Kethuvim

That's latin for ridiculous. Ok, probably not, but whatever. So I saw a statistic yesterday that proved to me that our country is completely doomed and our downfall will probably happen in my lifetime.

1 in 4 Americans didn't read one book last year.

Let that wash over you for a second. 25% of this country didn't read a book last year. That's insane. We are officially the dumbest modernized country on the planet. How can a country survive when so few of its people seek out knowledge and wisdom? Answer: It can't. Somewhere in this country right now, a group of authors sit together and weep bitterly.

As you may know, I hate church signs. Well, maybe that isn't true, I hate that the people who put them up are serious about them, I, frankly, find most of them hilarious in a very sad way. I saw another "good" one the other day in the town where I live. It simply said, "How would Jesus drive?"

Let that sink in for a minute. Let the raging torrent of idiocy wash over you. Never mind the fact that this church spent probably somewhere in excess of 10-15 thousand dollars on this sign. Never mind the fact that a good number of people in my town can't afford to pay their electric bill, while said church spends said amount of dollars on said sign. Ignoring those facts, it still begs the question, who cares how Jesus would drive? What does that have to do with anything? My wife's response was priceless: "Um, he probably wouldn't."

I think there's something bigger going on here though. How vacuous and ridiculous has American Christianity become that we even have to ask, and/or answer a question like that? I understand what they are implying by asking the question, but if someone who claims to follow Jesus can't drive without being enraged and flipping everyone off, then, to be honest, their faith isn't worth much anyway. I don't mean that as a judgment call on anyone, but when I look at the Bible, I don't see the writers spending too much time on stuff as petty as being courteous to others while riding your donkey/chariot. When you read the Bible, especially the New Testament, it seems to be a given that a Christ-follower would be courteous to those around them. Being courteous and loving isn't part of the package of following Jesus, it is the package. Why can't churches who have signs ask questions that matter? Why do they have to have signs at all?

Seriously. Check this out. I think that dog just ate my soul, I'm not sure.

I haven't put any pictures of the beast on here for awhile, so I thought I would do that now. Here's a picture a friend of ours took at a youth group pool party this week.

Adorable.

Here's another from the party. Notice the lovely physique. He has his father's attractive shape.

Really, I think he needs more food. There's nothing more sad than an under-nourished child. The picture would be perfect if you insert a can of Pabst Blue Ribbon and a Dale Earnhardt hat on him. He has what I like to call "frat-guy stomach." He looks like he's a few cases of beer over the line in the gut department.

It's been a few months, but we finally had to take the boy to get his one-year shots. All of the other immunization experiences have been sort of ok. This one, however, was cut from a different cloth. We get into the room and the nurse is showing us a chart of everything that they'll be giving him. I'm sitting there counting on my fingers how many shots he's going to get and I started to run out of fingers. So how many shots did my boy have to endure? Five. I would be crying if someone gave me five shots and I'm 27.

I had to hold him on my lap and pin his arms down while the nurse rammed needle after needle into his legs and then his arm. The thing that sucks is that he's getting to the age where he remembers things like that. My guess is that the next time we take him to the doctor, we'll have a fight on our hands. He had stopped crying after his immunizations and he saw the nurse again and started balling again. I had to laugh, though I felt kind of sorry for the nurse. What a crappy job, to have to stick a bunch of little kids with needles. She is hated by more kids than I can imagine. Anyway, he's covered in bandages and he's recovering well.

Looking for a new and creative way to stick it to the man? Read about how this man went about it. Brilliant.

Read this article. Good stuff.

So I got "tagged" by one of my college students. If you don't know what that means, well...then your life still has purpose and meaning. It basically means that I have to list 10 random and interesting facts about myself, then, in turn, annoy 5 more people by tagging them. I'll brutally murder her for this later, but I suppose I'll play along. So here goes:

1. I just bought and am currently listening to a Bill Withers CD. Yes, it's 1970s era R&B, but back off, "Ain't No Sunshine" is one of the best songs ever written and his voice is like...a waterfall of silky butter...or something.

2. I'm a sucker for Classical music. What can I say? The Four Seasons by Vivaldi is amazing, and anyone that disagrees is an uncultured moron.

3. I think music sounds infinitely better on vinyl than on a CD or an Mp3 player. You can't beat the crackling and popping that comes along with vinyl, it just adds something to the music.

4. I'm a human being. Doesn't sound interesting, but there are still people that, maybe subconsciously, believe that ministers are somehow inhuman.

