Kethuvim

I hate it. I hate flying. It may be "the only way to travel," but I'd rather have a car, or a hovercraft...I've always wanted to ride on a hovercraft. And forget that crap about, "It's the safest way to travel." If I get in a car crash, my chances of survival are pretty great, but if I get into a plane crash at 37,000 feet, I'm done. So spare me the psycho-babble about how safe air travel really is.

Anyway, I just looked at the plane I'll be throwing up in from Indianapolis to Miami, and it's actually not a plane, it's a Cracker-Jack box with wings. Not to mention that all 21 of us are carrying at least 100 pounds worth of luggage on board. Can this stinkin' thing even get off the ground with that kind of weight.

Did anyone ever watch the A-Team? You know how they always had to trick B.A. into flying and then they would club him over the head with a wine-bottle like a defenseless Harbor Seal? That's going to be me.

I don't actually throw up on planes, I just sweat profusely and my hands get all clammy and I sit and pray, "God, keep this plane in the air. God, keep this plane in the air. God, keep this..." Come to think of it, flying may be the best thing for my prayer life.

I don't get it, I'm not usually this bad about flying. It's never been my favorite thing to do, but I've never been this aprehensive about it either. Maybe it's because I have a kid now, who knows? Maybe it's because I only fly about once every four or five years, so I'm not used to it. Maybe it's because I over-think this kind of crap. I don't know, all I know is that June 10th can't be over soon enough.

1. I watched a show on the history channel about Hippies the other day. If you take away the massive amounts of drugs and promiscuous sex, a lot of their ideas were, at their foundation, strangely Christ-like. But, unlike Christians, their music was actually good.

2. Where has the book, "Les Miserables" been my whole life?

3. I got two bumper stickers the other day that now hang in my office. The first one says, "Jesus called, he wants his religion back" and the other one says, "If going to church makes you a Christian, does going to the garage make you a car?" Brilliant.

4. I wonder if they'll invent tele-porters before June 10, so that I don't have to fly to Haiti? I think our flight from Indy to Miami is on like a tiny chicken-freighter or something.

5. Speaking of Haiti...um it's hot. I looked at the Weather Channel website and at 10:00 am this morning, the heat index was 104. I will have no skin left when I return. I talked to a lady from my church that's been there before, in February she got a sunburn through her clothes. Sounds like a great place for a pasty white kid huh?

6. So...gas prices...fun huh? At least our government cares about it right? Is anyone else investigating the idea of buying a Vespa Scooter?

7. My kid threw up his whole dinner the other night, and then some. It looked like a bile-soaked grocery store exploded in our living room. My wife and I looked at each other and said, "So...what do we do?" We decided to burn the house down and start all over, it seemed like a good idea at the time.

8. I have to go to the bathroom, I'll be back in a few. Ok, I'm back. I feel much better.

9. Hey, we crowned a new American Idol last night. Can you hear that? It sounds like a new career already floating away in the breeze.

10. I've really been questioning my ministry recently. I don't know why. I sometimes feel like a dismal failure at what I do. I was up at 4:00 this morning because I couldn't stop thinking about this. Does these thoughts happen in other career fields, or is ministry exclusive in this one?

Here are the latest statistics/character taits/ummm...whatever else I feel like writing about my 10 month old.

Height: Somewhere in the 31" range. This means that we can officially have nothing laying on tables, chairs, shelves, etc. Also, it means that I've already contacted the NBA to let them know that the number 1 pick in the 20__ draft is already a done deal, this kid is huge.

Weight: 21-ish lbs. He's long, lean, and faster than I am.

# of teeth: 5. His two top teeth in the middle have a gap in between them, which makes him look like Spongebob when he smiles his big cheesy grin.

Walking?: He just took his first steps on Saturday night. He's up to a record of 5 steps before he falls flat on his face and cries.

Still cute: Umm...of course. Pretty much the cutest baby on the planet. I'm biased, I know. One of the high school girls in my youth group had this to say, "He's like 'magazine cover' type cute." I told her that if she would just wait another 17 years or so, she could have a "magazine cute" husband.

