In the Tension [UPDATED]

I have a confession make: I've struggled with homosexuality my whole life.

I don't mean I've struggled with same-sex attraction. I think we can all agree that Mark Wahlberg and Brad Pitt are fine specimens of the male gender, but for me, that appreciation turns quickly into envy; I wish I looked like them, though preferably without the effort it takes them.

It's a problem.

No, my struggle is more basic than that; I don't know what to make of homosexuality at all. I struggle to reconcile the people I know with the scriptures I believe, the friendships and relationships and emotions with the principles. When I read the scriptures, I see principles that teach us to love our God and our neighbors, to respect each other, and a way of life that is full of grace and mercy and justice. But I also see a lot of things that show us where the boundaries of sin are, and I find it hard to read scripture in a way that says acting on homosexual urges, regardless of their origin (the nature vs. nurture debate is still far from over), is inside that boundary.

What makes it harder are the names I can put to people I know and care for who have followed those urges. My emotions want me to simply accept their actions, since who am I (a sinner as well) to judge? They seem to love each other, and who am I to say they shouldn't be able to marry who they love? I did, why shouldn't they?

That would be fair.

And frankly, I don't want to lose the friendships and respect of those who so strongly support gay relationships; it seems that these days, if you were to speak out against, or you were to even DOUBT the “ok-ness” of homosexuality, you lose the right to speak at all, about anything.

Apparently, that’s called being "tolerant."

In fact, it’s the very reason I nearly didn’t post this about a thousand times, why I edited it a thousand times, rewrote whole chunks; if somebody misunderstands, misinterprets, or simply is offended, then I lose the right to speak to them.

But then I go back to scripture. Some things in scripture are contextual and others are cross-contextual. Women as leaders, for example, is a contextual issue. The ECC is unashamedly egalitarian because there are actual examples of female leaders in the scriptures, and the two passages we see speaking against this practice are both rooted in the context of their respective situations. However, homosexuality seems, to me, to be cross-contextual, since it's addresses in multiple contexts and multiple authors and multiple cultures, and every time they seem to say the same thing: acting on the impulse is a sin.

I see so many of my peers, particularly in my generation, advocating for homosexual egalitarianism within the church. And I respect their opinions, since they're very smart and well-read and travel to Bolivia to care for orphans. Their character in other areas is so much like Jesus. They make me think hard about the way I read the scriptures, the way I see my neighbors.

And what if they're right?

What if I’ve been reading the scriptures wrong? What if I misunderstood the context? What if this whole thing is wrong in MY head and it’s not actually my peers in the church-world that are crazy? On the other hand, what if they’re reading too much of a 21st-Century perspective on love into the scriptures in a way that was never intended? What if they’ve unintentionally compromised their beliefs in order to sound politically correct or to feel like they fit in or to give themselves a voice where they wouldn’t have one otherwise?

And the argument just goes back and forth,

back and forth,

back

and

forth

back and forth in my head, a pendulum whose near-perpetual motion is starting to make me a bit dizzy.

The fact is that "hate the sin, love the sinner" doesn't help me, since the people who usually say that to me don't seem - to me - to love others that are different from them very well. But I also don't want to compromise the truth contained in the scriptures by trying to make them say something they don't simply to resolve a cognitive dissonance between my culture and my religion.

What seems to keep coming back is the tension within love that you see in the scriptures. The kind of love God has is patient, kind, generous, and trusting. But it also speaks truth into the lives of others, honestly, openly, albeit carefully. Some things are not beneficial, the scriptures say, and you shouldn’t do them no matter how strong the urge, no matter how harmless it seems. And so when someone is wrong, love says so, because the relationship it is based on can handle that tension. Love looks out for others. Love doesn’t seem concerned that you always FEEL love in order TO love.

There's a difference between love and permissiveness. 

It seems to me that the "accept me for who I am" argument doesn't work for several reasons. First, I doubt anyone saying that to me would respond too kindly to being told the same in return; nobody accepts a racist "for who they are" anymore, and the same goes for anyone labeled a "homophobe." Even if we say otherwise, we all BEHAVE as if we believe that our actions - and even our beliefs themselves - are actually choices. We behave as though we are not genetically programmed, but that we can choose to do something, choose to believe something. Which means that we really do believe people can change their actions and beliefs, even if we only believe that only OTHERS should change.

I suppose it raises the question though, who ought to change? That could be the crux of the culture war.

Second, while God always accepts us as we are, for Him that is not an end, that is only a beginning. God is ever-challenging us to grow in faith and holiness, to become closer to His image and character, and that means leaving sin behind, a piece at a time. His love is big enough to be dissatisfied with where we started. God believes we can and should change.

It's part of love.

And so my struggle is, how do I imitate God here, in the tension?  How do I live authentically, true to both the scriptures and my friends, so they can see that God loves them fiercely, but that doesn't always mean He'll just sign off on everything we want or feel?  How do I come out the other side having represented God well to my neighbors? How do I best love God and people in a culture that believes love means encouraging you to do whatever you feel is ok, regardless of the consequences and regardless of how it affects others? In a culture that is passive-aggressive, how do I confront in a healthy way, a way they understand?

How do I live in the tension?

How do I love?

[UPDATE]

Bill Hybels, pastor of Willow Creek Community Church, responded SO well to the LGBTQ community at the Global Leadership Summit this month, and I thought I'd post the video here.

Inefficient

I think a lot of the objection to short-term missions that has been raised as of late has a lot to do with the American notion of efficiency. It seems a lot of arguments are built on the idea that “we could do MORE with that money if we’d stop spending it on plane tickets / fundraising items / souvenirs / tourism and just give it to the people, THEN they could rebuild their society.”

I disagree.

Short-term missions do have issues and need to be handled carefully, to be sure. The dangers of “poverty-tourism” where one weeps over the people for a month after returning home and then resuming the life one left are legitimate and fairly well-documented; one can return on an artificial high and feel one has done one’s “duty” for “those people over there” without ever truly grasping the truth that we are just as poor, we are just as broken as they. We create for ourselves a false dichotomy where we put ourselves above those in poverty and are the “benefactors” who go over there to impart on them our wisdom and our ways, to give our money away and feel good about having done something. We forget that to be a true partnership, to truly honor them as human beings created in the image of God, the interaction goes both ways; we need to be willing to learn from them, to recognize that they too have a great deal to contribute to the Kingdom of Heaven if only we were willing to accept their sacrifice and their talents and their experiences. Poverty tourism insults a local culture by making a hierarchy where none exists, putting the tourist as better than the local. And yes, this is a danger that needs to be avoided.

But it can be avoided. Short-term missions work best when they are partnered with long-term missions, with missionaries who have lived in the area a long time and have spent the time building relationships with the locals and can continue those relationships once the team has left. It takes training for the short-term teams to understand a bit of local culture before they arrive (let’s avoid those cultural taboos if we can; don’t bring beef to India!). It takes an attitude of humility on the part of the team to understand that they aren’t the bigger picture here, that God’s been at work a long time before they arrive and will continue to work a long time after they leave. It takes the posture of disciples who are willing to sit at the feet of the long-term missionaries and the locals and learn from them, even as they participate in the mission work they came to do.

