"I Fish, Therefore I Lie"

So said a bumper sticker I saw at the pier today. I'm in the middle of a long weekend at the beach with the family. Today while playing in the surf with the boys, I watched the people along the pier standing there, many just waving their rods up and down continuously, like the apprentice in a blacksmith's shop stoking the fire with the bellows. While on the pier, I watched these same fisherman just stand there, keeping their rods in motion, engaging in conversation and almost oblivious to their repetitive motion. I wonder if they do that in their sleep?

I thought of myself the day before. I had spent the day fishing on the pier, only to come back to the camper with an empty cooler. What makes a person stand there all day, holding onto a stick with a piece of string tied to the end and hanging it in the water? As I grew increasingly frustrated with the empty cooler and contemplated when I would call it quits for the day, something would keep me going. I would get a bite. I would reel in my line only to catch a croaker that was too small, a pinfish, a baby shark, or some other ugly thing that no one could identify. As long as I caught one of these with enough frequency, I would keep going, hoping the next one would be a keeper. Or maybe the guy next to me would reel in a keeper and encourage me to keep trying.

There are a lot of lessons we can draw from this fish story. I might go on to say that we do some pretty stupid things sometimes and think we're having great fun. Or we could talk about how if a thousand people do a stupid thing it's still a stupid thing. Perhaps this is a great time to talk about doing nothing that's work related and taking a regular sabbath.

I'm thinking it's a great opportunity to talk about the hope that keeps us going when nothing else can. It does not matter how bad things might seem or be, there is always hope for those of us on a faith journey with Jesus Christ as our Savior. In his letter to the Romans, Paul tells us a lot about hope and how it keeps us going in tough times. Later Paul tells us that not only does this hope not disappoint us and keep us going, but it's a hope that promises a better life where we share in the glory of God. In fact, God is a God of hope and wants to fill us with it on this journey.

No matter what's happening in your life, there is always hope. And that's no fish story.

Honor and Respect

It's Memorial Day. Many churches across the country most likely took the opportunity to honor those who had given their lives in service to our country. Perhaps surviving relatives in their congregations were honored. I'm sure that even living vets were somehow recognized in some services. Other churches may have taken a slightly different approach. They may have used the opportunity to denounce our current war and the taking of life in combat in general. That's part of what makes this country so wonderful - the freedom to do either one.

War, no matter how necessary, is never a good thing. NBC Dateline aired a story last night about PTSD in soldiers returning from the war in Iraq. It highlighted studies done ever since WWII that measure how many soldiers actually shoot to kill versus simply firing in the enemies general direction. One lietunant colonel, in talking about the current post war/returning home health survey mentioned that soldiers are asked if they were injured or ever in grave danger. He said one of the most important questions not asked is, "Did you kill anyone?"

War, no matter how necessary, is never a good thing. When Saving Private Ryan came out ten years ago, a vet back home who served in the D-Day invasion said the film's depiction of the blood, confusion, violence, pain, etc. was head-on accurate. My wife and I watched Dr. Zhivago last night. In one scene where the Russian army is advancing to toward the front to engage the Germans in WWI, you get a sense of the despair encountered in the cold, harsh, bleak environment, littered with barbed wire and sharpened posts ready to impale someone. You see the hopelessness on the faces of the soldiers. It reminded me that war, no matter how necessary, is never a good thing.

Contrary to how it might seem, this is not an anti-war post. I'm posting no opinions on our current conflict, at least not today. This is a reminder to stop today to honor those men and women who throughout history, have given their lives for our country and our freedom. Don't qualify the recognition you give by denouncing the current administration or the current war. Just show respect and honor to these fallen heroes. Unqualified and well deserved honor and respect.

The Curse of Knowledge

In Made to Stick, brothers Chip and Dan Heath describe what they call the Curse of Knowledge. It's the tendency for people to find it hard to imagine (or remember) what it was like to NOT know something once we know it. As the writers put it, ". . . it becomes difficult for us to share our knowledge with others, because we can't readily re-create our listener's state of mind." Try this example they use to illustrate this. Tap out the rhythm to a familiar song like The Star Spangled Banner. Have someone listen and try to guess the song. Chances are about 1 in 50 they will guess it. You will have a hard time believing they can't guess it because you can hear the tune in your head. Just to illustrate how hard it is, tap out Happy Birthday as well. You'll notice the taps are identical.


This concept of the Curse of Knowledge is very easily applied to our faith journeys. In pastoral circles, seminars, classes, and books that all deal with the idea of sharing your faith with others, one of the recurring themes is that the more recent your conversion, the more readily and enthusiastically you are to share your testimony or faith with others. Over the years, I have noticed that the more knowledge one has about God, the Bible, and faith in general, the harder it is to communicate that to someone who knows very little. It's the Curse of Knowledge.


