The Certainty of Doubt

I am preaching today in our university's Chapel service. I was asked by a friend to post the sermon here, so it is included below. It is perhaps important to note that it would be helpful to read 1 Samuel 1:4-20 before you endeavored on the sermon. It will help with context and illustration.

The Certainty of Doubt

“What do you do when you’re not sure? That’s the topic of my sermon today. Last year when President Kennedy was assassinated, who among us did not experience the most profound disorientation? Despair? Which way? What now? What do I say to my kids? What do I tell myself? It was a time of people sitting together, bound together by a common feeling of hopelessness. But think of that! Your bond with your fellow being was your despair. It was a public experience. It was awful, but we were in it together.”

Perhaps this is a familiar opening to a sermon. Last year a feature film was made from a play that explores the depths of the psyche and relationship between doubt and faith under the title Doubt. If we had approximately 2 hours for chapel I would simply show the film because of how provocative the film is for not only matters of thought but of conversation. Since we don’t have that time, let it suffice for me to highly suggest that you find the time to watch this film if you have not already done so. In my opinion you won’t regret the time you spend doing so.

Father Flynn, played by Phillip Seymour Hoffman, opens the film preaching on doubt. After his opening refrain I have quoted he tells a story of a sailor lost at sea, coming slowly to the realization that he had set his course wrong and is utterly confused and without bearing, doubting his livelihood in the days to come. He concludes the sermon with these powerful sentences: “There are those of you in church today who know exactly the crisis of faith I describe. And I want to say to you: Doubt can be a bond as powerful and sustaining as certainty. When you are lost, you are not alone.”

“Doubt can be a bond as powerful and sustaining as certainty.” Let those words soak in. They are foreign to our way of life in the West. We still linger in the hangover of Modern thinking that prizes certainty, capital T proven Truth above all other things. If reason alone cannot explain our condition, we cannot yet fully understand our condition. But progress will lead us to that reason that will explain the cosmos, the understanding of the human condition, and the faith we profess. It sounds rigid, harsh, and fearfully complete. But Father Flynn wants to proclaim the truth of the mystery of God. That in doubt we can remain faithful. That doubt does not have to be an anathema or reason to abandon our faith.

Hannah had been the wife of Elkanah for some time. Her womb had been closed by God according to Elkanah and she was barren. Her husband’s other wife, Peninnah had several children, a male heir among them, and she tormented Hannah for one of the only things that reserved her place of power and standing in the culture. Despite her barrenness, Elkanah proclaims his love for his wife, Hannah. He asks her if his love for her is not more significant than the birth of ten sons. But Hannah’s dignity is hanging on her ability to produce children. She sees her inability to have children as an inability to be completely human. She sees it as a reason to doubt.

We are not told that Hannah has any doubt. The word “doubt” is not used in the Scripture, but I would like for us to consider the characteristics she shows in this short story of her life. Year after year she endures ridicule for her condition until one day she finds herself weeping and not eating. She is deeply distressed as she approaches God in prayer and weeps bitterly. She proclaims her misery to God. And she is led to a significant and radical decision in her offering of prayer.

Doubt is defined as calling something into question, mistrusting something or someone, or to waver in opinion. Hannah seems to call her wholeness as a being into question. She sees her inability to bare children as a sign of incompleteness. She has no favor with God, and this results in a loss of dignity, worth, or value. Doubt is expressed most often in our condition as humans through confusion, fear, unhappiness, and radical action.

Consider for a moment the Christian that grows up in a conservative home where they are told that the creation narrative as it is found in Genesis is literal. The world was created in six days and that evolution is heresy and evil of the world. This individual grows up and finds little reason to believe otherwise until they are confronted with the body of evidence suggesting that humans have evolved over time from other animals. It is at this point that if this body of evidence is taken seriously that the individual begins to wonder if the faith as they know it has any real validity if the foundational story of the God they knew is no longer to be understood as literal. They question the validity of the authority given to the Scripture this literal story comes from and radically turn away from the Christian faith as a whole. I have seen this version and many other versions of similar faith stories take shape. Often doubt in ourselves, the stories we are told, and in others leads to radical action. We turn away from those things wholesale, we find and accept new stories to take the place of the old completely without critically examining the new story, and we distance ourselves from other people going to great lengths to avoid them.

Hannah has a similar reaction only she moves toward God. Hannah goes to the temple and prays directly to God. This seems insignificant in our post-Protestant Reformation setting. For Hannah to approach the temple, much less, pray before Eli, the priest, was considered unacceptable. Elkanah should have been the one presenting these requests before the Lord if they were their requests as a family. Instead, Hannah supplicates herself and asks the Lord directly for a male child. To make this even more radical she offers this male child to the service of the Lord as a Nazirite. Samson is the best known Nazirite to us, but they are characterized as those who will abstain from drinking wine, cutting their hair, and they are separated from the rest of the people to focus on service to the Lord. So the child she longs so desperately for, she is willing to give up.

Hannah doubts her humanness. For her, being a mother, bearing children, and honoring God are what preserve her power and dignity in a culture that has marginalized her as a second wife unnecessary for anything but pleasure. But Hannah is empowered by this doubt and approaches the Lord and the Lord remembers her when she returns home and conceives a child with Elkanah.

Hannah, like Father Flynn, teaches us that our doubt is an appropriate expression of faith. That through our doubt we have a bond with one another that certainty does not provide. In our desperation we can claim hopefulness through radical action embracing the grace provided by God in expressing our doubt before God. In our doubt we can experience the mystery of who God is. And for me there is a paradoxical certainty in doubt. That certainty does not come in the form of resolution or cure as though doubt were an illness in us that needs fixing, it is in the abiding presence of God. A God who is not fully known or fully described. A God who cannot be described in words alone or by singular experience. A God whom our doubt does not destroy. The certainty of doubt is that as a form of despair we find a bond with one another as a place where God abides, and to whom we can remain thankful for a God who does not abandon us. As Father Flynn reminds us, “When we are lost, we are not alone.” Thanks be to God.

I never do these things...

...but my wife thinks she is going to beat me. there really isn't a better way to motivate me than to make something a competition and/or give me a reason to set the record straight...

in any event, our friend Hilary posted the survey below, my wife took it, and challenged me to take it. i oblige only to give the truth to certain aspects of said survey.

Survey!

1.What are your middle names? Allen and Lynn (although her legal middle name now is Klosterman).

2. How long have you been together? Oct. 10, 2001 was our first date together. I am sure of this because I have a very good friend with a birthday on that day, and it helps me to remember these things to connect them to other things in my life. All psychology aside -- I invited other people, they couldn't go. I have people to vouch for this...she doesn't.

3. How long did you know each other before you started dating? About a year. She says I was close minded and arrogant...I say I was opinionated and not afraid to share that opinion.

4. Who asked who out? Reference #3 above for the story that I did indeed invite others to Red, Hot & Blue that night for dinner with us, but lucky for us it was just the two of us.

5. How old are each of you? The significant portion of this question is that if with age comes wisdom, I have more wisdom. But who is really keeping track?

6. Did you go to the same school? We did indeed meet at the oldest university in TX -- Southwestern University.

7. Are you from the same home town? No.

8. Who is the smartest? I would like an accurate accounting of our Trivial Pursuit games. We can even include the ones in which we played on teams opposing one another, because I have only lost once to her...

9. Who majored in what? Me: History with a double minor in Spanish and Philosophy; Her: Communication Studies and English

10. Who is the most sensitive? I am not outwardly emotive very often and can sit for an interminable period of time in silence. She is.

11. Where is the furthest you two have traveled together as a couple? The UK and Wales.

12. Who has the worst temper? It takes a lot to get me mad, but let's just say we don't like those times.

13. How many children do you want? We have 3 month old twin boys. This isn't a question best answered today.

14. Who does the cooking? It is more equitable than she claims. Although her claim about my shepherd pie making skills are true.

15. Who is more social? We both like to be surrounded by friends and family. Heck, part of the reason we bought a house was to have MORE room for people to come over!

16. Who is the neat freak? I think we both like things neat and orderly.

17. Who is the most stubborn? My wife likes to think she is stubborn, but once I decide something there is little hope for change in the near future. Not to mention that I am willing to defend something that I don't believe in for the sake of an argument like I really believe it. I see it as a positive trait.

18. Who wakes up earlier? She does, but if I have something to wake up for I am willing to get up at all hours of the morning.

