Entries from November 2008 ↓

I don’t watch the Oscars anymore. We used to have Oscar parties and everything. But I got tired of those people up there trying to be adequately thankful in thirty seconds with the constant threat of an orchestral swell and a commercial break.

That’s a little how I’m feeling about L. L. Barkat’s Thanksgiving Celebration that she’s organized HighCallingBlogs.com and ChristianityToday.com.

I’m not worried L. L. is going to cut me short, but I just can’t decide what to be thankful for! I don’t want to leave anything out. And I don’t want to be glib either. I can’t just throw my hands in the air and dance in a circle on the dry leaves of my backyard and say, “I’m thankful for it all!” Something that vague doesn’t feel thankful enough. And yet, the things I feel I ought to be thankful for aren’t the ones that come to mind.

Jesus and Coffee

Only now, for instance, am I thinking, “Don’t forget Jesus, dude. He saved the world. That’s something to be thankful for.”

Honestly, though, the fresh ground Wildfire Coffee Roasters brewing in the next room is what I’m thankful for right now. Wait a minute…

I stopped writing and just poured a tall mug of coffee. It made that wonderful liquid sound with the rising pitch. And the mug warmed up in my hand. And I didn’t spill a drop. And the smell. And now, that first sip of coffee in the morning. Wow. It’s hot in my mouth. And the coffee is so smooth-that’s what I love about Wildfire Roasters. Deep, rich flavor without the bitter, burntness of Starbucks.

Is it bad for thankfulness to sound like a commercial?

Now I’m thinking, what a bad father and husband I must be. I’ve put Jesus and coffee before my family! And Jesus was more a thankfulness obligation than a real moment of thankfulness. (Sorry, Jesus, I’m trying to be honest here. No relationship works well if we aren’t honest, right?)

Here’s the thing. For me, coffee means rest. It’s a coffee break. It’s almost a mug of Sabbath sitting next to my keyboard.

Now I have to stop and take another sip. So good. So warm. I love it.

Thanksgiving Rest

I took a rest last month leading up to Halloween. I never posted anything about that, though David Rupert of Red Letter Believers asked me what I learned from that time of rest. Here’s what I learned, David: I love to rest. What a wonderful world that has rest built into it!

That’s what I’m thankful for.

Rest, in the form of warm coffee.

Rest, in the form of a new season from Radio Lab.

Rest, in the form of a quiet bike ride to work after lunch.

Rest, in the form of a thanksgiving chain that we’re going to put on our Christmas Tree for “Make Something Day.”

Rest, in the form of my creative kids who danced with me last night and invented the special Thanksgiving dance “The Squanto Hop.”

Rest, in the form of my wife of thirteen years who makes everything right even though she didn’t see us dance “The Squanto Hop” because she was practicing to play a saucy maid in Tartuffe.

Rest, in the form of our supportive church that asked me to write a play for them.

Rest, in the form of these extra minutes before work when the whole world seems asleep and I’m just loving life.

Some of my descriptions of rest seem more like creation and work, I guess. But for me, almost all play is rest. Playdough. Twister. Another viewing of another Iron Chef. When I rest and play, I get to be like a little kid again.

And I’m so thankful for a world that lets middle-aged guys like me be like little kids, full of wonder and joy and playfulness nearly every day.

John Cobb has shared his work at Laity Lodge several times. His work is incredibly powerful. I wanted to play around with Animoto.com and thought I’d return to his work to see what happened. I’ve got ideas on how to tweak the video process quite a bit, but for now, this is a good first draft of a video. (The whole thing took me 30 minutes. Sweet!)

Also, I should give hattips where they are due. I first learned about Animoto from Merrie Destefano, and the French guys at the Global Christian Internet Alliance showed me how to use it well.

That makes the play I wrote about last week sound crazier than it is. But since people were asking about it, I thought I’d upload a copy of the script. Feel free to use it, read it, perform it, trash it, or whatever.

Here it is: God Next Door.

We supposedly recorded it, so I may upload some audio samples later depending on the quality.

“You don’t have a personal relationship with Jesus?” my wife asks.

“How can I!” I say. “I’ve never seen Jesus. I’m not talking about some kind of metaphysical conversion experience. I’m not talking about Jesus in others, least of these kind of stuff.”

“Then what are you talking about?”

It’s not a real conversation. Its staged. Part of a one hour drama I helped write for our church’s Thanksgiving outreach. We’re performing it this Saturday, and we’re in crunch time. Drama people know what I mean. God help me remember my lines. [UPDATE: We remembered our lines. The performance was fun. Here's the script if you're interested.]