The effects of the Curse of Knowledge then begin to multiply. The knowledgable person becomes frustrated with the unknowledgable. They begin to formulate reasons why others don't understand. Many times those reasons are extremely harsh . . . and unfounded. Soon, the knowledgable person gives up all attempts to communicate his or her faith. This intensifies a different kind of curse on those who have not heard (there's one less messenger) and on those who have the knowledge (neglect of the mission given to us).


In your own faith journey, examine how knowledgable you are. If you are pretty well seasoned and experienced, how easily can you communicate this to others? Or have you just stopped trying? If you are pretty young on your journey, do everything you can to remember what it's like to not know anything.


The Curse of Knowledge has one other effect that I have addressed here. It makes simple things overly complex. This is definitely a curse when it comes to the Gospel.

1st Time ever guest post

dlucks, a good friend of mine, shared with me this particularly insightful time he had over a grill. With his permission, I am posting his thoughts as today's guest blogger.

Vicki & I were invited to a cookout a couple weekends ago. There were 4 couples there. We have no kids...the other 3 couples have 2 kids each. They know I like to cook so they asked if I'd man the grill. I was happy too. The guy had a lot of food...even more than enough to feed 8 adults and 6 kids. There was enough food for 2 batches on the grill. I got a batch of dogs, burgers and chicken going but not being familiar with this guy's grill, I started 'em off on medium. One of the other guys was hanging out with me. We were just chit chatting about stuff, passing the time. I kept an eye on the food...it was going, but slowly, so I kept inching the temp up. There was no rush...the grill is at the top of the driveway on the side of the house...everybody else was in the backyard...adults on the deck...kids playing football and having a water gun fight in the backyard...it was a beautiful Sunday afternoon. Next thing I knew, the grill was turned all the way up to HIGH but the flame wasn't. The food was cooking, but slowly. Again, nobody was yelling for food yet and my one buddy (not the guy whose house we were at) was hanging with me. Everybody was coasting along. More about that in a minute.

My buddy noticed this line of Leland Cyprus trees that separated the yard we were in from the neighbor's. If you know about these trees, they are evergreens and make perfect landscape barriers. They grow about 3-4 feet a year and these were easily 20 feet tall. He contrasted those trees with one Japanese Red Maple he and his wife had planted in their own front yard 6 years ago when they moved into their house. He said that over those 6 years, that tree (although very beautiful and very meaningful to him) didn't appear to have grown more than a few additional feet in total. He said that a week or two before, as a lot of stuff had begun to bloom, he noticed that his tree hadn't greened up like some on his street. He went out to inspect the tree and when he grasped the trunk and gave it a shake, he said all of the ground at the base of the tree moved. He pulled on the trunk a bit and he said the whole tree came up out of the ground. He was standing there holding a dead tree that was so long in the making. He inspected the ground to find a huge nest of ants that had killed this tree by destroying its roots. Now, back to the grill...

It took about 30 minutes to cook that first batch and we brought them off just as it started to drizzle. The adults and kids in the back came inside and we made sure the kids had something to eat. We put the 2nd batch on as the rain picked up. The guy whose house we were at came out to ask us what we needed. I told him about the slow cooking issue. He went to his deck and pulled over his big deck umbrella for us. It was really raining now. He asked if I thought we should change out the tank. I said I didn't see how that would really make any difference. After-all, the food was cooking...just not quickly. He said we should try changing it anyway. So we did...and the 2nd batch cooked in about 8 minutes.

So what, right? I didn't think much about any of it either but a couple days later, God gave me 2 applications from those events which I shared this week at a huddle with the Small Group Leaders I coach:

• Grill - things may look ok on the surface...might be going slower than we'd like but it's ok...until stormy weather hits. Underneath the surface, we need to make sure we've got a proper and constant flow of GAS (God's Awesome Spirit).
  
• Tree - again, things may look ok at first glance...we may be fine to coast along for a season...but when we start assessing our growth, we may find that if we haven't been making sure our roots are established, protected and healthy, we are wasting our time.

We (me and the SG Leaders) spent some time talking about the "roots" that we (as leaders) should establish and protect in the groups we lead. It was a good discussion starter and the actual cookout experience was a real eye-opener for me.

First Impressions

Now that season 16 of Survivor has ended and American Idol finishes this year's run this week, I've been worried about my wife and I will do together. Tonight we may have found our answer - The Bachelorette. I always find it amazing how this matchmaking shows work. I cannot understand how anyone can go on one of these shows in order to find true love.

It's interesting and embarassing to watch when it's so many men vying for the attention of one woman. Tonight, 25 men were competing for 15 spots. And oh my, the testosterone filled antics they tried to get DeAnna's attention during this one evening. I cannot believe that some guys really think women dig some of the stuff they tried.