19. Where was your first date? Reference #4 above. Unfortunately it isn't there anymore. Damn these people taking away good bar-b-que places from me. We then walked over to Barnes & Noble where I read "Oh the Place You'll Go" to her. It was a smooth moment to be proud of.

20. Who has the bigger family? Good question.

21. Do you get flowers often? I get gifts when she buys things for herself.

22. How do you spend the holidays? Thanksgiving with her's, Christmas with mine, and tears from her no matter where are and we leave.

23. Who is more jealous? Her. I probably shouldn't say more though ;)...

24. How long did it take to get serious? I don't know!?! I just knew we had a good thing going.

25. Who eats more? Me. I am pretty sure I eat too much, but it fuels my desire to exercise so I suppose it isn't all bad.

26. What do you do for a living? I work at a university doing Religious Life programming and Residence Life work; she works at a technology company doing employee communications.

27. Who’s better with the computer? If it is about programming, it is her. If it is about actually solving things it is me, she hardly ever reads the documentation she used to write for programs!

28. Who drives when you are together? Let's just say it is best that I drive for everyone's well being! I kid, I kid...she likes to sleep if we are in the car more than 15 mins.

29. What is your song? “All I Want is You” by U2.

the heathcare future: education

in response to my own posting about the healthcare debate in america, i inadvertently challenged myself. how you might ask? well, i might say, i don't like to simply leave things out there and not further ruminate on them. in short, i haven't stopped thinking about or reading about or, maybe to my own brain-drain detriment, watching coverage about the healthcare reform debate. so i decided recently that i would start a new series of posts concerning the healthcare issue. the title is above so no wasting space on that, but the post-colon space will denote what the subject of the post will be about.

today i tackle education.

americans tend to be terribly educated in my opinion. we educate ourselves based on our special interests, and this is owed largely in part, in my opinion, to our economic system of choice -- hyper-capitalism. hyper-capitalism demands that we all specialize in our niche of the economy in order to achieve maximum efficiency and output. by specializing we are creating more jobs, more job security, and in theory a greater product through emphasized knowledge, market adeptness, and an overall sense of satisfaction that we posses the greatest material goods, at the cheapest price, at questionable quality. as you can probably tell by some tongue in cheek wording here, i think our system breaks down at a point. this does not mean that i think there is some magical alternative out there that is better, simply acknowledging the limited nature of economic systems.

back to the original point -- our education is severely limited. we choose this gleefully in lieu of something more holistic most times. the holistic option takes time, effort, and brain power that we often find little efficiency for -- why in the world should i care about physics or natural science or manufacturing when i am a college administrator? the resulting, often tacit, answer of "you shouldn't. it doesn't get you any further in your professional field." is exactly the problem when it comes to healthcare reform.

in order for us to achieve something tenable in the future, we need better healthcare education. i am not even considering at this point insurance coverage, claim, and navigation education although that would be great! what i am advocating for is better education about what it means to claim healthcare for yourself. and because that was a foundationally circular argument, i will clarify. we need to be better educated about healthy living. it is my hope that through more holistic undertakings of educating ourselves about healthy lifestyles, our overall health as a nation will rise.

i long lived in one of the alternating "fattest cities in america" - dallas. i once read that where i lived in dallas, us75 and lovers ln. for those taking stocking...or stocking in general..., was the single most densely populated area in the country for restaurant to human population. so needless to say, i had all the options i could ever want, most of them with portions and food options no more healthy for me than eating ice cream every night for dinner...which isn't a bad choice every once in awhile. i lamented the fact that i was an active young adult often times in that city, and i felt city-conscious about our label. but while i can lament all i want, i also know that all those options didn't stop me from pursuing a healthy lifestyle. i ran, exercised, balanced my schedule as best i could, and created time for developing relationships with friends.

you see too many of the ways in which we run into healthcare problems for people seem to be totally preventable. we just care not to talk about those things and educate ourselves and others, because we are afraid to offend those who might be in the audience. as someone who worked in the church for three years and has preached from the pulpit a number of times, i know a thing or two of being warned not to offend people with the truth of our circumstance.

so i am calling for a holistic healthcare education that helps people make healthy choices in life. this means that all parts of life are affected. we must be willing to learn about what makes working healthy. we must be willing to learn about what makes relationships healthy. we must learn about why spirituality is a healthy outlet for people. we must also learn about un/healthy eating habits, un/healthy economic choices, and un/healthy material choices that adversely affect ourselves and most importantly others.

there is no magic bullet. there is no one plan of education that will change the way people think or interact with one another, but if we can begin to change the way we think about healthcare, mainly as a specialized field owned by doctors, researchers, and drug companies, we might be able to begin to grasp what possibilities there are for holistic healthcare education that makes a difference in the lives of those around us.

one tired, oft quoted, and unfortunately true cliche comes to mind that seems to exemplify the problem in america: europeans often criticize americans of "living to work instead of working to live". are we willing to sacrifice a slice of economic efficiency for more holistic and healthy lifestyles that benefit more than ourselves? i certainly hope so.

an open letter of delinquency

i am late. i am in debt and feel as though i have failed to do my duty. in debt to whom? i know not, but i feel it down deep in my soul.

life has been crazy in the past two months. the wife and i moved into our very own first home. it was exciting and stressful and far too hot to be moving heavy stuff, but it was rewarding. we love the house. we also had our twin boys! that was exciting and terrifying all at once.

and in all of this i have neglected this space. but i have been thinking of things to write about...so onward...

health care. oh man has this been a boiling point and hot topic. the president delivered his reform proposal last night, and it was, in my estimation, well thought out and comprehensive. i along with others do have questions about immigrant populations and the coverage hole with these populations and overall cost of the program. but i don't want to get into the specifics of what plan would be most effective because it is a far more complicated issue than the media, the politicians, and the public are making it out to be. on this point i want to elaborate.

the health care brouhaha has been decidedly reductionist. one side is content to throw stones at the other and vice versa. and the stones that are being thrown greatly distort the truth of the claims the others are making and more than anything are simply simplistic versions twisted to make the other side look insensitive and evil. perhaps this isn't anything to be concerned about...washington being washington...except that we are on the world stage, or at least we like to think we are...right...i mean...this is AMERICA...and well we set the world stage much less stand on it (if you haven't caught my sarcasm yet, feel free to take note now). and whether or not other countries care about what we have to say about health care (i surmise we overestimate our importance), the fact remains that millions of americans go without health care or health care insurance coverage because of decisions they have to make about putting food on the table versus paying a premium every month. and this is precisely the crux of the issue for me.

we have failed to remember that we are talking about and to human beings. and we have failed to claim any sort of civility in this process. since when did we decide that having differing opinions about policy give us the right to degrade, disrespect, or dehumanize other individuals? why do we feel the need to simply discount one perspective or another on the basis of party affiliation or worse yet false ideological claims put into people's mouths on either side of the aisle? i could probably live the rest of my life without hearing how anyone is going to bring socialism to any country without even a cursory understanding or proper use of the term socialism in the context of any sentence. i could also live the rest of my life without needing to hear about how uncivil town hall meetings become because someone believes so "passionately" about an issue. passion is not an excuse to berate another individual.

perhaps as americans we should take note of our own behavior in treating one another as sub-human and not be shocked when other countries find us to be inhospitable, unfriendly, uncaring, or maybe even dumb (to use a third grade insult). i feel like if anything, this issue alone has proved to me that those critics from outside our borders are probably more right than wrong.

i believe in order to come to an agreement about this issue, we must reclaim what it means to be civil. we will also have to be willing to come to the table and agree to compromise. americans suck at grace in the face of defeat, even when we all lose on some things and all win on other things. health care and insurance coverage are something that every individual should have full access to in my opinion. there are a number of different creative and perhaps risky ways to achieve this, but it seems silly to me in a country where we have abundant resources and material wealth that responsible people should have to make a choice between health care for themselves and their loved ones and food or shelter.

finally, as a note to those who claim to be followers of christ. i have never been more disappointed at the way we have represented ourselves in this debate and, in general, in the past and present political cycle. for people who claim to love and honor the dignity and humanity of others, i have seen little in the way of charity or respectful/constructive criticism of political ideology. i find this especially to be true in the way in which people talk about the president. the names, claims, and general language around the use of his name, the images associated with him, and disrespectful things said about him lead me to several conclusions. the first is that people who are not christian have a right to claim and believe that we do not indeed care about other people as we so often, emptily, claim to love others. second, we are called to be a people who look beyond petty affiliations and honor the humanity in another individual, even if we disagree with them ideologically, politically, or religiously. third, we are called to be a people that cares for one another and others without question. it is sad that i do not see more creative response from communities of faith in the face of a failing health care system. and lastly, if we want to be taken seriously by others we must first take them seriously. i believe our first response should not always be to legislate morality, rather that we should first want to answer for the humanity, dignity, respect, and love that we claim to show others. too often we leave these out of the conversation when they are the most significant pieces of the puzzle.

