Kethuvim

I spent the entire day yesterday at Riley Hospital for Children in Indianapolis. I was spending the day there with the family of one of my high schoolers who was having her fourth surgery on a problem that the doctors can't seem to fix. I came to the conclusion that children's hospitals are probably the saddest places on earth. If they aren't first on the list, they're up towards the top with nursing homes and refugee camps. The hospital administrators have done everything they can to make it a cheery and welcoming environment, but there's really no way of avoiding the sadness of small children with cancer, and various other diseases that other hospitals can't treat. This is the first time I've been to Riley since becoming a parent myself, and I guess it just hit me harder this time.

I found myself watching families waiting for their children to get out of surgery. I watched them as they tried to hide their nervousness and anxiety, and failed miserably at it. I watched them pace back and forth, waiting to hear anything from a nurse or doctor on the condition of their child. I watched them play cards with glassed over and disinterested looks on their faces in the waiting area. They watched the cards, yet their minds were in the operating room with their children. I wonder at their circumstances; how they arrived there, when they arrived there, when and if they'll leave with their children. I think of my own beautiful son and I think about how much I would be freaking out at that moment were the circumstances of these parents to become my circumstances. I found myself praying for these families as I observed them. I couldn't help but feel their pain.

I can't get one little girl out of my mind. I don't know her name, so I'll just call her Riley. Her mother came in to the waiting area to eat her lunch. Riley couldn't have been more than 9 months old and she was being pulled in a Radio Flyer wagon. Behind the wagon was a series of machines that the girl was hooked up to. I couldn't take my eyes off of her. She had beautiful, bright eyes and she soaked up the world around her as she waited for her mother to finish eating. She looked at me and smiled one of the most beautiful smiles I've seen. As she smiled, I can't explain this fully, but I saw a glimpse of God in it. I came to an understanding of some stuff that moment. I realized that God holds these little ones close to himself. They are precious to him. And although we can never fully understand the circumstances they find themselves in, Riley has taught me in one beautiful smile that God is present in the sufferings of his little children...and in ours.

Ok, my last post told what I'm currently listening to (not that anyone really cares), this post will tell you what I'm currently reading or have finished recently.

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - Robert Pirsig
I love the fact that when I mention this book to other Christians they immediately start sweating and twitching and think I'm going to move to Tibet. That reaction alone makes it worth reading. If you know nothing of this book, it's a story of a man and his son taking a motorcycle journey through the West. He speaks of their adventures, interspersing his philosophy of how fixing motorcycles has a great deal to do with fixing society. That's an incredibly ignorant and simple summation of the book, but I don't feel like boring you with a gigantic description of it. Anyway, I'm about halfway through it and it's fantastic.

The Divine Conspiracy - Dallas Willard
If you've never read any Dallas Willard, stop reading this post, go to Amazon and buy all of his books. Have you done it yet? Now? Waiting...waiting...waiting. Ok, good. Now that you have all of his books coming shortly, you'll soon enjoy them as much as me. Anyway, this book is all about how the Church has totally missed the boat as far as Jesus' message. We've taught that Jesus used the phrase, "Kingdom of God" as an otherworldy place we go when we die. However, Jesus was speaking of an earthly Kingdom where God's people live in such a way that brings about real life as it was intended to be. I can't wait to finish this book.

The Fingerprints of God - Robert Farrar Capon
The author uses a series of images to describe how God has worked through history. One of his main points is that the Gospel writers and many of the New Testament writers opted to focus on who Jesus was (and is), and not just what he did. You'll have to read the book to see how he sews all of this up, I recommend it.

Here's a list of what I'm listening to currently.

Bill Monroe "Anthology" - A collection of traditional bluegrass from a Mandolin master.

Bob Dylan "Blonde on Blonde" - Yes, I know his vocals tend to be a bit whiny, but who cares, his music is amazing.

Bob Dylan "Live - Rolling Thunder Revue 1975" - I recommend this to anyone wanting to start listening to Bob Dylan

Robert Johnson "King of the Delta Blues" - One of the original blues masters of the early 20th century. Legend has it, he sold his soul to the devil to learn how to play guitar. I'm beginning to think that's the only thing that will make me a respectable guitar player and not a total hack.

Sufjan (pronounced "soofyan") Stevens "Greetings From Michigan" and "Illinois" - Anyone who can play 20-some instruments deserves respect and a listen.

Grateful Dead "Workingman's Dead" - Brilliant from start to finish.

Bob Marley and the Wailers "Exodus" - Anytime I'm having a bad day, I put in Marley and let the three little birds tell me "Don't worry about a thing, 'cause every little thing is gonna be alright."

Derek Webb "Mockingbird" - He asks a lot of good questions about the current state of the American Church, great album. One line that I love, "My first allegiance is not to a flag, a country, or a man. My first allegiance is not to democracy or blood...it's to a King and a Kingdom."

That's about it. From time to time, I'm going to start giving lists like this. I'll probably do some stuff about what I'm currently reading as well.

People have asked me why I follow Jesus. So here's why I follow Jesus:

- I love the fact that his first miracle was turning 150 gallons of water into 150 gallons of vintage wine. What a party.
- He touched the untouchables.
- He sat down and had dinner with people he didn't agree with.
- He said things like, "Love your enemies," and then went out and loved his enemies.
- When he looked at people he didn't see a prostitute, adulterer, tax collector, Pharisee, Roman soldier, Samaritan; he saw people that he loved.
- When he looks at us today, he doesn't see prostitutes, drug-dealers, meth addicts, alcoholics, rebellious children, homosexuals, abortionists; he sees people that he loves.
- When all of his disciples abandoned him, he returned and simply said to them, "Come have breakfast."
- His heart breaks when our heart breaks.
- He's patient with me when I mess up.
- When all hope in someone is lost, he shows up and breathes hope into them.
- He looked at the religious establishment and condemned it for helping no one.
- He still looks at the religious establishment and expects it to help someone.
- He wasn't afraid to say what was right even though they killed him for it.
- He set up the Church to be his hands and feet on earth and to take care of one another.

Those are just a few of the reasons. I have more...many more.

Sunday night, I had the opportunity to have a two hour drive all to myself. I sort of enjoy these times, because I can think about stuff while I'm alone. There's wisdom in solitude. There's also wisdom in watching the road instead of blindly staring out of the windshield in pensive thought, but that's for another post I suppose.

Anyway, I was traveling around dusk through a fairly flat part of Indiana. Actually, the word "fairly" probably doesn't belong there at all, it was totally flat. I was able to watch the sunset out of my side window as I drove down the road. It was beautiful with blue, pink, orange, and purple hues, depending on what minute you looked at it. There was a small bank of clouds near the area where the sun was setting. At the beginning of sunset, this bank of clouds was illuminated in a fiery orange glow. As the sun sank lower and lower toward the horizon, these clouds transformed from orange, to pink, to purple, to blue, and finally seemed to disappear into the blackness of night. I watched this happen over the span of about a half an hour and I got to thinking that it seemed an awful lot like the cycle of life.

I remember that sunset because of its beauty. I watched it change and was, in some way, connected with it while it lasted. I want to be beautiful (I'm in no way speaking of physical beauty, because physical beauty is shallow and man-made). I want to be remembered as beautiful. It sounds morbid, but we're all headed toward the twilight of our lives. I don't dwell on this fact, but it is inescapeable. For some the sunset comes sooner than it does for others, but make no mistake, darkness will come at some point for all of us. The question is what will our sunset look like? Will it be spectaular and beautiful, one that people will remember, or will it be marked by dull gray clouds and darkness?

There's a proverb in the Bible that speaks to this, it says, "The memory of the righteous is a blessing, but the name of the wicked will rot." This is essentially a question of beauty. Think of Mother Teresa. She was a beautiful woman who will always be remembered by the world as just that. What legacy will we leave? One of beauty and light, or one of darkness? I want to be beautiful. When people attend my funeral one of these days, I want them to be able to say honestly that I was a good man. I want them to say that I was a good husband and a good father. I want them to say that they appreciated the fact that I loved everyone regardless of who they were. I'm not sure what they would say were my sunset completed today, but my goal is to work toward a legacy of beauty. What legacy will you leave?

The thing about Jesus is that he was so different from everyone else around him. Not "side-show circus freak" different, but different in the way he looked at people and responded to the culture around him. I've already showed you how Jesus gave the verbal middle finger to Rome by saying that the way to be blessed was not by force, but by being weak. That was just one instance. There were a million other situations where the words of Jesus flew directly in the face of popular thought. It all had to do with the fact that the way to win victories in this world were through love, humility, weakness, and acceptance of people.

It seems like the church doesn't do any of those things well anymore. We suck at love, we suck at humility, we strive for power, not weakness, and we only accept people that are like us. If you're reading this, and you don't consider yourself a follower of Jesus, I want to apologize on behalf of my brothers and sisters who say they believe in Jesus and yet look nothing like him. I'm sorry if you know me and I have acted this way as well. I'm sorry, I really mean it. Don't let the Church get in the way of you following Jesus, he was a beautiful man who lived a beautiful life. The way of life he proposed is the best way to live. It's a life of peace, a life of love, a life worth living.