As we were watching tonight's episode, my wife asked me a question I could not answer immediately. She asked me what I would have done in that situation to get her attention. We've been married so long and The Bachelorette is so not like anything either of us would have done that I cannot fathom being on that show. I did eventually give her an answer and it did not involve showing off my abs, running about in a Speedo with her name stitched on it, or any of the other ridiculous antics witnessed tonight.

Pondering this question caused me to immediately think, "This would be a great blog post." How would I make a great first impression on God? Luckily, I don't have to make good first impressions. He knows I've got lots of problems and he loves me already anyway. The only thing he wants is an honest, genuine, sincere, devoted relationship with him. That's a lot easier than trying to earn roses, I can tell you. Unfortunately, we tend to treat our relationship with God more like being on The Bachelorette, trying to earn his favor.

Shapely Hamburgers - part deux

A couple of weeks ago, I shared the strange phenomenon of placing circular hamburger patties on the grill and coming back to find oval shaped patties. Following up on the suggestion of a friend, I tried cooking an oval shaped burger to see what would happen. After analyzing and eating the results, I am now ready to present my findings. On April 30, I placed 5 circular burgers and one oval burger on the grill. When the cooking was complete, I had 5 circular burgers and 1 oval burger.

I must admit, I was surprised that the circular burgers did not convert to the previously elliptical result. These results are basically meaningless in explaining the phenomenon of circle to oval conversion. Well, maybe not meaningless. But they do require more tests to prove any theories. I suspect that temperature is the culprit. The grill was probably not as a hot the second time around.

This experiment mirrors what happens in the real world all the time. We see some result that we like and we want to get the same thing. We fail to duplicate ALL the conditions. We only do the parts we see or like. We might try to be like Jared and eat nothing but Subway in order to lose weight. But if we eat all our sandwiches loaded with high carb dressings, etc. and we always eat a footlong sub, and we fail to exercise, chances are we will gain the weight that Jared lost instead of losing. We would have to duplicate every aspect of what Jared did in order to get Jared's results.

We make these same mistakes on our faith journeys all the time. We spend our lives copying the actions of others without knowing whether we are copying all of the them or even the right ones. We do not analyze our own situations. We do it under our own advisement. We might (usually) try it without the power of the Holy Spirit, which is usually the main ingredient anyway. Does any of this sound like something that has happened in your life?

For years, I have been trying to get a certain kind of results in an environment where it probably won't happen. It's been an interesting three months for me as some of this has come to head. Following what I am confident is a divine leading, I have decided to document the current stage of my faith journey online. I have created a blog where I hope to daily journal on the happenings and thoughts of my life in these regards. I invite you to watch and even participate in my faith journey at The Year of Living Faithfully.

Inclusion and Mother's Day

A belated Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there. We spent yesterday with my wife's mother them both celebrate this special day. We went to church with her and experienced one of the best Mother's Day celebrations I've ever witness. Before I share my thoughts on that, let me take a moment to honor my own mom.

I'm the oldest of five kids, so I've witnessed my share of sacrifice on the part of my mom. I've seen household administration and organization done at its best. At an early age, I learned just how much work it takes to cook, clean, and care for a large family. Now that I have my own kids, I can look back and understand more fully the level of love, understanding, and occasional disappointment that goes into the job of parenting. As I watch the mother of my own children do a much better job than I at this gracious aspect, I appreciate more what my mother must have felt when I was growing up. Thanks for all you did and still do.

Back to yesterday. If you have ever attended church on Mother's Day, chances are pretty good that you have witnessed a service very similar to the one we were part of yesterday. The oldest mom, the youngest mom, and the mom with the most children present were given special recognition. Then, all the mothers were asked to stand. The ushers proceeded to give each woman a special token of appreciation. So far, nothing new, at least for me. Once all the mothers were seated again, the innovation came.

The pastor honored a few women who were not mothers in the biological or even the legal sense. One particular older woman was recognized for being like a mother to so many people in the church. Another childless woman was honored for her work as an OB/GYN nurse. Both of these women had wanted children, but through various circumstances had been unable to have any.

Being as sensitive to emotions as possible, the pastor then asked if there were any other women he had not included who wanted to be mothers and been unable to. Two women who had suffered numerous miscarriages came forward. It was all very moving, Through it all, I was very impressed by the way the church honored as many people as possible without offending anyone.

In my mind, I contrasted this with another Mother's Day celebration that did not go as well. In this church, the pastor did not want to offend any women, even those who had chosen to not have children. He changed the day to "Women's Day" and every woman was given a token of recognition. What happened is that more women were offended at this change then might possibly had been if the non-mothers had been excluded. The complaints I heard came from women who had children and those who did not. The complaint was the same, "This is supposed to be Mother's Day, NOT Women's Day."