And yet many lament the inefficiency of the short-term team. So much capital and time are invested in going over to another place to do this work, so many resources that could be used to build more wells, more community centers, feed more children, clothe more orphans, buy medicine for more wounded and elderly. It’s a touching thought, and while I applaud the sentiment, there are other things in this world than efficiency.

I heard a story once about a missionary in sub-Saharan Africa describing the way we do church here in the West to one of the locals. At some point, he mentioned a heated debate that had begun over the organ in one church, whether to replace/restore it with $100k or be efficient and buy the cheaper electronic version. The local - who himself lived in poverty - looked at the missionary and said something to the effect of “if it takes $100k for an organ so people can meet Jesus, then spend the money! You can’t put a price on meeting Jesus.”

Humbling, for sure.

But it makes an important point: money is just money. We can’t make more of it than it is, because if we do that, we turn it into an idol and give it false power. If we truly believe that God is Lord over all, if everything is His and He can do with it as He pleases, then it’s a false modesty that says we should give all the money spent in short-term missions to the locals because we think that means it’ll be better spent; it’s easy to say because it’s never going to happen, which makes the one saying it feel superior without having to really change anything. And that perpetuates the false dichotomy we mentioned earlier, it still puts us above them, only we leave smelling more righteous, even if it’s only self-righteous.

And that annoys me.

More to the point, however, arguments about efficiency completely ignore the other benefits to short-term missions: relationships and inspiration.

In Haiti a year ago, the locals we worked with were so happy to have us there. [Side note: That was one of my takeaways, how they could live with joy in the midst of such pain, and it has given me better perspective as I’ve moved jobs and gone through a lot of transition in the last year.] The purpose of our trip was to work with a team of Haitians to help them rebuild their church, which was to double as a community center. The relationships forged with Joselin and others there were valuable for us and for them; we learned about each others’ cultures, laughed together, prayed together, played together, and worshipped together. Before we left, the Haitians thanked us because they were so glad to know that the church beyond their borders cared for Haiti, and they wanted us to know that they too were praying for the church in America. That relationship, between Haitian and American churches, requires that investment of people, which requires money. It’s valuable! Think of how easy it is to quit when you feel that nobody supports your efforts, when you are simply ignored.

There is motivation in relationship; Joselin in particular wanted to rebuild his country and this time do it right (Haiti crumbled, in large part, because there is an existing culture of short-changing building materials), and he drew strength from the relationship, knowing that even if his local brothers and sisters wanted to take shortcuts, others like us supported his desire to rebuild properly and were willing to work side-by-side with him to get it finished. And we in return were inspired as a team, drawing strength from his strength. I’d return in a heartbeat, given the opportunity.

To (ironically) pull a page from economics, it always takes investment to generate return. If it takes $2500 a person to send a team to Haiti and help the Haitians know that the rest of the world still cares about them, then DO IT! We can send all the money in the world to somebody but that doesn’t necessarily show them that we love them; it takes the investment of time, the labor of sacrifice to show someone that you love them. If it’s a week building alongside Haitians, do it. If it’s four days in an orphanage in India, do it. If it’s a VBS in South Africa, do it. Be aware of the dangers, check your motivations, but don’t be afraid of inefficiency; it’s worth the sacrifice of efficiency to build the relationship.

Control

We Americans are obsessed with control. Some churches push the value of excellence; many want to plan ahead not becaue it is pleasing to God to do one's best, but because it gives them some assurance of their control over the outcome. A whole movement of church growth was built around this concept, called the "seeker-sensitive church." Other churches are petrified of change; for them, this means keeping everything the same, week to week, month to month, year after year. We can control what we know, and so we introduce no new ideas, no new music or art, and consequently no new congregants.

This is not to say that excellence is a bad value - God does ask for our everything, from hearts to minds to strengths (it actually does please God when we do our best) - but to say that it needs to balance with other values such as flexibility, compassion, and understanding. Nor is this to say we should change just for the sake of change - that would be a terrible use of resources and time, and would likely hurt many in its pursuit of novelty over tradition. It is a call to intentionality, for excellence with purpose and change with direction and design. Jesus called his disciples out of their cultures and comfort zones for a purpose, a mission, a grand design.

Subsequently - and I think, because of Jesus' example - Historic Christianity has challenged and continues to challenge every culture in some fashion. For the Greeks and Romans it challenged pantheism and emperor-worship; for the Jews it challenged notions of messiah and Torah; for the African it challenges notions of marriage and of the supernatural; for Polynesians it challenges notions of the "Big Man" and materialism; for Americans and most Westerners, it challenges notions of control, individualsm, and consumerism. No culture is left unchanged in the wake of true Christianity, a religion that confronts a culture's demons at their source. But so too is no culture left empty when confronted with Jesus, who makes the culture more whole, more complete, more alive than it had been. Jesus does not ask us to obliterate a culture, nor does he ask us to become one with it. Rather, we must always keep the two in tension with one another; we must not allow our own cultural prejudice and bias to contort the free expression of Jesus' spirit manifested in another culture. But this does not mean we have nothing to say to it; rather, the global, multiethnic, transnational church is to keep itself accountable, each culture challenging and subverting notions of superiority over others. Jesus liberates culture to be more full, more complete, more whole than it could have possibly been without Him. The Romans were freed to a life focused on the One True God, the Africans liberated to a life without fear of the darkness, and Americans emancipated to a life surrendered to the Will of God, serving others instead of themselves.

Cathedral

It's amazing how buildings can be symbols. In St. Gallen, Switzerland, there is a Catholic church building dating back somewhere between six and eight hundred years ago, and it stands as a symbol for Western Christianity today.

In its time, it was an awesome sight: painted ceilings soar above intricate baroque latticework in copper and bronze. It was meant to inspire awe, for the congregant to walk in and immediately fall to his knees in awe of God and of the Church, and in so doing, inspire the heathen to convert.

They didn't do "seeker-sensitive" back then.

The confessionals - of which there are many - each depict a different scene - Christ walking on water, the martyrdom of Stephen, and others. The altar stands separated from the congregation by several ornate wooden railings; a golden cross stands at the front, and above it, three symbols depicting the Trinity; in the back, a massive pipe organ. All is the finest that can be had, crafted by the best artisans and architects, spared no expense. It would have shone with unmatched brilliance when the light hit the windows, making the inside almost glow as a choir sang the Gloria or the Agnus Dei before the pious masses.

Today it's a tourist attraction.

It was restored a few years ago, but only to a point; what was once copper and bronze is now green and oxidized, the gold and the paintings faded, the pews worn and empty. Sometimes the acoustics are used for orchestral or choral concerts, at which point a few people show up to listen. The rest of the time, tourists come in groups and admire the fine artistry, gawk at the organ, sit in the wooden pews, take pictures, make light conversation about the paintings, and take pictures of the altar. And then they leave, unchanged, uninspired, untouched.

