Entries from June 2008 ↓

Was blind but now it sees. Or something.

You may have noticed that I’ve been somewhat absent here of late. Even more absent than usual, I mean. That’s because I got BLOCKED out of my blog. Turns out I was hacked. It was pretty awful.

BUT Chris Cree saved me. Er, he saved my blog. He’s a friend of mine, which I’m telling you in the interest of full disclosure. Because I really want to recommend his new blog tune-up, which helped me find my blog. More on that later.

Thanks, Chris.

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One more item of note. This weekend, I hung out with Real Live Preacher, Paul Soupiset, Keith Snyder and Larry Picard, Cynthia the poet, and others at this Franciscan Retreat. There were some things God and I had to work out, and Gordon helped give me the space to do that. More about that later maybe.

Thanks Gordon and all of Covenant Baptist for the ministry you’re doing.

Thanks to everyone else for the good and sometimes challenging conversations. God bless you all.

A bestiary is an encyclopedia of beasts. This morning in my Schott’s Almanac calendar (one of my favorite desktop calendars in the past few years), I read the “bestiary of a good host.” That and a little browsing around the British Library’s Illuminated Manuscript collection inspired me to some fun Tuesday weirdness.

The Bestiary of a Good Blogger

The good blogger must have
the forehead of a BILLY GOAT
the ears of a JACK RABBIT
the hard shell of an ARMADILLO
the belly of a BLACK BEAR
the subtlety of a SNAKE
buzz around omnipresent like a FLY
and fawn and lie like a DOG.

What beast would you add?

This Stephen Colbert interview with N. T. Wright is worth a watch.

I once took N. T. Wright and his wife to the airport. During our two hour drive we talked about tons of stuff from whether Jesus was a carpenter to whether anything will ever be as cool as Harry Potter. (Hat tip to Bob Carlton for sending out the link via twitter.)

Took a quick break from the underworld to twitter my despair and found Michael Hyatt’s tweet. Hyatt is the CEO of Thomas Nelson, and he was bemoaning an author’s woes over a new book they’re publishing on the faith of Obama. (That sounds a little sarcastic, but I don’t mean it to be.)

On his blog, Stephen Mansfield writes about the internet mugging that left him feeling victimized,

Everyone is drawing conclusions from a single article on a single political blog. Yet my secretary has been fielding dozens of emails assuring that I am going to roast for all eternity. I’m deceived, serving Satan, in the employ of Obama, in the employ of McCain, in the employ of Oprah, and I’m apparently not going to be alive on Election Day.

I’ve also had conservative politicians calling in anger and liberal politicians calling in welcome.

So, I’m going to hell. Or, more likely, this is hell and I don’t know it yet. Whatever the case, my point here isn’t that I’m getting smacked. That goes with the job. My point is one that draws attention to a tragic potential of our times: the power to project a lie in the guise of truth at lightning speed.

Mansfield doesn’t link to the Politico.com article for obvious reasons, but here’s the link. Just don’t send Stephen hate mail about the time he’s going to spend in hell burning for writing about Obama.

All of this reminds me of two questions I asked Tony Jones on the phone yesterday. Instead of asking him about the Church Basement Roadshow or another explanation of what he means by emergent, I asked about politics. Why not? I’m bored with the language of who’s emerging and who’s not and whether we should be emergent now or emergent no or whatever. Besides, if Tony’s answers about politics stank, I could always chop them on the editing board.

So I asked.

Tony, what does it look like when politicians worship God through their work?

He answered, and it was a decent answer. Then I asked my real question.

Tony, what does it look like when voters worship God through their engagement of politics?

I haven’t transcribed that answer yet, but it was good, too. By good, I mean thought provoking and insightful.

Here’s the gist: Too much of our political rhetoric comes from our ideologies rather than our theology. It is easier to cling to planks of a party platform than to pray to the creator of the universe for insight into his nature that will bring us wisdom for all of life–whether we are in the voting booth at our local precinct or the dunking book at our local carnival.

