breaking up connection

I often think about my connection to media and its effect on my relationships with others. I feel that its very important to submit the amount of time I spend interacting with various mediums both to God and to those I love and am responsible to. My lovely wife is particularly sensitive toward any of us in the family being "sucked in" to a virtual environment that robs us of each other. Personally, I regularly submit the time I spend on the internet to peer review. How this works is that I will connect verbally with an understanding friend before going online and commit to using it faithfully. Its so easy to forget my Place in time and geography where the virtual world is concerned. Its so easy to waste time. To get lost and to misconnect with unhealthy attachments. Jesus must be Lord of my mind wherever it is and however it is used. That is real faith.

Tags: mediums, virtuality, submission, peer review, Jesus Christ

Ken Stein Interview

Steve Inskeep did his follow up interview with Ken Stein this morning. Comparing the two interviews, I have to say that the final one was a let-down, but a good one. Inskeep put Carter on the defensive and let him battle his way back. But in interviewing Stein, Inskeep just lets him talk--and Stein's accusations don't seem to hold enough weight to make it interesting.

Inskeep: A layman might ask: "Why not call it Apartheid?"
Stein: A layman would have every right to ask that question. That doesn't mean: "If it looks like a duck and it smells like a duck and it quacks like a duck its a duck."
Inskeep: and the difference to you is. . . .
Stein: the difference to me is that part of this problem is that the Palestinians have chosen to use terrorism. . . .

That gives you an idea of the logic here. If the Palestinians hadn't have used terrorism it would be Apartheid. Once again, the Israelis are more noble because they are the recognized State. Palestinians are savages because they are not. And here in the twenty first century we return to the reasoning of Thomas Hobbs in the sixteenth century. What stays the same is the fact that after forty years of Military Occupation in Palestine political theorists can't stop this Sovereign State from killing innocents, no matter the number of books written, interviews conducted, and peace negotiations gone right.

Tags: NPR, Ken Stein, Steve Inskeep, Thomas Hobbs, Israel, Palestine, sovereignity

A meditation on hate

Jer 12:8
8 "My inheritance has become to Me
Like a lion in the forest;
She has roared against Me;
Therefore I have come to hate her.
NASU

Dear God how do you come to oppose your people? Why do you use the word hate here? Surely Lord this is too strong of a term! In Philippians 4:8 hate is not among the list of things we should dwell on. So why is it in the Bible? Lord you know how much hate is in the world. You have watched us humans butcher one another beginning with Cain. You have long strived with us concerning our hatred. So don't you think its a little careless to directly use it yourself?

Thank you Lord that I am not the center of all wisdom. I can't wrap my mind around the fact that You have no beginning and no end. Sometimes I just don't understand how you're trying to speak to me through Your Word. But this I do understand: Even in your forceful opposition here, in turning your back on Your people, Your hatred, somehow Your intention was always reconciliation. I believe that in Jesus Christ the Word, somehow you turn the strength of hate, of forceful opposition, into the strength of Embrace, of forceful searching and finding--Love.

How do you not hide your eyes God? How do you not get jaded, write us off, abandon forever? I get exhausted just reading the stories of our human unfaithfulness in Your Word. I get exhausted by my own sins. How is your patience so strong? How can you endure us for millenia? Some figure that you're just not paying attention. Obviously they're not reading the Bible. Sometimes I fear that you pay too much attention! But then I'm glad you do.

God, for today, give me enough willingness just to agree with your Intentions.

Tags: hate, God, Jeremiah 12:8, Jesus Christ, reconciliation

Shaw, excess and forgiveness

Last night I heard someone say that American society allows everything and forgives nothing. I googled that and learned that it might just be a derivative of George Bernard Shaw's saying:

Youth, which is forgiven everything, forgives itself nothing: age, which forgives itself everything, is forgiven nothing.
Man and Superman, "Maxims for Revolutionists: Stray Sayings" (1903)

Here's the entire section of that book online and boy is it popped! He inverts and comments on some of Jesus' words in crazy ways. Some of it is novel, some of it stupid.

For an example of hubris-run-wild consider his question: "what is the use of writing anything, if there is not a will which finally moulds chaos itself into a race of gods?"

Tags: George Bernard Shaw, excess, forgiveness

Thank You Jimmy Carter

I'm convinced that when you become President of the United States something happens to you as a human being. I don't see how it can't. You'd have to represent the most powerful nation in all the world. More than that you have to lead what it has become. Bear in mind that in modern Statecraft a nation is the sum of it's interests. While we're led to believe the democratic State is made up of the interests of its people, in this day and age the people don't care to know the nuts and bolts of how it all operates. So when and if you get to the top it must change you. Therefore, anytime a former President makes the mistake of telling it like it is, the media must yank him back into line.

