memorandum from captain random

i should be finishing the audacity of hope or journaling my dreams for my soon-to-be born son or something, but i’m watching baseball instead. so, in lieu of watching commercials, i’m going to share random shit with you for the next couple of hours. aren’t you the golden child?

joe buck just openly stated that david wright is becoming the “poster boy of new york baseball.” hmmm, i wonder why…let’s see, there are two much better latino players on his team, a superior latino and african-american on the yankees, hmmm, why is it that david is garnishing all those covers right now???

chris carpenter is missing his next start with an inflamed elbow. i think i just threw up in my mouth.

i'm glad that the cardinals just his into their fifth double play in eleven innings, because it gives me more time to blog. speaking of which, lately i've found myself longing for the holy rhythms of liturgy. the older i get, the more beauty i find in the way that lent deepens my experience not only of the resurrection, but also of spring, and i could say the same thing about advent. it seems to me that if we do not choose to let the seasons of the church shape our experience of worship, then other, likely less inspired impetuses, such as our individual creativity or rick warren's most recent book, will shape our worship instead. i grew up in churches that pulled out all the stops for the fourth of july, mothers day, fathers day and even grandparents day, but never spoke a word of ash wednesday, pentecost or maundy thursday. from my perspective, shooting red, white and blue streamers out of a celebration canon on the fourth of july, but ignoring lent altogether is, uh, pretty stupid.

why can't i get these damn blogger fonts to work?! insert curses and invectives here: .

ok, i'll admit it. i think the cardinals are either going to win the division or secure fourth place. if they can find a way to do the latter - and, believe me, i've learned not to doubt walt jocketty, et al too much - that'll be great. and if they can't...oh well, we won the 2006 world series and this aging team has had a hell of a run.

in the midst of the tiny delay before baby preston arrives, kellie has cooked our books and we've considered the costs of daycare. so, i guess what i'm trying to say is, i really need a part-time job that pays relatively well. if you're interested in hiring me for 10-15 hours a week or know someone who is, let me know. if not, no worries! i've heard that there are a couple of massage parlors down by logan that are hiring.

if you haven't seen the south park wheel of fortune episode - which is a send up of the whole michael richards at the laugh factory event - then you probably shouldn't watch it. that clip is really, really offensive.

rolen just got picked off. way to go, hoosier! at least you didn't barrel into delgado and re-injure your shoulder.

brad lidge gave up a solo shot to ruin oswalt's start on opening day? shocker. that guy is about fifteen blown starts away from going mark wholers on the astros.

outfield defense. anyone? anyone?

joe buck, verbatim: "spezio is one of the better hitters this team has to offer." houston, we have a problem.

ok, i'm even boring myself. hopefully when you hear from me next, i'll be a father. here's to hope...and naming children after britney's baby.

five minute book review

over the past couple of weeks i have been overwhelmed by both the power of Jesus' teaching "not to judge, lest you be judged with the same measure" and my apparent inability to live without making snap, often vicious, judgments of others. my sensitivity to such judgments was part of the reason i posted that indefensible brief piece about tony la russa last week. like keith law said on espn insider,* drunk driving is a much more dangerous and life threatening mistake than pumping up anabolic steroids. thousands of people whose lives, including my own, have been impacted by drunk driving can attest that driving after you've had too much, even if that means sipping three glasses of wine instead of two, is not only a personal mistake but a wholly indefensible anti-social act. so the point of that post was to poke fun of myself for my irrational judgments and try to walk a mile in a bonds' supporters shoes.

anyway, i cannot talk my bent towards irrational and spiteful judgments without briefly referencing the deep prejudice i have lately harbored towards those who support the gop. seven years ago, i was incredibly ambivalent about the election of george w. bush and even found myself thankful for his apparent leadership after 9/11. however, after an apparently poorly executed war in afghanistan, an unnecessary war against iraq and six years of fiscally irresponsible and ethically challenged governance by the gop, i have begun to assume that all republicans are bellicose, neo-con, rampant individualists who care little about the collective good and are much more concerned with joey shacking up with donny than they are about responsible fiscal policy and discerning international policy. in fact, over the past couple of years i grew so weary of bush, his neo-con handlers and the reagan republicans that i even voted for john kerry, which, i must admit, was not something i really wanted to do.

i mention my rancor not to stir partisan debate,** but to confess that my tendency to paint all republicans with the same brush is air-tight evidence of my foolishness. i've never been more convicted of my foolishness than i was after i finished devouring crunchy cons by rod dreher.*** in rod's wonderful, progressive-republican manifesto he constantly challenges the moral libertarianism of the left, the free-trade at all costs, sit back and trust the market economic libertarianism of the right and, most importantly, calls the readers to actively subvert the mindless consumerism and meaningless relativism of our culture by thoughtfully conserving the elements of our personal, political and communal lives that are most beautiful good and true. if i could make every democrat and republican i know read this powerful little tome, i would. though i do not agree with dreher on every point (i.e., i wonder whether it makes much sense in the current environment to support an administration which superficially supports many of my ethical stances while actively attempting to unravel the mores and folkways of foreign nations; and i'm not convinced that well-intentioned educational separatism is the best way to approach our children's education) by the time i closed the book i was convinced that i had much, much more in common with crunchy conservatives than i do with many liberal democrats.

i've already gone past my five minute limit, but should probably note that dreher not only utilizes his pages to carefully explain how crunchy conservatives approach topics such as consumerism, food, education and the environment, but he also tells story after story of crunchy conservatives who are raising excellent organic meat,**** building a persuasive case for animal rights and developing family lives that are focused on blessing the world instead of cursing it. here are a few quotes from the book to whet your appetite.

