(ben)koehn is lost.

Hebrews 3

2011-05-05T08:00:00.000-05:00

Hebrews 3 is interesting because in Hebrews 1, the author seems to be laying out the facts of what God thinks of Jesus. Then in Hebrews 2, the author is laying out the facts of what Jesus has done. In Hebrews 3, the author cuts to the chase of why he is writing to the Hebrews: "Don't miss this chance to follow Jesus and see the promises of God fulfilled."

Before Jesus, the Jews were God's people. They were the circumcised. They were the ones trying to follow God. They were the ones who could be made righteous. To simplify things, "They were on the right side of the line."

But then Jesus is born, lives, heals people, prays, builds community, starts his church, dies, is resurrected, and ascends to heaven -- and now the Jews (who thought they were on standing on one side of a line with God beside them and on the other side are the sinners, pagans, etc.) find themselves on the opposite side of God standing next to the pagans, sinners, etc.

And they probably stood next to each other and were just perplexed.

"Did you eat pork?"

"No. Did you?"

"No. Of course not. Are you circumcised?"

"Yeah. Twice."

It's not like the Hebrews changed anything theologically to end up on the wrong side. It's not like they posted God's job on Monster.com and were reading over resumes from other gods. God just said, "Look, everything since the beginning of time has been building towards the moment of Jesus. You didn't see it, but that's what I was doing. The whole thing was about Jesus. Your faith was a precursor to Jesus. Accept Jesus and join his church or keep living on obsolete software. You're running Windows 97, Jesus is a Mac. Sorry."

Now, I wonder, if at the time Hebrews was written, how many Hebrews liked the idea of Jesus, couldn't find anything wrong with him, but couldn't bring themselves to abandon tradition?

How many Jews were thinking, "I'm Jewish because I've always been Jewish. My parents were Jewish. My grandparents were Jewish. My great, great, great, great, great, great uncle was Moses' cousin Dennis. This is the way we've always done things. It was right. These christians must just be radical left-wing liberals with bad theology. They aren't reading their pentatuach right -- they probably got an NLV or Message translation of the Pentateuch. This Jesus thing is a fad. I'm sticking with what's tried and true."

How many Hebrews are eternally outside of God's rest not because they didn't like Jesus, not because they didn't turn some of the agreeable things he said into bumper stickers, not because they were that committed to Judaism, but are left out of God's rest because they just couldn't abandon tradition?

****

After reading Hebrews 3, I got to thinking: What am I refusing to abandon for Jesus?

Maybe I'm refusing to abandon keeping the peace with friends in favor of speaking truth?

Maybe I'm refusing to abandon how I speak to each of you individually (superficially) in favor of speaking to each of you in a way that acknowledges that you each have your own journeys with Jesus that you are on? Am I relating to each of you in a way that addresses your individual needs and my place in your life so that I can help you address sins, temptations, blessings and graces in your unique lives?

Am I refusing to disagree and question how we do church and community in favor seeing how God would use our time together (whether that's 5 minutes or 5 hours) to sharpen us, mold us, and mature us?

****

I feel like the whole of our lives is a series of Jesus saying, "This is the way you used to do things, now do it my way."

This is the way your marriage used to work, now do it my way.

This is the way you used to think about this person, now do it my way.

This is the way you used to earn a living, now do it my way.

This is the way you used to spend your money, now do it my way.

This is the way you used to talk about people, now do it my way.

This is the way you used to find your value and worth, now do it my way.

Hebrews 2

2011-05-04T08:00:00.000-05:00

"Now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing
outside his control. At present, we do not yet see everything in
subjection to him." -- Hebrews 2:8

God has made Jesus king. The sky, the sands, the birds, the fish, the
lion, bear, you, me, our money -- all creation is a subject of His
rule. Sometimes, I feel like there are aspects of creation in my life
that I hide like stowaways. It's as if I can keep things out of the
king's sight then they are not his subjects -- out of sight, out of
mind. There are things that I consistently stow away and try to keep
under my rule as opposed to the rule of Jesus. Thoughts, lusts,
desires, jealousies, dreams -- things that for one reason or another I
am afraid to show to the king. If I show them to him, then they will
fall under his rule. If they fall under his rule, then the fates of my
desires, dreams, grudges, thoughts are not longer for me to judge.

I can handle Jesus as a friend. I can handle Jesus as the humble
servant. I can handle Jesus as the long-haired, tree-hugging, hackie-
sack playing, make love/not war, flip-flopped flapping, patchouli-
scented motivational speaker. I struggle greatly with Jesus as my
king. As someone who demands obedience and reverence. For Jesus the
king to demand (lovingly) that I relinquish my hold on my thoughts and
desires is terrifying. He says powerfully and compassionately, "The
loneliness, the hurt, the hope, the ambitions -- give it all to me.
All things -- seen and unseen -- are in subjection to me. Trust me to
be just. Trust me to lead you." Often, I'd rather hold on to my dreams
and watch them suffocate from a lack of trying than give them to Jesus
and see them taken away in an attempt to save me.

************

"Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself
likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might
destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and
deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong
slavery. For surely it is not angels that he helps, but he helps the
offspring of Abraham. Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in
every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high
priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the
people. For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able
to help those who are being tempted." -- Hebrews 2:14-18

This passage is so packed full of good stuff.

"Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood .... " (For us
to know God deeply, he chose to restrict himself to a physical form.)

"... he himself likewise partook of the same things ..." (He ate the
food we ate. Used a restroom. He slept in uncomfortable beds and
stubbed his toe, like me he went through the mundane motions of daily
life.)

" ... that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of
death, that is, the devil, ... " (Jesus came with a mission. He didn't
come on vacation. He didn't come on a book tour. He came for the
purpose of dying a grizzly, brutal, humiliating death so that I could
be freed from my captors.)

"... and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to
lifelong slavery. ..." (He freed us not only from our sins, but from
our fear of dying. He gave us a hope that we would never really die.
We would only close our eyes here and open them elsewhere.)

" ... For surely it is not angels that he helps, but he helps the
offspring of Abraham. ..." (He didn't come to help his fallen angels
or the devil. He came for man -- weak, stupid, selfish, sinful man. I
can't fly. I haven't seen even a glimpse of the wonders they have. I'm
not as impressive as His angels...yet he came to save me.)

"... Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every
respect, ..." (Fingernails, hair, rumbling stomach, ear wax, brushing
his teeth, washing behind his ears, using a restroom, clipping his
fingernails, sleepy, sunburned, foot-falling-asleep Jesus.)

"... so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in
the service of God, ..." (He become like us, but he would not stay
like us. He needed to show us that we had a leader who was merciful,
loving, kind, just. He came to show us that we had a high priest who
would speak to God on our behalf and who would give the ultimate
offering so that we could be right with God."

"... to make propitiation for the sins of the people. ..." (He came to
show me how to obey God and how to love God and love others. He came
to be a satisfactory payment for the insurmountable debt I had
accumulated toward God.)

"... For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to
help those who are being tempted." (I can go to Jesus with my
struggles because he faced the same temptations I face, but He did not
sin. That gives me hope that if I can follow in his footsteps, I can
survive temptations without sinning myself. And Jesus really can
relate to all of my struggles. He knows what it is like to feel
physically weaker than others. He knows what it is like to watch his
friends take brides and to know that that is not in your cards. He
knows what it's like to be betrayed, abandoned, forgotten, to have
people talk about you behind your back. He knows what its like to be
accused, questioned, harassed. Jesus knows what pain feels like. Jesus
can sympathize with anyone. That is why he is so great. That's why
he's all I've really got.)

Hebrews 1

2011-05-03T20:48:00.000-05:00

"He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his
nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After
making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the
Majesty on high,4 having become as much superior to angels as the name
he has inherited is more excellent than theirs." -- Hebrews 1:3-4

I remember being nervous for every job I've ever applied for. I hate
applying for jobs. I always feel under-qualified. Even when I applied
for a job at Movie Gallery in college -- a job with only two
prerequisites: the ability to alphabetize and the ability to wear a
clean shirt to work.

Hebrews 1 reminds me of that. Not that this is Jesus's resume, but
it's his reference letter. To me, it was like the writer of Hebrews is
saying, "OK. you want to know why you should worship and follow Jesus?
OK. Let him have a job interview. Before I give you his credentials,
let me give you his reference letter. He's got one really good
reference letter from a fairly reliable source -- God."

So Hebrews 1 basically says, "Here's why I think you should let Jesus
be your savior..."

"He's my son. I'm his father. [verse5] He takes after good stock."

"Angels (those things that scare the pee out of you when you see
them?) should worship him. [verse6]"

"He's God. He's everlasting. And he rules a kingdom. [verse8]"

"He loves righteousness. He hates wickedness. I've anointed him more
than anybody and done it gladly. [verse9]"

"You know this floating rock you live on? You like the trees and the
air and the food and water? Yeah, he helped me build all this.
[verse10]"

"Billions of years after this rock has worn out and the Energizer
Bunny has croaked, Jesus will still be going strong without a gray
hair on his head. [verse11]"

"When your grandson's grandson's grandson's grandkids are farting
around and making the same mistakes you did, Jesus will still be alive
and well and he'll be offering them the same forgiveness and grace
that he offers you. He won't retire at 65. [verse12]"

"He's my right-hand man. We hang out. We're tight. And anybody that
doesn't like him? Yeah, I make them kneel on their hands and knees so
he can rest his feet on their back for all eternity? Your fingers
hurt? Well your back's gonna hurt cuz you just pulled ottoman duty.
[verse 13]"

What other options are there? Jesus is obviously the most qualified.
Sure, a reference letter is always necessary, but it's usually nice.
Especially if the guy writing the letter has the ability to smite me
with bodily sores.

I don't pay enough attention to the reference letter. Each day I have
to put Jesus through the interview process. Instead of giving him the
job that's rightfully his and letting him rule over me, I keep
throwing him through the battery of questions: "Are you really good,
Jesus? Do you really want to help me, Jesus? Are you really trying to
give me life, Jesus? What if you screw up, Jesus? What if what you try
to give me hurts, Jesus? What if letting you be in charge means I
don't get what I want, Jesus?"

I don't take God's word seriously when he says repeatedly, clearly,
emphatically, pleading with me to let his Son -- the only true Savior
-- have the job of King/brother/best friend in my life.

A Bit Between The Ears: Messes of Men

2010-10-28T22:33:00.006-05:00

Messes of Men by mewithoutYou
Listen to the song.

"I do not exist," we faithfully insist,
Sailing in our separate ships and from each tiny caravel.
Tiring of trying, there's a necessary dying,
Like the horseshoe crab in its proper season sheds its shell.
Such distance from our friends,
Like a scratch across the lens,
Made everything look wrong from anywhere we stood.
And our paper blew away before we'd left the bay.
So half-blind, we wrote these songs on sheets of salty wood.

Caught me making eyes at the other boatman's wives,
And heard me laughing louder at the jokes told by their daughters.
I'd set my course for land, but you well understand,
It takes a steady hand to navigate adulterous waters.
The propeller's spinning blades held acquaintance with the waves,
As there's mistakes I've made no rowing could outrun.
The cloth low on the mast, I say I got no past,
I'm nonetheless the librarian and secretary's son.

The tarnish on my brass, the mildew on my glass-
I'd never want someone so crass as to want someone like me.
But a few leagues off the shore, I bit a flashing lure,
And I assure you, it was not what I expected it to be!
I still tastes its kiss, that dull hook in my lip
Is a memory as useless as a rod without a reel.
To an anchor ever dropped, sea-sick yet still docked,
Captain spotted napping with his first mate at the wheel.

Floating forgetfully along, with no need to be strong,
We keep our confessions long, but when we pray we keep it short.
I drank a thimble full of fire,
I'm not ever coming back...
Oh, my God.

"I do not exist," we faithfully insist,
While watching sink the heavy ship with everything we knew.
And if ever you come near, I'll hold up high a mirror.
Lord, I could never show you anything as beautiful as you!

****

Some songs seam to speak into a moment in life. Songs about a kiss or a date or a battle or a game -- all songs that are about a moment. Messes of Men always seemed to stick out as a song that was not in any moment, but was an autobiography.

The band, mewithoutYou, have been one of my favorite bands for a few years now. I just love how complicated the lyrics are. They're like a puzzle that, as you start to solve it, reveals something bigger to you.

This song, in my eyes, seems to hit the nail on the head when it comes to depicting the lifelong struggle that is to be a man in this world. Read the lyrics over and over and you'll see that in this complex rhythm of nautical metaphors, you get the biography of the average man.

He is unsure of himself. He is a loner with no real deep relationships. He is lusty. He is dissatisfied with life no matter which side of the fence he stands on. We wrestle with guilt of things past. We also ignore our pasts. As we age we become unsure of how to handle our aging bodies -- a species that prides itself on physical ability, when we begin to break down in age, we fear we are losing our dignity. We float through life, half-paying attention. Sure, we say we have direction. We want our careers and our possessions to go in a Northern direction, but we don't pay attention to the people around us. We are passive when it counts and aggressive when we're foolish.

This song is biography of most men. The more I hear it, the more I fear this song is my biography.

****

"I do not exist," we faithfully insist.

You know, I can remember being a pretty good, rule-following child. I never really got in trouble. I erred so poorly on the side of safety and not rocking the boat, that I missed out on a lot of great childhood experiences that can really only come from bending the rules. My self-worth was tied up in not getting in trouble and not experiencing shame.

I do remember a few times when I would do something bad. Maybe I threw a ball in the house or hit my brother. I can remember that, in those times of guilt, I just so badly wanted to disappear. I just wanted to vanish; be erased and come back in another life. I can remember, doing something that wasn't awful, it was just not a good choice. I hadn't committed murder at 5 years old, I had spilled milk on the floor. Yet, they were one and the same for me. I knew I had rocked the boat. I knew I had done wrong. So, tears streaking down my cheeks, I did the only thing I knew to do in those situations. I'd close my eyes, rock my body to and fro, and wish that I could disappear.

Here's a twist on an old verse: Do you remember the story of Adam & Eve? You know, the two nudists who were eating fruit from the forbidden tree. They ate the fruit, realized they had done a terrible thing, and immediately hid in the bushes. Then God comes strolling through the garden of Eden -- which is an odd thing to imagine, the Lord strolling. I can imagine him floating, but never walking. I almost feel like it's beneath Him.

Well, God is walking through the garden and, knowing that Adam & Eve are hiding, He says "Where are you?"

Two things: 1) God knows everything. Why is He asking? 2) If God knows everything, why are Adam and Eve hiding?

****

I'm 26 years old. The Lord has blessed me with a mouth large enough for my feet and has provided me many opportunities to do so. Weekly, I will say something incredibly insensitive or sarcastic. My tongue is always trailing my heart for weakest part of my body, but not by much.

The thing is, no matter what dumb thing I spew out of my mouth, the afterthought is always the same.

"You idiot. You numbskull. You did NOT just say that. Why did you say that? You aren't here. This isn't happening. This didn't just happen. You are not here. You are not here. You do not exist right now."

Q: So what exists and doesn't exist at the same time? A: Nothing.

****

Pretend for a second. Pretend you are Adam or Eve (depending on which accessories you're packing).

You've just broken the law. THE law. You have committed the first sin ever recorded in the history of -- well, you're the first people, so there's no history. But you just made history.

You just broke the rule of the all-powerful, triune God. A God that spoke everything into existence. This guy could kick you in the grapes so hard you cry Legos.

You have just done something that wouldn't technically happen until Sodom and Gomorrah: "You screwed the pooch".

What do you do? You hear footsteps coming. Maybe you hear whistling coming your way. Dogs don't whistle. Deer don't whistle. You are nervous. Maybe you invent two or three four-letter words as you try to find a bush to hide in.

You crouch down under the leaves and berries. A stick is poking you in the butt. Eve's elbowing you and standing on your toe. You are hiding desperately.

Tears streaming down your face you think to yourself: "This is not happening. This is not happening. This. Is. Not. Happening. I do not exist right now."

****

Men want to be in charge. We want to dictate our lives. We want to drive our own destinies. We want to be the Captains of our own ships. We tell women what to do. We tell our children what to do. We tell other men what to do. We say with our actions, recognize me as being great. The more people who respect me the better. The goal in life, the secret in life, the key to life -- is being respected and revered. All the greatest men who ever lived commanded respect.

Whether we admit it or not, men want to be seen as MEN. Tough, strong, bold, blah blah blah...just look at ANY advertisement aimed at men. They all say:

Do [blank] and women will sleep with you.
Do [blank] and you will be cool.
Do [blank] and you will be bold.
Do [blank] and you will be successful.
Do [blank] and you're family will listen to you.
Do [blank] and you will leave a mark on this world.
Do [blank] and you will be a man like no other.

It's all crap. We want to choose how we exist. We want to edit our own stories. When we die, and people look back at our lives, we want all the typos and smudges to be erased. We act as if we exist when it makes us look good. We choose to act like we don't exist when we screw up.

I'm single. For me, I only want to exist in a way that makes me look appealing to attractive, single women or people who are friends with attractive, single women and have the power to set me up. Given my propensity for making an ass out of myself, I exist for roughly 5-10 minutes a week.

But when I screw up. When I miss a deadline. When I say something dumb. When I am having relational friction between myself and a friend...I choose not to exist. To exist would mean to acknowledge life as it's really happening. To exist means I don't sugarcoat. To exist means that I apologize. To exist means that I must repent when I mess up. To exist means that I must seek counsel and community and prayer to face struggles with substance abuse or porn or pride, etc. To exist means that I don't wait for somebody to bring up the issue I don't want to talk about, but that I bring it up myself. To exist means that I realize I can't drive my own ship and that I need God. To exist means that I acknowledge when I have failed to love, to serve, to care -- and that I go to those people to ask for forgiveness.

When do you choose to not exist? When do you choose to ignore the issues at hand? When do you choose to hide in your competencies instead of being humble in your brokenness?

****

This song is meaningful to me, because it's been my modus operandi to minimize myself. I don't want to exist at times when I need to speak up. I don't want to exist at times when I need to admit I'm hurting. I don't want to exist at times when I need to admit I'm sinning.

To exist is to see things as they really are. To exist to begin to move towards removing the things that kill your soul.

Finally, to say you exist is to acknowledge that you need help. To say you exist is to acknowledge that God does exist and to invite Him to teach you how to really live.

A Bit Between The Ears: Leaving to Stay

2010-10-25T22:40:00.002-05:00

This week I'm started a bit late on the blog. The weekend was chock full o' festivities and I didn't get to set any time aside to write, but so it goes sometimes. This week I want to write about 5 songs that have stuck with me over time. Not stuck with me in a -- Right Said Fred, Britney, Chumbawumba-type of nightmare, but songs that have stuck with me because they prodded my heart a bit.

I think we can all agree that music is a very powerful thing. I mean, who doesn't have a specific song that pulls up a certain feeling or memory. So I don't expect you to like these 5 songs, but if you give them a listen and let me expain why I like them, maybe you'll like them too.

Part 1: "Leaving to Stay" -- Jonny Lang

Listen to this song on YouTube.

I can't believe in what I've seen

I been forsaken. I been deceived

Cast aside and left behind

I can't believe my own eyes

I been waiting for the glory

Of the coming of the Lord

I heard a lot of stories

But all my prayers have been ignored

I been waiting in the wings

Between the ocean and the shore

But this time I'm leaving to stay

I'm walking away

I seen the red sky in the morning

I seen the low tide slipping away

I do believe I'll take warning

Taking my leave to stay

Like an angel afraid to fly

Like the last lonely rose hung on the vine

****

I was in a pawn shop in Harrisonville, Missouri -- probably around 2003 -- with my brother and a friend. We had never stopped in and we decided to peruse whatever goods may have been in this little haven of ill-gotten booty. We found this table that had CDs for sale. None of the CDs had cases, they were all just collected in black binders and priced at about a dollar each.

I love music. I love to collect new music. I love to listen to things I've never heard before. So for me, these black binders had the potential to hold real treasure. I flipped through each of the books: junk, junk, country junk, hair band junk, rap junk. There were soundtracks to awful movies and some CDs that I would rather be forced to eat than listen to. You know, it's a pawn shop, so I shouldn't have expected anything great.

I found, tucked in the back, a copy of Jonny Lang's 1998 album, "Wander This World." I had heard of Lang because of a cameo he had in Blues Brothers 2000 -- one of the ill-thought out plans that came with Y2k.

I picked this up and a couple of other CDs that had no words on them, but the artwork had caught my eye. I figured if nothing else, they'd make nice coasters.

I honestly do not remember the vast majority of "Wander This World." I've heard that it's one of Lang's best. As soon as my ears caught the song "Leaving to Stay" though, I stopped listening to any other track on that CD. I would put this CD into my walkman and just listen to this track on repeat, over and over again. I couldn't tell you why it struck me, but looking back, I think this song defined me for much of my early adolescence; especially between age 14-20.

Lang, covered this gospel song when he was an unbeliever. It wasn't until years later, that Lang would find Christ. (If you want to hear that Lang, the Lang who is alive today, you can check out his last two albums "Long Time Coming" and "Turn Around". ) This song was a song about a man who was leaving his faith. Lang had grown up in the church, but due to an increasing amount of unanswered questions and bad experiences with Christians, Lang left his faith.

I think this song hit me so because, I too had "left faith". I hadn't been raised in the church. I didn't hardly know anything about Christ or the Bible. I was always teetering back and forth between being an atheist and an agnostic; and I was proud of that. I was proud that I had "beat the system." I wasn't going to succumb to some superstitious religion with no practical application to my life or a false faith that was full of hypocrisy. Besides, I felt like I had seen enough of the world and enough of people hurting to know that, there was no God. There was no plan in this universe for any of us. Christianity was a joke and I had seen the punchline coming like a telegraph.

I was proud of the fact that I wasn't going to be one of them. Just like Lang, I was leaving religion to stay true to myself. But...the funny thing was, that Lang's song sounds like a declaration of independence from religion and superstition, but it didn't sound or feel like Lang was celebrating a victory of rationality or the mind...instead, Lang sounded...sad. I must have listened to this song 200 times before I really understood that.

I can't believe in what I've seen

I been forsaken. I been deceived

Cast aside and left behind

I can't believe my own eyes

I felt this. I had seen enough of TV news and had been to funerals to know better than to believe there was a plan. How could I believe that A) There was a God and B) God was good? "Cast aside and left behind," how could I believe that if there was a God, he had any good intentions for us? After all, I'm so small, what would a God care about me?

I been waiting for the glory

Of the coming of the Lord

I heard a lot of stories

But all my prayers have been ignored

When I was a kid, all I ever dreamt for and hoped for, was a better life for my family and I. I was a skiddish, weak, outcast who just didn't function well in society. My family didn't have a lot of money and my parents -- like all parents at some time or another may do -- fought. I was terrified of this world. I learned as all people do -- at a young age and from a hissing voice in our heads that has no good intentions for us -- that I wasn't wanted, I wasn't loved, and that all I could ever be in this world was hurting. I dined on despair, fear, and anxiety for breakfast, lunch, and diner. There were no cool waters for me to drink at. I had no Abba to comfort me. There was no light to be seen at the end of the tunnel. "I had heard a lot of stories, but all my prayers had been ignored."

I been waiting in the wings

Between the ocean and the shore

But this time I'm leaving to stay

I'm walking away

...

Like an angel afraid to fly

Like the last lonely rose hung on the vine

Have you ever felt marginalized? Sometimes, when life is tough and you don't have anything real to rely on, you feel like you are the most lonely person in the world. It's as if there's nowhere for you to belong. "Where is there room for me?" you ask yourself. You feel as if you are stuck in limbo...maybe between the ocean and the shore.

I was tired. I was tired of trying to believe in a God and a Christ that didn't give me what I wanted and didn't lift the pain from my heart. I left the search for God and decided to stay put in my lost world. What else was there to do but give up?

"Like an angel afraid to fly. Like the last lonely rose hung on the vine."

Years later, after finally finding God where I least expected to (in college) and finding a community of friends to love me as I continue to periodically strand myself between the ocean and the shore, I look at this song in a completely different light. Lang may too.

This song, for me, is not longer a sad enigma. It's no longer a song that barks "freedom" as it shivers in the cold...now this song is monument. This song, more than any other, helps me remember what it was like to be lost. This song helps me remember what it was like to not be in relationship with my God and how cold that felt. This song reminds me of the sadness of not knowing Christ and not feeling joy and hope.

This song is also a reminder that there are still lots of people who feel like that last lonely rose left to hung on the vine; lots of people who have heard a lot of stories, but their prayers have been ignored. They are looking for a God that's real. They are looking for a home to rest in and to rest their hopes in.

This time, I'm leaving to stay. I'm leaving myself to stay with my Abba.

5 Things My Married Friends Have Taught Me (Part 5: So When Is a Deer Not a Deer?.)

2010-10-22T06:00:00.000-05:00

Part 5: Achievements are useful if you plan to die today.

I once owned an electric guitar. I never played it. I have a senior picture of me holding a guitar that I didn't know one note on.

I was in the marching band, but I always had trouble playing complicated saxophone parts while I was also trying to move up, down, across, and diagonally on a football field. When the parts were simple, I was a marching sax player; other times I was just a guy walking around on the field.

In fifth grade I was a football player. I took the field once, got laid out by a kid twice my size, and hid on the sidelines as I nursed an "injured"wrist. Was I still a football player or a lethargic cheerleader?

Sometimes people introduce me to others as a "good writer" when, secretly, I haven't written anything in months. Didn't Einstein say time was relative? If that's true, I still consider myself a football player.

Technically, at specific moments in my past, I have been a guitarist, writer, football player, marching sax player, skateboarder, dancer, good Samaritan, employee-of-the-month, and on three separate occasions, a cross-dresser. Technically speaking, at some point, a lot of us have been a lot of things, but in reality, we were just in a phase or pretending. We would consider ourselves stupid if we went around saying that we were something that, in fact, we hadn't been in years.

With the exception of writer (if I stretch the truth), I don't consider myself to be any of the things I listed earlier. I dabbled in them. I tried them out. But I can't say I ever integrated any of them into my identity.

"So when is a deer not a deer?" When it's dead meat.

In my life, I have known a lot of people who were married. I knew very few who had a marriage. Now, I have voiced this before to one of my married friends (one whom I consider to have a marriage) and he said, "You can't judge a marriage from the outside. I respect anybody with the guts to get married and stay married."

I've thought about that and I do agree that you can't judge a marriage from the outside. I can make observations on your marriage. I can even attempt to draw some educated conclusions if I get to know you two enough, but I could never judge the quality of the marriage because I don't know what happens in your home when it's just the two of you. I don't know what your hearts are toward each other.

But I do disagree with my friend that you can get married, stay married, and then call it a win. The people I have seen who have a pulse in their marriage of any kind, are people who are constantly working on their marriage 3 years, 7 years, 15 years, and even 30 years after they get married. They work on communication,. They work on showing love to each other. They get into fights and resolve them by seeking truth and compassion and grace.

You got married? Who cares? Anybody can get married. Ike Turner was married. Hugh Hefner has been married multiple times.

Oh, you're still married? What's so hard about that? I knew a couple who were married for 20 plus years, slept in separate bed rooms, and hated each others guts. Let me get you a medal.

Don't get me wrong -- if you are married, you should feel very blessed; but you have to understand that the difference between being married (an act that occurred in the past) and having a marriage (something that you intentionally take the time to grow daily) is the same difference between owning a hammer and building a house.

If you want a hammer, you just go get one: a red one, a blue one, a classy, trophy hammer, or a cheap, crotechety, old hammer. Some people own several hammers. Some people get a new hammer every couple years. Just be careful, I knew a guy who had a spare hammer on the side and his main hammer found out and bludgeoned him.

Oh, but to build a house with that hammer! To take the time to draw and redraw the blueprints. To have a vision of where the rooms will be -- and not just where they will be, but to scout the land and to see where the sun will rise and set and what the light will be like on the inside of the house. You sketch out what the view from the bedroom window will be when you wake up in the mornings. You plan and design what you want the center of your home to be -- the focal point -- the living room, the kitchen, the garden?

Then to build that home, to take your tools and to construct and build and tear down and rebuild. Over and over again, you just tear down and rebuild until it is perfect. And this house doesn't just go up in a month, or a year, but this is a house you are working on and tweaking until you die. There will always be windows to fix, creaky boards to silence, and other normal wear and tear repairs to make. But even more so, you have the chance to turn this nice little house into a home, filled with memories of joy and, yes, some hard times too.

****

There are two things that I pray for for my both my friends who are building a marriage and my friends who are building other kinds of houses: a passion, a ministry, working toward another goal...I pray for them that God would give them perseverance and diligence.

I think that next to God's will for us in those areas, perseverance and diligence are two of the biggest blessings we need when we try to move from "having done something" to "doing something."

Perseverance and diligence are huge traits that I've seen in marriages that aren't just states of being or legal statuses for the parties involved, but are marriages that are alive, and adventurous, and have this contagious ability to make the people around that marriage want to live as well.

***

You know, we always make fun of the guy who was the star football player in high school and can't let go of that. You've maybe met people like him. I have. He's the guy who's 20 pounds over weight and just can't let go of the past. He still follows his Alma Mater football team and complains that the conference was so much more competitive back in his day. We make fun of him because he lifts up this achievement from 20 years ago like it's central to his identity.

Truth is, we're just like him most of the time.

You had a spiritual awakening in college. You went to some church events and got saved. You spent the next year in small groups and reading every Christian book you could. You did devotionals every day. You prayed before every meal. You bought all of David Crowder Band's albums.

But now it's 6 years later and you still go to church every Sunday, but you haven't read your Bible in a year. You still listen to K-Love Christian Radio, but you haven't grown spiritually. You got saved, so you are a Christian, but you don't talk to Jesus much anymore.

You got married. You fell in love hard. On your honeymoon, you and your bride spent the whole week in bed just getting to know each other's touch. Now it's ten years later. You watch a lot of TV together, you see each other every day, and you still make love occasionally, but the passion is gone. But so what? That happens to everybody.

Every morning, you wake up next to a woman you married long ago, so you have a marriage, right?

****

I end this series with this: You husbands and wives out there, you have it hard. You wake up with rich blessings hopefully, but you also have terribly difficult challenges ahead of you.

Please, persevere.

Please, be diligent.

Sons and daughters are counting on you.