On NPR's Morning Edition this morning I heard Steve Inskeep ask President Carter an awful lot of stupid questions. You should listen for yourself, but essentially the interview is set up with Carter on the hot seat regarding his book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. He gets a call right after his speech at Brandeis University. Stein wants to know if its true that the former president is losing his mind. Is he senile? Did he plagiarize his book? Did he lie? But the real burning question is "Was his use of language unfair to Israel?"

I love Ken Stein's question "How did you write your book?" President Carter's reply is directly to the question: "With a word processor, or computer." This is legendary journalism. Truthfully, in the fifteen years of NPR I've consumed this has got to be the worst interview--ever! And I heard the Fresh Air interview with KISS frontman Gene Simmons! That was at least entertaining. It proves that for as liberal as NPR claims to be, when it comes to the State of Israel, even liberal American journalists jerk to the right. Stein has to make scandal where there isn't any. President Carter is speaking facts about life in the Middle East as it is. What is truly shocking is that even in this day and age the media can't seem to face reality without spin. It needs to slow the world down, reword, rework and feed it back for the consumer.

I have not read Jimmy Carter's book. But at face value I have to tell you that he hasn't said anything out of the ordinary. Desmond Tutu noted the similarities between Israeli treatment of Palestinians and South African Apartheid back in 2002. The same voices that call Carter anti-semitic said that of Tutu back then. Let's look at this clearly people. Israel's use of Military Occupation hasn't worked for forty years. What it has set is a precident that the US is continuing in Iraq today. And we see how well it is working. If anything the occupiers are failing. The circle of hate and violence has spun out of control. The one President who has ever had the guts to admit that is called crazy, anti-semitic, senile---I'm waiting for someone to say UnAmerican.

Doesn't all this circle back onto what the public expects from a President? Carter's use of the word Apartheid together with Israel is brazen and shocking because the US is neck deep in a "war on terror." NPR can criticize George W. Bush all it wants, everyone is doing that, but what Israel has is somehow working. Somehow they're seen to be the stabilizing force in the region. To deny that in the interest of peace is just too much, even for the "liberal" media.

Note: I'm crossposting this on my Occupation blog, which I've been doing since the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. If you want to see more info and links on Military Occupation, check it out.

Tags: Military Occupation, Apartheid, President Jimmy Carter, Steve Inskeep

If you're interested. . .

I have quite a few posts on addiction and recovery here. I've never gotten terribly specific with my personal story. If you're interested I've posted my story on the Project 12 blog as it relates to Accountability at Jesus People USA. JPUSA, for you newbies, is an intentional Christian community located in Uptown Chicago. It started in 1972. I came with my wife to JPUSA in 1996. Essentially what I'm trying to do is relate how the principles I'm learning in twelve step recovery enhance my life in intentional community. Hopefully it'll help folks here starting out in community.
Project 12 is a new discipleship school here at JPUSA. Check it out.

country connections

I just researched and posted bios, photos and links to my old friends Slim and Zella Mae Cox and Joy Ann Silvey on my blog Hard Country. Check it out.

Tags: Joy Ann Silvey, Slim and Zella Mae Cox, Country music

The Man in Black action figure

Well, here he is, the Johnny Cash action figure. Available now on the Country Music Hall of Fame web store. I don't know what I think about this. It seems wrong. . . . . but then right. He's a legend. But an action figure? There he is, the man in black, reminding us of the wrongs. Making things right in song. He's a rebel. But a saint. He's human, but here he's larger than life in poseable plastic mold. Honestly, if he was older and had on that long leather duster walking down the highway with the guitar case in his hand, I'd jump at it. This is more like the late 70s Johnny Cash.

Tags: Johnny Cash, Action figure, country music hall of fame

Good Morning America! Have Some Hate With That Waffle!

Well, American mornings are about to get a lot friendlier, as the ABC morning show "Good Morning America" has just signed Glenn Beck as a commentator on its program. Here's a peek at Glenn's illustrious track record on CNN:  

GLENN BECK IN HIS OWN WORDS

On August 10 and September 5, 2006, Beck stated that Arab and Muslim Americans are apathetic to terrorism—completely ignoring the positive contributions of the community, especially in regard to national security—and warned that Muslims "who have sat on [their] hands the whole time rather than 'lining up to shoot the bad Muslims in the head' will face dire consequences. One of those consequences being that Muslims will be "looking through a razor wire fence at the West."

