Not in terms of dollars and cents, but personally. Real grace is a wife refusing to leave her lusting husband (even though he probably deserves it), not because he's great, and not because she's great either, but simply because of who he is - her husband, the man she made a commitment to when they were married.

You see, whatever grace is, it's a long term proposition - it doesn't just offer the possibility of favor, on the condition of change; instead it starts with favor, and that actually brings about the change. Real grace actually accomplishes something, like a chinook in February. It melts hearts. It breaks logjams. It brings change. And it's often very, very messy.

It's almost certainly not very worthy of much public attention, at least not until years later when hindsight reveals just how much change grace has wrought.

So where does all this leave us? I'm not sure that SHEC did the wrong thing by responding the way they did, but I'm not at all convinced they did the right thing either. Not simply because I don't think that what they did is going to accomplish anything, but rather because I don't think it's a picture of what grace really is.

So what would I do instead? I'm not sure. But I'm pretty sure it wouldn't involve an Xbox.

The Notebook on Senility and Evangelism

2006-11-11T19:36:00.000-07:00

Philly friend Ryan Khas posted some great thoughts on a movie called The Notebook - beautiful thoughts about senility and evangelism:

In the movie The Notebook, the male character reads to his senile wife every day and tries to remind her of their love story - the way he pursued her like a fool, her unfaithfulness through adversity, his patient restoration of her dream house in her absence, and their eventual life together. He reads to her every day, hoping for a sweet reunion in those rare, lucid moments when the cloud of sickness is lifted and she remembers her identity and their history. Those moments come and fade quickly, giving way to a violent and unnatural separation. Each day he returns, reading to her and looking for that spark in her eye that says she remembers.

So what does this have to do with evangelism? Go read the whole thing to find out. It's short, but well worth it.

Jesus and Smoking Pot

2006-11-11T15:05:00.000-07:00

"So what do you think about smoking pot?" That's the question the young woman asked me, Joe Pastor, as she leaned across the table in the deli where we were eating lunch.

That's a good question. After all, Scripture doesn't exactly say a whole lot about the demon weed (other than in Gen 15, where it's God doing both the smoking and the pot - bet you didn't know that was in there, did you?).

So how would you answer a question like this? What's the gospel response?

Too many times we would-be followers of Christ say little more than "Bad dog! No biscuit!" as we wag our finger disapprovingly in the asker's direction. But is there a better answer? Can we say something more? What would Jesus say if he was the one answering? Be careful not to assume this question is a gimmee.

With cases like this, I think its often helpful to consider what's NOT being asked - or rather, to ponder the question behind the question, the real premise that often lies unexpressed. You see, someone who asks this might actually be asking a several different things, for several different reasons.

For instance, he might be saying "Does God even care what I do with my body? Does this 'faith' thing have any connection with the way I live my 'real life'? Or are the two so disconnected that I can do whatever I want in the here and now as long as I 'believe in God' as being important for the hereafter?"

In a case like this, I'd want to say, "Hey, God DOES care what we do with our bodies." Jesus doesn't just come demanding intellectual allegiance - he actually has the gall to claim authority over every inch of creation, over every breath we take. Jesus demands we acknowledge him as Lord ("the big Kahuna") in everything we do. This is why he can say that ANYTHING that does not flow from faith-in-him is nothing less than rebellion, sin, wrong.

My wanting to smoke pot is nothing less than high treason if I'm pursuing it for my own sake, my own indulgence, as my own little corner of the universe where I get to do what I want.

And my NOT smoking pot can be exactly the same thing - just as self-serving, just as treacherous, just as wicked in God's sight.

You see, someone might actually be asking a very different question altogether: "Does God love me more because I DON'T smoke pot?" Far too often, Christians use a "sin" like smoking pot (or whatever your favorite vice might be) as both a hammer and a ladder.

As a hammer, we point to people doing bad things and just nail them right between the eyes with it - we withhold our approval (or dish it out) based on whether or not the person conforms with our standard of morality. But Jesus doesn't deal with people this way - he tells them to trust in his goodness, not their own.

As a ladder, we use this same standard to prop ourselves up, to give ourselves pats on the back because we're good people, we're not like all those "sinners" ("Thank you God that I'm not like all those other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector here. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get. Don't you love me because I'm so good and holy and obedient?"). Jesus reserves his harshest criticism for people who think like this - whitewashed tombs! hypocrites!

So in a case like this, our answer should be emphatic - absolutely NOT! If you think God loves you more because you are NOT smoking pot, or less because you ARE, then you don't really understand the gospel. You do not know what grace is yet.

You see, God does not wait for us to clean ourselves up. He doesn't give us an ethical standard of behavior, a set of rules, a list of dos-and-don'ts, and then lavish his affection on those who measure up, and frown disapprovingly on those who don't.

Nope, his criteria is much simpler than that: Are you family? Are you royalty? Are you a son or daughter of the King? Blood really is thicker than anything else. Especially when it belongs to Christ, poured out for us.

In light of this, there is a very real sense where it doesn't matter one whit whether or not you are smoking pot. The only thing that matters is this: Do you have Christ as your big brother? Are you clinging to him for all your rightness and approval from God? Because he alone is the entry point to God's favor, and he's not just the door - he's the whole house and estate as well.

Jesus Christ IS the promised land. He is the bread of life. He is living water. He is everything we are looking for in everything else (including pot). He's not just for the sweet-bye-and-bye. He delivers life in the here and now.

If I have Christ, God cannot love me more than he already does. Even if I smoke pot. But everything that pot is, all the good that it gives, that's just a pale reflection, a dim echo, pointing to something bigger and better and stronger. Something that is only found in Christ.

So does God care if we smoke pot? Absolutely. And absolutely not.

Both of those statements are equally true. And the answer that is most appropriate depends entirely on the question behind the question, on where the person asking it is really coming from. It depends on her context, her motive, her heart.

And to figure that out, we're going to have to have a relationship with her first - I'm going to have to learn to listen, to ask good questions, to discern what she's really asking. I'm going to have to learn to love her, not because she conforms to my particular moral standard, not because she props up my particular code of conduct, but simply because she is created in the image of God, and he loves her, even while she is still his enemy, even before she's got it all together, even while she is still a work in progress.

Just. Like. Me.

I need to constantly remember that God loves sinners (of whom I am STILL chief) so much that he was willing to die for me. And for her. And for him.

I wonder how many of us are really willing to love those who are different from us, even if they never change or become like us.

And I wonder how many of us are really willing to love ourselves, not because of anything we do, or haven't done, but simply because God himself loves us already, solely on account of what Christ has done for us, solely because we put all our hope and confidence in his work rather than our own, solely because we have put on Christ - he is ours, and we are his, and nothing (not even pot) can separate us from the love of God.

Maybe we all need to put THAT in our pipe and smoke it...

Wet Pavement outside Bernice's

2006-11-09T21:17:00.000-07:00

It's been a rainy week here in Missoula, and I happened to snap this shot through the front window of Bernice's a couple of days ago, as all these little sparrows were hopping around on the pavement...

Tree and Leaf

2006-10-31T08:37:00.000-07:00

I saw a leaf this cold morning, floating down the river,
colors fading, glory passing, nearly drowning,
but leaf nonetheless, and glory nonetheless,
beautiful and sad, both nonetheless.

I am a leaf this cold morning, life rushing like a river,
colors flashing, vistas passing, always just a breath away from drowning,
but life nonetheless, and glory nonetheless,
beautiful and sad, both nonetheless.

Leaf and life, both intertwined, glory in spring, but first comes winter.

What's Wrong With Buddhism

2006-10-25T20:24:00.000-07:00

Brian over at the Banty Rooster has posted an excellent explanation of what's wrong with Buddhism. Here's a snippet:

If anyone ever asks me what is wrong with Buddhism, I'll tell them: go watch Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. A life of consistent Buddhism is a life without love. Buddhism, at the end of the day, doesn't believe in relationships, as, in fact, one of the characters says in the movie ("friendship is an illusion"). To be in a relationship is to be attached; to be vulnerable to another; to share oneself with another. It is the ultimate "entanglement." Since Buddhism teaches that the only ultimate reality is a transcendent "one-ness," all forms of relationship, "two-ness," if you will, is an illusion and something to be denied. I love Li Mu Bai's final assessment: "I have wasted my whole life." Life without relationship - nay, the living with the goal of avoiding relationship, is worthless and bankrupt.

Do yourself a favor and go read the whole thing...

Girl Who Loves Horses

2006-10-25T20:03:00.000-07:00

So in school today, Rebekah wrote a poem about who she is, and I liked it so very much that I thought I'd post it here:

I AM

I am an imaginative girl who loves horses
I wonder what it's like to ride on clouds
I hear horses cryding out in pain and longing
I see a rider beating his horse and my heart cries out as if I'm the one being beaten
I want to win the horse show

I am an imaginative girl who loves horses
I pretend I am riding my horse over clouds
I feel her heart beating as quickly as she runs
I touch the sun
I worry that we'll go too high
I wish I could own a horse

I am an imaginative girl who loves horses
I understand her feelings
I say "We will never part"
I dream that our ride never ends
I try to speak her language
I hope she understands my feelings

I am an imaginative girl who loves horses

What a strange and beautiful thing to hear something from your daughter's lips that you didn't know what there, and to think "Wow. Where did THAT come from?" And then to wonder what else is there which you haven't yet discovered because you thought you already knew...

Dealing With Telemarketers

2006-10-17T19:21:00.000-07:00

On the lighter side, this is one of the funniest things I have heard in a long while - a creative approach for dealing with telemarketers... [HT: my lil brudder Nicholas]

Backyard Sunset, River Road

2006-10-09T20:13:00.000-07:00

Leaves in sunlight never cease to amaze me. God is an artist. All creation is his canvas. And blind is the man who can look on such beauty with hearing the voice of God.

Good Night Moon

2006-10-09T08:05:00.000-07:00

Missoula, MT, Monday October 9, while riding into town.

So today marks something of a new direction for SLD. Over the coming weeks, I'm going to be working on a new look and feel. Even more significantly, the content is going to become decidely more Missoula-centric (because after all, this is where we live and breathe and have our being, and just about everybody here sees life differently, in one way or another).

My desire is to exegete that vision, pointing out how God is working in many people, places, and ways (both within and without the church). And since a picture is worth a thousand words, I'm going to try and talk a little less, and paint pictures a little more. All that to say, this blog is going to get decidely more artistic. And maybe a little less explicit. But hopefully no less implicit. Hope you don't mind (after all, God seems to speak this way as well...)

A New Perspective on the Life of a Cell

2006-10-06T09:52:00.000-07:00

Wow. This is simply amazing. A stunning 3 minute video of what happens in your body on a cellular level - how white blood cells do what they do. It's an "artists representation," but it was produced in conjunction w/ the latest scientific research, so its probably as accurate as we can be at this point. Very, very cool. All I need now is someone to explain it to me ;-) [HT: Karyn T]

Suffering Well

2006-09-23T22:21:00.000-07:00

Once again, I'd like you to point you to Al Grove's blog, and to this particular post by his wife Libbie. If you haven't been following along - Al is currently dying of cancer, and he and his family are keeping friends informed on how the struggle is progressing. I had the privilege of getting to know both Al and Libbie during my time at Westminster, and its been even more of a blessing to watch them deal with these hard times.

If you feel overwhelmed by the circumstances in your own life, I'd really encourage you to take a few minutes and take a peek into theirs, as the Groves family models what it looks like to glorify God by suffering well...

The Adventures of "Gnomey"

2006-09-21T08:23:00.000-07:00

Ok, so this is just too funny...

