rohre's ramblings

running to lose weight and gain your soul

2011-11-29T13:46:00.001-08:00

nearly two and a half years ago my wife and i were blessed with twin boys. they are brothers in every since of the word. they look out for one another, they disrupt one another, they play together, they laugh together, and they cause mischief together. life gets hectic after you have kids. you seem to forget about things you used to do, or liked to do, or did because they made you a better person in the crunch of scheduling feedings, playtime, bathing, parenting, and nurturing your own marriage and life. in short, it seems that every moment of those first days, weeks, and months of parenthood are sucked up by controlled chaos. you can't remember at times how you got from 6am to 6pm, and yet you eventually begin marking days, activities, and occurrences by the schedule that runs your life.

sometime within the past two and a half years and a well-developed and monitored schedule i quit running. it was a slow burn out really. leading up to the time that we started thinking about having children i trained for and ran my first marathon. i marked my days by a different calendar during those months. it was long runs, tempo runs, weekly mileage, and rest days. after that race i started to slowly drift away from running. it wasn't a conscious decision, but as is often pointed to in situations like this, life simply started happening. i stopped lacing up my running shoes, started making it from one feeding to the next, worked a 9-5 job in between, and quit making time to run. and i paid for it.

it wasn't a quick change in my life that indicated i had totally stopped running. i didn't throw out my running shoes, or abandon the solace of running on a cold morning against a crisp wind blowing into my face. i simply irregularly trotted out the door on a whim. and that's all running was to me for nearly a year and a half. when it struck my fancy i took to the roads and felt the twinge of inability to do what i once could do with little effort. inevitably at the end of the run i would tell myself i was out of shape, needed to run more often, or at least exercise in some way.

i can't tell you what happened exactly. it wasn't a magical moment that changed things in my life. sometime around a year and a half ago i stepped on a scale. i was at my heaviest weight and i could visibly start to notice not only clothes not fitting, but pictures of me looking differently and close family members gently suggesting that i had put on a few pounds. around this time i was unemployed for the first time, to be followed by a short stent of employment, and now entrenched in nine months of my second tour of unemployment - and that perhaps has been the biggest change. i had plenty of idol time on my hands after doing household chores and job searching every day. so i started to run again. and slowly it came back to me, much like the feeling of riding a bicycle for the first time.

reminding myself to take things slowly and to not push too hard too fast were difficult concepts. running slowly became something that i was doing again, was feeding my soul again, and was a priority. i gained the perspective that to effect change in one's life requires making priorities that can facilitate the achievement. after a while the pounds started to come off. and after a year and a half i have lost 40 pounds.

i was recently asked if i had any tips to help people who are looking to run in order to lose weight. this is what i shared:

keep pushing yourself to accomplish and work towards your goals. the best way to do this is to set concrete goals with concrete checkpoints, i.e. sign up for a 5k in the future and that will help keep you motivated to keep running and working toward a real event.
find someone to run with you. running can be an intimidating sport – it always seems like everyone else knows more than you – but the benefits of having a running partner or group far outweigh the drawbacks. it will be built in accountability for the days when you’d rather stay in bed. my brother provides that for me in the form of picking races for us to run together. i can’t let him down by flaking out simply because i haven’t been training – it keeps me going on the bad days.
my running mantra has gotten me through many a workout and run that i simply wanted to quit – “practice not quitting. practice not quitting.” pick something that will help refocus you on your ultimate goals and take you out of the present moment of pain, discomfort, or disillusionment.
there will be good days and there will be bad days when you are running consistently. don’t get too down on yourself when you are not seeing the results you want to see during a run. remember: there will be another run this week and you can work towards your goals then.
finally, to use a racing metaphor, this is a marathon not a sprint. losing weight through running will take time and will be a combination of exercise and change in diet. while the results may not be immediate, they will come and you should celebrate them when they arrive.

ultimately when i consider my running journey the pounds gained and lost are inconsequential to regaining a part of who i am. there is no bigger joy for me than when i come around a final turn, into the view of the finishing chute, or just through the front door of the house and two toddlers are cheering their dad on.

it doesn't have to be running. we all lose the passion, excitement, or fulfillment of hobbies from time to time. choose today to reclaim that hobby and regain part of who you are. happy running.

have you ever slowly lost a hobby that you found out later made a big difference to you?

the air of pain

2011-11-16T09:34:00.001-08:00

my training lately has centered around time goals. slowly shaving seconds off of miles takes hard work and dedication. it isn't enough to just go out and put in your miles. you have to commit yourself to running harder, faster, and approaching, even surpassing, your thresholds of pain. one thought has consistently been repeating itself in my head during the endless footfalls of my runs:

in the stratified, thinly layered air and altitude of pain, it is a more mental than physical game. you must neatly, quickly, and efficiently dispense of the thought of pain and suffering stopping, slowing, or altering your pace. pain is but a natural consequence of the elasticity of the human form.

happy running.

to rabbit or not to rabbit

2011-11-02T08:56:00.000-07:00

elmer j. fudd, he of looney tunes fame, famously and dubiously, we might add, proclaims, "be vewy vewy quiet. i'm hunting wabbits!" it was and is a constant battle for him to catch these said "wabbits." the same cannot be said for runners.

rabbits are a pacing mechanism used in some races by elite athletes to hit goal race finishing times. the theory goes that the rabbits will pace the lead group for at least half of the race distance at the goal pace time in order to help them attain a specific finishing time, most often of the record (course, national, country of origin, world) variety. one could rightly ask, what would be the point of these mechanisms otherwise? the rabbit has a predetermined pull-off point at which they stop running. not fall back to a slower pace, but literally stop and quit running.

the wall street journal has an interesting article running today about the ban on rabbits in the new york city marathon. for several years the race organizers have eschewed rabbits for tactical racing. the idea behind this runs something like this: when you eliminate people employed in a race for the specific purpose of pacing the lead runners to a goal time you require the runners themselves to manage and dictate that pace over the total duration of the course, not just part of it. it also requires that the runners accept the mental burden of running in a tactical race for, say 26.2 miles in the case of the marathon, versus part of the race, say 13.1 miles in that same case of the marathon.

i have run competitively, granted not at the same level as people running for a living, and found that one of the most difficult parts of managing a race in order to achieve a desired outcome is the very lack of knowledge of the runners you are running against. in most cases you don't know what their race strategy will be. will they try to lead from the front the entire race? will they yo-yo their pace in order to test the strength, fitness, and endurance of the other runners? will they have a back half pace of brutality that is designed to see who has the most heart in a race rather than the fastest legs? in other words the mental game of furtive glances at the runners, watching as a runner disappears around a corner at a pace you can't maintain in that moment, or playing your cards at the moment you feel is right by accelerating the pace on a hill, flat, or downhill in order to pull away from those around you is not an easy game. it requires an extraordinary amount of mental toughness in the moment.