On November 14, 2006, Beck interviewed then Congressman-elect Keith Ellison and asked him to "prove to me that you are not working with our enemies" simply because of Ellison's religious affiliation.

On November 15, 2006, Beck said he was surprised by an American criticizing Al Qaeda because "the man who wrote it is a Muslim."

Here's the ADC's (American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee) letter to ABC and their response:

http://adc.org/Doc/Joint%20Letter%20to%20Beck.doc http://adc.org/PDF/ABC%20Glenn%20Beck%20Reply%20Letter.pdf   

Tags: Good Morning America, Glenn Beck, CNN, hate speech, anti-arab, ABC, ADC

Brimlow on Bonhoeffer

I'm reposting here what I posted in the book discussion forum over at Ekklesia Project because I feel that it goes well with my previous post on Just War and Pacifism. Let me begin with a lengthy quote from Robert Brimlow's book:

"I think I recognize something of the enormous crisis and struggle that Bonhoeffer endured in the last years of his life, and it is not for me--living this comfortable life--to second-guess him, devalue that struggle, or accuse him of bad faith. In many ways I agree that Bonhoeffer is an exemplar of Christian life. Even with all that said, however, I think he erred in how he understood the dilemma. It is not clear to me that God has laid responsibility on us for the course that history will take; Bonhoeffer himself alludes to the power of the ruler of history and how he wields it over the heads of the history-makers. But if we were responsible for history, Bonhoeffer's dilemma would shake my faith much more deeply. As unsatisfactory and philosophically untenable as I found Walzer's discussion that performing evil actions is inescapable when confronting supreme emergencies, that intellectual dissatisfaction pales in significance when I consider Bonhoeffer's parallel conclusion that there are situations in which I have no alternative but to sin. "
--Robert W. Brimlow, What About Hitler?, p. 124, Brazos, 2006.

I feel at a loss here. I’m blogging through Bethge’s Bonhoeffer and I’m not yet near the end, but I feel compelled to answer Brimlow on his treatment of Bonhoeffer in this book. First off let me say that I am not a pacifist so I’m not sure this book is for me. I am an ardent endorser of EP but not a pacifist philosophically or ethically. There are those of us around! Though I don’t know if they’d like to sound out because I say so! Dan M. Bell, Jr. has contributed a wonderful EP pamphlet titled: Just War As Christian Discipleship which I think states my position well. Here is where I disagree with Brimlow. First, Brimlow did not use the right sources to understand Bonhoeffer. Rather, he used some of them, but not enough of them. A key source he missed is Larry Rasmussen’s Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Reality and Resistance. Brimlow states that Bonhoeffer left us very little for understanding his decision. Well, Rasmussen shows that he left a lot more than Brimlow thinks! Secondly, Brimlow just flat out misses the heart of Bonhoeffer’s Ethik. Granted his ethics was a work unfinished, but there are current examples of where it may have led! For this I recommend Nancy J. Duff’s Humanization and the Politics of God: The Koinonia Ethics of Paul Lehmann. Lehmann was a close friend of Bonhoeffer’s and chronicler of the German Church story after WWII. His developed Theological Ethic is important for understanding Bonhoeffer on the issue of whether it is ever God’s will that we sin.

I understand Bonhoeffer to fit into Bell’s--or should I say the Church Father’s vision --for Just War as Christian Discipleship. I would hope that those of us Just War can continue a long and fruitful dialogue with those pacifists here at EP. There’s a lot of misunderstanding out there. Dietrich Bonhoeffer is a case in point. There’s a simple way to alleviate this: actually read the material! I’m trying to do that now with Bonhoeffer. I’ve spent over a year now engaging Bethge and all the Confessing Church history and Bonhoeffer writings I can lay hands on in order to better understand. BTW, I also intend to read Mark Nation’s John Howard Yoder, Eerdmans, 2005. But I’ll try to extend the courtesy of not using him as a bad example without actually reading the material!

What I've read from the rest of Brimlow's book is very good. I agree with him most heartily that Bonhoeffer is no one's example for every situation. Bonhoeffer himself would have agreed with that. I love the meditative style of the book and I plan to read it slowly when I get to it.