Allen Snyder's garden gnome is apparently out of jail and now traveling the country. The 14-inch tall red-and-white statue disappeared from Snyder's Morgantown yard in the spring, and Snyder has since received three letters claiming to have been written by "Gnomey."

The latest letter, which Snyder received this week, included photos of the gnome in the company of Steelers fans attending Pittsburgh's football home opener."You never took me to any games," the note said.

The letter ended: "Have to go now. Boarding a plane. Now, finally, broadening my travels."

An earlier letter included a request for bail money and included what appeared to be booking photos of Gnomey and another of the gnome in the back seat of a police car.

You can read the whole thing here...

Going Nowhere

2006-09-10T20:50:00.000-07:00

I snapped this photo a few weeks ago while helping a friend put a roof on a cabin up in the Crazys. I just really like this photo, and thought I'd share it...

Global Warming?

2006-08-26T22:45:00.000-07:00

The Banty Rooster has put his finger on what bothers me with the whole "Global Warming" thing.

Here's an article on how global warming is causing the glaciers in the Himalayas to grow. Yes, you read that right. Global warming causes glaciers to get bigger. You see, global warming is an amazingly elastic one-size-fits-all explanation for anything and everything in ecology, climatology, meteorology and whatever "ology" to which you care to apply it. When glaciers melt, they splash big headlines on how this "proves" global warming. When glaciers grow, they splash headlines about how this, too, is because of global warming. Hmm. What is the common denominator? Global warming is the presupposed, assumed and presumed axiom. This is not science, whatever it is. In science, theories and hypotheses are falsifiable by the contrary evidence found in nature. In the worldview of environmental scare-mongers, all evidence points to global warming simply because it just must. It is the reigning ideology, and all must bend to its will.

Pop on over and check it all out...

If I Should Die As I Lie Waking...

2006-08-25T14:36:00.000-07:00

We have two close friends who recently lost their fathers to cancer. We know another family that is still in the process. But what if you were the one dying, your body slowly succumbing to the ravages of cancer?

Stop and think about it for a moment. What do you want people to say - not just at your funeral, but in the months that precede it, as they walk beside you and watch you waste away, powerless to do anything to stop it.

What would it look like to "die well"? For you? For your family?

That's precisely what the Groves family is facing right now. Al just went through brain surgery yesterday as he battles against an incurable form of melanoma that has moved from his skin to his lungs and now threatens his mind. And the way both he and his family are reacting is an amazing testimony to this man's character and leadership.

If I should die as I lie waking, I hope my daughter will be able to speak from the heart like Al's young Eowyn:

Many people see death as an awful thing, and outside of Christ, it is the worst thing imaginable. However, my dad knows Jesus Christ to be his Lord and Savior. Frequently, people have come up to me and voiced their anger and frustration that “all of this” should be happening to “a good family like yours.”

As much as I appreciate the reference to my loving family, I would like to strongly state: DON’T BE ANGRY WITH GOD ON OUR BEHALF. I think I speak for my whole family when I say that I know that God has a perfect plan, and that He is accomplishing His will with my dad’s cancer. And for my part, I feel like God is giving me a glimpse at that plan.

Throughout my dad’s cancer, so many people have been blessed by his faith through suffering, (myself included in that count). Jesus calls us all to serve Him with all our hearts, he just calls us each to serve Him in different ways. I believe that God is calling my dad to serve Him in the last part of his life by worshiping Him in the midst of suffering. God is using His dutiful servant to then bless everyone else. What greater calling is there than to serve the Lord your God in everything you do? And what greater honor is there than to die for your Lord in a way that will bless His flock?

I am deeply moved by everyone’s prayers for all of us during this trial. I appreciate the prayers for healing, but I would also encourage people to pray that God will complete His purpose with my dad, understanding that He is capable of healing, but that He may have something entirely different in store for my dad. The last thing I would want to see (or that I’m sure my dad would want to see) would be for people to be so caught in praying for healing, that if Jesus chooses to take my dad Home, that people will be bitter and angry with God. I feel that being angry with God on my dad’s behalf would be a disservice and dishonor to my dad, and his willingness to do his Lord’s bidding.

So take heart! Don’t fear death! As Christians, death is really the best gift you could ever receive! My dad will get to go Home to worship His maker, and my dad will feel no pain for all of eternity. He won’t be weighed down by the burdens and sins of this world and longer! Because Jesus died on the cross, death truly has lost its sting. So instead of being sad, please rejoice with me in our loving Father who is perfect, and who has a perfect plan for my earthly father.

With much love and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ,
your sister Eowyn

Those are strong words, folks. Take a few moments and consider the state of your soul. Can you envision yourself uttering these words? What about your children?

What are you doing with your life now to prepare yourself and them for the death which inevitably comes?

Sober thoughts, but these are sober times. I'd encourage you to pray for the Groves family as they walk this dark path, and also to pray for yourself and your own family as well, that we might all be more closely conformed to the image of Christ through suffering...

The Kite Runner

2006-08-14T12:54:00.000-07:00

I just finished reading The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini last night. I've been glued to it for the past three days and its images have been in my mind when I'm not reading it. It is an amazing story on so many levels. The story is of two boys growing up in Afghanistan--one servant (Hassan) and one master (Amir)--who grew up like brothers. Hassan would do anything for his friend and ends up suffering unspeakably because of Amir's cowardice. The rest of the book is Amir's guilt and quest for redemption. In a word, this book is heartbreaking. Hassan is a pure Christ figure--servant and savior. Amir is the purely human figure--flawed, selfish and guilty. It is a story about loss and mistakes set brilliantly with the backdrop of a childhood in a stable Afghanistan which turned into a wartorn rubble just as the children's innocence disintegrated.

Of course, this is set in a Muslim context with Muslim issues permeating it--in fact the reason Amir is the master and Hassan is the servant is because of the strain of Islam their people practice. Though Allah is turned to a few times, Islam does not provide the redemption that Amir searches for. The book is so true to life in its images surrounding what Amir does with his guilt, trying to atone, trying to punish himself. Amir's mentor tells him that "redemption is when guilt turns to good" when he is trying to prompt Amir to face his demons and finally do the right thing. I thought about this a lot because I think it is the world's idea of redemption--turning the bad things you do into learning experiences and making up for them somehow. This is not a bad thing in itself, our mistakes should teach us, but when can our pennance ever be enough? Only through Christ can we truly be redeemed and guiltless.

Though the plot twists can be a bit implausible at times, this book is a must-read. Perhaps it was not the best choice post-partum as the story's poignant sadness was often overwhelming, but it is the best book I've read in a long time. I've only bearly touched on its gospel implications. Has anyone else read it? Anyone have any suggestions for my next read?

Something About Maruice

2006-08-13T22:10:00.000-07:00

Time to start inching my way back into blogging, catching up on all the things I've thought, "Hmm... that'd be worth saying something about." I'm not sure how many of you follow football, but if you do, then perhaps you've heard of Maurice Clarett. There's a very interesting editorial piece on him over on ESPN... interesting, because it actually contains some very penetrating observations:

When your life goes from the sky to the sewer in four years, how can you tell where the blessing is?

What if in your life, with all of the accolades, promise and acclaim, the best thing that ever happened to you was when those cops pepper-sprayed you and cuffed you and ducked your head into the backseat of their squad car? What if it was all finally over? What if the last thing that happened to you saved your life?

Now, that's not a perspective you normally hear coming from anyone involved in sports at any level - instead, what usually gets bandied about is how SPORTS is what saves someone.

the Maurice Clarett who just had his bond raised from $200,000 to $1.1 million to $5 million in two days thought football was going to save him. Thought it would stop him from being the person that lived inside of him. But once the game was removed from his life, once he realized the NFL would exist without him, the truth of his life was exposed to him. To the point where he couldn't even help it, or himself.

Which is why (and how) a young man goes from being a third-round draft pick in April 2005 to getting charged with robbing people for cell phones in alleys at gunpoint in January 2006.

"He's a thug," Hubbard HS (Chicago) defensive coach Andre Curry said. "I hate to say that, but it's true. He used football to get away from a troubled childhood. Now that football is out of his life, the true Maurice Clarett comes out."

As cold as that sounds, it's fair. Acutely accurate. But it doesn't explain the how and the why, the reason.

This my friends, is what theologians mean when they talk about the 'depravity of man' - not that someone like Maurice is as bad as he could possibly be; but that all of us are like Maurice to some degree if you dig deep enough beneath the surface. The only difference, is that most of us are much better at hiding it, much better at thinking through the consequences, of not making rash decisions based on the deepest desires of our heart.

There are a lot of people who are probably smarter than Maurice. But all of us are just as bent deep down. Most of us just do a better job of hiding it than others.

In church today, we read this confession in unison:

Heavenly Father, forgive us when we do the right things for the wrong reason. We confess that our good behavior is often a subtle form of manipulation; we serve our spouses, our children, our parents, our neighbors, not our of love for Christ, or even out of love for them, but out of our love for ourselves - our own desire for approval, acceptance, sex, or power.

We confess that we often 'love' others so that we get what we want. We give in order to receive...

So what if there was no one left to impress, to manipulate, to fall back on. The reason everyone loved Maurice in the first place was because of his abilities - not because of him, but because of what he could do for others - score touchdowns, help the team, be a superstar, sell advertisting. And as soon as he could no longer do that, all those people who loved him turned the other way and cut him loose.

What if we no longer had anyone who cared? What if we were truly left alone with ourselves? Would we really act all that differently? I suspect there's a lot more Maurice Clarett in all of us than any of us would care to admit...

pretty dam funny

2006-08-09T20:28:00.000-07:00

This is an actual letter sent to a man named Ryan DeVries by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Quality, State of Pennsylvania.

SUBJECT: DEQ File No.97-59-0023; T11N; R10W, Sec. 20; Lycoming County

Dear Mr. DeVries:

It has come to the attention of the Department of Environmental Quality that there has been recent unauthorized activity on the above referenced parcel of property. You have been certified as the legal landowner and/or contractor who did the following unauthorized activity:

Construction and maintenance of two wood debris dams across the outlet stream of Spring Pond. A permit must be issued prior to the start of this type of activity.

A review of the Department's files shows that no permits have been issued. Therefore, the Department has determined that this activity is in violation of Part 301, Inland Lakes and Streams, of the Natural Resource and Environmental Protection Act, Act 451 of the Public Acts of 1994, being sections 324.30101 to 324.30113 of the Pennsylvania Compiled Laws, annotated.!

The Department has been informed that one or both of the dams partially failed during a recent rain event, causing debris and flooding at downstream locations. We find that dams of this nature are inherently hazardous and cannot be permitted. The Department therefore orders you to cease and desist all activities at this location, and to restore the stream to a free-flow condition by removing all wood and brush forming the dams from the stream channel. All restoration work shall be completed no later than January 31, 2006.

Please notify this office when the restoration has been completed so that a follow-up site inspection may be scheduled by our staff.

Failure to comply with this request or any further unauthorized activity on the site may result in this case being referred for elevated enforcement action..

We anticipate and would appreciate your full cooperation in this matter. Please feel free to contact me at this office if you have any questions.

Sincerely,

David L. Price
District Representative and Water Management Division.

Here is the actual response sent back by Mr. DeVries:

Re: DEQ File No. 97-59-0023; T11N; R10W, Sec. 20; Lycoming County

Dear Mr. Price,

Your certified letter dated 12/17/02 has been handed to me to respond to. I am the legal landowner but not the Contractor at 2088 Dagget Lane, Trout Run, Pennsylvania.

