EXISTEMI

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

2011-03-17T10:17:00.004-04:00

For one day a year, we're all Irish and embrace the green clover, but lest we forget, let's keep the Patrick in St. Patty's Day (man, does that sound familiar.) In any case, here is St. Patrick's "Breastplate Prayer" to give some substance to our revelry.

I bind unto myself today
The strong Name of the Trinity,
By invocation of the same,
The Three in One and One in Three.

I bind this day to me for ever.
By power of faith, Christ's incarnation;
His baptism in the Jordan river;
His death on Cross for my salvation;
His bursting from the spicèd tomb;
His riding up the heavenly way;
His coming at the day of doom;*
I bind unto myself today.

I bind unto myself the power
Of the great love of the cherubim;
The sweet 'well done' in judgment hour,
The service of the seraphim,
Confessors' faith, Apostles' word,
The Patriarchs' prayers, the Prophets' scrolls,
All good deeds done unto the Lord,
And purity of virgin souls.

I bind unto myself today
The virtues of the starlit heaven,
The glorious sun's life-giving ray,
The whiteness of the moon at even,
The flashing of the lightning free,
The whirling wind's tempestuous shocks,
The stable earth, the deep salt sea,
Around the old eternal rocks.

I bind unto myself today
The power of God to hold and lead,
His eye to watch, His might to stay,
His ear to hearken to my need.
The wisdom of my God to teach,
His hand to guide, His shield to ward,
The word of God to give me speech, H
is heavenly host to be my guard.

Against the demon snares of sin,
The vice that gives temptation force,
The natural lusts that war within,
The hostile men that mar my course;
Or few or many, far or nigh,
In every place and in all hours,
Against their fierce hostility,
I bind to me these holy powers.

Against all Satan's spells and wiles,
Against false words of heresy,
Against the knowledge that defiles,
Against the heart's idolatry,
Against the wizard's evil craft,
Against the death wound and the burning,
The choking wave and the poisoned shaft,
Protect me, Christ, till Thy returning.

Christ be with me, Christ within me,
Christ behind me, Christ before me,
Christ beside me, Christ to win me,
Christ to comfort and restore me.
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ in quiet, Christ in danger,
Christ in hearts of all that love me,
Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.

I bind unto myself the Name,
The strong Name of the Trinity;
By invocation of the same.
The Three in One, and One in Three,
Of Whom all nature hath creation,
Eternal Father, Spirit, Word:
Praise to the Lord of my salvation,
Salvation is of Christ the Lord.

If you want a quick, entertaining taste of Irish monastic history and the origins of Patrick, check out Robert Cahill's How the Irish Saved Civilization. And if you want to listen to some good St. Patty's music, let me recommend The Pogues, The Dubliners, and for my hard rocking amigos some Fogging Molly.

A New Direction (pt. 2) - the cliff notes version

2010-09-29T12:14:00.003-04:00

Let’s play ketchup (catsup?)

Stopped stuffing what God was doing in my heart and got honest with myself and some trusted mentors (finally! ...more on that in an earlier blog entry)

Started a one-year intentional process of discernment to make sense of what God had next for me

Felt God leading in the direction of teaching and mentoring college students as they prepare for ministry

Got accepted at Princeton Theological Seminary for a ThM progam in Historical Theology (woohoo!)

Shared the transition news with our core team at church and started a six month journey of trust, obedience, and flexibility (amazing people, amazing community)

Got a phone call from Rick Rhoads at Lancaster Bible College about the potential of a full-time assistant professor position in the Student Ministry major (unexpected curve ball)

Applied at LBC In-Cognito and really tried to be content with whatever God chose ("tried")

Got hired! (unexpected)

Called Princeton to say I wasn’t coming and they could keep my deposit check (awkward!)

Had the opportunity to interview and invite in an amazing guy to take over in the Sr. High one week after I stepped down! (huge answer to prayer)

Moved in with my in-laws and took a good ribbing from my brother-in-law for it (heheh)

Started working at LBC over the summer, which broke me of my night-owl lifestyle and fit me like a glove (humbled and amazed)

Took my wife to the Baltimore Zoo (meh)

Took the tuition money and instead bought our first house in Mount Joy, PA (on settlement day the first floor toilet stopped working… hilarious! It’s working now)

Wrote this blog entry (finally!)

Tuesday Night Quotes

2010-08-17T18:00:00.000-04:00

Here's some "quotant quotables" for your Tuesday night, compliments of Douglas Coupland. This guy right here. I came across them in some old college notes I've been reviewing as I prep for a class.

///

"When you're young, you always feel that life hasn't yet begun -- that "life" is always scheduled to begin next week, next month, next year, after the holidays -- whenever. But then suddenly you're old and the scheduled life didn't arrive. You find yourself asking, 'Well then, exactly what was it I was having -- that interlude -- the scrambly madness -- all that time I had before?"
— Douglas Coupland (Life After God)

///

"I realized that once people are broken in certain ways they can't ever be fixed, and this is something nobody ever tells you when you are young and it never fails to surprise you as you grow older as you see the people in your life break one by one."
— Douglas Coupland (Life After God)

///

“Now, here is my secret: I tell it to you with an openness of heart that I doubt I shall ever achieve again, so I pray that you are in a quiet room as you hear these words. My secret is that I need God--that I am sick and can no longer make it alone. I need God to help me give, because I no longer seem to be capable of giving; to help me be kind, as I no longer seem capable of kindness; to help me love, as I seem beyond being able to love."
— Douglas Coupland (Life After God)

the know-it-all

2010-08-10T12:29:00.008-04:00

I just finished reading A.J. Jacobs' The Know It All: One Man's Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World. Jacobs sets out to become the smartest man alive by reading cover to cover the 2002 Encyclopædia Britannica - all 32 volumes, all 33,000 pages, all 44 million words - and along the way records his journey. I'll spoil the ending for you... he makes it through Zyweic, a small city in Southern Poland. As for the book, Jacobs mixes in a fascinating blend of trivia, wisdom, humor, and transparency about his struggle to measure up to both a renaissance-genius father and his own lofty childhood belief that he was secretly the smartest kid alive.

What I love about the book is how closely I can identify it. Growing up in a house stocked with both the Encyclopædia Britannica and the World Book Encyclopedia (the less sophisticated cousin), I can remember spending countless hours paging through thick volumes looking at pictures, studying diagrams, reading captions, and chewing on entries that were both completely random and captivating. It was a completely nerd thing to do, but in our house, it felt safe and comforting.

I've always loved learning, discovering new and interesting things, even if they were completely random and impractical. There was something beautiful about connecting disparate stories, events, facts, and figures... to see everything as part of a larger story, a historical wave sweeping us along. Whether we knew it or not, we all somehow contributed to it... from Nebuchadnezzar to Darwin, from an unnamed weaver in 12th century Germany to Hong Xiuquan. I like that.

In one sense, Jacobs gave me permission to geek-out again, or at least embrace the inner geek. But Jacobs also pointed out the dark side of insatiable learning. As he crammed his brain more and more with facts, tidbits, and trivia, it became impossible for him to not leak it out over friends and family in all kinds of awkward and ill-fitting social conversations. He was becoming a know-it-all.

Hereto let it be know, that I, too, can come across as a know-it-all.

I'm sure I've irritated way too many people with what seems like a completely inappropriate or poorly timed interjection of a factoid or historical nugget, but when you live with so many floating around inside your head, I think you get used to them. You don't realize how awkward and embarrassing they are to a *well-adjusted, normal person*. Jacobs got fined a dollar by his wife anytime he let loose with a bit of information that she deemed irrelevant to the conversation at hand. My wife just shakes her head.

And its not that I have to be a know-it-all. It's not that I have to always be the one with the right answer. But I like it when I do. I like it when I can somehow use all this learning, give it some practical application, utilize it in a real-life scenario (I'm still waiting for the time when my knowledge about ergot poisoning and moldy bread will save a life or at least prevent another witch-hunt). And as honest as I can be, there's no hidden agenda for mental superiority... really, I don't mind if you're smarter than me, if you know more than me, if you correct me. I just love learning, and people tend to share what they love.

There should be a support-group for my kind of people. I think it could meet on Tuesday nights at the local community college... something about wikiholics or googlers anonymous. We could practice having coherent conversations that don't interpose theories about 4th century theologians or the fact that female possums have thirteen nipples.

... see?!? why do I even know that?!?

A Formula For Trial

2010-08-04T17:00:00.000-04:00

Andrew Murray's "Formula For Trial"

He brought me here. It's by His will I am in this straight place. In that fact I will rest.
He will keep me here in His love and give me grace to behave as His child.
Then He will make the trial a blessing, teaching me the lessons He intends for me to learn.
In His good time, He will bring me out again - how and when He knows.
So let me say: I am Here by God's appointment. In His Keeping. Under His training. For His time.

Murray's formula was derived from his sermon entitled, "Anchors to Throw Out in a Time of Testing," based on Acts 27:28-29

"²⁸ They took soundings and found that the water was a hundred and twenty feet deep. A short time later they took soundings again and found it was ninety feet deep. ²⁹ Fearing that we would be dashed against the rocks, they dropped four anchors from the stern and prayed for daylight."

Voyage of the Dawn Treader

2010-07-14T20:48:00.003-04:00

so excited for this!

Voyage of the Dawn Treader was by far my favorite of the Narnia series. Incidentally, the cardboard boat I made in Engineering 101 at Cedarville University was named "Dawn Treader", though it wasn't nearly as sea-worthy.

A New Direction (pt. 1)

2010-06-21T12:00:00.001-04:00

I never wanted to be one of those youth pastors that left too soon, that jumped ship when things got tough or something better came along. I didn’t want to be a youth pastor that was all about the numbers and the events. I truly believe in incarnational ministry, ministry driven by relationship, focused on discipleship, and in it for the long haul. That’s what made the first step on this journey so incredibly difficult.

About a year ago, something started stirring in my heart. Deep below the waterline, there was a new dissonance, longing, and confusion that started to bubble up. It was this big swirling something that touched on identity, vocation, vision, and purpose. Think early midlife crisis without the sports car. It would rise up closer to the surface, and I would shove it back down.

Wash, rinse, and repeat.

Then last May, on a Saturday afternoon in the middle of the woods, staring at a fallen log and trying to stay silent enough to actually hear from God, something became crystal clear. It was as if God was saying, “Aaron, if you keep stuffing that down, you’re going to miss what I’m doing in your heart, what I desire to show you.”

And like a ton of bricks it hit me, I wasn’t being honest with myself, with God, or with anyone else for that matter. Whether it was out of a sense of duty or driven by my thoughts on how ministry should happen, I was not being attentive or open to God’s direction.

I didn’t want to be another one of “those guys.” I wanted to do and be what in our best human understanding a youth minister ought to do and be, not some flashy flash in the pan, but a humble, servant-minded, spirit-led, long term investor.

And then God simply said, “Let go and follow me.” Let go of assumptions about strategy, about direction, about timelines. Just listen and respond. Follow me.

And that became the first step in this crazy journey.

On a personal note: I want to apologize for not blogging much in the past few months, or for that matter not blogging at all about this year-long journey, but with some distance and reflection, I think I can start putting words to some parts of it, and I look forward to sharing it with you in the weeks ahead.

To be continued…

10/20/30 Rule

2010-04-30T12:00:00.001-04:00

Great post over on Lifehacker the other day about The 10/20/30 Rule in public speaking. Definitely worth checking out...

Over the past few months, I've had the opportunity to work with a few speakers as they prepared to share with students during our Sunday morning service. They're asked to give a 25-30 minute talk to high school students that is engaging, relevant, and deeply rooted in God's word. It's been a lot of fun to work with speakers as they develop the big ideas, work out a flow of thought, and think through elements of presentation and design. I think one of the best memory tools for people prepping a presentation is this 10/20/30 concept.

The 10/20/30 Rule is a simple and helpful guideline developed by entrepreneur Guy Kawasaki for speakers to use as they prepare presentations for groups. Here it is in a nutshell:

10 - People can appreciate only 10 explanatory notes at best, so keep it simple. If your presentations are bloated with slides, you'll either lose your audience in complexity or redundancy.

20 - You will capture your audience's full attention for about 20 minutes tops. If you can't say it in 20 minutes, you need to rework it. This 20 minute block is your presentation and explanation, not necessarily your hook, setup, or Q&A.

30 - Keep your font at 30 pt. or higher. If you've got to shrink your text below 30 pt. to fit it on your slide, you've got too much text. :)

If you're interested in looking into presentation design a little deeper, here are two great resources to get you started:

"Death By Powerpoint" by Alexei Kapterev is a great summery of bad PowerPoint and offers some practical steps to simplifying through design.

Presentation Zen is a great blog dedicated to the design elements used in visual communication. They've risen presentations to the level of art, and you can't help but look at some of their examples and say, "wow!" It's a tremendous resource for information and inspiration.

And thanks to the U.S. Military, here's one last example of a really bad presentation slide:

Death by PowerPoint

2010-04-29T14:01:00.002-04:00

Death by PowerPoint

View more presentations from www.kapterev.com.

dancing guy leads a movement

2010-04-22T10:22:00.004-04:00

this is too good NOT to share. check out an absolutely amazing moment of viral momentum and leadership. big props to pastor aaron for facebooking it. enjoy!

word clouds and exegesis

2010-04-09T11:29:00.009-04:00

Word Clouds were introduced with the Web 2.0 as a unique and visual way of analyzing the content of a website. It's essentially a visual representation of the most frequently covered topic or words used. It gives you a fresh way of analyzing the major themes of a communication without getting bogged down into the details of thought, based on the assumption that major themes will be talked about the most.

People have used word cloud's to analyze nearly everything, and on occasion it leads to some surprising results. For example:

Obama's Acceptance Speech

The Book of Exodus

The last few posts from EXISTEMI

If you'd like to try making your own Word Cloud, there are two great online services that will do it for you free of charge, with lots of features for tweaking and customizing the look.

TAGXEDO - The latest and most versatile approach to Word Clouding, Tagxedo allows you to analyze a web page, upload a document, or enter in your own text to analyze. It then offers a huge variety of color themes, shapes, and fonts to get the look just right. I used Tagxedo to create the word cloud for Existemi.

WORDLE - The classic word cloud generator, it's been around the longest and is widely used, definitely worth checking out.

Finally, if you're feeling adventurous and/or nerdy, you can research dynamic word clouds that constantly analyze your blog or website, and update the cloud when appropriate. Each word then serves as a link to all of the entries in which that word occurs. But good luck figuring that out, you're on your own!

I'm bringing up the Word Cloud idea today because I think it's an invitation to step out of the box to some degree when it comes to how we read, interpret, and understand the written word. As a good evangelical, I learned the exegetical process of going line by line through a text, looking to see how a thought or argument was developed incrementally/linearly. I learned how to diagram sentences and outline passages.

And then I took Hebrew in college and everything went to pot. Hebrew as a language and as a means of communication is more eastern than western. It's not based in the Greco-Roman philosophies. It's visual, fuzzy, oral, repetitive. It gets sticky for exegesis, and any Rabbi worth his salt would say that's a good thing. :)

Exegesis is an incredible tool, which can produce wonderful, insightful results, but its not a tool for every occasion. It's like a Phillips-head screwdriver or Adobe PhotoShop. What they do, they do great, but they can't do everything. If we're overly dependent on one method of exegesis, we can miss out on something beautiful. Worse still, we can end up somewhere completely outside the intent of the author.

Take a look back at that Word Cloud of Exodus. In about five seconds of looking at the cloud, you can start to get a picture of the overarching themes of the book... you're hit with the centrality of God, and not just any god, the LORD, who for the first time expresses His intimate covenant name to His PEOPLE, and then He uses it all the time with them.

Don't be afraid to step outside of the box (or the text in this case) to take a fresh look at the situation. The big picture, the sideways glance, the squinty eyed, head tilted look and yield fresh and important insights.

God loves the hell out of us

2010-04-06T17:00:00.001-04:00

I don't know if I had heard that somewhere before or what, but for some reason, this weekend during the Easter service, this phrase came to mind and I couldn't shake it.

God loves the hell out of us.

I know its a little racy, but so is the human condition. And it's definitely true! Before I really knew and accepted God's love, I was well on my way to creating my own personal hell. Something that would have continued on for eternity if I had died before experiencing Jesus.

But then, something changed, and in this new, transforming relationship with a God who's love is perfect, infinite, and free, He started to love the hell out of me. The old, dead, twisted identity was being remade and renewed and the image was looking more like Jesus than anything else.

It certainly didn't happen overnight, it's more of a work in progress. But slowly and surely, according to His will and timing, God is loving me out of Hell and into Paradise.

So there's my thought for the day:

God loves the hell out of us.

Now somebody, go put it on a t-shirt.

Where have I been and where am I going?

2010-03-30T18:00:00.009-04:00

As I prepare for Soul Thirst in a few weeks, I've been reading Henri Nouwen's book Spiritual Direction - a great primer and/or reminder of the heart of spiritual formation, written with the profound simplicity that only Nouwen can seem to master. I thought I'd share a quote from the book to wet your appetite, and maybe interest you enough to pick up a copy for yourself. Here goes:

"When I taught academic courses on the spiritual life, I sometimes drew a long straight line from the left edge to the right on the black board, and I'd explain: 'This is our eternal life in God. You belong to God from eternity to eternity. You were loved by God before you were born; you will be loved by God long after you die.'

Then I would mark off a small segment of the line and say: 'This is your human lifetime. It is only a part of your total life in God. You are here for just a short time - for twenty, forty, sixty, or eighty years - to discover and believe that you are a beloved child of God. The length of time doesn't matter. Life is just a short opportunity for you during a few years to say to God: 'I love you, too.'

... Remember: You belong to God from eternity to eternity. You were loved by God before you were born; you will be loved by God long after you die. Your human lifetime - long or short - is only a part of your total life in God. The length of time doesn't matter. Life is just a little opportunity for you during a few years to say to God: 'I love you, too.'"

<------------------------------ --- --------------------------------------------------------->

Short Term Missions

2010-03-23T15:25:00.007-04:00

I had a great time last night speaking to a class over at LBC on the topic of rethinking short term missions. The class has spent the semester wrestling with the big picture of the church’s responsibility both globally and locally. What should it look like for us to make an impact both here and over there as we seek to live out God’s Kingdom mission? I really had a fun time dialoguing with them and bouncing around some ideas about how all of this should affect our perspective on cross-cultural missions and mission’s trips.

I’d be the first to admit that I am no expert on either, but I’ve been truly blessed to be a part of church that is doing some things right on the missions front, and as I’ve served at Living Word, I know my own understanding has been stretched, challenge, and changed.

Here are just a few highlights from the talk:

Short-Term Wins and Losses
We define a short-term missions trip as a win when a student walks away…

And their American cultural assumptions have been challenged, they’ve tasted the blessing of humility and service, seen their unique gifts, talents, and experience being used for God’s work, developed a deeper appreciation for the diversity and creativity of the global church, invested deeply in relationships, and been a real and lasting blessing to the local church.

That last one: “a real and lasting blessing to the local church” is so huge because many times it’s the one we give the least thought to after a trip. How did the local church feel as we got on the plane? How are we maintaining communication, relationships, and support?

Did we go on a two-week Christian cruise hosted by some friendly native Christians or did we invest in on-going partnerships that will continue the work of God’s Kingdom?

On the home front, we can do a disservice to our teens if we fail to integrate cross-cultural missions with missions here at home. If they walk way with subtle messages like “God really works overseas” or “If I’m going to be really used by God, I should become a missionary”, it points to a disconnect between what they experienced spiritually in a foreign country and their real life experiences at home.

God does not call everyone to overseas missions, but He calls all of us to live missionally.