Tags: Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Robert Brimlow, Ekklesia Project

Caught in the middle

I have entered a conversation that I really don’t want to be in, but that I feel compelled to join. I hope its of You, Lord. It involves the terrible tangle of competing theories of Just War and Pacifism. I hate competing theories. I’ve read enough about both to know that those compelled to either theory feel the need to defend their position in relation to the opposing theory. I don’t like that. So I feel caught between both. Like a brow-beaten child forced to witness his parents fighting. How would I be the child of both theories? I’m a Protestant for one. I’m an American citizen for another. That’s enough Just War Tradition right there to imagine the daddy. But I know enough about war history to know that every War fought in just the Twentieth Century has been much more about State Imperialism and the expansion of Corporate interests than anything laid out as Just War Theory. I was raised in a commune that taught practical pacifism. My dad had trouble with his temper personally but he was a practical pacifist and we practiced nonviolent political resistance in behalf of those without a voice. Personally from the ages 16-18 I could honestly say I was a full on pacifist. Then I spent a lot of time reading philosophical pacifists like those in the Fellowship of Reconciliation and I had a change of heart. I couldn’t see how what they were espousing really needed Jesus. So I guess that’s my pacifist mommy side.

Anyway, I’m reading Robert Brimlow’s book What About Hitler? because I’m an endorser of the Ekklesia Project. Brimlow makes no bones about his pacifism and his arguments follow many of the status quo arguments I’ve always heard from pacifists. But the book is not just that. Its really looking for a spirituality of pacifism. So I keep reading. As a browbeaten child of both theories I care less about the roots of these theories and I keep my focus on the end in sight of how I understand each. I’m looking for the good. I’m not asking “Where is each theory limited?” but rather “How could either help me serve Jesus in this world today?”

From reading my John Howard Yoder and my Stanley Hauerwas I’ve come to learn something about pacifists. They have a long tradition of not being listened to. And they’re right on that account. How many pacifist ecumenical ethical theologians can you think of? Ahhh. . . .somebody knows---but not me! My point is that pacifists have always been put in the position of defending themselves to their accusers in the hope that they would be muffled into silence, or submerged until drowned. (Sorry, I couldn’t resist that sad Anabaptist allusion to history.) So within that scenario I have to always imagine Daddy Just War never listening to mommy Pacifist and historically even beating her black and blue any time she spoke out of turn.

So when Mommy has her say, its usually when daddy is not around. She’ll work twice as hard to train her child not to be like the daddy. In the end, if daddy doesn’t change there will be a divorce. What a dysfunctional family! What’s a poor brow-beaten child to do? Well, for one thing he won’t play one parent off the other in either’s presence! But if he loves both parents he’ll try to remember what’s best about each.

This analogy can obviously only go so far. The reality of the situation is that there is no mommy or daddy. The American denominational landscape is thoroughly separated for the most part along traditional lines. Most pacifists are Anabaptists: Mennonites, and Amish. Now, when we start talking ecumenism it’s a totally different picture. The lines are blurred. Suddenly Catholics, Methodists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians are finding a new tradition in pacifism or nonviolent forms of understanding Just War. Most of this type of thing, if it is theological, is a result of the work of John Howard Yoder and Stanley Hauerwas.

I’m an odd duck. I feel like I sit and look back at history and tradition within these theories and don’t feel close to either option any more. I see hope in the way some talk about Just Peacemaking, but then I don’t see enough conversation along those lines. Pacifists seem to retreat back to their old battle lines because that’s safest. “The way of Jesus,” they say, “is never violence.” Ever. The Spirit of Jesus would never lead someone into a subversive activity wherein someone somewhere is violent. Well, in a vacuum that sounds nice. But in reality there’s a lot of fingers in the ears and eyes shut tight going on in that argument. Stanley Hauerwas himself says that having the courage to be nonviolent involves knowing that this will no doubt make some folks more violent. There are always effects to our actions!

So what am I saying? That Jesus wants me to be violent sometimes? That’s not an ethical theory either! It’s a trap! Basically what I’m saying is that pacifism in essence presumes to know what God won’t do under any circumstances. And that’s not the Bible! That’s a safe “ism.” It’s a new form of natural law. It’s a modernist construct. But it doesn’t take into account the overall give and take of the Scriptures.

Really I am not leaving any safe ground on which to stand. I believe that we need more of the kinds of ethical theories theological pacifists are working on. But pacifists need to look critically at their own history and be honest. Instead of battling back now that they have a voice, they need self-disclosure about the flaws their own ways have espoused. What ways have not necessarily been the ways of Jesus. For instance, in what ways have pacifists historically been too passive? In what ways have they rested content in their righteousness and not been peacemakers where there was no peace? In what ways has their silence resulted in the deaths of the innocent oppressed?