OK, I admit that’s a lot of me interpreting what I hope I heard Tony Jones say yesterday.

Let me be even more blunt because this really bothers me. Politics really bother me. The polarization of American politics in particular really bothers me. Why can’t we be passionate about our duty to vote without sending each other to hell? Why can’t I tell you who I like without worrying that I’ll just be encouraging you to prejudge me as a leftist hippie or a warhawk or a socialist or an imperialist?

How would we as voters have a conversation about abortion without condemning the opposing view point as immoral?

How would we as voters have a conversation about war, and not just war but this war in Iraq, without propping up our own shallow opinions with the weight of morality?

How would we talk about economics? education? leadership? integrity? electoral college rules? campaign finance? gay marriage? regular marriage? gerbil marriage?

Are all of these topics too hot to handle? Is the only wisdom to stay out of the places where angels fear to tread?

I want to believe that all work is a high calling. Is there no high calling for voters or politicians? I want to believe that there is.

What would you do if you were president? Does it matter? Because you won’t be.

What would you do if you were a voter? Does it matter?

Just got back from a little mini-vacation to visit my wife’s grandparents in notoriously flat Lubbock, Texas. It was an odd trip, but not a horrible way to spend two vacation days with my family. Also, I learned some good travelling tips for enjoying the monotony of the Texas panhandle–or any other less than scenic drive that lasts more than seven hours.

1. Portable DVD players are your friend. If you don’t own one (we don’t), you can probably borrow one from a friend or relative (we did).
2. Stop often. A fifteen minute delay to stretch your legs and help the boy pee (again) will do much to ease the driving tension. And what would you do if you arrived at a hotel an hour earlier anyway?
3. Play games like the Alphabet Game, or if that’s too hard (it was), you can’t go wrong with I Spy. It lasted us from near Midland to near San Angelo.
4. Rest stops are really fun places to stop. And, um, rest.
5. The price of gas is easier to swallow if you treat yourself with a chocolate milk shake after every fillup. (And you’ll notice, “Awesome! Milkshakes are cheaper than gas!”)
6. Texas wind power is an amazing thing.
7. Teach the kids to love scifi by playing at YA story from Escape Pod.
8. While the kids watch Enchanted (again), listen to another podcast with your spouse on the earbuds and hear the sound of rat laughter.
9. Take the smallest car you can. When the children kill each other, the trip becomes instantly more peaceful.
10. Remember at many various moments how glad you’ll be when you get home.

My dog ran out
to chase a motorcycle
speeding through
the neighborhood.
Never expected
to catch it
with her puppy head
and a short yelp
that left her
breathing slow
looking scared.
On the back porch
we wrapped her
in black plastic
we had bought
for grass clippings,
but I didn’t cry
until I carried the bag
to the curb for the dead
animal pickup
and felt her inside
the three ply trash sack
furry and cold and stiff.
I had touched death before
on my waxy grandma
but death took a puppy
to touch me.

Normally, I offer comments and analysis on the poetry I put here. Not today.

This poem is part of the What I Learned from Animals group writing project hosted by Robert Hruzek and HighCallingBlogs.com. Go to those sites to read some happier stuff.

I’ve been wanting to create a table of contents of sorts for all my poems. So here’s that page in progress if you’re in the mood to read some poetry today.

Gradually, I’m compiling a list of all the poems I’ve posted on this site in one place for your browsing convenience. They are more or less in reverse chronological order of when I posted them. You can also download a rough sort of poety ebook called Passion Play that I created in 2007 just for fun. The layout isn’t fancy, but the order of poems is kind of fun.

Some poems have audio, some don’t. Some poems are decent, some stink. You’ll just have to click through to see what you’ll get.

