Here and Now

I've spent most of this week feeling like a fraud. No, I'm not about to confess that I've done some terrible, horrible thing (I was NOT on the grassy knoll...heck, I wasn't even born yet). This was Spiritual Emphasis week for the High School kids out at Warren County Christian School. I helped out with four other youth leaders (from www.time4revolution.com ). Mostly I was the AV guy (well, mostly the V guy, though we did use one of my amps and a couple of speakers - but someone else ran sound - Brin Robeson - and he does a great job) but I got to speak on Wednesday, too. Now, here's the thing. When we were planning these...services...the scripture we based it on was Hebrews 10:37-39 "For yet, 'in a very little while, the one who is coming will come and will not delay; but my righteous one will live by faith. My soul takes no pleasure in anyone who shrinks back.' But we are not among those who shrink back and so are lost, but among those who have fa...

Music and mood...they can really go together... So, I'm listening to Five O'Clock People right now - and it's so depressing...but, that's exaclty why I picked it... Dunno what's going on today, I just don't feel like taking on the world...or even dealing with it. "And we shuffle to grace And we summon our demons As we push them away... And we fall..silent... And we stumble to grace We're clutching heaven.." Sigh...it's been a long week.

Two hour delay here this morning so everything was thrown way off schedule. The really GOOD part of that was that this morning (since I didn't check the radio before I got the girls up) we had two extra hours to play and be together. At one point we all snuggled on the couch and watched All Dogs Go To Heaven . Now, I'm not a huge fan of the movie, but it's fun enough and the girls like it... So, there's a scene in the movie when Charlie gets to the "Hall of Judgment" and the girl dog that greets him says something like, "All dogs go to heaven because, unlike humans, dogs are loyal and never mean." (don't quote me, that was like seven hours ago or something...). That got me thinking about a quote I used in my sermon yesterday. Madeleine L'Engle said in a Cokesbury interview, "I think there are some people who are terribly afraid...afraid that they cannot control God, that God might love people they don't love, that God's love i...

I have too many projects going right now...that's my excuse for not blogging. I know that nobody DEPENDS on this blog to get them through the week or anything (man, how sad would that be?) but, still, I should be able to write SOMETHING once in a while... So I'll write about being busy...heh... This Lent has been so full of stuff. I got to preach at the senior center one afternoon and at another church one evening. My last two Sundays have been four services with three different sermons (8AM & 11AM use the same notes - different sermon for a local retirement home and then our Breakthrough service I use yet a different sermon...). I love worshipping, so this has been a great weak for that - I've had to scale back on the "extras" for worship, though. Video editing takes way too long, for example... This week is spiritual emphasis week for the high school kids at one of the local Christian schools (it's funny to me that there are three local Christian sch...

So, I'm listening to an oldies station (not a lot of variety up here in the woods if you don't like country) and invariably they'll say something like, "Coming up next, Paul Revere and the Raiders" and I'm thinking of, you know, "Louie, Louie" or "The Legend of Paul Revere" and this instrumental thing starts playing and I'm thinking that somehow a different station just trounced the signal from my oldies station. I wait for the thing to be over and the announcer says, "That was Paul Revere and the Raiders in that rare classic, 'Like Long Hair.' It's a little known fact that that cut was really a version of a Rachmaninoff Preleude. Coming up next, Tommy James and the Shondells with 'I Am a Tangerine.'" What? Now, I'm no huge oldies fan but why do we have to listen to all the obscure cuts from the albums? I guess if you're really into the music, that's what you want to hear... I don't kno...

Here are a couple of pieces I did for Ash Wednesday: First, a "children's message" (I'll try to post the picture here soon...) Today is ASH WEDNESDAY – what does that mean? Tonight those people who come back for our worship service will have a cross marked on their forehead with ashes and oil. That’s weird.... But – you know Easter is coming, right? it’s a little more than six weeks away. Tonight we start a special time in the church called LENT. The idea of LENT is to really think about how we live – how we treat other people – how we treat the world around us – and how we treat God. Has anybody in here done anything wrong in the past year? Boy, I have. You know, I don’t like to admit it, but I’ve done stuff that I shouldn’t have done TODAY. God says that’s sin, right? If you wanted to make a picture of sin, what would it look like? Here’s mine. It’s black and yukky and I don’t like to look at it... I wish there was some way I could get rid of it... And there is. I c...

For lack of a better place to put it, here's the manuscript that I preached from yesterday morning: February 18, 2007 Luke 9:28-45 “Seeing the Elephant With New Eyes” A few months ago Bill [Starr, our Senior Pastor] talked about the old story of the blind men and the elephant – how six men, blind from birth, are brought to experience and elephant and each touching one part of the elephant concludes that he knows all of what an elephant is by that one part – the one who touches the side decides that elephants are like walls, the ear, like a fan, the tusk, like a spear, the trunk, like a snake, the leg, like a tree and the one who grabs the tail concludes that an elephant is very much like a rope. John Godfrey Saxe wrote the most famous Western version of this story and ends his poem with these stanzas: And so these men of Indostan, disputed loud and long, each in his own opinion, exceeding stiff and strong, Though each was partly in the right, and all were in the wrong! So, oft i...

