BOOK 4: A Song Flung Up to Heaven by Maya Angelou (audio)

I stated up front that when I listen to audio books, I only listen to unabridged versions. I particularly like it when books are read by their authors and in the case of an autobiography, listening to Maya Angelou read A Song Flung Up to Heaven was a special privilege. In the interest of full disclosure, when I took this book out of the library, I had no idea that the singular Ms. Angelou had written multiple autobiographies. This one, though chronicled a lot of her early work with the NAACP, the civil rights movement and her friendship with and admiration for both Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr.

I have a sense that reading this book might be a very different experience as the poetic prose might be too much in print in some cases. The style works in this medium and is enhanced by Angelou's varied sometimes sing-s0ng modulation of her voice. Her sense of humor, experience with people of so many cultures and her descriptions of critical moments in the life of Harlem and our country kept this book always interesting.

I learned a lot about the important life of this complicated American and want to read more of her work. I recommend A Song Flung Up to Heaven. If you have the opportunity and the inclination, listen to it instead of reading this one.

BOOK 3: A Generous Orthodoxy by Brian McLaren

If there was a single book that motivated this project, A Generous Othodoxy by Brian McLaren fits the bill. I had started this book before the goal was born, but I had not gotten deep into it and the book had been on my shelf for just about a year. I commited to reading it during my morning devotions and it was a very rich experience. McLaren combines on point thoughtfulness and thoroughness with an ability to communicate clearly, directly and in a winsome, inviting way. I think he may be the most important communicator of the gospel alive today (that ought to elicit some comments, I'm sure).

The full title of the book includes the following subtitle: Why I Am a Missional, Evangelical, Post/Protestant, Liberal/Conservative, Mystical/Poetic, Biblical, Charismatic/Contemplative, Fundamentalist/Calvinist, Anabaptist/Anglican, Methodist, Catholic, Green, Incarnational, Depressed-yet-Hopeful, Emergent, Unfinished CHRISTIAN. I enjoy the exhaustiveness of McLaren's approach in this book. He goes after the hard questions and successfully contemplates the duality of being in the world, but not of the world. Accessible stories accompany deep theological assertions. Practical, doable suggestions support heady concepts.

I have begun a new practice of recording page numbers with significant passages for me in the back cover of books I own. In that way, I have a personal index to return to later if I know I read something particularly good by an author or in a specific book. Rather than searching through pages of highlighted passages, I can turn to the back cover for reference. This will also allow friends who may borrow a book of mine to encounter the material in a fresh way without my highlights and scribbles to distract them.

Here are a few of my favorites. I've included Google books links in the headings if you want to read it as it appears in the book.

FORGIVENESS (p. 95 paragraph 3, sentence 3 thru top of p. 96)
“Forgiveness without conviction is not forgiveness: it is irresponsible toleration. It doesn't lead to reconciliation and peace; it leads to chaos. (Ask any third-grade teacher who tolerates her rowdy students but never convicts them by naming and addressing their misbehavior.) Conversely, judgment without mercy is not salvation, but condemnation. It doesn't lead to reconciliation and peace; it leads to alienation. The Good News of salvation is that Goid sent Jesus not to condemn but to save; to save by bringing justice with mercy, true judgment with true forgiveness. First by exposing our worng (judging) so we can face our wrong and turn from it...and then by forgiving our wrong, God intervenes and breaks the chain of cause and effect, of offence and alienation, so we're truly saved--liberated, recued--from teh vicious cycle (aka mess) we created.

A RING OF SELFISHNESS, GREED, LUST... or THE TURTLE STORY (p. 98)
Some people I know once found a snapping turtle crossing the road in New Jersey. Snapping turtles are normally ugly: gray, often sporting a slimy coating of green algae, trailing a long, serrated, gator-like tail and fronted by massive and sharp jaws that can damage if not sever a careless finger or two. This turtle was uglier than most: it was grossly deformed due to a plastic bottle top, a ring about an inch and a half in diameter that it had accidentally acquired as a hatchling when it, too, was about an inch and a half in diameter. The ring had fit around its midsection like a belt back then, but now, nearly a foot long, weighing about nine pounds, the animal was corseted by the ring so it looked like a figure eight.

My friends realized that if they left the turtle in its current state, it would die. The deformity was survivable at nine pounds, but a full-grown snapper can weigh 30. At that size the constriction would not be survivable. So, they snipped the ring. And nothing happened. Nothing.