It speaks so well to where we find ourselves. An empty building, forgotten except by a few tourists and its own meager congregation, an icon of glory days passed, of lost power and of waning influence. Europeans look elsewhere for their spirituality now, to science and Buddhism and New Age and - for a growing number - to Islam.

It's because of Church buildings like this that such a change began. The altar, for example, is separate from the congregation, peasants, who were deemed unclean and ineligible for communion. The masses were expected to come to church because - so far as they knew - their only option for a life better than their own was in the hands of those in power, and those in power took their money and their goods to pour into large buildings and to make themselves comfortable.

It is at this point that I run into conflicted feelings. There were obviously many who abused their power, but there were a few - some of the artisans, a few priests and bishops, many monks, and perhaps even a pope or two who were not in it for themselves, who genuinely believed they were living as Christ commanded. They poured their time into their congregations and into creating the artistic masterpieces that now sit in our cities, victims of entropy. They did what they could in a corrupt system (though most didn't challenge that system). But eventually, the people had enough and stopped going when other voices gave them a better option.

What do we do with this picture of a building, a masterpiece of art that is at once a historic marvel and contains many tragic stories? Do we chalk it up to the heathens, to those who chose to leave because they stopped believing (did they ever start), and call upon them to repent and return to the cathedral? Do we call it a failed experiment and abandon it to history and to the concerts and the tourists? How do we learn from this? How do we at once celebrate those that were truly faithful (if somewhat misguided by their culture) and avoid the pitfalls of a bureaucratized institution that would take the resources of the poor (and the rich, yes) to build a mere building when many were without food? Can art be created without exploiting others? Do we really need the building? If not in this massive all-but-abandoned structure,

where

is

the

Church

now?

Family of Four

Caedmon Jace Logan, born 1-29-10 at 4:09am, weighed in at 8 lbs 9 oz. He's got his daddy's height and his momma's pouty lip; the girls are and forever will be going wild because of that. Liz is doing really well after being induced and having a subsequent 25 hours of labor. She's gotten sleep, I have not (but am looking forward to bedtime). Thanks to everyone who was praying for us, God listened; when it seemed that we'd be inducing for two more full days, she suddenly went into active labor and dialated 7cm in the span of an hour. Caedmon was born not too long after, just a few hours - 45 minutes of pushing (very short).

His name is Gaelic; "Caedmon", the warrior, and "Jace", derivative of "Jason", healer. Warrior-healer. Liz calls him CJ. We pray he lives up to his name.

Pictures via Flickr

Music and Mission, part II: Incarnation

I was perusing my files today to filter out the old stuff and noticed an incomplete post for a series I started a while back. If you're interested in the topic, here are links to the first few posts from the series:

Introduction
Part 1a
Part 1b

And now, we continue the story. Thanks for reading ...

Once I started thinking like this, it occurred to me that perhaps I'd been thinking in all the wrong ways about worship arts. Maybe instead of treating worship as another duty on Sunday, I could use that service as a means to teach the congregation about being missionaries. Maybe, as Neil Cole writes, it was about lowering the bar on church and raising the bar on discipleship. The more I studied, the less I saw wrong with having paid worship staff, so long as they used their positions as pastoral positions. If a church's worship service was less about trying to convince people who are not there why they should be Christians and more about sending the Christians who ARE there to the people who don't want to be, maybe, just maybe, there could be hope for the world yet. To say it another way, I started to take issue with what some called the "attractional" model of church.

God didn't just do the same thing He'd been doing - pillars of fire, large clouds, plagues, prophets who parted the sea - he didn't stay apart from His people, but instead came down to live among them. And not just as a fully-grown adult either, God came down as the Son and spent time growing and living with the first-century Jews. Sometimes, I think, we want our missions and evangelism to look different, to be easier than that - we want to just go in assuming everybody already knows where we stand and call them to repent. That's the story we often tell with our actions, right? We sign big declarations about what we think are important issues, preach sermons about repenting, and have long conversations with each other about "the way of the world," and all the while the people who need to meet Jesus aren't involved in the conversation because it never even occurred to them that the Church might have answers to their questions. I think if we ignored three of the four gospels, we could continue to think like that, but since we don't just have Mark, but also Matthew, Luke, and John's accounts, we can't ignore this idea of incarnation because it affects SO much of church life. We can't just isolate or even insulate ourselves from the world and then expect it to change; like Jesus, we have to invest ourselves in it, even preparing to pay a heavy price to see change - good change, positive change, godly change - happen.

Israel did this time and time again; they'd isolate themselves from the world around them or they'd use military means to make change happen, and over and over again things didn't seem to work out for them. Worse, they couldn't seem to stick to their own rules! Time and time again, God sent prophets to inform Israel of her misdeeds, of her affront to the poor, the broken, and the downtrodden. God asked Israel to be a light to the world in the midst of darkness, to show the world the way in which they could live well, the way in which they could know God. But instead, Israel continued to forsake that charge. And thus Jesus came.

If our lives are to be imitaitons of Jesus, and if our collective body of churches are the body of Christ, then it stands to reason that our worship services can fit into this story. Churches ought to begin by learning the culture around us, applying it to the way we design services, and using those services to make better disciples of the Christians and non-Christians alike who come.

(to be continued ...)

Equilibrium

When I was a kid, my parents had this habit of taking me and my sister to a dentist every six months or so. I always wondered if he intentionally tried to fit most of his little tools into my mouth at the time just to see if he could, but by the end of the appointment he’d be satisfied that my teeth were in satisfactory health and give me a new toothbrush and a stern warning to floss better. And if it had been a really good appointment, I’d be told to walk out the door into the lobby and press a doorbell button that lit up a big sign that said “hey hey hey, no decay.” This was a really big deal to the dentists and hygienists that I would be able to press this button.

Why?

I mean, nobody expected me to get more teeth, only to keep them healthy. Our basic assumptions tend to be limited to maintenance, not expansion; we don’t expect growth, we expect things to stay just the way they are now. Obviously our experience tells us that a single person can’t actually have more teeth, but aside from that, we think it’s a silly question because we don’t like decay. We don’t like teeth that can rot and cause pain and make us eat only yogurt and applesauce. We don’t like that things break down, that they wear out, that it takes energy and effort to maintain them at their present state. In the science of thermodynamics we call this “dynamic equilibrium,” the way that it takes energy and effort and work to just keep things the way that they are instead of decaying – we call it “entropy.”

It takes an extraordinary amount of effort to keep things at dynamic equilibrium. Your body’s mitochondria, the little powerhouses of your cells, are feverishly working day and night to produce chemical energy, something called ATP, from your food. Furthermore, maintenance requires more than just energy, it also requires your cells to die on a regular basis as they wear out, and are replaced by new versions with new mitochondria and take up the call to keep being a body. When a person’s body decides to stop fighting the entropy, something called static equilibrium begins to take hold. Without all that effort, the body re-equilibrates with the environment around it and the elements begin doing their own thing. Another word for static equilibrium is “death.” When your body stops fighting the decay, it dies.