Holistic Missions – Short-Term Trips as one piece of the puzzle
Holistic Missions involves the idea of going beyond merely sending monthly checks to a professional missionary and then inviting them back every few years for a slideshow/fiscal accountability report. It goes beyond a set trip with a set team for a set period of time. It’s how our church as a whole partners with what God’s doing around the world with all that we are (both our hearts, minds, bodies, and souls, but also our money, time, resources, and relationships).

Four important thoughts for how Short-Term trips fit into a larger mission’s philosophy:

We need to commit to on-going, long term investments. Where are we as a church already connected and investing? Are we taking an active role in partnering with nationals or are we leaving that to a middle-man? Before I add a brand new trip to our ministry program, how is it fitting with what we’ve already committed to?

We need to prioritize relationships. On the ground during a trip are we integrated with the local church or are we isolated and doing our own thing? Do our goals/projects for the trip segregate us or draw us into deeper relationships with nationals? Are we listening more than we’re talking? Are we learning more than we’re judging? How can the relationships that we form carry beyond the trip itself? How can we utilize technologies like Skype, Facebook, and email to have an ongoing active presence?

We need to be stewards of our unique abilities and resources. What can we come and do that no one else can do? What experience, training, resources can we offer that would be a unique benefit to the local church? What roles could doctors, nurses, CPA’s, entrepreneurs, photographers, artists, and storytellers have on our team that no one else could do? Do we have connections and networking opportunities to make things happen (like shipping thousands of donated books for a new library, writing grant requests, or mobilizing donations of medicine and surgical equipment)?

It makes no sense for us to send a team of teens to a foreign country to paint fences and hang posters at a cost of $15,000 when we could raise half the amount and enable the local ministry to hire locals to do the same work, provide needed income, and make a longer term investment in the lives of people in their community. But if our group of teens could go and through their gifts in art, drama, music, sports, etc. open doors into the community that were otherwise closed to the local church, the trip would be more than worth it.

We need to embrace intergenerational opportunities. There’s a time and place for youth missions trips, but there’s also a significant value in teens experiencing cross-cultural ministry as part of a team that reflects the larger church. To have adopted aunts and uncles, grandmas, and cousins on the trip can be invaluable as they process what God is revealing both around them and in them as they serve. Encouraging teens to move beyond the boundaries of youth ministry while they are still fully involved can only help them in their post-high school transition into the larger church.

$pending Free Time
This one came from Rob, but it’s a great one and definitely worth considering. It’s a great idea to provide a “free day” sometime during the course of your short term mission’s trip. It provides a needed break, a chance to rest, unwind, and recover. However, a lot of times it devolves into nothing but a shopping spree and souvenir hunt. Americans are already too materialistic. We know it, and that’s a major reason why we want our teens to see real poverty around the world. So why do we spend our free time doing the very thing we’re trying to avoid? Why is our default position to spend our free time spending money?

I’m not saying there isn’t a time and place for doing a little shopping and bartering, but don’t let it take up your whole “free day.” Instead of spending the whole day hopping from market to market and mall to mall, set a clear limit with your team. Explore other opportunities for your team to enjoy the local culture and customs – a park, a museum, a historical landmark, an overlook of the city, etc.

On a practical level, it sends a healthier message to the locals that you’re working with. “We care more about what makes you uniquely you than we do about getting stuff to take home with us.”

Last Thoughts
I know I painted with a pretty broad brush with a number of those thoughts. It may not always be a perfect fit for every church context, but they are thoughts worth chewing on and thinking about.

What's excited me about missions at Living Word is that these big ideas have been thought through, decisions have been made, and there's incredible momentum and fruit moving forward as active, lasting relationships are being forged all around the world. From Southern India and Ethiopia to Romania and Chile, God's allowed us to be a part of some incredible things because Living Word's leadership has been willing to think outside of the traditional, Evangelical missions box.

Second Glance

2010-03-16T22:23:00.005-04:00

here's an oldie, but a goodie...

it's taken from the 1992 movie "Second Glance" starring David A.R. White and I remember watching it way back in the day in youth group... it spawned one of the top three taglines for the youth group at calvary bible church so many years ago... "JESUS, MAN!" accompanied by a dramatic fist pump.

if you're really curious about the movie, send me a message, I actually tracked it down not too long ago and burned it to DVD... you know, to preserve for future generations.

FYI, in case you were wondering about those three taglines, they were:

"Jesus, man!" from Second Glance
"It's all good, hollywood!" from an old Samuel L. Jackson's MTV promo... incidentally channel 49, the local Christian television station in our area has since adopted this as their channel tagline. I haven't heard if they got it from Samuel L. Jackson, too.
Something to the effect of... "Ben! Get off the roof!"

Dusting off a Spiritual Classic

2010-02-25T10:14:00.005-05:00

Athanasius, On the Incarnation of the Word, Section 13

"What was God to do in the face of the dehumanizing of mankind? The less human they acted, the less they knew Him. So burdened were men with their wickedness that they seemed more like brute beasts than reasonable men… What else could God possibly do but renew His Image in mankind, so that through that true Image, men might once more come to know Him?

And how could this be done except by the coming of the very Image Himself, our Savior Jesus Christ? … The Savior of us all, the Word of God, in His great love took to Himself a body and moved as Man among men, engaging their senses, so that those who were seeking God in sensible things might really see the Father through the very Word of God's word to them.

Human and human-minded as men were, wherever they looked in the sensible world, they found themselves taught the truth.

Were they awe-stricken by creation? They found creation confessing Christ as Lord.

Did their minds tend to regard men as gods? Then the uniqueness of the Savior’s works marked Him unique among all men as the one true Son of God.

Were they drawn to evil spirits? They saw those demons driven out by the Lord, and learned that the Word of God alone was God and that the evil spirits were not Gods at all.

Were they inclined to hero-worship and the cult of the dead? Then the fact that the Savior had risen from the dead showed them how false these other deities were, and that the Word of the Father is the one true Lord, the Lord even of death.

This is the reason He was born and manifested as Man, for this He died and rose, in order that, by His works all other human deeds are eclipsed; that He might recall man from all the paths of error; and that He might cause them to know the Father.

As he says Himself, 'I came to seek and to save that which was lost.'"

Hell by N.T. Wright

2010-01-28T13:51:00.004-05:00

Here's an interesting clip of N.T. Wright talking about his understanding of Hell. I appreciate some of the points that he makes. In particular, he does a good job of highlighting how Western Christianity (Roman Catholicism and Protestantism) were heavily influenced in the middle ages by what may be an incorrect understanding of heaven and hell (e.g., Faust's Red Devil with a pitchfork roasting you over a spit, etc.).

It's a point that we don't talk about too much, but if we take Rev. 21-22 seriously, then we won't spend eternity in Heaven, but here on a recreated Earth, an Earth much more similar to Eden than to some fluffy clouds and golden mansions in the sky.

On the flip side, I appreciate how he talks about Hell. It's not where we go to get tormented by demons (remember, demons will be tormented worst of all, without much time or ability to take pleasure in the pain of others). Instead, hell is filled with people who by rejecting God are becoming less and less human as that divine spark and image fades and distorts. Eventually, they're left alone with themselves for eternity (which reminds me of C.S. Lewis' description from The Great Divorce). Billions of isolated houses moving further and further away from each other because they can't stand to be around anyone.

So you don't have God (or Peter) standing at the gates of Heaven consulting a book before granting you admission or pulling a level, which causes you to fall through a trap door into damnation. Instead, you have an eternal continuing of the journey you started on Earth... either in a life-giving journey towards greater intimacy with God Almighty or in a hopeless trudging away from Him as you continue to seek your own way.

Why Lent? 2010

2010-01-20T08:00:00.007-05:00

So the season of Lent is not too far off, starting February 17th and lasting 46 days until Saturday, the 3rd of April. (FYI, in Western Christianity Lent begins on Ash Wednesday and concludes on Holy Saturday. The six Sundays in Lent are not counted among the forty days of lent because each Sunday represents a "mini-Easter", a celebration of Jesus' victory over sin and death.)

As we begin to prepare for Lent, I know many of us jump immediately to the question, "What should I give up for Lent this year?" We start thinking about all of our guilty pleasures and wondering which we could really go without for forty days. We might start out pretty ambitious ("I'm going to give up makeup, credit cards, trans fats, and crack cocaine"), but eventually we get sensible and moderate our fast to something more manageable ("okay, I've never really tried it, but I'm pretty sure I won't do cocaine in the next 40 days").

Problem is... God isn't some curmudgeon up in Heaven looking to see how much we're willing to suffer to prove our love for Him, nor is He a cranky Savior, looking for us to beat ourselves up as an expression of our gratitude for Him letting Himself be beat up for us. That's not God.

So why lent?

That's a good question, and one we're starting to think about as a church staff. Gordon pointed me in the direction of a great article by Ruth Haley Barton entitled "Lent: An Invitation to Return to God." She makes a great point by saying we shouldn't be asking "What are you giving up for Lent?" as much as asking "How will I find ways to return to God with all my heart?" I think that question gets to the heart and focus of the Lenten season.

Its about returning to the Lord with our whole being - recognizing the million ways in which we can get distracted or drawn away... and then purposefully releasing those things as we seek God in a season of spiritual intentionality.

She sees it as a fourfold movement starting with repentence - a radical honesty about our messiness; about the condition of our heart and identity. I'm going to be really honest with myself, which if I'm honest, I rarely am.

It continues by clearing away the distractions that keep us from truly experiencing God, all those little things that help us avoid spiritual reality. Ruth uses the language of "external trappings and internal compulsions" that allow us to live in a false sense of ourselves and God's presence. It might be television, it might be exercise, it might be being productive or social. The bottom line is its those things that keep us from being honest, open, and present to God and His will in our lives.

Its at this second step that I think we get caught up on "giving up" something for Lent. We assume the point is simply giving something up. We focus on the loss and the struggle of that loss. In reality its not about loss but about "focusing in." Its not that I give up something difficult, but rather that I give up something which draws me away from God so that I can enter into a deeper relationship with Him.

She writes, "The disciplines of fasting and other kinds of abstinence helps us to face the hold our sin patterns have on us and to somehow let go of these lesser satisfactions so we can recieve the deeper and more lasting gifts of the Spirit."

This year as you start thinking about Lent, take some time to honestly reflect on how you may have drifted away from God recently. Use this time as a way of identify those things that distract you from God's presence, and commit to a plan of intentionally removing them so that you can focus more fully on being present to God during Lent. Instead of looking for something to give up, look for your way back "to the one we longe and long for the most."

Some good pre-Lent questions:

Where am I really at with God these days? In what areas of my heart have I drifted from a continual awareness of His presence? How did it happen?
What things are the most distracting for me as I think about coming to God? (Habits, Attitudes, Thoughts, Fears, Expectations, Assumptions, etc.)
What are some habits or practices that I can use to return to God with all my heart?

If you would like to read the article I've referenced in this post, clich here: Ruth Haley Barton "Lent: An Invitation to Return to God"

God and Reality

2010-01-19T08:00:00.000-05:00

Here's a thought I've been chewing on:

"When we leave reality for a mental creation of our own doing (hidden assumptions)... we create a counterfeit world. When we do this... we exclude God from our lives because God does not exist outside of reality and truth." (Peter Scazzero, Emotionally Healthy Spirituality, pg. 189)

When I falsely project myself for others' love, acceptance, or approval... When I make assumptions about someone who has hurt me... When I bend the truth in a situation or conversation to protect or promote myself... I am creating a counterfeit world, a subtle knock-off, an imitation of reality... and even if it only seems infinitesimally different, it's not real.

Consequently God is nowhere to be found, because God only dwells in reality and truth. God can only be truly experienced in reality and truth.

That thought seems terribly lonely.

I may still have an experience of god in my counterfeit world, but what god? whose god? which version of god? That god is limited to my new false reality, made in my own image... whether a horrific, monsterous distortion or a deceptively subtle sham.

God in His limitless grace may break through my illusion to pull me back into reality, but then again, He may not. He may allow us to remain in the illusion of our choosing, this false reality that we've come to accept as our own little world.

And if God does break through to pull me back; it will not be gentle. It will be stripping and breaking down to the core. That wounded core that chose to hide in the first place, that saw its nakedness and was ashamed. But that's the person God desires to have a relationship with, to let His transforming love begin to heal and breathe new life into.

If I am content to live out a false-self with others in distorted relationships, I will never experience God for who He truly is. If, however, we are willing to be undone, opened up, and humbled... as frightening as it might be to face the truth (I mean the real, honest to God truth)... we may experiance God for real for the very first time.

unexpected

2010-01-18T16:58:00.004-05:00

just a little something for your monday afternoon...

five life lessons

2010-01-12T11:28:00.010-05:00

I've been slowly working my way through Peter Scazzero's book Emotionally Healthy Spirituality. Rick Rhoads over at LBC is having the mentoring shepherds of Project Renovation walk through it this school year, and its been an incredibly fruitful book to discuss with some great men. In it, Scazzero references a 2004 book by Father Richard Rohr entitled Adam's Return: The Five Promises of Male Initiation, in which Rohr reflects on his travels around the world observing various cultures' processes through which boys are recognized as becoming men. He comes up with five core truthes that all men (and I'd argue women, too) must embrace before they are able to grow-up into their God-given identity and spirituality. Here are his five:

Life is hard.
You are not that important.
Your life is not about you.
You are not in control.
You are going to die.

I found Rohr's list incredibly helpful. It may strike as a bit morbid, but I think that's a good thing. Many of the spiritual classics argue that embracing our finiteness is essential to true and lasting transformation. I didn't want to simply mark off Rohr's list with my highlighter and then move on to the next juicy quote, but rather really take some time to mull it over... create space and time for God to use it in my life, so I decided to make the list more visible in my day to day world... at least for a few weeks. So here's my new desktop wallpaper at work, just something to help me stay focused and reflective. If you click here, you can see it as a larger version and then save it to use on your own desktop.

The other question I thought I'd leave us with is this: what would you add to Rohr's list? What other essential core-truthes are necessary for us to embrace before we truly grow into our indentity and spirituality? Feel free to leave a comment with your suggestions.

taming the wild heart

2009-12-01T18:00:00.001-05:00

I just got turned on to a book by Kenneth Boa entitled Conformed to His Image: Biblical and Practical Approaches to Spiritual Formation. It looks like an amazing read, quite thorough in its approach to addressing sanctification and spiritual growth from every facet – Biblical, theological, historical, etc.

As I was paging through it, I cam across a fascinating story that Ken relates at the beginning of chapter fourteen – “devotional spirituality: the contemplative way” and I just wanted to share it with you because I think it’s an excellent analogy for the heart of contemplative spirituality and its approach to God. Here’s what he writes:

In The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery, there is an enchanting story in which a fox asks the little prince to tame him. The fox says, “To me, you are still nothing more than a little boy who is just like a hundred thousand other boys. And I have no need of you. And you, on your part, have no need of me. To you, I am nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world…”

After a brief dialogue the fox goes on to say, “My life is very monotonous. I hunt chickens; men hunt me. All the chickens are just alike, and all the men are just alike. And, in consequence, I am a little bored. But if you tame me, it will be as if the sun came to shine on my life. I shall know the sound of a step that will be different from all others. Other steps send me hurrying back beneath the ground. Yours will call me, like music, out of my burrow.”

The little prince went on to tame to fox by observing the proper rites, and when the hour of the little prince’s departure drew near, the fox gave him the present of a threefold secret. The first part of this secret is that “it is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”

This secret is the essence of the contemplative way. We must invite God to “tame” us so that we will learn the freedom of obedience to Christ and find our identity in his pleasure.

What strikes me deeply from that excerpt is the longing of the fox. He is lost in the banality of his life – one among thousands, nothing new, nothing different. As he says, “I am a little bored.” How true that rings for so many people today, either burned out and disenchanted, or endlessly searching for that new thing.

But in a profound moment of clarity, the fox speaks for all of us… “To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world.” Can we even imagine having that kind of relationship with God? And the effect of entering into that relationship, that taming? “…As if the sun came to shine on my life… God’s very presence will call to us like music.”

Its an absolutely beautiful picture of the potential for our relationship with God, an invitation to tame the wild and lonely, and enter into sweet intimacy and light.

who is man?

2009-11-16T15:28:00.003-05:00

I remember a few months ago thinking a lot about the spirituality of advertising. Not so much how its evil and promotes greed and envy and what not, but rather, how advertisers use the spiritual to connect with us (and ultimately to connect us with their product).

Whether its the starbucks evangelist spreading the good news of the starbucks third-place experience or Nike's "Witness" campaign staring the miraculous feats of Lebron James, advertisers know that deep down, we resonate, we feel longing, we hunger for something significant, something mystical, something beautiful and right.

It speaks to our nature, our wiring, that juxtaposed mixture of dignity and depravity within. I came across another advertising video that does a powerful job of doing just that. It's an ad for a High-Def Television, but it evokes our wonder at nature and the infinite. Just watch this video and see what it stirs in your own heart, you'll see what I'm talking about.

"When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
what is man that you are mindful of him,
the son of man that you care for him?"
- Psalm 8:3-4

"Who else has held the oceans in his hand?
Who has measured off the heavens with his fingers?
Who else knows the weight of the earth
or has weighed the mountains and hills on a scale?
Who is able to advise the Spirit of the LORD?
Who knows enough to give him advice or teach him?
Has the LORD ever needed anyone's advice?
Does he need instruction about what is good?
Did someone teach him what is right
or show him the path of justice?
No, for all the nations of the world are but a drop in the bucket.
They are nothing more than dust on the scales.
He picks up the whole earth as though it were a grain of sand."
- Isaiah 40:12-15

props for my peeps

2009-11-02T15:35:00.007-05:00

hey everyone,

sorry for the drought of posts lately. life's gotten busy, and I've gotten quiet, which isn't always a bad thing. But nonetheless, I haven't had much to contribute to the great conversation of our lives or much to share from deep, soulful reflection.

but I do have some props for my peeps!

props to Tristan Mason, my brofriend and Pastor of Music Ministries at Christ Community Church in Plainfield, IL, who had an awesome post today reflecting on the struggle to live out honesty and spiritual health while doing church work. Check out his post, "the desert of the oasis" over at Radiate. He's got an awesome Rob Bell clip reflecting on the need to break out of our workaholism as ministers of the gospel, but since you're more likely to hit play than click away to yet another blog... here's the clip:

props to Brian Rice of LCI fame for a new blog called "Evangelicals on the Ignatian Way" that seeks to offer a primer on Ignatian spirituality to evangelicals interested in contemplative practices and spiritual growth. I'd have opportunities to learn about Fransician and Benedictine practices over the years, but Ignatius and his order were largely unknown to me until I started hanging out with Brian. He's got a passion for healthy, life-long leadership that's grounded in a well-developed personal spirituality. It's exciting to see him help "translate" catholic spirituality for an evangelical audience. He's just started so you can go back to the first post without feeling overwhelmed. I'd definitely recommend it to anyone interested in spiritual formation.

props to Junior Jamreonvit for a recent post he wrote entitled "Year Two without Mom." Its definitely a tear jerker, but well worth the read. Junior's been a great friend of mine since our college days back at Biola, and I remember with fond affection his mom Penny. She was an amazing woman, incredibly generous and loving... I mean, beyond reason. She deeply loved her kids and her Savior, just an awesome woman of God. She was taken suddenly by a stroke, and I know the past few years have been hard for Junior, but to hear him share so honestly and lovingly about his mom is just amazing. Its a testimony to changed lives, to the beauty of Jesus, and the power of love.

three awesome guys in my life that I'd definitely recommend taking the time to read. that's it for now.

lifetime leadership lessons

2009-10-10T00:43:00.006-04:00

Catalyst 09 is currently underway, and the Catalyst leadership has given Pastor Chuck Swindoll a lifetime achievement award for his enduring legacy in church leadership. As part of his acceptance, he spoke on "10 Things I Have Learned During Nearly 50 Years in Leadership." Its an incredible list and a great reminder to anyone involved in influencing others for the sake of God's Kingdom. Check it out:

It’s lonely to lead. Leadership involves tough decisions. The tougher the decision, the lonelier it is.
It’s dangerous to succeed. I’m most concerned for those who aren’t even 30 and are very gifted and successful. Sometimes God uses someone right out of youth, but usually he uses leaders who have been crushed
It’s hardest at home. No one ever told me this in Seminary.
It’s essential to be real. If there’s one realm where phoniness is common, it’s among leaders. Stay real.
It’s painful to obey. The Lord will direct you to do some things that won’t be your choice. Invariably you will give up what you want to do for the cross.
Brokenness and failure are necessary.
Attititude is more important than actions. Your family may not have told you: some of you are hard to be around. A bad attitude overshadows good actions.
Integrity eclipse image. Today we highlight image. But it’s what you’re doing behind the scenes.
God's way is better than my way.
Christlikeness begins and ends with humility.

