I Love You - Now Buy My Books

I've always had a problem with self-promotion. This may explain my current level of book sales. Maybe I should get over it, but it seems phony.

Like - there's this website called linkln.com. I'm a member there. There are LOTS of people using that site with whom I used to work. The gist of the site is, itself, self-promotion. You sign up, make connections, and look therein for opportunities. It's not Facebook or Myspace or Lookatmycrap.com… whatever. I get that. But what's interesting is I never hear from any of my connections unless they have something about themselves to say.

Admittedly, some of my connections I consider associates or people with whom one works. I dislike very few of them. Then again, we were never best buds. It's like - you don't have to be friends with everyone you work with, but you do have to get stuff done. Many of these individuals I mostly listened to and during the course of time I learned about significant differences between them and myself. Yet, ever the one to promote diversity of relationships between myself and others - I kept most of my own thoughts to myself. Those folks I understand. They're in the world of business and want to be successful and they keep doors (relationships) open and at arm's length. That's cool…

But there are others I did consider friends. The fault there may be mine. I never hear from these people unless, you got it, they're self-promoting their latest business, opportunity, or accomplishment… i.e. self-promotion. It smacks of insincerity; at a certain age one understands the carnival barkers are merely barking and what I once thought were friendships have wilted into, how to say this politely, people looking at me the way an Amway representative sees the world - as one large selling target.

I don't pretend to care about others very well. I either care about them, or I don't. There's something sickening about faux happy-face in the name of sales. True sociopaths have a knack for making others think they care. Interesting link there … something about the sociopathic nature of business. And there's nothing wrong with business. I am, at heart, a capitalist. If we it gave it a real shot, it might work.

But back to self-promotion… humans can say they care and for that instant they believe they do. But talk and deeds need to match. Some are better at this than others and I very much envy Nathanael (John 1:47).

Or apply this to 'church', as understood by most in 2014. Unlike what one sees on tha tee-vee or in tha moovies - the pastor/priest isn’t always the bad guy. More often than not, he's the one who cares while there are many using 'their' church for their own purposes. Oh, the tell-all I could write about that. But one persistent idea is that of pastor as salesman and where in the world does church growth come from? Yet, Jesus wasn't an entertainer. He didn't sell coffee, open a book store in the back of the temple, nor did a too-loud band accompany him every Sunday for the young people.

But where is church growth supposed to come from? It's certainly not doctrinally sound preaching, nor is it found in trying to do things close to what one reads in the book. Rather, if the given church isn't self-promoting, it's not going to need that addition added to the sanctuary. Here I'm getting snarky and a bit off-topic, but it is certainly something to consider. Just know motive plays a large part.
Now, go read I John 3:18.

Some Thoughts on Psalm 39

Psalm 39 is not long. Go read it. I'll wait.

It's the middle of June and summer is sneaking up on us,
not like the tornadoes that scream out of the sky to tear apart towns
or the wild raspberries ripening by the afternoon.

The psalmist asked that he know his end and the measure of his days
so he might be acquainted with his frailty.
That is quite a prayer.
His request mingled with the admission that David held his tongue
and should not have,
and how he paid a price for silence.
This seems very relevant.

and now, a poem...

The ones who scare me
are the ones who act like it matters.
I am not referring to everything,
but to many things.
Like the man who looks down on the other man
for not putting in his forty hours.
Or like the man who will not recognize the better man.
Or the person with new shoes who knows
it's critical to have new shoes thrown in the closet
before the next pair of new shoes comes along.
And there are those who ask who's to say
when something wrong is done.
These ones are getting close
unless they back away.
This kind of spite bumper-cars us through life
against ourselves, against one another,
against all types of tragic systems put here long before we were born.
You wake up, I want to tell them.
Maybe an instant more is all you have.
Or it could be decades of instances.
But either way there comes a day
when all the instances are gone.

Waste Management

Somebody wanted to know how come I don’t write more here about the Bible. First of all, I have to get over the flattery. Someone actually reads this blog. So, thanks for the input and hubba-hubba. That said, here’s what I’m thinking: Bibles are at Dollar General for less than ten bucks. Go buy a Bible and read it.  It says it better than I can.

Yet, ever the one to accommodate – here’s something to think about.

The amount of food people throw away is interesting. I’m not talking about corporations or grocery stores or restaurants, though they waste prodigious amounts. It’s quite fashionable to trash corporations and businesses these days and the hypocrisy involved is chagrin-worthy.  And mirrors used to be called vanities.

Ever since I was little, there’s been a household chore all about throwing away food. Every once in a while it’s time to, “clean out the fridge.” This does not usually involve Windex and a roll of paper towels. Instead, cleaning out the fridge means going through the shelves and throwing away old food. This happens when the shelves become so packed with leftovers and bits & pieces of things not eaten, that there isn’t room for more.

Only, people don’t wake up on Saturday morning and tell themselves, “Today I’m going to throw away food that’s now too old to eat and that we didn’t get around to eating.” Instead, they tell themselves and, later, may even boast to others in the family, “I cleaned out the fridge today.” That sounds much nicer and may merit a commendation. Cleaning out the fridge has to be done.

I wonder what God thinks about all the wasted food. Someday, as I stand to answer for all the wrongs I’ve done, this may come up. It’s low on the list of things I think I’ll have to answer for. Then again, there may be surprise topics in that day.