Favorite food: Toast with butter, ravioli, carrots, grass clippings, dried leaves, my leg, anything he can get his hands on. This kid will literally eat anything. Here's a mock conversation that would illustrate this kid's appetite.
Me: "Eat this Ezra, it's a cow sphincter."
Him: (insert Spongebob-esque grin) "Dadadadadada." (Fist goes into mouth ingesting said sphincter, followed by a grimace, followed by him smacking the table which is his way of saying, "MORE!")

Still pooping his pants?: Can you hear me gagging through your computer screen?

That's about it. I love this kid. This morning I asked him if he would just stay this size and not turn into a teenager. He just grinned. There was a hint of, "You just wait" in that grin.

On behalf of all Christians worldwide who are not former child stars and actually have a functional brain, I would like to apologize to the world for the whole Nightline debacle last week.

And, if by some odd chance, Kirk Cameron reads this post, I have something to say to him too. Um, Kirk...stop speaking on my behalf. You don't represent me. You may be a brother in Christ, but stop acting like you're God's new warrior and that all of us think like you do. You can't prove the existence of God. I'm sorry to tell you that, but you can't. If we could prove it inconclusively, we wouldn't need faith. Stop accosting people on the street in the name of Jesus. Stop going on national television and making idiots of us all. Go to church, do your thing, serve people as Jesus would, and keep to yourself. Thanks.

"Mama always said, 'God is mysterious.'" - Forrest Gump

I believe this to be true. But what does it mean? It means that God works in different ways at different times. We like to try and fit God into a nice and neat box, but he's just too stinkin' big to cram into our measly little boxes. Jesus compares the Holy Spirit to the wind, saying that it blows where it wills. You can't catch it, you can only live in it and, at times, allow it to guide you. If God is mysterious, then that means that he isn't going to work in the ways that we feel he should. He isn't going to answer our prayers in the niec and neat way that he would. If he did, he wouldn't be mysterious, he would be predictable (and miserably boring). Sometimes God acts in giant ways where it is pretty obvious that he is working. However, more often than not, his ways are more subtle, his actions more hidden. Most of the time, when God is changing us, the change acts like a fine wine, subtley evolving and growing in us until it reaches its full potential.

I'm reading a book right now called Grace (Eventually) by Anne Lamott. She speaks a great deal about God has changed her over the years, but it has been slow and frustrating. It's been a series of strikes and gutters, ups and downs. She says this:

"That's me, trying to make any progress at all with family, in work, relationships, self-image: scootch, scootch, stall; scootch, stall, catastrophic reversal; bog, bog, scootch. I wish grace and healing were more abracadabra kinds of things; also, that delicate silver bells would ring to announce grace's arrival. But no, it's clog and slog and scootch, on the floor, in silence, in the dark.
I suppose that if you were snatched out of the mess, you'd miss the lesson; the lesson is the slog. I grew up thinking the lessons should be more like the von Trapp children: more marionettes, more dirndls and harmonies. But no: it's slog, bog, scootch."

Exactly. Every major form of spirituality acknowledges that any change (if it be worthwhile change) comes slowly and not without great effort. I hate that though. I live in the age where anything I want, I can get with the click of a mouse. It just seems that our mysterious Father's computer runs more like a 1985 Apple, instead of a brand new Mac. It also seems that he's ok with that, I guess it's time that I start being ok with it too.

I saw a picture on CNN.com this morning of the devastation in Greensburg, Kansas. If you know nothing about the story, an F5 tornado (read: ridiculously large tornado 1.5 miles wide) directly hit a small town in Kansas, completely destroying it. The picture was of a guy standing in a ruined church building. There was only one wall left standing and on the wall was a picture of Jesus, still hung perfectly straight that the wind didn't touch.

Totally creeped me out. I know this kind of a situation leads to all sorts of questions about where God was and all of that. Frankly, I don't have the answers and I'm ok with that. However, looking at that picture, it was almost like in some mystical way, Jesus was saying, "I'm still here. Despite what it might look like, I'm still here, and I'm still in love with every person in this town." I don't know why God doesn't stop stuff like that from happening, maybe the miracle in the whole thing was that there weren't hundreds of people killed, who knows. I do know that the Bible makes it very clear that where there is suffering, there is a Savior. There is a Savior who suffered through life in many different ways. There is a Savior that is close to the suffering, offering hope, love, and a sense of peace through the crap. It took a picture in a ruined shell of a church to remind me of that.