Confessions of a Geek

DISCLAIMER: If you came looking for something to encourage you on your faith journey, this post probably won't be it. If you came looking for someone to laugh it, this is your lucky day. I'm taking a break from the usual today in order to love life.

Last night, I confirmed to myself what I have known all along. I AM A GEEK! My wife gave me two of the coolest toys ever. The first was a Darth Tater (Mr. Potato Head dressed as Darth Vader). The second was a Jedi light sabre training game. It has a little camera/sensor you mount on top of the tv and a play sabre you hold while fighting bad guys and going thru training exercises on the screen. I waited all day Christmas to get a chance to play it while my kids played with their new video game or I set up all their other toys. Honestly, I was hoping to get them involved in something else so I wouldn't have to share.

I finally got to play. And I did terrible. Couldn't get past stage 1 of my training. To add insult to injury, I finally let my oldest son play and he cruised right along to stage 2. Then I let my six-year old play and it was really quite funny to watch him jump all over the living room. BUT, he too cruised right along to stage 2. Humility is too mild a word to describe what I was feeling. This must be how it feels when you realize your teenage son could kick your butt in a fight and he knows it too. He just doesn't out of respect.

I resisted the urge to play. I nursed my ego all evening. "I think I need to recalibrate the settings for my player" was my excuse. I finally gave in. Once the boys were in bed and asleep, I gave it one more try. For the record, recalibration actually helped. I finished the evening just a hair's breadth from completing stage two. I can now proudly say I am once again better than my 8 1/2 year old and my 6 year old sons. If only my father could see me now.

But that's not what makes me a geek. As I was playing, I found myself speaking to myself as if Master Yoda was coaching me. At one point, I found myself slipping into scenes from the movies. Before I realized what was happening, I was fighting with the light sabre in my right hand while holding up my left, using the force to knock back my enemies. During this display of geekness, my wife sat on the couch, watching, wishing she was video taping the whole affair, and generally making fun of me. That's ok. She can laugh if she wants to. She'll thank me the next time we are attacked by battle drones or some punk gang of Sith wannabe's.

BTW, my kids wanted to watch Episode I the other night. That gave me an excuse to watch the other five when we were done. I managed to get II & III in over the weekend. Maybe I can get Episode IV in tonight.

Gotta go now. I have a training date with Anakin.

A Christmas Wish

Merry Christmas!

May it be filled with the joy, life, light, hope, peace, and love it was intended to bring.

And I hope your faith journey take you places like that everyday :-)

Survivor Part 2 - Beauty that lasts

Ok, here's my second set of thoughts from watching the Survivor finale Sunday night. Imagine how you would look if you spent 39 days on a remote island or in a remote jungle without any basic facilities like showers, running water in general, toilets, etc. Well, that's how these people look too. My wife is so glad we don't have smell-o-vision yet.

WARNING: The next paragraph or two may come off as chauvinistic, sexist, and just plain ol' male drivel. However, read through it and you will see a wonderful recovery at the end.

Every season there are one or two women on the show who try to use their feminine charms to get them through the game. They are usually quite attractive in every sense of the word. The other women often recognize this. The males usually do too, but only if they are over the age of thirty and know they really don't stand a chance with these women. BTW, the attractive women usually target the under thirty set anyway.

Now for the recovery. Remember the fact that there are no facilities of any type. That includes make-up. I am always amazed at how different most of the women look on the finale show. They have had showers, done their hair, and put on make-up. The guys usually don't look much different with the exception of maybe a shave. And almost always, we (the missus and I) agree that we liked the physical appearance of the women on the island/jungle better. It's not that they are not attractive with make-up and done hair, you just get used to how someone looks and that's how you like them.

OK, maybe that not's a recovery in your mind, but I know I'm no chauvinist. Just ask my wife. She'll tell you that I find her the most attractive when she feels she is at her worst.

Faith journey connections - where are they? The real rewards of a faith journey come when you are in the trenches, getting dirty, struggling with life, and when you generally feel like you are at your least attractive, at least in terms of your faith journey. When you come out of those struggles with new understanding, that "natural beauty" shines through and people take notice. When we put on our best face and pretend this is how we always are, it may look good, but it doesn't last. I prefer natural, honest beauty (and faith).

Just a Thought.

Statistics, Schmatistics

Did you hear the good news today? According to a recent study, 95% of all people have engaged in premarital sex. This includes women. Glad to hear that, who else would all those men been engaging with? It also includes people going back to the 1940's. The whole point of the story was to say that we as a society have not been as chaste historically at we would like to believe. It is also being used as "evidence" to discredit abstinence only education.

I don't know what to think of this. Ninety-five percent sounds pretty high. Is this an agenda driven report? Most likely so. But if it's true, if it's accurate, now what? My first thought is this - If a gazillion people do a stupid thing it's still a stupid thing. Having premarital sex is not a stupid thing, but I do think it is an unwise thing. Just because everyone else MIGHT be doing it doesn't mean you have to.