Future couples who will need you as an example of how to do it God's way are counting on you.

Your spouse is counting on you.

You have much to teach the singles of this world.

Don't half-ass it.

5 Things My Married Friends Have Taught Me (Part 4: Winnie the Pooh Has No Nose.)

2010-10-21T06:00:00.000-05:00

Part 4: The Missing Pieces

"That yella, no-good, pantsless, honey-eating sonuvab--"

"BENJAMIN," my mother interrupted.

"Well It's not my fault. This thing is stupid," I snapped back as I threw a cardboard lid against the wall. It landed face up with a short -thuck- sound as the lid trapped the air under it. Upside down and condescending, a ginger-tiger hung upside down with his curly tail sticking up like the middle-finger of life. Next to him a dainty pig and what appeared to be a cross between Snuggles the Downy Bear and a pre-Shield Michael Chiklis were silently mocking me.

"BENJAMIN [middle name deleted], you better pick that up before I count to 3 or you're gonna be in the corner," mom said.

"But his nose is missing," I protested.

It was no use. She was still 2 1/2 feet taller, outweighed me by [weight deleted] pounds, and had an extra 12 inches on her reach. Even if I landed a jab to her kidney, she would've pulled me in and choke-slammed me into the blue trunk that held all the afghans.

I picked up the box and started to take this 50-piece Pooh puzzle apart, but stopped before I got the first corner lifted off. I bent down and started crawling under tables, chairs, and a coat rack hunting for the missing nose. I searched for a while and then gave up. I was pulling up the pieces of the puzzle and putting them in the box handfuls at a time. First came up the tiger. Then the pig. A tree and a honey pot. Then finally the bear. as I pulled him apart -- legs first, then torso -- I swear I could hear him whisper: I win.

I stuck the box of 49 pieces into the bottom of my brother and I's shared closet. I knew at that moment, that unless a miracle happened and I found that piece, I would never pull that box out again. Late at night, I would lie awake and sometimes, if I listened carefully, I could hear Pooh just barely say, "You puzzle like a b---h."

****

I think that if I had to compare marriage to any movie, it would be Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Did you ever see it? It was the very last Indiana Jones movie.

But, Ben, I thought the Kingdom of the Krystal Skull was last Indiana Jones movie?

No. You're wrong. That movie never happened. Ever. Don't ever mention that name again.

...anyway.

In the Last Crusade, Indy and his father are racing against the Nazis to find the Holy Grail. They end up in a cave in Egypt or Utah or some desert place I think. They find the Holy Grail and as they do, the cave starts collapsing everywhere. The earth is splitting open. Nazis are falling into chasms. Sean Connery is taking a nap. It's all just chaos.

As everything is just going to hell, Indy is trying to save Elsa, a Nazi who had deceived both the Jones earlier in the movie by trying to seduce them and pretending she was on their side. She falls into a chasm and is clinging to the side of the rock. Indy is above her reaching down trying to save her. Even after all the treachery and lies, Indy is trying to be the good guy and save the damsel in distress. But Elsa isn't reaching up to grab Indy's outstretched hand. She's clinging to the rock and she's staring at the cliff next to her -- where the Holy Grail is sitting. If it falls off the quaking cliff, it'll be gone forever; engulfed in lava and fire.

If only she can save it. She stretches. She stretches. Indy pleads with her to grab his hand; leave the Holy Grail to it's fate, he pleads. Of course, she doesn't listen to Indy. She needs the Grail. she can't live with out it. For Elsa, the risk of dying is worth the attempt to get her Grail; the thought of living without it terrifies her. How could life be complete without it? So she reaches. She plummets. She dies.

****

Not a lot of my friends, but all of my friends at one point or another looked at marriage the same way as Elsa looked at the Holy Grail and the same way a child may have looked at Winnie the Pooh's nose. "When I find that pudgy quadriped's schnoze, my puzzle will be complete. It will be finished. I can finally rest."

As Elsa lusted after the idea of the Holy Grail, so we all tend to crave the thought of marriage. "If I can just get my hands on it. If I can just possess this thing, my worries will be gone. Everything will be OK. Everything will be the way it should be."

What's funny is that I've put together lots of puzzles in my life and what did I feel after? Nothing really. Maybe I thought, "Cool, this is done. Maybe I'll go do something else now."

I didn't feel transformed. I didn't feel completed. I didn't feel perfect. I felt a couple hours older, a little bit hungrier and maybe a little bored. For a long time marriage has been my Holy Grail and thus far, it seems to be trapped down in a fiery chasm of lava and sulfur -- BUT I begin to see why I might be behind the curve in life compared to many of my friends. I have benefited from seeing the people I love fall in love. I have begun to learn something as a bachelor that some of them didn't start learning until they were husbands and all of them are continuing to learn today still:

Becoming one with somebody doesn't make you whole.

That's a key thought. The Bible says that we will leave our parents and cleave to another. We will in spirit and emotion and sexually, become one in imitation of the Trinity that is One. We meet a woman, fall in love, and become one; sharing life, resources, thoughts, emotions, hearts. Take warning though: we may become a more complete person, but we will not be a complete person in marriage.

Too many times I think that we build marriage (or sports or careers or whatever idols are in our heads) up as this last piece of the puzzle. We think, "If I can just get [blank], I will be happy. I will be there."

But then we get married or we get the promotion or we have the kids, etc and we still feel like we fell short. We still feel this ache in our hearts or this loose screw in our heads that rattles around and reminds us that things are not complete and things are not perfect. We can never seem to put our fingers on it, but I believe God has put it on the tips of our tongues that something is not quite right in this world. I think God baits us with insecurities like these because he wants to draw our attention to the one thing that will make us complete: Him.

Our creator. Our crafter. Our designer. Our potter. God wants to bless us with experiences that we can share with Him. And I think marriage is one of those big experiences that God gives to some (not all, but some) and says, "Through this experience, if you invite Me into it, I will bless it and I will make you complete. I will give you what you seek, though not always in the form you seek it."

At some time or another, I've heard all of my friends share this thought: they got married thinking that they would no longer feel unloved, undesired, or unknown and yet here they are, in a blessed, loving marriage, and they STILL struggle with feeling unloved, undesired, and unknown. And sometimes they feel these insecurities deeper in marriage than they ever did as bachelors and bachelorettes. Marriage didn't stop the insecurities. At times it enhanced them.

Marriage, as they say, is not for making a man happy, but for making him holy. What better way to bring a heart to God than to draw it out into the open and into the insecurities that make it long for something more?

Ask yourself these questions:

What is your missing piece of the puzzle, your Holy Grail? What is the thing(s) that you think will make you complete or make you happy?
What is the area of discomfort that God might be drawing you into to awaken your heart to the bigger things?
When those things have you let you down because they didn't make you feel complete...did you take it out on somebody else? Have you failed to love your wife because it hasn't been what you expected? What about family? Friends? Neighbors? How can you begin to repair those relationships so that God can lead you to completion?

For me, right now, the foggy field I need to be led into is my writing. When I write, I feel more complete, but I also feel great dread at the idea that I am just awful at this. Writing will not make me complete, but letting my writing become a venue for me to speak my heart to God and to people helps me become more complete. It helps me to pick up the blessings God has laid before me and challenges me to focus on Him and not my comfort.

I am not complete today. I will not be complete tomorrow. When my body is dead and I am risen next to God, then I think I will be complete.

5 Things My Married Friends Have Taught Me (Part 3: Family Game Night)

2010-10-20T06:30:00.001-05:00

Part 3: A mudslide of enlightenment.

So it had been awhile since I was drunk. Actually, it had been about 2 1/2 years since that rough night my senior year of high school. Now I was a junior in college -- of legal age -- and I hadn't meant to get drunk. It just happened. I didn't even like alcohol at the time. Frankly, I was terrified of it. I thought that alcohol essentially led to something similar to the film, Reefer Madness.

The night had started with a friend inviting me over to his house to smoke cigars. He had recently realized he was in love with the girl he was dating and he wanted to marry her. Tonight, he wanted to have a small, private get-together with some cigars and maybe a couple drinks. Nothing too wild.

I got over there and there were four of us. We started smoking cigars and my friends broke out a couple beers. The host of the evening offered me one and I declined; I didn't like the taste of beer. It made me gag. (It would take me almost another 2 years to develop a taste for any beer.)

"That's OK," he said. "I have some stuff to make mudslides. It tastes just like a milkshake, but with some alcohol in it."

I said I would try a little. "Not a lot," I emphasized. "I'll just have a little glass."

So he hands me this martini glass that has, what looks like a chocolate shake in it. I smelled it. Didn't smell too bad. I dabbed it with my tongue. A little sour for a chocolate milkshake, but not bad. So I took a sip.

"Hmm," I thought. "That's not that bad at all."

Three glasses later, I was informed that I was actually drinking a mudslide mix, and that the host had intended me to dilute it with ice cream. Since I hadn't diluted it, I had essentially done about 5 shots of vodka over the course of the previous 80 minutes.

"I see," I calmly said. "That explains why the walls are spinning."

I started my fourth glass (no sense quitting while you are already behind) and sat on the couch as the host started talking about what he looked forward to most with the girl he was planning on asking to marry him, his bride-to-be-to-be.

"I can't wait to have somebody to wake up next to and to experience life with and, of course, to have sex with."

At this point, the mudslides granted me great intellectual and philosophical powers -- (I know this because the next day my brain felt as if it had been working extra hard the night before.) -- "WAIT," I chimed in.

The other three looked at me, waiting to hear what gems of wisdom I'd spout out.

"S-sex is dumb. It's stupid. Lame. That's not the point of marriage," I said not knowing what I would slur next. "The point of marriage is the little things. Watching TV together. Playing board games. Family game night. That's what I look forward to."

"Ben," the host, obviously touched by the wisdom I had spoken, said. "You are drunk. You're also spilling mudslide mix on your shirt. Also, I don't think you know how sex works."

He was on to me.

"Ben," the host continued. "Family game nights are boring. I think I will like the sex better."

Rebutted and desperately clinging to a couch that was doing 360's at a faster and faster pace, I thought about what my friend, the host, had said. Maybe I didn't get it. Maybe the physical aspects of marriage were the best part.

Years later, I still hide on that mountain from time to time. I'm not willing to die on the mountain of Family Game Night, but I like to visit it every once in awhile. See, I get that there are certain adult activities and tax provisions that make marriage seem worth it, but I'd like to think, foolishly, that the best things in marriage live in the mundane.

I make dinner for myself and I wonder what it would be like to make it with somebody I care about that doesn't have a wiener.

I sit in bed and stare at the ceiling and wonder if a spouse would think the stain above me looked like Edward R. Murrow too or if she would say I was being naive, that it was really Chubby Checker.

I watch movies and wonder what it might feel like to have a spouse agree with me that this movie sucks and we should turn it off and go out for ice cream but she needed to take her lact-aid pill, because dairy just doesn't sit well with her.

I stand in front of the wall of pasta sauces at the store and dream of a time when I can get into a heated argument about Prego vs. Ragu so that one of us can storm of crying to the cereal aisle because the other one said we were "as italian as William Wallace."

I wonder what it would be like to say, "That's what she said." And to actually have a specific "she" that I was referring to.

Yeah, there's other stuff about marriage that is nice I'm sure. But I'm pretty low-maintenance.

After the mudslide incident, I'd have other discussions about marriage with those guys. Sure enough, I tend to get dismissed with comments about "Family Game Night" or "Chocolate Mudslides." I've probably earned that. Sometimes, when I get a few drinks in me, I just say some plain, old, stupid stuff.

5 Things My Married Friends Have Taught Me (Part 2: If You Aren't Willing to Get Hit By A Car, You Probably Aren't Suited For Marriage.)

2010-10-19T06:30:00.000-05:00

Part 2: Marriage ain't no sissy's game.

You know somebody's married and in love when they want to die.

Sure, plenty of people I've known have been dating and wanted to die, but they were just being over-dramatic. You know a guy is deeply in love with his wife when he's ready to commit seppuku on himself.

Now I'm a cry baby. Of all my friends, I cry the most. I cry when I drink too much. I cry almost every time I watch the movie Big Fish. When my friends wives say their husbands need to get in touch with their emotional, feminine side, they call me. I walk past entire groups of women and hear, "Oh shizz, it's about to get all estrogen up in here!"

So as I'm sitting across from one of the manliest men I know, tears streaming down his face because he had emotionally hurt his wife, I'm thinking, "If I ever ever get married, I'm screwed."

I think, before I had married friends, the idea of marriage to me was a happier idea than I see it now. Not that I'm a complete heartless creep and think marriage is an abomination -- that's far from the case, I think marriage looks like a great adventure -- but marriage definitely looks less "sunshine and roses" than what I naively thought several years ago.

I remember another buddy who got married when I was still in college and I hadn't seen him for a few months. We met up and I asked him how married life was. He replied, "It's good, but everyday I'm learning how selfish I am."

I was more than a little stunned when I heard this. I thought that the way it worked was that you found a cute girl, conned her into thinking you were cool, and then fell madly in love to live mildly ever after. Instead I got into a conversation with a friend who led me to believe that marriage was more like taking a flight across a beautiful ocean while watching a beautiful sunset--and then the wings fall off of the plane.

But I left that conversation thinking -- "Well that's just his opinion. Surely marriage doesn't ever make you feel bad."

But then, sure enough, over the next 5 years, I watched more and more of my friends get married and every single one of them flourish and flounder. I watched every one of my friends experience some of the most beautiful, intimate, grace-filled moments and I've seen every one of them have their guts ripped out through their face. I've seen married men on cloud 9 and in the 9th circle of hell. I've watched them be tender with their wives and also restrain themselves from burying a phone book in her skull. Marriage is an odd, bipolar thing.

Marriage isn't for cowards. I know nothing about marriage, but I know that. If you want to get married, if you want to be a husband (or even a boyfriend), you have to be willing to see ugliness revealed both in you and in her. You have to be willing to crucify this false image you may have of who you are, who she is, and what a romantic relationship is intended to be.

I say crucify and not kill, because crucifixion was a slow, deliberate death. Any sins you have in how you relate or treat your spouse (or anybody) are never quick kills. They take a long time of deliberate rebellion against sin and a deliberate hunt for God's grace.

Any coward can sit across from their friend and say, "Marriage is teaching me that I am selfish and that I don't know how to love my wife." It takes a brave man to say, "..but I am going to wrestle with this and with God on my side, I'm going to learn what it looks like to be selfless and to truly love."

I think too often we look at marriage as this happy-go-lucky thing we are entitled too. As if we were so awesome and so lovely that we deserve to get married and we deserve to live happily ever after. I mean, don't most girls plan their wedding starting at age 5? Don't they dream of that day as if it's the only reason they were born? And to some extent, guys do too. Girls start plan their weddings out as soon as they are born. Guys start planning their wedding nights out as soon as they hit puberty.

We think marriage is this awesome gift -- and it is -- but it's a gift with a rattlesnake in it. And it will bite you in the face and you will pass out and piss your pants if you aren't paying attention.

Cowards tend to get bit by snakes more than the brave because snakes smell fear. The divorce rate (among secular AND "christian" marriages) is about 50% I believe. That tells me that there are a lot of cowards who go in thinking this will be easy, then the mistakes and injuries start piling up and they bail. Now, I know some divorces happen because there is physical or sexual abuse, but a LOT of these are happening because men and women both just run away with their tails between their legs because one or both of them wouldn't communicate or because one or both of them couldn't stop worshiping themselves.

Another thing I've seen from my friends is that marriage is a lot like giving a person a loaded gun, having them point it at you, and trusting them them not to shoot you. I have ticks, fears, neurotic ideas, and worries that I don't feel comfortable telling myself and in a marriage I'm supposed to share them with a woman and feel loved? Yeesh. Again, cowards can't do that. It takes brave people to expose themselves, to share themselves with another; to give that person a chance to hurt them, but to trust them that they won't.

In this country, we love to popularize stories of people going into war or into a hostage situation and saving the day. We love to hear about strong men and women who fight the bad guy and rescue the kids and save the kitten. We are in awe of Navy SEALS and Marines and Firefighters and Jedi Knights.

But we don't hold this same awe for a couple who not only stayed married for 30, 40, 50 years--and not just stayed married and met the status quo, but actually grew together. They grew softer and lovelier over those decades of marriage. We think, "Oh, that's cute. I hope they don't still have sex. That'd be gross."

What if we actually held people who did marriage well -- did it the way God intended -- on the same level as a superhero? What if we looked at that marriage and saw it for what it was: flawed and rocky at times, but always trending upward. It wasn't a perfect marriage, but when they screwed up, they repented, and when they did well, they were humbled. They never gave up. They never gave in to settling for "good enough." They knew what was at stake if they didn't do all they could to love each other and to push each other toward greater things. They took hits and scars; they hurt each other and betrayed each other, but always found a way to show each other grace.

They were brave. They hung in there like underdogs and fought it out. He wasn't a coward. She wasn't a coward. They did well. So can you.

5 Things My Married Friends Have Taught Me (Part 1: The F-Word)

2010-10-18T06:30:00.000-05:00

This week, I'm attempting to do a series, so there's a 90% chance I won't finish this. This week I'm writing about what my married friends have taught me. Before reading these next 5 posts (if I actually do them) read the following:

I am not married. Therefore, I know nothing about marriage. Don't be surprised if something I say doesn't gel.
The names of anybody in these columns have been changed to protect my friends. Plus I figure being married in its self brings more than enough shame to fill a lifetime.
If you believe something I say is erroneous and wish to talk to me about it, you can call me at 867-5309 (ask for Jenny).
If I find that you think something I wrote is heartfelt or cute, and you turn my post into an email forward, I will laugh at you. Then I will vandalize your home.

Part 1: If you are married, you are finite.

I'm a selfish person. Kind of like Gordon Gekko. But whereas Gekko was a smooth operator in life, I'm more like epileptic disco dancer. Gekko moved through life like his buttery, slicked back locks and I move through life like Vlad Divac after his fourth bottle of pre-game Pepto Bismol.

When I was a kid, my brother and I would play with action figures all of the time. We would set up my fold out Wayne Manor/Bat Cave combo playset. It would be team Ben versus team Jake. Being the oldest, I would divide the action figures among Jake and I for maximum fairness. I was always willing to make sure Jake and I split the cool action figures. So I usually set the rosters like this:

Team Ben -- Batman, Robin, Wolverine, Hulk Hogan, Ultimate Warrior, Snake Eyes, the four Ninja Turtles, and the gorilla Alien from the film Aliens.

Team Jake -- Supergirl, Marty Jannetty, Cyclops, Ted BiBiase's man-valet Virgil, battle-damage Connie Chung, and a can of Campbell's condensed Tomato Soup.

Now Jake complained a couple times that I hadn't divided the action figures fairly, but I always reassured him that I loved him very much and that I was OK with taking some of the lesser-action figures so Jake could have more fun.

Fast forward about 15 years (forgetting a few moments during summer breaks when Jake and I would bust out the toys for nostalgia's sake) and I'm sitting at a friend's house with the table's slightly turned on me.

Fifteen years later, I don't have little plastic action figures anymore, but larger flesh and blood action figures that think on their own, move on their own, and if I try to throw them at a wall, they will throw me right back. This time, I'm sitting in a living room with a friend and his wife trying to talk the friend into coming out to hang out and to do something adventurous. His wife is trying to talk this six-foot toy into staying home, watching a movie, or having a conversation.

Note: Women are always worse at playing than men. Men want to blow stuff up. Women want a tea party. Women want to play dress up. Men want to punch each other in the nuts.

As bad as I don't like to share my toys, I'm worse at sharing my friends. When I was in college, it wasn't as big of a deal, because there wasn't any competition. I didn't have to worry about Tom or Tim or Todd getting clearance from a spouse first before going out to eat late at night or taking a road trip or even just hanging out and having a beer.

And it's different sharing a friend with other guys versus sharing a friend with a wife. A wife is equal to 10 male friends from what I've seen. Now this isn't wrong, it's just how I've seen it. It does create tension though.

We are finite people. We aren't omnipresent like God is. I imagine it's hard for a man who is used to being able to do whatever he wants and go wherever he wants, whenever he wants, to find him self leaving his old ways behind to cleave to a woman. Beforehand, the man only had to see if what he was feeling at the time was compatible to the opportunities in front of him.

"I'm hungry. I can do mexican, chinese, or pizza." Choose.

"I'm bored. I can play video games, go to the bar, or hit the driving range with the guys." Choose.

But it changes when you marry a woman. Suddenly you aren't just looking at your feelings and the opportunities in front of you, but you are looking at your feelings, the opportunities in front of you AND the impact it will have on the woman you love.

"I'm hungry. I can do mexican, chinese, or pizza. I wonder if my wife would like to go out or cook together?" Discuss.

"I'm bored. I can play video games, go to the bar, or hit the driving range with the guys. What would my wife say?" Discuss.

I'm standing in a mall and I'm wondering where I'm at. I go to the mall directory and I see a big red dot. The sign says that I am the dot and I am here. I look down at my feet. I don't see a dot, but I am here nonetheless. I find that I am in a sea of married, reproducing men and women.

From the dot that I'm standing on I can go three possible ways:

Blend in -- get married. Sounds tempting, but I like doing my own laundry and a woman would just f--k it up.
Flee -- find single friends. Again, sounds tempting. But it took me a quarter century to find quality friends like these and I'm fairly lame, so I'm not sure if I would want any friends who would want me.
Adapt -- Learn to share. Forgive your friends and yourself for being finite and be there when you are needed.

I'm selfish. I hate to share. But I also hate to see my friends in pain. I hate to see my friends stagnant. I hate to see my friends not moving closer to Christ.

If I want to see my friends thrive...If I want to see my friends flourish...If I want to see my friends move full-steam ahead towards Christ I have to realize that those things may start inside of their marriage. Whereas at one time I was the best friend, I must now be demoted. I must be willing to step down and let my friend become a husband. I must let my friend become a father.

Friends are for seasons. A wife is for life. Ultimately, I can be around to challenge and to encourage, but my role becomes less the coach and more the grizzled quarterback with the bad hip who stands on the sidelines and tells his friend, "You run like a sissy. You can do better." The wife doesn't become the coach. God is the coach. The wife is like a cheerleader, but not a trampy cheerleader. More like a classy, soccer-mom cheerleader. But less annoying. Actually, a soccer-mom would have nothing to do in a football game except for sit in the stands and gossip or plan out booster club meetings --

-- I'm not sure where that metaphor was going.

To sum up, we are finite. We are limited. We only ever get 24 hours in a day and when you take out work, sleep, meals, bathroom breaks...well, that doesn't leave you with very long left. So what should you use it for? Spend some time with your wife. Love her. Encourage her. Challenge her. If you have kids, your time becomes even more difficult.

All that we ask -- we, the second-string friends waiting to get into the game--all we ask is that you don't forget about us. That you give some time; maybe a couple hangouts a month where we can be immature and dumb and just have fun.

Oh, and we also want you to see if your wife has any hot friends with low-standards.

The Spiritual Gifts of Sunday Morning Hermits

2010-10-11T06:45:00.000-05:00

I've been noticing a peculiar habit of mine.

It started as I was having my morning coffee. If you've ever had the coffee at Shoal Creek Community Church you'll notice that 1) It's flavorless, 2) It's odorless, 3) It has enough caffeine to kill a small horse.

Number three is why I love the coffee at SCCC. It's not great coffee. It's often too hot to drink for the first 10 minutes after you pour yourself a cup. The saving grace of our coffee is this: if you ever find yourself trying to avoid Freddy Kruger, our Joe is top-notch.

So my routine on a Sunday morning goes like this:

Arrive at about 8:30 a.m.
Drop my stuff off in the SCCC Panic Room a.k.a. the Triangle a.k.a. the Media Booth.
Walk down stairs and get a cup of coffee from the break room.
Go to the triangle and pretend to know something technical as I manipulate sound for the webcast or quarterback the video board.
Head downstairs during half-time (between both services) and wander around looking like a toddler who just found himself holding on to the skirt of somebody other than his mom. (I don't actually grab skirts. This was a metaphor for my lostness. I did however have an awkward experience with a man in a kilt once, but in my defense, I've never seen smoother calves.)
Repeat steps 3 & 4.
Perform the obligatory "Stand Around In the Auditorium with Friends for 15 Minutes" which is only trumped by the "Go to the Restroom for 15 Minutes as the Morning Coffee Rips Through Your Digestive Track like a Battle Axe."

That's my typical Sunday Morning. Granted, there are variables to that, but most of them revolve around any arguments, debates, conversations we had in the Triangle. Before you fool yourself into thinking we had a serious theological debate in the triangle, know that we spent much of this past Sunday morning in a heated argument over whether or not one of us could take professional, female, mixed martial arts fighter Gina Carano in a one-on-one UFC-style fight.

Now there are pros and cons to what I do on a Sunday Morning. Pros include: helping to try and create a good Sunday morning experience for the internet, learning about technical video production, & not having to wear pants in my serving area. (Kidding. But I always wonder...)

Pseudo-Spiritual Gift #1: Hiding

The Con of what I do is that it feeds into what I often think of as my 3 greatest spiritual gifts.

I don't think there are many Biblical references to hiding being a spiritual gift, but, I mean David hid from people trying to kill him, Moses was hidden in a basket in the reeds to escape death, and Joseph was hidden by his brothers which ultimately led to Joseph living a pretty neat life. So hiding can be a positive.

But then, of course, I'm reminded of the original Hide-and-Seek enthusiasts and very-well tanned people--Adam & Eve. They hid because they were ashamed of a sin they had committed.

So why do I hide in a windowless room with my friends on a Sunday morning? Nobody is trying to kill me and, in fact, I face more risk of bodily harm in the Triangle where my friends are bigger than me, love to wrestle, and nobody can hear me scream behind 8 inches of brick.

I hide behind serving in church for the same reason I hid behind serving in college. Which is the same reason I hid in my dorm room for the first year of college. Which is why I hid at home during high school. Which is why I hid behind books throughout my life. Which is why I hide behind jokes and a rude, sarcastic demeanor today.

And it's why I'm beginning to think that Adam and Eve were hiding on that awful day in Eden so long ago.

I think Adam and Eve hid because they didn't think that anybody (and at this time, God was the only "body" around that wasn't an animal. And no, this wasn't a Disney movie, animals didn't talk in Eden.) would/could/should accept them. When they sinned, they knew they had done something bad. They may not have had a word for it, but they knew it was bad to have eaten from the tree of Knowledge of Good & Evil.

I wonder if they knew that God was omnipresent; that He could see everything, everywhere. I think they hid much like a child hides under a blanket. If a razor sharp monster wants to make you into dinner, a blanket doesn't do jack squat. But a child hides anyway because even though success is a longshot, it's better than doing nothing. Maybe Adam & Eve were afraid of what God would do to them when He found out what happened.

Often things happen in life and they aren't good things. They are maybe things that happen to you or things you do and you feel shame or guilt or just tainted. You don't know what to do with those things, so you hide. You hide behind confidence or behind sex. Maybe you hide behind hard work or even kindness.

You think, "If I do these things, if I act this way, I won't be noticed. I WILL be noticed, but the person I want others to see in me will be noticed. The good me will be noticed. I can hide the rest of me--the shameful, stubborn me--behind this shield of hard work, kindness, beauty, religion, etc"

Me? I hide behind humor and pessimism. I make myself unattractive on the outside of the car so that nobody will peak into the trunk of the car. I hide physically too. Sometimes I love to sink into the corner of a room and just watch people mingle. I avoid people a lot.

Especially on Sundays for some reason. Hundreds of people gather on Sunday mornings at Shoal Creek to worship together, to ask questions about Jesus together, and to seek the Trinity together. It's odd that I feel a need to hide there at what should be a hub of grace and understanding.

And as a side note: I've never been to a community as warm and inviting as Shoal Creek. I love my home there quite a bit. But even in their own home, people hide. Until I learn to trust God with my mess, I will always be a boy pretending to be a hermit.

Pseudo-Spiritual Gift #2: Telepathy

I remember my freshman year of college. I had guys on my dorm floor who wanted me to go out with them on weekends to parties so that I could experience college life. I went a couple of times, but...I have this other weird gift--I think I can read minds.

Now read that carefully. My gift is not that I can "read minds." My gift is that I "think I can read minds." My gift--that has caused me as much difficulty in life as hiding--is that I have this uncanny ability to assume what people think about me.

So when a normal person enters a college party, what happens in the first 10 seconds? They scan the floor and say, "There's the beer. There are the ladies. There's the bathroom. OK, go."

What happens during the first 10 seconds when I enter a party? I say, "That guy wants to punch me. Those girls are all laughing at me. The party just lost 100 fun points because I walked in."

How do I do this? How am I able to read minds so accurately? I'm not sure. Like I said, it's a gift. I'm psychic.

Psuedo-Spiritual Gift #3: Misreading the Data

If you have noticed, Pseudo-Spiritual Gift #1 is fed into by Psuedo-Spiritual Gift #2. Let me show you what feeds into PSG #2.

Maybe my greatest gift is an ability to feel unwanted wherever I go. Like I said, it's taken me 4 years of my friends trying to convince me over and over and over and over and over again that they legitimately want to be my friend. Which makes no sense to me given the data. I'm not cool. I have no talents of use to anybody--actually I take that back. I make a great wing man because I can scare women off like no other, but that's beyond the point.

I hide in the Triangle, mostly, because I see all of the people who come to Shoal Creek on a Sunday morning and I think, "Wow. God is doing amazing things here." And then I about 2 seconds later, I think, "Wow. These people are going to think I'm the worst person they ever met." So I hang out with the people that it took 4 years to believe they weren't completely annoyed with me.

When I think about this outside of the context of myself--meaning I think about my place in my fear as opposed to how I feel about it--I realize that God has blessed me in a huge way and I kind of just push it away.

My whole life I have longed for a place to belong and to feel less like myself (awkward, geeky, bland, etc.)...and God has granted that. Shoal Creek is a place where I honestly believe that I can be real and authentic and I can ask hard questions about God and have people point me back to God when I stray. God has given me a place where he says, "Here, you can be you..the you that your sinning has made you into and the you that I am redeeming you into." Continually, God shows me examples in the lives of people who didn't think they would be accepted in a church, but they come to Shoal Creek and they feel accepted. (Others churches do this phenomenally well also, so don't think I believe we have a patent on this.)