to my friends who are not christian, i sincerely apologize for the way we too often are delinquent in the claims we make as followers of christ and for failing to honor the dignity, respect, and love others deserve for nothing more or less than their humanity. we have failed to be the people we have claimed to be, and we treated others with disdain, disgust, and crudeness out of our own ignorance and self-righteousness. unfortunately i cannot change those things or make people act differently. what i can do though is promise that one person does not speak for the whole and one set of actions does not represent the hearts of all.

i am unimportant and insignificant. who are you?

gandhi is supposed to have said quite famously, "be the change you wish to see in the world." this is all well and good, but in my estimation it is difficult for most people to decide where to start that change.

last night in our community gathering we talked about a passage from matthew 25 where jesus tells to some a forlorn story. it seems harsh and as though it rails at people who are on the outside of a certain group. without boring everyone from here to timbuktu, let it suffice to say that jesus talks here of all nations being called to him. in other words, everyone has an equal shot. that is as far as i will go with this bit of exegesis, but if you want further explanation just ask.

perhaps what i think is most interesting about this passage though is that jesus suggests our actions matter. the way in which we treat one another is significant. i have studied the idea of community for the past 6-7 years. what i have learned in that time, both experientially and academically, is that it takes intentionality. so often we believe that it will simply happen. surely our desire for it to occur counts for something, but community does not simply spring up wherever we find ourselves. it is something that is developed.

more interesting still to me is that many people equate the words translated most often "least of these" in the passage to marginalized, homeless, poverty level people. i believe these people are included in this group, however i believe we let ourselves off the hook in suggesting this translation. a more accurate translation of this word in the greek could be the "less significant" or "unimportant." to be sure, any people we have marginalized or deemed beyond redemption have been considered unimportant or less significant than ourselves, but i think the meaning is broader and the implications broader still. i see this as a cultural reminder of the fact that all people are deserving of love and compassion, dignity and respect. it is as though jesus suggests that we are to treat those to whom we have no obligation in extravagant ways. we are to go out of our own way to make sure those people to whom we owe nothing and are not beholden are taken care of.

i imagine that first century jewish and roman ears would have heard this message pertaining to the cultural system set up to remind them that they had no obligation to those below them. they owed taxes to caesar and the state demanded your complete obligation. but you had no obligation to the infirm, those outside your household, and certainly to those you had no business interaction with. in our 21st century haze, the message remains the same. we talk as though we have obligation only to those we see most often, work for, or have a nationalist allegiance to, but the reality is we are called to treat all people with love, dignity, and respect.

for the pragmatists out there who are connecting the dots and want the how-to of the lesson of communal living, i suggest the following: it begins and ends with intention. we must be intentional about how we interact with other people. we too often, in my opinion, fail to recognize the amount of responsibility and creative authority we have as humans in relation to god. we participate in a grand way as co-creators with god. and in america specifically i believe this starts with vulnerability. we must learn to talk about ourselves in unguarded and authentic ways. we too frequently hide behind masks of who we want others to see us as, and then wonder how we never know the needs of our neighbors or friends. we must learn to be genuine in our presentation of who we are in order to facilitate relationships that meet needs and foster change in our communities. and then we can begin to see the change we wish to be in the world.

the united states of LeBron

apparently what LeBron James does on the basketball court matters, a lot. at the end of the series the Cleveland Cavaliers played against the Orlando Magic, LeBron walked off the court without shaking anyone's hand. he didn't stick around for the post-game press conference either. he quickly showered and made his way to the team bus, and he waited there to leave. in the next days a national furor went up from all kinds of media outlets. sports writers and commentators alike have excoriated LeBron for not sticking around and showing "good sportsmanship."

cue the dilemma. or maybe more appropriately, cue Charles Barkley. i remember when i was growing up and Charles Barkley was a hell of a basketball player. he was fierce under the basket and gave 100% effort 100% of the time. Charles Barkley was also a bit of a conversationalist, and his views weren't always politically correct. when called to task on one occasion for actions unbecoming of a role model he had this to say: "i am not a role model...just because i dunk a basketball doesn't mean i should raise your kids." that is sage advice if i have ever heard it. and i don't say that because i think Sir Charles would do a bad job raising kids. i think he simply understands the religion of sports.

you see sports are a religion in america. we worship athletes as though they will pass the money they make on down to us. we ritualize everything in sports from the celebrations to the way we become superstitious and especially if our team makes the playoffs (the playoff beard for example). there is a lot of good stuff out there by people who have studied this subject if you want a more in depth examination. that sports is a religion is not a problem for me in many cases. that we begin to construct athletes as role models on the other hand becomes idolatrous. and idolatry within any religion is inappropriate and destructive.

i say this because more often than not our idolatry of an individual makes them into something more than human. (although i might not argue that LeBron is more than human...but i would argue that he is a freak machine and not a god!) we forget that they are subject to the same laws as we are, that they are simply human, make mistakes, or are not morally impeccable whether or not we want them to be. our culture has set us up to expect the impossible from certain sports athlete individuals and when they fail to hold those standards we cry foul as though the moral fabric of america is at risk.

only in a voyeuristic culture where we value living vicariously through athletic superstars and holding them up as false role models higher than identifying with the humanity of them as individuals do we get ruffled that someone like LeBron James failed to shake hands with the other team and not show up to a post-game press conference. i ask why should we care whether or not he shakes hands with someone? i am willing to bet that a lot of other people didn't shake hands nor do we in the work place or in daily life when things don't go our way.

here is generally where people suggest that if kids are watching it sets a bad example. i am guessing that the argument here is predicated on the fact that sportsmanship is shown by shaking someone's hand after victory or defeat, some call this having grace in defeat. i wonder if we think the same thing as we see players trash talk others, disrespect stadiums and other teams in celebration dances, etc. it seems singularly selective to suggest that sportsmanship or graciousness is exemplified in a 20 second handshake after a game. as a person who played sports their entire life growing up, there is not a lot of authenticity in those events. you only line up because someone is telling you have to do so. i would suggest that if we want to examine sportsmanship we must look at the humanity of the player. and i would argue that if there is no intention of authenticity in a "congratulatory" handshake on LeBron James' part after a game, he exhibits more sportsmanship than others who falsely display "sportsmanship" by leaving the court. all we are doing is creating an idol akin to the superstar role model out of sportsmanship wherein we value the display of accepted sportsmanship ritual over the true humanity of an individual in a sporting event. in other words, we don't value sports athletes as humans, we only value them for the entertainment commodity we have made them.

perhaps Sir Charles was right so many years ago. true role models should be people who are actively participating in shaping the lives of our children. and as a culture we should recognize the idols we have set up for ourselves and identify the destructive nature of those idols.

where risk meets opportunity

those people reading who know me well...or maybe even not well, you will not be surprised that i have opinions when it comes to the future of the church. and if you don't know me well (and i am not guessing there are many of those people reading, but if there are i just wanted to be sure my salutation bases were covered), you now know that i have opinions about the future of the church. to be clear for everyone involved i mean the church universal, not perhaps my or your local church that you like, dislike, are ambivalent toward, etc.

onward to the meat of all of this.

i have never been too terribly public about some of these feelings, and yet have also never shied away from the opportunity to discuss these things with other people when the opportunities have arisen. that being said, i was recently given the opportunity to do some writing for a website featuring young adults thoughts about the united methodist church. it was free reign to choose what i wanted to, and so i took some of my thoughts previously put here and expanded on them and edited them down some as well. (as a note i haven't submitted them yet, but check back there to see them when they do show up.)

it feels both thrilling and a little bit intimidating to have your words and thoughts put out somewhere for others to judge and (hopefully) read. but i also feel like i have valuable things to say and have been looking for opportunities to be more involved in these type of conversations recently and to reach a broader audience.

the problem in all of this is that i have never been good at risk taking. i have always been the person who double and triple checks things before moving forward in order to minimize whatever risk is there. and this is probably in some ways detrimental. i have no doubt missed out on some opportunities due to these tendencies, and perhaps other opportunities have been available to me because of that same tendency. in my daydreams i want to be a person who takes more risks and does adventurous things with the opportunities in front of me.