Except for one thing: at that moment the turtle had a future. It was rescued. It was saved. It would take years for the animal to grow into more normal proportions, maybe decades. Perhaps even in old age it would still be somewhat guitar-shaped. But it would survive.

A ring of selfishness, greed, lust, injustice, fear, prejudice, arrogance, apathy, chauvinism, and ignorance has similarly deformed our species. When I say that Jesus is Saviour, I believe he snipped the ring by judging, forgiving, suffering, dying, rising and more. And he’s still working to restore us, to lead us, to heal us. Jesus is still in the process of saving us. Because I have confidence in Jesus as Savior, I’m seeking to be part of his ongoing saving work, sharing his saving love for our world.

A TRUTH GREATLY REDUCED from WALTER BRUEGGEMAN (bottom p. 145 thru top 146)
The gospel is a truth widely held, but a truth greatly reduced. It is a truth that has been flattened, trivialized, and rendered inane. Partly, the gospel is simply an old habit among us, neither valued nor questioned. But more than that, our technical way of thinking reduces mystery to problem, transforms assurance into certitude, revises quality into quantity, and takes the categories of biblical faith and represents them in manageable shapes….There is then no danger, no energy, no possibility, no opening for newness!...That means the gospel may have been twisted, pressed, tailored, and gerrymandered until it is comfortable with technological reason that leaves us unbothered, and with ideology that leaves us with uncriticized absolutes.

Though the last one is not original McLaren, it is indicative of the kind of quality scholarship that he includes and references throughout. I could go on with some others, but that's probably enough.

Without a doubt, I recommend this book to anyone whether you believe in Jesus as the Savior of the world or not. This book is that good and is the definitive statement of what Christianity could be today.

BOOK 2 LA Confidential (audio)

I can't really say what compelled me to borrow LA Confidential by James Ellroy from the library. Maybe, I had fuzzy memories of the film with Danny DeVito, Kevin Spacey and Russell Crowe. I generally hate noir and in the end, this book holds to form in that way. It explores very dark portions of the human spirit. The Ed Exley character and Wendell "Bud" White, the role played by Russell Crowe in the film version, are compelling and complicated figures. I found myself disliking everyone in this book at one point or another.

I guess the trouble was that by the time I figured out that this book was unpleasant for me, it was too far into it. I had invested several hours of listening time and didn't want to turn back. Perhaps I should have. The overwhelming prevalence of sadness and emptiness in this narrative ultimately left me wishing I had never gone for it in the first place.

Probably bad form to do this on book #2 out of 40, but I can't recommend this book, too much heaviness and void and not enough to make it a book worth reading.

50 Books in a year, or as it were, 40

Last year on my birthday, I set a goal to read 50 books before my next birthday. My father did it while I was growing up and looking around at the many books that had sat on shelves at home, I wanted to try to accomplish this. I also realized that I simply don't spend enough time reading, so I set out on my quest. I did not, in fact, reach the goal of 50, but completing 40 books this past year means I far outpaced anything I've done recently, probably ever.

A couple of points about how I calculated books I've "read:"

1. I had started reading a few of the books before my last birthday. I counted any books that I had finished. This was helpful as it motivated me to finish some books I hadn't previously been able to get through.

2. I counted audio books that I listened to primarily on my commute. I know the purists may not like this approach, but for what it's worth, I only borrow unabridged audio books from the library and this is a vastly better way to spend my commute than the other available options. As I note them here, they will be listed with (audio).

3. I tried to read a variety of books, but did not lay out a plan of so many biographies, so many novels, so many non-fiction books. I just kind of felt my way along as I was finishing one or two books (I read more than one at a time, another trick from dear old Dad), I'd figure out what to pick up next.

4. I'll also be adding my thoughts on the books to my facebook virtual bookshelf. Same thoughts here as there, but if you'd rather check it out on facebook, well, there you go.

5. This is not the last time I'll do this. On January 1, 2009, I'll restart the year with the goal of 50 books and perhaps, more of a plan.

In theory, my next 40 blog posts will be thoughts and perhaps some favorite quotations from the books. Also, in theory, this will take place over the next 40 days. Where possible, I'll link the title to the Amazon or Google Books page (whichever has more info) where you can preview the book for yourself. What will Google do next?

