musing...

"it's great that you got a job there, just don't get stuck," he said. "excuse me," i countered, "what exactly do you mean." "well, don't take this the wrong way," he opined, "but i've known a number of seminarians who started lightway as a means to an end only to find out that it was more of the latter than the former."

of course no one really talks like that, slinging terms like latter and former into informal conversation, but that's how i remember it. it was early fall in the year of our Lord 2000 when i met this stranger at a seminary ice cream social - which is pretty damn close to my idea of hell - and before i knew it he was offering unsolicited advice on my life. i don't know about you, but i hate it when people do that.

provided, of course, that unsolicited advice does not emanate from me.

anyway, at the time i scoffed at the guy's advice and i forgot to heed the warning. in the end it took a five and a half years and an unexpected firing to set me free from the bonds of lightway and another year or so for the wisdom of that guy's words to hit home.

i wish i would have listened to him as well as to the advice of the long-term missionary who encouraged me in the midst of my college years to choose the pastorate over academia and the accompanier who suggested i stay at l'arche instead of subjecting myself to seminary.

but so it goes. you make your choices, some good and some bad, and then spend years trying to bind the bits together by remembering the wisdom of unsolicited opinion, learning from the road not taken and perhaps even praying if that's your sort of thing.

maybe it's just the influence of sacred games and the yiddish policeman's union but lately life feels a lot like an unsolved case that it's going to take a holy sleuth to unravel. on my better days i believe that ultimately the criminal will be caught and convicted and whatever is beautiful, good and true will be set free. but on my worst days, i have my doubts whether things will conclude as cleanly and quickly as a hardy boy's mystery. i think that's what faith is for me, namely, trusting that once again the holy sleuth will get his man.

one way or another, here's to the mystery.

musing...


"If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even 'sinners' love those who love them." - Lk. 6:32

somedays we meet and other days we don't. somedays are the result of her seeing me first. other days occur when i spy her first and quickly change my scheduled route.

her name is helen. she is kind, has a face inscribed with lines and lives at teh bottom of my street. she is a recent retiree from beverly hospital, spends her summer vacation in st. lou and cannot stand her sister. i know the latter facts because she has told me time and again. God knows, i never would have asked.

i really wish that i could love helen by listening to her stories time and again. i would like to be the kind of person who could stop fidgeting long enough to look into her pale blue eyes and read between those aged lines. but i cannot.

if helen was one of my clients, i would work with her and if she was a distant relative i could learn to love her but, as she is neither, i flee from her.

in truth, i don't feel convicted about my lack of love, but i am burdened with a fair measure of fear. for as the story of abraham and the men on the road to emmaus reminds us, to listen, welcome and express love to the stranger is to do a favor for, and perhaps even invite oneself into the company of, God.

i wish i could welcome helen on account of christian love, but i guess holy fear will have to do.

musing...

i've been thinking a lot lately about: the deeply meaningful yet not quite fulfilling employment accompaniment work i've been doing at rectangle; the quirky and potentially viral nature of a-institutional, incarnational structures such as the home church; and the suspicion that i - along with pix, pres and diz - will eventually be plugged back into the evangelical matrix.

anyway, upon this journey i've been nourished by a number of conversations with close friends and, more recently, provoked by a couple of assertions i've stumbled across on the web. here are the aforementioned quotes. if they incite any ideas within you, feel free to drop a comment below.

"A church, much like any other organization (which is what we are even at a local level, whether you like the term or not) needs its balance of dreamers and managers. The dreamers have high ideals and flowery language on their side. After all, who would disagree with the dream of creating a Jesus-loving environment. But in my meager experience, dreamers without managers are bound to suffer from limited efficiency, frustrated partners, and plenty of rhetoric without follow-through. This is especially true of any church plant that desires to grow beyond the living room/coffee shop phase. Good leaders can be methodical without becoming mechanical and spiritual without becoming lazy." - professor chad ragsdale, as buried in the comments on re:generate.com.

" In Canada there are close to 24 million people who do not have a personal relationship with Christ!...Canadians dying without Christ: 165,000 souls each year" - jim tune on the impact canada home page.

billy graham's talking cow



as steve over at knightopia reports, in the wake of ruth bell graham's death, billy graham announced that he and his wife had decided to be laid to rest at the brand new billy graham memorial "library" in charlotte, nc. this announcement signaled the cessation of a fairly public power struggle between ruth bell graham, who wanted to be buried on the site of the cove training center, and franklin graham, who was the driving force behind the library in charlotte.*

i mean mrs. graham no disrespect. she was by all accounts a strong, amazing woman who shared a ministry with her husband that was quite unlike any the world has ever seen. however i am a little put off by the penchant we as evangelicals have for commodifying everything, including the remarkable lives of the grahams, in the name of "evangelism." i shudder when i wonder what we will think of next. will it be a death defying, drop of the holy spirit ride on the site of the azusa street church? an interactive, laugh-in musical comedy at the toronto vineyard? the purpose-driven plunge at saddleback? when it comes to evange-tainment, the sky is probably the limit.