perhaps it is not an either/or situation but a discovery of the balance between the two where risk meets pragmatism and opportunity converges with both.

i have been known to run

i have been known to run. a lot at times, and a little at times. it is one of my favorite past-times and hobbies.

i run for a lot of reasons. one of the biggest among them is that it is part of what keeps me on the sane side of things. too many times i can feel myself out of balance when i don't run. i am not sure if it is a chemical thing, or simply a physical thing, but my wife can attest to the fact that i get not a bit crabby when i haven't been running for extended periods of time.

i also run because it is one of the most serene things that i can do for myself. i am able to focus on things that need my attention, work through things that are troubling or confusing to me, and i am able to meditate and pray over things when i am running. i find that even when i am pushing my own physical limits, there is a transcendent quality to running.

running is first and foremost a physical art form. there is delicate balance to pushing yourself at the appropriate times and developing a well thought out plan for increasing mileage, intensity, and physical capability. there is an efficiency of mechanics and motion that enable you to be a better or worse runner, and as with any art form the unmeasurable variable is always something connected to the desire of and guts of an individual.

one of the many joys for me when running is to run with other people. the collegial atmosphere, the understanding that we will push one another and cheer one another on, and feeling of people pushing themselves to be better than they are is electric.

running also helps me understand the cycle of life better: there are ups and downs; you have good runs and bad runs; you achieve your goals and at times you fail to achieve them; you experience near physical perfection of exertion and you experience injury at the most inopportune times; you are faced with tough choices of strategy and tactics; and you learn to work together in order to accomplish everybody's goals rather than just your own.

i will leave you with this quotation from steve prefontaine: "most people run a race to see who is fastest. i run a race to see who has the most guts."

it takes balance

life takes balance.

balance is not something we are good at in the good ole' u s of a. as a matter of personal opinion, i believe it is to blame for a lot of our problems in our country. think about it for a moment.

corporate greed -- out of balance contentment with sufficiency
failing marriages at alarming rates -- our of balance sense of commitment, what relationships should be
increasing and alarming rates of obesity -- out of balance self-care and dietary knowledge, not to mention marketing strategies of those companies promoting fast food
unchecked consumerism -- again out of balance sense of contentment with sufficiency
poverty in a country with more wealth than just about any other country in the world -- unbalanced sense of wants vs. needs on the part of those with wealth and power

i could go on for awhile, but i think the point has been made. we are out of balance.

in my own life this has shown up in several recent encounters and events.

1. my wife and i are close to closing on a house. we struggled a lot with what was enough space and how to best make a decision about location, layout, and design in order to promote a healthy balance in our lives and impact in the world. i hope we have made a conscientious and appropriate decision with the house we have chosen. what i do know is that this experience stretched me to think beyond myself. it forced me to think about how this decision would affect the unborn twin boys my wife is carrying and our relationship as husband and wife. it is by no means our dream home, but what i realized very early on is that i can be content in just about any home, but finding the balance of where contentment meets functionality is what would be significant in our search. this meant that there would be compromise on things and outright rejection of selfish wants on others.

2. i ran a relay marathon last weekend in coprus christi, tx. in some very irreverent yet genuine way, i felt that running in a city named for the body of christ was appropriate for the suffering that i inflicted upon myself. i knew i was going to run about 4.6 miles for months. i had done decent training leading up to the race, but with life surrounding me i let down the couple of weeks leading up to the race, and i paid for that. i ran poorly; i realized i was out of shape; and i came to the understanding that i have allowed my life to get out of balance in regards to exercise and self-care. i am trying to commit myself to more balance in that area in order to be a better person to be around, because i have learned that you cannot love your neighbor or your enemy if you do not first love yourself. that is why when christ tells us to love one another as we love ourselves it should have a shocking ring in our ears. we tend to love ourselves so extravagantly compared to the way we love others, but fail to do so for others. balance in our lives can lead to more authentic and significant service with and for others.

3. finally, a couple in our bible study is contemplating a job offer and move out of the area that we live in. while i have a lot of selfish reasons for wanting them to stay (i.e. i like them and they are cool people), i believe that the struggle they are experiencing in reaching a decision in the matter is one fundamentally of balance. they must find the balance of what is worth striving after and how to best care for their family and relationship. my best piece of advice is this: decide what balance is for you and make yourself resolute to maintain that balance. i believe in some ways god cares much more about us living wholly balanced lives of service in love than lives of erratic support. weighing the options of promotions, moves, family and friend connections can all seem overwhelming, but only two people know whether those things will be detrimentally out of balance if choices are made one way or another.

and in all of this, balance is not a juggling act so much as it is an exercise in self-knowledge and discernment. we must find what balance is for our own lives and protect that, even if it means, as one of my mentors once said, "saying no to jesus," because life takes balance.

a theology of consumption

my wife and i are searching for our first home. with the expectation of our twins arriving sometime in august or september, we need more space than our current situation gives us. buying a new home has brought up a lot of considerations we had not previously thought of, mainly because we have not had them be of imminent concern.

one of the pressing issues at stake for me is what is enough house? what amount of space do we need, and how much are we willing to spend to procure that space? we have gone back and forth as we have been on a tour of homes and neighborhoods. some we think are way overpriced, others no character, some verging on too small, and yet more, wondering if we could make the amount of space work.

another issue at stake is what we want in a house. we know we spend a good amount of time in the kitchen, and eating meals with other people is important to us both communally and theologically. so that is one area that we really look to see what things are like and whether or not we feel we could make it work. we jokingly always told people that we would need a double vanity in our bathroom since we always seem to be bumping into one another at the sink in the morning or any other time that we are getting ready together. but it has struck me that this is perhaps one of the joys of not having a lot of space: that we would have to make sacrifices and compromises for one another. having a lot of space to spread our stuff out on seems great on the surface, but it also simply seems to be a way to separate ourselves, if only in the smallest of senses.

all of these issues and questions are issues of consumption. we live in a country besieged by consumption of all things material. if it isn't one thing that we are coveting after it is the next best thing to that thing, and i have to ask myself when it stops. consuming less takes intentional action on the part of the consumer. maybe one place to start is at the base of what we have built our culture on: the place we call home.

patience is a virtue

on a what's going on in the world note: it's earth day. we should all care for our earth a little better today (and every day). ironically my wife didn't drive our hybrid today because we are taking it this weekend up to dallas to go to a wedding. that makes me laugh a little...and realize that i am a bit neurotic. so do something good for Mother Earth today.

i am looking for a new job. i think i mentioned that in my last post. it is a difficult process. you want everything to happen so quickly and yet so much requires a great amount of patience, which i struggle with at times. when i can see possibilities in something i am especially impatient.

but this is perhaps a curse of our culture. we are often a "hurry up and wait" culture. we want so much to happen so fast, so we can then wait for the result. seems a little out of balance to me. but we are also an impatient culture. we want immediate gratification, results, and success. we don't really know how to wait. maybe that is something that we should all work on collectively as a culture.

my brother gave me the following pearl of wisdom upon learning of my ill fate in my last job pursuit: "Good things come to those who wait and keep looking in the meantime." i found it both encouraging and appropriately prodding that i not be so quick to make things happen, rather that i exhibit a little patience in a world primed for quick results.

the opening of possibility

monday was not all it was cracked up to be today. it was not a great day. on the one hand, i secured my wife and i two tickets to see U2 in concert when they get to Dallas, TX on their current tour: U2 360. that was all it was cracked up to be. shortly before that i found out that i was not getting hired for a job i thought i had a good shot at procuring. this is a pressing matter for me since my current job ends on may 31st.

the aforementioned job going to someone else is outside of vocational ministry. and i see this as a huge possibility. i have worked now for 6 years in vocational ministry and i have been uncomfortable for all 6 years. i often even find myself uncomfortable in the christian mainline church that i am a member of. i am called to be a member in that mainline denomination. i feel that with the same certainly that i feel i will wake up for tomorrow morning. i am not sure that i have ever truly felt called to be in vocational ministry.

let me take you back a few years, if you are unfamiliar with my personal story. at the close of my undergraduate days at Southwestern University, i felt what i would term a calling to attend seminary. i was prepared to go to public policy school and focus on educational policy, but chose instead to follow a calling to go to seminary at Perkins School of Theology at SMU. i am glad that i did this. for three years of classroom work, i learned an immense amount, and i came out on the other side of this adventure much better able to think about and articulate my own theology. however, during that time i experienced what i would call partial discernment in vocation. i decided not to pursue ordination in the the mainline christian denomination i am a member of for a myriad of reasons. while those reasons don't matter here, suffice it to say that this was shocking to a number of people, and many people still try to sway me now to reevaluate this decision. because i decided not become ordained, i had to find a suitable internship to pursue my final year of seminary. i chose to come back to Southwestern University where i completed my internship and have been subsequently employed for the past two years. currently i am seeking employment in the university setting to pursue university administration as a long term goal.