A similar example has to do with television. Numbers vary, but people who watch television watch a lot of television. Notice the word is “watch”. That sounds more active and palatable than saying, “I looked at the television for three hours last night.” Looked at, watched… what’s the difference? When was the last time you looked at a group of bearded irises, or something else very beautiful, for three hours before bed time? Again, another case of reality softened and made, perhaps, more acceptable via word choice.

Then there’s the person who doesn’t get enough exercise. So, instead of a push-mower and a snow-shovel they buy the rider and the blower. Then they pay for the gym membership.  Then they complain money is tight.

Examples abound…

Waste not, want not – a proverb from yesteryear not in the Bible.  It makes some, though not total, sense. Food, time, talents, educational opportunities, potential… all these things can languish in the land of abundance. The Bible says quite a bit about waste.  Don’t take my word for it. Look it up and read it if you have the time.

Holy Frenchisms!

I can finally relate with a certain cliché about the French (not the cheese-eating surrender monkey cliché).  Rather, consider how the French are supposed to be rude towards Americans because the two cultures just don't 'get' one another.  Like at the Tower of Babel, when the speech was confused, it wasn't just the speech.  It was the way of thinking and maybe the French have a reason or two to be rude.

With the extra poundage, the funny looking money, and a complete rejection of the notion that they should learn a few native words before visiting, Americans just don’t fit in downtown Paris.  Le Big Mac?  EuroDisney?  No wonder the French are protective of their language.  Some things just don’t translate.  Without pondering the depths of cultural imperialism, I can relate to French concerns in these matters.

For example, a few years ago one of the networks had a movie about “The Flood”.  I guess it was based on the Biblical account.  About the same time I remember there was another show about Cleopatra.  Guess what movie was more historically accurate?  Here's a clue:  in TV-land, Sodom doesn’t have Sodomites and Noah wasn’t the only one with an ark.

One would think the producers could have hired some native speakers to guide them through their producing.  But like the rude visitors they were, they didn’t bother.  They had the money, the script, the ugly shorts, the obtrusive camera, and didn't know enough of the native tongue to truly communicate.  My sense was they didn’t understand half of what they were trying to say.  And now Noah -- the movie!  Bum-bum-bum!  The trailer alone looks like Bible fan-fiction.  The original doesn't include red-hot swords on anvils and what looks like a Viking attack on the ark.  I wonder what they'll do with Genesis 6:5?

All kinds of politicians, entertainers, and newsmen say all kinds of things that native speakers can tell came straight from the “Conversational Christianity in 20 Easy Lessons” traveler’s handbook.  And that’s ok, I guess.  I suppose it’s nice to have visitors and people interested, so long as they don’t kid themselves about where they're from.  But many of them represent the worst kind of tourists - those with something to sell.  They don't want to stay to really learn what it's like to live here.

They say things that just don’t make sense to the native speakers.  And not only do they say it with a straight face, but they smile and expect their audience to agree.  Mr. McConaughey apparently not realizing God watches the movies as well as the Oscars, Revelations the mini-series, “regional” correspondents from the New York Times, and high-profile soon to be presidential candidates are all wide-eyed and in our faces, nodding and speaking far too loudly to be taken seriously.  I’m not convinced they’re here with anyone's best interests in mind, other than their own.

Through the prism of metrics, they've spotted a new land; a new marketing segment they want to visit.

Who The Hell Knows

I see where the philosophy club at the college is going to host a discussion about profanity - along the lines of attempting to discover when a word crosses into the realm of the profane.  A titillating subject, no?  I've thought about that in the past and, as a writer, I've considered how much, if any, potty-mouth my characters should possess.  People do swear, both adults and children -- so where do writers self-prohibit and where do they let loose? If you find an answer to that question, let me know.

In an ironic twist of linguistics, swearing is sometimes referred to as adult language.  Not quite sure when the last time some people walked around a middle-school was, but perhaps they should revisit just to make sure they understand the concept of adult language.

I recently watched The Boondocks Saints.  Yes, it's an older movie - testimony to the fact I don't get out much. Both the plot and the premise of this film were interesting.  The characters weren't as realized as they could have been, but with all the bloodshed who had time to notice?  However, the greatest flaw   was the pervasive use of the f-bomb.  Half way through the movie I was tired of hearing it, yet like the houseguest that never leaves, it stayed until the very end.  I mean, I get it.  The good guys were from a rough neighborhood and worked in a meat processing plant and the bad guys were bad guys.  But still.  At some point I suspect the writer just ran out of dialog and substituted that one word so his characters would have something to say until the movie had finished.

Compare this to another cinematic giant, Kill Bill, Vol. 1.  There's the same type of language in KBv1, but it's far less obtuse; it doesn't crop up in every scene and this helps the dialog sound, somehow, more mature (at least as mature as a kung-fu sword-fighting movie can be) than TBS.  Like I said, ironic.

It's also fascinating when people who know I'm a pastor slip and say something they feel is profane.  This is often followed by an apology.  Now let me get this straight.  First, a human being who claims to believe in a God who knows everything they do, every thought they have, and the motives behind it all, figures they should apologize to me (of all people) because they used a swear word.  Look, if you can say it in front of God, just who do you think I am?  The pastor is not the language police - at least, he shouldn't be and if he feels that he is, that's his problem and not yours.  God gives us free will; who am I to try to take it?