So here goes, BOOK #1 Mystic River by Dennis Lehane (audio)

I had seen the movie and jarring as the story was, it was compelling and I thought Sean Penn, Kevin Bacon and Tim Robbins did an amazing job. As movies go these days, the character development was deep, the story pulled me in and kept me throughout the two hours plus. No surprise given that Clint Eastwood directed it, I guess. I had heard the book was better.

So, as I was reading it, I was picturing Sean Penn as Jimmy Marcus, Bacon as Sean Devine and Robbins as Dave Boyle. Lehane's East Buckingham is a blend of several Boston neighborhoods, but he does a great job of capturing the ethos of poor and working class families in Boston. The character development goes even deepr as it's never 100% clear who the good guys and bad guys are.

The book tackles questions like whether people ever change, ever evolve and the question of our childhood shaping the rest of our lives. The book has an air of inevitability about it, that as a person of faith, I don't know if I buy entirely, like every tragic event that transpires was set in motion years before. I like to look at it more in the context of "there but for the grace of God, go I." I think this is especially true in that my dad's upbringing was not far off from the Marcus family in East Buckingham. My grandfather was a fruit peddler in Somerville and other Boston neighborhoods, the Marcus family had a convenience store. Other similarities exist, but my father bears no resemblance to Jimmy Marcus, but for the grace of God.

I recommend this book and will read other Lehane books as a result of reading this.

Working Weekends?

I don't exactly know where it started, but I've always had an aversion to working on weekends. In college, I observed a practically religious No Work on Weekends policy. Notice it was practically religious and not actually religious. It's an important distinction because, generally and during that time of my life, this cessation of work has nothing to do with the observation of any Sabbath. However, I would put my devotion to "rest" on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays up against the most devout monks and rabbis. On Friday afternoon I would attend my last class of the week and literally would not have any plans to do anything academically productive until (rather late) Sunday evening. This might have been an admirable quality if I had been half the student my brother and sister-in-law, Jeff and Paige, were during the week. I wasn't, enough said. One disastrous semester, I had all of my classes on Tuesdays and Wednesdays save one Child Psychology lecture class on Fridays (translation: show up and be counted, but have no fear of a discussion arising to expose just how far behind you are in the reading.) I would put the books away on Wednesday at dinner time and literally not pull them out until dinner on Monday night to cram for Tuesday. Every week, at least early in the semester, I would promise myself that I'd even out the workload, but I never managed to do so. Incidentally, I don't recommend the two-day week, five-day weekend model. As free as I might have felt on a Thursday afternoon, I felt twice as terrible during manic Monday through Wednesday nights.

I have had to work on a Saturday or Sunday with different levels of consistency during my professional life. When I taught, I would invariably have papers to grade or lessons. Even then, I did as much of that work before leaving school on Friday or late on Sunday as possible so as to leave the largest manageable amount of free time in the middle of the weekend. When I was in campus ministry, our biggest gathering and one of my major responsibilities was a monthly praise meeting on Sunday evenings. When we were at Central Citadel, Sunday was the command performance of the week, preaching and teaching in the morning and ministering and counseling from lunch often through 3 or 4pm.

My work now doesn't so much necessitate working on weekends, but even so, I often leave on a Friday afternoon with plans (or at least thoughts and intentions) to pull out the laptop at some point in the weekend and work for two to three hours on something--a budget task, new content for the website, some portion of a writing task our team is working on. I bring the laptop home every night regardless of whether or not I plan to do work. I guess it's a security blanket for the modern era. I rarely find I can bring myself to actually pull the laptop out. I don't have a lot of guilt around this as my weekends are now dedicated to three children--bike riding (Riley's really got the two-wheeler down now), creative play, reading to one or all of them, etc.--the stuff of life, stuff I wouldn't trade for anything. There are also the obligations of birthday parties, laundry, mowing the lawn, etc. Somehow, though, I allow guilt to creap in on Monday mornings because I didn't work on that task for at least a little bit of time. So I come in very early on Mondays and try to "catch up" on work I didn't do over the weekend.

I guess I'm trying to figure out if I'm the only one. Do you do discretionary (I don't have to, but I should) kind of work on weekends, or do you leave it for Monday? Do you have to work on weekends because that's when your shift is or because you're a pastor? When do you find your weekends if this is the case? How do I check the guilt? Is pulling out the laptop late on Saturday after everyone goes to bed the only way? Is that healthy? Where is the sabbath in all of this?