So what is the solution? Well, it would help if we would take Jesus seriously. Jesus is easy and fun until he starts asking something out of us. When he gets uncomfortable, we start giving excuses as to why we can't do what he's asked us. I'm going to Haiti next year with a group from my church. We're going to be helping people by passing out shoes to children who have none, building houses, and that sort of thing. I've had so many people say to me, "I just couldn't go, I don't think I could do it." Bullcrap. The truth is that you don't want to, not that you can't. Going to Haiti isn't exactly within my comfort zone, I hate flying, but to be honest, I'm tired of living in my comfort zone. I don't find the words "comfort zone" in the Bible. But I digress.

It's time for the Church to take Jesus seriously. It's time for the Church to stop striving for power, marketability, and prestige, and start striving to be humble, loving, caring, and weak (by the our culture's standards). I really believe that if the Church recognized just how weak it is, God's strength would blow us away. Children would stop sdying from starvation, AIDS would be a thing of the past and young girls in Thailand would stop being sold into sexual slavery. Let's allow God to be God, and stop trying to produce his strength on our own.

Sorry, it's been awhile since I posted. You can sop up your tears of sorrow over that fact, because here goes...

I mentioned in the last post how right wing fundamentalist Christians are striving for power to try and bring about some glorious theocracy in this country. I also mentioned that I feel like this is contrary to how we're supposed to be. The Bible makes it very clear that when we are weak, we are actually strong. Jesus said in Matthew 5, "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth." I looked up the word "meek" in good ole' Webster and found three definitions:

1. enduring injury with patience and without resentment
2. deficient in spirit and courage
3. not violent or strong

In other words, meek=weak. Jesus calls those are weak in the eyes of the world "blessed." We can come to one of two conclusions, either Jesus was a complete nut-bar or he was really on to something. Now we have to look at the last part of Jesus' words to get the full meaning of what he is implying. Jesus tells the people the meek will inherit the earth. The word "earth" is actually better translated "land." This was a very political statement against the Roman Empire who controlled Judah at the time of Jesus. Roman culture was aggressive and bent on world domination. Put the pieces together. Jesus was telling the people that the way to inherit the land back was to be weak. Obviously, Jesus wouldn't get a job on any military strategy boards, but maybe he should. What would happen in this country if Christians stopped trying to gain political power, and we just sat back and loved people the way Jesus asked us to? We may lose some "rights," churches may have to start paying taxes, but really who cares. God is stronger than any policy any country can throw at his people. The book of Daniel says that the Kingdom of God has the power to crush all other kingdoms. However, this is only accomplished through love, humility, and service.

Let's turn to Paul, he seemed to know a little bit about God. In his first letter to the Church in Corinth, he says this,

"For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God."

It doesn't seem to get more direct than that. In God's Kingdom, the have-nots beat the haves. The nerds beat the jocks, the uglies beat the supermodels. Please tell me that you see how different this is than the rest of the world we live in.

I've gone too long in this, so I'm going to add a part 3 in a couple of days.

Judges is quickly becoming a fascinating book of the Bible for me. I was studying the story of Gideon this morning and found it interesting. Gideon starts out with 22,000 men to fight against the Midianites. God then tells him that he is going to reduce that number so that the Israelites can't claim that they won the battle by their own might. God then reduces the number to 10,000 and eventually to 300. The Midianite army on the other hand was said to have men and camels beyond number. The amazing thing is that, according to Jewish Historian Josephus, the three hundred were the most cowardly among the Israelites. The text says that these three hundred drank from the river lapping the water from their hands like dogs. This was, apparently, a sign of cowardice in ancient times. So Gideon is sent up against an innumerable army with 300 pansies and God admonishes him to be without fear. Rrrriiiiigggghhhhhttttt.

This is one of those stories where God seems to me to be a little bit crazy (I'm sure Gideon thought the same thing). To top it all off, Gideon's "army" is comprised of men that aren't even real soldiers. How do I know this? Gideon doesn't even give them real weapons. He equips them with trumpets, a jar, and a torch. Does this seem a bit crazy to anyone else? Long story short, they surround Midian's huge army camp in the middle of the night armed with torches, jars, and trumpets. The Midianites wet themselves (presumably) and run like scared little girls. Gideon's army of wussies wins without weapons.

I think there is a lot to see in this story. I also think that there is a lot that the Church doesn't get about this story. In a time where Christians in this country feel like it is our main goal to gain political clout and power, it seems that this story should be one that we take a serious look at. The idea of weakness being the ultimate in strength is all throughout the Bible (which I will show in part 2). Why do Christians strive for power (politics, corporate world, church growth, etc.) when the very Bible we claim to follow suggests that we're only strong when we are at our weakest? Our faith is not defined by laws that are passed. If someone wants to take the Ten Commandments out of a court-room, who cares, it doesn't mean that God is somehow weakened by it. If the government says that abortion is constiutionally legal, who cares, go out and love someone who gets pregnant outside of marriage and show them a better way. This is going to sound terrible, but if your faith is defined by laws that are passed for or against Christians, then your faith is worthless. Our strength is found in God and God alone, and nothing can take that away, nothing.

Seriously, this kind of crap has to stop. Take a look at this:

http://www.armorofgodpjs.com/

I'm not even sure how to respond. I love the look on the kids' faces. The only thing to complete the look would be a tattoo on their foreheads that says, "Please beat the crap out of me!" I'm just glad the Evil One now has no hold on our children. Dear Lord...

I've always had trouble with the description of God in the Old Testament. I can't lie, I'm bothered by the wars, the killings, and the apparent harshness of some of the Torah. I'm currently studying Judges and I came across a passage in chapter 3 that made me think a bit. Most of the stories of each individual judge start out like this, "and Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord..." It will then repeat that God, in his anger, handed Israel over to a certain nation. Israel would then be enslaved for a number of years and, in turn, cry out to God for help. Here's what I find amazing: he always listened and always sent a judge to get them out of their troubles.

The Bible says that God is slow to anger. I believe this to be true. I believe it because I am not just a burnt spot on the ground somewhere. However, we can't avoid the fact that, at times, God gets angry. He gets angry at injustice. He gets angry at disobedience. The reason he gets angry at disobedience is because he knows that following the Torah (and Jesus' summation of the Torah, love God, love people) is the best way to live. It's the way that leads to life. He gets angry at times because he desires so much more for our lives. His anger is fueled by disappointment. In the same way, there will be times when Ezra gets older that I will be angry with him for disobeying me. I won't be angry because of my own pride (i.e. "How dare he break my rules!"), but because I want so much more for him. I want him to live a good life that is marked with love. When he doesn't do this, I'll probably get angry with him.

The coolest part of the story in Judges is that God doesn't hold a grudge. When his people cry out for help, he listens, and he responds with love. If you look throughout the Old Testament, he does this with Israel hundreds of times. It's like it's part of a huge cycle, disobedience, anger and enslavement, mercy and grace, repeat the cycle. I'm amazed at God. I'm amazed at his infinite patience and love. I'm amazed that I can never be so far away from God that he won't allow me to return. I can never be so far away from him that he won't love me. I'm starting to be ok with a God who gets angry, I just have to remember that his mercy balances the scales.

All Hail Governor Forehead!

Posted above is a picture of Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels. You may be wondering (probably not) why I'm posting a picture of Senor Noggin. I only post this picture to tell you that my son now has the exact same hairline. My wife and I can't quite explain it. I've always seen babies lose hair on the backs of their head for obvious reasons (i.e. rolling around on the back of their head and whatnot), but I've never seen a baby's hairline recede like a 40 year-old man's hairline (or...mine). The hair on the back of his head seems to be getting heavier, but he's losing the hair on the front. It's hilarious because when he gets mad, he wrinkles his face up like some crotchity old man in a nursing home who's chicken and rice wasn't pureed enough for his liking. Now that he has the hairline to match, his brief tantrums seem quite charming and adorable. Who knows what the future holds for my son and his freakish hairline, perhaps a Governorship?

Seriously. If I crapped as much as my kid, I wouldn't have any bones left. We're going through diapers like the Irish go through Guinness. Also, I didn't know that the best way to get a child to poop is to put a brand new diaper on them. Last night I was changing him before bed and no more than 30 seconds after I put his diaper on him, I saw the classic look: furrowed brow, pensive look, squirmy legs. Sure enough, soon following was the inevitable gastro-intestinal explosion. I didn't have to check the diaper to know that he just dropped a deuce in his Huggies, the look of relief on his face was enough to know what happened.

So this morning before I left for work, he was in his swing and sleeping. I leaned down to tell him I loved him. No sooner did I get back up that I heard the same unmistakeable sound. I'm not sure if it's a good sign that everytime his dad looks at him, talks to him, thinks about him, he loads his pants. Maybe he's trying to tell me something.

I had a great experience in Ezra being born...I got to cut the umbilical cord. In the weeks...months...years...eternity leading up to Ezra being born, I was torn as to whether I was going to cut the cord or not. However, when the moment came, I decided to go ahead and do it. If you want to recreate this experience (and I know that so many of you are just dying to), the best thing I can tell you to do is to find the sharpest pair of scissors in your house, and cut through a bratwurst. I guess it's kind of like that, except with less blood and no screaming child attached to the other end...anyway, I digress (can you digress from nothing?...perhaps Nietzsche would have something to say about that)

I came to realize something as I cut the cord. Ezra took his first step of growth. He was taking a step toward independence from his parents. While he was in the womb, he relied on my wife for everything. That cord was his entire life force. He received everything from that cord. All of his red blood cells came through that, all of his nourishment, everything. He wasn't able to do anything on his own. Now that he's out of that cursed ovarian bastille, he has to work for his food, his liver must produce it's own red blood cells. His organs all have to function on their own. See what I mean by him taking a step toward being independent from us? He still has a long way to go, but he is taking steps toward that. Soon enough he will be eating cereals, then baby food, all the while needing his mom's milk less and less. The he'll start using a spoon on his own and won't need us to feed him anymore. Then the next thing we know, he'll be married and put us in a nursing home (too big of a leap?).