All this effort to keep one thing going.

But let’s say that my assumptions were different, that I still wanted the world to have more teeth. What would it take? Despite the limitations of my own mouth, there is a way – I could always get together with a girl (she’d have to be a cute girl if I wanted good teeth) and then make a few tiny people that could then grow their own teeth. Speaking from experience – I’ve done it twice now – I can say that it works. There are now more teeth in the world than before.

You can sleep easier tonight.

In order for growth to happen, it requires one to transcend dynamic equilibrium. Massive changes have to take effect in order to reproduce; new hormones are created, entirely new structures are built to house this new creature until it can sustain itself, great amounts of energy are spent in the making. And when at long last the day comes, there is pain and discomfort and separation. We literally cut the two apart sometimes when the growth hasn’t gone exactly according to plan. But in the end, there’s this beautiful new infant, fragile and vulnerable. And the process is still not finished; more energy is poured in, more effort is made to make muscles and bones and organs bigger, brain cells grow and fit into new patterns, and eventually, there is no longer an infant, but a fully capable, mobile adult that can make decisions, laugh, cry, and eat sushi.

God asks us to grow.

See, growth doesn’t happen when we simply try to maintain what we have. Sure, it takes a measured amount of energy to fight decay. But in reality, the amount of energy it takes to fight against decay is best spent growing bigger, in reproducing. In the end, it is in reproducing that we are able to live as a species. But when we reproduce, we cannot make the other into clones of ourselves, we must allow them to be unique, capable on their own, with their own set of gifts and talents. We don’t dictate who they are, God works with them so they can be the best they can be.

If nature is any sort of reflection of God’s intentions – and the scriptures and our tradition resonate that it is – then we are to move beyond simply maintaining ourselves. Life is not, in the end, about us, but about something bigger, more than ourselves. God’s assumptions are not our assumptions. And so our church programs have to give up on being static, because if we try to maintain them just-so in a changing world, we’re simply prolonging the inevitable move to equilibrium. When it’s about keeping it just like it always was, we’re really saying it’s all about us. But if we grow, if we reproduce and allow the children to grow up and think for themselves, we’ve begun to act out something bigger, something grander. We act in the very character of God.

A Few Over-generalizations

Some of you may remember that I’d basically given up on the whole evolution “debate” out of what amounts to sheer exasperation with pretty much every side involved. Recently, however, I seem to have been drawn in again, mostly through discussions with several youth members at church. It has led me to do some more reading in the area, on two sides (of many) in particular, and yet I still find myself at a place of …

… “So?”

The issue that keeps coming back for me is this: how is it that the two sides in question seem so full of paradoxes, and how then can we then make these central debates to any sort of worldview?

For example, young-earth creationists claim that the universe was created in six, 24-hour days (because time was measured that way already) by a benevolent God who told them to be fruitful and multiply and to take care of their garden and the people of the earth He loves so much. I get the opposition to abortion, it seems to fit pretty well with “God loves all creatures”. However, they then oppose social health care, as if it would be such a terrible thing for everyone to be healthier, for more people to live, and for more people to live well. Now, I know there are issues with health care reform and socialized health care from an economic perspective (i.e. we can’t really afford it), but how on earth can you claim that these are issues that scripture can oppose? Sure, they’re not particularly consistent with traditional American values, but scripture isn’t particularly for or against America. I’ve yet to hear from any of the conservatives/fundamentalists how the two go hand-in-hand. Now they may, there’s the possibility since everything is really a religious issue, but I’ve yet to hear their justification for it. What the world does is only my concern inasmuch as I need to understand it to then show them the love of Christ in a way they can understand.

My beef with the other side is that they’re just as paradoxical. Most naturalistic evolutionists would say that there was no particular cause for everything, just random chance (if we can label it that). They also would tend to say, by definition, that everything arose through natural selection of genetic variation, the fittest genes survive, the most cunning are able to pass on their genetic material for a new generation. However, what I don’t understand is that the same group of people – to over-generalize – also seem to be most often in favor of universal health care, socialism, etc. This isn’t to knock those ideas one way or the other, but to notice an inconsistency: if you’re so in favor of naturally selected survival, then why on earth would you try to guarantee everyone surviving? And THEN you say that it’s our freedom of choice that we should make abortion legal. It seems a contradiction and a paradox to me as to how these can all coincide in the same worldview.

Just some thoughts, hoping that maybe it’ll get my writing juices flowing again. I’ve been away from this for far too long and I miss it. And yet I also seem to have very little time for it. Ah well.

Cheers.

Words From the Dark

To all those who still check this blog, thank you. It's been a rough few weeks for me, mostly because of the amount of work I've been doing for various churches and applications. But also because, last week, my HP Tablet Laptop died on me, in a manner of speaking. I say it that way because, technically, it still works, but barely. I couldn't turn it on for hours every morning, and by the time it worked, it worked so slowly that it made getting anything done very worrisome - I never knew if it would shut off on me and lose my data.

So after much thought and research, I decided that it was time for a change. I went up to the apple store and did not buy anything - they were out of the laptop I wanted. So instead I ordered it through the website: my new 13" macbook pro.

Relax.

I know I've never been much of an advocate for Apple products, but they've grown on me as they've added to the features and their quality has become better and better. For instance, my new laptop has a keyboard that lights up when a little sensor tells it that the room is too dark. I can now see my keyboard when I'm anywhere, anytime, and that makes me very happy. It also has a possible 7-hour battery life, assuming that I've got the LED-backlit screen as low as it'll go. But even if it's about half-way between low and high, it lasts around 5-ish hours if I'm careful, and this also makes me happy. With the 2.53 ghz dual-core processor and 4gb ram, it's very fast for the 4.5 lbs it weighs.

It also runs Windows, which means I didn't lose any of my programs. It seems to run windows faster than my previous laptop, which was a bit of a surprise, but not bad. So I've been using Vista Ultimate, trying to adjust myself to the multi-touch trackpad with no buttons, and generally getting a lot more done than I did before. I'll also be dabbling with Garage Band and Keynote at some point in the future when I'm able to get the DVD for iWork out from our storage area.

All in all, it's been a weird change, but a really good one. I still like Dell, but sadly the laptops I looked at there didn't quite compare with their options. Those that had lit-keyboards and the power-saving LED screens were also the same ones that had reviews worrying about how hot they run - the same issue I had with my HP. While the apple was a bit expensive, I'm hoping it'll last longer than the 3-year warranty that it came with.

Odds are good, I'm told.

The Parable of the Soils

A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.