but that isn't what this is about. it is about leaving vocational ministry and feeling very comfortable with that. when i decided that i wouldn't pursue vocational ministry in my next career iteration, i felt comfortable with that decision. a lot of people asked questions, mainly focused on why in the world i spent four years to get an advanced degree to not use it in their eyes. since i have made that decision i have seen a world of possibilities open up to me that i had forgotten i even had the time to think about when i was spending all day in ministry as my job. i think the bottom line for me is that i will have the time and energy to pursue ministry opportunities that i feel passionate about instead of turning them into a job. for whatever reason, around ministry, a job takes the passion away for me.

in some ways i feel like Jonah. i don't even necessarily like Jonah, i think that he shirked his loyalty, duty, obedience, and responsibility when it was plain to him what he was supposed to do. for the most part, we tend to call these people jerks in our society. but part of me finds some sort of identity in Jonah. i feel lost like he must have felt when something seems right and wrong at the same time. i also feel the unassuredness of stepping into territory that must have looked foreign. this might not have been where he felt like he wanted to go, but this was where he was needed.

i hope the ideas and passions i have for living life together can grow and blossom into something beautiful. for me the opening of possibility is not seeing greener grass, but seeing the dead grass in a new way.

community vs. communal

many things make up a person's identity, and only some of them are we able to control. mine is made up of parents who raised me well, who taught me to think for myself, and to accept the consequences for my decisions. it is also made up of very surface level things like..i am a male...i am married...i am going to be a father in a couple of months...i am white, educated, and middle class. there a lots of things that i could write, but one things consumes me more than others when i consider what i want other people to see in me.

it is this: i care more about being communal than being in a community.

let me explain. the word community comes from the latin meaning to have something in common or shared. it is a passive word. my favorite example is this: you can move into a neighborhood, apartment complex, or any other place of residence and you are in a community. you will have neighbors, yet it will not matter. you will not be required by anyone to care about who those other people around you are. you won't be required to help them in times of struggle or to provide for them on any level. there is no expectation, other than not wanting to be the creepy one on the block, that you will do more than live peacefully where it is you reside. end of story.

but to be communal is a different story altogether. it is to be active at its core. there is no do-nothing-option, because in reality, that is doing something. striving to be communal suggests that you care about something enough to move toward it, and it is my hope that this is positive. indeed there are plenty of things that are communal and yet destructive. however, at its most basic meaning, communal means to be doing things for the common good. which also suggests that it is leaning towards selflessness. (for a more technical image of this you could think about or read about the tragedy of the commons.)

and this ultimately is what i hope people see in me. and if they don't, i wish they knew that i was striving toward this because i believe in the deepest places of my being, that in doing things communally we will truly make the world a better place.

a holy week worth living

i have a close friend who is going through a tough time this week. it has brought back a lot of memories for me of a special person that graced my life. i do truly mean that he graced my life. if you knew him you would know that willie was not one to back down from a challenge of any sort. he was tenacious to say the least.

willie was smart and vivacious and taken far too soon from us, but what will be the most lasting impact that willie had for me will be two things. first, he refused to let you be anything but your best. once he glimpsed even a bit of what your potential was, he was not willing to allow you settle for less. he wasn't overbearing about it, but he wouldn't allow you to half-ass things through life. he called you out and made you a better person. he is a person who continues to drive my dreams in memory of who he was.

second, willie lived out loud. he would not hold back what he thought or believed to impress or hide things from people. he also took joy in the small things. my wedding was the first and only wedding he ever went to in his adult life. he was so excited that he made sure everything was just right and even bought us a gift with his very own money, rather than the money both his mom and i thought he had spent of his parents'.

i pray that in this holy week we can see that living the life that jesus calls us to is more than about simply believing a list of things. it is also about doing and being. ultimately it is about being the justice and righteousness of god in others lives. and that makes it about being grace in other people's lives.

on the man crush

i watched Tiger dominate yesterday. he systematically staged a comeback that culminated in an 18th hole birdie that was high drama. i don't play golf, never have, and don't see it in my future, but i like me some Tiger.

i am not sure that i like me some Tiger as much as the announcers liked them some Tiger though. i can't be sure how many times they made some kind of admiring comment about him, mainly because i was too busy flipping back to the college basketball games that were on yesterday (and yes, my bracket has finally imploded), but it got out of control at the end.

statements like, "good thing he has been lifting weights," or "this shot will take all the strength he can muster up from those hours in the gym," or "i don't like it when Tiger wears those muscle shirts; i'm more of a straight polo shirt and slacks kind of guy," or my favorite of the day, "it is a good thing Tiger can bench 450 pounds because it will take all of it right now," were regular announcing fodder. i understand that Tiger is ripped. i remember the days of his youth when he wasn't as huge and i guess couldn't bench 450 pounds, but it was out of control.

for a comparison let us consider the two following photos:

the photo on the left is ca.2000 and shows a much less muscular and strong Tiger, yet no less dominate, and the photo on the right is ca.2009 and shows a Tiger who can apparently bench 450 pounds. needless to say the announcers had a not-so-discrete man crush on Tiger. and i can be honest and say that he is an admirable selection for a man crush. the dude freaking dominates on a golf course and he is good looking. as early as the second hole i had a deep feeling in my gut that the poor kid out in front, sean o'hair, did not have a chance. i only wish Tiger had slammed his hat into the ground again like he did last year when he won the Arnold Palmer Invitational tournament on another last hole birdie.

i am just not sure that Tiger gets my top vote for my man crush. it is probably Dean Karnazes or Lance Armstrong. two equally amazing athletes to Tiger. who is your man or woman crush?

labels redux

there was a comment a couple of posts back on something that i made scant mention of, but knew the idea itself was at the very least intriguing. i mentioned that labels could perhaps have precipitated our current economic situation, in part. so before we all go off the deep end here, let's have some disclaimers:

1. i am no economist. i am armchair at best, really. so don't go looking for broad or sweepingly good economic theory here. i will simply put forth my ideas on what i believe led us to the current meltdown and rebuilding of our economy.
2. labels in my opinion were a small part in this, although i must admit -- the more i think about this, the more i become convinced our need to label things led to this in some way.
3. back to i am no economist -- let's remember that.
4. human nature will not be avoided and labels are apparent and necessary in our processing of the world, so i am not suggesting label nihilism.

disclaimers out of the way, let's start on this rabbit trail and see where it gets us!

first, i want to reiterate that labels are part of the way we make sense of the world around us. "tree" for example is a label. in an ancient philosophy class i took, my professor waxed very poetically about the label of the tree that was outside our classroom. the bottom line is this -- labels are categories that we construct in order to order the world. this is all fine and dandy until we run into the fact that some labels are destructive rather than constructive, and i am not suggesting this in a postmodern philosophical way. (believe me, we don't really want to go there). so while labels are necessary, they are not all ethical. if we can all agree on this minor point, ok it is major, then we can move on to the broader subject at hand. i am going to assume for my own well-humored sense of logic that if you keep reading, you agree. if you didn't you probably didn't just read that last sentence or this one.

second, what in the world did i mean when i said that labels in part led us to the current economic recession? recession -- a label mind you -- is the current word de jour. depression, down turn, crisis, idiocracy, greediness, and others are ones we have heard lately as well. in plain english let me say the following: our desire to label people led to financial decisions that seemed prudent to people who apparently graduated with business degrees but not degrees in risk assessment. so in non-vernacular let me restate that: the financial institutions in the mortgage, banking, and credit industries began to loan money to people who we would otherwise categorize as too risky for loans of the size they were receiving; or in other words, these supposed financial gurus who were running the companies such as AIG, Washington Mutual, etc. graduated with business undergrad degrees and MBA's but not with actuarial degrees, nor apparently did the people with the actuarial degrees think to actually asses the risk of giving people hundreds of thousands of dollars who could potentially go bankrupt today, tomorrow, or the next day despite that money.