My point with all of this is that I think there's a greater truth in all of this. When we first begin seeking God, we're attached by a cord. Maybe I should say that when we first come to the consciousness that we're seeking after God, because I've mentioned before that I think we're all seeking for him although we may not necessarily put it in those words. When Jesus becomes the man we follow, we're nothing more than infants. We're in desperate need to mature, or we'll perish, in the same way that Ezra must mature or he won't be around long (I think I just threw up in my mouth typing that). Paul (a writer in the Bible) puts it this way, "But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it." The problem with the Church today is that we have so many Christians that are content to be on milk their entire lives. They just sit there and let everything happen to them. They are content to never mature. The crazy thing is that no one cares about this fact. Can you imagine seeing a twenty year old sucking on a bottle full of formula? We would think they were crazy and we would question them about it. But the Church is full of twenty year olds sucking on bottles (figuratively speaking of course).

What is the by-product of all of this? A Church that says that it's the poor people's fault that they're poor and they can help themselves. A Church that claims that you have to be a Republican to be a "good Christian." A Church that thinks it's ok to have multi-million dollar buildings. A Church that believes that violence can bring about peace. A Church that resorts to the very legalism that Jesus hated (i.e. don't drink that, don't say that, wear this, don't wear that, etc.).

I don't know about you, but I think it's time for some solid food.

The second thing I realized when I looked at my son is that I never want anything to harm him. I also realize however, that this is totally unrealistic. I don't want Ezra to hurt. I don't want him to ever have to deal with a broken heart, broken bones, cuts, scrapes, grief, etc. I love him too much to want to see that. The problem is that he lives in this world. This means that he's going to break a bone, he's going to get cuts and scrapes, he's going to have to deal with sorrow and pain.

I realized something about God in all of this. I've always wondered (like most, if not all, of us have) why a supposedly good God allows us to hurt and grieve. It clicked with me when I saw my son that it isn't that God wants us to suffer, but that it is inevitably part of living in this messed up place. Watch the news for three seconds and you realize that this world has issues. In fact Jesus says something along these lines, "In this world you will have trouble..." In other words, crap happens. It happens because this world is a mess, and we can't help but be caught up in the mess.

So this leads to another question: why does a good God not insulate us from the mess? Think about it; if I don't want Ezra to hurt and don't ever want him to find trouble, I can insulate him from the world. I can lock him in the house and not let him leave. But what kind of a person would that make him. If I give him everything he wants and form a cocoon around him to protect him from junk, I'll end up with a male Paris Hilton (with a great deal less money of course), an entitled, awful human being. This makes sense to me when it comes to God. He doesn't keep us from suffering because suffering can form us into better human beings (or bitter human beings if we let it). We end up loving God, not because of all the stuff he gives us or because he acts as a barrier from trouble, but because he's God. We love him for the sake of love, not out of a sense of duty.

One last thing with this. The end of that verse from Jesus says this, "...but take heart, I have overcome the world." In other words, if we cling to him, we win. When Ezra gets a cut or scrape, I'll be there to clean up the blood, dry his tears, and wrap him in my arms while assuring him that it will be alright. When we are wounded, God seems to have just the salve we need to let us know that everything will be alright.

**On a much lighter note, I had a dream the other night that I was one of the X-men. Apparently my only real power was the ability to wake up in a puddle of saliva with a loss of feeling in one of my arms. Not exactly extraordinary.

Just a quick update on the boy and mommy. He's great, she's great. He's eating like a hog. When he isn't nursing on mommy, he's fruitlessly trying to nurse on me.

So it says in Genesis that people were created in the image of God. This means that there are elements of God in all of us, we just need to look hard enough at our surroundings to find it. In watching Ezra being born, I started to think about certain aspects of God in a whole new way. The next couple of posts will deal with some of my thoughts.

I was one of those dads that kept vehemently insisting that I wasn't going to watch my kid being born. I was just going to stare at mommy's face and be a support. After all, I saw the birthing video in eighth grade, and it scarred me for life. But alas, I watched. I happened to glance down and I saw a cone-shaped head with peach-fuzz on it. When he was pushed all the way out, they placed him on Mandy's chest (cord and all) and wrapped him in a blanket. It was in that moment that I had this thought, "So that's what God thinks about us."

When I saw him laying there screaming from trauma, I realized that God's love is infinitely larger than anything we can imagine. Higher than the heights, deeper than the seas, that sort of overly poetic stuff. I think I always knew that God loved us unconditionally, but I didn't understand it (or at least partially understand it) until last Monday. To see something that you created be born was an experience like no other. Nothing that kid could ever do could make me love him any less than I do right now. He's going to say things to me to hurt me, he's going to wrong me in a lot of ways throughout his life, but I'm never going to stop loving him.

God's love is like that. We hurt him, we go against what he knows is good for us, and yet he always loves us. Even if we don't love him back, even when we curse his name, he responds with love and acceptance. Contrary to popular belief, God isn't waiting for us to screw up so that he can drop us into hell. He's genty coaxing into a better way of life. A life of joy, a life of peace, a life of good decisions. When we deviate from that plan, he still loves us. He always has, he always will. That's how God feels about you.

Well, it finally happened. The boy was finally born...all 8 pounds, 11 ounces of him. To say that he's the cutest baby ever born is, of course, an understatement. Don't believe me, check it out for yourself:

See? I told you so. That's a great picture, but not as good as this one:

I think he likes his car seat. He's just masking his real emotions.

Anyway, he's the cutest. I'll be blogging fairly frequently in the next few days. This whole experience has caused me to think a lot about what God thinks of us. I'll share my thoughts.

Seriously, has it been like two years that my wife has been pregnant? Does she have the gestational cycle of an elephant? If you can't tell, we are still sans-baby and still heavily fetus in this whole birthing process. And if you can't tell, my patience is wearing a bit thin.

I'm past the point of being nervous about being a dad and I'm to the point where I'm wondering if I will, in fact, be a dad sometime before Armageddon (not the Ben Affleck "Armageddon", the biblical one).

Speaking of Ben Affleck, I can't stand him. Let's be honest, he's played one good role in his entire life and that was as O'Banion on Dazed and Confused. Speaking of Dazed and Confused...

My wife is due a week from today. We went to the doctor this morning and we are scheduled to go in next Monday to induce her labor if she hasn't gone into labor on her own before that. In the Doc's words, however, he said, "I don't think you're going to make it until Monday." Of course, he say this while he's "examining" her. I'm going to write to Webster's Dictionary and make an urgent appeal to change the definition of the word "disturbing" to mean this: (1)watching a male gynocologist examine your wife's nether-regions while hearing him say words like "ripe" and "cervix" in the same sentence.

All awkwardness aside, the fact that I am going to be a father in a week or less seems a bit odd. In the eternity that my wife has been pregnant (and an eternity it has been), I've known that I'm going to be a dad, but when you see the light at the end of the tunnel (which apparently my son is seeing right now as well) reality sets in. Butts to be wiped, bottles to be made, puke to clean up...that sort of thing. The cool thing is that despite my apprehension, I couldn't be more excited. On the way home from the doctor today, I was daydreaming about what it will be like to hold him, kiss him, play ball with him when he gets older, watch him as he goes out on his first date, gets his heart broken for the first time, etc. Everything I saw on the way home seemed to be more beautiful. I started noticing things with new eyes for some reason. Maybe there's God in all of that. When you create a human being out of a sense of love, you can't help but love that creation with everything you have. This causes you to find beauty in places where you never saw it. It causes you to see beauty in everything and everyone, or at least it should. Maybe this is how God sees everything. His love causes him to find beauty in even the most mundane and ordinary things. All of the mundane and ordinary things...like us.

I have a quote from Mother Teresa on my wall that says this, "We are not called to be successful but to be faithful."

What would this country be like if churches understood this? Would there be less haggling over budgets? Would there be fewer megachurches and fewer people going to bed hungry at night? Would there be smaller auditoriums and more people with homes? Would the bickering stop over music styles and songs? Would people stop looking out for number one and start looking out for everyone else?

I'm so tired of the Church (notice the capital "C") striving for success. It's all ego-driven no matter how much the Church talks about wanting to reach people. The fact is that preachers (for the most part) want a successful church because it feels good. It makes them feel like they are a success in this world. It puts them on a plane with the successful business man living the American dream. It gives them something to brag about at their Bible College homecoming (Don't believe me? Go to a Bible College homecoming sometime and see how long it takes for a conversation between two ministers to turn to this, "Where are you now?" "Oh, I see, how many people do you have?").