* which is located near other significant cultural sites such as the forthcoming NASCAR Museum.

short form prayer


rewire the circuit

drop the sauder, step away

pentecost today

in appreciation of professional christians



i am relationally exhausted. between my beautiful family, 40 hours of job placement work, 24 of customer service, home church and regular connections with kindred far and near i have precious time to stop, listen, learn and pray.

don't get me wrong, i'm not turning into dante hicks* or anything. this week i've had (personally) unparalleled success at placing clients in jobs, my wife and child are utterly remarkable and just last night alex and aime lavished us with the most amazing steak and wine dinner. however, i am realizing how relationally exhausting full time accompaniment and advocacy can really be.

the latter realization makes me appreciate the work of full-time professional christians all the more. as a child and, okay, occasionally as an adult i have been hyper-critical of the way particular full-time pastors and ministry leaders conduct their daily lives. but the relatively short amount of time i have spent in equipping ministry here at rectangle has taught me to appreciate and respect the incredible choice that pastors make to love, listen and entangle themselves in people's beautiful but confounded lives on a daily basis.

so here's to you professional christians! we often cannot conceive of, and (probably) far too often criticize, the sacramental lives you lead. i appreciate (most) of what you do.

* pop quiz: who's a whinier little b*tch: luke skywalker or dante hicks?

memorandum from captain random



question: if you walk the dog at different time, in a different place, could you wake up a different person?

---

"i am a straight up, hard-core facist. facism is perfect, it's perfect. think about it, you enslave people and send them out to build the GDP and if they don't succeed you send them out to fight a war. facism is beautiful. it's perfect."

the preceding political rant was brought to you by:

a) heinrich himmler
b) dwight schrute
c) hooper x, my evening supervisor
d) robert paulsen

---

for some reason, i really want to see knocked up sooner rather than later. i'm not only interested in this comedy because it provides a humorous perspective on an epic experience in my near past, but also because i think jud apatow is brilliant. one reviewer said that apatow's comedies, which include the forty year old virgin as well as the tv series freaks and geeks and undeclared, are remarkably traditional stories that unfold in a slightly perverse setting. i can only hope that someone will someday say the same about my preaching.

musing...

my little man turned 2 months old yesterday. in the past two months there have been many moments when the demands of fatherhood have left me bitching like dante hicks,* but there have also been moments when i've understood that fatherhood is a unique invitation to sacrificial service and opportunity to enter into deeper communion with Christ and His creation.

the longer i live the more i suspect that almost every moment is a key moment insofar as it is an opportunity to serve, connect and create. as both preston and i grow older i hope to improve my response rate.


* i.e., when kellie asked me to change a diaper on sunday, which is currently my only day off, i almost felt like saying "i'm not evening supposed to be here today!" moreover, in the midst of almost every day since his birth i've whined to myself, and far too often to others, "but i'm f*cking tired!".

overheard...
"the new testament proclaims that at some unforeseeable time in the future, God will ring down the final curtain on history, and there will come a Day on which all our days and all the judgments upon us and all our judgments upon each other will themselves be judged. the judge will be Christ. in other words, the one who judges us most finally will be the one who loves us most fully.

romantic love is blind to everything except what is lovable and lovely, but Christ's love sees us with terrible clarity and sees us whole. Christ's love so wishes our joy that it is ruthless against everything in us that diminishes our joy. the worst sentence Love can pass is that we behold the suffering that Love has endured for our sake, and that is also our acquittal. the justice and mercy of the judge are ultimately one."

five minute book review

"rich man, poor man, beggar man, chief. doctor, lawyer, merchant chief - or, if we were feeling especially pugnacious - indian chief. what are you going to be when you grow up? when we were young this was not simply a question, but the greatest question. and everything i am going to say to you tonight assumes that it is the greatest question still" - frederick buechner, in the introduction to a sermon on 1 peter 2:9

what are you going to be when you grow up? that's a question that i've been asking myself a lot lately. but, for me anyway, this query raises more questions than it resolves, because it is difficult for get a sense of one's destination when so many uncertainties remain about one's origins.

by God's grace, i was adopted into a remarkable family six days after my birth. i love my family dearly and am fiercely loyal to my parents, sibling and extended family alike. yet i have to wonder whether or how adoption has played into my constant questions concerning my identity. uncle henri's reminder that "what is most personal is most universal" suggests that unadopted children wrestle with similar questions, but i have a hard time believing that bio-babies have the same volume and intensity of questions concerning their identity.

ok, before i bleed all over the blog, let me punch out the aforementioned reviews. both of these books deal at great length with the issue of identity. after reading these two ethnic detective novels and watching the dick flick hollywood land recently, i am beginning to suspect that most detective novels are really more about the investigator's internal search than it is about the actual crime committed. i never noticed this about mysteries before and might be wrong. but, as mikey z reminds us, "everything is what it is and also something else."

i read chandra's massive tome throughout the last two months of pix's pregnancy. sacred games is ostensibly the story of sartaj singh's investigation of ganesh gaitonde's mysterious death. as sartaj the sikh detective tries to connect the dots surrounding the gangster ganesh's death, chandra introduces the reader to tangled economic, socio-political and religious culture of contemporary mumbai. as one reviewer noted, sacred games is not only a superb detective novel/international thriller, but also a wonderful introduction to contemporary india. the novel also introduces the careful reader to the wonderful variety of hindi curse words. so go read the book, you blenchod gaandi of a kutiya!



chabon's most recent novel is a philip rothish "what if" cultural study that is carefully framed in an intriguing tale of a murdered, would-be, Jewish messiah and the drunken yet uncanny dick that is seeking to checkmate the killer. as with chabon's amazing kavalier & clay this novel is a wonderfully inventive, superbly written, character obsessed piece that explores yet another "strange time to be a Jew." i was particularly fascinated by meyer landsman, the chief protagonist of the novel, who is almost a bizzaro abraham insofar as in his moment of testing he chose to capitulate to a curse rather than to believe in the possibility of blessing. as meyer's investigation uncovers more truth about himself than it does about the killer, i had the sense that chabon wrote this novel almost from a moses perspective, for while the characters are clearly grounded on the hard, cold disappointment mt. nebo they never can quite seem to take their eyes off the great promise.

of course, i'm not doing either of these books justice and i've spent way more than five minutes writing this review. but what are you going to do?

signs of life in customer service

last night sometime between my supervisor's surreal questions* and incomprehensible directions** i found myself in a conversation about what the imago dei means in genesis 3. one of my atheistic co-workers suggested that if God created us in his image, then experience suggests that he must be one f'd up deity. the self-professed christians in our group decried that notion and talked about the importance of believing in God's image, even if one doesn't know or can't explain what that means. for my part, i opted out of the conversation and openly wondered why i can't seem to express the imago dei by finding, creating and sustaining God's beauty, goodness and truth in this apparently banal, colorless and altogether ordinary environment.

it seems to me that if i cannot find a way express/incarnate/seek God's image in this ordinary environment, i have no business speaking about the beauty, truth and goodness of God in spaces that are set aside for the sacred. so, instead of treating my coworkers as apt objects of ridicule and approaching customers as confounded equations that no one needs to solve, i am going to to go digging for the imago dei in this apparent wasteland in hopes finding light brighter than the florescent and creation evolving out of the cubes.

* i.e., "isn't this a tit job?" me: "huh?" "don't you just love the job and want to hit it like a tit?" me: "no." "come on, you know this is a tit job..."
** i.e., "you know shave and a haircut, two bits?" me: "yeah." "tap that out for me on your desk!" me: "no." "come on, why can't you tap that out?" me: "because i'm white and bereft of rhythm."

overheard: a crunchy con's lament



"...by all means let's turn our backs on this failed presidency, and save what we can, while we can. But let's not kid ourselves: Bush has failed conservatives, yes, but we have also failed ourselves. It doesn't take much courage to stand up for conservative principle to a president as weak as this one has become. It would have taken real courage to stand up for conservative principle in 2002, 2003, 2004, even early 2005. How many did? I know I didn't -- not until Katrina and Miers, which came late in 2005. If we're looking to blame someone for the failure of Republican government and the conservative crack-up, look to the White House, yes, and look to the late, unlamented Republican Congress. But also look to the conservative talk show hosts, the conservative columnists, and finally, in the mirror. The only way we're going to rebuild after the present and coming political shattering is through honest reckoning, and taking responsibility for what we've done. It is tempting to blame Bush for everything. But it's not fair, and it's not honest. Bush is today who he always was. The difference is we conservatives pretty much loved the guy -- when he was a winner."

continue reading*

* and continue smirking if you were wise enough to either vote against or refuse to vote for bush in 2004.

musing...

"All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them." Acts 2:4

for some reason, this week i've been thinking a lot about, and praying for, the empowerment of the Holy Spirit. i have not asked the Spirit to help me unravel revelation, have the hands of a healer or speak in hazy generalities about the future. but i am desperate for him to help me lavish love on my fussy baby, place a number of clients in their first jobs and somehow find a way to pay the bills, accompany my family and still serve the church. come Holy Spirit, come.

musing...


have you ever dreamed about having a tryst with ving rhames that is just about to escalate from petting to pounding until you are interrupted by an awkward confluence of thoughts of your wife, the fact that ving loves big momma's house and the unexpected intrusion of a scroungy, fishnet sporting, man-marry laden friend?

yeah, me neither.

open discussion



due to convoluted circumstances i would rather not discuss preston was not circumcised until this sunday. because preston was already six weeks old by that time neither the urologist nor the snip-the-tip certified nurse practitioner would circumcise him without general anesthesia. since the pix and i were less than enthused about putting our baby under, we searched for circumcision alternatives and eventually found ourselves at the home of a conservative Jewish mohel. for obvious reasons i was worried that the circumcision would be a horrifying experience that i would quickly want to repress. however, almost as soon as we entered the mohel's home, i realized that this experience was going to be special.

when we arrived one of his mohel's daughters warmly welcomed us in, served us a drink and invited us to wait in the family's living room. two sides of the family's living room were filled with leather bound volumes of the midrash and talmud, there were ornate mezuzahs prominently displayed on every door frame and when the rabbi finally arrived he welcomed us as warmly as he would old friends.

after the rabbi sat my child on his own pillows and circumcised preston with great care he took my baby, bounced him on his shoulder and consoled him with yiddish folk songs. i fear that i am not doing any justice to this experience. it was unique, beautiful and, in a very real sense, peculiar.

in both the torah and the new testament, in passages such as exodus 19:6 and 2 peter 2:9, God demands that his people be a peculiar community. when i sat in the rabbi's house, received his family's amazing hospitality and later had the opportunity to speak with him about the way faith shapes both our worlds, i realized that this is a man who has followed this call to peculiarity in a very remarkable way.

over the past couple of days, i've reflected on that unique experience and have begun to wonder, what is it that makes followers of Christ a peculiar people? in sum, i am quite curious how living the way of Jesus uniquely enables Christ followers to bless the world and work for the reconciliation of all things.

so maybe you can help me here. what does the peculiar way of Jesus look like? how does this way of Jesus empower us to serve others in unique and beautiful ways like the mohel and his family served my little family on sunday? i'm interested to hear your thoughts and reflections.

musing...

in either 2000 or 2001 dr. eugene lowry, the author of the homiletical plot, an essential and blessedly short work on narrative preaching, gave the bebb preaching lectures at soybean bible college in mount pulaski, illinois. although i was unable to attend the lectures because i was in the throes of dating a girl i would later dump at an airport, my good friend mark made the trip out to mount pulaski and returned with tapes of dr. lowry's lectures.

i think i lost those tapes two moves ago and i don't really remember much of what lowry had to say. however, i do remember one snippet of a lecture in which he expressed his frustration at teaching young preachers elementary exegesis.* in his frustrated little aside, lowry said something like this:

"when i teach young preachers how to properly exegete a text they are constantly asking me how i determine the 'solution' of each story. that, i tell them, is your problem. when you are interpreting the bible you don't go looking for solutions, you go looking for trouble."

when i first heard this suggestion from dr. lowry i was a bit troubled. after all, i had long thought that the reason i was being sent out as a sheep among wolves was because i had the solution to sin and all the corruption therein right there in that black, calfskin leather, gold edged new american standard bible. if i couldn't be prepared to always give a reason for the faith that i had why, i wondered, should i minister at all?

but now i'm a little older and many of the certainties that were once set like steel in my eyes have long since melted into questions. now i look back all those millenia and i see abram as he wondered whether he should leave the only land he knew in order to follow a voice no one else had heard and smirk when i think of that fugitive jacob offering the Lord fidelity as long as the holy one ponied up for the wine, women and song jacob was lusting and looking for the in far country. i also think of Jesus, who ignored the politicians who appeared to hold destiny in their hands and denounced as snakes the religious leaders who ultimately sealed his fate. it is in those moments, when i realize that these men and so many others encountered God in the midst of trouble, i begin to catch on to the edge of dr. lowry's wisdom.

some of you can, and perhaps have, found God among the certainties of theological systems and the robust strength of your christian traditions. rest assured that i'm glad you stand on such a firm foundation and are sure of things that you cannot see.

as for the rest of you, i hope you can find some measure of hope in dr. lowry's words. if you can't find God among the certainties that are oft proclaimed and the songs that have so long been sung go looking for him in the midst of trouble. throughout your life you'll find plenty of the latter and i suspect that you'll find He is there.

* which is a five dollar word for interpretation much like lexicon is a five dollar word for dictionary. in case you are wondering the answer is yes, most biblical scholars and theologians really do have a stick up their ass.

The Name Game
by the Pixie aka the "Dairy Queen"

Yesterday Preston and I made our first trip into Boston via public trans. We discovered a few interesting things along the way that we wanted to share. First, Preston's African-American name is Jaden. According to a high-school girl on the Red Line, he does not look like a Preston -- he's a Jaden. Second, while waiting to see the doctor we made friends with the other patients. Right next to us were two middle-aged ladies with a little girl. Since most 5-year-olds get into some sort of trouble while waiting, it didn't take much work to find out the little girl's name. We have spelled it phonetically because we are scared to type the only spelling we could guess. "Air-ee-oh-la, I told you not to run in here!" Poor girl is going to want to run away from her name some day.

happy haiku friday

three pots of coffee

the return of the fury

waking mystery

happy birthday to musings!

today is the third anniversary of brown v. board of education, the legalization of gay marriage in massachusetts and musings of a jaded optimist. today i went back and read my first post in this space, which focused on one pastor's perspective on homosexual marriage, and realized that it was the most high-brow piece i've ever written. entropy, i suppose, is a bitch.

anyway, as musings moves into its fourth year i really want to focus more on this being a positive, creative space where i can muse on what's good, beautiful and true and continue to poke fun at deserving institutions and individuals too. in the month since preston was born i've realized that the demands and responsibilities of adulthood can easily subjugate one's imagination and leave certain dreams on life-support.* for that reason, i'm re-dedicating this space as a wall on which i can graffiti dreams, rants, inappropriate jokes and out-of-the-box ideas that would otherwise fail to see the light of day.

thank you for reading. i don't write for you, but your continued companionship is most welcome.

* not that i'm bitching about the responsibilities of fatherhood or family. to the contrary, i feel more like myself when i'm with pix and the pres than i do when i am without.

who will be the next evangelical idol?



earlier this morning, as ryan seacrest mentioned at the beginning of our show, the immensely popular evangelical idol jerry falwell was found dead in his office at age 73. throughout the afternoon fellow evangelical idols met with the media to eulogize their old friend and comrade. for his part, billy graham spoke of reverend falwell as "a close personal friend for many years," adding "we did not always agree on everything, but i knew him to be a man of God." james dobson of focus on the family spoke similar words of remembrance on a special report from focus that was aired on klove and clear channel's fish radio stations throughout the country today. moreover, on the same program charles colson, formerly of prison fellowship, promised not only to found a liberty university chair in legal ethics but also donate125 iraqi freedom model M1 rifles to the missouri militia in falwell's honor.

we* here at musings of a jaded optimist think that the best way to honor reverend falwell's legacy is not only to remember the good times and the tears he brought to tinky winky's eyes but to start looking forward to the evangelical leaders who are likely to take his majesty of the moral majority's place. below we have posted the current vegas line on evangelical leaders who have a fighting chance to become the next evangelical idol. of course this post means nothing without your participation, so don't forget to vote by dialing 800.4FALWEL or posting your comments below.

rick warren: 2 to 1

pros: he's got the best selling book since the Bible (which is often regarded as the Bible), pastors a ginormous church in orange county--the new "it" spot--as laguna beach will attest, is attempting to address the AIDS pandemic and is reaching out across political divides.

cons: he's reaching across political divides, wears hawaiian shirts, his new look is as plastic as barbie's skipper and he might be susceptible to a kerry-esque botox scandal, he has a weird speaking voice and we fear that his willingness to share his platform with mixed race individuals might have a negative effect on our children.

ed young jr.: 3 to 1

pros: he's from dallas, where 36.2 percent of evangelicals live, both he and daddy have a big church, brother is a gospel singer, and by all accounts ed has perfect hair, pretty nails, a picturesque smile and popular books.

cons he's about three tight fitting pastel sweaters away from john eldredge openly wondering whether he is truly "wild at heart.

andy stanley: 4 to 1

pros: lives in atlanta where approximately 34.5 percent of evangelicals live and narcissistic, melodramatic praise music is the apparently the air the people breathe, leads 2 excessively large churches in the atlanta area that are rapidly multiplyin' franchises all over the south land and rumor has it that he will receive daddy's teflon coating upon senior's death.

cons: height - as one look at billy graham will attest, evangelicals don't like leaders who fail to measure up to dennis kucinich and there is some fear that andy's north point christian church will come under intense, negative scrutiny in the summer of 2007 when the southern baptist convention is announcing its new, annual campaign to evangelize and/or verbally accost all congregations that include the title "community in their name."

rob bell: 10 to 1

pros: graduated from wheaton college just like graham, is a media darling, has defied the odds and his family's personal safety by planting a gigantic church in grand rapids and is one of the few people who actually looks ten pounds lighter on television.

cons: gets five hundred dollar hair cuts from john edwards' stylist, wrote a recent book that suggests that God appreciates sex, has yet to condemn mclaren as heterodox and there are rumors of questionable interactions between live animals and bell on the mars hill stage.

luis palau: 350 to 1

cons: pretty much everything. he's old, he leads "crusades," and he's non-white.
pros: if you pronounce his name incorrectly it's a hell of a lot of fun. try it on for size louie paloooee. louie paloooee is livin' it up with stephen baldwin. louie paloooee is preachin' in kalamazoooe!

dr. jose luis de jesus miranda: 500 to 1

pros: he think's he's jesus come back again, he has lots of money, preaches prosperity and great love for many women, has a large following of latinos a growing minority in the country and nobody f*cks with the jesus!

cons: he's a little soft on abortion and may have obtained his doctorate from the university of phoenix.

okay, those are amazing odds aren't they? so let's hear from you our listeners! don't forget to dial 800.FALWEL or drop your comment below! and be sure to tune in tomorrow night for the next episode of evangelical idol!

* by which i mean me, gentry, and the man predestined to be the 2010 miss church planter of america winner, mr. aaron monts!

musing...

"It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ." - Eph. 4:11-13

i only remember snippets of my seminary education. some of the snippets are smeared with shit, such as the moment in class during my first week when professor jefferson davis lee told me in no uncertain terms that "we aren't going to answer questions like yours in this class," but there are are a few snippets that i still treasure. one of the latter snippets is of the time that professor gary parrott, building on the thesis of r. paul stevens' liberating the laity, told us that the heart of christian ministry is building the body up to the head, who is Christ. of course ministry can be viewed through more opaque lenses, parrott admitted at the time, but the irreducible core of serving Jesus is building a community that grows up into the beauty, goodness and truth of Christ.

i must admit that for many years i have thought about building people up into Christ as merely spiritual work. to wit, i tried to teach the whole counsel of scripture by opting for exegetical rather than sound bite sermons or teachings, consistently encouraged people to intellectually acquiesce to traditional Christian doctrine concerning Christ's death, burial and resurrection and sought to include as many people as i could in the sacraments of baptism and eucharist.

at this point in my a-institutional ministry i still think that the focus of my early work is important, but i also view paul's imperative to build up the body into Christ in a much more holistic manner. thus, i am almost certain that when i am accompanying individuals who are seeking to enter the world of competitive employment i am operating as much from the center of my calling as i am when i am preaching a sermon, performing a baptism or presiding over communion. in some sense, i even feel more centered in the employment specialist role than i do in the teacher's seat. in fact, there have been a number of occasions lately when i have been able to almost step outside of myself in the moment and watch myself walking through the workshop at rectangle and grinning from ear to ear as i greet participants, encourage young job seekers to persevere and constantly emphasizing the potential of individuals rather than bemoaning their current reality. in those moments i can hardly recognize my old cynical self and cannot help but wonder whether i am operating more in and with the Spirit in those moments than i am when i participate in almost any other activity or serve in any other role.

i am rambling...i guess what i want to say is this: there are as many diverse and wonderful ways to build communities and individuals up into Christ as there are unique communities and individuals. if we who are members of the church could begin to see our "building up" role in a much more holistic way i have little doubt* that both the church and the very ends of the earth would be so much better for it.

so here's to hoping for a few more prophets to find their calling in the political systems of the world, where they build nations up into the justice of Christ. let's send out more educational apostles from our communities who are educated in the finest institutions of the world and dedicated to helping the kids in new orleans sharpen their arithmatic and accompanying sped students in the bronx as they learn life skills. and here's to the church commissioning more environmental evangelists who call consumers to repent of our unecessary consumption so that we can participate with Christ as he sustains the natural world and celebrate the revelation of God that is barely concealed in every rock, river and tree.

the body of Christ needs to open its eyes. the only limit upon paul's imperative to build up communities and individuals into the beauty, truth and goodness of the creating and all-sustaining Christ is our imagination. so let's start building!

* and, for me, that's saying something.

mid-morning time waster: create a caption


the writer of the best caption will be awarded one of preston's yellow and seedy poo dollars. all submissions must be received by 10 p.m. on May 11th, 2007. employees and relatives of musings of a jaded optimist are not eligible to receive prizes. no purchase necessary. void where prohibited.

on unintended consequences
today i had the opportunity to observe a job club* that was facilitated by a colleague that works at rectangle, inc. in melrose, mass. since today's curriculum focused on perfecting the art of the follow-up call it was unsurprising that my colleague opened the lesson with the following lead: "today we are going to talk about what you should say when you follow-up on a lead, so i thought it would be fun if we began this teaching by discussing what we should not say when placing a follow up call."

"ok, you heard me. what are some things we should never say when we are following up on an application?"

in response to the facilitator's rather clumsy cajoling the surprisingly diverse group of job seekers responded** in the following manner:

a) "you got my job?!"
b) "um, hi?"
c) "what's up, my nigga?"

needless to say, the latter comment precipitated a five minute break.

* did you know that in comparison with an individual job seeker job club members are 23% less likely to quit their job search within the first month and 33% more likely to locate a job within three months? did you really give a damn? i didn't think so.
** i shit you not.

musing...

early this morning, in lieu of spewing invectives inspired by traffic, i thought about the way that i value scripture. when i was younger in the faith, i used to look at scripture as the unquestioned foundation of my faith. for this reason if i had doubts about God or felt emotional distance from the calling of the great commission i concluded that a lack of time in the word the core issue. at that time i also thought that the correct, common sense answer for all the social issues facing the church, such as women in ministry, stem cell research and the insiduous suppleness of janet jackson's breast, were located somewhere within scripture. thus, if i could only crack the code i figured that i could ascertain a revealed answer for everything.

i don't really look at scripture in the same way any more. instead of a compendium of absolute life principles and an objective, comprehensive statement on the beautiful, good and true, i now tend to look at scripture as an inspired collection of stories about God's creative, redeeming love and people's varying desire to either converge with or contradict God's story. thus, i read the stories of scripture in hopes of finding points of convergence for my community, family and individual story. conversely, as i listen to scripture i hope to find wisdom as i seek to keep the contradictions between my stories and God's stories as minimal as possible.

i suspect i'm not making much sense, but that's what i'm thinking about today. my prayer is that we will learn to listen well to both God's stories and our stories so that we will experience the joy of convergence as often as possible and avoid points of contradiction a little more effectively than we have in the past. pax.

memorandum from daddy random



how'd you like that new title?! yeah, i hate it too. i'd love to blame global warming, the recent advent of my only son and rectangle's recently re-inforced draconian internet policy for my lack of posting, but i confess that the.problem.with.this.blog.is.me.

last weekend, dr. james, agent b and many others (though not nearly enough...join us next year!) attended the God for those who hate church conference over at the gathering space in salem. although i'm one of the many attendees who generally abhor conferences* i really enjoyed the experience. highlights included a showing of frisbee: the life and death of a hippie preacher,** jim henderson's*** unexpectedly intriguing discussion of non-institutional forms of christianity in india and hanging out with karen ward of church of the apostles and tony jones of emergent. however,**** my favorite part of the conference were the little vignettes provided by pastor phil. there was one moment on friday night when pastor phil asked the audience whether any of us had ever felt like we were currently walking through a swamp, constantly wondering whether our next step forward would land on something solid or send us plummeting into the waters below. for some reason in that moment tears welled in my eyes***** and i was, for a moment, awash in a deep communion that seemed to bind those of us who had gathered. it seems to me that pastor phil is a broken man who is not not called to bind wounds so much as he is to call the broken together through friendship, word and song, so that together we can await the healer.

although i should be giving the cardinals well-deserved world champion free pass this year, i must confess that they are fucking killing me. right now i am one click away from espn.com and two clicks away from a live mlb.tv feed, yet i can't bring myself to look. ugh, for good reason. that holliday kid always sticks an alou-sized shiv in us.

that's all for now. there's more to say about how amazing it is to invest one's days in a mission worth believing in and how wonderful my pixie like wife is, but those thoughts will have to wait. much peace, much love.

* i have quite enough pissing contests with co-workers and cubs fans, thank you very much!
** a documentary i'd been waiting to see for almost a year and a half and, when watched, twisted my teeny white panties in a thousand little knots. this documentary raises all sorts of questions about how the church attempts to water down the passion and the glory of the kingdom and how christians of all shapes and leadership sizes carefully manipulate the charisms of individuals in order to satiate our personal ambitions.
*** i'm sure others expected more. call me philistine.
**** and i'm not just saying this to kiss ass!
***** uncle freddy always says that any onrush of tears, especially over a crusty old bastard such as myself, should be received as an immediate call to attention for in those rare moments something beautiful, good and true is likely taking place.

musing...

sometimes i suspect that pastoral ministers are not all that different from sin eaters. based upon the very limited research that i have completed, i've learned that sin eaters were a group of societal outcasts who took the sins of the dead upon themselves by eating a ritual meal of bread and ale that was either passed over or laid upon a fresh corpse. by eating the bread and drinking the ale the sin eater supposedly set the dead free from a life of roaming and, presumably, set the aggrieved family free from the terror of haunting.

likewise, every day pastors sit beside dying marriages, corroding churches and, worst of all, their devolving selves and somehow find the strength to eat the bread and drink the wine. like the sin eaters of old they then tromp off to their secluded study, prayer closet or take a solitary walk in hopes that the sin they've absorbed and the fucked up messes they are now entangled in will somehow be resolved or reconciled in hope that the people involved therein might be renewed or reborn. in sum, pastors decend into the dens of the dead as Jesus did before them and, on their best days, do not venture forth without hope.

as pastors sit beside the dead, devour the bread and sip the cup, is it any wonder that their own lives are often strained to the breaking point? does it not take great faith to wake the dead for a living and constantly endure the darkness in hope of a new day?

time and again i hear people denounce and lament the brokenness of these sin eaters. while i don't deny either the unfortunate causes or effects of such brokeness, i'm honestly amazed that any endure this dark descent.

so today, as i think about my brother and sister sin eaters and the horrors they endure on account of Christ i tremble. i want to extend more grace and mercy to those who share this horribly beautiful calling. moreover, on my better days, i want to extend this same grace to myself.

i probably shouldn't write about such matters in such a careless manner. but so it goes.

somewhere between the losing and the finding


i am as confounded as i am content. i am so deeply grateful to finally have someone who is flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone, but terrified that i will not be able to provide for my family. i finally have a job that converges somewhat with my calling, but doesn't pay the mortgage and only tangentially relates to my greatest strength. i constantly want to proclaim the goodness, beauty and truth of God, but can only rarely find the words. i'm an ex-aspiring theologian who leans towards calvinism yet finds himself whispering to those broken by Christ's body that people are only christians insofar as they follow Christ.

it's in moments like these that i envy my Christian brothers and sisters that serve in more traditional settings and cling to a more established branches of theology. these are days when, in an ecclesiological sense, i feel like "throwing the country a through k rack in the middle of the streets and going to work for a virgin mega store." but here i quake and can do no other.

well that was one hell of a birthday present! cards 12, cubs 9

last year the cubs swept us on my birthday weekend and my year was one of the worst on record. this year the cards ground out the series to take 2 out of 3 and apu capped off the whole thing by shivving dempster lidge-style. methinks this year will be one to remember.

on another note: little preston sat on my lap throughout the 9th inning and so witnessed daddy striking the wall. welcome to cardinals/cubs little guy!

overheard...

"We have been beaten in Iraq, despite all our firepower and all our money. And as soon as the last US soldier leaves that hellhole in the desert, the Right is going to start blaming the media and the Left and the anti-war conservatives for causing us to lose Iraq." - rod dreher on the crunchy cons blog

over the past six months many military hawks have realized that their early support for bush's bungle is as indefensible as a cultured person's passion for american idol. upon hearing these confessions a part of me wants to chortle "see i told you so" but a larger part of me feels pity for family and friends who've had to stutter forth such statements of repentance.

overheard...

a little over a month ago sean poirier, a well-known salem witch, died unexpectedly. in the days that followed, pastor phil wyman had the privilege of accompanying sean's friends and family through this difficult time. in beyond the pall pastor phil reflects on the importance of honoring and celebrating the life of those who may not share our theology or walk the same paths, yet are inescapably bound to us by their own beauty, truth and irreducible humanity. i suspect that sean and phil were brothers and know for certain that both their lives and the city of salem is the better for it.

overheard...


"When a child is born, a father is born. A mother is born too, of course, but at least for her it's a gradual process. Body and soul, she has nine months to get used to what's happening. But even for the best-prepared father, it happens all at once. On the other side of the plate-glass window, a nurse is holding up something roughly the size of a loaf of bread for him to see for the first time. Even if he should decide to abandon it forever ten minutes later, the memory will nag him to the grave. He has seen the creation of the world. It is his mark upon it. He has its mark upon him. Both marks are, for better or worse, indelible." - Frederick Buechner

and a little child shall lead them...


i probably shouldn't say anything about children of men because it's a film i have not even begun to absorb. but if you preach, teach or are simply intrigued by the story of moses, the life of christ and/or any number of assorted bodhisattvas you should invest two hours in this film. somehow this film simultaneously reveals the depths the human stain while reminding us to whom the beauty, truth and goodness of God ultimately belong. i could go on about the immaculate imagery of moses in the bulrushes or discuss the cuaron's implicit condemnation of the "fish." but instead, just this once, i'm going to revel in a film like i've always wanted to revel in the revelation of saint john. namely, by sitting back, letting the imagery slide over me and listening for the whispers that emanate from within.

i realize that the fact that we just welcomed a son into the world might be leading me straight into hyperbole, but i'd have to say that children of men was better than any film i saw in 2006. in my estimation, the producers of the film only made one trifling mistake: they should have released it on december 25th.

introducing: preston alan james gentry

our son was born on tuesday, april 10th at 4:45 pm. he weighed 8 lbs, measures 21 and 3/4 inches long and has inherited my monkey toes. i'm sure i'll find more to say about this event, but until then i thought you might enjoy a few of tabitha sherrell's beautiful pics.





okay i will say one more thing. our friends and family have been a wonderful support during this important time. special props to brooke wilcox for tending to kellie and myself throughout the birth, becky for tending to parents while we were at the hospital and kellie and i's family for venturing out in order to welcome little preston to the world. also, many thanks to everyone who gave so generously and so ensured that we were well supplied for preston's arrival.

musing...

last night, while sitting on the couch watching friday night lights, i confessed to brooke that i haven't had a very holy lent. for the most part i've kept my fast and i've even spent a little more time in prayer, but in general this has not been a season filled with the honest personal assessments and extended periods of reflection that, for me at least, befit this season of repentance.

instead it has been a season of anxiously awaiting preston's birth, scrambling to adjust to the interpersonal demands and intermittent political struggles that often characterize my work and learning to invest more fully in my beautiful, pixie of a wife and growing family.

thus, to a very real degree, i do not think that i have extended much effort towards communing and incarnating Christ throughout the past forty days. and yet, and yet, in the midst of a conversation with becky this morning i realized that regardless of my efforts God is in the process of reconnecting me with my own blood by giving me a son, winding the paths of a couple of beloved old friends back towards beverly and investing heavily in the beauty, truth and goodness of our community by bringing miss aubuchon into our midst.

as with jacob before me, even in the midst of my apathy and open rebellion, God continues to give good gifts. i suppose that by this point i shouldn't be surprised by God's grace, but i am. moreover, i have a sneaking suspicion that my forty days of failure have led me towards the heart of a truly holy lent.

i am so thankful.

a feeble request...


if you find yourself channel surfing on wednesday nights, please tune in to NBC and turn on to friday night lights. failing that, you can catch up with this amazing series by watching every episode online for free.

listen, i'll be the first to admit that FNL is not a perfect show. occasionally the plot drivers are inane,* the writers constantly underestimate the way that faith shapes the culture of small southern towns and, as drunken bee over at televisionwithoutpity.com has noted on a number of occasions, the portrayal of teen life is a tad bit idealized.**

however, the show consistently portrays the beauty and promise that suckers even cynics such as myself into interpersonal relationships, while never flinching from the conflicts and complications that never cease to ensnare. in addition, i think that nbc has done a grave disservice to the show by marketing it as a sports drama when most of the compelling characters are women such as the coach's wife, who is played to perfection by tami britton, and the hub of the show is the family life of the taylor's, not the panthers pursuit of the texas state football title. i'm amazed that the legions of folks who bitch and moan about the dearth of family friendly t.v. are constantly tuning in to narcissistic, meaningless drivel like american idol while excellent, critically acclaimed shows like FNL are ignored into extinction.

i know that i've beat the FNL drum in this space before, but i'm still convinced that if enough you take a moment to listen to the tune you will eventually fall in line.

on a wholly unrelated note: the cardinals are in the process of getting curbed by the mets again. while i can't say that i like losing, i must admit that i'm surprised that the MVP3 core of rolen, edmonds and pujols carried the team this far.*** after 2004 i predicted that the team had taken its best shot and was on the road to rebuilding. who knew that after 2004 the team had one very good season and one unexpectedly magical season left in them? so be it.

* like last week's tragic train wreck that resulted in the football field of dreams.
** i.e., the students are a little too good looking and they party to the sounds of tragically hip indie pop instead of the steve miller band.
*** and by this far i mean the 2006 world series championship. still can't get over that one.