So as you all know, I've not been at a steady job of late because, well, I can't seem to find one. I'm sure that some of the blame goes to the economy for the lack of new jobs, but I'm starting to wonder if in our season of need, God's been closing doors for a reason. But God is good, and He takes care fo us even when we can't; we've got a wonderful family, and to that end, my grandparents have "hired" us to garden for them. As they've gotten older, they've had a harder time taking care of my Grossmami's addiction to all things green and flowering - she's literally surrounded the house with one big garden, which, over time, has become somewhat an extension of the yard. So our job has been to turn it back into a viable garden again. And wouldn't you know it, as we've had time to talk, I've been learning a lot, things my seminary career never taught me. As Morgan Freeman says in Bruce Almighty, "people underestimate the value of manual labor." I am no exception.

What came to mind has been this parable in Matthew 13, where Jesus describes a gardener (ok, farmer) that goes out to plant his crops and what happens in the garden after the farmer walks away. And let me tell you, when my grandparents walked away (so to speak), their garden started to look an awful lot like three of the four types of soil in this parable.

The garden is so wide that in one area, my grandparents had to put down a small path to get to their tomato plants and currant bushes. The path is made of several stone pads and some packed dirt. Wouldn't you know it though, nothing grew there, even in the packed dirt which, when we tilled it, was otherwise healthy and fertile. The idea of a "hardened heart" makes a bit more sense to me now. As the metaphor goes, the person's attitudes (their "heart") become very monotone, very set; you can't convince them of anything new! God can't plant the seeds of wisdom or knowledge or anything in a hardened heart ... but give it a good till (assuming it's not hard as stone) and suddenly all sorts of things can grow. Also, you now have to weed carefully.

I can't say that we've encountered any thorny soil yet (it is, after all, a garden), but the whole of the place might be a good example of why weeding the thorns out is a good idea to do sooner rather than later. The more weeds that grew in the garden, the more obvious it was that there was competition for nutrients; the garden plants weren't producing as many flowers or as many new bulbs as when they had freedom to expand. Lots of the newer seedlings of the garden plants were weak, small, and flimsy; they were easy to take out, but I hope they'll grow strong now that they have room to expand. The longer you go, the bigger and deeper the thorny plants get, and eventually take over completely. Ironically, all it takes is some weed killer to take them out, but the weed killer takes out both the weeds and the few good plants that are left. But still, we have to remember that good soil is REQUIRED for the thorny soil; remove the thorns (whose roots often go deep), give it some time, and the soil will be ready to plant good seed. Think of those people who have begun to recover from addictions; often, their lives are somewhat empty for a while as they remove the thorns and struggle not to let new thorns take over. But they are often the most fertile soil of all, and once the thorns are removed and the good seeds planted, they become extremely fruitful fields.

Today we spent two and a half hours weeding a small patch of ground. In the center was a large bush full of flowers, but around it, very rocky soil. The parable mentions rocky ground being a place where weeds spring up and then wither and die because their roots never get very deep. This is true - we discovered that the weeds came up really easily, but the shrub we couldn't budge (good thing) because its roots were very deep and very wide. The rocky soil is a problem, not only because seeds grow without depth and die, but because turning it into good soil is nearly impossible. As I said, two and a half hours spent on maybe three square feet of ground, and we barely made a dent in the number of pebbles mixed in the surface dirt. In order for this patch to become good soil for healthy, useful crops, it would require literally pulling away everything on the surface, a total transplant of the upper layers. I've heard of this happening before - remember Paul? But it's not an easy thing, nor is it terribly economical (God had to blind Paul in order to 'exchange the soil,' so to speak), but it IS possible, and often it can be worth it.

It's a parable about discipleship, and I understand why it was that Jesus cautions his audience about what they're up against. Matthew, for one, loved to tell the parables of Jesus that had missionary implications; a person could spend a LOT of time tilling ground and weeding and removing rocks or thorns before good soil might bear crops with fruit. Sometimes I worry that we use the parable as an excuse to just avoid those people who don't look like "fertile" fields to us. Something that Jesus never quite mentions in the parable is that any field ALWAYS starts out like one of those three soils; there's no such thing as a perfect field that's born ready for planting. It starts out with weeds and rocks and sometimes stone paths; it takes work and dedication and love to produce a fertile field on which to sow the good seed.

The question is, do we give everyone that chance?

The Day That True Love Died

Jon did this piece at Crosswinds this past weekend, and I'd never heard it before. But it hit me hard, and I went home and bought it off of iTunes. I highly recommend you have a listen, it's quite a good piece. Lyrics are below.

Come close listen to the story
About a love more faithful than the morning
The Father gave His only Son just to save us

The earth was shaking in the dark
All creation felt the Fathers Broken Heart
Tears were filling Heaven's Eyes
The day that True Love died, the day that True Love died
When blood and water hit the ground
Walls we couldn't move came crashing down
We were free and made alive
The day that True Love died, The day that True Love died

Search your heart you know you can't deny it
Come on, lose your life just so you can find it
The Father gave His only Son just to save us

The Earth was shaking in the dark
All creation felt The Fathers broken heart
Tears were filling Heaven's Eyes
The day that True Love died, the day that True Love died
Find More lyrics at www.sweetslyrics.com
When blood and water hit the ground
Walls we couldn't move came crashing down
We were free and made alive
The day that True Love died, The day that True Love died

Now, Jesus is alive

Jesus is alive
Jesus is alive
Jesus is alive
Jesus is alive
Oh, He is alive
He rose again

When blood and water hit the ground
Walls we couldn't move came crashing down
We were free and made alive
The day that True Love died, The day that True Love died

Come close listen to the story

Music and Mission, part I: Terra Nova, part 2

It was through the course of our fundraising that I started to wonder if I really wanted to be a pastor; after all, the church wasn't exactly on top of things when it came to postmodernism, and besides, I was starting to wonder how much Christians in general actually cared about Jesus or what He had to say. Church started feeling a bit bitter to me, with every disappointment another confirmation that I might be barking up the wrong tree. But Ruth had the same discontent, and our church plant was the chance to do something about it.

So off we went. I had delusions of grandeur in my head, about how all my theories of postmodernism were going to come in handy, how I was the expert, yadda yadda yadda. Naturally, this was all obliterated in the first month when I realized that I had no clue what I was talking about. Theory is, after all, nice and tidy only until it's actually put into practice. So since I had the chance (how many times was I going to get to live in Australia?), I enrolled in the FORGE missional training program to get some perspective on Australian culture and maybe learn a few things about being a missionary at the same time.

It turned out to be a life-altering decision.

If you've never heard of FORGE, I'm not surprised - most Americans haven't. However, some of you may have read The Shaping of Things to Come, by Alan Hirsch and Michael Frost, both of whom happen to be the co-founders of the FORGE program (the book was actually written as a textbook for FORGE). In any case, FORGE is based on the principles of "action-reflection" learning, the opposite of most seminary educations. The idea is that one must participate in an internship as the cornerstone of the program and thus praxis, action, and activity are the basis for learning; one then reflects on the actions to garner the theory, which is then put into papers and then reapplied back into the internship. It is supposed to be a holistic model of education, and it seems to fare rather well.