Then there's that bit in scripture about taking the Lord's Name in vain.  That's one of the top ten (somewhere in Exodus 20 if memory serves).  It's one of the Thou Shalt Nots.  A lot of believers take that to mean, 'no cussin'; not a terrible boundary to have in one's life, though we may not quite appreciate the intended meaning.

Consider King David who wrote many of the psalms - beautiful poetry if ever there was, of which I hear only a fair echo because my Hebrew is a bit rusty.  King David was eloquent and he understood the power of words.  Yet, there are a couple of passages where he opens the great dictionary of his brain and, for example, throws out a pisseth (homework:  get yourself a KJV concordance and look it up).  Point being, David knew his audience and when he spoke with soldiers he wasn't above talking as, sometimes, soldiers do.

Then there's the Apostle Paul who said, and here I paraphrase, that he considered everything he'd given up to answer his call as dung.  This is an example of the translators being polite for the studio audience.  Paul's original word-choice is a bit more abrasive and much less softened for the genteel ear (Philippians 3:8).

There are other examples, but please note, two of the big names were not averse to throwing around what could be called profanity.  And since it's in the Bible, hmmm… maybe a list of Bible-profanity is in order.  Then again, the world could probably survive without such.

Following along then, vanity (adjective or noun, take your pick) is something either meaningless or selfish, a literal reflection and gazing upon of our own surface, nothing more, nothing less.  Narcissus, lest we forget, fell in love with his own reflection and wasted his life -- poignant lesson on vanity if ever there was.  So that, taking the Lord's name in vain would mean using His name for personal gain (ala televangelists / politicians / and some abusive spouses), as a meaningless word (one of those verbal fillers that turns into the spoken Tourette-syndrome-habit), or only in the most selfish, albeit possibly sincere, of contexts (God what can you do for me because them other people don't matter so much).

But very little of this answers the question of when does a word enter into the vernacular as a profanity.  Legally, it has to do when a word crosses the boundary into the offensive or hateful (your state statutes may vary).  And, if that's the case, a better discussion for the philosophy club might be to consider what words aren't offensive, and why.  Such legal definitions are, like many legal definitions, ambiguous at best and enforced only upon the discretion of the special interest group currently bellyaching the loudest.

My own opinion when a word becomes a 'bad' word?  Please refer to the title of this post and good luck finding a job with that philosophy degree.

Rendering Unto Caesar

This here is probably going to lose me some points with some of my fundamentalist buddies, non-associated culture warriors, and those Conservatives who just know that if only we could pass such and such a law, or revoke such and such a law, then everything in the world would be just right.  I offer the following balm:

Try not to measure expectations against reality.  Doing so limits one's options.*

Also, this involves some of that Bible stuff.  I'll take it easy on the chapter and verse.  Look that up as homework.

 

Consider, reading it literally, Adam and Eve had one rule and a couple of jobs.  Life doesn't get easier than that.  The rule was to stay away from that one tree.  That God-given rule did not draw them closer to God.  They couldn't keep it and were kicked out of the garden.

Now consider free will:  in the Bible, can you find a single instance of God forcing someone to do something?  The only person I can think of is Jonah, and even then, it was Jonah who came back at the last minute.  Or, can you find a single instance of Jesus forcing anyone to do something?  I mean, Saul/Paul was thrown from the horse and blinded for a time.  But even then, Paul followed.  No one tied a chain around his neck and dragged him to Damascus.

Speaking of Paul, he wrote the letter to the Romans.  Paul was a Roman citizen.  He could have written that letter to a Roman politician.  He could have petitioned Rome to pass stricter, more God-pleasing laws.  And if a culture could have used that, Rome could have.  They had everything we're working so hard to have.  But Paul did not.  But who did he write the letter of Romans to?  If memory serves, he wrote his letters to churches.  All his letters, stressing behavior modifications, were to people who already believed.  To those who did not believe, Paul spoke about salvation and not behavior modification.

Now go back to the Old Testament.  Not always, but quite often, the Levites (the Priest/leadership tribe) were either lazy, corrupt, or busy trying to integrate other religions into what Israel was supposed to be.  In the New Testament, the Scribes, Pharisees, and Sadducees (Libertarians, Democrats, and Republicans - that's a joke, k??) were in religious control, under the civic and military umbrella of the Romans.  We know what they were like.  Even in scripture, politics and faith do not walk well together.  And never mind a little thing called the Inquisition, nor the fact that every other Protestant denomination conducted persecutions.

What I'm saying is that controlling a government is not going to draw people closer to God.  How much sense does it make to expect people who do not believe in Christ to understand why one law is better than another law or why one set of standards is better than another?  There is a time-tested reason why horses pull carts.

It's kind of a human thing that we LOVE telling other people what to do.  Ths can be observed in playgrounds and in nursing homes.  Things are the way they are today in our socio-political landscape (always wanted to use that phrase in an essay) as a direct result of the politification (I just made that up) of faith.  Believers are more worried about controlling the masses than they are about reaching out to the masses with the primary message of the New Testament.  They have been for some while, and now we're here.  In some ways, I suppose, it is easier to be politically minded than it is to be gospel minded.  It's somehow more secure to work in the framework that we've built than the framework that we read of in the Bible.

How to turn things around?  Stop being like the believers at Ephesus while John was stationed at Patmos.

For my last trick - I will now run the risk of contradicting everything I just said.  Believers have the right and duty to speak their minds and be involved and write letters and petition and protest and attend meetings and vote and run for office and so on and so forth.  Just don't expect those who do not believe to agree, change their minds, or draw closer to God because a particular law was passed or thwarted. 