Is there a particular lessons that stands out to you? I think #6 and #10 deeply resonate for me. Can you think of another lesson that you'd add to his list? Take some time to prayerfully examine your own motives for service and ministry as you read through his list. Good stuff.

knowing when to say, "when"

2009-10-07T11:54:00.005-04:00

Earlier today I had a planning meeting for an upcoming all-staff meeting. We’ve been gearing up this fall to really sit with and examine core elements of our staff covenant, and I was asked to be a part of the planning for an all-staff centered on the issue of integrity.

This morning I had nothing. Coming off a youth group all-nighter, I’ve been dragging a bit this week and didn’t feel like I had much creativity or insight to contribute this morning to the planning meeting. As I walked into Pastor Aaron’s office where the meeting was to be held, he got up from his desk chair and while walking around the desk to greet me said, “I don’t feel like I’ve got much to contribute this morning, let’s just take some time to pray.”

In the moment, more than anything, I think I was pleasantly taken aback by his honesty and straight forwardness. We had a sweet time in prayer, simply affirming our need for God’s presence and direction, and that was it. Meeting over.

As I walked back over to my side of the church, I started mulling over what had just happened and it’s led me to a few thoughts.

It just felt incredibly right to start a new project with a time of focused, intentional prayer. Nothing else – no strategizing, brainstorming, researching – just prayer. Taking time to recognize our actual state, completely dependent on God, the one who loves us and the one who has called us to serve. All too often, We jump into doing God’s work without really taking time to discern His direction.
In that moment, Pastor Aaron demonstrated a refreshing integrity by being willing to admit he wasn’t able to give the meeting the focus it required. Most of us (me included) would try to power-up and push through, attempt to give some effort, even if it wasn’t our best, and fulfill the expectations that we’ve put on ourselves. There’s a vulnerability and honesty close to the heart of Jesus when we say, “I can’t do this now. Let’s sit with the Father for awhile.”

(Incidentally, I’m sure Pastor Aaron had his own internal struggle with admitting that to me. Would he be judged weak or irresponsible for not fulfilling the initial plan? Etc.)

And now for a few reflective questions:

What things going on inside of me, make it easy or difficult to admit weakness and express vulnerability with co-workers?
What institutional values or strategies make it easy or difficult to admit weakness and express vulnerability?
In the moment, how aware am I of my own internal condition and how it affects my work and service?
What actions, practices, and disciplines can we embrace to become more aware of our internal situation in the moment?

the decade's 100 worst films

2009-09-25T10:56:00.003-04:00

rotten tomatoes has just released their "worst of the worst", top 100 worst movies of the last ten years. It's definitely worth a guilt peak to see which of your favorites made their list-o-shame. I was pleasantly surprised to realize that I've only had to suffer through four of top 100 (and no, I won't tell you which four).

Check it out at rotten tomatoes

#1 Ballistic: Ecks vs Sever - voted worst movie of the past ten years proves that even two good actors like Antonio Banderas and Lucy Lui can craft a monumental failure if they try hard enough.

God is not a man

2009-09-23T11:50:00.005-04:00

props to Jason Mitchell for this one, great song from the Michael Gungor Band. I remember sitting in an undergrad theology class with Dr. David Horner at BIOLA one day when he said, "There's simplicty, and then there's complexity, and then there's simplicity again on the other side." Beautiful, Fitting, Awe-Inspiring Simplicity. I think this video brings a little of all three. Plus, it gets stuck in your head!

Million Miles Tour (and widget)

2009-09-10T16:16:00.004-04:00

Hey Everyone,

Really excited about this one. Don Miller's new book entitled A Million Miles in a Thousand Years is coming out soon and he's getting ready to do a book tour, which just so happens to be swinging by Living Word on October 23rd!!! It's a friday night in autumn with Donald Miller, doesn't that just sound great? Anyway, you can read a quick review of his new book over on the Hearts and Minds Blog AND you can order tickets for Don Miller @ LW by clicking on the widget at the top of my blog. I'll keep it up there until the night of the event or until it sells out in case you want to spread the word.

FYI, Hearts and Minds in Dallastown is offering a sweet deal on the new book, pre-order it now and get it for $5 bucks off (only $14.99), plus for an additional $5, Byron will throw in a copy of Blue Like Jazz. That's a good deal, that's even a better deal than Sham-Wow.

way too funny!

2009-09-03T11:51:00.000-04:00

this has to be the greastest thing since that "I like Big Bibles" video

happy birthday existemi!

2009-08-26T09:13:00.007-04:00

I just realized that existemi turned a year old yesterday... happy birthday existemi! now go get a job and find your own place to live! :)

here's a birthday present that I'm borrowing from some friends Jake and Heidi, enjoy! (hint: the drummer boy is a Christ-figure)

Sigur Rós - Glósóli from sigur-ros.co.uk on Vimeo.

how to catch crabs and humans

2009-08-25T11:42:00.011-04:00

My wife Megan and I just got back from several days on the Jersey Shore at her Grandmother’s house in Point Pleasant, NJ. One of the great family vacation traditions there is crab fishing in the Manasquan River. I remember being introduced to it back in college and hardly believing my eyes when I saw how it worked. We had the chance to do it again on Monday and it still causes me to marvel.

If you’ve never been crab fishing before, you might envision something from the Deadliest Catch, where grizzled, half-frozen Alaskan fishermen stare into the face of death itself - gale force winds, 60 foot swells, man-eating humpback whales... all in the pursuit of tons and tons of gi-normous Alaskan King Crabs and BIG money. Yeah, crab fishing in the Manasquan River isn’t like that. (And yes, I know that humpback whales don't eat humans... for now, anyway.)

Here’s how it works on the river. You take some frozen bunker fish – a nasty, smelly, oily garbage fish – and cut it into thirds (head, guts, tail). To that chunk of bunker, you tie a string that’s long enough to dangle over the edge of the boat and onto the riverbed. That nasty, oily bunker starts to leak all of its smelly goodness out into the water and in no time flat... along comes the blue crabs. To them, it’s an all-you-can eat Fillet Mignon buffet, and they greedily pounce on the bait and start eating to their hearts’ content.

Now here’s the thing, the trick, the catch. If you slowly and gently lift the line, you’ll feel them picking off fish bits with their claws. If you slowly and gently lift the line some more, those greedy crabs will latch on with one claw and keep eating with the other. Lift that line out of the water, and there you see it… the crab hanging on for dear life with one claw and using the other claw to stuff its mouth like there’s no tomorrow. Slide a net under the crab, give the line a little shake to knock him off, and you’ve just caught yourself a crab.

If you find the right spot on the river, you can literally do this all day long. Crab after greedy crab... completely unaware of what’s happening around them - yanked out of their homes on the riverbed, dangling in the air, encircled by a net, without a clue to what’s going on.

Watching it first hand, you marvel at these crabs, so focused on the bait that they’re completely unaware of their real situation. Right in front of them is this big juicy bunker, and their eyes are completely fixed on it. If they’d stop for even a moment and look around, they’d realize that something wasn’t right. Even after their pulled out of the river, as they’re literally hanging in the air, they remain totally consumed with this thing that they desire. As a fisherman, you’re banking on their greed and appetite to catch them.

There's a moral lesson in all of that somewhere. We're not too different from those hungry crabs. I'm reminded of an old quote by Friedrich Nietzsche: "For every man there exists a bait which he cannot resist swallowing."

How easy it is for us to get so fixated on "that one thing" (whatever it may be) that we lose sight of nearly everything else around us. We lose sight of what we're giving up, what we're neglecting, what we're losing, and what's slipping away all around us... just for another bit of "that one thing." We're oblivious to the pulls and pressures being placed on us as we hang out for fear of losing it.

It strikes me that such a singular focus might not be bad if "that one thing" is the right thing, the preeminent thing, but too often its just some stinky bunker fish that in the moment, we find delicious.

Nothing too profound, just another reminder from nature.

Grace on the Grid Iron

2009-08-17T16:39:00.007-04:00

(or how Michael Vick’s signing can shine light on our prejudice)

It’s the beginning of football season here in the states, which means in a few short months, the days will start to get shorter, the air will start to get crisper, and the leaves will explode into the thousand vibrant colors of fall – how can you not love it?

As an eternally frustrated but unapologetic Eagles fan, life got “interesting” last Thursday night. In the middle of a preseason game verses the beloved New England Patriots (champions of Superbowl 39**), the word was leaked that the Philadelphia Eagles had signed former Atlanta Falcon Michael Vick to a two year contract.

(** the Patriots get two asterisks because they probably cheated in that Superbowl by stealing the Eagles defensive plays; something that they were caught doing that same season only after the championship was played. But I’m not bitter or anything.)

Now unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know that in 2007 Michael Vick pled guilty to "Conspiracy to Travel in Interstate Commerce in Aid of Unlawful Activities and to Sponsor a Dog in an Animal Fighting Venture.” Bottom line: He was directly responsible for funding, organizing, and promoting dog fighting, which involves the terrible and horrific abuse of animals. As part of his agreement with state and federal authorities, Vick would serve a 23 month sentence in Federal Prison for his crimes. He entered a plea agreement instead of facing trial and served a shortened sentence because of good behavior, but in the eyes of the law, there’s nothing left to hold against him. Michael Vick is a free man.

As the time of his release drew nearer, every football commentary on this green planet licked their chops as they speculated and profundicated as to which team would be crazy enough to sign the disgraced QB. Wherever he landed, he was sure to bring controversy, distraction, and the wrath of animal rights groups like PETA, who at one point in a official press release had speculated that Michael Vick was possibly a psychopath and recommended that the NFL scan his brain before reinstating him.

And sure enough, the moment the news got out in Philly, people went nuts…Some people loved the surprise move, but others were genuinely horrified that Vick was given another chance to play in the NFL. One Philadelphia said, “"I am … shocked and dismayed by this clandestine signing of a criminal to the local franchise.”

And that language got me thinking... is Vick still a criminal? It seems that most people believe either “he’s served his time and is free to do whatever” or “he’s still guilty of doing something horrible and thing’s will never be the same.” Is he genuinely remorseful? Is he rehabilitated? Is he transformed and renewed? I’d love to know the answer to those questions, but I honestly have no idea. I hope that he truly has experienced brokenness, contrition, and sought forgiveness for his actions. It’d make it a lot easier to support him now.

But nevertheless, I’m still brought back to the question of “what now?” Do we hold a scarlet letter to Michael Vick’s chest or do we give him an opportunity to start over. After someone’s done the time for their crimes, how should we view them? Are they a blank slate? Are they fully restored? Are they still somehow perpetually tainted?

It reminds me of that conflict raised in Victor Hugo’s classic novel Les Miserables. The ex-convict Jean Valjean struggles to move forward with his life after serving a sentence for stealing bread. He’s haunted by the obsessive inspector Javert who is convinced that “once a criminal, ALWAYS a criminal.” In Hugo’s story, we’re led to root for Valjean; we know he’s redeemed; we feel his pure heart; we see his compassion.

But with Vick it’s not so easy… he might not be a hero in this story. Who really knows?

And that’s when our excuses, speculations, and assumptions can keep us from expressing genuine forgiveness, from offering real grace. What’s our prepossession? Our default posture? Are we like Javert convinced that Vick’s simply a bad seed to be avoided or are we like Myriel, the compassionate country priest who’s willing to see more in Vick than what he’s done in the past?

It’s a subtle thing in each of us – our presumptions and prejudice, but something that we should all take time to quietly examine and honestly evaluate when current events like Vick’s signing provide us the opportunity.

I'm not saying that I know the right response in this situation. But I do know that we should be quicker to examine our own attitudes and assumptions than shoot off our emotional knee-jerk reactions.

Let me end with this: I was deeply encouraged by the word of Donovan McNabb, the Eagles starting quarterback, who in a recent interview said:

“I believe in second chances and I have strong faith in God that he forgives our sins. Yes, it was a bad thing and a malicious act, but somewhere in your heart, you have to have forgiveness.”

Can't say it much better than that.

chile - brief update

2009-07-30T11:47:00.001-04:00

Just back from Chile with a team of amazing students and leaders. We were down there serving for eleven days with an amazing church called Los Heroes in Maipu, a suburb of Santiago. While we were there we had a chance to serve at an inner-city outreach program to youth and worship with some also Chilean Christ-followers on Saturday nights at culto.com and on Sunday mornings with the congregation.

There’s way more to say than can be said in one post, but I thought I’d share an awesome worship song that we learned on our last Sunday there. Check it out:

“Eres TodoPoderoso” (“You are the Almighty”)

You’re the reason for my praise my Jesus
My reason for living is you oh Lord
You’re my light and my salvation
My only love is you, for you are my God
And forever I will worship you oh King

You are the Almighty
You are Great and all wonderful
Invincible and all powerful
And there’s no one else like you

which got me thinking

2009-07-15T09:31:00.008-04:00

The other day Megan called me on my way home from work and asked if I could pick up some Terro ant traps. Evidently, we have an ant problem in the apartment. So I swung by the local grocery store and picked up a box. As I was walking to the self-checkout line because I didn’t want to be judged by the teenage cashier, I started reading exactly how these Terro ant traps work.

You take a small square of cardboard and put a few drops of this special solution on it. These drops are a mix of sugar water and poison. The ant gets really excited to find some sweet, sweet candy and tells the rest of his buddies who are out infesting your kitchen. They gather around and take the liquid back to the colony to share with everybody else, where it proceeds to kill the whole lot of them. We’re talking judgment of Biblical proportions, here.

This stuff is ant genocide! It’s like I’m actually saying to this little ant, “hey buddy, you’re in my kitchen, so I want to kill you, but not only that, I’m going to use you to kill your entire family. and not only that, but I'm going to kill you with CANDY, and bank on the fact that you're generous and will probably share it with your friends."

Which got me thinking about ethics and morality… I’m not looking to expunge the earth of ants, I just want them out of my kitchen. Are these Terro traps really a proportionate response to the problem? “You’re trespassing, so I’ll kill you and your whole people.” Is a disproportionate response evil? Probably, yeah.

Which got me thinking about Robert McNamara, who passed away recently… He was involved in the planning of war strategy during WWII and Vietnam. He said one that if the Allies had lost WWII, he would likely have been found guilty of war crimes for the firebombing of Tokyo in which 100,000 civilians died in one night of incendiary attacks.

A few years ago, he opened up in the powerful documentary The Fog of War. It served as his confessional for the errors and wrongs he committed during the Vietnam War as the Secretary of Defense. I never knew McNamara before that documentary, I didn’t know him as the cold, heartless strategist that hippies everywhere hated and protested. I just knew him as this wise, reflective, humble man who at the end of his life was more committed to making sure we didn’t repeat mistakes as a nation than preserving his own reputation.

In the documentary, he lays out eleven lessons learned from the mistakes of Vietnam.

Empathize with your enemy
Rationality will not save us
There's something beyond one's self
Maximize efficiency
Proportionality should be a guideline in war
Get the data
Belief and seeing are often both wrong
Be prepared to reexamine your reasoning
In order to do good, you may have to engage in evil
Never say never
You can't change human nature

If you’ve never seen the film, it’s definitely worth adding it to your NetFlix list of finding it in Blockbuster. Here's the trailer to wet your appetite:

I love you, Lord?

2009-07-03T09:25:00.004-04:00

When I was a kid, we had this great little praise song in church called "I love you, Lord." It went a little something like this (I sing great on the internet).: "I love you, Lord/and I lift my voice/to worship you/Oh, my soul rejoice!" It had this great slow tempo and simple melody that made it easy to get caught up in and sing twenty times in a row (second verse, same as the first!). Even if you weren't exactly sure that you really did love God in that moment, after a few times through, you'd really wanted it to be true... that you loved Him, I mean.

so where am I going with all of this? It's really easy to say we love God and have no idea what we're talking about. To sing words of declaration in a desperate attempt to find what's missing...

We might be fooled about ourselves - thinking that what we're feeling is love when it's anything. We might someday realize that the concept of God we were pining after was all wrong - wow! I was WAY off. Or perhaps, we might come to the dawning conclusion that our motivations were profoundly more selfish and manipulative than we'd ever want to admit.

God, I love you because you do ________ for me.

God, I'll love you if you'll just become more ___________ to me.

God, I did love you, but then you went and __________.

It reminds me of all those old middle school romantic relationships that were so much more about our own insecurities, need for belonging and worth than the genuine care and well-being of the other person. Okay, not JUST much middle school relationships.

God doesn't want a junior high fling with you. He wants it all, and not for his own needs and inadequacies, but for you and you alone. I used to think that God chose to love us because it was the best option for us - as if in some profound and eternal gesture God was willing to do the nice thing and put up with us because its what we all really needed.

But God chose to love you, not because it suited your best interests (it does but that's not the point). He chose you for you alone, for who you are, for who He made you to be. He really does love you. And its not conditioned on us filling in some blank for Him:

Aaron, I love you because you do ________ for me.
Aaron, I'll love you if you'll just become more ___________ to me.
Aaron, I did love you, but then you went and __________.

Don't miss that, because it's a big deal. Maybe one of the biggest. God calls us to love Him with the same kind of love with which He loves us. Even if it takes an eternity for us to learn that kind of love and perfect it.

"May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and to the steadfastness of Christ." - 1 Thess. 3:11

face slapping, really?

2009-06-24T10:00:00.000-04:00

thanks to Google's Analytics I'm able to keep tabs on traffic to this site. It's a nice way to see which other sites refer people to existemi and what kind of key words people search for that bring them here.

In the past few weeks, I've noticed a disturbing trend. over 60% of people coming to existemi for the first time are coming to look for "face slapping", "faceslapping", "face slapping galleries", "indian face slapping", "female face slapping"... you get the idea.

what's with people and the internet these days? I mean I know you can find pretty much anything you're looking for, but who's really actively seeking out face slapping on the internet? you people are kind of creeping me out.

in anycase, if you've come looking for face slapping, all I can offer is the funny video I embeded last month in a post entitled "slo-mo face slapping goodness". May it satisfy all of your freaky curiosities.

how big is your God?

2009-06-23T16:02:00.006-04:00

How big is your God?

Not in reality, of course, that’s a silly question, and we’re all well-versed in the theologically appropriate response. He’s infinite; He’s omnipotent; He’s eternal.

But in your mind, from your perspective, in your day-to-day relating to Him, how big is your God?

It’s a question I’ve been thinking about / convicted about / praying through the past few days. How big is God in my eyes and in my heart? On this spiritual journey has He grown bigger or smaller over the years? Has He become more majestic or more familiar?

I feel this tension between the reverent and the intimate, between love and fear. He is a God not to be trifled with, but He is also a God who longs to embrace. He’s not a God we can get our heads around.

But as I think about it, reflect back over my life, and process through my spiritual journey, it feels as if much of my spiritual walk has been “either… or.” God is EITHER someTHING big, unapproachable, and to be feared OR someONE close, familiar, and sort of small.

He’s King or He’s Abba, but it’s hard to imagine Him as both at the same time. I know they’re not mutually exclusive identities. He can be both. He IS both.