I was placed in a social-poverty agency in the inner city called Urban Seed for my internship, which changed my perspective on a lot. In fact, what I hadn't expected was that the whole cross-cultural experience in the inner-city showed me more about being an American - and an American Christian in particular - than I learned about Australian culture. Take consumerism for example: we in the west, and especially in America, are prone to it because our culture is founded on acquisition. I was once asked if "Desperate Housewives" is what suburban life is like. I laughed it off as ridiculous and said no, but started to wonder how much of a charicature it really is. I wondered if our worship services hadn't become much the same, weekly (or more often, several times a week) performances to be consumed, dramatizing an otherwise mundane and selfish culture. In the first six months, this persuaded me that my dreams of being a worship pastor may have been misplaced, that maybe what American churches needed were not more worship pastors, but more people who were missionaries in their own culture, people who were more concerned with being a positive influence in their local communities in the name of Christ than with tauting the party line or overworking themselves to maintain their steady salary. Worship without relationship is meaningless.

The Gathering during lunch at Credo Cafe (part of Urban Seed) messed with me a lot. The lunch is a time for people of any stripe - housewives, prostitutes, lawyers, heroin addicts, and anyone in between - to gather together as one community for a meal and fellowship. Everyone learns an awful lot from each other, the ultimate liminal experience (as the sociologist says), and, for the most part, is better for it. But the Gathering is their once-a-week worship gig just before lunch, and everyone is invited to come. But let's face it, the group, while mostly artists, is not full of professional musicians. They take whoever they can get to lead singing, and to someone like me who had been usd to much more professional sounding music, it was ... harsh to the ears.

But it was also passionate in a way I'd never expected.

By the time we came home, I had no idea what to do with my life, once again. The Gathering made me wonder how necessary worship arts staff are in a church; if they could worship without the "show" part of it, maybe it wasn't something in which I should invest my time. The time at mimos, too, was a time of less-professional worship, a smaller community gathering in the back room of a pub and playing quiet, reflective music for singing, but also providing times of reflection over scripture and candlelight and holding communion as a meal bought from the pub. Let me tell you, they had wonderful french fries and a fantastic Kangaroo dish that melted in my mouth. I've missed it since I've been home. The community was genuine - everyone wanted to be there and felt no obligation to it; people even volunteered to pray on a regular basis, negotiating with others for the chance. With a church like that, who needed all those paid positions? Worship was as much participation as it was singing, and the dawning realization made me frustrated with my chosen career path.

But seminary still seemed important for some reason, if only because I had no clue what to do next. If anything, at the very least it meant I'd be able to influence people in the church because I had "MDiv" on my resume, and, after all, people listen to other people who have that sort of thing. Naive, I know, but it was my first ESJ class that began to get me thinking again. On a whim, I took a class called "The Change Agent in Missions" with a professor named Mike. Mike is an anthropologist, a student of humanity through the ages, but more importantly, he's also a missionary. Mike talked a lot about culture, about how we view culture, how we participate in culture, and finally, how we change culture. But his views on this were once again participatory - we are to change culture from within, as "change agents", rather than as outside directors. We are to be with the people, living as they live, eating as they eat, but using our growing understanding to show them in terms they understand how their decisions could be better. His rationale? Jesus was like that.

What if worship was like that?

(to be continued ...)

Twitteriffic

I'd say this is about the way I feel about it. Thanks for the head's up, Greg.

Music and Mission, part I: Terra Nova I

This is a story of discontents, of how one discontent after another led me to where I am now. I know it's a long story, but if I'm going to get to the bigger picture, this is necessary material. I hope it's not TOO boring, but bear with me.

I suppose I should start by saying that this is not exactly the path I had planned. I know that everybody says that, but in my case, it's pretty easy to tell. See, when I was a kid, everybody knew I was going into science. I excelled in all of my science courses, pursued science on the side, ate, slept, and breathed science. Biology, in particular, became my biggest obsession; living systems fascinate me. I couldn't decide between biochemistry, evolutionary biology, and neurobiology - they were all fascinating. Eventually, however, neuroscience won out, and I enrolled at the University of Rochester, one of few universities in the US with an undergrad neuro program. Everyone expected great things.

Somewhere in the midst of my freshman year, though, I started to have doubts. I know everybody does, but these were on a more fundamental level. I was doing pretty well in my classes until my advisor, a geologist (who knew nothing about neuroscience) advised me to enroll in an advanced biochemistry course in my second semester of college, a course that required organic chemistry, which I had not yet taken. Needless to say, I tanked it with a D, something I'd never done before. It threw me for a loop, but it was the wakeup call I needed. I had always enjoyed working labs for science, but they were controlled labs with predictable results; I started wondering if I really wanted to do true research, the kind where I had to invent the experiments myself, the kind where I had to spend my every waking moment in a white polished room in a jacket with goggles on.

I hated the goggles.

By my sophomore year, when I realized how terrible I was at memorizing chemical formulas in organic chemistry (using them was easy, but remembering what they were to use them was another matter), I realized that R&D wasn't my thing. I briefly toyed with the idea of changing to Evolutionary Biology, but my parents convinced me I shouldn't do that (although I still don't know why it was such a big deal to them). My music minor suddenly started looking more and more promising; I've always been a musician, but never had it pegged as a career simply because everyone told me it wouldn't help me earn a living.

Apparently, artists only get paid, like, a dollar or something.

Still, the idea of excelling in something that might not earn as much money beat trying to be mediocre in something that might pay more. I changed my major a week later. But something was still missing. It was when I realized that I play too many instruments that I couldn't focus exclusively on music; I'm sort of a "jack of all trades, master of none" sort of guy; I'll play what I play decently well, but I'm not exactly Dave Matthews on my guitar, Kenny G on my saxophone, etc. I can't even name a famous horn player, but I wouldn't be him either.

But I really, really liked leading worship. I had started a worship team for Campus Crusade in my sophomore year at the urging of my friend Rob. I'd never realized how much I liked it, how much the glove fit, as it were. I signed up for an internship that summer at a local church, and after that summer, I was hooked.

Sort of.

So I'm wishy-washy. Fine, I'll admit to being occasionally dissatisfied with the status quo, but it's worked in my favor so far. I wouldn't be where I am without what I hope is a healthy discontent with mediocrity.

I loved my music theory classes, but the history courses were tailored for music education majors; I wasn't one. I finished two of them before I couldn't take it anymore - and not for want of a good professor either, Dr. Meconi was a wonderful storyteller and very encouraging of my interests. Still, something just didn't sit right, and it was then that I "happened" upon a unique program at the University of Rochester: the Department of Interdepartmental Studies.

That's right, it gets a whole department.

Basically, it's a cross-disciplinary program that allows students to build their own majors. The idea is that since the world is becoming increasingly specialized, the students shouuld be allowed to pursue specialized interests from the start and not "waste" time on parts of majors they don't need. For example, if one wanted to major in music recording, one need not waste time with a lot of music history, and can instead take extra courses in recording; my friend Steph did that.