"the first idol crunchy cons have to smash is efficiency, the guiding principle of free markets, but an unreliable guide to building institutions that serve human nature and human community. we have to start living by our ideals, judging things not by what works most efficiently, but by what's good, what's true, what's beautiful - in other words, what's right" (ibid., 229)

"crunchy conservatism is a way of life that calls for a change of culture. it's about returning to tradition, in the face of rampant and energetic consumerism, to reclaim a way of life that's richer, more satisfying, more grounded, more sustainable, more meaningful and, in the end, more authentically joyful than what mainstream american life offers" (238)

"when we had matthew, we moved to a slightly bigger place in brooklyn, but a year or two later, when matthew became mobile, our cozy cobble hill apartment seemed awfully crowded. thus did the dream of home ownership take deeper hold of our imaginations.
(i know, i sound like a commercial for a mortgage broker, but if you're like me, you'll find as you grow older a strange new respect for the middle-class cliches you spent your smart-ass youth making fun of. knife. fork. crow" (97-98).

okay, i've gone on for waaay more than five minutes. but i hope you read this book. i believe that crunchy cons focuses more on what binds us together than the ideologies than rend us apart. for that reason, i think it's a wonderful companion to barak obama's the audacity of hope.

* a pay only site that i loathe and yet cannot seem to separate myself from.
** which i will not participate in after i post this steaming piece of shit.
*** many thanks to rick for the recommendation.
**** oh how i wish i could frequent texas supernatural meats!

do you love me?


this morning, as i lazed in bed beside my beautiful pixie like wife and awaited the birth of our first child, i spoke of the things i love in relation to my love for the saint louis cardinals. since the cardinals open their defense of their 10th world series championship this evening, i thought i'd let you in on our conversation.

the gold standard for this conversation is the cardinals winning their 11th world series championship. everything else in my life is arranged in relation to how important that one event is. i.e., if dizzy is ranked at +11, that means i love her 11% more than the cardinals winning their next championship. conversely, if finishing seminary at gordon-conwell theological seminary ranks at -30, that means i value my seminary education 30% less than the cardinals. got it? if the concept is still a little hazy in your mind, feel free to drop a comment asking me to rank the importance of a public figure, a book, movie, ideology or any thing else that relates to my life. i think that my response will give you a clearer glimpse of the complete picture.*

pixie: +20.2**
papa: +20.1
preston: +15
james and brooke: +11.1
dizzy dean: +11
sinners and saints christian community: +11
saint francis: +3
personal literacy: +1.4
world peace: push
orgasm: push
the gold standard: the cardinals win! the cardinals win! their 11th world series championship!
orgasm: push
world peace: push
the beverly public library: -1.2
kevin smith flicks: -2
friday night lights: -2.3
harry potter and the deathly hallows: -2.5
the emergent conversation: -3
sinners and saints' fourth annual wild at heart weekend: -4
coffee: - 15
coffee at michelle's diner: -21
obstetricians: -37***

* which, for the record, is not a schooner. you dumb bastard.
** there was some deliberation over whether pixie was 20.1 and papa was 20.2 or the final ranking that you see above. but, since the pixie is sitting right here and she has a number of wily skills at her disposal she won out.
*** fyi: they hate women.

out of context: phyllis tickle

But would you place the emerging church with Evangelicalism, or it is something else?"No, it’s not evangelicalism. American religion has four, pretty much equally divided, quadrants. Evangelicalism is one of them, charismatic Pentecostalism is another, the old mainline or social just Christians is a third quadrant, and then the liturgicals. And where the quadrants meet in the center there’s a vortex like a whirlpool and they are blending. So, much of the political energy is evangelical. There’s no question about that. Much of the religious energy is Pentecostal, but that’s combined with the strong ballast of social consciousness and of applied gospel that comes out of the mainline. And into the mix comes the liturgical traditions with the great gifts of the heritage of the church."

- as quoted on leadership today's out of ur

as much as i respect phyllis tickle, and as foolish as i undoubtedly am for cutting across her path, i think that her representation of the emergent conversation is a little idealistic. although the conversation itself should not be defined as evangelical the leading voices in the conversation have evangelical roots and, from my perspective anyway, often appear to be speaking out of and reacting against that tradition. moreover, although there are a number of strong, persuasive pentecostal voices within the conversation (emanating forth from leaders such as kevin rains and phil wyman) i believe that much of the spiritual energy within the conversation flows forth from liturgical and contemplative traditions, not from modern pentecostalism.

i realize that as westerners we often feel a need to define things so that we can properly categorize and compare such things with other things.* but i think that at this point emergent, which i would still argue is a conversation rather than an institution or ideology, is difficult if not impossible to define. that is not to say that phyllis' definition is not flattering. in fact, i suspect that most of the participants in the conversation would be ecstatic if, at some point in the not to distant future, phyllis' idealistic definition of emergent squares with "reality."

of course, that's only my opinion. i could be wrong. what do you think?

* wow, is that precise prose or what?

gentry's judgment: tony la russa


for those of you who haven't heard, tony la russa was picked up last night for a dui. tony had a .093 bac, which basically means he had three glasses of wine instead of two. furthermore in 2006, after eleven years of dedicated service to the cardinals organization, tony led the redbirds to their 10th world series championship. on account of the world series championship, tony's immediate confession and heartfelt apology and tony's deep commitment to the arf foundation, gentry gives tony: a free pass.

tony la russa you are forgiven!. but take heed, my grace is not a license to sin but an opportunity to pursue #11.

five minute movie review: jesus camp

on friday night kellie and i watched jesus camp, a "documentary" that follows a pentecostal children's minister as she conducts local rallies in support of the summer camp that is supposed to serve as the film's centerpiece.

both kellie and i found the film to be ideologically simplistic, poorly edited and, we suspect, offensive to most intelligent viewers. throughout the film the director's juxtapose scenes of a progressive evangelical talk show host, who works for the soon-to-be-defunct air america and reminds us that Jesus' teachings were a tad more subversive than the average republican platform, with admittedly excessive scenes of pentecostal worship in which children are urged to extend their hands and pray in tongues over a cardboard cut-out of george bush and little ones are castigated for sins like swearing and urged to wash away their impurities with a couple drops of aquafina.* the film stumbled and stammered in search of a cohesive theme, which i suspect might have been the justice sunday rallies and the eventual election of supreme court justice samuel alito, but, obviously was never developed really well. moreover the narrative arc of the story was quite confusing, as in one scene we were in acme christian center only to be transported to north dakota in the next, which was followed by an eerie scene in which ted haggard denounced homosexuality from his former pulpit at new life church in colorado** and a clip from an ad hoc abortion protest in washington d.c.