But when it comes to relating to Him, it seems as if I’ve needed to choose one or the other. In this moment… is He almighty God on whom I cannot even set my eyes because of His brilliant splendor or is He Abba, Father longing to embrace me as His beloved son?

This most recent season of my journey has been largely contemplative, and it has continually challenged me to deeper levels of intimacy and authenticity with God. At the same time, it has asked me to wrestle with the great cloud of mystery that surrounds Him, to wrestle with it and even embrace it. But in this season, it feels as if in some way, all of that closeness has cost some bigness.

Or maybe, better said… my approach to that closeness, my understanding of that closeness, my ability to embrace that closeness has cost some bigness. And I don’t really like that.

If we broke out some theological language, we might say God is transcendent and unknowable and at the same time He is also imminent and intimate - the God who is out there and the God who is right here.

I think it’s beautiful that these two ideas go hand-in-hand and yet seem to completely contradict. God is so beyond all that we can comprehend and yet He’s chosen to love and know me. What kind of love! God is so generous in His love for me, so approachable, and yet He is the eternal, almighty Creator of the entire universe. What kind of power!

In the long run, one without the other feels unbalanced.
I guess I feel some unbalance, and I'm questioning what the next step should be. Do I run off to make God bigger again, or sit here where I've felt led and accept the tension? Can I somehow do both?

How big is your God? Is bigger always better? Is bigger better than closer?
How close is your God? Is closer always better? Is closer better than bigger?

Transcendent and Imminent
Big and Close

photos from the cabin

2009-06-15T00:12:00.004-04:00

My brother-in-law Ben has linked to this site to share some recent photos from the cabin. I thought I'd post a slide show to help give you a taste of the cabin retreat experience.

It's been exciting to see how God's using it in many peoples' lives, and if you're at all interested, I'd definitely recommend taking some time at the cabin - out in nature, silence, and solitude. For more info, you can contact Ben through his blog at http://newsfromarrowhead.blogspot.com/

imitatio (5 of 5)

2009-06-14T10:00:00.001-04:00

(a field of ferns surround a babbling brook just behind the cabin)

XXI. Sorrow of Heart

"No liberty is true and no joy is genuine unless it is founded in the fear of the Lord and a good conscience. ...Fight like a man! Habit is overcome by habit."
Too often we miss out on the full experience of God because we are quick to comfort ourselves with outward satisfaction. Avoid idleness and silliness and insread live like today is your last.

XXII. Thoughts on the Misery of Man

"From my necessities, O Lord, deliver me."
An honest man must be miserable in this fallen world - there is nothing to take lasting comfort in except our transcendent God. We should seek to free ourselves in so much as we can from our wants, desires, and needs. Our fraility - physically, emotionally, and spiritually - must drive us to greater humilty before God.

XXIII. Thoughts on Death

"In every deed and every thought, act as though you were to die this very day... It is better to avoid sin than to fear death."
The reality of death is a sobering and often distasteful thought, but it focuses us. It forces us to live honestly, shunning the games we often play to excuse ourselves.The spiritual journeyman should embrace it as a tool for narrowing the focus and filtering his priorities.

XXIV. Judgment and the Punishment of Sin

"All is vanity, therefore, except to love God and to serve Him alone."
I have great difficulty with this chapter. Thomas' view of penance, mortification, and purgatory borders on the morbid and seems to diminish the finished atoning work of Christ. It hints of a sanctification based on guilt and control and not God's abiding love and the reality of grace. He is certainly a man far more wise than me, but in this regard, I have trouble embracing his stream of faith.

XXV. Zeal in Amending our Lives

"Think of why you left the world and came here." Why did I first begin to follow? In different seasons of my faith journey, how would my answer to that question differ?
Let me end with a great story that Thomas tells: "One day when a certain man who wavered often and anxiously between hope and fear was struck with sadness, he knelt in humble prayer before the altar of a church. While meditation on these things, he said, 'Oh, if I but knew whether I should persevere to the end!' Instantly he heard with the divine answer, 'If you knew this, what would you do? Do now what you would do then and you will be quite secure.'"

imitatio (4 of 5)

2009-06-13T10:00:00.004-04:00

(candles and their reflections on a rainy night in the cabin)

XVI. Bearing with the Faults of Others

"If you cannot make yourself what you would wish to be, how can you bend others to your will? We want them to be perfect, yet we do not correct our own faults. We wish them to be severely corrected, yet we will not correct ourselves."
Adversity like temptation will reveal our true virtue - who we really are. Think of others first - even those you are asked to suffer and endure. They are likely being asked by God to endure you, too.

XVII. Monastic Life

"You have come to serve, not to rule. You must understand, too, that you have been called to suffer and to work, not to idel and gossip away your time... Here no man can remain unless he desires with all his heart to humble himself before God."
To persevere on the spiritual journey, we must indentify ourselves with God's Kingdom and not our own or someone elses; we must be willing to be considered a fool for Christ; we must seek to put aside anything that tempts or allures us away from God. It requires humility - willingness to serve and not rule, to suffer, and to work.

XVIII. The Example Set Us by the Holy Fathers

"They were poor in earthly things but rich in grace and virtue... They lived in true humility and simple obedience; they walked in charity and patience, making progress daily on the pathway of spiritual life and obtaining great favor with God."
Thomas recalls a great cloud of witnesses who were passionate about their one goal - to know and serve God - willign to live radical lives in pursuit of His holiness. He praises their lives "rich in grace and virtue," and yet I wonder how much grace was available and lived out in his Rule? What are they rythyms of grace in strict asceticism?

XIX. The Practices of a Good Religious

"In the morning make a resolution and in the evening ecamien yourself on what you have said this day, what you have done and thought..."
We should live lives of authenticity and transparency within our spiritual communities - tending to both our inward and outward lives. Spend some everyday not only in examen but also resolution. Live and practice the disciplines as if death was going to great you right around the corner. Let it focus you in your daily walk.

XX. The Love of Solitude and Silence

"Read such matters as bring sorrow to the heart rather than occupation to the mind. ...the security of the saints was always enveloped in the fear of God... the security of the wicked, on the contrary, springs from pride and presumption."
Even as we face the temptation to be draw into the crowd, the revelry of the night, we must draw away with Jesus into solitude and silence, and take comfort in His faithful provision.

imitatio (3 of 5)

2009-06-12T10:00:00.005-04:00

(a narrow point in the stream which winds its way behind the cabin)

XI. Acquiring Peace and Zeal for Perfection

"We are too occupied with our own whims and fancies, too taken up with passing things... when we encounter some slight difficulty, we are too easily dejected and turn to human consolations. ... It is hard to break old habits, but harder still to go against the will. Resist temptations in the beginning, and unlearn the evil habit."
Thomas emphasizes the act of mortification - an exercise of the will to conquer vice and temptation, but I wonder where he would see the role of the Holy Spirit in directing and prompting our transformation?

XII. The Value of Adversity

"It is good for us to have trials and troubles... to suffer contradiction, to be misjudged... these things help us to be humble and shield us from vain glory."
Adversity, trial, and sufferings compel us to draw closer to God and recognize our full dependence on Him. Better to experience consolation from God for the wounds caused by men

XIII. Resisting Temptation

"Fire tempers iron and temptation steels the just. Often we do not know what we can stand, but temptation shows us what we are."
We will always face temptation of one degree or another - it has a valuable role in our spiritual growth - it shows us what we are. We can't overcome it by fleeing or outward action alone, but in faithfully and quickly submitting ourselves to God in times of trial. Sin is most easily resisted at its beginning, before it has had opportunity to take root.

XIV. Avoiding Rash Judgment

"If God were the sole object of our desire, we should not be disturbed so easily by opposition to our opinions. ... An old habit is hard to break, and no one is willing to be led farther than they can see."
Don't waste your time judging others - you often end up completely wrong and worse than the one you're judging. Judge yourself alone as you seek to bring yourself into greater submission to God.

XV. Works Done in Charity

"He does much who loves much. ... That which seems to be charity is oftentimes really sensuality, for man's own inclinations, how own will, his hope of reward, and his self-interest, are motives seldom absent."
Doing good for others - acting out of love - is an act of true worship and devotion when our motive is not selfish (hoping for reward or recognition) but rather the glory of God and the love of others.

imitatio (2 of 5)

2009-06-11T10:00:00.007-04:00

(behind the cabin, there are these perfectly straight tree trunks
interwoven with wild vine)

VI. Unbridled Affections

"He who is poor and humble of heart lives in a world of peace... true peace of heart is found in resisting passions, not in satisfying them."
Sinful desires will never lead to true and lasting peace - what we're all really longing for. Deeper still is a God-given desire that will be satisfied when we come before God with a humble heart.

VII. Avoiding False Hope and Pride

"If there is good in you, see more good in others, so that you may remain humble. It does no harm to esteem yourself less than anyone else, but it is very harmful to think youreself better than even one."
Rely on God alone for peace, security, and purpose in this lfie. Everything else may fail or become distorted into something harmful, an opportunity to grow proud and disquieted.

VIII. Shunning Over-Familiarity

"Do not open your heart to every man, but discuss your affairs with one who is wise and fears God... associate with the humble and the simple, with the devout and virtuous..."
Don't seek to be known and loved by many - by those you admire and look up to. Instead, seek out the humble and somple - those who go overlooked. Spiritual Narcissim is seeking to be known, admired, and praised by putting on a spiritual fascade.

IX. Obedience and Subjection

"Dreams of happiness expected from change and different places have decieved many... if God be among us, we must at times give up our opinions for the blessings of peace."
It is easier to sit in a posture of submission than to live the life of a lone ranger. Don't put too much stock in your own opinion - but seek the counsel of others. Many people have been decieved by their own thoughts of happiness - seeking peace in change of location or position.

X. Avoiding Idle Talk

"Why, indeed, do we converse and gossip among ourselves when we so seldom part without a troubled conscience? ... we must watch and pray lest time pass by idly. When the right and opportune moment comes for speaking, say something that will edify."
It's too common for us to seek comfort for ourselves through idle and harmful conversations, but we never do find that peace we're looking for. Rather, avoid the gossip and seek to edify and encourage each other with words that lift up.

imitatio (1 of 5)

2009-06-10T10:00:00.005-04:00

(photo taken at the cabin after an early morning rain)

Thomas a Kempis (from Kempis) joined an Augustinian monastic order in his early twenties and spent most of his life as a manuscript copyist. He wrote The Imitation of Christ in his late thirties as a guide and encouragement to younger monks.

I. Imitating Christ and Despising All Vanities on Earth

"It is not learning that makes a man holy and just, but a virtuous life makes him pleasing to God. I would rather feel contrition than know how to define it."
True spirituality must involve experiencing God and not merely studying Him. It is born out of humility and authenticity. All of our endless pursuits are meaningless if we do not seek to love God and be loved by Him.

II. Having a Humble Opinion of Self

"All men are frail, but you must admit that none is more frail than yourself."
Don't strive to be admired for your knowledge, but rather seek to be thought humble. Don't be afraid to know your weaknesses and allow them to keep you dependent on God.

III. The Doctrine of Truth

"On the day of judgment, surely we shall not be asked what we have read but what we have done; not how well we have spoken but how well we have lived."
The pursuit of knowledge may become a seed bed for pride and conceit in the unexamined heart. We do better to pursue a life well lived, marked by more humility and charity than theorizing and speculation.

IV. Prudence in Action

"Do not yield to every impulse and suggestion but consider things carefully and patiently in the light of God's will."
Be slow to speak and quick to seek counsel. Use great care and discernment to avoid acting out impulsively. Value the godly counsel of others about your own inclinations.

V. Reading the Holy Scripture

"We ought not to ask who is speaking, but mark what is said. Men pass away, but the truth of the Lord remains forever. God speaks to us in many ways without regards for persons."
Take care when reading Scripture to hear the words of God and not your own. Pursue insight in God's word with humility, faith, and simplicity, not seeking to gain the respect or admiration of others for your insight or wisdom.

tommy and me

2009-06-09T21:01:00.006-04:00

a couple years back, I was deeply impressed by my friend Jordan's novel way of reading books. he was a philosophy of religion major and read constantly. in order to help himself retain the content, he'd summarize every chapter he read by writing a few short lines in the blank space at the end of each chapter. brilliant! not only does it help to capture the chapter's points in your own words, but it also allows you to quick catch up with a book that you haven't touched in a while.

last week I went on an amazing silence and solitude retreat up at the cabin again. thankfully this time my back stayed on the "straight and narrow." I took along a copy of Thomas a Kempis' The Imitation of Christ, a classic monastic writing on spiritual growth and formation. It's a quick read, but deep and rich with insight and wisdom, and still he said some other things that frustrated me to no end. I decided to do some Jordanian reading and record some thoughts at the end of each chapter - nothing profound or original, just a thumbnail sketch of Thomas' writings.

I thought I might to take the next few posts to share that journey with all of you. Thomas was convinced that "the life of faith is one of simplicity, obedience, and humility... the true imitator of Jesus isn't the one who has accomplished the most, but rather the one who has surrendered the most." words written in the 15th century that still ring true nearly six hundred years later.

slow-mo face slapping goodness

2009-05-27T17:53:00.002-04:00

this is just beautiful.

Slap Project from Nick Campbell on Vimeo.

art and faith

2009-05-26T21:56:00.007-04:00

so I've got a confession.

I fancy myself a closet-artists. You know, one of those people who likes to doodle and sketch for nothing more than the enjoyment of creating something visual and tactile. I loved art in school, practically lived in the studio, but when college rolled around it was time to grow up, crack open the textbooks, and get to grown-up things. so sadly, the sketch pad and the notebook for poetry got put on the shelf and started collecting dust. every now and then I'd pull them out to "tinker", enjoying for a moment or two the quiet simplicity of art, maybe letting out a wistful sigh or two at the though of what might have been.

anyway, not too long ago on a retreat, we took some time to practice spiritual attentiveness, and I got the idea to try contour drawing as part of my experience. if you can't remember from those junior high art classes, contour drawing is when you trace an object with your eyes, moving the pencil in your hand without looking at the paper. you're forced to become hyper-aware of what you're looking at and at the same time you're forced to restrain yourself from cheating and looking at the paper.

so heading out into the woods, I sat down at a log and decided to contour draw what was in front of me - in this case, it was a decomposing log laying in the leaves. I spent 45 minutes staring at that log, gazing at every crack, every chip, every line of texture... and I couldn't believe how quickly the time went by. to this day (now a few weeks later) I can still picture that log quite vividly when I close my eyes.

the whole experience got me thinking about the integration of art and spiritual formation, the ability to worship God and gain insight through our participation in creation, in the imago dei. far too much for one post, but let's leave it at this for now: go out there and get creative! (even if you feel like an utter amateur when you do it).

break out those watercolors sitting in the closet, give yourself permission to doodle meaningless designs, sign-up for a pottery class (yeah, betty!). whatever it takes! but don't let yourself go on passing off the opportunity to rediscover something you love because you're afraid that as an adult you need to be a professional in order to do something meaningful.

and here's some inspiration to get you started:

Vertical Creativity - DeAnn's awesome blog for Christian Artists looking to see their gifts and talents as tools for worship and growth.
Suziblu - A cool cat with a passion to inspire others, don't miss her other videos.
some sketches I've been doing lately in my moleskine
some old school sketches from high school (a very different boy back then)

buy this book

2009-05-18T13:42:00.005-04:00

I've already shared a little bit about how God's been using this book to impact me right now, but I'm just going to come out and say it: buy this book.

buy the furious longing of God by Brennan Manning, read it slowly and thoughtfully, and wrestle with the questions it raises in your heart and soul. we're not even halfway through the year and I'm already going to say that for me personally, it's the most influencial book of 2009.

chapter ten, entitled "giving" is worth the price of the book by itself. I'd quote from it here, but I'm afraid that'd keep you from reading the whole thing.

can you tell that I'm excited about this book?

soul thirst vii

2009-05-13T18:00:00.000-04:00

Last weekend, I was up in the Raystown Lake area for LBC’s Project Renovation’s Soul Thirst Retreat. Heh. Big thanks to Ben over at the Arrowhead blog for recapping Soul Thirst VII. Be sure to check out his thoughts on the weekend that was and the journey that continues to be.

It’s hard to be specific about my own experience and reaction to Soul Thirst. It just felt good – good and simple and healthy. I was pretty intentional to take some time off before the retreat started to unplug and unwind, because I didn’t want to come into a retreat weekend broken and burned out. Rather than coming desperate for refueling, I guess I just wanted to be present – present to God and the other participants. Not that I’ve got some profound insight for them or anything, but I just had the deep desire to not be so caught up in my own introspective needs that I missed an opportunity to genuinely love someone else.

Throughout the whole weekend, God was present for me personally with what I’d describe as both a comforting and compelling voice. He was there offering both assurance and direction. Whether it was through observing the hours, diving into the lives of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus during Doug’s teaching, or simply listening to the harmonies and resonance of Dave’s guitar as he lead us in quiet worship, God was there as a good, gracious, and very big God.

We were talking about attentiveness, practicing awareness of God’s presence at all times. We were talking about the journey out of the false self that we’ve all constructed into the discovery of our true selves. The true self – that self which Jesus truly loves sacrificially, that the Father embraces, and that the Spirit moves within and intercedes for. We were taking time to be still – in the crisp coolness of a dawning new day, in the slow, steady rhythms of centering prayer, even in some contour drawing out in nature – something I haven’t done since junior high!

One of the greatest experiences of the weekend was meeting Jason and Carl. They’re both juniors at LBC, soon heading into senior year and then out into ministry and beyond. This was their first time on a Soul Thirst retreat, and I couldn’t help but see myself and my spiritual journey in them.

It was nearly seven years ago that I had my first spiritual formation experience on a retreat. It was Biola’s Spiritual Formation Study Program under the direction of Judy Ten Elshof and Steve Porter. Three weeks of intentional community in the San Bernandino Mountains above Los Angeles learning about sanctification, human maturity, and the spiritual disciplines.

At the time, there was an undeniable goodness and healthiness to the experience. The content was like drinking out of a fire hose, and I found myself as more of an observer than an embracer during the course. The experience was great, but the content was a bit out there for a good little Bible major. It would take time – a lot more time (and retreats and spiritual directors and disappointments and tears) before I would start to get it.

I couldn’t help but look over at Carl and Jason at times throughout the retreat and smile. I had no idea how they were internalizing the material, but I knew the God that had them there to be introduced to it, and the journey that might be unfolding for them. I wouldn’t change it for the world.

"He welcomed them and spoke to them about the kingdom of God, and healed those who needed healing.”
– Luke 9:11

Nietzsche's "The Madman"

2009-05-11T18:00:00.001-04:00

If you’ve never read Friedrich Nietzsche’s “The Madman”, I’d absolutely recommend it - not because I’d endorse Nietzsche on a number of topics, but because in this short little allegory he gets right to the heart of a powerful truth. I remember first hearing about it in a Christian Though class with Dr. David Horner at Biola University, and from time to time it’ll pop up and unsettle me.

With an almost prophetic voice, Nietzsche, the masterful mustache-grower and outspoken atheist of his day, saw the unsettling implications on moving into an age where God is dead, effectively killed off in his influence on society and culture. He paints the haunting picture of a world unhinged and says to his readers, “let’s do this thing, but be fully aware of what will follow.”

Nietzsche puts this prophetic word into the mouth of a crazed madman running through the streets – someone to dismiss or lock away, a voice that disturbs and affronts the brave new world unfolding with careful reasoning and enlightened thinking. It’s dark, haunting, and right.

In any case, I thought I’d play a little “show-n-tell” and share it with you in case you haven’t come across it yet.