Sleep!

Who needs sleep?
Well you're never gonna get it.
Who needs sleep?
Tell me whats that for.
Who needs sleep?
Be happy with what you're getting,
there's a guy who's been awake
since the second world war

--Barenaked Ladies

So, after 7 months (the last 3 of which were at camp), Luke is finally sleeping through the night. We might have been able to accomplish this feat a lot earlier--he is our third child after all, but it was especially difficult with him sharing our bedroom and sleeping twelve inches from the foot of our bed in the staff cabin. We went for the quick fix and whatever would comfort him, rather than making the sacrifice of 90 minutes of sleep one night for the sake of more rest thoughout the summer. But now that we're back at home, he's in his own room in a crib, not a pack and play and it has really been going well.

It's amazing how not sleeping changes one's quality of life. It is also incredibly freeing to know that (more or less) when your head hits the pillow, you will be able to sleep uninterrupted until the alarm clock goes off and you hit the snooze bar. I wake up (and go to bed) with a totally different outlook. And it's only been two days of this fantastic phenomenon.

I really just intended to write this post to celebrate Luke sleeping through the night, but it's hard not to notice the significance of going for the quick fix rather than making the necessary and effective sacrifice. Maybe it's because I'm reading Olivia and Stephen's Uprising right now, but I couldn't miss that connection. Why do we do that? Why do we so often choose the easiest, fastest fix instead of putting the work into doing things right the first time? Perhaps, I should not say "we" in those questions. Maybe I'm the only one who feels this way. I'm pretty sure I'm not, though, as someone in my family once remarked while telling a story about some kind of recent blunder a sentiment like this, "Of course I'm a Forster, so I tried to fix the situation in the most convoluted hardest way possible instead of taking the most direct and effective action." I'm wondering though, maybe it's not a Forster trait, but rather a human trait, a fallen characteristic? Paul said "I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway."

When we know what is right and do not follow that path, it is called sin and it leads to pain (and death). In my case, it lead to more and more sleepless or at least sleep deprived nights. The gift of salvation is free to us and yet, so often we leave it unopened under the tree. Or worse, we try to accomplish our salvation on our own. More questions than answers here, but when I wake up refreshed tomorrow morning, I will remember the sacrifice that brought about that feeling and endeavor to honor the sacrifice of my Savior that allows relief, release, reprieve and refreshment.

Snooze Bar - My friend, My Nemesis

Every morning from
deep dark sleep
The clock brings me to life
with beep beep beep.

I keep it close,
don't want to stretch too far
So I can always reach
my good friend, snooze bar.

Time to start the day
but I don't want to yet.
another few minutes
and I'll be all set.

Will the world really stop?
Is that much on the line?
If I just close my eyes
for another nine?

Snooze bar, my friend
you are the best
Thank you for the gift
of a bit more rest.

I sleep perchance to dream,
but wait.
How in the world did
it get so late?

I had set that alarm
because I had to get up
I preset the coffe maker
Should have already had a cup.

I have a meeting
things to do
Now I'll miss them all
thanks to you.

How could you do this
to me evil snooze?
Do you know how much
I stand to lose?

For just a bit more sleep
a few more Z's
Can you do me a favor
can you help me, please?

The next time I push your buttons
and want to sleep for a while.
Could you lie a little low?
Keep a low profile?

Snooze, what to do
with your lazy ways?
Shall I cut you loose
try to start my days
with a mean alarm clock
sans the nap feature?
I'm afraid that won't do.
I'm too much of a creature
of habit to live without
nine minutes of bliss.
So I'll stick with you.
Meetings I may miss.

C'est la vie or at least
C'est l'homme.
My friend, snooze bar,
we have a happy home.

The Office is back and Kelly is Crazy in Love

Found this through the Office Alliance podcast. Props to 4am insomniac for this great tribute to The Office's craziest lover, Kelly Kapur.

The DVR is set for tonight. Can't wait.

The New Friendship

WARNING: The following are not necessarily unique thoughts and are not only my own.

But have you noticed lately that friendship has changed? I now have a facebook page. I successfully resisted joining the friendster, myspace, linked-in and other social network revolution, but the facebook wave was overwhelming. I was caught up in it.

Facebook is accomplishing many things, I think, more successfully than a lot of its predecessors. It's got great mobile access. It's up to the minute. You can hug someone, hit someone, bite someone or give them a latte. That is changing the world, for sure. But it has also succeeded in watering down an extremely watered down concept: friendship.