third, so where do labels come into this anyway? i want to begin by saying that people seem to be labeled as financially secure or unsecure. we see this all the time with loans, credit applications, debt management, and interest rates. just go try to buy a car to figure this one out. without going too far down the subsequent rabbit trail, i think it suffices to say that banks and others decided that people who were heretofore labeled as financially unsecure, suddenly became secure in the wake of the advent of ARM's or adjustable rate mortgages or even worse -- balloon ARM's. this was a lending strategy that inflated the housing market and subsequently the credit market as well in order to consequently drive our economic "security" upwards. everyone seemed to profit...that is until the piper came to collect and well we all know what happened in the past, nearly, two years. so labels played a major role in my opinion of how we got to where we are.

is this incredibly over-simplified? YES. do i think that it is too simplified to have real and appropriate meaning? NO.

we like to label a lot of things in our country. see for example: liberal/conservative/independent; pro-life/pro-choice; black/white/brown/other; educated/uneducated; rich/poor; and i could go on, but i think i have made the point at least sufficiently. our affinity for these labels is great in that it gives us a very strict order in which to live our lives divided off from people on the other side of those labels, but the problem is that those labels really tell us nothing of who that person is. take for example the label pro-life. this is one that hits pretty closely home for me. however our conception of pro-life is that i am anti-abortion. and while this is true, i also want people to know that i am anti-death penalty, for geriatric care, and for the ethical treatment of humans and animals in what i would more closely call a whole-life stance rather than pro-life. of course i simply relabeled things, however i hope it at least gets closer to who i really am. my point is this -- a label is often times misleading and doesn't tell the whole story. the rest of the story, as paul harvey would say (let me say that if i had something to poor out for the brother, i would have just now), is actually meeting with, talking to, and developing a relationship with that person, whoever they are, and loving them for all their perceived and labeled faults. it is too easy to go through life huddled up with people who believe the same things i do and care about the same things i do. in what might be a very poignant thought, i recently read that the beauty of our diversified belief in this country allows us to see ourselves in others (i apologize that i don't remember where i saw this -- and it is paraphrased to be sure).

but if i get back to the original point at hand it is this: just because we relabel someone who is really not financially secure, financially secure, it doesn't mean that they really are. furthermore, our house of cards that we build on top of that relabeling will eventually come crashing down, and well...it has already.

fourth, we think the people who are at the head of the major corporations in our country are both financially savvy and in way more stressful positions than we are. all of this may be true, but it is no substitute for ethical action on anyone's part. just because i believe someone is smart, does not mean that they will act smartly in all situations or that they get some kind of accountability free pass for stupid decisions. we have for too long decided that people who deal shadily in business are just playing politics and that the working joe or jane on the other end of the their shady dealing are the unsmart and less shrewd individuals (just see the case of Enron or more recently the Madoff scheme if you think i am kidding). the reality it seems to me is that we have decided those at the top of these decision making rackets are labeled as faulty but not really at fault. which excuse me, but how about the guy who perhaps makes the most prudent decision of selling drugs to support his family? we lock them up for years and demand restitution, but for those in the Enron scheme or Madoff himself, we think restitution is out of the question and will give him a slap on the wrist, but this is where the rich/poor label is most evident: our justice system. i won't go on about that, but it is worth thinking about, if only for the mental exercise, but hopefully for a change one day in how people are represented.

fifth, and finally, labels in washington, and i mean D.C. not the state, have prevented us at times from moving toward what i believe are real solutions to problems. i do not believe that a dichotomous solution of republican or democrat will ever really lead us to a true solution to those social or institutional ills of our society. i suggest that the third way, or that way that recognizes that we are not always politically "right" (not in the political spectrum kind of way) must win the day in order for us to begin to move that way. our representatives must be expected to do what is best for the totality of the people they serve not the interests they serve or the lobbyists they serve either...of course that was the idealistic vision of our representative democracy anyway. but in the real world, it means that we can be happy without being always right or always served. for whatever reason our needs seem to take precedence in matters of politics. and what i mean to say in that regard is this: that even though i may care about the poor, i must be comfortable first in order to care about the poor second, for example. we are at base self-preservationists, and this seems to operate most acutely in the world of politics.

so labels are necessary but they are not always ethical, and that is the short way of saying that in the five points above, i at least have some semblance of logic that suggests labels got us to the economic situation we are in. we will never escape labels, but i certainly hope we can begin to see through them just a little bit more.

painting with words

my wife and i are netflix users. it allows us the maximum flexibility of renting movies and sometimes watching them immediately and sometimes sitting on them for awhile. recently we received the John Adams series that had aired on HBO in the mail and i was excited. as a history major and one interested in the revolutionary war time, i had heard that this was a well done series that maintained integrity in the details and the arch of the story.

i must admit, despite my interest in the time period, i knew relatively little about John Adams. he has frequently taken a back seat to his greatest friend and intellectual foe, Thomas Jefferson. their relationship, as portrayed well in the series, was one in which they found common purpose for ends and yet divergent means to reach those very ends. they were colleagues of the highest degree and because of their differences of opinion and political persuasion, found themselves foes at times. and in one of the bigger coincidences of history, they died on the same day, July 4, 1826, the 50th anniversary of the adoption of the Constitution.

the mini-series is based on the book John Adams by David McCullough. he is a fairly prolific and now famous author in the history world. his books are exceptionally well researched and he has a humility about him in his interviews that suggests, anyone can do this arduous task if they would just set their minds to it! when he won his second Pulitzer Prize, McCullough was described as a writer who is "painting with words" when he writes history. what a great image, for so many reasons. this was also the title of a featurette documentary about him on the dvd.

upon watching the said documentary my wife said to me, "i want him as our neighbor." i couldn't agree more. he is a congenial man. a man that introduces himself to those along the street, and he is a man who has a wealth of knowledge. he owns a writing "shack" although he says that it is his office, and therefore not a shack. it is small and secluded from his home and he has all he would need, and many of the things that we think we need are not included.

i believe my wife and i want David McCullough as our neighbor because he is a master story teller. he knows how to make the story of who we are and where we have come from into something that is both riveting and interesting. he can make those subjects we learned about long ago into something we care about again. and mostly, he exudes excitement and passion in his craft. i wonder what the world would be like if we were a little more like David McCullough day-to-day; if we cared enough to tell a story that would capture people's attention? perhaps we all need to learn to tell our own stories better, so that we can all become better neighbors.

"i have no idea where you fit!"

a student and i were chatting it up yesterday afternoon in my office. he actually had needed a copy of something that i had in my office, and i was happy to make it for him, but our conversation quickly turned to things theological. he is going to be attending my most recent alma mater and i was happy to help him with letters of reference, etc.

in the course of our conversation we covered over a great many things including my views on eschatology and salvation, what the concept of "the kingdom" means to me, and some political identifiers or labels. he informed me that he and some of his peers had been discussing a few of us older guys, alums of our fraternity, and where we stood politically and theologically. he said for several them they were easy to label. conservative, liberal, sort of moderate, and then he said the conversation turned toward me. he informed me that when my name came up and his peers asked him where he thought i stood he simply said, "i have no idea where he fits!"

labels are easy identifiers. they help us categorize people for easy use, but they can be deceptive. i told him i don't believe in traditional labels, and therefore find myself to be outside of them, generally speaking. i explained to him that on some issues i tend toward what would be considered a conservative viewpoint and on others a liberal stance. and that is ok.

after we finished talking i couldn't help but to think that part of what got us to our current economic situation has to be our need to label and adhere to those labels as though they make us and tell us who we are. and that seems to not only be trifilingly simple theology, but also simply bad logic.

the watchmen: a review

i saw the watchmen this weekend. i believe i drug two of my closest friends somewhat unwillingly, but willing enough to entertain me, to the movie. i should say upfront that i have not read the graphic novel that it comes from. i can say, however, that it is on my list o' books to read and that i do have a foundational, if only basic, working knowledge of the story. and all of this is to say that it doesn't really matter, because i am not using this space or these words to critique its accuracy to the spirit or plot of the novel or the accuracy of the character development or anything of the sort really in the movie. i want to talk about why i believe everyone should see this movie.

there is depth to the movie. and its depth, for me, lies in the quality of the examination of the human character and the theological and sociological exploration there of. within the watchmen there is an exploration of the way in which the human character is destructive and that without reform, our choices will lead us to a place of ultiamte self-destruction. add to this the enigmatic figure of dr. manhattan who at times engages with the human creation and at times wants nothing more than separation and escape, and you have not only a sincere struggle of the relationship between humans and God, but you also have an authentic and genuine depiction of what it is to desire change of a world, culture, society, and humanity in the face of evil and destructive choices that humans make. there is no simple solution for the watchmen. while there is a commitment to change and reform on the part of the watchmen to what they find to be moral and true, there is also a wavering in that commitment. is it possible that reflection on the mission can result in change in the actions of those trying to accomplish the mission? we see a spectrum within the watchmen themselves of how to effect the greatest change on the greatest number from the absolutism of rorschach to the utilitarianism of ozymandias, albeit stilted at best.