Friederich Nietzsche - The Gay Science, Book 3, 125 - "The Madman"

Have you heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the market place, and cried incessantly, “I seek God! I seek God” - As many of those who did not believe in God were standing around just then, he provoked much laughter. “Has he got lost,” asked one. “Did he lose his way like a child,” asked another. “Or is he hiding? Is he afraid of us? Has he gone on a voyage? Emigrated?” -Thus they yelled and laughed.

The madman jumped into their midst and pierced them with his eyes. “Whither is God,” he cried; “I will tell you. We have killed him - you and I. All of us are his murderers. But how did we do this? How could we drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What were we doing when we unchained the earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there still any up or down? Are we not straying as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night continually closing in on us? Do we not need to light lanterns in the morning? Do we hear nothing as yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we smell nothing as yet of the divine decomposition? Gods, too, decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.”

“How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe the blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it? There has never been a greater deed; and whoever is born after us - for the sake of this deed he will belong to a higher history than all history hitherto.”

Here the madman fell silent and looked again at his listeners; and they, too, were silent and stared at him in astonishment. At last he threw his lantern on the ground, and it broke into pieces and went out. “I have come too early,” he said then; “my time is not yet. This tremendous event is still on its way, still wandering; it has not yet reached the ears of men. Lightning and thunder require time; the light of the stars requires time; deeds, though done, still require time to be seen and heard. This deed is still more distant from them than the most distant stars - and yet they have done it themselves.”

It has been related further that on the same day the madman forced his way into several churches and there struck up his requiem aeternam deo. Led out and called to account, he is said always to have replied nothing but: “What after all are these churches now if they are not the tombs and sepulchers of God?”

Some Questions/Thoughts

How does your gut react to the lines: "What were we doing when we unchained the earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there still any up or down? Are we not straying as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night continually closing in on us?"
If we're compelled to make ourselves into gods when we kill Him, what does that say about our wiring for worship?
Why is it that so many churches today really do feel like "the tombs and sepluchers of God"?

a new look on existemi

2009-05-07T16:07:00.003-04:00

think of this as a meta-post, a blog about a blog. I've gone with a different look and feel for existemi, a little more color, a little lighter. what do you think?

ORANGE conference 2009 review

2009-05-06T15:00:00.002-04:00

Every Generation needs a new revolution.
...that will reDISCOVER the art of strategy
...that will reSTYLE the presentation of truth
...that will reCAPTURE the story of family
...that will reSHAPE the value of community
...that will REVIVE the potential of its influence

Every Generation needs to make its own music, raise its own voice, and celebrate its own faith.

The ORANGE Conference is all about thinking ORANGE (or as it’s sometimes put – mastering the art of ORANGE-ology). Don’t you love it when branding invents its own language?

ORANGE as a concept is the convergence of yellow and red: Yellow representing the Church as God’s missional people here on Earth and Red representing the family of love instituted by God as the primary influencer of the next generation.

Clever, isn’t it? Okay, so the whole ORANGE metaphor didn’t really appeal to me, but it works, and the ideas behind it are great! Healthy, integrated ministry in which the church and the family walk hand in hand, and where children’s, youth, and college ministries integrate seamlessly as they raise up children, teens, and young adults.

At Living Word, we’re reviving the Next Generation SMT (Strategic Ministry Team) with the goal of further integrating the mission, objectives, and language of our age-based ministry from the cradle to young adults. At the same time, it’s both an inspiring and daunting idea. So for some inspiration and direction, Rob (Pastor of Next Generation), Cindy (Children’s Ministry Administrator), Melissa (Jr. High Director), and I headed down to Atlanta last week to catch the conference.

Overall, I came away feeling very positive. There was some great practical insights and advice for thinking strategically and working collaboratively (with other church ministries and with parents). It was great to hear from Andy Stanley again, to be introduced to Perry Noble, to be inspired by Nancy Beach, who brought the Egalitarian Thunder with an incredible blend of bold and humble and to share Francis Chan with the rest of our crew.

I remember being deeply impacted by Francis Chan back as an undergrad at Biola when he would speak in chapels. He talks and walks with this amazing blend of passion, vulnerability, and conviction. I know that sounds trite, but really, go listen and see what I’m talking about.

ORANGE essentials:

INTEGRATE STRATEGY – align leaders and parents to lead with the same end in mind.
REFINE THE MESSAGE – craft core truths into engaging, relevant, and memorable experiences.
REACTIVE THE FAMILY – enlist parents to act as partners in the spiritual formation of their own children.
ELEVATE COMMUNITY – connect everyone to a caring leader and a consistent group of peers.
LEVERAGE INFLUENCE – consistent opportunities are created for students to experience personal ministry.

Some last thoughts…
I’d definitely recommend the conference for anyone looking to rethink those sticky transitions from children’s to youth ministry and from youth to college/young adult. We’re missing too much and losing too many. I’d recommend it to anyone looking to more effectively partner with parents within their ministry. If you’re going to go, make sure you go as a group/team, and make sure the guy holding the purse-strings comes along, too. It was so encouraging to see a number of Sr. Pastors there, investing their time in their church’s children’s/youth/young adult ministries.

We didn’t eat at a Waffle House (although we were sooo close!), but we did find an amazing place called PappaDeux’s that I’d go back to in heartbeat.

to grow or not to grow

2009-05-05T13:54:00.009-04:00

special thanks to the pointless for this deeply disturbing cartoon.

“Cease striving and know that I am God”
(Ps. 46:10)

Here is another thought from Manning's The Furious Longing of God:

“I’ve decided that if I had my life to live over again, I would not only climb more mountains, swim more rivers, and watch more sunsets; I wouldn’t only jettison my hot water bottle, raincoat, umbrella, parachute, and raft; I would not only go barefoot earlier in the spring and stay out later in the fall; but…”(And here’s where I went dumb-founded) “… I would devote not one more minute to monitoring my spiritual growth. No, not one.”

Wait, what?

When I first read that last bit I nodded my head and kept reading - “Yep, Brennan, you’re right, carpe diem! Our ways of monitoring and measuring spiritual growth are so artificial and formulaic. We definitely shouldn’t waste our time thinking we’re in control; God’s too big and organic for that to work.”

But something kept bugging me, and I found myself coming back to that thought. What if Brennan meant more, more than those man-made progress tools that we’d all easily reject if we could, what if he really meant ANY attempt to assess how we’re doing with God? What if he meant we should completely stop asking and worrying about how we’re doing at all.

Wait, what?

This got me stumped. In this contemplative stream, the spiritual formation land I’m starting to plant roots in, a greater awareness of our spiritual growth and progress is a good thing. We even take on practices to pursue it (Daily Examen, Rule of Life, etc.). And here comes Manning to muddle it up.

Here’s a Manning quote of a Gerald May quote:

“The entire process (of self-development) can be exciting and entertaining. But the problem is there’s no end to it. The fantasy is that if one heads in the right direction and just works hard enough to learn new things and grows enough and gets actualized, one will be there. None of us is quite certain exactly where there is, but it obviously has something to do with resting.”

On the one hand, May’s echoing the same hard working behaviorism and pursuit of knowledge that contemplatives critique, but he’s pointing it back at them: Your hard work to discover and implement the ancient paths, your intellectual pursuit of new/old things, and your desire to grow and somehow ACHIEVE rest as if it were something to obtain. Huh.

In the end of the chapter, Manning asks two questions that fully and finally convinced me that I am a spiritual pauper.

How often do you monitor your spiritual growth – several times a day? Once a month? Every thirty days? Twice a year?
Would you, could you, devote not one more minute to monitoring your spiritual growth? If so, it’s possible you just might find you like green eggs and ham.

Megan and I have been thinking about these questions in parallel and together. It’s a fascinating and scary idea. To be fully present and not one thing more – to be fully present and not analyze your present-ness – to be so present that there’s else to do but enjoy His presence and do what comes naturally out of that.

There's something compelling about that idea, something both strangely appealing and completely foreign. What would my life look like? What would I be freed from? What would I be free to do or know or experience? What would God look like in that place?

a gift of a bible

2009-05-02T12:13:00.008-04:00

so I just got back from the orange conference. great stuff, and this post has nothing to do about that. more on the conference later after some heavy processing. what I do have for today is a really interesting clip to share.

Penn from Penn & Teller is a comedian/magician/social commentator who shoots straight and isn't afraid to make a few heads roll in the process. He and Teller had a show on showtime for awhile called "Bullshit" where they'd take on a popular social issue and just rip it to shreds, shedding light on hypocrisy and self-righteousness in a pretty compelling way. Penn is an outspoken atheist and critic of Christianity, and frankly there are many times where he is spot-on as he points the finger at Christian hypocrisy and self-righteousness.

anyway, he does occasional video blogs on youtube, and I found this one absolutely amazing. it's raw, honest, and in language free from christianeze-sappiness, straight-up truth. check it out:

the furious longing of God

2009-04-20T09:56:00.003-04:00

Whenever I read anything written by Brennan Manning, I feel like I’ve been speaking “baby talk” my entire life. Goo goo, ga gaaah. Huh.

His mastery of the English language is simply amazing, and that’s no small task. I’ve been thoroughly enjoying his latest book The Furious Longing of God in these past few days, reading and rereading chapters to not miss a bit. I’m sure I’m missing a lot actually, but it’s a good journey to be on.

Something for the aspiring spiritual bloggers out there… Manning takes a moment in the book to make a tangential comment about spiritual writers, and I think its all the more true of spiritual bloggers. Check it out:

“A similar and more sophisticated snare entices the writer. After a scintillating sentence such as 'You belong to the quivering coterie of the debauched languishing in exile' or something such breathtaking words on 'the coruscating beauty of the living God,' the writer discovers with alarm that his prose has made him artificial and insincere. Slavish attention to precise and proper words can seduce the author into a certain kind of posturing with the catastrophic result that he or she loses touch with his or her broken humanity.”(Furious Longing, 39.)

I was immediately drawn to the idea of a writer/blogger as “artificial and insincere”, “posturing”, and losing “touch with his or her broken humanity.” There is definitely the temptation to become disingenuous, detached from our brokenness, prone to moralize or gloss over. I don't fancy myself a writer, but the spiritual tendency is all the same, and I'm finding Manning profoundly honest, humble, and insightful.

That reminds me of this amazing spiritual insight I had this week while watching a ShamWow commercial…

or not.

Good book, Great writer. Definitely worth a read.

an abreviated review of "no line"

2009-03-30T19:30:00.001-04:00

(or why it's worth buying more than just U2's greatest hits albums)

overall impression
"No Line" wasn't the kind of album that jumped at me the first time I listened to it. There aren't the "blow your socks off" obvious hits of an album such as "All that you can't leave behind." I don't know if I can say I was disappointed, but I wasn't impressed. And not being impressed after a long wait can feel a lot like disappointment. I've talked to a number of people who had similar first reactions to it. They gave it a listen and said, "It's alright, but nothing's really jumping out at me."

But here's the thing that I discovered about "No Line"... if you listen to it in the background as you go about with life, it grows on you. A lot. It becomes familiar, and then you start to notice creative little elements that you missed the first few times. "No Line" is an acquired taste, but the more I listen to it, the more I find myself going back to it. Here are a few highlights (IMHO)...

"Magnificent"
The closest thing to a worship song that you'll find on the album. This song isn't quite "40", which I'm convinced we'll hear in Heaven, but its close. I've got the sneaking suspicion that Bono is toying with the idea of upstaging the Matt Redman/Hillsong Pop-Worship market. Could you imagine a U2 Worship CD? I'd half expect them to artfully slip in an f-bomb just because. (okay, maybe I'm just dreaming out loud)

"Moment of Surrender"
My favorite track on the album. It's got that haunting organ vibe throughout, and a chorus that strikes a chord reverberating in my chest. It also has one of Bono's favorite phrases: "Vision over Visibility." Check out this except from a recent Rolling Stones article:

"Moment" includes a phrase that's close to sacred for Bono: "vision over visibility". Until now, he never found a home for it in a song, but he used it as a title for a painted self-portrait in the eighties, placed it in poems and essays, and even squeezed it into a live version of "Rockin' in the Free World." It's an idea that I've held on to quite tightly over the years," he says. "It's like Martin Luther King's speech - the moment when you see the place, but you can't see yet how to get there." The slogan stands as an insistence on looking past what you can see in favor of what could be. For Bono, the world as it is will never be enough. "I'm not the tattooing kind, but if I had a tattoo, that would be it," he says. "Elvis had 'taking care of business.' I've got 'vision over visibility.'"

"Unknown Caller"
I don't know how to describe this song, but I like it. It slowly builds into something exciting and melodic, and then after the first verse they go into this staccato/robot chorus that... well, it's hard to explain, but it sticks after awhile. I'm sure someone far more savvy in music language could explain it to you, but it's powerful. I get the impression that it's the kind of thing that you'll either love or hate - there's not much room in the middle. And then with about a minute left, this orchestra horn section comes in and makes the whole thing feel distinctly British. Like if Pink Floyd tried to make Metalica's S&M album back in the 70's with the London Philharmonic. Okay, now I think I'm just going crazy...

"Get On Your Boots"
Feels a lot like Vertigo, it definitely makes you appreciate The Edge's talent on guitar. This is one that'll definitely fire up the stadium crowds on the next tour... "you don't know how beautiful you are" smacks of the hidden dignity/beauty of humanity. Did you get that?

last thought
I don't want to be a "bono as messiah" kind of Christian, please don't interpret this post as that. but what I do appreciate about U2 is their commitment to their craft as art and worship. The musician as poet-commentator seeking all that is good, true, and beautiful on a troubled planet inhabited by troubled people. It might not be as in your face as the CCM market, but subtlety shouldn't always be seen as cowardice or compromise. It can also be deep reverence.

oh yeah, one more thing
if you want to check out a much better post about "no line", check out Donald Miller's thoughts on the album entitled "Why They Stay on Top"

raw veg - reflections of a meat-eater

2009-03-10T17:30:00.001-04:00

It's been nearly a week since I stopped the raw veg challenge, so I thought it was about time for an update. for starters, let me clear up something. I didn't actually start a baby food challenge. that's just dumb. although, I did offer ben a chance to earn his $50 back if he'd try it for a week. he wasn't so interested.

several people have asked what I ended up eating as my first meal. it was an interesting question that I asked myself alot on days six and seven of the challenge. I dreamt of steak and meatball subs and perfectly smoked ribs. I ended up eating toast. yep, toast. after everyone warned me about the violent reaction my body would go through when I reintroduced meat, I got a little scared. so wednesday morning, I fired up the toaster oven and made myself some toast with homemade strawberry jam. delicious! for lunch I had a salad and some chicken corn soup. and then for dinner, oh, glorious dinner... I had a california cheesesteak from Sal's in Dallastown. I have no idea whether it was in actuality a good cheesesteak, but to my meat-starved body it was AMAZING.

I've had a variety of meat-flavored meals since then, and my body's handled everything swimmingly. no dramatic moments, no need for activia, you get the idea.

Someone asked me this past week, "Aaron, would you ever do it again?" I think I would, but not for $50. Megan and I definitely spent 3x that in produce, groceries, and nasty raw veg flax bread. If I were to do it again, it'd have to be for at least $100 plus expenses. I might whore out my stomach, but a boy's got to have some measure of self-worth. (oh dear).

so this concludes the raw veg challenge. it was fun and dramatic and stupid. I learned a lot, I laughed a lot, I milked almonds.

the coming evangelical collapse?

2009-03-10T14:30:00.001-04:00

What if Evangelicalism completely collapsed as a faith tradition in the United States? What would America look like for better and worse? What would Christianity look like?

Michael Spencer over at internetmonk.com has been doing a great series on his blog recently. He adapted several posts into an essay that was just published by the Christian Science Monitor. He entitled it, "The Coming Evangelical Collapse" and its definitely worth a read.

Spencer writes, "Within two generations, evangelicalism will be a house deserted of half its occupants. (Between 25 and 35 percent of Americans today are Evangelicals.) In the "Protestant" 20th century, Evangelicals flourished. But they will soon be living in a very secular and religiously antagonistic 21st century."

I can't help but picture Jesus in John 6 as the huge crowds start to drift away, turned off by his message of "sacrifice, self-denial, and hardship." Jesus turns to the twelve and asks a heart-breaking question, "Do you want to go away as well?"

Now I think we need to take Spencer's article with a grain of salt. Evangelicalism has always been highly adaptable and change-oriented. You can see that in the number of nondenominational churches trying to wrap their heads around concepts like "missional" and "emerging." Even if those ideas aren't the solution, many Evangelicals are willing to bend and flex and look for the answer. But nevertheless, Spencer has probably found a good read on the near future of American culture's attitude towards Evangelicals, and he's definitely put his finger on some fault-lines in Evangelical ministry practice and philosophy.

The big question is and has always been, "what do we do now?" How do we respond in a way which reflects Christ and His priorities, furthers God's unfolding Kingdom, and provides a clear and compelling message of grace and truth to people around us? The church has been asking itself that very same question from the beginning.

In any case, its worth a look. What do you think? Does anything from his essay reverberate with your own feelings and intuitions? leave a comment and let me know.

raw veg +7 days

2009-03-03T21:36:00.004-05:00

a catalog of craving
day 1 - something savory
day 2 - something salty
day 3 - cheese pizza
day 4 - nothing, day 4 was pretty rough
day 5 - not much, maybe an egg roll
day 6 - ground beef (specifically a meatball sub)
day 7 - anything that moved (seriously, everything started to look REALLY good.)

my last supper

one of the hardest parts of the raw veg challenge has been the monotony of the diet. there's only so much that can be done with kale, avocado, and basil. I find myself much more discouraged by the thought of eating another salad than the thought of not eating meat. So for my last supper, I really wanted to try something out of the box. With the fresh kelp noodles that arrived yesterday, I tried a raw vegan recipe I found online, and it... was... AMAZING! There was something so unique and fresh about it, that I totally fell in love. I would actually have this again. I would actually serve it to guests as a cold appetizer. It's kelp spinach soup, and let me try to convince you why you should try it.

kelp spinach soup recipe

1/4 C really raw cashews or hazelnuts (I used hazelnuts)
1 C water
1 green onion
2.5 ounces organic baby spinach
Sea salt to taste
Kelp noodles marinated in lemon juice

Blend everything but the noodles thoroughly. When the soup tastes like you want it to, add the cut up marinated noodles. Either rinse the noodles before adding them or put in lemon juice and all. Stir and eat.

meat culture shock
I've had a lot of people ask me what will be the first thing that I eat when I end the raw vegan diet. Is there going to be a steaming fillet mignon waiting for me at 12:01am? That kind of thing. Not unless I want to die, there won't be. Numerous sources have warned me of the impending meat culture shock. My body now purged of meat and dairy won't exactly be thrilled when they're reintroduced into my system, so most people advice to go slow, take baby steps. and with that in mind, I'm proud to announce for the first time ever...

Aaron's Baby Food Challenge!
Nothing but Gerber's Baby Food for 7 days. What happens when I take on the diet of a 9 month old? What better way to take baby steps than to start eating like a baby?

this should be interesting...

beard update

2009-03-02T22:35:00.004-05:00

so if you recall, I started growing a beard-o-shame just before the raw veg challenge as part of an incentive program for my body. I knew my body would be miserable not having all that cheesy meat that it had grown so fond of. I also knew that my body really loathes that beard stage where everything is prickly, scratching, and gross. I figured if I did both at the same time, and then relieved my body of one of them, I'd feel pretty good and that might help carry me through to the end of this raw veg challenge.

tonight, I shaved off the baby-girl-beard and felt remarkably better.

success!

raw veg +6 days

2009-03-02T21:54:00.006-05:00

has it been six day already? wow.
well, I'm definitely over the novelty of this whole raw veg challenge - it's no longer a fun and quirky adventure, its an annoying and inconvenient chore. but nevertheless, with one day to go I'm feeling confident and optimistic. Unless a hamburger jumps into my mouth during a random yawn, I should be successful in achieving seven days without meat, dairy, or anything cooked.

the mysterious package
sometime on day 2 of this challenge, it dawned on me that my food options were pretty limited and would likely get pretty monotonous. I went browsing on the internet and found some crazy hard-to-find raw vegan food options. well the package finally arrived today, and so my last two days of the raw veg challenge will include some hardcore raw veg foods. the guy who sold this stuff to me has been 100% raw veg for NINE YEARS. His fiance has been raw veg for SIX. AMAZING!