On the other side, as Christians we must not internalize Jesus command to “turn the other cheek” and then do what we want instead. We need to infiltrate our society with a way of following Jesus that courageously takes on the status quo which is an Imperialist War Machine. We need to question how our society got this way and how we can infect it differently. But in the end this needs to be about Jesus and not about “isms” as much as they form our tradition. I guess what we need is more ecumenism, more theology, more work that moves beyond the old camps. That’s my conclusion and I’m sticking to it.

Dear Jesus help me follow in the Way you have for me. Help me to seek out community with others following in Your Way regardless of what it looks like, or whether we will always agree. May they know that we Follow You by our love for one another. By our ability to listen to one another and defend one another.

Tags: pacifism, Just War Theory, Ekklesia Project, Robert Brimlow, "What About Hitler?", Stanley Hauerwas, John Howard Yoder, Jesus Christ

"We offered it up as a gift to the Lord"

Yesterday I was talking to Dawn Mortimer, who is working with me on Glenn’s book, and she said something that I hope won’t soon drift from my memory. I was talking about my attachment to each of the books I’ve worked on here for Cornerstone Press. I was saying that, as Managing Editor, I felt personally attached to each book sometimes almost as if it were a baby that I’d conceived and carried through to delivery. I related how, with one book I actually sat and wept after the whole thing was over. I knew in that moment that the particular community I’d experienced with that project would never be there again. I felt such a loss that I called all the parties involved and thanked them and then just bawled the rest of the day.

Dawn smiled and said she knew what I was talking about. She recounted how, with Cornerstone Magazine she always felt like each issue was special in its own way. As she spoke I couldn’t help thinking about Dawn as a mother and as a publisher for thirty years. I knew that she, far better than I, knew what it was to be both. But what she said to me went somewhere totally different. She said “I loved every issue in its own special way.” She briefly referred to the community she and all the staff knew together in different ways for so long. She loved the oversized issues more than the others.

“After we’d finished everything, had it all proofed and sent off we gathered together and thanked God for letting us serve him in this way. Then we just released it as a sacrifice of our best fruits unto the Lord.”

“Wow," I thought. Just like that. It was an “aha” moment. I knew just then that I’d been given something very valuable and that I’d better not lose it. But I couldn’t help myself; I couldn’t leave it at that. I had to chime in: “But surely you still felt an attachment.”

“No,” she replied very matter of factly. “Then we just went on to the next project.”

There it was, but I was going to milk this moment for all it was worth.

“So, you’re telling me that when you had a mag that you really cared about, it didn’t bother you what people said about it afterward?”

“No. At Paulina I remember we even had fellow JPUSAs who didn’t always like what we were doing with the mag. But it was our first fruits, our basket of gifts we gave the Lord. It was given and that was that.”

Well, I knew then that she was right. She’d just clearly, unwittingly, pointed out one of my biggest personal issues, namely the need to attach myself to anything I care deeply about. She’d also gently reminded me that anything I do for Jesus is to be offered up to him as a sacrifice.

Jon walked in this afternoon while I sat here writing and crying over this bit of writing. I told him about it and he smiled and told me about how many lessons he’d learned from Dawn and others this way over the years. We both feel so fortunate to be part of this particular faith family. Yesterday afternoon after the Project 12 class met here near our office I caught Dawn and her husband Curt and another pastor just chatting with one of the students. He was mentioning some difficulties he was having with the courses, but I just marveled at their reaction to him and to the scene overall. For Dawn and Curt Project 12 is about the fostered relationships. Doing for these new folks what they’ve been doing for years here at JPUSA in a delightful new way.

Tags: JPUSA, Dawn Mortimer, Cornerstone Magazine, Jesus Christ, gifts

Jewish member of Iranian Parliament?

In what world is there a Jewish member of the Iranian Parliament? Why ours of course! You wouldn't know it from our news, but it seems Iran is a much more diversified nation than the US seems to indicate. The Jewish newspaper Forward has a fascinating article on Iran's 25,000 Jews.

Tags: Iranian Jews, Forward, USA, Iran, Iranian Parliament

Quote on what TV is

To those who say people wouldn't look; they wouldn't be interested; they're too complacent, indifferent and insulated, I can only reply: There is, in one reporter's opinion, considerable evidence against that contention. But even if they are right, what have they got to lose? Because if they are right, and this instrument is good for nothing but to entertain, amuse and insulate, then the tube is flickering now and we will soon see that the whole struggle is lost. This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and it can even inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise it is merely wires and lights in a box. Good night, and good luck.