The problem is that God defines success differently than we do. His measure of success is in how faithful his people are, not how many there are. I think that when God looks at a church, he's not looking for masses of people, he's looking for people that are going to be true followers. Just look at Jesus, by the world's standards, he was highly unsuccessful. He really only had 12 close followers, one of which sold him out for money. I doubt Jesus would be asked to speak at too many ministry conventions, and he probably wouldn't be approached by too many publishing companies either. But Jesus was faithful ("Not my will, but yours be done."). What would our world look like if we understood this? Who knows. We can either just sit and wonder, or we can start a revolution and find out for ourselves.

I'm preaching this Sunday at church. I've been preparing this message in my mind for awhile and the more I delve into the subject, the more I realize it is endless. I'll be talking about brokenness and the flip side, wholeness. I was chewing on this subject a little bit today and I came to realize that everything we do is motivated by a sense of brokenness and a search to be whole. Every addiction (addiction to anything, not just the biggies like drugs and stuff) is based on being broken. We may not spell it out this way, but I think we all long for something bigger, something of substance. Some may call it happiness, joy, or whatever. If you're like me it is spoken of this way: Please tell me that there is more to life than this. In other words, we all long to be whole, so we run after all sorts of crap in order to make us whole. The problem is that it is all temporary smoke and mirrors that covers up all of our junk for a short time, there's never any long-term resolution. The band Waterdeep puts it this way in their song "If You Want to Get Free":

I'm so often deterred from my actual intent
By distractions in a cellophane wrap
And the cruel voice that taunts me when I open them up
To find just one more box full of crap

All marketing is based on this brokenness. Think about it, ads are designed to convince us that we need a certain product and we can't live without it. In other words, your life will complete when you purchase ___________. Don't believe me? Look at the cell phone industry. I can't tell you how many people I have heard say, "I don't know what I did before I had my cell phone" or "I just couldn't live without my cell phone." It's all bullcrap. You can live without one, you've just bought the lie that you can't.

Jesus had a lot to say about this kind of thing. As I was studying, I came across this passage where he says, "I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have trouble. But take heart, I have overcome the world." The word "peace" in Hebrew is "shalom" and doesn't mean just the absence of conflict. The word "shalom" is loaded with meaning and it speaks of a wholeness that comes from God. When you say "shalom" to someone (I doubt many of us do, but...you know...just in case you ever do) you are saying to them, "May the wholeness of God rest upon you." Given this meaning, Jesus' words here take on a whole lot of meaning. True shalom (wholeness, completeness) is only found in following the teachings of Jesus. Everything else is an illusion that will lead to more brokenness. This world is broken and fractured, this means that as we live in this world, we will find brokenness as well. Jesus can put the pieces back together, in fact that what he really wants to do. He's overcome the world, he won. By clinging to him, we win also, and can find wholeness in the midst of a broken and shattered world.

I'm tired of trying to be super-pastor to everyone. I'm tired of being told that good Christians are Republicans. I'm tired of ignoring the poor, but I don't even know where to start helping. I'm tired of my nice house. I'm tired of all my crap that I own. I'm tired of the Church acting as if the Kingdom of God is something futuristic for when we die, and not something ever-present. I'm tired of talking a good game and walking a crappy one.

I'm tired of church. Church isn't supposed to be this difficult. Why do we need meetings to discuss outreach opportunities, why can't we just go out and be with people? Why do we need committees lined up to direct the Church, why can't we just follow Jesus in our community? Why do we strive for more and more people in church, when Jesus makes it clear that very few will find the narrow way? I'm tired of talking about budgets, as if God lives by a budget. I'm tired of talking about buildings as if that is what makes a church a church. I'm tired of future planning. I'm tired of worrying about upsetting people, when I know that the man I follow ticked a lot of people off. I'm tired of what we pass as "worship." I'm tired of Christians, including myself, who talk about devotion to God and yet exhibit something completely different in their lives.

I'm tired, not mad, just tired.

...that makes me wish I wasn't a Christian. Actually, I take that back, there's nothing Christian about this. There's so much wrong with this news report, I'm not sure where to start.

http://video.msn.com/v/us/v.htm?g=27fa6bf5-ff81-4cb2-9cb2-edf98780915e&t=m23&f=15/64video&p=

I think I missed Jesus' teaching about his followers making sure that they are a major market force in the nation's economy. Lord have mercy on us, Christ have mercy on us, Lord have mercy on us.

"...that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead."

Those are Paul's words in Philippians. I've been thinking about it this morning. Apparently Paul is saying is that the resurrection is something that we have to attain. My questions are then, what does this mean? and how do we do it?

Any thoughts?

I was studying Philippians this morning and came across Paul speaking of preaching the gospel. He says that some people preach the gospel out of envy and rivalry, and some preach it out of good will. He then says that as long as the gospel is being preached, he rejoices. I hate this passage, it seems wrong. I've been wrestling with it all morning.

Here's my problem with it: if we preach the gospel out of a sense of rivalry with others, is that realy the gospel at all? Richard Foster says, "We cannot preach the good news and be bad news...what we are offering the world is life as it was intended to be." I agree wholeheartedly with that statement. The gospel is about God saying to us, "I have a better way for you to live, my shalom is available to everyone, including you." If we're offering life as it was intended to be, how can we preach that selfishly? If we preach selfishly, we're not offering people anything different than the rest of the world. We're saying that the world is about us. We're saying that we'll look out for number one and everyone else can take a hike. How is that different than the corporate world? This all seems inconsistent. Any thoughts?

Modern Christianity tells us that there is a secular world and a sacred, or spiritual, world; as if God created two separate entities. This is why we have "Christian" bookstores (which are terrible), "Christian" radio stations (which suck), and "Christian" television stations (no words to accurately describe how awful these are). We, as Christian, have sectioned ourselves off from the rest of society in order to not be polluted by the unending Hedonism of the outside world. The problem with this is that the Bible states very clearly that "The earth is the Lord's and all that is in it" (Psalm 24:1). This means that God owns it all.

The Bible never makes a distinction between sacred and secular. In fact, Paul tells us that "All things are yours" (1 Corinthians 3:21). This means that everything is ours for the taking. If it's true, it's God's. This means that if I find truth in a Pink Floyd song, it's mine, God co-opts it for his Kingdom. This happens a couple of times in Scripture. Paul tells the men in Athens that the temple to "an unknown God" is actually speaking of Yahweh. He then says in the book of Titus, "as your poets have said." Paul would have had to have known the writings of the "pagan" poets in order to use their writings for God's glory.

I'm currently reading "New Seeds of Contemplation" by Thomas Merton (which, incidently, rocks my face off). Merton says this about everything God has created being holy, "There is no evil in anything created by God, nor can anything of his become an obstacle to our union with him." I think that's pretty self-explanatory. He also says this:

"When we are one with God's love, we own all things in him. They are ours to offer him in Christ his Son. For all things belong to the sons of of God and we are Christ's and Christ is God's. Resting in his glory above all pleasure and pain, joy or sorrow, and every other good or evil, we love in all things his will rather than the things themselves, and that is the way we make creation a sacrifice in praise to God."

What all of this means is that stuff, in and of itself, cannot be evil. It is made evil by our own devices. But the beauty is that we can take anything in God's created realm and make it holy and beautiful unto God. It's time for the Church to stop retreating from culture, but to dive into it and redeem it.

In a book called Christianity Rediscovered, the author Vincent Donovan talks about experiences he had with the Masai tribe in Africa. He was talking to one of the village elders one day and they started talking about lions. This is how the author recounts the story.

The Masai greatly admire the hunting skills of the lion. So much so, that they use the imagery of a lion hunting its prey as a metaphor for their search for God. The lion picks up the scent of its prey and then commits its total energy to hunt it down and catch it. All its power and agility is used in this pursuit. Once it has caught it, it wraps itself around it and envelops it. This is the way the lion hunts, and this is the way the Masai had traditionally thought they must search for God. The Masai leader then said, "You told us of the High God," he continued, "how we must search for him, even leave our land and our people to find him. But we have not done this. We have not left our land. We have not searched for him. He has searched for us. He has searched us out and found us. All the time we think we are the lion. In the end, the lion is God."

Could it be that this is the reason why the Bible speaks often of God and Jesus as a lion? Is it possible that God pursues us long before we pursue him? The story of the Lost Son lends some credibility to this. When the son returns, the father sees him a long way off and pursues him. He doesn't wait for him to come back and apologize, he runs after him, no questions asked. It seems that the Church would do well to understand this point. That God is seeking after his people and that we need to be letting people know this. We always wait for people to come in our doors and assume that they are the ones seeking God. What would happen if the Church started proclaming the good news that God is seeking his people and is after them as a lion is searching for its prey? What would happen if we proclaimed that there's a searching father who desperately longs to envelop his children in love? What would happen if we got off our butts and pursued people in love as God pursues them, instead of waiting for them to show up at church?

This video is from the show King of the Hill. The clip is about church shopping and it's both hilarious and incredibly sad because of the truth it conveys. Enjoy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtI2pa2m5cg

I'm currently reading a book by Steve Chalke called, "The Lost Message of Jesus." I was reading this morning and I came across this statement as he was writing about Jesus' parables of the lost son, lost sheep, and lost coin. If you know nothing of those stories, it speaks of people who have lost something of value to them, and will stop at nothing to find it again, feigning everything else in pursuit of their loss. Chalke says this of the parable of the lost son:

"It is often said that there is a God-shaped hole in our hearts. It would not be unreasonable to suggest that Jesus, by telling this story of the son who breaks his father's heart, is declaring that there is a people-shaped hole in the heart of God."