perhaps what i liked most about the movie was that it did not suggest that there was an easy or simple depiction of what is "right" or "true." there was struggle for all who were involved and there was a needed commitment. true there could be doubts, wavering, questioning of the mission and the purpose itself, but there was a deep sense of the need for change and that a better world was possible than the current reality.

the bottom line for me was this: the story is a complex layering of historical fiction with a deep vein of theological and sociological exploration that gives it a depth for reflection that is rare in most movies. there is no sense of direction for a desired outcome of thought, rather a prodding to become uncomfortable with your own positions if only for the sake of re-examination in the face of what is true, real, and authentic. and ultimately, i am left with a sense of hope that a better and different world is possible, if only due to the generation of authentic relationships built on openness, honesty, and vulnerability with one another.

oh my beloved cowboys

for better or worse i am a dallas cowboys fan. before people go all crazy telling me i just like them because they spend a lot of money, are the new york yankees of football, and are basically premadonnas...stop yourself. there are times when i too believe all of those claims. i have been a cowboys fan my whole life which is long enough to remember 1 win seasons. but to avoid my rant on why professional athletes should actually take the role-model position seriously, i will focus on a different thought today.

jerry jones is becoming al davis. not familiar with al davis? he is the long time owner of the oakland raiders. oh the glory days of the raiders! john madden calling plays and probably telling his players boom! in the play call! oh the days of bo jackson and todd marinovich...oh wait that was about the time they started to come unglued. randy moss was a raider once...remember that? in case you don't, let's just say he took the marauding image of the raiders a little too far in his approach to the game. that was before he joined the cheating patriots and apparently became part of the american sports idol duo...but again besides the point. let it suffice to say that al davis isn't all there anymore and well...it shows. today i am focusing on jerry jones losing his marbles and the cowboys delving back into first-year-of-troy-aikman's-career-pitifulness.

apparently last night, the cowboys released terrell owens. i will be the first to tell you that terrell owens is no saint. he wants the ball, and he ain't afraid to let you know that. of course, when he gets the ball over the course of his career he has been pretty damn good. 38 touchdowns in 3 seasons isn't that bad. i remember the time terrell owens stepped on the star in the center of the field and celebrated, and i actually saw him do this with the eagles in the end zone on the little star when they were waxing us. add to this, however, that we also released roy williams, the safety (oh the non-dilemma of having two roy williams on your favorite team just 24 hours ago). now roy has been hurt the past couple of seasons, and really hasn't been as good as he once was, but i attribute this to the fact that the cowboys defensive staff have lost their minds in asking him to be a cover safety. roy williams is a blitz the quarterback, stuff the run, fly over defensive linemen and deflate your red-river-shootout-win-hopes safety. so here is what i predict will happen: some team that actually thinks about things like this will actually play him in such a role and he will return to the roy williams of old, and probably make a fool of the cowboys the first time we face him on this new team.

however, my biggest piece of evidence for the jerry-jones-is-now-al-davis claim is this: we traded away a guy that started all 16 games for us last year at either cornerback or safety (anthony henry), and was pretty decent i might add (granted not great, but go back and read that...did i say great?), for a quarterback we hope never steps foot on the field to actually take a snap...because have you seen the lions the past several years? jon kitna...you are just a pawn in this poor saga of deconstruction...but pawn you must play.

i resign myself to the fact the cowboys are apparently rebuilding now that they actually had a decent team with little to no discipline. seems to me the solution was to actually have some discipline, not throw away what great talent you had in the locker room. so to my wife...who probably in the back of her head is asking why she ever became a football fan much less a cowboys fan...i apologize for the fact that during football season i scream way too much, i generally revolve my world around the cowboys schedule, and care way too much because this year is going to be rough.

running through lent

the season of lent is upon us. i always have a hard time with this season. i don't think it is the discipline of the season. nor do i think it is the general wilderness feel of sacrifice for the season either. i think it is the anticipation of the end of the season and the beginning of easter. i find myself not appreciating the sacrifice i am making in order to grow closer to and find a deeper level of relationship with god. i believe lent has been abused by our consumer attitude toward christianity. i can remember a day when lent was barely talked about, or referred to as "that catholic thing." as a person who grew up with several very close catholic friends, i always observed their lenten fast. i appreciated the fact that they were sacrificing, even if i didn't have a deep understanding of what that meant on anything more than a superficial level. but back to the point at hand. as more and more christians have begun to participate in the lenten practices, it has become something that has been turned into a commodity in a typical american fashion. we look for efficiency more than sacrifice. we find things that will be the least painful, but still "significant" to give up. and mostly in my opinion we look for trendy things. things that we can give up year after year in order to simply tell our friends, i am giving up "chocolate" or some other yearly sacrifice.

so as not to give the wrong impression, i too have done that for many a year. i have found many a thing to give up, and yet have continued to feel unsatisfied at the end of the season. easter comes, and there is celebration, but there is no feast. so as i began to give this serious thought in the past several years and ancient wisdom was that things were sacrificed in order to take on something in place of that thing sacrificed in order to bring yourself closer and into a deeper relationship with god. simple, yet profound. give something up to take something on. i do want to differentiate this from typical american consumerism of busyness. we tend only to give up commitments when we have another to replace it with. this is poor form at best and probably destructive individually, familially, and ultimately communally. another post for another time however.

so after saying all of this running is one my favorite hobbies. there is in my opinion no better way to the see the environment around you than by enjoying it while running. i can cover great distances at a time either slow or fast and most importantly for me, it is a time of deep reflection. i get moody when i don't run. just ask my wife. my energy is off, i don't sleep well, i gain weight, and overall tend toward a sour outlook. that is no way to live. so i run. but i also run because at a deeper level of my being, it gives me deep satisfaction and provides me an avenue to experience who god has made me to be. i discover more about myself by running not only recreationally but also in races. i have been pushed to my very physical limits. and i have triumphed at times. but most importantly, i believe, i have failed at times in running. i have not met goals. i have been injured. and i have been deeply disappointed.

running offers, for me, a great picture of lent. we will have failures, triumphs, and hopefully deep personal reflection. the kind of reflection and introspection that results in outward action that draws us ultimately closer to one another and to god.

on transfiguring

i am not going to lie. i was not that excited when my boss asked me to preach this week in chapel. i could have abandoned the lectionary for something much more amenable to preach about, but i think that is weak for a couple of reasons: 1. i believe the lectionary challenges the preacher to think beyond their comfort zone. 2. there is some inherent beauty to the rhythm of the lectionary. it moves with the seasons and that is something that is both informative and comforting.

so anyhow, i see what is cooking on the lectionary...and it is the transfiguration of jesus and the story of elijah being taken up in a whirlwind by chariots and horses of fire. seriously?!? so i pressed on. resolute that i would make at least enough sense of these texts to have something intelligible to say on thursday morning. the following is what i came up with:

"Transformed for what?"

I would be kidding anybody today if I stood up here and told you that I understand everything that is happening in the Scriptures we have heard today. I could start with the story out of 2 Kings in which Elisha follows Elijah until Elijah is taken up in a whirlwind of chariots and horses of fire. I am not sure I want to spend too much time even thinking about the absolutely terrifying prospect of walking along with someone and suddenly having them disappear in a rush of wind and stampeding horses. It is hard to even place myself in the shoes of Elisha from the time he was called to follow Elijah. As he is plowing his family fields with oxen Elijah comes by and throws his mantle onto him. Now a mantle would have been an outer cloak that Elijah would have been wearing. It would have basically signified that Elisha was a student or follower of his. It would also signify to others that Elisha was chosen as the one who will take over the prophetic clan that Elijah was leading. Much like the rabbis of the time, the prophets would have a group of followers and students who would learn from the leader and hopefully display that they were capable of leading the others in the ways that would be honoring to what God is calling them to speak.

Or maybe I could start with the story of the transfiguration of Jesus of Nazareth. It was high on a mountain that we read Jesus experiences such a significant inner transformation that Peter, James, and John are dumbfounded. There really is no better word to describe the situation the disciples find themselves in. They are so terrified as to not understand not only what is happening on the mountain, but what Jesus tells to them as they are coming down the mountain. I imagine there was quite the surprise and confusion as they stood on the mountain and two supposedly dead (although I suppose Elijah never technically died) guys are appearing as though they are alive before them. This is only compounded when a voice from the clouds, that common depiction of God, tells them to listen to Jesus. Haven’t they already been listening to Jesus?