*Original Andy Decker proverb.

Richard Dawkins and a Baptist Preacher Walk into a Bar

Somebody asked me recently what I would say to Richard Dawkins (the scientist-writer guy, not the dead, former host of Family Feud).  I didn't have an answer at the time.  Maybe I still don't.  But here's what I'm thinking.

Let's say I meet Mr. Dawkins in a bar.  This would be difficult as I don't visit many bars these days.  But let's just say.  Unless he brought it up, I don't think I'd say anything to him about faith.  He's a smart guy.  His mind is made up.  He knows the gospel.  He might have thought about it more than I have.  Who knows?  The best thing I can do for Richard Dawkins is pray for him.  It's not like I'm going to persuade him.  And even if I did persuade him, it wouldn't mean much.  It would just be us reasoning together and I would have somehow won with the super-power rhetorical skills I got when that radioactive copy of Aristotle's Omnibus fell on my head in college.  Dawkins would still have to square things up with God.

Suppose someone has a photograph of the earth at the time of the flood (Noah's ark and all that), taken by one of L. Ron Hubbard's space aliens.  And, this photograph has been scientifically authenticated.  Don't ask me how all this comes to pass.  But just suppose.  I guess that would make it ok to accept that there was a global flood.  But then, that's not faith.  Seeing isn't believing.  Believing is believing.  Hebrews 11:1 nicely defines faith.

I read some of the message boards and how people throw down on this whole age of the earth thing.  They get nasty about it.  So let's say someone proves beyond any doubt that the earth is five thousand, four hundred, and sixty-two years old.  Ok…so what?  That doesn't change a thing about what I'm going to do tomorrow, and it has very little bearing on what goes on in eternity.  If such a thing were proven, it would remove the need for faith about the age of the earth.  For the record, I don't claim to know how old the earth is, though I am pretty sure God made dinosaurs because He knew we'd need petroleum products for our cars.

If we could explain some of these things, what would we need faith for?

I understand faith in Christ is a foolish proposition.  It says so in the book (I Corinthians 1:23).  The Apostle Paul wrote that if he were wrong, he'd be the most miserable person out there (I Corinthians 15:13-19).  But Paul had faith.  The big delusion among a lot of people is that they have to see something to believe it.  That's existentialism, if you're interested in such things.

The problem with proving things is that somewhere it always boils down to faith.  I'm sitting in a chair right now.  I can see it and feel it.  My wife says she can smell it.  But I have faith that it will support my weight.  I trust the chair and it's not because I know that much about physics.  I don't know if that makes any sense. Sometimes faith doesn't make sense.

Poop Fire, Ned Flanders, and Me

Ezekiel was a prophet during a captivity of Israel. Many of his messages amounted to what we might call 'street theater'.  Sometimes he wouldn't say a thing.  He just did what he was led to do.  Now there's an idea.

If you will, take a minute and read Ezekiel 4:9-15.

I have daydreamed about the Sunday morning when I lay on the floor and just make Ezekiel bread; no sermon - just make the bread and lay there.  That's what Ezekiel did.

By the way, notice the fuel source.  At first the bread was to be baked, '…with dung that cometh out of man, in their sight.'  This can mean a couple of things.  To this day, dung is used as a fuel source.  After it's dry it burns slow and fairly hot, giving off very little smoke.  Don't ask me how I know this.  So, no surprise that dung is the fuel.   BUT (no pun intended) this at the least also means the people knew the prophet was using human dung for fuel.  There's an outside chance it has a toe-curling intensive meaning.

Ezekiel goes to bat for the crowd and the Lord lowers the bar.  Cow's dung is ok too.  Thank goodness.  There's got to be some symbolism there, huh?  I wonder what our fuel source might be if a prophet were to give this type of message today.  Imagine bread baked over a pile of porno-filled thumb drives or a stack of divorce-court records. Not that a polite purpose-driven pastor in today's America would ever do such a thing.  Doing so might, gasp, lower the numbers!!

But I digress, sort of.

Remember, Israel was in captivity.  This is one of the darkest times in their Old Testament history.  Can't Ezekiel see the people need encouragement and a happy face on Sunday morning?  How dare he sit there and make bread!  Where's the uplifting message!?  Where's the neck-hugging and joking?  What about the seekers!  Yet, in those dark times, the Lord commanded him to lay there and make poop-fire bread.

Here's where Ned Flanders comes in.  He's an effective caricature of what many people think of as 'that' neighbor of theirs who goes to church all the time.  Popular notions come from somewhere (so do stereotypes, but that's a different blog entry altogether).

Consider Matthew 11:16-19.  Jesus draws attention to the fact that he and John the Baptist were two different individuals, like no-duh, really?!  John stayed by himself, wore weird clothes (the uncle with the really, really wide ties), ate strange food, and didn't touch a drop.  For his efforts people said he had a devil.   Jesus, on the other hand, wore clothes that didn't stand out, went to the parties and often stayed in town.  People called him a fatty and a drunkard.  The wonderful thing is that neither man worried much about all that.

Right about now I'm wondering how many faithful followers are trying to fit into a mold they were never intended to fill.  Like, maybe there are a few Ezekiels out there who won't do the bread thing because it doesn't fit what they think everybody else would have of them?

Thing is, people are going to talk no matter what.  The only thing I control is whether or not they're telling the truth.

Day before Thanksgiving?