On a deeper level, the debate about all things related to Christian morality will rage for a few days before drifting off into irrelevancy, waiting for the next heat-of-the-moment piece of fuel. People will try to determine what was meant by "premarital sex" and how far is too far before you cross that line. High schoolers, college-aged, and young adults will be the most common participants in this discussion. There will even be the "what about engaged couples" debate. I know this will happen because I used to take part in every one of them when I was a high schooler, college-aged, young adult, and engaged person. The church will shake its head, wring its hands, and cry out in despair and frustration at the declining mores of society and general loss of its young people.

OR, the debates will take place. High schoolers, college students, young adults, and engaged couples will ask the questions. And those of us on a faith journey will answer with this question - What is the place of sex on your faith journey? That's really what's it all about. It's not about looking for loopholes, special permission, or adjusting the meaning to fit cultural dynamics. You can say the same about gambling, slavery, abortion, drinking, smoking, divorce, racism, wealth, greed, war, poverty . . . any issue you would like.

Where do we find the answers? You find them in community with other people on a faith journey. That's not what you thought I was going to say is it? You know, 95% of people asked would have said "the Bible."

When you gather your community around you to determine what place _______ has on a faith journey, make sure your community is made up of people actually on a faith journey. You can't just assemble the people around you who will tell you what you want to hear. If your community is a faith journey community, you will get your answer. The answer will come from their experience, the traditional perspective on the issue, their reasoning, and yes, even the Bible. I don't want you to "go to the Bible" by yourself because a committee of one is pretty easy to convince.

The really cool part of finding answers in community like this is that God, the author of all faith journeys, is usually right in the midst, guiding this part of everyone's journey. He really is one you want to please anyway, isn't it? Isn't a faith journey supposed to lead you to Him?

By the way, 99.9999999999999999999999999999999999999 % of the world's population won't care how you answer the question. But there is One who always will.

Survivor Part 1 - Power, Bitterness, & Games

One of my favorite shows to watch is Survivor. I don't watch a lot of tv, but this one show I will not miss. We tape it every week. In fact, it's a date for the missus and me. We can count on the other person stopping so we can watch it together.

I'm writing while watching the finale. Before I finish writing, the winner will be named and someone will win $1 million. (BTW, it was Yul, the tall Korean?? guy) One thing I always find ridiculous in watching the finale is how bitter the losers, uh . . er. . .I mean the jury is. There is always a group of people who were outwitted, outplayed, just plain outsmarted that cry like a bunch of babies. They inevitably ask the final players questions that demonstrate that they, the jury, now have the power.

The premise of the game is to outwit, outsmart, outplay your competitors. I'm not condoning dishonesty or weak ethics in life, but the bottom line is THIS IS A GAME! I'm willing to bet my 401K that those who are the most bitter would have done the same things had they been given the opportunity. They never got the chance because they did not play as well.

This is a blog about finding connections in what happens in our ordinary lives to what God wants to do in our lives. It's all about our faith journeys. On our faith journeys, there will be a lot of times where we are in the losers seat. Life will not be fair. People around you will take advantage of you and they will use you.

When this happens, we get to choose how we will respond. We don't have to like it, but bitterness is not the answer. Power has nothing to do with how you control others or how you have been controlled. Power can only be used against us when we give it to others. Our response is the real indicator.

What's any of this got to do with our faith journeys? Jesus, whose birth we celebrate this month, modeled real power. Jesus, the son of God, gave it all up to take on human form. Not only did he take on human form, but he obeyed the limits of that form, even unto death. Death couldn't hold him, which is why we celebrate Resurrection Sunday, commonly called Easter. And in the end, his name was made greatest of all. That is real power.

We too can experience that kind of power by entering into a faith journey and losing our self in Christ. Life's experiences will bring moment of potential bitterness. It helps to know that we are on a journey and this is not our final destination. Besides, we are told to count it all joy when trials and troubles come our way. Just like on Survivor, it's how you play right up to the end that determines whether or not you win. Only the prize is worth a lot more than $1 million.

Putting it all on the line

Humility has been my watch word and song this week. There are lots of reasons why, but I'm only going to tell you about one. I joined an online writers group this week. If you've read my profile, you know I aspire to publish a speculative fiction novel one day. BTW, "speculative fiction" is a new term I've picked up in the last few weeks. It is essentially sci-fi/fantasy, but that's not important, at least not here, not today.

On this online forum I've joined, aspiring writers can submit the first 13 lines of their work to receive feedback by folks who at least sound like they know what they are talking about. I spent the first week reading all the other stuff that had been submitted and their critiques. Boy, was I intimidated. I could see the reasoning behind every criticism and suggestion AFTER I read every criticism and suggestion. When I compared these submissions to my own work I thought, "I'll never get published."

I swallowed my pride and my nerves this morning and submitted my first thirteen lines. I received two immediate feedbacks, one not so nice. I wonder if I will ever make it. I submitted a revision and am waiting for the wrath to come.