So, needless to say, I feel like I am in your seat today, waiting to hear from someone with a bit more intelligible things to say about what these scenes are all about and what in the world they mean! And perhaps you can at least sympathize if not empathize with me today when I tell you that obviously I am in the unenviable position of being the one who is trying to make sense of these scenes. And I have spent the better part of a week mulling these ideas over, these non-understandings and have come to some conclusions. But before we get to these conclusions perhaps it will do us well to simply take a moment to locate ourselves in the stories. Where is it that you most identify? Is it with Elisha, confused, yet hopeful that this will be the moment you have been waiting for? Is it with Elijah, ready and prepared, resolute? Or is it with Peter ready to at least try to say something that makes sense of the situation even if it is a ridiculous proposition? Maybe it is with the other disciples; too afraid to even act out or talk until you walk away from the one whom really deserves to be asked the question? Or maybe it is with the voice from the clouds needing to hear the reassurance that Jesus of Nazareth really is worth following and listening to? No matter where you find yourself I believe these stories are significant even if the events of them are not.

When you consider these two stories I believe we have a case of the undercard stealing away the show from the main event. In other words, I believe the events surrounding the central events of Elijah being taken up in a whirlwind of firey chariots and horses and Jesus being transfigured are not as significant for us as those things surrounding these events. And if at this point you are confused, I want to welcome you to the space I have occupied the last several days. In all seriousness, I do believe that something very important did happen to Jesus on that mountain, but I also know that what happened to Jesus is not going to be intelligible for me to describe in any detail. The idea of metamorphosis is something akin to what happened, but that seems to make as little sense of things as anything else I could say about it.

In 2 Kings we find Elisha following Elijah with a fervency that is not matched by the others of the prophetic group they are a part of. Elisha is told three times by Elijah to stay put and stop following him, yet Elisha refuses to stay where he is and tells Elijah that he will not leave his side until he is gone. He knows the consequences of what will happen on this day and yet he refuses to stop following. The same can’t be said for the disciples we will meet in the Markan story, who are marked by failure, and the same probably can’t be said of how we follow Christ at all times. Elijah simply has a drive inside of him that perhaps comes closest to the way we run after something when we really, really want that thing. And most of the time those things are material. And to be clear Elisha knew what was at stake. Elijah asks him point blank, what do you want from me? And Elisha answers that he wants the double portion inheritance. This would be the inheritance of the firstborn. He wants to lead the prophetic guild. I believe this is not Elisha being materialistic or desiring worldly gain, as it might be easy to confuse it for such, but that Elisha clearly understands his calling. He understands what it means to take on the mantle of Elijah and will do whatever he must to be obedient to this call. He leaves behind his family and responsibilities in the field on the abrupt call of Elijah. He follows even when it is clear that everyone thinks he is crazy for following and that things do not look good. And he has the determination to follow through with the conditions of the call – he must watch and see Elijah taken up. Amid all the confusion and chaos of that moment he does that, and yet it is unclear that he understands he himself has inherited what he asked for. He must have the courage to step out and try to part the waters, to lead himself back along the path of exile into the community in order to reintegrate and become a part of the people once again. We can learn something from this clear sighted commitment. We are each called by God to something. I cannot tell you what that calling is, but I do know that when you know that calling, you must determine the best path in order to follow that call. It might get tough at times and it may be confusing and chaotic. However, we are called to maintain our focus and see things through to the very end. In this we will begin to be transformed to become someone different, perhaps even to the point that it is evident to others that we are called and set apart for the glory of God.

I want also to return to the thought that the disciples failed in following Jesus. I am not saying by any means that they ultimately failed, but they did experience failure. This story comes in the middle of significant events of failure on the part of the disciples. Mark is specific to mention that this is six days later. So naturally you might ask six days after what? Or maybe what has happened that we might want to look back at the six days? Six days earlier we find Jesus has healed a blind man in Bethsaida and then he went on with his disciples to Caesarea Philippi. Caesarea Philippi was known as the place where people would worship the Greek god Pan. Pan was the Greek god of the shepherds and flocks, of the mountain wilds, and hunting and rustic music. But in Greek mythology, he also took credit for inspiring sudden fear and loneliness in people and places. So imagine what it means for Jesus to be at this place in Caesarea Philippi where one of the sources of the Jordan River springs to the surface of the Earth and Jesus tells Peter and the other disciples that not even the gates of Hades will stand against the church that he is building on the solid foundation of rock. He is effectively telling them that sudden loneliness and fear, as might be inspired by the coming events of his life and crucifixion will not defeat him and the kingdom of God. He is giving them a foretaste of what is to come. He goes on to tell them of his death and resurrection and Peter tries to rebuke him for which he is ultimately rebuked himself (it was after all when Jesus calls him Satan). And finally, Jesus has told his followers that in order to follow them they must lay down their lives, pick up their cross and follow; they must lose their lives to gain them. It is all of this that immediately precedes and must be fresh in the minds of the disciples as they follow Jesus up the mountain to where they are at once terrified to find Jesus transformed into glory and Elijah and Moses are present before them. Stupefied, Peter suggests that they build tents or places of worship for the three of them as though they were going to stay there atop the mountain, Jesus, Moses, and Elijah. And then the voice from heaven booms at them to listen to Jesus. Jesus didn’t even take the time to reply to his suggestion. Instead as they were coming off the mountain confused and probably still trembling, Jesus tells them not to tell anyone about what happened until after he is raised from the dead. And even though the concept of resurrection would have meant something to the Jewish ears of these three disciples, they are confused. They don’t know what to make of what they have seen and heard.

Maybe they were expecting a different kind of Messiah. Perhaps they expected Jesus to overthrow the current political powers. It is inconceivable for them at this time that Jesus would be talking about rising from the dead and living after death. Perhaps this is also because we know they will have a hard time understanding and grasping that Jesus is resurrected from the dead even when it has happened. The three disciples fail to grasp the significant call for themselves to be transformed and changed for the current world. They fail to watch Jesus in the garden in the coming days and James and John are about to quibble over who is greatest among them. One of the commentaries I read suggested that this scene reinforces to us that, “Appearances of glory do not provide evidence for God’s truth.”

So I ask you, what are we to be transformed for? If we believe something significant happens in Christ promising the Holy Spirit’s presence in our lives, what are we changed for? I suggest we begin to get at this in asking how poignant it is that Jesus demands that the disciples not go and tell. Outside of their non-understanding of the significance of the event, it would have been big news to Jews in the area that they saw Jesus speaking with Elijah and Moses. Instead we see that faith is a prerequisite of healing and understanding of the true nature of God. This is what seems to make the sacrifice so big. We must learn and commit to seeing the world in a new way. The kingdom is not something far-off and other timely; it is now in the present. Jesus’ transfiguration suggests that he is preparing to usher the kingdom in with his death and resurrection, which he points to. What the disciples don’t seem to get is that Jesus will bring the kingdom to the present in part in the tension that it will be not wholly present until the final new creation. In failing to grasp this, the disciples seem almost disappointed that Jesus would be alive and present with the saints of Elijah and Moses without being the Messiah they seem to desire, overthrowing the present world order.

N.T. Wright, the Bishop of Durham for the Church of England, puts it this way in his book Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church (which I highly recommend): “What Pastor Gospelman (he is speaking here about two fictitious preachers on Easter) never notices is that the resurrection stories in the gospels aren’t about going to heaven when you die…Jesus is risen, therefore God’s new world has begun. Jesus is risen, therefore Israel and the world have been redeemed. Jesus is risen, therefore his followers have a new job to do. And what is that new job? To bring the life of heaven to birth in actual, physical, earthly reality…The resurrection is indeed the foundation for a renewed way of life in and for the world. But to get that social, political, and cultural result, you really do need the bodily resurrection.” I believe N.T. Wright is on to something here. Jesus, whether in transfiguration, death, or resurrection, is not calling us to other-worldly existence. He is calling us to transform the world in the present through transformed lives. It is our job, duty, and obligation of joy that we are able to participate in the creation of the new world, that we are part of the building of the kingdom of God. So, in closing let me ask, what are you doing and how are you working to transform not only your life, but the world around you? The kingdom of God is here, perhaps not in its full glory, but it is here, how are you participating?