I'll let that sink in and say no more.

...oft gang agley. Oh, I'm sorry, you're not Irish, I meant to say, "often go awry." I'm not a mouse, I'm a man, but I share a bit of comraderie with my fellow mouse in that my best laid plans more than often go awry (Incidentally, the plans of my mouse friend in my garage definitely went awry when he decided to consume an entire box of D-con in an hour). What are my plans you ask (you're probably not asking that, you're more likely asking, "Why am I wasting my time reading this ridiculous article?")?

As my wife's tummy has grown in her pregnancy, I have grown around the midsection considerably. I call it "sympathy fat" but I have yet to see it recognized by a reputable medical journal. My love handles are more like love leviathans. Every morning when I get dressed, I put on my pants and they wheeze like a fat asthmatic kid. In between wheezes, they say things like, "Hey fatty, need a little help here" and "Have another ho-ho, Chubbs." My plans are to lose two inches in my waste before next summer when I will travel to Haiti to do some mission work. I've made resolutions like this in the past and, like my mouse friend, my plans have gone terribly awry. Of course, my plans haven't resulted in me being glued to the garage floor by my own dried blood like him, but, you know...

Anyway, I'll be in Haiti in June, so the temperature will be somewhere near 150 degrees with 300% humidity. That being the case, I'm going to need to shed a few pounds and be in decent shape in order to avoid collapsing from my fatness and out-of-shapeness. At the very least the Haitians can just call me "White Devil" and not "Chubby White Devil." Chances are pretty good, however, that I will be the same size, or bigger, by next June. Ah, the best laid plans...

Last night, my pregnant wife and I attended a 2.5 hour breastfeeding class. To be honest, I wasn't looking forward to it, but actually learned quite a bit and was glad I attended. Here are a few observations from the evening.

1. There may not be anything more awkward than watching a video full of boobs with your wife. We watched a forty minute video on breastfeeding technique and whatnot. I saw more boob than Hugh Hefner on a Viagra bender. There was nothing sexual about the video, but it didn't lessen the awkwardness nonetheless. You're watching the video, trying to glean some information from it while giving your wife the, "I swear it doesn't mean anything to me honey" look. The video could not end quick enough.

2. The "lactation consultant" used the word "teat" last night. I was probably the only one in the room convulsing in repressed laughter, but I don't care, I embrace my childishness. Not to mention the fact that the word "teat" is one of the funniest words in the English vernacular.

3. My job as a husband and father is to be a sort of breastfeeding cheerleader for my wife. I will be purchasing a skirt and pompoms and a copy of Toni Basil's "Hey Mickey" before the kid is here. I will also be developing a new cheer of "Go kid, go kid, latch, latch, latch."

All in all, I'm now fully prepared for breastfeeding. At least I'm ready to cheer my wife on. We have about two and half months left...or this side of forever until the kid is born. I'm not sure I'm ready to be a dad, but I'm excited about it nonetheless.

I thought I would give you an update from Fetusville. We had another doctor's visit yesterday and everything seems to be going well to this point. The boy is growing at a normal rate (except for the groin region, where I am sure he is an absolute albatross).

The best part of our visit yesterday was the fact that my wife had to drink this bottle of orange liquid for her glucose test. The best way to describe this stuff is orange-tinted sugar. She had to drink it in the span of five minutes or less in order for the test to be effective. So we broke out our old bong and she tipped it back with no problem. I'm sure the boy enjoyed the temporary sugar rush as his fragile system was bombarded with the equivilent of five Snicker's bars and a gallon of really strong Kool-Aid. If he comes out with three heads and a gimpy arm, we'll know the source of the mutation.

We have about 11 to 12 weeks left (or thirty five years, which is what it seems like) until our bundle of joy arrives and our lives as we know it end. We're looking forward to it all, except for the inevitable "Hey mom and dad, I'm crying because I pooped all up my back, and somehow in my hair" moments of parenting. Oh well, you take the gutter balls along with strikes I guess.

So I received something in the mail today for a youth event here in our community. It's being put on by a couple of churches and their youth groups. They're having a speaker come in and some local Christian band is doing a concert. Anyway, the flyer had a statement that sent my crap detector into overdrive. It said, "Come to something that is out of the world" (editor's note: italics used for emphasis).

Never mind the lame attempt at a quippy play on words, the message is what bothers me. Since when are we as Christians supposed to retreat from the world? The message of this flyer is clear; this event is for Christians, non-believers need not show up. I am so incredibly tired of this type of crap, I could just scream. Let me show you a passage from the Apostle Paul that applies pretty well here.

"I have written you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people--not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world."

What part of this passage do we not understand as Christians? Oh wait, the entire second part, that's it. Paul is telling us that we cannot retreat from the world. In fact, his tone seems to suggest he would have thought it ridiculous to do so. My problem with this event is the same problem I have with Christian radio stations, Christian book stores, and Christian television. It all sends a message to non-believers that it belongs to us and no one else.

I don't understand how we can talk so much about the Great Commission, and yet we can suck so badly at fulfilling it. Jesus tells us to "Go and make disciples of all nations..." The interesting thing is that the Greek for "go" is actually better translated, "as you are going." In other words Jesus is saying, "Hey, while you're out there in the world, make disciples." We can't do that if we're constantly removing ourselves from the world in order to huddle with one another in our "sanctuaries." It's no wonder why the American Church is completely ineffective.

So lent ended on Sunday. I gave up sweets for lent and it was hard, but I survived. I figured that if Jesus could be nailed to a cross, I could give up sweets for 50 days.

If I'm not mistaken, the point of lent is to sacrifice something that controls you in order to focus on God. Also, I think a by-product of lent is to try and work on an area of life that needs work. So I decided that my love handles are large enough and if they get any bigger, I'm going to look like a Christmas tree with small top, large middle, and small lower end. During lent I made a mental list of all the sweets I was going to eat when lent ended. First on my list was a Cadbury Egg. Other items included brownie with ice cream, chocolate milk, and anything emanating from the entire flippin' Willy Wonka factory.

On Sunday, my pastor handed me a Cadbury Egg at church. I proceeded to wolf it down like Augustus Gloop on a chocolate bender. I enjoyed the frothy goodness of sugar and fat until it mixed with the acid in my stomach. Keep in mind, the only other thing in my stomach was communion, which doesn't amount to a whole lot from a volume standpoint. At that point my stomach was saying something to the effect of, "I hate you, you stupid (insert long string of expletives)." I was pretty sure I was going to barf somewhere mid-sermon. At that point, I realized that my body was sending a clear warning that I was probably going to have pace myself on the whole sweets thing. At this point, I've done pretty well in that area, but it's taking everything in me to not shove my entire carmel-filled chocolate bunny into my mouth at once. I just figure my pants are tight enough and I'm not buying a bigger size to accomadate my girth.

My hope drifts away as I see the last wisp of smoke disappear. You said you were the light, yet all I see is darkness. You promised the world, yet all I see is a closed tomb. The candle of my hopes and dreams has been extinguished and I'm left with nothing but a burned wick. Where did it go wrong, O Light of the World? How is it that the fire from the house of David can lose its fuel? Who has the power to extinguish God's own flame? You must have been a farce. To be the light emanating from God's own light would mean that your flame is eternal. Obviously your fire was of a different sort. A much more carnal sort. You seemed so convincing, not like the others from the past who made the same claims as you. You seemed to speak with authority, but now I know that you were just a better public speaker, more persuasive in your speech than the rest. You used smoke and mirrors and spoke in enigmatic parables. We thought you were brilliant, now we know that you were nothing more than a slight of hand artist with good people skills.

So what's left? What do I do now? I guess I'll go hide with the rest until all of this blows over. Sometimes when the light goes out and darkness prevails, the best thing to do is hide.

The more I study the Bible, the more I realize that how no words are wasted in it. In the creation story, we read of God entering into a chaotic atmosphere (the Hebrew tohu vavohu) and bringing order to it. By bringing order to the chaos, God set up a great many systems and patterns to the world. Patterns such as, erosion, adaptation, growth, life, and death. It's the last three that I want to deal chiefly with.

If you look throughout all of creation, there is a continuity to all of it. No creature, including humans, is exempt from the natural order of things. It's almost planting time in Indiana, which means that farmers will soon plant millions of seeds in the ground an inch deep and then let nature take its course. These seeds will be "born," grow, and then die. I'm having a son, my first child, in a few months. That child will be born, grow, and then, God willing at an old age, die. The same goes for me, my wife, my family, and everyone else on the planet. We can't escape this.

This all sounds so morbid and negative, but it isnt, it's just the way God created us and everything around us. In the words of Donald Miller, "we are all just getting born, just growing up, just dying off." There's something beautiful to think about how connected to nature we really are. God made everything beautiful, but that beauty has to fade and disappear in order to give way to new beauty. I'll watch the soybeans grow in a few months, become full and green and beautiful, and then wither and die. But in a year or so, the beauty will return.

Jesus wasn't exempt from this either. He was born, lived the most beautiful life in history, then died. However, he completed the cycle by returning to beauty for eternity when he walked out of his grave. I love the fact that everything in the universe is so connected, including God being connected to it all as well.