This whole process is a lot like a faith journey. No really, it is. Most of us want to be something greater and we sincerely try. In private, where nobody knows. If we put it all out there where others can see and evaluate it, somebody's gonna eventually give us some corrective and instructive feedback. We don't always want to hear it. Sometimes we become so defeated after receiving it that we stop altogether.

We should see those opportunities as growth opportunities. We should be thankful that someone is willing to help push us along on our faith journeys. We should never give up, retreat, or just hide. That's not a journey - that's a bus stop. Does it require humility? Yes. Does it bring great reward? Yes. Is it worth it? You know the answer.

slowing down

Life happened this weekend, so it kept me from posting on Monday. Today, I've got so many things floating thru my mind that I dug into the archives of some unposted thoughts, looking for something I could post. Here's an unposted and edited thought from a couple months ago that seems appropriate right now.

I'm noticed something about myself lately. I'm slowing down more often. Not just when I'm unwinding, but in general. On the road between home and the office, the speed limit is 55 mph. But I regularly only drive about 45, rarely ever above 50. It becomes really obvious when the cars begin to line up behind me, right on my bumper, edging across the yellow line and looking for a chance to pass me. Luckily it's only four miles because the folks behind me are not all equally patient.

My taste in music seems to be changing. I still enjoy rock & roll with hard driving guitars, urban contemporary with a good bass line, and the occassional feel good pop song. I find myself gravitating towards things a little softer and more on the "easy listening" side. When I do get a chance to sample the latest rock, pop, or R&B, I found myself struggling to make out some of the lyrics. Maybe it's the ear-piercing volume at which I used to enjoy my music that now makes it difficult to hear the lyrics properly. I recently read where someone is marketing higher pitch ringtones to teens because adult ears do not hear them as well.

As I made my 47 mph drive home while listening to the soft easy rhythms of my music, I had a horrifying thought. "I"m getting OLD!!!" I don't mind the benefits of age like increased wisdom. I have even welcomed my gray hair because people tend to take to you more seriously with a little gray. I just don't want to become one of those people I always made fun of.

But I do want to slow down. In fact, my family already has several important changes planned for 2007 to assist in that. And I fully expect them to work. We're looking forward to more time together and a recapturing of the higher ideals we have for our family.

Other parts of my life I want to speed up - like the growth of my IRA's. ;-) Or the good fruit from the things I do. I look at the faith journeys of those around me and for those whose lives in which I have some influence, I look forward to seeing some parts of their journeys speeding up. Well, maybe not speeding up, just moving along at a good pace. I know that if I slow down and really evaluate what's important, I will see others speed up because of how it changes our interactions together. I'm sure I will focus more on what's really important in our relationships. I'm sure it will increase the amount of grace that operates between us. That sounds like a good thing.

I guess life in the slow lane isn't so bad. Just a thought.

Remember when . .

Words will always come back to find us. Hopefully we say enough good things in our lives that those things we wish had never said won't find their way back home as often. This morning, I was searching through some old files looking for something to spark a blog entry. I came across an article I put in a church newsletter a couple of years ago. I remember writing that column, hoping to provide some encouragement, cast a little vision, and stir up some positive change for the people in the church. When the year ended, things were worse than when it began.

I've reread that particular article several times in the years since first writing it. Every time my thoughts were, "How could I have been so wrong?" or "I guess that didn't work." As I read that same column this morning, I was filled with hope and satisfaction. Why? Because wonderful things are happening at that church. I keep hearing stories about all the great things occurring there. All the things I had hoped that article would spur are taking place.

I'm not saying I deserve credit for this wonderful change that's taking place. I'm just saying it's nice to see some of it happening. That newsletter article wasn't the only time I referenced some of those ideas. I had a lot of one-on-one conversations with people about those ideas in the months after that. Whether those changes are the fruit of some seed I planted I don't really know. But I'd like to think they are.

This week, look at your faith journey. Think back and remember when someone said something to you, or did something for you and over time it had a positive impact on you. How can you do the same thing for someone else in your life? What can you continually say and do that will positively affect the faith journey of someone else so that one day they will say, "Remember when you said . . . "

I hope that one day, your words come back to find you. And I hope your pleased with what they did while they were gone. Just a thought.

It's beginning to look a lot like . . .

We put our Christmas tree up this past weekend. I dislike the Christmas rush more than most people. I dislike seeing the trees and decor out on the shelves in September. I love the celebration of Christmas and all the warm fuzzies that come with it. But each year I grow a little colder and a little harder in response to the mainstream treatment of it.

It honestly felt weird to put the tree up. It did not help that is was seventy-two degrees outside. We ALWAYS put the tree up the weekend after Thanksgiving. This year it just seemed too early. I'm still glad we did it though. The boys had a great time and the tree is really more for them than it is for me. Once I put the cookies in the oven and the Christmas CD's in the stereo, my mood changed.