5. I hate Christian music. It is, by-and-large (there are a few exceptions), uncreative, copycat garbage.

6. I secretely wish I was British...or Irish...or Scottish. I'm magnetically drawn to the UK. If I could find a way to make a living for my family in Britain, I would move there tomorrow.

7. I hate when people touch my little toe. I don't know why, but it makes me want to vomit.

8. Speaking of vomit, I threw up Red Gold salsa in 8th grade one time, and I still haven't eaten that brand since then. It's like I can still taste it.

9. My dream vacation would be to take three months and tour all over Europe. This is one of those things that will never happen as long as I live, but I guess that's why it's called a "dream" vacation.

10. I'm plagued by a constant sense of failure in my ministry. I'm pretty convinced that I'm the worst youth pastor on the planet. OK, maybe not as bad as the ones that sleep with their kids, but you get the point.

Alright, here's who I'm tagging.

Matt Polley - Oh, this will be a beautiful thing.
Kim Golden - As will this
Michael Baysinger
Harvey the Rabbit
Johnny Chimpo

If this guy gets elected, I'm moving to Canada. Read this. "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will strike first to win victory." What a dunce.

I've been studying a lot today (a novel concept for a minister) and I've been focused on a particular passage in Ephesians. It says this, "For we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works..." On the surface, maybe not much there, until you dig into the Greek a little bit.

The Greek word for "handiwork" is "poiema." It's a word, that in the Greek language was used to describe a work of art. Or, said in a better way, an artist's relation to his work. It was used to describe any work of art, a song, a poem, a statue, a painting, etc. This understanding blew my mind. To think that we're all, in some mystical way, God's artwork that he's creating to change the world. That's amazing. I think one of the greatest problems in the church today is that a great many Christians see themselves as a "sinner, saved by grace." The fact is that, in God's eyes, we're not seen as sinners, but as a beautiful work of art that he is fashioning and shaping into a world-changing masterpiece.

Something else that's interesting is that the voice used in the Greek lends itself ot a continuous action. In other words, God isn't done with us yet. In fact, according to Galatians, until we die, or Christ returns, the work of redeeming us, and the rest of Creation continues unabated. If we could somehow grasp this, concept, that God isn't finished with us or the world, how different would this world be? Maybe we could spend more money on health care for the poor than we do on bombs. Maybe a few more people could be cured of their curable diseases. Maybe, just maybe, if we could see ourselves as a beautiful work of art, as God, in fact, sees us, the world would be a better place.

You have to figure it out for yourself. All I know is that our current solutions to filling the emptiness (sex, alcohol, shopping, friends, etc.) aren't working, so maybe it's time to try something else.

I believe that God gave us all certain passions and desires. I'm not sure that killing off our passions and desires is what God intends. This is where a lot of ascetics go wrong. Wearing itchy clothing and castrating yourself may seem like a good idea (does it?) to kill the desires that derail us from time to time, but it isn't really necessary. I don't think that God is asking us to rid ourselves of the desires he's placed in us, all he wants us to do is to control them and use them in a constructive way.

Somehow these dicussions always lead to sex, maybe because sexual problems are so much a part of our culture. God gave us a sex drive (can I get an "Amen" from the congregation?). We're the only creatures in all of creation that have sex for any other purpose than reproduction. In other words, we're built to enjoy sex for recreation, not just procreation. To illustate my point, I have cats that live around my house, one night I heard a horrible commotion under our front porch. guess what was happening? I don't think I need to answer that, but needless to say, it didn't sound like a whole lot of enjoyment was being had by either party, especially the female. The sound actually made me throw up in my mouth a little bit. Anyway, what I'm saying is sex is something to be celebrated, not destroyed. However, I don't believe that God has given us license to go and (for lack of a better phrase) mount everything that gets into arm's length of us. One of the writers of the Bible makes it very clear that "all other sins people commit are outside their bodies, but those who sin sexually sin against their own bodies." In other words, sex does something to us. It's impossible to have sex with someone and not give a part of yourself away. When we have sex with someone on a drunken bender, it does something to us. It causes us to lose something. Sex isn't meant to be given away to just anyone.