It is foggy this morning.  The trees are drippy.  Visibility is down to a third.  The neighbor just closed his car door.  It's easy to put on a jacket and just be, in the fog.  It helps to be off work.  I don't have to go to town today, and that' a glorious thing.

Back inside, the furnace and the coffee maker do their parts.  I have the house to myself and it is quiet.  It gives me time to write.  Today I'm going to explain a little about why I like Thanksgiving better than Christmas and Easter.  You might not agree.  That's ok.

Jesus never tells us to commemorate the day of His birth.  I'm talking Christmas here.  The apostles never did, nor the early churches.  And if they did, my guess is their commemoration would resemble very little of how we do it.  Greed, coveting, and debt are three things believers are to avoid.  Christ-mass shopping indeed.  If memory serves, we're not supposed to lie to our children either.  Just saying.     

Then there's Easter.

Strange but true party conversation:  the word 'Easter' appears in some Bible translations one time only.  The thing is, the King-James translators didn't want to tork-off the Catholics any more than necessary so they left the word in.  It literally means Passover and Herod didn't want to tork-off the local Jews by killing people on the Passover.  Eggs and bunnies and corn-sugar and chocolate?  I won't bore you with the pagan roots and symbolism inherent in all that.  Look it up.

So, after two slaps on the over-inflated American emotion-driven religious complex I better insert some platitudes.  Yes, one must remember the true purposes for the holidays.  Jesus is the reason for the season.  Easter is about the resurrection.  So on, and so forth…

Here's some scripture:

Matthew 15:8 - This people drawth nigh unto me with their mouths, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me.  (9) But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.

Colossians 2:6 - As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him: (7) Rooted and built up in him, and stablished in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving.  (8) Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.

Thanksgiving Day is not mandated in scripture, unless you're Jewish.  In scripture we are told to be thankful on a daily basis, and not for just one day a year.  Nor are we to be gluttons.  Pray for me because I'm not planning on wearing a belt tomorrow.  The portrayals of Thanksgiving dinners on those zany, whacky, tee-vee shows is also taking a toll.  And the marketing concept of Black Friday is closing in like a shadow that darkens our understanding.  Yet the intent of the holiday remains.  I do not see it as entirely overwhelmed.

The word is not corrupt:  thanksgiving.  It implies grace and an acknowledgement of goodness.  Polite and grateful people still say thanks when done a kindness.  In our country, we have more to be thankful for than the majority of the people on this planet for the majority of the planet's history.  That's saying quite a bit.

I'm thankful this morning for my quiet, foggy day at home.  Tomorrow will bring new blessings.

Sandwich Eater from Heck

True story...

This morning I was in the office, typing away, reviewing a rubric in preparation for the next class.  That part is not true.  Truthfully, I forget what I was working on.  The memory has been sandblasted from my mind.  They say the body has no memory of pain, and I am thankful it is so.

What I remember is that I was involved in the deal, making sure the employer gets his money’s worth.  Making sure the students know how not to fail the next assignment.  Then it goes dark.

He comes in.  He is a coworker.  I share an office with about eighty dozen other people because the college stacks adjuncts together like cordwood.  It saves money and makes room for more sports programs and administrative assessments.  I’ll call him John.

John doesn’t just enter the office.  He’s snuffly and blowing his nose.  I have a vision of Horton hearing a Who.  But, snuffly and nose-blowy?  No problem.  It’s the cold season.  Have some compassion.  I double-down on the fancy book learnin’.  It’s ok.  I stabilize.

John sits.  He blows again.  He uncrinkles a newspaper in front of him on the desk opposite mine.  The wind picks up.  The trees sway a little.  Clouds blacker than Lindsay Lohan's eyebrows form, and then the storm breaks.

From the depths of somewhere, his armpit I think, John pulls out a breakfast sandwich.  And not just any breakfast sandwich, but a breakfast sandwich wrapped in something forged in the paper-mill of hell.  The newspaper before him is like an ant walking on velvet in comparison.  This thing, this brown, sandwich-paper, it’s what Satan uses for toilet paper.

The sandwich reminds me of how my father in law used to wrap Christmas presents:  triple, sometimes quadruple layers of paper and a quarter spool of tape -- crinkle-crackle crinkle-crackle crinkle-crackle crinkle-crackle crinkle-crackle!  It’s like John’s skinning a porcupine over there.  That’s how long it takes.

And it hurts us.  It hurts our ears!  It must stop.  Oh, the tumult in my soul!  I cannot bear it, but I must.  I’m in the middle of an Edgar Allan Poe story and I’ve stopped typing.  But, it’s almost done.  It’s almost good again.  The paper stops screaming and I can breathe.  Until it dawns on me... he’s going to eat in the office.

A snuffly, blowy, newspaper reading co-worker is going to eat a crinkling-paper wrapped breakfast sandwich and he’s sitting next to me.  The smacking ensues and he’s enjoying this sandwich with approving hums and aahs from somewhere deep.  He’s reading that paper and he’s grunting with the cold in his nose and I’ve just seen the obliteration, the utter and complete annihilation, of anything resembling inner peace or calm.

I retreat to the tower of iron will, a place deep in my psyche; my last nerve, the line before froth drips from my mouth; think Danny Torrence in the Shining.  The tower has been in service through the long years.  It’s the inner sanctum where the slimy tendrils of Cthulu horror can reach only so far.  It is not my happy place.  My happy place has been napalmed.  The little blue jonquils and floppy-eared bunny rabbits living in my happy place are crisp and black and smoldering.