As we pulled each ornament out of its box, I got more and more into it. Every ornament has a story. Every ornament evokes a memory. My kids are getting old enough that now they are able to recall their own stories for each one, not just recite the ones they hear their mom and dad recite.

It's beginning to look a lot like . . . it always does. And that's why we do it. My wife and I decided early in our relationship (pre-marriage) that we wanted to establish some speacial traditions in our family. Tradition sounds like a strange word to come out of my mouth I know. I'm not talking about a stuck in a rut attitude that says we have to do it this way because we've always done it this way mentality. It's a "let's set some traditions to use as rituals and rites of passage to mark the passing of time."

The Christmas tree and the annual ornament shopping trip are just two of the traditions we observe. Every summer we try to spend a few days at the beach with GrandMa and GrandPa. The boys ride down with them as they pull the camper behind them. And that rounds out our set of annual things. We need more traditions to be honest. We have one "weekly" observance. Every Friday night is family night for us. The boys can count on us stopping everything else and devoting that time to them.

Traditions and rituals are important because they create an atmosphere where it is beginning to look like it always does. When you are on a faith journey, it's good to have a few traditional stops along the way. They allow you to reflect on past memories and the things God has done for you. They allow you to "reset" and remember what is important when your life gets out of kilter.

A good weekly tradition is attending worship service with other folks on a faith journey. My faith journey has the typical traditions that are part of the usual faith observance - Christmas, Easter, sometimes Pentecost. Others are things like going to camp every summer. I have important decisions I have made on my journey and decisions my children have made on their own journeys in my PDA. When those dates comes around, I'm reminded of what happened "when. . ."

It's beginning to look a lot like it always does in my house. That's a good thing.

Giving Thanks

This week I'm going cliche and writing about giving thanks. If you know me personally, you know how difficult that is. But I can't help it. There are lot of things to be thankful for.

Our church said good-bye to Charlie Strickland this weekend. His battle with a series of brain tumors ended Saturday night. Most of us in the church, myself included, had only know Charlie for about three months. But they were three great months.

Charlie entered our lives as a result of getting serious about his faith journey. In fact, he really liked the "journey" terminology. Whenever I talked to him, whether in the hospital or out, he would say, "We're on a journey. But it's a good one." Charlie held no illusions about his prognosis. The closer he got to the end, the more excited I believe he became about his journey. He knew the final destination on his journey would be amazing beyond belief.

What's all this got to do with being thankful? I'm thankful I got to know Charlie. I'm thankful I got to see his enthusiasm about his faith journey. I'm thankful that as his pastor, I can say with assurance where he is tonight.

Of all the things I have for which to be thankful - my wife, my kids, never going hungry or cold, and so on, I am most thankful that I have assurance about the journey I am on. I am thankful that one day my journey will end and Charlie will be one of the folks who will greet me at my final destination. Just a thought.

GASP! The Impossible Happened!

It's nice to return from the land of the almost dead. That's how I felt yesterday. I had some kind of bug that mimicked the flu, but without the fever. I had chills most of the day. Ironically, I took some acetaminophen to battle some aches and it created hot flashes. Puzzled, I wondered why since we use it to treat our children's fevers all the time! Anyhow, I spent most of yesterday asleep or otherwise just lying around. Today all my muscles are tight and I can barely move.

My wife was most shocked to see me in that condition. I NEVER get sick. She told others, "He NEVER gets sick!" "That's impossible!" you might say. "You got sick yesterday." True, but I get sick rare enough to be able to say "NEVER" with a clear conscience. The other aspect of this trait of mine is that when I do get sick, it is usually only for a small fraction of the time that everyone else did. The average 24 hour bug will last around 4 hours for me. Which could mean I get sick more than I realize, it's just too short for me to notice. Hmmm. . . that's an interesting theory.

There's been a lot of talk in the media and on the blogosphere lately about the fall of prominent religious leaders. Anytime another one falls, we always dig into the back of the closet and pull out the skeletons of past fallen leaders, raking them over them coals once more. People who call themselves Christians are then forced to take a stand - do they defend the fallen or do they distance themselves? Usually they waffle in the middle with a statement like this - "Christians aren't perfect. Just forgiven." Or "We all sin in some way." People of faith then find it hard to defend their faith to those not also on a faith journey.

Wouldn't it be great if on our faith journeys we NEVER got sick, er, I mean, sinned? Or what if our failings were so small or insignificant that they were virtually unnoticed as such? Before some of you take that proposition too far, that last question is not the same as keeping a long term and continual sexual sin in the closet as has been revealed in the last month. I'm talking about things like stubbing your toe and saying the wrong thing or getting a little more than miffed at the guy who cut you off on the freeway.

I believe that such a possibility exists for our faith journeys. Getting sick or sinning does not have to be normal or acceptable. I want my faith journey to be characterized by as few setbacks as possible. Honestly, I'm not sure it's all that attractive of an option if there isn't such a possibility.