Edward R. Murrow (in the movie: Good Night and Good Luck)

Struggle? Are there people struggling anymore to understand the medium of the flickering screen? I hope so. I hope I'm a struggler.

Here's the text of the full speech to the RTNDA Convention in Chicago on October 15, 1958.

Tags: Edward R. Murrow, TV

Thomas Malthus and the Dark Side of the American Dream

I'm now proofing Glenn Kaiser's new book Kissing the Sky and I just can't help but post this excerpt:

When commerce is valued above compassion love is the victim and all of us lose no matter what we gain. I don't believe compassionate Americans want to see things done this way, nor do Christians above all. So how do such skewed values become policy in our communities? Some Christians believe that a certain number of people are predestined to go to hell; if they're forgotten by God, who can blame us for forgetting them? Is there such a thing as throw-away people? An accompanying Christian doctrine that some hold is a doctrine of providence that the "chosen" will prosper economically on this earth as a sign of their being singled out by God for heaven. Can this be why we ignore masses of people below our own economic status? These religious tenets, held with all seriousness by many of our forefathers, have been secularized into our own mistrust of the poor and homeless. A more secular explanation was provided in the late eighteenth century through the writings of Thomas Malthus. He suggested that the people in society who experience misery and vice are nature's way of culling the population. If we interfere with nature using welfare programs, then at some point we will run out of resources such as food or energy. Malthus' teachings have made thier way, along with predestination and providence, into our modern views of the "lower class" in society. Perhaps if we can understand the origins of our attitudes we can change them.

Wow! There's a lot of truth there. I'm really loving this book. I know these ideas may win Glenn some enemies, but hey, what else is new? Check out the wiki entry on Malthus. Somethings going on when Critics come from six separate scientific fields! Its obvious that Malthus was horribly mistaken. What's sad is that here in America we function as practical Malthusiasts, much like many "Christians" are practical agnostics.

Tags: Glenn Kaiser, Kissing the Sky, book, Thomas Malthus, Christianity, predestination, providence

I can't remember the rules

I sit here alone in the office this morning. I'm proofing a manuscript for publication. I'm ashamed to say its been over a year now that I've had to seriously remember the rules of commas in a sentence. So I'm copying and printing out all the rules again. I can think of better things to do than to correct comma splices for cosmetic effect. As an editor I know the importance of the rules. Its my job to make it all look good and on the up and up. But as a writer I also know the frustration of those rules. I become the egghead with a pocket protector every time I bring up the rules. Such is life lived with words. So with my Chicago Manual of Style, my Strunk and White, my Dictionary, and my Firefox web browser in virtual hand, I will descend again into proofing purgatory. As soon as the other proofers arrive I will be thoroughly whined out and they will esteem me for my lack of complaint. Or not.

(BTW: If you've been secretly detesting my use of its and it's and lack of comma etiquette for years now: darn you! Darn you to heck! To h-e-double-hocky-sticks no less! There, I'm all better now!)

Tags: editing, proofreading, book publishing

what reward?

I have been troubled lately by the reality of my calling, namely to live among the poor and minister to addicts. What does success look like in this calling? It looks like the bloody form of a man hanging naked from a first century empire's means of keeping the peace: the cross. This crucifix is my calling. It is my promised reward. Jesus said "Take up your cross and follow me." I remember the vision that William Booth had of rescuing drowning scores of people. But I can't but think about how, after rescued, in this line of work some folks jump back in. It seems a cruel irony to me that in faith based nonprofit work donations come in as long as only the good results can be shown. Donors want to know that somehow every glowing dime they gave had only rosy effects. Heaven forbid that anything go wrong!

Growing up at the New Life Evangelistic Center I remember my dad and NLEC recieving many rewards for their work. His office is lined with plaques. He has recieved on numerous occasions St. Louis's Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. award for service. This Saturday in fact NLEC will be recieving that reward again. For that reward to be issued while NLEC lays victim to a smear campaign in Springfield Missouri reveals the bitter reality of this kind of work. Years ago here at JPUSA I remember that a certain legislator from Kentucky brought up certificates for each of the eight pastors naming them Kentucky Colonels for their service at JPUSA. Along with the certificates were sent some "hard-living" people, homeless men whose lives were filled with disillusionment and despair. I can't think of those honors without associating it with those men.
Most of them didn't work out here in Chicago.

