www.homefront.blogspot.com

My blog name remains “Fajita’s Blog”

The address is www.homefront.blogspot.com.

For the faithful, this is the address of my original blog born back in Jun of 2004.

Labels, easy links, and tons of other features are now easy with blogger (blogspot). I’m back to the one who got me loving blogging in the first place.

Good-bye WordPress.

Click here to read NY Time article.

I’m about to help you out here with an amazing idea for your
Christmas shopping.  You know that nagging problem of what to get for the person who has everything?  Well, this should solve that one.  I bet they don’t have their very own tree in Uganda.   Click on the link below and you can buy one, get a cool Christmas card you can plant (yes, a card you can plant when you are done) and it will grow flowers (no kidding) and you get an ornament that will have a number on it marking the GPS coordinates of your tree in Uganda.  (Better click on the link below if you want it to make sense.) The Kibo Group
is a non-profit that I run along with a friend named Clint Davis.

You can read about Kibo at our website www.kibogroup.org.  We make no money off this, (Kibo has no salaries for stateside employees)…the money goes to plant trees.  Check it out… its a pretty unique gift idea and it really can make the world better.
Merry Christmas!

http://www.kibogroup.org/mvuleproject.html

And yet, the stronger trust becomes, the more vulnerable the relationship becomes. How ironic. The trust paradox demands that the relationship become stronger by way of exposing weakness.

Now, don’t get me wrong, vulnerability is not weakness. I define it as the extent to which a person could be hurt by another. It is the extent to which a person reveals his or her softest spots. It is a willingness to be unprotected in the presence of another.

Jesus was no weakling, but he made himself vulnerable to humans. He entered into human life largely unprotected. He trusted humans beyond their capacity to be trusted and such trust might be considered foolish. However, what we find is that trusting people, even in betrayal, was a sign of strength, not wekaness. He paid the price, but overcame the price.

As Jesus entered this world unprotected, Christians who celebrate Christimas might think about Christmas as a willingness of God to enter into humanity largely unprotected. Jesus, knowing that entering into danger unarmed was worth it, Christiasn might take this Christmas story adn do the same.

Erwin McManus has been known to say that when Christians talk about entering into the center of God’s will being the safest place on earth, they are exactly wrong. Entering into the center of God’s will might be the most dangerous place in the world.

In order to be strong, we must become vulnerable.

What is new there is a blog I just launched called, “Smart Single Parents.”

I want this blog to serve single parents in much the same way my Smart Stepfamilies Blog serves people in stepfamilies. So, if you are a single parent or you know a single parent who wants a place to go for advice, connection to resources, and conversation, sned them to the Smart Single Parents blog.

Denominational allegiance is no reason for people to gather together and exist as a congregation. It is a very weak association. It is so weak, in fact, that only under the right conditions can it exist and be healthy – and even that is questionable.

When challenges arise, denominational correctness is not going to save a church that is going under. Although it is tempting to believe that our doctrinal agreement is enough to keep us unified, it is not. Doctrinal agreement, or the willing belief in its illusion, cannot withstand the encroachment of being busy, geographic distance, weak leadership,  or attrition.

What will hold a church together is not doctrinal agreement or doctrinal correntness, but rather it is the mission the church is on. When a church is doing someting that matters to God and people, then it has something of value.

A dead and dying church tends to infect its member with its affliction, not the other way around. Without mission the church dies. Period. It might appear to be living, but it appears to be full of life like a person with an unknown and deadly cancer that lies under the skin. Death is groing and it is only a metter of time before it reveals its devastating presence. 

This post is a call for people of faith to get on mission. Do something. Organize in small clusters around a cause. Meet together to pursue that cause.

African orphans, the environment, healthy living, immigration, homelessness etc. 

Meet together, write blogs, develop action steps for your group, develop action steps for people to join the mission of your group, devote resrources (time, money, voice) to the cause, promote the cause through media.

Invent ways of doing good. This is what Jesus did and he did it with other people. Some of the people he did good with didn’t even understand who he was or why he was doing the good, not at first anyway.

Or, if you know anyone who is in a stepfamily and might want to add a blog visit to their stepparenting efforts, send them my way: http://smartstepfamilies.blogspot.com

Behind is a feeling that is quite common in doctoral studies. From what I hear, that feeling never goes away, but I will apparently get better at managing my emotions and my time.

Anyway, today I needed something. I needed a boost – and I got one.

So today, I got a much needed boost from two students who are working on their dissertations. They soothed my struggle with comforting words and 30 minutes of their undivided attention. Can I tell you how much value there is in 30 minutes for a doctoral student? Thanks to you two who gave your time to me.

 This is not to say a teacher with natural relationship skills can skate by or that a teacher with challenged relational skills can’t teach anyone. No, what i am saying is that the teacher’s teaching strategy is himself or herself. The teacher’s use of self is going to be the most real thing the students ever get.

Sure, technology is important and I believe becoming an essential part of the teaching process, but the reason that there is no replacement for a good teacher is that the internet does not care about students. The internet cannot connect with students on an emotional level. Yes, there are certain emotions various sites or programs that can be run on the internet can touch, but evoking an emotion and connecting emotionally in a relationship are apples and oranges. The internet will not remember that emotion, a good teacher will.

Technology cannot invest in a student. Only teacher’s can do that. Technology is a tool, a relationship is a generative and developing process of social integration that contains the kind of depth that can generate security, confidence, and trust.

One way in which the teacher uses himself or herself best is by de-centering a little from the roel of container fo all knowledge. Yes, the teacher needs to sort of be the expert on the subject, but he or she does not need to be uthoritarian with that status. In fact sheeding the status without shedding the knowledge or skill is critical for good teaching. When the teacher enters the learning process as not only a teacher, but a teacher who still has something to learn, then the student can feel confident that we are doing this thing, this learning thing, together. It resolves some feeligs of knowledge and skill isolation and inferiority.

Granted, some course content lends itself to expert and novice roles, but much or it does not. And even in those cases when it does, the kind of comfort a good teacher can give to a student through connection is crucial.

Teachers who have found their teaching voice know that they can speak it fluently and are eager to develop it in depth and breadth. And when the teacher speaks in his or her own voice, it is more likely that the students will make sense of it. However, when the teacher is trying to speak in someone else’s voice, something is lost in translation.

Any teachers or students out there want to chime in?

It’s time. Feminism has had a good run of it and has made its mark on history. Nice work; applause all around. But the time has come when the term has simply run its course. Anymore and it runs the risk overplaying its hand, if it has not done so already. So, this essay is a call for the end of feminism. The rationale for such a call, especially at this time, takes into consideration the historical and contemporary context of feminism and the prospects of the future as context as well.

Feminism was started by women. Although this fact might shock many, the term itself, feminism, indicates a gendered leaning to the thinking associated with the term. Of course there is nothing wrong with a leaning or even a biasT that is not the problem with feminism. The problem is that even though it began by women, about women, and for women, the scope of the movement has transcended itself and is so pervasive beyond gender that the need to hold on to the label seems almost laughable.

Feminism has found such success throughout so many of the sciences and has mainstreamed so well with the philosophical shift from modernism to postmodernism that the name itself betrays the essence of what it is. Feminism is a movement to include more than just men in whatever conversation is going on. That is terrific. Women have been second class forever and need not be anymore. However, in order to keep the term feminism relevant, it requires women to be subservient to men. What I mean by that (as I am ducking and dodging some pretty terrific rhetoric) is that once women have enough power that they no longer are a power minority, then the term feminism is no longer inclusive. To be a power minority and a feminist is fine, but once enough power or most power is assumed, then it is tyrrancical. It is in turn exclusive in out-grouping men. The philosophy and theories might not be exclusive, but the term itself is. It is hopelessly gendered. Gender-bias plus power creates the exact opposite effect that feminism was intended to create in the first place.  

Furthermore, there are many men who would and already do in many ways live by and employ the beliefs espoused by feminism, but would not be caught dead being called a feminist. Why? Maybe it’s homophobia and maybe it’s misogyny, fine, there’s a few men who fall into those categories. But I think most men are more practical than that. They are not women. Period. End of discussion. How can a man be a feminist? The very fact such a question can be asked and would have to take a super long time to answer for the average man means that the term is poorly suited toward inclusion. A movement meant to include people should not have a label that immediately appears to exclude half of the people who exist.

Feminism is a victim of its own success. It makes so much sense and serves more people better than many other philosophies and theories that its limiting name needs an overhaul. I think it deserves its place in history and should always be referred to historically as feminism. But I think that a new name should come in and help to accelerate the advancement of the ideas, values, and principles that already exist under the name feminism. Perhaps one day people will say something like this: “de-centering theory, with its roots in feminism, actively deconstructs centers of power toward the end of a better global good…” or something like that.

OK, I have more to say, but I think that the point is clear. The theories and philosophies are good, but the name is a relic.

What do you think?

At the same time, there are millions of people who would love to have a goat for Christmas because they need the milk. Christmas means nothing to millions of people in terms of gifts because poverty is so pervasive. So, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE make the effort to use some of your $800 Christmas allotment toward the end of helping people who have nothing.

Here are some great Christmas gift ideas for various price ranges:

For $14 you could buy a wheel chair.

For $32 you could buy educational support for one child.

For $75 you could buy a goat.

And for you super thrifty shoppers who like to get real bang for the buck, there is this:

For $25 you can get $300 worth of necessities for a child.

If you got a lot of extra cash, click here for donkey, here for pig, or here for oxen and plow.

AND, if you are a MONEY IS NO OBJECT kind of person, buy a school or health clinic.

But is it religious in nature? Christmas, Easter, St. Patrick’s Day, and even Valentine’s Day have their origins in Christianity. Chanukah and Ramadan are religious as well. Kwanzaa is not itself born of a certain religion, however, faith is one of its main principles. One would argue if there is no faith there is no Kwanzaa.

Non religiouis holidays like Independence Day, Memorial Day, and Veteran’s Day clearly have their roots in American nationalism, patriotism, and so forth. We could throw Labor Day in ther as well. MLK Day is unique in that it is a civil rights holidays, but the very figure of the holiday was a pastor. So, MLK Day is and is not religious.

But what about Thanksgiving? We know it is American, but is it religious?

In short, emerging adults are not likely to swallow whole their parent’s religion. Furthermore, their is a sort of religious integration (syncretism) going on with this crew. They might be Christian, but that doesn’t keep some of them from believing in reincarnation and other eastern religious beliefs. They are not likely to have a strong or any allegiance worth noting to denominations and institutions (Mormons are going to be an exception here).

Interestingly enough, though, even though their religious practice on a corporate level is low, they do maintain that they are in some ways connected and still religious. So, they have not lost their religion so much as they have set it aside, perhaps in order to accomplish some other tasks – graduating from college and getting married.

Arnett’s study shows a big difference between married and non-married emerging adults. When the tasks of college graduation and marriage (having kids might be thrown in there) are accomplished, then religion seems to reappear from the back burner. However, it’s not the old time religion they are returning to, but rather a more losely affiliated and individualized religion. In fact, their personal religious faith and their corporate religious participation may be very different and at the same time pose no sense of dissonance. In a sense, they are a congregation of one.

Let this inform ministers and parents alike. There are powerful factors acting on the religious faith of adolescents who are moving into adulthood – and it’s not necesssarily that they are going to Hell in a handbasket. They are accomplishing some tasks required by our society. At the same time, the coherence of their faith is strained in many regards.

It could be that these emerigng churches who seem to do well with ambiguity and exploration might be a good home for these emerging adults. Comments?

Why? Well, I think they had more power when they had no power. Huh? The only energy they have is “not Bush.” That can get you an election, but only one. When they had no power, they could gripe relentlessly about it and no one cares if they don’t get anything done because they have no power.

Well, now that they have power they had better produce something. Thing is, it is no real accomplishment to prove that you are not Bush. If Dems are a one trick pony and that trick is the not Bush trick, they are going to have a real hard 2 years as a pointless majority.

I hope the Democrats come up with something so attractive that the people who voted for them will be glad they did. They have already gotten all of the “not Bush” mileage they can get. From this point out, they need to have some actual ideas. What they risk is generalized voter discontent. If the voters see notihng from dems, they won’t stick with them.

The temptation for dems is going to be to go back to what dems have done in the past. Voters didn’t for for what Democrats have done in the past, they voted for “not Bush.” The dems must be innovative, creative, and intriguing. If they are not, if they are viewed as the old democrats, they will lose big in 2008 because Bush is gone no matter what. They’ve 2 years to work wonders. If they haven’t fixed anything in 2 years, they’re done. 2 years is no a long time to fix anything.

Well, that is probably all I am going to say about politics for the next two years.

It takes a lot of energy to make a transition. It takes a lot more energy to make a transition with a family with young children. There are housing issues, schooling issues, the making of new friends, finding a decent grocery store, auto mechanic, and where is the free wi-fi (Panera and Breuggers)? So, with these and a million other changes, survival is the name of the game.

Secondly, I have to be comfortable with my surroundings in order for the very best of me to emerge. This has always been the case. The faster I can “own” my area the faster the very best of me will be allowed to walk that turf. If I cannot get my grip, then I function, but do not take the kind of necessary risks that are needed. I go into safe mode. Safe mode never works. Why? It’s not genuine or authentic. It gets me by, but over the long haul, it’s no good. It’s not creative, innovative, or intuitive.

The best of me takes risks, fails forward, creates, and is pretty darn funny. The best of me is not all too concerned about impressing anyone because that will happen or it won’t. The self-protective me is in many ways the opposite of my true me.

So, I hereby declare that it is time for me to be unleashed upon my new environment. I have been here long enough and I need to give this place a taste of who I really am.

Now, if I can just find a way to bust out of this cocoon.

As a Christian, I really need to watch out for this. Why? The history of my religion has some dark spots. I have some dark spots. For all of the good Christianity has done over the years, the advancements in literacy, education, health – there is no need to to oversell. In fact, there is no need to sell anything. Just be.

Many Christian groups progamatize and institutionalize certain promises into consumables toward the end of immunity against depression, poverty, stress, weight loss, discontent, immunity to sin, thisthatandtheotherthing. Yes, healthy religious and spiritual life can bring a lot of good things, but are these things what Christianity is all about?

What about self-transcedance? What about self-confrontation? What about sacrifice? What about the discipline of finding the pathways of joy through giving oneself away? What about humility?

Religion is not about immnuity. It is not about being the strongest. It is not about being the best. It is not about market share and beating out the other religions.

I am in doctoral studies – first semester. The speed of education at the doctoral level is lightning. I feel like I have been playing catch up for 2.5 months. At the same time, I love it.

I read a blog of a colleague of mine which mentioned that a PhD is a steward of his or her discipline. It gave me a thoughtful pause. There is a sense of responsibility in stewardship that goes beyond mere survival. In a sense, my field is counting on me to do well. Why? Because the field, even if in a small sense, is in my hands.  

Now, to you. What are you a steward of? What is counting on you to do well? Job? Family? Church? Clients?

Thinking about being a steward of something other than possessions and money is wonderful way to conceptualize responsibility. It requires effort, humility, and innovation. I can’t afford not to find my butt with both hands.

1. Some research has shown that group treatment for teens with anti-social behavior is not only not effective, but is detrimental. Family therapy, however, had shown to be effective.

2. The long term effects of some individual treatments are not effective (some harmful) while family treatments are effective.

3. Spiritual development of children and teens is now being seriously investigated. Click here.

4. There are lots of professors and students with deeply held religious views who work at and attend state universities.

5. Organized religion is to spiritual development what public education is to cognitive development. Follow me here. Even if a child did not go to school, that child would develop in the cognitive realm. There would be intelligence and it would develop, but not within an organized educational context. Similarly, with or without organized religion, a child and a person would develop spiritually. The organized structure gives stucture for the expression of faith.

It appears that the intersection of spiritual development and organized religion can either nurture healthy spiritual development or it can damage, inhibit, or distort healthy spiritual development.

I get excited every election year, especially larger elections. On election days, it makes me want to run for office and win. The actual job of a politician sounds lousy, but winning an election would be fun.

I voted. Whata statement. I was not coerced. I was not tricked (that I know of). I was allowed to vote freely and in privacy. My vote matters and therefore I matter. Not that I gain some kind of existential relevance from voting – I do not rely on it for my life to have meaning. On the other hand, the fact that my counrty, state, county, and city vlaue me I get to vote. I matter as much as anyone esle.

Voting is what makes a democracy better than other forms of government. Perfect? Ha! Nope. Just better.  

Vote. Go out there and vote.

It used to be so clear and easy. There was straight and there was gay. They were opposites and that was it. One was right (straight) and one was wrong (gay). Gay people, as was my understanding, sought out intentionally to rebel against God and used homosexuality as their means by which to do it. Certainly there are many ways to rebel against God, but if someone used homosexuality as their means to show God their contempt, then that person had chosen the worst of all blasphemies. I really used to believe that once upon a time. And sadly, the fact that I do not hold that view now places me out of favor with some. That’s OK, I still love you.

The black and white, either/or thinking no longer works for me, nor does the strict moralizing and labeling. I cannot know a person’s motives. Good grief, half the time I don’t even have a clear grasp of my own motives. So, the days of demonizing gays are over, and have been for a while.

But that doesn’t really solve anything for me either. If only sexuality were not so confusing. I guess Ted Haggard is still on my mind. Whether the prominent, anti-homosexual pastor of a megachurch had gay sex or not is not the point. I think we can say with some certainty that he had some attraction to the idea of gay sex, and it is the attraction that I am getting at.

For the sake of argument, let’s say Ted Haggard did not have gay sex, but had a hidden attraction for it. It turned him on, but he never acted on it. Does that make him gay? He claims he’s not gay. I guess you could believe him on the one hand, but on the other hand, he really can’t afford to be gay. There is too much to lose.

So, does same sex attraction make someone gay?

Let’s do another hypothetical. Let’s say that Ted Haggard’s accuser is correct and they had a three year sexual relatinoship. Is Haggard gay? Is he bisexual? Again, he claims he is not gay, and I am sure he would deny being bisexual as well.  

So, maybe same sex attraction does not make one gay, but acting on it does? My hunch is that Haggard would say that it does not, but would say it on Biblical grounds more than experienctial grounds.

A step further. Perhaps one has to make a claim for a gay identity to be gay.

And that leads to another question: Can someone be a somewhat gay? There is some research to suggest a spectrum of sexuality that makes room for there to be some homosexuality in a heterosexual and vice versa.

And then there is the notion that someone can change their orientation. That’s a tough one to swallow when I consider myself changing orientations. It’s just not going to happen. And yet, there are literally thousands who claim that they have changed from gay to straight (I have also heard stories of someone straight changing to gay, but usually those are stories more so about someone who claims that they were always gay) Were they really gay in the first place? They had same sex attraction and were having gay sex, but were they really gay?

Is sexual orientation (attraction) exclusively biological? Is it partially biological? Is it strictly a nurtured and socialized thing? Cripes! Pigeon hole sexuality in any direction and you get yourself into trouble.

I very much welcome your wisdom, thoughts, and comments. All I ask is that you be respectful. You are a guest on my blog much like you would be a guest in my home. Comment here like you would comment in my home.

Reborn

Oh the shivering detox;

The return of health;

Poisons scorch the earth in defeat;

Kicking and screaming, talons leaving blood trails.

Longing for gentler days, connected days,

Not so distant, so far removed,

Not so toxic, so unclean, so infected,

How long until Pure?

Layer after layer, scraped like sludge, 

Deeper, deeper, will it ever end?

How far until my own skin?

Do I still have a soul?

Love-hate with evil

Is far too much love

And far too much hate

Loving good is all that is necessary

Exorcising takes my breath away,

That poison breath that suffocates;

Replace it with clean air,

So clean it hurts.

Unwilling to indulge in all that is good;

Slime monster on white, crisp, cotton,

Slipping into the scrub

A cleansing so violent, but temporary.

Broken, small, off balance, but free;

Sparkling and crying, like a newborn,

New to this bright place;

No return, only forward, only clean.

Why blame is bad. Blame is bad because there is no good end to it. The only thing it does is give this sense (false as it may be) that the person blamed can be treated badly with full justifucation for the bad treatment. Blame, in a sense, gives the nonblamed (or less blamed) a right to abuse the blamed (or more blamed). Therefore, since blame offers up an apparently good reason to abuse someone, people are challenged not to take up the opportunity to heap some abuse, whether it be to the other person who is blamed, or even to himself or herself if they are the blamed.

Taking responsibility is different than receiving blame. There is no punitive side to taking responsibility and also not the perceived need to punish the person taking responsibility. There is no hostility with responsibility, but with blame there is this inherent sense of hostility. Blame seeks to make things “fair” without virtue of an agreed upon measure of fair and without virtue of any sense of compassion or generosity. Blame seeks to get to fair by unfair means – an intrinsic hypocrisy and logical fallacy. Taking responsibility is merely doing the tasks that make the needed difference.

The hope (false hope that it is) of blame is justice. Blame never, “NEVER” I SAY, produces justice. It only perpetuates injustice in another direction. Doing the tasks that make the needed difference is what moves toward justice.