i fear that the few who take this "documentary" seriously will be terrified of a future war between radical pentecostal armies who laden their young with guilt and train their children to be strict constructionists arrayed on one side and progressives and liberals who are impudent assholes who lack the ability to graciously consider divergent opinions and believe that the only way to combat vile propaganda is with vile propaganda lined up on the other. further, the gullible consumer will likely not know that there are people like randall balmer, author of thine eyes have seen the glory and the more recent thy kingdom come: an evangelical's lament as well as rod dreher, author of the incredibly intriguing crunchy cons, who hold strong partisan opinions while simultaneously listening to their political opponents and passionately searching for a middle ground.

i swear, rudolf hess made more of a feign towards objectivity than heidi ewing and rachel grady, the directors of this steaming pile of subjectivist shit, did. the directors, editor and everyone else involved with jesus camp receive no points and may the viewing public have mercy upon their soul.

on a more positive note, if you are genuinely interested in a thorough, yet charitable, liberal perspective on american evangelicalism, due yourself a favor by picking up james ault's spirit and flesh or randall balmer's aforementioned thine eyes have seen the glory and dropping jesus camp to the bottom of your queue.

* which is a registered trademark of the coca-cola company. all rights reserved.
** a scene which raised an obvious question: ted, why didn't you just pay the "masseuse" his $100?

musing...

i realize that you have to dance with the devil in every industry. customer service agents have to surrender fair and just resolutions to the whim of the customer, whose money is always right. church leaders cannot set their sights solely on effective ministry, but must constantly validate their "success" with incremental, and exponential if you are really blessed by God, increases in nickels and noses. and, unfortunately, in my industry you have to constantly handle everyone as though they are a pretty, pretty princess by couching admonitions in affirmations and constantly submitting sound, loving discernment to the emotional whims of - and government subsidized dollars provided by - the individual.

so yeah, i understand the need to dance with the devil, furiously compromising one's means in the hopes of attaining noble ends. but i f*cking hate dancing as much as i hate karaoke and find it really hard to believe that compromised means will lead one towards expected and important ends.

this is not to say that i am unwilling to "play the game." in fact, i'll probably continue playing so that i can keep on serving people by affirming the imago dei that is stamped upon them and sharing Christ's compassion with them on regular occasion. but i find it incredibly hard to participate in irrational compromises in order to pursue the reconciliation and recreation of the individuals and the communities that i love so dearly.

most days i am almost willing to die on the hill called means lest the ends i earnestly seek be adulterated.

maybe a willingness to dance comes with maturity and age. maybe i am too idealistic for my own good. maybe i should remember that my worst day in this field is better than my best day in the customer secret service.

i doubt that these thoughts shock any of you who know me well. sometimes i just need to hash this stuff out.

musing...

tonight i spent a couple of hours networking with other coffee service providers and connecting with potential clients at a local vendor fair. since client traffic was relatively light, on a number of occasions throughout the evening i talked with other service providers about type of coffee and the clients they serve. since we're all in the same industry and there are only so many ways to brew a bean, it made sense for us to collaborate with one another and even broach a couple of trade secrets.

however, as i reflect upon the evening i am surprised by how many times i had to either disarm my colleagues' defensive reactions, assertions and interruptions by reminding them that we are not competitors but collaborators who are seeking to provide the best possible service to clients who are desperate with thirst. in the coffee service sector, competition is not a virtue, but a vice. i believe that if divergent service providers proactively seek to collaborate with, rather than compete against, one another, our clients will be all the better for it.

of course, the value of collaboration and the impropriety of competition is even more important in regards to communities that are seeking to follow God in the way of Jesus. if those of us in the latter camp embrace competition and eschew collaboration in order to fulfill our own ego-centric, visionary or budgetary needs we should be truly ashamed of ourselves. i've said it before and i'll say it again: competition is not a virtue that issues forth from the Christian life. the less competition, and the more collaboration, the better.

i will now get off my soapbox. goodnight.

today's special...*

was the shit sandwich. early this morning a customer tried to run a three-legged race with me because he was pissed that i could not turn around a non-fat, half-caf latte in forty seconds or less. later in the afternoon i dashed into a friend's office to borrow a key so that i could use his space for an evening event and, although i only overstayed my meter by four minutes, was subsequently issued a $25 parking ticket. this evening, after the cohort finished dinner at the boston beerworks fenway, where we received the shittiest service known to man, we walked over to the aforementioned office for discussion...only to find that the key i picked up earlier did not work. we then retreated to the barnes and noble in kenmore square in order to regroup and listen to our keynote speaker, but were immediately told that this branch of the barnes and noble, unlike every other barnes and noble in the world, closes at 9 pm sharp.

by my mathematically challenged calculations that's four servings of shit which, whatever way you cut it, usually results in one clusterfuck of a day.

but here's the thing: although today's four course special was shit supreme i was surrounded throughout the day by the most remarkable people you can imagine. at the end of the day i realize that i have a boss that backs me up, friends who are not only willing to share their space, but also their stories and companions who are fascinated by and committed to following God in the way of Jesus.

so although i spent the day eating shit, i am one fulfilled motherfucker.

* caveat emptor: i curse a lot in this post. i try to be less profane, but it doesn't always work.

musing...

although i settled for shitty customer service jobs for six+ years, i always wanted to work in social services. towards that end, i applied for jobs at local agencies, volunteered my time and made feeble attempts to network with people in the field. however, though i always suspected my days would be best invested in the helping professions, i worried that working a social service job during the day and continuing to work with sinners and saints would relationally exhaust me.

right now, i realize that my suspicions were not without merit.

don't get me wrong, i love my new job, but some days, after i've spent two hours in traffic, eight hours accompanying people with disabilities and another hour or two discussing, dreaming and investing in the mission of the church i am utterly exhausted. at such moments, my head pounds, i lose my sense of humor and i start looking for a reasonable route of retreat.

not that i'm comparing myself with him or anything, but i realize that Jesus felt this way on a number of occasions as well. there is this wonderful scene in the gospel of mark where Jesus and the disciples are sailing away to a retreat only to be intercepted by massive, clamoring crowds at their port of call. at that moment, as mark tells it, the disciples are fonching at the bit to get the hell out of dodge and trying to remind Jesus of their original intentions. but in that moment, Jesus looks at the crowd and has compassion on them. quite literally, as mark tells it, Jesus looks at the clamoring crowd and loves them from his gut.

right now i want to find a reasonable route of retreat - painting the nursery tonight all by my lonesome sounds really good right now - but i also want to learn to love my clamoring clients from my own gut even when i'm utterly exhausted.

i suspect that such empowerment on the Holy Spirit's agenda. i hope he can find a moment to slot me in.

check out my brother's bunghole

connect with the boston cohort on march 13th at 7 pm

a couple of weeks ago, on ash wednesday, i heard a sermon on Isaiah 58:6-8, the text i have printed below.

"Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and break every yoke?

Is it not to share your food with the hungry
and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe him,
and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?

Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
and your healing will quickly appear;
then your righteousness will go before you,
and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard.

since i have been pondering this text since the beginning of my lenten fast* i am truly glad that the boston cohort is gathering at the boston beer works fenway (61 brookline ave, boston, ma) location on march 13th at 7 pm to eat, drink, listen to one another’s stories and at 8 pm we'll be heading over to the offices of reunion church (655 beacon st., suite #301, boston) to discuss the overwhelming importance of acting justly, loving mercy and walking humbly with our God.

this month’s discussion will be facilitated by rachel anderson of the boston faith and justice network (BFJN). rachel will be introducing us to – and inviting us to participate in - the bfjn’s mission to “seek God’s justice as an expression of his faith and love.” i cannot think of a more important matter for the cohort to consider and i hope you can take an hour or two to join us.

may God bless you as you continue to pursue His justice and seek His Kingdom in this world.

jeff gentry, on behalf of craig, anna and the rest of the cohort crew

* i’m tempted to tell you what i’m abstaining from and what i’m straining towards this season, but i wouldn’t want to squander yet another jewel in my crown!

a personal preview of hell


late last night, after an exhausting day at work and a meeting of the church, i retreated to our dirty denny's for a couple of cups of bad coffee, a pre-fabricated dessert and intimate conversation with an unexpected visitor.

and then, about five minutes in to our conversation 70 teenagers, including a number of overweight boys who were wearing pajama bottoms and sporting dramatic, depp-esque eyeliner as well as t-shirts emblazoned with the image posted above, bombarded the dining room.

at this, our server was scared shitless, we were never served another cup of coffee and we had to talk about important matters over screamed high school cheers and call and response snippets from high school musical.

f*cking shoot me. i think i would rather go to band camp.

ecclesiological musing

over the past two months i have been utterly overwhelmed by the number of resources that are available for low-income, disabled and otherwise challenged residents of boston. i've had a number of meetings with massachusetts rehabilitation counselors who will go to any length to help their clients find adequate employment, visited a brand-new head-start daycare that not only provides free early childhood education for their students (who speak 29 different primary languages!) but also have an on-site licensed social worker who helps the children's parents find rent assistance, sign up for venezuela/citgo's generous share the warmth heating oil program and pursue any number of additional forms of aid, and have been overwhelmed by the great lengths that personal friends are going to in other cities to ensure that homeless citizens that struggle with mental illness find permanent housing.

what does this have to do with the church? well, i would like to suggest that all churches of moderate to large size (say 500 +) in attendance, have a licensed and/or experienced social worker on staff. i suspect that many churches would be able to serve their communities more effectively if they focused on helping families and individuals connect with the wealth of social services that are already available, rather than needlessly replicating services that are already available within the community. i realize that there are undoubtedly exceptions to this rule, such as churches that are located in small towns or in less "developed" environs, but in general i think that both moderate to large churches and their communities would benefit greatly from such services.

anyway, that's what i'm thinking today. your opinion, as always, is welcome.

overheard

"I would accept schism," Bishop Steven Charleston, president of the Episcopal Divinity School, told The Washington Post. "I would be willing to accept being told I'm not in communion with places like Nigeria if it meant I could continue to be in a position of justice and morality. If the price I pay is that I'm not considered to be part of a flawed communion, then so be it." - as quoted on CT's most recent weblog

maybe i'm deaf or just another son of the south, but when i read this quote i was startled by something that sounds a lot like racism. what do you hear?

on another, entirely different note, this weekend CT posted an insightful article by gary haugen, the founder of the international justice mission, that ponders whether we can honor william wilberforce while ignoring the rampant slavery that continues to scar our societies.

oh, and one more thing, i for one am glad that christian music writers are finally writing HONEST reviews, like andree farias' review of the gifted: season 1 cd. in the olden days, reading worthless dreck in magazines like 7Ball, CCM and Relevant (if you're into the latter rag do me a favor, read an issue or two of paste magazine and ask yourself why relevant continues to exist) often made me want to punch someone in the face. good criticism begets better art. that's all i have to say about that.

mid-day time waster: create-a-caption edition*

waste the day away by creating a caption for miss aubuchon's inappropriate picture. the author of the most creative caption will receive one poo dollar.

* please note. although this picture was snapped at art and cade's old place, neither art nor cade were involved in either the production of this picture or the activities which the picture depicts.

musing...

while sitting in a team meeting with a mass rehab counselor last week i realized that he had an image of a violet, multi-petaled flower tatooed on his right wrist. as the meeting drew to a close my client asked the counselor what the image represented and he said it was the seventh chakra. this image, he asserted, reminds me to shut my mouth and listen to others with my whole mind and whole heart.

now i don't know much about the chakras and i'm a little less likely to get a violet tatoo than i am to commission a permanent commemoration of the 2006 world series, but i was inspired by the intention behind the counselor's tat. i realize that truly attending to and receiving God and the other is an essential path towards uncovering the unspeakable beauty, truth and goodness in this world. of course, at the same time, i realize that i was once the recipient of a "foot in the mouth" award and i will probably always find it easier to assert my opinions that to receive others.

don't get me wrong, i have no interest in simply turning future conversations into reflective listening exercises and i am interested in much more than rogerian talk therapy. rather, in my heart, i want to be a man who intentionally enters into silence so that he can learn to fully attend and extend hospitality to God and others. i suspect that in doing so i will begin to see the former in the latter and vice versa.

overheard: the emergence of chuck smith jr.



