elmer gantry goes to uganda

"When Ghanaian pastor Obiri Konjo Yeboah (or Kojo Nana Obiri-Yeboah or Yeboah Nana Kojo, depending on the news source) entered Uganda, officials at the airport seized his luggage. Inside was a machine that they believed was a piece of bomb-making equipment.

It turns out that it was the Yigal Mesika Electric Touch, a gadget sold in magic stores that sends a 12-volt charge into anyone touching the person who's wearing it. The company says it will 'create excitement, mystery, curiosity, and supernatural powers all in one forgettable experience.'

Ugandan officials are worried about that "supernatural powers" part, and the pastor is now being investigated for fraud."

(ht: CT Weblog)

three good reasons to work nights

nobody knew his secret ambition

i have never been able to understand the role that personal ambition plays in the christian life. i realize that Jesus' secret ambition was to give his life away, generations of my evangelical forbears sought to accomplish the great commission through individual conversions and in more recent times mainstream protestants and their emergent stepchildren redirected the church's focus to proclaiming and incarnating the Kingdom of God. but, up until this point in my life, i haven't learned how to develop a sense of personal ambition that benefits rather than detracts from the larger ecclesial, local and international communities of which i am a part.

on account of my confusion i have pretty much ignored stephen covey's immortal advice to "begin with the end in mind" and have simply tried to respond to vocational and occupational opportunities as they arise. fortunately, my ambivalence towards personal ambition has yet to wreck much havoc in my life. in fact, i suspect that the aforementioned approach has saved me from a number of significant personal mistakes, such as stepping into professional christian positions before i was mature* enough to handle the responsibility and yielding to mr. dewitt's wishes by succeeding walt jocketty before the 2004 season.

but, as i break into my thirties, i realize that if i do not take a more active interest in shaping my personal vocational and occupational worlds others will be only too happy to fashion these worlds for me. thus, in lieu of submitting myself to the service of the other's** ambitions i am going to take the risk of setting my course, fixing my sights and venturing forth.

i only hope that if my ambition doesn't exactly align with God's, it's not totally at odds. moreover, in the midst of this process i hope that the value i place on living for others is not eclipsed by my rather lamentable tendency towards radical individualism.

* read: slick, pragmatic and political.
** some of whom i love and respect.

an all-star running diary


i'm utterly exhausted, sans sleeping baby and attendant wife and for some unknown reason interested in watching the all-star game. so i thought i would keep a running diary tonight since i have nothing better to do and i'm a self-absorbed arrogant prick.

pregame

would it be possible to have a major baseball ceremony without MLB having to shove patriotism down our throats? i'd be a baseball fan whether i was american or armenian. in fact, i plan on remaining a fan after i defect to canada. so stop f*cking shoving god bless america down my throat before every major baseball event.

ooh, willie mays is introduced against a backdrop of the catch. now that's something i can be patriotic about. what a playa.

did you know that mays doubled off a runner after making the catch that is captured so elegantly above?

did you know that i was just confronted with a rachel ray "quilicious" advert when i jaunted over to baseball-reference.com? could have lived without that?

i'm debating whether i should spend the evening bitching about mccarver and buck? any opinions?

eric byrnes is from san francisco? somehow that just makes sense.

today i was really, really suffering from the mid-summer malaise. as a result i found it difficult to get work done, was a bit too snippy with one of my clients and would have watched a mid-night movie with paul reubens if it meant i could have fifteen freaking minutes to read my paper in relative piece and quiet. when you find yourself in a similar state at work what do you do for relief? do tell...

cal ripken junior: not an announcer.

ozzie smith: capable announcer, hall of famer, all-around bodhisattva.

T1

peavy's overthrowing. look for an early run from the AL.

damn tough inside pitch to jeter. maybe i'm wrong headed there.

6-4-3 nice.

joe, you're wondering why ortiz's power is down? you wonder why pujols is also down? you ever heard the phrase cycling down?

peavy just got hosed. big papi should have been punched out.

wright just saved fielder's ass.

wow MJ and cuba gooding are working for haines. kevin bacon must have been busy.

B1

damn reyes can fly. now, if bonds can just rope one to the wall and then tear his ACL rounding first base...

haren grooved one and bonds popped it up. way to honor your godfather's legacy cheater.

--- rachel ray and dunkin donuts themed comment removed due to gentry's poor taste ---

speaking of dunkin donuts, the boston phoenix (of all rags) recently published a fun little article that explores the new england's devotion to the dunks and differentiates dunkie junkies from bucks bitches. for the record: count me in the latter camp. i'm afraid that if i fell in love with dunks, i'd have to start reading the herald and discovering a developing new interest in nascar. no thanks.

way to go griff. secure that home field advantage for us. THIS ONE COUNTS!

T2

man, i know that reyes, rolen and the golden gloves in the NL are incredibly talented. but man they display some bad fundamentals in the field. i just saw rolen pull a roger dorn "ole!" on a ball late last week. i know you guys are infield gods, but square up to the ball.

B2

for the past three minutes, i've sat here wondering whether "bad fundamentals" would be an adequate excuse for terminating rolens interminable contract. maybe i'll shoot jock an email.

tough break there for r. martin. the NL needs to tack some runs on the board. i know that this is going to surprise the baseball fans among you, but the AL has a much deeper roster.

don't tell anyone, but when i get exhausted, i sometimes get a bit sentimental. and when i get sentimental, i love to head over to lost tulsa.com. at that site, i can read brief updates about the gradual demolition of my childhood and laugh at the future land architecturethat graces oral roberts university's campus. are there any sites that you find yourself drifting towards when you're sentimental? do tell.

T3

ok, i'm still reading about my lost childhood and starting to forget about you.

T4

who doesn't love the wolf? man that's a great commercial.

barry bonds and a-rod. the closest of friends. shocker. on that note, griff just totally smoked a-rod at home. nice.

T5

who am i kidding? i'm totally swimming in sentimentality and ignoring the game and the post. catch you later.

musing...

"your system is perfectly designed to produce the results that you are now receiving."

someone somewhere planted that saying in my mind years ago and i have yet to forget it. sometime in late may, after completing five months of incredibly hard job development work that yielded precious little fruit, i did two things. first, i prayer for the empowerment of the Holy Spirit. second, i set out to break down my current job development system.

the first step took, well, prayer and the second step meant eschewing the internet and pre-fabricated job leads in order to start cold-calling and engaging in aggressive interpersonal marketing. both steps took a great deal of faith and the second required this failure-phobic pastor to set aside not a small amount of fear. however, now that i sit six weeks on the other side of that conversion and half a dozen of my clients are now working, i am beginning to realize the value of the steps that i took.

i am not posting this to boast of what God has done through my small efforts or to portray myself as an innovator of faith. rather, i am curious to hear your answer to the following questions:

are there systems in your life, your community and our world do you need to break?

if you were to break the aforementioned system, what results would you seek?

do you need the empowerment of the Holy Spirit to break the system and assist you with the process of reinvention? what do you think His accompaniment would look like in your life?

maybe nobody is interested in answering these questions right now except for me. whether you are interested in the conversation or not, thanks for listening.

jobs i would never want: overnight truck unloader at huckabees



after a extended drought of almost 3 months my clients have finally begun to find competitive employment. since "empowering clients by helping them find competitive employment" would be part of my personal mission statement* this development has been most welcome. however, since 5 of my clients have secured positions within the past three weeks, and i am obliged to provide free job coaching for every job offered, my life has been a little crazy lately.

since i cannot divulge information about my clients due to nitpicky little issues such as the American Disabilities Act i cannot tell you anything specific about either my clients or the crazy, alternative universe** i inhabit over at rectangle. however, i think i can legally tell you a little about my off-site job coaching experiences. thus, this series, "jobs i would never want."

now that i've lost all my readers, i guess i can continue.

on thursday night, after gathering with our newly christened s & s small group, i made my way to huckabees*** where i was scheduled to job coach my client on a 10 p.m. to 6:30 a.m. truck unloader shift. when we arrived the manager quickly escorted us to the back of the store where about 25 members from a wide assortment of individuals from united nations affiliated countries was preparing to unload two trucks. before we really knew what to do with ourselves the manager was clipping the seal on the semis and immediately standing aside as an overwhelming assortment of bikes, dvds, cosmetics and a truly ridiculous amount of kitty litter came cascading out of the truck.**** over the next hour we "carefully" loaded all of the product onto specific pallets and then wheeled the pallets out into specific sections of the store.

then, just as we prepared to open the boxes and stock the inventory the manager called "first break" over the intercom, we wearily wound our way to the break room and, i shit you not, feasted on a delectable assortment of haitian food.***** at that point, i noticed that the white bread manager was walking table to table and speaking to everyone in their own native tongue. when he pressed enough flesh to make it over to my table, i asked him how many languages he spoke and he quickly replied: "spanish, portuguese and i'm learning bosnian." at that moment, and throughout the night, i was impressed by his both his ability to contextualize every instruction and interaction with his workers and the overwhelming generosity he showed towards myself and my client.

of course, there were things i hated about the evening such as the horrible, sappy, coldplay inspired bitch pop that played over the speakers all night and the utterly mind numbing process of sorting and stocking trivial shit like confetti colored ribbon, spiderman 3 branded speedo goggles and "so hot," "you're hot" and "stay hot" colors of maybelliene lipstick. but after i left for the evening, barely survived the sleep deprived hour drive home and reflected on my experience the next afternoon i found it nothing short of remarkable.

i was amazed by the amount of man hours it takes to receive, stock and display the incredible assortment of trivial shit that we buy on a weekly basis. further, i was enriched by the overwhelming diversity and generosity of huckabees' multi-cultural staff****** and impressive management. finally, this experience helped confirm my suspicion that there are a number of people within every corporate behemoth who really want to do something good, beautiful and true with their work day. thus, by encouraging my client to apply, accompanying that person through the interview and assisting through the job coaching process i'm not simply serving my client's interests, but also empowering a well intentioned corporate worker or two to do something beautiful.

so, in the future i would like to balance my bitching about corporate behemoths by actively seeking to assist those within the corporate structure who long to live out a life that is more beautiful, good and true. moreover, i would like to thank my client and huckabees for providing a night to remember.

* if i was lame enough to have one.
** when i say alternative universe i mean it. we feature handicapped look-a-likes of most major celebrities, a steamy relationship scene and offer abba themed summer dance parties to boot.
*** ok, so i didn't really put in hours at huckabees, but you get the idea.
**** the next time you wonder why your new dvd player doesn't work or your caked out maybelleine compact is cracked remember this post.
***** minus the chicken heads.
****** though there were a few passing moments, late in the evening, when i felt like i was living out the script for dirty pretty things II.

on the lighter side

an overdue update


since i try to write regularly, my recent lack of posts frustrates me. over the past several weeks our little family has navigated a number of major transitions that i would like to discuss more fully, but at this point a simple update will have to do.

as i just announced in a mass email to family and friends, sinners and saints is no longer self-identifying as a church but is continuing to journey forward as a community. fortunately this transition is not the result of major conflict within the church, a significant moral lapse among our leadership or our failure to fully embrace the forty days of purpose as a primary church program. rather, after almost five years together, most of our members have been dispersed around the country where they are expressing the Kingdom of God in manifold and marvelous ways. Moreover, our remaining Beverly contingent has decided to partner with existing, missional communities such as the gathering in salem, park street church in boston or st. mary's orthodox church in cambridge and invest our lives in any additional number of innovative incarnations of God's mission. for my part, i'm simply glad that up to this point, to the best of my knowledge, none of us have made shipwreck of our faith and i'm looking forward to the unexpected ways that God is going to utilize our members and our quirky little community in the future.

i always thought that saying goodbye to the s & s church would feel like failure. fortunately, up to this point anyway, it absolutely does not feel like that at all. rest assured that i'll compensate by failing in other ways.

in lighter news, a little over a week ago dr. j and i finally sold our jetta tdi and disbanded our little car co-op. although our car co-op never saved us the amount of money we hoped, we forswore bio-diesel months ago and we're still trying to find "creative" ways to dispose of the resulting, completely bio-degradable, bi-products on the aforementioned alternative fuel, i'd have to say that our co-op was still a success. for my part, car co-oping taught me that i can live interdependently with people other than my wife,* i don't need to travel as often as i thought and volkswagens are completely worthless pieces of euro-trash that reasonable people should not purchase. in sum, i'd have to say, yeah for car co-oping, woo-hoo for wise resource management and fuck you volkswagen.

due to the arrival of our absolutely amazing son and our resultant childcare needs, i have been working a second job with our remarkably inefficient, customer unfriendly mass-transit system. i think it's safe to say that this job has put undue stress upon pretty much everyone and everything that is important to me and, as a result, i'm desperately hoping that God provides me with an offer of sustainable employment in the near future. there are a couple of decent options resting right over the horizon right now. let's pray that one of those options is realized and my sixty five hour work weeks** quickly become a thing of the past.

in other news, things have been going incredibly well at my day job. over the past several weeks i've placed four or five clients and as a result i now know the core values of target, inc., how to efficiently clean a u-haul storage unit and a few ways that one can circumvent the security cameras at tj maxx. brilliant. in all seriousness, empowering disabled men and women by helping them find sustainable employment is usually a deeply meaningful and utterly fulfilling task. on the best days the job makes me want to be both a better man and a better pastor. moreover, on my worst days, i can take a few moments to observe the afternoon break dance class. so i'm not complaining.

* granted, i am talking about the wilcox's here, but still.
** i realize that i'm wallering in self pity here. please feel free to pick up a hammer and nails.

---

addendum:

ramos weighs in on the commencement of s & s church.

in honor of our weekend guests...

my second favorite bit about oklahoma. i wish i could find my first favorite bit, which is a fantastic rip on oklahoma delivered by anthony clark on the 1995 young comedian's special on HBO, but apparently that clip is not currently on youtube. obviously, someone needs to get on that.

anyway, you gotta love ruprecht just like you gotta love family.

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.