I recently got back from a trip to West Virginia. I spent a great deal of time hiking and just taking in the beauty of nature. I came across this tree on one of my hikes and it reminded me of...well...me. I haven't been myself for about a year. Ministry has the ability to ruin a minister's spiritual life pretty quickly. I know that sounds weird, but until you've been a minister, you can't know what I mean, so I won't try to explain it.

This trip was what I needed. It gave me a chance to get away from all of the crap of life and focus on creation and the God who created it. It's amazing what happens when you take the time to get away from distractions. Anyway, when I saw this tree it made me think of what my life feels like at times. This tree is just a gigantic jumbled mess. It has numerous vines hanging on it, which go a hundred different directions. If you're a minister, you know exactly what I mean. We're almost constantly pulled in a million different directions until we don't know which end is up.

I know all of this sounds negative, but let me finish. I realized after thinking about it for some time that all of the stuff hanging on it actually lends more beauty to the tree. Without all of the vines hanging on it, it would just be a normal tree. It never would have caught me eye and made me want to photograph it. I think the real challenge of life is to find beauty in all of our mess. The key to this is to constantly remember that we are never without the Beautiful One. His beauty meets our mess and makes something unique and wonderful. I learned this past week in West Virginia that when we take time to listen, God responds and shows how beautiful he really is. Hey God, I've missed you, I'm glad to be back.

I took this picture on a cold, foggy morning in West Virginia. It's totally creepy. All it needs to complete the creepiness is two identical twin girls saying, "Come play with us, forever and ever and ever."

I was studying Isaiah today, which by the way is one of the best books in the Bible, and I came across a passage that seemed to jump of the page. Isaiah 63:8-9 says this:

For he said, "Surely they are my people, children who will not deal falsely." And he became their Savior. In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them; in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; he lifted them up and carried them all the days of old.

We talk all the time about the fact that we serve a personal God, but do we really know what that means? Are our minds capable of grasping the idea of a being big enough to create the universe, yet small enough to care about being personal with his creatures? What does it mean for God to be personal? In order to answer that last question, we have to look at what it means for us to have a personal relationship with other people. We have to spend time with them, we have to exhibit great care toward them, we have to pour our lives into them. If this is what it means for us to have a personal relationship with someone, then it follows that the same things apply to God having a relationship with his creation. However, it seems that just spending time with someone and caring about them, doesn't necessarily mean we have a personal relationship with them. So what completes a relationship with someone and moves it from being an acquaintance to a loving relationship?

I think the answer lies in the bold print of our passage. It says that in all of Israel's afflictions, God was afflicted. To love someone completely and have an intimate relationship with them means that we are afflicted when they are afflicted. The passage says that when we hurt, God hurts also. We don't serve an impersonal God who sits back and just watched stuff happen. He's actively involved with us, even to the point of taking our hurts on himself. The Bible refers to God at times as the God of Comfort, I never really understood the breadth of that statement until I understood that when I am hurting, there is a Creator that is hurting as well.

"Don't worry about a thing, 'cause every little thing's gonna be alright."

I can't tell you how often I listen to this song by Bob Marley, and I can't tell you how often I need to hear it. I'm a worrier by nature and I need to hear the "three little birds" saying this to me. It seems to ring with something Jesus said once,

"Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."

The fact is that worry leads to nothing but increased blood pressure and a massive coronary. Let Jesus' message (and Bob's) wash over you. Do you have financial problems? Understand that God is faithful. Having family problems? Don't worry about a thing, every little thing is gonna be alright. Been sold out by friends or betrayed? Don't worry about it, because God will never leave you or forsake you.

Let the three little birds and Jesus speak to your heart as you struggle for the faith to get you through your problems.

So my wife and I have started a new tradition on Sunday nights. We watch C-Span. I wish I was kidding, but seriously, we watch C-Span. On Sunday nights they have a half-hour segment of the British House of Commons weekly Prime Minister grilling. If you've never seen it, believe me when I tell you that your life is woefully incomplete. It is comedy in its highest form. It's like watching a bar fight in which no punches are thrown, and where the participants use sharp language and dripping sarcasm to knock the other person to the ground.

The proceedings go something like this: any member of Parliament can get up and ask a question of the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister then has to get up and answer the question posed to him. In between are random shouts of "hear-hear" if people agree and "AAhhoofdsdfksfcfksjdkflj" if they don't. The beautiful thing about it is that the questions are generally posed in a fairly sarcastic form. Last night, one of the Parliament members accused the Prime Minister of not being able to read. The Prime Minister then got up and referred to the man as "the right honorable gentleman" which in British-speak means, "gay cowboy" or something like that.

If you've never watched the House of Commons, do it. It's like watching a circus, sans midgets and other creepy carny folk. Plus, it's nice to see a government where policy makers are held accountable for the things they say.

In most churches, I've heard sermons preached about living life on the mountaintop and living life in the valley. What about living life somewhere in the middle? I've never seen a book written about that or a sermon preached on it. Are we just supposed to know how to live life when things aren't great, but they aren't that bad? I'm feeling mediocre right now. I'm not great, but I'm not bad either. I feel like I'm living in an earthly purgatory. I'm sort of waiting for either an ascent or a descent, and in the meantime doing nothing more than surviving through habit and routine.

How do we find God in these times of life? It's easy to find God when you're really up, and it's even fairly easy to find God when you've hit bottom, but it seems more difficult in the middle. What's the answer? Do I go skydiving or play chicken with an oncoming train to break the monotony? Do I find a mountain and sit on it while composing John Denver-ish poetry about how I see God in the trees? There are no easy answers and I'm not sure the Bible is black and white on the issue either (yes, I'm suggesting that the Bible isn't black and white). I know I should pray more and read my Bible more, I've heard those answers since I was a kid; but what about when you don't really feel like doing that? Man I wish Joel Osteen would write a book that would give me the answers. Of course, he never lives in the middle because he's constantly in God's favor.

Seriously, I'm not great at reading ultrasound pictures or anything, but I can definitely see the ghostly face of my son. I've come to the conclusion that it looks similar to the Shroud of Turin. I wanted to ask the ultrasound tech, "What is the post-crucifixion, pre-resurrected Christ doing in my wife's womb?" I didn't think she would get it or find the humor in it like I do.

Everything is healthy, although I'm a little concerned about the size of his naughty bits. Seriously, you can't see them in this picture, but it took three different angles for us to see them. Let the locker room laughing begin...sorry son.

We got to see his jaw moving up and down during the ultrasound. I like to think he was saying something like, "Hey guess what, I'm trying to sleep, leave me alone." He didn't stop moving the whole time. If this is any indication of things to come, I need to start learning how to live on 30 minutes of sleep a day.

I still think he looks like my wife. We're excited that yet another homely, frumpy, Polley male is entering the world. It wouldn't surprise me at all to see him emerge from the womb looking like GrizzlyAdams with a full back and chest of hair. Ladies and Gentlemen, behold the next great musical innovator (a real musical innovator, not just someone who thinks they are...like Kanye West).

Last night was the 78th Annual Academy Awards, or as I like to call them, the 78th Annual Crippling Boredom Awards. Holy crap this is a boring show. The only redeeming quality this year, during the 15 minutes I watched of the thing, was John Stewart, who is an absolute master of dripping sarcasm.

The Academy Awards are a time every year for a bunch of rich celebrities to get together and stroke each other's egos and have someone pat them on the back and tell them "good job," and hand them a new mantle sculpture. Apparently millions of dollars per picture doesn't stroke the ego enough anymore.

There are many things I hate about awards shows, especially this award show. First, there's the meat-market known as the red carpet where people watching on TV can live vicariously through their favorite star by yelling at the screen, "I love what Charlize is wearing this year." It's as if the stars honestly care what Betty Ann Provost from Sheboygan, Wisconsin thinks of their outfits. Along with this red-carpet fun, you get the leathery Joan Rivers and her equally leathery daughter commenting on what everyone is wearing. Thanks for your opinion ladies, here's a quarter for your next face-lift.

Then there's the acceptance speeches. It gets so old hearing everyone say the same thing. "Thank you to the Academy (whoever the crap that is), and thank you to (insert the names of everyone you have ever met in your entire life, including Ira the Deli owner, who's Pastrami on Rye was the inspiration you needed to go on when you wanted to give up hope on humanity)." "Oh, and thanks to my husband/wife/life partner for sitting at home pining away while I spent the better part of three years neglecting you and kids so that I could win this award."

Finally, you know there is something wrong with the world when Joachin Phoenix doesn't win crap for his incredible portrayal of Johnny Cash, and a band called "Three-Six Mafia" wins an award for a song about a pimp. Hey Johnny, if you're up there listening, I apologize on the part of humanity for that injustice.

The thing that kills me are the people that hang on everything that happens at these awards, as if their very existence depends on whether or not "Capote" wins an award. Aaaahhhh...I feel better.

I was flipping through channels again last night (I really need to stop doing that) and came across my favorite aforementioned religious channel. Every Sunday night, the chapel service from Pensacola Christian College (Our motto: "Jesus never smiled so neither do we") airs on Lesea broadcasting. I happened to catch the service just as the preacher got up to speak. He gets up and he gives the usual guilt trip deal to the students. You know what I mean, "This may be your last day on earth, you may never have another chance to accept Jesus blah, blah, blah." I've heard this kind of crap so much that it doesn't even make me mad anymore. However, what he said next did make me mad. "If you have accepted Jesus before, but have hardened your heart to him, the same warning goes to you. If your heart is hardened (is that a clinical problem by the way?) you may make it through the next week without incident, but you may miss God's final call to you."