My friend, Bill and I regularly talk about the fact that now that facebook has spread to all generations and is being used as a corporate networking tool in addition to a personal one, it's high time facebook offer some options beyond friendship. I would like to colleague some people instead of friending them (a new social network verb: to friend). Heck, there are people, I would feel totally fine labeling an acquaintance, but friend seems the wrong term entirely.

One of my favorite aspects of facebook is that through it, I have finally connected with some very good high school friends with whom I haven't spoken since the Circle Line docked at the end of our post-graduation cruise around Manhattan. But even that connection begs the question--if I spoke to someone every single day during high school, then haven't even said hi in roughly 17 years, should they be a facebook friend. Maybe they should be a facebook old friend, past friend or I thought we were friends, where have you been for the last 17 years? Is it fair after such frienship delinquency to pick up the conversation where we left off and declare ourselves friends?

John 15:13 says:
"Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends."
Not to be impertinent, but do you think Jesus meant facebook friends or only real live friends?

I recently read that most people can only manage 150 meaningful relationships in their lives. Ok, so what's the big deal? I guess it's that it is very difficult to actually do friendship in light of jobs, families, home responsibilities, dog walking, personal time, physical fitness. There's a lot of demand on our time and it seems irresponsible to label people who are not close enough to actually be friends as friends. Maybe it's because some people feel closer to us than we to them. I'm sure there are people I have friended who would have much rather colleagued me, acquaintanced me or flat out ignored me as a friend. It's kind of like the youth group basketball night I went to in high school with some friends, where they played ball the same way everyone does, except they didn't keep score so no one could lose. Or win for that matter.

I don't expect the geniuses who created facebook to change based on my opinion, but I'd love to know what you think. By the way, I have 230 friends as I write this blog.

Have we seen the Promised Land?

So today marks 40 years since the world lost Martin Luther King, Jr. to senseless violence. With recent conversations going on about Barack Obama and Reverend Wright and with my experience in the Dudley community, a question keeps coming up for me. It's put in sharp relief today as I consider King's last speech in Memphis, as his life was clearly under threat. Particularly, his fearlessness comes out in his concluding paragraph when he said the following well known words:

"Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. And I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord."

I think the country and the world were at least interested in going to the mountaintop in 1968. Now I should clarify. I think MLK is referencing both the spiritual mountaintop and the earthly mountaintop of racial equality. I think his view of the Promised Land is a heavenly one and an earthly one. He says earlier in the speech as he is running through all the epochs in time and all the places he could live and saying he wouldn't stop in Egypt or Jerusalem, etc. He says:

"But I wouldn't stop there. Strangely enough, I would turn to the Almighty, and say, 'If you allow me to live just a few years in the second half of the twentieth century, I will be happy.' Now that's a strange statement to make, because the world is all messed up. The nation is sick. Trouble is in the land. Confusion all around. That's a strange statement. But I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough, can you see the stars. And I see God working in this period of the twentieth century in a away that men, in some strange way, are responding — something is happening in our world. The masses of people are rising up. And wherever they are assembled today, whether they are in Johannesburg, South Africa; Nairobi, Kenya; Accra, Ghana; New York City; Atlanta, Georgia; Jackson, Mississippi; or Memphis, Tennessee — the cry is always the same — 'We want to be free.'"

I think he's right that at that moment of time, there was a lot of attention, a lot of overdue outrage, a lot of the right kind of work being done to overthrow injustice. And great success came from that unified conscience and unified work.

What worries me today about America and I see it particularly in my own city of Boston is that there is a polite denial going on that there are still very grave racial injustices in this country. Only today, instead of outrage at the racial injustice, there's outrage at Reverend Wright and overtones that Obama should denounce him too (or maybe he has to reject him according to Hillary).

Here's just a small slice of what that racial injustice looks like on a national scale:

• 8% of african-american men under 29 have graduated from college while 17% of same-age white males and 35% of asian males have done so.
• More than double the percentage of young african-american males is unemployed (19.5%) compared to whites (7.9%), hispanics (8.0%) and asians (7.9%).
• The prison percentages are staggering. 10% of african-american young men (1 in 10) are in prison compared with 1.5% of whites and 3.6% of hispancis.
• While african-american young men reepresent 14% of the general population, they represent over 40% of the prison population.
• (Source: http://www.kff.org/minorityhealth/upload/7541.pdf)

There are more stats than that having to do with obvious eonomic imbalances, death rates and other health related issues, but I think the points above are enough of a portrayal of injustice, to make the point.