Anyway, check out the video:

one last thought
I was talking to Megan tonight - reflecting on this past week, and something dawned on me

Vegetarians... you know, regular "I don't eat meat, but I still drink milk and eat cheese, and cook my food" Vegetarians. Those people are just lame wannabes. They don't really suffer for their convictions. They don't really care about maximizing their health benefits. They're just hippie posers who think its cool to have another reason to be self-righteous and condescending.

okay, not really, but the thought made me chuckle.

raw veg +5 days

2009-03-01T22:13:00.003-05:00

not what I was expecting

sundays are usually pretty draining for me. getting up early to rush in to church and make sure everything is g2g for the services. running, catching up, teaching... wash, rinse, repeat. I usually end up coming home and crashing pretty hard. glorious sunday afternoon naps on the couch. then get up and do it all again for growth groups that night.

I was expecting today to be that x10. I've definitely felt low on fuel lately. maybe I'm becoming anemic? so I was bracing for a wicked bad time of it today, but things didn't turn out how I expected at all.

after services, pace and I took Mark and Pete to 9-9 in foosball before losing on a freak goal. I get home and megan's got a bunch of girlfriends coming over for a fun afternoon of food and conversation. maybe I'm some kind of psyche-vampire, but I felt like I could feed off their energy and really enjoy myself. that big brick wall of tiredness never really hit, not even tonight after growth groups.

it's the little things.

what is it with the chinese?
for some reason, last week there was this big push to have a chinese food night at growth group sometime. so not thinking about the rest of my calendar, I gave it the green light and people started mobilizing. tonight, we had 30+ students show up (a bunch of teens who hadn't been around in a while and some new ones too)... goes to show what greasy, MSG-laden food can do!

It was awesome, but tempting... well, sort of and not really. When I looked at it, I wasn't tempted to eat it. It's all bland and yellow... no color, no variety, just bleh. but the smell, oh the smell! They say smell is the closest sense we have linked to memory, so I must have some pretty darn good memories of chinese restaurants.

the shortening road ahead
tomorrow will be day six, which means only two left until the end of the one week challenge. I'm planning on shaving the beard-o-shame tomorrow to give myself a "last quarter boost" and I figure the thought of the finish line will carry me through Tuesday.

I have no idea what comes after that, however. Megan and I agreed that I won't break the diet until sometime on Wednesday - too ensure a full 7 days have past. But there's still a question about whether I keep going or end it at a week. I honestly think it'd be much harder for me the second week, so I'm pretty skeptical.

But we do have a lot of veggies and raw stuff left to use up, and I am willing to entertain any other offers that people might have - you know, incentives to keep the challenge going. but we'll see, no commitments, just yet.

some more veg-spiration

raw veg +4 days

2009-02-28T23:01:00.004-05:00

hump day

so driving home from my mom's house this afternoon, I look over at megan and ask, "honey, do you think this whole diet thing is making me moodier?" she gives me one of those looks as if to ask, "how much honesty does he want right now?" or "how could you lead me out into a marital landmine field with a question like that?!?"

And megan, being the amazing wife that she is, responded with all the love, gentleness, and care that I could possible dream of. but I still feel moodier.

It starts when I wake up, not tired, but out of fuel. I get that low fuel feeling a lot throughout the day - it's like there's a dashboard in my head and the little red light comes on every two hours or so.

so I'm moodier, and crampier (see yesterday's blog). [insert offensive, sexist comparisson joke here]

in case of emergency...

I prepped for this week in a number of ways, digging up recipes, buying produce, and not shaving. no, seriously. now go with me on this... I sport a mean soul-patch most of the time. It's one of the few things that I can do consistently well, but when it comes to other facial regions, I'm beard-challenged. Every now and then I'll grow it all out again, just to make sure things haven't thickened out... and endure a few days of painful stubbly itching and unpleasantness. But whenever I get around to shaving off my beard-o-shame, I feel like a million bucks!

so with that in mind, I started another beard thingy just before the raw veg challengem so that when things get really bad, and I mean really bad... like "ending my life because I can't eat cheese pizza" bad, I'll simply shave off the fuzz and enjoy the post-shave euphoria for the rest of the day.

it's my bearded backup.

raw veg +3 days

2009-02-27T21:54:00.004-05:00

why would anyone do that?

so this morning I had two meetings scheduled at the coffee company in Lancaster. It's a great little breakfast cafe joint, and a fun place to spend a Friday morning. Thing is, it's somewhat awkward to sit in a restaurant for 3+ hours and not eat anything. Watching all these people, with their egg omelettes, sausage links, and bacon... how can they sleep at night?!?

It was fun trying to explain to the waitress why I couldn't eat anything on the menu. She came back a few times trying to suggest something I might eat.

"you know we have a whole vegetarian section, right? the hummus wrap is really tasty."
"I'm sorry, I can't eat hummus. It has cooked chickpeas in it."
"well, how about just a veggie wrap?"
"I'm sorry, I can't eat the wrap either."

finally, we settled on a fresh fruit salad (with no canned fruit whatsoever) and a garden salad minus the feta cheese, walnuts, and craisins.

"what's wrong with craisins? they're a fruit, right?!?"
"because they used heat to dehydrate the cranberries. they can't use any heat if its raw."

the waitress just rolled her eyes and walked off.

my body's figuring things out
on one hand, I've lost 6 pounds so far, which is kind of cool (and kind of suspect, I think at least 3 pounds were from the burrito I ate as my last normal meal on tuesday night). but on the other hand, I'm definitely feeling crampy more often than not, and I'm really tired a lot of the time. My body is not altogether happy yet.

But mind over matter! Nevermind, no matter.

and finally, some more veg-spiritation

yes, baby chicken, Jesus, loves you too.

raw veg special (milking almonds)

2009-02-27T17:13:00.002-05:00

just a quick mid-day update to tide you over. here is my first stab at almond milk. it's "interesting," but I think using it as a base might lead to some tasty drink possibilities.

raw veg +2 days

2009-02-26T23:01:00.004-05:00

still kicking...

it's day two and I'm still alive and kicking, which leads me to my first scientifically proven fact: A Raw Vegetarian Diet does not mean certain, instant death. good to know. another banana for breakfast. some nuts and honey, guacamole, and veggies for lunch. more nuts and honey for an afternoon snack. a big salad with some banging sprouts for dinner. and a pear and orange for a snack tonight.

in other news
how to put this delicately... my body is starting to "catch on" to what I'm up to. I'll leave the rest up to your imagination.

biggest temptation
tonight ben's wife Kelly and daughter Natalie came over for dinner with the in-laws at our apartment. of course, everyone wanted to enjoy some tasty chinese food from #1 Szechuan and since it's on MY way home from work, guess who had to pick it up and drive home with a car filled with the delicious smell of Hunan Beef and Egg Rolls?!? Yeah, that was a long 10 minutes...

most awesome find
by far, the most awesome find of the raw veg challenge so far has been "Wee Bee Honey." It is hands down the best honey that man has ever tasted. I'm telling you, if you say that you like honey but have never eater "Wee Bee Honey", you're just living a lie. Go out and buy some today, or I will slap you in your self-righteous face! heh, okay, just kidding... but it's seriously REALLY GOOD!

What makes it good? It's totally unfiltered, unstrained, and never heated. It still has all the pollen, propolis, and honeycomb in it, which means it tastes like winnie the pooh crack. no wonder that bear's got the itch. (I'll be perfectly honest, I have no idea what "propolis" is but I've got the sneaking suspicion that it means growned up bee parts... I'd rather not find out.)

this weekend
almond milk, baby! I've been doing some research online... looking for creative varieties on the regular raw vegan diet, and I've decided to tackle making fresh almond milk this weekend. I'll post pictures and a recipe to show you how it turns out.

Saturday night, Megan and I are heading to Tom's house for an India Team Reunion Dinner... it's gonna be hard passing on the Tandoori Chicken. If Tom manages to find any Dal Makahni, I might just have to shoot myself to stay pure.

reverse propaganda
ben posted some pictures of homemade stromboli yesterday. low blow, man, low blow! so I've decided that I should bolster myself with some veg-spirtation. let me share the wealth.

yeah, man! just think about THAT!

raw veg +1 day

2009-02-25T19:23:00.004-05:00

and so it begins
I woke up this morning to a whole new world.

Okay, not really. I woke up this morning and I ate a banana. For lunch, it was a cup of raw almonds, cashews, and hazelnuts, an apple, and some salad. For dinner, Guacamole with Kale, Carrots and Peppers and a big salad.

I never drink enough water. Megan says my pee is typically a very unhealthy canary yellow. So I've been trying to take in more water, too. 64 ounces a day. I know, I know, it should be more... but for me that's a good start.

the asterix of my life
when ben attempted the whole raw veg thing, he did a few things wrong - like trying to run a mini-marathon every day on about 500 calories (it catches up to you). Something, however, that he did very, very right was to have the wisdom to allow one exception: coffee.

now coffee beans are technically roasted as part of their preparation and this would disqualify them from the whole RAW category. But meat and caffeine are two totally different beasts and should not be attempted to be broken at the same time.

so I'm drinking coffee... sweet, sweet coffee. or rather... black, bitter coffee. creamer is a definite "no, no" for the raw vegan, and even back when I was a meat-loving pagan, I couldn't bring myself to use non-dairy creamer, so I'm taking it black. black as a witch's heart at midnight. (no offense to any witches)

which reminds me of a joke my first boss used to tell at the ice cream parlor: "I like my coffee like I like my women. Strong, black, and bitter."

things I miss already (in no particular order)

eating random desserts sitting out on the counter in the church kitchen. today there were those little mini-brownie cupcake things.
cold pizza
cream in my coffee (see above)
peanut M&M's (Megan was pouring some into a glass bowl earlier this evening and I was overcome with this sudden and unexpected craving)

some meat-spiration
and on one final note, my brother-in-law ben has taken it upon himself to orchestrate some pro-meat propaganda. I'm not sure whether or not he's hoping to tempt me into giving up, or if he feels that the universe is somehow out of balance by my recent actions... but in either case, it's pretty funny. you can check out his blog at: http://thechroniclesofmeat.blogspot.com/

raw veg -1 day

2009-02-24T18:22:00.003-05:00

No Turning Back
tomorrow's the big day... the start of the raw veg challenge. and I have to say, I'm kinda feeling the nervous energy you get when you're just about to start something EPIC. No more meat, no more dairy, no more cooked anything. I'm going cold, raw, and earthy.

Tonight after work, Megan and I went over to the local Price Rite to stock up on some cheap produce. Check it out...

LETTUCE!

SPROUTS!

This is the "green" section

Now doesn't that look tasty?

People's Reactions
I waited until yesterday to start telling people about the raw veg challenge. Probably because I wanted to give myself the maximum amount of time to reconsider without looking like a total tool bag. Friends, Coworkers, long lost Facebook connections, everyone seemed to have their own unique take on the idea.

Some people chimed in with helpful advice:
"remember to listen to your body and be sure your getting enough calories."; "Raw Almonds"; "I hope you like avocados. You can make some guac and dip your vegetables in that. It will give you essential fats"; "Make sure you have plenty of reading material for the bathroom."

And others just thought I'm an idiot:
"You're an idiot. $50 just isn't worth it. Or the bragging rights"; "You're really an idiot"; "Ugh, no way man!"

And now to answer a few random questions

No, Megan will not be joining me in the raw veg challenge. She eats healthy enough for the two of us already. She's just delighted to see me eat salad.
No, I will not be having a doctor monitor my status. That kind of seems like overkill at this point, and this isn't a funded documentary like "Super Size Me."
Yes, I know this means I can't eat bread.
I don't have anything specifically in mind for the $50. It's simply going to be added to the "tattoo fund." The tattoo fund is an agreement that Megan and I made early in our marriage. I would never spend any part of our budget on getting a tattoo, but any additional un-budgeted money that came my way could go towards it.

Keep up the great advice, encouragement, and questions. Your comments (for good or bad) fuel me on. And remember, starting tomorrow...

MEAT IS MURDER!

raw veg -2 days

2009-02-23T21:46:00.008-05:00

A Little Background:
I honestly don't even know where to begin this one, so I'll just come out with it.

I'm going completely raw vegan starting on Wednesday of this week. But it's not what you think. It's not so much a Lent thing as it is a "beat my brother-in-law and win $50" thing.

So a month back, my friend Dave decided to go raw veg to drop some weight. he's an all-or-nothing kind of guy, and when we all heard about his plan, we thought to ourselves, "yeah, that's something I could see Dave doing." He had previously done an all juice diet while working construction one summer. yep, hauling hundreds of pounds of shingles up flimsy ladders in 100 degree heat on nothing but juice. Dave is a man.

When my brother-in-law Ben heard about Dave's plan, he thought it was a pretty good idea and something he'd like to do himself. Ben, the guy who has been faithfully eating meat since the day he was weaned off the bottle. So Ben the carnivore went raw vegan cold-turkey (or cold-cucumber). He kept it up for about five days, and then crashed. Crashed Hard. As Rick put it, "Aaron, when I saw him, he looked depressed, just awful."

Tyranasauras Ben wasn't built for the grazing cow experience, and when Ben's body finally figured out what his brain was up to, it fought back hard. And so one fateful night, not even a week into being raw veg, at home alone and desperate... Ben made himself a cheeseburger. And as Ben put it, "It was GLORIOUS!"

Now here's the thing about Ben. He's an all-or-nothing kind of guy, too. He's a "keep digging the ditch even after you put the pick axe through your shin" kind of guy. So I was completely bemused and shocked at the fact that there was a physical challenge that Ben would give up on.

And that was really all that was needed to sign me up.

That and me opening my big mouth and saying, "Oh, I could do that!" to which Ben responded, "Oh yeah, if you make it a week I'll pay you $50 toward a tattoo." (you see, I've kinda got this little tattoo fund accruing).

bragging rights and money? I'm sold!

The Official Raw Veg Challenge Rules:

I've got to make it at least one week.
(7 days - from sunrise Wednesday, February 25th to sunrise Wednesday, March 4th.)
I shall not eat any meat.
(...or meat products or products that contain meat products... man-flesh is right out).
I shall not eat any products derived from animals.
(no milk, eggs, etc.)
I shall not eat anything that is cooked.
(This is a NO-HEAT raw veg challenge. That means, no roasted nuts, no cooked beans, no popcorn, etc.)
I shall keep an entertaining blog of my progress during the challenge.
(not to prove anything, just to amuse Ben and make it worth $50 to him).
If I win Ben will only pay me the $50 when we go to the tattoo parlor.

Stay tuned for more!
So keep checking back in the next few days as I post updates, photos, and maybe even a video or two of my quest to accomplish the raw veg challenge.

oh, youth ministry!

2009-02-15T21:49:00.004-05:00

aaron's impromptu icebreaker tonight at sr. high growth group:

"okay, everybody, I want us to go around and share your name, what school you go to, and... uh... if you had to lose an internal organ, which one would you give up?"

yep. in the moment, that's the best idea I could come up with.

hello, i'm a marketing target

2009-02-11T20:48:00.006-05:00

There's a great post over on Donald Miller's blog entitled "How Apple plays upon our insecurities." I'm no raving PC fan, but its fun to see both sides getting called-out from time to time. And who doesn't love having their shopping impulses psychoanalyzed.

nobody wants to be the fat guy.

In the spirit of equality, I should mention that my PC froze up while I tried to photoshop for this blog entry. The irony is just too sweet.

how'd we get here?

2009-02-09T15:21:00.005-05:00

So I'm sitting in the office at my mom's house. My sister is in the living room telecommuting with her office back in New Jersey. My dad has just gotten out of the cardiology wing at York hospital, and is now napping in a bedroom.

A few minutes ago, I quietly opened the bedroom door and stood in the doorway watching him sleep. I was half checking to make sure he was okay - watching to see him breathe, his chest rising and falling under the blankets - and half taking in the first moment in a while that's felt familiar.

Three weeks ago I was somewhere between Los Angeles and India, heading from a wedding to a missions trip. And it turns out that sometime during that 3-day trip to India, my dad went in for heart surgery. When inserting two stints didn't work, they elected for open-heart surgery and a double by-pass. His heart stopped on the operating table, but they were able to revive him.

My first morning in India, I'm on the phone with my wife hearing the news.As Megan filled me in on the details, I felt this crashing wave of deja vu fall over my head. Bad tickers run in the family. My father's dad suffered a massive heart attack when my dad was only sixteen. I still remember the strange mix of dread and relief when I turned sixteen. In the years that have followed, that dark little thought stayed haunting in the back of my mind.

I remember driving down to my dad's house one time. I had tried calling a few times on my way there, and when I saw his truck parked in the driving way, I started thinking the worst. It was that sickening expectation. I tried the doorbell and no answer. Using a spare key to get in, I walked quietly from room to room half expecting to find his body somewhere... That haunting little thought I kept pushing away.

And there I found myself - fresh off a plane; 12,000 miles and 3 days away from the only place I wanted to be. A messed up mix of “Oh my God!” and “Thank you, God!”… the sacred and profane; a tug-of-war between yielding surrender and demanding control. The great big question inside: “God, why would you have me come all the way here only to tell me now?”

As it turns out, a hospital operating table is the best place to be when you have a heart attack. Relatively speaking, dad was now doing just fine. The doctor's were optimistic; he was cracking puns with the nurses; and they expected to have him released within the week.

In India, God had His own plans… a loving, encouraging, supportive team; gracious, generous Indian friends; Dave, who only a year ago went through the same operation, found his reason for being in India by sharing his story of encouragement with me; Iggy, who knew personally the Cardiologists who were re-plumbing my dad’s ticker.

Sometime during the trip it struck me that God didn't need me on this one. And while that seems rather obvious, it wasn't a truth I was quick or happy to realize. I like being needed. I like being part of the solution. There's comfort and meaning on that side of crisis.

I don't like being needy, and I very much was.

But there's a goodness in helplessness; a rightness that I think I'm only feebily starting to embrace. I was so blessed to be loved and supported by a spiritual family. They were a comfort, an encouragement, and a joy. I know back home my physical family was experiencing the same in any number of ways. Friends and strangers takign the time to visit, cook, pray. People going abolve and beyond cultural expectations and familial obligation to show abiding, indwelling love.

It made me grateful to be united with so many caring people.One in Christ. It also made me hurt for so many who suffer loveless and alone. There's probably a bunch more to say and write, but I'll save it for another day.

Dad's at home now, learning to slow down and be still. Be praying for him, and my mom, and our family.

photos from india

2009-02-04T05:36:00.003-05:00

fields of rice and tummeric

some of the bethel boys hanging out

the staff of bbi and their families

woman working at a brick factory in danishpet

fishing boats and nets on marina beach, chennai

mother and child in slums of chennai

prayer of st. francis

2009-02-03T17:30:00.000-05:00

Lord,
make me an instrument of your peace.
where there is hatred, let me sow love.
where there is injury, pardon
where there is doubt, faith
where there is despair, hope
where there is darkness, light
where there is saddness, joy

Lord,
may I not so much seek
to be consoled as to console
to be understood as to understand
to be loved as to love

because it is
in giving that we recieve
in pardoning that we are pardoned
in dying that we are born to eternal life
amen.

libro numreo tres

2009-01-14T23:42:00.008-05:00

So I think I've landed on the third and final book. The Just-for-Fun One is going to be The Road by Cormac McCarthy; a post-apocalyptic tale of father and son on journeys both literal and symbolic. heh. its an Oprah Book Club selection, oh dear. In any case, it comes highly recommended by two literary fellows that I admire. I'll let you know how it goes.