 

The sounds of the smacking and throat-scooting and paper rasping pig (did I just call my coworker a pig?!) sitting next to me has me laying on a cold, wet concrete floor in a fetal position begging for it all to stop.

I log off.  I gather my things.  I go get a cup of coffee in the department lounge.  It is quiet again.  I survive.

Why am I like that?  Don’t know.  Just am.  Will it happen again?  Yes, it will.  Any saving grace or lessons learned?  Maybe…

Consider that we are to love one another:  strangers, fellow pilgrims, enemies, and neighbors, one another as we love ourselves.  Ok fine, I know that.  It’s not always easy, but I know that.  I try.  Some people are hard to love but we try anyway, in spite of ourselves and in spite of them.

Then there’s Christ.  Christ will never eat a sandwich in my ear.  He is perfect.  Loving Christ is different.  I (we?) should never feel obligated to love Christ, like we ‘have to’.  When that happens, it’s not like it should be.  Loving Christ should be a great joy, not a burden.  It is something we should want, not something we have to.  Think about that…

Mayans and Hobbits and Baptists

Many are worried about the Mayan calendar stopping at the end of 2012.  Please, don't.  When they weren't busy sacrificing humans to the sun and building those neat-o jaggedy pyramids, they somehow figured out when the first installment of The Hobbit films was to be released.  They marked their calendar accordingly.  That's all it is.

And it is that I worry about.  Being the giant Hobbit nerd I am, I've been keeping track of a few things and am greatly troubled by what I have seen.  For example, Legolas was not, I repeat, was not in The Hobbit.  Yet who is going to be in the movie?  His name begins with "Lego" and he has pointy ears.

There may also be an arc of romance included.  Romance of all things!  When I want romance I'll go home, or watch The Notebook, a film I have been saving for such a time in my life when I get a hankering for some anabolic-stacker level romance.  There is no romance in The Hobbit.  Do you see that little dot at the end of the previous sentence?  That is a period, end of the line.  Peter Jackson what are you thinking?

And it's not just the big things I worry over.  Consider when the dwarves escape the Elvin cellar-jails.  They did so packed in barrels floating down a river.  The only member of their party not packed in a barrel was good Mr. Bilbo.  Yet I fear even something so slight as that will be deviated.  I am envisioning some cutesy-tootsie hyperbolic adaptation with holes and big dwarf eyes and noses peeking out of Hollywood hogsheads.

Why mess with the original?  This is the question of the ages.  It applies to cookies as well.  How I long for the days of the simple cookie, pure in an undiluted single flavor.  Chocolate chip cookies are magical, as are peanut-butter, and oatmeal.  The chocolate-craisin-butterscotch-bran cookie loses much in the translation; too busy in intent; the malediction of messing with perfection.

Now, take all these concerns of mine and tilt your head.  When the wind is blowing just right and all else is very still, my worries can be heard on the roaring voice of the great bull mouse from his secret lair somewhere over by the acorn tree.

But here is, I guess, what makes me a Baptist.  I will see The Hobbit films.  And such is the cookie-impoverished state of my existance that I will eat nearly any concoction placed before me.  And I'll like it, by golly!  But I will not compromise on the oft-overlooked idea, yea and verily some might say outdated concept, of doctrine.

Using the trusty KJV, the words 'doctrine' and 'doctrines' appear in fifty-five verses throughout scripture.  Compare this to the fifty-four verses mentioning 'hell'.  As Nigel Tufnel said, "Well, it's one louder, isn't it?"  Indeed it is Nigel, indeed it is.

Basing salvation as a starting line, doctrines are the lane markers.  And no, doctrines don't replace the grace or the love or the compassion Christ has for us or that we are to have for others.  Though an argument could be made that without doctrines things like grace and love and compassion are diluted.  And no, I'm not going into specific doctrines right now.  I'll save those particular eyeball glazing discussions for later because, really, it is the rare person who hangs on long enough to learn specific doctrines.

But do you remember when God gave the instructions to Moses on how to build the tabernacle?   I'm sure it's right on the tip of your brain.  You probably woke up this morning thinking about just that...  Anyway, those instructions were incredibly specific, like down to colors and materials, and lengths and widths and stuff.  And what did Moses do?  He did what he was told and the temple was made according to God's will and not his.  And yeah, I'm sure, it was a pain coming up with all that scarlet fine twined linen.  But if God wants scarlet fine twined linen, who are we to say orange rayon is just as good?  We are not making a movie here and we're not at liberty to clean out the shelves with odds and ends of ingredients.

This is getting a little long so I'll end by giving some homework.  Read Matthew 15:9 and Mark 7:7.  I'm going to have a lot (a couple of semi-trailer loads at least) to answer for when the time comes, but as a pastor I really want to avoid this being one of them.

The garden of missed posting targets

So I'm going for the four posts a month thing and I missed my August number.  Ugh!  Here is a stray motivational thought to start September out right:

I garden, some.  This year's new crop is horseradish.  It looks like it is supposed to and I'm impatiently waiting for the first frost to harvest.  We'll see.  Speaking of smelly things, one thing a garden needs every year is fertilizer.  If a person expects to grow they need two things:  some crap dumped on them and the will to work it.  The green thumb has nothing to do with a magic ability to grow things.  Rather, when that fertilizer falls our way we have to handle it because the only thing crap does on the surface is stink.

