concerning the integrity of Christian retail

Go Daddy.com chief: From Bibles to Breasts

props to ted olsen of christianitytoday.com for pointing this one out.

lyrically speaking

as rob taught us, "the making of a good compilation tape post is a very subtle art." Unfortunately, subtlety is not my spiritual gift.

"I got things in this suitcase, I'm carryin'.
I got things, some of them you can see.
Yeah and the others, let's pretend they're of no consequence.
Yeah i've always had this black cloud o'er me."
~Bill Mallonee, Black Cloud O'er Me

"All these lies are only wishes. I know that I would die if I could come back new." ~Wilco, Ashes of American Flags

"In a coffee shop in a city
Which is every coffee shop in every city
On a day which is every day
I picked up a magazine
Which is every magazine
Read a story, and then forgot it right away"
~Ani DiFranco, Little Plastic Castle

"But darling, I wish you well
On your way to the wishing well
Swinging off of those gates of hell
But I can tell how hard you're trying,
Just have that secret hope
Sometimes all we do is cope
Somewhere on the steepest slope there'll be an endless rope
And nobody crying. "
~Patty Griffin, Nobody Cryin'

happy haiku friday!

underneath the flag

the dog squats and takes a shit

divided it falls

8:21 thursday morning

on a thursday that feels like a friday he settles into his cube and recalls the scent of death.

hours before he sat weeping as divine mystery, cloaked in word and ritual, enveloped him.

the word provoked repentance and promised death.

the ritual imposed a sign of death and dispensed a taste of salvation.

longing for the sacrament received, he ignores the sacrament set before him.

memorandum from captain random:

oooh! navy seals! earlier today our middle-aged courier walked right by rhys' today and brought a fed-x package to me. as i signed for the package, i cautioned myself not to get too excited since the book would probably be another copy of broken on the back pew by sandi patty or the christian spirituality of the smurfs. thus, you can imagine my surprise when i found a pre-publication copy of brian mclaren's the last word and the word after that inside. i guess even a blind squirrel finds a nut sometimes.

wondering… what denomination dizzy will affiliate with. on two of our three daily walks we play a little game that i like to call shit on the church sidewalk. the point of the game is to determine which denomination dizzy will affiliate with. at this point we are well into our third week of competition and we have determined that dizzy is not a unitarian, since she shits in front of their church frequently, nor is she a catholic, since she loves to shit in front of saint mary star of the sea's elementary school (much to the delight of the children). thus, she has reduced her options to the following denominations: american baptist, presbyterian church u.s.a. or the conservative congregational conference. i'm betting on the baptists and am terribly excited to see her decide which parlor in heaven she will frequent.

listening… to patty griffin and ani difranco, whom have recently partnered with frances mcdormand to form the trinity of famous women to whom I am attracted. weird, huh?

there are always sirens

she invited me to join her at "the good life." needless to say, her invitation was attractive.

at the time i was drowning in the sea of abstraction and she offered the beautiful solace of particulars. while i spent my solitary days parsing greek, she spread her impressions across a canvas. by night i punched buttons and received lonely visions from God while she slung drinks and charmed sailors out of their change. she was the bathing beauty for whom a king abdicated responsibility. and she was singing me to shipwreck.

so when she offered me "the good life" i wanted to accept. but, after inquiring about the destination and plotting the course, had my mate secure me to the mast. though "the good life" promised respite from the sea of abstraction, i suspected that it would be my death.

after the night of our scheduled rendezvous passed, i spent the next day in the lower galley. instead of reveling in "the good life" of grog and good friends, i found myself sweeping up rat shit in the company of strangers. i cursed myself under my breath, knowing full well that the previous night i had sailed past solace only to find myself in this sickening circumstance. i suspected that this work in the hold would make me sick for weeks. as it turned out, i wasn't far from wrong.

when my arms tired of bailing and the stench of feces made it damn near impossible to breathe, i retreated to the deck, where i could get a draught of fresh air and perhaps roll a smoke. after i sat on the deck and rolled my cigarette, i glanced across the inlet...and couldn't believe my eyes. there, a mere 5 fathoms away, was "the good life." though her docks were closed and lights dim, she had not lost her allure. she promised a life lubricated by fine ale, focused on an exotic woman and mercifully free from abstraction. yet, in that moment, i realized that my life was not waiting across the inlet, but down in the galley. so it was to the galley that i returned.

though the work down here is hard and the galley still smells like shit, the company of strangers have become mates and, though at times i find it hard to believe, life in the galley is good.

under the rocks. just around the bend.

"eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. the river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. on some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs. i am haunted by waters."

so ends norman maclean's classic, a river runs through it. over the past twenty-four hours i have been haunted not by waters, but by words which lie partially submerged in my consciousness and just around the bend of my heart. last night i was so desperate to uncover a few of these words that, ignoring traffic and the curious sounds emitted by a dog in a seatbelt, i read aloud while kellie drove. this morning, sitting alone in my ratty brown chair, more of these words surfaced. if you don't mind, i would like to share a few of these words with you.

"we like to make a distinction between our private and public lives and say, 'whatever i do in my private life is nobody else's business.' but anyone trying to live a spiritual life will soon discover that the most personal is the most universal, the most hidden is the most public, and the most solitary is the most communal." ~henri nouwen, bread for the journey, february 23.