A couple of beavers are in the (State unauthorized) process of constructing and maintaining two wood "debris" dams across the outlet stream of my Spring Pond. While I did not pay for, authorize, nor supervise their dam project, I think they would be highly offended that you call their skillful use of natures building materials "debris." I would like to challenge your department to attempt to emulate their dam project any time and/or any place you choose. I believe I can safely state there is no way you could ever match their dam skills, their dam resourcefulness, their dam ingenuity, their dam persistence, their dam determination and/or their dam work ethic.

As to your request, I do not think the beavers are aware that they must first fill out a dam permit prior to the start of this type of dam activity.

My first dam question to you is:

(1) Are you trying to discriminate against my Spring Pond Beavers.
(2) Or do you require all beavers throughout this State to conform to said dam request?

If you are not discriminating against these particular beavers, through the Freedom of Information Act, I request completed copies of all those other applicable beaver dam permits that have been issued. Perhaps we will see if there really is a dam violation of Part 301, Inland Lakes and Streams, of the Natural Resource and Environmental Protection Act, Act 451 of the Public Acts of 1994, being sections 324.30101 to 324.30113 of the Pennsylvania Compiled Laws, annotated.

I have several concerns. My first concern is; aren't the beavers entitled to legal representation? The Spring Pond Beavers are financially destitute and are unable to pay for said representation -- so the State will have to provide them with a dam lawyer. The Department's dam concern that either one or both of the dams failed during a recent rain event, causing flooding, is proof that this is a natural occurrence, which the Department is required to protect. In other words, we should leave the Spring Pond Beavers alone rather than harassing them and calling their dam names.

If you want the stream "restored" to a dam free-flow condition please contact the beavers -- but if you are going to arrest them, they obviously did not pay any attention to your dam letter, they being unable to read English.

In my humble opinion, the Spring Pond Beavers have a right to build their unauthorized dams as long as the sky is blue, the grass is green and water flows downstream. They have more dam rights than I do to live and enjoy Spring Pond. If the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Protection lives up to its name, it should protect the natural resources (Beavers) and the environment (Beavers' Dams).

So, as far as the beavers and I are concerned, this dam case can be referred for more elevated enforcement action right now. Why wait until 1/31/2006? The Spring Pond Beavers may be under the dam ice then and there will be no way for you or your dam staff to contact/harass them then.

In conclusion, I would like to bring to your attention to a real environmental quality, health, problem in the area. It is the bears! Bears are actually defecating in our woods. I definitely believe you should be persecuting the defecating bears and leave the beavers alone.

If you are going to investigate the beaver dam, watch your step! The bears are not careful where they dump!

Being unable to comply with your dam request, and being unable to contact you on your dam answering machine, I am sending this response to your dam office.

THANK YOU.

RYAN DEVRIES & THE DAM BEAVERS

Thinking about God and Morality

2006-07-31T12:33:00.000-07:00

Do we really need God to maintain a sense of morality? Christians say yes, and secularists say no. If you'd like to take a peek at a fine discussion between the two sides, consider this debate between John Frame and Paul Kurtz...

[John Frame:] If God goes not exist, says Dostoyevsky's Ivan Karamazov, "everything is permitted," which is one way of saying that notions of good and evil lose their force when people cease to acknowledge God. The course of our society suggests he's right: we've grown noticeably more secular over the past thirty years, banning God from public education and the marketplace of ideas, and our culture's moral tone has declined. Is this merely historical coincidence, or is there a profound relationship between ethics and belief in God?

Moral values are rather strange. We cannot see them, hear them, or feel them, but we cannot doubt they exist. A witness to a crime sees the criminal and the victim, but what is perhaps most important remains invisible – the moral evil of the act. Yet evil is unquestionably there, just as moral good is unquestionably present when a traveler stops to help the stranded motorist on a dangerous stretch of highway. Good and bad are unseen but real, much as God is said to be. Does that suggest a close tie between two mysteries, moral values and God?

Before answering that question, let me make a few clarifications. The highest moral and ethical values are absolute. Anyone who thinks it sufficient to have merely relative standards, based on what individuals or groups feel is right, won't see a connection between God and morality. Of course, some rules are relative to situations. In some countries we drive on the right, in others on the left. But relative standards alone simply won't do. Fundamental moral principles – don't murder, don't steal, and so on – must be objective, binding on all, regardless of private opinions or emotions.

If someone robs you, your outrage is not merely a feeling, like feeling hot or feeling sad. Nor is it merely an opinion generally accepted within your society, as if a society of thieves could legitimately have a different opinion. Rather, you recognize that the thief has done something objectively wrong, something that no one should ever do, regardless of how he feels or society thinks.

A second clarification: If I say that ethics requires God, I do not mean that atheists and agnostics never recognize moral standards. Even the Bible recognizes that they do (Romans 1:32). Indeed some say they believe in absolute principles, though that, of course, is rare. I contend, rather, that an atheist or agnostic is not able to give an adequate reason for believing in absolute moral principles. And when people accept moral principles without good reason, they hold to them somewhat more loosely than others who accept them upon a rational basis. Nor do I wish to suggest that people who believe in God are morally perfect. Scripture tells us that isn't so (1 John 1:8-10). The demons are monotheists (James 2:19), but belief in the one God doesn't improve their morals. Something more is needed to become good, and that, according to the Bible, is a new heart, given by God's grace in Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17, Ephesians 2:8-10).

Why then should we believe that morality depends on God? To say God exists is to say that the world is created and controlled by a person – one who thinks, speaks, acts rationally, loves and judges the world. To deny that God exists is to say that the world owes its ultimate origin and direction to impersonal objects or forces, such as matter, motion, time, and chance. But impersonal objects and forces cannot justify ethical obligations. A study of matter, motion, time, and chance will tell you what is up to a point, but it will not tell you what you ought to do. An impersonal universe imposes no absolute obligations.

But if this is God's world, a personal universe, then we do have reason to believe in absolute moral principles. For one thing, as Immanuel Kant pointed out, we need an omnipotent God to enforce moral standards, to make sure that everyone is properly rewarded and punished. Moral standards without moral sanctions don't mean much. More important, we should consider the very nature of moral obligation. We cannot be obligated to atoms, or gravity, or evolution, or time, or chance; we can be obligated only to persons. Indeed, we typically learn morality from our parents, and we stick to our standards at least partly out of loyalty to those we love. An absolute standard, one without exceptions, one that binds everybody, must be based on loyalty to a person great enough to deserve such respect. Only God meets that description.

As always, I'd encourage you to read the whole thing. (inluding Kurtz's position, along with rebuttals by each). Then (and only then), I'd really like to hear from someone who finds Kurtz' argument compelling.

My own experience has been that while very many people embrace Kurtz' position (rejecting Frame's), very few of them can actually give any sustained rationale for it (which is precisely Frame's critique). I'd love to hear from someone who thinks they can...

The Essence of Eternity

2006-07-28T11:24:00.000-07:00

Friend and thinker Art Boulet has penned a great post on the essence of eternity...

[In] Ecclesiastes, the author writes, “[Yahweh] has put eternity in man’s heart.”

“Eternity” is an interesting concept throughout the history of Scripture and philosophy. Perhaps when we think about “eternity” we simply think about a large amount of time that spans infinitely backward into the past and infinitely forward into the future. But there is a distinction to be made between our concept of “time” and our concept of “eternity.” As Herman Bavinck points out, the distinction is not simply quantity and degree, but quality and essence.

The quality and essence of what “time” actually is originated with the fall; with man becoming enemies with their creator and, as a result, perverting the ideal in which they were created. “Eternity” is what we were created for; an entirely different quality and essence of living; a quality and essence which is still within our hearts; a quality and essence for which we all long.

We try to fill the void of this longing in different ways. N.T. Wright points out, we all long for beauty, for spirituality, for relationships, and for justice. These are good concepts, but by themselves will never satisfy the lust for “eternity” which God has imbedded within our hearts. As St. Augustine writes elsewhere in his Confessions, “wherever the human soul turns itself, other than you, it is fixed in sorrows, even if it is fixed upon beautiful things external to you and external to itself, which would nevertheless be nothing if they did not have their being from you.”

The only satisfying resting place for our lust for “eternity” is the gracious arms of our Redeemer.

I'd encourage you to go read the whole thing. Well said, Art!

all part of the process...

2006-07-27T19:44:00.000-07:00

so, we haven't posted anything recently, but i'm realizing that is all part of the process. what do i mean by "process", you ask? well this whole fund-raising thing has really gotten me thinking.* (christian posted, "why fund-raising is beautiful" over at our project website if you're interested.) but i have to fill you in on some of the story first...

at the end of may, rachel and i moved in with her folks in south dakota. her parents have been a big help with the kids and with keeping costs down. however, it has been a struggle. there are now 4 people with an opinion on how to raise our boys. there are now 3 people who see my sin on a daily basis (and let me know about it). moreover, we are tempted more than ever to think, "if only we can get through this fund-raising process, then..." if only. if only.

for the past three years, we plowed our way through seminary. we spent all three years thinking, "if only we can get through seminary, then..." well here we are - on the other side, and life is just as busy, just as challenging, and i'm just as tired as i was when i was staying up half the night studying - maybe more so since now i'm up multiple times during the night with the baby.

lest this post feel like nothing more than a rant, i'll get back to the point. all of this is part of the process - and process is good. we've had the chance this summer to live in a little mini community at the in-law's house. this is what we want in missoula - to really know other people. to rub shoulders with people daily to the point of seeing their weaknesses and letting them see ours and being able to help each other grow. fund-raising hasn't been easy, but it has been a process that is teaching us to value the most important commodity we have on this earth - i'm not talking about money; i'm talking about other people. relationships are the only thing we can take with us from this earth. rachel and i have been learning the value of them.

where does the lord have you in process today? are you trying to resist it? do you, like us, find yourself saying "if only..., then..." most likely, whatever it is that you are saying that about is actually god's grace to you right now. it is the refining fire that he has ordained to point out the impurities in your life so he can burn them away. it is such a paradox though - learning to embrace god's process is a process in itself! press on.

*just as an fyi...we are currently at 75% of what we need to raise! This means we are below $1000/month which is an emotional marker. Unfortunately, we still can't even think about looking for housing until we hit at least 80%. So, please pray for us. And if you're feeling generous, click here to learn how you can get involved.

a year ago today...

2006-07-21T07:09:00.000-07:00

some of you may remember reading about our son joshua last year. well, it was exactly one year ago today that we watched him be born. you can read about that starting here (then here, next here, and then jump ahead in the story to here - these should at least fill you in).

i wanted to take a moment today to honor the son i'll never know. i'll never have the chance to help him bait a hook or wait patiently for that first deer to emerge from the trees. i'll never get to read stories, pray and tuck him in at night. i'll never see him do a lot of things - but i will see him again. in fact, i'll get to see him without a lot of things. without the baggage of this difficult life. without the roughness and toughness that the pain of life brings.

i'm sad today as i reflect on a full year since joshua's birth. i can't believe we have been blessed with another son, just 3 weeks ago. Asher will never know his brother joshua. tomorrow we'll be placing joshua's ashes in the earth under a beautiful tree on our south dakota paradise. we'll also be baptizing Asher and thus is the irony of this life and this upside-down kingdom that we are a part of - death is actually a gateway to life.

please pray for us today and tomorrow as we remember the little boy, joshua, who never took a breath, but changed our lives forever. god rest his soul.

Talking Jesus with Metalheads

2006-07-18T11:00:00.000-07:00

So how do you think about your faith? An agnostic friend of mine recently pointed me to a conversation about Christianity going on over on the "Metal Montana" (yes, Montana has its heavy metal fans - and some of them are even Christians! *gasp*). At any rate, he asked me to chime in, so I did (near the bottom of page 2).

