keep on, keepin' on

at the genesis we were flush with idealism. finally free from impersonal programs, happy-go-lucky worship and cliché riddled sermons. we were excited to set a different course. our conversations were liberally sprinkled with adjectives like relational and missional, we promised ourselves that we would be as committed to compassion as we were to proclamation and, let's face it, we thought that thursday night worship and emancipation from program would place fewer demands on both our time and our lives.

i am glad to report that our ideals haven't changed, but they are no longer mere abstractions. relational ministry no longer means a freedom from depersonalizing programs, rather, it means a panic stricken knock on your door at 10 pm on a school night, a lifelong drunk attempting to make you responsible for her welfare and dutifully shouldering the cynicism of a friend. moreover, missional not only means working for compassion in our neighborhood but also inviting those who need compassion into our living room where they unload their crises and offend our bourgeoisie sensibilities. likewise, Christ's mission has required us to realize that just because someone can teach, play three cords or write encouraging letters doesn't mean that they need to use these gifts to meet the needs of the institution. rather, it often requires us to release those we love to do ministry in megachurches (of all places), university science labs and the scores of coffee shops in seattle. learning to incarnate our ideals has been messy, but we have persevered.

i know the proverbial shit has hit the fan, ye sinners and saints, but we have persevered. we are doing the work of the church. we are incarnating Christ's compassion and are faithfully proclaiming his promised reconciliation. we are learning to love the least, our enemies and, as difficult as it often is, one another. i have confidence that, by God's grace, we will continue upon this road. we will not be among those who shrink back and so are destroyed, but will be among those who stand firm and so are saved.

description of the day: the gospel according to tony soprano by chris seay

For some The Sopranos is just another forbidden fruit of cable television. However, others have tasted the sweetness of the gospel story within The Sopranos and have pronounced it good. In this delectable little book pastor and certifiable 'wiseguy' Chris Seay clearly explains how even a dark story such as The Sopranos can help us to understand the consequences of our sin, embrace the promise of redemption and, eventually, pledge allegiance to our real "God-Father."

happy haiku friday!

gull circles above

brown squirrel darts up a tree

how i loathe snow

back by popular demand: name that title

first our women cut their hair, then children were allowed unfettered access to the TV and now ministers of God throughout the land are regularly filling their sermons with clips from secular movies. my friends, immoral decisions such as these have led us down the slippery, slippery slope to a sex-obsessed, lewd form of christianity.

the clearest evidence of the pitiful state we are in, which i like to refer to as sex-vangelicalism, is the way our own publishing houses are using nudity to sell christian books. please take a look at this list of sex-vangelical titles that have been published in the last year. to show you how difficult it is to separate the wheat from the chaff, i, along with the board of deacons have inserted three titles that have yet to be published. see if you can separate the unpublished wheat from the sex-vangelical chaff!

don't date naked
naked fruit: getting honest about the fruit of the spirit
buck naked faith: a brutally honest look at stunted spirituality
naked and not ashamed
adventures in naked faith
naked worship: dancing before the Lord like King David
generation sex: exposing the full frontal assault on american innocence
praying naked
naked parish priest
get naked: honest and authentic worship
naked christian: taking off religion to find true relationship
naked date: 10 evenings that will fan the flame of your marriage

please have your answers in before tomorrow night's tent revival. people who use google, christianconsumer.com or amazon'thewhoreofbabylon'.com to find answers will be considered both communists and liberals.

"hey kellie, check this out: dizzy is boning me again!"

dizzy is unique and special (just like everybody else). one of her more peculiar traits is her tendency to place her rawhide, bone or chew-toy against my body before thoroughly gnashing it. she usually places the object against my leg, which is acceptable, if a little odd (in the moment, i often find myself thinking, "so this is what it would feel like to have a ravenous dog chew on a paralyzed leg"). there are other areas, such as my crotch and my ass, that i refuse to let her place her bone. of course, that hasn't stopped her from trying.

another character added to the drama

kellie and i adopted a dog on saturday, right before our region was scheduled to be pounded by 24-36 inches of snow. how's that for rationality?

the dog's name is dizzy dean. you can read more about her previous life here. when we met her at the shelter, they told us her name was despy which different members of the shelter's courteous and professional staff pronounced 'depsy,' 'despi' and 'de, de, how do you say her name again?' this led us to believe a name change was in order. after toying around with the name 'dispy,' which would be both short for dispensationalist and a creative way of ridiculing fundamentalists, we settled on her current name.

since dizzy hails from a workin' breed (cattle dogs are unaccustomed to the 'g' in 'ing' participles being pronounced) she has a reservoir of energy that needs to be drained on regular occasion. knowing this, i took her out this morning for a walk, which will heretofore be known as the walk from hell.

would you like to hear about the walk from hell? i thought you might...

since beverly received at least 30 inches of snow over the weekend, our routes were rather restricted. we could either walk up to cabot street and contend with a steady stream of cars or we could walk down the steepest hill in town, which also doubles as our street. since dizzy desires to herd anything that moves, she voted for the former. since i do not desire either dizzy or myself to be hit by a car or snowplow, i chose the latter. since i'm the alpha dog at 4 judson, my vote ruled the day. i made a bad decision.

as soon as we headed down the hill dizzy did her best imitation of an iditarod champion. as a result she forced me to ski down judson street. although dr. james would have enjoyed the experience, i found it quite harrowing.

once we made it to the bottom of the hill, a ninety-pound bullmastiff peeked out from behind a stalled car. the dog seemed friendly, wagging her tail and slobbering her way towards us. however, since kate, my other dog whom i am now cheating on with dizzy, pulls this same trick right before she pummels other dogs, i made sure we kept our distance. so there i was, dragging my cattle dog away from the possum playing mastiff and using my best t.j. mackey impersonation ("phil, I will drop kick those fuckin' dogs if they come near me") to keep the mastiff at bay. then, after the mastiff found another patsy to work his magic on, i dragged dizzy up the hill she had just forced me to ski down.

after we made it up the hill, i conceded to dizzy's wisdom and attempted to walk her down cabot street. another bad idea. we made it as far as the hess station before i realized that there was nowhere to walk except in the street. moreover, the drivers (and i do use that term loosely) on the aforementioned street were acting like snow was a performance enhancer for their automobiles. thus, dizzy and i made our way back to the condo. as we were walking down the street i saw a red f-150 with a snowplow ramming snow deeper and deeper into the american legion parking slot. as he pulled back to make another viscous run he waved to let me know that he was aware of us and then throttled back into the slot. confident that the plowman knew that we were on the street, i allowed dizzy to drag me towards home. then, as suddenly as he had rammed into the slot the plowman came barreling out. i raised my leash free hand to remind him that we were there, but he kept coming. and kept coming. and, you get the picture, the next thing i knew, the gate of the truck bumped into me, i slammed my fist into the gate and hit the ground. fortunately, the rear wheel finally came to a stop.

while valiantly suppressing the filth-flarn-filth that i wanted to say, i got up out of the snow, brushed myself off and began to walk towards the condo. at this point the plowman finally saw me and asked if i was ok. i told him i was fine and made some conciliatory comment about the tight quarters on our street. at that point he noticed the American Airlines patch on the flight line jacket i swiped from my dad several years back. "hey, do you work for american airlines," he asked (and in so doing became the 1,000,000 stranger to ask that question). no, i muttered, my dad does. "do you think they're open today?" he asked. "i dunno," i muttered. "the airport says that only one runway is operating. things are probably messy." with that, i edged around the truck and headed towards the condo.

thus ended the walk from hell.