In my case, I decided to build my own worship arts program at a secular university. I called it "Music in Christianity" and it combined courses in Christian history with music theory, and tied it all together with an eight-credit thesis project. In the course of my study I'd come across a word that I couldn't shake from my mind: postmodernism. It kept cropping up everywhere, but nobody seemed to know what to do with it, especially my Christian friends. So I decided to do my research thesis on this "postmodernism" idea, and since I had to talk about music too, I decided it was the perfect chance to talk postmodern music in the Christian sphere - where did postmodernity come from, and how has it influenced Christian music.

I graduated with a 95 page paper in one hand and an honors diploma in another. I had every intention of going to grad school somewhere with a worship arts program, when God once again stuck his nose in the mix. This time, it came in the form of an invitation from a friend of my wife. Ruth wanted to know if Liz and I wanted to take a year and help them plant a church in Melbourne, Australia.

And how do you say no to something like that?

(to be continued)

Milestone

I just happened to notice that my blog had 499 posts ... before this one. It's been five years of randomness, and this is post number 500! Not only that, but my little tracker-gizmo says I've had over 20,000 hits to the site since year number two (when I discovered the tracker-gizmo). That is a lot of people with very little time on their hands, but thank you to each of you for taking the time to read at least a little of my rambling.

So where do I find myself? Still job-hunting, of course, but feeling like an end may be in sight. I don't know what that end might look like, though.

I gave up, temporarily, the recording I was working on for "Prophesy" to try working on something a bit easier for my first time; it turns out that recording vocals is extremely difficult, and I picked the hardest song I'd written to try first. Figures, right? So I started a few "test-projects" to experiment, giving the vocals to a more ... experienced singer (my wife) so I can focus on the intricacies of recording without wondering why I sound like ... that.

Anyway, thank you to all of you who've read this long; I promise, I'm trying to think of some new topics to write on. Perhaps suggestions are in order from you, the readers? Just leave them in the comments section.

[The Management]

Poverty and Spiritual Gifts

I tend to reminisce on the sermon from Sunday during my shower on monday morning; scrubbing myself just doesn't seem to occupy my mind enough, it seems. Anyway, yesterday's sermon was well-written, articulate, and on the whole, interesting. Bill presented the analogy of a toolbox and the building of a deck to the Church and its use of spiritual gifts for a purpose. But as I lathered, rinsed, and repeated, it occurred to me that what you hardly ever hear in the same breath are ideas on spiritual gifts and those in poverty. He presented the idea - correct, I think - that our spiritual gifts, when best used, compliment and reinforce each other to produce the best results; you can't build a deck without a screwdriver. Without the right tools, the deck just doesn't get built. It's a community project - spiritual gifts are for the building of the Church (metaphorically speaking, not like an actual building), as a group; they are not for the appeasement of the individual.

But I started thinking, what about those in poverty? Are they "spiritual-gift"-less? If not, why aren't their spiritual gifts being used, and whose fault is it? Is it something that can be fixed? How would we do that?

Your thoughts?

Have Purgatory, Will Travel

Just thought I'd post a quick update about what's going on for us right now., for those interested in such things It's, sadly, a very quick update because in spite of the time available to me to write about what we've been doing, there's very little of substance on which to report.

My life, of late, has revolved around several things, first and foremost of which is applying for jobs. No, I do not have one yet, despite my best efforts. I've applied locally for anything I could think of, and nationally for worship pastor, young-adult pastor, and missions pastor positions at churches (my training qualifies me for all three). Nothing yet, though one or two prospects on the horizon.

This has left me with more time on my hands than I had anticipated, but for some reason, writing has taken a back-seat. I don't know if it's just worrying about my financial and professional futures that has wounded my passion for writing, but I'm thinking that if it plays a part, it's only a part. The other big part of my time lately has been recording, which has likely sapped my writing creativity for its own purposes. My grandparents gave me a cool little gizmo for Christmas that allows me to plug any instrument into my computer via a nifty silver box with dials on it. The other grandparents gave me a microphone and stand, so the possibilities are limited only to what I can play. But then, my wife suggested that I upgrade my Finale notation software so that I can use their sampling technology to write and record music without knowing how to play the instruments (case in point, drums and oboe; I can't play those, but Finale can if I write a part for them).

Together, the three give me pretty much an unlimited vocabulary of recording possibilities, which is pretty cool, since I've only ever recorded one song and that was before my wedding five years ago. For my first project, I decided that I should record a piece I wrote in college that tells the story of John the Baptist. I'm not sure why I wrote the piece in the first place, but suffice it to say, it's probably my best in terms of poetry and interesting sounds. And then my roommate Mike helped write a cool guitar part.

So I've been playing the same song now for two weeks, and it's slowly coming together. I think I'm nearly done with the guitar parts, and the drumset part sounds decent. Now I'm working on an oboe part for it in Finale and maybe some strings. And then vocals. I've never done this before, so it's sort of an exercise in trial-and-error, and lots of frustration with "but why did it do that?!" But it's starting to sound better. Actually, it's pretty sweet, if I say so myself.

But it hasn't kept my mind off of our situation. If you're the praying sort, I'd love it if you'd mention us to God at some point soon. He's been good to us, and hasn't let us down yet, and I keep reminding myself of this, but I'm not going to lie, it's hard. Thanks to those of you that have been praying for us.

And now, the lyrics. Enjoy.

There's a voice in the desert calling out to the wind
Dressed in robes of burlap, telling of the end
of the sin of man in the Father's eyes
He who has ears to hear, then let him hear
Prophesy ...

Water from the Jordan into fire from the Lord
Saved by the mercy of the One who is to come
For the least of the Kingdom is even greater than He
For a dove will be a sign, make straight the way
Prophesy ...

Prepare ye the way, prepare ye the way

Cast aside to prison in a foreign land
Sent to live and die for the Son of Man
Blessed is the one who doesn't fall away
on account of the Son, who is the Lamb
Prophesy ...

Economics, Part VIII: Freedom

Neo: The Architect told me that if I didn't return to the Source, Zion would be destroyed by midnight tonight.
Oracle: Please ... You and I may not be able to see beyond our own choices, but that man can't see past any choices.
Neo: Why not?
Oracle: He doesn't understand them - he can't. To him they are variables in an equation. One at a time each variable must be solved and countered. That's his purpose: to balance an equation.
Neo: What's your purpose?
Oracle: To unbalance it.

I know, the Matrix trillogy has been done to death, but let's face it, the fact is that freedom is more or less THE theme of the three movies. They also happen to be a personal favorite, and this is my blog. Off we go ...

We have thus far considered the nature and the endgame of economic systems. Both have their advantages and their disadvantages, yet both tend to work to the same ends, through different means. Why is it, then, that the world continues to turn? Why haven't our economic systems fallen so far into disarray that we're all subjects to a single human power? Given our collective memory of the endless cycle of rise and fall from power, why do we bother to cooperate? The answer, I think, lies in one element in this system that we have not yet considered, an element that makes or breaks the very nature of the system itself, put to good use: choice.