Okay - last Sunday the lectionary took us to Luke's "Sermon on the Plain" and Jesus said that the poor and the hungry and the weeping are blessed and then he said, and I'm quoting here: Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets. Okay - I get that there's a special blessing on us when people hate us and talk about us behind our backs and gossip about us and all that - because of our faith in Christ . And I understand why: the world hated (and hates) Jesus and the religious didn't (and don't) even understand Him... But... What about when people hate me, exclude me, revile me and defame me...just to be mean? I mean, what about the people who snipe behind my back and mock me...just because they're...um...jerks? I'm messy. People make fun...

Bill Starr and I were praying before worship this morning and while I was praying I had a realization about worship. And, as with my best realizations, it's connected with my relationship with my family. It seems like, no matter what happens, if I say "I love you" to my wife or either of my daughters, their immediate response is to say "I love you" back. Surprised? Okay, me either. But here's the thing. I was just going around the Sunday School classes and I stopped in on the singing time with the little ones (preschool and kindergarten). Both of my daughters were in there. Elie was misbehaving. She didn't see me come in so when I said (in Father voice, of course), "Eliana Renee stop that" well - I surprised her and scared her. She didn't expect me to be there and she certainly didn't expect me to see her misbehaving. She ran to her teacher, buried her head in her arms and began to cry... Not really what I was hoping for, of c...

I was just in Bible study - with a bunch of pastors - studying the book of Daniel. We read chapter 8 today. Another chapter with visions that nobody understands. We finished reading it (we go around the table, each reading a few verses...) and nobody said ANYTHING. It was so uncomfortable. You see, this is a group of people who are never at a loss for words - they can always pull something out of a passage that we've read (even if it isn't remotely related) and talk for...well, for a long time (occupational hazard, I realize). But not today... There was a ram, with two horns, and then this one horned goat comes charging up and smashes the ram and its horns fall off (the ram, that is) and then later the goat's horn falls off and four new ones grow. And Daniel is told what all this means - but by the end of the chapter he's exhausted and sick and so amazed by what he's seen (for the end times, the vision says) that he can't understand it. And neither could...

How long has it been since Mother Teresa died? Okay, I checked - a little over 8 years (September 5, 1997). It seems like she's popping up everywhere I look recently. Why? Dunno. Well, maybe I do know...but I don't like what I think I know... So...she's haunting me...or, rather, her work, her committment, her life is affecting me... And, truthfully, I don't like it one bit... A couple weeks ago I was getting ready for worship and I came across one of her most famous quotes, which I think is still one of the most profound statements to come out of the 20th century: We can do no great things, just small things with great love. Did you know, though, that that wasn't a sentence spoken in isolation? We so tend to reduce Christianity to bumper sticker slogans that we might be tempted to believe that she, indeed, just rattled off these great one liners (of course, we do the same to Jesus...so why am I surprised?) Here's the context, as best as I can assemble it...

I had a woman stop in my office recently. She stopped in front of my desk and said, "I just want you to know that it's official. Life really sucks." I was a little shocked (heh, not because I've never used/heard the word sucks before) but that she would say this. She's a woman of solid faith who, I believe, really does trust God in the good and hard times. But yesterday, for her, really sucked. A friend (and father of two little ones - 3 and 4 year olds) died tragically the night before. She just got word that her husband and sons might have a pretty serious genetic dificulty (that could, ultimately, be lethal). I think she's already cried her way though this - she didn't break down or anything here (though that day might come) - and she's trying to process it all. What could I do? I mean, really... I remember a story, though, and I've done my best to kind of live this. As quoted from somewhere else: Author and lecturer Leo Buscaglia once talked ab...

I'm really tired today - and trying very hard to avoid some things that I don't want to do. Which is a particular sin of mine...who knew that procrastination could be sin...sigh... But in my case, it is... I'm taking this weekend off - Lori and I are going to just "get away" for the weekend. We've never just gone away for a couple of days without having an agenda before. Not sure we can handle it :) I don't know what we're going to do about church this Sunday. I'd kind of like to go to Hot Metal Bridge - but I don't know if we'd fit in (heh - that's gotta be ironic - a church that is all about being there for people who don't fit into church and I don't know if I'll feel comfortable/welcome/whatever...). I still might go... Sometimes when we're gone on the weekends we don't go to church...and it feels weird. What is it about sitting with other believers on a Sunday morning (or Saturday evening or whatever) t...