When things go badly you don't go dust off your plaque and remember that somebody once loved you. You think "Dear God get me through this."

In a previous post I wrote about how hard it is for the public to "get" this kind of work. Demons or Angels, folks sharing the love of Jesus can never really "win" in the eyes of the world. "You do so much good." "How come you're always in so much trouble?" There are a few undeniable results about myself and my friends in this line of work. Lines on our faces. Scars on our hearts. Lots of good and bad memories. More faces than can be counted. Weary bodies yes. But very young hope and faith. But when your hero hangs there dying what do you expect?

Tags: calling, addiction, poor, needy, NLEC, JPUSA, rewards, plaques

the preacher who just wouldn't go away

I heard tell about this preacher once. He just wouldn't go away. He kept talkin about how churches should be noticing the homeless and poor walking the streets. He kept talkin about prisoners and their rights. He knew very well that this wasn't popular. He knew the folks of this little city would rather see the homeless freeze to death or kill each other than try to help them. He knew that prisons were more popular than shelters, bigger money makers.  But he wouldn't back down. He kept talking about Jesus and what He said to do. He'd walk the streets with the homeless just to talk and get to know them. He ran this little thrift store and just gave away everything inside. He let the homeless sleep over night in the little store even when the little city said shelters had to be 2000 feet apart. Bars on the same street could be 200 feet apart but when you're drunk you can't just sleep on the floor of the bar. So the police harassed the little group who dared invite the homeless into their store. The next day the preacher walked the whole crew the five miles down to the police station and offered himself in behalf of the staff. "Don't arrest them, he said, arrest me!" The police got all nice and helpful and couldn't understand what he was talking about. Over the next few weeks, as temperatures dropped, the little store got flooded with hopeless cases. "Lets see if they can withstand this!" someone said. "We'll see how much rendering their good heart can take!"

This little motley group of believers made up of former street people and sundry volunteers bearing food and smiles would be shown the error of their do-gooding ways. One night a rape happened either near or inside the place. Suddenly the news trucks were surrounding the door. Long after the victim and the accused were forgotten, those who knew the preacher as a rabble rouser smiled with vindication. They knew all along that he was trouble and would only cause trouble. The local paper ran an anonymous editorial saying as much. But the preacher wouldn't go away. He called the paper and set up an appointment to meet with the anonymous writer face to face. He kept walking the streets, sitting and eating where he was not wanted. "Can't you see you're not wanted?" folks asked. "Why won't the city attack him directly for us?"

This story is not done. That preacher keeps speaking, keeps walking, keeps shining a light on that embarrassing fear this little town has that maybe they're all just a paycheck away from losing it all. Maybe the town doesn't work as well as they all hope. Maybe the buckle of the Bible belt lets people die easier than it saves their souls. God bless him. Preach it brother. Keep the faith.

our humble abode

Here's a brief history of the Chelsea Hotel, now the Friendly Towers where my family and I live and work. I have personally rehabbed my fair share of rooms here. Imagine working with age old firebrick, fifty year old wood, and the dust! Once a friend and I tore out one of the garbage chutes. Now THERE was some history there!

Tags: Chelsea Hotel, Friendly Towers, Uptown

Why yes I yell at the TV

Sometimes I get angry at my Television. Well not actually at the television, but at what's on the television. As a heterosexual male with a fine working libido and a healthy attraction toward the opposite sex I consider it unfair that network television considers my libido a target for sexually charged advertising. Do any of you other men feel the same way? Do you ever feel like as a sex, we American men are considered vaccuous dolts led around by our short hairs by popular media? Can I get a witness?!!?

Let me go for the brass ring here and tell it like it is. I am a married Christian man. I consider that God has provided for my wife and I everything we would need for sexual fulfilment. That is why I yell at the TV. Someone somewhere is unhappy that I have my sexual needs met. They need me to be aroused to buy a product I don't need. But they're using the most spiritual and relational human desire as though it were toilet paper! Shouldn't that bother me?!! Most certainly so. Even when its not a blatant advertisment, maybe its just a young woman wearing an alluring fashion, the device is the same: become aroused, keep watching, then buy a product.

This is obviously not what God intends for us humans, male and female. Consumption is not really community. God made us humans male and female. That means (and Karl Barth goes into detail on this in his anthropology) that as a man I am meant to relate to all other women in a way that fosters true creative, mutual, life affirming reciprocity. That's why I yell at the TV. Far from empowering women, it makes them virtual sex objects.