All these thoughts began to be directed to the idea of inclusion in the church. In many churches, regardless of how progressive they might be, there are many exclusionary elements that make newcomers and non-church people feel out of place. The strange vocabulary we use is one of those. Unspoken habits and dress codes are another. It might be the style of music or elements of worship.

I think that church is supposed to be as inclusive as possible. I feel that way because I'm fairly certain that's the way God wants it too. I've been part of many churches that were not. When things were changed to make them a little more inclusive, people in the church responded much in the same way some of the women responded to Women's Day - negatively. I've been part of churches where people grasped the missional vision that God has for the church and dealt with it. They did not feel trampled on just because things were done to include the outsider.

In your faith journeys, where have you been excluded? Where have you felt included? How have you endeavored to include those around you that God wants to see journey with you?

BOGO

BOGO - an acronym in retail sales that stands for Buy One Get One. For example, "Buy One, Get One free" or "Buy One, Get One half price"

This past weekend I saw an advertisedment on the scrolling marquee outside a big box pharmacy that included the acronym BOGO. The marquee did not indicate whether the "get one" was free, half price, or any other price. It simply said, "BOGO widgets" and then scrolled to the next deal on hand cream or something.

I didn't think anything of it. I have seen BOGO used frequently enough that I know what it means. I wonder, however, what percentage of the rest of the population does? I first recall seeing BOGO used three or four years ago by national inexpensive retail shoe store chain. I don't know if they can take credit for making BOGO part of our everyday vernacular, but they are the ones who did for me.

New words get introduced into our language all the time, especially with technological advances. "Internet" is a pretty new word, despite it's widespread use. Words change their meanings over time. Keith Drury has written an interesting article here about that. The use of certain words can easily segregate us into groups. When I was a public school teacher, I was amazed at how many acronyms we had that were somewhat esoteric to our profession. All professions have their own core set of exclusive words.

Language can sometimes be a segregator when it comes to our faith journeys. For those of us who grew up in church, we know all the buzzwords. For someone who is new to faith and Christianity, it's easy to get lost in conversation, the sermon, or even in Bible study because there are so many words you don't understand. The saddest thing for me is when individuals get discouraged and never come back because of all these words they don't understand.

Without harping on the exclusivity issue too much, there are words that get introduced into our lives when we begin our faith journeys that bring positive results. Words like "grace", "hope", "forgiveness", and "love". We already know these words and their meanings, but when one begins a faith journey, they take on a whole new significance. They become more readily recognizable. BTW, BOGO has one other meaning. According to mybaby-name.com, it is a Slavic boy's name which means "receives God's glory", another thing which happens to us when we begin our faith journeys. That's a new word I'm definitely excited about introducing into my life.

Just a thought . . .

Whachis!

In case you've never seen the t-shirt, "Whachis" is defined as the last words said by a redneck before killed in some stupid stunt, i.e. "Watch This". We've probably all been guilty of this at least once, us guys anyway. While in the dentist's lobby today, I read an article in Sports Illustrated (Apr 21 edition) about the dangerous risks we take. The writer had signed up for a weekend bull riding school. He broke his collarbone. A fellow student was killed. This weekend my wife probably felt like I belonged somewhere in these categories.

Here's the story. If you are blood related to me, you were there when this happened. The other three people who read this were not, so bear with me as I share the details. We were gathered at my sister's house for my niece's birthday party. Her husband brought out his childhood go-cart for everyone's enjoyment. I got the second ride of the day, just to test the throttle and choke adjustments. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. On my last lap around the house, I turned the wheel sharply to pull into the "pit area". I turned a little too sharply. The go cart flipped. The upper frame landed on my forearm (I have a big knot near my elbow). This is a picture of the "road rash" I received as the cart and I slid for a few feet. My wife screamed. My oldest son, my brother-in-law, and the other fathers there for the party all laughed. Then all the wives sat around and talked about their juvenile husbands. The younger wives were warned by the older ones that it does not get any better.


This pic was taken the morning after. It doesn't do justice to how really cool the scrape looked when it first happened. When it first happened, I had red streaks all the way up to my wrist. The wound area was a bit wider. I was totally bummed the next morning when I saw how much it had healed. I was hoping to get a day or two of some really cool stories to tell about my great accident.

I have found that many of us treat our faith journeys with a "whachis" attitude or we glory in our accidents. We talk about how bad our lives were before we began our journeys. We do it for all kinds of reasons. We do it to remind ourselves how far we have come. Sometimes we do it to brag about how far we have come, forgetting the grace element. Perhaps we want to get some excitement back into our lives and we start walking down memory lane.

It becomes really dangerous when we say "whachis" with our faith journeys and allow ourselves to be put in risky situations where staying true to our faith can be difficult. It is true that God will always give us a way out of any temptation we may face. At the same time, it is our responsibility to avoid the temptation as much as possible, not go hunting it down.

Other times we want to hold onto our wounds. We may know that God can heal any wound in our lives. We know that it is through Jesus Christ that he does this. But the wound becomes such a major part of who we are, that we don't want to let it go. We are afraid of what life will be like if we don't have it in our lives. That fear is another one of those things God can deliver us from.

Which of these categories do you belong in? BTW, my son later turned over the minibike. We went window shopping for dirt bikes today.

Sci-fi and the Essentials

As promised in my hamburger post, here are some thoughts I have about science fiction and Christians. Incidentally, per suggestion of a friend, I will be testing out what happens when the burger starts out as an oval. But back to science fiction. I love science fiction. I've become an avid reader of fantasy literature as well. Both genres have been considered suspect at best and absolutely sinful and evil at worst by many people who consider themselves very conservative Christians. My profile states that I hope to publish the next great sci-fi or fantasy novel. Like many others, I do not see how being on a Christian faith journey is incompatible with a love for these genres of literature.

I've tried to discern why this disparaging view exists in some people's mind. I can certainly understand some of the opposition by Christian groups. Some fantasy literature does border on promoting the occult, but not all. References to multiple gods also trouble some. Science fiction (or science in general) has a reputation for being totally naturalistic, humanistic, and altogether anti-God. But these wide sweeping generalizations wipe out examples of this literature that come nowhere close to exhibiting these characteristics. And even if they exist, should a good story be ignored and not seen as just that, a good story?


C.S. Lewis and The Chronicles of Narnia are always the exception. These books are allowed in, but none other. It has been said, however, that these books would have never been "accepted" if published for the first time in today's society. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings have enjoyed a recent admission to the list. The funny thing is neither author claimed to have inserted overtly Christian themes into these, at least not purposefully. I'll admit that's hard to argue when reading Lewis, but not so with Tolkien. Could it be that Christians are reading into these stories that which they want to see, so they can justify liking them?


Before we go down a postmodern path where truth is relative and we begin pondering who really determines what something is saying, let's come back to the science fiction antipathy. Why are Christians afraid of it? Does the possibility that life exists in other parts of the universe really contradict God so much, just because Genesis does not mention it? Is the notion, even without extraterrestrial life, that humans might explore and colonize the outer reaches of our galaxy and beyond, hundreds of thousands of years from now so great a challenge to the predominant view of the end time as many interpret the book of Revelations?


These thoughts should not be construed as an attack on interpretations that disagree with mine. I'm just curious as to why the disagreement can become some energized. What is it about sci-fi and fantasy that scares many Christians, beyond those things I mentioned above? By the way, I think this will eventually lead us down the postmodern path. What do you think?

Ponderings on change

Insomnia, leg cramps, and a host of minor inconveniences kept my body from sleep at the early stages of this morning. Eventually, I gave up the fight and lay in bed pondering the larger host of thoughts running through my mind. They all seem to have a common theme - change, specifically change in the church. Among the various subpoints that garnered my mental energy this morning are the basic questions that we all ask, the what, when, where, why, and how of change in the church.

Several stories ran through my mind. I thought about Martin Luther and the history making change he initiated in the 15th century. I don't know if this is an actual event from Luther's life, but a particular scene from the movie Luther has always moved me (from what I know of that time in history, it is probably factual). In this scene, a young Martin Luther is serving as a monk, devoting his time to God in monastery. He was plagued with all sorts of spiritual and personal issues. His abbott decided that formal education and seminary would be a good path for Luther. The abbott asks Luther in this scene, "Have you ever read the New Testament?" I was floored - here is a religious monk devoting himself to God and reading the New Testament was not a given?! One of the most important changes wrought by the Protestant Reformation was the placing of Scripture back in the hands of the people.

Another story that filtered through my memory was an illustration I heard a fellow pastor use once. It's a story of pastor who came to a church and wanted to change the arrangement of the platform to make things look and work together better. It was obvious to him that the organ needed to be beside the piano, so he moved it across the stage. That first Sunday people were shocked. Within two weeks he was asked to leave and the organ put back into its original spot. A couple of years later, he was attending a meeting of other pastors at that same of church. He noticed the organ had been moved beside the piano. He asked the current pastor, "How did you do that? When I moved it, they fired me!" The other pastor replied, "I heard about that. Like you, it was obvious to me it needed to be moved, so I just moved it a few inches a week until I got it where it needed to be."

For someone like me who tends to be maverick in my doings, the most important thoughts I had fell into the "Why?" category. Why do we want to see change? Is it because things no longer work in their current state? Is it to satisfy a personal whim or preference? Is it because we are bored? Is it because we are genuinely inspired and motivated by something greater than ourselves? Is it because we have all been created with our own creative spark and for some of us, if we do not exercise and nurture that spark, we'll go crazy?

The funny shape of things

Last night I fell asleep thinking about science fiction, post modernity, and how people on a Christian faith journey should relate to these. I woke continuing that stream of consciousness. I really want to post some of those thoughts soon, but this morning another question begs to be answered. Why do my hamburger patties , which start out as nice perfect circles, take on an oval shape after they are cooked? This is a phenomenon I noticed a few weeks back. After grilling about twenty burgers for a cookout last night, this geometric and backyard culinary oddity snagged my attention again.

Applying the scientific method, I came up with several hypotheses. 1) It's the particular brand of pre-made patties. Perhaps they contain some sort of weird-you-don't-really-want-to-know ingredient that automatically conforms it to an oval when heated. 2) Maybe it's because I had the heat too high, causing rapid and uneven contraction, thus resulting in an oval. 3) Maybe the burgers have a mind of their own and they thought they were being prepared for a tailgating party. Assuming a football shape seemed appropriate. 4) Possibly, in conjunction with #1, there is a conspiracy and marketing relationship with the manufacturers of oval shaped buns. Once I realize that the burgers will always be this shape, I will begin searching for buns of a similar shape. 5) Again in conjunction with #1, these burgers are intentionally designed to assume this shape so that when placed on a round bun, there is a little extra place to accomodate condiment run-off. This assumes another possible partnership with the condiment industry. 6) If I try hard enough, I can probably blame the current adiministration, the opponents of the current administration, or even aliens.

Honestly, I don't know which of these thoughts is the most likely to be correct. I'm sure there are several more plausible explanations that I have not thought of yet. Humans have gone through this process for all of history. We have sought explanation and understanding for everything we experience. Mythologies are created, things considered scientific fact are established, and years later, we come into other data that debunks earlier myths and science.

I think the same thing happens in our faith journeys, at least in how we organize them socially and politically. The faith journey of Moses and its practices look strange next to Martin Luther's reformation or John Wesley's class meetings. Put the way we do church today alongside any other period of history and you get the same results. Even today, I am continually having conversations with people about whether the shape of church today even works anymore. Why does church look the way it does? What is the right way to practice our faith, individually and with others? Is there a better shape?

Maybe burgers don't have to be round. Maybe some other things can be different too.

Chiggers, the Price of Gas, and Other Random Thoughts

For those of you curious, I've not had a chance to further test the Peanut Butter diet theory. I ran out of peanut butter, at least the reduced fat kind. Some people are amazed that I like the reduced fat kind better - I just think it tastes better. The other day I was able to identify why. The reduced fat (at least in the Peter Pan line) tastes sweeter. I checked the labels, and sure enough, the reduced fat has more sugar - 5 grams vs. 3 grams per equal sized serving. I guess that's a trade off.

Last week I went on a few different hikes with the boys. My youngest son wanted to go on a long hike. He had asked to go on a six mile hike in order to explore a pond I had recently discovered. I convinced him of a shorter one. When we got back to the car, we still had done over three miles. I was very proud of him. The next day I took my other son and his friends on a hike to one of their favorite spots in the woods. They had a great time, so I did too. Sunday night I discovered two chigger bites that are driving me crazy right now. I suppose that is the price you pay for being in the woods.

I filled my car up yesterday. I paid $3.42 a gallon at one of the discount warehouses. I couldn't believe it. While driving around town, I noticed the average price in our area is about $3.5o per gallon. I never thought I would see these kind of prices in my lifetime. And there does not seem to be any sign of the prices to reverse any time soon. It's appalling. In a separate conversation, a friend mentioned the government should get involved. He said all it takes is the word "regulation" and we'll see the prices go back down.

As I paid way too much to fill up my Toyota Corolla I thought about that conversation and debated the merits of that idea. I'm pretty conservative when it comes to my views on how involved the government needs to be in our lives. I'm usually a proponent of "let the market handle things". When I tried to apply that principle to the gas prices, I'm not entirely convinced that would work. It would take the consumers - us - resorting to buying less fuel, using less fuel, and making the personal sacrifices necessary to see it have any effect. As a society, we have already demonstrated that we are willing to pay whatever it costs in order to do what we want. How many of us have said as express our frustration over the prices, "But we've got to have it"? So, I began to think about that government regulation idea. Am I willing to make the tradeoff in order to have lower prices? Would regulation actually lower the price or result in something else?

This blog is supposed to be about our faith journeys. What kind of tradeoffs do we make in our faith journeys, positive and negative? What ones should we make? I don't have a well thought out response for that yet, but I do have some ideas.

Community is one of those tradeoffs. When we enter a relationship with God through Jesus Christ, i.e. become a Christian, begin a faith journey, etc., we become part of a larger group doing the same. The Bible calls it the Body of Christ. It's not always easy, convenient, or even desirable to be part of a larger body. It requires us to put our individual desires and preferences aside. We are called to look out to the interests of others, not just ourselves.

Some tradeoffs are artificial ones we create, thinking them necessary and required. In our efforts to become changed people and more like Jesus, we establish systems of rules that have to be observed when they have little to do with being like Jesus.

There are plenty others. What are some of the ones you think of? Am I off base with the two I've started with? Just a thought - what are yours?

In only 8 days . . .

. . . I ate an entire 28 ounce jar of Peter Pan reduced fat creamy peanut butter (no crunchy was available). During that same time period I also lost three and half pounds! My initial conclusion is that by eating a jar of peanut butter every week I can lose weight. I will test that hypothesis this week by eating a second jar. If I can show the same weight loss results, I plan to publish a diet book called The Peanut Butter Diet of course. If it works for me, it has to work for everyone. At least everyone will think it will.

Of course, these are all faulty assumptions. They are the kind of examples used to teach statistical concepts like correlations or expose snake oil medicine posing as real research. It's not much different in the church. Throughout human history, we have given in to the tendency to codify, to the exclusion of everything else, how God is to be experienced, how we are to dress, how God is to be worshipped, what type of music can be used, which elements are to be used in a worship service and in what order. In the name of some unofficial authority, we have even codified what happens in the private lives of people in terms of their relationship with God - you must pray this many times a day, read this much Scripture, etc. Many of these are a result of something that worked for an individual or maybe even a small group of individuals that we assumed to work for everyone.

Thinking like this requires that God be static. It is true that God is unchanging - he will always be all powerful, all knowing, all loving, perfectly good and just, full of grace and mercy, etc. But God is not static. God is dynamic. He is always doing a new thing. Instead of sending another Moses to liberate His people from Babylonian exile, he used the kings of Babylon themselves to not only set them free, but finance the rebuilding of Jerusalem. Jesus reminded us that new wine is not put into old wineskins.

God is creative and creativity results in new things. God gave us creative power. When two dynamic beings enter into a relationship, that relationship will naturally be dynamic. The trick for us is to remember that God is the head of the relationship so he will have final authority over any newness we try to bring to the relationship.

I want my faith journey to be dynamic. I want to be ready to experience the new things that God may have in store for me. I don't want to be afraid to step away from something old and familiar in order to do so. And I want the grace and wisdom to recognize when it works for me but not necessarily everyone else.

Kissing Up

I heard a cover version of a 60's hit while in a fast food resturant today. The song was It's in His Kiss. The key line in the song is "if you wanna know if he loves you so, it's in his kiss". I pondered the truth in those words while drying my hands. I don't know if you have ever been the recipient of an insincere kiss, but I have. I don't know if you have ever been the giver of an insincere kiss, but I have. What the songwriter says is true - you can tell if somebody loves you by his or her kiss. Everything else can be faked.

U2 sang a song about a kiss too - In the Name of Love. The song talks about Jesus, among others who were also known for their tremondous capacity to love, and it references the incident in the Garden of Gethsemane when Judas identified Jesus for the arresting soldiers by kissing him. After listening to that other song and contemplating its truthfulness, I began thinking about this kiss. Could Jesus tell by the kiss whether Judas really loved him? We already know that Jesus knew what Judas was going to do - he wasn't surprised at all. But, how did the kiss feel?

My thinking naturally moved to all of us and especially me. If I were to give Jesus a kiss today, would he know how much I loved him? Don't freak out as you read this. I don't like the "Jesus is my boyfriend" feeling that much of today's understanding of a faith journey sounds like. You know what I'm getting at. What would my kiss tell Jesus about my love for him? What would your kiss say?

Just a thought.

Just one more bite

WARNING: This post contains references to my obsession with peanut butter.

Tonight as I kept sneaking back to the pantry for another spoonful (yes, I doubled dipped, but it's also my own personal jar), I reminded myself that I'm supposed to be losing weight. Peanut butter is allowed on the program, but not a cup a day. It also reminded me that much of the weight loss struggle for anyone is controlling the appetite. Read the diet books, join one of the diet programs (Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, etc.) and one thing they work into their systems is keeping you from going hungry. This enables you to partially control the eating. Your goal then becomes to not give into impulse eating.

Here's where people well versed in the Bible will immediately recognize a reference. Some will scoff at how I'm using it though. With each successive spoonful of peanut butter I ate tonight, one thing and one thing alone was happening. I was thoroughly enjoying myself. The taste and texture was incredible. It was a true pleasure of the flesh. It was pure sensual enjoyment. I know some of the people who will be reading this and I already know the less than pure thoughts going through your minds. Don't leave them on my comment board!

Eating peanut butter (or your own favorite food), getting a buzz whether it be from nicotine, alcohol, or something harder, and yes even sexual pleasures are all things that require our self-discipline to control. I wanted more peanut butter. I can safely say that for about five minutes, I was consumed by peanut butter instead of me consuming it. Before you label me as demented, how many times have you done that with a bag of potato chips? You know can't eat just one!

As I ate that last spoonful tonight, I contemplated how I just wanted more. I evaluated my self-discipline. I also thought about the Holy Spirit and my relationship with God. Do I view the experiential aspect of my relationship with God the same way? Do I seek, do I crave more of the presence I feel in worship? Do I desire to know him more when I experience the breadth, height, and depth of his love? Or is that the area where I choose to exercise self-control and limit myself to how much of that I can have? Just a thought.

Why?

As I was watching the movie Hotel Rwanda Saturday night, the night before Easter, that was question that kept running through my mind - Why?
- Why would people act so violently and cruelly to their fellow man, trying to kill an entire people group?
- Why did the world turn their head to this violence and not intervene?
- Why would God give his only Son, why would Jesus willingly die and suffer so, for the human race that had become so capable of this? Why do this when we would all reject this act of love without his grace that somehow enables us to respond positively to it?

The only answer is love. God's love has to be immeasurable. There is no other reason. Logic cannot explain it. There is no rational understanding that can be applied. It truly is unfathomable. It is unbelievable. Yet it happened.

Though we are not told this in the movie, I guess that answers another why question. Why would someone like Paul Rusesabagina risked his life the way he did, without any support from those who could have and should have helped? It had to be God's love working in his life, whether he realized it or not. I do know that his wife kept fingering a cross she had hung around her neck the entire movie. This cross seemed to always be prominent when she was in the scene.

I guess the next question we all need to answer is why we do what we do, good or bad. Just a thought.

Mikhail Gorbachev Admits He's a Christian!!

Here's the story. Just goes to show you don't really know what is going on in people's lives from what you see on the outside.

Going Green

No, this isn't a late St. Patrick's Day post nor will it be extolling the virtues of driving a Prius, using cloth shopping bags, or reducing my carbon footprint. It would be more accurate to say I'm shooting for a more organic lifestyle. And for my second set of disclaimers, that doesn't mean I will be buying a pair of Birkenstocks and shopping only at Whole Foods.

I want my life to be more organic and less mechanistic. When I say organic, I mean life is fostered. Contrast this with a mechanistic approach where production is the important metric. Our society is largely a mechanistic society. You see it in economics, politics, sports, even in agriculture (smile!), family life and religion. The key metric by which success is determined is what has been produced. I'm not campaigning for an anticapitalist revolution. But I do believe that our post-industrial revolution mindset has crept into areas where it shouldn't be. Areas that are relationship based and more organic in nature.

Organic living fosters living in others. When my family relationships are healthy, my children, my spouse, and my extended family members grow. I'm not trying to force some type of production - compliance with a certain set of behaviors or specific responses to my actions. Those are mechanistic. If we're living organically, then I am fostering my children's development into healthy adults because of their growing, not because they give me the conditioned response.

Our spiritual lives are definitely meant to be organic. If you read the Bible, all the key imagery of healthy living occurs in an organic mindset. We were created and put in a garden, not a factory. God is the gardener and his people are a vineyard. Jesus taught about producing healthy fruit, not about making the best pots or furniture. When our relationship with him is organically healthy, then we grow. Others grow around us.

Instead, we have tried to make our faith journeys mechanistic. If I perform A, B, and C in my faith journey, I will produce characteristics X, Y, and Z. If our church will implement this procedure, we will see that result.

There's a lot more that needs to be said. I'll have to leave it to this for now. Just a thought.

More cheese, please

Sorry, but yesterday's quote by Chesterton has really set my mind to thinking. Mainly, whether or not he really said what Lowes Food claims he said. A quick Google of "chesterton cheese" directed me to a sonnet written by Chesterton in honor of a Stilton Cheese. You'll have to forgive my infatuation with this subject. I guess it makes me feel a little less strange to know that even men of Chesterton's stature could be motivated to write on such mundane topics.

Believe it or not, I can relate this to your faith journey. Not that there are any similarities between cheese and having a relationship with God. But there are similarities to the strange things that some of us become enthralled by, infatuated with, inspired to write about, etc. and what motivates similar energy outputs for our faith journeys. I think we can also stretch things a little more and say that faith is supposed to be real and ordinary at times, affecting every aspect of our lives, even the mundane and cheesy things.

Somehow, I think Chesterton is probably rolling over in his grave.