Boston remains a city that is segregated in a de facto fashion. No laws proclaim it, no signs are hung, but forces stronger than signage or laws prevent the city and the surrounding metro area from being truly integrated. I think what bothers me the most about this situation is the constant polite silence regarding the disparities and seperation. It seems to me that no one is talking about it. Very little effort is being made to cross the lines. And no one is outraged.

I think America needs a new civil rights movement. It has to be a movement toward interaction and understanding, not simply a way to control behavior. With all of its world class institutions and its importance to the history of our country, it is shameful that our city and still far too much of America is segregated with people of color enduring not fair and unequal.

Will this bubble up to the consiousness of America? What did MLK and all of those who stood with him accomplish? What remains to be accomplished and who will sound the call? More importantly, who would follow?

Luke Andrew

I guess I should have followed up with another post to let everyone know that all of the details and the all-important pictures are on our family photo blog.

www.forsterfamilypics.blogspot.com

Thanks for all the well wishes. Everyone's doing fine.

9 Months for 100 Reasons

So we've been in the hospital since Thursday night. 35 hours at time of writing. It looks like Luke will be here within the next 2 hours. He's been taking his sweet time and testing his mother's patience. Just another addition to my theory that our kids are real, living beings--think about how much they alter our behavior--long before the sun shines on them. It could be good. This guy is going to have to be laid back to survive being the little brother of Riley and Sydney.

While Jen tries to squeeze in a few winks before the big event, I'm keyed up. I can't wait to meet him, to hold him, to feel his fingers and his toes. I think God gives parents 9 months for 100 reasons. Topping that list right now is that He wants us to know what gifts our children are from the get-go. He wants us to feel that anticipation of arrival. The anticipation sets us up to appreciate the miracle gift, way beyond Christmas morning and parallel with our wedding day. Right now, nothing matters but that anticipation. Exhaustion doesn't matter. The details don't matter. The onslaught of visitors over the holiday weekend doesn't matter. And I love that, that for a few moments here, my only job is to be sure that Jen is ok and to look forward to the celebration of birth.

With a Name Like Huckabee, It's Gotta be Good!

I have no idea who he is politically, but I'm about to find out because anyone who can a) Laugh at himself to this extent b) sit next to Chuck Norris with a straight face and c) run for President with a name like Huckabee deserves a look. He doesn't have my vote, but he sure has my interest piqued.

A doctor, an artist, a teacher

Recently, in a quiet early morning moment with Riley, I decided to get an update on the all important childhood question, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" She said, "I don't know, I think a doctor, an artist and a teacher." This was a slight departure from her previous standard answer of a "firefighter, a clown and a mommy." The doctor part was entirely new to me.

When I was about Riley's age, my standard answer to the question was "a bang bang army man." I expressed it this way, in my 6-year old English to delineate from the kind of Army person my parents were. Of course for anyone who knows me now, the idea that I would be a military man is ridiculous and quite humorous as (unlike Tim), I have never in my life fired a gun.

Riley's answer got me thinking, though. Surely at some point in my own childhood, I aspired to be an artist, at least a writer of some sort. I also figured out somewhere along the way that I had gifts and a passion for teaching. The doctor thing was never so much me, particularly given my reaction to the severe bleeding first aid movies shown in middle school health classes. Right now in what I am doing, I'm finding very little of the artist or the teacher. I see it in the future when the center opens and is a living breathing 15-hour a day thing, but right now, it's an idea that keeps me in an office far from the site where it will be built. I guess, given my meeting schedule (meetings are where imagination and creativity go to die), I'm getting a little claustrophobic given the lack of creative outlet it provides and the dirth of teaching opportunities coming my way while I do what I can to get it built.

Perhaps, this is why I'm turning back to blogging, just to have some creative outlet. John tells me he's writing. Phil's always creating something even when he's resting. My dad gets a new column every two weeks. I guess I'm just jonesing for creativity and teaching a bit. See where it takes me.

Home runs, touchdowns and a sovereign God

So a coworker asked me the other day, "what's up with athletes saying that God helped them win or score in a game? Does God really care about sports like that?"