For those of you new to such thinking, this will raise a lot of questions. Questions on a faith journey are good. Questions like what exactly is sin? How do I avoid it? Is sinlessness really a possibility? Is there more to this than just avoiding sin?

I've got thoughts and answers to all the above. I've even got more questions. What about you? What do YOU think?

Cleanliness anyone?

The other night the missus and I went out on a date. We went to a local comedy club for "Clean Comedy Monday". For $20 a head, you get dinner and a show afterwards. We were quite surprised at the overall demographic of the audience. In the small group of about 30 or so, approximately half were families. The kids there ranged in age from 10 to 15 years old. Another noticeable trait was prayer. We noticed that at least half of the groups prayed before their meal. My wife wasn't surprised. She brushed it off, saying, "Who else would be looking for something advertised as 'Clean Comedy'." She's got a point.

As you walk in, they have a rating posted on the door, similar to what you would find at a movie theater. The show for that night was advertised as rated PG. The headliner for the evening was a master hypnotist. Come to find out, he was the same performer advertised on the club's website for the "X Rated Hypnotism Show." I have no desire to even know what that means.

Honestly, the show was not that great. The people who volunteered to be hypnotized were doubtful in their credibility. After about 30 minutes of listening to this guy talk in his smooth hypnotist voice and snapping his fingers every 5 seconds, he finally ended that portion of the routine. He proceeded to tell a few jokes to end the show. He obviously struggled to keep it clean. You could see him correcting himself split seconds before saying the wrong thing. All his jokes were quite prejudicial or poked fun at disabilities.

Now, if you know me personally, you know I am no prude. You also know that I like to make fun of people with the best of them. This guy was uncomfortably cruel in my opinion. He made jokes about people wearing turbans, advocating violence toward them. Yes, I know. He was only joking. But do we need to make light of violence prompted by hatred? I became disgusted at his imitation of the person with a disability who worked as a Wal-Mart greeter. I don't know. Maybe I'm becoming a stick in the mud and need to loosen up.

Needless to say, we were disappointed as we left the show that night. We had hoped for a fun-filled evening of clean comedy. The comedy aspect was questionable, and while it may have been PG, it didn't feel very clean. At least not dignifying. Which leads me to this thought. Why is it so difficult to be clean?

I think the nature of our society is growing increasingly comfortable with those things that only 20 years ago would have been unthinkable or at least unmentionable. It is not so much that we have become immoral, but amoral. Few things have any moral value associated with them. Cultural diversity has lead to extreme relativism. There are no standards, it seems, to govern what is acceptable.

I'm not just speaking as some ultraconservative Christian who would be obviously concerned with such things. I had a staunch atheist tell me one time that morals were necessary for the functioning of society and in fact good for business. He was a successful management consultant. As he explained, in the same manner he advised his clients, if you want someone's business or desire a business partnership with them, they need to be able to trust you and your moral conduct. Makes a lot sense. The last five or six years have seen the collapse of several big corporations because of the lack of moral conduct.

So, why it is so hard to be clean? Is it from lack of desire? Is it from looking for it in the wrong places? As they say, wrestle with a pig and you both get dirty. But only the pig likes it. Is the lack of clean-ness a result of trying to make chicken salad with . . . well . . . you know?

Our faith journeys can help us with that. Our journeys usually have several washing stations along the way. Sort of like a drive through car wash. If you are looking for clean-ness and can't find it, maybe the journey you are presently on is not the right one. Just a thought.

My Favorite Time of the Year

This week has been amazing in terms of visual pleasure. The leaves in our area have suddenly taken on the beautiful and vibrant hues of fall. I find myself just walking around my own yard, taking in the colors. I wish I was able to take some time lapse photography of it all because it is amazing how fast it happens. Given the opportunity, I really do believe I could sit around for a week or so and just watch the show.

And that's my thought.

I Forgot!

Don't you hate it when you are getting ready to say something, and it's really profound, then you open your mouth to speak and POOF! the thought is gone? The older people in my life tell me I'm way too young to have that problem. Something must be seriously wrong with me then because I've had this problem for a LONNNG time. I sat down to post something this morning and I was really excited about it. As soon as my fingers hit the keyboard, it was gone! How does that happen?!

My children frequently tell me they forgot. "I forgot to fix my bed" "I forgot you told me never to bludgeon or drop kick my brother" "I forgot you told me never to throw rocks at the car or the house" "In the 10 seconds it takes me to walk from the kitchen to the bathroom I forgot you told me to brush my teeth" and so on.

Voters forget all the time. And so do their representatives! Politicians conveniently forget what they promised their constituients they would do in office and the voters forget to hold them accountable for it come election time.