do rabbits hinder these game? do they steal from the beauty and art of play that unfolds over roads, trails, and fields as runners perspire? and are the two even mutually exclusive? do rabbits inhibit tactical racing?

what say you readers and runners? rabbits or no rabbits?

the trail

2011-10-28T10:02:00.000-07:00

when i need a place that will be quiet, involve minimal human interaction, and be intensely focusing i head to the trail to run. trail running is one of the most physically focusing activities i have ever done. you are always on. you can't stop paying attention to the trail ahead of you, under your feet, your surroundings (who knows what animals are out there), and the quietness of the trail. it is this quietness that leads to an even deeper level of focus. the sounds of your breathing and exertion are magnified and the necessary decisions of stride length, pace, intensity level exerted on uphills, downhills, and flats become critical, footfall placement and quick recovery from misplacement of steps are crucial. all of this happens in split second decisions that if ignored can result in painful falls.

there is a depth of truth to running on trails that puts on display your fitness level, your strengths and weakness, the rightness or wrongness of the decisions you make. once you are out on the trail whatever happens is coming back in with you whether it is a looped path or an out and back. and this i know: there is no other place, despite all that goes into each and every step taken, in which i can focus on everything else going on in my life and find answers, peace, calm, and a sense of being centered.

i hope you know of where that place is for you. where do you go to be centered when you need it?

just one more page

2011-10-25T07:15:00.000-07:00

i finished a book yesterday by one of my favorite contemporary authors. blood meridian: or the evening redness in the west by cormac mccarthy is a beautifully, although strikingly violent, written book that borders the apocalyptic genre of writing. it is true to his style of efficiency and economy of word with scenic description paramount to the story. in fact, the scenic venues of the narrative are a character worth study in and of themselves in his writing.

i'm not here to do a book review though. i'm here to admit that i wanted one more page to tell me the rest of the story. to explain the untidy closure of the story. to fill in the rest of the timeline of events. have you ever wanted that in a story? i can comfortably disclose to you that i am most often o.k. with books that end without clear resolution for all of the characters, or a philosophical ending leaving the reader questioning whether or not they read the characters correctly throughout the book (think life of pi by yann martel here). but for some reason, this ending nags at me. perhaps this is the mark of masterful authorship.

what are you reading? have you ever wanted one more page in a book? what book?

a running perspective

2011-10-20T06:32:00.000-07:00

a friend wrote a great post on her blog a couple of weeks ago concerning crossing over the chasm of running for fun to running as competition. it is a great and insightful post. you should take the time to read it. i commented on the post, and in light of my most recent race performance they were good words to review today. (i think i just patted myself on the back in semi-public...uhhhh...that was awkward.) here they are, hopefully, for your benefit as well:

i often remind myself that it is about perspective. i have goals, and that is what keeps me motivated, but in reality it is more about the experience of pushing myself than what happens at the end of the race in my age group or overall field that reminds me why i run. i gain far more satisfaction from giving everything i have in a race than not and doing well; there simply aren't any nagging wonders about what could have been when that is the case.

happy running!

race report: marathon 2 marathon

2011-10-18T07:52:00.000-07:00

(brief disclaimer: this is long. parts are more graphic in their imagery and details than others. skip those if you'd like.)

marathon, tx is a sleepy town. it is also the last place of civilization before you head further south to big bend. finally, it is a beautiful stretch of land, marked by the davis mountains to the west and mesas and ridges surrounding you as you dip and rise over the mostly barren land, save for a few cacti and mesquite trees. at night you can see so many stars that the dust-like span of the galaxy is majestic and awe inspiring.

on a lonely, quiet stretch of two lane highway runners gathered in the pre-dawn light of the morning to prepare to run 26.2 mi. some consider this misery of the purest form. others consider it an exhilaration of what it means to be alive. still others simply can't conceive of why a person would want to devote 3, 4, 5 hours of their lives to the pursuit of putting one foot in front of another for a seemingly endless expanse of pavement, concrete, and blacktop until their legs feel like quitting.

my brother and i chose to run this race after i had come upon it quite happenstance. i googled some reviews of the race and found nothing but good things to be said and told him we had to run it. for the past year we have filled our calendar with races we wanted to do with little restraint to location. as a disclaimer, this is not a race for someone who enjoys the running of the pack, a lot of people to pass ahead of you who foolishly started too fast, or throngs of people lining the road to cheer you, oh anonymous runner on in your pursuit of individual challenge and glory. there are few people, simple aid stations, and cars going either direction every once in awhile. you are more likely to hear the voice of the local sheriff, ems personnel, or random race organizer asking you if you want water, need anything, or are doing ok than you are a spectator cheering you on or a fellow runner chatting about the pleasantries which runners are want to exchange during a long distance race.

a rolling course of sloping hills up and down persist for the entirety of the race. up and down you go as you climb from ~4,400 ft. to ~4,800 ft. of elevation at the peak of the race and finish mostly downhill over the profile of the race. to call it specifically downhill is not tell you the truth. the biggest climb was at mile 22ish and i wasn't sure it was going to ever end, but i am getting ahead of myself.

i felt prepared to run this race. my longest run in training was 23 miles. i ran that distance a couple of times before the race. the last time i finished the training run with a good amount of energy feeling i could have continued for several more miles. i declared myself ready, was confident, and believed that i could run a 3:30 marathon. if it were a perfect day, with a great run, i thought i had the outside chance of running a 3:15. my training plan, which wasn't necessarily "textbook" consisted of running 3-4 times a week. i have been "blessed" with injuries in my running history mostly of the over-use variety. so i wanted to train smart, stay healthy, and show up to the race with a realistic chance of running a great race. i feel like i accomplished that goal.

race morning went off without a hitch. we showed up to the race with good time to spare. we made our ritualistic forays to the port-a-potties or ranch fence -- hey, this is west texas afterall -- and i was ready to go. after saying our goodbyes to our support crew, my wife and sister-in-law who should win an award for the support they gave throughout the race leap frogging us in the car, i toed the start line.

the first several miles were flawless. i was running about a 7:45 pace and felt confident and comfortable. i actually wondered to myself at one point that it was fairly effortless with the cool of the morning. this is about the time that the problems started. i have been running for nearly 20 years, and running races through much of that time. i have never had any stomach or gastro-intestinal (gi) problems. today was my day. i felt awkward and wondered if it was simply food settling in my stomach. at some point between miles 6&7 i decided i would pull off and try to relieve some pressure on my bladder, aka urinate over the fence. that didn't work, i simply didn't have anything. about a half mile later i finally accomplished that, but still felt bad at this point. eventually i wondered if i could make it to a port-a-potty on the race course. the first one i saw, with some relief, a runner several hundred yards in front of me pulled off to use. at this point i was in the unenviable position of deciding whether or not to wait. i am glad i didn't. he must have been in there for awhile, because despite all my coming problems, i didn't see him again until well after the half way point of the marathon.