Responsibility actually does what blame hopes, but fails, to do.

I will split profits with World Vision.

It’s a bathroom book, stocking stuffer, Christams gift, paperweight, and much, much more.

Send a check to 2753 Sunset Lane Burnsville, MN 55337 and you will receive as many copies as you pay for. Buy 5 or more and pay only $10.00 each.  

St. Paul, Minnesota.

Click here to learn more.

“Me so holy.” What gives?

So, are people postmodern? If they are, do they know it? Are they trying to be that way? I don’t, maybe they know it, maybe they are trying to be postmodern. Maybe not.

It’s not that I am doubting that there is a postmodern philosophy that is pervasive in American society, because I think that it is. However, I think that it is more pervasive on the macrolevel than on the personal level.

Let’s see if I can make any sense of this. All postmodernity needs in order to proliferate is increasing diversity, even if the people comprising the diversity are themselves not very diverse or even open to new ideas. How’s this?

Well, imagine people grouping together in like kinds of groups. Whites with whites, gays with gays, and farmers with farmers. Now, imagine that there are lots of these groups and the number of these different kinds of groups increases. Imagine that these groups often don’t agree with each other or often mingle with each other, but at the same time refuse to be violent toward each other. The number of different groups increases that there is no majority group or group powerful enough to always gets its way through policy, economic, factors etc.

Power decentralizes and then localizes; morality does the same. Truth becomes local as well. People in the groups realize that there are diverse views out there, but also realize they are limited in their ability to pursuade people that their group is better than other groups, and eventually give up trying so hard to pursuade, however, at the same time they do not hold their belief any less.

No one in any of these groups is”postmodern” in that they believe in postmodern philosophy. They all think that they are right in the most modern sense. And yet, the society they live in is trending postmodern.

Comments?

The U.S. won’t do it. Even with all the talk of building walls and controlling illegal immigration, America is still considered the Promised Land for  millions of hopeful people living in different countries. Furthermore, America is adding jobs and needs to have people to fill those jobs.

Some people think that this immigration threatens American culture. Truth is, massive immigration is a uniquely American reality. France, for example, seems to take great pride in being French, but the racial riots in France would indicate that there might be someting negative about the French wanting to be so very French.

Preserving American culture is not a racial thing, but rather a diversity thing. We’re in wave II of massive immigration, only this time around it’s not as much European immigration as it is Hispanic (whatever that term means) immigration. It would be unamerican to suddenly accept only European immigration and not Central and South American immigration.

While many European countries want to preserve homogenous national identities, American preserves its diverse and heterogenous identity by not being exclusive. The United States must be flexible and inclusive in order to continue its phenominal economic expansion. America must continue to welcome people of the world and find ways to give these immigrants access to the great American experiment.

America must be willing to continue to rethink itself with every next immigrant. Yes, these immigrants need to conform in many ways to American culture, but what might not be so obvious is that it is to America’s benefit to conform in some ways to the culture of the immigrants we welcome here.

We must never forget that America is an experiment. Its history is immigration. Its present is immigration. If its future does not contain immigration, then that point will mark the beginning of the decline and fall of the American culture.

Comments?

And it is easy to pluck out the obvious examples of this and feel good about how we do virtue, but the sad fact remains that few of us Americans is any good at being satisfied with virtue and the end. And here is the irony, it’s not that we can’t settle for only virtue, no; rather it is that we are not desirous enough to achieve satisfaction through it. We desire so little that we will settle for any little thing that will tantalize and tittilate.

Furthermore, we construct such elaborate means to achieve such little ends. We are so numb to the fact that we are looking so hard for so little that we will use virtue to accomplish that end. The cart is pushing the horse.

There is a certain economy of spirituality that takes into account certain inputs and outputs. Inputs being prayer, spiritual disciplines, and fruits of the spirit with the outputs being paid mortgage, healing, or things more trivial. Thing is, that is not the way it was meant to work. Virtue is an end to itself, a good end, the prized end.

When are we ever going to get it straight in the wya we really live our lives? Is a very difficult time or situation that never ends, but produces patience or wisdom not and blessing? Comfort is no great prize. Wealth isn’t either. Virtue, however, is a great prize.

The more that is attained the more that is desired and the more that is desired the deeper a person goes into the goodness of God. That end results in a spreading of blessing from the virtuous person the the people surrounding him or her, no matter their level of virtue. There is a certain generosity of the virtuous person that does not view the world as a pool of scarce resources that must be won or lost, but rahter views the world as a deep spring fed pool that never runs out from which to draw and share.

Thus ends my philosophizing.   

Enter immigration. Were it not for immigration, the U.S. would be scared straight like Europe about low borth rates and low replacement rates of population. The U.S. is unique in that the population is growing a little by birth, but a lot by immigration.

Now, these boomers are going to require lots and lots of people paying into the (poorly developed and poorly thought out) social security program (along with other entitlements). Since we’re not making enough babies fast enough to pay for these entitlements, someone is going to have to pay for this. We must count on the immigrants to pick up the slack. They won’t pick up all of the slack, but they will make a significant difference as compared to a closed America.

Some might object that immigrants only take crappy jobs that no self-respecting American would take (snobs), but that is not true. It is only true that a lot of these jobs are filled by immigrants, but it is not the only kinds of jobs immigrants fill.

I was amazaed when I heard the statisitc that over 25% of PhDs in America are foreign born. I doubt many of the immigrant doctorate holders are flipping burgers for $6 an hour. No, they are holding moderate and high paying jobs. A large percentage of American MDs are immigrants as well. They are paying taxes; supporting the system. Furthermore, they are not tkaing away PhD’s and MDs from Americans, they are achieving them on a relatively equal basis if not a bias against them.

Retiring Americans need immigrants to come to America and succeed if they want that social security check to come in anywhere near the levels they feel like they are entitled to.

Americans need immigrants to fill American jobs produced by an American economy that certainly is de-manufacturizing, but is growing, growing, growing in many other sectors. We do not need a woker shortage that so hampered Japan. The only way to have enough workers for the future jobs that need to be filled is going to be immigration – unless we can start getting couples to get in the sack and make some babies. That ain’t going to happen if trends continue as they have been.

Old white men might not like the fact that Mexican (Indian, Somali, Hmong, etc) teenagers are here and more of them are coming, but it just might be their economic salvation. What a bizarre and redemptive twist twist.

Anyway, I was listening to NPR on a story about the U.S population and found it most interesting. Ihad some of my own reflections on the U.S. population reahing 300 million. I will play those out here.

This post serves as the introduction. Here’s what’s coming:

1. Old White People Need Teenage Mexicans (more than you ever dreamed)

2. Why the U.S still isn’t Europe and never will be.

3. America, the missiological phenomenon.

4. America Recolonized.

I’ll be posting on these over the next several days, when I get a little time (we’ll see about that), and when I do, I’d love some lively debate. It is my intentiona to bother at least a few people with my posts. So, prepare to be bothered.

The baby is not Jin’s, right?

Back to the cages. That was one expensive kiss there Sawyer. Oh, that was Sawyer’s plan. He was testing out the other’s strength. It was a test. He’s not stupid.

“You taste like fish biscuits.” Best line of the season so far.

Jack’s still in the cell. Mr. leader is back with Jack. Mr. leader introduces himself as Benjamin Linus. he claims to have lived on the island all of his life. What? What does that mean? Something is being brought into the room. 69 days on the island. Benjamin claims ot have contact wit the outside world. Then he played a video of it. Ben jamin is dangling home in front of jack’s face – “I will take you home.”

Is Jack going to crack?

Lots of others on the boat. Colleen has a gun pointed at her by Sun. sun is in control. How does Colleen know her so well? colleen says, “we are not the enemy.” Sun shoots. Bullets come back at her. Sun wants to escape. Sun in the drink. Others have the boat. Jin super happy that Sun is alive. They will kiss. They hugged.

Sayid’s making the big, big fire. Jin wants Sayid’s gun. Huh? What gives? Where are the freaking subtitles? Ah ha, I knew he knew English. Jin is now packing heat, baby. What’s he going to do?

The others, freaks, what the heck are they doing? Why is Juliet looking flirtingly at sawyer? Sh eknows his weakness. He poured out water in front of her as if to say, screw you.” Sawyer really got the hots for Kate. And now he kisses her deeprly. Big fight. Sawyer’s got a gun. Oh, there’s Kate’s freckles. Juliet gots gun too. Sawyer gets shocked.

Sun’s back on the boat as Jin and Sayid awati to ambush. Someone’s in the boat with Sun. Cripes!!!

Jin said, “others,” in English. Jin’s English is getting better.

Kate is swinging a pick in a hot dress and Sawyer can’t keep his eyes off her. OK, the dress isn’t that hot, but Kate is. Kate is talking to someone in the woods. Who is she? Mr. Shocker says “shut up.” Me no like him.

Sun is concerned about Sayid’s ideas. She thinks he’s lying. He was lying. Now he confesses to lie. sayid wants to lure the others wit the fire. Sayid asked Sun to lie to Jin for 20 minutes. she’s capable of lying to him. but can she do it again?

sayid looks like he wants to torture sombody. Sun apologizes to Jin. Tender moent music. Oh, look, they are in love. Flashback music.

sun is had an affair with Jae. She feels guilt. He’s not just a little bald. Pearl necklace from Jae.

“Who can it be knocking at my door?”

Father busted Sun in the affair. He’s not a happy camper.

Sawyer’s sexual desire was at odds with his chivalry. Mr. shocker guy gave Sawyer a nice one.

Also, there is much passion and emotion from many different directions on the topic of adoption. I haven’t met anyone yet who is involved in adoption in some way to be ho-hum about it. Now, there may be people out these who are, but I am not meeting them.

—————————————-

Missong the Zoe Worship Conference this year was so hard. I especially missed my blogger friends who I only met last year at breakfast. It was so hard not to be there. 

I’ve had several conversations with people over the past few weeks who have adopted children are are themselve adopted. These conversations are powerful. I am moved when I hear people speak of their adoption experiences.

So, let’s have a little intro to the 4 worlds of adoption. The following are in no specific order and are not actually comprehensive, but do cover the majority of types of adoptions.  The following categories are borrowed from a paper written by Harold D. Grotevant entitled, “Openness in Adoption: Re-Thinking “Family” in the United States.”

World1: Domestic infant adoption - This is the kind of adoptioin in which an American couple or individual adopts an infant. This kind of adoption is decreasing in frequency as compared to past decades as there are fewer infants available in the U.S. for adoption.

World 2: International Infant Adoption – This is the kind of adoption in which an American couple or individual adopts an infant from another country. It doesn’t take much imagination to realize that there might be some challenges for the family and the adopted child as he or she ages. There is an increasing frequency of international infant adoption.

World 3: Foster care Adoption – When a couple or individual adopts a child who has been in foster care. Since children arrive in foster care for a number of reasons, most of which can be traumatic for the child, these adoptions pose a number of different kinds of challenges as compared to other adoption arrangements.

World 4: Stepfamily Adoption – When a stepparent adopts a stepchild. Now, in order for this kind of adoption to occur, there are some antecedents. Death of a bio parent, relinquishing or parental rights or somenhing like that. In just about every way possible, there was a loss experienced by the child.

Here’s another little piece of the adoption world. 20,000 American children age out of the foster care system. Think about it, 20,000 18 year olds transitin from foster care to “real life” without anyone to call family. Granted the foster parents might be considered family, there is a difference between fostering a child and adopting one.

I have a growing respect for the complexities, challenges, and heroic efforts that make up adoption.

Anyone out there have an adoption story they don’t mind sharing with the loyal dozens who gather here?

Sawyer gives Kate a deliciosu bass buiscut.

Jack wakes up from Juliet’s whack. They are under water, under an aqurium.

“It doesn’t matter who we were. It only matters who we are.” Juliet knows a lot about Jack. How does she know this? How does she a copy of his autopsy report? Juliet’s got a whole file on Jack. she knows about Jack’s ex-wife, Sarah. Cripes!

Jack’s out of flashback jail. Sarah posted bail. How nice. She’s not really warming up to Jack. There she went. Jack’s ex-wife wasn’t with Jack’s dad. There’s some relief. Jack is coming to terms with losing sarah. “Is she happy?” Juliet seems to know that Sarah is happy.

Ben is the main guy.

Next on LOST. Kate and Sawyer kiss.

Flashback to Jack in hospital. There’s his dad. is he talking to Sarah? Jack followed dad to hotel. Raoming the halls. There’s dad. Dramatic music. Dad is busted – in an AA meeting. Jack making a fool of himself. Jack accused his father of sleeping iwth his wife. “Jack, let it go” and took him down. Jack takes Juliet down. Now he’s got her. Jack tries to open the door that the Others claim will kill them. Lots of water. Close that door. Juliet’s got a good cross.    

Jack is back in jail again. Crackly voice “let it go Jack” in his father’s voice. Is Jack halucinating? Jack is still very stubborn. Juliet wants to talk. He claims to be a repo man. She’s really digging jack for info. Jack finally gives in and gives her information.

“You can trust me Jack, i’m not going to hurt you,” she says. Oh, now Jack trusts her a little bit. She walks away.

Back to Sawyer. “Chachy” is the first new nickname of the season. Sawyer escapes with the unknown other prisoner. Sawyer meets Juliet and gets tazered. Cripes. Back to jail.

Ouch!!!

She walks away without a sound.

Back to Jack in jail with Juliet. She thinks he’s stubborn.

Yipes, there’s Kate in a towel. Now she’s got to wear this little dress. Weird guy says, “He’s waiting.” Creepy.  Who’s waiting? Mr. balloon man. “Romatic” breakfast by the ocean, but she’s got to wear the handcuffs to get some food.

Kate’s tough. “Kate, the next two weeks are going to be very unpleasant.”

Kate’s in the shower with a weird man. Ewww, someone poked Kate in the vein.

Sawyer’s in with monkeys or something.  I think I just heard a rooster. Sawyer finds the chow button and gets shocked.

Jack is strong with chains and he meets Juliet.

 Earthquake? No, a plane crash.

The Others have a village – on the island. The plane crqash interrupted the book club on the island. Oh, weird beginning 

As I have pondered David’s death, I ahve pondered my father’s death as well. What’s the difference between life and death? It seems like a simple question on the surface – the dead are dead and the living are living – what else needs to be said?

And yet, where is David? He’s not occupying his body. We can say that he is in Heaven, and I believe that is true, but how is he in Heaven? Where is Heaven? Just what is it that is going on there? Oh, I plan on going there and being with God in a different wayu than I am with God right now, but what does that mean?

I know that there are theories and theologies structured to answer these questions. But no one who comes up with this stuff has ever been dead and lived to tell about it.

As I get older and an important age like 40 is creeping ever closer, the meaning of death is changing. It is moving from the thing that will happen once upon a time in the far, far future to a thing that is only half a life away. It’s more familiar and more frightening, an inevitible fright for which I am somehow being prepared to face. It’s more mysterious and real. Death is an unusual mentor whose mentorship becomes more and more active as I age. One day, I know that I will walk with death and leave all others behind, just like David did, just like my father did.

And that is not the end. Just where is it that death will take me? Although death is an inevitible  and solitary travel companion, I tend to think that the journey, once begun, is quite short and then death leaves you alone forever. I am beginning to think that death plays only a very small, but essential role in a person’s existence – like birth. In minutes or perhaps hours, a baby is born, but then lives a life of 80 years. The birth was short in comparison, but essential to all other things that follow. I am starting to think death is much more like birth that it is, well, death.

Birth is merely a change of location. So is death. Once born, there is no return. Same with death. With birth one enters a never before known place to remain their for a long time. Is death so different?

Now, I do not believe in reincarnation, but I am starting to believe differently about death. It’s not that I long for it either – premature births are complicated. So are premature deaths. Longing for death is probably not healthy for most, but accepting it and preparing for it is probably a very healthy thing.

Oh, and one more thing about birth and death, what happens in one place has implications for what happens in the next. I want to make my life something of value for today, a benefit for the people surrounding me no matter who they are. How that affects the next life, I am not sure, but I am sure that it does. I have a say in the next life today. That makes today pretty important.

I have other memories of him. Lots of them. Good ones. But for now, the image at the ICU helps me, somehow.

I deleted his phone number from my cell phone this week. That was a tough one. It only took me 6 months to do that. Not sure what that means, but I think it means that I am moving forward with my grief.

Do you suffer from Affluenza?

Actually, what I want to get at is not a personal thing here, but rather a chruch thing? Are our churches stricken with affluenza?

If so, what can be done?

It’s not that I don’t want to read your blog. Rather, it is that I am not graded nor paid to do so. Things that are not family related or paid or graded are losing their pull in my life.

Thanks for coming here, many of you daily. It means a lot to me. The fact that I am not lurking or commenting on your blog does not mean I don’t like your blog.

I will keep posting. I will post here a few times per week and then over at my other two blogs: Smart Stepfamilies and Flaming Pine Youth Camp. I hope you will continue to visit my blogs even though I am not currently able to give back.

Three Israellite tribes, Gad, Reuben, and half of Manasseh decide to settle east of Jordan and erect a monument to show that they are faithful to God and with the rest of Israel. The rest of Israel doesn’t like it and instantly decides to kill the 3 tribes. They cite book chapter and verse why they should kill the 3 tribes. They want to keep Israel pure.

Fortunately, they had a talk and didn’t go to war.

Here’s the sin of the believer, the people who have been closest to God, the people who have lived most in god’s blessing and protection: bypassing God.

The 10 tribes bypassed God in assuming they knew what would please God. Only people so close to God can commit this kind of sin. When people get too comfy cozy with God such that they can make decision for God without consulting God, there is bound to be trouble.

Ever seen this sin?

They were talking the other day as David knows that each day could be his last. He was speaking about dying and took compassion on his mother and her eyesight as he sai, “Mom, I wish I could give you my eyes.”

Beautiful.

Amazon will share the table of contents with you here, an excerpt here, and a you can buy it here.

OK, let’s see if I can put into words what I intend to say. Could it be that the United States missed an opportunity to teach the world about the strength of our restraint rather than the strength of our might? Please, don’t hear me say “We should have done nothing.” If you go there, you’re not following me. I am not saying that we should be weak, rather I am saying that there is more than one way to be strong.

I think that 9/11 was so huge and so obviosuly painful that no one could ignore it. It was a different thing than all of the other attacks we’ve ever faced before – put togehter I would argue (and win). Since it was so huge, I believe that not taking a military response could have been framed in many ways other than weak.

I know that people are going to say that not responding militarily would invite more attacks, and maybe that is so. But we don’t know that. In fact, it’s a pretty huge assumption. Not responding could have given us leverage with the international communtiy. It could be that the world has been waiting for American power to be expressed through American restraint. Maybe the world is watching America to see how to use its power.

OK, here is what think would have happened:

1. Americans would have demanded an attack

2. When Bush didn’t attack, Republicans would have been beside themselves

3. America would not have been attacked because international securty would be where it is right now.

4. Democrats would have become more hawkish on war and talk of impeachment would rattle through the capital – but it wouldn’t happen.

5. Bush would not get re-elected.

6. Saddam Hussein would be all talk.

7. Iran and North Korea would be crazy still, but not as crazy as they are now.

8. Hugo Chavez would not be shooting his mouth off so much, and if he was, then no one would listen to him because international anti-american rhetoric would not be in vogue or even tasteful except for the super duper freaks.

9. And finally, Cubs win the World Series.

OK, tear me up.

The enemy was instantly identified as Al-Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden. So, the president ordered and attack on Afghanistan. In an effort to destroy terrorism, the president ordered a controversial attack on Iraq. Five years later, Americans still fight on those places – two of the most dangerous places on earth.

What do you suppose would have happened if instead of attacking these countries and occupying them, the Unites States turned the other cheek? What if Americans, who were receiving the sympathies of almost the entire world, made a clear statement that we are not about violence, death and murder, but are instead about reconciliation, forgiveness, and love? What if Americans had demanded that our president forgive the aggressors?  

What if we poured our energies into security and defense, but refused to be seduced into an aggressive posture? What if we refused to respond with force?

These are not rhetorical questions. I really want to know what you honestly believe our reality would be now 5 years later had we not attacked back.

I don’t presuppose any answers and I am not looking for anything specific besides what you really believe.

Would not attacking back have been a disaster? Would it have been an opportunity for the world to be impressed by our love? What do you think?

Thanks Phil Wilson and youtube.

So, you might think that when there is a family of 3, the cost would be $120 – and it would be unless the famly is headed by a single mother. If that is the case, then only $28.33 per person is spent on food. So, maybe homes with single mothers consumer less food. Or, maybe single mothers find ways to stretch dollars better than the average families.

Now, if a man is living alone, he is going to spend $60 per week on food, more than double what the average person headed by a single mother. Again, this is amount paid, not amount eaten. Men might be eating more when they are alone, but they might be buying more expensive food.

Now, you might think, “Men are greedy pigs,” but you should not think that, unless of course you are prepared to call women greedy pigs. When women live alone they spend almost as much as men living alone – $50 per week. oink oink.

