while we debate the degree of miers' orthodoxy

n.p.r. reports

seven point six, thousands dead

how i hate mother

wondering through the warehouse

let me preface this poorly rendered reflection by admitting that i had a spectacular time at soybean bible college. although at first i felt “kind of cool, you know, and kind of weird. like something you would see on David Letterman,” i quickly adjusted to campus culture. to wit: within mere hours of my arrival i was drinking lukewarm coffee in the warehouse, desalinating my tongue and thinking that “shane and shane” might not be as queer as i first thought.

anyway, after sitting through an old professor’s class and responded to his introduction with a slightly suggestive joke that the students either didn’t understand or appreciate, the aforementioned scholar and i sat down to talk about ourselves and size one another up.

after the scholar reported that his doctoral studies went well and i ragged him a bit about his pacific coast tan lines, i began to tell him a bit about my ministry. i prefaced my comments with a warning that i was not an apologist for, but a friend of emergent (which seems to be the new willow creek whipping boy for soybean scholars) i told him that i had never felt more personally centered and integrated into the kingdom than i do at present.

much to my surprise, my scholarly friend responded to my story fairly sharply. he suggested that non-institutional forms of church were strains of a virus that sucked vitality out of and were completely dependent upon its institutional host and he openly wondered whether my investment in our community was hindering the Community of which many of us are a part. i mentioned that similar strategies were employed by Jesus and he responded by replacing WWJD with WWJWMTDT (which stands for “what would Jesus want me to do today?”). I told him his acronym was much too complicated and would never catch on (unlike my Forever Under Christ the King logo, but that’s another story altogether). when i admitted that i found the worldview focus at the alma mater to be fairly troubling, since such frames seems to be overly-reductionistic at best and a potential matrix of judgment at worst, he told me that it was a pity that i would not be endowed with the ability to dust the frames and replace them when necessary. confounded by my friend’s lack of affirmation i sought refuge in my coffee and promptly ingested the foreign object (a baby roach. oh soybean, some things never change. which reminds me: current students, don’t let the ultra-modern sheen of the cafeteria fool you. the septic system backs up through the drain in the kitchen when there is barely a threat of rain) found within.

i hope that you hear what i am saying as well as what i am not. as for the latter, do not doubt my love for my friend or assume that i question his intentions. he is not only on the road of incarnation and redemption that i wander, but is one of the only reasons i am there at all. however, i do question his elevation of the mega over the micro and am confused by his numeric metric of success. he clearly believes that i am called to great things. i wonder whether i have settled for less.

rest assured that i do not think so either. but it is not wise to quickly cast aside the words of one’s advisor.

you know what’s worse than elementary poetry and middle school prose? being in the middle of a post and realizing it is a mix of both.


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i would like to thank those that made my time at soybean so enjoyable. neal, thanks for the hospitality and the ongoing conversation. i never expected you to speak with me at length, much less serve as my spiritual director. thank miriam for allowing this arrested adolescent to stay in your home and eat at your table. toad, thanks for blowing off work to catch up with me. jackaway, thank you for keeping me company, constantly pushing our conversations from the level of abstraction to one of application and not being too sore that i couldn’t take you to the bar. such connections between alumni and students are strictly forbidden. besides, i didn’t want to spoil your “week of e” pub crawl. tracy thank you for accompanying me to the crack house. conversations just seem to have more clarity in those environs. aaron, i’m glad that you have seen the light concerning sam adams. now we won’t have to bar your light-beer drinking ass from our beloved commonwealth. unnamed scholar, thank you for the conversation. your friendship and guidance mean more to me than i can explain. katie, i’m sorry that we did not get to connect. i loved being your youth pastor and am sure that you’re making your parents and rgcc proud. intro to the bible students, you should have laughed at my quip. rest assured that i learned all of my sexual humor from the Bible. rest assured that it is ok to laugh and even, occasionally, swear in the warehouse. in the latter matter, let jackaway serve as your shining example.

in case you're still wondering. i have since reverted to my original opinion about "shane and shane."

nothing like a train to take you far away

just this side of the horizon a combine is storing soybeans in the bin and fouling the air with dust and husks. God how i hated this place. up in the choir room that has long served as a lecture hall, Brian Johnson is speaking to freshmen about God's fidelity and Israel's infidelity. i half-expect him to recount his take on the judges cycle that he taught me so long ago. God how i love him.

i feel like an alien, an unwanted stranger sitting in front of the raucous, cinder block hell of a dorm that i once called home. i wish i could describing my time at soybean bible more accurately. at one moment it feels like a wilderness in which i am being tested and at another moment it seems to be a spiritually gedi, where my wounds are being salved and i am once again finding strength for the journey.

the dirty gold cornstalks in front of me are reverberating with old prayers, some of which were answered and others which apparently ricocheted off the cinderblock ceiling of titus 217. occasionally, as the cornstalks sway, i am reminded of ambitions that have been fulfilled and others which were unrealized.

God how i hated this place. but fortunately this place, this mis-shaped square of uninspired utilitarian architecture, gracious yet unsettling professors and post-pubescent students who are filled with libido, a love of God and ambitions not unlike my own, has never hated me.

God, thank you for this black, fertile soil in which i died and have been born again. thank you for the hands which cultivated and occasionally pruned my heart. although this is the time of harvest, i hope my fallow field is once again suitable for sowing.