• Welcoming Summer - my answer to Robert Hruzek’s group project, “What I Learned from Writing.”
• Freedom - inspired by my son who reads the pirate gospel.
• Sometimes - because poetry is really quite useless.
• Riding the Wind Before Pentecost - a poem inspired by flying to a conference at Mt. Hermon.
• Easter - the old standard “styrofoam-Jesus-in-the-shower” poem.
• Replicas of Devoted Things - a Bible lesson on Joshua 22 disguised as a poem.
• Ode on Business Travel - another poem inspired by some flight to somewhere for business.
• Practice Is an Art - a poem for David Tulley who sometimes leads worship at Laity Lodge.
• The Picasso of Pancakes - because the youth group I help with does some crazy stuff.
• Honey I Killed the Power - after I nearly killed myself trying to install a dryer.
• Garden of Stone and Flesh - this one inspired by memories of a concrete garden near my wife’s childhood house.
• Ode to Mothers on Mother’s Day - pretty much what it sounds like.
• First Mover - written when we moved to Kerrville on my son’s first birthday.
• The Waves of the Donau River - for Liz Strauss and for my host mother in Germany. Bless her, she could bake.
• Answered For - a poem inspired by my time grading AP essays in Daytona.
• Passion High - because sometimes I miss teaching.
• Myth and Insects - another poem stolen from my daughter
• Outside Abilene - one of my first published poems (in Stonework Journal). One of my favorite poets, Jack Leax, called this poem a good one.

Note to readers: I’m still buried, but my Editor-in-Chief, Dan Roloff, asked me to post my notes from the staff devotional I led yesterday. So here they are. If you haven’t been to Dan’s blog in awhile, it’s worth a look. His posts have a lot of substance, but are still bite-sized in length. Unlike this one…

I’ve been thinking about our categories on TheHighCalling.org a bit lately. Starting with the first one from the left: Attitude. We even have a vision statement for helping people understand the importance of attitude:

Oswald Chambers says, “Moods don’t go by praying; moods go by kicking them.” Our words and actions come out of our attitudes. We shouldn’t let circumstances shape our perspective. Instead, we can use a good perspective to shape our circumstances.

That sounds nice, doesn’t it? So I was wondering. Is it biblical? Are we relying on some trendy truth to assemble that vision or does it flow from the eternal truth of the Bible?

The concept of attitude is hard to find in the Bible. It seems to be more of a 20th and 21st century concept, but two words stuck out as I was browsing through my Bible programs.

• phroneō - from verses like Romans 12:1-3. (You can see where that word appears in the Greek by going to the Blue Letter Bible and scrolling down to the Strong’s Concordance for phroneō)
• ennoia - from verses like Hebrews 4:12.

Dan is interested in phroneō, but that verse in Hebrews got into my head.

You see, the writer of Hebrews tells us how to keep our attitudes in check. He writes, “For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart” (4:12).

Without looking at the context, this sounds like a simple call to study the Bible. “The word of God… judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.” But look at all of chapter four when you get a chance. It is a chapter about people who don’t obey God’s call to enter into his rest.

Earlier in the passage, the writer discusses Joshua, concluding that he was not able to lead God’s people into rest. Barnes’ Notes explain that “Joshua ‘did’ give them a rest in the Promised Land; but it was not all which was intended, and it did not exclude the promise of another and more important rest.”

Growing up, I learned a lie about rest that I’m still trying to unlearn. I was taught that the Promised Land was an archetype for heaven. “To Canaan’s land I’m on my way, where the soul of man never dies.” I’m not going to quibble about the theology of these songs, but to my young brain they meant that God’s rest was something that came after I died. Salvation was a ticket to heaven.

In fact, I thought of heaven like a big ski resort because I loved to ski. When I got saved, baptized, prayed the prayer, got Jesus, whatever language or ritual you prefer to label it with, I knew I had a ticket to the resort. I got my lift pass. But I’d have to spend the rest of my life waiting for the resort to open.

Even worse, I didn’t grow up with any sense of eternal security. I was taught that my lift pass could be taken away if I wasn’t good. That’s a scary burden for a teenager, let me tell you. Thankfully, I didn’t think about it too much.