Texas is the state with the highest level of “Food Insecurity” while North Dakota has the lowest level.

Larry James in Dallas knows a lttle bit about food insecurity. Reading his blog is educational.

Source: Household Food Security in the United States 2004

A. Discouraging and penalizing couple cohabitation

B. Work to support the children these cohabiting couples produce

Please, don’t cop out and say BOTH. Please, explain your answers. I listened to a speaker today compare U.S. and Swedish marriage, parenting, poverty, and policy patterns. It was a very good presentation and provided some terrific things to think about. So, above is the question I offer to you who are Christians.

Recalls heroic acts, lost lives, and sacrifices.

Bush taps his right hand a lot.

Very serious tone.

Bush framed the enemy as someone who hates freedom, women are not free and men are beaten for missing prayer metings.

Compared to Cold War threat.

“The war is not over.”

“The Middle East will be overrun with  extremists.”

Stuttered on “intelligence.”

Gitmo is to hold people accountable for their actions.

Answers presence in Iraq. “They were a threat.” “The world is safer becuase Saddam Hussein is no longer in power.”

Bush said, “foment.”

Iraq’s unity government. Hmmm.

The safety of America depends upon what happens in the streets of Baghdad.

Osama calls this “the third world war.”

Left hand holding down the right hand.

War death toll nearly 3000 American soldiers. Almost as mnay killed on 9/11.

“Tore down the wall between agencies.” Clinton poke?

“Passager planes?”

“They fear our freedom.”

There goes those hands again.

Bush frames it as a clash between tyranny and freedom.

We changed our policies because what were were doing wasn’t working (paraphrased).

Invoked WWII without saying WWII.

“Evil” count = 5

Leave the desert of despotism for the fertile grounds of freedom.

Best resource is not oil, but creativity. (That was actually a pretty good line).

Personal interest story about fallen firefighter. Sons went to military and firefighting. Proud mother. Hard to criticize.

The attacks were meant to bring us to our knees, and they did – in prayer.

Faith in a loving God.

18 minutes and out.

Tim Russert and Brian Williams talk. russert predicts that Democrats will criticize the speech. Geez, I need to be in news reporting. I tihnk i could have come out for that one.   

Reports of a plane crashing into one of the towers of the World Trade Center shocked me. I saw a still photo on the web of the smoking building. My initial assumption was that the pilot had made some terrible error and the plane crashed into the tower on accident.

However, when I got the report that a second plane had flown into the other tower and news people were now certain that this was an attack, I got scared.

I lived two miles from the Mall of America at that point. Then the Pentegon and another plane crash. People talked of targets and American symbols. Certainly I lived two miles from one of those symbols.

The Mall of America closed down along with other places like the Sears Tower.

I remember planes being grounded, but still hearing the occasional plane. The sound was eerie and frightening. I found out later that Fedex was stilling flying packages.  

I went home after hearing about he second tower to be with my wife and infant and toddler children. I wept. We prayed. I was glued to the TV.

We held church services. We prayed. We sang God bless America.

Then, if you will remember – Anthrax.

We were under attack from unusual on deadly fronts. By stealth. It was a frightening time. In fact, I feel the angst as I write and remember these events.

Oh God, bring peace to the place. Please make things as they ought to be. Come and end wars, hatred, violence, and division. Come to rescue the weak and hurting. Give us people sense enough to love courageously. Forgive our foolishness.

So, have you believed any other these myths about forgiveness?

Need to learn to forgive? Here are two good options for you:

Forgiving and Reconciling

Forgiving the Devil

Derek Webb, that’s who.

I am listening to the free downloaded CD right now I am loving it.  

Go and get yours here.

OK, it will cost you five e-mail addresses of people you know, but geez, isn’t it worth it?

For years, people who were adopted were not allowed to know about their biological history. Any contect with their birthparents weer forbidden. Adoptions were completely anonymous forever. This was done to “protect” everyone involved. Recent research has shown that these arrangements are not necessarily “protecting” of people invlved. “Open” adoptions (where information exchanges at varying degrees are permissible or encouraged) are more and more the norm.

If you’re not connected to adoption issues, you just don’t know what a huge deal this concept of openness is. Think about the potential identity issues for adoptees, the potential grief issues for birthparents, and the potential family formation issues.  

I am sure the folks at Bastard Nation and their website could inform you about adoption issues and their advocacy postions.

Why don’t you check out their mission statement below.

Bastard Nation^(SM) Mission Statement

Bastard Nation is dedicated to the recognition of the full human and civil rights of adult adoptees. Toward that end, we advocate the opening to adoptees, upon request at age of majority, of those government documents which pertain to the adoptee’s historical, genetic, and legal identity, including the unaltered original birth certificate and adoption decree. Bastard Nation asserts that it is the right of people everywhere to have their official original birth records unaltered and free from falsification, and that the adoptive status of any person should not prohibit him or her from choosing to exercise that right. We have reclaimed the badge of bastardy placed on us by those who would attempt to shame us; we see nothing shameful in having been born out of wedlock or in being adopted. Bastard Nation does not support mandated mutual consent registries or intermediary systems in place of unconditional open records, nor any other system that is less than access on demand to the adult adoptee, without condition, and without qualification.

]]> http://fajita.wordpress.com/2006/09/07/bastards-speak/feed/ 0 fajita http://fajita.wordpress.com/2006/09/06/church-upsidedown/ http://fajita.wordpress.com/2006/09/06/church-upsidedown/#comments Thu, 07 Sep 2006 03:24:42 +0000 fajita http://fajita.wordpress.com/2006/09/06/church-upsidedown/ ]]> Tonight was the Solomon’s Porch “membership class.” It was more of a conversation. A group of about a dozen of us listened and talked about what life was like at Solomon’s Porch.

It was all good, but here is the best part: When a person decides to become a part of Solomon’s Porch, that person changes the church.

OK, think about that. If you are not looking into it you might miss it. Most churches are established, so when someone enters into the church, the goal is to get that person plugged in – am I right here? These people are assimilated. Assimilation is the stated goal. Some churches have ministers of assimilation. When a person enters the church, they are changed to fit into the system of that church. The system is set, some a re so closed that change is impossible.

What would happen if the church was required to change as much or more than the new person? What if the church was excited about the idea that they would need to change because a new person entered in? What would it be like if the church was an open system rather than a closed system?

Think about this: the old way gives power and privilege to make things happen to the people who have been there longest. When that happens, the older a church becomes the harder it is to fit in and matter – unless of course you are assimilated. The new way is different. The power and privilege is given or at least offered to the new people. change is dependent upon new people coming in changing the system. This way, the older the church becomes, the newer it becomes.

Doug Pagitt, the pastor, was pretty open about how it is difficult this is when a churhc grows in numbers and years. However, he made it clear that new people entering the system matter. The evidence for this is (will be) in the change that actually occurs.

The second best thing was the decentralized power structure – or unstructure as the case may be.

So, we are now “members.”   

Now, my experience was not like the picture off to the side. I did actually get to ride in tha bus.

I might be finding me a different bs route. This express bus cna get scary with the 28 extra bodies.

Textboks are a scam. I can’t wait until I write one.

Click here for a new report on his death.

Good-bye, croc hunter, and thanks for thrilling us these many years.

OK, I did get a nap today and I liked it. I REALLY liked it. It’s evening now and I am snapping out of it. I also went to the Solomon’s Porch gathering and that gave me a boost.

It’s curious just how much emotions influence beliefs. The thing with negative emotions is to challenge them. Negative emotions must not be allowed to go unchallenged. They cannot be allowed to run amuck without any initiative. These negative emotions can hold a person hostage, keep captive their potentials, and remove freedom from the realm of perceived options.

At the same time, when negative emotions are present they usually try to get a person to believe that these negative emotions are permanent. Usually, the only way that these emotions become permanent is to fear that they will, to believe that they will. Usually, negative meotions runs their course and get out.

“Do not fear.” That is good advice for responding to negative emotions. Whatever was true about you before the negative emotion is usually pretty much true during the negative emotion, and still true after the negative emotion. Knowing this ahead of time, before the negative emotion hits, is pretty important.

“Do not fear,” is found often in the Bible. On days like today, it is important to have that kind of support.

First of all, does the Moses bobblehead fill seats? And if it does, what does that mean for the minor league team distributing them? What does it mean for the Christian consumers gathering them up?

Just look at the face on that Moses bobblehead. What is Moses saying to you? He looks pretty ticked off to me, like he just realized that Israel is worshipping a golden calf at the same time he wants to give them the Law.

Isn’t there a happy moment for Moses we could have shared through this bobblehead instead of a mad one?

Anyway, read the San Francisco Chronicle article if you want to.

Good and positive post on the church.

It is very much promoting his stuff, but so is my blog.

However, I allow comments and Warren doesn’t. And then again, he’d probably get 5000 comments on each post and I might get 500 in my lifetime.

He also gives us a looky-loo into the 2007 Tulsa Workshop.

So, in order to become familiar with the project I am reading all kinds of scholarly journal articles. These articles are by nature informative and somewhat dry, full of stats, research methods and discussion of the results. I do not look to these articles for humor - WHATSOEVER.

Also, when I think of adoption advocates and researchers, I think of nice people with good attitudes – sophisticated and educated. So, imagine my surprise as I was reading an adoption journal article as I rode the 465u into town and found the words, “BASTARD NATION,” in the article. I laughed out loud. The picture in my head – geez.

I pictured this ripped jeans band of ruffians with baseball bats in hands with their leader, face full of scars, looking you dead in the eye and saying, “We’re Bastard Nation, got a problem with that?”

I apologize for my imagination, there is no excuse for it.

Bastard Nation (found appropriately at http://www.bastards.org/) is an actual advocacy group fighting for the rights of adoptees to open the adoption records. Their cause is legit.

…having basic cable

…driving a 3 cylinder car

…writing a 25 page research paper and leaving off the bibliography

…jogging in slippers

…deep sea fishing with a zebco special

…gangsta rap with no f-words

…having a blog with stupids posts (uh-oh!)

…holding together 75 pieces of paper with one staple

…wordprocessing with Microsoft Works

Come on, give me a little help here!!!

When you’ve polluted yourself in sickening perversion, how do you dig out of it besides getting caught? Yes, God could have made an appearance and told him to stop, but that is not the usual path of God so far as I understand God. What might be more likely is that the spirit placed within this man made a desperate act in order to avoid complete suffocation.

He didn’t kill Jonbenet, but he’s not innocent. I very much hope for this man finds what he needs. I hope he sobers up and gets clean from his addiction. When I get past my disgust for what he does, I feel sorry for the guy.

Bus drivers don’t make change. It was good to know this in advance, so I came with my $2.75 counted out. Most people had a pass card that fit into a slot, made a beep, and then they were good to go. On my return trip, I will have one of those cards from the university.

The 7:05 am bus actually departed at 7:09 AM. The bus was about half full, which was nice because I didn’t have to sit next to someone. We entered the freeway at rush hour, so the very beginning of the ride was pretty slow going.

Minneapolis campus by 7:41? We’ll see.

The ride is bumpy and sometimes jerky. Never board a bus while needing to go to the bathroom. Too risky. Don’t think you can just hold it unless you have an iron sphincter. I boarded well refreshed – and empty.

The Metro bus system in the Twin Cities has its main metro busses serving Minneapolis and St. paul and maybe a few of the innder ring suburbs, but then the rest of the suburbs have their own busses that integrate into the Metro bus system. I am riding a Minnesota Valley Transit Authority bus. These busses serve the southern suburbs south of theMinnesota River (Burnsvilee, Apple Valley, Eagan, Lakeville and some others). They all go to the same places so I am not sure why there has to be all these different transit authorities.

The seat is surprisingly comfy. Not like a kid’s yellow school bus with the bouncy seat covered with green vinyl.

We’ve picked up some speed, but we are not in the commuter lane, which busses have a right to use. We just got passed by another MinnesotaValley bus. I wonder why we are not in the “fast” lane. Oh yes, we’re cruising now. Love it. I am typing and not driving. I am being transported, not transporting. This is terrific. I always drive no matter who is in the car with me.

Now we’re passing by my old church where I was a youth minister once upon a time.

The cost for the bus, even at the full rate of $2.75, is a steal. If I drove myself, one way would be at least a gallon of gas (optimistically).

What’s this, we’ve taken an exit and this is an “express” bus. This in an off ramp from the highway and here is a bus stop at the bottom of the ramp. Looks like we will go straight and enter right back on. I guess an express bus can make a stop or two. This explains why we were not in the commuter lane. We stopped and no one got on. Waste.

Anyway, the cost is a wash if gas stays at $2.75 a gallon. Oh, but then there is university parking $3.50 per day if I get lucky and $5.25 if I don’t, and then I’m walking 6 blocks. Not too bad unless it’s 20 below zero with wind. Nope, I’ll save the $3.50 a day, get dropped off right where I want to be by riding the bus. Furthermore, I get this sweet deal through the university for bussing and light rail transit. $62.00 a semester  gets me all the transit I can stand to anywhere in the Twin Cities. So, that’s about $15.00 per month making my daily commute round trip about 80 cents. In my car, 80  cents gets me about 10 miles down the road on gas, and that’s not including wear and tear. What a deal.

Lots of people sleeping on the bus. Lots of mp3 players. Not a single person talking. One guy is reading the newspaper. These are all university people in one way or another.

An automated sounding voice just said, “Lake Street.” I don’t know why besides the fact that the Lake Street exit is coming quickly.

We just passed my new church where I have no status and I like it that way.

We’re moving over to the right lane, which I guess means we’ll be at Lake Street soon.

Well, there goes the Lake Street exit and we didn’t leave the freeway. I guess that was my invitation to get off at Lake Street if I wanted to. We’re near downtown Minneapolis as the skyscrapers have come clearly into view.Minneapolis is a beautiful city. Oh look there is Sean Hannity on a billboard. Sorry, Sean, won’t be listening to your ranting today – or ever.

We’ve got 6 minutes to make it on time. Since there are no weather issues or crashes on the freeway, it’ll be close to see if we make it on time.

Just took the exit that gets us to the bridge that crosses the Mississippi to get us to the East Bank of the U of M. I just heard that same voice again, “Anderson hall.” It is the actual bus driver’s voice, but it sounds a little robotic. Someone pressed a button above her head which triggered a large red bar to light up in the front of the bus. That’s why we didn’t stop at Lake Street, no one pressed a button.

“Coffman Union,” says the robotic bus driver voice again. We all press a button.

7:39 AM. 2 minutes early. I guess skipping Lake Street made a difference.

In short, I am a fan of public transit after day 1.

People are making a difference by exiting the church that they cannot change from within. This is a statistical fact.

What I want to do here in this post is to get some feedback about the postchurched Christian movement. Is this a problem? Is it a statement to the organizaed church? What does the organized church need to learn from this phenomenon?

Your thoughts?

“Excuse me, can you tell me where the firewood is?”

“Plumbing.”

Sure enough, it was in plumbing.

Dwiggy was wondering in the comments section of my last post on this topic why changing churches means being a consumer. I thought that the question was really good and helps to deeper approach the topic of Chrisatian consumerism.

The central notion here cannot be the local congregation, but rather a person’s role in the larger story of God. That may or maynot mean sticking with the current local congregation or denomination for that matter.

This is a question of motives, not behavior. A person heading off to a new, relevant, postmodern engaging, hip church might be a consumer while someone sticking with his or her stuck in the mud denominational church might be very much in the center of what God has in mind. Behavior does not determine motive.

Certainly each context is highly influential upon individuals and families. Whatever context a person places himself or herself into also has  a set ot expectations and options that go along with it. So, choose your context and you choose the parameters of your available options. Choose your church and you chose your parameters – for the most part.

My point in all of the is that Christian people must not get infected with consumerism such that we make spiritual  and religious choices with a consumeristic mentality. Breaking free from consumerism as it relates to church, God, faith and so on is crucial. Consumerism must be the servant, not the master.

Shop for a car to get the best deal? Sure. Shop for a church to get the best services that make you feel happy? Better think about it. Buying the car might be about you (although I could argue that the other way as well), but church isn’t.

We must acknowledge the influence of consumerism upon us and how it affects our decision making processes and then we must be diligent to notice when these processes are out of place with the topic of decision making. We must find better reasons for making the decision we make than the base and mere “better mousetrap” mentality that consumerism reduces us to.

He’s taken 4 rounds of meds and thusar, no problemo. Thanks for the prayers.

We live in consumerism. We like that businesses spend lots of money to make us happy. It’s gratifying to know that LendingTree.com is making banks compete for what? My busniess. In fact, we realize, as consumers, that we are lusted after constantly for the power we wield and what power we can give to the various businesses that lust after us. Frankly, it’s pretty gratifying to be that important. We expect to be flirted with, flattered, and praised. We are the customer and we are always right.

Now, when our church does not treat us the same way businesses do, we gripe that we are not respected. When our church does not lust after us like corporate a|America does, we Christians feel neglected. Our entitlement has been infringed upon and we, in business like fashion (at first) assert our right as the customer. That might “work” in our favor and change may occur that provides some temporary happiness. If it does not work, then more will is asserted on the church or the church is abandoned for a “better” church. When we don’t like the product, we shop.

The problem here is not so much that a person might move from one church to another. If it were only that shallow. The problem is that we Christians view ourselves as the one’s being served. When we willingly take on the role of the one being served, being pleased, being catered to, then we have a real hard time serving, pleasing, and catering to.

When we Christians look to the church to make our dreams come true, then we forfeit the role of making other people’s dreams come true. When we lean on the church for our consumption needs, then we drain it of the resources that could be helping someone come to know God.

Yes, church to the rescue is many, many cases. We need to take care of our own. But let’s face it, God’s taking care of millions of Christian’s needs through other means. and we’re just gathering together, filling our minds with knowledge we’ll never use jst to make ourselves feel better about ourselves.  

What we need to do as Christians is to become producers, not consumers. A producer’s mentality is totally different from that of a consumer. We are to be givers and creators. We are to think that way. When we begin to think like producers, creators, givers, then we will lose our entitled status and be glad that it is gone. Happiness through gratification is fleeting at best. Happiness through sacrifice, creation, and production has more legs.

Thoughts?

“The University of Minnesota is a moral community.” – keynote speaker

“If you walk north on the east bank we’re on the southwest side.” – Poorly given directions by the employment office representative.

“80,000 people show up on campus everyday.”

“The U of M has the 15th largest library in North America with well over 6,000,000 volumes.”

“If you look for a book longer than 10 minutes, stop looking and have a librarian find it. We find resources; you write papers. That’s how it works.” – Librarian 

“We can get you a book from China.” Librarian 

“In our dissertation support group…” University psychologist.

Imagine being handyman walking into Home Depot and the person working there says, “See all this, it’s yours. Use every tool here as much as you want. If you don’t know what a tool does, let me know and I will train you, for free. The reason I am even here is to make you a complete success.”

Yes, this was the feel I got today at the orientation.

He has been diagnosed with Temporal Lobe Epilepsy (TLE). Half of all kids with TLE grow out of it. Half do not. However, some who do not grow out of the condition can control it with meds. Fossen took his first round of meds today. The meds are not expected to work for the first week. So, seizures during the first week are not to cause undo worry.

Of course this has impacted the family a ton. On the positive side, this epilepsy explains some of the strange behavior Fossen have exhibted for the past year or so. Sleepwalking, wetting pants, weird wiggling, etc. You’re never thankful for epilepsy, but answers do bring some peace – kind of.

If you want to learn more about seizures, go here.

We’re praying hard for good news and are grateful that there is not a tumor or someting worse than it is.

Fossen has 2 older sisters, Carly and Chloe. Chloe was the first to witness one of Fossen’s seizures. Naturally she was freaked out. I talked with her today over the phone and reassured her of her courage in responding how she did.

I am sure that I will keep updates right here on the blog.

No one needs this kind of thing in their life. When this kind of thing happens to children I just want to scream, “NO FAIR!!!”

Please, if you are a praying person, then pray for Fossen.

These friends of mine have seen with their own eyes the death that poverty inserts into the lives of it victims. Their heart yearns to crush poverty – poverty in every sense fo the word. Economic, emotional, educational, and spiritual poverty all need to go.

Well, these friends don’t live in Africa anymore, but their passions are no less strong. What many of them are involved in right now is an creative mission/business/educational effort that is aimed at extinsguishing poverty in Africa.

This effort is called the Kibo Group. Check out their website and see what they are all about. Who knows, you might just get taken by their passion and join in on their mission. You might even make it your mission.

1. They do not do enough of it during the regular gatherings.

2. My friend Josh Cleveland got to share a song he wrote.

Apparently, here is how it works at this church. There is weekly musicians’ meeting open to anyone with a gift or love for music. Josh, who has been the SP only a few times, shared a song at this weekly meeting of musicians. He was then, to his surprise, invited to share the song with the gathering.

This was a tret all the way around. For one, his song was good and he gave it to everyone there. josh had a venue to share his gifts with music. And he is a good singer with his Hootie and the Blowfish vocals and heartfelt lyrics.

