amen

"Sleep...sleep tonight.
And may your dreams
be realized." -U2

words of life

Everything is word.

Letters form words, which
beget sentences, which give birth
to paragraphs, and string those
together and you have stories.

Everything is made up of stories.
Givers of life. Tellers of life.
All of life is story.

So words are the DNA of life,
And I fancy myself a writer:
The geneticist who works with these
thousands of strands which create
the characteristics of life.

But there is an irony in a writer
who is a failure with grammar and spelling.
How can one love the use of words but
ignore how and why they work?

Can a doctor love to heal the body,
but ignore basic anatomy?
Or an architect who forgets to draw
a foundation in the blueprints?

Maybe I’ll get lucky:
Like Beethoven, deaf but a musical genius.
Moses had a stutter.
Einstein did not pass math.

Can I fail English (and Spanish and Hebrew)
and still master my calling and craft?

size does matter

I work in rival worlds.

In the chapel office of the seminary, the team I work with seeks to know what Jesus was talking about in the book of Matthew when He spoke of what the Kingdom of God looked like. Our searching takes us through images and realities of poverty, the homeless, the marginalized, and the destruction caused by wars and natural disasters.

So after I spend two hours in a team meeting, where we try to figure out how to get the issue of dealing with poverty onto more people’s radar, the rivalry begins when I head from there to my other job: cleaning up houses for a home builder.

These are no ordinary homes. They are one, two and three million-dollar dwellings. They come complete with necessities like two-story foyers. The kitchens are large enough to cook for a cafeteria – we’re talking six burner gas stoves, two dishwashers, two sinks, and three ovens… The finished basements – the basements – have as much floor space as the four-bedroom home I grew up in. The staircases, hallways and multiple fireplaces make you feel more like you are in a museum than a house. And the super high ceilings don’t end when you walk through the front door. Both living rooms reach that high into the sky as well, and many of the bedrooms are almost twice the normal height and size. There are enough fixtures to light up a little league baseball game, it is not uncommon to see three and four air-conditioning units along the outside wall, and the best part is the shower – anywhere from two to as many as ten shower heads (which I think is more of a car wash than a shower).

What amazes me most about these houses is not that they exist, but that so many of them exist in this town, and the entire country as well. What used to be the one lone mansion on the hill has now become entire neighborhoods. And it isn’t like these houses are being built for the every increasing size of families. No, just about all of these homes are for families of four or less.

And as I have spent time in and around these homes big enough for each one to have their own personal zip code, I have begun to notice what many others have already commented on: that everything these days is so damn huge!

Not content with a good 21” TV, we now have plasma screens that take up entire walls. The 6 and 12 once cokes weren’t big enough, so we moved on to the 24 and 36-ounce sizes, along with King-size Snickers and the Super Size Big Macs. Of course there are the cars and trucks and things that go... small tanks and upsacale versions of the armored vehicles used to patrol war zones. And not to be outdone, even our churches are getting bigger (and not so much for all the right reasons).

So I wonder if the country as a whole is overcompensating for something? Is the collective penis really so small that we have decided that the only way to look, feel and try to be important with a sense of well being is to keep making things bigger and bigger?

And so what are the results... beyond just having to spend more, work more and build more debt to keep up?

Well, I think the result looks something like this: Our cars burn more gas and create more smog, our homes use tons more resources to build and energy to heat and cool, our individual health gets worse as portion sizes go up, and on and on. And then there is the mental, emotional, relational and spiritual decay of trying to get and keep all these things. In other words, we’re wasting more than money. We are just simply wasting away.

That word the Bible uses in Genesis when God tells Adam to have “dominion” over the earth also means “stewardship.” Another good way to name it is “caretaker.” Think on that for a minute.

What does it say when more and more of the gifts of nature, resources and money the Lord has given us is spent on things that are clearly poor stewardship. And all the while “the rich stay healthy while the sick stay poor.”

I have often heard many a preacher stand up in the middle class church and say something like, “It isn’t a sin to have a big home and nice things, but let’s just remember what’s really important.” Well, maybe it is time someone started saying it is a sin to have too much of a good thing. Mabe someone sould say that Jesus was on to something when he said sell all you have and give it to the poor… that maybe he was speaking of how to save others as well as ourselves. We seem to have confused charity with mercy and over consumption with blessing.

The Father gave us the role of caretaker, and the Son showed us what the Kingdom is supposed to look like. So look out your big window and tell me, what you see... how big is the Kingdom?

MAJESTY + MERCY = THE GLORY OF GOD

super tuesday

October 5,2004
Tuesday Morning

Standing in the very tiny bathroom next to the chapel, I uttered a very small, very quiet and very genuine prayer: “Lord, help me to ask this girl out and not make an ass out of myself.”

I had all weekend to lose sleep over it. In my entire colorful history, I had never simply walked up to a girl I did not know very well and ask her out on a date. I met Jenn during New Student Chapel. In fact, it was as she was walking up to receive the elements during communion that I first noticed her. Yes, I was checking out a girl during the Body and Blood of Christ.