God gives me the gift of an accepting community and I say, peek through the mail flap on the front door and say, "Thank you God. Just leave it on the step and I'll get it when it's safe."

I misread the data of who I am and who God is. That causes me to assume I know what's going on. That makes me want to hide. Maybe if I spent less time trying to justify what God is offering and spent more time just trusting Him, I'd be less of a hermit.

A Letter to Terry Jones or How to Get Rich Off 10 Tons of Stolen Bic Lighters

2010-09-08T20:50:00.011-05:00

So if you have been paying any attention to the news at all lately, you may have read that a church in Gainesville, Florida (the state where white people go to get hammered on alcohol or into a coffin) is planning on burning some copies of the Quran. The Dove World Outreach Center is hosting an "International Burn a Quran" Day to commemorate the attacks of September 11, 2001.

This will inevitably be the worst fake holiday since the Kansas City Royals' "Free Exploding Kitten at the K" event of 1998.

I will give credit to the Dove World Outreach Center for having a creative mascot -- Dove Rambo, a flame-thrower wielding, camo-wearing dove who bares emotional scars from Vietnam.

Props to lead pastor Terry Jones (not the cross-dressing Monty Python member, but the cross-dressing Florida pastor) for taking a bold step out to do something different. Some churches gain members from publicity, so, ya know, old Terry gets an A for being the Howard Stern of Florida chapels. And while I don't doubt that Mr. Jones is A) out of his mind, B) a raging narcissist, or C) was Sam Elliott's stunt double in the Big Lebowski; I do find myself agreeing with him in one aspect.

*******************

Let me make this personal statement first:

The Quran is bad. It's bad news bears. Now I'm not saying all Muslims are bad people. Many of them are very kind and polite and intelligent people. I'm sure that many of them are nicer and kinder than I am. But I am a Christian and I believe in the God of the Bible. I believe in a triune God. A three fold God of Father God, the Son Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. And I believe that that same triune God inspired the Bible. I believe that the Bible, as confusing and hard to grasp at times as it can be, is perfect.

I believe the ideas of the Bible and the stories of the Bible are God-breathed and perfect. Now, this is the point where I say, this post is not about proving the Bible is true. So if anybody wants to argue, find another blog to read. That's not the point of this post. My point is coming down below.

I believe that the Bible is true and the Quran is fake. They can't both be true. If you believe both can be true at the same time then you need to leave your house, you probably have a gas leak. But again, this isn't to debate the Bible vs. the Quran.

"But does something you think is fake make it bad?" Maybe not always, but mostly. I believe God's goal in our lives is to draw us close to Him through Jesus Christ. The goal in life is to know God and to know Christ and to know the Spirit; to know them deeply and passionately. The goal is to love them and to be loved by them and then to share that love with others through telling people about God's love and by doing good works for people so that they may see that you have an uncommon love.

I believe that anything that seperates us from that--from the true God, Son, and Spirit--is evil and wrong.

*********************

So, with my beliefs stated, Mr. Jones. I'll bite.

I'll take what you are selling. The Quran is bad. It's evil. It's distracting people from the true God. Let's burn the whole pile. All of them. I'll buy the gasoline even. My treat. But if we do that, then I've got some requests:

Lets stop at the movie theater. Every year millions of people go there to watch fake movies about fake people who live lives they wish they had. I believe that God wants us to live our own lives, with Him as a guide, and to not spend our days dreaming instead of actually living. Lets burn down the movie theaters. While we're at it, we'll burn down all of the Blockbusters and Redboxes. We don't want people hiding movies at home instead of living meaningful lives.
Let's burn down Coca-Cola and Pepsi. They put their pop machines in schools and sell their products to kids. So now all of our kids are out of shape and have horrible attention spans. I'm not sure if there's a direct correlation, but better safe than sorry. Burn 'em down.
Let's burn down the adult stores. Strip clubs, dirty arcades, adult novelty stores. They feed lust and give both men and women false ideas of who they really are. Burn it down. Oh, but while we're at it, we're going to burn down Wal-Mart. They have a women's underwear section that's in full view and they have posters of women in underwear. That's a bit much too. Oh and some gas stations sell nude magazines, but all sell hot rod magazines with latin women with fake chests on the covers. Burn 'em down.
Next stop: colleges and universities. Every one of them has a philosophy department where people can learn about atheistic worldviews. Burn it down.
Libraries. Unrestrained knowledge used for learning unbiblical teaching and feeding escapist fantasies. Burn it down.
McDonalds. See number 2. Burn it down. Then get IHOP, Baskin Robbins, Burger King, Sonic, all of them. Burn them all down.
The government has allowed a lot of freedoms to worshippers of other gods. They took prayer out of school. They allowed gay marriage. They make us wear seat belts and set speed limits -- neither are biblical. Burn the government down. Scorched. Earth.
Beaches. Men and women in skimpy clothes, drinking beer, and listening to awful music. Burn them down. Start in the Gulf of Mexico, the oil-soaked sand makes a good start.
Your flesh. Burn it. Burn it down--

Terry Jones: "Wait. What?"

Yes. Our flesh. Burn it. It's the cause of 100% of all the problems on the earth. Sin lives here.

Terry Jones: "No, sin lives out there. In Quran. In the porn shops. In the abortion clinics."

No. Sin lives here. In our hearts. In our anger. In our envy. In our pride. In our vanity. In our refusal to let God love us and lead us. That is where sin is. That is where the devil grabs hold and turns this world against God. Satan doesn't influence books and magazines. He influences writers and photographers and storytellers. Satan doesn't whisper lies to guns and knives, but killers and bullies. Mr. Jones, if you want to get rid of evil completely, this is where we start. What we don't need is to burn things or flip our world upside down. It's already upside down. We don't need to incite more anger and fear from those far from God. We need to love them. We need to pray for them. We need to realize that many of them are going in a wrong direction as many of us once were before.

Yes, Mr. Jones I believe the Bible is truth. I believe the Quran is false. I believe God is a jealous and loving God who wants to rid our lives of anything that may get in between us and Him. So are you trying to bring people closer to God or are you trying to make a name for yourself? Are you ready to serve out of humility as Jesus did or do you prefer to be American Patriot as Jesus wasn't?

***********

This Saturday, you will burn a stack of Qurans and no lives will be changed, only hearts hardened. You will burn 100 or 1,000 or 10,000 Qurans in blind vanity. I believe that somewhere, this Saturday, a man or woman who loves Jesus will enjoy a cup of coffee with a man or woman who doesn't. Maybe they will be Muslim or an atheist or Hindi or just undecided. They will sit and talk about faith openly and unashamedly and love each other, even at the bottom of their second cup.

You will have made a nice pile of ash. That person in the coffee shop will have helped make a real life change.

Sour Candy

2010-08-30T22:30:00.004-05:00

I hate Candy Land. I believe Candy Land brings out more of the darker side of people than Ouija boards and Grand Theft Auto combined.

For the first couple years out of college, I worked in a local before and after school program in Liberty called Kids Zone. Basically I got paid $10 an hour to play with elementary kids for 25 hours a week. Pretty good job if you didn't mind being broke all the time. I liked the job and was pretty flexible. I'm not a huge gym class fan, but I didn't mind pegging some kids with dodge balls a couple times a week. I learned a lot of different card games from the kids and had a good time playing Spades and talking about life with them. The only thing I hated was Candy Land. Candy Land is just a vile game. For some reason, I believe that God has designed ordained that game to favor children over adults.

I must have played that game 100 times with kindergartners who couldn't tell you the right names of colors. Every time without fail, this is how the game would go. I'd draw a double red. The boy or girl would draw a single green or yellow. I would draw a double blue. The girl or boy would draw Princess Frostine (the village bicycle of Candy Land) and would immediately move his/her piece to the end of the board and inevitably win the game. I would draw the Gumdrop without fail and move back to the beginning.

This happened every time. I kid you not. There would be sometimes when I would be ahead; even within 5 spots of winning the game--and then that cursed gumdrop would come out and I'd go straight back to the bottom again. I felt like the Israelites who were never to reach the Promised Land. Every game ended with an excited boy or girl reaching the end of the game and winning and me cheering them on with a plastic smile and a crushed soul.

Lately, I feel like life is like Candy Land. I feel like I'm stuck on Gumdrop Mountain (or plateau or swamp even) and everybody else is riding high on Princess Frostine's Carnival of Caramel Deliciousness. I can't be mad at them. They just got better cards than me. It's the luck of the draw. Nothing personal, just the business of life.

I think that the biggest thing God has been doing with my heart in the last year has been to walk me through a realization of the power of envy in my life. As far as sins go, envy is a bitch. I know that all the sins are bad, but for some reason, envy seems to be rooted deep, deep down in my life. Through this last year, I've seen how I can begin to connect many of my problems to envy. Tensions in ministry, community, and especially friendships all seem to be coming from this envy that has rooted itself deep down in my flesh.

One spot in life where I see myself glued down to the Gumdrop Outhouse is on the relational front. At this point in my life, my closest friends are all married. Now I have many friends who aren't. Actually, the majority of my friends aren't married. But my closest ones--the ones that I've got a deep loyalty and love for--are. And that's nothing that I can, nor ever should, hold against them. I do find joy in seeing them happy and have learned a lot from them and their marriages.

But, I look at my life and see that I don't have anybody to share the dumb stuff that interests me with. I'm the perpetually odd-numbered wheel. It's not all bad, but loneliness can be a sour candy to eat sometimes.

Heck, look at my dating history (a grand total of 4 months out of 26 years) with two great women who either had severe concussions or later realized that they may have had long, unnoticed gas leaks in their homes. Really, those are the only explanations that make sense to me for how somebody could put up with a miserable bastard like me in a dating relationship.

So when I'm hanging out with my married friends, as much as I love to see them in love, there's a sting there that I can't shake off. There's a bitterness there that I can't spit out. I like to think of envy as this massive parasite that is just sucking the life out of me. It's like this ten pound tick, the size of a terrier that is just riding my back and draining any warmth I may have absorbed from God and just sucking it into this black, cancerous body.

Envy is unattractive and I know that it only brings out the worst in me. I see it bring out the worst in me continuously. It affects the way I love my friends. It affects the way I think about people. It affects me physically. I've been in such a funk lately, that in the month I've probably spent 60-70% of my non-working time either lying in bed or sleeping.

Envy is preventing me from living a God-honoring life that takes advantage of the blessings God has given me. My youth is a blessing and I'm wasting it on jealousy and self-pity.

If envy were a toaster, I'd return it. If it were a gallon of spoiled milk in my fridge, I'd flush it down the sink. If it were a horse, I'd put it down. But it's none of those. Envy is not a physical thing. It's immaterial. It's impossible to corner or catch. Sometimes I can see it, but usually only after the damage is done: either to myself or relationally to my friends. I can't stop this myself. It'll eat me alive without help.

Envy. If I had to put a face to it, I'd give it the face of that big, ol', nasty momma from Aliens. That tall, dark, and ugly queen who just spits acid and disembowels people with her pointy tail. She's this big, nasty beast and I'm just this weak person who cannot fight off Envy alone.

What I need is a miracle. What I need is an intervention. What I need is for God with his giant robot suit of glory and his flamethrower of grace to stand between me and Envy and in a powerful voice that tumbles mountains, command Envy to: "Get away from him, you bitch."

Nothing less than a miracle, nothing less than divine intervention, will save me from my envy.

Closed Circle Conversationalists

2010-08-26T19:51:00.002-05:00

Have you ever been at a social gathering talking with friends and maybe standing or sitting around a table? One of my pet peeves is the exclusive circle that seems to just naturally happen. You'll just be talking about something unimportant like a sports story or asking for advice about where to get new tires and as you are talking to 2-4 other people, this circle starts to form. It makes sense, you are talking about the same topic, so why not be able to see the other faces?

But what happens every time? You form this exclusive circle and then a 5th or 6th person walks up to join the conversation and there's no place for them. You don't notice them because you are so heavily ingrained in today's life-changing topic: The Pants I Got on Sale at Kohl's.

I've been that late comer too. I've been in the awkward position of wanting to join the conversation or even just wanting to listen but being unable to penetrate the actual circle. It's like trying to smash an atom with a cotton ball, but on a social level.

So either you open up the circle and lose track of the conversation because the new guy or gal needs to be caught up. What pants? Who's pants? How much were they? Are those button fly? It's like the Big Lebowski: you are Walter and this intruder is Donny. Or you can link arms and banish the new guy for the sin of poor timing. You cast him out like the social leper he is.

So, I've been reading through Job lately. It's a doozy. It's not a book you just read on a Saturday afternoon. I find myself reading the same passage 2 or 3 times in a row and then coming back to read that same passage again a few days later. It's like Shakespeare on steroids. Just dense with information and tangents that I won't discuss here.

But one of the things that has seeped into my thick skull from reading Job is this -- and it's not by any means a new topic -- how often do we fail to bring God into the circle of conversation?

In Job, Job (the main character of course) is hurting bad. His children get crushed to death by a collapsing house and all of his livestock (a.k.a. $$$) and servants (a.k.a. status symbol) get wiped out by thieves, murderers, and storms. Then Job gets the worst case of boils imaginable. Then his wife starts nagging him. She's the poorly-aged cherry on top of his crap sundae.

Then three friends: Zophar, Bildad, and Eliphaz join Job to talk about things. They end up arguing back and forth and don't really help Job out at all. In fact, they end up frustrating him even more.

The thing that stood out the most to me as I read the book of Job this time around is that Zophar, Bildad and Eliphaz spend more time talking ABOUT God with Job then they spend time talking TO God with Job. Actually--and I may be wrong because I'm still reading through Job--I don't think Z,B, & E address God directly once. Now Job does talk to God. He voices complaints both to God and to his friends about God.

I'm guilty of this. I enjoy my friends. What I enjoy about my closest friends is that we can talk about life. We can talk about frustrations, hurts, anger, sadness, and confusion. We are real. I believe that my friends and I can be real like the some people wishe they could be. But what I don't do well is bring God into the conversation.

Instead of praying with my friend as he's hurting because he doesn't know how to love his wife well, I talk about what God would want him to do. Instead of praying with and for a friend who has lost a loved one, I say, "I'll be praying for ya!" which usually means, "If I see God around, I'll be sure to mention that."

When we get into little debates over theology or what God wants from us in this area or that area of life, we talk like he's not even there. But if God is the God of the Bible, then that means He is omnipresent--he's everywhere. He's here with me now as I write this. He's here with you as you read this. He is there with you when you stopped reading after the second paragraph too!

I think it saddens God when we forget He is there. When we act like He's invisible (which He is, but He isn't. We won't get into that here.).

It's like when I was a teenager and we'd be at Thanksgiving or Christmas or Fourth of July; just some big event that had our relatives together. When I was a teen, I had terrible acne. I had braces. I was gangly. I had a funny half-pubescent voice. I had glasses. I was a horrible mess. I had no self-confidence. In short, I was a ball of fun. Anyway, the topic of when I was going to get out of my awkward, ugly phase was a topic that I did hear on a couple of occasions. It wasn't meant to be in a hurtful way or meant to degrade me, but it was something that I'm sure parents and loved ones get concerned about. Let's face it, your naughty bits are the key to your family's legacy and your parents probably prayed every day of your lives that you'd find a passable door to, you know...but I digress.

The point I'm attempting to make is this: I don't want to be talked about when I'm near you. I want to be talked to. Don't talk about what you think I like. Ask me. Don't talk about what you think I'm feeling. Ask me. If you want to know what I want, ask me. Talk to me. Speak to me. Don't pretend I'm not here. Don't forget that I'm just a phone call away.

Don't just talk about God. Talk to Him.

How much more effective would Z,B, & E have been if instead of telling Job what they thought God thought, they had sat with Job and just loved him? What if instead of spouting facts (and some of what Z,B, & E had some truth in it) they had said to Job:

"You know Job, we don't know why this is all happening to you. We don't know what it feels like to lose your children. We don't know what it feels like to lose your wealth. We don't know what pain you are going through physically and emotionally and spiritually. We don't have the answers. But, if you'll let us, we'd like to sit with you. We'd like to cry with you. We'd like to pray with you. And we will sit and cry and pray with you as long as you want. We can't make any of this better, Job, but we will stand by your side in front of God and see what He asks us to do next. We have no answers. We can only be with you to ask the One who does."

Sometimes, the worst thing you can do for a friend is discuss theology or steps to recovery. Not always. Sometimes a friend does need to use their head and use some logic. But even then, prayer should be a key part of the process. Maybe even the central part.

I've been lucky to have few crises in the lives of my friends. But I believe that they will happen and probably happen many times. That's just life. So I hope that when that crisis happens, that I will always be willing to move aside and let God into the circle, to address Him first, and to stand by my hurting friend's side as we wait for His response.

25 Things I've learned in 25 Years.

2010-08-23T07:00:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow I turn 26 years old. At the very least, a quarter of my life is behind me. Surely, I can say my childhood is over. And while I'd have to check on this, I believe my adolescence may be over too. Starting tomorrow, I, for all intents and purposes, will probably have to start calling myself an adult. Further proving this, is the fact that I found a white--not gray, but snow white--hair on my head today during second service at Shoal Creek.

And even though I don't feel like I have anything useful to contribute to you, I do feel like sharing 25 things that I have learned (although not necessarily applied well to my life) in my first 25 years. And so, in no particular order...

1) Friends often come in seasons.

While I'm typing this, I've also got a web browser open and logged in to Facebook. For some people Facebook is a waste of time. For others, Facebook is a fun waste of time. For me, it's a reminder that I've lost touch with more friends than I'd like to admit. A lot of them played significant roles in my life during high school and college. I never planned on losing touch with them, but that's just how it goes sometimes. Another bittersweet reminder that sometimes we have little control over the direction of our lives and most of us are just bouncing off each other like balls in the lottery machine.

I hope that they are each doing well and that maybe I'll run into them somewhere and maybe have a chance for a cup of coffee and a chat.

2) No matter how old I get, I will always be afraid of the dark.

3) No child ever plans on becoming the villain.

I don't think Lex Luthor was evil at 5 years old. I don't think Blofeld was plotting to kill people while in daycare. I don't believe there are any Stewie Griffins in our world. I do believe that choices we make combine while we deal with circumstances we find ourselves in can greatly impact the direction of our life. I'll never want to hang out with a Stalin or a Hitler or a Dahmer -- but I can also never disregard the fact that in an earlier time they were just like me -- a child who wanted somebody to play with or wanted to draw a picture that a parent would want to put on their fridge at home. This leads me into number 4...

4) God didn't design caricatures, so I have to stop looking at people like them.

I think one of the greatest offenses I commit to a person is looking at them like a caricature. It's easy for me to look at somebody I dislike and only see what I hate. Likewise, it's easy to look at somebody I love and not see their flaws. I do not believe true love is blind. I believe true love is honest and fair taking in to account the whole person, not just the parts we want to see.

5) Don't let age differences get in the way of you learning something important.

God does not hand out wisdom on a seniority basis. Keep your ears open for what older and younger people may have to say. Weigh it carefully, but don't assume it will never hold any value.

6) Don't be numb.

Numbness is a trait loved by people who like to lie and people who are too scared to face their fears. I have to relearn this often, but it always ends up being truth. When I get hurt or offended and decide to just let it slide or to numb out and occupy myself with something else, I lose an opportunity to see God show up big: both in ways that could heal me and in ways that could convict me of how I fail to love.

7) Learn how to say what's on your mind.

We lose a lot of great ideas because people were too [fill in the blank] to speak up about thoughts, ideas, dreams, or concerns. Likewise, when I fail to say what I'm really thinking, I deny myself or another of a chance to grow and mature spiritually and to really get the most out of life. Most of us hold so much inside, that we've forgotten how to let any of it out.

8) Telling somebody that "the grass is always greener on the other side" should earn you a kick in the face.

While there is truth in that statement, I think it becomes a cop out. How many times have you been confronted with an unfulfilled dream or desire to hear that the "the grass is always greener"? What if I were a parent and a couple were sharing with me that they found out they can't have kids on their own and that they don't make enough money to adopt? Should I tell them that "the grass is always greener"?

Likewise, as a single person, I've had many of my married friends tell me in a joking way, "don't get married, wives are crazy." Now I've yet to stab any of my friends with a sharp object, but I've thought about it.

9) "Cool" equals a short shelf life.

High school was wasted with fads in clothes, music, shoes, and car stereo equipment. This is what I've seen. If you don't want to partake in a certain fad, wait 8 months when it changes again. Oh, and that thing you like that nobody in high school likes? People will love it in college.

10) Metabolism is an evil, deceitful thing.

11) Be careful when taking dating advice.

There is a ton more bad advice about dating then there is good. Everybody wants to give you dating advice and they all are convinced they have good advice. Nobody is qualified to give you dating advice. Especially me. The best way to test dating advice is to sit on it for 3 years; if it still sounds like decent advice, then try it out.

12) Don't cut your cigar too close to the shoulder.

I can't tell you how many times I've ruined a perfectly good cigar because of this.

13) Choose one week out of the year where you will ditch your cell phone and your computer.

It will be the worst case of withdrawals for some of you. But after the first day, you will feel better. And after a week you will wonder why you were so attached to those things to begin with.

14) Learn to forgive people that break your heart.

Many of you have exes you wish would get hit by a bus. I'm telling you you that grudges were never God's desire for us. Yes, you got hurt. And they may never apologize or ask for forgiveness. Give it to them anyway. Wish them well. Pray they walk close to God and are blessed. Your heartbreak is usually akin to a child crying because all they wanted to eat was desert for dinner and their wish was not granted.

15) Marriage may not be God's design for you.

Did that just take the wind out of your sails? It did mine when I first heard this idea. And honestly, that idea still hurts to think about a little. But, I believe it's true. For some reason, we all have it in our head that we all deserve to meet somebody beautiful, fall madly in love and live (more or less) happily ever after. God's biggest desire for you is not that you would find somebody to watch TV with every night or to help get you laid. His biggest desire for you is that you would find your life in Him.

16) Stop trying to keep up with the Jones's.

A bigger house will not make you happy. A new car will not make you happy. A thinner waste will not make you happy. There is always something else the Jones will have that you won't. Stop worrying about competing with them.

17) Not every night, but once in awhile it's OK to only get 2-3 hours of sleep on a school/work night.

Especially if it involves road trips, food, and good friends.

18) Read. Read a lot.

We are an under-read culture. When was the last time you read a book all the way through? If you don't read, try this: find a subject you are interested in and read 4 books about this subject in the next year. That's a book every 3 months and it's totally do-able. You'd be surprised about how many useful things are hidden in books.

19) Makes friends with photographers.

Then you will be guaranteed to have very few terrible photos of you.

20) Knock before entering bathrooms.

21) Confidence is like your missing keys.

The harder you look for it, the more impossible it seems to be found. I have spent much of my adult life trying to become confidant in who I am and so far I've discovered that I am the most confident in myself when I'm not trying to be and in the times when I'm not thinking of myself. Whenever you stop worrying about how you will perform and focus on just being there, you will start to inadvertently become more confident.

But as soon as you start to notice you are confident, it will disappear like a cockroach under a fridge.

22) Learn to listen, not just speak.

And don't just listen to the words coming out of somebody's mouth, listen to the way they say it. Watch their body language. Listen, not just to what they are saying, but seek to see how what they are saying is actually impacting their life.

23) Take time each day to sit and think.

No TV. No radio. No tasks. Just find a quiet place, sit, and think. And not this meditation crap either. Don't sit and hum. It's annoying. Just sit in the quiet and reflect. You'll be amazed what pops up in your head.

24) Learn how to celebrate.

Yes, sometimes life sucks. And if you are as crabby as me, you think life mostly sucks. But it doesn't. It's rough sometimes, but life has things to be celebrated. And as much as I hated that poster in high school that said, "Happiness is a path not a destination," there is some truth to that.

Now don't be a fake, happy person. That's annoying and will get you shot in some places. But learn to honestly and humbly celebrate the things that you have been blessed with: relationships, experiences, and even trials.

25) God is not something you learn about. God is someone to connect to.

This is the hardest lesson I've had to learn in my 25 years (and 6 years as a struggling Christian). I can't just read books about God, read my Bible, and listen to sermons about Him. I have to get to know him intimately and one on one. I have to continually learn to speak to God and to listen to Him. To continually strive to integrate conversation with God into every part of my day and not just into an educational time slot is a difficult, but rewarding thing.

A Beautiful Kind of Hurt

2010-08-17T20:16:00.003-05:00

I think we all know at some level or another that life hurts sometimes. No matter what you believe or don't believe, everybody at some level or another knows that life just stings sometimes. Sometimes because of circumstances or events or for what seems like no reason at all, the wind seems to leave your lungs.

At times, life feel like it's just hit the absolute bottom. You lie in bed for hours on end. While people play outside, laughing and running, soaking up sunshine, you...you just lounge around the house. You might call it a funk or a lull. Maybe you just feel a bit off or blame it on something you ate last night.

When I'm in one of those hurting moods, I tend to blame a lack of sleep. Which would seem legit to most people because I have irregular sleeping habits and often don't sleep as much as I should. You'll know I'm in a low spot because my cheeks will droop and my face will look older than it is. You'll see me lose a bounce in my step. I'll find myself brought to almost to tears by the most random of things.

I was in a lull a few weeks ago and a couple of my buddies decided to go fishing. So we went out to this pond next to this long stretch of old 210 Highway. We borrowed some poles and bought a box of nightcrawlers. As my friends and I stood next to the pond, drinking Stag beer (a real man's beer. The kind that would sprout hair in the back of your throat) I found myself almost in complete sorrow.

I had a hook in one hand and a nightcrawler lying in the palm of my other hand. The nightcrawler had stopped fighting and squirming and just sat there, devoid of hope. And I stood there, feeling like Abraham on the mountain. Have I the faith to sacrifice this worm--which at that point in my day seemed to live a far more productive life than mine, wallowing away in a shallow, Styrofoam box with other prisoners in the beer cooler of an old gas station.

I stood there, staring at this worm and was unable to pierce him. This was probably most inbalanced struggle with mercy and guilt since Mother Theresa pancaked a mosquito on the back of her neck.

Finally, after a few minutes of starting at this worm in what I thought was it's face--I couldn't really tell--I tossed him into the grass and decided to fish with a bare hook.

I have no idea why I was petrified of murdering a worm and yet totally OK with hooking a fish in the face.

The problem with those sad days isn't that I'm sad. It's that I fail to be sad with the dignity that God offers me. I think there's a way to be in a funk that can bring me closer to joy as opposed to making me bitter. It's just that it can be hard to find that door sometimes.

When I think about what a beautiful kind of hurting looks like, I think of the way I've seen friends of mine mourn with hearts and hands open to God in times of great, great confusion. I think of the parents I've seen struggle with a wayward son -- often feeling like they may have caused their child to go astray -- and yet they make this a time not to stew and brood, but to thirst for God. I think of my friend who for the past two and a half years has struggled with an eating disorder that has threatened to rob her of her identity as a wonderful, redeemed child of God. She could have succumbed to her eating disorder and continued to binge and purge or she could have given up all hope of thinking herself beautiful -- instead, I and many of her friends have gotten to enjoy her as she has started learning how to let God and not the world tell her she's beautiful.

I've watched as victims of sexual abuse have learned that even though that hurt may not go away, they can still find hope. I've watched the most lonely and miserable of people have their hearts melted like butter because they learned to hurt beautifully and to give thanks.

Why would they give thanks? I think it's because when you learn to hurt beautifully, you learn that within every pain -- no matter how deep, no matter how hopeless -- God is right by your side. Even when you don't feel him, God is there with a soft hand and a reassuring voice to say, "There, there...there,there...I've got you. Just look at me. Look at me and I'll get you through this. There, there..."

Now don't get me wrong. To hurt beautifully does not mean that your hurting looks fun or pretty or beautiful. Your pain--your sorrows--will still look ugly. It won't look beautiful to me. It won't look beautiful to you. It won't look beautiful to others. It'll seem unfair and it'll seem pointless that such hurting should exist.

But, I think, that to hurt beautifully means that you learn to look at God. To look at Christ. To look for the Spirit. To know that there is no pain, no confusion, no sadness that He can't overcome. When I start to turn my eyes to Him and to focus on His voice. That's when I can hurt beautifully.

I've seen others do it. It's not easy. It's not going to make the pain go away. But like a child who digs holes in the beach -- wherever pain may rip you open, God will wash in.

Swing and a Miss

2010-08-16T07:00:00.000-05:00

I was almost stoned for being a Christian once. Honest.

Well, I wasn’t exactly being stoned. But I was attacked. And it did come as a result of me trying to follow Jesus.

When I was in college, I was involved in a campus ministry called Campus Crusade for Christ or, as everybody abbreviated it for a friendlier and less sword fight-y image – Cru.

Cru was really the main reason I stayed in college. I hated classes; didn’t much care for my major. But I loved the community that came from student ministry. I feel like those two years that I was involved in Cru during my junior and senior years, were hugely impactful on my life. It’s where I started to see the foundations of my walk with God built.

Well Cru is a national organization and every year during the first week after New Years, about 2,000 college students would meet for the Denver Christmas Conference (DCC). DCC was a week of seminars and rocking worship music, adventurers through the shopping district, young men passively aggressively trying to woo women with poor acoustic guitar playing in the lobby, and then those same men sitting in a windowless room trying to learn how to stop lusting. It was generally a very exciting week.

I got to know many great people at DCC, people I had seen hanging around our weekly Cru meetings and events at NWMSU, but had never talked to. There’s something about Denver and snow and the mountains that just makes you want to have long, deep, discussions about theology and life and romance and music, etc.

Well during DCC, there’s this day –secular people call it Wednesday—Christians call it Wednesday too, but just not during DCC. During DCC, Wednesday is actually The Day of Faith. Unless you are a skier; then it’s called Ski Day. Skiing ability, surprisingly, has a huge impact on the direction of a Christians spiritual journey.

Well I didn’t know how to ski, so on Wednesday, during my first year at DCC in 2006, I went on the Day of Faith. I teamed up with a couple girls I had known and a defensive end from NWMSU. We stood in line, organized by bicep size, so it went the defensive end, the two girls, a mop in a mop bucket, and then myself.

A man at the front of the line handed everybody an unlabeled manilla envelope about ten inches by fourteen inches big. Inside the envelope was a mission that you were randomly assigned. Some people got cleaning of houses. Some people got the job of painting an old church building that was in need. The unlucky ones got stuck with door-to-door evangelism – the most awkward of jobs. I was in line hoping for something safe, not too hard, and low-risk.

I didn’t really want to go on the Day of Faith. I would’ve gone skiing, except that I feared a shattered femur more than what the Day of Faith would hold.

When we got our envelope, the girls tore it open, very excited about what would be inside. And when they opened it, at the top of a map with directions and emergency contact info, was this phrase: TAKE A HOMELESS PERSON OUT TO LUNCH.

I stared at it. I couldn’t believe my bad luck. I had asked God for an easy and safe task. Something like folding napkins for an orphanage or delivering mail for a nursing home – instead I was going to have to take a homeless person (possibly even two or three) out to lunch.

Now it wasn’t that I was cheap. I had no problem paying for somebody else’s meal. I had been saving up money for years, hoping that a pretty girl would let me buy her a hot meal. But that wasn’t about to happen anytime soon, so if not a pretty girl, why not a homeless person?

And it wasn’t because I was a germ-a-phobe. My father raised a handful of pigs and chickens each summer as a hobby and so dirt and filth never bothered me.

So why did I not want to hang out with a homeless person? I just didn’t want to get stabbed. Growing up in a small town, all I ever heard about how the cities were full of deranged homeless gangs who would stab you, rob you, murder you, and then stab you with a dirty needle without thinking twice about it.

As the defensive end (lucky, muscle-bound bastard), the two girls (both of whom were twice as fast as I am dumb), and I (S.O.L. genetically) walked into a city park where homeless people frequented, I was scared. I tried to play it cool around the two girls, but I also tried to buddy up the defensive end, because he was the only one who could protect me.

It wasn’t long after we had gotten to the middle of the park that the two girls approached a middle-aged traveler who was lying on a dirty, green blanket playing a small, electronic poker game.

I don’t remember the conversations that kicked off our interaction. What I do remember though, was the immense amount of shame that washed over me soon after.

There are times when God lets us ramble. He lets us drone on and on and on about what WE are thinking and what WE are feeling and what WE are worried about. He lets us just talk and talk and then, almost without warning, He sums up what we’ve been rambling on about in a simple action, or a verse of scripture, or a scene like the one I was watching. And then when we’ve scene our universal proofs of our own rightness played back to us we realize:

“I am a complete and utter moron.”

I remember standing to the side as these two girls conversed with this homeless man. They treated him like he was somebody that they went to school with, not a man who slept under bridges. They listened to him like a man who’s words were worth listening to, not like a man who hadn’t bathed in who knows how long.

The man was very warm. He was kind. He told stories of his family and how he’d ended up on the street and how he hoped to get off the streets when he was ready. He talked about the hard times but he also talked about the times when he had felt truly blessed.

As I watched this exchange for an hour or so, I realized that, the homeless man wasn’t dirty. I was. He was going to stab me or kill me or rob me. He was just content to talk to people who saw him as an equal and not as a stain.

This really opened my heart to the idea that I can’t be the judge of people. I can’t make assumptions. Because God will prove me wrong. I think God loves to prove me wrong with my assumptions of people. And I thank God that He is a God who loves to prove me wrong.

For me, the 2006 Day of Faith was a day where I saw that I serve a God who loves people. I realized that I follow a God who loves unconditionally, regardless of our past or present circumstances.

The end.

…
…
Oh. Yes. I forgot to tell you how I almost got stoned for my faith.

Well, as soon as DCC 2006 was over, I was counting down my calendar until DCC 2007 and the Day of Faith. I was excited to not be hesitant and to really throw myself into whatever God would challenge me with.

So when DCC 2007 came, I teamed up with a group of about seven people to go to the Aurora area of Denver. We stood in line. I was excited and ready to sprint out of our hotel and into adventure. We received our envelope and our task was to clean the homes of Spanish-speaking people of Denver.

Yes, I thought, this is perfect. It has everything I wanted: humility, serving, mingling with a people-group I never encountered, and mystery – How would God work that day?

We rode a bus out to Aurora. It was about 40 minutes and I grew impatient waiting for OUR stop, the stop where we would go out and represent God. We finally got to our stop and we got out to walk then next 4 blocks to our neighborhood.

As we were walking, we decided to have some fun and I started throwing snowballs at the girls. The threw some back. It was just some fun, frozen-water artillery, fellowship.

But then one girl threw at me. Not so much at me, as to my left. And down. Almost like throwing a strike in baseball. I threw my arms down toward the snowball to catch it. And before I knew it, I was bent over home plate. And then my friend Micah, with the power of Barry Bonds in him that day, take a swing over home plate with a bag full of cleaning chemicals (including a lovely can full of oven cleaner that weighed about ten pounds).

The bag caught me just under the right eye, splitting my cheek and spilling my red, red blood into the white, white snow.

While my Christian brothers and sisters were faithfully serving complete strangers, I was sitting in an Aurora emergency room waiting for stitches.

I learned something about that day too. God has a sense of humor and as much as we want to be the servers, we have to allow ourselves to be served too. Perhaps by a girl who is studying to be a nurse as she holds paper towels to your bleeding face, perhaps by a conference organizer who drives you to the hospital despite his complete confusion about how anybody can get injured cleaning a house, and by frazzled doctor who feels blessed that he finally gets a patient who isn’t in risk of dying.

New Skin

2010-08-12T19:35:00.002-05:00

This is going to be a bit ranty. I apologize.

I have this recurring theme in my nightmares. The dreams are always completely different, but I feel like the theme is the same. Maybe you've had one like this before.

I have these bad dreams where, I'm standing in front of a person or a crowd and I'm being asked to perform a task that, somehow, they think I'm capable of.

For example. one time, I had a dream that I was on the stage of a theater--think of the Granada in Lawrence--with big black walls and a stage elevated above the crowd. The venue is full of people, cheering and screaming in anticipation. I'm on stage, looking cool, with a guitar hanging from my shoulders. It takes me a second to realize that this crowd is here for me. They are here to be entertained by me. As my band warms up, the drummer taps his sticks, counts 1-2-3-4 and--

I remember that I can't play a single chord on a guitar. I'm not even sure if I'm holding it right in the dream.

Another dream goes like this...I'm in a play, but this time it's only in front of my family and friends and a few people I grew up with. I have this crucial monologue in some type of Shakespearean/Arthur Miller crossbred play...and again, I forget any and all words. I forget words that weren't even in the play to begin with. I freeze up and stare at the crowd in humiliation. They stare back.

----

I'll be 26 in 14 days. I am now closer to 30 then I was 20. While I know there is still a meaningful life to be found at 30, I can't help but feel like a fraud.

I now have a job, some would even call it a career. I have a community now. And for all intents and purposes, Liberty, MO has become my home.

For all intents and purposes, I am an adult.

----

I wonder how many more birthdays I can make it through before somebody around me finally reaches across my birthday cake....slips a hand under my cheek, and pulls off this 26 year-old mask to see a 10-year old boy under it.

----

I got into a discussion with a friend the other day about some guy issues she's having. We talked about what it means to trust in God and what it means to risk. At the end of a good conversation, she paid my an earnest compliment by saying that I was a "wonderful, Godly man."

I sat back for a second, lifted my hand to my face, and in vain, tried to find the seam where the mask of her summation met the skin of my reality. No luck. I just kept poking myself in the collar bone with my fingers.

It was one of those moments where you feel bad. You shouldn't. It was a kind word she paid me. But it's like somebody called you a hero and, having met Superman before, you know that you do the word hero an injustice.

----

I see my friends growing into their new skins quite well. They have all grown up to become families or homeowners or adventurers. They seem to enjoy their new skin quite well. It fits them. They don't look like they borrowed theirs from their dad or from a bum off the street.

It's crazy to think that 10 years ago, most of us were learning to drive and our biggest worry was a rogue zit.

----

Utter confusion. That's all I can say.

Gate C

2010-08-03T22:31:00.002-05:00

I'm sitting in an airport. I'm reading a magazine that I found in the empty chair next to mine. I don't know what the magazine is. I only flip through and look at the pictures.

I've been sitting in this airport for a long, long time. But I've never flown. I've seen the planes. I've seen the pilot. I've seen the passengers, thousands upon thousands of them, arriving and departing. Arriving and departing at all hours of the night and day. But I've never been one of them. I've never flown.

I'm sitting in an airport when a pilot, waiting for his plane to be refueled, sits next to me. I ask him where he's going.

"I can't tell you," he says, "but if you get on my plane, you can see for yourself."

I ask him if it's warm where he's going. I ask him if there are sandy beaches; restaurants where you can eat fresh oysters. I ask him if the people are friendly where he's going.

"I can't tell you," he says, "but if you get on my plane, you can see for yourself."

I shuffle my magazine and stare at an advertisement for vodka in a plastic bottle. When I try to ask the pilot where his plane is going, I see he is gone.

In the airport now, there is a woman sitting beside me. Her hair is in a bun. She has freckles and squints when the sun is in her eyes.

I stare at her for a second. She stares back and smiles. I smile. I ask her where she is going.

"I can't tell you," she says.

A new approach: I ask her where she comes from.

"Someplace that is gray. Someplace that, at one time can seem beautiful, but at many other times, is cold. A place where the wind blows hard and conversation is rare. A place where people don't look up from the sidewalks."

I ask, again, where she is going.

"I can't tell you," she says, "but you can come with me for awhile."

I ask if where she is going is the opposite of the place she has been.

"I can't tell you," she says.

I ask her exactly five questions about the destination and exactly 5 questions about the journey.

What's there?
What do they speak?
What will you do there?
Where did it come from?
How long can you stay there?

Is the trip long?
What will I need?
What if I can't make it?
What if I change my mind?
Who will sit with me?

"I can't tell you," she says and she's gone. I watch as her plane takes off. It flies in a direction that, for all I know, could be certain death.

For all I know, it could be certain life as well.

I'm sitting in an airport watching people get on and off planes. I watch as they go places -- some good, some not so good. They rarely know where they are going or how long it will take or what they will find when they get there. But, each of them, go anyway.

I don't know if I will ever leave the airport. I don't know if I will ever see where the planes go.

Maybe it's safer that I wait for an easy flight. One where they will tell me exactly where I am going and exactly what I can expect when I get there. No surprises. No tricks. No chaos. No adventure. No thank you.

Dandelion Death Trap

2010-07-12T23:01:00.003-05:00

If you spend enough time with me (about 5 minutes at least), you may notice that I'm a compulsive liar.

I lie a lot. Jon Lovitz used to have a character on Saturday Night Live called Tommy Flanagan, the Pathological Liar. His lies were like the majority of mine are; just jokes.

I'm not sure when I started lying, but I'm sure I was young. It started as a fun game. Make up outlandish tales and try to pass them off as truth. Tell the cashier that our mom had a pet alligator in the closet she would threaten to feed my brother or I to. Tell my teacher about how I invented time travel. Or the always classic game of trying to convince my brother that he was adopted and that he was actually born a girl.

If you spend more than 5 minutes with me, you find out that once in a while, I'm really good at making up pure crap. I love to try and trick the gullible -- not necessarily out of a sense of malice, but more just because I like making people laugh.

The problem with lying is that it's not a very controllable skillset. It's not something you can turn off easily because it's a very slimey skill that can be transferred over to pretty much any area of life.

First you are making up lies about how you once spent your summer in a body cast because of a banana peel. Next, you make up a little tale about why you were late for work. Then, maybe for convenience, you make up a little, white lie about why you missed a deadline. I mean, these are small lies, so they don't do any real harm, right?

The thing I hate about lies -- specifically the lies that I tell -- are that they make for easy ways out of situations and conversations that I'd rather not have.

Lies, like vicodin or alcohol or pornagraphy, are habit forming. If you do it enough and find that you can get away with it enough, you'll do it more and more and more...Lying is like a really good brand of duct tape that you can use to "patch" anything. Like duct tape, a good lie covers up holes, can hold things together for awhile, or even pass as fixing something -- but, just like duct tape, a lie is just a cover. It doesn't fix anything. It doesn't fill any gaps. It just makes them hard to see.

Another way I can look at my lies is how I think they will save me. Sometimes, when there's a question that somebody is asking you -- maybe it's something personal, something that brings up a lot of emotion -- in times like that, a lie is the only thing you can do.

Think of it like this: you are walking along the side of a steep, mountain. Your feet slip on the gravel and you go down. You are sliding down the side of that mountain and you are scared about what's gonna happen when you hit the rock bottom. So you start grabbing at weeds in the gravel. Now you know that the weeds can't save you. You know that no matter how many you grab, they won't stop you -- you're falling at too great a speed. But you grab for them anyway. Because to you, the man or woman sliding out of control, doing something you know can't help is better than not knowing what to do at all.

See, that's where my lies get addictive. I don't handle emotions well. Especially emotions that I struggle to be able to put into words. So when a friend asks me about what is going on or what I'm feeling, I panic. When a friend is trying to help me find a light to my path, I freak out.

I hate darkness. I hate chaos. So when I feel surrounded by both, I grab for the only thing that I feel I have to grab on to: a lie. I know the lie won't help me, but I also have no clue what will. So for me, in that moment, the rationale thing is to spew a lie.

And that's how I find myself in a wreck with many of my friends at times. When they see me sliding down that gravel slope, grabbing at handfuls of dandelions trying to save myself, they try to throw me a rope, but I don't trust myself to grab the rope. The easier thing is to grab the weeds.

Lies are a miserable thing. They never grow trust; they create distance. They never breathe life; they limit it. They never create opportunities; they shut doors and burn bridges.

But even though I know that it's a bad habit of mine, I find it hard to break. Because when I'm spinning, disoriented, and unable to find my bearings, lying just seems to rational to pass up.

Tonight, I pray for a God that continues to let me slide, but only on barren slopes. Tonight, I pray for friends who would see through my crap. Tonight, I pray for freedom from my lies.

A Prick in the Brain

2010-07-11T22:46:00.004-05:00

The problem with being a negative person is that our brains our loud. Our voices can be quiet, but our thoughts can be thunderous.

A negative person, like me, tends to have a running stream of excuses and bitterness running through our head. And any time somebody says something (either encouraging or challenging) to help us take another step forward in the pursuit of true life, that comment has to swim up the river of acid like a salmon. Except that most encouragements or challenges in love aren't salmon, they're truth, and truth doesn't always swim well up the river.

If you ever take a marketing or advertising class in college, they always tell you that your product you are trying to sell is competing against an ever-growing population of competitors: time, money, peer pressure, similar products from other companies, Facebook, etc.

The same goes for speaking truth to a negative person. You are competing against a collection (often years worth) of experiences, fears, personal theologies (not biblical, but a theology based on "I'm right and I'm the center of my universe."), perceptions, and that person's lifelong pursuit of comfort.

So when you try to speak truth to a negative person and tell them that they are or are capable of anything besides what they believe -- you face an upriver battle.

For instance, I'm an arrogant pessimist who, from an early age, decided that low expectations of myself=safety. So over 10+ years, my river has swelled over the banks with a catalog of comments, barbs, sarcasm, or "truths" that I can use against any friend who would try to build me up, encourage me, or challenge me to take risks so that I can live a life worth living.

The problem is that there is a little, arrogant, prick that lives in my brain. He's a fiesty little bastard. He looks like the me that I think I look like. The closer I get to God though, the more I see that the l.a.p. in my brain looks nothing like me. He is who I choose to dress up as when I don't want to be afraid. L.a.p. is who I want to be so that I don't have to take risks or face truth -- facing truth and then living life by it, is the biggest risk most of us will ever run away from.

L.a.p. controls the river. He feeds it. He's cultivated it like a beautiful, twisted, park. See the river in a negative person's head isn't like that river from the Fellowship of the Ring (you know, the one that wipes out those creepy, hooded guys on the horses.) The river is a slowly growing and organic thing. It was built by slowly and patiently dropping little comments and failures into it over the years. At first it was nothing; a spilled glass of water. Now it's like the mighty, Mississippi. It grew over time through simplicity and repetition.

Bad grade on a test? "You suck," I mumble to myself. Drop it in the river.

Get ignored by a girl? "You are a loser," I think. Drop it in the river.

Unable to keep up with the real men when they play football? "You are a wimp," I whisper. Drop it in the river.

Over time, the experiences and "truths" that I believe to be the reality of who I am make a formidable obstacle for anybody who attempts to walk with me to greener pastures, bluer skies, and hope. People will attempt to get a message up the river, but the l.a.p. has built it well and messages get lost in the roaring rapids. People may try again and again. Some people will give up and stop trying to send a message up that river. "Let's move on to fertile soils," they say.

I don't blame them. Could you?

You get cut off from the outside world. You live in your little kingdom at the top of this river. Just you and the l.a.p. in your brain. Kings of an insignificant kingdom. Anybody who didn't want to play by your rules stopped trying to come into your house years ago. The welcome sign is rusted and grown over with weeds.

So what is a negative person to do? What do I do?

I could attack the river. I could stand on the shores with a bucket and scoop out what I can, throw it aside, and after 100 years, not have made a dent. The river would still grow because the l.a.p at the top with the cardboard crown would still find failures to feed this river.

I could kill the l.a.p. I could just stop giving him things to feed the river, starve him, and bury him somewhere in the mountains. But he'd be hard to starve. He feeds on failure and insecurity and if I want to live, then I have to risk. Risk incures it's fair share of failures and opportunities for insecurity. And the river can feed him. That l.a.p. doesn't need fresh food to survive, old memories and bad habits would suffice.

So what do I do? What can I do?

When I figure out my next step, I'll let you know.

My song lyric.

2010-07-10T17:20:00.003-05:00

So if you hang around me long enough, you may find out that my favorite lyric to any song ever is by the band mewithoutYou: "Oh you pious and profane, put away your praise and blame, a glass can only spill what it contains."

If couples have "their song" than I, half as I am, have "my lyric". I don't remember the first time I heard it and I don't remember where I was when I heard it, but I do know that everytime I hear it, my guts get twisted and, depending how smooth I feel in life at that point, it can drive me to reflection.

Because some days I'm pious. I'm the good, little church boy that reads his Bible and helps out at church events and writes the weekly newsletter. I've crossed all my t's and dotted all my i's and have been the "upstanding citizen."

Some days I'm profane. I've decided to take a vacation from God. I've been lusty or drunk that day; I've gotten tired of trying to live the life that God dreams for me. Why? Because it's hard work. To live for something more than myself is too hard sometimes. Sometimes, I just want what I want--even if it would kill my soul.

Pious or profane. Hypocritical or apathetic. Sunny or blue.

"A glass can only spill what it contains."

I can only share with others what I let spill from my life. If you believe you can be selective with your emotions or motives when you share yourself with a friend, family member, coworker, you're lying. Nobody has that control. Too much of what's under our skin and in our hearts bleeds out in everything we do: our conversations, our ability to relate and our ability to affect the life of another.

The most important thing we can share with another soul is what we have in ours. So I ask myself, what am I spilling from my glass?

Lately, it feels like I spill a lot of pessimism. Which isn't hard to believe. I've been a deep-rooted pessimist since middle school; maybe earlier. If you hang around me for longer than an hour you learn that I'm self-deprecating, gloomy (under an exterior of a class clown), and not only do I see my cup as half empty, but there's a hair in it.

So as yesterday, when I heard this song, I had to ask "Today--or in the last month--what does my glass spill?"

Well, a glass really can only spill what you fill it with. So the next question has to be, "What am I filling my glass with?"

If I want to stop spilling cheap, red wine and staining my carpet, then I need to drink something else or learn to hold onto my glass better. And since I don't believe that any of us are capable of holding a steady glass...

When I remember the times when I actually gave them something good; when I spilled something wonderful instead of my bad attitude toward life...I remember that I was filling it with something that isn't quick.

When we refuel, we typically want to fill up quick. I don't want to sit at the gas station for 4 hours filling my tank. I want to be in and out in 5 minutes or less. But, in those times that I actually spilled something useful (love, patience, grace, encouragement) I was filling my glass with time spent with God. And spending time with God, building a relationship with Him, is like filling your gas tank with molasses or tar, it's a slow, slow, sloooow thing to do.

God isn't quick and easy. He's slow, purposeful, and deliberate. He wants to stare at the trees with you for an hour before He says a word. He wants to speak and be heard in a quiet, compassionate voice. He requires great patience from us because He's trying to teach us that the great things in life take time.

So what is in my glass these days? Bitterness. Envy. Sarcasm. I've been gifted with a tongue of fire and instead of using it as a light, I use it to burn the people I love.

I want to spill my glass one more time, get everything out of it, clean it, and start filling it with something that I won't find quick and easy--something potent and beautiful and poetic. I want to fill my glass with something that I can't put in there myself. Only God can fill a glass the way it should be.

the drought

2010-07-06T18:10:00.002-05:00

I haven't checked my blog in awhile. Last time I think I tried to write anything was March 28. I love looking back on the things I wrote just so I can scrunch my eyeballs and think, "Where the hell did that come from?"

Lately I've been wrestling with the idea of time; it's limited nature, it's generally inconvenient speed--the things I want to be over quickly drone on and the things I want to last forever escape in a blink.

I'm struggling a lot with the idea of time because I'm not very good at managing it. I mean, look at a typical week and lets see what I would love to include in that time:

Time with God
Time with family
Time with friends (especially my guy friends who typically are the ones to keep the balloon that is my sanity from drifting away.)
Time to relax.
Time to read.
Time to play.
Time for ministry.
Time to be creative.
Time to write.
Time to earn a paycheck. (minimum 40 hours)
Time in a small group. (Haven't legitimately been to one of those in more than a year. I can't even remember what I used to do in it.)
Time to talk.
Time for coffee.
Time for prayer. (Often shoved far down my list.)
Time to try something new.
Meeting new people.
etc.
etc.
etc...

There are only 168 hours in a typical week. An atypical could include more, but I've yet to see one of those. Of 168 hours, 40 are working, another 5 are commuting, 49 may be for sleeping, 2 hours in the bathroom,...dah de dah de dah....

It's interesting that sleep and work take up so much of my time considering my love/hate relationship with them.

Work. I love to feel like I've accomplished something and I enjoy paychecks. My beef with work is that I've watched almost everybody around me work and work and work and retire and die and live for absolutely nothing.

Sleep. Sleep is a double-edged sword. It rejuvenates my body and sometimes my mind. I feel better after I sleep. Sleep is also a great escape from chaos. And if there is anything I should not be hiding under the covers from, it's chaos.

I'll be 26 in about a month in a half. Time flies quickly. Days scream past you and you barely hear them til the sonic boom of wasted time ruffles your jacket. I'd love to say that tomorrow will be different. I would love to say that, starting tomorrow--nay, tonight!--I am going to stop wasting this life given to me with deep blessings from my God.

I would love to say that year 26 is the year I learn to take risks. That year 26 is the year when Ben stops being the Ben he wants to be, but dares to become nothing in the hands of Something.

But I won't. My favorite show is on TV in 10 minutes and I don't want to miss it. Besides, I can always start living next week.

Zakar, Remember and Speak.

2010-03-28T20:51:00.004-05:00

So I'm reading through The Silence of Adam by authors Larry Crabb, Al Andrews, & Don Hudson. It's a book about the lost art of manhood, etc. I was struck by something Crabb says in the book.

He says that in Genesis Chapter 1, one of the words used to call Adam is "zakar." Now zakar is a hebrew word for "remember." Now in most English Bibles, we've translated zakar in Genesis 1 to mean male, but zakar in that context actually means the remembering one.

So Crabb et al, ask the reader: why would men known from the beginning as the remembering one?

Ever since reading that and being introduced to the word zakar, I've been thinking a lot about how remembering plays into manhood.

Ever since I came across the question of "What is manhood?" I've been stumped. I've looked in many different directions (careers, dating, sports) and failed miserably at all of them. I've essentially come to the decision that I, for all intents and purposes, am not a man.

I'm like boy or maybe a golden retriever.

****

When I was a senior in high school, my brother was a freshmen on the high school football team. He didn't play because he was a freshmen, but he traveled with the team and stood on the sidelines to cheer on his football brethren.

One night I remember being at home with my parents when my mom got the phone call that my brother had started to have severe stomach pains on the sideline and was taken to the ER. They weren't sure what was wrong with him, just that before halftime, he had collapsed to the ground in extreme pain.

I don't remember the car ride to the hospital. I remember being in a very tiny waiting room. Smaller than some dentist offices I had been to. I remember waiting with my brother, whose eyes were swollen from tears that had come from the intense pain in his stomach; and my mother who was stoic, yet fearful. We waited while the doctors ran tests and checked out my brother for perhaps a busted appendix or some sort of acid-blooded, alien parasite.

I remember sitting in the waiting room and praying silently to myself. I didn't believe in God at the time, but knew that I needed to beg something--even an imaginary something--for help. I had never really prayed before, but that night I prayed intensely and bitterly. Begging God that my brother would be OK and threatening Him with what I would do if any harm came to my brother.

****

Remember.

Having God refer to us men as the remembering ones is something to not take lightly. "Remember that I was with you in catastrophe." "Remember that I was with you in victory."

****

The Bible is full of repetition. It used to drive me nuts the way the Bible would recount time and time again what God had done. Most books will tell you something and then assume that if you forget, you can flip back to that passage. But in the Bible, we repeatedly have prophets quoting prophets earlier in the Bible; Jesus quoted the Old Testament frequently.

There's something about remembering. Not just in your head, but out loud. Remember and speak. Remember and speak. Don't just get nostalgic, but tell others about what God has done for you and through you and with you and to you. Tell about what you've seen and heard and read of God doing. Remember and speak.

So I remember tonight that in that ER, my brother got a clear bill of health. The doctors couldn't find anything wrong with him and he never had another pain like that again. I arrogantly wrote it off as a fluke, a medical anomaly; instead of calling it what it was--an answered prayer. Tonight, I remember that God is good. Not just because he saved my brother from what could've been cancer or something horrid. I remember that God is good because he gave my brother a clean bill of health AND he helped me realize how much I cared about my brother AND because God humbled me (a blind cynic) enough for me to realize how much I needed Him.

I can look back and see how that night was an assault on the walls I had put up around my heart to keep Him out. God staged one of the first battles of many that night.

****

So remember, remember what God has done. Remember that He is always good. Remember that even in your suffering, you have a God who loves you and who invites you to take comfort in Him.

Remember and speak.

Don't just remember and move on--share. Share the hope with others. Take joy in remembering and--just like a funny story that you tell everybody who will listen--tell God's story until you've told it to everybody...and then tell it again.

5 Reasons You Should Do The Shoal Creek Internship in 2010

2010-03-26T09:21:00.003-05:00

This summer, Shoal Creek Community Church (SCCC) is kicking off the 12th annual Shoal Creek Internship a.k.a. The Foundry. This internship is being run by a good buddy of mine, Justin Talley, a staff member of SCCC in charge of student ministries for 6th-12th graders.

The Foundry is a 10-week experience that I had the pleasure of participating in during the summers of '06, '07 (as a team leader), and in '09 (as the internship director). The internship was one of the most impacting things I've done with my life and I still see the aftershocks of my times as an intern now. So I wanted to give you 5 reasons that I think you should be a Shoal Creek Intern this summer.

You'll learn to stop pretending to like everybody.
I think we've been brought up to believe that the job of a Christian is to get along with everybody at all times. During my first summer as an intern, there were 20 of us. 10 girls in a separate carriage house and 10 of us guys in a basement. You can't live with 10 guys sharing 1 bathroom and get along all of the time. And not to be a chauvinist, but I don't think 2 girls can share a bathroom, let alone 10. And not just that, but people are all different. Live with 19 other uniquely-designed personalities on a daily basis for 10 weeks and you'll find it hard to fake being nice too. But I learned during the internship that God is less concerned with us getting long and more concerned with us seeing each other as His loved child.

You'll learn to move when you don't know which direction to go.
When I was an intern, I was on a team of 6 interns that ran the elementary ministry for a summer. We didn't really prepare that well. We weren't told to design 10 weeks of ministry 6 months in advance. We played it out week to week and had to learn to improvise. For somebody like me who was used to staying in my shell, that meant getting out of myself and calling every parent I could find until I found a place for a pool party for the kids or acting like a complete fool during the Sunday morning children's skits.

Also, I had to learn to move when there was friction between another intern and myself. I didn't know what was the right thing to do, but I had to learn to trust God and move despite not having a clear roadmap.

You'll learn the power of a good meal.
As interns, we generally ate every meal together. Breakfast in the kitchen in the attic of the building, lunches at the homes of SCCC members who volunteered to feed us, late-night bbq's and Taco Bell runs. During those shared meals, we talked, we laughed and we dove deeper into each other's lives. You'd be suprised by the frank and earnest conversations you can have with someone over a plate of lasagna. I learned that meal times didn't have to be silence mixed with the sounds of forks scraping china, but that meals could be opportunities to be challenged, uplifted, and enlightened.

You'll learn that you are a mess.
Before I was an intern, I knew I was a sinner. I knew I had broken commandments, but I didn't know that I was a complete and utter mess. Having other interns point out the mess in my life (with compassion, not with condemnation) helped me to see that I didn't need a Savior to cover the 10 Commandments I had broken, but to absolutely bath every piece of my life in grace. I realized that I wasn't just a rulebreaker, but that I was a heartbreaker. I realized that I didn't love people well, didn't love myself well, and most importantly, didn't love God well.

I wasn't a ship with a hole in it. I was a ship at the bottom of the ocean.

You'll learn that God will never stop loving you.
Grace. If there was one word that captured my mind my first summer as an intern, it was Grace. That mysterious and overwhelming gift from God that says, "I am not just your Creator. I am not just your King. I am your Father; Your Abba." Most times as Christians, I think we hear that God forgives us and we are thankful, but we don't necessarily see how big a deal that really is. By seeing how big of a mess I really was, God showed me how big He really is. He showed me how small I am so that I could see how big He is and in that---that He really does have everything under control.

****

Now the internship didn't turn me into a finished product by any means, but it helped show me that my journey with God will be a lifelong journey; not to be put aside or made second, but something to be continually focused on.

The internship at SCCC was my next step. Is it yours?

10 Tips on Serving (J5: Consumer to Producer)

2010-02-17T08:56:00.009-06:00

Hey gang,

And now with my incredibly late start to the week, I present to you my first J5 post. Consumer to Producer focuses on going from a passive member of the community to an invested owner of the community. To learn more, click here. Psych! I meant click here.

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10 Things You Need to Know About Serving:

You probably won't see a burning bush. But maybe. Especially if you live in Southern California during a dry season. But odds are, God's not going to pull the burning bush move on you. For one reason, I don't think God likes reruns. And for a second reason, the first signs that we should serve are usually pretty vivid to begin with, but we're usually to dense to notice. Which leads me to my next point...
If you feel like you are ready to look for a place to serve, stay open-minded. Serving can be a lot like prom: the first time you go to the dance, it probably won't be with your first choice. Don't look for that perfect fit the first time you serve or join a team. Just get out on the dance floor. Sure--don't pick something you'll absolutely hate, but don't rule out anything that's not a perfect 10 either. The first time I served in a church, it was as the leader of a group of 2nd & 3rd grade boys. It wasn't my first choice, but I tried it anyway and found out that I actually liked it. So don't judge a serving opportunity by it's cover. Try it on. See how it fits. And if you don't like it...
Know when to quit. Serving isn't marriage. For one, marriage tends to make you look like a big dork. Secondly, serving--unlike marriage--isn't a life sentence. If you are serving in an area that you feel just doesn't fit, know that you can quit. Sometimes, somebody who is serving in an area that they hate, can do more damage to that ministry than somebody who isn't serving at all. Now, that said, I have two sub-rules...
Never leave your post unmanned. If you do feel like it's time for you to leave a serving team, don't leave without knowing that a replacement is secured. Remember, it's OK to move on from your current post to a serving team that fits you better, but it is NOT OK to just leave your team short one person. Imagine any sports team taking the field with one less player than they are used to. Whether it's you or your team leader who finds the replacement, make sure you two have a game plan and a time frame that gives them time to secure your replacement, but doesn't hold you in your post any longer than is necessary.
Before you try to leave because "It's just not my passion," try and have an idea what your passion is. There is something good to be said about serving where you're passionate. Passionate team members help create effective ministries. But there is also something to be said about people who chicken out of serving in certain ministries because of their own vanity. So before you play the Passion Card, ask yourself, "What am I passionate about?" If you have an answer to that, then that is what you should pursue. But remember...
Even Picasso had to take out his own trash. And YOU are not Picasso. The number one bonehead mistake people make about serving on a team is that serving on one team gets you out of helping out in other things. See that empty cup on the floor? Pick it up. Lost couple who can't find child care? Point them in the right direction. If see something that needs to be done, try helping out instead of walking away. We may serve on different teams, but we all serve the same God and He'd like us to try our best. Speaking of which...
This isn't High School. The band kids are neither elite nor geeks. The cleaning team is not below the drama team and the children's ministry on a Sunday morning is no less important or impactful than "Big" church in the auditorium. If anybody thinks differently, you have my permission to violently kick them in whichever set of reproductive organs they happen to possess.
Don't be just another warm body. Think. Create. Innovate. Don't just show up to do a job, make it exciting. Look for the gifts God has given you that you can use to make this team the best it can be. Even if it's something as small as writing encouraging letters to your teammates, find ways that you can really give your all. On top of that, remember that most ministry teams are always evolving (Easy Christians, put down the gun!). And by evolving, I mean that no team has arrived at perfection, there are always ways to expand and improve what we do.
Either serve with people you love or love the people you serve. When I first started serving, I served as an intern with 5 college students that I would have taken bullets for. All of us interns lived together and saw each other every day. We were all friends and so serving together was a blast. I did that for two summers with 2 different groups of interns and because we didn't just do ministry together, but did life together, ministry became fun. But after my second summer, I stayed on my ministry team but with an entirely new crew of people I didn't really know. That's when the ministry started to become dull for me. I was serving with people for 2 hours every Sunday, but never saw them or knew them apart from that. This won't be true for everybody, but it was true for me--serving with people isn't that fulfilling when a community isn't there. And if you aren't already doing life with the people on your team? Try starting it. They may be strangers now, but they could also become great new friends.
Put a bullet in your ego. Don't just leave it at the door. One of the worst things to see is when ego gets in the way of serving. Remember, the team is not there to serve you. The team is not even really there to serve itself. The team is there to serve those not on the team. Don't let yourself get in the way of something that could be really cool.

Fin.

How Little Plastic Boxes Kill Community. (J4: Isolation to Community)

2010-02-11T15:49:00.002-06:00

I used to play with MatchBox cars when I was kid. I think a lot kids did. We'd take these little metal cars with their plastic wheels, each about the size of a chicken nugget, and we'd hurl them as hard as we could across the linoleum floor of my grandmother's kitchen.

I'm not sure how one of us grandkids never lost an eye. We used to take wooden blocks and construction paper and build ramps on the kitchen table. We'd line up our car and, with the passion of an MLB pitcher, we'd throw these cars up the ramp to see how far across the house we could get; usually crashing into walls and televisions and leaving chips and scratches all over the wall and trim to my grandparents dismay.

When I got done playing with these little, stubby artillery shells, I'd put them away in my official MatchBox car storage box. It looked like a car on the outside of it and when you opened it up, it contained about 20 or so little cubicles for each of my cars. I used to pretend it was my parking garage. I felt like Jay Leno before I knew who Jay Leno was.

All my life I've been an organizational hypocrite. My backpack was always a mess full of scrunched and torn papers smashed under unread books and broken pencils. In college, the carpet of my bedroom was always protected by a thick layer of clothes, cd cases, and torn pages from notebooks. Even my car is a wasteland of fast food wrappers, halves of cd cases, and random handouts from church and work.

But there are some areas where I am very organized. I like to keep my books organized by topic. I like to organize photos--not scrapbooking--just that I like photos to be in an order that tells the right story. I like to organize my food cabinet. Soups with soups. Boxes with boxes. Junk with junk.

And when it came to my MatchBox cars, I was the same way. Each car had a specific part of the storage box it went in. First were the power cars. The ones with skull shaped hoods and praying mantis eyes for headlights. They went on the top rows. Then the expensive looking cars. The glamour cars. The ones with giant, singular plastic bubbles for roofs and flames on the sides of them; they were in the next row. Each row had a theme and each car got its own cubicle.

Eventually I got too many cars and some had to bunk together. The bunkers were usually the bottom row cars because the bottom row cubicles were bigger and usually my least favorite cars went there. My MatchBox set was meticulously organized. Each car had a label (sports, power, glamour, junker, etc.) and each label defined its position in my storage case.

*****

Sometimes I treat people like my MatchBox cars. I like to know what I'm looking at when I look at people. I mean, there are 6 billion of them, I've got to be able to distinguish them from each other.

Now, you could be crude about it and label people by skin color, gender, nationality, or age--but that's like the novice wine connoisseur who is limited to four labels: red, white, bottle and box.

A real connoisseur of people--the kind that MatchBox kids grow up into--knows that there are more subtle ways to distinguish people from each other: musical tastes, clothing, extracurricular activities, sense of humor, vocabulary, home life, etc.

A lot of Christians have gone so far to label people based on the bumper stickers on their cars, whether or not they say grace before every meal, and the size of their Bibles.

And I don't think that this has as much to do with ranking ourselves above others as much as it has to do with comfort and simplicity.

If I look at John Doe and John Doe is a 48 year-old pastor of a Methodist Church in a town of 300 people, it easier to lump him together with my idea of what a middle-aged, traditional, small town pastor should be based on what I think I've experienced. It doesn't even have to be anything close to a truth to be a stereotype. It only needs to be a perception.

*****

When I resort to stereotypes and labels, I take the lazy way out of community. I don't need to get to know people if I think I already know them. I don't need to get to know the old people, because I already know they are lame. I don't need to get to know people who are different from me because I already know who they are. And they probably know who I am. We've taken God's calling for Adam to name the animals a step too far.

*****

If there is one label that we should tag each other with, it's this--the tag that says, "Fearfully and wonderfully made by the Creator, saved by the Son, and chased daily by the Spirit." Although that is a pretty long tag. Maybe we should make it a t-shirt instead.

******

When I label, I rob. I rob others of the chance to be known and to be understood. I rob myself of the chance to see God work in another life.

When we get to Heaven, the MatchBox cars will have no cubicles. They won't be organized in nice, neat little rows. In Heaven, cars with skulls and flames will hang out with cars Model-T cars. In Heaven fast cars will sit around with slow cars and the cool cars--well there will be no cool cars.

*****

I believe that God doesn't want us to wait until Heaven before we experience the type of mixed up, melting pot community that He dreams for us. And each day that we choose to label and we choose to assume is another day that we choose to not live like Jesus and another day that we choose to look like asses.

My 10 Ideas for Facebook Theme Week

2010-02-11T13:34:00.003-06:00

If you still use Facebook at all, you may have noticed a popular trend amongst your Facebook friends. The theme has revolved around changing your profile picture to a picture that fits a particular theme.

For example, over the last few weeks, themes have been:

Put up a picture of yourself as a child.
Put up a picture of a celebrity you think you look like.
Put up a picture of you and your significant other for Valentine's Day.

While these have all been entertaining idea, I would like to submit 10 ideas I have for possible theme weeks.

"Scot-Free" Week--post a picture of a facebook friend or celebrity that you are confidant you could murder and get away with it scot-free.
"Drag Race" Week--post a picture of a friend or celebrity of the opposite sex that is wearing an outfit that you KNOW you could pull off better than them if you were to cross dress.
"My Pompous Heart" Week--put up a picture of a people group that you want people to know you care about. Examples include: the homeless, children from 3rd world countries, and goth kids.
"Bizzaro Part" Week--Get really crazy and post a picture of you parting your hair on the opposite side of your head that you usually choose.
"Copenhagen v. Skoal" Week--take a picture of yourself enjoying the wholesome, family friendly taste of chewing tobacco. Mmmmm, just like mom used to dip!
"I dare ya to thieve me" Week--Instead of a picture of yourself, post a jpeg image of your social security number, birthdate, home address, and e-mail password.
"Abstract Expressionist photo of my best impersonation of Eddie Murphy's career" Week--This might be a hard, but the easiest way to express this concept would be to get a picture of you crash-landing face first into asphalt.
"Avatar" Week--Ladies, dress up like a blue-skinned Pocahontas. Men, dress up like Kevin Costner from Dances with Wolves except in a wheelchair.
"My Big Entrance" Week--nothing says "Hello world!" like a full color photo of you exploding from your mom like a xenomorph exploding from William Hurt's chest.
"Things that will come back to get me during my 2032 Presidential bid" Week--Let's face it, none of should be running this country at any point in our lives. That said, it doesn't hurt to try. So why wait for some futuristic muckraking journalist to dig up dirt on you? Let's just air it out now.

Your Best Friends Will Cut You (J4: Isolation to Community)

2010-02-08T23:28:00.002-06:00

I'm an introvert at heart.

I don't like to stand out unless I'm being seen in a positive light. But I don't like to stand out in that light for more than 5 minutes or so. If I stand out there in the bright sunshine of human appreciation, I may get a sunburn or worse, I might become a little too lit.

I remember when ESPN first started broadcasting in HDTV. In that ultra-clarity that we had never dreamed of seeing, where blues were bluer and greens were greener, celebrities looked...plainer.

In that HDTV light, the inches of caked makeup were more visible and ghastly than before. In standard definition, it was easy to make people look good. The light didn't have to be that good because the film didn't pick up so many of the crow's feet, stretchmarks, pockmarks, or laugh/worry lines that HDTV did. I mean, the first time I saw Al Michaels in HD, I thought he had just been the victim of some botched plastic surgery.

So I don't like to stand out in that HD positive light because the longer I do, the more clearly you can see the flaws in my body and my personality and my character.

When I was growing up, the golden rule of relationships was this: If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. A lot of kids my age were taught that. And a lot of our parents were taught that. And a lot of us are teaching that to today's kids. The thing is, I don't think that's necessarily a good thing.

See, when I was growing up, we sacrificed honesty and love for kindness and courtesy (which are counterfeit virtues. Their nice to have, but empty if abused.)

I have a couple good friends who don't always live by the "only say kind things" rule. I have friends who--when they need to--can cut me down. And I think that's a good thing.

For example, anybody who has known me for a day or so knows that I apologize for everything. It's my current bad habit that I'm trying to break. I apologize for being too late. I apologize for being too early. I apologize when I pass people walking by. I apologize for dropping crumbs. If I breathe near you...I will apologize.

I didn't know it was really an issue. I thought it was me being polite. If you mess up, apologize--the formula made sense to me. But then some of my closest friends started pointing out this annoying--and wrong-hearted behavior.

"You aren't really sorry." A poke.

"You apologize all the time. It's annoying." A nick on the chest.

"Why do you always have to apologize?" A cut, drawing blood.

"Stop apologizing. It's just you trying to look more polite than you are." Slice.

Sometimes I hate standing in the light of being known, because in the brightest light is when the surgery happens. When I'm letting people look at me and look at my personality and my life and my heart--that's when God, as chief surgeon, uses all of my friends as scalpels and tools for cutting into me. For removing the cancer inside.

When I avoid community, I'm avoiding treatment. Now, granted, just because somebody tells me I suck, doesn't mean they are helping me. It's only in the Master Surgeon's hands that a tool does it's job well.

I'm glad my friends are all tools. Without them, there would be no one to point out the places where God has helped me grow and heal and maybe more importantly, there would be nobody to help point out where I have yet to let God go.

It hurts. I'll admit. My best friends always say the most hurtful things. And like a physician trying to set a broken bone, it has to hurt before it will get any better. I should't seek pain like some sort of masochist, but I should seek pain that leads to devotion and holiness. I should be glad that my friends are sharp and that they can cut both quick and slow. I should be glad that my friends can be as precise as a scalpel or as broad as a chainsaw. And sometimes both are needed.

I hope that your friends are sharp too and that they cut you deeply. Because it's not until you are exposed to loving eyes around you, that you can begin to be known.

Why I May Always Be Lost (7 Journeys General)

2010-02-07T22:29:00.004-06:00

I was having a conversation with an old friend online last week. One of those old friends that you used to talk to all the time, but then for whatever reason you stopped. We were talking about how our lives were. She was telling me about her new school she's attending and about how her family was doing and all that. Then she returned the question back to me, to which I replied "I'm still just trying to find out who I am."

I've been trying to find out who I am for 25 years. And to be honest, I don't think I'm any closer to finding out who I really am now than I was when I was still an immobile lump of meat on my parents' laps, wearing diapers and scrunching my face for a living.

I'm in a job I hate. If you've ever been in a job you hate, you probably know how soul-crushing that can feel. The thing is that before the current job I hated, I was in another job I didn't like so much. Before the job I didn't like so much, I was in a job that wasn't that fulfilling. Let's just say I haven't made much progress in finding the job of my dreams yet.

Relationally I'm as stuck as I've ever been. I can't tell what my role is in most of my relationships or how to even properly love the people I'm around. So, in general, I default to the being the community jackass--a job that I've always performed well throughout my life.

Romantically? There's a giant question mark. I'm either an inadvertent monk or a purpose-driven jerk. Hard to tell sometimes.

But anyway, as I was telling myself how I was still "trying to find myself," it hit me how absurd and counter-productive that phrase is.

"Find myself." Well that's easy. Extend my arm in front of me, point my finger back at my face and then retract my arm until I poke something fleshy or shirty. Boom. There. I found myself.

And what do I find when I find myself? A very confused boy who longed to be a man and to have adventure, but was so concerned with finding some magical "it" that he missed the entire adventure. I believe the French call this le sh*thead.

If you try to find yourself, you will fail. If you try to find God, then you will find yourself. A pot searching for what a pot should do has no idea what it's purpose is. A pot looking for the potter that made it however...

It's an easy lesson that's almost always immediately and easily forgotten, but there's truth in that--stop looking for yourself. Look for God and you will either be so impressed with God that you won't care to find yourself anymore OR by finding God, you will finally figure out what you were created to do.

That's it. There's no other way to find yourself. At least none that I think works. I'm got to stop trying to define myself by relationships or jobs or hobbies or skills. As the teacher in Ecclesiastes says, all is meaningless.

Finding yourself is pointless if you don't find God first. Adam and Eve thought they found themselves. They thought they really saw themselves and they were ashamed. Then they were banished.

The only eyes really worth looking through, are God's.

My Submission for a New Olympic Sport

2010-02-05T19:23:00.004-06:00

I was in an online conversation with a new acquaintance this afternoon discussing multiple topics including: writing styles, the skullet, and a new sport that we will be pitching to the Olympic Committee this Spring.

I call it the Awkward Decathalon. And it is exactly what it sounds like.

The Awkward Decathalon is 10 events aimed at deciding once and for all, who is the most awkward person in the world.

The events are as follows:

The six hour car-ride with an ex and their spouse. Radios, books, and other distractions are prohibited.
Picking up change of the floor of an elevator filled with naked people.
The 3-armed sweater fashion show. Contestants have to figure out how to wear and then strut off in a cashmere sweater with 3 sleeves.
OBGYN ventriliquism
A 3-hour improv/prop comedy set while the film Schindler's List plays on a projector behind you.
Pick-up lines at a funeral.
A debate with Tyler Perry over the topic of "Why Tyler Perry's films aren't really that good."
A staring contest with your father...while he's making love to your mother. (And Yes, I did steal this event from Andy Richter's last episode on Late Night with Conan O'Brien. I stole it just like Leno stole the Tonight Show. As Kelso would say, "BURN!")
Sitting through a Pentecostal Revival (and not that northern fluff, we're talking the chair-throwing, red-blooded southern stuff. the GOOD stuff.)
A 3-legged race through Haiti with Pat Robertson as your 3rd leg. (And no, I am not making light of Mr. Robertson's comments, I am only pointing out that this would be much more awkward than the other 9 events--even numbers 1 & 8 combined)

Jesus Insurance

2010-02-03T22:53:00.007-06:00

I'm sitting in bed right now with a sore throat. Might be strep. Might just be sinus issues. I'm a huge baby when I get sick. If I have a headache, I daydream about spending all day in bed. Add a sore throat and I start trying to cat nap in my little cubicle at Citi.

I've always been a huge baby when it comes to feeling under the weather (Note: Has anybody ever felt over the weather?) and I think it has a lot to do with fond memories of being sick as a kid. Not being sick, so much, but of being taken care of. I remember being sick from school as a kid and mom or dad would stay home with me. I'd stay in my pajamas all day, lie on the couch and watch movies all day. Sure, I felt miserable, it wasn't fun, but it was soothing to have somebody there caring for my needs. The sickness is never fun, but watching a parent's love in action is.

Now I'm 25 and living with two other guys, neither of whom I think will read me stories and pet my head when I'm sick. So now that I have no caregiver, everytime I get sick, I just assume I'm going to die.

I've got a sore throat. Better update the will.

So as I'm lying in bed, sick, thinking about J3 and what it means to share the Gospel with the people around me, I think of this:

What is my legacy? What am I leaving behind when I die? When I croak, what are the people who survive me going to think about me? Will people be at my funeral remembering me for my writing (which is hack at best)? My humor? My kindness? (Ever been to a funeral where they didn't say the corpse was kind? I can't believe Jerry's dead...he was such a jerk.)

If I'm remembered for any of these things, then I will not have left a great legacy I believe. Ultimately, when I die, I want people to say one thing before anything else.

"Wow. Jesus is awesome." Or something like that. Awesome is my word for it. I'm sure you could use a ton of others. But you kinda get the point.

If there's one message that I want my life to communicate more than anything else in this world, it's this--a relationship with Jesus is not only possible, but it is fulfilling in ways you could never imagine.

You always hear people talk about the importance of leaving a will or getting life-insurance. They say, "Make sure that the people you care for are covered if anything should happen to you." And I believe in that idea wholeheartedly, except that I don't think leaving your family money when you die is going to be enough. I think that you have to leave the people around you something more.

Think about it. We are all going to die. You are going to die. When you die, what is the one thing you want to say before you go? Me? I hope that before I die, I will have made it crystal clear to everyone around me what is responsible for me being the awesome, kick-ass person am I today--and that's Jesus Christ.

I don't want to leave my wife (ha!) or kids (double ha!) money when I die. I want to leave my family and friends something that actually means something--hope. I want to leave them with tools, wisdom, and opportunities to connect with God on a daily basis.

If I believe in Christ and if I truly believe that Christ is my only hope and that a relationship with Him is the only way my life can be fulfilling, then I need to start thinking:

Who haven't I shared that hope with?
Why haven't I shared that hope with them?

If I'm as serious about this thing as I say I am, then it's time to start acting on it. If we believe that Jesus is the light and the way and we know for a fact that people in our lives haven't made Him the central part of their lives, then I need to think:

How can I make myself open and receptive to God, Jesus, and the Spirit in the lives of those around me?
How can I erase the fear and apprehensions I have about getting into the most important topic I can ever talk to a friend about?

I leave you with this video. It's Penn Jillette of Penn & Teller. He's a funny guy and an atheist and below he talks about an interaction he had with a Christian after a show.

Does this mean we need to hand out Bibles to everyone we meet? No. But maybe it means that it really is OK to talk about this taboo topic we call Christianity.

You don't have to wear your underwear on your head to be an evangelist. I think.

2010-02-03T00:22:00.007-06:00

This week, we'll be discussing J3: Receiver to Giver...booyah.

There are two competing answers to the following question: What is the most awkward conversation you can ever get into?

One answer says that the most awkward conversation you can get into is the infamous, parental "Sex Talk."

The other answer says that the most awkward conversation you can get into revolves around the question: "Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior?"

Both talks can involve lots of perspiration, stuttering, stammering and bad metaphors. Both can leave the receiving end of the party feeling very uncomfortable. Both can end with each party to the conversation unable to look each other in the eye for the next week or so.

They are the Manning v. Brady of awkward conversations. Both have their strong points. Both create heated debate. And both conversations can have polar effects on different people.

Today though, I will be writing about the Jesus conversation. Why? Because it's what I'm more interested in. Plus, I never got the sex talk. So I really am still pretty fuzzy on what the whole process involves. (I think it's goes something like this: a man and a woman enter a room. Get naked...and then beat a stork to death with an old Indian book of inter-gender yoga positions...Somewhere in there a baby is born, but I still haven't figured that part out yet.)

So why are conversations about Jesus uncomfortable? What is it about this discussion that not only can make non-Christians squirm in their seats, but Christians as well?

I remember my junior year of college, after I had been a Christian for 3/4 of a year, and being on the Outreach Team. The Outreach Team--the posterchild of every blown idea college ministry has ever come up with. Not that outreach teams are bad, just odd. I never understood how we got to the point where one specific group of people was in charge of spreading the Gospel.

Anyway, the Outreach Team consisted of me and about 6 other people who would try to think of ways to get into the dorms so that we could get into conversations with "lost" people and then get them into a Four Spiritual Laws discussion.

By the way if you don't know your Four Spiritual Laws, they go like this:

Don't feed a Christian after midnight.
Don't get a Christian wet.
Don't expose a Christian to direct sunlight.
No running in the hall.

And in case you forgot your Four Spiritual Laws (the less smart-mouthed version here), you had countless tracts to guide you through it. Essentially Outreach worked like this:

Do something creative to get the attention of a "lost" person. Ex. hand out pop-ice, collect dorm room trash, walk-around with a camera and microphone and intrusively ask them "Are you a good person? Hmmmmm?"
In a conversation, link everything back to the Bible and Jesus. "You watch Home Improvement! I love Home Improvement. You know, Tim Allen reminds me of a great carpenter I know...Jesus!"
Pull out your Four Laws Spiritual Tract--complete with poor drawings and really, really tiny font.
Walk through the Tract with the "lost" person.
Sweat profusely and change the subject if the "lost" person asks you a question not located directly on the Tract. *In code red situations, use your Four Spiritual Laws smokebomb to create a cloud of confusion as you sneak out through the window.

I wish somebody that year had set me down and let me know what it really meant to share the Gospel with people.

And so, I present 10 quick lessons I've learned about sharing the Gospel.*

If you say it, mean it. Don't tell somebody Jesus is the hope of the world unless you believe that in the deepest fiber of your being.
Know what Jesus means to you. Before you tell anybody what Jesus could mean to them, take some time and think about what your relationship with Jesus has really meant to you.
Don't get pissy if somebody doesn't change the first go around. It took me dozens of conversations with people before I decided to put my faith in Christ. You do not have the magic words and if you are there when somebody is saved, don't get a big head. You didn't do anything. God did.
There is no Hit and Run evangelism. Don't treat people like quick projects. People are more apt to investigate a relationship with Jesus if they feel like you really do care about them.
Walk before you talk. Don't just talk about Jesus. Walk with Him and let people watch you walk with him. Yes, don't be a blowhard about it, but let people see you struggle and rejoice with God.
Listen, then talk. One of the biggest stumbling blocks I see in the relationships between Christians and non-christians is that Christians rarely weigh a non-christians thought and perspectives with the same validity and care as other Christians. Listen, then explore. Don't just talk.
Be willing to put in the time. Just like there is no hit and run evangelism, there is no time-limit when you walk with somebody towards Jesus. Be willing to go the distance, win or lose.
Be OK with not having all the answers. You won't. And that's good. There will be points in everybody's walk up to the line of faith where they will have to wrestle with questions on their own and you can only be there to support them. That's OK. Their tough questions can be great opportunities for you to grow in your own faith as well.
Love like Jesus loves. We're all sinners. People drink. People swear. People sleep around. Not all of them, but some. You don't have to be passive or support their decisions and lifestyles can bring up good chances for conversations, but remember: you aren't perfect, they aren't perfect, but Jesus is. How does Jesus want you to react in those difficult culture-clashes?
Pray. The number one thing nobody ever tells a Christian who is trying to walk with somebody towards Christ. Pray. Pray. Pray. Pray morning and night for that person. Pray that God shows up big. He may surprise you.

*I know people will argue with some of these. That's OK. Jesus uses all kinds of ways to communicate his gospel. Even tracts. These are just the things I've learned thus far. I am no Billy Graham, more of a Billy Idol.

Soft-Hearts can't be Stubborn (J2:Self-hearted to Soft-Hearted)

2010-01-31T22:56:00.003-06:00

"God created the world out of nothing and as long as we are nothing, He can make something out of us."
--Martin Luther

It's been almost a week since I blogged about the 7 Journeys. I'd like to blame it on busyness, illness, writer's block, or my preperation for the Pro Bowl (I was failed to be voted in. Again.), but ultimately I haven't been writing much this week because J2 is a very difficult topic. And to leave it as a topic would be to damn the whole thing, because the point of these journeys are not to create good conversation, but to create good transformation.

For those of you who know me well (and as a warning for those of you who don't) I am a stubborn son of a gun. Not literally though, my mother and father were both people and the milkman wasn't a gun, but a crossbow. But that's besides the point...

I'm stubborn. I knew I was stubborn already, but I knew I was stubborn like I know I can't win a triathalon. It wasn't until I tried to not be stubborn that I saw how far I really fell short of that goal.

Self-hearted to soft-hearted. Mine to his. Me to You. My hopes, dreams and fears vs. His desires, plans, and will. When I choose to be stubborn against God, I will always choose to be on the losing team.

Soft-hearts can't be stubborn. This is what I'm learning this week in very convincing ways. God asks me to think of myself in a certain way--as a fallen, BUT redeemed one-of-kind work of His. A lost but found heir to God's grace.

For those of you who know me well, you know that I'm a self-loather. Loathe. Even the word "loathe" depicts in my head images of pot-bellied pessimists in old, stained sweat-pants lounging all day on a large couch while they bury themselves under a shallow grave of cheet-o dust and miniature candy bar wrappers as they watch day-time TV and think, "Why can't I have Kate Gosselin's hair?"

To self-loathe is to be prideful. How? I explain my particular brand of self-loathing like this: Because I am incapable of letting God's love be enough and because God's style of love often goes against what I want, I need to find ways to trap love from other people--a love that is shallow and cheap yet seems much easier and less challenging than God's love. God wants me to run on clean burning, powerful, and non-pollutive Grace. I'd prefer to fill up my tanks on pity and adoration which is not only really bad on my mileage, but will fill my engine with thick, black, nasty crud.

It's hard to move from self-hearted and soft-hearted. Really freaking hard. I've been running on pride-guided, pity-filled fuel system for so long that to look inside my engine, you'd think it impossible to clean. Just walls upon walls of thick, black, crusted grease. And now I'm trying to switch over to something better for me and...they say you should never change metaphors mid-stream, but here goes...it's like if you've grown up eating junk food and then try to eat healthy. It's almost impossible not to crave the old junkfood again.

Being soft-hearted means that I don't try to get what I want, but I become more concerned with what God wants. Being soft-hearted means that I am easy to move and to shape. Being soft-hearted--being malleable to God's will--isn't something that most people change into doing overnight.

I hope that as I read through these journeys and blog about them, I'm not just ingesting and expelling words, but that I'm taking these ideas and getting nutrition from them. I hope that God challenges me and I accept His challenges. That's what I feel is one of the great things about this Living God is that He looks at me--a speck of a speck of a speck on a fly's butt--and still wants to transform me into something that shows off His glory.

It's hard to become soft. Softness is not something that is highly esteemed in our culture. Especially if you're a man (which I hope to become someday...). A man is not supposed to have a soft-heart. He's supposed to be tough as nails and strong as an ox. A real man eats steel and pisses fire. A real man does what he wants and doesn't answer to anybody.

And yet God says?...God says manhood is soft. If Jesus is our example of ultimate manhood (and I would argue He is) then what kind of a man was Jeus? Jesus was soft--not wimpy--but soft. His heart was very soft in that He let himself be guided by God and the Spirit. He wasn't stubborn. He didn't hesitate to bow his knee to God. Jesus didn't try to do things his way, but he did it his Father's way.

Soft hearts have to be willing to let God move them. Just like the metaphor Roy uses about the man who drowned in the rapids I have to ask myself, "By letting the waters take me down now, will my life be saved, even expanded, later?"

By being aware of how God is tugging at my heart and by being receptive to that tugging--sensitive to even the tiniest pull from God's fingers--my life becomes so much more fulfilling. How much more love and joy could I be feeling from God if I gave Him a soft, malleable heart to work with?

More than a fish? (J2: Self-Hearted to Soft-Hearted)

2010-01-25T10:02:00.003-06:00

This week I begin blogging about Journey 2: Self-Hearted to Soft-Hearted. You can watch yesterdays message on J2 at www.meaningfulchurch.com.

Yesterday, Roy Moran (or as I look to call him, the Good, Right Reverend Roy Moran of the Pleasant Valley Parish) spoke about fish. That's right fish; those things that fish sticks, fish tacos, and fish fillet sandwiches come from (Who knew?).

Roy posed the question: "How does a fish know it's wet?" How would a fish know how to even describe "wet." The fish was born in and lived its whole life in water. And even if by chance, some child caught that fish one day, judged it as being too small, and threw it back into the water--that fish would be able to tell you what "dry" felt like, but he still wouldn't be able to tell you about "wet."

That fish would say all sorts of things about how his 2 minutes in the air, above the water were scary and strange, but all the fish could really tell you is that it was different and that he probably didn't like it. It may never have even crossed his mind that what he felt as "dry" was the complete opposite of what he feels every day.

So how does a fish know it's wet? Well, I think first off, a fish needs somebody to tell him. Like maybe a bird. A fish and a bird have similar but different lives. They both eat and reproduce. They both have families and they both have seen danger. They both are able to move freely in their respective atmospheres (as the fish swims anywhere through water and the bird flies anywhere through the air).

The fish doesn't know that there's anything special or wrong about what it does because of who it hangs out with. A fish probably hangs out with other fish or at least with other marine life. So of course none of them are going to tell the fish he's wet because they are wet too and they probably don't know it.

(Now the bird may have some advantage at this point because while the bird flies, the bird probably has more interaction with things that don't fly.)

I hate confrontation. I hate friction. I'm a typical hermit crab. I enjoy staying inside where it's safe until I know things will be OK. And then, at that point, I will slowly crawl out where I can be exposed by the world.

For the longest time I didn't know there was anything wrong with that. I didn't think there was anything wrong with not creating friction and not facing confrontation. And because I generally hung out with other hermit crabs, I didn't have anybody to point out that maybe there was a different--and more fulfilling--way of living.

And then at different points in my life, I met different creatures; badgers, birds, leopards, and even some fish. And those creatures helped point out that I was a hermit crab and that I was very attached to my safe, cozy shell. Now, they never said, "You need to become a badger or a bird or a leopard or a fish". They just said, "You area hermit crab. But what if you could be more than just a hermit crab?"

And likewise, what if a fish could become more than just a fish? He may still do fish things and will still be wet, but what if he could become the kind of fish God wanted him to be? That could be miraculous.

I think that when we only hang out with people who are just like us--or worse, don't engage in real community at all--we lose the gift of having somebody tell us something possibly uncomfortable about ourselves.

I had an experience like that (many times, in fact) when somebody told me, "Ben, do you realize that you deflect alot of questions with humor?" That was some wetness of mine. I didn't realize until, people who weren't like me pointed it out, that when somebody tries to dig into my soul and really get to know me, I have a cruel habit of deflecting them with a joke or with just foolishness.

It's OK to have friends who are like you. That's usually why they are your friends to begin with. But if your friends aren't able to tell you things about you that maybe God wants to point out, then what's the point? Fish are good, and if you just want to be a regular fish, then that's OK, but what if God dreams for you to become more than just a fish? What if God dreams of you becoming more than just a man or a woman?

But in order to become something more, you must become less--you must be willing to drop ego and pride and fear for the sake of seeing the real you as you truly are. That's going to involve some major dignities and depravities of your life being revealed; and at times, both can be scary.

But with God's help and with the help of a community that is both honest and diverse, I think we each have a chance to see real transformation.

Conan O'Brien teaches me something about gratitude (J1: Earner to Heir)

2010-01-23T00:21:00.007-06:00

Tonight, I watched the final episode of "The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien" and Conan reinforced in my head why he is of the most intriguing people I've ever seen on television.

Now whether you like Conan or don't like Conan, I think it's pretty fair to think that he was the victim of the biggest entertainment swindle since the infamous Montreal Screwjob. Conan had put in 16 years as the late-night follow-up to Jay Leno's Tonight Show and held his own in what was a dead zone time slot of infomercials, syndicated TV shows, and bad public access. And during that 16 years, Conan worked hard.

He fine-tuned his comedic style. He groomed a powerful cult following and surrounded himself with a brain-trust of some of comedy's best writers. Conan waited patiently and did his absolute best every-night (even when his best wasn't that good.)

Finally, Conan's work looked like it would pay off. Leno handed him the keys to the Tonight Show--the mecca of late-night TV. The Tonight Show was the land of milk and honey for comedic legends like Steve Allen, Jack Paar, Johnny Carson, Leno, and finally Conan.

Seven months later, as we all have seen it play out, Conan's dream was crushed. He had seen the promised land. He even got to build a little house on it. But the repo men came calling. Leno gets his second chance on the Tonight Show. Conan probably never will.

As I watched tonight's show, I kept thinking--how does that feel to have your fingers around your dream...to smell and taste and touch the thing you thought would be the pinnacle of your life--only to have it wrenched away from you.

And tonight during the closing minutes of O'Briens' final Tonight Show, before he took stage with Will Ferrell, Beck, ZZ Top and other musicians for a spirited rendition of Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Free Bird"--he took the time to set the record straight with his audience:

"There has been a lot of speculation in the press about what I legally can and can't say about NBC. To set the record straight, tonight I am allowed to say anything I want. And what I want to say is this: between my time at "Saturday Night Live," "The Late Night Show," and my brief run here on the "Tonight Show," I have worked with NBC for over 20 years. Yes, we have our differences right now and yes, we're going to go our separate ways, but this company has been my home for most of my adult life. I am enormously proud of the work we have done together, and I want to thank NBC for making it all possible.

"Walking away from the "Tonight Show" is the hardest thing I have ever had to do. Making this choice has been enormously difficult," O'Brien continued. "This is the best job in the world, I absolutely love doing it, and I have the best staff and crew in the history of the medium. But despite this sense of loss, I really feel this should be a happy moment. Every comedian dreams of hosting the "Tonight Show" and, for seven months, I got to. I did it my way, with people I love, and I do not regret a second. I've had more good fortune than anyone I know and if our next gig is doing a show in a 7-11 parking lot, we'll find a way to make it fun.

"Finally, I have to say something to our fans. The massive outpouring of support and passion from so many people has been overwhelming. The rallies, the signs, all the goofy, outrageous creativity on the Internet, and the fact that people have traveled long distances and camped out all night in the pouring rain to be in our audience, made a sad situation joyous and inspirational. To all the people watching, I can never thank you enough for your kindness to me and I'll think about it for the rest of my life. "

"All I ask of you is one thing: please don't be cynical. I hate cynicism -- it's my least favorite quality and it doesn't lead anywhere," he concluded. "Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you're kind, amazing things will happen."

Watching Conan tonight, you could feel that he sincerely had this huge sense of gratitude in him--even though things had turned sour.

I remember times in my life where it just felt like God was taking a massive dump on me. I remember days where nothing seemed to go right and I just felt hand-cuffed and cornered by life.

It's hard to be grateful when you feel like you're heart has been broken, stomped-on, spat upon...It's hard to feel grateful when you feel like you've worked SO hard for something only to see it fall apart in your hands.

I remember the first time I had my heart broken by a woman. Looking back I can weigh it with a little more dignity and realize that maybe I was a bit of a jackass, but still--I remember that feeling. The feeling that all of my work and effort was all for naught. Hadn't I earned it? Hadn't I worked too damn hard for it to not succeed?

The answer is a resounding "YES." I hadn't worked hard enough for it. I hadn't earned it. And again, the conclusion must be that I can't work hard enough. I can't earn it. "Earner to Heir" isn't just an attitude towards Heaven or salvation--it's got to be an attitude towards life.

An attitude that says, because I can't earn anything--not love, not salvation, not the breath in my lungs or the shirt on my back--because I can't earn anything, the conclusion must be that I've been given everything.

I try to look back at those girl-inflicted heartaches with a bittersweet gratitude now. Yes, the heartache sucked, but I really don't regret any of the time I spent with them. I got to peer into the souls of some truly beautiful people and they lifted my spirits. For them and for what what heartache has taught me, I am grateful to God.

Everything is a gift from God. Sunsets. Breezes. Children. Laughter. Tears. Tragedy. Heartache. Success. Failure. Family. Health. Light. Music. Talents. Dreams. Longings. Hungers. These are all gifts from God and there is no way that I can earn any of them.

Therefore, I must be grateful. Grateful when I am given something from God. And since God creates all and it is solely His to give, I should be grateful for all. Even when it turns sour.

"Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get."

And yet, we can still be grateful. Because even if our wildest dreams only last for a few months before they end, we should be grateful.

When I fail, be grateful--The opportunity to fail was a gift from God.

When I succeed, be grateful--there's no way in hell I did it on my own, and God could have easily chosen for me to fail.

No matter who my friends are, be grateful--my friends aren't perfect and neither am I, so let me break bread with them.

Look for the things in everyday life that God has given you. Be grateful. I am not saying be a blind optimist who finds joy in gunshot wounds, those people are idiots...but be grateful. Take stock of all the gifts God blesses you with in a given day. We are truly spoiled heirs, but for some reason, God really does like to spoil His children.

So if you can't work your way into Heaven...(J1: Earner to Heir)

2010-01-20T23:41:00.004-06:00

So If you can't earn your way into Heaven by kissing babies and helping little old ladies across the street...why do it?

Can I really pass by slumming it?

I am a lazy person. Incredibly lazy. I'm so lazy I once watched an entire four hours of Mamma's Family no WGN because I didn't want to get off the couch to get the remote. I was in one of those one-in-a-million positions on the couch where my legs, buttocks, and arms were all in just the right position to create maximum comfort. Sure, I wanted to watch something a little more entertaining than Vickie Lawrence in a bad wig pretending to be a sassy, ol' gal--but I wanted to be comfortable more.

So while Mama's Family wasn't anywhere near the ideal TV show, it was passable for the four hours I was on the couch.

I also don't work out. I should, but I don't. I'd like to be one of those guys who can call themselves ripped with a straight face, but again, I'm lazy. But that's another thing: when did exercising become about getting ripped, toned, cut, and jacked? Wasn't exercise originally about not dying of a heart attack at 26? Wasn't working out less about vanity and more about quality of life?

I wonder if as many people would work out if it made them healthier, but didn't give them six-packs? I bet more people would be joining me on the couch where we could take turns vacuuming Cheet-o dust and M&M's out of our navals.

I think spiritual disciplines are sometimes looked at like body-building. I've heard a lot of youthgroup leaders talk about building "spiritual muscle." I guess that makes sense on one hand, because the more you practice spiritual disciplines, the stronger your faith can get. I can see that.

But again, do we look at spiritual disciplines and "good works" with goals of vanity or quality of life?

What if God said to you or me: "I want you to pray for an hour a day every day for the rest of your life. By praying an hour a day every day, you will not get smarter, you will not get braver, you will not stop sinning, you will not become a better church leader. BUT you will be honoring me."

Would you be as gung ho about it then? Or would you feel better if God said, "Pray for an hour a day every day for the rest of your life and you will become a great leader at your church that everybody respects and that guides that church body into great and wonderful things."

What if God said, "I want you to empty your savings account, put it in an anonymous bag, wipe all of your fingerprints off of it, and when nobody is looking--give it to this charity."

What happens when doing what God leads you to do doesn't lead to recognition or rewards or even an outcome you can see?

I find that in my life the hardest time to follow God is when I'm all by myself. When I'm sitting in my room and a dusty Bible is sitting next to me waiting to be opened or when there's nothing on TV and I hear God's little voice inside saying, "Let's have a talk Ben. I want to hear your prayers and I want you to listen to me." It's easy to hear that little voice and drown that little guy in Dr. Pepper.

But then if I'm around people or if I think God's going to give me a reward, it's easy to do the good things. It's easy for me to show compassion to somebody I already like, but put me next to somebody whose wronged me and see how quickly I am to not listen to God.

I mean, I can't earn God's favor. I can't earn salvation. So why should I show compassion to that guy that annoys the hell out of me?

God ultimately doesn't want to leave me the way I am. He will always be looking for things in my life to take out His tools, knock down some walls, and start remodeling.

If God is my father and God seeks participation, connection, and devotion from me--then I have to ask myself if that is enough.

Is it enough that God asks me to do the good things for the sole sake of watching me do them? Is it enough for me to do good things so that God can be there with me as I do them? IS it enough for me to do good things so that in doing those things, I can pay tribute to God?

Not because I'll get rewarded, but because God desires to share meaningful experiences with me?

I love how in "A Million Miles in A Thousand Years" by Donald Miller, the author imagines that in Heaven we get to sit with our Creator under a tree somewhere and He'll ask us "What were your favorite parts of the story I laid out for you?" And then when you've told yours, God will say, "Now let me tell you My favorite parts of your story..."

There's something cool about that to me. Something about doing things not to build up Jesus-points and not to "secure my spot in Heaven"--but doing things so that God and I can share in them.

Yes, God has 6,000,000,000-plus sons and daughters on the Earth right now, but He is a big God and there is something very cool about the fact that He will always make time to spend each-and-every moment with us, at our side, whenever we call for Him.

If I gave God my iPod, what would he give me? (J1: Earner to Heir)

2010-01-19T23:16:00.007-06:00

Today I had one of those moments. Have you ever had one of those moments?

You know, one of those moments where you realize how small you really are. Not just compared to God or planets or lakes. But small compared to trees and wind and sound. One of those moments where you feel like an ant under the magnifying glass--just getting hotter and hotter and unable to escape fast enough.

For those of you who don't know, I work for Citi in their Sears Inbound Collections business. Basically, I take calls all day from people who for whatever reason have fallen delinquent on their Sears credit cards. Then I help that person find the best solution that will "Woo, Wow, and Win" the client. Or at least that's what my bosses tell me I do.

Most calls are pretty routine, but today I had a rough one. This kind woman, about 75 calls in. She tells me how she knows she's past due on her account and how she's planning to make a payment soon so it can all get taken care of, but she's just been distracted recently.

Why has she been distracted? Because her husband is in the hospital, probably dying. So this woman who I'm supposed to be collecting money from is telling me about how she's spent almost 18 hours a day at the hospital with her husband since December 26 while he's lying on a bed trying to fight multiple ailments.

So I sit and listen to this woman talk about her husband and as she's talking, she keeps apologizing to me. She's apologizing because she's fallen behind on her payments and because she's always been honest and always been accountable. This woman who is watching her husband, her best friend, and her lover die in a hospital is apologizing to me for a $40 balance.

That was it. Forty dollars. Nothing more. And as I'm listening to this woman, I can feel this bartering sense in her voice and maybe even deeper in her soul. This voice that says, "maybe if I just get my act together...maybe if I just pay my debts, God won't take my husband from me."

It's moments like that where I feel very, very small. Small because I want to help, but can't. I wish I could do something--anything for that woman. Part of me wishes I knew how to barter with God for some amazing healing powers (My hardcore charismatic brothers and sisters need not reply to this). I wish I could say the secret codeword that convinces God to "do me a square."

Does bartering smother a chance for true relationships with God?

Not asking. There's a difference between bartering and asking of God. I believe it's OK to ask God for things as long as you know that God's will may not be to grant you that wish. God loves participation. Participation is key to a relationship. And anybody who has had a close, true friend or spouse knows that asking another person for something is a sign of closeness.

Bartering is dangerous, I feel, because bartering turns God into a formula. Bartering says: If I perform Act (A) and Act (B) and say (C), Then God will give me (D). Bartering is never about giving of yourself, it's about getting for yourself.

Bartering isn't a sign of friendship, it's a sign of symbiosis. And like I said in my last post (quoting the famous author God.): God is not an employer, He is a father.

With God as my boss, I'm looking for ways not to get screwed. With God as my father, I'm comfortable enough around Him to ask. The flip side--and often hard part to come to grips with--is that God as my Father knows what's best for me. And what's best for isn't always going to be what I want.

If that woman on the phone barters with God for her husbands life, will she hold it against Him if He denies her requests?

If I devo every morning for a year, then God brings a woman into my life for the soul purpose of breaking my heart (and thus breaking my ego) am I still willing to trust and to seek closeness with Him? Or does the lack of "reward" make me weary of going back to Him?

The more that I realize that God is big, real, and dead serious about His will--the less I try to barter. The more I see that I can't con God into giving me rewards for being a nice guy--the more I respect God's choices. And the less I focus on winning prizes (wealth, health, and heaven) the more I can enjoy the true benefits of being God's heir (relationship, adventure, fullness of life).

I'm guilty of trying to barter with God. I do it all the time. "God, if give me some extra money this month, I'll be charitable with it. Promise." "God, I'll trade you 60 hours of devo this month for a new car or some facial hair." "God, I'll stop lusting after woman if you'll just make me happy."

Bartering disrespects God and it cheats us. It cheats us from living dangerously with God at the wheel. It cheats us from having to rely on Him the way He intended. And ultimately bartering will weaken and dull transformed lives.

J1: Earner to Heir

2010-01-18T23:59:00.006-06:00

Over the next few weeks, I will be blogging along with Shoal Creek Community Church as it explores its extended series "The 7Journeys: Leaving Normal Behind." Please keep in mind that the things I write here are not necessarily the views of any sane human being.

The first journey...Earner to Heir

When I first became a Christian back in college, I had a view of God that could be summed up like this: "There is a God. There is a heaven that is going to be much better than this earth. If I would like to see heaven, I better not piss off God too much."

That was about it. Christianity was less about knowing God and more about getting to heaven. Christianity was not a relationship when I first started following Jesus--it was a cookie cutter.

That cookie cutter was in the shape of a Christian who could get into heaven. And if I wanted to get into heaven, I needed to fit into that cookie cutter. So I remember trying to do all of these things that would help me fit into that cookie cutter:

Go to church every Sunday.
Read my Bible. As quickly as I could. Starting in Genesis (I think the first time I tried to read through my Bible, I got to Deuteronomy 6 and collapsed from an aneurysm.)
Don't lust.
Don't swear.
Join a campus ministry and volunteer.
Listen to a lot of Christian Acoustic Artists.
Find a Jesus-connection in the theme of every film you watch.

It wasn't until I was a Shoal Creek intern (about a year and a half after I became a Christian) that it hit me that I wasn't into christianity for Christ as much as I was into it for rewards.

See, I had made God a boss and was trying to meet the minimum requirements of that boss so I could continue my employment. I wasn't looking at God like I should have been, like a father.

Now, a lot of you shudder if I say God is our Father. Maybe you had terrible experiences with the man who raised (or failed to raise) you and so "God the Father" sounds less warm and inviting than "God the Supervisor." The best way I can get over that hump at this point is to just say this: Don't look at your own fathers and try to match those characteristics to God, but instead, take a look at God's relationship with Jesus. The Gospels, in addition to the many themes that run through them, hold in them the greatest father-son story ever told.

The Gospels are the story of a Father and Son who share in triumph, sorrow, pain, and sacrifice. The Gospels are the story of a Father who molded his Son into a perfect man. The Gospels are the story of a Son who gave everything he had--including his life--to see his father's dream realized.

Going from Earner (God is my boss) to Heir (God is my father) is very, very hard if you don't have a clear picture of what fatherhood is supposed to look like. Everybody will have a boss in their lifetime; few people will actually have a father.

A boss inspires me to work enough. A father inspires me to work harder. A boss gives me reason to hide my failures. A father gives me comfort in them. A boss can make me more efficient. A father can make me more complete. A boss can give me incentive to try harder. A father can let me be me.

Now, back to my being an intern--it was during my summer at an intern that I learned this key fact: Nothing I could ever do and nothing I could never not do will make God love me any differently than He already does. There's nothing I can screw up and there's nothing I can accomplish that will set me apart in His eyes.

God won't love me more if I am stronger or smarter. God won't love me less if I am weak or foolish. God won't love me more if I memorize the Bible. God won't love me less if I break down to the same sins every, single day. God won't love me more because of how much I am like Jesus. And God won't love me less because of how badly I fail to be like Jesus.

The key thing in beginning to move from Earner to Heir for me was learning that--for some odd reason that makes absolutely no sense to me--God loves me as a Son. Not as a property. Not as a creature. Not as a christian. But as a Son.

And just like the Prodigal Son from the Gospel of Luke, God mourns when I run away but rejoices when I come back.

The more I learn how to be God's son and not just His follower or employee or student...the more I'll learn to relax as an heir relaxes.

7Journeys Journaling: Day 4--Psalm 23

2010-01-14T22:39:00.001-06:00

God is my shepherd. I shall not want.

He brings me to green pastures where I may be fed. He leads me to quiet, cool, peaceful waters where I may drink and not be thirsty.

He makes me whole and new. Because He is glorious, he leads my life towards transformation. My transformation is not for my own good, but so that He may be glorified.

Even though I walk in a broken world and am surrounded by sin and temptation, I will not be afraid. Because God is with me, I will have courage. His rod and His staff--conviction and celebration--both comfort me.

When God redeems me, He guides me...places me at a table with those who have not chosen to put their faith in Him. When I have chosen to stand on God's side, God pushes me to sit and dine with those on the other team. I hope that God then blesses me so that the love and joy I feel in Him may overflow to the cups of those at my table who don't know Him.

Hopefully, goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life. Then, my cup will never run dry and I will always have something to pour out on those who would be my enemies.

So that I may help them find greener pastures where they may be fed.

So that I may help them find the cool waters that will never leave them thirsty.

And hopefully afterward, we all may dwell together in my Father's house. Forever in community. Forever in worship. Forever whole.

God will not make my life comfortable, but if I let Him, He will make it holy. God won't let me sit and eat at the greener pastures or drink from the cooler waters while there are others who have not found this place yet.

So, for His glory, we must not always leisure in the greener pastures. Sometimes we have to move. Sometimes we have to break a sweat. For His glory, we are blessed with the task of making sure that every one of us has a chance at the green pastures.

7Journeys Journaling: Day 3--II Timothy 3

2010-01-13T22:40:00.003-06:00

Paul, in writing to Timothy, speaks of people guilty of "having a form of godliness but denying its power."

People who pretend to be religious and who pretend to be following God, but are really know more than wolves in sheeps' clothing.

They have the form of godliness--they act right, know the vernacular, do the right things, and at least to outsiders look righteous.

But they deny its power--the power of the Gospel. The power of true faith. The power of true obedience to God.

I feel like a vast majority of us--myself included--live a counterfeit faith. We started off on fire for God. We got involved in a church. We listened to the right worship cds. We stopped drinking, swearing, and screwing. BUT--at some point, we started to deny the true power of a life transformed in Jesus.

We become dulled Christians. We take the form of a Christian. We go to church. We give. We pray. We even read our Bibles, but at some point we've denied the true power of that Gospel. At some point, things got too hard. And as Paul says in verse 12, "everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted."

Maybe that scared some of us. It scares me often. And in that fear, we forgot that God was holding us and we turned back to safety of living on the ground. We denied what could have been.

I wonder what it would be like to truly embrace the power of a life transformed by Jesus. What would that be like? Look at the devastation in Haiti right now. What if we stopped looking for reasons not to act, but really trusted the power of God to equip us to reach out to our brothers and sisters in Haiti and show them compassion like Christ?

Think about everything that could happen if Christians everywhere stopped running from the scariest parts of walking with Jesus and said "I don't know how bad this is going to hurt, but I know that you, God, are far more important than what pain I will feel."

I read 2 Timothy 3:5 and I wonder...have I ever met anybody who didn't deny any of the power of living that transformed life? I don't think so.

I think each day, that I am denying something from God. Each day I am trying to compromise with Him. (Yes God, I'll show some compassion for this person over here, but let me ignore this person over here.) (Yes God, I'll give some money to my church, but don't ask me not to lust too.)

It's hard. God doesn't compromise. And because He doesn't compromise and we refuse to give up control, we end up shortchanging ourselves. Yes, we are Christians. Yes, a lot of us ARE trying to give God more control over our lives. And yes, none of us have seen more a fraction of the beauty that could happen in a life if we fully embraced God's attempts to bring us to fullness.

Humility is hard. Surrender is hard. Pouring myself out so that God may fill me up is hard.

But I have to stop letting those be excuses for not letting God reign.

7Journeys Journaling: Day 2--Psalm 8

2010-01-12T23:46:00.001-06:00

What is man, oh God, that you are mindful of him and care for him?

As God made us, we do not have superpowers. I can not fly. I can not lift buildings. I can not light things on fire with my eyeballs. God made me soft, vulnerable, curious, and ordinary. And yet, as an ordinary being, God crowned me with glory and honor.

Glory and honor, not because of anything I can do or be, but because of who He is. My existence does not carry any honor in itself--but has been given honor and glory solely because of who made me.

And perhaps there is room for a righteous sort of pride in that? Not a pride that puts me above anything, but a pride that comes from knowing 110% that I was personally hand-crafted and nurtured by the Supreme Being--God.

I am ordinary. I am below ordinary, actually, I'm quite broken. I am a sinner. And yet, even as a sinner, God has made me ruler over the works of his hands and put everything under my feet.

What does that mean? Ruler? Things under my (the sinner's) feet?

Even as a sinner. Even as a broken shell of what I was intended to be, God has put faith in me. Like the father who let's his clumsy child handle his prized possessions--God has put faith in me that I could never screw up enough for Him to stop loving me.

God has entrusted me with everything under this earth--friends, family, clothing, money, a home, my intellect, my talents, my passions, etc, etc. God has entrusted me with those things. And even though I--the clumsy child--may break or scratch, may soil or ruin those things...God still loves. He loves me so much that, while it hurts Him to see me being reckless, He still loves.

I believe that God truly values you and I more than His stuff. More than His sunsets that we routinely take for granted. More than His earth we pollute. More than His dreams that we repeatedly run away from.

I am a screw up. But God still loves me. Deeply. Passionately.

How, oh how, could a God so big love me who is so small?

Grace.

7Journeys Journaling: Day 1--Romans 12

2010-01-12T00:22:00.002-06:00

What does it look like to offer my body--my life--as a living sacrifice?

In Romans 12:2, Paul says "Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind." In other words, Paul starts off by saying, "Rebel! Rebel!" but then before we can become anarchists, he says, "only conform to God's renewal of your mind."

Jesus fights rebellion with rebellion. Just as our world and our flesh rebelled against God and His desires, Jesus calls us to rebel against the world. And how do we rebel?

Verses 3-21 lay out the plan for attack. These are God's desires for what are hearts should be transformed into. These are the grenades we will lob against a society that turns its back on God. When we attack, this is how we attack:

"If your enemy is hungry, feed him;
if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.
In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head."

"Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good."

The simple things that God asks of us can often seem like the hardest. As I look through these truths in Romans 12, I think, "Why is it so hard to do these things? Why is it so hard to throw my ego under the bus?"

Living sacrifices. Sacrifices are not meant to be easy or convenient. Sacrifices are always simple. Kill this calf. Burn this wheat. Love your enemy. A sacrifice must be just that--a sacrifice. If it doesn't cause me some type of pain to my ego or discomfort, then what have I really sacrificed. (Don't take that so far as too say masochism is the best form of sacrifice. Masochism is still pride.)

"...offer your bodies as living sacrifices..."

How will I make my sacrifice today? Will I let myself be humble? Will I let myself be convicted? Will I give up an opportunity to advance socially in order to serve another? Will I give away money? Will I sacrifice control?

Control. Will I sacrifice the control--and the need for control--I have on my life? The need to stay comfortable and the need to keep the boat from rocking too far?

If I believe that God has my back and that God has beautiful dreams for what my life could be...then I must learn to sacrifice.

thoughts from Matthew 3

2009-10-07T14:48:00.000-05:00

Matthew 3

There is something very appealing to me about John the Baptist. He makes me think of the greatest supporting characters from my favorite movies. The guys that you meet on the screen and immediately say to yourself, "that man is Bad Ass." Guys like Bullet-tooth Tony in Snatch, Hugo Stiglitz in Inglourious Bastards, or even il Duce from The Bookdock Saints.

John the Baptist just seems like one of those guys that when he walks into a room, he doesn't even have to say anything, people would just notice him. This wildly--possibly off-kilter man who wears raggedly clothes made of camel's hair and eats locusts and wild honey. This guy was Bear Gryllz before Bear Gryllz was Bear Gryllz.

John was a guy who had his eye on the prize at all times. He KNEW he was not the main character in God's story. He knew that Jesus was to be the main character and that his job was to be the preparer of His way. To be, "the voice of one calling in the desert, 'Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.'"

John centered his life around the mission that God gave him: to be there to listen to the confessions of God's people and to baptize them in His name. John wasn't there to revolutionize anything or to build some huge organization. John the Baptist was called by God to simply grab people by the shoulders turn them 180-degrees and point them to God.

John KNOWS he is not the main character. He even says so in verse 11: "...But after me will come one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not fit to carry."

I need to remember as well, that I am not THE main character, but until judgment day, I am merely somebody who should be foreshadowing what is to come.

Matthew 3:9-10
"...I tell you, of these stones, God can raise up children for Abraham. The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire."

Stones are everywhere. Stones aren't that hard to find. And as long as God finds stones, he can make them into whatever He wants them to be. And we are like trees. We must be producing good fruit or we will cut down. And there are plenty of rocks that God could easily turn into trees that will produce good fruit.

Am I lazy? Am I arrogant? Do I think that I can put in the minimum effort in this life? If God is serious about what He says, then those of us that don't produce good fruit will be cut down - either in life, or in stature, or maybe by a crisis that rocks us to our knees. If I won't produce good fruit in the roles that God has put me in, then surely he will find somebody else (people seem to be a dime a dozen) who will do what God wants from them. It doesn't have to be me that gets the opportunities that I get. And if I won't take advantage of these opportunities, then surely God will find somebody else to.

Matthew 3:13-17
This whole section where Jesus gets baptized always stumps me. I wonder if Jesus got baptized because he would never ask us to do something he wouldn't do or is it because baptism would create a sense of legitimacy between Him and John the Baptist? I don't know why Jesus got baptized.

Maybe it was an endorsement of John's work. I really can't think of a greater thank you than for Jesus to say, "I like what you do. I'd like you to serve me by participating in that." What if Jesus came one day and said to our Zone workers, "I ultimately take care of all of your children better than you ever could, but I like what you do and would be happy if you would watch after my own." Or what if Jesus went up to our small group leaders and said, "I am the greatest small group leader of all time, I birthed a small group that is the epitome of successful small groups, but am pleased with YOUR small group too."