I'd encourage you to click on over and follow along as well - after all, Scripture not only tells us we should love the lost (and its a little disturbing how many of us don't), it also says we need to be prepared to share the reason for the hope we have in Christ (1 Pe 3:15). So, what would you say? Any thoughts? Comments? Suggestions?

The Pirate in Us All

2006-07-09T21:18:00.000-07:00

It's official - Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest is a great movie. We took all the kids and went to the matinee showing today, and I really liked it. But maybe not for the reasons you might expect. Let me see if I can explain (without giving too much away).

First of all, we loved the first movie. We walked into that one with a sort of with a sort of 'grin and bear it' attitude - my sister and her then fiancee had asked us to go, and we felt like we had to take one for the team. It was definitely not something we would have gone to on our own - I mean, come on, it's a Disney ride, right? I walked out utterly stunned, thinking, 'This is the best pirate movie of all time - I WANT TO BE A PIRATE! ARGHHHH!' (picture my wife looking embarrassed and you'll have it to a tee).

So that was the first movie. If you didn't like that one, you won't like this one. Save yourself the money and don't bother going. BUT... if you liked the first one, then you simply must see this one too. Whether or not you will like it, though, may be a different story.

Put simply, this is a very different movie. One friend described it as 'darker' - that may be an apt description, but probably not in the way you'd expect. This movie feels different, slower. There are less memorable one liners. But then again, these are people we already know from the first movie, and so you simply can't have the same element of surprise (how do you top something like the opening scene in the first movie anyway, with Jack sailing his leaky boat into port? It can't be done, so we shouldn't be too critical when they don't try!).

That said, there are still some great twists - the three-way sword fight was brilliant (nuff said). There is lots of the same comic relief that kept the first one from taking itself too seriously. The special effects are good, not overdone (or creepy wierd). With all that said, I found myself kind of 'waiting' for the movie to take off. I also found myself wondering 'Is this good enough that we're going to buy it when it comes out on video?'

And then, all those concerns were answered (affirmatively) in the last 10 minutes of the movie. This is where it is utterly brilliant. The first movie is a pirate movie - it's about a pirate named Jack Sparrow. This second movie is a philosophical expose, dressed up as a pirate movie - it's about the pirate in all of us.

And here's where it is absolutely brilliant - you don't realize what's going on until the end of the movie. The movie only really makes sense in retrospect, when you look back and realize what's been going on. The question at hand is simple: what will you do to get what you want, the thing that you love most? Who are you willing to betray in order to get (or save) what is dearest to you. The movie is full of people doing just that - selling out their principles to get what they desire. Even Elizabeth - yes, dear, charming, sweet Elizabeth - reveals that she too has a dark side. And it is absolutely stunning and tragic to watch it play out.

So I come away from this movie thinking, "Wow. I need to see that again. Because what was going on there was much more than a simple pirate movie - it was asking real deep, meaningful questions about friendship and love, right and wrong, and where do we draw the line." In short, this is a movie about human nature, about how all of us are pirates deep within, and when that inner darkness comes out, it ain't always pretty.

I also came away thinking I can't wait to see the next one. It's been a long time since I've seen a good cliffhanger, and this is one of the best. It will be very, very interesting to see how they resolve this thing - they've asked some good questions. Now we need to see if they come up with good answers.

Ok, that's all I'll say for now. Hopefully this will whet your appetite to go see it for yourself. Marilyn was a tad disappointed; all three of my kids loved it (because after all, its still a rousing piratey affair); I loved it because of the deeper questions it raised. And the ending is absolutely stellar. Do yourself a favor and go check it out. Once you do, I'd love to hear what you think about it (but let's try to check any spoilers to a minimum - the element of surprise is essential here!).

Looking forward to hearing what others thought of it...

Paul Tripp on Contentment

2006-07-07T12:00:00.000-07:00

So you think your life sucks? What if you were walking down the sidewalk, minding your own business, when suddenly you got run over by an SUV and nearly killed? This is what happened to Paul Tripp's daughter recently, and he recently shared some great thoughts on contentment:

Real contentment isn't produced by external circumstances, but from attitudes of the heart. If you need life to be a certain way in order to be content, you won't experience contentment very often. True contentment is the result of gratitude and real gratitude is the result of humility. When you begin to realize that everyday you receive much more blessing than you could ever deserve, you are able to be content even in situations that you would have never chosen. When you are able to see that even in the darkest of moments there are things for which to be thankful, then you are able to experience contentment mixing with pain. When purposes that are larger then your own momentary happiness are what capture your heart and structure your activity, you are able to be content even when things aren't going your way.

I'd highly recommend you read the whole thing (especially if you'd like to know more about how Nicole Tripp is progressing in her recovery) Also, here's some background on the accident.

The easy thing, of course, is to be thankful this hasn't happened to you, and to pray for young Nicole. At the same time, perhaps we might be better served by stopping to ponder our own contentedness - how would you respond if you were Nicole? If you were her father? What kind of faith rests unshaken in the midst of adversity, content with - even blessing! - God in the face of hardship and disaster? That's the kind of faith I long for. What about you?

(HT: PalmTree Pundit)

Eyes that See

2006-07-04T06:47:00.000-07:00

Sitting in a coffee shop early this independence day, I saw a horrifying scene flash across the TV screen, as a subway station surveillance camera in South Korea captures an awful event with unblinking faithfulness.

It's early in the morning - people are milling around, waiting for the next train to arrive, when suddenly, a blind man leaps over the guardrail and lays down in the tracks. Horrified onlockers scream hysterically, some waving shirts and arms in an attempt to slow the oncoming train; others cry out to the man on the tracks, begging him to move while he still has time. At the last second - literally - two train station employees leap onto the tracks and drag the man off to the side. The train misses them by mere feet, if not inches.

What prompts a man to do this? Fear? Despair? Hopelessness? Lack of vision? Does he really have nothing left to live for? I realize that people are feeling more socially isolated than ever, but is his life really that empty? Is his future really that bleak?

The temptation here is to write his behavior off as irrational, incomprehensible - but I think that's something of a cop out. You see, if I am honest, I find that not only can I actually relate, but his conclusion makes perfect sense. I myself have felt that kind of despair at times - not to the point of climbing onto the tracks, but certainly to the point of being able to fathom it, to understand the emotions that might drive someone to make that kind of ultimate action.

I myself have felt it at times in my marriage. Once not so long ago I told my wife, "I can understand why men leave their wives." That's not a reflection on her - it really says more about me. You see on the whole we actually have a very strong, healthy marriage. But at times, I find myself choosing what data I am going to process - I can very easily focus on the flaws, the faults, the imperfections, to the point where the only possible, logical conclusion is despair.

The problem here is not my logic - that actually functions quite nicely. No, the problem is that I am biased to only admit certain data, data that supports how I feel about the situation at the moment.

We all do this, in one place or another. We look at what's going on around us and we draw conclusions about the future. That is a huge act of faith on our part. We choose to believe ourselves rather than what God or others have to say. We effectively confess that 'My eyes are ultimate - I see clearly and will be the ultimate interpreter of the future.' We do exactly the same thing that Adam and Eve did in the garden: we look at the forbidden fruit, and we attempt to rewrite the story based on our own interpretations.

We were not designed to live this way. As Camus said, "The only real philosophical question is suicide" - by this he meant, why shouldn't we do it? If we will be the gods of our own universe, then suicide is the only real option because we are ultimately gods who are weak, finite, bent, and mortal.

And yet, deep down, in spite of our optimistic atheism, we all know that suicide is NOT the right option. Why did the people scream and beg for this man to move? Why did two workers put their own lives at risk to save his? At the end of the day, why will almost everyone (rightly) recognize their actions as good, just, noble, right? Why shouldn't I divorce my wife when things look bleak?

I think that deep down we simply cannot suppress the knowledge of God - that he exists, that he has created us, and we are destined for something better. We are imago dei, image of God, fallen and bent, yet the resemblance unmistakably persists. We know that it is tragic to throw away human life because we know there is something noble in every life.

We know that this nobility often comes through most clearly in the midst of hard times - like blindness, like conflict. Real beauty, the kind that is transcendant and unquenchable, shines most clearly when it persists even after one is wronged by others, robbed of hope. Humans are meant to be glorious. They are meant to be able to see the world rightly even when you take away their eyes. They are meant to be in relationship with one another, to persist in marriage not because it is convenient or beneficial to them, but because they have obligated themselves to another human being, to stick with them through thick or thin, for better or worse.

Humanity is meant for something more, for someone more. But we have these weak feeble eyes that keep turning inwards on ourselves. And when we do that, we despair because all we can see is ourself and our fundamental inability, weakness and frailty. We are like vapor, and life is like a gale. The only way to stay the course is to trust in someone that sees better than we do, who can look further down the road.

That is faith. That is what God calls us to. And that is our only hope for meaning and fulfillment - to live a life that is grounded in others, in Another. We need eyes that see they way his do.

Catching Up

2006-07-03T21:04:00.000-07:00

As most of you have probably noticed, my blogging has been relatively light lately. Even though I've graduated from seminary, I'm still busy studying - this time for ordination. So as I come across interesting articles on the web, I tend to bookmark them under a folder called 'Blog Fodder' (meaning, this might be worth reflecting on at some point). Right now, that folder is getting pretty full.

SO... in an effort to provide some reading material, I think I'll pass along a couple of interesting reads:

First, there's this: Roots of human family tree are incredibly shallow. As in, every single human being alive today comes from a common ancestor who lived less than 5000 years ago. Regardless of what you think about evolution vs. creation, doesn't this seem to bolster the biblical claim that their was a real historical Adam from whom we are all descended? Why is it that no "unbiased secular scientists" would ever draw this conclusion? (perhaps the answer is along the lines of "because there is no such thing as 'unbiased secular scientists'...)
Second, there's this: Comatose man's brain rewires itself. The gist is straightforward - after 20+ years in a comatose state, Terry Wallis has regained a suprising amount of functionality. Yes, the article is clear that he's not Terri Schiavo. But it's worth noting that for most of this time his quality of life was not much different from hers.

Dr. James Bernat, a neurologist at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in New Hampshire puts it like this: "Most neurologists would have been willing to bet money that whatever the cause of it, if it hadn't changed in 19 years, wasn't going to change now."

Wallis' father said his son is now able to make jokes. "That was something he wasn't able to do early in his recovery," Jerry Wallis said. "He now seems almost exactly like his old self. And he very often tells us how glad he is to be alive."

My point is that there was a very long period where there was absolutely no hope of progress. And yet, suddenly (miraculously!), Wallis has made a stunning recovery. So recovery is at least possible, even in extremely severe cases. And the man who is recovering is extremely glad to be alive.

So why is it that no "human rights activists" are trumpeting this case, calling for a caution and patience, for enduring rather than pulling the plug? Why are they insisting that not only do people have the right to die, but that others have the right to make that decision for them? (perhaps the answer is that they are not really about 'human rights' so much as they are about 'their own rights'...)
Third and finally. Remember Anne Lamott? She's someone I really want to like - I shared what she wrote about her conversion to Christianity over a year ago in a post entitled Damascus Road. But now there's this - on June 25 in the L.A. Times she wrote about how she helped kill a man, a friend of hers suffering from terminal cancer. Why is there no outcry? Why is it that her actions are more likely to be lauded than condemned?

What's the common thread in each of these? I think they all illustrate a world-view that is fundamentally anti-faith. We consistently act in our own interests, based on what we ourselves see, what we ourselves determine to be right. In biblical lingo, we're like the ancient Israelites in the days of the judges: "each one did what was right in his own eyes."