Afterwards, I talked with my friend Luke Hawley, who was in town from Nebraska, and he said that being at Solomon’s Porch was like having been adopted since birth and the being reunited with your birth parents. All of the weirdness you felt with your adoptive parents finally made sense when you met your birth parents. Pretty cool analogy. Other comments from fitrst timers:

“This church makes me want to move to Minnesota.” Sarah

“I’m so glad their gathering is in the evening.” Tausha

We are slowly getting tom know a few people here and there and are enjoying it. I am seeking God for guidance as it all feels so insecure right now. But i can safely say, it was another good night at the Porch.

My wife and I arrived at the pavilion in Tartan Park, just east of St. Paul, Minnesota just in time. Picnic tables were covered in colored (looked dyed) paper, the band was off to the left and near the front, and it was packed. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I knew it would be different than any wedding I had ever been to before.

Caleb, you see, is an unpredictable musician whose mind is incapable of conforming to the world in which he lives. His sense of humor comes at you from Pluto and catches you off guard every time. Samantha has a vibrant and uninhibited personality and she can sing you right into a hypnotic state in about 4 seconds.

So, rather than Pachelbel’s Canon or some other traditional wedding music, this wedding got started off by the band: “Is everybody readyyyyyyyyyy?” It was like a call to worship and the crowd was ready.

There was a cheer and the band unleashed a great mix of classic rock and pop songs to send the wedding party down the aisle. Caleb and his father Dale walked down first to an uprorar of applause and cheers. They walked relaxed and looked like they were having a great deal of fun.

Then the next person in the order to go down the aisle was a boy of 12, perhaps. The music shifted to something almost Asian sounding on the electric guitar. When he walked, he had this look on his face that I had seen some place before, but just couldn’t place it. Then, about half way down the aisle, he starts moving his hands with some kind of martial arts ninja hand motions and then he treated us all to a few ninja kicks. He was applauded as well.

In fact, everyone walking down the aisle got theme music and generous applause. You have got to understand that there was no cue to applaud everyone. You couldn’t help youself.

“I Can’t Take My Eyes Off Of You” brought Samantha down the aisle. Everyone stood and applauded.

Dale, Caleb’s father, officiated the wedding, told some stories and did a fine job. The best thing he said was, “First, sing to each other.” As they will head off into the world of music (probably Nashville), they will need to keep this in mind.

Then it was time for the vows. Samantha lead caleb over to the place where the band was set up, grabbed the microphone and sang the vows song she had written. It was a perky pop jazz kind of sound with the band backing her up. In the middle of the song, she came down from the stage to where caleb was standing and said, “Dance with me,” and they danced. Cheers from everyone. Then she finished her song.

When her song was over, caleb took the mic and looked at the groomsmen who were decked out in charcoal grey shirts, pinstriped pants, suspenders and bright solid colored ties (they looked like a cool jazz band) and said, “Come on boys.”

They started a sort of Billy Joel “For the longest time” acappella backup singer sound as Caleb sang his vows. He interacted well with Samantha and his back up singers. At one point one of the back up singer began to sing words to the vows song and Caleb pushed him out of the way and said, “Hey, these are my vows.” Hilarious and well choreographed. Then, without notice or even reason, the song changed into a rap song in which Caleb found a way to fit the words, “ninja’s knife” into his vows. And somehow it was totally appropriate.

They exchanged rings. Somewhere in there we sang, “Holy, Holy, Holy.”Verse 1 was acappell a and the second two verses were instrumental with a funk guitar sound or something. I can’t really describe it, but it was very well done. They signed their marriage license in front of everyone and had official witnesses. Then they kissed – Caleb gave Samantha a dip and kissed her passionately. The band cranked up “Signed Sealed Delivered, I’m Yours,” and they came down the aisle.

Great live saxophone music during the meal. Upbeat and fun. Then, after the meal, the wedding party treated us to a choreographed performance with the band playing. You’ve never seen people having more fun in your whole life.

Thanks to Caleb and Samantha for being themselves and giving us so much joy on your wedding day. May you continue to do in your marriage and through your marriage what you did on your wedding day. God has given you both something that blesses many.

Naturally this is very frustrating for me as a parent. Not to mention that I am going stir crazy being home all day. So, last night came the stern talking to. I sat the kids down and told them what they were doing was disrespectful. “Canaan, when you pick up the cat and it is crying in pain because of the twisted angle of its backbone, you let it go, especailly if we ask you to let it go. Don’t keep grabbing and bending the cat. Sierra, when you hit your brother with a pillow and we ask you to stop, you stop. If you continue to disrespect us when we ask you to do something, then we will not allow you to bike or scooter ot watch TV.”

The wheels were turning.

Canaan said, “I don’t want to stop scootering, OK.” Canaan is easy. He learns the system and conforms to it. He knows where the power rests and when he knows the system, he finds a way to make it work to his advantage.

Sierra has another way of thinking about it. She’s more principled than pragmatic. She was not fully convinced that she was not in charge. She was frustrated. She did not agree to the deal. She left and pouted. Then she came back to conversation to explain why she was hitting her bother with a pillow.

“When my arms get going, they just keep going and I can’t stop them, they just go and go.” What’s this Pippi Longstocking?

“Well,” I responded, “you had better find a way to teach your arsm to stop because I’m still going to take your bike away if you keep hitting your brother.”

“I didn’t know I was doing anything wrong.”

“Well, I’m sure you know it now. Not obeying your parents is disrespect.”

Conversation over.

Later that night at the final tuck into bed I asked Sierra if she was mad. She pondered for a moment and said, “You’re getting warmer.”

“Super mad?”

“Even warmer. I’m mad and sad.”

“Well, you’re not in trouble, I am just telling you how it is going to be from now on.”

“I know.”

“I love you, punkin.”

“I love you too.”

Hugs and kisses.

Parenting is a challenge. I keep trying to do it right.

Now I know that following the “stern voice” as Sierra calls it, there needs to be lots and lots of affirmation and catching them doing things right. I know that I am not the only one going stir crazy. Discipline and correction cannot be the only arrows in a parent’s quiver. Correction is not synonymous with parenting. It is only a portion of it. Now I am tasked to even out the correction with affirmation. I love my kids and they need to know all sides of that love.

The link is here. Let me know what you think.

Failure at one point or another is inevitable. The question of resiliency is, “what happens next?” Is the failure devastating? Does it prevent future efforts? Does it cripple? OR Does it inspire future effort? Can you, your marriage, or you organization brush itself off after a failure and move forward?

Resiliency also asks, “What is the meaning of failure?” If the meaning of failure is defeat then that will have implications for the future; however, if the failure means instruction, opportunity for creativity, or invitatin for a new direction or perhaps more effort, then that will also have implications for the future.

Facts are facts, but all facts are fair game for interpretation. People give meaning to facts. With every failure comes an opportunity for interpretation. Without the intentional effort to create a constructive meaning for failure, there is a high likelihood that a destructive meaning will be settled for.

So, resiliency is the ability for a person etc to bounce back from setbacks.

Much of the ability for bounceback lies in the ability to make a positive meaning out of apparently negative facts.

Scared to die? Get married and go to church.

Wanna get happy? Go here.

Are you bigorexic?

Radical Congruency might have a resource the answer (in part) my question.

Not going to your parent’s church? You’re not alone.

I’ll be working with profs who are incredible researchers – an dpretty nice people, too.

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I have been hanging out at a church called Solomon’s Porch. It’s different on the surface and deeply from my Restoration roots, but there are many similarities.

Differences:

Setup in auditorium, instrumental worship, interactive sermon, baptism, decentralized information flow.

Similarities:

Bible based, seeking to be like Jesus, baptism by immersion, weekly communion.

From a theological perspective, there seems to be a lot more flexibility at Solomon’s Porch than at any of the churches I have attended in the past. Since SP is not part of a denomination and is not a church with a lot of years behind it, the flexibility does make some sense. The challenge for SP will be over the years. will it settle into an inflexible way of being. Time will tell.

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Public transit. I will ride the bus 4 days a week from the burbs to the city. I wanted to live in the city, but that just didn’t work out.

Does God micromanage every choice people make only allowing the illusion of choice?

Is there unbounded free will?

Is there limited free will?

How close is God and how far away is God?

How much of God is revealed in the Bible and how much is revealed in other ways?

What are those other ways?

Does God’s will work the same for everyone? (Moses got a burning bush with clear instruction)

If God did have a plan for your life, how would you (or have you) come to believe you know what it is?

How would you advise someone struggling with coming to know God’s desires or plans?

Where is God’s will when evil or sickness or disease wreak havoc in people’s live?

Following God is sometimes like following a good idea. You grab and search and “get it” every now and again. You massage the idea and it deepens. It is part invention and part discovery.

Following is sometimes like following a rainbow - undeniable beauty toward an unattainable end.

Following God is sometimes like a boring day in which nothing happens. All the forces of Hell that would be unleashed were held at bay and you never even knew.

Following God is sometimes like making sand castles on the beach at low tide.

Following God is sometimes like forgetting things.

Following God is sometimes like… (A little help here)

Me and my family go to one church while my sister goes to another; we live in the same house.

I keep remembering how afraid I am of forgetting things. Dream about it every night.

My life is moving way too fast and way too slow.

My past 5 years in Arkansas were great, but I feel like I’m finally getting to exhale.

I feel the need to write something profound while my mind is blank.

I have no schedule and I still can’t find time to myself.

I’m a male heterosexual and it took me 8 months to find just the right pair of shoes.

I am about to begin doctoral work in the finest Family Science program in the nation and I fear that I have oversold myself and might not meet expectations.

Once the head stone goes up in the cemetary, there will be nothing left to do for my father. I hope they take their time.

I want closure more than any other thing, right up until the moment it is about to happen, then I want to wait.

I’m tired and I plan on staying awake for a while.

If you do go to Duluth, you will want to get to know the city a bit. Take the brunch cruise on the Vista Star. It’s a 90 minute tour cruise with a delicious brunch. At $28 a head it is a steal. It not only gives a great view of the city of Duluth as it sprawls down the shore, it also tours the harbor and gives you a great view of where iron ore, various grains and coal arrive and leave.

When you work up the need for a cold treat, you will go to the Portland Malt Shop and to no other place. It can stand toe to toe with any and every malt shop in the world – period. And when you get hungry, you might be tempted to go to Red Lobster or one of the chain restaurants, but don’t. Go to the Lakeview Coffee Shop. It’s the only coffee shop I know of that serves grilled shrimp, wine, Mediterrainean Pizza, and of course, coffee. They will probably play Beatles music if there is no live music and you can just sit at a window seat and look over Lake Superior. Think ocean. It’s huge with waves and you can’t see across it. Watch the ocean cargo ships come in. If you’re lucky, you’ll see a 1000 footer.

If you go to Duluth and don’t hang out in Canal Park for at least  hours, you’re an idiot. In fact, you ought to just book your room at Hawthorn Suites. It’s a brick warehouse type building completely deone really cool. When you’re at Canal Park, you will buy something Minnesotan. Don’t resist, just let the Nordic flow take you away – u betcha.

You will also buy some chocolate that you won’t soon forget. You might want some coffee if the evening gets cool. Caribou Coffee might feel really Minnesotan, but go to the Blue Note Cafe instead. Odds are you’ll get some free live music, good coffee, and they’ll make you a meal if you want them to. They have very good raspberry hot chocolate if that is your thing.

It’s kind of surprising how many places have live music. Who thinks of Duluth as a music town? Well, people need to find this music treasure. The Bayfront Blues Festival in August will be a good intro to the music scene in Duluth.

Finally, the boardwalk. Beginning in Canal Park and ending miles up the shore, the boardwalk (which is well lit at night) extends along the rocky Lake Superior shoreline treating walkers to an indulgent view of Lake Superior. Want to get off that walk and get your feet wet? Go ahead. Throw some rocks in the water, wade in, heck, fish if you want to. The boardwalk has made miles of the shore even more accessible than before.

Want a great summer vacation? Duluth! 

Click here to see my list.

More to be added later.

I look at many parenting books with some skpeticism. They either tell you “the way” to parent or give you totally unrealistic stories and examples that end up being discouraging rather than helpful. Since I virtually know John Alan Turner and have concluded that he’s not an idiot, I figured he might go a little deeper than formulas. I also got a peak into what he’s thinking by reading his blog, which is something you should do as well.  

It was good and I believe takes on the topic of parenting where it should be taken on: with the parents. It’s too easy to be a child-centered parent and to be child-centered while trying to teach parenting. What that approach does is to assume either parents are always right in the way they lives their lives or assume that the parent’s character has nothing to do with the children. Parenting is about parents and how they deal with their kids, not about how kids need to be controlled.

I will buy this book becuase it promises to dig deeper than behavioral approaches to parenting. It’s not the behavioral techniques are all bad or cannot work, but if parenting is synonymous with children’s behavior modification, then we might as well buy us a robot or a pet and forget about having children.

This book promises to be thoughtful and useful at the same time. There appears to be some philosophy in it, but practical philosophy. Don’t let that scare you away. In fact, it should attract you because of the current philosophical shift occuring in America and in many parts of the globe right now will impact you and your children.

Anyway, order this book now and be rewarded in October when it is released.

Click here to get it.

What I want to do here is explore some of the power dynamics of female sexuality.

There was a time when I believed that all women who were willing to be viewed or used sexually were victims of male objectification. The male was the complete perpetrator and the female was the complete victim. I no longer believe that this is always the case.

So, what am I doing here? Blaming women for the sins of men? Nope, not at all. What I am doing is trying to figure out what is going on inside this topic. Let’s start linear and simplistic.

Many men like to be enticed. Sexy women can get a lot out of a man with the promise that such enticement seems to give. When women discover this secret what they have done is discovered a source of power that they can assert over a man.

When a women learns of this power, she is then responsible to use it with wisdom and not abuse it. Now, this is a very hard message to even talk about to day because of dozens of reasons I won’t get into. So, I will compare it a man with great physical strength. He could us it to benefit a woman or anyone really or he could go around hurting people with it.

I wish I could end there and this topic be real simple, but I can’t. I am going to have to get circular and systemic.

What might motivate a women to use sexuality (through dress, nonverbals, promiscuity etc) to gain power? We could say that she is an evil person bent on destruction of others for her benefit. But then again that is too easy and, of course, rarely the case.

What if sex is the only onramp to power for many women? What if our culture affords women who make the “sexy” cut this one piece of power and few if any others? If that is the case, then there is an increased likelihood that more women will choose to accept the side-effects that come with selling out a little in order to reap the benefits of it.  

If this is true, then the meaning of sex and sexuality has frequently been reduced to a power game in which men and women alike make agreements to recieve the benefits of this mutual exploitation and the side-effects as well.

And what we have not addressed yet are women who do not make the “sexy” cut. They are either doomed to feeling worthless or fight really hard to find a way in which they can have some power, affirmation, or recognition.

So what we have are personal decisions within a societal context that provides limited options. We have a context that allows sex to be the easy out for women (and men if you read yesterday’s post) rather then keeping sex sacred.

OK, I’ve rambled too much already. What do you all think about this topic?

A single word or tone or facial expression can send a man into a hole so deep you’d have better luck finding Osama. A man’s ego is vulnerable, especially (but not exclusively) to a woman he finds value in, such that he could be crushed, even by accident. Crushed meaning he gets into a rut wherein he never accesses his emotions.

The very same ego that could be crushed by the tone of a woman’s voice, can also drive the man perform some of the most heroic, selfless, and bordering on miraculous acts ever imagined. It is this same ego that when faced with peril, impossibility, or certain doom, says, “Like Hell…” and runs into the flames.

The complexity comes when trying to understand how to deal with this incredibly powerful and sensitive force called the male ego. This has mystified women for centuries, and I suggest will continue to for centuries to come. It’s not as mystifying to the men themselves. It’s not that they have themselves figured out, but it is harder to know that there is mystery when you are the mystery.

For the women out there, I wish I could give you the key to the male ego. I can’t. But here are some guidelines.

1. Your efforts to control it, manipulate it, or co-opt it will fail in one of two ways. A) You will subdue the man and thus make him a worthless patsy (don’t badger him). B) You will piss him off and invite his power to be asserted upon you. Let me make a little point here. When a man does violence against a women, it is always his fault. What I am talking about is an unnecessary pattern that can lead to unnecessarilly inciting rage.

2. Affirmimg without partonizing is a tightrope act that is worth the effort to perfect. The male ego is fuled on affirmation. However, it must the right kind of affirmation. Like in the horrific and terryfying movie, How To Lose A Guy In Ten Days, naming his penis a cutesy name like Pooky is not the kind of affirmation I am talking about. You are grateful for his efforts, amazed by his strength (whatever kind of strength he has), and perhaps even very subltly (a little hint of being) turned on by it.  

3. If you think the male ego is all about sex, you’re wrong. Sometimes sex is all a man has to fall back on because he has no other outlet for his expression of power – besides anger. When you find a man finding meaning in his work (though not workaholic), a passion for his art, a vision for his children (but not crazy sports dad), or something that engages his ability to matter, then is he going to want to have lots of sex? Of course he will still want that. However, since he has many outlets, there is a different meaning to the desire. He does not have to rely upon sex and sex alone for satisfaction in his life. Sex then can carry a healthy level of life satisfaction and love expression.

So, here’s the guideline: support your man’s outlet, even if you don’t like it (unless it’s immoral, illegal or unethical).   

Well, that’s enough for today. Tomorrow we’re going to talk about sexy women. Seriously.

Myself: Are you crazy? The last thing you need to do is meet a bunch people who are 10 times smarter than you and make a fool of yourself.

Me: Nah, you’re just scared.

Myself: Scared? Duh! I just left a good job doing what I know how to do best for something I don’t even think I can do. Sure, I wasn’t raking in the dough, but now I am taking out student loans to make ends meet.

Me: And a wise investment it is my friend.

I: Where did I put that…?

Me: Hey I, what are you doing?

I: I lost my daytimer again, have you seen it?

Myself: You see, dad was right, you couldn’t find your butt with both hands. What makes you think you could get a PhD?

I: I’m going to go look in the freezer, I haven’t checked there yet.

Me: If you will remember, Mr. Self-Defeatist, you never thought you could get a masters degree and you got it. You never thought you would get married and you scored a terrific wife. You thought you’d be a lousy father and you’re doing pretty good. What’s your deal, man?

Myself: This is different.

Me: How?

I:Oh look, “I Love Lucy” reruns on TVLand, the freezer can wait.

Myself: How can I know I can do something I’ve never done? I mean, it is possible that whatever good I have done was just luck.

Me: How have you done it in the past?

Myself: I told you, it was luck.

Me: Look, no one is that lucky. You dove in there and you figured it out. You learned the landscape and then walked it.

Myself: But what if I’ve hit my wall? You know, I’ve already gone as far as I can go?

I: Oh, you guys have got to see this. Lucy is on an assembly line and can’t keep up. This one is hilarious.

Myself: As I was saying, I might have maxed out on my ability.

Me: Maybe, but probably not. Look, you’re talking like you’re old or something. This is not the twilight of your days.

Myself: What if I fail?

Me: Now we’re getting somewhere.

Myself: Huh?

I: Laughing hysterically and holding his belly.

Me: Fear is your enemy, not inability. You believe failure is not something you can recover from. You think that if you fail it means the end. Failure and termination have nothing to do with each other. How will you even know what you can do unless you accomplish failure?

Myself: Accomplish failure? That’s a good one. Nice rah rah rah speech. You’re full of it.

Me: Oh so you don’t see any good in failure?

Myself: No, I most certainly do not.

Me: You’re a thief!

Myself: What the Hell are you talking about?

I: (Walking over to and opening the freezer) Now, what was it I was looking for - oh look, ice cream.

Me: You fear failure, so you avoid it at all costs.

Myself: And your point is…

Me: My point is that you don’t even know what you can do.

Myself: Wrongo! I know what I can do. I just spent 5 years doing it and now I’m launching into the unknown.

Me:Aha! You just said it. The “unknown.” You made my point. You seem to equate the unknown with failure while I equate it with opportunity.

Myself:Yeah, yeah, the glass is half empty or half full, I get it.

Me: You don’t get it, not in the least. If only you could get it.

Myself: No need to get all worked up.

Me: I’m just getting started!

Myself: Rolls eyes.

Me: Let’s get back to the “you are a thief” part. Since you are afraid of failure, you avoid it. And since you avoid failure, you have yet to learn the limits of your ability. Look at your track record. You have had success in just about everything you have ever done.

Myself: You’re right. Looks like my system works, doesn’t it?

Me: Not in the least. Success is an awful teacher. You’re like the guy who has ten million dollars in the bank and doesn’t know it because he’s afraid to check his balance for fear that it might be small. So, he lives on crumbs and never accesses his resources.

Myself: You’re making me mad.

Me: Only because I am right.

I: Guys, (yawn and stretch) I’m going to take a nap.  

Me: Look, there is so much potential in you that not risking failure is to rob yourself and frankly the world of something potentially great.

Myself: Or perhaps saving myself and the world from something disastrous.

Me: If you are so diluted to think that the world can’t recover from your failures, then fear of failure is not your greatest problem.

Myself: What’s that supposed to mean?    

Me: It means that you are narcissistic negative.

Myself: Huh?

Me: It means you think you have vast powers for the negative and no power for the positive. You’re exaggerated both ways.

Myself: But it keeps me safe.

Me: It keeps you blind and withholds the good that could be done for others. Do you really want to be held accountable for that?

Myself: Well…that’s not how I think about it.

Me: Well, wold you consider thinking about it more realistically?

Myself: (sigh) I guess.

I: (bursting out of a dead sleep)Guys! I just had this weird dream that I was schizophrenic. I have got to tell you all about it.

Also in the news that day:

-University of Minnesota profs were not exaclty raking in the dough, with one prof making $18,353. He taught “the classics” whatever that means.

-Northwest airlines employees were striking. Hmm, that sound familiar.

-My mutual fund didn’t exist.

-Some money market funds were yielding 13.68% Cripes! My paypal money market fund (with $1.00 in it) yields 5.02% and I think I’m hot stuff.

-Dow Jones was a stellar 814.97

-Preacher Jed Smock preached to students at the University of Minnesota charging that they lead the Big Ten not in academics or athletics, but in “whores and whoremongering.” Students were apparently very entertained and came to see Preacher Smock in droves.

-Sophia Loren was released from prison.

-When Northwest employees were not on strike, you could get from Minneapolis to Omaha for $35.

-Iraqi jets bombed Iranian city of Ilam.

-”1.43 trillion dollar defense budget problem.”

-”Bush says arms plan cedibility a problem.”

-Huge glasses and huge women’s underwear were in vogue.

-Humphrey was a formidible political name.  

The American church is not lost. There is hope. The hope, however, is not so much found in the denominational structure of church organizations, but rather in the hearts and minds of the people making up those churches and denominations and using those structures for accomplishing the mission of God.

Katrina relief is a terrific example. When churches and denominations gave of their time and money and other resources, they gave along denominational lines in large measure, but then again, there was a huge willingness to cross those lines and serve together. Had there been no organizational structures in place, then the aid would not have moved nearly as fast or efficiently. One year later, churches are still teaming up to house clean up crews and weekend mission relief teams and keep help moving.

I guess my point with all of that is not that the structure is bad, but that it is a bad master. When it is used to serve the mission, then it is good, but when it becomes the mission, then it is bad.

THw size of the group or organization has a lot to do with it. When groups become large, more organization is required. However, there is a consuming seduction that comes with size which draws attention from being used for the mission of God to maintaining the organization itself. Then there is the seduction of being important. Big starts to mean important and important is worth protecting and what’s worth protecting must be the mission.

When horses push carts, the whole thing gets messed up, direction is lost, and people get hurt.

It should not take Hurricane Katrina, 9-11, or a tsunami for the church to find its mission. And thankfully, many are not waiting. Yes, repsond to disaster and the destruction of terror, but don’t wait around for it to happen. Get active locally, in the flow of everyday life. Rick Warren once said that when a church gets bigger it must get smaller. That’s the place where Jesus and the church come together.

What I have experienced in fundamental (and much of evangelical) Christianity is a complete reboot of the group of religious leaders most criticized by Jesus – the Pharisees. At the same time, what I have observed from afar in mainline and liberal Christianity is a reboot of another highly criticized group by Jesus – the Saducees. The Pharisees built rules to govern their externals and thought it did them good. The Sadducees shacked up with their culture a little too much and thought that it did them some good. Neither were regarded with much favor in the eyes of Jesus. 

Instead, Jesus intentionally did good that made the conservatives’ and liberals’ good look bad. He found a way to break the spell so may people in that day knew they were under, but didn’t know what else to do. Either ravaged with guilt in their sin (of self-righteousness in their keeping of the rules) or intimately dancing a tango with culture, there only seemed like two alternatives. This might sound familir religiously or even politically.

Has the church left Jesus? Is the church (in America) so many points removed from Jesus that the name is all that remains? If all things American (customs, social interactions, rituals, expectations, entertainment requirements, comfort requirements, consumer mentality etc)were removed from the American church, would anything remain?

Maybe I am on some kind of cynical roll tonight, but that does not make the question irrelevant.

OK, let me push it a little farther: I am not asking if the church is straying a little bit. I am asking if it is so far gone that there needs to be a complete redo. Is the thing Jesus had in mind remotely similar to what we have on our hands today in the American church? If Jesus entered into any church in America today, in whatever its most recognizable form is, would he even know it to be a church? Would he say, “Ah, yes, church as it was meant to be.” I’m not so sure about that one.

I think sometimes that the church is like the husband who really likes what his wife does for him at home, but at the same time really likes how his girlfriend gets him off at the hotel. How long can that arrangement really last? Frankly, from what I have witnessed in my therapy practice, girlfriends are often a lot more jealous of the wife than the other way around. There will be a point of choosing one or the other.

I do not hold out hold for a perfect church – the odds of such a thing are so small I don’t have even one egg for that basket. At the same time, a church willing to be perfected, cleansed, humbled, shaped, educated, exdperienced into something useful is going to make great strides in making Jesus look like someone attractive and meaningful rather than a political opportunist or a cultural pansy.

I want to the see the American church become more concerned with goodness than denominational integrity, ready to team up to deliver food and medicine rather than turf wars and doctrinal squabbles, to explore theology as a community rather than serve up theology for consumption, to model marriage, family, and friendship in attractive ways rather than dogmatic ways or ways inditinguishable from the worst of culture. I want a church that won’t settle for politics and won’t avoid it at the same time.

In short, I want to be part of a church that has not left Jesus.

Iraq will ask the U.S. to leave within 24 months and the U.S will reluctanly leave with the new president no matter who it is.

Within 18 months from that point (or when Iran has “the bomb”), Iran will invade Iraq.

The war with Israel, which will have been toggling between hot and warm, will simulataneously expand as part of Iran’s invasion of Iraq.

That expansion will pressure the U.S. to engage directly.

WWIII.

OR

Please insert your thoughts here:

What I love most is the interactive nature of the gathering. I get to talk and listen. I get to talk to more than one person and listen to more than one person. There are actual conversations going on. You get the sense that something is being created while you’re there and you have a little something to do with the creation. It’s not all sealed up Friday evening in the pastor’s office and unpackaged neatly Sunday morning.

Yes, there is obviously intentionality and purposefulness, but there is room for input, even if no one agrees with it.

This Sunday began a series on the book of Joshua. Pretty gutsy topic considering the war between Israel and Hezbollah taking place in Lebanon right now. Think about it – the book of Joshua chronicles how the Israellites slaughtered every man, woman, and child in many towns on the very same patch of land where war is breaking out right now. 

Joshua is probably the most difficult book in the Bible for me, so I am very pleased that we are taking this direction. Today’s approach gave a sort of promise that nothing is off limits for conversation during the ”sermon” over the next few weeks. 

On another note, when we left, my kids begged for more. They didn’t want to leave. That is a good sign. 

On another other note, thusfar no one from my former Minnesota church where I served as a youth minister has contacted me. They may not know that I have hit ground yet, but as the time draws near I am sure I wil hear from a few. For most of them, it’s not a big deal since they probably believe I am merely going to another Church of Christ in town. However, there will be calls and curiosity will emerge at some point. Those will be good and challenging conversations. I don’t expect any rudeness or anger. Rather, I suspect there will be a few who feel sorry for me that I am straying, but at the same time will take assurance that I was baptized correctly. Curious, but probably pretty accurate.   

My 8 year old daughter, Sierra, has lost multiple teeth and has learned the true identity of the Tooth Fairy – Dad.

Sierra was dying to assist in the ruse, so I worked up a plan to involve her as my Tooth fairy accomplice. 

I placed the tooth in a ziplock baggie, just like we always did with Sierra’s teeth, and placed it under Canaan’s pillow. He was so excited – so was Sierra. The plan was for Sierra to stay awake in bed pretending to be asleep. Then I would enter the room with 2 quarters (I’m a pretty cheap Tooth Fairy) for the hand off and she would do the rest.

So, at what seemed like plenty of time for Canaan to go to sleep (usually takes him about 9 seconds to be snoring) I entered the room for the hand off. Now, you need to know that since we began living at my sister’s house, my kids are sharing sleeping quarters.

I quietly opened the door and Sierra looked up from the covers, but Canaan remained silent and appeared to be fast asleep. I took one step in and handed the quarters to Sierra and said something sinister like, “You know what to do.” She nodded knowingly.

Then, without warning, Canaan burst from under the covers with the single greatest now-I-caught-YOU-with-YOUR-hand-in-the-cookie-jar look that I have ever seen.

BUSTED!

The first of 20 teeth and the jig is up. What fun.

So what do you think? Does Canaan get money for the rest of his teeth since he busted the Tooth Fairy?

Then her hand went from her father’s to mine. I was holding beauty’s hand. We stared at each other, vowed to each other, and kissed each other. Then we left everyone else behind to discover the wonders of each other.

Ten years later, the discovery continues. This has been a decade of delight.

I’ve got my views on baptism and I was a little uncomfortable with some of what went on, but what I did like was the lack of regimented and required language hoops to jump through. It forced me to stretch and affirm these people’s baptisms. It was a beautiful thing.

If you are in the “baptism is essential to salvation because it is the exact point in time when a person goes from Hellbound to Heavenbound” crowd, you would have had major issues with this baptism service. However, if baptism is more like joining Christ in the life of the Kingdom of God and identifying with Jeuss in his death, buriel and resuirrention, then this was a good thing.

I liked the full immersion (except of course for the baby) because I think the symbolism really gets lost in sprinkling.

I liked just how public these baptisms were. It was in a very popular and crowded park with a river flowing through it. Half of the people within viewing distance of the baptisms were just people out at the park. It might have been weird to them, but at the same time, it didn’t take some kind of cult’like ritual effect either. It was just plain good.

Don’t know for sure if we’ll end up joining the community at Solomon’s Porch, but I will say that they gave my wife and I (both introverts) a very good impression.

It was healing indeed. I am grateful for the beuty of Northern Minnesota and want to tak e full advantage of it every single season of the year including Winter.

We’re up to our ears in boxes at my sister’s suburban home here in the Twin Cities (Minneapolis/St. Paul). We’ll be living at my sister’s for a while since we lost our shirts let our house go for a great price. She’s fine with it and doesn’t mind a little rental income. Most importantly, my wife is OK and finding ways to adjust. The kids get to see their Auntie Amy daily, so this is dream come true for them. And me, well, what can I say but, “Where’s the bus station?”

I’ll be riding public transit for the first time in my life. Not a bad deal in the Twin Cities via the University special. $62 per month to ride as much as I want – even the light rail train that goes here and there. I don’t even have to be trying to get to the university to get the deal. We’ll see how the ride is before I start falling in love with public transit.

Peace, more blogging coming up. Thanks for all the well-wishing. It means a lot to me.

I wonder if I will have re-entry shock a little. I get into habits which reinforce familiarity and therefore secruity. I am entering unfamilar territory from a neighborhood, economic, and relational perspective.

Blogging will be sporadic for the next month or so. Not a problem for you smart people with feed reading services like bloglines. However, for you web 1.0 people who keep typing in my blog address or keeping linking from your own blog to see if I have anything here – BLOGLINES!!!!!!!!!!! 

We’re sittin’ ducks;

The flock must fly, or we’re gonna die, 

We’re sittin’ ducks;

Hunter’s gotta gun, so we gotta run, 

We’re sitting ducks;

Let’s fly the coop or we’re duck soup.  

Go ahead, sing your depressing songs. I have confidence that God is going to make things right. He sees everything going on here. This current mess we’re in is no surprise to the God I know. The god you know, well, I’m not so sure.

The God I know is looking at us all, and not just on the outside. He’s zeroed in on what I think and feel, not just what I do. He’s doing the same thing with you. When he finds good things going on on the inside, he saves it all up, but when he finds a bad apple, he pitches it into the burn heap.

Look, this might sound harsh, but think about it, rotten always spreads to make more rotten, not the other way around. It is for the sake of the good that he chunks the bad.

All you need to do is to get goodness into your heart and then you’ve got nothing to worry about. Then you’ll be able to look God in the eye and not be afraid of anything.  

Truth is, all behavior is communication. So, what does it say when all a person does is talk (or blog)? Sooner or later, people who are all talk become known for their talk, and not for anything else. They are not reliable doers. Oh yes, you can get their opinion, analysis, angle, insight and so forth, but you might not get their butts off the chair at the coffee shop.

For all of its very convincing rhetoric, the emerging church will fall flat if it provides only good conversations. More and more speaking must be done with action, with mission, with compassion.

Emergent wil become more convincing and more influential the more missional it becomes.

Dr. King not right model for Black clergy? Postmodern Negro talks about it.

A little something on emergent.

Argenteen and I move on the same day. Weird.

Sivin Kit blogs about another tsunami.

Funny emerging church comic.

Depressed? Anxiety ridden? Going freakin’ nuts? Sing.

Here are some post-emergent rumblings.

It is essential for the survival of Christianity for the story to be told. However, when the same old ways of telling the story (which is ripe with hope) with the same old language no longer flows, but rather gets backed up in communication process, a sort of constipation occurs in which there is still a lot of input, but there is no real positive result. As with severe constipation, when the system is backed up for too long, there is real danger for damage.

Art, in its various forms, offers something to the Christian community that it desperately needs for its own survival: a laxative.

Art (good art) has a way of bypassing preloaded objections that have been programmed into the sender and receiver. Art freshens the stale packaging that the meaning has been wrapped in too long. Art provides a newer and more efficient cart to carry the message and allows the old and rusted cart to rest. Art can get the conversation going again and flush out the unnecessary clog.

Art is not just a good idea. An artless church will die – period. It may be a slow and grueling death, but it will die.

The poets, painters, singers, dancers, graphics artists etc are necessary for the story to continue to be told. Creativity is the healthy diet that the church has been skimping on for decades, maybe even centuries. It’s like the church has been on a spiritual Atkin’s diet of the beef of propositional truth for so long it forgot what the breads, rolls, and even pastries of art even taste like and have labeled them as bad. You know, steak is good, but after steak for 15 straight decades, some nice warm rolls would taste pretty good right now. And might even do the body good.

Emerging
Church Movement’ a threat to Gospel
Mar 23, 2005
By David Roach
Baptist Press
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)–A recently developed way of envisioning church known as the “Emerging Church Movement Conversation” deals carelessly (if all you think scripture amounts to is propositional truth) with Scripture and compromises the philosophically modern Gospel, according to a prominent evangelical scholar and a Southern Baptist seminary president.

But Brian McLaren, one of the movement’s leaders conversation’s participants, told Baptist Press that such criticisms are unfounded and that the Emerging Church Movement conversation/friendship/relationship/dinner party is “seeking to be more faithful to Christ” in the current postmodern cultural context. McLaren is right here. When epistemology (ways of knowing) shifts form A to @, faithfulness to Christ will look like unfaithfulness – and it is – but only to the epistemology, but not to Christ.

In a book entitled “Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church,” which is scheduled to be published in June by Zondervan, theologian D.A. Carson defines the Emerging Church Movement friendship as a group of people who believe the church must use new modes of expressing the Gospel as western culture adopts a postmodern mindset. Too simplistic of a description. It’s not merely about new models. That’s modernity. It’s about being post-model, idiosyncratic, and sympathetic (though not rules by) the local micro-culture, which may be very diverse, or not.

“At the heart of the ‘movement’ (aha, “ “ he’s catching on)… lies the conviction that changes in the culture signal that a new church is ‘emerging,’” Well, that’s not really what it means exactly, but it’ll do for a gloss over writes Carson, who serves as research professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Ill. “Christian leaders must therefore adapt to this emerging church. Those who fail to do so are blind to the cultural accretions that hide the gospel behind forms of thought and modes of expression that no longer communicate with the new generation.” Not all churches need to “emerge.” In fact, what I see is that churches don’t emerge, people do. Emerging churches seem better planted than converted from existing churches – unless of course that existing church has a high tolerance for change. Few churches do.  

According to Carson, the movement party arose as a protest against the institutional church maybe de facto, modernism not a protest but an understanding and awareness of cultural shifts and seeker-sensitive churches although some emergent types would scoff at what I am about to say, seeker-sensitive is pre-emergent, or is emergent post-seek-sensitive. Why does everything have to be a protest? Emerging people honor their historical roots without rejecting them and without being ruled by them. Why does a generous response to culture, an emerging awareness, an epistemological shift have to be overstated as a “protest?”

At times it is difficult to identify with precision the participants and parameters of the movement, he writes.
Carson shows his hand here. He requires the postmodern to be modern in order for it to make sense. This is the fatal flaw of almost every criticism I have ever heard about the emerging church. He judges through a modern lens the value and benefits of the postmodern incarnation of the church. It’s like he’s saying that “these carrots are not a good source of protein,” or that “this corn is not a good source of fuel for my car,” —or is it Mr. Carson?  

Carson acknowledges that the Emerging Church Movement festival has encouraged evangelicals to take note of cultural trends and has emphasized authenticity among believers.  This is good that he does at least glean something good in his critique.

He criticizes the movement gathering, however, for a reductionistic understanding of modernism maybe so, but not enough to warrant remaining modern and an inappropriate dismissal of confessional Christianity. I’m not sure what he means by dismissing confessional Christianity, but that sounds really bad. If he means jettisoning faith in Jesus, then he’s flat wrong. If he means something else, then who cares?

Carson asserts that some

Emerging
Church leaders are “painfully reductionistic about modernism and the confessional Christianity that forged its way through the modernist period” and that they “give the impression of dismissing” Christianity. Giving the impression to modern Christians, sure, but not to people who don’t know God or who think they know God as bad or careless. It only appears to dismiss Christianity because modernity is so closely wed to Christianity that when you strip away the modernity, it feels like the Christianity is going with it. In any culture, when you challenge the dominant cultural syncretism, there is going to be resistance. The emerging church is doing just that, but generously, not protestingly. If and when the modernity is exorcized from the Christianity in the next 150 years, there has better be some there there. If not, then there really wasn’t Christianity in the first place.

Carson argues that many thinkers in the movement shy away from asserting that Christianity is true and authoritative according to the limited modern definition of the terms.

He also argues that the Emerging Church Movement frequently fails to use Scripture overstated as the normative standard of truth and instead also appeals to tradition and creativity and art and nature and experience and discovery and on and on and on.

In response to
Carson, McLaren told Baptist Press that “Dr. Carson doesn’t understand us.”

McLaren, who is the founding pastor of Cedar Ridge Community Church near Baltimore, Md., and was listed as one of 25 influential evangelicals by TIME magazine, said that he rejects the label “movement” to describe the Emerging Church.

“I generally don’t even use the term movement at this point,” he said. “I think it’s more of a conversation. It’s a group of people who are talking about the Gospel and church and mission, especially in terms of changes going on in our culture that some people call a shift from modern to postmodern culture.”

In contrast to the cultural imperialism demonstrated by believers in the past, McLaren believes Christians should present Christianity through loving attitudes rather than logical arguments. When logic gets bumped off the throne and is replaced by love, evangelicals get really nervous. Love does not wield its power like logic does. Love is risky. Love is good. Logic can be right, but it has a hard time being good. Christian imperialism might smack as strange sounding. However, what many evangelicals have learned to do for the sake of Christian call and duty is to colonize, take over and create hierarchies in organizations and relationships. Rather than being like Jesus and meeting people in their situation and listening to them, many evangelicals spend all of their efforts trying to take over. Sometimes, believe it or not, people don’t like their lives to be “occupied” by an evangelical, even if they are willing to seek God and learn of Jesus.

“Those of us in the west now … realize that there were a lot of bad consequences of European and American people trying to tell everybody else how things are,” he said. “We feel that there’s got to be a lot more humility and a lot more gentleness and that the Gospel is made credible not by how we argue and make truth claims. But it’s made credible by the love and the good deeds that flow from our lives and our community.”

R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in
Louisville, Ky., questions McLaren’s claim to be giving a credible witness for the Gospel. In an Internet commentary posted on crosswalk.com Mohler argues that McLaren’s claim to uphold historic Christian faith and simultaneously avoid articulating truth in propositional form is self-contradictory. It’s only a contradiction within the closed system of his definition of modern epistemology.

Responding to McLaren’s book, “A Generous Orthodoxy,” Mohler writes, “Embracing the worldview of the postmodern age, he embraces relativism at the cost of clarity in matters of truth and intends to redefine Christianity for this new age, largely in terms of an eccentric mixture of elements he would take from virtually every theological position and variant.” Mohler’s critique does not value that love is truth. Love is the truest way to be with people. Clarity is overrated and much too convenient, but that is what Mohler demands. Yes, clarity has its place, but Jesus created clarity through some pretty bizarre and unconventional ways. Weird stories about God that never mention God are not exactly the kind of propositional truth Mohler is looking for, but that is how Jesus began spreading his kingdom work.  