at mile 8.5 i knew it was desperate times and desperate measures were in my future. i started looking for the bush. you know the bush that in the empty west texas landscape would at least give me some muted sense of privacy while other people passed on the side of the road. it was either luck of a heavenly blessing that a bush, on the good side of the barbwire fence aka my side, that would be decent and not result in me displaying all of myself to the rest of the runners appeared ahead. i peeled off and did my business, with no tp. like i said, the operative word in all of this was desperate.

did i mention that we had a rockstar support crew? i knew they were leap frogging my brother and i as we ran. i knew he was behind me some way and that hopefully they would come along soon. i started running again, praying fairly earnestly that they would be the next car to creep by to no avail a couple of times. i then wondered how long it was going to take me to get to the next mirage of a blue box standing in all its glory. it was about this time somewhere between miles 9-10 that my crew rolled up and provided some napkins. it was relief of a kind that i hadn't known. chafing might yet be avoided for the remainder of the race. i had to stop again at the halfway point to utilize the blue box. this wasn't an ideal first half. and yet, despite all of this i looked down at my watch as i headed off and had covered the first half in 1:45. i was still on pace for a 3:30 finish.

because of my issues i had been distracted and focusing on my water intake had been a struggle. i carried a camelback which i had trained with for months and was comfortable wearing while running. i simply wasn't consistent enough in hindsight in taking in water. we'll call this foreshadowing.

the second half of the marathon settled in nicely. i started to feel some internal normalcy and reminded myself to simply run within my abilities and give it what i had left. and give i did. i rocked along passed aid stations and the few spectator cars feeling more confident as the miles passed.

about mile 20 i started to feel my calves tighten up. at juncture i knew it was only a matter of time before cramps set in and i hoped that 6 miles was inside that point. i was wrong. i had started to take water and gatorade in tandem with the liquid i was already drinking at the aid stations. when i hit mile 23, after the aforementioned hill of no end, the cramps won out. i was able to run about a half mile at a time before needing to either walk for about a minute to stretch out or to just stop completely and stretch. at about mile 24 it became pure pain as i had to stop about every 100-200 yards to stretch out my calf muscles which apparently wanted to evacuate my legs from either side of my lower legs.

i had given up all hope of finishing with a faster time and told myself that at all costs i could finish under 4 hours. it was a matter of want and desire. i trudged in (at least that's what it felt like) at 3:59:50. my wife urged me in under the 4 hour mark and i felt ~~happy~~ ~~relieved~~ exhilarated to be finished. i was disappointed. and if i'm honest i was really just mad at myself. i had trained, had the ability and potential, and didn't deliver the results i wanted. with some time between myself and the race, i can assess things more positively.

overall i placed 20th. i placed 2nd in my age group. i finished under 4 hours and dropped my marathon pr by nearly an hour. it was a good feeling. undoubtedly the most rewarding part of the race was eagerly waiting for my brother at the 26 mile marker and running him in the last .2 miles. for people who have never run a marathon there really isn't much more of a rush adrenaline and feeling of elation than those last tenths as you head to the finish. it was a moment i won't forget. we had trained for months and accomplished something many will not. it was more than just a long run on a saturday morning.

overall this is a great race. it is a niche marathon. there is little fanfare, but this is replaced with a level runner camaraderie that isn't matched in bigger marathons. we are tentatively planning on heading back next year. i have said before that every runner has good runs and bad runs. it is in the nature of pushing your body to do something to better itself. the same is true of racing. you have good races and you have bad races. so lace up those shoes, get out there, and run into tomorrow; you'll be better for it.

a marathon run to marathon

2011-10-13T14:12:00.000-07:00

it's been just over a year since i have trod this space. a lot of things have been going on in my life and the life of my family. the boys are two and doing what two year old twins do -- cause havoc and mischief in a fun-loving way. i had a job and now don't have a job for just over 7 months. it's been a trying and equally rewarding time. i've learned a lot about myself and what i want to pursue long term. on top of all of this i have been running. a lot.

i started to run, seriously, again over the last year and a half and have lost around 40lbs. that has been rewarding and valuable in its own right, but it also has allowed me to enjoy the sport with a renewed purpose for the first time in nearly 8 years. i am competitive in races and am able to set and vie for PRs that i previously could not have attained. for the past 10 months i have been working on my training and building my base miles in preparation for this weekend.

on saturday i will run 26.2 miles in the middle of nowheresville west texas. the race is called the marathon 2 marathon. an appropriate moniker considering the race begins about 23 miles outside of marathon, texas and then takes one road into town where you take a turn and head to the finish line. it should be a challenging race both mentally and physically. check back next week for a complete race recap, replete with any glory or foibles that beset me as i run the race. i'll also share what my training plan has been, and as a foretaste we'll just say it most likely isn't in a textbook of training anywhere.

i look forward to sharing my experience with you next week.

penny for your thoughts

2010-10-07T09:25:00.000-07:00

curious to know what the (small) readership thinks of the following statement:

sunday school does not equal small group.

thoughts in the comments.

the intimacy of empathy

2010-09-14T08:29:00.000-07:00

in my last post i laid the foundation for the subject of this post, communion.

communion, in the christian tradition, has gone by many different names: the eucharist, the lord's supper, the sacrament of the table, sharing the table, the blessed sacrament, but they all point to the same theological undergirding: empathy.

no matter your theology of communion (and it can range from transubstantiation to purely symbolic), the basis of continuing in the practice of communion is empathic. the idea that you might share in an experience that is timeless and significant, at once transformative and communal, is what guides this practice.

there are different ways to receive communion, each typically emphasizing the theology at work in the particular practice that one experiences. i have been privileged to receive communion in many of the different ways, and one thing that stands true, for me, in all of the different ways is the way in which those whom i receive the elements of bread and wine with experience something as a community that provides the catalyst for greater transformation communally.

the idea that we can experience things together, through the basic elements of the earth transformed into food, should be thought of as revolutionary. there is a high level of intimacy involved in sharing food with others, and we probably take that for granted too much and miss its potential. in order to really get to know you, i will probably ask that we share a meal at some point in order to do so. it seems logical then to suggest that we might effect more change, develop deeper relationships, or know those points of view that differ from our own more completely if we are willing to include activities that allow us a level of comfort and experience from which we can draw on later.