Christianity, on the other hand is a call to trust someone else's eyes (God's) rather than our own, a call to serve others rather than ourselves. Anything less simply isn't Christianity. Maybe this is why the author of Hebrews says 'Apart from faith it is impossible to please God.'

Not sure where I'm going with all this - it's just interesting blog fodder. And I'd love to hear from someone who disagrees with me here.

greetings from the womb

2006-07-01T16:55:00.000-07:00

Say Hello to Asher Knox!

He was born Thursday evening at 8:34 and weighed in at 7lbs 6.5 oz. You can read about it and see pics of him here at our blog.

Thanks for all your prayers. Asher was one of Jacob's sons from the Bible and in Hebrew means "blessing." Knox comes from John Knox, A Scottish Reformer.

Asher and Mom are both doing very well - we all came home today and Bridger just loves being a big brother.

Free Tech School in the Bronx

2006-06-30T12:33:00.000-07:00

Wow. I ran across this on Boing Boing.net today...

My company in NYC was doing a community service day in the South Bronx. On the way there, I got waylaid on the street by a short older man who said in a thick Jackie Mason accent: "Young man! Do you want to learn electrical engineering?"
I was so intrigued that I followed him a few blocks away, past a whole bunch of disquieting, Wile E. Coyote-style "Free Technical School in basement: GO RIGHT IN! RIGHT THIS WAY!" signs, and found, basically, an underground maker's lair consisting of a big unimproved basement filled with chairs, boilers, and homemade electrical diagnostic devices. Plus LCD monitors mounted on the wall, CAT6 cable, and dry-erase boards filled with math. All the ingredients of a supervillain's lair. Except used in the service of creating more geeks.
I was terrified the whole time (South Bronx! Three stories underground! Genial elderly man who's spouting theories about biodiesel to passers-by!), but it turns out that he's teaching a highly employable skill, for free, to anyone with a clean police record in a depressed neighborhood.
There are some pictures here, if you want to see the "Free elec. school in basement go right in" signs for yourself.

Do yourself a favor and go check out the pictures. This is absolutely hilarious. And cool. Isn't it odd that someone doing something like this (for free) strikes us as freaky?

Guardrails

2006-06-26T10:02:00.000-07:00

My mom showed me a newspaper article the other day. A 50-something woman from Michigan stepped over a guardrail in Yellowstone Park in order to take a picture. She lost her footing and plummeted 500 feet to a very messy death.To be brutally honest, my initial reaction was, "How stupid can you get? I bet she was also having her children (who were touring the park with their parents) pose next to the sweet buffaloes for pictures."

But then my mom and I started thinking about the absolute horror of being her husband or her children, and watching helplessly for what seemed like an eternity as your wife or mother fell (approx 15 seconds...try counting that out). The husband ran out into the street in order to flag down a car to call 911. And then a ranger had to rappel down in order to recover her body. And now they have to make arrangements to bring her body home, etc. A pretty nightmarish vacation, really.

And, to think about it further, she probably didn't think she was stepping into a danger zone when she stepped over that guard rail. After all, there might have been a few feet of fairly level ground ... and if it wasn't a total drop-off, the danger probably wasn't all that obvious. I can picture multiple places in Yellowstone where it could seem fairly safe to step over the retaining walls, just to get a slightly better photographic angle on that magnificent scenery...

Later that night, I was reading Randy Alcorn's book The Grace and Truth Paradox. He talked about guardrails -- God gives us commandments (truth) as a way of protecting us (grace). Nobody who is, say, driving down the Beartooth Highway and hits a guardrail will be cursing the guardrail for denting their car. They will be incredibly thankful that the guardrail saved their lives. And the guardrails are there for a reason, even when the danger of disobedience doesn't seem immediately obvious.

There's another Christian reference to guardrails that I've heard. Jim Petty talks about the "guardrails of God's providence." What he means is that when we are trying to discern God's Will for our lives, we can get pretty caught up in looking for signs and trying to figure out what the perfect decision will be. But all along, God, by his grace, is "hemming us in, both behind and before;" when we make decisions that are consistent with the wisdom that he gives us. It's sort of like playing bumper-bowling -- the ball is always on the path to knock some pins over, even if the path it takes is somewhat indirect. On a precipitous highway, you try not to veer all over the road, but the guardrails are sure nice if you happen to let the steering wheel wander, or if you lose control.

I'm sure that this Michigan woman didn't intend to become a "sermon illustration" on her vacation to our nation's first national park. I'm sure her family wishes that they had all been more concerned about staying within the guardrails set for them by park authorities. But, if this family knows the Lord, they have no greater comfort than knowing that this -- yes, even this accident -- is not outside the ever-more-secure guardrails of God's providence.

Liberalism as a White Man's Religion

2006-06-22T18:10:00.000-07:00

Mark Driscoll has some very interesting comments on liberalism (the religious kind) and its insistence that all religious beliefs are equally valid. Basically, he looks at what's going on in the Episcopal church and says this infatuation with religious tolerance it has all the earmarks of a "white man's religion." Here's the crux of his comments:

In a curious plot twist, last summer the African bishops of the Anglican Church showed up unannounced at the family feud to condemn their liberal American counterparts as heretics promoting a different religion. American Episcopalians now have their robes in a bind trying to figure out how to spin their defense as Civil Rights nobility: the generally white, educated, and affluent First World American women and homosexuals fighting unjust opposition at the hands of generally black, less educated, and less affluent Third World African heterosexuals.
Admittedly, whatever one’s position on the issue you have to admire the Africans’ willingness to lean over the plate and take one for their team. In doing so they have exposed three very glaring weaknesses of liberal American Protestantism:

The liberal insistence that all religious beliefs are equally valid is a very white, Western European bias left over from the Enlightenment’s concept of knowledge and values. This bias has no right to be preeminent over other views, including heterosexual black African fundamentalism.

The Bible’s stance on homosexuality and feminism is "offensive" because of cultural prejudices held by white Americans; the controversy is not universal and is therefore little more than a form of cultural discrimination masquerading as tolerant open-mindedness.

The moral outrage expressed by liberals in defense of feminism and homosexuality is hypocrisy because while they espouse tolerance of all views (especially those from the Third World), they disdain the African position. They’ve exposed themselves as equally narrow-minded fundamentalists.

Did you catch that? What he's saying here is that 'religious tolerance' is actually a product of a specific culture: the rich, white, upper-middle class, American/European (liberal) religious establishment. In other words, religious liberalism is biased to allow us Westerners to do whatever we want (with whomever we want). Driscoll points out that this 'anything goes' attitude is actually antagonistic to the religious convictions of the new center of Christendom - poor, ethnic, non-white Christians in the southern hemisphere (think Africa and South America).

Regardless of what you think about Driscoll (or the issue of feminism/homosexuality), the point he's raising deserves consideration. What makes relativism a 'better' value than the idea that some things are right and some things are wrong?

I'd love to get some feedback from those of you who would be sympathetic to the liberal positions here. Specifically, what do you think of Driscolls argument, and why?

The Message of Jesus

2006-06-22T07:28:00.000-07:00

This past semester I got to know a first year Westminster student by the name of Art Boulet (wacky mental flash: picture some guy rappelling down the side of a mountain in Shakespearean garb hollering out 'Art Boulet?' to the folks down below. If that image is not instantly hilarious, then never mind, it's not worth trying to explain). Art weighs in today with some great thoughts on the message of Jesus:

The message of Jesus was a message of restoring “shalom” to a world that has gone desperately wrong. “Shalom,” in ancient Judaism, was the ideal in which God created the world to function. It was the ideal of creation being interwoven with each other; God and human beings interacting in perfect harmony; humankind and creation functioning without flaw, without disease, without hatred, without war, without killing, without suffering, without evil.

The message of Christ is a message of peace; he came as the Truth and the Life to restore humanity and creation to the condition in which they should have been functioning all along. Christ did not say, “Follow these rules and you will have life.” Rather, he said, “I am the Life.” Through following Jesus humankind can taste that “shalom” and live in a way that is truly human: the way it was supposed to be.

Somewhere along the line we have seem to forgotten this message. Instead, we have turned the message of peace into a message of divisiveness that furthers the separation and works against the ideal of “shalom.” Christians tend to shun those on the outside, those who have problems, those who need the message of Christ. This has turned the culture away from Christianity because, when you think about it, who wants to hang around a bunch of self-righteous pricks who tell me that I’m always wrong and am going to burn in hell forever?

The message of Christ was not simply a message about “where you are going when you die: heaven or hell?” It was also a message of “how are you going to live your life today and tomorrow and the next day?” There is a freedom in knowing Christ; a liberty to live as part of creation in the manner that is truly human; to relate to people in a way that is free of sin and guilt and self-righteous condemnation; to get a foretaste of what that “shalom” truly is; to love each other, creation, and God in the way that we were always meant to.

Good thoughts, worth reading in full. Thanks Art!

Feet (Mine)

2006-06-19T21:58:00.000-07:00

Feet (Mine). Not sure why I like this picture, but I do. I was going to post a really beautiful sunset panorma tonight - I had to jump into the car, race down the road, then jog out into the middle of a field - but when I got there, the camera batteries were dead. ARGH! So you get to look at my feet instead.

Creating an Inviting Environment

2006-06-19T14:09:00.000-07:00

Just stumbled across this paragraph, written by the Jollyblogger as he sumarizes Mark Driscoll. The question at hand is simple - how do we as Christians reconcile these two charges: on the one hand, we are to guard the faith entrusted to us (1 Tim 6:20, 2 Tim 1:14); on the other, we are to go and make disciples (Mt 28:19).

Mark Driscoll has a sermon where he talks about people who spend their lives contending for the faith without ever contextualizing the faith. These are people who are like pit bulls, always attentive to heresy and always ready to do battle against error. These people also often wish more nonbelievers would come to their church to hear the truth. Driscoll says nonbelievers don't come to the church for the same reason that people don't gravitate to homes that are guarded by a couple of pit bulls.

I believe that is a good illustration. This is not to say that homes (and churches) don't need to be guarded. But there are ways of guarding a house that are more discreet and that can give the house an inviting air of hominess, while still protecting the house and keeping it from looking like a fortress.

It seems to me that we could tone down the acrimony in the blogosphere and the church in general if polemicists would follow the example of the apostle Paul and devote the best of their spiritual and intellectual energies first on evangelism and church planting/building, and then let the polemics follow later.

I think he's on to something here. And I would add this - I think we need to love 'the lost' as much as we claim to love 'the truth'. In many cases, I suspect the real reason we love the truth is because we think we measure up to it, and so we see it as something that can build us up, that can buttress our own position. But I wonder how many times what we're really loving is just ourselves, and anything that makes us look better.

If we really love the Truth (as in 'The Way, the Truth, and the Life'), then we will love what he does - and that means the lost. Passionately. Enough to think daringly about how we might go and build relationships with them, about the barriers we erect that keep them from coming.

What would it look like to create a church that genuinely loves and cares for unbelievers as much as it does for the truth? It's something worth pondering...

Murder in Fischer Park

2006-06-14T13:37:00.000-07:00

On a more sober note, those of you who knew we lived in Philly may be interested to see what we left behind.

Psychiatric Answering Machine

2006-06-14T09:49:00.000-07:00

Don't you hate it when you try to call your shrink and get his answering machine instead... [HT: Julie Shipp]

Real Live Rube Goldberg

2006-06-14T07:46:00.000-07:00

(Click here to see the video clip)

You remember Wile E Coyote, right? With all his crazy inventions to try and catch the Roadrunner (Tom and Jerry were great for these as well). At any rate, there's actually a name for these things - they're called Rube Goldberg devices. Seems that Rube was a cartoonist. But the devices can actually be made for real. Here are a couple of examples to illustrate.