I try to imagine being John the Baptist and I'm doing what I've been doing for a long time. And all of a sudden a guy--THE guy--that I've been talking about...The guy I've been waiting for and wasn't sure if I'd live to see...He comes up and wants to be served by the ministry that I have planted. My ministry isn't that special. It doesn't have a ton of bells and whistles and I probably look terrible. I've got locust legs and clumps of honey stuck in my beard. I didn't wear my nice camel hairs that day....dang.

Well this guy, Jesus, who I've been serving as hard as I can for as long as I can, has just endorsed the ministry God has put me in charge of. He wants me--a loser, a bum, an outcast--to baptize Him--the purest of the pure, the greatest of the great.

What do I do with that? How do I process that? How would I live the rest of my life knowing that possibly the greatest thing that could ever happen to me and maybe the deepest desire of my heart has come true.

Would I have to give up all of my worries and live without abandon? Would there really be anything else left to try to accomplish or try to worry about?

Journaling Notes: Oct. 5, 2009

2009-10-05T15:11:00.001-05:00

Acts 4:23-31

I couple of things stick out to me in this section. After Peter & John meet with the Sanhedrin and they tell the other believer's about their meeting, they seem to immediately go into prayer. They don't stand around and bitch and moan about how they were treated, instead they go directly into prayer and ask God to give them the words that would upend any accusations against them. Also, they don't pray that the Sanhedrin would all die, but simply pray that God would endow the believers with the ability to speak honestly and boldly.

Most of the time, instead of engaging in prayer, I whine, complain, or mock (behind their backs, of course). And honestly, I can be just as guilty as the priests, sanhedrin, and temple official were -- I hear other Christians claim to see miracles done, maybe healing or masses coming to Christ -- and my first move is to be cynical and mutter "bullshit" under my breathe.

Acts 4:32-36

"No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had...There were no needy persons among them...from time to time those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles feet..."

I'm trying to imagine being THAT sold out to a cause. It's hard to. I don't know if I could sell my land or my home and just give the money to the church. That's a terrifying idea and if flies in the face of everything I consider safe and sane. (Which I believe is the point.)

I look at the $660k Shoal Creek owes on the building and think, "well let the more well off people at SC3 take care of it." I tend to be very greedy with my money. Especially since I don't have much of it. I keep trying to barter with God and say, "You know God, if I had a better job where I made more, I'd be able to give more." But if I look at myself honestly, I don't know if my giving skills would increase as much as my hoarding/buying stupid crap skills would.

Why does money feel like such a Catch-22? I can't really live without it: it buys my shelter, food, pays my bills, and can buy me medicine -- but at the same time, it will probably be the very thing that kills me.

This is MY time. (Not yours. Get your own.)

2009-09-28T10:04:00.002-05:00

Is it just me or do we have an obsessive need to "own" time?

I mean, somebody can't ask me to donate some of my time to them or to their cause without me running through the thousand-and-one things that I could be doing with MY time other than giving it to...them.

And why should I give MY time to...them. They will waste my time with stories or furniture rearranging or a ride to the airport. I mean, who the hell are they? Do you know all of the other things that I could have done with MY time. I was gonna watch TV. Then I was gonna sit on facebook and wonder why I don't have more interesting friends (see: single, hot, female.) or why all the friends I do have are posting pictures of their kids or their dogs or what ever God-awful pasta dish they made for the community potluck. And then after 2 hours on facebook, I was gonna open my fridge, close it, open it again, close it, look in a cabinet, give up and then order a pizza.

But I can't do that if people keep invading MY time.

And then--like Tim Tebow's cranium to his own lineman's knee--it hit me...

WHEN IT COMES TO THE 24 HOURS I AM GIVEN EACH DAY, I AM A SELFISH BASTARD.

I have this horrific obsession with my time. It's like food that I've hoarded into my own private silo and I sit outside of it with a rifle--because surely, somebody will try to steal it--and I sit and I wait. And I wait. And I wait. And nobody ever really tries to steal my precious time that I've spent so much time hoarding and protecting. And finally, after days, weeks, years--I turn round and what is this?

It's gone. Maggots and birds have crept up behind me. The rain has soaked it and mold has ruined it. My time--MY TIME--that I worked so hard to protect...it's gone. It was wasted.

And that's what always happens with my time. I hoard it and I gaurd it and I think that because I had the good fortune to run into it, it's mine. I didn't grow it. I didn't make it. I really didn't even find it. It just somehow always seems to fall into my lap. And instead of being grateful for the time given to me, I am overtaken by greed for that time.

I could share it with others. I could be a good steward of that time and use it to do something productive. But you know what's really productive?

What I say is productive. Because it is MY time. It's mine. All of it. Every second of every hour of each one of MY days. And sadly, in that mindset, I will surely fail. I will surely drown.

But what if?

What if I didn't look at the hours, minutes and seconds as something I should fill, but something I should give. What if instead of being in a hurry to get my shopping done, I took the time to grab coffee with a friend? Or what if I used that time to serve somebody? What if I used that time to build new relationships or to repair old ones? What if I used that time to grow myself spiritually, physically, emotionally? What if I used that time to learn something new?

What if I took advantage of that time by actually living for once?

But I won't. I'll sit and wonder what I could do with that time...and then somebody will ask for some of my time...and then I will hold my breathe and pull my rifle tighter to my chest and continue to gaurd MY time.

Today I begin with The Silence of Adam

2009-09-21T10:20:00.005-05:00

So I am beginning a book by Larry Crabb (with Don Hudson & Al Andrews) called "The Silence of Adam." Not sure exactly what it will contain, but it's basically about the passivity of men and how we fail to be the men we were intended to be.

I've been on a long journey these past several months trying to figure out what manhood really is. So far, I've come to this conclusion:

"I don't know dick about being a man."

I'm excited to begin this book for two reasons:

I'm a big fan of Larry Crabb. I've had to read his book "Inside Out" four times (3 as an Intern & once for my church's leadership class.) I've also seen him speak and while his writing can be dry at times, I find him to be a fascinating speaker.
More importantly, I'm too passive. I'm pretty much a yella-belly coward. I think some events and realizations over the past two years have brought me to an understanding that if I want to become the man God wishes me to be, I need to confront this passivity. I need God to lead me into a confrontation with this ugly beast inside of me that has strangled my ability to love, to do right, and to follow God with the passion He asks of me.

This book basically says in it's introduction that the passivity of man (like all sin) stems from one single event. The fall of Adam and Eve. When Adam failed to keep Eve from picking and eating the fruit from the forbidden tree, he set the bar for what would become the modus operandi of all men to come after.

As Crabb says on page 12:

Since Adam every man has had a natural inclination to remain silent when he should speak. A man is most comfortable in situations in which he knows exactly what to do. When things get confusing and scary, his insides tighten and he backs away. When life frustrates him with its maddening unpredictability, he feels the anger rise within him. And then, filled with terror and rage, he forgets God's truth and looks out for himself.

I am a man/boy obsessed with my own self-comfort. I would prefer a world of pillows and cotton candy. Where there are no rocks, no hard places, no awkward moments, and no tough decisions.

Crabb says in the introduction:

"Spiritual manhood involves the courage to keep on moving--in the middle of overwhelming confusion--toward relationships."

Life will never be comfy, cozy--not on this earth--but manhood has never been about "toughing it out" or "fixing things" so they are perfect. Manhood is continuing to love the woman that is hard to love. To care for the father with the cold shoulder. To turn to prayer when lust pulls at your heart and invades your mind. Relationships are the only thing worth giving a damn about.

Crabb says that God doesn't want to make us stronger men, but braver men. He doesn't want more competant men, but men who are more willing to admit incompetance and rely on Him. God doesn't want men who run away from confusion, but head straight on into it searching for God.

Today, I begin to look for God in this fight. Today I ask God to overcome the things that I cannot and to put a fire in my that I don't have right now.

Today I ask God to lend me a voice when I would much rather rip out my own throat.

I leave any readers with this last bit. As I read Crabb's writing today, a song from the band mewithoutYou popped into my head. So I'd like to leave you with these lyrics today (Listen here).

"MESSES OF MEN"
I do not exist, but faithfully insist,
Sailing in our separate ships and from each tiny caravelle.
Tiring of trying, with unnecessary dying,
Like the horseshoe crab in it's proper season sheds it's shell.
Such distance from our friends,
Like a scratch across the lens,
Made everything look wrong from anywhere we stood.
And our paper blew away before we'd left the bay.
So half blind, we wrote these songs on sheets of salty wood.

Caught me makin' eyes at the other boatman's wife,
And heard me laughing louder at the jokes told by their daughter.
I'd set my course for land, but you well understand,
It takes a steady hand to navigate adultrous water.
The propeller's spinning blades held aquaintance with the waves,
As there's mistakes I've made no rowing could outrun.
The cloth low on the mast, I say I got no past,
I'm nonetheless the librarian and secretary's son.

The tarnish on my brass, the mildew on my glass--
I'd never want someone so crass as to want someone like me.
But a few leagues off the shore, I bit a flashing lure,
And I assure you it was not what I expected it to be.
I still tastes its' kiss, that dull hook in my lip
Is a memory as useless as a rod without a reel.
To an anchor ever dropped, sea-sick yet still docked,
Captain spotted napping with his first mate at the wheel!

We'll float forgetfully along, with no need to be strong,
We keep our confessions long, but when we pray we keep it short.
I drank a thimble full of fire,
I'm not ever coming back...
Oh, my God.

I do not exist, but faithfully insist,
While watching sink the heavy ship with everything we knew!
And if ever you come near, I'll hold up high a mirror.
Lord, I could never show you anything as beautiful as you.

Parkour! Philosophy!

2009-09-20T08:29:00.002-05:00

Thought this was an interesting entry. For those of you who saw the Season 6 premiere of The Office and thought Michael, Andy, and Dwight's parkour antics were entertaining, Wikipedia has an article about the history, philosophy, and terminology of parkour.

This is an excerpt of the philosophy of parkour which I thought had a couple cool quotes (bolded quotes are my emphasis):

According to Williams Belle, the philosophies and theories behind Parkour are an integral aspect of the art,^{[citation needed]} one that many non-practitioners have never been exposed to. Belle trains people because he wants "it to be alive" and for "people to use it".^[9] Châu Belle Dinh explains it is a "type of freedom" or "kind of expression"; that Parkour is "only a state of mind" rather than a set of actions, and that it is about overcoming and adapting to mental and emotional obstacles as well as physical barriers.^[9]

A recent convention of parkour philosophy has been the idea of "human reclamation".^[24] Andy (Animus of Parkour North America) clarifies it as "a means of reclaiming what it means to be a human being. It teaches us to move using the natural methods that we should have learned from infancy. It teaches us to touch the world and interact with it, instead of being sheltered by it."^[24]
It is as much as a part of truly learning this activity as well as being able to master the movements, it gives you the ability to "overcome your fears and pains and reapply this to life" as you must be able to control your mind in order to master the art of parkour."

10 Things I'm listening to a lot of.

2009-09-19T23:49:00.002-05:00

Maps & Atlases
Thrice's new album "Beggars"
Damien Jurado
Sondre Lerche
Brand New's new album "Daisy"
Reggie & The Full Effect
mewithoutYou
NPR (89.3 FM in KC)
A Prairie Home Companion
Hillsong

The extra effort is worth it.

2009-09-18T14:53:00.002-05:00

An excerpt from Walking the Small Group Tightrope by Bill Donahue & Russ Robinson:

The Texas Army National Guard has a group of special workers called riggers. Their job is to fold and pack the parachutes that soldiers use when jumping from an airplane at 5,000 feet. These people are intensely dedicated to their task. The Rigger's Creed states, "I will be sure--always!" They know that jumpers need assurance that everything regarding their chutes is perfect. Thirty folds are required in the twenty minutes it takes to meticulously pack an MC1-1 military parachute. A jumper has nothing to do with the chute until they put it on before a jump. Trust in the error-free performance of the riggers is all a jumper has to rely on.

The Rigger's Creed further states: "I will never let the idea that a piece of work is 'good enough' make me a potential murderer through a careless mistake or oversight, for I know there can be no compromise with perfection."...

...Do we approach our kingdom responsibilities with equal fervor? Do we realize that connecting people to community is a life-or-death enterprise?...

...Let's make the ask, take the risk, and extend the hand. Let's do all we can on our side of heaven to make community possible for those on the outside looking in. Let's be sure everyone in our sphere of influence gets the opportunity to hear Christ's claims and connect to his community. Let's be sure always.

We strive for a perfection that we will not reach. But to realize what is at stake--what can be won or lost in the difference between that strive for perfection in our relationship to the Father and stale complacency in life--should hopefully make us work harder to reach that extra few inches towards it.

Hello. My name is Ben. I'm an apologiholic.

2009-09-18T13:46:00.003-05:00

I don't know how I got to this point. All I know is that I have a completely compulsive desire to apologize. For everything.

Did you spill coffee on your pants? I'm sorry. I'm sure you were temporarily blinded by the sun reflecting off of my oily forehead. Confused and unable to determine which way was up, you knocked over your grande mocha latte onto your pants (which were fraying around the ankles anyway). For the fraying as well, I apologize.

I'm sorry for the recent play of Carolina Panthers Quarterback and sex symbol, Jake Delhomme. In a weird and unfortunate game of "Six Degree of Seperation," I once was a fifth grade football failure. During practice I lined up against a fifth grade lineman and would be but a shell of the obstacles he would face on the true gridiron. I failed to prepare this fifth grade pigskin enthusiast who would go on to become a mediocre high school lineman. After his football career failed to make the leap to the collegiate level (Recruiters said that he just didn't "have it.") this former lineman majored in accounting and became a claims adjuster for a large insurance company. During a trip to Minnesota in the fall of 2005, this accountant sat in a plane next to Carolina Panthers QB, Jake Delhomme. I'm sure at some point during their short flight, the "suck-musk" of my playing days transferred tragically onto the body of Mr. Delhomme. This obviously caused Mr. Delhomme to throw for 79 yards with five turnovers in the Panthers loss this past Sunday. Coincidentally, I would also like to apologize to the airline that carried The accountant lineman and Mr. Delhomme on that fateful trip--their business folded 4 months ago.

I would like to apologize for Kanye's actions toward Ms. Swift during her acceptance speech at the VMA's this year.

I would like to apologize for the assassinations of John Lennon, RFK, JFK, MLK, Franz Ferdinand, Abraham Lincoln and the future assassination of 83rd president of the United States of Google-America, Zaaard Barbink. He will be a great man taken too early.

I would like to apologize for any lost buttons you may have. I am clumsy and careless with small items.

I would like to apologize for not washing my hands during several weddings over the past few years. I believed that there was a prize at the bottom of every potato salad. In an unrelated matter, I would like to apologize for believing Trevor Moran when he said, "Hey Ben, did you know that there is a prize at the bottom of every dish of potato salad?" I was a fool.

I would like to apologize for the following words in the english language: ain't, there, their, they're, who, whom, through, threw, accept, except, right, write, and moist.

I would like to apologize for the following films which I saw in theaters and thus made their success possible: Spiderman 3, Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, The Princess Diaries 2, The Grudge, Matrix Reloaded, Matrix Revolutions, and the Santa Claus 3.

I would like to make a blanket apology to anybody affected by our current economic crisis. I made some bad investments and suggested some bad investments to others. I may have been the one, single cause of the mortgage crisis.

I would like to apologize for HDTV's inability to capture crisp, clear pictures during the Olympic Water Polo matches. I rushed HDTV into production, full-well knowing the flaw. I send my deepest apologies to fans of the film WaterWorld, which was also ruined by HDTV.

These are but a few of my confessions. There will be a time and a place to reveal much more of my story, but right now my fingers are cramped.

"Victory is such a lonely word."

2009-08-05T12:26:00.003-05:00

So I have a buddy in a band (at least I'd like to think buddy is the appropriate word. I probably am more a guy within an extended social circle) and his band just put out a new cd. I've been listening to it a lot and in the first song, there's a moment where's the lead singer just screams over and over again:

"Victory is such a lonely word."

And that verse has been stuck in my head for the last several weeks. It pops up randomly from time to time. Like, I was sitting in a seminar with a group of interns I last this summer, and during a seminar I just kept repeating that verse in my head over and over. Then a few days after that I was sitting in a meeting and I heard it again and again: "Victory is such a lonely word."

Long story short, I just kept hearing these lyrics over and over and I didn't know why. Why was this stuck in my head? Now granted, every once in awhile that lyric would be overthrown by choruses from Lady Gaga's "Disco Stick" but then sure as wind, I'd hear it again:

"Victory is such a lonely word."

I think last night I figured out why I kept hearing it.

So for the past three or four weeks, I've been reading the Harry Potter Series. It's seven books containing about 3000+ pages. No small task I'd like to think. And if you haven't read the Harry Potter series do it, if you can make it through the first 3 "kid" books, you get into some really intense good vs. evil plotlines.

Well last night, I finished the seventh book--Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. It was 760 pages of pure wizardly goodness. I was shocked and stunned and even got choked up in a couple of places.

And then it was over. And I put my book down and turned to the person beside me to tell me what I had read, to tell them what I had just accomplished by reading a 7 book, 3000+ page tour de force, to talk to that person about what I had accomplished and what I thought about all of the subplots and what I thought the final two film adaptions will be like, but...but...but...

Nobody was there. I didn't really have anybody to share it with. Here I had just accomplished something that I honestly thought was pretty cool: I just read this huge cultural behemoth and now I thought I was in on this whole new world of inside jokes and language and blah blah blah...

But there was really nobody to share it with. Victory CAN be a lonely word. Especially if the thing that excited you, the thing that you just soaked yourself in for three weeks, the thing that you actually thought would leave you feeling satisfied--couldn't be, wouldn't be, shared with anybody.

I find myself having a lot of these moments these days. Small, stupid, petty victories that lift me up before they get popped by the reality of a detached community. Furthermore, as a dead-set pessimist, these little moments of victory for me are few and far between. But when I do have them, I always seem to be the only one celebrating.

Now this could be for a ton of different reasons. It could be linked to a disconnected community. It could be that I push people away (actually there's about a 75% chance that this is the culprit). It could just be a matter of me being a complete dork (about 50-60% chance). But I'm not really worried about pinning blame or finding causes today.

Today I'm just saying that I finally understood what that lyric that's been floating up in my head for the past month finally means to me.

"Victory is such a lonely word."

This vid might make ya smile.

2009-06-20T12:58:00.000-05:00

Vocabulary vs. Living your faith.

2009-06-14T10:24:00.002-05:00

Some interesting comments from an article posted on wrecked.org. [emphasis/bold is my addition]

"The vocabulary-centric gospel is one of public relations, not intimate relationships. If I only intend to spend a few minutes of my life with someone, every word's importance increases exponentially. If I intend to share my life with someone, however, my words diminish and my life speaks. Living your faith out in your community can never be replaced by speaking your faith with effective communication.

Language has the interesting property of being symbolic. If we ever say, "I am [blank]," then we constantly define what it means to be blank. If you say you are a Christian, then those around you reshape their idea of a Christian based on your life. If you say you are a believer, then again, those around you reshape their idea of a believer based on your life. As we walk into the world, we are the ideas that our symbolic language represents. Christianity is constantly defined and re-defined based on our lives."

Read the rest of the article here.

Greatest Wedding Invite Ever!

2009-06-06T13:11:00.001-05:00

Awkward Questions About Jesus

2009-05-27T19:16:00.001-05:00

Daggers - The Chariot

2009-05-03T22:53:00.001-05:00

The Chariot - Daggers

An Incredibly Chilling Look At The Possible Future of War

2009-04-03T11:37:00.001-05:00

http://video.ted.com/talks/podcast/PWSinger_2009.mp4

Adam Savage and Obsessive Pursuit

2009-03-23T12:14:00.003-05:00

What if we all had one true God-given passion that we strived for as hard as this?

Adam Savage and his Maltese Falcon

Writer's Symposium Lecture by Donald Miller

2009-03-05T20:37:00.000-06:00

Eugene Peterson on Storytelling and God

2009-03-05T20:17:00.000-06:00

A video clip of Brennan Manning that Wheels posted.

2009-03-05T10:02:00.003-06:00

Also, does anybody else think Manning is a little reminiscent of Uncle Lewis from Christmas Vacation?

The Next Great American Sport:Dork Tossing

2009-02-25T09:57:00.001-06:00

The MUST SEE FILM of 2009!

2009-02-24T23:38:00.001-06:00

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner!

2009-02-20T13:24:00.003-06:00

"wow! i can't believe i got job on a real hollywood movie set! Hey, is that Christian BALE? it is! and he's coming over to talk to me! this is going to be the coolest moment of my LIFE!"

Thanks all for playing! The winner is John C. from Kansas City, MO. John will win a free bottle of wine and a Ben Koehn poster (poster may not be included).

Caption Contest!

2009-02-19T13:07:00.003-06:00

Whoever comes up with the best caption to my photo on the Shoal Creek staff page wins a bottle of wine!

Remember these classics?

2009-02-17T21:07:00.003-06:00

Click the titles to watch the Music Videos...

"B*tch" by Meredith Brooks

"Lullaby" by Shawn Mullins

"Torn" by Natalie Imbruglia

"New Age Girl" by Deadeye Dick

"Breakfast at Tiffany's" by Deep Blue Something

"She's So High" by Tal Bachman

"The Freshmen" by The Verve Pipe

Advancing towards prosperity or anarchy?

2009-02-16T12:16:00.002-06:00

An interesting video from someone's blog. This is from the AppleUniversePodcast. If you have 5 minutes free today. Watch this video. It might startle you.

share

A Phone Call from the Commander of the British Royal Navy to the Captain of the HMS Vangaurd

2009-02-16T10:29:00.002-06:00

The story.

Commander English (CE)"Hello. Captain. How are you?"

Captain Jones (CJ)"Good. A little shaken but good, sir."

CE "Good to hear. Quite the little scare wasn't it? Two submarines, both carrying nuclear warheads, just happened to collide in the middle of the Atlantic. Pretty scary stuff..."

CJ: "Yes sir. We were all caught off gaurd."

CE: "Drinking a little of dad's brandy, were we?"

CJ: "Sir?"

CE: "Maybe taken a little bit of an alcohol induced nap, were we?"

CJ: "No sir. Of course not. We don't have any alcohol on the vessel, whatsoever."

CE: "Really..."

CJ: "No, sir. None at all."

CE: "Then maybe you can explain to me how in the Hell did you hit another nuclear submarine in the middle of the bloody Atlantic!"

CJ: "Sir, we didn't see it coming--"

CE: "Now I could understand if you hit a reef, or a school of flounder, or maybe a porpoise--but a damn submarine!"

CJ: "I don't like you yelling at me sir."

CE: "And I don't like my submarine captain's hitting other submarines--"

CJ: "But it was an accident!"

CE: "No! An accident is when you hit your head on the periscope or when you forget to shut the hull door before submerging--but you hit another submarine in the middle of the ocean!"

CJ: "But, like I said--"

CE: "No! You hit another submarine. A submarine! How big is the ocean Jones?"

CJ: "Just the Atlantic or all of them?"

CE: "It's like 75% of the entire f***ing planet! And in that massive pool of water, how many submarines do you think there are bussing around down there?"

CJ: "I don't know sir, right off the top of my head--"

CE: "Seven! There were seven subs sharing 75% of the whole planet and you had to go slam into one!"

CJ: "Sir, this is--"

CE: "And on top of that, you stupid, pasty-assed tart--you had to go hit the only other one carring a nuclear payload! Do you know what would have happened if just one of those nuclear warheads had exploded!"

CJ: "But they didn't."

CE: "But if they did, you would have souteed every fish from The States to Scotland. You blithering idiot!"

CJ: "I'm sorry! *starts sobbing*"

CE: "Oh now he's crying!"

[silence for several seconds]

CE: "All right. All right. There, there...stop crying, you're a member of the British Royal Navy. You're not a frenchman."

CJ: "Sorry, sir."

CE: "All right, I'm sorry...will you be home for dinner?"

CJ: "Yes. You making pot roast?"

CE: "Yes."

CJ: "And potatoes?"

CE: "Yes, just the way you like them; scalloped with capers. Now come home so I can give my big brave submarine captain a hug."

CJ: "You're the best."

CE: "I know, all right. Bye now."

CJ: "Bye bye."

A Reason for Singles to be Joyful this Valentine's Day.

2009-02-14T13:05:00.004-06:00

Hey. How are ya?

I know it's rough and all, ya know, being single on Valentine's Day. All of your friends are probably out with their significant others celebrating this day that can sometimes feel, well, alienating to you.

You tried to be happy today. You tried not to call today "Single's Awareness Day." You tried to put on your best smile and be happy and not let the fact that you're single for yet another Valentine's Day get to you. But it is. It hurts. I understand.

But that's why I want to tell you one reason that I think will help put you in a more "joyful" mood today.

See. If I catch you bitching about Valentine's Day, I get to gore you in the genitals with this--

And you don't want that, do ya?

Cheer up.

xoxoxo

Au sol by Charlotte Parfois

2009-02-12T11:31:00.000-06:00

Human Tetris. Crank the Music!

2009-02-10T11:19:00.000-06:00

Proof that Bear Grylls is out of his damn mind. Not for faint of heart or stomach!

2009-02-09T18:35:00.000-06:00

How should the church be organized?

2009-02-06T12:38:00.000-06:00

Everything is Spiritual

2009-02-06T12:12:00.001-06:00

Caskets by Damien Jurado

2009-01-29T20:24:00.001-06:00

Untitled: Part 4

2009-01-29T11:07:00.006-06:00

The smell of gunpowder exhaust
rips through chest
Nine years old
all alone
Except for the hand of a ghost
wrapped softly 'round her.
Saying, "No tears. No fears."
"This will all be over soon."

The sound of sad wood
lying in peace on cold earth.
Weighing 40 pounds too much.

A family mourns.
In between cries for comfort,
Under the silent plotting of vengeance.
The ghost whispers,
"Take comfort. Hold steady."
"This is just the beginning."

In the wake of terror,
Two steps in front of the horror
Hope waits.

Untitled: Part 3

2009-01-25T19:17:00.002-06:00

"Oh you pious and profane,
put away your praise and blame
a glass can only spill what it contains."

lyrics by mewithoutYou

*Yep. The following is more crazy (and probably poorly thought out) rambling from me.*

Lately I'm having this thought that my identity is much less about what I create and destroy, but that my identity is more strongly rooted in what I expose myself to.

I...can make nothing. I can only take what is given to me or what I find. I wonder if I can produce anything original (I doubt it.)

Sometimes I am less an original personality, then I am a reflection of what I fill myself with.

If I fill myself with God's presence, with Christ's heart, or with the Spirit's life--then I shall reflect these.

I feel like I reflect none of these. A glass can only spill what it contains.

Usually a good indicator of what's in my glass is what I am reading. For example, right now I am reading Prayer by Richard J. Foster (Is it me or do people who use middle initials come off as pompous?) so right now, my mind is wrestling with prayer. I can't stop thinking about it. When I read fantasy books, my imagination runs wild. When I am reading humorous books, I crack more jokes. When I read gloomy books (actually, that could be the exception. I'm always a gloomy person.)

A glass can only spill what it contains.

When I fill my glass with fear; with insecurity, doubts, and resentment, then these are the only things that I can spill. But if I fill my glass with hope? Then I will spill hope.

But I don't often fill my glass with hope--or love or joy or peace or contentment--instead, I find that arrogance in the form of self-hatred is much sweeter and much more filling. But self-hatred is alot like drinking alcohol on a hot, summer day. It may have more kick than water, but it will leave you feeling much drier, much faster than water will. And eventually, if you drink enough of it, it will kill you.

A glass filled with grace, tipped over, leaves no stains and will in fact help to lift a stain already there. A glass filled without hope, stains very deeply.

Also, mention needs to be made that while YOU and I are the glass, the glass never belongs to us. The glass belongs to God first and to those it will spill upon second. And a glass will ALWAYS tip over. It will ALWAYS spill over. It will ALWAYS over flow.

The question is: what will be in your glass and in my glass when it does spill?

Words of Madam Guyon

2009-01-25T17:43:00.002-06:00

"We come now to the ultimate stage of Christian experience. Divine Union. This cannot be brought about by your own experience. Meditation will not bring divine union; neither will love, nor worship, nor your devotion, nor your sacrifice...Eventually it will take an act of God to make union a reality." from Experiencing the Depths, pg. 125

Yes, this is Carlton from the Fresh Prince. And Yes, this is worth your time.

2009-01-19T21:42:00.001-06:00

Untitled: Part 2

2009-01-14T11:02:00.004-06:00

Another post of me rambling. Sorry.

"For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them."--Matthew 18:20 NIV

"Now that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem. They were talking with each other about everything that had happened. As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them..."--Luke 24: 13-15

So at Heartland Community Church (in Kansas), their college ministry started an experiment called 2's and 3's. Picture the smallest form of small group. Basically, you meet with at least one and at most two other people once a week. You start in a book--any book--and you say, "We're going to read 15 chapters and meet to talk about what we read in a week. And then next week we're going to pick the next 15 chapters and do the same thing over again."

As soon as I heard this, I felt a kick in the face. The Russian Dancer then apologized to me and I was able to resume my train of thought.

The thing that blew me away about this idea of 2's and 3's discipleship is what I would call the "Duh Factor."

See, when I was in college, discipleship was a big thing. You would find find another guy and promise to meet once a week at the campus coffee shop or snack shop to talk about scripture and life or to go through what Christians blandly call "Spiritual Formation Books" such as Blue Like Jazz, Just Walk Across The Room, or Every Young Man's Battle.

Oh, and just so we're clear, I don't have a problem with "Spiritual Formation Books." It's just that a "Spiritual Formation Book" sounds as fun and intriguing as a "Prostate Exam."

Now, discipleship was always fun if it lasted past the first month. But with a heavy workload of classes, napping, and facebook...well, discipleship wasn't really high on my list of priorities. And I think that was true for about 90%-plus of the Christians I went to college with. See, nobody explained what discipleship was to us. In fact, we didn't have "disciplers" who were interested in us becoming humble and passioinate servants of God as much as we had "accountability partners" who wanted us to stop masturbating so damn much.