I got one of those forwards today that, you know, you've gotten a million times but you read anyway... It was "what love is" according to little kids. Yeah, it's cute, it's funny, it's probably all fiction... One of them was: "When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different. You just know that your name is safe in their mouth." Billy - age 4 I don't care if Billy age 4 really said that or if sad, lonely Joe, age 41 wrote it in this email pseudopigraphically (heh) - I like what it says. "Your name is safe in their mouth." There are some people that I don't want to hear call my name. An IRS agent, for one. Right now, our Bishop (it's changing churches season again...). There are a few people who just outright hate me, too, so I can only imagine what my voice sounds like coming from them... And sometimes I don't like the tone of voice that the people I love use when they say my name... BUT - when even th...

I have some sort of weird infection or something on my finger. Every 6 or 8 weeks my skin just starts peeling off and then my finger cracks and bleeds and it's a horrible looking and feeling thing... My doctor thinks that I'm coming into contact with something on an irregular basis that maybe I'm alergic to or something - contact dermatitis or something like that - heh, med school, what does he know? I guess it's possible. It's just so weird that it's always this same finger, in the same place, and the same thing happens... The skin on my finger, after it grows back, is all leathery - it's been irritated so many times that I think it's beginning to alter its structure or something (maybe I'm evolving - yeah, leather finger man...or, um...whatever...) Oh well - it's just another annoyance in life. I don't really spend hours awake at night wondering what I've come into contact with that makes my finger wig out... But I can live with it...

The other day I was calculating a Bible reading plan and I realized that if I read 12 chapters a day I'd be through the whole Bible in about 3 months (okay here's the skinny - there are 1189 chapters in the Bible so at 12 a day it would take me just 99 days - if I'm willing to actually read 13 chapters on that last day - to read the whole Bible). So, ask me how my reading plan is going so far...sigh...

I was reading Haggai the other day. I love the "minor" prophets - they really have so much to say to us - but we rarely focus on them... Anyway, God told Haggai that he was pretty mad about the fact that the people had come back from exile and had rebuilt their houses and rebuilt their lives - but not the temple - and more importantly, not their worship life. In other words, they came back from a long time out of the promise and they went about their practical, daily lives without any consideration of their spiritual life. A whole generation had simply turned its back on God... Is there anyone who can remember this house—the Temple—as it was before? In comparison, how does it look to you now? It must seem like nothing at all! (Haggai 2:3) It got me thinking... I'm part of a generation (actually, two generations, really) that has done all it can to not think about God. Part of the generation that took prayer and Bible reading out of school, God out of public life, a gener...

I was at a "meeting of the minds" the other day as a few of us geared up for leading a three day youth retreat over New Years' weekend. We were talking about getting our workshops together and how we need to be focused in what we're doing and what we say. One of the guys said, "Sometimes I just talk until I have something to say." That's kind of profound, I think. Not deep like "Blessed are the meek" but, still, it's important. I think that it defines our culture. There's an awful lot of "talk" - TV, internet, blogs, YouTube, MySpace, movies, books, magazines, IM, cell phones - and all the hundreds of sub-genres in those spaces... And it's a lot of talk - but only occasionally is there anything to say... Lori and I like a few shows on TV now and several are dealing with faith issues. I like Battlestar Galactica - the humans talk a lot about "the gods" but the cylons (the bad machines) worship the "one...

“Daddy,” she said as she looked up at me, “I want to be just like you.” I smiled as I hugged her but I thought to myself, “No, I want you to be so much better.” You see, I know where I’ve failed, where I’m weak, the mistakes that I’ve made. I want so much more for my daughters. You see, they only see the good things (well, mostly the good things…) but I can see it all. That's how my article starts this month for the church newletter - and I go on to make some really deep, theological points...or, probably not... What prompted this opening paragraph was that my girls have both said to me, on very different occasions, that they want to be just like me. I can't imagine why - what do they see in me that I can't see? Where is the good in me? I mean, it must be there, but... Well, it prompted me to write a song about the whole thing. Here's a draft of the lyrics: Be Just Like You Daddy she said looking up at me, I wanna be just like you I want to do all the things you do, I w...

It's hell being a kid today. Okay, maybe it always has been, but... A couple months ago a woman beat her boyfriend up with her infant child, swinging the kid like a baseball bat. The kid survived, but with severe brain damage... The other day in Lousiana, parents slept on a mattress while a pit bull puppy chewed off four of their one month old daughter's toes... In Philadelphia a guy punched his 17-month old daughter in the face twice because she may have broken his video game...killling her... The woman whose boyfriend drowned her three kids because they were getting in the way of their relationship was convicted of child endangerment...talk about understatement... Maybe it's always been hell being a kid, but it seems like I'm hearing more and more about it now and it sickens me. I just want to yell at God on days like today. Where were you? What were you doing that morning when some too young to be a father but too stupid not to be kid punches out his daughter over a ...