“… As a postmodernist (Oh yeah, well you’re a doo-doo head. –sigh- Now see, name calling isn’t effective), he considers himself free from any concern for propositional truthfulness, and simply wants the Christian community to embrace a pluriform understanding of truth as a way out of doctrinal conflict and impasse.” Is moving away from doctrinal conflicts such a bad thing? These conflicts seem to have created such a fractured and splintered religion in Christianity that it is unattractive to millions of people for that reason alone.

Mohler charges McLaren with speaking about clear-cut issues in an unbiblical and ambiguous manner. What he means is that they do not share the same rules ofr biblical interpretation, thus making McLaren’s interpretation ambiguous.

“When it comes to issues such as the exclusivity of the gospel, the identity of Jesus Christ as both fully human and fully divine, the authoritative character of Scripture as written revelation, and the clear teaching of Scripture concerning issues such as homosexuality, this movement simply refuses to answer the questions,” Mohler writes. These topics are not conversation starters, but rather they are litmus tests meant to define who is in and who is out. Not only that, these4 topics are so contaminated right now that sifting out where God’s love is in it all is going to be very, very difficult.

“A responsible theological argument must – be generous and kind in the way it communicates its message with the understanding that there is no clear difference between the message and the messenger. The messenger is part of the message – acknowledge that difficult questions demand to be answered. We are not faced with an endless array of doctrinal variants from which we can pick and choose.

“Homosexuality either will or will not be embraced as normative. The church either will or will not accept a radical revisioning of the missionary task. We will either see those who have not come to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ as persons to whom we should extend a clear gospel message and a call for decision, or we will simply come alongside them to tell our story as they tell their own.” What’s left out here is the most important thing: relationships. Flat theologies used to press down upon bumpy people wil only result in someone eventually getting hurt.

McLaren answers Mohler by saying that he is seeking to contextualize the Gospel as many Southern Baptists do. At times contextualizing the Gospel may mean encouraging people to become followers of Jesus without encouraging them to become a part of the institutional church, McLaren added.

“Dr. Albert Mohler is one of the people who have talked about this,” McLaren said. “But yet there are many Southern Baptists who are doing this very thing. … Many missionaries are … realizing that the issue isn’t whether a person identifies with a religion that now is seen as a western European religion. But the important thing is to help people identify with Jesus and become followers of Jesus.” Is that the kind of statement from McLaren that makes people think he is abandoning Christianity?

When asked whether a person must trust Christ as dying to make atonement for sin in order to be a Christian, McLaren replied, “I want to help people understand everything they can about the cross. … I wouldn’t say that having that understanding (Jesus dying as a substitute for sinful humanity) is all that it means to be a Christian. I think that some people might have that understanding and not be interested in following Jesus. They want Jesus’ blood to pay for their sins so they can go to heaven, but they aren’t really interested in following Jesus in this life.”

McLaren declined to give his opinion on the morality of homosexuality, saying that the issue has become inappropriately political. McLaren is going to have to come out of the closet on this one some day, but not now. I think there is a reason for McLaren’s avoidance besides discomfort. He is teaching us that this is not the most important issue that needs to be dealt with.

“I have my own opinions, but I don’t believe that the smartest thing for me to do is to go around and make those varying opinions a reason to separate myself from other Christians,” he said. “I fellowship with Christians who have a diversity of opinion of this (homosexuality).”

Because of his views on salvation and other issues, the Kentucky Baptist Convention recently withdrew an invitation for McLaren to speak at the convention’s evangelism conference Feb. 28-March 1.

“I respect Dr. McLaren greatly and have appreciated his insight on reaching people in today’s culture,” KBC executive director Bill Mackey said. “We try to bring dynamic speakers to the Evangelism Conference who will challenge and inspire their listeners. I felt that in this instance, however, Dr. Mr. McLaren’s position diverges too greatly to be appropriate for this conference.” Their loss.

Mohler concludes that McLaren and other leaders in the

Emergent
Church represent “a significant challenge to modern biblical Christianity and American nationalism.”

“Unwilling to affirm that the Bible contains propositional truths overstated that form the framework for Christian belief (really? What about narrative truth, idiosyncratic truth, artistic truth, creative truth?), this movement motley gang of practical theologians and regulars schlepps argues that we can have Christian symbolism and substance without those thorny questions of truthfulness that have so vexed the modern mind,” Mohler writes. Uhm, they don’t really dot hat, by the way. It’s not theological illusionism. There is substance. But postmodern substance is often modern smoke.

“The worldview of postmodernism — complete with an epistemology that denies the possibility of or need for propositional truth — affords the movement an opportunity to hop, skip and jump throughout the Bible and the history Christian thought in order to take whatever pieces they want from one theology and attach them, like doctrinal post-it notes, to whatever picture they would want to draw.”What really is so aggravating about what the emeri9ng church is doing is that it is demoting propositional truth (PT) from its throne and setting it on a side bench for a while. PT is getting a time out. PT is for evangelical theologians what oil is for Americans: it is king. However, what is happening is that alternative truth forms and epistemologies are coming in and providing energy that is sometimes cleaner and more efficient than the oily tracks PT leaves behind. Oil will never be eliminated, but it will some day be only one of many forms of energy that make up the American energy mosaic. PT is going to be one of the many ways of knowing in the emerging church mosaic. Oh, and those random posit it notes – geez, what a lousy metaphor. That’s like saying an artist who worked on a million tile mosaic that up close means nothing, but from afar is a beautiful waterfall, is just randomly pasting together tiles with no sense to be made of it.

In fact, there is even a model of psychotherapy that is called Collaborative Language Systems, which rests upon the theory that language is power. Language is the means by which the power of self-agency arrives. When there are no words for the meaning loaded within a person, there is psycholpathology, or perhaps an unusual behavior meant to communicate the uncommunicatable. Giving voice to that meaning, it is theorized, gives power to the person and relieves the need for the unusual behavior.

And it’s not just about having a big vocabulary. In fact, it’s not about vocabulary at all. Rather, it is about the courage to speak. It is about accurately conveyiong the intended message. It is about a robust and deep pool from which to draw on in order to get the meaning from inside a person to outside a person – or even into another person.

Problems occur not only when a person does not have an adequate expression for the meaning, but also when a person has an expression that he or she thinks is adequate, but falls flat with or is misunderstood by the hearer. When you think you’ve communicated well, but the rest of the world responds like you’re an idiot, then guess what? Pretty soon you’ll think you’re an idiot. Or, you’ll think that the world is full of idiots.

Now, let’s apply this silly language lesson (lessEn) to Christianty. When the Christian world uses words like truth, church, authority, Bible, God’s Word, Kingdom, crusade, and a whole lot more, what really transfers to the world? If we took these words away, would God’s meaning or intentions be erased as well? Well, I should hope not. God is not bound in language, but we are to a great extent.

What we Christians would have to do is to find words that do convey the meaning of God’s work in this world. We would have to develop a more robust language in order to communicate the meaning of God. Without a common language, or even a comprehensible language, or even an uncontaminated language, communicating the meaning of God is going to be very difficult.

Many Christians don’t think twice about using very, very, Christian jargon with the deep assumption that everyone around them shares the same meaning. What has happaned is either Christians slowly reduce their religious talk to a very few people who also understand their talk and thereby ghettoize their religion or they keep up the jargonized talk with non-Christians and blame them (overtly or silently to themselves) for being sinners, away from God, or other things none too pleasant. Then there are some Christians who believe everyone understands them while they are making a fool of themselves.

I believe much of the Chrsitian language has been contaminated – not necessarily by, “the world,” but rather by Chrsitians themselves. Why in the world are Christians still having “crusades?” The Middle East is erputing into violence, and we’re having “crusades.” At least Franklin Graham is having “festivals” where his father had crusades. There’s a better use of language.

“Crusade” is an easy one. How about the word, “truth?” Is there nothing of God if we find a more descriptive or maybe even more provocative (but less contaminated) word than “truth?” I like how some are using the word, “story” instead of truth. Some people might say, “ancient Chrisitan and Jewish writings” instead of “The Bible.” It’s not that there needs to be a sugar-coating or avoidance of truth, but rahter there needs to be a language whereby the meaning can even be made meaningful. Preloaded language (language whereby the hearer assumes a meaning) that no longer conveys a meaning it once did should be don e away with or placed in Al Gore lock box for a while. Later, it can be brought out fresh and new.

My title says language lessEns, but language can also enhance, although enhancement takes efforts. Since we are all bound by laguage to a large extent, making the Christian language more robust and more accuarate to the meaning intended is a worthy effort and expenditure of time and energy. Clearer and fresher language will help move the conversation along rather than getting stuck at certain points and just fighting over, say…truth. Now is the time for an emergence of creative expressions to move the story along, even if we never use the word truth.

The emerging church movement conversation will be a success if it impacts culture like the civil rights movement has impacted culture.

My gangsta name is Steamy Rat Snatch

My mafia name is Emilio the Bear

My cutesy pet name is Bulky Booty

My taxi driver name is Feng Po Crockett

My very British name is Rufus Gladstone

My ethnic stud name is Cristo Hernandez

My Epics Darth name is Darth Influenza

My dragon name is Jacei the All Seeing Green Dragon

And finally, because this is getting really stupid, my ska name is Dutchie Navarone

The emerging church is really a phenomenon occuring in the hearts of people in various locations. It is not a denomination or institution, but rather it is a move, a desire to move into something more in line with what Jesus seemed to be trying to do when He walked the earth.

So, let’s say you are “emerging” from a limiting set of beliefs, whether liberal or conservative, but your church or denomination is not emerging from the systems, theologies, and institutional structures that perpetuate non-growth. What happens when you are emerging but your church is not?

Has anyone had this experience? If so, what are you doing about it?

Where is your safety zone?

What complicates this experience?

What pressures are there to get back to “normal?”

How do you do friendships and relationships when suddenly you are out of line? Are these relationships taxed?

What’s your experience?

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And, if just thinking about this stuff depresses you, click here for a good laugh.

I am having more fun with this drama than ever and putting off sadness until after it’s all over. I will miss this annual summer boost. I hope there will some other boost to replace it once we settle in Minnesota. Of course there will be camp, and I will love that as well.

Good-byes are very hard. I’ve put five years of my life into relationships, work, and play here. That’s enuogh time for roots to grow. I’ve watched my kids spend more of their life here than anywhere else. That’s sobering. I really love a lot of people here. You can’t just leave unaffacted. And I won’t. These 5 years will serve me the rest of my life.

Thanks Better Life Counseling Center, Southwest Church of Christ, and everyone who has made my life better for being here – too many to name.

Could you do church like this?

You can’t stop cyberchurch, and you shouldn’t even try.

Post Secret gets me everytime. You might make it your prayer list.

 Library politics can get nasty.

Short on sperm? No worries, we’ll grow some in the lab for you.

Life’s not getting better for kids. The Kids Count Data Book is online. Check it out.

And finally, Katrina, race and SES by the numbers.

However, when that certainty of the faithful is challeneged or rocked, they are de-centered and that which they were certain of becomes suspect, or at least not completely explainable.

Most people of faith have this experience every now and again, but they get over it pretty quickly. However, when this persistently happens on a meta level or a systemic level, rather than with an isolated fact or two, then it can become quite unnerving for the persons of faith. When the congregation or denomination no longer fits the faith – when God becomes mysterious rather than known, then the search for answers becomes more than a rehearsal of knowns and becomes and exploration into the unknowns.

When a person of faith loses her morings, in creep the questions that fuel the agnostic. “If I thought I knew ‘A’ and now I do not understand ‘A’ then what can I really know at all?” When that which was once thought to be known becomes an unknown, then the whole idea of how something becomes known in the first place becomes suspect.

This kind of skepticism creates a dilemma for the faithful. When that which was once known becomes sketchy or unknowable, it creates a situation of sort of a point of no return. “I can’t honestly go back and know that because of this.” So, the person of faith moves closer to an agnostic position. At the same time, there is the sense that there is Something, but a frustrating Something that they wish they knew better and at the same time the more they explore it the less they know.

At this point the person of faith might begin to question everything and might even forget what they believe and gain an attraction for the agnostic allure because the rules of knowing trump the rules of believing.

I know of some conservative Christians who have gotten a taste of the emerging Christianity that is all the rage, but rather than deepen their faith in it, they have gained an unhealthy allegiance to their position of not knowing anything. Not only that, they try to aggressively press their not knowing perspecitve with a strangely familiar evagelistic certainty of their uncertainty. It is almost as if they can get others to be as uncertain as they are, then they can take greater comfort in their uncertainty.  

This situation is only an extension of their unhealthy faith overlaid onto and unhealthy agnosticism. It is a mere rearrangement of the deck chairs on the Titanic. Ship’s going dow either way.

I think that there is much that people of faith can learn from agnostics. I’m not talking about the militant and rigid agnostics, but rather the honest and searching agnostics. People of faith who live their lives with certainty around every corner might allow an agnostic teach them how to ask questions, how to challenge, how to seek.

Agnostics can teach a person of faith the value of doubt. Although it might come as a surprise to a person of faith that doubt is valuable, I personally think that doubt is essential to a living and deepening faith. Now, doubtolatry (giving doubt God status) is going to be as foolish as any other idolatry. But the judicious use of doubt can be the healthiest thing a person of faith can do for her faith.

Now, it might feel risky to intentioanlly seek doubt – and it is. However, there are hidden and sometimes spiritually fatal risks to not seeking it. Too much certainty gets people of faith into trouble with legalism, oppression, and even violence in order to “do the right thing.”

Balancing doubt and certainty seems to be a better route to health than too much of either.  

I see all of these yahoos taking advantage of honest and naïve people. These jerks sit around inventing ways to make fools of decent people. Then they brag about it every time these decent people get tricked by their tomfoolery. Every twisted thought that enters their minds becomes profuse verbal arrogance. Not only that, they mock you, God. Their minds and hearts are so full of, well, full of themselves that there is no room for you, God. Even if they were to see you face to face, they would turn up their noses and walk away. And what really hacks me off is that they are loaded. Yeah, they’re rich. In the comfort of their wealth they see rules as something to joke about, as if the rules apply to everyone else, but not to them. I have even seen some of them look up to the sky and give you the finger. Their native language isn’t English or Spanish, but rather Threats and Curses. They are so vile that they could make a profanity out of the word ‘love.’

Here’s an example of what these guys are like: They spend their time waiting, hiding in the bushes for someone to walk by. Then they jump out and pound on innocent people. They humiliate them, rob them, and don’t much care if they kill them. Ever see a lion pounce? That’s how they do it. And when they are done, they sit around getting drunk while making jokes about how God has lost his mind.

            Alzheimer’s must be setting in. He can’t even remember his own children, they say.

            He’s chicken. God is afraid of us, they mock.

Come on, God! How long are you going to let this go on? Have you forgotten the helpless? Why are letting them get away with this? God, I know you better than this. You don’t just sit around and let trouble run amuck. The people victimized by these losers look to you for help. The people who are depressed, anxious, have come from messed up families, are poor, looked down on, and have all kinds of trouble – these people look to you. Do something! God, just walk up to these mockers and bust them in the chops. Show up at their beer party and give them a little somethin’, somethin’. Someone’s got to let these losers know that they aren’t getting away with this.

I know you, God. You’re in charge. You’ve got this timing thing that doesn’t really jibe with mine, but I trust that you know what you’re doing. I know it’s coming. I know you’re going to impose decisions that make things right. You’ll come just when hope is vanishing and save the day. Good guys win; bad guys lose. Those people who are depressed, anxious, have come from messed up families, are poor, looked down on, and have all kinds of trouble are going to get their fair share when you come to town.

Ethanol and later hydrogen will fuel our automobiles. These fuels will become more plentiful and economical in years to come. Wind, solar, and water power will team up to give us larger percentages of our energy needs.

Efficiency will become more attractive as enegy costs rise. With China and India gaining a thirst for energy, there will be greater need to meet that demand.

There will be efforts to make coal cleaner and such, but these will be short term efforts met by too much politcal trouble as coal will not get clean enough.

Energy in the near and more so in the distant future will look less and less like a Superpower (oil) and more and more like an interconnected mosaic. We’ll be platooning to get our energy needs met.

Energy will become more complex, but cleaner and safer (mostly). Jury is still out on nuclear energy. Powerful yes, but leaks are horrific things and they make such good terrorist targets.

What’s your view on the energy future in general (beyond what you will put in your vehicle)?

The fact that he had a heart condition is no mystery. It was the fact that he had a physical heart condition that caused a massive heart attack is what took most people by surprise.

I would say that gloating would be inappropriate and cruel, expecially to his loved ones who have been dealt yet another devastating blow. Justice in the courts has been done, and that is enough. Anything else is just revenge.

————————————————

North Korea is testing missiles. Their scariest missile, the long range, Taepodong-2, self-destructed 42 seconds after launch. This is the missile that was said to have the capability to reach the United States West Coast. This would be a humiliating embarassment for North Korea and kind of funny had the implications not been so grave.

North Korea, as you may remember, is part of what George W. Bush called, “The Axis of Evil,” Iran and Iraq being the others. Whether this development makes Bush a prophet or a self-fulfilling prophet at this point is irrelevant. This development might be compared to the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.   

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The United States got a Space Shuttle off the ground and into t space without a hitch – well, without a major hitch. I am so glad everything went well. It is good for the United States to ahve some good news.  

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I am moving to Minnesota, the nation’s leader in e85 distribution. e85 is a homegrown, corn based (usually) gas for automobiles. It’s 85% corn and 15% gas. Think energy freedom. If you can use this product, I highly reccommend that you do. Many vehicles have flex-fule technology in their engines and owners don’t even know it. Can your vehicle use e85? Click here to find out. Where can I buy e85? Click here to find out. I will probably be buying mine here, if I ever get a vehicle that runs on the stuff.

e85 is cheaper than regular gas, but gets a little bit lower fuel economy. For the price, it is a wash. But the value in it is 2-fold. 1. Money stays in the US and does not travel to terrorist nations. 2. The Co2 it produced in consumption equals the Co2 taken in by the corn it is produced from. In short, it’s clean.

I want my next car to be an e85 hybrid. That would be a hydrid gas/electric engine that burns e85 gas. Clean and super efficient.

Besides fishing at Fox Lake in southern Minnesota, the best treat of all was the 4th of July trip to the old Met stadium to see the Twins play the Yankees with fireworks to follow.

Below where the famed Mall of America now stands in the Twin Cities suburb of Bloomington rests hallowed ground. The old Met, home of the Minnesota Twins, occupied that land before the force of commercialism swept it away.

“We need a domed stadium,” was the argument, “sometimes it snows in April.”

100 years of basball prior to that didn’t need a dome, but that didn’t seem to matter. Now, as the Twins are about to break ground for their new multi-hundred million dollar open air stadium, echoes of the old Met surface in the truest Twins fans’ ears.    

We stood in line in the snack bar hallway that circles the stadium, near the entrance to where the seats were in the stadium. Scorecard & pencil were necessary before inning one began. The muffled noise of the already cheering crowd oozed out the entrances and built the kind of anticipation that makes any boy think he could play in the World Series some day.

I followed my grandfather toward the entrance as the cheering crowd became louder and more crisp sounding.

“Batting third and playing first base, for the Minnesota Twins, Rod Carew,” the annoucer teased great cheers out of the crowd.

“Batting fourth, the designated hitter, Glenn Adams,” the annoucer exuded, but didn’t get quite as big a cheer as Carew.

My grandfather mumbled something about Harmon Killebrew as the smoke from his cigar hung in the air with his gripe, clinging to the heat of the late afternoon sun, which refused to break too early. It was the 4th of July.

Geoff Zahn for the Twins versus Ron Guidry for the Yankees was a classic David & Goliath pitching duel – advantage Yankees. The game got moving quickly, 1-2-3 innings, one after another. By the third inning my grandfahter asked me if I wanted a brat.

“What’s a brat?” I asked. I was about to be initiated into the savory world of exotic meat.

“It’s like a hot dog, only much better,” he responded knowingly.

“Hot dogs, brats, cold beer here.” The vendors, with their trays hanging from the strap wrapped around the back of their necks were an essential part of the game.

“Two brats,” grampa said as he waved some money in the air. He passed his 5 dollar bill down the row. Back came two brats. He tried to pursuade me to put sour kraut on them, but it was slimy and nasty and I wasn’t as German as he was. He’d married a Norwegian and my mother married a Mexican. Mexicans, even half Mexicans, don’t eat sour kraut – I knew it instinctively.   

The game pressed on, and although I was enjoying it, I was ready for some fireworks. We stood up and sang “Take me out to the Ballgame,” during the 7th inning, the game was tied and I felt a fireworks-filled excitement growing enough to ward off the sleepinees that tried to creep in the with dusk. One last order of popcorn came down the row in its classic red and white striped box. Grampa also threw in a malt cup with the little wooden spoon, just because. They had stopped serving beer by this time, which was a good thing, because he probably would have had one for the road.