The first one (above) is made out of stuff you'd find in a forest. The second one illustrates how you can use a car to start a car (the Honda Cog). And both are simply amazing. These are real - they were photo-shopped or CGI'd. They were filmed in realtime, cameras rolling, and they show what a little creativity can do (I suppose you could think of this as rock-balancing-in-motion). I can't wait to see my kids run wild with this one...

Crap On The Table

2006-06-13T20:48:00.000-07:00

Another brilliant Ghetto Monk sighting:

Actually, you, Pete, gave me this picture, probably without realizing it. A few nights ago, you said that when you and Finley struggle with something, with anything, really, that the only thing to do to bridge the distance is to lay your crap on the table and walk through it. Picture that literally for a moment. Sure, this image likely won’t show up on the 2004 Thomas Kincade calendar, but it will show up often in my mental picture box.

Because when I heard that, I heard covenant; I heard God making a vow with and for Abraham, God laying down two rows of death and stench, and Abraham walking through it. And the beauty of it is that even though it wasn’t God’s crap—in fact, it was Abraham’s, mine, and yours—God himself was the first to walk through our crap; so though you will make one vow tomorrow, your life together will be a continual laying down and walking through, and the only thing that will make it palatable is that God has and will continue to walk before you.

You are not promising only to love in sickness and health and those other things; more importantly, you are promising to take Finley’s hand and follow God through your own crap—it will be dirty for a time, but the day is drawing near when he will finally make you clean, erase the filth and grime, color you with a white that even Crayola couldn’t imagine.

That is your vow, and here is mine. Many of you don’t know this, but Pete and I haven’t always been friends. Before he got engaged, before even I started moving in on his turf and on the girl he had been interested in, Pete didn’t like me very much, which led me to think, naturally, that maybe I didn’t like him. After many months of this mutual unliking, Pete asked me to go eat lunch with him. I wasn’t sure why he would do such a thing, though I imagined that a public scene was in the making.

We went to the Mongolian BBQ on Olive Road, where you get to pick your raw meat out of a lineup and pour oil on it. We sat in a booth, small talked for a few minutes, trying to muster up courage to speak our reasons, and Pete poured his heart out to me, repented, and, thus, named me his friend. And this is what he did.

He considered my heart, he recognized that it hurt more deeply than either of us could put into words, and he did the only thing he could: He decided that he would not hold my sins against me, and that he, whose own heart was drying out from bitterness, would quit holding his own sins against me. He put courage into me, courage I needed to speak words of healing myself, to pour out oils of blessing into others’ parched hearts, and I wished at that moment that I could be more like him.

This is the vow that I have been speaking silently over the years, that I would be more like Pete, specifically in his encouragement.

Wow. I don't care whether anyone thinks I'm a freak for posting Jeremy Huggins snippets so frequently... there's just something about them that resonates with me tremendously. Very, very, deep, poetic, and insightful. I'd sure like to meet this guy some day...

Gateways to SLD

2006-06-12T20:56:00.000-07:00

So have you ever wondered how people find their way to SLD? Molly did, and a little sleuthing on Statcounter turned up the following "search queries" that brought people here:

circumhorizon arc (x2)
why do we lust instead of love
the world is full of bastards the number increasing rapidly the further one gets from Missoula Montana
man i got and the rest of the world wears bifocals
my friend is dealing with lust
favorite movie quotes
life is tough it's even tougher when you're stupid movie
women in ministry
get rid of lust to women
see neighbors naked

Interesting to me how many of these a) related to movies, and b) related to lust / sex. Not sure whether they found what they were looking for or not... ;-)

The Missional Gospel

2006-06-12T17:42:00.000-07:00

For those of you who are interested, here are some audio links to how I understand the gospel, and how that understanding drives our sense of mission, of church planting.

Gospel Sanctification (Shane Sunn, April '06)
Who is the Jesus? (Mk 1:9-28) (moi, June '06)
Our Philosophy of Church Planting (moi, April '06)

As always, comments and feedback welcome. Enjoy!

[ps - anyone out there with the time, skills, and inclination to transcribe one or more of these? if so, please ping me...]

Man Behind the Mask

2006-06-12T08:56:00.000-07:00

Ever wonder what some of these bloggers lurking out in cyberspace actually look like? Here's a sweet shot of Jeremy Huggins (aka Ghetto Monk), whom I like to reference from time to time. Wow. Wish I could grow facial hair like that.

Samurai Christianity

2006-06-09T12:18:00.000-07:00

Reggie Kidd, over at Common Grounds, has a great explanation of how his attempts to learn Samurai swordsmanship have actually taught him a lot about his Christianity. The short answer: it demands complete submission to the authority of your sensei. Here's a snippet...

From our first class to the time we were allowed to handle sharp swords and cut tatami (reed floor mats rolled up, rubberbanded, and soaked), it was six months. Six months of tutelage in how to take a dull sword out of its sheath and put it back in without losing a finger. Six months of trying to do “forms” that require our bodies to move in stylized, ritualistic, awkwardly Japanese ways. And then another year before being deemed ready to try to earn our first rank. In all, eighteen months of waiting to do “the good stuff.”
Our sensei’s attitude? “We’re not interested in students of the sword who are not students of ‘the way.’” He’s made it clear that if you’re going to be exasperated at “a long obedience in the same direction,” you’d be better off elsewhere.

Really, though, it’s been remarkably easy to submit to a man who himself has submitted to another.

Go on, read the whole thing...

Christians and The City

2006-06-09T09:48:00.000-07:00

Tim Keller has an article called A New Kind of Urbanism that is really worth reading. In it, he tackles the issue of how Christians should be engaging culture. Here's a brief snippet to whet your appetite:

My first strategic point is simple: More Christians should live long-term in cities. Historians point out that by A.D. 300, the urban populations of the Roman Empire were largely Christian, while the countryside was pagan. (Indeed, the word pagan originally meant someone from the countryside—its use as a synonym for a non-Christian dates from this era.) The same was true during the first millennium A.D. in Europe—the cities were Christian, but the broad population across the countryside was pagan. The lesson from both eras is that when cities are Christian, even if the majority of the population is pagan, society is headed on a Christian trajectory. Why? As the city goes, so goes the culture. Cultural trends tend to be generated in the city and flow outward to the rest of society.

Keller goes on to make 3 more points:

Once in cities, Christians should be a dynamic counterculture.
It will not be enough for Christians to form a culture that runs counter to the values of the broader culture. Christians should be a community radically committed to the good of the city as a whole.
There is another important component to being a Christian counterculture for the common good. Christians should be a people who integrate their faith with their work.

The whole thing is well worth your while.
(HT: Justin Taylor)

Geek Tools

2006-06-09T09:30:00.000-07:00

Dang, this is extremely cool. Not only does Google now have a really cool Calendar tool (yes, it allows you to share calendars with people you choose), but just today they've come out with a Browser Sync tool for Firefox. This basically stores all of your Firefox configuration (including bookmarks, etc) on google servers, so if you log onto another machine with Firefox (and the plugin installed), you can simply give it your PIN and bang! It will download and use your config settings. Very, very cool. I continue to be extremely impressed with the direction Google is going...

A Rainbow Like No Other

2006-06-08T07:31:00.000-07:00

(click here for a larger version)

This extremely rare rainbow - a circumhorizon arc - was spotted last week near the border of Idaho and Washington. Here's what the Daily Mail had to say about it:

In a breathtaking blaze of glory, Nature puts on one of its most spectacular sky shows. Reds, oranges, blues and greens create a flaming rainbow that stretches above the clouds.

But this circumhorizon arc, as it is known, owes more to ice than fire. It occurs when sunlight passes through ice crystals in high cirrus clouds. It is one of 15 types of ice halos formed only when the most specific of factors dovetail precisely together.

This blanket of fire, covering hundreds of square miles, is the rarest phenomenon of them all. It was spotted in the US on the Washington-Idaho border around midday last Saturday.

... (click here for the full story) ...

Now listen to how God describes the glory of the heavens:

1 The LORD reigns, let the earth rejoice;
let the many coastlands be glad!
2 Clouds and thick darkness are all around him;
righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne.
3 Fire goes before him
and burns up his adversaries all around.
4 His lightnings light up the world;
the earth sees and trembles.
5 The mountains melt like wax before the LORD,
before the Lord of all the earth.
6 The heavens proclaim his righteousness,
and all the peoples see his glory.
7 All worshipers of images are put to shame,
who make their boast in worthless idols;
worship him, all you gods!
Psalm 97: 1-7

What I find so interesting is that everyone really DOES see the glory, just like the psalm says. Heck, that's why newspapers like the Daily Times print the picture in the first place - because it IS glorious, people will be moved by it, it will sell their papers and make their advertisers happy.

Nevertheless, even though we see his glory, how do we respond? God speaks to us, he calls us "little gods," and he tells us that the proper response to such glory is nothing less than worship. Yet how do we typically respond? Just like the article - we speak of "Nature."

I suspect we do this a) because it's more culturally acceptable, but b) because it's also impersonal (and thus non-threatening). Nature won't send you to hell because you refuse to recognize the beauty in it, because you won't bow to it. Nature is just there - neither good nor bad, just neutral (that's how we think anyway).

The problem with this way of thinking is that it can't explain beauty. You see beauty can only exist where there is a concept of value - where things are good and bad, beautiful or ugly, better or worse. In a truly natural universe, where everything is a product of time and chance, there really is no room for Beauty. Things are just the way they ARE. Period. End of discussion. Oh, and by the way, there's no room for Meaning either. Everything just IS. Shit happens. Survival of the fittest. We're all going to be fertilizer someday, its just a matter of time.

The problem is, no one really wants to LIVE in this kind of world. That's not surprising, either - Scripture tells us that it is because we were meant for something more, something glorious, something beautiful. After all, God himself calls us "gods." There really IS something splendid about humanity, even in its fallen, bent, messed up state. We were created for something wonderful.

But that wonder and glory is derivative. We are meant to be mirrors, reflecting God's glory back to him. And that's precisely what the rest of creation does. Rainbows are glorious not because of "Nature", not because of random ice crystals floating through the atmosphere - No! Rainbows (and all of creation) is glorious because the Creator is glorious. Creation is a mirror, a dim window, into the eternal, unseen, brilliant GLORY of the Godhead.

That's how creation functions, and we all see it plainly. But we are meant to follow this weight of glory to its source, to God, and to respond to it as worshippers, rather than consumers. The former looks to God, with a humble heart and contrite spirit and praises him for caring about us; the latter looks at creation and says, "Ooh, I like that, I want it, on my wall, in my house." We want to own, master, control creation, for our own ends, not His. And that is rebellion of the worst degree.

Take another look at this rainbow like no other, and ask yourself what you see.

Reader Response 2

2006-06-05T21:11:00.000-07:00

And here's a comment from Steve over at A Rainbow Flag in Narnia, discussing his own struggles with homosexuality in response to my post on Gay Pagans Leading Worship.

What an interesting topic.

I did everything I could to resist being gay. From age 17 until 34, I tried living traditional life. I got married, and tried to act my way into heterosexuality. I remained faithful to my wife, but continued to experience same-sex attractions (even though I never acted on them). It drove me to alcoholism, and brought me to the brink of suicide. I was fired from my job, my wife divorced me, and at my bottom, I got sober. Shortly afterward, a friend invited me to church.

I told the pastor, and several of the 20-&-30-somethings there, that I'd been a drunk, a spendthrift, and a general waste of space on earth. They told me about this guy Jesus, who had a penchant for the outcast, the diseased, and who had a habit of transforming lives. Who wouldn't be attracted to that kind of offer?