Choice is what gives us our ability to go against the flow, to disregard our "fight or flight" instincts, or to do something contrary to the popular opinion of the society. We can choose to go to the store or to make do with what we have; we can throw the subsequent garbage away or recycle it or even just pitch it out the window. We can wear the popular clothing or we can wear something comfortable; regardless of the pressures placed on us from many sides - society, culture, even the laws of nature - we are still able to choose.

It was C.S. Lewis that said that predestination and free will are the same thing, two sides of the same coin. Actually, to be honest, so far he's the ONLY one who I've ever heard say this. We are hybrid beings, he wrote, born into a world of sin through no fault of our own, yet we are asked to begin making choices that will affect the rest of our own lives, even our own salvation. Our choices have consequences - destinies, as it were - and our destiny presents us with choices to be made which will make or break the path we're on. Choice is to causality like yin is to yang; the one must go with the other. Freedom, then, is our capacity to make choices, our ability to weigh the consequences and choose, however consciously or subconsciously, a course of action based upon what we perceive is the best outcome. This includes our ability to choose a couse of action that might not actually be the best outcome.

Put another way, we are not held to one set of actions. The choices we make change, and indeed, shape the very future that is so uncertain. I can choose to eat a hot dog or to eat something else or even to eat nothing at all. Perhaps I choose to wait for a while and THEN eat something. Either way, the choice is still mine; I can choose to follow the law or I can choose not to. I don't even have to eat if I don't want to (though the fact that I usually want to could tell you something about my waistline).

But in the end, there is another sort of freedom which we do not have, and that is freedom from consequences. This is the "yang" to the "yin" of choice. We are not free of causality as popular culture has led us to believe; we will reap what we sow. I cannot jump from a bridge and then expect not to fall into the river below, gravity being what it is. Every choice sets in motion other events, provides new decisions to be made and eliminates others.

For example, a choice was made a long, long time ago, but human history has reflected this decision ever since. We could talk through the story of Eden at great length, but even if the story is merely metaphor, something happened to distance humanity from its Maker. The author of Genesis records that a couple ate "the fruit" of a tree of knowledge. At some point, our species made a choice that blinded us to the consequences of doing things on our own, without the Creator. We began to think - deceived or not - that maybe there were no consequences. We were wrong.

One reason that the Incarnation is such a miracle is that God did (and does) what no one else could: he interrupted us (as a species) somewhere between cause and effect. We sin, and yet he gives us the chance to avoid the ultimate consequences of those choices, taking the penalties upon himself instead. As a missionary, I usually like to look at the incarnation for the way in which it exemplifies God making himself known and making the effort to relate to us on our own terms - in the flesh, face-to-face, sandle-to-sand. But in another way, in the grand scheme of things, this is not enough by itself. It is a lot, for sure, but it is not the whole picture. The Christian story is one in which the One who was not the cause took the effects; He removevd the consequences of the actions of another and took them upon himself. God, in essence, unbalances the equation; he alone understood the consequences of our choice and took it upon himself to give us back our dignity to choose a path, rather than allowing us to reap the ultimate consequence. The Creator found a loophole in the rules; he took the fall for the Created.

And that changed everything.

(to be continued ...)

Economics, Part VII: Politics and the Economy

Part I
Part II
Part III
Part IV
Part V
Part VI

* * *

I'm loathe to discuss the political side of economics mostly because I abhore politics and politicians. But I have to say this.

There was an awful lot of bantering of the word "socialism" in this past election; the lefties wanted us to go socialist, to make a "better" America, where there's no poverty and everybody is healthy and well-educated, all because of our benevolent government's wonderful policies. Please. As if a bunch of laws could do that; "give all your money to the government (because you have to, or we'll just take all of it instead of just most of it) and they'll make sure everyone gets what's 'fair.'" As if a bunch of independently wealthy politicians are the ones to decide what's "fair" for the lower- and middle-class. The righties didn't help either. Instead of advocating socialism, the righties warned of the "dangers" of socialism, that our freedoms will supposely be ripped from our grasp, our way of life "destroyed." No offense guys, but ... what? It doesn't work that way either. First, even if Obama wanted to build the perfect socialist state, he's got 200 years of history and a bipartisan(ish) government against him (not to mention thousands of years of human nature). Second, he can only do so much as President; the Legislative branch (Congress and Senate) and the Judicial branch both are supposed to keep him accountable to the Constitution and other laws. Third, he'll be done in at most, eight years. That's not enough time to become socialist. If the American people don't like it (remember, we are still some semblence of a democracy), we'll just vote in the candidate who is AntiObama (the antiObama ... antibama? whatever), just like we just voted out George W. Bush. Fear mongering by both sides was the issue in this (and past) elections, each side pushing to prove that, while they're obviously not perfect, they're better than "the other guy."

Lastly, and this is my point, why would electing a new president cause our freedom to be "ripped" from our grasp? Some say that it's that we're "surrendering" our freedom, and I'll concede the possibility of that point, because the only way for our freedom to be taken away is for us to give it away (I'm getting ahead of myself here, that'll come in the next post). We, as both individuals and as a community of Americans, are responsible for the maintenance of our freedom. Sarah Palin (of all people) said it well, I think, when she talked about the mortguage crisis:

I think we need to band together and say 'never again.' Never will we be exploited and taken advantage of again by those who are managing our money and loaning us these dollars. ... Let's do what our parents told us before we probably even got that first credit card: don't live outside of our means. We need to make sure that as individuals we're taking personal responsibility through all of this. It's not the American people's fault that the economy is hurting like it is, but we have an opportunity to learn a heck of a lot of good lessons through this and say never again will we be taken advantage of.

Later, she mentioned that Americans had been convinced by the banks to buy a $300,000 house when all they could afford was a $100,000 house. This is what I'm talking about: think. Be skeptical and ask hard questions. Use your ability to choose, to make decisions based on information. Question the sources of that information; people are biased just like you, and will phrase their statements in such a way as to favor their opinions (can we say "mainstream media" here without being too accusatory?).

And this brings me to today's news. My friend Greg mentioned a piece of that caught my attention too: Ford has decided (chosen) not to take the Government's bailout money. Instead, they have decided to restructure, figure out how to do their business better. In other words, they are choosing to allow the capitalist system to determine their fate. The government, meanwhile, sees fit to hand out money to companies that obviously haven't produced a superior product (can you say "GM"?). This is not to say that Ford has no other motives; everybody seems to be driven by economics these days, especially large corporations. Ford, though they're "in the hole" compared to companies like Toyota and Honda, must figure that this will not only boost their image (showing their confidence in their product), But perhaps it was also a wake-up call to improve on their methods and means, to spend the time to research better technology and actually produce a car or truck that can compete with foreign companies. They have chosen not to simply accept the status quo, but to actively attempt to change their situation without using the tax dollars of the customers they are attempting to woo. In short, they are being "responsible."

(to be continued ...)