over the past couple of months i've read several articles, including this one in christianity today about extreme internal controversies and questionable leadership practices within chuck smith sr.'s calvary chapel movement.

anyway, this evening, while reading the article i referenced above i found out that chuck smith jr. had recently been disassociated from the calvary chapel fellowship and i set out to find why.

after reading about chuck jr.'s story in an excellent la times article with a shitty title - father, son and holy rift - i started to suspect that chuck smith jr.'s movement away from his father's theological fundamentalism and towards a place of ministry that is, in his own words, characterized by learning more than certainty, is quite similar to many of our stories. moreover, i was not only intrigued by jr's story but found myself hoping that those of us who participate in the emergent conversation can express as much charity towards our theological and ecclesiological backgrounds as chuck jr. is showing to his.

i hope all of you take the time to read the la times article as i'm fairly sure you'll find it interesting and instructive. moreover, i think it would make tons of sense for pastor phil and the gang at the gathering to invite jr. out to speak at one of their events, for the latter chap really seems to live that allusive balance between the neo-mystical, charismatic tradition and emergent theological conversation that pastor phil and his gang appear to be longing for.

overheard: an old friend helps find housing for the homeless and mentally ill



"Andrew DeFranza has been trying to find homes for people in Milwaukee with mental illness for a couple of years now. He knows the way it works around here. He's learned the refrain.

Yes, some of those places are real hellholes. Rats. Broken toilets. Sometimes, there's no water or heat. But where else are you going to put a guy with schizophrenia and a criminal history who gets $600 a month in Social Security? Good luck finding a landlord with a decent building who will take in someone like that.

DeFranza, the executive director of Milwaukee's Guest House, is not buying it.

"I'm not Midwestern nice," said DeFranza, 33, a New Jersey native who looks more than a little bit like a young Robert DeNiro."

Read More...

gentry and his girls

musing...

a number of summers ago when i was serving with l'arche daybreak, my house manager told me that the positive attitudes of the overwhelming majority of our core members* was one of the primary reasons she loved l'arche. "people often think that the disabled are happy because they don't know any better," she said "but i find that perspective incredibly insulting." "you'll find," she continued, "that our core members are intimately acquainted with their challenges and limitations, but they choose happiness and contentment anyway."

obviously, not every person with challenges is either happy or content. in fact, while waiting for the bus in a little smoke-filled shelter this morning i endured a blind man's bitching, cursing and complaining for the better part of an hour. however, most of my clients forgo cynicism for optimism and, for that reason, not a few of them are living testaments of hope.

uncle henri always reminded us that "the poor are our teachers." right now, my teachers are challenging me to exchange my cynicism for hope and my sarcasm for words of life. here's to hoping that i'm an attentive student.

* in l'arche lingo, core members are people with intellectual and physical disabilities who stand at the center and bind the community together.

mid-morning time waster: snow day edition

new england's banal banter about six inches of snow is as:

a) beauticians are to britney spears
b) hillary is to homosexual jokes
c) tulsa is to tornados
d) rush limbaugh is to unprescribed pain-killers
e) blah, blah is to gay sex
f) blah, blah is to congress

happy haiku friday*



dingy captain cap

disturbing blue box of pee

work becomes my dream

* returns to honor one tyler h.

another signpost of insanity on the path of illumination


this morning, while stuck in traffic and half-listening to morning edition i had yet another "great" idea. during next year's haunted happenings event in the great city of salem i am going to monk up as saint francis and offer words of blessings, canticles of praise and, yes, calls for repentance to friend and foe alike.

i'm already excited about the stories i will have to read, the texts i'll have to memorize and the mud i'm going to smear on my bare legs and burlap wrap in order to pull this pietistic piece of performance art off. i hope that, with just a little more training dizzy can stand in as the wolf of gubbio and i'm hoping that someone signs on to play clare.

for the record, i think this certifies that i am on the precipice of spiritual insanity. i would like to accuse the Spirit of God of inciting such ideas and pastor phil wyman of encouraging me to live them out.

musing...

while reading david g. benner's sacred companions: the gift of spiritual friendship and direction this evening, i was struck by the way many of the christian mystics have framed the spiritual journey. oftentimes, you will hear mystics talk about the way of Jesus as being one of purgation, which is a time of repentance in which we let go of our: false selves, sinful schemes that we suspect will result in pleasure and attachment to our material possessions; illumination, which is a time of growing intimacy with God's Spirit and an openness to His paths towards pleasure, beauty, goodness and truth; and finally, as we persevere in love of God and others we reach a place of union, wherein our desire is submerged in the desire of God and our identity is not so much based on what we believe about Christ as it is exemplified in the way we incarnate Christ in this broken world that is so desperately in need of re-creation.*

as i ruminated over the reading, i began to realize that this frame of purgation, illumination and union can really help me understand my occupational life up until this point. for instance, over the past six years i spent my workdays selling products i (mostly) did not like to people i could not connect with in order to secure the financial futures of people who already have more than enough. i don't want to sound like a martyr. most of the time i was paid fairly well for my duties, i wasn't oppressed and my menial plight did not differ much from billions of other workers in the world who toil for sustenance.** my response to my circumstances, as many of you know, was to bitch, moan and generally make my occupational plight a burden on others. i did not, in fact, rise above my circumstances like an n.t. wright volume unexpectedly bursting forth from purpose-driven ashes and, in general, considered my plight an opportunity to develop a shtick rather than an opportunity to learn obedience, perseverance and solidarity.

but regardless of my resistance to such occupational purgation, God, by his completely unmerited grace, saw fit to lead me towards a place of illumination or connection, where my commitment to compassion*** and the gospel of reconciliation can be utilized on a daily basis to empower a population that i know and love. i truly feel like i failed the first grade, but for some unknown reason has still been promoted to the second.

i guess what i'm saying is this. i don't know why God saw fit to grace me with an opportunity to spend my days doing something i love, after i failed to love Him and others in the midst of jobs that i hated. i don't deserve to work at a place like rectangle. but i am thankful for it and during this period of my life i want to be open to the empowerment of God's Spirit and obedient to His will, for i know that His Spirit is the source of compassion and the effective means of reconciliation, and i know that His will is to redeem all things, including people who were created in His image but branded with the label "retarded" and wayward pastors who couldn't seem to follow Christ in less than ideal environments.

as for union, i don't know what that stage will bring. but i do hope that it will signal the end of my current state of mindless enthusiasm wherein i have been inspired to tack "inspiraquotes" like "we can, we will," "fake it until you make it" and "i don't know what the future holds, but i know who holds the future" on my bulletin board.