But I also knew that alcoholism and financial irresponsibility was one thing, especially since I'd repented and left that life behind. However, homosexuality was quite another thing - how do you repent of what you are? So for 13 years, I took my place in the church, spent almost every day praying, crying out, waiting for God to cure me, transform me, to somehow just fix me. I served as worship leader, lay preacher, gave children's sermons, was a choir member, Stephen minister, council member.

I went forward to Billy Graham, at Promise Keepers conferences, and I've even been to seminary. I pledged my life to celibacy (which, before you ask, is where I've been for the last 12 years) in order to serve God. I am still a celibate; so I'm not doing any of the things that Levitical law would have me killed for.

Which prompts me to my first question: do you know for a fact that Bob is a "practicing, self-avowed homosexual"? Has anyone asked the question? Is he actually having sex with other men? Because even the strictest OT reading shows us that just being homosexual is not a sin. And having people gossip about "is he or isn't he?" surely isn't in the Christian standard, either.

Then ask yourself the question: if Bob was straight, and you believed that Bob was having extra-marital sex with a woman, would that disqualify him as well?

But I guess my two main questions about this whole thing would be in the realm of (a) fruits of the spirit and (b) being honest and open about your moral standards.

By your own words, the fruits of this man's contributions to your worship are "a very positive influence on singing and praise." Galatians 5 tells us that "when the Holy Spirit controls our lives, he will produce this kind of fruit in us: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control" (5:22-23, NIV).

It sounds like your "gay pagan" is exhibiting the fruit of Spirit-led service, whether he in fact professes to be a believer or not. Does anyone else see that this as a blessing, and not a problem?

I found the idea that worship of God is somehow tainted by the presence of unbelievers or sinners to be more than a little problematic. If sinners can't lead worship, and "there is no one who is righteous, not even one," then who will lead worship?

And I'm completely undone by the idea that unbelievers somehow stain or damage worship! Can no one worship unless they believe? How will unbelievers ever learn to believe unless they are surrounded by a community of welcoming believers? Certainly the people in my first church did the work of Christ - because took me, a pretty unregenerate, vulgar, angry man, and taught me.

They helped me buy my first Bible; they taught me that asking the embarrassing and tough questions about the Bible was OK. Did they do wrong, somehow? Should I have been seated out in the narthex during worship until I came to belief, and then allowed in? Is that what Jesus did with sinners, thieves, and lepers? Hmmm...it might have been, but that's not what the Bible says... Seems to me that the first person to whom Jesus spoke his lordship was the woman at the well. Would she have been welcome in your worship?

But more importantly, I truly believe that if your congregation feels strongly about homosexuality, then you owe it to yourself and to Bob to address it up front, and be honest with him. If you and your congregation feel that you are "accepting the unacceptable" simply in order to have an accompanist, then I'd say you have the wrong accompanist and he has the wrong church. Otherwise you're just using him - period.

Let's look at this another way, and take the "homo" portion out of this. If Bob was living with Susie, instead of David, would you be having this conversation? And if Bob would not repent of living with Susie, would your decision be the same?

For that matter, if your worship leader were straight, happily and faithfully married, wealthy and came to worship Sunday morning in a Lexus sedan, and yet gave nothing to help feed the hungry or care for the sick in town, would you reject HIM as a worship leader? After all, Matthew 25:31-46 tells us that what separates the sheep from the goats will not be who Bob's sleeping with...

I will suggest to you this is how most evangelical churches approach gays: "Well, friend, you see, God loves sinners - but your particular brand of sin is unacceptable to us. But we want you to know you're welcome here as long as you try to overcome that sin and become acceptable."

That approach doesn't work much. It particularly doesn't work well for guys like me, who fought the way I was made for thirty-five years. I have never "abandoned natural desires" (Romans 1) because I've never had them, to begin with. I've fought to manufacture them, for more than 3 decades - but in the end, I've failed miserably.

So your acceptance of me "until I am healed of my homosexuality" would hve to be a long-standing one...

If that's the message you're looking forward to sharing with Bob and his gay friends, do yourself a favor: don't bother. No matter what the sin, if your message is, "Come on, hang out here, even though we know you're basically not acceptable to us or God. We won't outwardly expect you to change, but inwardly, that's really what we're hoping for, and that's why we're putting up with your sinful nature to begin with...", then your efforts are pretty much doomed.

I'm going to urge you and your to find a copy of Stranger at the Gate, by Mel White. And then read it cover to cover. If you really want to understand about what goes on with gay Christians, it's a challenging (but accurate) description of a very common experience among us.

I am not looking to debate anyone; and I'm done with trying to be changed. But if you want to hear the story of an authentic gay believer, then look here, here and here.

Again, there's no need to spam me with comments about how I'm going to hell. Absent the saving power of Christ, that's absolutely right. Just offering you a chance to see things from the other side of the ledger.

Steve, I didn't respond immediately when I first saw your comments because I was right in the middle of a move, and I wanted to make sure that anything I said would be thoughtful (and that I'd be able to follow up on it, rather than leave you hanging should you respond to comment further). So apologies if it felt like you got ignored - hopefully you are still reading and we can take some time to dialog on this. Thanks for sharing, and I'll try and actually respond to this tomorrow...

Reader Response 1

2006-06-05T21:09:00.000-07:00

There have been a couple of good comments lately on old posts, and since these things often go unnoticed (most people just read whatever is new, at the top of the page), I thought I'd take this opportunity to publish their comments as a post of their own.

Here's what Peter had to say, commenting on Dealing With Lust:

i am a 21 year old male and i was directed here by q lee. needless to say i think about sex a lot. i think about it analytically and spiritually as well as lustfully. a few years ago i did a paper in english class comparing and contrasting the 10 commandments and the sermon on the mount. i concluded that those writings are not rules for restriction but rather freedom. thou shall not kill isn't just prohibitting murder but giving freedom to those who choose, to walk around at night without worry. thou shall not commit adultry is not just a restriction on sleeping around but gives a person freedom of worry and freedom for primarily women not be raped or sexually assaulted. in the same way, the sermon on the mount allows women to walk around and not be gawked at. she doesn't have to be friends with men and wonder "what do they really want from of me?". i was more thorough in my assessment, but my point still stands.

i read the link of the samantha post and was annoyed at the discussion. people calling sex "it" does not help the situation and i think hinders progress within the christian community on these issues. i think that being open is in order. i think that it helps tremendously as "steve" learned. being open takes courage, and is hard at times but progress is not made by being subtle or reserved. i have discussed sex with different women and watched talk sex with sue and the more i learn about the opposite sex the more i learn how much women struggle with the same things as men. my little sister has a poster of orlando bloom in her room. granted he isn't wearing a thong like most pictures directed at men but the same battles occur. i don't think they are talked about because women aren't supposed to be the aggressors and men are and the faster the "independent woman's movement" progresses the more the oral sex statistics will rise. i think that women are figuring out that they do like sex just as much as men but don't have the same support system in place that men do and once again this has to do with the willingness to be open and talk about it.

i think another big problem that needs to be dealt with is the lack of breakdown youth group leaders do in regards to our culture. they either embrace the culture or run away from it. this leaves little alternative for the youth. do i embrace the entertainment age or completely reject it? this leaves room for a lot of rebellion. a lot of fence hopping. also the idea of sex being much more rampant than ever is very foolish because homosexuality and sex was commonplace in the ancient world. the jews dancing around an ashera pole (penis pole) and taking part in orgies around it is something that should be discussed. this gives hope to young christians that jesus and paul know what they are talking about and gives hope that it is more possible to be chaste than they would be led to believe. jesus and paul weren't talking to a bunch of amish. the more open we are and the more we confess to jesus and to our brothers and sisters in christ the less room there is for sin to manifest itself and become attractive. as steve found out when he became open to his wife the less his friend became desireable. this applies to all sin not just lust. i once thought about committing suicide and the more i kept it inside the more attractive it became. however once it became open, the more foolish and ashamed i felt.

on that last note, the more "negative" feelings should also be embraced a lot more. just because i am depressed does not mean that i am far from god. the trinity broadcast network does not help in this. there is after all a book in the bible called lamentations and the psalms is chawk full of depressing tid-bits. jesus himself sweated blood and asked his father why he was being foresaken. the more open and honest we are with each other, especially the youth, i think the easier it will be to conquer our sin or at least be held to a certain degree. for example, i keep myself checked at masturbation. do i cross that line? yes. i do masturbate and i repent daily for it (that's not to say i masturbate everyday). but keeping myself checked at masturbation smothers the idea of going further into sexual impurity.

sorry for the rant, but i have a lot of time to think and this blog got my analytical juices flowing. i hope this answers any of the questions or reacts positively and/or negatively with you all. comments are always appreciated.

So what do you think? Care to respond?

Christian Lunch

2006-06-02T21:45:00.000-07:00

When my son Micah brought me lunch this afternoon, I commended him for his artful arrangement, and then asked him this question: "So why is this lunch...

...more Christian than this lunch...

...even though neither one is actually un-Christian?"

His first response was to look at me like I had just pulled out a joint and lit up - I'm sure he must have thought something like "Good grief, Dad, WHAT ARE YOU SMOKING????" (which is probably what some of you are thinking now as well). But then he paused, as soon as he realized I was serious, and he began gazing intently at the plate, thinking hard.

Go on. Take a good look. How would YOU answer that question?

"Was it because I brought it to you with a good heart?" Ah, now that is definitely on the right track, and certainly part of the equation (the most important part in fact).

"Well, that is certainly what makes it Christian," I said. "But what makes it more Christian?"

Now I asked this question of Micah, because Micah is our most artistic child - if anyone could see what I was driving at, it would be him. "Is it because it looks better?" Ah! He has nailed it! In fact, I'll bet just about everyone reading these words can see the difference too - you may not be able to explain why, but you can tell that the first picture is better, it is more beautiful.

It's the beauty that makes the first lunch more Christian.

So we talked about beauty - about how when you see something beautiful, you just know it. There is something right, something better, something transcendant there just beyond the edge of the objective. C. S. Lewis talks about it as Joy, and he notes that when you go looking for it as an end in and of itself, you never end up finding it. But when you learn to look beyond it, to what Joy and Beauty are pointing to, you end up getting both of them as well. But it takes eyes to see - it takes faith to apprehend what is unseen.

Most people look at wind blowing through the aspens and think, "Hmm... it's a bit breezy out." An artist, however, sees the sun flickering through the leaves on a warm afternoon and gasps, "Wow. It is beautiful!" And the Christian (those who actually have eyes to see such things, at least) - the Christian looks at the leaves dancing and sees the fingers of God, touching each of them, guiding every breath of air, the buzzing of each individual insect, the scent of sap and earth, all welling up together in an orchestrated cauchophany of Beauty. Simply because God delights in it, because it points us back to him.

Anyone can slap some food on a plate and call it good. But it takes a Christian to see the beauty in all of life - whether artwork, or music, or baseball, or lunch - it takes a Christian to pause for a few moments and to emulate the Creator, drawing the Beautiful to the surface, not simply for the sake of Beauty, but for the sake of Him. Because He delights in beauty. And beauty makes him known.

That's what made my lunch today more Christian. And I think my son gets it...

Ghetto Monk Groove

2006-06-02T16:26:00.000-07:00

Ever wonder why Jeremy Huggins calls himself 'Ghetto Monk'? Here's your answer, as he writes about his friend Lamarcus...

After graduating with my bachelor’s degree, I moved into Brookville Gardens, the only state-run housing project in Starkville, Mississippi, a small college town. I knew that no white person had ever lived in that project, and I’d heard stories about its crime, poverty, and general degradation. I’d been considering becoming involved with racial reconciliation efforts in Mississippi, a state with sore racial needs.