I always hear people talk about teenage sex in terms like, "Well, they're going to do it anyway, we should at least make sure they're protected." This is such a copout to me. It may prevent a few more teenage pregnancies and STDs (and, incidentally, I'm all for that), but it doesn't get at the heart of the issue. I've heard numerous teenage girls talk about their first sexual experience and say things like, "It wasn't what I expected." Behind those words lay a reservoir of pain and regret. Those words rang with, "Mr. Right apparently wasn't Mr. Right after all," and "I kinda wish I would have waited." Don't tell me that we can't control our urges and desires. Yes we can. A Tomcat can't control his sexual impulse because it's merely that, an impulse, an instinct. With humans, we were created differently and the sexual urge is a desire, not an instinct. It's something that can be controlled. When we lose control of this desire (or any desire for that matter), we make the emptiness inside of ourselves that much bigger.

So the key, I think, is to channel our desires into more ocnstructive efforts. I'm not going to sit and list ways that we can better our world around us, you're all big boys and girls and ca find things on your own. This is all easier said than done, but Jesus described following him as a "straight and narrow way that few find." Doesn't sound all that easy to me, but I've known a few who have found it, and I want to join them.

Have you ever wondered where the motivation comes from, that drives us to do the things we do? Maybe you have and maybe you haven't. I've been thinking about this a lot lately. I've been looking at my life and I've realized that my life is marked by a deep-down disquiet. There's a rumbling inside of me, at the deepest part, that I'm not happy and peaceful. I think if we all take the time to look deep enough, most of us will find the same inner feeling. That's not to say that there's nothing in my life that brings me joy or happiness, I'm just saying that deep down, I'm not right. I have this nagging sense that I'm not as I should be. In the Bible, we're told that God longs for his people to be free. Maybe the sense I'm getting is that, deep down, I don't feel the freedom that God has promised me.

I'm certainly not blaming God for any of this. He's provided the way to life and peace, I'm just, frankly, not following that way to the best of my ability.

So what motivates us? I guess the best way to say it is...emptiness. Deep down, a great many of us are empty. This feeling that something isn't right within us can basically be defined as emptiness. What this emptiness leads to is lust. We always associate lust with purely sexual motivations (and rightly so a great amount of the time), but lust takes on many different forms. The Greek word for "lust" translates literally as "in the mind." So lust is anything that grips our minds and won't let go. For some of us, sex is what grips our minds, for some it's shopping, for some it's drugs, for some it's alcohol, etc. When we lust after something, we are convinced that we can't live or be content without that something. Do you see what this leads to? Affairs happen because a man/woman is convinced that they will never be happy until they have that other man/woman. Alcoholism happens because the alcoholic has a sense of disquiet, and is convinced that alcohol will make him/her content. Some of us have a deep down sense of emptiness that leads to us having to buy the next trendy item. "If I just had that iPhone..."

The problem with all of this, is that lust can't deliver on the promises it makes. It can't make you content, it can't fill the emptiness. All it can do is make you lust for more. Think about how this progression plays out in real life. Rapists and sex offenders didn't just wake up one day and decide to do what they do. It was a long process that began with a lust for sex that continued to grow and grow, and eventually morphed from a "harmless" addiction to porn, to a monstrous addiction that led to violence. Porn stars didn't just wake up one day and decide to be porn stars. It started at a young age when that girl decided that the "guy of her dreams" could fill the void inside of her. What started as an "innocent" and casual fling morphed into an addiction that she can't get out of.

The question that all of this leads to is, "How do you fill the emptiness?" More to come next week.

You know, if I hear one more person talk about how Christians are hypocrites, I'm going to puke. Sure I'm a hypocrite, but so are you. Outside of Jesus, no one has ever lived out their convictions perfectly 100% of the time. Here's Webster's definition of "hypocrite":

1 : a person who puts on a false appearance of virtue or religion
2 : a person who acts in contradiction to his or her stated beliefs or feelings

Looking at that definition, that puts pretty much the entire human race into the hypocrisy game. I've heard so many people tell me that they don't follow Jesus because Christians are hypocrites. Sure, we're hypocrites, but not because we're Christians, we're hypocrites because we're human. But the thing I find interesting is they'll join an environmental group that protests big oil, and they'll drive to the protest in their car that uses said oil. They'll join a group that rails against the logging industry, but they have no problem using paper. I know these are broad-sweeping statements about these kinds of groups, but let's call it what it is, it's hypocrisy.

I'm all for environmental causes, and really any cause that improves the earth and the human race, but the point I'm trying to make is that no one is immune to the hypocrisy bug. I understand how Christians display a lack of love from time to time (some more often than others), I do this as well depending on my mood, but don't use an excuse like that to defend your unbelief. Let's all work together, everyone, Christians, Jews, atheists, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, etc. to better this world. Hypocrites unite!