* i'm pretty sure that i failed to use semi-colons correctly in that previous sentence. just thought i would save you grammar queers the time that it would take to point that out.
** i realize that, being a wealthy, white westerner, i would probably be sustained by some means whether i worked or not, but i'm aiming towards the idea of solidarity here. work with me people!
*** which i generally pour upon those i see fit in circumstances that i respect. yeah, i've still got a little, okay a lot, of growing to do.

tuesday evening time waster

at this point in g13's arrested development he:

a) often mistook himself for an african-american
b) was still waiting for his balls to drop him from alto to tenor
c) was heavily medicated
d) frequently wondered why he wasn't getting any action
e) could still beat the hell out of his younger brother
f) all of the above

sidenote: on epidural evangelism



one more thing. last week i was reminded of how much i hate manipulative evangelism when we watched a video entitled, epidurals are evil at our bradley method class.* now, i must confess that i love our bradley teacher and i think the aforementioned method of coached childbirth is quite helpful. however, sometimes the bradley content either implies or flat out asserts that non-natural childbirth methods are, well, pretty much of the devil.

for instance, two weeks ago we watched a video that made the following assertions - by which i mean literally, they were pasted across the screen in times new roman font while playing "watch out big breasted teenager, freddy is going to get you music:"

"500,000 women in america undergo cesarean sections every year. 300,000 of these cesarean sections are medically unnecessary."

"obstetricians hate women!"

"if we want peace in the middle east, the first step is natural childbirth.**"

after the video was over, our instructor asked us what we thought of the video and i bit my lip and resisted the impulse to respond with "hello? any of yous ever heard of marshall mcluhan?!" now that i've had a couple of weeks to reflect on the video i still think that it sucked.

in sum, this video convinced me of two things:

1) christians are not the only ones who participate in manipulative proselytism***

and

2) however and whenever i invite people to follow the way of Jesus, i should not do so in a way that either demeans or clearly misrepresents other options

i'm telling you, as far as manipulative tripe, the thief in the night had nothing on this video. if the video wasn't shot in 1976, i'd swear it was produced by rudolph hess dick cheney.**** in all seriousness, i'm sure that a number of people who have chosen not to walk in the way of Jesus have been as offended by "gospel presentations" as i was by that video. that thought makes me sick.

* as the pixie pointed out, i should probably mention that i, and i would suspect the majority of the other members of the class, chose the bradley method because we already think that natural childbirth is a good thing and perhaps even a preferential option. thus, as the pixie also said, the video did smack of "preaching to the choir."
** okay, i might be sprinkling the last two statements with a dash of hyperbole, but in my defense the main speaker on the video did say that "for many years obstetricians have kept women from knowing their bodies" and the last screen shot was a revolutionary question that started thus: "how can we expect peace in our world, if individuals are brought into the world in a violent way?"
*** i'm threatened to add a rant about soy loving, jamba drinking chi omegas here, but, ummm, i won't.
**** yeah, i know that comedic references to nazis are almost always in bad taste. quick, can anyone name an american propagandist? thank you dr. james.

open source teaching on spiritual accompaniment, take II



i posted the picture above not only because i am proud of my beautiful wife, but because we have recently become convinced that bearing children is the best way to grow God’s Kingdom. when a man decides to grow the Kingdom of God through procreation he can be assured that his seed will not spoil upon rocky soil and, unless his wife is thwarting God’s providence with pharmacological elements, the devil will not snatch the seed away. before you quibble with these assertions the pixie and i would encourage you to read a full quiver: family planning and the lordship of christ. now, onto our conversation about converts who do not spring forth, fully-formed from our loins.*

what i’m reading

theology of the community God, by stanley grenz. simkins’ comment in the last thread encouraged me to read grenz’s discussion of “outreach” which is found on pages 501-510 of this impressive tome. b already summarized grenz’s argument, so i won’t bore you by doing so again. however, i will say that his understanding of outreach as including proclamation and presence, focusing on disciple-making and utilizing the subversive power of prayer is a helpful matrix that will likely inform my consideration of spiritual accompaniment.

hannah coulter by wendell berry. i just finished this story last night and i must say that was overwhelmed by it. the picture of the port William “membership,” which is a group of extended family and friends who work together, support and serve one another (and i would say “worship together” if that would not leave you with an emaciated image of these people who fully understand that worship is more intimately connected to work, suffering and service than it is to what pew or perfectly padded, individual, theater quality chair you sit in, what songs you like to sing and what elements are included or excluded from worship) is absolutely startling. hannah’s story is not simply a sentimental rendition of “blessed be the tie that binds” but is a simple, yet elegant consideration of both the passions, commitments and tasks that connect us to one another and the opportunity each of us have to enter into the eternal even in the midst our ordinary lives. my words could never do the story justice. just read it.**

mere discipleship by lee camp. i’ve read this helpful, yoder-influenced, introduction to discipleship before, so i thought i’d see what he had to say about “evangelism.” camp’s small chapter on evangelism is an excellent example of what grenz terms “evangelism as presence.”

what I’m thinking

after reading berry, i cannot help but wonder how a sense of place informs and influences our willingness and ability to introduce others to and invite them to follow the way of Jesus. i have long thought that place is an essential element of one’s vocation and, reflecting on my occupational life, such a statement does not seem without merit. for instance, when i was slogging through days at sentimental somethings i found myself speaking words that were not meant to foster life,*** entering into meaningless office conflicts and flat-out gossiping much more than i found myself musing about the Kingdom of God and modeling the way of Jesus. at the ss as well as at lightway i regularly felt guilty about fostering a culture of death instead of one of life, but i never found a way to genuinely follow Jesus in those environs. fortunately, at rectangle, my new employer, my work (largely) consists of empowering others and creating a context in which people with challenges can focus on ability instead of disability. unsurprisingly, i can already tell that interpersonal fault lines and unnecessary gossip exists at my new employer, but, so long as i focus on being an incarnation of compassion and reconciliation i believe that i will be able to introduce more life than death into our community.