What I did was work much too hard. I figured if I just worked hard enough, I’d prove to God that I deserved to keep my lift ticket. My faith would be real through my works—just like James says.

I’ve heard that Martin Luther wanted to rip James out of the Bible. And to be honest, I understand why when I look at chapter two. Faith without works is dead. That can be twisted into some seriously scary stuff.

You know, James 2 goes right along with Hebrews 4 in some ways. The author of Hebrews says,

If Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken later about another day. There remains, then, a Sabbath—rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his. Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will fall by following their example of disobedience.

As a kid, I took that line about making every effort to enter God’s rest a little too literally. I still do.

Let me be honest. I’m not good at resting. In my heart, despite myself, I still believe that the Promised Land comes when I die, that Salvation is a golden mystical crown in a city full of Revelation weirdness. In fact, I look for passages about adjusting my attitude, and find a work ethic prescription right there in Hebrews:

“For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart” (4:12).

So I think to myself, the Bible itself helps me judge the thoughts and attitudes of my heart. Great! All I have to do is get up earlier. Study more. Work harder. And I’ll find that attitude of rest.

But I’m pretty sure that’s not what this verse means. Sure, reading the Bible is a good thing. It helps me get my head on straight—and surely attitude has a lot to do with keeping a right perspective. But Hebrews doesn’t say the Scripture helps us judge us judge. It says the “word of God” helps us. The logos from John 1 who was in the beginning. Certainly, the “word of God” means Scripture, but it also means much more than that.

And in this context, the word of God seems to mean something even more specific than Jesus himself or Scripture itself. It also means a specific word from God about rest.

God calls us into his rest.

This reminds me of a little video that’s been a big hit in our house lately.

When my mother-in-law watched this with us, she was horrified. The song does trample on the protestant work ethic a bit. But I think there’s more to it than that.

Somehow, like in the little song, my work flows out of my rest. So that I say, “Oh yes, I also practice trumpet everyday.” Or “Oh yes, I also edit words everyday.”

When editing words or practicing trumpet becomes work—that’s because I’ve forgotten to let God’s rest permeate everything I do. Surely, there’s no better prescription for adjusting my attitude than that? We’re talking about the ultimate attitude adjustment here. Work itself includes rest. This doesn’t mean we don’t also take time off.

Our culture idolizes work in some ways.

I need to unplug from the computer on Sunday. I need to have no agenda on Sunday. I need to go see Kung Fu Panda with my son on Sunday with no agenda except to laugh and laugh and stop for Chinese food on the way home.

Simply put, it is easier to have a positive attitude in our work and our daily lives—an attitude of rest—when we obey God’s specific call to rest.

I’m still buried, but Craver tossed me a torch. Then I started seeing these shadows on the wall and thinking about the nature of truth.

Stumbling around in the dark, I tripped on this incredibly simplified, old history I wrote several years ago based on the English and American literary time periods. (Disclaimer: all dates are approximate and subject to academic quibbling.)

• Anglo-Saxon Truth (450-1066) - Truth is the honor found in warriors who share fellowship.
• Middle English (1350-1500) - Truth is bound to the church. People generally accept their place in the chain of being.
• Renaissance (1500-1680) - Humans themselves contained truth worthy of study and worthy of giving back to God.
• Neo-Classical (1680-1800) - Truth was a matter of mastering the forms established by ancient Greece and Rome.
• Romantic (1800-1880) - Truth can be found in our emotions through nature and the sublime.
• British Victorian (1830-1900) and American Realism and Naturalism (1860-1900) - Truth can be found through logic and reason and the progress they create (inspired by Darwin, Freud, and Marx).
• Modernism (1900-1960) - There is no truth. Or maybe there fragments of it. Life stinks.
• Post-Modernism (1960-present?) - There is no truth. Or maybe there are fragments of it. Life is absurd. So is death. So we can do whatever we want. And maybe, just maybe, all voices contain some element of truth.

Which leaves us here, I suppose, with a simple game of questions: