we find the time to do the things we want to get done,
  i proclaimed so haughtily to her.
i mentioned keys, bills and excel,
  she responded without a word.

this morning, in the damp quiet of the seven o'clock hour,
  as i sat with the scriptures, being primed for prayer,
i was pierced by the sharp edge of my statement
  and confronted by my most practical err.

i find time for bills, sweating the circle, even playing a little bond,
  but often ignore the draw of this sacred hour
  when i call and am called upon.

learning about labor, day

this weekend my parents came out to visit. the stated purpose of their visit was to help us put the condo together. so, with the foresight of an interior decorator that seems to be hardwired into most women, kellie planned for my dad and i to build a bookshelf for the study. no problem, i thought. after all, during college 'building' a bookshelf consisted of resting 2 x 4 x 8's on a pair of cinder blocks and in post-college it consisted of purchasing a couple of sauder quality bookshelves from target and hastily putting them together. of course, nothing could have been further from her mind.

when she determined last tuesday that the measurements of the bookshelf would be 6 x 8, thus covering the north wall of my study, i began to get a little worried. it was going to be a bigger undertaking than i expected, i reasoned, but nothing we couldn't complete in a day or, possibly, two. when my father and i spent two and a half hours carefully selecting and purchasing $200 worth of wood on friday night, i knew i was in over my head. when my dad spoke of me using the circular saw, which i had last seen being utilized as a weapon in Commando and had never used myself, i began to sweat.

now that my body is beginning to recover, on wednesday of the following week, i realize that my anxiety was warranted. over a (count 'em) four day period, my father and i built one of the most sturdy, spacious and, dare i say, impressive bookshelves that i have ever seen. i learned how to use the circular saw, a mitre box and a tape measure. and i learned, yet again, that when you are working with a man as industrious as my father, hemorrhaging mucus, upcoming sermons (i preached on sunday as well. how's that for planning?) and labor day picnics are no reason to stop working. thus, this september sixth, instead dominating yet another game of whiffle ball, i truly learned about labor. thanks for the lesson dad. you'll always be my blue collar hero.

discretion suggests that i leave the following incidents untyped. but the delirium brought on by the sudafed/alka-seltzer/claritin cocktail i've been sipping since the sawdust started flying has impaired my judgement. thus, i will do what i rarely ever do on this blog, tell a family secret...

my dad is a very articulate, well-spoken man. however, he has a problem pronouncing two words, hawaii, which comes out ha-YY, and peanuts, which is pronounced as though the 't' is silent. my beloved wife stocks peanuts for me to snack on and i indulge in them regularly since they are a part of my low-sodium diet. over the weekend, i got my atkins-loving father to partake in my practice as well, which, due to his pronunciation problem, led to the following, horrifying, statements:

when dr. james walked into the study and asked my dad how things were going the response was unintelligible. dr. j. politely told my dad that he could not hear him and asked him to repeat. my father, responding to james in kind, said "i'm sorry, i just had some peanu(t)s in my mouth."

later on in the evening, when dad's exhaustion was effecting his grammar, he looked staight at me and asked "hey jeff, where is your peanu(t)s?"

needless to say, both dr. j and i about died.

by the way...mom, i'd appreciate it if you keep the last part of this post between us.

a word of encouragement for those returning to work

"one who is slack in his work is brother to one who destroys."
~Prov. 18:9

happy haiku friday!

grandparents dying

parents in a.a.r.p.

time to be a man

i realize that this isn't much of a haiku, but it clearly reflects my current state of mind.

overheard...

"we learn to praise God not by paying compliments, but by paying attention. watch how the trees exult when the wind is in them. mark the utter stillness of the great blue heron in the swamp. listen to the sound of rain. learn to say 'hallelujah' from the ones who say it right."

~Frederick Buechner in Beyond Words

some days are essays, others incomplete sentences

today is one of the latter. thus, instead of a complete unit of coherent thought, i am going to share a couple of fragmentary thoughts and reflections.

i don't know whether it's the 32 ounces of equal exchange coffee pulsing through my veins or the faint scent of innovation, but for some reason i am interested in my job once again. when our company was recently sold from one brother to another i thought that business would proceed as usual. as is often the case, my assumptions were far from correct. someone up top is shaking the tree and coconuts are falling all over the place. we are in the process of reconsidering how to do everything from site design to spam, er..., i mean newsletters in a more effective way. for so, for the first time in this department their seems to be room for innovation. consequently, for the first time in months i am not tempted to drool on my keyboard. good times...

for the moment, my homiletical paralysis has abated. over the past four months i have had the damnedest time developing sermons. early on, i considered my condition a result of my spiritual apathy and context of transition (i.e., married eight months ago, new homeowner, fairly new job, sex change (just kidding), etc.). however, i have realized that my condition has abated when i write first person narrative sermons. thus, in my current three sermon series on the prodigal son, my narrative sermon from the perspective of the elder brother went swimmingly, my deductive sermon on the prodigal absolutely sucked and my narrative sermon on the role/call to be the father is developing quite nicely. i don't want to discount the influence that the small, yet distinct spiritual renewal that is taking place in my life and community is having upon me, but i think that the primary cause of the paralysis is a stylistic shift that is taking place in my preaching. i'll probably discuss this in more detail at a later date.

i've realized, once again, that one of the great temptations of church leaders is to exert power over the lives of the members. i thought that by checking out of the institutional structure i would have lessened this temptation, but i couldn't have been more wrong. in relational ministry there are constant opportunities to guide people towards personal decisions or commitments that would apparently serve the best interests, or lessen a burden upon the church, but would not be the best choice for the individual. i must constantly recommit myself to searching out what is best for that person and for the community rather than what appears to work best with my vision for our community. i am rambling and probably making little sense...but there is a big issue buried in there.

shit. this post is less a record of fragmentary thoughts than it is a collection of uncompleted essays. nonetheless i am going to let it go.

blessings upon you and yours.

oooo sweet nectar!

first he blessed us with clerks X. now, he has revealed that he is working on a sequel, the passion of the clerks. all hail kevin smith!

and that other kevin, the one that lives in the sticks of a swing state, better be ready for my visit. i ain't gonna to see this one without you. snootch to the nootch!

yet another sign that the wheels are falling off...

if i was pitching like kyle farnsworth, i'd try to injure myself as well. this has been a tough year on the north side, with more bizarre injuries and underperforming aces than you can sneeze at. hell, even wrigley field is falling apart.

i hope that the cardinals get to play the (barely) walking wounded in the playoffs. the cubbies have consistently been an easier mark than the giants and there will be nothing quite as gratifying as seeing nomah implode in october (you might love him now, but you'll hate him when the games really count...mia can't hold his hand when he's hobbling towards a ball in the hole).

good words on marriage from lauren winner

when i heard that books and culture was producing an issue on marriage, i winced. because of my geographical location as well as my occupation i have heard evangelicals proclaim that 'the sky is falling' on good, godly, traditional marriage one too many times. fortunately, books and culture upended my expectations by publishing this excellent article by lauren winner.

i assume that, on occasion, you find 'excerpt entries' quite annoying. i know that i do. however, one of the purposes of this blog is to keep a record of insights, excerpts and websites that i find interesting. so, even if you hate excerpt entries, i hope that you'll bear with me now and again. now, without further qualification, let's hear what winner, one of evangelicalism's finest young writers, has to say...

"And, yet, marriage is meant to be communal as well as couple-centered both in its means and its meanings. At the most practical level, it is our friends, our brothers and sisters in the church, our aunts and uncles and colleagues, who can remind us why we got married in the first place. It is this community that, when we lay our marriages bare before them, are able to hold us accountable, and also celebrate with us...If we Christians want to get our divorce rates down below the national average, rendering our marriages visible to our communities—opening ourselves up to our friends' support, prayers, questions, and rebuke—would be a good place to start.

But recalling the communal dimension of marriage is not merely a strategy for sticking it out and navigating the rough patches. It is rather an assertion of God's purposes for marriage. Our surrounding society tells us that marriage is a private endeavor, that what happens between husband and wife behind closed doors is no one else's concern. But in the Christian grammar, marriage is not only for the married couple. Insofar as marriage tells the Christian community a particular story, marriage is for the community. It reminds us of the communion and community that is possible between and among people who have been made new creatures in Christ. And it hints at the eschatological union between Christ and the Church. As Catholic ethicist Julie Hanlon Rubio has put it, "marriage consists not simply or even primarily of a personal relationship. Rather, it crystallizes the love of the larger church community. The couple is not just two-in-one, but two together within the whole, with specific responsibility for the whole. … They must persevere in love, because the community needs to see God's love actualized among God's people.

The inflections of community are important because they get at the very meanings of marriage. Marriage is a gift God gives the church. He does not simply give it to the married people of the church, but to the whole church, just as marriage is designed not only for the benefit of the married couple. It is designed to tell a story to the entire church, a story about God's own love and fidelity to us."

blow wind, blow...

Last night I found myself on a park bench on the Beverly common. I was sweating out my upcoming teaching and muttering a few prayers. There was a group of local toughs sitting on the art college steps right behind me, greeting one another with their 'fuck yous' and gleefully haranguing each car that drove down the adjacent street. Suprisingly, they said nothing to me. Perhaps they considered a geek sitting alone with buechner in one hand and the bible in the other too easy of a target.

Anyway, as I sat on the bench I was thankful for the relative peace as well as the autumn twinged august breeze that was drifting through the park. As I was putting my holy books into my satchel and preparing to walk to church I saw a lady walking down the brick path towards me. She was thin, middle-aged and, by all appearances, homeless, though she seemed fairly well put together. In that moment, either the wind or the Spirit (even the Apostles had difficulty distinguishing between the two) seemed to suggest that she needed direction. I reflexively suppressed the voice, as I am wont to do, but as the woman shuffled closer I saw her eyes lift expectantly and she prepared herself to speak. 'I'll be damned,' I thought. Maybe there was substance to that voice after all. I gradually made eye contact with her and softly smiled so as to welcome her approach. Perhaps this will be an instance in which God provides an opportunity for me to see the power of the gospel at work, I thought. These moments never happen to me on airplanes, but perhaps it could happen on the common.

After five seconds of real time, but fifteen minutes worth of internal monologue, she asked me if the library was open. I told her that it was and would remain so until nine o'clock. She exhaled quickly and told me that 'I have to pee like crazy.' I walked about fifteen yards towards the library with her, told her where the john was and went on my way.

Obviously our conversation defied my expectations and the direction she needed was quite different from that which I was prepared to give. And yet, I am thankful for that brief encounter, for it reminded me yet again of my need to receive people as well as my desire to help guide them along the way. In the end, I can't help but wonder whether pointing her to the john was just as important as pointing her to Jesus.

happy haiku friday!

eggs 0800

breakfast 1300

faithful in the midst

overheard

"if you want to go fast, go alone.
if you want to go far, go together."

frustration.

work in a web company,
 on a computer that runs like a 386
without even trying
 i come off like a dick
frustration, what am i going to do with you?
 it'll take a lot more mercy and a little more grace
 to get me through

it seems the harder i try
 the less i get done
i am dying in this cubicle
 with no access to the sun
frustration, what am i going to do with you?
 it'll take a lot more mercy and a little more grace
 to get me through

You command us not to be anxious
 to consider flowers in the midst of complication
but it's hard to hear you from where i stand
 i'd like to comply but doubt that i can
so, steeped in cynicism, i remain exiled in this land
 of frustration.

frustration. what the hell am i going to do with You?
 Who speaks of home and promises to see me through

sinners and saints gathered to worship last night

our worship gathering took place on the corner of rantoul and federal street. no songs were sung, no overwrought teachings endured and no offering collected. our theme for the evening was returning and the tone of the evening was celebration.

as soon as the u-haul creeped onto rantoul street our gathering began. for the next four hours there were many hugs, excited chatter and not a little laughter. the gathering was characterized by a good deal of work, as we carried hundreds of boxes, odd pieces of furniture and even mr. potato head into the primary colored apartment. however, grounded in the context of celebration, the work was a delight. through the front door, teams of two carried a sleigh bed as well as an animated conversation. through the back door stretched an assembly line of sinners who were eager to pass dishes, share michael jackson jokes and proclaim the good news to one another.

and the people...what a collection of sinners. there was a former hippie, a frat boy impersonating a pastor and two flaming gay pagans among our number. yet our sweaty, practical expressions of love, the dreams shared in the intimate company of good ole sam smith and the easy transition from unrestrained conviviality to fervent prayer suggested that the Spirit is once shaping nothing into something. He seems to be fashioning a community of sinners into saints.

i have stumbled into Your presence many times, but there was something special, dare i say sacred, about last night. though our values are undefined, our network is tattered and the consequences of discipleship are leaving many of us torn, You are working among us. You, O Lord, are indeed in the process of making all things, even this community of sinners, new. gracias.

yet another disturbing report from the campaign trail

as politicians on both sides of the aisle continue to conflate Christianity with constitutional government I find myself overwhelmingly thankful for, and longing for a healthier expression of, the separation of church and state. Sovereign Lord, please ensure that these two will never become one. Except in a certain county of south carolina. they can run their sanitarium in whatever way they see fit.

happy haiku friday!

standing on a deck

speaking of proclamation

go get me a beer

buechner's word a day to keep the demons at bay

because i am the christian living editor at christianbook.com i am constantly receiving galley or review copies of upcoming books. occasionally the titles excite me, such as my treasured adobe copy of donald miller's searching for God knows what or the forthcoming galley of mclaren's generous orthodoxy that i am eagerly awaiting. but most of the shit that slides across my desk is either trivial to the point of provoking laughter (for a sterling example see cat psalms) or yet another example of mass marketed spirituality (yes, stormie, i'm referring to you. what is it going to take for you to discover the power of prayer-filled silence?).

on account of the latter titles, truth be told...i don't much mind the trivial pursuits, it is always refreshing when a new book from one of my favorite writers finds a home on my desk. i am currently finding refreshment, which has been expressed both in belly laughs and the occasional lump in the throat, in frederick buechner's beyond words. by God's grace, buechner has been able to regularly speak words of life into the void of my heart. i thought i would share two entries of this excellent work with you. expect to hear more from him in the near future.

predestination

predestination is the theory that since God knows everything else, he must also know whether each one of us is going to end up in heaven or in hell, and therefore the die is cast before we even cast it.
theorizing about God this way is like an isosceles triangle trying to theorize the great pyramid of cheops into the two dimensions of the printed page.
the fact that i know you so well that i know what you're going to do before you do it does not mean that you are not free to do whatever you damn well please.
logic is only cigol spelled backwards.

prayer

...talk to yourself about your own life, about what you've done and what you've failed to do, and about who you are and who you wish you were and who the people you love are and the people you don't love too. talk to yourself about what matters most to you, because if you don't, you may forget what matters most to you.
even if you don't believe anyone is listening, at least you'll be listening.
believe somebody is listening. believe in miracles. that's what Jesus told the Father who asked him to heal his epileptic son. Jesus said, "all things are possible to him who believes." and the father spoke for all of us when he answered, "Lord, i do believe; help my unbelief!" (Mark 9:14-29)...

scheduling sanctification

i am thankful that the Holy Spirit exposes and convicts me of sin. that being said, i think his timing sucks. i would prefer that he provided these unwanted but not unwelcome revelations on a regular, scheduled basis. that way i could plan on cleaning up the polluted pit that is my mouth in late august, work on my penchant for pre-judging people in september and move towards reconciliation with estranged brothers and sisters in october.

however, much to my dismay, he prefers to rip the band-aid off in one quick motion. thus, on saturday i was confronted with the fact that a guy who is developing an intentional christian community in the barrio of salem really isn't the yuppie-ish abercrombie model i took him to be, then on sunday i had to face my own pride after i became embroiled in an unnecessary conflict (it was provoked by a beach ball, of all things!) at a sox game. finally, last night, while being gently admonished for my, okay...i'll admit it, provocation of and participation in 'bleacher-gate,' i was reminded of my proficiency in justifying sin.

i want to work through each of these issues, but would prefer for them to be handled in due order. so, Spirit, if we could get together to develop a sanctification schedule and synchronize our pdas that would be great. i'm more than willing to let you change my life, as long as we proceed according to my terms.

happy haiku friday!

hhf has returned at the request of mrs. simkins. she is also the author of this week's entry.

leaves crunch beneath foot
a strange symphony of sound
pausing between steps

if you have written, or merely run across, a haiku please feel free to share.

you would think...

that with all the work evangelicals have done for good ole W, they wouldn't be left wondering whether their prince would escort them to the ball. i hope that this leads at least a few of them realize, as falwell apparently has, that rove and the rnc consider them just another pawn.

at this point i would love to rant about the thinly veiled partisanship of evangelical flagships such as CT, but i am going to deny the urge. believe it or not, on this blog i try to keep my political opinions repressed, lest this little exercise in listening to life turn into yet another stump.