Coming up with an answer took me a bit off guard as I am an unashamed sports fan and in that I have regular conversations about faith with this friend. My best attempt was this--that athletes who are Christians want to thank God for the opportunity to do what they do and they want to be careful that all the glory for what they do goes to God.

We agreed that it's a little odd, a bit like an ad executive or a cashier at the grocery store pounding their chest and pointing heavenward after getting the big account or because you bought over $200 worth of groceries. But what about that? Are there parallels in purely secular jobs in which we can or should give God glory for an accomplishment, personal or of our team (corporate)? It certainly wouldn't look the same as it does when Big Papi hits a home run or Rosevelt Colvin causes a fumble because we don't generally do a dance or emote physically in those cases. We also don't hold press conferences when we achieve things at work, so there's less of a platform for the "I just want to thank God" speech.

I understand what a lot of athletes are saying. It goes something like this, "If I were an accountant, I would want people to know I am a Christian and I want to give God glory." Corey Simon even describes the field as his pulpit, the stadium as his church. I like the fact that he says win or lose, succeed or fail, the man that he is, the Christian that he is matters more than any play on a field.

I guess another question all of this raises for me is that of whether God backs unsuccessful athletes too. JD Drew was a much talked-about offseason acquisition for the Red Sox after he signed a $70 million contract that many thought wasn't commensurate with past performance. He's a professing Christian, but I never heard him declare that God wasn't honoring his efforts. He didn't blame God for his failure to hit the baseball. We would all hope he wouldn't do that, but beyond that, it's not like he was quoted saying, "I guess it's not God's will that I perform well on the field."

It seems contradictory that God only cares about athletes when they score touchdowns, make 3-pointers or hit home runs. Isn't God inhabiting every bit of our lives, personal or professional, successful or failing? I believe in an immanent God who is always there whether the ball bounces our way or not.

Any thoughts you might have would be appreciated.

PS Speaking of athletes of faith, I hope Schilling is right that they can work out a deal to bring him back here.

Grace to rise and follow

"O God, I have tasted Thy goodness, and it has both satisfied me and made me thirsty for more. I am painfully conscious of my need of further grace. I am ashamed of my lack of desire. O God, the Triune God, I want to want Thee; I long to be filled with longing; I thirst to be made more thirsty still. Show me Thy glory, I pray Thee, that so I may know Thee indeed. Begin in mercy a new work of love within me. Say to my soul, "Rise up my love, my fair one, and come away." Then give me grace to rise and follow Thee up from this misty lowland whre I have wandered so long. In Jesus' name. Amen."

--A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God

One Semester of Spanish - Love Song

Thanks Jeff for the trip down memory lane. If you've missed this one on YouTube, check it out now.

Yankees decline wild card.

The Onion nails it today with this story on the Yankees declining the AL Wild Card. Laugh out loud funny. Every baseball fan needs to read this one. Instant classic!

Go Sox!

A Truth Greatly Reduced

I knew, even as I was commenting back to Larry on my last post, that I was not expressing myself as eloquently as I would have liked. There was a stronger, clearer, more pointed way to express my concern about cultures being swallowed and the danger that presents for the gospel. Enter Walter Brueggeman with this brilliant quote from "Poetry in a Prose-Flattened World" that expresses all of what I was trying to say and more:

"The gospel is...a truth widely held, but a truth greatly reduced. It is a truth that has been flattened, trivialized, and rendered inane. Partly, the gospel is simply an old habit among us, neither valued nor questioned. [It] takes the categories of biblical faith and represents them in manageable shapes...There then is no danger, no energy, no possibility, no opening for newness!...That means the gospel may have been twisted, pressed, tailored, and gerrymandered until it is comfortable with technological reason that leaves us unbothered, and with ideology that leaves us with uncriticized absolutes."

Brueggeman is focusing on the way that technical theology has reduced the gospel, but I believe that the reason for the reduction is less important than the fact of the reduction. He doesn't just report the problem and walk away. He does present a solution to the problem of this neutered gospel.

"To address the issue of a truth greatly reduced requires us to be poets that speak against a prose world. The terms of that phrase are readily misunderstood. By prose I refer to a world that is organized in settled formulae, so that even pastoral prayers and love letters sound like memos. By poetry, I do not mean rhyme, rhythm, or meter, but language that moves like Bob Gibson's fast ball, that jumps at the right moment, that breaks open old worlds with suprise, abrasion and pace. Poetic speech is the only proclamation worth doing in a situation of reductionism, the only proclamation, I submit, that is worthy of the name preaching."