Since Haiti, I've had an increasingly uneasy feeling about my life. I can't really explain it, suffice it to say that I feel like I'm resisting what God is calling me to do because I'm a pansy. I'm becoming more and more disenchanted with the American Church because of their lack of a spine. They say they stand for things like justice, peace, and love, but really it's all lies. What the American Church really stands for is prosperity (personal and corporate), doing just enough to get to heaven but not really change, and saving souls (read: pad heaven's stats but ignoring the here and now needs of the people that Jesus told us to help).

I know all of this comes across as grumpy, anti-American, and unevangelistic, but who cares. Sorry I guess, stop reading if you're uncomfortable. I feel like God is calling me to be an advocate for people who have no voice, which actually might be the purpose of being a minister. I'm not actually sure what form this is going to take, but frankly, I'm not excited about the task. Why am I not excited? Because it will probably cost me a lot. My job, my house, my comfort. People in America don't like when Christians, especially ministers, decide to start speaking up about injustice. It's obtrusive, caustic, and uncomfortable. If Jesus taught me anything it's that when you take up the cause of the oppressed, the religious establishment will hate you for it, and they'll crucify you to shut you up.

I saw a lot of injustice in Haiti, but I also see a lot of injustice in America and in my own communtiy. These people need a voice, I feel like I'm called to be a voice. The question is whether or not I'll accept the challenge or go on being comfortable.

Go to iTunes and hit "party shuffle" and see what comes up from your list of songs. Let me know the first ten on your playlist. Here are mine:

1. Behind Blue Eyes - The Who
2. Hold On - Tom Waits
3. Untitled 5 - Sigur Ros
4. No Earthly Good - Johnny Cash
5. Like a Rolling Stone - Bob Dylan
6. We Win! - David Crowder Band
7. Thank You - Led Zeppelin
8. Dear Lord - Joseph Arthur
9. O Holy Night - Sufjan Stevens
10. Palm Sunday - Jerry Garcia Band

What are you listening to?

We had a much-needed day of relaxation. We took two walks to two different beaches. On the second trip, we walked about 3 miles and when we got to the ocan, we all just jumped into the water in our clothes. The Caribbean is beautiful. I've never seen water so blue. We walked the three miles back to the mission and I got chaffed in areas I didn't even know I had (Note: Never use Gold Bond with menthol on chaffed areas, I'm still screaming).

This country is so contrasted and strange. As I stood on the beach, I looked to the left and saw the ocean with a mountain behind it. I looked to the right and I saw a beautiful palm-lined coast. I looked ahead and saw blue water as far as the eye could see. Then I looked behind me and saw trash and indescribable poverty. It was a strange feeling. I've never seen a place that has so much going for it, and yet nothing going for it at the same time. That doesn't make much sense, but it just seems that since they have so much beauty in their country, that they could easily be a tourist destination, but the whole situation seems so hopeless. It was just an odd feeling to look in one direction and have a sense that everything was right in the world, and then look another direction and have the feeling that nothing was right and just in the world.

Except my jet plane, in this instance, is a 2002 Honda Civic. I'm off on family vacation all next week, so I'll continue my Haiti journal posts when I return. May God's blessings go with you throughout the next week.

The highlight of the trip, so far, occured at 4 a.m. this morning. We attended a prayer meeting in the village in someone's home. This Sunday, the group will celebrate 20 years of meeting 5 mornings a week. Five mornings a week for 20 years! That's crazy. Anyway, it was beautiful beyond words. As they prayed aloud, I didn't know what they were saying, and yet in some way I knew exactly what they were saying. They would pray and then they would break out in song, whose only musical accompaniment was a rooster across the street who was begging us to know that the sunrise was close at hand. We had a translator who would translate the parts of the serice that pertained to us. The Haitians took time to thank us for leaving our families to come and help their country. Then they prayed for God to bless us and for a safe journey back to the States. As they sang again, I found tears running down my face. How can they pray for us? The poor Haitians praying tat God would bless the spoiled Americans. I couldn't help but cry at how gracious they are to us, when we honestly don't deserve their grace. But, after all, I guess that's the nature of grace, you can't earn it. If you could, it wouldn't be grace, it would be a salary. One of the Haitian men named Gaston (great name by the way) stood and said, "We thank God for his grace and love. To wake up each day is a grace." I wish I could say that I see each day as a grace, but I would be a liar. God, help me to have a more Haitian way of viewing you and your gifts. Throughout the whole service all I could think was that we may be far wealthier than they are, but they're far richer.