We forget to pick up the drycleaning or the milk on the way home. We forget to pay the credit card bill. While we are in the shower and already 10 minutes late for work we realize we forgot to pick up more shampoo & deodorant and we forgot to do any laundry the night before. How does that happen? Why does our memory become so clear at the moment of crisis, standing there dripping wet with nothing to wash with, nothing to keep us from sweating and smelling, and it not really not being an issue anyway considering we have nothing to wear?

So many times on our faith journeys we forget a lot of important stuff. We conveniently go along with our lives, forgetting what God has done for us. The nation of Israel sure did it a lot. Read the Old Testament. But, as soon as they realized they were out of shampoo or the Assyrian army was knocking on their door, a moment of clarity came to them. Didn't God get us out of this before?

Those of us on a faith journey today are just as guilty as those Israelites. We bee bop along living happily ever after, many times forgetting the big and small things God has done for us along the way. Does it make him love us any less? No. Is that reason crises comes along? Not necessarily. Would life be better if we didn't forget? You betcha.

Some of us haven't forgotten because we never really knew. Some people are still contemplating whether or not to buy a ticket for this journey. Even for those people, I bet if they looked back on their lives, they would find something they could point to and say, "God did it." I'd grab that memory and find out how to make more.

Forgetting can be good if it helps us to remember the next time. Even that can be redeemed. By the way, don't forget to bring home more milk.

A New Look (inside)

First, thanks to those of you who commented on my last post. Second, thanks to those who came back this week to see if I did resume posting. Just a Thought will continue with something new each week (hopefully). Yeah, I know what you are thinking. "Whew! I don't think I could get by without it." I do hope that for someone each week, this blog will provide some insight that the other 55 million and growing blogs do not.

Which brings me to my purpose. I began this blog for two reasons.
1) To encourage those on a journey of Christian faith to go deeper and farther in their journeys. I set for myself the probably impossible goal of having the impact of a 30 minute sermon in the space of a pocket devotional. From the few offline comments I have received, I think I'm on the right track.
2) I want this blog to be a place where someone not on a faith journey can find connections from matters of faith to their own lives. I had all sorts of visions of the cool, relevant topics that I might write about. I think I have missed the mark on the "cool, relevant" part. But I do think that a person searching for faith and meaning can find those connections here.

Another issue was at work within me two weeks ago when I pushed pause on Just a Thought. I was feeling terribly shallow in my understanding of my own faith. I felt inadequate in my knowledge. I felt I had grown complacent about my own spiritual growth for the sake of my growth as a leader and "producer". I believe God directed me into self-diagnostic and repair mode through several different avenues - other blogs I read regularly, discovery of rusty skills and forgotten knowledge when preparing for a particularly theological heavy sermon, and the growing dissatisfaction of just going about the regular routine and not seeing anything new happen.

So, I did something new. I started a new blog last week. It's very different from this one. It's more like a systematic Bible study and theology class. Actually, it's not like that, it is exactly that. It's there to help me keep my mind sharp. I've also opened myself up to further criticism if people much smarter than I ever read it. And it is a place where I will probably be much more introspective. Though it will appear to be more academic, I hope to keep it plain enough that anyone could understand. That shouldn't be too hard, considering the skill level of the author ;-) BTW, if you do check out the new blog, be sure to start at the bottom of the page. I've already got a few posts there.

But what about here? Do I have any thoughts for this space? I sure do. I spent last week writing a bunch and storing them as drafts for when the time is right. For now, let me encourage you to enter your own self-diagnostic mode. Whatever your stage on your faith journey, it's good to just evaluate your progress. Are you satisfied? Is there anything you'd like to change? Any questions you need to tackle or have someone answer for you? If you are still contemplating the leap into a faith journey, look inside and figure out why.

Thanks for coming back. See you next week.

What are your thoughts?

I read this week that the 50 millionth blog appeared this past summer. 175,000 are added every day. The blogosphere doubles in size every six months.

Which got me to thinking. Out of what is now probably close to 55 million blogs, what makes mine so special? Why even bother? I know why I originally started it, but I don't think it is living up to my vision, if you catch my drift. Maybe it's the pressure of feeling like I have to write something powerful and thought provoking every week.

I had hoped there would be more interaction here with whomever reads it. Perhaps that has been low because of the way in which I have written.

I need your help. Please post some kind of comment. I'm begging for attention. Please notice me! Seriously, I would like to know if anybody really reads this. If they do, I'd like to know what they think. I'd like to know what they'd like to read more of. What do you think this blog's purpose should be?

At any rate, "Just a Thought" will go off the air until Oct 30. In the meantime, tell me what you want to find here.

In the words of Walter Cronkite, "Thank you, and Good Night."

What time is it?

Someone's going to accuse me of being lazy because I've not posted anything new this week until Wednesday. But timing is everything. You gotta have time to do it. And you gotta have someething to say. Some weeks I have more to say than I have time. Others I have more time than I have things to say, at least meaningful things to say. Some weeks I have neither. I'll let you decide which kind of week this is.