and, speaking of rectangle, i had an interesting conversation with a couple of employees after work in an off-site location.**** after one of my fellow employees asked me a question concerning the layout of his office and a second employee teasingly promised me that i could listen to wow worship tunes any time i wanted on her xm radio a third employee spoke a bit about the sectarian religious environment he once worked in where volunteers were apparently required to reveal what translation of the Bible they utilized before serving soup. the mere mention of conservative christianity in the conversation led someone else to bring up the deplorable, manic ravings of pat robertson and jerry falwell. this led another co-worker to say that “people like that is the reason i don’t have anything to do with christianity,” and, before i knew it, i responded by saying “anytime you hear someone using the teachings of Jesus or the church as a platform for power, run away from them, for you can be sure that the gospel of Christ is not one of power but of love.”***** in years past, i might have been slow to denounce robertson, falwell, dobbie and the like, for “whether by false motives or true the gospel is being preached!” but now i’m not so sure that such proclamations of power have much to do with the gospel. moreover, if the such political and social rants do produce conversions, i fear that the new followers will likely be deformed if not still-born. as i left the conversation i promised my co-workers that they wouldn’t have to worry about me seeking to proselytize them anytime soon and i immediately began to wonder what that promise said about my ever-evolving understanding of following Jesus.

i’m makin’ me some super bowl queso tonight. that’ll be mm, mmm, good, bitch!

what do you think

what do you think about my promise not to “proselytize” my rectangle co-workers? do you find such a promise unwise? could you make a similar promise?

do you think that place really does have a significant effect on vocation? how does your sense of place effect your attempts to follow Jesus (assuming, of course, that you do so)? do you think that the contemporary church suffers from regularly elevating non-local men and women to leadership? could the contemporary church’s reliance upon non-local leadership be related to the current focus upon imported evangelistic programs such as the purpose-driven church?

are there any additional books that you would recommend as i continue to prepare for the “spiritual accompaniment” discussion i am going to facilitate next week?

can you forgive me for being so loquacious? thank you for reading.


* i trust that none of you took this seriously. i do not believe any of the assertions posted above, but i could not help myself.
** a tip o’ the hat to rick for turning me on to berry’s work. i think i’m going to read nathan coulter next before diving into berry’s his essays and, perhaps, his poems.
*** such phrases were expected and accepted in this workplace, fortunately. though i did ultimately realize that terms like (f _ _ _ i _ _ d _ _ c _ _ b_ g) were a bit too much. don’t you just love hangman?
**** take note, potential censors!
***** of course, i probably wasn’t quite so eloquent, but that’s the power of editing for you.

They Hate Our Freedom!

now that's just crazy talk





kevin smith clark always tells me that i'm a "crazy magnet." lately, i've found little evidence to refute his claims.

i spent the first five hours of my day undergoing first aid training while sitting under a strapping sixty-five year old male who wore black kicks with g-ride emblazoned upon the side and told us not to worry about compressing a victim's heart while the heart was still beating for, apparently, old research that suggested that such compressions would decrease the flow of blood to the head have proven to be "phallus."

I HAD THE BEST F'ING STORY HERE ABOUT THE UNKNOWN CONNECTION BETWEEN UN-CIRCUMCISION AND SPIRITUAL REBIRTH. BUT FOR THE LOVE OF CHRIST...*

i hate to beat a dead horse here, but r.i.p. barbaro. pray tell, if roger clemens tears his achilles tendon while preparing for his inevitably banal july call-up can we hope for the same favorable result?

the picture of dizzy that i posted above is pretty much apropos of nothing. though she did flash some mad skillz this evening when she stole oven roasted chicken off of the kitchen counter without making so much as making a sound. click the pic above and you'll receive a clue about dizzy's predestined end.

* NB: i could probably be persuaded to share the story via email.

an open source teaching on spiritual accompaniment

i've been thinking a lot about evangelism/outreach/proselytizing/whatever you want to call it because in two weeks i am slated to teach on this topic and i need to get my shit together. okay, i confess that is not the only reason i've been thinking about it. i am also quite concerned that sinners and saints as well as the majority of churches and communities that are a part of the emergent conversation* are fairly clueless and/or ineffective at introducing people to the way of Jesus.

anyway, since i am teaching on this topic, which i've taken to calling "spiritual accompaniment," in two weeks and since i am also committed to miah's axiom that "all of us are smarter than any of us" i would like for you to offer your opinions, enter into dialog and explore this essential practice of the christian faith with me so that the community of God will actually benefit from my/our collaborative teaching.

are you willing to enter into this process with me? i hope so. in order to facilitate the discussion i am going to organize my thoughts under the following headings, what i'm reading, what i'm thinking, what others are saying and what do you think?. please not that this conversation is open to anyone and everyone...i am interested to hear what christians who are more conservative/traditional than me think, i am interested in what people who do not follow Jesus have to think, i'm even interested in what the authors of scripture had the gall to think. so, dear friends, if you're interested in this conversation and have something to add please do not censor yourself or hesitate to speak.

i'm really excited about this open source idea and i hope you are too. here we go...

what i'm reading

• our journey home, by jean vanier. i started this volume, which i had failed to complete in the past, in hopes that jean, who is the founder of l'arche, would have something to say about my new work with those who have ability and are seeking employment. although, up to this point anyway, this book is more of an exploration in spiritual development for those who are longing for maturity and fecundity** i think that it will help me in a general sense.


• hannah coulter, by wendell berry. this is another volume in berry's fantastic port william cycle of novels. these novels celebrate the simple, yet beautiful lives of reflective individuals, the importance of "membership" in one's community and the essential role "place" plays in the meaning of one's existence. i really enjoyed jayber crow, another volume in this series, so i decided to give this book a shot. it has yet to disappoint.