This is true professionally, personally, and spiritually.

Read Luke 13:6-9.  The last ingredient to growth is mentioned at the end of verse eight.  When the smelly stuff happens all that means is Jesus loves us and He's giving us one more chance to grow.

Enjoy!

Losing the Language of Faith

The language of faith and losing it is usually brought up in terms of the 'culture war'; politicized like most everything else.  And it is true believers are supposed to keep their faith talk confined to the church buildings.  It is frowned upon to bring it out to the public square.  This is why, for example, prayer doesn't happen before football games and why valedictorians must submit their speeches prior to giving them.  Those young people must be careful not to mention the name of Jesus out in the open where others might hear it.

This is troubling, but not really new.  It should upset us that some speech is more free and some less so.  But, like the lonely girl, 2012 churches make themselves as attractive and as available and as mild as possible in the hopes that someday that handsome world will call and want to know what we're all about.  Meantime, we wait by the phone.

That said there is another facet to the idea of losing our faith language that I'm going to try to illustrate.  This concept has been rattling around my head for a long time.  It might be too abstract and if you don't get what I'm trying to explain the problem is on my end and not yours.

Here is my thesis:  we are losing the language of faith because we no longer think in faithful terms.

Language changes over time.  This is not a piercing insight.  New words are added and old words are forgotten.  Dialects shift, slang become proper and the proper becomes out dated.  Language is tied to human creativity and with it we express our understandings of what we experience.  A good example is the word teenager.  Before there was such a word, talking about young people was different because people didn't think of them as teens.  Or, in the 1970s no one worried about coming across as homophobic.  The concept (label) just wasn't there.

Another key piece of information is that the original New Testament books were written in a dialect of Greek that is now frozen in time.  In other words, people no longer use that dialect of Greek and yet a substantial amount of scholarship exists giving us insight into that language and how it was structured and what specific words in that dialect meant.  Think of it like one of those paperweights with an object suspended in a cube of clear acrylic.  This is cool because it gives us a lingual image into the exact meanings of certain words and phrases.  It can be highly and reliably contextualized.

For example, believers who care to do so can look up a word like church (an assembly of people), or baptism (to dip), or Easter (Passover) and can find out what that word originally meant and can then use that meaning to guide their worship and faith.

I preach out of the King James Version of the Bible - for both accuracy and the fine line the artisan translators walked when keeping both original meaning, providing usability, and expressing the beauty or the original Bible languages.  The KJV is a wonder in itself and I urge anyone interested to look into how it came to be.

Now look, I'm not going to go war if someone reads a different translation of the Bible.  I'm not that kind of Baptist.  But a believer should find him or herself a solid translation.  And why is this important anyway?  Wasn't this supposed to be about losing our faith language?  The point of all this KJV business is that I simply want the reader to understand what version of the Bible I'm referring to when I give the following example.  An English Standard Version (also a very nice translation) might show different results, but not by much.

So, rambling aside, here is my big example.  Pay attention the next time something unexpectedly good or unexpectedly bad happens in life.  Let's say you find a five dollar bill in the grocery store parking lot.  How do you explain it?

Here is a list of words I can think of that people use to describe those things that happen to them, either in their favor or not in their favor:  random, randomness, luck, lucky, unlucky, fortune, fortunate, unfortunate, misfortunate, happenstance, coincidence, coincidental, incidental, so on and so forth.  We use these words and others like them when life happens when we are content to chalk it up the inexplicable.

Both of my daughters had heart problems when they were born.  People noted how misfortunate it was.  About a month ago my youngest daughter was involved in a car wreck at 55 miles per hour with my wife's mother.  Another driver pulled out in front of them.  My girl was shaken and scared and sore the next day, but that was all.  Her grandmother didn't fare as well.  She suffered a total of 32 stitches and a bruised and battered left side from shoulder to ankle.  She also totaled her van for which the insurance company will provide its current value, yet the van's personal value to her will not be met.  All things considered their accident could have been magnitudes of tragedy worse.  A lot of people, beginning with the EMTs, the nurses, the doctors, and some family, commented on how lucky they were to have not been more seriously injured.

When we talk about luck and misfortune and the baker's dozen of other words listed above aren't we relegating life as up to the whims of some cosmic flip of the coin?  Don't we express and understand events as though there is no greater power than randomness?

The old King James Bible contains none of the words we use to commonly refer to the inexplicable events in our lives.  There is that verse about time and chance happening to all (Ecclesiastes 9:11).  Time and chance…   I could find very little else referring to what we say on a daily basis.  The events in the Bible, as originally written and later faithfully translated, relied on other words.  The vocabularies of the original writers of the Bible did not include the dozen phrases and ideas about luck that ours does.

This is not a commentary on the limitations of the Greek Language of the first century as much as it is about how our view of life has shifted away from God's involvement in our lives.  Yes, time and chance does happen to all, thank you Solomon in your wisdom.  But I'm thinking it happens far less than we think it does.

Believing in a God who knew me before I was born (Jeremiah 1:5), doesn't it make sense He would want to stay involved all the way through my three-score and ten years (Psalm 90:10)?  I find this idea more comforting than to think of my life as a single grain in a sandstorm.  A more faithful generation would think in terms of blessings and curses, of trials, tests, tribulations, troubles, and about how sometimes bad things happen to us that force us to rely on our faith; and hence reliance on God. 