Obviously, Brueggemann is focusing on the spoken, preached gospel here. I don't know that I can fully agree that poetic speech is the only proclamation worth doing in light of reductionism. I think heroic living is as worthy a pursuit A true commitment to social justice in big and small ways speaks loudly to a world that has closed its ears to the gospel, but that's not the point he's making. I think the stirring story of the gospel has to be told in a way that stirs the pot of our existence. A tolerable gospel is no gospel at all. He goes so far as to call it abrasive and well-paced. How often have you heard a sermon in the last 10 years that could be described that way? Not only are we careful not to offend those outside the church, we're so desperate to retain the remnant that we have that we won't even preach a full gospel inside the "stained glass or silk plant ghettos." (a la Morganthaler)

The church's greatest prayer for penitence must be for allowing the gospel to be reduced to an old habit. After all, we can not control the wider culture, only our own interaction with it. We can't allow the gospel to be disposable despite what our throwaway society would say about it.

Rituals in a Throwaway Society: Disposable Culture

So this is the last post in the series. Sorry, it's taken me a while to complete. I think one should always write the whole series first, then post them over time rather than starting the series and trying to keep on top of it. Live and learn.

My sister Heather loves traditions. This has always been true in my memory of her and it's not surprising given the hearty stock of sentimentalists from which we come, but it really took off during her adolescence. Particularly at Christmas time during her high school and college years, Heather became so enthralled with traditions that it seemed like she invented a new one every Christmas during that decade or so. Finding out what the new tradition was each December became a bit of its own tradition. But it wasn't exactly sustainable. As we grew up and moved out of our parents' house and started our lives on our own, we had to let go of some those traditions. We especially couldn't keep adding traditions to the experience.

If traditions create culture, I wonder if the speed of our lives today has put cultures themselves in jeopardy. Obviously, throughout the course of human history, cultures have come and endured and then gone. The Aztecs, the Mayans, the Roman Empire, whole civilizations have been born, reigned for a time and slowly or instantly evaporated. I recently became familiar with a theory called Transculturalism through the book of the same name, which asserts that cultures are merging in new ways creating a new way of life that crosses cultures in unprecendented ways. The book is a collection of essays by well-traveled hipsters, many of whom are of multiple races or have had experiences living outside of their ethnic culture which have had dramatic influences on their worldview. It also deals with cultural phenomena like Cuban-Chinese restaurants and Scandinavians who enjoy hip hop. In a way, I think transculturatlism is a wonderful concept, and if true, a positive step toward understanding each other in the human experience.

The problem, as I see it in the West , (from my very Western worldview,) is that we are not truly experiencing a new crossing of cultures which takes us to a new richer culture. We are being encouraged, if not forced, into a singular culture. Although it pretends at preserving bits of lots of cultures, it mercilessly mashes traditions and the uniqueness of those cultures to a pulp, unrecognizable, vanilla and tolerable. It's done in the name of political correctness, of tolerance and anti-racism, in the name of a global marketing scheme, of simplicity.

Whatever the motives, what is effectively taking place is the disposing of existing cultures, sometimes with each passing generation, often much more quickly than that. Think of the Irish immigration to the states at the close of the 19th century. Where are they today? Do their offspring eat the same foods or sing the same songs? Think of the fact that there are more Puerto Ricans in New York than in Puerto Rico. Are they New Yorkers now--street vendor hot dog, rice and beans or bagel with schmeer? Think of the fact that wealthy Americans want to build massive castles in the suburbs that look awful and unique from the exterior, but all serve the same purpose on the interior--to allow them to gather around the same granite countertops and stainless appliances as the Joneses for a meal prior to sitting down to watch cable shows that are in some subtle way about themselves. Welcome to TLC America.

What's so amazing is that individuality is dying on the altar of a one-world culture. What unites us in our cultural groups--national/ethnic traditions, religious belief and practice, musical preference--what makes us feel part of a group is that there is something unique about that subset of humanity. If we're all becoming one big fat world culture, there will not be anything unique about any of us. Is disposable culture really disposable identity? Are we all giving in to be part of the cool kids crowd? Is there any help for distinct culture in the west? Melting pot, mosaic or masher? More questions than answers.

Take this shirt--polyester white trash made in nowhere...