• five streams of the emerging church, a CT article by eminent theologian and friend of emergent scott mcknight. in this article, scott fashioned my fear concerning our church's apparently inadequate approach to evangelism into words. i'd say more, but i've provided an excerpt below

what i'm thinking

i suspect that it is time for us to set aside the term "evangelism." i don't know about you, but for me this term brings to mind fear-based dawson mcallister altar calls, late night church camp viewings of a thief in the night and the hilarious encounters my friends fletch and tuxedo ken have recently had with street preachers. i am not interested in introducing people to Jesus as a proposition as much as a person and i suspect that one is not saved by believing certain propositions about Jesus but by living incarnationally in the way of my Lord. so i've started to talk about the practice of introducing people to Jesus as spiritual accompaniment. for me, the latter term implies an approach that is more focused on partnering with people, listening to them and, God-willing, helping them to see the places that God is intersecting with their ordinary lives than it is upon convincing them that they've broken the ten commandments and are going to see a gory movie of their lives in heaven before they are quickly shuttled to hell for not saying the right things about Christ.

that being said, i don't think that spiritual accompaniment is a practice that simply focuses on spiritual conversations. i think that spiritual conversations are good and we need to listen to people's stories without judgment and with real interest (i.e., not just looking for a crack under which we can pour the blood of Jesus). however, i think it is also important for those of us who follow Jesus to remember that we believe the way of Jesus is the most good, beautiful and true way to live now and in the fullness of the Kingdom that is to come. my friend tim hawkins recently told me that he hated a certain, well-known "emergentee" book because he thought it had encouraged young people to see initiating spiritual conversation as almost an end in and of itself. tim - and he can correct me here if i am wrong - thinks it is important for believers to have open, authentic spiritual conversations with people without giving up hope that all will be intrigued with and perhaps even decide to walk in the way of Jesus. i think tim is onto something here. merely having spiritual conversations is not enough. as my friend rags would say, we need to enter into spiritual conversation and the way of Jesus with the end in mind. or maybe that was steven covey who said that...i always get those success oriented mormons and ozark christian college professors confused.

one last divergent thought, i think that it is important for churches to create a culture of life into which prospective Christ followers will be welcomed and nurtured and out of which these believers will bless and serve the world. as i mentioned to my buddies at the s & s men's breakfast on sunday, i suspect that the existence of such an inclusive, well-defined culture is one of the reasons that so many people are drawn to mega-churches. i don't think people want to be a part of all-encompassing institutions that tell them exactly how to think, act and believe, but i also do not think that a group that is dedicated simply to spiritual conversation and artistic/intellectual expression are cohesive enough to offer people a since of belonging. so i think that s & s and many churches like us would benefit from giving due considerations to the following questions: what kind of culture is our church creating? what is the purpose of our church culture? what are the intended and unintended consequences of this culture that we have created?

what i've found

here's that statement from mcknight's article that i found so intriguing:

"This emerging ambivalence about who is in and who is out creates a serious problem for evangelism. The emerging movement is not known for it, but I wish it were. Unless you proclaim the Good News of Jesus Christ, there is no good news at all—and if there is no Good News, then there is no Christianity, emerging or evangelical.

Personally, I'm an evangelist. Not so much the tract-toting, door-knocking kind, but the Jesus-talking and Jesus-teaching kind. I spend time praying in my office before class and pondering about how to teach in order to bring home the message of the gospel.

So I offer here a warning to the emerging movement: Any movement that is not evangelistic is failing the Lord. We may be humble about what we believe, and we may be careful to make the gospel and its commitments clear, but we must always keep the proper goal in mind: summoning everyone to follow Jesus Christ and to discover the redemptive work of God in Christ through the Spirit of God."

in becoming human vanier has a number of fascinating things to say about the exercise of authority. a topic which is more than fitting for church leaders to consider. here are a few excerpts:

"At L'Arche I have discovered two kinds of authority: an authority which imposes, dominates and controls; and an authority which accompanies, listens, liberates, empowers, gives people confidence in themselves and calls them to be aware of their responsibilities (pg. 110)."

"True authority does not seek to impose an ideal, but rather to guide reality towards an attainable and possible end. It does not impose, it guides (115)."

what do you think?

do you think that we should set aside the term "evangelism?" what would be the potential benefits and/or weaknesses of doing or failing to do so?

what does the mega-church movement and main-stream evangelicalism have to teach emerging communities about evangelism/outreach/spiritual accompaniment?

what are the negative consequences of the traditional approaches to evangelism that emerging communities should avoid?

do you share scott mcknight's fear concerning emergent communities and evangelism? why or why not?

is there any other reflections you would like to offer?

what color is miss lippy's car anyway?

* read that last part again. emergent is a CONVERSATION. not a movement, a potential denomination, a threat to traditional evangelicalism or even an ekklesia of mega-church haters, but simply a conversation between those who are committed to innovative theology, evolutionary missiology and the ascendancy of the democratic party.
** jean uses this french word all the time to speak of the fruitfulness and life giving potential of one's existence. i think that it is a strange, yet beautiful word, even if it was coined by the dirty french.

an overdue update

i'm sorry that i've been so derelicte in regards to this blog. as per usual, i haven't had any lack of opinions to spew, inappropriate thoughts to share or people i would like to piss off, but life has been a bit hectic as of late and i have been operating in full job-preservation mode in regards to the internet.

anyway, i thought you'd like to know that i'm receiving low wages, my office is sixty feet away from office shaking subway tracks, i think i'm going to kill the next mademoiselle who nearly sideswipes me while doing her *&$#%@! hair while navigating traffic and i love my job. i mean, really...i'm love, lovin' it.

on friday afternoon while meeting with one of my work-transition interns i realized that he looks exactly like melvin, the Jewish patriarch who practically ruled the L'arche house of which i was once a member. in that brief moment, my eyes glassed over and i almost lost it. hell, i'm almost loosing it right now as i think about my friendship with melvin, how quickly i once set aside something i loved and how utterly grateful i am to have this opportunity to empower individuals with disabilities.

yesterday i had the opportunity to mutter a monological sermon about 2 corinthians 5 and today i'm being paid to incarnate my commitment to reconciliation and empowering compassion. in the midst all i can do is say soli deo gloria and assure you that not all my edges have come off.

pax.

The Conversation Continues...


thought you might like to know that a number of us are discussing the current state of sinners and saints* and openly wondering/dreaming/scheming about God's future for our little incarnational community. so if you're a member, friend or simply an interested observer of "s & s" feel free to pop over to the church blog.