Whenever a movie, story, play, or essay takes us to the really dark places, the author runs the danger of leading the audience to despair. Even if you are a despairing person, depressing art isn’t usually good for sales. Oh, make it artsy enough and the critics may adore you. But critics don’t pay the bills.

I’m not trying to pay any bills with our little church drama, but I still don’t want to offer the audience “God Next Door: a story of despair.” Especially because our tagline is “God Next Door: a story of hope.” Gotta keep the truth in advertising, you know?

But I have to admit that I ask some pretty hard questions.

• What does it mean to relate to God? (I have enough trouble relating to my family relations.)

• What role does the institutional church in that process? (Raise your hand if you are a fan of institutions! Anyone?)

• What do we do with the ugly way the church acts sometimes? (There’s a skit where the church and Jesus are getting married. And the church is acting like an insanely rude and disrespectful bride. It’s painful.)

• What do we do with the meaningless church language we sometimes use? (Like that tricky metaphor of having “a personal relationship with Jesus.” Come on, folks. What does that mean exactly?)

• And of course, the really hard question: What would it look like if the Trinity played a game of Monopoly? (The Father has philosophical problems with the Chance cards, but he’s perfectly happy to make Jesus pay $1100 when his iron lands on Park Place with three houses.)

The whole week is beginning to remind me of a book Mike Morrell sent me to look at recently for The Ooze. I’m talking about Dave Zimmerman’s book Deliver Us from Me-Ville. Partly, my mind goes there because Dave starts the book with a funny story about getting conceited over his excellent portrayal of Peter’s humility in a church play.

Taking pride in pretending to be humble. That’s the sort of hypocrisy we Christians excel at.

Dave even laughs it off at one point. “What kind of nuanced nincompoop would have the sheer moxie to write a whole book on self-absorption? … I recognized from the beginning of this process, the absurdity of declaring myself an expert on narcissism…”

I’m no expert, but I enjoy Dave’s blog… and I certainly have my own moments of self-absorption. And I wonder about these personal relationships we talk about. I love having strong personal relationships with folks. Though I can count the deep relationships of my life on one hand.

I’d love to put God there, but I don’t know how. For me a relationship is about listening. I sit with my dad in a coffee shop and we talk about poetry. I talk, he listens. He talks, I listen. We listen to each other.

But my relationship with God always feels like a series of disconnected monologues. God writes the Bible. Two thousand years later I send up some lame prayers from time to time. I know it is more complicated than that–but I learned how to pray in Me-Ville.

Robert Hruzek asked high calling bloggers and middle zone muse-ers to write about what we learned from government.

After a bit of research, I’ve learned that government should not about power but control. There’s a difference. Thankfully, the American government has once again peacefully transferred control from one leader to another. Beginning today a newly reshuffled government is already charting our country’s course for the next four years.

I use a sailing metaphor on purpose. According to my superlative dictionary (the OED), the word “government” comes to us through old French from the Latin guberno. Latin I used to teach Latin, so this sort of thing brings back fond memories of students wearing togas and reciting Caesar.

Guberno means to steer. Steering a Roman ship was no small task, even the small navis lusoria. This video makes it look easy, but as Publius Cyrus said in the first century, “Anyone can steer the ship when the sea is calm.”

According to some of the material I read, early Roman ships didn’t have rudders as we understand them. (They had quarter rudders.) Practically speaking, this meant that the pilot/gubernator was not just sitting at the till. He was shouting commands to the oarsmen to steer through their combined efforts. The gubernator alone had little power to change the ship’s direction. Only when the oarsmen listened to his voice and followed his lead, could the ship reach its destination.

No matter what the weather, a good gubernator would give good instructions and steer the ship well.

An ineffective gubernator was another matter. In calm weather, he might slow things down a bit. In harsh weather, he could lead everyone to a watery grave.

That’s government. The word itself contains a picture of what it means. Good government steers the efforts of a people—directing their spirit and will and strength. The primary source of power lies with the people.
Without our cooperation and support and (dare I say it?) continued engagement, the government has very little power. It can sit and twist its rudder all day long to little effect.

We need people to be engaged in the world—working, listening, acting, and responding to our leaders. Whatever we think of the gubernator, he’s setting the vision. If we don’t listen and respond, we go nowhere.

But if we listen… if we engage… if we take responsibility for our lives and our families and our work and our goals and our hopes and our faith and our future…