Timing is everything in many areas of life. Just ask a major league hitter. Or an all-pro quarterback. Or a race car driver. I know a guy who drag races as a hobby. He says that races are lost by THOUSANDTHS of a second. Timing is everything.

Timing is everything in the world of business. Analysts always offer critique on how some corporation released their product too late and lost out to the competition. Anybody remember the tech stock bubble of the late 90's? I know a lot of people who wished they had been given more time.

Timing is everything in a faith journey. Many people don't realize this. I like to think of matters of faith as equivalent to matters of my health. If I wait too long to go to the doctor, things can become worse, much worse. I read the sad account of a woman in her 30's who just refused to go to the doctor until she knew it was too late. I was reading about her funeral.

For those of us on a faith journey, there will be numerous opportunities to speed up or take a turn to unexplored territories. We might debate them, then decide to go for it. But we miss out on some important gains because we got in too late. Sadly, we usually decide to stay on our current course and not take the risk at that time. And time passes as we miss out.

Timing is everything for people not on a faith journey. Things happen in life that point us in the direction of faith, in the direction of God. We wonder if now is the right time. We decide maybe not. Then another opportunity comes along. We wonder if the right time is then. If we choose not, the cycle repeats. Usually.

I think we eventually run out of time. I don't mean that someday we all die so sieze the moment, although that's not a bad idea. I think you can live the remaining 30 years of your life, yet the time has run out on your chance to take a faith journey. I have no hard evidence, but I have enough anecdotal evidence to rival War and Peace in its length. You can only say "No" so many times before people quit asking.

What time is it in your life? What step of faith, if any, is being asked of you?

Painful thinking

Today I received a phone call that disturbed me in many ways. It will take several hours to recover from this call. The caller asked for the singles minister because he had some questions about Christianity. I let him know that I was the only staff person and would be happy to answer his questions. He quickly let me know he was not interested in talking to the pastor of any church.

We did talk for probably about 30 minutes, maybe more. Probably more. I honestly lost track of time. Most of it was about everything that was wrong with the church, especially pastors. I listened to the well-rehearsed and deeply felt opinions of this gentleman regarding the financial racket on which the church is built. I answered his questions about my ministerial experience and background, the grounds for which I left all my other previous ministerial posts, etc. Throughout this conversation, it was clear to me that I would not be changing his mind on anything. In fact, when I agreed to enter this conversation with the caller, I knew it would end with me confirming everything he believed about the church, and especially pastors. And it did. I finally chose to end the conversation and did what he told me I would do in the beginning - I hung up on him.

After hanging up the phone, I waited for an immediate callback, even though I knew it would not come. I had already proved his point. Then because of some things that were said, I spent a considerable amount of time in prayer, trying to clear my mind and settle my emotions. Lest you think I hung up in anger or had to take a chill pill, that was not the case. Without any better way to put it, I was disturbed. Deeply disturbed.

It was clear in the beginning of our conversation that I was talking to someone who had been deeply hurt. He even gave me a count - eight times he had been "burned" by the church and pastors. He did not give me any details and I would not share them with you if he had. I have some guesses as to what may have happened. This much I know. This gentleman was carrying around a significantly sized wound that had turned into a rather ugly scar on his emotions. And that scar was preventing him from actually being able to receive the healing he so desperately wants and needs.

I later determined why I was so disturbed. Underneath all this guy's pain was evil. There was something in his voice that rang out evil. The caller was not evil. Nor do I believe him to be a particulary bad person. But his pain was evil. It was caused by evil. And evil was taking up residence in order to ensure his pain never left and forever kept him crippled.

Why do I tell you this? Because we live in a world where things sometimes go wrong. And they go wrong in the church too. Despite being the Body of Christ, the church itself is made up of fallen creatures who have been redeemed, who are in the process of being made perfect but aren't there yet. That is still no excuse for any of the atrocities that have been perpetrated by the church or its leaders. But is the reality.

Why do I tell you this? Because we live in a world where things sometimes go wrong. And there are a lot of casualties out there. The journey to healing is a faith journey. It is a journey to and with the source of ultimate healing - Jesus Christ.

Some of you may have scar tissue building up right now. For whatever reason, your pain and suffering, in whatever form it has taken, has become so familiar to you that it is easier to hold onto than it is to let go. The pain you know by keeping it is preferable to the pain that might come and you don't know if you try to let go of it and seek healing. My prayer for you is the same as my prayer for the caller - God, I pray that the power of your healing will somehow sink in and penetrate beyond the hurt. God let them find healing.

I don't usually use this space to blatantly "push Jesus" on people. I created it to provide a place for people to find a connection to their own thoughts and experiences. I always hope that connection leads them to Jesus and that they see him as the journey itself. But, if your thoughts today are painful ones, bitter ones, thoughts that keep healing away, I think you should know about some of your options.

Just a thought . . .

Just no thoughts

I have nothing profound this week. I tried to get my wife to be the guest host and write something. "I'm not a writer," was her response. I said, "You don't have to be a writer. You just need to have a thought." She then replied, "I don't think. I'm a mom." I gave up.