So Sunday night, when I heard this promo for Heartland's 2's and 3's groups, I felt this sting in my heart. A sting that said, "I've never really had that."

I mean, honestly, when I think about what excites me--what truly moves me--it's not sitting with a friend or two and reading Ortberg or Manning or Allendar. What would really move me, would be to sit with somebody I feel connected to and read Hosea or Job or the Gospels and to see what God has revealed to them and to share what God has revealed to me. And then on top of that, to see God use them to reveal things to me and vice versa.

What sucks, is I feel like the status quo of American Christianity, doesn't want to tackle scripture. I don't necessarily want to either. Scripture is hard. I mean, first you have to choose a bible and there are like 50 versions of that--each one saying it's the most reliable. Then you can't just read what you like out of it, you have to read all of it, because it's all relevant. Then, you have to figure out what it's saying and what the writer was saying and most importantly, what God is saying. And if you pick up a Bible and read it for five straight days, odds are that you'll "forget" to read it for the next 10 or 20 or 60 days.

This crap's hard.

But again, this is what appeals to me about the idea of a 2's and 3's group structure. To be paired with one or two brothers who love Jesus and want to know Him more and to actually talk about scripture. Not just read books that while occasionally very effective for bringing me closer to God's heart are still written by flawed people like you and me. And to not just be accountability partners, but prophets to each other, and to not just be discipler's to each other, but to be searchers and pioneers together as we travel through the scriptures, discovering new truths both wonderful and hard to hear.

And I want to ask you, if anybody actually reads this, would this be something cool to try?

It didn't work for me in college, but maybe, here and now, it would work. Maybe a discipleship based on reading scripture and not books, is what you want or need. Maybe if you are like me and have trouble keeping yourself in the Bible regularly, maybe this is something to pray for and to try.

Or maybe I'm just thinking too much.

Untitled: Part 1

2009-01-12T19:37:00.011-06:00

This is Part 1 of an untitled series I am writing currently on my blog. These thoughts may seem unconnected or random, but they all stem from one experience which happened this past Sunday at The Gathering, a college-aged event at Heartland Community Church. I left that night with my mind over-flowing with different thoughts. I am going to spend this series rambling like a madman trying to figure out what I came out of The Gathering with that night.

If these next few entries read very scatterbrained, I apologize in advance.

"For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them."--Matt. 18-20 NIV

You know, I have a handful of people I would consider really close friends. Not a ton of people, but a good solid handful. The kind of solid that you would take a bullet for or, at the very least, smuggle to Mexico in the trunk of my car in the event that they, say, killed a hooker.

I could say most definitely that I have at least 2 or 3 best friends. Maybe as many as 6. I have always had trouble picking just one "best" friend. And of these best friends, all of them also double as my brothers in Christ. I have seen God do great things in each of us and I have had great conversations about God with all of them. These are guys that I eagerly anticipate enjoying and exploring Heaven with.

Now these are guys that I see every week, if not every day. We work together. We love to go to bars together (I have had many great conversations over a glass of beer.). We have completely random adventures together.

These are guys that I am committed to doing life with and love nearly every minute of it.

So when I sat in the gathering last night, it struck me..."My friends and I do a great job of fulfilling the first part of Matthew 18:20."

"Where two or three come together..."

My friends and I, we LOVE to gather. We gather every other night of the week for a beer or a cigar or to just watch some TV. We gather with the best of them. I would even say we are better at gathering than probably three-quarters of the continental U.S.

But then I remembered that Matthew 18:20 has a second requirement in addition to gathering.

"...in my name."

Wait. Hang on. What does Jesus mean by "in my name"?

See, in my personal theology that I have come to live by over my short time as a Christian, I have come to hold to this idea: That Jesus said a lot of words, but he never said any words that could be dismissed as "extra". The words Jesus used, those words were there for a reason. Every word he said had a purpose. I believe Jesus was very deliberate about the words he used.

"Where two or three come together..." Got it, Jesus. We are acing that.

"...in my name." Oh.

See, I am starting to see that my friends and I and your friends and you. We all ace the first part of Matthew 18:20. We meet. We meet in coffee shops and in living rooms. We meet at concerts and movie theaters. We meet in church and in school. But how many of us meet in Jesus' name?

And I don't want this to sound too pious. When I talk about meeting in Jesus' name, I'm not talking about handing out tracts or singing along to the next cheese-tastic worship album. I'm talking about actually meeting in his name. Under HIS authority. For the purpose of pushing each other towards HIM.

When was the last time you prayed with the people who were the closest to you? When was the last time you read scripture together? When was the last time you genuinely inquired into each others' lives to learn about what God was doing in each others' lives?

Not to talk about work. Not to talk about sports or the opposite sex. Not to just hang out.

See, I'm starting to feel this blandness settle into my life. It's like life is becoming more and more mundane. More and more routine. And I think it comes because my friends and I have become very good at gathering, but maybe we have failed because we have failed to intentionally gathered in Jesus' name.

Now don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that my friends and I don't talk about God. That's one of the things that we have done and that is the reason I am so much closer to this group of guys than any other group of guys I have ever known.

Here comes the but...

Have you ever noticed how when you first begin a friendship with someone, you ask lots of questions and you really get to know each other? You try to find out things you have in common and you talk about what's going on since you've last seen each other? But when you are friends with somebody for a longer period of time and you see that person frequently, you enter a comfort zone that can be cancerous to the progress of your relationship. You settle into what a pessimist like myself may call "married couple syndrome."

After the "honeymoon" period ends, sometimes you just become two people who live with each other. You just become two people who see each other each day. You hit the rock underneath the dirt and you stop digging farther.

This "married couple syndrome" (if you can think of a better name for it, I would gladly use it.) is a cancer to Christ-centered community. Because when you get familiar with each other, you stop trying so hard to push each other. You stop trying so hard to gather in Jesus' name.

I don't want that. I'm 24 years old right now. I think I've already found the best friends I'll ever have and I hope I get to keep them for the rest of my life, until we are old and wrinkled and yelling at those damn kids on their damn hoverboards running over our damn virtual reality yards.

I dream of that future for us as crusty old Christ-followers who love Jesus and love naps. That's why I am feeling this urgency to begin intentionally following ALL of Matthew 18:20, not just the easy part.

I want to pray with my friends daily.

I want to read scripture with my friends and see what they see differently in scripture than I see so that we can learn from each other.

I want to fast together.

I want to mourn together and laugh together and work together to raise our community up into one that truly screams "Jesus Lives!" to the world.

I want to bring Jesus into every conversation, every car ride, every bored afternoon hanging out in our living rooms looking for something good on TV.

Because I believe Jesus wants to be there.

"Where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them."--Matthew 18:20

I believe Jesus wants to sit with us at our bar while we talk about how God is moving us spiritually and we enjoy a good beer. I believe Jesus wants to sit with us on our porches on warm summer nights while we search for the Holy Spirit in the air of our cigar smoke. I believe Jesus wants to be there with us through every moment we gather together, no matter how important or mundane.

Because I'm terrified of my faith becoming stale. Because I will never feel like I know "enough" about Jesus or God or the Spirit. Because I will always have a sin to be convicted of and I will always need friends to stand with me as we soak up the sweet rain of Grace.

Walter Maddock

2009-01-10T14:10:00.002-06:00

My name's Walter Maddock.

I'm 67 years old. I own a bait shop in Hammersville, Pennsylvania. I wish I were a scene kid.

I'm widowed. My wife Charlotte was a beautician here in Hammersville. We met in college. I went to Penn State, home of the Nittany Lions. She went to Houghton College in New York. Her brother was dating my older sister at the time.

At Christmas, in '62, I met Charlotte. My sister and I drove to New York State to visit her boyfriend for Christmas. Well, long story short, Charlotte and--Timothy--Thomas--whatever his name was--got into a fight and broke up. While they were fighting, I was getting to know Charlotte in the den. We found out we had a lot in common. We both loved to read, we both came from proud Irish backgrounds, and we both were good kissers. Charlotte, though, would have never let me pierce my bottom lip.

On Wednesday nights, I play dominoes with some my buddies at the Elks Lodge here in town. I play with ol' Mark Thurman, Tanner Rice, and D.W. Sometimes D.W. let's me listen to old Ikara Colt or Get Up Kids. Mark and Tanner don't much care for my music.

At my age, I'm not dead, but I'm getting there. My eyes are going bad. Ears are going out. I cough up more fluid than I drink. Hell, last week my hemorrhoids were so bad I couldn't even wear the jeans I bought off the Internet. I nice pair of J Brand jeans that hug my thighs quite tightly. Along with my hearing, I lost my hair over the years. Started to see it happening in my late 30's. At the time, the proper thing to do was to just let it fall out keep it short. I really wasn't that concerned about it. Charlotte didn't mind either. She said it just gave her more spots on my face to kiss.

Looking back, I should've tried to keep it. I see kids on my street with long bangs hanging over their eyes in streaks of red and black and blonde. Makes me wish I still had my hair.

Now I don't write poetry or cut on myself or nothing like that. But I do enjoy sitting in the coffee shop downtown. It's called Pagiano's. Sounds like a pizza shop, but it's not. They sell coffee and lattes and espressos. I just drink coffee.

I like to sit in Pagiano's and watch and listen to the kids talk. I try not to be to obvious about it. I don't want to scare anybody. I just like to listen. See what new bands are out there for me to listen to. My daughter bought me an iPod for Christmas.

Sometimes I'll listen to their conversations and close my eyes. And in my head, I pretend. I pretend that I'm young like them. That they are friends of mine. That we go see musicians in concert and we stay up late. We come to Pagiano's every Thursday, even though it's starting to get kind of boring. We complain about the government and our college professors. I study art at the local college. We talk about Dali and surrealism. We talk about Picasso and Cubism. Then we talk about smoking a hookah and having a few beers at the bar down the street.

I close my eyes and I pretend.

We leave. I walk down the street to Baker's Market, a diner over on Brooklyn Avenue. I eat there, even though the food is terrible. I eat there because of Jadie. Jadie is an art student too, but she doesn't like Dali and she doesn't really like cubism. She loves photography. She brings in photos every week to hang on the wall. Pictures of old buildings and children playing. Black and White chunks of frozen time.

I close my eyes and I pretend. And I ask her when she gets done with work. If she would like to go get some coffee. Or maybe if she likes Appleseed Caste or the Belgium Turnover. We could go see them in concert this weekend. Or, if they aren't playing near us, maybe she would just like to hang out.

I close my eyes and I pretend.

And she says,

"Yes."

My mind is wandering...

2009-01-09T18:05:00.002-06:00

Mark Harmon of NCIS could be the regular man's David Caruso
The more I think about heaven, the harder it is to decide if I should start smoking more cigarettes or less.
You can tell alot about somebody by the DVD's they own.
I wonder if I should get my ear's pierced again, but this time get both my lobes done. I don't because I always feel like I am at some point going to need to look respectable, but that moment never really seems to come.
It's crazy how easily I can assume what other people are thinking about me. For all I know, they could be thinking about that banana milkshake they ate earlier, but I always assume they are thinking something about me (and that something I think they are thinking about me is usually a negative thing.)
I can't play sports. I can't socialize well with others. But I beat almost any of my friends in trivia games about movies and actors. What a childhood well wasted.
In an episode of Law & Order (as a matter of fact, any of them) I would be willing to put $100 down every time that the killer is the celebrity guest.
I think I may have an unhealthy addiction to my cellphone.
The grass will always be greener on the other side. And on both sides it will almost certainly always be toxic.
Do you think that when your kids are teens or adults, A) they will have 90's theme parties and dress up like they think people in the 90's dressed up and B) you will have to consistently tell them "I did NOT dress like that!"
Do you think some people hit a point in their adulthood where the idea of real-life heroes are as ridiculous to them as the Tooth Fairy or Santa Clause?

God In The Box

2009-01-09T17:14:00.002-06:00

I came across this at work a few days ago. It's a documentary coming out later this year. It looks like it could be a really creative conversation starter. That is as long as it aims to create conversation and not to further the "We're right, you're wrong..." method of evangelism.

Give it a look. Again, I think this documentary could be really cool.

The War Against Being Single. (An organized rant.)

2009-01-04T19:37:00.006-06:00

*The following is neither aimed at specific people nor events, but at a trend that bothers me.*

I will start with two blanket statements"

Single men and women are often some of the most bitter, selfish, and short-sighted people in the world today.
Married men and women wish to see marriage spread like the bubonic plague in a genocidal attempt to eliminate single people from the planet.

Intro...

I am 24 years old and single. I have been single for my entire life with the exception of 2 weeks between my freshman and sophomore year of college and about a 4 week period the summer after I graduated college. I have many close friendships with people who are both single and married. I love the people in both of those social groups very much, but both can be aggravating.

Single People...

The problem with your average single person (Christian or Secular) is that they always seem to be emotionally driven when it comes to the idea of "Dating" or "Courting" a member of the opposite sex. To them, to them, dating is always the goal. A lot of their frustrations seem to be built around why they aren't dating, who they aren't dating, and seeing other people date. If you've ever been around single people at Valentine's Day, you may hear them refer to this as "Singles Awareness Day." This is the day of the year when the divide between Singles and "Couples" is the most visible. The next most visibly divide day would be Christmas.

By the way, if you are ever around a single person who refers to February 14th as Singles Awareness Day, feel free to point out to them that that attitude is precisely the reason they are single. That and their haircut.

Now, there is nothing wrong with sometimes feeling the loneliness that comes with being single. Especially around Valentines Day. That's normal and just means that you have a longing for a relationship. BUT, if you consistently point out the fact that you are single to everybody else or constantly have an us-them mentality when it comes to hanging out with Couples, then you are what Sociologists refer to as "Jag-offs."

The average single person believes that there is a war between Singles and Couples. (There is a slight truth to this, but not to the martyrdom perspective that some singles take it.) Single people find the differences in lifestyle between Couples and Singles alienating and often feel like a Single who becomes part of a Couple is a "sell-out."

You will hear a single say "Ever since [blank] started dating [blank] he doesn't have time for us." Usually the word "time" means sitting in the single person's basement or living room trying to think of something to do. The single person who "sells-out" is hopefully spending their time building a strong relationship with whomever they are dating so that they can begin to build the strong foundation of a loving family.

Single people also LOVE to talk trash about friends who are in couples. "So and so are probably fighting,"; "So and so is whipped," or "So and so can't hang out with us because he's being gay." These are usually said behind the backs of friends in couples.

Couples...

A few things need to stressed as I talk about couples so that I don't sound any more of an A-hole than I am:

Marriage IS a beautiful thing.
There IS a divide between singles and couples, but often for good reason such as prioritization of the family, time constraints, and the crucial importance of quality time with the spouse.
Marriage should by no means be seen as the easy way out. It is far more difficult to keep a marriage strong than it is to live a life of singleness.

And now I get to rag on married couples...

Like I have said many times before, I believe marriage is a beautiful thing. I just watched one of my friends get married this weekend in a fantastic ceremony. So don't think I'm completely opposed to married people. I'm not.

BUT, I do believe both Married Couples and Un-Married Couples have an unhealthy attitude when it comes to setting their single friends up with other singles.

Because sometimes, "We want YOU to be happy," really means "We want to pacify you."

I wonder sometimes if being married isn't alot like watching The Ring. In order to get rid of your petty fighting, communication difficulties, or just lack of passion in a relationship, you have to get somebody else into a relationship and pass all those problems on to them.

I'm joking, but what I am trying to say is that nobody plays matchmaker until they've found THEIR match. You don't give anybody the winning lottery ticket unless you don't need it. So playing matchmaker is often less about "selflessness" towards your single friends and more about pacification or conversion.

When I say pacification, I mean that they want their single friends to stop being mopey and stop dragging the fun level of life WAY down.
When I say conversion, I mean that just the same way that Christians hang out with other Christians and White people with other White People, Couples like to hang out with other couples and Singles like to hang out with other singles.

Because whether you're a third wheel a fifth wheel or a seventh or thirteenth wheel, you just don't quite fit in. There is a reason they call them "odd" numbers.

Couples (Married or not) develop an addiction to wedding cakes and red roses and cuddling in car rides. And just like an addiction to alcohol or heroin or sex, they develop a tolerance to it. So soon, they aren't content with their own romantic moments, but now they have to find those in other people; and because the burnout rate of romance in a relationship is so high, the only way to get that fix is by making new couples with new puppy dog romance moments.

Couples don't often want to set people up to make the world a better place, they want to do it because they want their feel good juice. Because they want a pat on the back. Because nobody likes lonely people.

See, just like you crack a joke to break the tension or you pay somebody a compliment when they are feeling low--you are avoiding reality when you try to engineer a romance. Maybe it's so you can avoid the conflict between your single friends and your life in a relationship. Maybe it's because you don't want to feel "old" or different from your single friends. Because you still want to be cool.

You have to make your friends assimilate.

The new Spanish Inquisiation has nothing to do with God. The new Spanish Inquisition is all about pairing people up two by two like you are Noah. Leading your sheep into the ark so that everybody is "happy" and nobody is alone and sad. And you think you are doing the right thing by trying to hook everybody up with everybody else.

Not everybody should be in a relationship.
Most relationships are far from healthy.
Cyclical nature of bad marriages is that they create broken-hearted children who then start more broken marriages.

Final Statement...

Think. That's all I'm asking you to do. Think. Are you really trying to do "what's right" or are you trying to fulfill some desire you have to see everybody be the same. Do you know what you are doing or are you haphazardly playing with people's hearts, dreams, and emotions hoping on a whim that you actually succeed in playing matchmaker?

So pull your head out and think.

And a final note to all of my single friends: stop being so bitchy.

Maybe one of the best sports stories you'll read all year.

2008-12-24T07:51:00.000-06:00

High School Football

Any movie that uses a Pixies song has to be worth my time.

2008-12-19T18:48:00.001-06:00

Prayer

2008-12-14T16:14:00.002-06:00

I just began Richard J. Foster's book Prayer. I am very excited to read this because prayer is probably the spiritual discipline I most need to adopt in my life right now. In the intro to this book, Foster has a few quotes I like and wanted to share:

For too long we have been in a far country: a country of noise and hurry and crowds, a country of climb and push and shove, a country of frustration and fear and intimidation. And he welcomes us home: home to serenity and peace and joy, home to friendship and fellowship and openness, home to intimacy and acceptance and affirmation.

Real prayer comes not from gritting out teeth, but from falling in love.

I know what I want for Christmas!!!

2008-11-30T14:56:00.006-06:00

Yes, That's right. I want nose douche.

This lovely product helps clear your sinuses of debri by a procedure sure to ruin a marriage if you were to ever do it in front of your spouse without a good, clear warning.

Please, watch and enjoy this educational video on how the Neti Pot works!

...You really only need to watch the last minute of this next video to understand how a product such as this could be abused.

Your life in six words.

2008-11-29T21:11:00.003-06:00

No more. No less. Six Words.

A website called SmithMag.net has become my latest place to hang out online. They are a website dedicated to the telling and sharing of stories. The beauty of the site is that many of the stories are short. Hence, the Six-Word Memoir.

This project page challenges people to condense the main theme of their life into six words. No more. No less.

I've been thinking a lot about what my six word memoir would be. And currently I am stumped. But I would love to hear what my friends (and any readers of my blog) would put as their six word memoir. The webpage for this project has tons of entries from readers across the world. Many are quite poetic, some are touching, some are funny, and some are very sad.

If you are a fan of Post Secret, then check out SmithMag.

Also, I think this would make for an interesting activity between close friends, spouses, or other loved ones. It might be cool to challenge somebody you care about to put serious thought into their own six-word memoir and then share your own six-word memoir with that person.

Until next time, I will see if I can't come up with my own six-word memoir to post on here. :)

I was never a fan, but I may have to reconsider...

2008-11-17T18:22:00.000-06:00

This is why I have no life...

2008-11-10T19:05:00.002-06:00

There are two books that I am currently reading:

Abba's Child by Brennan Manning
Leading with a Limp by Dan B. Allender

Sitting in a pile on my bedroom floor are books that are "on deck":

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand (I've read the first third of this massive book and had to stop out of frustration.)
Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne
The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Selected Works of Edgar Allan Poe
Church History in Plain Language by Bruce L. Shelley
How To Reach Secular People by George G. Hunter III
Rabbi Jesus by Bruce Shelton
Reversed Thunder by Eugene H Peterson
Ancient Rome by Robert Payne

And of course, there are the books located at the library that are on my ever-expanding "want to" list:

Shopgirl by Steve Martin
Choke by Chuck Pahlaniuk

Can anybody say "bookworm?"

10 Reasons You Should NOT Vote Tomorrow.

2008-11-03T11:52:00.002-06:00

The lines at the ballots are usually very long and a brain aneurysm can strike at any moment. Do you really want to spend your last precious seconds on earth waiting in a line?
A man could be waiting inside of the voting booth to attack you. Are you willing to risk your life on the assumption that there isn't a large, angry man inside of that voting booth waiting to punch you in the face?
Sexually Transmitted Diseases. Remember my friends, that you aren't just casting your vote with that booth, but with every registered voter that's ever been inside that booth. So use protection. Wear gloves.
The Butterfly Effect. Your vote could cause a chain reaction towards the Apocalypse.
Old People. The elderly are the most likely to vote. What does this mean for you? Slow traffic. Slow lines. Also, you could slip on the wrapper of a Werther's Original hard candy and shatter your skull.
By voting and not watching T.V., you could miss something important. Maybe aliens will make contact when you're in line at the booth. Maybe Elvis will return while you are in the voting booth. Maybe Victoria Beckham announces she will leave her husband for YOU if you clap your hands together at that precise moment and you're busy wrestling with a dangling chad. Do you really want to blow your one and only chance with Posh Spice?
Voting is the most boring thing you could do with your Tuesday next to sanding drywall or going to Staples.
Your vote kills trees. I heard somewhere that it takes, like, an acre of rainforest to make just one ballot. Are you a tree-Hitler?
They trick you into voting for a bunch of crap you've never heard of by making you think you only have to vote for the President. School bonds? Tax Issues? State treasurers? Names and initiatives you've never heard of and don't give a crap about.
What if you vote for the guy that loses? Do you really want that? Do you really want to be the guy that was like, "Oh I think Obama/McCain is going to win! Boo to the other guy! What? McCain/Obama lost? Oh no! And I just put that bumper sticker on my car!" NO. Of course you don't want to be that guy. Nobody wants to be the guy driving around in 2010 with a Kerry/Edwards bumper sticker slapped like a tramp stamp on the back of his Prius.

I love democracy. Don't get me wrong. But I also love not voting. It is a wicked, lusty, vicious circle.

Clint Eastwood+Menacing Scowl+Beating Stupid Punks to a Pulp=Woody!

2008-10-31T22:45:00.001-05:00

So these people want to stop all death on earth.

2008-10-20T13:32:00.003-05:00

And by these people, I mean these people.

They believe that death is unethical and that through disciplines such as architecture and a new "science" called biotopology--death can and will be beaten.

Huh. So basically if all of our houses look like McDonald's Play Places, we will live forever just like this guy.

Or this guy.

They also have some awesome sayings to go with their beliefs. Here are some of my favorites:

"When I am away from you I feel like a watermelon seed."
"Custodianship should not be vaunted as identity."
"Identity is a disease."
"Life is beyond mysterious."
"He is elegant between his toes."
"Lose the carbs. Not the taste."

...OK. So the last one was actually a slogan for Michelob Ultra. But the rest are truly sayings of these yahoos.

Peter Pan's Curse.

2008-10-12T14:27:00.003-05:00

I love the story of Peter Pan. It's a fantastic tragedy.

You have Peter who lives in a world where he never has to grow up. Peter then meets Wendy who is nothing but destined to grow up. Peter develops an affection for Wendy. Peter wants Wendy to stay in his world so that she'll never age, but Wendy wants to age. She wants to grow up and become an adult and do all of the things that adults do.

So she leaves.

She leaves and she grows up and grows older. He stays in Neverland and stays a boy.

She becomes a woman and falls in love with a man. Pan stays a boy who falls in love with a woman. But women don't love boys and boys make terrible husbands.

So Pan has to watch as he's left behind by the only person that he's never wanted to be left behind by. Not her fault though. He refused to grow up. Not necessarily his fault either, a woman wants what a woman wants.

No real moral to the story except that sometimes people get left behind.

Fresh brewed green tea.

2008-10-06T10:37:00.002-05:00

The tea isn't fresh. It's bagged. But it was just brewed. Seriously. I finished brewing it in my coffeepot about 20 seconds ago. It's still hot. Don't want to burn my lips. I made four cups. Would you like some?

NO! I just spilled freshly brewed green tea on my laptop! Why did you do that? Why did you say you wanted freshly brewed green tea when you knew that I couldn't hand it to you through my computer screen. That was not nice! That was mean. A mean, cruel thing to do!

#$%& You!

My calves hurt. That's what I get for being a lazy shlub.

2008-10-03T20:03:00.002-05:00

So I just got done running for the second consecutive day. No, I did not run for 48 hours straight, but I did do about 30 minutes of running intermixed with 30 minutes of walking, stumbling, and near vomiting.

That's what I get for choosing the marching band as my high school athletic.

After two days of running, I have realized something key to this fitness thing. Trying to get in shape is just like high school--humiliating, confusing, awkward, and down-right sadistic.

But it helps to have some good music to listen to. That's been key for my first couple runs I've done. If I like the music I'm listening to in my headphones, then I can tolerate just about any stabbing pain in my ribcage or nipple soreness.

So far the music of choice has been Bob Dylan and Derek Webb. Those two folksy songwriters have really helped calm my soul the last couple of days, which has been crucial to me not saying "to hell with running and to hell with being in shape."*

*Note: I'm not delusional. I know I will never be in great shape or look great in a bikini, but let me have my delusions.

Ecclesiology

2008-09-26T11:26:00.002-05:00

Ecclesiology (The study of churches) attempts to get us to think about the following questions:

What is the church?
Must one join a church?
What is the "authority" of the Christian church?
What does the church do?
How should the church be governed?
What are the roles of "spiritual gifts" in the life of the church?
How does the church's New Covenant relate to the covenants expressed in scripture with God's chosen people, the Jewish people?
What is the ultimate destiny of the Church?

These are very important questions that can not only help a person find their role in the Church, but also help a person become more like Jesus in a world full of "churches" that seem to be missing the point.

And these questions not only apply to churches, but to para-organizations (Campus Crusade, YoungLife, Navigators, etc.), small groups, ministries, and other christian not-for-profit organizations.

These are also great questions to think about if you are like me, and trying to figure out this whole faith thing.

(ben)koehn is lost.

Hebrews 3

Hebrews 2

Hebrews 1

A Bit Between The Ears: Messes of Men

A Bit Between The Ears: Leaving to Stay

5 Things My Married Friends Have Taught Me (Part 5: So When Is a Deer Not a Deer?.)

5 Things My Married Friends Have Taught Me (Part 4: Winnie the Pooh Has No Nose.)

5 Things My Married Friends Have Taught Me (Part 3: Family Game Night)

5 Things My Married Friends Have Taught Me (Part 2: If You Aren't Willing to Get Hit By A Car, You Probably Aren't Suited For Marriage.)

5 Things My Married Friends Have Taught Me (Part 1: The F-Word)

The Spiritual Gifts of Sunday Morning Hermits

A Letter to Terry Jones or How to Get Rich Off 10 Tons of Stolen Bic Lighters

Sour Candy

Closed Circle Conversationalists

25 Things I've learned in 25 Years.

A Beautiful Kind of Hurt

Swing and a Miss

New Skin

Gate C

Dandelion Death Trap

A Prick in the Brain

My song lyric.

the drought

Zakar, Remember and Speak.

5 Reasons You Should Do The Shoal Creek Internship in 2010

10 Tips on Serving (J5: Consumer to Producer)

How Little Plastic Boxes Kill Community. (J4: Isolation to Community)

My 10 Ideas for Facebook Theme Week

Your Best Friends Will Cut You (J4: Isolation to Community)

Why I May Always Be Lost (7 Journeys General)

My Submission for a New Olympic Sport

Jesus Insurance

You don't have to wear your underwear on your head to be an evangelist. I think.

Soft-Hearts can't be Stubborn (J2:Self-hearted to Soft-Hearted)

More than a fish? (J2: Self-Hearted to Soft-Hearted)

Conan O'Brien teaches me something about gratitude (J1: Earner to Heir)

So if you can't work your way into Heaven...(J1: Earner to Heir)

If I gave God my iPod, what would he give me? (J1: Earner to Heir)

J1: Earner to Heir

7Journeys Journaling: Day 4--Psalm 23

7Journeys Journaling: Day 3--II Timothy 3

7Journeys Journaling: Day 2--Psalm 8

7Journeys Journaling: Day 1--Romans 12

thoughts from Matthew 3

Journaling Notes: Oct. 5, 2009

This is MY time. (Not yours. Get your own.)

Today I begin with The Silence of Adam

Parkour! Philosophy!

10 Things I'm listening to a lot of.

The extra effort is worth it.

Hello. My name is Ben. I'm an apologiholic.

"Victory is such a lonely word."

This vid might make ya smile.

Vocabulary vs. Living your faith.

Greatest Wedding Invite Ever!

Awkward Questions About Jesus

Daggers - The Chariot

An Incredibly Chilling Look At The Possible Future of War

Adam Savage and Obsessive Pursuit

Writer's Symposium Lecture by Donald Miller

Eugene Peterson on Storytelling and God

A video clip of Brennan Manning that Wheels posted.

The Next Great American Sport:Dork Tossing

The MUST SEE FILM of 2009!

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner!

Caption Contest!

Remember these classics?

Advancing towards prosperity or anarchy?

A Phone Call from the Commander of the British Royal Navy to the Captain of the HMS Vangaurd

A Reason for Singles to be Joyful this Valentine's Day.

Au sol by Charlotte Parfois

Human Tetris. Crank the Music!

Proof that Bear Grylls is out of his damn mind. *Not for faint of heart or stomach!*

How should the church be organized?

Everything is Spiritual

Caskets by Damien Jurado

Untitled: Part 4

Untitled: Part 3

Words of Madam Guyon

Proof that Bear Grylls is out of his damn mind. Not for faint of heart or stomach!