A married couple can enjoy coitus any time they like. There is really no end to the matter in that regard. Everything about them is unveiled and they have the patient knowledge that it will continue to be. That is real relationship. Coitus is a part of the larger mutual intercourse. But this kind of fulfillment and satisfaction is a threat within our society. So be it.

I guess that makes me a love vigilante.

Tags: coitus, TV, sex, yelling, marriage, fulfillment

Youth and Fear of the Lord

Now that we're back into our regular routine, my family has morning devotions where we pray and read a Psalm. The Psalm this morning was 34. Benedicam Dominum in the Book of Common Prayer. I love those latin titles!

⁹O fear the Lord, you his holy ones,
for those who fear him have no want.
¹⁰The young lions suffer want and hunger,
but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing.
¹¹Come, O children, listen to me;
I will teach you the fear of the Lord.
¹²Which of you desires life,
and covets many days to enjoy good?
¹³Keep your tongue from evil,
and your lips from speaking deceit.
¹⁴Depart from evil, and do good;
seek peace, and pursue it.

My friend Jon told me yesterday that he’ll soon be turning fifty. At one time I thought that was quite old. I’ll be turning thirty-three in a matter of weeks and fifty doesn’t seem quite so old anymore. I think we’d both agree that, while we’re not young lions anymore, (well he’s certainly not anyway!:)) this Psalm’s message is still directed our way. The Fear of the Lord is not something we start and stop learning. I have been raised with the Bible’s warnings in this matter since before I can remember. But this matter of evil speech, lying, departing from evil, doing good, seeking peace, and then pursuing it is a vigorous lesson.

Our society has definite ideas of youth and possibility and they have nothing to do with the Fear of the Lord. What is the Fear of the Lord? I think our society thinks it knows and wants nothing to do with it. In the Old Testament the word Yira’ in Hebrew seems to be used interchangeably between the real psychological fear of persons and situations where it would be normal (an angel appearing, death immanent) and a reverence for God. Today after years of religious training, our reverence for God is much too schooled to be described as fearful. We need to go back to the Bible and get some un-training!

Here another passage comes to mind. The words of Jesus regarding the Holy Spirit in John 16:5-11:

⁸And when he comes, he will prove the world wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment: ⁹about sin, because they do not believe in me; ¹⁰about righteousness, because I am going to the Father and you will see me no longer; ¹¹about judgment, because the ruler of this world has been condemned.

The world is wrong regarding sin, righteousness and judgment. In America today we think of sin as a silly little broken morality device. America thinks of righteousness as a sham standard of morality that some people manage to fake well enough but that just can’t be expected of most of the populace---of course that concept has nothing to do with Jesus Christ, or what is spoken of here. Finally America’s understanding of judgment must be out of whack when, in the name of justice its’ military can swoop in unannounced and randomly bomb at will persons it deems judged as too wicked to be alive. (e.g. the news this morning in Somalia)

My final thought in all this is that God alone is truly Good, Holy, and worthy of reverence and fear. Things that aren’t quite so AWESOME include America’s idolatry of youth and beauty, consumerism, militarism, narcissism. . . . . oh you get the picture.

Note: this is a big expansion on the Psalm this morning. There’s no way we fit this whole thing into the fifteen minutes we have before they’re off to school.

Tags: youth, Psalm 34:9-14, somalia, bombing, America

home

I meditated this morning on John chapter 14. I was sitting at home thinking about how good it is to be back in familiar old surroundings. The old sights and sounds of Uptown Chicago. Our couch, our rocking chair, our window overlooking the Lake. Even our little house rabbit is happy to be home. Then I thought of Jesus' words "I go to prepare a place for you." That word place is pregnant with meaning. The original greek word here is topos and Vine's calls it, among other things "a place which a person or thing occupies." I'm thinking of that “sense of place” that is geographical and yet very human and spiritual. I hope I’m not too far out on a limb here for you, but I can’t help but think that home is something longed for in every person. In John 14 Jesus not only promises his disciples a home but a trip there too. He says he’ll come back and get us and take us there. And then he promises the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, who will teach (didasko) and remind (hupomimnesko) of everything he has said.

I see the Triune God throughout this chapter working this sense of Place into his Church and into me. I’m so glad to be back home here at JPUSA in Chicago, but I know that this life is so short. Things change. My wife and I get older each year. My children grow up. My neighbors grow older and some folks leave and others arrive. Someday we will all enjoy a fulfilled “sense of Place” with God. Thank you Jesus.

Tags: sense of place, Jesus, heaven, John 14, meditation