I let that last statement sink in and listened to his follow up on it. Let me tell you what he meant by that. He was suggesting that God has a limited number of times that he "calls" you (hopefully not collect, because I'm not accepting the charges). If you don't accept any of these "calls" to you, then God basically gives up and moves on to the next person. I was sitting there, jaw on the floor with expletives running through my head at an alarming rate, thinking "Has this guy ever heard of Jesus?"

I'm not sure how you can read a story like the parable of the lost son and say something like he said. In that story, I see a God who pursues those who abandon him. I don't see a Father that says, "You disowned me too many times, I give up." I don't find this idea anywhere in scripture. I have so much I could say pertaining to all of this, but I want to know what everyone thinks.

So I was perusing my 15 channels the other night and I came across, what I believe to be the most humerous channel on television, Lesea broadcasting. If you know nothing of Lesea broadcasting, it could be best described as the lesbian step-sister of TBN (Editor's note: I have no idea what that means, but it sounded funny). Anyway, the other night a man by the name of Mike Murdoch, or as he's known by the Mafia, "Mikey Hair-dye", was on and he was, of course, speaking of prosperity. I say "of course" because that's all he ever talks about. He said something interesting during his diatribe that piqued my interest a bit. He said, "Don't let anyone tell you that you can't have nice things. Anyone that says that you have to do without is an idiot."

I've mentioned before that I have a pretty finely-tuned crap detector. After that statement, it was going off so loudly that my neighbor came over in sponge rollers asking me to shut my "pretty little mouth." Upon hearing Mikey say those things, my first thought was, "You know, he's right, the Bible never said anything about having to do without...oh wait...no...I seem to remember Jesus saying something to the effect of, 'deny yourself.'" To be honest with you, I think it's ok to have nice things at times, as long as those things don't become your god. However, he was advocating that whatever our heart desires is ours as long as we send in our "seed money" so that God will bless us.

When Jesus said, "deny yourself, take up your cross daily and follow me," he was saying that if we follow him, we no longer live our lives by our wants and desires. Our life is not our own. Our life is to be lived by what God wants for us, not what we want for us. I'm tired of hearing these prosperity guys talking about the spiritual life like it has everything to do with us. With their "theology" God is nothing more than a high-yield mutual fund where you put a certain amount of money in, and he multiplies it so that you can have a vacation home in Colorado.

What does this say about our brothers and sisters around the world who are striving to live for God, and as such, are being imprisoned, killed, or live in extreme poverty? By Mikey's line of thought, they are doing something wrong. They're not "planting their seeds" in the right area, so God isn't blessing them. America is the only place where you will hear this message preached. Let's face it, these teachings are nothing more than using the Bible to justify extravagant living. It's a copout so that these guys won't have to deny themselves.

I believe I wrote briefly about the point that you can't manufacture community in a church, it just happens as a special grace from God. I believe I also spoke about how churches continue to try and manufacture community and it usually turns into nothing more than a 6-month trainwreck.

Well, I got a catalog in the mail today from Group Publishing, whose company slogan should be "The company that cheese built." Their stuff is, for the most part, complete and utter crap. I was thumbing through the endless pages of mindless curriculum and I came across an add for a curriculum and on the top of the page, I found the emblazoned 56-point font words, "Build Commuity in Your Church." My bullcrap detector about knocked me out of my chair as soon as I finished reading that phrase. But wait, there's more. Under that gigantic farcical statement was this three-point add on: Welcome New Members, Enhance Your Small Groups, Easy and Effective Outreach. As if that wasn't enough, in Ron Popeil style I tell you, "But wait, there's more." This curriculum is apparently "Stuffed with 13 weeks of tasty, life-changing experiences." I'll have to be honest with you when I say that I have no desire to know what it means to have a tasty, life-changing experience. Apparently along with Bible study, you spend a half-hour marinating a Jesus-shaped chicken and then expound on what the Holy Spirit smells like.

I'll have to tell you that my experience with most curriculum has done nothing for my life other than making me want to take my own. How can a curriculum foster community? It can't. As I said in a previous post, real community takes time and grace; it takes people who are willing to lay down their lives for one another. It can't be accomplished when people come together in the hopes of having a "tasty, life-changing experience."

What does it cost to have real community in your church? Not your life, just 70 bucks...and, oh yeah, your soul.

"Take a census of all the congregation of the people of Israel, by clans, by fathers' houses, according to the number of names, every male, head by head."

God instructs the leaders of Israel at the beginning of the book of Numbers to take a census of their people. When we think census, we think about strange people in ties showing up at our doorstep every few years to count how many people live in the United States. All we think about is the numbers they are looking for. However, what is a census? In a census, they ask many questions to try and gauge things like income, number of children, and that sort of thing. They don't just come to the house and count how many people live in the US.

By asking the Israelites to take a census of their people, is it possible that God was asking them for more than just numbers of people? By asking questions of their fellow Israelites, they were finding out more about their countrymen.

As a minister, I know quite a bit about some people in my congregation. I know the good, the bad, and the ugly about some of the people. This has only happened because I have invested my time in them to get to know them. I'm a part of a small group, and we have become very close. We've been meeting for three years now and, in that time, we have learned a lot about one another. We know each others' good points, as well as bad points. We know each others' struggles and triumphs.

It seems to me that true community can only happen if we are willing to take a census of those around us. We can only have real community when we invest in the lives of others. It takes time, it takes commitment to one another, and it takes honesty to make it happen. You can't force real community. Too often churches try to force community, and what comes out is a half-baked version of community where no one knows anything about anyone past the surface. Real community flows out of love and a desire to get to know your brothers and sisters. Real community is a grace from God, you can't force it, it just has to come from him.

Take a census of your brothers and sisters. Invest your life into them because you love them. You'll never have joy in the Church without it.

One of the things that has bothered me about The Church for a long time is that it seems to be anemic when it comes to community. When I read the account of the early Church in the book of Acts I always end up sighing and say something like, "I want to be a part of that." Apparently a lot of other people in that day wanted to be a part of it as well, because the text in Acts says that The Church added to its number daily. It says that the people of the early Church had everything in common and no one claimed that anything else was his own. They ate together, prayed together, worshipped together; they truly had community. However, it seems to me that today's "Church" looks more like this: we come together, sit together, shake hands for two minutes, exhange small talk, half-sing a few songs, listen to a sermon that we don't comprehend, and then go to our respective homes and repeat the process a week later. That couldn't be further from real community.

Acts says that the people enjoyed fellowship. The word "fellowship" has lost pretty much all of its meaning today. When we say fellowship, we immediately conjure up images of pot-lucks and ice cream socials, youth group trips and chili suppers. The sad truth is that these things have nothing to do with fellowship. These should just be by-products of fellowship, not fellowship itself. The Greek word for fellowship actually means "brotherhood." To have real fellowship within the church, we have to be a brotherhood. This means that we live "all for one and one for all." The New Testament writers knew what they were doing when referring to their fellow believers as "brother" and "sister." These weren't just words they decided to use, it was the truth. They lived in community even with all of their faults, bumps, bruises, scars, and crap. They didn't all get along, but they were admonished to love one another anyway as Christ loves the Church. That's so beautiful, there's nothing more beautiful than two enemies who make a conscious choice to love one another even in disagreement. They decide to be brothers even though they disagree. But what does all of this mean for us in the 21st century? In a couple of days, we'll explore what it might mean to have real brotherhood within the Church today.

In Exodus 27:20-21, God instructs the Israelites to put a light in the tent of meeting and that the light is to be lit with "clear oil of beaten olives." If you know anything about cooking, you know that extra virgin olive oil is the first pressing of the olives and yields a greenish- yellow oil. The more pressings the olives go through, the clearer the product becomes. God tells the Israelites that they are to use only clear oil for lighting the lamp in the tent of meeting? Why clear oil? Why not the first and finest pressing of the olives? Lawrence Kushner states this as the reason.

It's because you just can't get the real clear and pure stuff until they pound the hell out of it (or you). We have a classic rabbinic teaching drawn from Psalm 51:19: "The offering to God is a contrite spirit..." The rabbis teach that the ultimate sacrifice is our smug expectation that we can do it alone, that we are in control of our own destiny. Suffering reminds us that we are not and, in so doing, purifies us. Anguish is simply a necessary precondition for the purification of the fuel required for the Tabernacle.

Suffering and anguish are all that can lead us to life and purity. The olives must endure a pounding of immense proportions in order to render their purest oil. We must endure much through trial and suffering in order to grow and be pure. Here's to allowing God to "pound the hell out of" us; pound out all of the impurities and all of the junk to render us pure and holy.

Mandy and I went to the doctor yesterday and all seems to be well with our human larva. It apparently doesn't appreciate the microphone thingy the doctor uses to hear the heartbeat, because it moves everytime she hits the right spot. I'm assuming it is perfectly content in its sack-o-fluid and doesn't want to be disturbed while it's reading, pondering existential quandries, or wondering why it is growing a third arm or has two butts.