Thanks for all of the suggestions. I checked and "Spy Kids 3D" has not yet been adapted to a pop-up book format. I suspect that it's literary and philosophical complexities just cannot be brought down to that level of genre. Like a newspaper cartoonist trying to capture the Mona Lisa. (Bill Watterson, we miss you.)

For those of you who recommended Scot McKnight's The Blue Parakeet, thanks for the suggestion. You shall not comment in vain. It's definitely been on my radar for some time, and you've convinced me to read it ASAP.

Well, I'm off into the wild blue yonder.

books for flying

2009-01-13T17:30:00.004-05:00

I think I figured out that in the next three weeks I’m going to log about 19,000 miles flying. First, with a trip out to Los Angeles for a good college friend’s wedding, and then second, to Southern India to join up with a team from Living Word as they serve at Bethel in the town of Salem, Tamil Nadu, South India.

All that flying time, what to do? The first time I flew long distance, I made the mistake of planning to busy myself with the in-flight movies, which included “Spy Kids 3D” and “2 Fast 2 Furious”. Yippee.

This time, I’m planning on taking a couple books… I know, I know, I’m feeling ambitious. I received a few for Christmas, and what better way to start off a year of productive reading, than by pounding out a few in the first month. My only criterion is that it can’t be a book that I’ve already started reading. All of those pages that I’ve already read are just wasted packing space; I’ll finish those when I get home.

So without further ado, here are the contenders for my “mile-high book club” (I know, I know).

The Spiritual One
Seeking the Face of God by Gary Thomas
Thomas takes a look at the spiritual wisdom of classics such as Augustine, Pascal and Fenelon and uses them to open up discussions about various aspects of spiritual growth. This one’s all about helping me think through various approaches to developing a rule of life.

The Sort-of-Spiritual One
The Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs
It’s one man’s humble quest to follow the Bible as literally as possible. I’ve been hearing rave reviews about it from both secular and Christian readers alike. There’s nothing like a little outside perspective to keep you honest and faithful.

The Just-for-Fun One
???
This is where I could use your help. I’m looking for a quick reading, novel kind of thing that’ll turn pages quickly and let me get caught up in a compelling story. It could be suspense, comedy, science fiction, romance novel (well, no not really), or whatever. I’d definitely appreciate your suggestion for this category, and I’m game for nearly anything. But make your recommendation quick, I’m flying out in two days!

retreat update (part 2)

2009-01-09T11:06:00.003-05:00

“you can’t always get what you want…”
The cabin where I was going for the silence and solitude retreat is about four hours north of where I live, so the plan was to head up the day before with my brother and sister-in-law, spend the night at their place, and then head over to the cabin early the next morning. Sunday I woke up with a bit of a stiff back, but didn’t think much of it. I’ve had them plenty of times before, but as Sunday went on, the back got more painful, painful enough to take some medicine. Most times, however, taking it easy and a good night’s sleep is more than enough to straighten things out.

No big deal.

We drove up to their house at Arrowhead Bible Camp on Sunday night, and I headed to bed pretty early. The next morning, I woke up still stiff, but no worse than the day before, so we went on with our plans for the retreat. We packed a 4x4 truck with some supplies and dry firewood, and headed up the road into New York to the cabin. Ben drove me back to the cabin, and helped me get things unloaded in the cabin. By the time we were done unloading the truck, my back was pretty sore. By the time Ben drove away, I was in an incredible amount of pain.

I had thrown my back out. Hips about three inches to the right of the rest of me. It’d actually look hilarious, if it wasn’t for all of the pain. I couldn’t put any weight on my right foot and I literally couldn’t move standing up. There I was, twenty minutes into a 30 hour silence and solitude retreat, crawling on my hands and knees across the cabin floor.

God’s little irony.

My silence and solitude retreat was going to involve a good bit of stillness.

“…but if you try sometimes…”
I managed to crawl over to my bunk and roll into bed. Laying there, flat on my back, I tried to slow down my breathing to help consciously relax my back muscles. “God, this is bad. This is really bad, but you’ve definitely got my attention, and I’m willing to lay flat on my back if that’s how you want to speak to me.” And that’s pretty much how I spent the rest of the retreat, laying flat on my back, staring at the ceiling, talking to God.

Deb Turnow, the spiritual director at Living Word, had put together some great material for me to prayerfully walk through. Thoughts to help prepare my heart and mind. Mediations that guided me to reflect on God’s personal love for me, to help me consider my own rhythm of work, Sabbath, and worship, and put words to my longing for God. They were a God-send.

And not without a bit of divine irony...
Here’s a line from one of the evening meditations:
“On my bed, I remember you. I think of you through the watches of the night.” – Psalm 63:6
Very funny, God.

Here are just a few snapshots from that time in the cabin:

Sometime Monday Afternoon – “Lord, I think you for giving me the ability to get up, to move my left leg, to make fire and coffee, and stretch my back for a short while. Lord, thank you for your goodness – and all the ways that you display it – both great and small.”
Sometime Monday Night – “Father God, it’s just you and I here – complete solitude and silence- you’ve known every moment before it even happened – you’ve crafted this time for me, and I want to thank you – help me to see your love all around and receive it. In beauty, in warmth, in taste, in movement, in creation, and sunlight, in every single breath and heartbeat.”
Late Monday Night – “It has been an incredibly hard day, a painful day, at times a cramped and even boring day, but it has been good… Lying flat on my back, You have kept my heart and soul busy, rich and full. You have brought me quite literally to me knees, crying out in agony and desperation. You have brought me tears of reverent joy… I thank you, Lord – deeply. Lord, I acknowledge your love and feebly try to receive it. Lord, help me to receive your love personally – to find myself there.”

And not without a bit of drama…
When you can’t walk, you can’t really move around easily or quickly, and that can make things “interesting.” Like when you glance down between your feet at the woodstove, and realize that the chimney pipe has gotten so hot that it set the wall of the cabin on fire. Not Backdraft fire, but fire nonetheless. Or when you realize that the pile of wood stocked up inside the cabin is dwindling and won’t last the night, and there’s no way you’re going to manage walking out to the woodpile to get some more.

Here’s probably one of the coolest moments…
Tuesday Morning (12:45AM) Small miracle – gift from God. I got up to go to the bathroom and relight the fire. It had gone out and the cabin was getting very cold (it was about 9 degrees outside that night) – the wind ourside was howling – I’m so thankful for these four walls.

The wood was damp, not enough kindling – I wanted to go out for more, but my back kept me from walking into the woods to collect sticks. I was growing frustrated with the fire – sore back, slow movements, little strength – I felt so helpless. I was getting angry, I was grumbling under my breath, I just wanted to end it, give up the ghost of this retreat. Job’s wife was starting to sound pretty reasonable… and right in the moment that I was about to start cursing under my breath…

Quite unexpectedly – in the middle of misery – my phone vibrated – quite inexplicably. My phone that had absolutely no service when I wanted to call Ben to pick me up, my phone that was as good as dead out here in the middle of nowhere – vibrated.

It was a text message from my wife, Megan. Just a little note of encouragement she thought to write before she went to bed. Just a note to express her support, her love, and her prayers for me during the retreat. A text message that she sent 4 hours earlier (!!!).

God, you never cease to surprise me. Thank you for such a special gift during such a dark moment. Grace. Thank you for supply for my needs. A message of encouragement in the middle of the night, when I needed it most.

“…you just might find, you get what you need.”
I don't like to suffer. In fact I avoid it at all costs. I medicate myself in a million ways to avoid pain even if it leaves me to be nothing more than a ghost of myself. The past week or so has forced me to face that, the reality of a follower not nearly as good at following as he'd like to admit.

While I was on the retreat, it was easy to embrace the situation as a novelty, a new and dramatic experiential prayer practice that would make for a good story when I got back. But as my memories of the cabin pass by and the back pain and limitations remain, it’s hard to keep things compartmentalized. Things spill over into other things. Back pain bleeds into emotions, identity, etc. Things get messy.

But in the midst of all of that. God has been faithful, and not in some abstract, theology on paper sense of faithfulness. He’s been faithful and personal. He’s continued to limit my steps, lest I go running off again and forget to follow Him. My back’s been slowly straightening, and the pain has been gradually subsiding.

Don’t get me wrong. I wouldn’t wish that retreat experience on anyone. But I know that God certainly used it, and in some far-off, providential way, maybe He even intended it. And what He used it to show me was almost embarrassingly simple, but deeply needed. His personal, faithful love.

That’s it.
That’s all.
That’s enough.

retreat update (part 1)

2009-01-05T14:58:00.016-05:00

Just a few photos from my recent silence and solitude retreat. I'm still processing a lot of what happened and what came up, but it'll definitely make for a fascinating story.

the silence and solitude cabin out at the farm.

the inside of the cabin. table on the left, bunks on the right

great retreat materials (thanks deb!)

my view for most of the retreat (more about that in part 2)

the fields outside the front door

standing stones placed next to the cabin mark the trail head

peeking into the cabin

a still, quiet night

Merry Christmas

2008-12-24T13:00:00.002-05:00

"A Christmas Card"
by Thomas Merton, written in 1947

When the white stars talk together like sisters

And when the winter hills

Raise their grand semblance in the freezing night,

Somewhere one window

Bleeds like the brown eye of an open force.

Hills, stars,

White stars that stand above the eastern stable.

Look down and offer Him.

The dim adoring light of your belief.

Whose small Heart bleeds with infinite fire.

Shall not this Child

(When we shall hear the bells of His amazing voice)

Conquer the winter of our hateful century?

And when His Lady Mother leans upon the crib,

Lo, with what rapiers

Those two loves fence and flame their brillancy!

Here in this straw lie planned the fires

That will melt all our sufferings:

He is our Lamb, our holocaust!

And one by one the shepherds, with their snowy feet,

Stamp and shake out their hats upon the stable dirt,

And one by one kneel down to look upon their Life.

comfort and discomfort walk into a bar

2008-12-23T17:00:00.002-05:00

Next week, I’m planning to take a two day silence and solitude retreat up in New York at “The Hermitage.” If you want to know more about it, you can read this post. I’m really looking forward to some intentional time away, to drink deeply from God’s eternal well and simply be with Him in a more focused, less cluttered way.

I had a great conversation about it with Deb yesterday. She always asks really good questions that force me to think my own thoughts from a different angle: What are you looking for on this retreat? Do you find it easier when you go with some guiding materials planned or completely unplanned? Do you find it easier to connect using Scripture or can it be something else? And then of course, every time she asks a question, I’m already analyzing my answer as the words form in my brain. (I wonder if that’s a control thing?) See! I just did it again.

The plan is to have Ben drop me off at the road, and then hike back into the countryside to the cabin. I’ve been making my mental check list of what to bring (fire starter and kindling, something to eat, something to drink, sleeping bag, bible and journal, etc.).

It raises an odd question that I’m going to spin theological. How comfortable or uncomfortable should I plan to make this retreat? In light of Gary Thomas’ challenge to see discomfort as a spiritual practice, I’ve got myself second guessing bringing the coffee press, a sleeping pad, or pepper spray.

Do I go all amillenial and enjoy the goodness of an unfolding new creation with the simple comforts and luxuries of our generous God or do I live out my Bear Grylls survivor man fantasies (that’s going to look weird on Google) and go au natural (i.e. asceticism and self-denial)?

Comfort is good. It helps to nurture and soothe, to refresh us. It allows us to take pleasure in little things and rest, smiling big with eyes closed and arms outstretched. It reminds us of a generous God who lavishes us with His love, who in His divine creativity loves to bless us. But comfort can also anesthetize. It can encourage laziness and sloth. It can hypnotize us and rob us growth.

And discomfort, well we all know about discomfort. It can be a powerful tool to stretch us and grow us. But there comes a point where discomfort can become distracting, even unbearable. God may desire to use that to draw us forward, in which case it becomes the motivation for obedience, perseverance, and resolve.

But when we recklessly pursue it with the goal of achieving some greater experience of spirituality for ourselves, we often fuel our own pride and selfish ambition, and miss God completely. We can push farther than we’re really ready to go, farther than where God truly desires to lead.

So here’s the question of the day: when setting aside time for retreat with God, how do we explore the Spirit’s directing on this issue of comfort/discomfort? How do we discern what God is calling us to prepare for or how we are to prepare for His unknown?

And as a secondary question of the day: How tightly wound is Aaron that he’s actually blogging about this question?

Hallelujah

2008-12-22T10:15:00.007-05:00

Hallelujah
in Hebrew
hallel lu Yah
or quite literally
Praise to Yah-weh

It strikes me that man can be at his most reverent or his most irreverent when uttering the exact same word.

A story of two musicians:

#1
David, the shepherd-king of Israel, a man after God’s own heart, filled with passion and praise. At his best, pouring out of his heart and his pen some of the most poignant and poetic praise to God ever written.

“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” Ps. 23:1
“To you, O Lord, I lift my soul. O my God, in you I put my trust.” Ps. 25:1-2a
“Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!” Ps. 139:23-24

And at his worst, He let all of that passion and praise be directed to the beauty of God’s creation and not the Creator Himself. David desires another man’s wife, takes her and has her husband setup to die on the battlefield. Like a rich man stealing food from the poor to feed his friends.

Here is a guy with his heart on his sleeve. As mixed up and messed up as the best of us.

One day praising God so purely and passionately, so naturally it’s as if his whole life resonates and reverberates in harmony with the eternal praise of Heaven. The next day, he’s got himself caught up in a whole world of mess – all his own doing – feeling like life has turned into an enormous black pit that’s slowly swallowing him alive, suffocating whatever divine spark was left in his heart.

Hypocrite? Not exactly, It’s not that simple.

#2
Leonard Cohen. A Canadian born folk singer, poet, and novelist. In his nearly fifty year career, he’s explored every topic from love and sex to religion and clinical depression. And at the age of seventy four, he’s walked a long road of soul searching that took him from his early Jewish roots to nearly every corner of the religious globe – from Catholic mysticism to Zen Buddhism, and back again.

What’s utterly fascinating about Cohen is that even at the age of 74, he has both the #1 and #2 spots on the British Music Billboard with the exact same song. Two remakes of his song “Hallelujah” have become runaway hits this Christmas season. It’s the first time, he’s been there in 51 years of music-writing. It’s a deeply fascinating and surprising story. You can read more about it here, but to quote Bloomberg writer Norman Lebrecht: “Who could have predicted that the hottest musical item of a credit-crunch holiday season would be an over-written meditation on the Davidic Psalms by a 74-year-old Canadian with liquidity problems?”

No accident.

I think Cohen caught something special in the lyrics to his invigorated “Hallelujah.” He captured that fine line between the sacred and profane, between reverence and irreverence, between the great dignity and depravity of mankind. He is David the worshipper torn between almighty God and his idols.

We all are.

Cohen’s speaking for all of us, whether we realize it or not. And I find myself in a surreal and haunting reality when I catch someone humming along to the catchy tune, completely unaware of the timeless truths they proclaim with every oblivious breath.

As Cohen sings of David, the worshipper and the lover, he touches on the deepest human longing and struggles. Ours may look different on the surface, but deep down I suspect we’re all living out of the same place.

Here are the last two verses:

“You say I took the name in vain
I don't even know the name
But if I did, well really, what's it to you?
There's a blaze of light
In every word
It doesn't matter which you heard
The holy or the broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

I did my best, it wasn't much
I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch
I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you
And even though
It all went wrong
I'll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah

Hallelujah…”

You can watch Jeff Buckley’s cover of Hallelujah here on youtube. It’s definitely worth five minutes.

the art of discomfort

2008-12-15T18:38:00.002-05:00

(or why blogs written in the midst of conviction shouldn’t have a clever ending)

In his book Seeking the Face of God, Gary Thomas has a chapter entitled, “Training the Body and Soul.” He talks about the importance of purposeful planning and practicing the disciplines in our spiritual transformation. Essentially, spiritual growth doesn’t happen by accident.

He talks about a few unconventional disciplines that help us train spiritually. Practices like pious reading of the spiritual classics, imitating living examples, cultivating virtues, and… (shudder) early rising. I’m not quite ready for that last one, but one that I found tremendously insightful and a good bit convicting was the practice of “Using Discomfort.”

He writes: “As sinful people, we are naturally inclined toward ease, comfort, and self-assertion. Training can be painful, and pain is a price that many of us simply are not willing to pay… we can shape our passions and habits by training and by not always choosing the easy or comfortable road. The little decisions we make about how to spend our time and what to eat are really spiritual battles through which our characters are shaped.”

Dietary Discipleship.

Now, without going all puritanical and neglecting the reality of living in God’s grace everyday, I think Gary makes a good point – and one that squarely hits home.

“Hello, my name is Aaron and I’m a comfort-oholic.” I don’t like pain, I don’t even really like to sweat. I have never experienced a runner’s high – unless it comes right after a runner’s death-by-exhaustion.

Megan and I talk about this from time to time: I have an aversion to routine. It can sometimes drive her crazy. I don’t like the idea of doing the same thing every day in the exact same way. If I was a show on TNT, I would be the anti-Monk. I even made Megan switch sides of the bed with me after a year of marriage so we wouldn’t fall into some kind of bed rut. (“Bed Rut” just sounds like an unpleasant disease.)

So when Gary talks about discomfort as a motivation for spiritual growth, as a driving force for transforming change, I start thumbing forward in the book to see when that next chapter is coming to get me out of my discomfort over reading about discomfort. Ugh, nine more pages…

Then he quotes John of the Cross and I’m simply done-for:

"Endeavor to be inclined always:
Not to the easiest, but to the most difficult;
Not to the most delightful, but to the harshest;
Not to the most gratifying, but to the less pleasant;
Not to what means rest for you, but hard work;
Not to the consoling, but to the unconsoling;
Not to the most, but to the least;
Not to the highest and most precious, but to the lowest and most despised;
Not to wanting something, but to wanting nothing;
Do not go about looking for the best of temporal things, but for the worst…

You should embrace these practices earnestly and try to overcome the repugnance of your will toward them. If you sincerely put them into practice with order and discretion, you will discover in them great delight and consolation.”

It reminds me of the Gospel of Mark: themes of suffering and the cost of discipleship. It shakes up the over-medicated, over-padded, overly sterilized Christianity-lite that I’m tempted to sink in when I’m looking for my fix of comfort.

Gary wraps up that section by rubbing it in with a little tongue-in-cheek optimism that just stings a recovering comfort-oholic:

“Discomfort can be a friend,
Not a foe,
For those who truly
Want to grow.”

O Gary,
I know,
I know,
I know.

advent conspiracy

2008-12-06T16:27:00.005-05:00

Check out this sweet little video from AdventConspiracy.org. It does a great job of shaking things up and refocusing us on this idea of relational incarnation. Props to Melissa (Jr. High Director of Fusion) for finding this one.

a beautiful mess

2008-12-04T17:12:00.005-05:00

Life is messy.
Life is beautiful.
And we live somewhere in the middle.

One of the things that I deeply appreciate about serving at Living Word is that we all try to embrace the messiness of life. Not that we’re going around hugging steaming piles of mess, but that we really try to embrace people in the midst of their mess, before they’ve found a way to look like they’ve cleaned up enough to not soil the church carpet.

Its part of our revamped mission statement, and the part that tends to throw people a bit and make them go, “huh.” Ahem… “Living Word is a grace-filled community, where the messiness of life, the message of hope, and the beauty of Jesus converge.”

As Pastor Steve has put it, “We’re the church of the most unlikely…” An emergency room of grace, where people come in bleeding out and encounter an Amazing God rich with grace and compassion.

As humans, we’ve got the two-fold distinction of being made in the very image of God, unlike anything in the entire created order AND we’re deeply broken and screwed up, apt to sin quicker than we are to sneeze. Another former pastor here loved referring to it as our dignity and depravity... All rolled into one.

So life is messy, and we are messy, and right there in the midst of all that mess, God wants to meet us… not yank us out and hose us down, but simply come find us and meet us. And it seems to me that there’s no better time of year to capture our imaginations with that thought than this one.

In advent.

As we eagerly anticipate the Incarnation…
God-in-the-flesh
God-in-the-mess
God-with-us.
Emmanuel.

Good stuff.

pilgrimage

2008-12-02T15:54:00.009-05:00

A few weeks ago, I was having a great conversation with some Spiritual Formation friends and they asked me, “What’s your primary practice for spiritual formation?” (In the context, we were talking about the most impacting practice, not necessarily the most practiced practice.) As I thought about it, I was surprised at the first answer that came to my mind: pilgrimage.

As I think through the times in my life where I deeply resonated with God, when I could see God’s direction or hear His voice with greatest clarity, it usually involved some kind of pilgrimage or journey. For me, the idea of pilgrimage involves both a journey and sacred space. It’s an ongoing sense of the sacred here and now with a goal or vision for what’s to come.

It’s like taking a steep hike to the top of a mountain overlook. I anticipate the expansive view at the top, the beauty of the scenery, the exhilaration of accomplishment and arrival, but at the same time I’m present on each step of the trail – the surroundings, the struggle, all of it.

Here’s another example: twice a year, I try to join LBC’s Project Renovation on their Soul Thirst retreat for youth leaders. It’s always a powerful and refreshing experience, but as I continue to go back, each time I find myself becoming more aware of the entire trip and not just the time at the cabin. The process of packing and ordering my day, the drive to LBC to meet the rest of the retreat participants, the drive in mass to the retreat, etc. has all become more and more part of the spiritual experience. It’s the idea of pilgrimage.

With all that said, I’m looking forward to my next planned pilgrimage.

Sometime after Christmas and before New Year’s, I’m heading up to Arrowhead Bible Camp where my brother-in-law serves. This past September, we moved one of the camp cabins a few miles down the road to another property that the camp owns. You can see how that was done here, here, and here.

Nestled there in about 190 acres of isolated country, at the edge of the woods and a stream, the tiny cabin sits as a refuge for stillness and solitude. No running water, no electricity, only a wood stove, a table, and a bed. It’s called The Hermitage (though others seem to prefer “The Fortress of Solitude”), and I’m hoping to get at least a day up there to simply sit and be with God.

Its exciting to see people already using it. Finding it a meaningful sacred space to unplug or maybe "re-plug." I'm so thankful that Ben had the vision and leadership that supported it. You can read more of his own thoughts on the Hermitage here. I'm sure that I'll write more about the trip as I prepare.

And as a question to leave on, I'll open this up to you: What spiritual practice do you find most impacting?

the inside place

2008-11-12T14:49:00.004-05:00

(or why I'd like to renegotiate the mortgage on my heart)

Sitting in the Toronto airport with a six hour layover, I'm thinking about the last week spent in Santiago, Chile and the amazing people serving God and building the kingdom there. But more about all that later.

With time to kill, I'm finally cracking open William Young's The Shack. My mother bought a copy for me a few months back after she devoured it as part of what I like to call her spiritual renaissance. I'm hardly into it very far at all and he's already got me thinking (tangentially). Here's the bit I'm talking about:

"...to help them understand what had been going on in his inside world. You know that place: where there is just you alone - and maybe God, if you believe in Him."

That inside place.

I use that idea a lot when I'm teaching or talking with people about God. It’s not just you in a room by yourself or you in your thoughts late at night in bed when you can't sleep. It’s that dawning (or creeping) awareness of who you really are - whether you want to face it or not. It’s you for you, and we hardly ever share it with others. Frankly, most of us don't like dwelling there with ourselves for very long, and so we go off working or entertaining ourselves to death and denial.

That inside place.

I believe that's where God speaks to us most directly, most powerfully. It’s there in raw vulnerability that we are transformed. It’s there where we're aware of our hard-wired, God-given identity: craving relationship and community, longing to find meaning and peace, just itching to worship our Creator and reflect the Imago Dei.

I really like the idea of "that inside place." and right now, this minute I'm wondering, what if we all just got a little "land of make believe" for a minute and imagined... What would that inside place look like? What does it look like for me? For you? At this point in life, how would I try to describe it - allowing the setting and environment somehow represent where I'm at? Maybe even more so than I realize…

Is it a café? Maybe a shack? A dark alley or a forest path? That inside place where I have to really face myself and maybe God at His wildest and least filtered... How would I envision it? How bout you?

Leave a comment and give us a napkin sketch. Maybe taking notice of the surroundings will encourage us to stay there just a little bit longer.

the trouble with paris

2008-10-31T23:44:00.008-04:00

hey, just a quick update on The Trouble with Paris. Because it seemed to strike a chord with so many of you, I thought I'd give you a little more insight into what it's about, just in case you're still on the fence about it.

I first got turned on to the book by Byron over at Hearts and Minds." If you've never gone, you should! Hearts and Minds is an amazing little bookstore tucked away in Dallastown that is an absolute gem. In a world of CCM, Precious Moments, and Cotton-Candy theology, Hearts and Minds is a proverbial fort knox of insightful Christian works from a variety of traditions address everything from politics and social issues to arts and culture. It is THE place to find deeply thoughful works on nearly anything, and the staff are walking wikipedias of authors and publishers.

Anyway, I digress.

Byron wrote a blog about The Trouble with Paris that you can find here. I read it, got interested, and picked up the book and DVD series right away. At the same time Brian Rice, our Pastor of Leadership Development must have read the same blog and grabbed it himself. He blogged about it here.

Mark Sayers is an Australian, and cultural analyst, who's been working for sometime on the postmodern trends in the land down under. He wrote The Trouble with Pari s out of his observations and interactions with church leaders there, and the translation to Western Europe and America is startling. He's got his thumb on the heartbeat of consumerism, capitalism, and materialism in our society, and I think he's got an insightful critique of the 20something quarterlife crisis experience.

Over the past few months, I think God's been using it in my own life to hold up a mirror to my heart and reveal all the subtle ways in which I've exchanged the goodness of God's reality for the pursuit of cheap knockoffs in this world. But it isn't as simple as an us vs. them mentality, it goes much deeper.

Mark's central thesis is that advertising and marketers in the pursuit of selling us the next new thing have inadvertently created a hyper-real world, where everything is bigger and better than the real world. Our lives are fuller and more meaningful, our days are brighter and more exciting, our relationships are more passionate and elevating.

This is the world on which we are weaned, the world we're taught to pursue, and the sad reality is that it's only a photoshopped illusion. It doesn't really exist, no matter how hard we try to achieve it, no matter how much debt we amass in pursuit of it, no matter how much of our true selves we abandon to dwell in it.

Mark's pulled back the curtain and shown us our world for what it is, and maybe that's all that needed to be done. Call a spade a spade and move on. For the Christian, the call is to confess and repent from our pursuit of the hyper-real, and rediscover the healthy, whole shalom that is God's reality; to once again take up our part in the ushering in of God's kingdom, and become agents of that shalom wherever God's called us.

Good stuff, and definitely a good read. I'd tell you to drive over to Dallastown and buy it from Byron, but some of you might need to get it off Amazon.

the fog of (political) war

2008-10-30T19:41:00.003-04:00

oh man, am I ready for the elections to be over!

I've had more than my fill of sound-bites, talking points, and joe the whatever. It's not that the decisions we are about to make as a country aren't crucial, but the political pandering and gamesmanship just seems to suck all of the nobility out of this great democractic process we're living in.

Nevertheless, whatever your persuasion, we have a tremendous privilege and responsibility in exercising our right to vote, I truly believe that. It's a right that has been defended at the cost of great sacrifice, and I think we all have some degree of moral obligation to participate, even if we ourselves aren't particularly all that interested in politics, even if we see ourselves primarily as Kingdom-minded Christians, Heavenly ambassadors on a mission from God, or whatever.

The fact that God has seen fit to plant us in a land where the government is structured to give every citizen a voice and an opportunity to participate, seems to compel us to take full advantage of the opportunity - to be a faithful steward of what God's given us (in this case, a vote).

But don't be dumb about it. Please. With great discernment and thoughtful deliberation, make political decisions that reflect the best in Christ-followers... Not short-sighted, panic-driven sheep mentality, but careful, perceptive decision-making. If you need some help, get it - do some homework.

Here's one great resource that I'd highly recommend: http://glassbooth.org/ It allows you to select which issues matter most to you and express your support or opposition to varies plans or policies. It then evaluates your similarities to the various candidates. It's a very helpful way of getting a nonpartisan, objective evaluation of where you stand on different issues with the candidates.

Jesus as Lord and Guide

2008-10-27T14:16:00.011-04:00

I've been working through a book called The Trouble with Paris: Following Jesus in a World of Plastic Promises over the past few months. It started with stumbling upon a book review online and has now blossomed into a full fledged theme for the Sr. High Ministry this Fall. It's a fantastic and thought-provoking read for anyone who's grown up in Western Culture.

I definitely can't get into the details of the book here, but there is one section that I'm mulling through right now, preparing for next Sunday morning.

It raises the questions of Jesus as not only our Lord, but also our Guide. And not Jesus as the gospels as a roadmap to how we should live our lives, but Jesus as flesh-and-blood in our lives walking with us in every aspect of our days from the very sacred to the very, very profane. Sayers has a great quote from William Barclay on this:

"Suppose we are in a strange town and we ask for directions. Suppose the person says: 'Take the first to the right, and the second to the left. Cross the square, and go past the church, and take the third on the right and the road you want is the fourth on the left.' If that happens, the chances are we will get lost before we get halfway. But suppose the person we ask says: 'Come. I'll take you there.' In that case the person is to us the way, and we cannot miss it. That is what Jesus does for us. He not only gives us advice, he takes us by the hand and leads us. He walks beside us, strengthens, and guides us every day. He does not tell us the way: He is the way."

I love how Sayers concludes this section. "We find peace through imitating Jesus' ministry of shalom; we find meaning through embodying Jesus' embodiment of God's reality; we find liberation from our slavery of self through Jesus' path of sacrifice; we find new life through Jesus' resurrection; we find a new home in the new world that He is building for us."

Great stuff, and hopefully enough to convince you to go out and buy this book. I think it's become increasingly helpful and poignant with the unfolding global economic slowdown and market volitility. Isn't it just like God to nudge us further when all we'd really like to do is sit around and lick our wounds?

a raw kind of love

2008-10-06T15:33:00.007-04:00

A while ago, I was on a Soul Thirst retreat being led by Doug Jones (perigrinatio) focusing on developing a Rule of Life, but in the midst of that Doug introduced a powerful symbol to help us evaluate our lives. At the beginning of the weekend, he handed each of us a rough, jagged rock.

It was to represent us at our deepst core - raw and unrefined, still needing a lot of work. This was the person that Christ died for, this was the person God embraces, this was the person the Spirit spoke to. We may all long to present ourselves as smooth, polished gem stones, but in reality the vast majority of us are far from that. The tragedy is all the time we waste pretending to be something we're not; somehow believing that God was only ever interested in working with smooth stones and not the rough ones.

I was reading back over my journal from that time, and came across a prayer from that retreat. I thought I'd share it here, not because I thought it was particularly profound, but simply because I found my heart echoing it all over again today as I read it. I think it caught something beyond the moment, and that might make it worth another look.

“I’m holding a rock – sharp and ragged, raw and honest – and it’s to represent my true self – down deep in my heart, somewhere below the surface. It is the me that I avoid, that I’ve hidden because of fear or shame or embarrassment – but it is me. And that is the Aaron whom God loves perfectly, whom Christ has redeemed, whom the Spirit intercedes for.

I like to think of myself as smooth and polished, refined with no jagged edges – this is the Aaron that I love – the Aaron that I embrace and project – the Aaron that I make available to be embraced by others, to be loved – but it isn’t me. It isn’t truly Aaron, and deep down I know it – so consequently embraces feel weak, love feels unsatisfying, and true acceptance seems so unbelievable. Deep down – the illusion only brings more distance from God.

God, I am a rock – sharp and ragged, very, very raw – and I want to be honest about that. I want to experience your love and grace in a genuine way. Help me to be real and raw and vulnerable – with You, with myself, and with others. I don’t want to live a life of inconsequence, a shadow of a shadow. I simply want to be centered in Your Presence, and fully satisfied and consumed there. Amen.”

Silence and Solitude

2008-09-29T14:20:00.004-04:00

(or why God is telling me, "Sssh!")

Here's an excerpt (pg. 114) from Mike King's Presence-Centered Youth Ministry on the need for silence and solitude in the life of the believer:

In the 1980s dan Rather interviewed Mother Teresa. Rather asked her, "What do you say to God when you pray?"
Mother Teresa responded, "I don't say anything. I listen."
Rather followed up with another question, "Then, what does Jesus say to you?"
After a short pause, Mother Teresa said, "He doesn't say anything either. He just listens." Later she said, "Before you speak, it is necessary for you to listen, for God speaks in the silence of the heart."

A Prayer of Surrender

2008-08-28T10:37:00.007-04:00

Next Thursday night, Project Renovation over at LBC will be hosting a prayer coffee for local youth workers and their adult leaders - a night away from the busyness of youth ministry to simple stop, take a breath, and enjoy the presence of God. To have permission to let go of everything else, and simply be... be aware of our intimate abiding in Jesus Christ, be attuned to the Spirit's work in our lives, be fully present to the majesty and mercy of our Heavenly Father.

For my own part, I know how frighteningly easy it is to keep pushing ahead in youth ministry without taking time to worship and commune with God as my singular-focus. Its far too tempting to take those moments and try to multitask - let me come and worship God (and talk to that guy over there, and follow-up with this student, and remind that person about the upcoming whatever).

Trying to kill two birds with one stone can end up just killing my soul.

Here's a little nugget from the night, it's called "A Prayer of Surrender" (and I'm not exactly sure anymore where it came from). What speaks to me through it is the idea that surrender is not only about our will versus His. Often times, it is also about those other things that we hold on to... struggles, resentment, illness... the list goes on.

It's not simply "Thy will be done" but "Thy will be done" because "Thy will" is for transformation, redemption, and healing. "Thy will" is far better than anything any of us could ever achieve.

Give it all to God
for who He is

Give your thoughts,
your words, your heart
Give your plans, your hopes, your dreams
Give your mornings and your nights
Give your life.

Give Him praise and honor and glory and power
Give Him fears and failures and shames and struggles
Give Him sickness and sin and resentment and cruelty

And see
how He
will replace them!

See
how He
will transform them!

See the miraculous power and
loving-kindness
of our Lord.

Great is our God!
And full deserving of it all!

Bless the Lord, O my soul.

Don Miller and the DNC

2008-08-26T10:50:00.009-04:00

(or "why my teenage political rebellion wasn't so rebellious.")

Now that the Olympics are over, it seems like television is telling me to turn my attention to politics. The DNC is having their big convention in Denver this week, and has taken some pretty significant steps to reach out to spiritually-minded voters. There's more faith language popping up in speeches, more allusions to biblical imagery, and even opening prayers and late night benedictions.

As a well-trained mid-twentysomething, I'm filtering it all with the appropriate blend of skepticism and reserved hope. I'm excited to see the Democratic party making the effort, but in the back of my mind there's this little voice saying, "Please, please, please don't use this as a way of getting my vote. Please don't just say what I want to hear. Please don't do what the Republican party did four years ago. Please somebody mean it this time."

And the trouble is I won't know until long after the election whether or not it truly was sincere. If they win, will they live out the inspiring words even when it requires sacrifice and hard change? If they lose, will they drop the God-stuff and look for the next new hot tactic? We'll see, I guess.

In any case, last night they invited Don Miller to close out the evening with a benediction. Don is a great writer from Portland, fairly well known in the younger evangelical circles. He's written things like Blue Like Jazz and To Own a Dragon, and if you haven't read any of his stuff, you definitely should.

He's not a hardcore Democrat... I don't even know if he's political at all, but he is a Christ-follower -and in years past, that wouldn't have made him all that welcome at a DNC event, at least not from the pulpit (er.. podium). So it was certainly somewhat surreal to see him standing there last night.

If you had a chance to pray over a room of politicians (of any persuasion), what would you try to say?

Here's a transcript of his benediction (if you want to see it in action, he's got a youtube clip of it on his site):

"Father God,
This week, as the world looks on, help the leaders in this room create a civil dialogue about our future. We need you, God, as individuals and also as a nation. We need you to protect us from our enemies, but also from ourselves, because we are easily tempted toward apathy.
Give us a passion to advance opportunities for the least of these, for widows and orphans, for single moms and children whose fathers have left. Give us the eyes to see them, and the ears to hear them, and hands willing to serve them. Help us serve people, not just causes. And stand up to specific injustices rather than vague notions. Give those in this room who have power, along with those who will meet next week, the courage to work together to finally provide health care to those who don’t have any, and a living wage so families can thrive rather than struggle. Help us figure out how to pay teachers what they deserve and give children an equal opportunity to get a college education. Help us figure out the balance between economic opportunity and corporate gluttony. We have tried to solve these problems ourselves but they are still there.
We need your help. Father, will you restore our moral standing in the world. A lot of people don’t like us but that’s because they don’t know the heart of the average American. Will you give us favor and forgiveness, along with our allies around the world. Help us be an example of humility and strength once again.
Lastly, father, unify us. Even in our diversity help us see how much we have in common. And unify us not just in our ideas and in our sentiments—but in our actions, as we look around and figure out something we can do to help create an America even greater than the one we have come to cherish. God we know that you are good. Thank you for blessing us in so many ways as Americans.
I make these requests in the name of your son, Jesus, who gave his own life against the forces of injustice. Let Him be our example.
Amen."

a necessary introduction

2008-08-25T17:05:00.004-04:00

(or “why I don’t find the paparazzo camped outside my door”)

I’ve tried this blogging thing before. I’ve done the random musing about my life, bullet pointing the mundane and often awkward moments of my day. I’ve posted highlights of those rare moments when my life looks almost like what I see in magazine advertisements. As if to say, “Look at my life, I don’t really know why… but just look!” I’ve photoshopped pictures of myself to look tanner, more hip, more whatever and then posted them on MySpace.

I’ve made attempts to wax eloquent about the human experience and ended up only longwinded. Late at night, I’ve abreacted my soul in ways that would make a peeping tom blush. I’ve looked up big words like “abreact” and used them in blogs to make myself seem more intellectual. Failing to come across intellectual, I’ve attempted irony so that people would think I was witty. I’ve commentated on my own attempts at being witty. I’ve taken things to far.

And what I found was that my life story couldn’t sell a tabloid magazine to save my life. I simply don’t have what it takes to make the world care what hot nightclub I was at last night or what toothpaste I endorse. And while it took a lot to accept the fact that pictures of me on the beach will never show up on Entertainment Tonight, I’ve come to a place where I’m alright with that. (Incidentally, that place looks a lot like the local Panera with free wifi). So I’m renouncing all attempts to catapult myself into celebrity blogdom by sensationalizing the everyday.

But I’m still here and I’m still typing so what gives.

Here’s the thing: I just want my Google footprint to be more substantive than what I ate for dinner last week and what I’d name a puppy if I owned one. For all the benefits of the internet, it’s also given us the ability to produce enormous piles of technocrap and spread it around the world in a matter of seconds. iPoop.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the internet, Google has become like the third lobe of my brain. In fact, Google just taught me that my brain actually has four lobes already (Frontal, Occipital, Parietal, Temporal), making that first sentence entirely nonsensical. A normal person would have edited that, but instead I’m just trying to use it to be witty, and evidentially commentating on that attempt.

I just want more – more meaning, more substance and significance, more collaboration and contribution, more.

And I want less – less collusion with my own insecurity, less settling for the appearance of authenticity and self-awareness.

So let’s have some of that.