And something clicked inside me. Now it is important to note that I had just come to the place where I was really starting to consider that, for multiple reasons, I would never be married. That summer John David looked me squarely in the eyes and said, “I think this may be your year to find a wife.” I squarely dismissed him… and took another retreat to the monastery to consider what vows I could take.

So after a couple of weeks of five-minute chats around campus, I couldn’t take it anymore. On a Thursday I saw her sitting alone in chapel and asked if I could sit next to her. History would show that she thought nothing of it, while I suffered from sweaty palms as we shared a hymnal. As soon as the service was over she left for work, and I spent all weekend wondering how I would ask her out when I would see her the following Tuesday.

And then it was here. After my little prayer in the bathroom, I headed over to the cafeteria and stood in the end of the line, all the while trying to look for her without looking like I was looking for her. And then she came up behind me to stand in line. Nervous, I blurted out the standard, “So what did you do this weekend?” She said she had gone out of town to see this guy she was dating. Crap.

And then it happened. Once I figured I had no chance, I relaxed. And so we sat at lunch and just talked. And then we went walking around campus to finish our talk. And then we walked down Main Street to my apartment and kept on talking. We walked in the door, and when she wasn’t looking I messed up my usually very tidy room so she wouldn’t think I was... well, you know (I found out later she loves the neatness).

We talked for SIX HOURS. I think we managed to complete about ten months of dating in those few hours. Since we weren’t playing “the game” we could be real. We talked about hopes, fears, theology, travel, U2, school, family... you name it. She seemed too good to be real. Was there really a girl in my apartment who seemed to be everything I have ever dreamed of spiritually, mentally and physically?

Around 4:00 she said she needed to get some reading done for her evening class. I went to go get my keys to drive her back to campus, and when I walked back in the living room she had kicked her shoes off and was reading on the sofa. You have got to be kidding me, I thought.

I muttered something about going into the other room to do some studying of my own, but all I really did was sit there and argue with God: This is SO not fair. How could you bring a girl to this seminary, at this time in my life, who seems to be EVERYTHING I have ever dreamed of… and she is dating someone else!

After about 20 minutes of “studying” I went back into the living room and asked Jenn if she would want some dinner before class. She said she would, so I made two little pizzas... not frozen pizzas, but from scratch pizzas.

After we ate I said I would drive her back to class. As we walked through the parking lot, she asked which car was mine. I pointed to the GMC pickup. She paused. She smiled. She loved it. I think it sealed the deal.

I dropped her off at class, and as she closed the truck door behind her I knew I had just spent the day with the women I wanted to marry. I didn’t know how to document the moment, so I took a picture of the dishes we ate with. Everything was perfect… except what about that stupid guy she was “sort of dating.”

Six days later Rene called to ask me how she should go about breaking up with a guy she was “sort of dating.” In what would be the first of many junior high type moments, I said to myself I think I’ll call Jenn and ask her. She said, “Funny you should mention that, because I think I am going to have to have the same conversation with a boy here here pretty soon.”
“Why?”
“Because we’re not even really dating. And besides, I spent six hours talking to you last week. That has got to mean something.”
We have liftoff...

Being on the chapel staff, I knew that the next day we would be calling for the congregation to join hands and pray. So in another junior high move I got someone to cover my tech duties so I could sit next to her during the prayer. Before we got off the phone I casually mentioned that I didn’t have to work in chapel the next day, and she asked if I wanted her to save me a seat.
We have cleared the tower...

Four days later on Friday “the other guy” came into town for a wedding, and so I figured I would not talk to Jenn until Sunday. That Saturday night I was over at a friend’s house watching a baseball game, when my cell phone rang. It was Jenn. She had had “the talk.” After I caught my breath, I wondered out loud, “So what are you doing now.”
“I’m driving home.”
“So…. uhhhh…. if you have no more plans… uhh….. you wanna come over?”
“Sure.”
Houston, the Eagle has landed...

When she walked in the door Jenn was still wearing the dress from the wedding. She went in the bathroom and changed into jeans and a sweatshirt. By this time my heart was in my throat, and the only thing I could think of to say was, “So, did you stop and home and grab a change of clothes?”
“No… I knew I’d be coming over here tonight so I took them to the wedding with me.”
That’s one small step for man...

A mere 24 hours later I asked Jenn what the standard waiting period was between when a girl broke up with a guy and another guy could ask her out. “I think we’re past that now.”

And the rest, as they say, is history.

So tonight I am making homemade pizza for MY WIFE. Every story has a beginning, and ours started last year on a Super Tuesday.

"this land is your land..."

Posted simply to stir the thought process:

One day my brother and I were having a conversation about war, politics and all that goes with it. Part of our rambling had this to say:

Have you noticed those moments in recent history when those in power have taken too much advantage of their position? They do not give room for people to question their actions (and to do so called is un-patriotic). They foster a fear that any opposing statement or idea will help bring about destruction by an enemy. They remove rights in the name of the good of the people and use any means necessary to ensure their ideas are the only ones allowed.

So to take it a step further, have you noticed that in Germany you had the "Fatherland," in Russia you had the "Motherland" and now in America you have the "Homeland."

History can repeat itself...