"if i were called upon to state in a few words the essence of everything i was trying to say both as a novelist and as a preacher, it would be something like this: listen to your life. see it for the fathomless mystery that it is. in the boredom and pain of it no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it because in the last analysis all moments are
key moments, and life itself is grace." ~frederick buechner, now and then

"religions start, as frost said poems do, with a lump in the throat...to put it mildly...or with a bush going up in flames, a rain of flowers, a dove coming down out of the sky. 'i have seen things,' aquinas told a friend, 'that make all my writings seem like straw.' most people have seen such things. through some moment of beauty or pain, some sudden turning of their lives, most of them have caught glimmers at least of what the saints were blinded by. only then, unlike the saints, they tend to go on as though nothing has happened." ~frederick buechner, "mysticism" in wishful thinking

"we must pray that God will teach us to love those we do not like and then to like those he is teaching us to love." ~jean vanier, community and growth, pg. 40

"now, here is my secret:
i tell it to you with the openness of heart that i doubt i shall ever achieve again, so i pray that you are in a quiet room as you hear these words. my secret is that i need God--that i am sick and can no longer make it alone. i need God to help me give, because i no longer seem to be capable of giving; to help me be kind, as i no longer seem capable of kindness; to help me love, as i seem beyond being able to love." ~douglas coupland, life after god, pg. 273

thank you for walking with me.

what I'm...

reading: kevin rains' blog. in his most recent post kevin briefly speaks about the disturbing results of a survey conducted by Fuller Seminary's department of psychology. my immediate response to this survey was to thank God that I have yet to become a statistic and to pray for my friends and colleagues who are in danger of becoming one. the post also made me wonder whether a survey of simple/relational/home church leaders would produce similar results.

i am trying to get my hands on the complete findings of the survey. if/when i find them, i'll make them available.

wondering: when is "anonymous" krista going to start a blog?

moving beyond name, class and major

On Monday morning at 8 a.m. we gathered for the first time. After the professor made an inane joke about our ability to locate the classroom and provided a brief synopsis of the course, we began the ritual introductions. “my name is bobby” the smiling Korean-American student sitting two seats to the right announced. “last year I completed my MDIV at Gordon-Conwell and am now close to completing my Th. M in preaching. My beautiful wife Claire is a third-grade teacher and our heart’s desire is to do church planting in Japan. As soon as we raise three-quarters of our funds, which we hope to do by next September, we should be on our way!” After bobby stopped speaking, the professor accentuated the student’s curriculum vitae by telling us that bobby was also a bar-certified lawyer in the state of California.

“My name is john,” the student on my right admitted. “I am a third year MDIV student who, Lord-willing, will graduate this May. My wife Wendy and I live in New Hampshire and we serve as youth pastors for a small church in North Union, Maine.” After another ill-fated attempt at humor the professor asked john what his life’s passion was. “My wife and I would eventually like to develop a residential community in which foster children and troubled youths from the ages of 18-22 could make a more effective transition into adulthood.” My ears perked up at the mention of incarnational ministry and I made a personal note to connect with John during the break. His desire to pursue this type of ministry suggested that he could be a useful ally throughout this spring campaign.

After the professor made a remark about the “fascinating” group that had gathered for this class, he glanced in my direction. At that moment, I had a decision to make. Was I going to provide the class with my less than impressive curriculum vitae or was I going to split the curtain and give them a brief glimpse of my heart. 99 times out of 100, when faced with this conundrum, I choose the former option. For some reason, last Monday, I chose the latter.

“My name is Jeff Gentry,” I began. “I am beginning my third, third year of seminary, I lead a home church in Beverly that is known as the Sinners and Saints Christian Community and I make a living mass-marketing The Purpose-Driven Life. Although I sell hundreds of copies of the Purpose-Driven Life a week, I deplore the work.” At this point I knew it was time to lay the cards on the table. “In all honesty, I think that coming to Seminary was a mistake. During the summer between my graduation from Bible college and my matriculation at Gordon-Conwell, I worked with the L’Arche Daybreak Community in Toronto, Canada. You may have heard about this community because Henri Nouwen was pastor there for a number of years. However, I never met him since he died four years prior to my arrival. At L’Arche I was learned more about loving people, the vitality of faith and beauty of community than I could have learned in a hundred years of either Bible college or seminary. However, in the midst of practicing the spirituality of cleaning toilets and assisting the poor I was offered a fifty-percent scholarship to Gordon-Conwell. Since I realized that I would probably never be able to attend Seminary without this scholarship I made the move from L’Arche. Although this move was clearly a mistake, God has redeemed the time by enabling me to take root in this community and attempt to fuse my passions for proclamation and compassion. Recently I have been offered a part-time job with Beverly Bootstraps, which is the leading social service organization in Beverly. I hope that this part-time job blossoms into a full-time position, so that I can have an occupation that lines up with my vocation and put the Purpose-Driven job behind me. I also hope to remain faithful to the little community that God has enabled me to be a part of.” With that, I shut my mouth.

When I began this post, I wanted to tell you a little about the significance of my L’Arche experience. However, I don’t think I am ready to reduce that experience to words or, quite honestly, share that with you. That being said, I think that recounting my introduction is a good first step.