Figuring that my talk of “loving my neighbors,” specifically my black neighbors, was only so much moralizing until I understood them well enough to know how to love them, I decided that the best way to even begin to identify with them enough to earn my principles some weight was to live where they lived, suffer the same crime, poverty, and degradation that they did. ...

Soon after moving in, rumor began circulating that I was an undercover cop, a rumor that, given my slight frame, lack of lingual currency, and appalling want of anything regarding caution, I found laughable. It only stopped becoming laughable after one of my neighbors, fearing that I was trying to put his brother in jail, gathered some other tenants, surrounded me one weekend night, and stuck a pistol to my temple...

Now do yourself a favor and read the whole thing. Once again, I really, really like his writing. Very nicely done.

Rock-Paper-Scissors (x25)

2006-06-02T08:26:00.000-07:00

Ok, this is insane. And hilarious. For all of you "Rock-Paper-Scissors" fans, I give you.... (drum roll, please!)... RPS25! (Yes, that's "Rock-Paper-Scissors times 25"). For those of you who are confused, here's a summary of what beats what.

So what do I think? Demented. Wierd. Geeky. Cool. From now on, we will be using this as the official way to solve any irreconcible differences on SLD. See an argument getting out of hand? Simply holler "RPS25!" and all commenters will quickly post their sign and we'll settle the matter once for all, like civilized folks. Wow...

[HT: Heath E]

Decompressing

2006-05-27T20:45:00.000-07:00

So here we are, heading west on I-80, leaving behind many dear friends, yet looking forward (in faith) to those who are still too come. For some reason, I enjoy long road trips, probably because it provides a much needed chance to decompress after months of burning the candle at both ends. So here we are, decompressing. We just finished listening to a Third Day CD, and now Rich Mullins is hammering away on his dulcimer, even though he himself has long since moved on to bigger and better things.

And that brings me to the subject of this post. I've been thinking about Christian music for the past hour or so. The general consensus (in my circles anyway) is that most of it sucks - and I tend to agree. But the usual reason given for that suckiness is that we Christians are too, well, Christian, and not secular enough in our concern for musical quality. And that's the part I'm not so sure about.

What struck me this morning is just how "secular" most Christian music actually sounds. Take Third Day (or any other popular Christian band), ignore the banal lyrics, and what do you have? Something that sounds an awful lot like what you hear on any of the secular stations.

The fact of the matter is, the Contemporary Christian Music industry is just that - an industry - and a very lucrative one at that. There is far too much money to be extracted from trendy young evangelicals to let something like poor production values stand in the way. And so most Christian music today is very well performed and produced. Some of it is even catchy and well written.

So why does Christian music still suck? If anything, it's because it is too "secular."

The problem is an issue of content, not technique - it's not something that's going to be solved by better chord progressions, better melody lines, better musicians, or better producers. I would even go so far as to say that it's not a lack of originality (eg. that Christian artists are all copycats - if they were just more original, things would be different). No, even here CCM is not much different than its "secular" counterparts. Every artist is influenced by others, by trends. No one creates anything in a vacuum. Christian music is really not that different from "secular" music at all.

You see, if you stop and think about it, most secular music sucks too. The only difference is that of volume - for every one Christian album, there are a hundred secular albums (and most of them are just as lame), and some of them manage to create some decent music. But it's not like all of them are doing it - it's not like "secular" groups have a corner on musical quality or insight. There are only so many U2s out there. But because there are so many more "secular" groups, it sometimes seems like they have something the Christian groups don't.

Now you might notice I keep putting "secular" in quotes - what I really mean here is "commercial," and I suspect this recognition may shed some light on the real problem. For most music out there - Christian and secular alike - "it's all about the money boys!" I'm certainly not suggesting that every artist (secular or otherwise) has sold out in pursuit of coin - I think many really do desire to produce quality music, to do something artistic. That said, what defines "good" music these days is often considered "that which is commercially viable." And that's a really poor benchmark.

At the end of the day, I think the problem lies in the both artists and the audience. We simply do not know what it means to be authentic. We all desire better music, because we have been wired (by God, no less!) to desire something beautiful, authentic, transcendent. And (more surprisingly), we know it when we hear it. Yet very few people can actually describe it or produce it, let alone explain it. We desire something more, something deeper, something truly meaningful, yet even the best of us remain surprisingly shallow, self-centered, inward-focused.

So the basic premis of this post is that Christian music sucks, because secular music sucks, because we all suck - we are all hungry for something more, yet we cannot produce that something more on our own, and so we inevitably produce something less than stellar, and the only way to pedal that is to commercialize it.

See where I'm going with this? If we want better music, I think we need to learn what it means to be more human, more image-of-God, more fallen-yet-redeemed. We need to better understand the world around us, the God who created it, and ourselves as sojourners in need of salvation, pilgrims on a journey to something better. The really great artists (both Christian and secular alike) seem to grasp these things better than most of us (or maybe they just stumble into it a little more often than the rest of us).

Really great artists tend to see both the highs and lows - the hilights and shadows of life - much more clearly than the rest of us. And they find creative, beautiful ways of expressing it that capture our attention, our imagination, that let us feel as if they can identify with our plight, that give us hope for something better somewhere down the road.

Well, there you have it - my thoughts on Christian music, as I am decompressing. Now my laptop battery is dying and we're almost to Indiana. Derek Webb's Wedding Dress is playing and it's better than anything I can write, so I think I'll just shut up and listen for a while...

Missing Philly

2006-05-19T09:56:00.000-07:00

Ok, I admit it. I really am going to miss Philly. Not just the friends we've made, but all of the quirky stuff that makes me laugh and cringe at the same time - like the way people drive around here, or stories like this. Wow. I still can't believe that I've actually lived in a place like this, let alone actually started to like it...

Da Vinci & Gnosticism

2006-05-19T07:45:00.000-07:00

The Banty Rooster offers some of the more insightful comments I've seen on Dan Brown's The DaVinci Code, particularly in regard to his understanding of Gnosticism.

...this is precisely what Brown argues in the Da Vinci Code: that the ancient Gnostics wrote gospels emphasizing the humanity of Christ, and the church, under the sway of Constantine, suppressed them because they believed in Christ's divinity.

There's one little problem with that thesis that not many people have picked up on: the Gnostics did not believe Jesus was human. At all. Period. Zip. Nada. Nicht. Niet. "Gnostic" orthodoxy, if you will, is that Jesus is a semi-divine intermediary between God and the world, and, since matter is "evil," in their view, then he could not have been human.
...
The best way to demolish the Da Vinci Code is to point out that it was the ancient Gnostics who emphasized Jesus as "divine" and the very point the orthodox Church drove home time and again in the early-century debates was the humanity of Christ. Read Irenaeus and Tertullian some time on the incarnation.

We need to tell people: you want a human Jesus? Gnosticism will not satsify; only orthodoxy will get you that! And a whole lot more.

Did you catch that second to last paragraph? If not, read it again. Slowly.

Brown's premise (in a highly simplified nutshell) is that Christians got it wrong in deifying Jesus; the real story lies with the Gnostics, who recognized he was just human (and married, and had kids, all so Dan Brown could make a mint on it down the road). In fact, however, it was the Christian's who were insisting on Christ's humanity. Kudos to Banty for stating the matter so clearly...

ADDENDUM: While we're talking about the Da Vinci Code, you simply must read Internet Monk's review of the movie (now THIS is how you write a goood review, imho). [HT: Foolishsage]

Rethinking Women's Issues

2006-05-17T19:56:00.000-07:00

This past Sunday was Mother's Day (you did remember didn't you?), and our pastor tailored his message accordingly. But it was a Mother's Day message unlike any I have ever heard - Manny talked about how women worldwide suffer unjustly.

Consider this: one in three women (nearly one billion) are beaten, forced into sex, or abused in their lifetime. Rape is still one of the most unreported of all crimes. Annually, some 700,000 women and children are trafficked across international borders - mostly females for sexual exploitation. They are usually orphans, refugees, widows, minorities, the poor.

Manny also reminded us that the early church made a point of identifying with people just like this - they were known for rescuing infant girls who had been "set out with the trash" to die of exposure (the Romans had a preference for boys). One of the fundamental impulses of the gospel is the proclamation of justice for the poor and oppressed - wrongs made right, the strong standing up for the weak.

This is what Christ did for us. This is what the church is called to do for others. And frankly, most of us don't give a rat's ass for people like this. We care mostly about ourselves. We care about technical justice, token justice. We conveniently isolate ourselves from neighbors who live on the wrong side of the tracks.

So how does this connect with women's issues? The answer might surprise you. As I listened to Manny speak, it struck me that just about everyone today defines "justice" for women as equality - a woman should be able to do everything a man can do, in church, in society, even in golf. I'm not really against this - I'd actually like to see the church focusing more on what women CAN do, rather than just talking about what they CAN'T do. At the same time, the assumption implicit in all of this is that as long as we treat women as equals, then we are just and fair. We have fulfilled our obligation.

Yet the statistics demonstrate just the opposite. There is a reason why so many women are taken advantage of in our world - there is a fundamental inequality between male and female. On the one hand, women are physically weaker, they are more vulnerable, they are the ones who get pregnant. At the same time, the men who should be protecting them have failed to do so. We stand aside and allow these injustices to occur, either because we don't care, or because we foolishly allow our attention to be diverted to other things.

This is not just a "third world" problem. We in America - yes, even in the church - are addicted to pornography. How many women are being taken advantage of by the porn industry? How many women are being taken advantage of in legalized prostitution? How many women feel the pressure to have sex with their boyfriend in order to keep the relationship? What kind of lies do we sell when we tell women that it's no big deal, as long as its regulated, clean, consensual?

We have told so many lies that we begin to believe them ourselves. We tell women that the only way they measure up is if they look like the models in the magazines. We tell them that the best way to get into a relationship is to "try before you buy" (after all, I care about you - I just want to make sure we are truly compatible, for your sake as well as mine). What kind of pressure do we put on women by telling them that abortion is their right, that it's no big deal?

What do we communicate when we tell them that worth comes from access to a position (CEO, pastor, etc), and then we magnanimously grant them access and say, "See how fair we are?" all the while expecting them to carry a load that bends the back of men. I am not saying that women can't or shouldn't have access to positions. But we are taking advantage of them if we only value them when they can do the same things a man can do, as well as a man can.

What I'm getting at in all this is that we are kidding ourselves if we think that the real issue is simply a matter of "What can a woman do in the church?" Can she be ordained? Can she teach? I just have this nagging feeling that the real issue is far bigger, far more countercultural.

The real issue here is not where 21st century egalitarianism is better than 18th century subordinationism. Women were oppressed and taken advantage of in both those cultures. The real issue is what would it look like for the church to stand up for woman in a way that seeks real justice, that allows them to be women, without fear.

What would it look like for the church to reach out to prostitutes and say, "Any time you want out, we are here. Call us. We will find a way to help you make it work. Whether or not you become a Christian."? What would it look like for men in the church to start saying, "We value you so much that we refuse to use porn, to fantasize about you as a sexual object."? What would it look like for the church to say we will provide free rent and day care to help you with your unplanned pregnancy? What would it look like for a thirty dollar whore to walk into a church and be treated as if she was your little sister, beautiful and innocent?

Yet that's precisely how God deals with us (go read Ezekiel 16). Somehow, I think we all need to back away from our positions for a moment and pause to consider the bigger picture. What would it look like for the church to get serious about the real injustices women face in this world of ours? What would it look like to rethink the whole women's issues?

I'd be interested in feedback on this (particularly from you women who feel like the church has wronged you).