Top of the 9th and the game was tied. The crowd was into it. Mike Marshall was the Twins’ ace in the bullpen that year. He fanned the first two batters with a wicked screwball that had mystified hitters all year. The only problem was that the next batter was Mr. October. Reggie Jackson stepped up to the plate in the top of the 9th and faced off against screwballer, Mike Marshall. It was tense.

Marshall was not intimidated one bit. He threw the first pitch so far inside and so high that had Jackson not fallen back into the dusty batter’s box, he would have gotten hit in the head. Jackson was also not intimidated one bit. He stood up and took one step toward the mound as if to say, “I dare you to try that again.” The crowd booed.

Jackson brushed himself off and got set back in the batter’s box. Marshall came with another high, hard one, right at Jackson’s head. The crowd went nuts as they saw Jackson thrown to ground twice in a row. Reggie stood more quickly this time and took a couple of steps toward the mound. Catcher Butch Wynager shadowed Jackson just in case things got dicey. Players from both dugouts perched themselves on the top step, sentinels and warriors waiting for the word to fight.

The umpire managed to get Jackson back into the batter’s box. The crowd was electric as the lowly Twins stood up to the evil empire. Marshall had to bring something into the strike zone this time as his brush back pitches had gotten him behind Jackson on the count.

Marshall hurled a fastball right down the middle, the crowd mocked “Reg-gie, “Reg-gie,” and Jackson swung for the moon. Whiff!

“Striiiiiiiike huh,” the umpire gave the call a little extra volume igniting the fans into a 35,000 person tizzy.  

“Regi-gie, Reg-gie,” the crowd mocked more boldly and more collectively. It wasn’t just the rowny drunks in the centerfield bleachers this time. It was all of us. It was me.

Marshall wound up and tossed a screwball to Jackson. Reggie again swung for the stars. Only this time he connected. It’s a high fly ball to right filed, it’s way back. Norword is back to the warning track.

The rightfielder, Willie Norwood, was not the guy you wanted to be fielding this ball. He had been known to lose fly balls in the sun, miss ground balls in the outfield that ended going all the way to the wall, and running into other players when trying to catch pop flies.

“Oh no,” grampa said. I felt my stomach sink at the tone of his voice. The fly ball was so high it looked like it flew above the stadium lights. It flew much higher than it did for distance, but still it was going to be close. Norwood approached the warning track in an awkward half sideways and half backwards stumbl-walk as the ball made its steep decent from the stratosphere. The moment of truth approached as Jackson stood in the batter’s box waiting to see if would trot the pads or walk to the dugout – this was all or nothing.

Had it been Tori Hunter, Jackson sits down. But this was Willie Norwood. An ill-timed leap in effort to catch the towering fly ball failed. The ball landed not over the fence and not within the playing field. It literally landed on top of the fence and bounced over for a homerun.

Jackson began to trot around the bases slowly, making certain gestures to the fans. No one booed because there were 35,000 people that just got shot down by the Death Star. Once again Reggie Jackson showed why the Yankees go to post-season play and why the Twins watch it on TV.

The bottom of the 9th was uneventful. “Goose” Gossage headed to the mound for the Yankees to mop up. Gossage threw nearly 100 MPH and looked mean – like, if he didn’t strike you out, he might just rip your head off. Striking out was the preferred option for 3 Twins and the game was over.

Jackson had deflated our collective hopes and hurt us deeply. He reminded us who the real big leaguers were. After the game, thousands of fans filed out of that open air Met stadium, unable to get their excitement up for the fireworks show to follow. We stayed, although Grampa was still mumbling something about Harmon Killebrew and sucking on another stogie.

After the fireworks finale, we walked back across the huge parking lot, heat still rising from the pavement, and hopped into Grampa’s huge black car with the power locks and windows that we were not allowed to play with, but wanted to so badly. Except not tonight. Sleep had crept in as I laid down in the back seat, sweat sticking to the leather with the full blast air conditioning feeling extra cold.

He took Old Cedar Road back to our suburban home. The Old Cedar Road bridge was a metal and wood plank structure that was open about 48 weeks out of the year, when the Minnesota River was not in flood stage. The New Ceder Bridge was still a dream in some engineer’s head, so this was the only access to the southern suburbs.

Most people slowed down to cross the Old Cedar Bridge. The rickety two lane bridge provided enough room for two vehicles to pass each other going opposite ways with not so much as a strand of dental floss between them. Grampa sped up and shot the bridge every time, causing great panic and exhileration. Just south of the bridge was a large hump in the road, maybe a pipeline that they didn’t bother to bury, but just built the road over it insterad. Grampa made sure it always, “got my tummy,” when he drove ove rthe hump. Even in my sleep, he shot the bridge and hit the hump hard.

I don’t remember going to bed that night, but it was one of the best nights of my life.  

You have turned back those haters and sent them running and stumbling and bumbling until they self-destruct. We teamed up together and won. You took your place of Decider and made right decisions. I see how much power you have; you can tell a whole country to jump and they ask, how high? And if you wanted to wipe them from the face of the earth, or even from the memory of the earth, all you have to do is speak. When someone comes up against you is it like beating their head against a brick wall. What is the point? All that will result in is self-destruction. And yet, there they go. Don’t they know that everyone who has ever tried to come up against you lost? In fact, they lost so bad we can’t even remember who they are anymore.

If I were to time travel as far in the past and as far in the future as I could go, there would be one thing consistent, you are in charge. You are the Decider from A to Z. The good news is that you are fair in your decisions. No Mickey Mousing around: you’re fair. This is good news for everyone because we know what we are getting with you. What we get is a safe place to rest, to hide, to be protected from those haters. I am so glad I know you because I have a place to go when I need help. With you, it’s a sure thing. I have total confidence in you.

I feel like singing again just thinking about you. I don’t just want to sing all by myself. No, I want to live stream it, blog it, podcast it, vlog it; it’s all over Myspace. I want to lift up my window and scream it to people out there. Yeah, people might think I’m nuts, but when I was down and out, you were there and you lifted me up and brought me in. If that’s not worth singing about I don’t know what is.

But, as much as I want to sing, I am not out of the woods yet. I’m sure you notice that those haters want to bum rush my show one more time. The closer they get, the more nervous I get. They want to bring me a load of death and force feed it to me. Well, let’s see them try and do that. When they try, they’ll meet you in the dark alley and scurry aware like sewer rats in the sunshine. Then I’ll get to singing: saved once again. Good for me; bad for them. That load of death meant for me ends up stuck in their throats. There is a certain poetry about your justice, no?

So those haters, those who mock you, they end up filling graves in cemeteries. The people who live are the weak, the frail, and the needy. It’s these people who find hope.

Oh yeah, hop up onto your Decider chair and tell it like it is. When you do, those who love you are comforted, but those haters, well, they go running scared. 

The very famous Bible verse (John 3:16) begins, “For God so loved the world…” This is a very important verse for many Christians today and throughout the ages. For many Christians this verse is the crux of their faith. Some Christians believe it is THE STORY of the entire Christian religion. 

What I want to focus on here in this post is the part of the verse that says, “the world.”

Growing up a conservative evangelical, I learned to avoid “the world.” The world was evil and I was not to become like the world. The world was that which God condemned and would eternally condemn one day - the Last Day. The world was contaminated with all kinds of evil, wickedness, and unholiness. The world was so hopelessly bad that it needed to be avoided and condemned, for my own good of course.

All people who were not of my denomination were of “the world.” It didn’t matter if they wore the name Christian, if they were not of my tribe, they were of the world. The world had somehow infiltrated their ranks and deceived them into believing that they were truly Christian when they were not. So, not only were non-Christians suspect, the wrong kind of Christians were suspect as well.

I went to a high school of 2,200 students. Only three people from my denomination (including myself) attended that high school. You know what that meant? 2,197 students were of the world. I had my work cut out for me from an evangelistic point of view. But more than that, there were 2,197 agents of the world out there from which I needed to keep my distance, who I needed to condemn, who I needed to inform that they were wrong and their only sensible move was to be like me – right.

The mental association in my mind for “the world” was negative.

Now, there are certain repsonses a person can have when “the world” is defined like it was for me in my formative years (do those years ever end?). Let’s explore some of those potential responses to “the world.”

One option is to completely insulate yourself from the world. Go Amish and make sure that contamination is held to an absolute minimum. All people and things “not us” are the Devil’s handywork. Make specific distinctions between “us” and “them” and hold to them without fail. Build spiritual, relational, and social hedges such that the world cannot creep in.

Another repsonse is to attack the world. Bring them loads of righteous condemnation. Be a “prophetic voice” and rail against every sinful thing the world does. Threaten the world with Hell and use lots of carefully selected Bible verses to accomplish this task. And when the world does not respond and change its ways, shake the dust off your feet and find another part of the world to condemn.

Still another repsonse is the give up hope. The world is a hopeless place with hopeless people who are never going to change, so what is the point in trying to convince the world of anything? This is still condemnation, but more of a passive condemnation that does not involve at lot of verbalization of the condemning, but it resides in the heart nonetheless.

OK, let’s swing back around to John 3:16.    

For God so loved that world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.  

God seems to take a different approach to the world in this very important verse. Rather than insulate himself from the world, God engages the world. Rather then heap condemnation onthe world, he offers a way of rescue. Rather than give up on the world, he invests the absolute most important asset he has in order to accomplish this rescue.

Engage. Rescue. Invest.

God does not seem to delight in the destruction of the world here. In fact, God seems to be so troubled by the fact that something has gone so wrong that he will do whatever it takes, no matter the risk, in order to provide a way out of the mess.

God loves the world. For some reason, as a child, I completely missed the point. I learned to do the opposite. Avoid, condemn, and give up hope. That’s not love. Yes, I know that there is evil in the world (and other places), I know that there are dangers that can ruin a child, I know that there is cause for discernment and wisdom. But there is a difference between a discerning heart and a condemning one. I learned a protectionist reponse to the world. What I see in John 3:16 is an engaging response. What I see God doing is recognizing that the world has got a problem, but also that world is so important, so valuable, so worthy of his love, that he holds absolutely nothing back from the world. God does not throw up his hands at the abuse, the murder, the oppression, and the litany of incivilities that occur in the world. Rather, God wants to redeem this world from these horrific things.

I am sad to say that such a response is foreign to my religious and spiritual upbringing. How could I go to church and learn to be and do the opposite of what has been right there in the Bible the whole time?   

What I am having to learn as an adult is a way to engage the world, share a story of rescue with the world, and invest in the world. I have to come to believe that “the world” is worth it. I have to enter the world and the specific worlds of individuals with the full intnetion of blessing them in their world. What I mean by that is I am going to have to conduct my life such that when I enter someone’s world, they are genuinely glad they ever met me.

This Fall I am entering doctoral studies at a major state university in the Midwest. This will be my first step into “the world” with the hopes of actually blessing it rather than condmening it. I place the “the world” in quotes here because I anticipate quite a diverse collection of students and professors, many who will have such different backgrounds and experiences from my own that they would have been labeled, “the world” by the criteria issued me in my youth.

What I want is for every student, every professor, every staff member I meet over the next 4 years to experience my presence in their life as a blessing. To the extent that I enter their world, I want that little part of their world to be better because I was there. I do not want to avoid, condemn, or get hopeless. I want to engage, invest, and if rescue is in order, be a part of that rescue.

This will be new ground for me. Take a look at my history and you’ll see that this is new gorund for me: After high school, when I avoided the 2,197 agents of the world, I went to a private Christian college – insulated from “the world”. After that I was a youth minister – again, insulated from “the world.” I spent 2 years as a public school teacher in Houston – I must have driven the other teachers nuts with my religious blather. Then I went to another Christian university and was again surrounded by Christians. Then I was a youth minister and now I am a counselor at a Christian counseling center.

I am going to be given the opportunity this Fall to see if I really have love in my heart, the kind of love God has for the world. If I avoid, condemn, or get hopeless about the people I meet, I have failed. No more of that. I have spent so much effort trying to unlearn the contaminated portions of my faith and replace them with a healthier faith that this Fall has just got to be a great experience.

Oh God, I have always tried my best to do what is right. On many counts I have failed. I have learned that your love runs deeper than simplistic measures of right and wrong. I want to learn how to love with the generosity, the passion, and the mission you have. Please, take my moldy bread and little fish and make something of value from it.  

I look up into the sky at night and see the stars, the moon, the Milky Way, and even the Northern Lights sometimes, and think, you’re not cheap. When you do a creation, you do it right. There is more to see and know about this universe than could ever bee known in one thousand lifetimes. Yes, you spare no expense in creating the awesome. Even little kids know this. They are amazed by the moon and stars. They point and say, “look, the moon,” and they are lost in wonder. Is that not praise? Is that not worship? What enemy can say a word about your creation? Their mouths are shut because they are as amazed as the little kids, even though they don’t say it. Too selfish. Too proud.

When I think of all of your wonders in space, the planets, meteors, galaxies and black holes, how huge it all is, how small I am compared to it, how small we all are, I wonder why you even care about us. Really now, doesn’t bigger mean better? Why would you be so concerned about little people on a little planet? Aren’t there bigger and better things to care about? Why us? Why humanity? Although, it is almost like people are little angels, somehow glorious and honorable. You did make people to be in charge of things on this little world. We have to take care of the animals and birds and fish and bugs and all that. We are in charge of little things in kind of the same way you are in charge of big things. Wow, God, you just blew my mind!

God, you rock!!!

When facing challenges and tough deicsions, it is good to know that the people surrounding you are good people. Right now, I feel awash in that luxury. So, I am grateful for that.

What makes for a good person in your corner? Feel free to weigh in here, but I’ll get the list started.

1. Honesty. When you have someone in your corner, you want them to tell the truth, which leads into the next quality.

2. Boldness. Sometimes honesty is easy, but sometimes it is hard. Everyone needs people in their corner who have the courage to speak boldly.

3. Generous. Mutual generosity seems to synergize in good relationships.

4. Protective. You want people in your corner looking out for your good and willing to go to the mat in order to accomplish that .

5. Affirming. A person in your corner should be good at finding what is good in you and accentuating that good quality.

6. Committed. As opposed to blind loyalty, which can be very counterproductive, a committed person does not depend on something as weak as agreement in order to remain committed. Rather, that person offers supprt not contingent upon agreement, but upon something deeper and more meaningful.   

Thusfar I have found that I am (and have been for a long time) awash in the kinds of relationships that give me some or all of these qualities. I am finding that my new emerging relationships in grad work are providing the same kind of thing.

So, what are the best qualities of the people in your corner?

Dan Brown’s skill as a writer capable of drawing the reader to the next page is unquestionably fabulous. The success of The DaVinci Code is proof of that.

Now, some might say that it is the content of the book, the controversy therein, that has given him rise to fame. It is not. He’s such a good writer that he presented the already existing controvery in such a way as to catapult the controversy into popular culture in a way Elaine Pagels only wishes she could do. What Brown says in his book is most certainly found in many other places and at many other times. Most or none of his ideas are all that original, I am sure. Rather, it is his presentation of the “facts” through fiction that has catapulted him to stardom.

What is originial is the way in which makes a story from the “facts.” Brown is obviously most intelligent and may just have an enduring novel on his hands. He did what every good writer does: hit major themes (religion, sex, murder, crisis, disillusionamnet, etc) and weave them into a suspenseful tale that pushes the reader into a “what next?” mode that keeps the pages turning.

After reading the book, I understand what all the fuss is about. The way in which the characters readily undo Sophie’s “faith” (which frankly wasn’t much to begin with), and convince her of a new faith was impressive. Not that she adopts paganism, but rather that she becomes more accepting of it – more accepting and sympathetic toward pagan sex rituals, those her grandfather was deeply embedded into.

But beyond that, Brown uses his characters to place cracks into the faith of long held beliefs by Christians. He makes his characters sound so convincing that you begin to believe that he believes what he is say through his characters. That’s really good writing. What Brown believes personally, I don’t know, but if he did believe all of this stuff in this book, I wouldn’t be surprised. If he doesn’t believe it, then I am even more impressed with him as a writer.

What Brown does that so infuriates some Christians is that he privileges voices that Christians have traditionally marginalized and marginalizes the traditional Christian voice. And he does it with surgical precision. And that’s the thing about a book – you can’t talk back to it, leave comments (like you can to a blog), or really have any say.

That is frustrating for Christians not to have a say, especially with something as powerful and successful as this book.

Some might think that Brown has an axe to grind against the Catholic Church, and he very well may, but that is beside the point. What Brown has successfully done is given rise to a cottage industry of DaVinci Code Books. I am not sure how they are selling, but one thing is for sure, people are talking about faith. People are thinking about the Bible. People are thinking about church. Brown has got people talking baout things that they were not previously talking about. He may have done it better than Mel Gibson did as couple years ago with The Passion of the Christ.

Or, it is possible that all the DaVinci Code functions as is an ink blot that says more about the reader than it does about the book. Maybe all it has done is to firm up people’s pre-existing resolve. Wellll, could be, but I bet there are some who have always had a bunch of questions and are now finally freed to ask them because of Dan Brown’s book.

I say thatnks to Dan Brown for his efforts and his conversation starter. I just hope that Christians can act like Jesus and not like idiots in response to this book.

If you want a smart person’s take on the book,

check this out—–> The Gospel According To The DaVinci Code

Last night I watched World News Tonight, with Charlie Gibson, and there was a story about the Navy finding a lost WWII sub. They interviewed the daughter of one of the men who died on that sub. She’s of course, in her 50′s or so, but they showed a picture of her as a baby being held by her father.

It was too much for me. I felt heavy, tired, sad. I ate dinner, but I wasn’t really present. My wife said I looked like I was going to go to bed early tonight. It was written all over my face. I ate dinner and went to my bedroom and closed the door.

I wept.

There I was in my mind standing next tom my father’s hospital bed watching him slowing shut down. For some reason they couldn’t keep one of his eyes shut, so there it was open. Eerie. I wept in my bed as I imagined myself weeping by his bed.

Then I was at the funeral. I see him in his blue shirt lying in the casket. He looks like a proud man, though so much broken.

I drift off from weeping to sleeping.

At 8:28 PM, my 6 year old son wakes me up. I tell him that I am sad and he tells me there has to be some way to forget about being sad. He hugs me.

I wake up to tuck my kids into bed. My 8 year old daughter asks me to tell a “Grampa Jim” story. I tell them about how he worked full time as a janitor and also had an early morning paper route. He worked really hard to make enough money for a house and food. Besides my father’s sense of humor, it was his willingness to work his tail off in order to provide for the family financially that I appreciated.  

I stayed awake for a while and then hit the sack at abut 11:00 PM, feeling much, much better.

Although the asking price is a little higher than the purchase price we made 5 years ago, and after fees and closing costs, we’re losing a little, we’re grateful.

Why grateful?

I have had a long and hard lesson these 9 months of lowering our price, gettings lots of showings and no takers, getting a new roof (cha-ching), punching calculator buttons, looking at the Minnesota housing market, only to learn that I do not rely on housing markets and equity for my provision.  

It is indeed liberatng to know that there is more to life and provision than the housng market. Over the past several years in the housing boom it has been very seuctive to gain a belief that the market can be trusted. Markets of any kind are not to be relied upon. Used? Sure. Counted on? Faith placed in? Hopes invested in? Not a good idea.

I am grateful to be released from the tyrranny of the housing market. I genuinely do not care that placing money under a mattress would have been a better investment than my house. Why such poor financial sense? Because God doesn’t make financial sense.

My worst case scenario in life involves God loving me as a son. How is that a bad deal?

This is good news. The reason this is good news has to do with the fact that Buffet is giving the dough to the Gates Foundation, famous for funding vaccinations.  

What is novel about this is that Buffet is not waiting around until he dies to get a foundation moving with his wealth. He's goig to be alive to see what good his money does, at least for a while. Also, the fact that he is not creating the Buffet Foundation, is unique. He has no need to celebrate himself with a named foundation when there is one already doing a fine job of helping make this world a better place. He is also avoiding the huge costs of creating a foundation for that much money. Always the shrewd money man.

I am impressed with Buffet's generosity. He's one of those rich guys that you wonder if he really cares. The fact that he is giving away more money than small countries generate with their GDP does not necessarily make him a caring person, but it does at least put that huge capital resource into something worthwhile and not merely into more American consumerism.

So, in honor of Warren Buffet adn his radical generosity, I say, three cheers

Hip, hip, hooray!!!!!

Hip, hip, hooray!!!!!

Hip, hip, hooray!!!!!

Bono on money to Africa – 2 kinds of aid.

Clint Davis was a missionary in Africa. His blog is worthy.

79 year old woman convicted of murdering 85 year old boyfriend.

What's the best age to marry?

Do you find yourself reading the Bible, but wishing you knew how to read the bible? This one might have some promise.

Now, I have been to restaurants with the Cosco sized mouth wash dispensers in the bathroom and that made . I have been to places with free mints in a little basket at the check out. I have seen mint vending machines.

This, however, is something that goes over the top.

My lame-o brother in law wants credit for this "find" and for the idea of blogging it.