In about a month, we'll find out the identity of the aforementioned larva. We were reading somewhere that they now have ultrasounds in 2-D, 3-D, or 4-D. I understand 2-D and 3-D, but what in the world is 4-D? Do they show you, not only the baby, but a vast other universe inside my wife's womb? I can just hear the doctor now, "Ok, there's the baby...there's its twang, it's a boy...and here's the constellation 'Uterine 5'." It should be an interesting doctor visit to say the least. All I know is that if William Shatner is dwelling within my wife's uterus somewhere, I'm not going to be happy.

I was sitting at home watching a show on TV that doesn't suck, when a commercial for one that does suck came on. It was a commercial for the new Survivor show. I think it takes place in Panama (or at least a Hollywood set that looks like Panama) or something. The new "twist" (please notice the quotes) is something called "Exile Island." Apparently one "castaway" at a time will have to stay on this island alone (which is due punishment for them agreeing to be on such a mind-numbingly crappy show in the first place), and try to survive. The commercial was hilarious because as it was describing this new facet to the game, it said something like, "On this island, they can find the key to winning the game...IF THEY SURVIVE!" This obviously begs the question, "Survive what?" Can they survive not being eaten by the camera crew, production team, and the team of medical doctors on the other side of the island? I'm sure the show would just let someone die off on screen.

Here's the reason I hate this show. These people aren't surviving anything. All it means is that the winner is the one who can go the longest eating worm larvae and rat pelvis or something. Who cares? Millions of people around the world have to endure that everyday and no one gives a crap. This has to be the most anti-climactic and boring show on television. There's no drama whatsoever. No one is going to die in this show, everyone will survive. If they want to do this show right, they need to drop 10 frumpy ignorant white supremacists in the middle of Compton, California with nothing more than their beer guts, and the clothes on their back and see how long they last. The last one standing wins...until he gets shot in the face. This format would solve a couple of problems. One, the name "Survivor" would actually mean something, and two, it would get rid of 10 morons. Maybe I should write to the network and make the suggestion.

I came across this prayer in a book titled, "The Book of Jesus." It is a collection of writings by numerous authors concerning Jesus. I think this would be a good prayer to incorporate daily. What do you think?

"O God, who has proven your love for all humanity by sending us Jesus Christ our Lord, and has illuminated our human life by the radiance of his presence, I give you thanks for this your greatest gift.
For my Lord's days upon the earth:
For the record of his deeds of love:
For the words he spoke for my guidance and help:
For his obedience unto death:
For his triumph over death:
For the presence of his Spirit within me now:
I thank you, O God.
Grant that the remembrance of the blessed Life that once was lived out on this common earth under these ordinary skies may remain with me in all the tasks and duties of this day. Let me remember--
His eagerness, not to be ministered unto, but to minister:
His symphathy with suffering of every kind:
His bravery in the face of his own suffering:
His meekness of bearing, so that, when reviled, he reviled not again:
His steadiness of purpose in keeping to his appointed task:
His simplicity:
His self-discipline:
His serenity of spirit:
His complete reliance upon you, his Father in heaven.
And in each of these ways give me grace to follow in his footsteps.
Amen.

I swear that I'm not obsessed with suffering. I don't like it anymore that anyone else, but for some reason, I keep happening onto these different passages concerning suffering. I can't get away from them. I come across them in the Bible, I come across them in other readings, I can't help it. I guess these passages stand out to me so much, because they fly in the face of the American Prosperity Gospel that is so prevelant today. Actually, most American Christians are raised on this type of thought and theology. It isn't all as overt and satanic as Joel Osteen's message or anything, but it's there nonetheless. For example, none of my preachers growing up ever claimed that God wanted you to be rich and powerful, but they still taught that, overall, God wanted you to be happy. So I grew up thinking that God wanted all to be happiness, and when something didn't make me happy, it was Satan's fault.

I've been studying Isaiah for quite awhile, and he touches upon this idea many times. I came across one I couldn't ignore this morning. These words I'm about to show you come from the King Hezekiah. He had been struck with an illness and then healed by God, and his words here are commenting on his situation.

"But what can I say? He [God] has spoken to me, and he himself has done this. I will walk humbly all my years because of this anguish of my soul. Lord, by such things men live; and my spirit finds life in them too. You restored me to health and let me live. Suely is was for my benefit that I suffered such anguish. In your love you kept me from the pit of destruction; you have put all my sins behind your back."

I wonder how these prosperity guys handle a passage like this. My guess is that they skip right over it because there's no way to refute Hezekiah's words and change them to mean something else. They sure as crap don't preach a passage like this. Hezekiah not only says that God was directly responsible for his suffering, but he say that "by such things men live." He is essentially saying that we cannot be whole and alive without suffering and anguish. He then has the audacity to blame God for his anguish then turn around and talk about God's love. This is just beyond fascinating to me, because it goes against our natural human reactions to adversity. Our first reaction is to blame God for his absence and then say things like, "God has a plan in all of this," although we know when we say it that we're full of crap. We never think of God sending suffering our way as his way of loving us. We feel punished. Yet Hezekiah (and it seems everyone else in the Bible) see it as a loving Father desiring growth from his people. I could go on forever with this stuff, but I want to hear what you all (3 of you) have to say.

I was studying in "Five Cities of Refuge" again this morning and came across something I had never thought about. To be honest, it made me feel a little bit better about something that has bugged me about God for a long time. The passage of study was the "Akedah" or "Binding of Isaac." This is the story where God inexplicably tests Abraham and tells him to go and sacrifice his son on Mt. Moriah. Just as an aside, "Moriah" in Hebrew means "awe-ful."

This story has always bugged me. Why couldn't God choose a test for Abraham that didn't include the near-slaughtering of his child? Why not have him walk to the nearest watering hole and tell him to walk across it? Why not tell him to spit a loogie in the air and tell him to make it, by faith, levitate in the air? I've never understood it until I studied this morning.

Abraham is standing on a mountain with a knife raised in the air, ready to drive it through Isaac, when a messenger of the Lord stops him. In order to understand the full depth of what is going on here, you have to look at all of the other cultures around at that time. Every other culture had "gods" that required infant or child sacrifice to appease them. God had to do this to show Abraham that he was a different god. He was the true God because he was so merciful and wasn't going to require this horrific act of his people. Sacrifice animals, not people.

For me, this helps me to see more of God's true nature. He isn't sick, he's merciful. I understand that he sent his only Son to be a sacrifice for the universe, but Jesus had the choice to go to the cross. He was human and could have backed out, but he didn't, so the argument that God sending his only Son to die being proof of God's sickness is irrelevant here.

This study this morning just reinforced my love for God and his mercy. Hopefully it does the same for yours.

I'm currently picking my way through a fine book by the title "Five Cities of Refuge." It's written by two Jewish guys, Lawrence Kushner and David Mamet. It's basically comprised of their reflections on weekly Torah readings. I'm using them as a supplement to my daily study. I was reading this morning about the Creation account of God's rest. I always assumed that God created everything in six days, got tired (if the Almighty can in fact tire), and rested from his labors. However, the Jewish understanding of this passage is that the creation and the rest are inseparable parts of the creation. Kushner says this, "We bless God's work, and ours, by quitting. The work and the rest, together make the world. They are inseparable."

Another interesting thought has to do with the name of God. God's most intimate name is yod-hey-vav-hey in the Hebrew. We know it as Yahweh. The sixth day of creation ends with these words, "...and there was evening, and there was morning, the sixth day." I won't try to explain this next point, I'll let the text of the book speak for itself.

"The Hebrew for "the sixth day" is yom haShishi. The first letter respectively of each word is yod and hey, which, when joined with the first letter respectively of 'And they (the heavens and the earth) were finished...' is vav and hey, together spelling yod, hey, vav, and hey, the ineffable Name, the Name of the One who brings into being all that is, the Name of God. At last the sweat and the sigh inseparable."

Our time has to be spent with the sweat and the sigh. Without both elements, God's work is incomplete, making us incomplete. People don't rest anymore. When we cease to rest, we do a dishonor to God's creative work by stating through our actions that the Sabbath rest isn't really a part of life. Take a break. You will not be whole without it.

I like darkness. I don't know why. Light is actually much better, but for some reason I am drawn to it. Darkness is scary, everything bad in life is associated with darkness, but for some reason I can't get away from it. Jesus says he's the light, and as such, his followers are to live in the light as well. He has a good point, but at this point in my life, I still choose darkness more than light. I wonder why?

Why is it that so many of us "light-bearing" followers of Jesus shun the light and dwell in the darkness. Why is it so freakin' hard to live constantly in the light? Could it be that we are born with a propensity for darkness? Think about it. Do you have to teach a child how to be bad? Heck no, they manage that just fine by themselves. You do, however, have to teach them how to be good. If we born into light, we wouldn't have to be taught how to be good. I think it's Adam and Eve's fault. God laid a choice in front of them. Choose light, or choose darkness. They, of course, chose darkness and the rest is history. I think something cosmic happened at that point. I think the very fabric of God's creation changed. From that point on, we would still have the same choice to make, but it would be much harder to choose light.

So I think that the reason it is so hard to be good and to choose light and follow Jesus is because it goes against the very fiber of our beings. There is something in us (call it the Devil or whatever) that bends us toward darkness. Paul called it the "sinful nature." There is no way outside of God to be good. There is no way, outside of God's grace, to continually choose light. It has to be from him, because he is the light. May we trust in that light and follow it forever.