I will never, as long as I live, forget this morning. I saw God's Kingdom appear like a pearl in the mud. I saw hope growing in the midst of a hopeless land. I saw what it meant to follow Christ and to be a part of his Church.

Later in the day we worked in the clothing pantry. It was total chaos. Each kid that came in was supposed to leave with two shirts, two pairs of pants, and a new pair of shoes. The problem was that there weren't enough pairs pants to go around. The reason for this is that Americans don't think before they donate anything, they just want it out of their house. What does this lead to? A room full of pants with a 40 or 42 inch waist that literally no one in the country of Haiti could possibly wear. This is so typical of Americans. We have too much stuff, we just want to get rid of it, so we dump it on someone else, not even thinking about whether it can actually be used or not. I actually saw fur-lined boots, sweaters, and winter coats. We're in the freaking Caribbean. It was a rough day, and I'm not sure there was anyone on my team that wasn't in tears at some point, including me.

I've come to the conclusion that we really don't have a grasp on what reality really is. I think of the problems I deal with at home, and suddenly they don't seem like that big of a deal. Reality is holding a three year old who has had malaria for three weeks. Reality is not knowing whether she will live or die as she puts her head on your shoulder and then looks at you through bloodshot eyes, silently begging for your help. As I clasped her to my chest, all I could think was that this doesn't have to happen. It doesn't have to be this way, this is a preventable disease.

God, show me where I can help. Give me the courage and the ability to change the world, one person at a time.

Today was much less strenuous, but we got a lot accomplished anyway. My group put bookshelves together and set up a library for the school here. It felt great knowing that the kids will now have a place to sit and read.

In the afternoon we spent time helping a guy from Georgia who came on the trip with us. He has come up with a new formula of ingredients to add to peanut butter as a supplement for children's nutrition. This formula is healthier and more cost-effective than current similar formulas. By adding vegetable oil, powdered sugar, powdered vitamins, and whey protein, he can give kids here the nutrition they need. He's here to conduct a research project on it for eight weeks to see if it improves the health of some of the kids in the village. If it does work, he will find a way to mass produce it, and ship it to develpoing countries to combat starvation. We helped him mix the ingredients in and he let us taste some of it. It's incredibly tasty, but not exactly a good idea unless you want giant love handles. Helping him today made me realize that my generation really can end world hunger in our lifetime. I heard a guy from an organization called "Kids Against Hunger" say today, "Jesus said, The poor you will always have with you,' but he never said, 'The starving you will always have with you.'" I had never thought of it that way before. World hunger is so simple to stop, if Americans would just stop using 80% of the world's resources to get fatter and richer. All God asks for is equal distribution of what he has created. When I get home, I will be doing what I can to do my part to distribute everything more equally.

I'm beyond exhausted. My crew was responsible for working on building the house today. We worked alongside Haitian masons. Not "masons" like the bloodthirsty American cult (for any Masons reading this, just kidding...sort of), but more of the brick-laying variety. They did the lion's share of the block-laying, but we were able to do some. We mostly hauled mortar (read: really thick and heavy concrete), and cinder blocks (read: heavier than mortar buckets). I estimated that I carried 400 or more cinder blocks in a five hour span. I also was able to hand-sift a mountain of coral sand which is a component of the mortar, which the Haitians hand-mix. The Haitian workers are machines. If I had a construction business, I would hire these guys in a second. Long story short, we got all four walls put up in one day, not a bad day's work.

The thing I noticed about Haitian buildings is that they choose function and practicality over beauty. This house will withstand a hurricane when it is finished. My house is beautiful, but a hurricane (or tornado, seeing as how I live in Indiana) would reduce my house to something less than rubble. There's the difference. In America, we build for beauty, in Haiti they build for function and strength. I'm beginning to see that it might just make more sense toi build the Haitian way.

I'm starting to adjust to the insane climate. Sweating has become normal, so it doesn't bug me like it did when we arrived. Same can be said for the heat.

I was challenged by the American guy who runs the Mission to try a Haitan pepper. They just call it "pepper" and it's about the size of half an Ibuprofen tablet. I like hot stuff, but anyone who does will tell you that the smaller the pepper is, the hotter it will be. I thought about saving myself the trouble and just going ahead and eating it while sitting on the toilet, but I decided to take a chance. Holy crap, this thing was hot. Ten minutes of pain and increased sweating. I nicknamed it "Satan's Tylenol."

Anyway, I'm calling it a night, I'm wiped out.