the intimacy of empathy is what can provide for communion with others and transformative change to occur in our own lives. and then we can set ourselves to the work of communal action for which are prepared by our empathic sharing.

the vast chasm between sympathy and empathy

2010-09-10T06:56:00.000-07:00

the last several posts about food have been built on a foundation of the shared experience. there is a power in an experience shared that doesn't exist in something that is experienced in solitude. when you are alone you cannot ask someone else if they just noticed this or that, if they felt that, or if they experienced something the same way as you.

i can hear some of the more astute readers protesting right now, that this is technically, if not categorically, incorrect. i was a philosophy minor after all in college. but i am not talking about the universal. i am pointing to the particular. i am making the subtle difference between sympathy and empathy stand out in the vast chasm which separates them.

i want you to think of empathy. those feelings and emotions, reactions and memories that are called up by having been practically speaking in the same place as another, not just similarly placed.

it is in these moments that we can probe the deeper things at work when we share with one another a beer brewed to perfection, a steak grilled without flaw, and vegetables seasoned from the earth, and yet, have something profoundly pass between us in our togetherness.

our small group experiences this at least once a year. we share the seder meal together. it is a traditionally jewish meal. it is derived from the jewish experience of passover that is passed down from one generation to the next in a narrative that shapes an entire culture. something special happens for us once a year when we share the tastes, the words, and feelings of the seder. we try to give voice to that afterward, but are not always successful at describing the ineffable.

i have found that as i have become more of an "adult" and "grown up," it becomes increasingly difficult to have these experiences. they must be scheduled. there are interruptions, excuses, reasons to not go and do. our culture seems to like it that way. i hope we can slowly change our culture, together.

meet me at babe's

2010-09-07T08:31:00.000-07:00

one would think that in america, where we love our portion sizes enormous, family style eating would be popular. sharing meals with one another in larger groups over hours of raucous story-telling and spirits should be something that we enjoy.

but the very things that make up the idea of enjoying family style eating are what diminish its attractiveness to americans in my opinion. for example:

1. we like large portions. but we don't like to share those portions. i order my food at a restaurant because it is what i want, not what we might enjoy sharing. it is downright un-american, indeed, to share all the parts of our meal together. we might just lose a little piece of that enduring, rugged individualism that has made us what we are today as a country. or we might just lose a few pounds on the waistline. either way, i know we shrink back at the idea that we might have to compromise over things.

2. i think we see eating as utilitarian. i, too often, fall into this category. it is something that we have to do to maintain life and "health" statuses (but let's not get too carried away on the whole healthy thing, after all this is america). i eat with speed you have not seen and as though my food is going to disappear all too quickly if it isn't cleared off my plate. the idea that we might sit around sharing food and drink for hours at a time, seems counter-productive to our culture that demands productive progress, not exploratory and educational conversation.

3. eating family style means we share a closeness or level of comfort with acceptance of everyone at the table. to pass a plate or bottle around is a tacit way of offering yourself to another person. without saying the words and by participating in family style eating we exhibit the idea that what i have is for us, and not me alone. this is a corollary of #1. and yet, we do a great deal in our culture to wall ourselves off from others in our homes, with our fences, in our cars, and individualized, compartmentalized, and specialized lives. we are good at this. and we are inversely bad at sharing ourselves.

there are several places that i can enjoy family style eating where all bets are off. my favorite is something that i can't get in austin where i live: Babe's Chicken Dinner House. oh the gloriousness!

what would you add to the list?

a childhood lived together

2010-08-26T07:24:00.000-07:00

i am more and more convinced that one truism in life is that you appreciate your parents more as you get older. there are, obviously, exceptions to this, but as you get older you begin to understand the perspective by which they lived through the days and nights of parenthood.

my parents were and are generous people. whether or not they really wanted to, they taught me what i have come to see as a virtue of food culture: to be hospitable and generous is a higher calling.

just about every day of the summer my friends and i engaged in an endless cycle of activity that went something like this: 1. get up fairly early and assemble said friends if not already present. 2. commence outside activity of running around, riding bikes, playing basketball, football, or home run derby until it became too hot to be outside without the aid of 100s of gallons of water. 3. go to a friend's pool and stay in it for the rest of the afternoon and into the early evening. 4. eat dinner...eventually. 5. find one person's house to stay at that night. 6. eat and drink nearly everything in sight. 7. stay up entirely too late. 8. repeat steps 1-7.

our merry band of friends numbered 4-5 and we could eat in our teenage years. and our parents let us. they allowed us to form bonds over the shared experience of a childhood lived together in happiness and struggle, fun times and hard times that friendships inevitably will come upon, and successes and failures as we grew older.

whether or not our parents meant to do this is now inconsequential. i think they taught all of us something much more important than we could have intentionally taught ourselves: that to share and live together is greater and more fulfilling than to isolate ourselves and create an island of our own personality.

much of my childhood was literally lived with the same 5-6 guys and they are still close friends today. they were the groomsmen in my wedding; they were the people i called first to let them know we were having a baby...and then 2 babies a couple of weeks later; they are still the people i feel a longing to know how they are doing and what is going on in their lives. they are most likely a part of who i am and feel most connected to.

and much of this was developed over shared food and drink, over nights spent bleary-eyed and tired but not wanting to let go of the fun to fall asleep, and over the countless hours of unconscious weaving of life experienced together that we didn't realize was happening.

we all owe a lot to our parents. they taught us that to be generous and hospitable was and is greater than anything else we had going on in our lives. i am sure that we were an inconvenience in their lives from time to time, but they must have seen the bigger picture and noticed what was happening day after day after day. and for that words cannot contain the gratitude that i suspect we all have for them.

what is a locavore anyway?

2010-08-23T09:54:00.000-07:00

our little community of people, with whom we have been meeting for 4 yrs now, was presented with an intriguing opportunity recently. we could purchase a cow. we could not only purchase this cow, but we could have said purchased cow slaughtered, butchered, and packaged for our consumption.

and so purchase a cow we did! just a couple of weeks ago some of our friends brought our portion of the cow to our house, and we have since been trying to figure out ways to eat dishes consisting of beef. our first dish was a delectable brown sugar meatloaf. what can i say, i am a sucker for down-home favorites.

the cow we purchased was not grain-fed or fattened. our cow was raised on grass, not too far from our house and slaughtered and processed locally as well. it was participation in what is called being a locavore (maybe just the light version, but you have to start somewhere right?). purchasing food from producers in close geographic radius to your home can have far reaching impact on the local economy -- not to mention the added bonus of knowing how your food was raised and grown.

all of this is basic stuff that can lead to bigger questions. what is the right balance of food production? how do you eat healthy and locally and maximize your impact on the local economy and food production with your limited budget (i assume none of my few loyal readers are extremely wealthy, and if you are i want to talk to you about other things!)? what are the ethical and moral impacts of these choices? it is more complicated than you probably think. and how should we go about getting our food?

let's explore food together.

still looking

2010-07-15T12:45:00.000-07:00

i am still looking for a job.

that is a somewhat depressing sentence to write. i have tried to fill my time each day with constructive activities, i.e. actually looking for said elusive job that is supposedly out there (at least that is what all the media outlets say about ATX), reading books i have come across, working on projects for a non-profit i am on the board of directors for, doing chores around the house, and running on some days. this is all great in theory, but these things become repetitive at best and teetering on boredom at worst. i am not sure it is a universal feeling (probably not, having at least some insight into human motivation from pastoral care work i have done), but any time that i am not looking for a job i get a twinge of guilt. i rationalize this to myself on almost a daily basis that you surely can't look for a job 24/7 or even 8/5.

what i do know is that this extended time seems to have slowly sucked the creativeness out of me. i have found that reading helps to provoke ideas in my head and running helps refresh my mind and soul for both motivation and the beauty of endorphin release. so, i try to be more disciplined about these things as the days pass.

update finished. on to a new idea:

i want to write about food. not only the importance of sustenance and what that means, but the connections to a life lived spiritually and how food plays a role in and impacts that life. but i want this to be communal. so what questions, ideas, quandaries, comments do you have? with questions i will do my best to answer. with ideas, quandaries, comments, i will do my best to respond. use the comment space below to participate.

sharing is fun; my mother taught me that. so share in this idea and exploration with me.

vive le tour!

2010-07-01T12:13:00.000-07:00

it is arguably my favorite time of year. as the july heat is ratcheted up in the lone star state, so the summer in france sizzles with excitement. it is time for the tour de france, or simply le tour.

as they hurl toward the prologue, riders from 22 teams will each take their turn to churn out 8.9km as fast as they can in an atmosphere of exhibition on saturday. to be sure this will be the beginning of a gut wrenching covering of 3,642km over 20 stages with a couple of rest days sprinkled in between. there will be big names who crash, big names who fail to live up to expectation, and big names who are disgraced - only adding to the blight and shadow that doping casts over the sport. but there will also be big names and unheralded names who conquer both mountain and flats to rise victorious, even if only for a day. and they will succeed on the backs of their teams as they pull them through stage after stage and only one man is left atop the podium donning the yellow jersey that is known the cycling world over.

dirty racing is something that we unfortunately come to expect in the cycling world. we wonder if humans are really capable of achieving the feats they seem to accomplish in the days leading up to failed tests. we know that it will be present this year, but we hope that it will be lessened in each of the successive races. whole teams are beginning to make efforts to clean up the sport (see team garmin-transitions). riders are tested more often, especially if your initials are la (just follow @lancearmstrong to find out just how often that is). as a devoted cycling fan i can only hope that this year will be cleaner than last and the next even more so.

despite all the dark publicity brought to the sport every year in doping scandals, i find myself excited and ready to watch the 22 teams begin a quest to accomplish their goals both as individuals and as cooperatives. it is compelling to think that no man can succeed in winning the tour on his own, he is constantly in debt and dependent upon the team whose colors he pulls on each morning. the cooperative nature of this type of sport reminds me time and time again that we are not alone. that in our greatest successes and failures there are others who celebrate and agonize with us. vive le tour!

qualities of a job search

2010-06-03T12:40:00.000-07:00

patience and silence.

my wife can attest to the fact that i am phenomenal (probably to a fault at times) at the latter and not so phenomenal at the former. these are traits that i have known about myself for a long time in my short life. i appreciate running alone in the rain, left to my own thoughts of solitude. i struggle though to occupy myself for more than a couple of days and find boredom sets in when i know i would rather be working. my patience being tested while driving frequently results in high levels of in-car tension. but when my wife falls asleep in minute 21 of driving, i don't mind driving the rest of the 4 hours in complete silence to myself.

these are qualities and characteristics of a job search. it has only taken three days of unemployment for me to figure out which parts are going to be difficult for me to withstand and which will be un-affecting to me.

some years back i spent 7 weeks in costa rica studying sustainable development. while there one of the professors spent free time indulging the hobby of bird watching. it was something that i had never participated in, but having lugged my binoculars all the way to costa rica, i wanted to get some good use out of them, and this was a great opportunity. i wasn't sure what to expect of the bird watching experience. i am not even sure i can remember having any expectations. but on the first morning we traipsed out into the jungle i was hooked. we caught glimpses of three wattled bellbirds and the resplendent quetzal. it was majestic to wait, listen, locate, and see birds that are indigenous to that part of the world and are beautiful in their natural setting.

and so i was sitting on my back porch, sipping my morning coffee, and watching the bird feeder as it occurred to me that job searching is like bird watching. you have to combine and hone the skills of patience and silence. waiting and listening for birds requires a measure of patience for which i was tested at times. you can sit for agonizing minutes at a time hearing and seeing nothing. once you hear a bird, searching for, locating, and actually seeing that bird without them flying off is a fete of accomplishment at times and requires a desire to persist even when it isn't easy. and the first rule of bird watching is not that there is no bird watching, but that silence is prized only below seeing a new species of bird previously unlocated through the glass refraction of your binoculars.

job searching mimics this practice. you have to exhibit patience in waiting for and locating the jobs that you are qualified to apply for. once you apply you have to find comfort in waiting patiently and absorbing the silence of days passed and emails and calls unreceived. i can imagine that moment of ending the run of employment as breathtaking in its own rite, just as you skip a breath the first time you see a rare bird or hear its distinctive call in your ears.

and so i have come to the conclusion that i must continue refining the skills of patience and silence -- it will probably pay off in the long run, just like seeing the beauty of the birds.

ready go: open-source church

2010-05-16T19:21:00.000-07:00

a phrase you have heard a lot lately is open-source. open-source is the opposition of closed-source. and mostly it is something you hear about in the tech world, where software and programming development is paid for at a premium. there are those out there, though, that see an intrisic value in developing software and programs such that others have a say in it, can change or modify it, or use it freely.

google and apple tend to be the two examples used in this argument. but an interesting thing is happening as we inch toward a post-christian society in america. people are beginning to talk about open-source church. there are ideas percolating that people hope will revitalize the church in a new and fresh way. i have been thinking about this idea a lot and am curious what other think when they hear open-source church.

ready go: open-source church...your thoughts, comments, questions, etc. are all welcome.

vitality of the church

2010-03-11T08:14:00.000-08:00

i recently participated in a survey about the structure and design of my denominational church. one of the questions in the survey asked the respondents to comment on what it meant for the church to be vital. below is my response to that question.

"Vitality within the church looks like diverse populations interacting to bring about authentic worship and participating in life giving, loving, and dignifying mission, community building, education, growth, and evangelism. I would be remiss not to also mention that vitality in part is driven by a desire to seek deeper communion with fellow members of the community through communal interaction both within and without the church. Most importantly, however, a vital church is one that is not defined by the actions of Sunday, rather the robust actions of the members throughout the week in their diverse settings. "

what did i miss? where did i err? what are you thoughts about what makes a church vital?

why food matters

2010-03-02T07:55:00.001-08:00

something a lot of people don't know about me is that i have a secret passion for food. i love to cook. i love to go to the grocery store. i love to indulge in the beauty and depth of flavor that is a well cooked and fashioned meal. mostly i love the chemical and visual transformation that comes with cooking your own food.

last week i posted about jamie oliver's crusade to change the way public schools, specifically, and the general population eat. i would still encourage you to take the 20 mins. to watch the TED talk he gave. he has seen proven results through his initiatives. he brings an unmistakable passion and excitement to the issue.

indulge me in an aside for a moment. when my wife and i spent the week of easter in wales and england two years ago we stayed with some of her relatives who were living in wales at the time. while we were there, we decided to have a meal that featured a recipe by jamie oliver. the centerpiece of deliciousness was a leg of lamb. being in wales, we went down to the local butcher shop in the town, pictured below, and asked said butcher for a leg of spring lamb. this is an important distinction because you can get meat from different kinds of lambs by asking for a specific type of lamb.

in any event the conversation turned to our obviously non-welsh/english accents and the third generation butcher had some, well let's say strong opinions. he first told us how much he loved the united states. in fact, he told us, he would move there given the opportunity and financial assurance that he would be o.k. once he hopped the pond. in course of conversation he asked what we were doing with said leg of lamb and he was told that jamie oliver had a great recipe for leg of lamb...MISTAKE. so started the 5 min. rant on the cooking misery that is jamie oliver to this fine welsh butcher. the zenith of his argument was the statement, "jamie oliver's a bloody englishman. all you are going to do is ruin this leg of lamb." this was then followed with the explanation of how the welsh disdain the english like americans do canadians. imagine a bloodied and gruff welsh butcher showing his highest level of exasperation and you have the complete picture. we cheerfully accepted his two cents and set off to cook. for the record, the lamb was magnificent. and i don't think jamie oliver is all that bad.

back to the main point: our food culture in the united states is killing us. literally. we have traded in true beauty and the wonder of watching the hidden chemical reactions of cooking for fast food convenience and poor health effects. study after study has shown that our current food and eating habits have resulted in off-the-charts levels of diseases that are killing us at alarming and early rates. add to this that children are suffering astounding levels of diseases directly related to food consumption and epidemic is probably not too strong of a word to describe the situation.

so why care? i eat healthy most of the time. i exercise and i care for myself. i get 7+ hours of sleep a night.

i believe this is more than a compartmentalized issue. i believe this is in part a religious issue. we are mandated to care for our bodies as though they were temples. this is more than filling it with trash and allowing it to devolve into disrepair. caring for our neighbors and loving others is not shown is putting the small farmer out of business in the interest of big agriculture and genetically modified foods. ethically, the issues are deeper than most of us will ever grasp. but more than anything i have found that the more i care about where my food comes from, the more i find myself in relationship with the people and places my food comes from.

in the process of losing the magic of cooking we are sacrificing relationships that can prove transformative and significant, all the while killing ourselves. this seems more costly than even the smallest sacrifice of convenience, processed food, and wasteful stewardship. here's to reclaiming the magic of the culinary arts.

he's a chef badass

2010-02-25T07:40:00.001-08:00

no really; jamie oliver is just that.

if you haven't followed jamie oliver over the last several years he has been on a crusade to change the way children eat in schools. he recently had the opportunity to give a TED talk about his passions. i hope you will take the 22 min. to watch the talk.

love

2010-02-04T06:58:00.000-08:00

i realized as soon as the idea crystallized in my head that this was going to be cliche for the month of february...but there is no turning back at this point.

our little band of community that meets at our house every wednesday night (for about the past 4 years) has been talking about love the last several weeks. we have been talking about the way in which we show love to others in particular. and to be very specific, we have been chewing on the idea that we show love through action and how that changes us as individuals and hopefully as a community. it has been great and insightful conversation. we have been open and vulnerable with one another and shared deep examples of things going on in our own lives that are challenging us to show love. because love isn't always easy.

so i put it to my few faithful readers: how do you show love? and how does love change you?

waiting for it

2010-02-03T08:53:00.000-08:00

a couple of administrative things to take care of first.

1. you should read jon acuff's blog. at stuff christians like there is much hilarity, but what is so attractive to me is the honesty which seems to shine through in jon's writing. he has written a book...so i recommend that you buy it and read it. i am willing to bet you will laugh while reading. a lot. i don't know jon, although it would be cool if i did, because he seems like a cool guy, but i think more people should read his stuff.

2. an update on my running progress: i have been running a lot and will run a 5k this weekend. more details to follow about that after the weekend.

on to other matters:

i am out of a job at the end of may. this, in some ways, has been looming over me and gives me some pause, at least daily, at this point. way back in august i was able to compartmentalize this without much thought, because...well...it was august and not february. but now it is february and i have few, if any, prospects. while diligently trying to look, enduring many questions about this on an almost daily basis, and generally beginning to despise talking about this fact, i have found that i feel less and less positive about the whole job-hunting prospect as days seem to tick by as though they were seconds.

to be sure, people try to be reassuring to you. i can list a litany of responses given to you, but let a few suffice: "you are so talented, i am sure something will come up for you," or "i would keep you around if i were in charge," or maybe my favorite in the bunch - "you just have to have faith that the right thing will come along."

all of these things are generally accepted by me with a smile and a nod...and a whole lot of internal screaming. at some point you decide, "if i were really as talented as people tell me i am, i should be the head talent scout of all talent scouts." through this i have noticed that our culture is one of niceties. we want desperately for people to feel good about things and ignore the fear, emptiness, and frustration that comes from the vantage point of comfort and luxury of an already assured place. and the last mentioned response simply chafes against my own theology that faith does not get you hired. to be fair, there is nothing inherently wrong with the statement. it assumes that my or anyone's getting hired is a matter of faithfulness and obedience in which i am objectified as an automaton. i digress.

all of this is not to elicit a response of pity from anyone, but rather to point out that our culture is excellent at filling appropriately silent space with words of false assurance. you can note a similar phenomenon when tragedy strikes those close to us. words are used in an attempt to fill a chasm of grief, shock, and confusion, and most of the time those words are pithy. perhaps presence alone is more resounding than words. this is definitely a concept i can literally feel myself learning.

so, i am out of a job at the end of may and the prospects are slim. i have genuine fear about what i am going to do and how things are going to end up. in moments of self doubt i question the paths of life that have led me to this point, or at times whether or not my theological stance is hindering a more comfortable existence right now. what i have learned most though is that neither of these things changes your prospect for a job or allays your fears. what does allay my fears is hope. hope is assurance in the unseen. it is paradoxical by nature, and it resides in a presence of family and friends who hopefully know what to say and what not to say.

changing to remain

2010-01-26T07:27:00.000-08:00

some things never change.

the old saying is supposed to give us comfort in times of turmoil or stress in our lives. it supposedly points to a constancy in which there are certain things in this world that remain the same, as though sameness were a prized possession. status quo is worth striving after if indeed we believe that some things never change. because after all those things should be the ones that are most time-tested, true to the world around us, and solidly rooted in reality.

however, heraclitus, an ancient greek philosopher stated: "on those who step in the same river, different and different waters flow . . ." the world does indeed change. those things that we presume to be the same are different, changed by time, place, and circumstance. while we may step in the same river by name, the waters we step into are different as they flow around our legs. the water is constantly changing. i wondered with a bit of marvel what an old ranch house had seen in its years set in a field. and i recognized that it had been changed by the years of weather, growth of crops and grass around it, and the changing landscape of roads that rushed me by.

running gives me a sense of the greatest movements of the earth. it is through running that i find my clearest thinking and moments of discernment. the world seems to be more present to me when i run through nature. as i have rekindled my relationship with running i have had a lot of time to think about what changes and what remains the same. my season of life has been tumultuous. my wife and i bought a house, had kids, i am out of a job in may and have been looking for one since the beginning of the year. and yet through all of these things, no matter how stressful, it is as though when i run these things are simply the way in which the world revolves on its axis and draws me closer to rhythms of being human. and most off all it has reminded me of my belief that we are all created to be in relationship with one another.

although our relationships evolve, our longing for companionship and our need for others to support us remains a familiar call. perhaps the saying should read "all things change, our need remains."

it's an old friend

2010-01-12T07:45:00.000-08:00

running is like an old friend to me.

i haven't run for about 6 months. you know the birth of twin boys, moving into a new house, the holidays; i have a list of excuses many, many pages long. the truth is i just haven't made the time or effort to run, much less exercise in the past 6 months. and so i ventured out onto the pavement and over grass medians and across sidewalks yesterday to run again for the first time.

running for me is like riding bike. i know the skills and mechanics of the sport really well, so i haven't forgotten how to do it, but there is always a learning curve upon a new beginning with the sport. my legs ached, my lungs burned, and my energy was quick to deplete. i started out at a good clip only to find myself mentally and physically fatiguing very quickly.

but after the run i felt like i had rekindled something important. it was reminiscent of picking up the phone and actually calling that old friend that you have been meaning to talk to and catch up with, or letting go of a misunderstanding between an old friend that has kept you from calling. it smacked of familiarity, and that strange void of knowing that there is more to learn and catch up on.

running is like an old friend to me that is slowly becoming a familiar friend again.

The Certainty of Doubt

2009-11-19T07:12:00.000-08:00

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...

2009-11-05T08:20:00.000-08:00

...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

2009-09-23T13:34:00.000-07:00

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

2009-09-10T12:43:00.001-07:00

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?

2009-06-17T07:21:00.000-07:00

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

2009-06-03T14:05:00.000-07:00

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

2009-06-02T13:30:00.000-07:00

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

2009-05-27T07:38:00.000-07:00

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

2009-05-21T08:22:00.000-07:00

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

2009-05-04T11:26:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-22T07:16:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-20T19:30:00.001-07:00

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

2009-04-15T13:43:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-06T12:41:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-30T13:52:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-23T14:14:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-12T07:30:00.000-07:00

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!"

2009-03-10T07:39:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-09T08:08:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-05T07:14:00.000-08:00

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

2009-02-27T08:40:00.000-08:00

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

2009-02-18T13:20:00.000-08:00

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?

are we lost?

2009-01-27T08:24:00.000-08:00

found this video on a blog i read of a guy that i met at a conference one time. it speaks a lot of truth about the generation that i am a part of and work with. one can only hope that we work in reverse.

to resolve or not to resolve?

2009-01-05T14:11:00.000-08:00

i feel like this should be some kind of public service announcement. that is the way i feel about resolutions, they seem so grandiose and a little bit pretentious. but i am going to do something this year that i have not done for many years...i am going to make resolutions. however, i hope to make resolutions something attainable, even measurable, because in my world and thinking that is much more satisfying and a lot let disillusionable than not doing it that way. so on to some resolutions...some not all...as that would be just showing all the cards really early...

1. to run more. i ran a marathon in 2007. it was my first and only marathon so far in my life. i had run 2 half marathons prior to that and had a decent enough experience to decide that i will one day run another marathon. i am not sure that it will be this year, but step one is to run more, because honestly at the end of last year, something had sucked the joy right out of running and i had pretty much stopped. this had a whole host of consequences for me, not the least was that the holiday food eating contest, i mean season, resulted in some packed on pounds. i attribute my lack of running partly to the loss of my running partner. leading up to my marathon i had a running partner and we had such a good time running and talking during those runs that i believe we both looked forward to them a lot. ideally i will find a new running partner, but for now it will be retraining myself to run and meditate like i used to do frequently. making this measurable is easy, if i have run it is more than i have done in the past several months. i look forward to running, it brings a lot of joy to my life.

2. read more books outside of theological ones. i read a lot, but i mostly read books about theology. hey, it interests me and i find a lot of reasons to argue with the author in my head, or to be surprised by learning something new or seeing something in a new light, so it is worth it. plus it helps me do my job better. but i find that i really enjoy reading outside of this genre as well. i find that i see things differently and am challenged by reading outside of the field of theology, plus i learn more and discover new things about the world regularly. i have recently been reading a two book autobiography of an ex-Texas Ranger (as in the law enforcement kind...not the sad baseball team that i love and refuse to have any resolution about whatsoever). it has been fascinating reading.

3. i am actively looking for a new job. i want to be obedient to where i am called, and yet want i believe my prophetic edge to be nurtured in this new job as well. it is a tall task, but i believe the position and job is out there for me in this regard. we will see where it leads, but i am excited to be moving on to something closer to where i believe my passion and calling collide. if you wish to know more, ask.

so this is where we are going to leave it for now, but at least it is out there and the very few of you that read this can hold me accountable to them. i hope everyone had a merry christmas, a happy new year, and has a great 2009. as they in Shiner...Prosit!

advent conspiracy

2008-12-11T13:11:00.000-08:00

unChristian

2008-11-18T07:00:00.000-08:00

perhaps the most significant book written about the demographics of the church (more on what this means in a moment), in my opinion, is unChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks About Christianity...And Why it Matters, by David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons. David Kinnaman is the President of the Barna Group, which does research and produces studies on a range of issues and aspects of the church, and Gabe Lyons is the founder of Fermi Project, "a broad collective of innovators, social entrepreneurs, and church and society leaders working together to make positive contributions to culture" (it's straight from the jacket of the book).

a little book background -- David and Gabe did over three years of research, interviews, and study about this topic before they wrote a book. it was originally an idea that Gabe brought to David as the one who could do the research and that struck a deep chord in David, and so now we have a very significant book to read and make sense of. they didn't write the book and give a prescription for the church and how to live out a more genuine faith. nor do they suggest that there is only one correct way to approach the things that their research indicated were deficient.

so what did the research actually show. without actually re-writing the book here in this space we will suffice for a very short synopsis of the research findings. know that they were researching the perceptions, feelings, and responses of those who are in the age range of 16-29. these are people typically referred to as "young adults" whatever that means. there was a sophisticated questionnaire that was completed in which people ultimately, for the sake of the research identified themselves as either insiders or outsiders in relation to the church. in other words, their responses either indicated that they identified themselves as those who would claim a christian identity or those who would not claim such an identity, and it is the latter group of people whose responses were significant for the study, but only in as much as they played a strikingly different tune than the responses of those inside the church.

from their research the authors determined there to be six broad categories in which the respondents identified the christian faith by. in more plain terms -- if you or they were to hear the term christian and then were given certain questions to answer about christians, this was how they responded. the perceptions were that christians are hypocritical (saying or believing one thing but doing something different), focusing on getting converts (concerned with saving others for the sake of doing so at the expense of a genuine care for the individual), antihomosexual (it's self explanatory except for the fact that the perception was that this was lived out in a hostile way), sheltered (out of touch with reality, old fashioned, stayed in their ways, boring), too political (in as much as christians are overly concerned with their political agenda which is dominantly right-wing conservative), and judgmental (quick to judge others without a loving and caring attitude of concern or even showing the love we proclaim).

the research backs this up, tremendously. and it is disturbing. this is not how i want others to see me or to see the faith that i proclaim. i hope that i live my life in a different way. i suggest that if theses issues concern you, you read the book and think about the creative possibilities of living and relating to other people that might begin to work against these perceptions. i do believe that the church can make a difference. the church is only a functioning organism in as much as individuals make it up and their intentional action makes a difference in the world we live in.

i try to live my life in a loving, life-giving, and dignifying way. no matter who i meet and who they and their circumstances are, i owe that much to them because they are human. that is enough. i do this by trying to be intentional, honest, open, loving, and vulnerable with everyone. this means that i must take risks, but it is ultimately the most satisfying way for me to live, without pretense or masks.

on a final note, i want to say something about David Kinnaman. he is a nice guy. i met him at a conference we were both speaking at. he and i were able to go to dinner together with a group of people and chat for awhile. he is a caring individual. he takes interest in what others are saying and is engaged with what their interests are. in short, he is a normal guy, who is trying to make a difference by alerting people to what his research has shown. and for whatever reason, this gives me comfort. he didn't ask for a lot when he came to speak and he was just a down to earth guy who missed his kids and wife because he was traveling so much. he accidentally stepped into semi-celebrity.

15 x 15

2008-10-28T19:23:00.000-07:00

i had a good buddy/co-worker/friend/bad-ass dude that i knew who died when he was just 19 of osteosarcoma. willie was an incredibly talented musician and consequently, music was a large part of his life. before willie died his mom asked him to make her a list of his 15 favorite songs by 15 different artists, in other words no two songs by the same artist. the only other stipulation was that the songs would be songs that meant something to him. it took me about a year to come up with my list of 15 but it is below:

1. Kite - U2

2. Wedding Dress - Derek Webb

3. The News - Jack Johnson

4. Til' Kingdom Come - Coldplay

5. Empty - Ray Lamontagne

6. Black River - Amos Lee

7. Love Song for a Savior - Jars of Clay

8. White Pines Ranch - Mark David Manders

9. Feeling Good Again - Robert Earl Keen Jr.

10. Runnin' Buddy - Max Stalling

11. Picture of Jesus - Ben Harper and The Blind Boys of Alabama

12. Pueblo Nuevo - Buena Vista Social Club

13. Under the Blanket - Trevor Hall

14. Ring of Fire - Johnny Cash

15. Hallelujah - Jeff Buckley

what's yours?

a stack of books

2008-10-14T19:23:00.000-07:00

something about books gets me. i read, a lot. sometimes my best friends describe my job to people as the guy who prays and reads all day long, and that would rule. only i think most of the time i would like to read and if that can be counted as prayer then i would be all for it. however, that is not what my job really is, and i don't get to read as much as i would like, but when i do something just gets me. i can stay up for hours on end turning pages just to find out what the words on the next page with a zealousness something akin to a child waking up on christmas morning. i also have found that i get sucked into any book i read. it doesn't even have to be good. i have this optimism when it comes to books that is somewhat fatal. even if i haven't enjoyed one word of a book, i find myself turning all of the pages until i finally reach the end because somewhere in the back of my head i believe that a book can redeem itself and become something worth reading, if even in the very last page. perhaps it is because i believe that if only one sentence, one thought, one word stands out in a book, then it has served its purpose. don't confuse this for some sort of relativity towards books though. i certainly have a ranking of books that i find to be good, important, or otherwise noteworthy. to be sure there are plenty of books out there that are total crap and don't really deserve to be published, but who am i to squash anyone's dreams?

without any further ado: a list of 10 books i have found helpful/inspirational/important/blah blah blah
(note: they are in no particular order of importance and some wouldn't make a true top 10 list for me)

1. Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell
2. Intuitive Leadership: Embracing a Paradigm of Narrative, Metaphor & Chaos by Tim Keel
3. a Generous Orthodoxy by Brian McLaren
4. Bless Me Ultima by Rudolfo A. Anaya
5. Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire
6. The Ragamuffin Gospel by Brennan Manning
7. Moby Dick by Herman Melville
8. The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger
9. City of God by St. Augustine
10. True at First Light by Ernest Hemingway

What would your list include?