I've reinstituted part of my exercise routine. I've begun jogging again. I've even revived my almost 30 year old goal of running a marathon. I made a public statement the other day that I will run a marathon before I turn 40. That gives me a little better than two years to go from an overweight, out of shape desk jockey to a plain old desk jockey.

I forgot how much I like to run. My mind sorta shuts down while I run. Thoughts and ideas run in and out of my head. I'm somehow able to process them without allocating any storage space to them. When I finish my run, those thoughts are all gone. Yet I'm sure that later that day or that week, I will act on the basis of one of those processes.

On most days, I just move along on my faith journey without any great divine revelations or major crises to deal with. My mind is sorta shut down. Lots of thoughts will run in and out of my mind and I can process them from a faith journey perspective. I usually don't make any major conscious decisions regarding my faith and how I interpret the world around me. At least not on a day to day basis. But somehow, as a result of the offline processing, new understandings or affirmations of prior ones get stored in my mind. Then on those days when I do need to make an important decision, interpret an important event, or even deal with a crisis, part of the work is already done. I can summon from mental storage my understanding and belief on the matter, then make that all important decision.

One nice thing about shutting down is getting to just listen. When I'm out jogging, leave the iPod at home and I listen to the bugs, the birds, and even the traffic. Going offline on my faith journey with no particular issue to deal with allows me to just listen to voice of God. The lack of noise from everything else, especially my own thoughts and agenda makes it easier to hear him. I can process his words and put them away for later use.

Maybe having no thoughts is the best way to just have a thought.

What about Faith?

This morning I planned to comment on the movie Glory Road but as I quickly scanned the news headlines when my home page came up, I felt moved to do something different. Today's the 5th anniversary of 9/11. It's something that for the most part I think is "forgotten" by the American public at large. It's more like something we view as a historical event event, akin to Pearl Harbor. We know it happened. We know it was devastating on many levels. We know it deserves recognition every year, but our day to day lives are mostly untouched by it. Those of you who fly on a regular basis or who may work in the industries associated with national security may feel differently. But Average Joe American leads a life untouched.

I'm Average Joe. It was not mentioned in my church yesterday. I'm the pastor so that was an oversight on my part. I even made myself a note last week and posted it in a spot where I would see it on Sunday morning to remind me to acknowledge the effect 9/11 has had on our country and the lives of its victims. Yet in the course of the average Sunday morning service it was forgotten.

My life has been untouched. Until this morning. I had turned on the news to get the weather forecast and I saw a live shot of the many people and officials lined up at the Ground Zero memorial. My oldest son asked me what they were doing. I simply replied that they were commemorating 9/11. He proceeded to ask why. When I asked if he knew what 9/11 was, he knew it had something to do with planes and buildings blowing up. Despite having factual knowledge, he could not comprehend the implication such an event had on our national security or just our sense of feeling safe.

So I stood there, wondering just how deep to go. How much do I share about the reality of 9/11 and shatter my son's feeling of safety in the world around him? How much do I educate him on the reality of bad things happen in the world around us and many times there is not a lot we can do about it? How do I explain the reality of war while trying to provide a proper description on valid uses of it without getting into the minutae of our current political situation and whether it fits into that matrix?

My life has been touched by 9/11 in a way I never imagined. As I stood with my 8 1/2 year old in the living room, I assure you I had more than just one thought. "How do I protect my son?" "My children are growing up too quickly." "What do I really believe about the war in Iraq?" "Why does the world have to be such a scary place sometimes?" are just a few.

Honestly, I'm not sure how to relate this to our faith journeys, which is the real reason for this blog. There are lots of paths I could follow. I could address the problem of evil. I could address the reality of you never know when your life might end, so live each day to its fullest and make sure you are ready to face life after death. Those seem too easy, too simple, too much like pop theology or bumper sticker fodder. Today I am hit with the gut-wrenching reality of real life, led by real flesh and blood, that has real responsibilities in the here and now for not only my own life and ideas, but for the lives and ideas of others. My family is the most important set of others. I have a certain level responsibility for even more - for those people who call me "Pastor". If a faith journey is all I say it is, then it has to apply to THIS reality.

Actually I know to relate it to my faith journey, but not with hard statistical data. I know how the mystical side of me experiences peace I don't always understand. I know that I sometimes possess wisdom that cannot be accounted for on the basis of my knowledge or other experiences. I know that life is sometimes complicated yet it can be fairly easily figured out by following the mostly simple guidance of how to live it found in the ultimate faith journey guide - the Bible.

Sorry for the unusually heavy thoughts this morning. I'm sorry that some of you will be disappointed that I didn't give you a sufficiently explained tie-in. I can only respond to that by saying isn't a faith journey supposed to be about faith? Sometimes we aren't going to have the answers. We're just going to have our lives before us. Just a thought.