You buy this, chew it up, and spit it out when your teeth are "clean." This goes beyond the little finger puppet looking toothbrush thingy that never really caught on. What is the point of this chewable "toothbrush?" If you're really that toothbrush dependent, then you will bring a travel toothbrush with your where ever you go.

Here is what I have so far (please add):

What about Bob?

Alias (can't remember which season – anyone know?)

Prince of Tides

Vegietales ("I Love My Lips" music video)

Mr. & Mrs. Smith

War is bad enough, but when there is war, sexual violence goes up.

Infertile? Or just way too stressed out?

Bored this summer? Don't know what to do with you kids? Try this. (ht Mark Elrod)

I am reading (finally) The Da Vinci Code and I lovehatelovehatelove it. I'll review it when I am done, as if you haven't heard everythingh there is to say about it.

Pomomusings brings us an insightful commercial video which connects to real human experience.

Messy Christian hangs it up. Bloggonnit!

If you're headed to Argentina, Argenteen offers a "what to bring with you" list.

Jonesboro Sun

24 June 06

There is power in a father's voice. Power? Is that the right word? Maybe it is. Depth. Meaning. Richness. Influence. Whatever the right word is, the meaning is the same: a father’s voice can penetrate to the very depth of his child’s soul. His voice is amazingly influential to his children, and something that is very hard to shake when that child grows into an adult.

Of all of the contributors to a child’s identity formation, whether it be genetics, socialization, media, friends, education, the father’s voice can and often does trump them all. Yes, sometimes even genetics.

Think about it, if the father has been around at all in the child’s life, his voice becomes synonymous with many things. It becomes a symbol that means something, no matter what words are uttered – kind of like a red octagon means stop even if the word, “stop” is not printed on it. A father’s voice, the very sound of it, will bring about the emotional assumptions that the father has taught the child from the very beginning.

His voice might be synonymous with punishment or discipline. Or maybe it registers as generous and gentle. It could be that voice triggers fear of deception or rejection. But maybe the voice builds confidence. Whatever the case, there is a point in the child’s life when the words spoken by the father mean almost nothing because the weight of his voice crowds out all other meanings.

For example, when the father’s voice has been harsh, demanding, judgmental, and unapologetic day in and day out, then an apology in his voice is not likely to hold much water. If the voice has been one voice sober and another voice drunk, then the child learns good dad/bad dad and never really believes a word good dad says because bad dad shows up drunk or violent or cruel.

On the flip side, a consistently generous, kind, and gentle voice will lend credibility to an apology when the father does blow it. “Of course he means it,” the child will instinctively understand, “because he is good.”

Now let’s get back to identity formation. If that voice, whether it be good or bad, is bouncing around in the kid’s heart and heart when they arrive at the point in their life when they are asking themselves, “who am I?” naturally that fatherly voice will have an impact. Every child wonders if he or she is just like dad or mom.

What a tragedy if that child had a harsh and violent father and comes to the conclusion that, although that child despises what her father has done, she is just like him. Conversely, what a wonderful legacy the good father has when his child decides that she is just like him, generous, kind, and forgiving. 

So father’s when you communicate with your children, it is always important to recognize that your words and your tone make meaning inside your child’s head and heart. They are not merely learning about you and who you are, but even more deeply they are learning about themselves and who they are. Whatever you give them, they will believe that they deserve it – no matter what is really true. You see dads, you are creating their truth with your voice.

But the impact goes even beyond how the child views their own father and themselves, the father’s voice has implications for how the child will view the world around him. How will the child understand authority? How will the child work with other people? How will the child get what he or she wants in social, work, and peer relationships? How will the child negotiate? How will the child deal with his or her limits when those limits are reached?

Fathers, you may not be perfect, cool, or smart, but none of that matters. You have a voice. Use it to love your kids.

Are you perfect? Check this out.

Be the 1,000,000th hit at PreacherMike and you will get prizes.

Be the 50,000th hit right here at the Fajita Blog and you will get a prize. If Iwait until 1,000,000 we'll all be dead from old age, and what good are prizes when you're dead?

John Alan Turner is getting his core values figured. Not a bad idea for any of us.

If you buy this book and this video game, you win yourself an automatic nomination for one of these prestigious awards.  

Minimum wage unchanged.

Come on God, if I have done anything to deserve this, if I have done the same evil that they want to do to me then let them have me. Do I seek out peaceful people only to destroy them? Do I go around stealing? If I do these things, then by all means, let them crush me for I deserve to be crushed.

But you know I haven’t done anything like that. So, come and fight for me. Flex your muscles right in their face and humiliate those who are trying to get me.

Stand up and show them how big you are, show them what happens when they make you mad. I’m nudging you, Lord, wake up, make a ruling. Gather everyone around you so that no one can say they have not heard you. Tell them the truth once and for all. Show them who is boss.

And show me who is boss as well. What I think you will find is that I am seeking to be good – good the way you see it. I invite you to look inside me. I am not so foolish as to ask you to look into the hearts and minds of my enemy without first looking into my heart and mind. I believe that when you search out the hearts and minds people, you will bring an end to the violence on earth and the violence done to me. You will make my insecurity something I talk about in past tense, memories of days long ago when I used to feel so afraid.

You are a brick wall all around me, and because you are there for me, I want to be everything you want me to be. Of all of the judges and people who make judgments, you are the only one who is actually fair. When you get mad, I know it is for a good reason. When you take out your anger, I know you aren’t just blowing off steam. You’re not an idiot; you know what you are doing. And when injustice gets out of control, you’re not afraid to make things right, even if it means taking some people out.

You look right through people! Not good news for those posers. You see that some of them have sin growing right inside of them, like they are pregnant, not with a precious baby, however but rahter with the essence of sin. When the troublesome sin is born, however, all of the promises sin offered are found out to be complete lies. But then there they are, having to deal with the consequences of the sin with nothing good to show for it. All the dreams and desires that they thought would be fulfilled now leave them empty, lonely, sad, and hopeless. All of their beliefs about the sin were merely illusions, and you can’t get love from an illusion. It’s like having a pet snake. Get to close and you’ll get bit. It’s like digging a hole and then forgetting where you dug it. Eventually, you’ll fall into it.

God, thanks. You’re good, and that’s more than I can say for this world. If I am going to sing the praises of anyone, it is going to be you. No one else deserves my praise. No one else has earned them. You are the only thing in this world that isn’t really crappy.

I've been getting my daughter up in the mornings. A little back rub, soft tones and a little, "Hey sweetie, it's morning time. It's get up time."

Sierra turns, sometimes pulling her pillow over her head.

"Do you need one more minute or two minutes?"

Ah, the illusion of choice. She always chooses two minutes. She has been known to negotiate four minutes at times, but rarely.  

I come back ten minutes later and then she is ready to get up.

Well, one morning I was in a bit of a hurry and didn't give her the minutes and didn't rub her back and didn't use the soft tones.

"Sierra, time to get up, come on, it's morning and we need to get moving."

I was a bit abrupt, but not mean or mad or anything.

Well, she got up and went about her day and I went about mine. That night whe I was tucking her in and saying prayers, she says, "Dad, can I ask you a question?"

"Of course, punkin."

"Why did you use your stern voice this morning?"

"Well, I was in a hurry."

"I thought you were mad at me all day."

That is the point where my heart sank. My daughter thought I was mad at her for an entire day. I wasn't mad, not in the least. However, I had set up an expectation and then violated that expectation. It was my voice that she was responding to more than anything else.

I made sure she knew that I was not made at her, that she was not in trouble, and that she did nothing wrong. I apologized.

This exchange taught me the power of my voice in my daughter's life.  I broke it down like this:

Words: The actual vocabulary matters when talking to a child. It's not about not cussing; it is about affirming words.

Tone: Words are lost in tone. Kind words in a rough tone have little meaning. In fact, it's worse than saying nothing because the nice words with a rough tone is a mixed message? Does daddy like me or doesn't her?

Expectation: Words and tones consistently used to build expectation are powerful. When we did our routine every morning, she came to expect it and actually count on it. When we did the routine, she knew everything was OK between us. When we broke the routine, it shook her confidence.

Father's your voice matters. Mother's your voice matters, too, of course. But today was a message for fathers.   

Patrick Mead is no wussy.

I keep going back to Waiterrant. Why? Because he is so good. This one is one lust.

Black Prof Blog will get you thinking about race, excellence and basketball. And if that weren't enough, check out this one on race, AIDS and conspiracy theories.

Sometimes grief can feel like walking through a poorly lit meat locker, with huge beef quarters hanging frozen on hooks. You can move them if you push them, but then they swing right back with equal force. You can't just move them, you have to move yourself as well. And therein lies the rub. It is hard enough to move the world around you, but to move oneself is the chore of grief.

It is not that the grieved needs to grab those boot straps and start tugging, but rather the grieved need to be satisfied to sit in the meat locker for a spell. The cold will do you some good.

It is important while grieving to be aware that there are not only the obvious"symptoms" of grief, but there are also hidden or surprise "symptoms" as well. The grieved need ample permission (from themselves and those around them) to feel whatever, whenever. There is no set path for grief and there is no timetable. There are only some common ingredients (and then there are those unique ingredients, too) that can be expected at some point along the way. And "the way," is the rest of your life.

I needed it. I'd been having a hard time: tired, anxious, sad. I called my daughter into the bedroom and gave her a huge hug and tol her, "This is a keeper."

Well, later that day I needed to get back to Jonesboro. My wife and kids stayed in Nashville. We'll be apart for the week (Thusfar the house is not a wreck and I did not order pizza, nor did I watch Braveheart). Anyway, as I was hugging my kids and telling them good-bye, Sierra, my daughters asks me if I am taking hte keeper.

"Huh?"

"You know, you said my card was a keeper, so are you keeping it?"

Her hopes were so high, she longed for it to really be true that the card she made was actually a keeper. Precious.

To me, I had spoken a figure of speech to her, but from her perspective there was certain literal truth much deeper and more meaningful than my figure of speech could have ever captured.

Then my son asked me if his was a keeper. His precious and innocent face, so vulnerable, so hoping – of course his was a keeper.

My kids trust me with their very lives, their souls, and their identities. Their innocence inspires me and gets me to thinking about how I relate to God. Is there anything I pour out to God that is a keeper? Oh I sure do hope so. I want God's approval like my kids want mine. Actually, I want to want that kind of longing for God.

God, teach me your ways.  

Yes, I know it is summer in the South. Thing is, my days in the South are numbered. July 21st will be my last day in Joneboro. July 22nd, we move to Minnesota. So, I am going to have my hot, hot summer cut short – and that I do not mind.

Sure, someone is bound to say, "you'll be wishing you were here in January." And, for most people, that would be correct, but not for me. I like the cold. I like having to get used to it. I like warming up from it.

I prefer the extreme cold to the extreme heat. Perhaps that my crazed mind acting up or may it's my Minnesota pride – don't care. I am ready for the change in weather.

Yes, I will miss my friends. It will be hard for my kids to make the transition. They have spent the majority of their lives in Arkansas. But 5 weeks is all we have.

I hope I can endure this hot and humid junk.

I am mopving to a smart place (Minneapolis/St. Paul).

Eclectic Ithcings asks, "Do oracles need testicles?"

Thinker Labs has videos resources for worship. Cool, weird, and open source.

Emerging church job opening?

Can't get anough Brian McLaren? Here are some MP3's and Powerpoint downloads.

Jerusalem experiences art renaissance.

Oh no! God, see, I know I’ve blown it. I really screwed up this time. I already know it. Please don’t get mad. Just worrying about it has been punishment enough. Disappointing you is my discipline.

I need mercy like a starving man needs food. Feed me. I’m so full of guilt that my skeleton is disintegrating inside my body. Let me off the hook. How long do I have to suffer with my guilt? I’ve paid the price. Forgive me.

I feel like I am about to die. I’m headed toward the cliff and I have no brakes. Stop me. Surely your love is bigger than my screw ups. What good does it do anyone if I die? When I’m dead I can’t praise you. You don’t see corpses lifting holy hands in the cemetery, do you? I really want to praise you.

I’m exhausted! I’ve been weeping for way too long. My bed looks like it’s been out in the rain I’ve cried so much. And when my bed was soaked, I moved to my couch and now it’s soaked, too.

I think my eyes are going bad for all the tears. Those haters are constantly on my back.

Just, just get away from me all of you who have nothing better to do than hate my guts. God’s coming. When I cry, He doesn’t just sit there. When He comes and sees it is you who hates me, look out! Get ready to eat your words. There is going to be egg on your face. You’re going to wish you’d never come my way.

A fool believes grief is controllable. Grief brings about unwanted reminders of loss with surprising persistence. Unpredictable and without warning come these reminders in the form of tears, anxiety, getting caught in a daze, intense daydreams, intruding thoughts, agonozing feelings of confusion, and whatever else it decides is necessary.

All grief really wants is permission. Since it is unstoppable, permission is not needed, but permission helps the grieved endure the grief thrust upon him. Resistence of grief is like resisting an ocean wave or the winds of the air. Resistence is absorbed into the force of the grief. It must be permitted.

Wisdom whispers, "grief is your friend," and it sounds like a demonic curse. But Wisdom never lies. Those who grieve best listen to Wisdom and relent.

Religious leaders, including Rick Warren, say torture is bad.

Cloning people is bad, but what about cloning churches?

Phil Wilson wants your ideas on fixing church.

Is Church Growth The Highway To Hell?

How should lawyers set their fees?

Click here for a cool rainbow pic.

I am sad right now and I do not want it to be Father’s Day, even though I am a father of two wonderful children. I am not ready for a day of celebration in which I have no one to celebrate. I just want to wake up Monday and plug along.

Maybe if I get my sadness out between now and then, the actual day won’t be so bad.

I know he is alive, but I cannot grasp him. I know he is near, but I cannot feel him. I know that he is safe, but I do not feel safe. What I want is to be reunited, but I must wait. On days like today, I am already so sick of waiting.

From the very moment I wake up in the morning, you are waiting on the edge of your seat waiting to hear what I will say. I can’t wait to wake up because I know you’re waiting for me. And when I bring my request to you, I can’t wait for your answer.

Why so confident? You are all about good and none about bad. I know that nothing bad can stand to be in your presence. Evil people are grossed out by you, which is just fine with me. People who are so puffed up and full of themselves get their bubbles burst when they get near you. In fact, it is you who pop their bubbles. People who have deceit and violence in their hearts and minds run into a buzz saw when they try to get on stage with you.

But I’m not into all that violence and deceit. No, I’m just into accepting your generous invitation to hang out in your house. To get a privilege like that, whoa, I have to take my ball cap off because hanging out in your house is way too good for me. I look at your temple and fall on my face. I’m not worthy! I’m not worthy! 

I want to be like you. I want to be good. I want to make it in this life. Make the way before me obvious because there are people trying to get me. Tell me what to do and I’ll do it.

Although they might make sense, those people who are against me cannot be trusted ever. All they can think about is hurting me, killing me. Lies, lies, lies! If I were to believe what they tell me I would take a quick trip to the cemetery and never leave.

God, you are the Decider. You know they are guilty. Say so. Nail them to the wall. Show them for what they are, frauds. Give them the punishment they deserve. Why wait? They have done this to themselves. They were foolish enough to be against you.

But for us, we get to rest in your house, your fortress… and we’re loving it. We write songs about how great it is to be with you and sing them all the time. We all love you so much. We celebrate within the walls of your protection.

All we did was to agree with you and look what you’ve done. We are doused in your approval and protected by your affirmation. Sweet!

Which theologian are you? (ht Running with the Lion)

Who wants a free book? Hurry up!

Don't know what to tip? Go here to find out. Great advice for uncouth dolts like me.

Should you be able to read the research reports your tax dollars pay for?

Texas can be a scary place.

This is a question probably best left to theologians. The problem is that theology matters in life. If the Bible is the inerrant word of God, then there are implications for how I should live. If it is not, then I need to know what it means to see if it is of any value.

I am not a theologian, so I will not try to answer this question as one. I am going to try to answer it as a person who likes to think about such things, but not enough to get a degree saying so.

Before I can answer the question, I need to understand the question. The word that I get hung up on is "inerrant."

The American Heritage Dictionary, tells me the follwing definition:

           1. Incapable of erring; infallible.

           2. Containing no errors.

I wish that this definition were more helpful than it is. It is just too easy to look at the Bible and find "errors" in the gospels and in other places. But then the definition of error comes into play. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John don't tell all the same stories in the same ways. They don't even "cast" the stories with the same characters sometimes. Those differences could be considered errors.

However, if viewed through the lens of different writers from differenet perspectives taking the same set of facts (as they experienced, remembered or heard from others), but toward different ends, then we can see very quickly that differences are not conflictual, but rather they are harmonious.

If the word "inerrant" is going to be defined as a point by fact checking gallup through the Bible, then we are going to get into trouble. However, if inerrant means something like, "Does the Bible do what it sets forth to do?" then we are getting somewhere.

If the Bible sets out to share the story of a God who creates a universe and sets it free to love or hate, and when it hates, is driven by love to redeem that creation within the context of freedom, then the Bible is the inerrant word of God. It seems to accomplish that goal.  

What do you all do with teh word, "inerrant?"

It’s endless! People all around mock me. They mock you. You are my purpose and my reason and all they can do is taunt us both. They spend all of their time and energy inventing these stupid gods and then worshipping them, as if they were equal to or better than you. It’s crazy!

Listen you people, God only selects those who love Him. Hello! Wake up and smell the coffee. If you do not select Him, He will not select you. It’s not too difficult. I’ve chosen Him and He hears my prayers. Me and God, we talk.

Sure, look around, there is plenty to get upset about, lots of things can get you angry, but what is the point in blowing a gasket over them? Why not just chill out, take a nap, and then think about it s a bit? After taking a chill pill you’ll realize that it’s not worth getting all mad about?

Trust God. Give it up for Him.

Sure, there will always be those people in the peanut gallery, armchair coaches asking all kinds of questions like, “What’s the use?” and “Why try?” But God, I ask you to be good to them too, to show them that their doubts are pointless. Show yourself to them personally and light up their life.

Hey, you’ve filled my heart with all kinds of joy. In fact, the joy you give is better than anything else. No food or drink or anything can satisfy my like you can. When I go to bed, I am at total peace. Why? Well, it is because you are my God and you have made a safe place for me to sleep. That’s why.

Bono leads the world in worship - teehee.

Waiter Rant gives us something on the power of spuds – and a glimpse into a scary marriage.

Imagined Relaity is talking communion.

Here's a little some that might be a bother.

I wonder if they were around today, products of postmodern culture, if they might actually have the same desire to melt into Christianity in general, but do it differently. I wonder if the might be Bono-like poets and musicians. I wonder of they might be dancers or inventors, artists or sculptors. My hunch is that they would be poets, musicians, or architects. They would shape with beauty. Their message would be more interpretive, contemplative, mysterious.

These postmodern restorationsists would stand for something just as strongly as they did a couple hundred years ago, but they would go about it all different. They would be pioneers through art, breaking new ground in theology and unity by what they created rather than by what they said, per se.

When they read their Bibles, what they would see is not so much rules and morals and "Thou shalts," but rather they would see a story, a riveting story. Their minds would wonder where this story was going and how they get to contribute to it. Rather than close down their creativity, the Bible would ignite it. They would look through church history and gain similar mojo for their creative juices.

What is exciting is that now more than ever, art is on the radar screen in the Restoration corner of the Christian world. The worship revolution of the 1980's and 1990's was merely the first overture of a Chrstian art Rennaisance. Right now it is mainly in the world of music – and the sheep are being separated from the goats right now. Too many goats. But that doesn't matter because in the abundance of art expressions, the artist and the art "consumer" each are drawn in to something meaningful. When art is sparse, then a whole slice of what it means to be human (and Christian) is ignored.

Another advantage Christian art pioneers have today is deep well to draw from in history. Creativity is not merely making new things, but it is also in the creative combining of old and new. Old and new themes, technologies, and forms merged into one can make meaning better than any other thing.

Weight Lost: 8.0 pounds = $80

Miles Run: 96 miles = $96

Totals for my church planting friend = $176

But I don’t believe that. Every where I go you are beating back the lies and the liars. You protect me from things I don’t even know could hurt me. I never knew of them because you went out before I even got out of bed and took care of them. And what is even better than that, you give me all kinds of confidence, the kind that I know never could have come from my own abilities.

God, one of the things I really like about you is that you listen when I talk. You’re not like others who only pretend to listen. Not only that, but you can do something about my problems. No one else can seem to do that.

At night I go to bed like everyone else, but I wake up happy because you are my energy. Others are so depressed they almost don’t make it out of bed. With you, getting up in the morning is the best thing I do. All the world’s possibilities are presented before me because of you. Though people are jealous, bitter, angry and just plain mean, I will not be afraid. They have their own strength for the day, but I have your strength. Whew!

So, this is what I desire: God, make it your duty to deal with those who hate me. If I do it on my own: failure. But if you do it, they will run away with their tails tucked between their legs. Do to them what they wish to do to me and maybe then they will learn.

You are the only one who can save me. All good things come from you.