For homework, read the book of Job.  Now there was a guy down on his luck.  Yet in the chapters where he and his 'friends' debate on the events of Job's trials, notice the lack of luck words and ideas.  The men involved were not stupid; misguided at times, but not stupid.  Their discussions of Job revolved around God and why God would allow such things to happen.  They did not shrug their shoulders and say, "Better luck next time."

I know God has His purposes.  I know I am not intelligent enough to figure them out.  But what I can always do is trust His Greatness in my life.  Time and chance will not withstand.  God's grace, however, is eternal.

Sun's So Bright I Froze To Death

The sun’s so bright I froze to death.  That one goes way back.  It is one of my earliest memories of music.  I ascribe to this line no great meanings, but I think I might finally get it, or at least I've found an application for the idea.

There are believers who know the exact month when the world is going to end.  Just ask them.  They pick days on the calendar.  Others give themselves a month or two on either side of their equations.  That’s probably best because calculations like these are more plausible when there is wiggle room.  Here I am talking about a biblical cataclysmic event involving the book of Daniel, the rise of the Anti-Christ, and the set-up for the seven years of tribulations and the United States is the Great Whore of Babylon and that means the USA is going to be taken out of the photo-finish at the end.  They have done the math.  They know.  That kind of thing.

This seems to fit a general mood.  Lots of people think something bad is about to happen.  And it’s true; things could get really crappy really fast, like overnight.  It sure does feel like something big is going to happen.  It’s in the air.  And just where is the United States in scripture?  We do seem very busy buying and selling.

But these guys, they know when.  Or, actually, they knew.  Their first date has come and gone.  So maybe they revise their calculations or maybe someone else comes along with a new calculation.  That’s the bright sun.  Sometimes it is so bright that a man can’t see much else and in that sun-induced blindness, other things are overlooked.

When that happens, the fun tends to evaporate from the fundamentalism.  Taking liberties with the admonition to live in the truth, in word and deed; this is the freezing to death part.  There is liberty to be rude and ugly and gossipy and bitter and that’s just the way it is.  There isn’t much left over for things like kindness and forbearance and gentleness and how we shouldn’t give none occasion and how if the weak brother has a problem eating a ham sandwich then don’t eat ham around that brother.  With sun-bright freezing the good things go out the window.  Peace and joy and love, the best of gifts, are blanketed under burdens of anger and being ticked off at everything.  And, by the way, don’t disagree and don’t challenge because the White Horseman has already ridden.  Don’t dare caution and don’t mess with the dates of arrival.  Because if you do, then the pillory for you, my brother!  Again, freezing to death.

Maybe that’s the problem when people get the Revelation fever.  We are moving from point A to point B in time and there is nothing we can do about it.  It’s in the book.  It’s going to happen and it is overwhelming to consider.  But in the meantime, the rest of the New Testament also applies.

Toaster Bibles

If Bibles were toasters we could go to the Christian bookstore and buy pretty covers for them.  The covers would have zippers and places for a tiny padlock.  On Sundays the pastor would make lots of toast.  Some of it would be eaten in the church building.  There would probably be crumbs and crusts on the floor where people sat.  Most of the rest of the week people would not eat toast.  And then once in a while a believer would encounter someone who eats lots of toast but never goes to church.  When visitors come over to that person's house he would offer them toast.  It would be politely refused and over time the person who makes his own toast would learn to keep it to themselves.

Introduction

I went to the east shore of the River.  I wanted to measure its breadth and its depths, the waters that course along its banks and most of all I wanted to know why it behaves as it does.  To help I brought my favorite cup.  It was given to me some while back and I think it is splendid.  Ascribing it as a cup is not the truth.  It holds two full cups, as I measure, and I thought it would be enough.

So I went to the river and there I failed.  The water I gathered slopped over the brim and my hand and wrist became wet, as did my shoes, socks, and feet.  There was one scoop, another, and another still.  It was impossible and I didn’t want to admit it.  Miles of river were upstream and miles were downstream.  Millions of gallons were never to be measured, at least not by me.  In places I could see the bottom, clear and pebbled.  Beyond were dark and elusive depths.  Only notions of wide, very wide, and ‘I might be able to cross here,’ passed for breadth.

I grew angry at the river and some part of my mind, the proud part, began to question the existence of the river, though it was plainly before me.  At such times one must back away and reconsider.

This is me questioning God.  Your results may vary, but not much.

The mind looks for patterns and is not so different from the voodoo man auguring the guts in his pan.  Maybe the bathroom lights, constant, steady, and otherwise dependable, flicker once or twice and it is a sign; a sign for the day, or someone from the ‘other side’ messaging.  Books of horoscopes still sell and we ask it like this:  what is your sign?  The book says do not seek for a sign.

Children get sick.  Children die.  Affliction and blessing cover us like a flood and I don’t know why.  The most horrible and the most wonderful events are commonplace and even if I knew why it would not always help.  Remember Job; look to Haiti.  That poor man minding his own business then bereft of everything but a gallery of second and third guessing friends – men at the river with their cups, boasting they have measured the unmeasurable.

I know people who have only a few questions more and then they will certainly believe.   They arrive with buckets and pumps and do not see how they are sieved.  The river rolls on and because it cannot be understood they say it is not real and the fool says there is no God.

I do not say I worship an unknown God.

Rivers are beautiful.  They are powerful and admirable and unpredictable and worthy of the deepest respect and caution.  Peace, like a river, attendeth my way.  My cup runneth over.